SNOOPS IN THE CITY Dorchester Love Spell July 2004 EXCERPT The front door to Grady Palmer’s house opened and the man himself stepped out. He’d changed into khakis and a cream-colored shirt that complemented his coloring better than the yellow one he’d worn on the golf course. He strolled rather than strutted, like nothing was so important that it couldn’t wait. He seemed to look in Tori's direction as he walked to the black SUV parked in his driveway. She sank lower behind the steering wheel. Grady — no, Palmer — had disappeared inside the SUV. She heard the engine turn over and the vehicle roar to life.

The SUV pulled away from the cur, and Tori started her car. Her cell phone rang and she answered while being careful not to follow too closely behind Palmer’s SUV. Her paperback copy of So You Want To Be a PI advocated keeping two cars behind the subject but hadn’t said where to find said cars when none were present.

“Hello, Jane. Ms. M here,” the caller announced after Tori said hello.

"Who’s Jane?" Tori asked.

"You are. You told me I could call you that," Ms. M said, and Tori remembered with an internal groan the mysterious client likening her to Bond, Jane Bond. “What have you found out?”

She’d found out quite a lot. She knew that Grady Palmer was twenty-eight years old and that he’d never been married. He’d grown up in Seahaven the son of Paul and Beth Ann Palmer and had a 21-year-old sister Lorelei.

He’d gotten a traffic ticket for going sixty in a 45 mile-per-hour zone five years ago and purchased his home for nearly two hundred thousand dollars three years ago. As far as Tori could determine, he lived alone in that home.

But she didn’t know anything pertinent except that Grady Palmer’s life centered on work. He’d gone back to the office today after the charity golf tournament even though it was Friday. In the five days she’d followed him, this marked the first time he’d stepped out for the evening.

“This isn’t the best time for me to talk,” she said as Palmer took a left turn down another residential street that featured more swaying palmetto trees and unpretentious but well-kept homes.

She turned too, trying to keep her distance.

“Why not?” Ms. M asked.

An ambulance siren blared in the distance, growing louder, then fainter.

“You’re following him, aren’t you?” Ms. M asked excitedly. “You’re following him right now!”

Palmer turned left and so did Tori. Where was the man headed? They’d probably traveled a mile and he’d yet to leave the neighborhood.

“That ambulance you heard, that was the television,” Tori fibbed. “I’m watching . . . E.R.”

“You are not,” Ms. M said indignantly. “E.R.’s not on Friday nights.”

“Okay. You’re right." Tori followed suit as her subject made another right turn. “I didn’t want to tell you I was following him because the investigation is in the preliminary stages. It’s better if I wait until I can give you a full report."

Ms. M ignored her rational plea to be left alone. “What’s he doing?”

He was stopping his SUV and getting out. Tori slammed on her brakes, which squeaked in protest. Only then did she realize that the last road they'd turned down ended at a seawall.

“I’ve got to go,” she told Ms. M.

“But —”

Tori rang off, desperately trying to figure out what to do. Leave. Yes, she should hightail it out of there. She was about to put the car in reverse when Grady Palmer tapped on the glass of the driver’s-side window.

For a man who looked like he never hurried, he sure moved fast.

Her hand gripped the automatic gear shift, and she positioned her foot to stomp down on the gas pedal. What should she do? Stay and face the subject of her surveillance or make like the wind? She simply couldn't decide.

When he settled one hand on the roof of the car and tapped more insistently on the window, he made the decision for her. If she pulled away now, she might run over his foot.

Swallowing her nervousness, she hit the button that automatically lowered the window. He leaned down so that his face was only a foot or so from hers.

The follower being confronted by the followee could not be a good thing, but then not many followees looked like Grady Palmer.

His photographic image didn’t do the flesh-and-blood item justice. His hair was a more interesting shade of brown, his eyes a richer blue and his mouth was to kiss for. Really, the man had a ridiculously sensuous mouth. His upper lip bowed in the center and his lower lip was plump and lush.

She tore her gaze from his mouth before her own started salivating, reminded herself she'd never been a sucker for a handsome face, even if it did contain a killer mouth, and forced herself to concentrate on getting out of her predicament.

“May I help you?” she asked good-naturedly, the way she used to at the bar before she’d been fired.

“You’ll want this,” he said in a voice so low and rich it could have belonged to a late-night disc jockey. He handed her a piece of thick white card stock.

She automatically took it, turning it over to see embossed printing and a flowery script her nerves prevented her from reading.

“It’s an invitation to Mayor Black’s party,” he supplied. “It’s a thank you for participating in the golf tournament. The directions to her place are on the back.”

She examined the card more closely, finding that it was indeed a party invitation. She felt her brows knit. She couldn’t think clearly. Not with him so close. It wasn’t yet full dark but felt that way with him positioned by the window, blocking what little light remained of the day.

“I don’t understand why you gave me this,” she said.

“Because that’s where I’m going.”

Tori's heart hammered but she concentrated on sounding blasé. “Why would I care where you’re going?”

His dark eyebrows, which were of an ideal shape and thickness, rose.

“I’m trying to be considerate,” he said. “You’re not very good at following. Sooner or later, you were going to lose me.”

That could be true, she thought, but he didn’t have to rub it in. Couldn't he see that she was trying here?

“What makes you think I would have lost you?” she asked indignantly. He cocked an eyebrow. Whoops. “I mean, why would I be following you?”

“You can explain at the party. No reason we shouldn’t go together since we’re both headed to the same place."

Her mouth gaped open. This was bad. Very, very bad. Private detectives did not attend parties on the muscular arms of their subjects.

“I can’t go with you," she protested. "We’re strangers."

"Then maybe you should tell me your name."

“Tori Whitley,” she said before it occurred to her that she should have exercised her right to remain silent. Or at least used an alias.

“I’m Grady Palmer, but you already knew that."

Even if her denial hadn't stuck in her throat, she doubted he’d believe it. He’d gotten six feet from her car when he called over his shoulder, "I’ll see you at the party. If you lose me, you have the directions.”