The Case of the Missing Secretary. Diana Palmer

have you now that Helen’s gone to South America where Harold’s next job is. He’s in the construction business with his father, you remember. And Helen’s brother, Nick, is moving back to Washington so that his new wife can keep her tenure at Thorn College. He’s starting up his own agency. I’ll be two operatives short. That means I’ve still got to hire another agent. I’m glad you haven’t been tempted to go back to your old boss.”

      “I’d be more tempted to step into a lion’s mouth than I would to work for Logan Deverell again,” Kit murmured dryly, hiding her pain. “I hope you know how much I appreciate your giving me a chance here.” She pushed back her hair again and brushed at the moisture on her suit. It wasn’t as wet as she’d first thought, and seemed to be drying slowly.

      “We both do,” Dane told her, smiling. “But you’ve been quite a surprise, you know. If there are such things as natural born detectives, then I think you’re one of them. You’ve taken to the job like a duck takes to swimming.”

      She brightened. “You really think so?”

      “I do.”

      Kit managed a smile. “Actually I always used to think I’d make a good detective, because I love poking my nose into things that don’t concern me.” She sighed. “You really did save my life by hiring me,” she persisted. “I didn’t have my rent payment. After I stormed out of the office the day I quit, I can’t expect Mr. Deverell to send my severance pay after me. I didn’t even work a week’s notice.”

      “I hardly think Logan Deverell will do you out of your severance pay, regardless,” Dane murmured dryly. “He’s not a vindictive man.”

      “If you’d seen him ten minutes ago…” Kit muttered.

      Dane cocked an eyebrow as he peered past her. “On second thought,” he mused, “perhaps he is—”

      Before he got the words out, the door flew open and a tall, big dark man in a gray raincoat stormed in.

      “I’ve searched the whole damned city for you,” he grumbled, his deep voice like muted thunder in the office as he glared at Kit. “You little fool, you could have been killed, jumping out of a car in the middle of traffic like that! Where in hell have you been?”

      “Don’t you shout at me!” Kit raged back. “You told me to get my nose out of your business, and I did,” she said with painful satisfaction at the grimace on his broad face. “You can find someone else to yell at in your office. Dane says I’m a very good detective!”

      Logan Deverell lifted a bushy eyebrow and glanced at Dane. “Did you say that?”

      “I’m afraid so,” Dane replied. “Under the circumstances, it might be to your advantage not to argue with Kit anymore.”

      Logan glanced at Kit’s face and his lips thinned. He was inclined to agree. She looked shaken. That, and totally out of control emotionally. In all the years she’d worked for him, this was the first time he’d seen her in such a state. She was usually calm and efficient. Except for the day she’d quit, of course, when she’d set new records for abusive verbosity. When he’d followed her into her office, where she was cleaning out her desk, she’d actually thrown a book at him and accused him of mixing her up emotionally with her computer.

      It had been the cutting remarks about Betsy being mercenary that had cost Logan his temper today. He still regretted some of the things he’d said. Good secretaries weren’t a dime a dozen. He hadn’t been able to replace Kit. He missed her madly, though it would be unwise to tell her that, of course. He’d hoped to talk her into coming back, and then she’d mentioned some gossip about Betsy. No way was he going to let any woman tell him what to do in his personal life!

      “I won’t take back what I said,” Logan told her. “You had no business meddling in my private life. But I’ll apologize for letting you walk back in the rain.”

      “There’s no need to apologize,” Kit returned. “It was my fault for ever getting into a car with you in the first place!”

      He looked surprised. “I was only going to ask you to come back to work.”

      “I don’t want to come back to work for you, Mr. Deverell,” she said icily. “Here, at least, I’m not part of the office furniture. I’m a real live, breathing person with talent and ability, and if I died, Dane and Tess would miss me.”

      “We’ve worked together for three years,” he reminded her.

      “Three years too long,” she said, regaining her lost dignity slowly. “I’m sure you’ll have no trouble replacing me.”

      “None of the temporaries can spell,” he said angrily. “They can’t file, or project a pleasant personality over the phone. Only one of them has any sense at all, and my mother hired her before I knew it. My brother hates the latest addition to the office. She actually told him to get his own coffee!”

      “Your brother should have been getting his own coffee for years,” she reminded him.

      “And my mother’s lost again,” he added irritably, glancing at Dane. “You’ll have to track her down. She told my brother something about a trip to Venice.”

      “No problem,” Dane said. “Just give me her last known location.” He studied Kit. “I might let Kit have this assignment. She knows Tansy.”

      “My mother missed you, too,” Logan told Kit with an angry frown. “That’s probably why she vanished.”

      “Go ahead, blame it on me,” Kit invited with a sweep of her hand. “I cause your car not to start on cold mornings, I make your coffeepot stop working, I put dust on the windows and make the chairs in the office creak. I probably cause pond scum, too!”

      “Will you stop it,” Logan muttered. He jammed his big hands into his pockets. Looking at her disturbed him. That was new, and it made him irritable. “Never mind, if you don’t want to come back. I can manage without you. Eventually the temporary agency will find me one secretary who can spell, type and answer the telephone.”

      “Surely they already have?” she asked sarcastically.

      “Of course. I just said so, didn’t I? The agency found me two more to go with the one that my mother hired. At least she can type. Of the two new ones, only one can spell. The tallest of the three can answer the telephone but it takes her until the fifth ring to find it.”

      Kit’s eyebrows went up. “Why?”

      “The desk is buried in unanswered letters and misplaced files,” he said simply. “Don’t let that concern you, Miss Morris. I did actually manage before you were first hired. And you might recall,” he added icily, “that it was not I who hired you to begin with.”

      “How very true,” she agreed. “It was your mother, who has excellent taste in employees!”

      “We can agree to disagree on that point,” he said stiffly.

      “Should you be getting back to the office, before any more files become…misplaced?” she hinted.

      His broad face hardened even more. “Cute,” he said. “Very cute. Go ahead and be a detective. That should be right up your alley, the way you mind everyone’s business but your own!”

      “Somebody needs to mind yours!” she raged. “That dizzy blonde is just out for what she can get from you—”

      “She gets plenty,” he interrupted hotly. “In bed and out,” he added deliberately, his eyes piercing as if he knew how she felt and wanted to sink the knife in as far as possible.

      He succeeded. It went straight to the heart. But Kit had years of practice at hiding her deeper feelings from him. She just stared at him without reacting at all, except for the sudden whiteness of her face.

      The stare got to him. He felt like a fool. It wasn’t a feeling he particularly enjoyed, especially with Dane and Tess standing