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  She did the silliest thing.

  She reached up and stroked her knuckles along his jawline, just beginning to get bristly, so many hours after his early morning shave. And, even sillier, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Lightly, just a friendly little goodbye-between-friends peck on the mouth.

  Which didn’t end right away. No, there were sensations to record first: the surprising softness of his mouth, the firm, smooth skin of his lips. She held back…but still, she lingered, just for a moment or two. She’d kissed him before, of course, but as an afterthought. This was no longer an afterthought.

  Dear Reader,

  I’m not sure why I’ve always been attracted to flaky people. You know, the type who lose things, are always running late and sincerely apologetic about it. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty responsible myself and kind of yearn sometimes not to be, even though—yes, yes, I know—being responsible makes me a better member of society, and yada, yada, etc.

  I’ve written one of those flaky folks in One Hot Target, and I had the very best time doing it! Carmen is loveable, good natured, enthusiastic and emotional…and just can’t seem to get her life together. Because she’s based on a couple of friends of mine, she just flowed out of my brain and onto the computer, as though channeled.

  During the course of the novel she changes somewhat, out of necessity. It seems her life is seriously in danger and action must be taken so she can continue to breathe the air on this planet. But she also needs to change so that she and her best friend (whose been in love with her forever)—the decidedly male, emphatically logical, most definitely not flaky JR—will have a chance of any kind of life together. Oh, and JR needs to do some changing himself; after all, it takes two to make unrequited love into the requited kind, right?

  Enjoy. I think you will.

  Love,

  Diane

  Diane Pershing

  ONE HOT TARGET

  Books by Diane Pershing

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  While She Was Sleeping #863

  The Tough Guy and the Toddler #928

  Whispers in the Night #1337

  Whispers and Lies #1386

  One Hot Target #1458

  DIANE PERSHING

  For more years than she cares to disclose, Diane Pershing made her living as an actress and singer. She was extremely contented in these professions, except for one problem—there was way too much downtime, and she worried that her brain was atrophying. So she took up pen and paper and began writing, first for television, then as a movie critic, then as a novelist.

  She wrote her first novel, Sultry Whispers, following the dictum to “write what you know,” and it was about a voiceover actress who battled the male-dominated mind-set of advertising agencies. There have been fifteen more sales since. Diane is happy to report that there is no more downtime in her life; indeed, with writing and acting—and teaching classes in both—she now faces the dilemma of not having enough time, which she says is a quality problem indeed. She loves to hear from readers, so please write to her at P.O. Box 67424, Los Angeles, CA 90067 or online at [email protected]. You can also visit Diane’s Web site at www.dianepershing.com.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  “I can’t believe it, JR. Me, here at Nordstrom, in the workplace department, in a suit. A business suit!”

  As she ranted into her cell phone, Carmen stared at the dressing-room mirror’s reflection with intense displeasure. She stuck her tongue out at the image, then spoke again into the mouthpiece. “I mean, you know me, JR, the original antifashion thrift-shop junkie. I’ve been a retro hippie, a recovering Goth—” she pivoted to get a view of the rear and made another disgruntled face “—but I’ve never, ever, been someone who even looked at a straight, desk-sitting, member-of-the-office-staff-and-proud-of-it suit!”

  On the other end of the line, JR, who had, poor thing, heard Carmen’s tirades before, said mildly, “How does it look?”

  She frowned again, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I have no frame of reference. How is a suit supposed to look?”

  “Well, does it fit?”

  “I guess. The saleslady said this was my size and it isn’t too tight or too loose, so yeah, I guess it fits. But it’s gray, JR,” she griped to her very best friend in all the world. “With these little pinstripes. And the saleslady gave me this lavender blouse. A blouse. I mean, really. With buttons.”

  “Oh, no,” JR said with mock horror. “Not buttons.”

  “And I’m going to have to wear hose. I never wear hose. Ever.”

  “Hey, kid, welcome to the world of grown-ups.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Carmen sighed loudly, then made yet one more face at the mirror. “It’s time. I get it. But I don’t have to like it.”

  And she didn’t like it, not at all.

  Goldie Raquel Coyle, known as “Carmen” since age seven when she’d been introduced to Bizet’s opera and had fallen in love with the tragic heroine—to the point of insisting on a Spanish lady-of-the-night costume for Halloween that year—had made every attempt in the world to not grow up. But she was one year shy of thirty, and it was, alas, finally time.

  She had to get a job. A real job. Not a clerk at a used records store, nor a fast-food takeout counter person. Most definitely not a house-sitter/dog-walker/part-time errands runner. Those were items on her old résumé, and would no longer do. She needed money, real money. She had bills to pay.

  Well, they weren’t really her bills, but Tio’s. The jerk. They’d lived together in her little house for three months and she’d had no idea he’d been dealing. None. He’d run up all kinds of debt on her credit card, borrowed money in her name from her friends. Never even paid his half of the rent and had spent her half. And she hadn’t known. Not any of it. Not until he’d taken off, never to be heard from again. And the phone calls had begun, followed by the pounding on the door, and it had all been a nightmare. Big-time stress situation. Carmen hated stress, hated hassles. Avoided them like the plague. Which meant—and she’d be the first to admit it—that she’d lived her particular time on earth too often under the radar, too often letting others clean up her mess after her.

  Not anymore. She’d borrowed money from her family to cover Tio’s debts and she would pay them back as quickly as possible. And this was the very last time she’d fall for another bad-boy type who was not what he claimed to be. She’d learned her lesson. About time.

  “Carmen?” JR’s voice in her earpiece pulled her out of her reverie.

  “Does it have to be gray, JR? Couldn’t it be…I don’t know…yellow? A little sunshine to take away the gloom?”

  She stared at the mirror. She’d already kicked off her sandals—fun, strappy things in bronze-, silver-and gold-dyed leather with a chartreuse rose on top that she’d picked up at the Nordstrom shoe sale not five minutes before coming up here—and was now on tippy-toes, trying to imagine herself in heels.

  “Carmen,” JR said, “I have a client coming in two minutes, so I have to get off the phone.”

  “Fine, desert me. I don’t blame you. I look so drab. So boring.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Possible, trust me. I—”

  Pop!

  The noise, a soft, explosive sound, like a special effect on a computer game, was followed by a yelp of surprised pain.

  Carmen stood still, unsure of what she had just heard, aware only that it
felt off—wrong, somehow—and that it came from somewhere nearby.

  Pop! Pop!

  Two more of the same soft noises were followed by a strange smell—something burning? And something wet had just hit her lower leg. She glanced down and saw a spattering of red on her ankles and bare feet. The fitting-room walls were open at the bottom; the red spatters had come from the room to her left.

  Blood. It was blood.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Carmen?” JR’s voice was sharp. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  A woman’s groan came from next door, followed by the soft thud of running footsteps in the dressing-room corridor. “Someone’s hurt,” she whispered into the phone.

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “In the dressing room next door to me.” She reached for the door handle. “I think she’s been shot.”

  JR drew in a quick, alarmed breath. “Stay where you are. Do you hear me? Can you lock the door?”

  Too late. Carmen had already opened the door to the dressing room a tiny crack and now peered down the long corridor that led to the selling floor. A figure was just disappearing around the corner, but not before she had enough time to register a fleeting impression of a slender form dressed head-to-toe in black. Running shoes, sweatpants, sweatshirt, a black baseball cap, no hair visible.

  Another groan of pain made Carmen open her door wide and step out into the corridor.

  “Carmen?” she heard JR say.

  “I have to see how badly she’s hurt,” she whispered into the phone.

  “Don’t you dare! Stay just where you are. I’m calling 911.”

  “Do that…”

  The slatted dressing-room door had a vertical line of three holes punched in it. She jiggled the knob, but the door was locked, so she peered through one of the holes.

  A young woman lay slumped at an awkward angle, her upper body leaning against the mirror, the lower part on the floor, legs splayed. She wore a bra and panties; in her hand she clutched a navy dress with a small yellow-and-pink flower pattern, its tag hanging from the sleeve, as though she’d been about to try it on. Blood poured from her head and midsection onto the carpeted floor. The mirror was spattered with the red liquid.

  Carmen felt bile rising in her throat, but she swallowed hard and ordered herself not to vomit. “JR,” she said into her phone. “It’s bad. Get an ambulance. I have to go.”

  Snapping the phone shut, she yelled, “Someone! Help!” as loudly as she could. Two dressing-room doors opened farther down the corridor, and two scared faces peeked out from them. “Get a doctor! Quickly,” she told them.

  Without waiting to see what they did, she lay flat on her stomach and crawled under the door and into the small room.

  Carmen had never seen a dying person before, but clearly this woman belonged in that category. Her breathing was labored and rattled harshly in her throat, her eyelids were half-open, only the whites visible. And blood pumped out of her midsection with a horrendously rapid, yet even, rhythm.

  “Hold on,” Carmen said, swallowing again to keep the contents of her stomach from coming up. “Help is coming.”

  The bleeding. She had to stop the bleeding. She got onto her knees and grabbed the flower-patterned dress, rolled it up into a ball and held it over the worst of the wounds, the jagged hole in the woman’s stomach. In an instant, the dress was soaked.

  “Hold on,” she said again desperately, this time pulling off the suit jacket she was wearing and pushing it against the blood-soaked dress. She felt so powerless, so helpless to stop the inevitable. “Please,” she said, aware that she was crying, “please hold on.”

  There was the sound of running feet again in the hallway, this time coming in her direction. “We’re in here!” she called out. Someone tried the handle, but before Carmen could get up to unlock it, that same someone rammed against the slatted door, once, twice, three times. The door burst open. Carmen looked up to see a stocky, gray-haired woman standing over her.

  “I’m a doctor,” she said grimly. “Get back.”

  On her knees, Carmen scrambled away from the body, then stood and backed into the corridor, unable to take her eyes off the gunshot victim as the doctor worked on her. The breaths became louder and harsher, as did the awful rattling sounds emanating from her throat. This went on for several moments more until, at last, there was a loud, long sigh, and the woman was still.

  The doctor attempted resuscitation for a few moments more, but to no avail. She shook her head then stood, checking her watch.

  It was over. A life had ended.

  Others were gathered in the corridor now, an excited buzz of curiosity filling the air. Someone, a manager-type, was saying, “Please, stand back. The ambulance is on its way and we need to make room.”

  Carmen took it all in, suddenly dissociated, feeling as though she were seeing details through the wrong end of a telescope. Her gaze remained focused on the poor young woman’s lifeless body. Just moments ago, she’d been trying on clothing in the privacy of a well-appointed fitting room, just as Carmen had been doing next door. It had all happened so quickly. Why had she been shot? Who was she? Did she have a family? Children? Who would break the news to them? Would someone mourn her?

  As her own breathing became labored she felt a scream rising in her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth and, again, with a severe effort of will, tamped it down. This was not about her, she told herself. She was alive. But she couldn’t stop the tears, nor the quaking sensation that seemed to affect every inch of her body. Sinking to the floor, she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, fixated on death’s latest statistic.

  The strangest thing happened next. Earlier, she’d taken in the woman’s awkward position on the floor, the bra, the panties, the flowered dress, but now Carmen’s gaze landed on her feet. As her addled brain registered a bizarre coincidence, she gasped out loud: she and the dead woman must have both recently shopped at the famous, twice-yearly Nordstrom shoe sale, and, obviously, the two of them must have shared the same taste. She knew this because on the victim’s feet were the very same multicolored sandals that Carmen had bought not a half hour ago. The perky chartreuse rose on top was now stained brownish-red.

  Her gaze fell on her own bent knees and she recoiled. She, too, was covered in blood—bare feet, legs, skirt, blouse. Even her hands. She stared at them, horrified. It was too much, way too much. Shivering, she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. This was a nightmare.

  But at least you’re alive, a little inner voice reminded her. The woman lying on the dressing-room floor could have been her, Carmen thought, and hated herself for the small surge of gratitude she felt that tragedy had struck someone else and not her. And then she stopped thinking at all.

  In the thirty minutes since Carmen had so abruptly ended their phone call, JR observed, the scene had become bedlam. On the second floor of the mall, yellow crime-scene tape was stretched across the wide opening to the store. Crowds were gathered but being held back by private security and uniformed policemen. Outside, the whirring of overhead helicopters could be heard; inside, reporters and photographers were trying for a peek, a story, an angle.

  JR fought his determined way through the crowd and reached one of the uniformed cops. “Excuse me,” he said, “I have to get in there.”

  The young, clean-shaven face was impassive. “Sorry, no one allowed. This is a crime scene.”

  “I’m a lawyer and friend of the woman who found the body. She needs me.”

  “I don’t care if you’re the king of Spain, sir, no one is allowed in.”

  Just then he spotted Carmen on the other side of the tape, walking with that unconscious sensuality of hers, alongside a tall, middle-aged, brown-skinned man dressed in a worn-looking suit and whom JR assumed was a plainclothes cop. Carmen’s arms were crossed and held close to her body, as though she were cold. Her hair was messy, her face was tear-stained and she wore faded jeans, r
ubber thong sandals and one of her droopy yet sexy peasant blouses. A shopping bag dangled from one arm, a large, bulky purse from the other.

  “Carmen!” JR called out.

  The cop glanced over, annoyance on his face. At the same time, Carmen looked up and saw him. “JR!” she called out and came running over to the edge of the yellow police tape, the man accompanying her following right behind. “You came!”

  She threw her arms around his neck and he embraced her, held her close. And not for the first, or even the fiftieth, time, JR felt that sad, hopeless feeling at this intimate act of his body joined to hers. For Carmen, the act of hugging meant comfort, warmth, affection. For him, it meant all that, and a hell of a lot more. He cursed himself silently. Had he no spine at all? Hadn’t he, just a couple of days ago, decided it had to end, that Carmen would not have this kind of effect on or power over him ever again?

  Yeah, right. Tell it to his body, to his hormones.

  To his soul.

  He stroked her hair. “Poor baby. Are you okay?”

  “Oh, JR.” Her head was buried in his neck; he could feel moisture from her tears on the skin above his shirt collar.

  The plainclothes cop stood by, a sour expression on his face. “Come on in,” he said dryly, lifting up the yellow tape, indicating that JR should duck under it.

  After disengaging Carmen’s arms from around his neck, he went under the tape. Then he took her hand as the cop led the two of them over to the side, behind a clothes rack and away from the prying eyes of onlookers. JR wanted to know what was up. Was Carmen a suspect? Was he needed here as her long-time friend or as a lawyer?

  As soon as they stopped moving, Carmen released his hand and threw her arms around him again, resuming the position of head buried in neck. The policeman stood by, obviously not pleased but trying for patience. “Um, miss…I need to talk to you some more.”