His description of Rachel Stein and Weaze’s nutso talk about the world’s largest uncut diamond had clicked with her-and she’d lied about both. Matthew wanted to know why, and he wanted to know what she was going to do about it. If anything. She might just sit upstairs talking to her goldfish and playing the piano and forget he’d even been there.

But he remembered the scared, interested, comprehending look in those deep dark green eyes, and he didn’t think she would. His questions had chased away the vagueness and boredom he’d seen in her eyes when she’d pulled the door open for him. Ahh, he thought, nothing like an adventure to kick up the spirit.

He’d give her an hour.

Word was getting around that J.J. Pepper was back. Between four and six, when she liked to play, the Club Aquarian would start to fill up, and people wouldn’t just eat and gab. They’d listen, which Len Wetherall could appreciate. J.J. was good-and a hell of a sight to watch, looser than she had been in the spring and summer. New Zealand or wherever the hell she’d been had done her some good. Or coming back had.

Len settled back against the bar, sipping a cup of black coffee and having a look at the postcards she’d just handed him. He figured she got them from some New Zealand tourist office in town. They weren’t made out, of course; no postmark, nothing like that. Merrie, his wife, had said quit worrying about damn New Zealand and focus on the hair-it was lavender today-if he wanted to know what game J.J. Pepper was playing. But he wasn’t sure he did. It could just ruin everything. Not so much for him, maybe, but for her.

She was at the baby grand, warming up with a couple of slow and easy tunes. It was early, not crowded, but that wouldn’t last. Right now, she looked as if she’d been made for the place. Her low-cut blouse was the same shade of red as the single rose on each table, the only touch of color in the gray and black decor. Nearly everyone had a clear view of her on the round platform stage, carpeted in gray, just eight inches off the floor. It stood between the dining room on one side and the high-tech bar on the other, and behind it were semiprivate seating areas, with low black lacquer tables and gray suede half-circle sofas. From every corner, you could hear J.J. Pepper’s rich, ringing sounds-and see that damned lavender hair.

Fifteen minutes after J.J. had gotten started, a dark-haired man came in alone and asked who the lady at the piano was. He just gave a curt nod when he was told. Len didn’t like that. The guy had a serious, cut-the-bullshit face, and he didn’t take off his black leather jacket when he slid onto a stool at the far end of the bar. He ordered a beer and turned around so he could see the stage.

Len didn’t like that, either.

J.J. was into her piece-she never called them tunes-and hadn’t spotted him. She’d moved into some hotter stuff, was really getting into it. Her lavender hair was coming out of its pins, and a big lock flopped down her forehead. She was grinning and biting her lip, and for a second Len held his breath, thinking she was going to let out a hoot.

The guy down at the other end of the bar just sipped on his beer and watched, tight-lipped.

Al, the bartender, started to whoop and slap the bar, his version of clapping, and Len turned back to see what the excitement was all about.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

He couldn’t believe it. J.J. had kicked off her red shoes and every now and then she’d slam out some high notes with her right foot.

“Babe’s getting the moves down,” Al said. “What’d we ever do around here without her?”

Len grinned. “Damned if I know.”

When she finished, J.J. bounced up off the bench, smiling and sweating like the world had just been lifted off her shoulders, her blouse and skirt askew. She straightened them up, not very well, and stuck stray hairs back up in their pins as she trotted up to the bar. Al had her usual Saratoga water with a twist of lime waiting. Len didn’t touch the stuff himself. Regular water was fine with him.

She drank down half the glass and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin, her eyes glittering. “It’s good to be back.”

“No Club Aquarian in New Zealand, huh?”

She was beaming. “Nope.”

Len slid the postcards across the bar to her. “No slides of you up on a mountain?”

“It’s hard to take pictures of yourself.”

She turned her back to the bar and looked around, checking out what there was of an early crowd. When her eyes fell on the guy sitting alone, her smile vanished and her cheeks went white, the too-red blush she used suddenly looking false and garish, not so fun anymore.

“Something wrong, babe?” Len asked, cool.

She shook her head and put her cold glass to each of her cheeks, the condensation on the glass running the pancake makeup. But some of her natural color returned. Her lavender-tinted hair looked as stiff as she did. She said tightly, “It’s nothing I can’t handle myself.”

Still in her silk-stockinged feet, she took her mineral water down to the end of the bar and jumped onto the stool next to the dude in the black leather jacket. He was a tough-looking bastard, and Len didn’t especially want to mess with him, but he would if he had to. At night he had a bouncer, but during the day he was his own bouncer. He was damn good at it.

All he needed was a reason.

Matthew held back a grin as Juliana turned to him and blinked her sparkling gold eyelids at him, pursed her very red, very kissable lips, and said, her liquid voice frozen into pointy icicles, “You followed me.”

“That’s right, I did.” He motioned for another beer. She was still breathing hard from having pelted out those high notes with her feet. She had her toes curled around the bottom rung of the stool; they were the kind of toes he could too easily imagine trailing up his calves in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure he liked the effect that Juliana Fall-or whoever she was-was having on him. “Hard to lose that purple hair in a crowd.”

“How dare you,” she said, so pissed off she was gritting her teeth.

“‘How dare you’ is what cool, sophisticated, world-famous concert pianists say. Hot little jazz pianists who play with their feet say, ‘fuck you.’”

“Of all the sneaky, arrogant-” She sucked in a breath and let it out. “Damn you.”

Matthew grinned. “That’s better. I like the gold eyelids, by the way. They set off the purple hair. Very regal looking.”

He sipped his fresh beer, watching her breathe in through her nose. He’d have been embarrassed as hell getting caught with purple hair, but she seemed more furious than anything else, which was okay with him. He liked it that she was willing to take him on. He scared the shit out of most people. He’d spotted her strutting out of the Beresford with that crazy hair and had recognized her immediately-he’d been paying more attention to that cute little shape of hers than he’d realized. At first he thought she’d seen him from her living room window and had donned her silly disguise to get past him, but her arrival at the Club Aquarian squelched that theory. The purple hair and old clothes and raccoon coat, and, Jesus, the red vinyl boots were for real.

He gave her a long look, trying not to appear too entertained. If he pissed her off too much, he might not get anything out of her at all. Her blouse was low-cut for Juliana Fall, but on J.J. Pepper it looked just right-crooked, a peek of one pale breast and white, lace-trimmed bra showing. Very sexy and very disconcerting.

“I take it I’ve stumbled on a little secret of yours,” he said.

She didn’t say a word. Ahh, what a clever bastard you are, Stark thought sarcastically. Won’t Feldie be impressed with this major discovery. And, shit, he couldn’t wait to tell Weasel. Wouldn’t he be proud of what his buddy Matt had turned up?