Page 14

CHAPTER 14

“What do you think of the look?” he asked.

“It’s…like I…did this on purpose.” She knew she sounded stunned, but those glimpses of herself in the mirror inspired awe and amazement. Somehow she had gone from an invisible female in frumpy coveralls to a woman battered by an explosion and grief to a lead in next season’s fashions.

For a woman who preferred to blend into the scenery, that could not be good.

She didn’t look at Dante. She was too aware of the awkwardness of meeting the guy she’d slept with and acting like it was no big deal. So she wandered over to the overflowing bookshelves. The hardcovers included architectural history, business and relationship advice. The paperbacks, SF and cozy mysteries, were well-read. Enshrined in its own lighted case, a richly decorated edition of A Thousand Nights held the place of honor. She drew near, put her nose almost to the glass.

“Would you like to hold it?” Dante stood at her side.

She briefly considered he knew a lot about seduction and seducing her in particular, and wished she had the good sense to say no. “May I?”

He opened his phone, typed in a code, and the case went dark. He lifted the glass lid and stepped back.

Her hands were clean and dry, and when she hovered her fingers over the leather, she sensed its age. Gently she carried it over to the window into the light. But not the direct sunlight; that would fade the colors, the ink. She leafed through the pages.

“Sixteenth century, leather-bound, beautifully illustrated, in Persian,” she told him. The gold work on the page edges glittered dully. The end papers were a feast of gold leaf, rich green abstract plants, and ultramarine animal eyes that peered from the page. A single carmine smear marred the page.

“It’s stained,” Dante said. “The only flaw.”

She stroked her fingers over that stain. In that touch, she smelled a curl of flavored tobacco, tasted the printer’s sweet pleasure in his completed masterpiece, felt the prick of the knife’s point on his finger and the smooth slide of the paper as he used his blood to mark the book… “It’s not a flaw. It was deliberate. His blood on his creation, forever.”

Dante viewed her with something like awe. “I was afraid you’d tell me the book was a fake.”

“No. It’s very, very real.” She returned it to its case, smoothed her fingertips across the binding one last time, and observed while Dante covered it with the glass and set the alarm.

He said, “When we marry, it will be yours.”

“No.”

He took her hand. “Come and sit on my stool.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“So suspicious.” He led her behind his desk and to the ergonomic drafting chair he had pushed against the wall. “Up,” he said.

“Why?”

“You look so fragile a zephyr could blow you away, and we have to talk.”

She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to leave. But with Dante’s police-cousin waiting in the wings, she supposed she had no choice. She climbed onto the seat, which, not surprisingly, was as comfortable as an elevated office chair could be. She adjusted the back and the arms to fit her, then looked up with a grin, half expecting him to be irritated with her for changing his settings. Irritating him was, after all, her intention.

Instead he tilted her chin back, leaned in, and put his lips to hers. If he’d been forceful, she would have resisted, but the sneaky bastard softly, gently reminded her of what had passed between them. When he lifted his head, he smiled into her wide eyes.

She cleared her throat. “That’s not talking.”

“Nonverbal communication is the foundation of any relationship.”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“Do you always speak in the negative?”

“No.”

He laughed, picked her tightly gripping hands off the padded arms, and kissed each of the palms, then gazed into them. “You have a long, deeply etched life line, and look, one love of your life.”

“The heck you say.” She tried to take her hands away to look at them.

He tightened his grip. “How’s your cunt?”

She was getting the rhythm of him. Touch, kiss, joke, use his gaze to caress and praise, ask inappropriate questions… He’d be a good cop. Probably where he’d learned the method, from his many arrests. “My coochie is fine, thank you, and thank you for in the future not calling it…what you’re calling it.”

“The French word is chatte .”

She could translate that. “Cat? Like pussy?”

“Um. Yes.” He smiled at her as if he knew something she didn’t.

“I’ll look it up!” she assured him.

“Do.” His lids lowered, but he had matters on his mind other than arguing with her. “Sore?”

“Not bad.”

He lifted his eyebrows and slid his palm up her thigh.

“Not good, either,” she admitted.

He slid it down again and sighed. “I wish I felt like a heel.”

“You’re strutting.”

“Like a peacock with a living-color rack of tail feathers.” He leaned in to kiss her again.

She backed up against the wall—and someone knocked on the door.

“Saved,” he teased, and called, “Who is it?”

“Jack.” His voice came out of a speaker somewhere. “Look, can we do this? I have to go back to work!”

Softly Dante said to Maarja, “Jack has already interviewed me. Now he needs to do the same with you. He needs to know everything you saw and heard yesterday. Tell him everything. Don’t be intimidated.” Stepping back from her, he raised his voice and called, “Come in.”

Jack stuck his head in and sniffed. “Is it less smelly now?” He focused on Maarja and started. “Wow. You look better.”

“Gee, thanks. You Arundels are such charmers.”

Jack cracked a half smile and started in on his interrogation.

He asked the questions, she answered them, and she realized Dante had placed her in a position of advantage. She was seated in the lone desk chair; Jack and Dante remained standing. Jack kept trying to pace around her; he was frustrated by her back against the wall, and she thought he would have liked to tower over her, but the elevated seat put her almost at his height.

He interrogated her about her activity before the explosion (“I was moving Mrs. Arundel’s art”); why she was doing that (“I’m a fine arts mover”); what event led her to return to the library in the first place (“I left my reading glasses”).

At which point Dante said, “Son of a bitch.”

“Yes,” she agreed, knowing he would realize she meant him.

“You’re positive about that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you two quit flirting and concentrate?” Jack asked in irritation.

Startled, because she had never as far as she knew in her life been caught flirting, and embarrassed, because she thought he might be right, she blurted, “I left my reading glasses, Mrs. Arundel wanted to be alone so I left her again, before the elevator opened, I heard the blast… No wait.” She had to think. “I heard a crash, like she fell out of her chair. I turned—and the explosion knocked me down. Or…the explosion roared over top of me, and I threw myself down on the floor.”

“You don’t seem very sure of what happened.” Jack hadn’t been friendly before. Now he was positively accusatory.

“I do remember. I just think… I think I must have been unconscious for a few seconds. Then. Then I wanted to—”

“Rush right in and save Mrs. Arundel.” No one had ever sounded as nasty as Jack Arundel.

She shook her head. She was sweating, and she felt lightheaded.

Dante offered her a handkerchief.

She couldn’t take it. She trembled, clutched the arms of the chair, and she didn’t dare let go or she would topple off. “I was afraid. I was too afraid. If I hadn’t used precious seconds being scared, I might have saved her.”

Dante put his arms around her and pulled her face into his chest. He aimed all the old Anglo-Saxon curse words at Jack, then went on to French.

Vaguely, through the mist of nausea and well-remembered fear, she heard Jack answer, “It’s my job to be an asshole. You know that, Dante. Hell, she could be the best actress in the world—”

In a fit of anger, she shoved Dante away. “I could be, but I damned well picked myself up and ran into the flames, and she was alive when I dragged her out of there. She was alive and she was talking to me. I wish… I’d give anything to have not hesitated, but I did, and I can’t undo what I did. I’m the one who has to live with it.” She closed her eyes against the focus of their gazes.

A moment of silence, then from Jack, “Right. Good actress or telling the truth. Miss Daire, please remain in the area—”

“My home is in Gothic.” Just off the Pacific Coast Highway.

“Close enough,” Jack conceded.

“I work moving fine art to different parts of the country.”

“I will ask that you stay within the California borders.” Jack wasn’t really asking. He was telling.

She thought about that, and nodded. “I can do that. For a few weeks. I’m sure that going forward, that won’t be necessary.”

Jack gave her one last considering stare, and left.

Dante handed her a hankie. “I’m sorry he was a jerk, but—”

“I’m a suspect.” She blotted her face. “You’re right. He’s upset that his aunt has died, and he’s frustrated because he doesn’t know how the explosive was set. I appreciate that. Who is supposed to do this kind of investigation? The local police? The FBI?”

Dante shook his head and sighed. “It seems as if every department and agency is involved, and no one trusts the other. With the multiple attempted assassinations, the confusion and frustration seems to get worse and worse.”

“When will there be results?”

“There’s lab work to be done.” He stopped.

“And?”

“It’s all technical, and of course I can barely pry information out of law enforcement—”

“ You can hardly pry information? What about your contacts?” She gestured toward the firmly shut door. “Like Jack?”

“The days of the Arundels being able to bully and bribe have come to an end. I ended them.” He put emphasis on the last sentence.

“You’re wealthy and influential. I have trouble believing you can’t tap into some source for information on your own mother’s violent death!” She examined him, the way he stood, his still expression, and understanding dawned. “Ohhh. You don’t want to, or dare to, share that information. Why didn’t you say so?”

“It’s never good to say too much.” He sounded so noncommittal.

“The less I know, the better.”

“There is that, too.” He put his hands on the wall behind her head, leaned closer, and in a low vibrant whisper said, “I promise, I’ll tell you everything as soon as it’s safe. There’s so much at stake here. The Arundels are going to be completely legitimate and there will be cooperation—or bodies. Nothing in-between.”

She stared into his eyes, chilled by the bleak intent she saw there. “But what if—?”

“Nothing in-between,” he repeated.

Someone yanked the door open.

Nate said, “You need permission to go in there!”

Saint Rees paid no attention. A man in his late forties, her boss was broad-shouldered, round-bellied, and tall, a former professional African American football player, and he tossed off Nate’s body block and marched into the room.

Dante slid his hand into his jacket.

Maarja gripped his arm. “No!”

Saint Rees ignored Dante. Chin lowered, fists clenched, he looked at Maarja. Just looked at her in sorrow and in warning.

She slipped off the seat. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

His deep voice came out of the depths of his belly. “The van didn’t arrive at the rendezvous point.”