Page 76 of Killer Body

“Of course you are, dear. But I have lots to do before I can leave. I can’t spend that time battling with you.”

“Didn’t you hear her?” Rossi touched Tania Marie’s arm. “She said she’s not going.”

“It’s your job to see that she does, dear Jay.” That was the sweet Virginia voice, the engaging voice that, along with a shitload of talent, had made her the most famous female chef in America. Not even Rossi would be able to stand up to that one.

“I’m out of here,” Tania Marie said. “You two wasted my night. You robbed me of my evening, and I’m going back to Santa Barbara.” She shot a glare in Rossi’s direction. “With or without him.”

“It’swithhim.” Rossi squeezed her arm again. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I thought she was afraid for you.”

“Afraid? You want to see afraid?” Virginia grabbed Tania Marie by the wrist, her fingers so cold that Tania Marie felt as if her hand were being amputated by an icy metal vise.

After that initial shock, Virginia let go, then marched into her tiny office, set off from the kitchen by a short glass-brick screen. Tania Marie followed her in. The small room held a small glass desk. On the desk, papers and sticky notes engaged in a competition that the sticky notes just might win.

“Okay, Miss Perfect.” Virginia reached into the pile of papers and pulled out only one envelope.

“What is it?”

“Why don’t you take a look, since you know so damned much.”

The envelope had been resealed and taped. Tania Marie slashed into it with her fingernail. Inside was a note, written in block letters that should have been easier to read than they were.

Get Her Away From Killer Body.

Tania Marie reached in again, pulled out something odd. She stared at it, trying to figure out why it looked so familiar.

Then she realized it was a photograph of the lower part of her body—shorts, shamrock tattoo above the ankle, strappy little shoes.

The photo had been torn in half.

“What does this mean?” She shook the ragged partial photo at Virginia.

“I don’t know.” For the first time Tania Marie could remember, Virginia looked on the brink of tears. “I want you to come stay with me for a while. I don’t want you all those hours away.”

Virginia was actually crying, crying for her. Tania Marie threw her arms around her. “I’ll be okay,” she said.

Virginia lifted tear-streaked eyes. “But you won’t stay?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” She hugged Virginia—her mother, damn it, her mother. “It’s just too late for that.”

Tania Marie huddled in the passenger seat of the horrible pickup, still seeing Virginia’s face.

“Well, I guess you told her.” Jay Rossi seemed to be hiding a smile, and that pissed her off even more. He wore the windbreaker over a pair of khaki pants and boots. The lenses of his glasses only partially concealed his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s very amusing that you kidnapped me and dragged me from my home, Mommy’s permission or not.”

“Maybe I made a mistake. She’s scared, though, terrified. You must have seen that.”

“More like a guilty conscience, if you ask me.” She still couldn’t figure out how it felt to know Virginia actually gave a damn about her, but she wasn’t going to share that with him. She settled back in the seat as they flew down the freeway, its shadowed tangles of traffic and car lights. At least he was a good driver. “So she gets some postcard of Julie Larimore and a torn-up photograph of me? It’s one of the others, probably that bitch Rochelle, trying to scare me away from the Killer Body gig.”

“You hope that’s all it is.”

“When you’ve been through everything I have in the last year, you don’t let an anonymous note scare you off.”

“But you don’t have to fight the person who’s trying to help you.” He rubbed his cheek, and Tania Marie realized she’d left a scratch there during their earlier struggle. Good.

“Anyone who breaks into someone’s home deserves anything he gets.”

“I’d do it again,” he said, “and I don’t agree that you should go back there.”