Page 93 of Killer Body

“I know, but I can’t help it. I can’t.” Tania Marie wiped her eyes. “Those photos are going to be all over the fucking tabloids tomorrow.”

The princess cleared her throat and shot her a pained look.

Tania Marie returned it. “TheF-ingtabloids,” she said.

TWENTY-FOUR

Rikki

I’ m not sure I’m ready to do this, but I have no choice. Difficult as it is to see Lucas, I have to remember why I’m here, walking along this upscale pier toward the slip where his sailboat is docked.

These weather-stained slats of wood beneath me are about as safe as this entire relationship with a man I admit I don’t really know. I remind myself that my last relationship, if you can call Hamilton that, was all of one night. The one before that was with a near stranger, who, two days after I moved in with him, decided co-habitation was too much work and went back to college. Two men, same result. I know I can’t trust my own instincts, and I vow to be careful this time.

Looking down at the kaleidoscopic water makes me dizzy, so I stare straight ahead at the boat. It’s smaller than I thought it would be, a sloop, I think, of shiny white fiberglass and a blue tarp-covered cockpit.

I haven’t wanted to come here, where it would be just the two of us, but he said he needed to work on his boat, and if I wanted to talk, it had to be here in the marina.

Lucas appears from below, and I know he’s been watching me approach.

“Here, let me help you,” he says, and reaches for my hand.

At once, I spot the purple welt under his sunglasses, the jagged little scabs along his jawline.

“What happened?”

“A drunk attacked Bobby and me. I’d like to say if you think I look bad, you should see the drunk, but I’m afraid that’s not the case. He got away.”

I climb up, then down, hanging on to a blue tarp covering the cockpit, so that I won’t have to hang on to him. In jeans and a black T-shirt, he looks younger, and that somehow makes this meeting more intimate. His pale amber glasses wash his face with light.

“What’s the matter?” he asks. “Do I look that bad?”

“No. I just realized I never saw you without a tie before.”

“I wear too many of them. Bobby W likes a formal image. Says too many in this business dress like wrestlers, and he’s right.” He moves past me and the cockpit. Says, “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

I hold my ground, as much of it as I have on this little vessel, and say, “I’d rather talk out here.”

“At least have a cup of coffee. I just made some.”

I’m at once aware that I left so early that I didn’t have food, coffee, not even my usual tomato juice. Damn, I now detect the aroma from below, along with Lyle Lovett’s voice. I can’t let myself be sidetracked, though. I can’t.

“First we need to talk.”

He shakes his head and smiles. “Your greatest strength is your greatest liability, all right. If I looked upstubbornin the dictionary, I’ll bet I’d see a picture of you.”

“This is important to me,” I say. “More than coffee. More than nautical etiquette.”

His expression grows thoughtful, less friendly. “It’s important to me, too. I told you I didn’t know Julie Larimore wasn’t her real name. Neither did Bobby.”

I feel relieved every time he says it, and I think I believe him.

“It’s not,” I say. “We couldn’t find a trace of her. Didn’t you check her out before she was hired?”

“Bobby did. She was Julie Larimore from the beginning, as far as our employment records go back, from her first job at the first Killer Body.”

He seems sincere, but I’ve been fooled before. I move closer, study his eyes, which are frankly examining mine. I get another whiff of coffee, cutting the cool air.

“Do you know what she did before she went to work for Bobby?”