The Love Scam

by MaryJanice Davidson, Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder

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  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For my dear friend Jessica, who suffered a great loss last year but never lost herself

  Polyglot: a person who speaks, writes, or reads a number of languages

  —DICTIONARY.COM

  Polymath: a person of great learning in several fields of study

  —DICTIONARY.COM

  There’s nothing trashy about romance.

  —PARRY, The Fisher King

  Author’s Note

  This is the second book in the Danger series, which came about because my editor and I love romance tropes, and basically I wanted to write a love letter about … well … love. And tropes! (But also love.)

  For those of you in a hurry, there’s a trope list at the back.

  Anyway. On to the various things that inspired certain parts of the book.

  Dooneese Maharelle, a woman with absurdly small doll hands played by Kristen Wiig on Saturday Night Live, terrifies me. I have seriously had nightmares about her pattering after me on her teeny feet, calling for me with her waist cinched in and those little doll hands clawing the air as she gains on me … ye gads. I think I thought up a heroine with small hands as a way to deal with my terror of Dooneese Maharelle. I’m very, very sorry you have to be subjected to it.

  (None of this is to say I don’t like Kristen Wiig. I think she’s wonderful. She’s got more talent in a discarded fingernail clipping than I have in my entire body. Which makes Dooneese Maharelle no less terrifying.)

  Polyglots are cool. So are polymaths.

  Venice’s Cruising Pavilion wasn’t a thing until 2018, but for the purpose of this story, it was a thing in 2010, as well.

  Like Rake, I love lardo, which is superskinny paper-thin slices of cured fat, often wrapped around wonderful things like pork chops. I know, I know—sounds a little urrggh, right? But it’s so thin, it doesn’t have that greasy mouthfeel, and it’s cured with yummy herbs like rosemary and it was unlike anything I had ever put in my mouth and I instantly pledged all-consuming loyalty to my new overlord: lardo. Won’t you join me? Lardo: It’s what’s for dinner! Except when something else is for dinner.

  San Basso is a real building in Venice, a gorgeous deconsecrated church that is now used as a concert hall—think of the acoustics! However, for the purposes of fiction, I made it a church, then a haunted house, then a post office, and finally a charity.

  The character of Ronald Kovac was loosely based on Eun Tae Lee, a resident of Virginia who bilked the Korean Central Presbyterian Church out of nearly a million dollars. He persuaded them to give him control of the church checkbook and wrote checks to himself (he was also a fan of buying wonderful presents for himself). When the church finally tumbled to what he was doing, he was driving a Porsche.

  Bad enough people do these things; what’s worse is that churches don’t always report it. They’re tax-exempt, so they’re not required by law to release annual reports, and nobody likes admitting they were conned, especially if they need the community to trust their judgment. It’s speculated that billions are scammed from churches in America every year. Also: ugh. C’mon, guys. If you’re gonna steal, can’t you steal from the bad guys?

  Colomba di Pasqua is a thing! I’d never heard of it before I went to Italy. It’s to Easter what fruitcake is to Christmas: disgusting, but traditional.

  According to momjunction.com, Nedra means “secretive” and Naseef means “speaking in secret.” I’m going through a phase where I make my characters have meaningful names, and if they were real, I doubt they’d thank me for it. Also, Lillith means “of the night.”

  Every family should have a nuclear option. I’m just saying.

  Prologue

  Agh. Pain. And thirst. Painful thirst. Thirsty pain. Where? Was? Ow.

  Rake Tarbell sloooowly rolled over and stared at a ceiling. (His ceiling? No.) His eyes were so gritty and the room so quiet, he could hear his eyelids sticking and unsticking as he blinked. And sometime in the last few hours, he’d eaten … a dead bird? And washed it down with another dead bird? One that had drowned in vermouth?

  He tried to open his mouth and felt his gummy lips struggle to part. Had he been kidnapped? Hit over the head and kidnapped, then had his mouth and eyes taped shut?

  No.

  Worse.

  Hungover.

  He made it to the edge of the bed in a series of small wriggles, each one causing a wave of nauseating pain to claw up his spine and wash over his brain. When at last he was upright, he fought his gorge to a draw and buried his head in his hands, hoping for a swift death. He noticed he was in a black T-shirt he’d never seen before with the puzzling yet reassuring logo I DO ALL MY OWN STUNTS. No socks. No pants. By squinting very, very hard, he could just make out a pair of crumpled dark brown cargo shorts on the floor three feet away.

  I keep telling you, Rake.

  Shut up, Blake.

  You can’t party like a twenty-year-old forever.

  Seriously, Blake. Shut. Up.

  His inner voice, which sounded exactly like his tight-ass twin’s, obligingly shut up, something the real Blake hardly ever did.

  He managed to lurch to his feet and staggered toward a doorway leading to a sparkling clean bathroom—okay, mystery solved, he was in a hotel room. Bland white walls, bland tan carpet. De rigueur nightstand, two-drawer dresser, television. Shiny clean fixtures and various helpful signs his head hurt too much to even look at, much less interpret, but at least he had a vague idea of where he was.

  He turned the tap on full and tried to kill himself: suicide by sink, glug, glug, ahhhhh. When he realized drowning would take too long, he cupped his hands under the cool flow and drank and drank and drank, then washed his face, ran his head under the tap again—thank God for roomy hotel sinks!—and slowly stood as he raked his fingers through his hair and slicked it back from his eyes.

  He nearly screamed: He’d rarely looked so fucked-up. Even his inner Blake voice

  (Kill it at once, and with fire!)

  was horrified.

  “Okay,” he said, and winced. His deep voice reverberated around the small shiny white bathroom, which is how he found out it hurt to talk. “Okay,” he whispered to his hideous, red-rimmed, ghastly pale reflection. Normally dark blond, his hair was now dirty blond. And his eyes, God, his eyes! Like the zombies in 28 Days Later or, worse, 28 Weeks Later. He was the before picture in an antacid ad. “Get out of the room. Don’t think about the scary hotel room from 1408. Figure out where you are, then get something in your stomach—no, you have to.” His reflection was shaking his head and looking horrified; time to get stern. “You know you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.” Mirror Rake cringed, but Actual Rake was relentless. “You’ve got a day of crackers and ginger ale to look forward to, you horrible-looking shithead, and only yourself to blame.”

  Probably. He hadn’t ruled out kidnapping yet; this might be someone else’s fault. He’d been hungover before, though not as o
ften as Blake assumed. He never did anything with the frequency Blake assumed—as a matter of pride, if nothing else. But he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten to—to wherever he was. And the mystery wouldn’t be solved from the bathroom. Had any mystery ever been solved from a bathroom? How often did Sherlock Holmes take a dump? The books never said.

  He left the bathroom and managed to inch across the room to the shorts, gingerly step into them, and pull them on. These, at least, did belong to him, though they needed a trip through a washing machine. He felt the comforting bump of his phone in his side pocket as he zipped up, and the beat-up loafers at the end of the bed were also his. He figured he must have checked in (somehow—how had he managed to walk, much less communicate with a hotel clerk?), kicked off his shorts (but left his shoes on?), collapsed facedown on the bed, his absurdly long legs dangling over the end, and the shoes had fallen off in his sleep. Stupor. Coma. What have you.

  After a few tries, he found the door to the hallway. The water had helped; he knew most of the pain of a hangover came from dehydration. That, and knowing he’d done it to himself and had no one else to blame. Fine. He’d get some fresh air, take stock of his surroundings, start Plan Ginger Ale + Ritz = Might Not Die.

  Somehow he made it to the lobby, though for a minute he thought he was going to hurl tap water in the elevator. He closed his eyes against the killing glare of the fluorescents and focused on his breathing, then staggered out of the elevator with a real sense of accomplishment: no barf left behind!

  He ignored the guest babble in the lobby, though normally he liked talking to strangers, especially female strangers. Not today. If he had to focus on anything besides falling down, he would fall down. I’ll give everyone in the hotel a thousand bucks if they just don’t talk to me. Money well spent. He made it through the revolving doors once …

  “Agh! Mistake, mistake! Stop the ride!”

  … then twice around. The doors spat him out onto the sidewalk, where the sun immediately set about frying him like a T-bone.

  Aaaggghhhh, my retinas! Who knew the sun was so huge and hot? In early spring, no less!

  Eyes squinched to slits, he shuffled forward, breathing in the, um, fresh air—hmm. There was an odd smell; not bad, but distinct. Familiar. Wherever he was, he’d been there before. That alone was enough to cheer him up, and he squared his shoulders and took a few jaunty steps to his destiny while ignoring the people who were shouting behind him. Back off, strangers! It’s my time to shine! Or at least gobble some crackers.

  Then he fell. Not far, thank goodness, but ack cold cold cold! The river/lake/ocean/what-the-hell-ever he’d plunged into was beyond bracing and well into hypothermia-inducing. He popped to the surface like a furious cork and wiped the water out of his eyes. So that’s what they were yelling about. Now would be a good time to start paying attention to my surroundings. Also, ninety seconds ago would have been a good time.

  At first he thought the strangers were going to bludgeon him with paddles until he went down and stayed down, the perfect end to a horrific morning. Then he realized they were all extending poles and paddles and

  (why????)

  bottles of water.

  “Venice?” he sputtered, spitting a stream of foul water back into the larger stream of foul water that was the Grand Canal. “I’m in fucking Venice?”

  Another Prologue

  NEW CHARITY DIRECTOR

  Venice, Italy*: The executive director of Support San Basso Families has announced the hire of a new director, Ronald Kovac.

  “Mr. Kovac brings to SSBF a decade of running American charitable programs, and we are very excited that he is joining the efforts to raise money for local families in need.”

  Mr. Kovac, a native of Colorado, U.S.A., has announced that due to fund-raising efforts he undertook prior to officially taking the job, SSBF will be able to donate 200,000 euros to local families in need in time for Easter. The money will go toward housing repair and food.

  “We are tremendously excited to have Mr. Kovac on board at our fine institution. We believe that, as San Basso was once a church and the building has been a part of our history for over a thousand years, SSBF is getting back to its roots, so to speak, by giving back to the community.”

  Kovac is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School as well as Harvard Business School.

  Media Contact:

  SSBF Executive Director

  SSBFDirect@ssbf.org

  Share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.*

  —Hebrews 13:16

  One

  Months before fucking Venice …

  Rake rubbed his forehead and fought down a groan as his twin took the seat across from him. They hadn’t seen each other in months, which was good for all: the two of them, their mother, the population of Las Vegas, society in general.

  He sighed and tried to straighten. The movement sent a wall of pain slamming through his brain. “Not that I don’t love being treated to your scowling face in the wee hours—”

  Blake sighed. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”

  “—but why am I here?” Beside his brother, who sat with perfect posture and was wearing a suit at oh-God-thirty in the morning (though he was his own boss and could lounge in jeans and a T-shirt), Rake felt distinctly rumpled. Possibly because he was distinctly rumpled.

  Blake’s dark blond hair was meticulously trimmed, his blue eyes meticulously not bloodshot. Savile Row on the man’s back, Armani on his wrist, and no doubt something fancy on his feet. Rake slouched lower and looked: yep. Black and shiny. Definitely expensive. The two of them were a before-and-after picture.

  Worse, Blake hadn’t insisted on a meeting at dawn so Rake could admire his twin’s dapperness. (That was a word, right?) Something was up.

  He struggled upright. “Is Mom okay? Please say Mom’s okay. A hangover plus Blake plus Mom is just exhausting to think about.” He sighed and rubbed his temples. Sometime in the night, his tongue had been switched out for a wad of cotton. A dirty wad that tasted like booze. “My head is still attached to my body, right? It didn’t blow up or anything?” He gingerly felt his skull, worried his fingers would sink into it like bread dough. “My brain feels really explodey.”

  Blake snorted. “Stop making up words, you hungover troglodyte.”

  Rake nearly spit all over himself; probably wasn’t the best time to gulp his water. “I will if you will!” Wow. That didn’t sound childish AT ALL. God, why do I let Blake get to me like this? Why does he goad me? We’re almost thirty!

  “Troglodyte is a real word!” Rake cheered up a bit to see Blake’s famously even temper was splintering.

  “God, why do I ever reach out to you?”

  “Dunno.” He did know, but would never say. They’d always been different, always fought, but underneath it all was something like love, or at least loyalty, or at least not hate. So Rake would think, but never say, You reach out because you’re lonely. Because you’re a stereotype—the uptight rich guy who needs tru luv to loosen up. And I’m your screwup brother who occasionally needs guidance but never admits it, because I’m a stereotype, too. And around and around we go. “But it makes you nuts, so I don’t know why you don’t quit it.” Rake finished his water, and now grabbed Blake’s. Ah, water, sweet water of life. Wait. Water of life?

  “God help us when you become a father.”

  “Back atcha.” At Blake’s uncharacteristic silence, Rake tensed. “Uh—do you know something I don’t?”

  “Almost always.”

  “Or someone I don’t?”

  Blake waved away his brother’s sudden attack of paranoia. “You mean do I know you have a bastard or five running around?”

  “You’re one to talk!”

  “Fair point. But no. I don’t have personal knowledge of your hypothetical bastards. Nor my own.”

  “Oh, thank Christ.” Rake was so relieved, he nearly swooned out of the booth onto the floor. “So why are we here?”

&n
bsp; “Unlike some, I cannot simply jettison my responsibilities when they become tiresome. Not that I haven’t been tempted; surely I’ve done nothing to be saddled with you.” Blake was pontificating, and Rake gulped faster. Maybe he’d drown. Or belch! Blake hated pretty much every natural bodily function, especially ones made by Rake’s body.

  “Did so. It’s your own fault for insisting on being born first. You probably elbow-checked me on your way out of the womb. Now c’mon, why are we here? Why’d you call? What couldn’t wait until our birthday?”

  “Our mother is in Sweetheart and she needs us. She hates it, but she needs us.”

  The sarcastic retort died and Rake sat up so straight, it was like someone had rammed a broomstick down his spine. “Tell me,” he ordered.

  Blake did.

  Two

  Ten confusing minutes later …

  “So Mom’s stuck in her hometown, which is called Sweetheart for reasons both dark and hilarious, and she’s too stubborn to leave, and she won’t ask us to help her bail.” Rake considered that for a moment. “Yep. Sounds legit.”

  Blake was nodding. “It’s too much for her, too much for anyone, and she keeps getting in deeper and deeper.” A short pause, which Rake knew meant here comes the judgment. “You wouldn’t recognize her voice if you took her calls.”

  “Hey! World traveler, remember? Show me the cell tower on Lopez Island or the Travaasa Hana or the Aran Islands. I always call her back.”

  Blake waved Rake’s return calls away: Shoo, return calls, be gone from me. “At three A.M. Sweetheart time, when she’s semiconscious and barely coherent.”

  Oh, now that’s too damned ridiculous. “She’s completely coherent! It’s our mom! She’d be coherent if she was dead!” If she was— Wait, that makes no—no! Stand by your senseless statement! Double down on the senseless!