3 Fat Chance

by Rhonda Pollero

  I was still riddled with guilt an hour after talking to Liv. I didn’t like knowing I was responsible, even innocently, for causing my friend problems. I made a new pot of coffee, then tried and failed to concentrate on the Medicaid information. I read a line or two, then winced just thinking about what I’d done and trying to think of a way to mitigate the damage.

  I did have a bargaining chip, so I reached for the phone and dialed Abby’s number. Instead of ringing, I got that fast busy signal indicating a problem with the line. My educated guess was her service had been shut off for nonpayment. I needed to talk to her. I was willing to bargain with the devil if it meant helping Liv.

  Speaking of devils, Liam appeared at my office door, carrying a bag from TooJay’s Deli in Palm Beach Gardens. “Lunch is served.”

  “What’d you get me?”

  “Dill chicken salad,” he said as he brushed papers aside and started removing Styrofoam containers from the bag.

  That happened to be my favorite menu item, and I was half-tempted to ask him how he knew that. Then I remembered it was Liam. Somehow he knew everything. It was really unsettling, not to mention annoying as sin.

  He took a seat across from me and balanced a second Styrofoam container in his lap, placing only his bottled water on my desk. He bit into an overstuffed BLT on whole wheat, while I opted to peel off the bread and eat only the salad.

  It was such a girl thing to do. I was no different from every other woman out there: For some reason, we want a lunch date, but we don’t want said date to actually see us eat.

  Date?

  Warning sirens rang in my head. Thinking of Liam that way would lead to nothing but complications I didn’t need or want. I might not need complications, but I wanted him. However, to keep from admitting that little tidbit aloud, I’d be willing to gnaw off my own tongue.

  I filled him in on my morning, concluding with Abby’s unreachability, and my lament over causing Liv business problems.

  Placing his half-eaten sandwich back in the container and placing it on my desk, Liam leaned to one side to unclip the cell phone from his waistband.

  In order to do that, he had to lift his shirt just high enough for me to get a peek at his solid abs. My mouth nearly went dry, and I had difficulty swallowing the food.

  Rationally I knew it was perfectly normal to have this awareness of him. Only a corpse wouldn’t be interested in exploring the chiseled contours of his body. But only an idiot would act on that interest.

  “Hey,” he said into the phone. “Would you check on a Volusia County phone line for me?” He motioned to me for the number. I pivoted my computer screen, and he read the number to whoever was on the opposite end of the call. In under a minute, he said, “Thanks, beautiful.”

  Beautiful? Inappropriate jealousy stabbed me in the gut. I concentrated on keeping my expression bland—not an easy task, since I was really curious about Beautiful. A current girlfriend? A past one? Friend with benefits? Some homely woman he was showering with kindness?

  Stop it! My obsession with Liam was starting to mirror my obsession with identifying my…the skeleton.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Shut off for nonpayment?” I asked.

  He shook his head, which caused a lock of hair to fall forward. In an instant, his normally relaxed face turned stonelike, and his eyes narrowed slightly. In a deeper, softer tone, he solemnly explained, “Fire shorted out the line.”

  I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Do you know anyone in Daytona Beach who could go to the Happy Shores Trailer Park?” I asked. I flipped my computer screen back around and gave him the exact address.

  “Is Deputy Milton available?” He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “Want to tell my why you’ve gone stark white?”

  As briefly as possible, I recounted my trip to see Abby, culminating in the call to DCF. “If she got drunk because I gave her twenty dollars and anything happened to those babies, I’ll just die.”

  “Milt,” Liam said, resuming the call. There were a lot of “uhhuh’s” and “okay’s” and “really’s” before he thanked the officer and flipped the phone closed.

  “Well?” I practically shouted when he didn’t instantly start feeding me information.

  “DCF took custody of the twins at eight last night.”

  I let out the breath trapped in my body. “And Abby?”

  “Died about an hour ago from burns and smoke inhalation.”

  “Was she drunk?”

  “Blood alcohol was point-two-six when she arrived at the trauma center last night.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Giving her that money was tantamount to handing her a loaded gun. I knew she’d spend it on beer.”

  Liam shook his head. “They checked with the guy at the local liquor store. She bought a twelve-pack of malt liquor at eleven. The fire department was called to the scene at eleven thirty. When they arrived, the fire was well established.”

  “I met the woman, Liam. She could toss them back pretty quickly.”

  “How much did she weigh?”

  “One thirty, maybe one forty.”

  “At that weight she’d have to have downed eight beers in less than ten minutes. Based on your description, she was probably drinking all day. Don’t lay this on yourself. In fact, thanks to you, the kids weren’t in the trailer.”

  “I suppose that’s something.” My appetite disappeared, and I felt like I was choking on regret.

  “You saved two lives, Finley. That’s more than just something.”

  “It had to be my fault,” I said, hearing my voice crack as I blinked to keep my tears at bay. “I led someone right to Abby. Probably the same someone who tampered with my car.” I swallowed some of my emotions and rested my face in my hands for a moment. I managed not to cry.

  Then Liam was stroking my back, and my own guilt smothered me.

  You can’t be late until you show up.

  fifteen

  WHILE I PICKED AT my lunch, I made a quick call to Liv to let her know Abby would no longer be selling tales to tabloids. Like Liam, she absolved me of any culpability in Abby’s death, deeming it more important that I had saved the babies from their self-destructive mother.

  I smelled Tony’s cologne a second before he arrived at my office carrying a tight roll of letter-sized paper in one hand. I quickly blotted my mouth with my napkin and moved my food to the credenza behind my desk. When I started to stand, he waved me back to my seat.

  Taking the chair next to Liam, he scooted the chair back so he could sit with his legs straight off to one side. They were long enough so I could see the tasseled Italian loafers where his feet extended past the corner of my desk. He took a french fry off Liam’s tray and popped it in his mouth, chewing quickly.

  All I could think was man-buffet. Not trusting my voice to be anything more than a libidinous squeak, I kept my lips clamped shut. My pulse rate increased, along with my discomfort. I was terrified that one of them, probably Liam, would read my carnal thoughts and tag me on it. But come on! A mere desk-width away sat two of the most handsome men I’d ever encountered.

  Forgetting for a minute that neither was boyfriend material, I indulged myself in some comparisons. Laid-back Liam had that whole bad-boy thing going on. You know, the kind of guy you meet and tell yourself you’re all it will take to tame his bad-boy ways. Then you find out he’s cheating.

  Conversely, Tony had polish. Not the creepy metrosexual kind, but the manlier expensive confidence that practically assured a comfortable future. He was security and permanence. The Tonys of the world didn’t cheat; they worked on relationships and really understood the concept of commitment.

  With these kinds of thoughts, I was definitely headed for commitment. To an institution.

  “Hot?” Liam asked casually, eyes sparkling with amusement only I could see.

  I shook my head.

  “Your cheeks are flushed,” Tony observed. “Maybe you should have spent another day in bed.”


  “No bed for me,” I said, averting my eyes so I didn’t have to suffer the taunt written all over Liam’s face. “Work is keeping my mind off my recent string of bad luck.”

  “Before I forget,” Tony began, “I called the college and made arrangements for you to take the continuing ed course online.”

  “I don’t mind going to class.” In fact, I would happily get an early start and leave, um, now. Anything that might explain me running and screaming from the twin temptations in my office.

  “That’s not going to work,” Tony said. One dark brow arched when he added, “Especially now that you’ve added high-speed chase to your resumé.”

  I felt myself blush from my toes to my scalp as I glared at Liam. “Tattletale.”

  His response was an amused half smile. “Obviously this guy knows your friends and family, so starting tonight, you’ll be staying at Tony’s.”

  My eyes practically popped out of my head. “I’m more the live alone type.”

  “You wouldn’t be living with me,” Tony clarified. “I did a short lease on a town house when Izzy and I came down from New York. I found a house pretty quickly, so the place is sitting empty.”

  The nervous tightness in my chest subsided. “Oh, okay.”

  “But you won’t be alone,” Liam said. “I’ll be in the second bedroom.”

  I swallowed a groan. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the heightened security, but did it have to be Liam? Couldn’t I hire some private, short, fat, bald, married security guard? “Is a babysitter really necessary?”

  “It is until the cops find Carlos Lopez,” Tony replied. “Liam gave me his name. I made a deal with Victor when I took the partnership.”

  “Carlos Lopez? And what deal?” I asked.

  “He added a criminal division but made you my problem.” Tony unfolded the rolled papers.

  My lust issues evaporated as I took the papers and read that the John Doe fingerprints left on my bedroom windowsill matched the ones on file with the North Carolina Department of Corrections for Carlos Lopez. “What did I ever do to him?”

  “Tony and I agree that he most likely killed the girl stuffed in your wall,” Liam explained.

  “Okay. But that still doesn’t explain why he’d come after me.”

  “You pressed for an investigation,” Tony reminded me. “And you’ve been chasing down leads on your own. He probably sees you as a threat.”

  “So why don’t the police go to his last known address and arrest him?”

  Liam handed Tony the container with the rest of the fries. “His last known is more than three years old. I contacted North Carolina. They’re sending a copy of his rap sheet. He completed his parole for an attempted rape charge and told his probation officer he was returning to Florida to be with his girlfriend. We confirmed he moved back to Florida four years ago, but then it gets sketchy. He lived with his girlfriend for a while but then dropped off the radar. Wherever he’s been, it hasn’t been with his baby’s mama in Riviera Beach. She claims she hasn’t seen him in over a year.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why he sees me as a threat.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with the medallion,” Liam suggested.

  I glared at him. “There are like eight people in the world who know I found the medallion. And I promise you, a North Carolina felon is not one of them.”

  Tony’s dark eyes narrowed, and his mouth pulled into a taut line. “Do you trust all eight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said crisply and concisely. “I don’t know how the medal ended up with the skeleton. The two of you are included in that number, by the way. Assuming Carlos is the same guy who’s been following me, he might have been at the beach house the day after I bought it.”

  “What?” Liam and Tony barked in unison.

  “Again, at the time, I didn’t think it was anything sinister. I thought I saw a guy or something crouched behind the sea grasses that separate my house from my neighbor. But when I looked more closely nothing was there.”

  “That doesn’t fit,” Liam said. “That’s a day after the police blotter said the skeleton had been found.”

  “Yeah, and that first newspaper article said it was most likely the remains of a vagrant and the police didn’t feel further investigation was warranted. That should have put Carlos completely at ease, not the opposite.”

  “Is there anything left in the house that Carlos wouldn’t want you to find?” Tony asked.

  “Other than a slip of paper that said someone was sorry about not doing something sooner and some bags of old clothes, no. Liam has the note, and I let the contractor gutting the house have the clothing. Oh, except for a pair of shoes. Liam has those too.”

  Tony turned to Liam, and I suddenly felt invisible as they talked.

  “And?” Tony asked.

  “The pathologist said the shoes, size seven-and-a-half, would have fit the skeleton. He sent them to the lab to see if they can pull DNA from the lining.”

  Tony turned back to me. “What made you focus on the shoes?”

  “They looked the way shoes would look if the person who’d been wearing them had been dragged.”

  “Which a guy at the lab confirmed,” Liam added. “He found pieces of concrete and grains of sand in the scuff marks on the backs of the heels.”

  “Can he match any of it to a particular geographical area?” Tony asked.

  “The cement is commonly used throughout the southeast, and the animal and shell particles in the sand are found from the Caribbean up through the barrier islands of South Carolina,” Liam replied with a shake of his head.

  “Tell me about the medal,” Tony said.

  “It might have been stolen from my parents’ home in 1991. My mother doesn’t remember when she saw it last, but it isn’t listed on the inventory sheet from the police report as one of the items stolen.”

  “Have you looked through the other robbery reports?” Tony asked.

  “Most of them.” I didn’t dare look at Liam. I was afraid he’d offer up the fact that I fell asleep in his lap, which was why I didn’t finish. Thankfully, on that issue he kept his mouth shut. “I stopped to track down former foster children, and today I’ve been going through Medicaid billings.”

  Tony and Liam donned matching looks of surprise. It was quite the ego boost to have bested them both in at least this area.

  “How did you get access?” Liam asked.

  “Don’t answer that in front of me,” Tony warned. “It’s best I don’t know you used Dane, Lieberman resources for a personal matter.”

  “Okay.”

  Tony ran his hand over his lips. Nice lips, by the way. Totally kissable.

  Then he asked, “Who have you been talking to?”

  “The police,” I began, ticking the names off on my fingers. “My mother, four of my closest friends, Liam, Melinda Redmond, and the late Abby Andrews.”

  “Late?” Tony asked.

  “Died in a fire this morning,” Liam said.

  “Not before she sold a picture to one of those gossip rags.” I explained what she’d done. “I’m sure she did it for the money, and I’m also sure they paid dearly. When it was placed next to the engagement photo of Terri Semple, it was Michael-Jackson-plastic-surgery creepy. New nose, new chin, brow lift, it was all there in vivid color. The bride is so not happy.”

  “Because?”

  I smiled at Tony and his question. “Ever since Martin Gilmore, the Gilmore supermarket heir, proposed, Terri Semple has gotten some rough press. She’s been pegged as a gold digger, and now, at least from the snippet I read, the gossip magazines are claiming all the plastic surgery is to make her look more Palm Beach and less poor white trash.”

  “And that matters?”

  I shrugged. “It matters to her. I think she’s just embarrassed, because when she was interviewed following her engagement party, she claimed she hadn’t had any work done. This was stupid, since you can’t walk ten feet in Palm Beach witho
ut running into someone who’s had work done.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s get back to the plan. You’ll go to the town house with Liam. You can work from there until they find Carlos.”

  “I’m supposed to stay there twenty-four/seven?”

  “I will lock you in and make Starbucks runs if you promise to behave,” Liam teased.

  “I need clothes and—”

  “Give Becky Jameson the keys to your apartment. She’ll pack whatever you want and bring it here before you leave.”

  “I also have stuff at my mother’s place, and I have to return her car.”

  “Becky can handle that as well.”

  I looked from Tony to Liam, then back to Tony. “Is any of this optional?”

  Vehemently, Tony shook his head. “No wiggle room whatsoever. Until Carlos is in custody, this is how it has to be.”

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO look like I just killed your cat,” Liam said, humor in his tone as he started the engine.

  It took three turns to coax the engine to a coughing, sputtering, vibrating idle. The smell of hot motor oil spewed from the vents.

  “I don’t own a cat. Does this car have air-conditioning?” I asked, lifting my hair off my neck.

  “Absolutely,” he said, reaching in front of me to unlatch a clamp and then doing the same on his side of the windshield. Reluctantly, the top motored up and back.

  Now the hot midafternoon sun was beating down on me. “That isn’t air-conditioning.”

  “It is once we get moving,” he said, gripping the gearshift and reversing the car through its self-made cloud of blue smoke.

  I waved my hand in front of my nose as I gave the emerald green Mercedes one last, longing look.

  Once we were on the highway, my hair turned into about a dozen stinging whips as it lashed my face. It took both hands for me to pull it into a tight ponytail, and even then, the occasional stray poked me in the eye or ended up stuck to my lip gloss.

  Luckily, the town house was close by—just across from the Gardens Mall. Being within walking distance and not being able to indulge was like going to Egypt and skipping the Pyramids. Liam punched a code on the keypad and a metal entry gate swung open. He made two turns, then dug a garage opener out of his shirt pocket and pulled the Mustang inside.