She's Got the Look

by Leslie Kelly

  “Listen, it’s not a big deal. If you can tell me where the closest pay phone is,” Jonathan said after she’d hung up, “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “I really don’t mind….”

  “No, absolutely not. I’m not going to keep you from getting any important calls.” He tilted his head to the side. “Unless, do you by any chance have a phone upstairs I could use? In your apartment? That way I won’t tie up your business phone.”

  A hint of uneasiness crawled up her spine. She’d just met this man…going up to her apartment with him seemed a bit risky. Despite how professional, charming and friendly he’d seemed—and the fact that she’d once thought about having spontaneous sex with him if she ever had a chance—he was still a stranger. Ted Bundy had seemed charming and friendly, too. “Uh…”

  “Of course not,” he said, waving his hand as if he’d asked a stupid question. “You need to be down here working and you certainly don’t want to waste fifteen minutes upstairs babysitting someone who needs to use your phone.” He frowned, though the hopeful look hadn’t left his eyes. He was being polite, but he obviously still hoped she’d help him out.

  The thought of the company portfolio he wanted her to do, and the realization that she didn’t have to be up there with him—since he’d given her a plausible excuse—helped her decide. “You know what? I do have work to do. But you’re welcome to go upstairs and make your call.” Brushing past him, she walked into the reception room and opened a small wooden door. “These are the back stairs. They go right into my kitchen. The phone’s on the wall by the fridge. You can take as long as you need.”

  “You’re an absolute lifesaver,” he said, his green eyes nearly glowing with appreciation.

  Remember that when it comes time to pay for your portraits.

  “It’s no problem at all. Just come on back down when you’re finished with whatever you have to do.”

  NICK HAD PROMISED himself Friday morning that he was going to focus on all the other stuff going on in his life, instead of spending any more time thinking of the woman who’d whirled into it so recently. Melody had occupied nearly every thought in his head for the past several days, when he should have been thinking about a lot of other things. Like work.

  “You still going to follow up with the drugstore clerk to see if he’s come up with anything else on the tourist murder?” Dex asked as Nick paced back and forth in front of his desk.

  “Yeah.”

  “Going to talk to the store owner again?”

  He kept pacing. “Sure.”

  “Going to be able to concentrate on anything other than Melody for the rest of the day?”

  That made him pause. Slowly turning on his heel, he eyed his partner, who was leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. Dex’s small smile and the knowing look on his face said as much as his words had. Obviously Nick hadn’t done a very good job focusing on the here and now of his job instead of on the where and when of his love life.

  “I know how you’re feeling,” Dex said as he uncrossed his arms and sat up in his chair. “Rosemary had me tied up in knots from the minute we met.”

  “Seems to me she still does,” Nick mused, practically daring his friend to deny it.

  Dex didn’t even try. “Yeah.” Then he cracked a tiny smile. “But being tied up isn’t always a bad thing.”

  Not even wanting to know if his partner was speaking literally—because he absolutely didn’t want to know the details of anybody else’s sex life—he could only stare.

  Dex chuckled. “Kidding.” Rising from his desk, he picked up his sport coat and slid it on. “I’m taking a couple of hours off this afternoon. Rosemary’s not happy about something and I’m going to try to find out what it is.”

  Nick didn’t want to think about some of the things Rosemary could be unhappy about…like maybe she’d realized she was involved with a guy who would never in a million years let a rich woman take care of him. That he was never going to be the tuxedoed gentleman who could escort her to all the historical society balls and charity events.

  Dex was a plainspoken, down-to-earth cop, and he always would be. He hoped Rosemary found a way to deal with that reality. Or else that she ended it now, before either of them got any more hurt.

  “Anyway, why don’t you take some time off today, too? Go scratch your itch so we can get some work done around here?”

  Nick stiffened, not liking the tone in Dex’s voice. Melody was no itch. She wasn’t just a piece of ass he could have and forget about, any more than he wanted to be that for her. If that were the case, the two of them could have done something about her sex list and spent the past several days in bed together.

  No, he couldn’t say he was ready for anything long-term or serious at this point in his life, but a short-term or one-night fling wasn’t going to cut it with that particular woman.

  Judging by the speculative gleam in Dex’s eyes, his friend knew it, too. Before Nick even had a chance to lay into him, he lifted his hand and held it, palm out. “Forget it, I just wanted to see how you’d react. Obviously Rosemary was right and there’s a lot more going on between you and Melody than some list.”

  “Don’t remind me of that damn list,” Nick muttered.

  “Hey, look who you’re talking to. At least your girlfriend only has three names left on hers.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, with two of Melody’s guys having croaked, you’re a lot better off than I am. Rosemary’s still got five, which she loves to throw in my face whenever we fight.”

  Nick knew Dex’s girlfriend only had four names remaining on her list, since she’d already checked one off. But he wasn’t about to tell his friend that. Then his partner’s words sank in. “What do you mean two of them croaked?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Dex said as he walked around his desk, straightening it up. Dex had the neatest desk in the squad. “Rosemary told me that’s what the clandestine breakfast meeting was about last week. The men on Melody Tanner’s sex list are dropping dead.” He shrugged. “Guess it worked—Rosemary’s B.S. murder story got you over there, and got Melody there, too.”

  Then, saying goodbye to everyone on the floor, Dex left, leaving Nick standing alone, thinking over his friend’s words.

  Melody never had come clean about how Rosemary had tricked her into meeting him. Now he understood why. Her sex list had turned into a death list? He almost laughed at how ridiculous it was, figuring Rosemary must be even better at manipulating people than he’d thought, if she got her best friend to buy that one.

  Then he remembered something: the names of the other men who’d supposedly been killed. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He’d been in the top five with an old four-hundred-pound chef who’d choked on a meatball?

  Either the woman had had some very diverse tastes, or she’d wanted the guy for his famous chocolate cake. Hoping it was the latter, Nick decided to find out. After all, there had been a couple of deaths. And there was a connection…Melody Tanner. So it was his duty as a cop to check into it, right?

  He kept telling himself that as he cruised the few blocks from the station to her address, practically on autopilot since he’d been coming here every night this week. She hadn’t even realized he’d been stopping by to be sure her bastard ex didn’t decide to show up in person to harass her. He usually didn’t stay long, only long enough to be sure everything looked secure. He’d also had a friend on night patrol swing by on occasion. As far as he knew, she hadn’t even noticed, which was exactly how he wanted it.

  As he parked outside her building, Nick’s attention was caught by movement at an upstairs window, on the second floor. He had a hard time looking at that window without picturing Melody standing in it, wearing her nightgown.

  Entering the main door, he prepared to go up the wooden steps to the second floor when he heard her talking. Downstairs. Turning toward the sound, he pushed through a door with a small sign for he
r studio and found her at a reception desk, using the phone. “Yes, I do have an opening for that time, Mrs. Vanderbrenton. I’d love to meet the triplets.”

  Triplets? Three crying kids to photograph? Yow.

  He must have made a noise or something, because suddenly she looked up and saw him standing there. She went silent midsentence, and a pretty pink flush filled her cheeks.

  He winked. She blinked. Then whoever she was talking to must’ve started gabbing, because with a hard shake of her head, Melody returned her attention to her caller.

  Nick took the opportunity to mosey around, checking things out. Strolling through an open interior doorway, he found himself in another room, where she apparently took the photos. It was huge, with lots of lighting from the windows lining the front wall. Big black drapes were coiled beside them so she could apparently darken the place up whenever she needed to.

  Nick had no knowledge of cameras or photography stuff. As far as he could recollect, the only times he’d sat for a picture in the past ten years had been for his military ID, and his police one. But even he realized there was a good chunk of money invested in the equipment taking up every bit of spare space in the room. Cameras, lights, lenses and tripods dominated the left side. And on the right, she had an office area, with an elaborate computer setup and a printer that looked bigger than the copying machine at the precinct. So she was apparently very serious about this photography thing.

  Well, if anyone had experience with camerawork, he supposed it’d be a former model.

  Glancing through the doorway toward the front desk, he heard her saying something to her caller about the toddlers. Toddler triplets? He shuddered.

  Involved in her conversation, she appeared to have forgotten he was there, so he took the opportunity to watch her. The woman was incredibly graceful. Even with a pencil stuck behind her ear and her hair flopping over her face as she bent over an open appointment book, she held herself with style. Again, probably that modeling background.

  He wanted to talk to her about that—wondering what it must have been like growing up on camera. He’d considered checking her out on the Internet over the weekend, just to see if he recognized any of her commercials or photos—besides the peacock feather one. He didn’t think he was a strong-enough man to seek out that particular shot. But scoping her out had seemed too intrusive. Stalkerish. So he figured he’d wait and let her satisfy his curiosity whenever she got rid of the idea that it was too risky to see him anymore.

  Which, it appeared, was going to be right about now. Because she’d finished her call and was hanging up the phone.

  He held up her coffee mug, which he’d washed after going home Tuesday morning.

  “You came here to return my cup?” she asked with a skeptical look.

  “Well, yeah. But this isn’t entirely a social visit.”

  She walked around from behind the counter and joined him in the studio, carefully balancing a camera lens he’d been looking at a minute ago. “Oh? Do you need your portrait done?”

  His jaw dropped. “Me? No picture taking for me, thanks.”

  Frowning, she grabbed his chin and turned his face from side to side. “Why not? You’ve got great bone structure.”

  Yeah, he had great structures elsewhere on his body, too, which he’d be much more interested in having her handle, but he wasn’t going to go there. Yet.

  “I think you’d be a really good subject.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about photography, either,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable at the way she was sizing him up. Hell, a lot of women looked at him, but Melody wasn’t giving him a sexual once-over. She was almost evaluating him…like a horse she was thinking about riding.

  He’d rather she looked at him as a man she was thinking about riding.

  He needed a shower. A cold one.

  “Why did you come here, then?” she asked, still sounding cool and relaxed. But when she turned away and walked over to fiddle around with some screens hanging from the ceiling—apparently backdrops—he noticed her hand shake.

  So she wasn’t entirely calm and relaxed. Whew.

  Nick was about to ask her about the two dead men on her list when she pulled at the front screen, a plain brown one, and allowed it to roll up to the ceiling. When he saw what was behind it, he muttered a curse.

  “What?” she asked, glancing over in curiosity.

  “Who in God’s name would want their picture done with that?” he asked, staring at the backdrop. The Bird Girl statue.

  “Believe it or not, several people have asked if I had this, including the woman I was just talking to.”

  Shaking his head in disgust, he muttered, “The mama of triplets wants to pose her babies in front of a picture that was on the cover of a murder book?”

  Melody shrugged. “I think Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was as much a Savannah book as it was a murder one.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “But it’s overdone.”

  She nodded. “Agreed. However, if somebody wants to pay me to take a picture in front of it, I’d be happy to take them out to Bonaventure Cemetery and do it in front of the real thing.”

  “They moved it,” he said. “Too many whackos. It’s at the Telfair Museum now.”

  Sounding curious, she asked, “Did you work on that case?”

  “Before my time. But some of the guys in the precinct did.”

  Tugging on the offending screen, she let it roll up as well, revealing a plain white screen behind it. Then, without looking over her shoulder, she said, “So if we’re done with the small talk, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”

  Hiding a smile, he admitted, “It’s about your list.”

  Melody whirled around and pointed her index finger at him. “Don’t mention that again unless you want to get thrown out.”

  With a helpless shrug, he said, “Official business, ma’am. I think I need to hear a little more about your obsession with Charles Pulowski of Chez Jacques.”

  Her eyes closed briefly and she moaned. “Rosemary…”

  “Dex.”

  “Yes, but who told Dex?”

  “Rosemary.”

  “Exactly.” Swiping a frustrated hand through her hair, Melody said, “It was his chocolate volcano cake.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “I told you I’d never even met the man.”

  “I remember,” Nick admitted, strolling over to her desk. Leaning against it, he added, “But I’ve been worried, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, the company I’m keeping on that list doesn’t exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence in your taste in men.”

  She smirked. “You’re off the list, remember?”

  “You just keep telling yourself that.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I mean, first that cheating TV anchor, then the sleazy ex-congressman. And now a seventy-year-old chef who wouldn’t even have fit through your door?”

  “Cheating?” she asked, ignoring the rest of his comment.

  “That Manning guy,” he said. “There was a domestic call to his house a year ago.”

  Her eyes widened. “Was he abusing his wife?”

  Shaking his head and grimacing, he explained, “Uh-uh. She’d apparently caught him with his pants unzipped one too many times and put something mighty unpleasant in a trophy cup he’d gotten for winning some boat race. She then tried to brain him with it, without even, uh, cleaning it out first.”

  She grimaced.

  “He keeled over. I wasn’t kidding about the heart attack,” Nick added. “I’d bet for a couple of days there, when he was in the hospital, his wife was hoping he would widow her and save her the trouble of divorcing him.”

  Frowning, she muttered, “But this is Savannah, so when she did divorce him, I bet she still got the house.”

  Before he could ask her what she meant, he heard a noise from the reception area. Melody obviously heard it, too, because her eyes widened and her mouth dropped
open.

  “Somebody else here?”

  She nodded, her face getting pale for some reason. When he looked through the open doorway, he understood why.

  “I’m done, and I can’t thank you enough, Melody.” Jonathan Rhodes walked through the reception area but stopped in the doorway to the studio. Continuing in his staccato-fast lawyer voice, he added, “You’ve been a godsend, but I really have to go now, so I’ll be in touch soon, okay? Very soon.” The man’s face was red, as if he’d just exerted himself, and his hands were jammed in the pockets of his suit coat. He looked disheveled for this time of day on a weekday.

  Nick swallowed. Hard.

  “Uh, okay,” Melody finally mumbled. Before she could say anything else, the man was gone.

  As for Nick, well, he couldn’t speak at all. Because the air seemed to have gotten very thick since he’d last inhaled.

  “He, uh, was upstairs,” she said.

  Nick stiffened, even his jaw got tight.

  “He needed to use the phone.”

  He cast a quick glance toward her reception counter, where a phone stood all functional and everything.

  Melody followed the look. “He was using the phone in my apartment because he didn’t want to tie up my business line.”

  “Right. What did the pervert want to tie up?”

  Her gasp was audible. “Look, I know what you’re thinking.”

  He doubted it. Because all he’d been thinking since the minute Jonathan Rhodes had appeared in the doorway was that Nick should have taken Melody to bed Saturday night and not let her up again. Then she wouldn’t have had time to even consider hooking up with any other man on her list. Nor would she want to.

  “But it was just business,” she was saying. “He wants me to do some portraits for him and his associates in his law firm.”

  “Associates?” he asked, not even trying to keep the skepticism from his voice. “The slimeball operates all alone doing his dirty work getting scumbags off on technicalities. And he apparently spends every dime he has on women. I hear he’s got money troubles.”