Scandal in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano

  The case file on Glory Duquesne’s death, complete with photographs. Aiming for relaxed, Robbie slid the envelope off the table and onto his lap. “Thanks.” He gestured toward the chair Ellie had just vacated, but Tommy shook his head. “Anamaria Duquesne, Detective Tommy Maricci.”

  One corner of her mouth quirked at his emphasis on Tommy’s title. “Detective Maricci,” she said with a regal nod.

  He cocked his head to one side, studying her a moment before saying, “You look familiar. Have I arrested you before?”

  Chapter 3

  Anamaria couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled free. “Not yet. But there’s still time.” Mimicking Robbie, she waved one hand lazily at the empty chair. “Please join us, Detective.”

  This time he did so, swinging the chair around to straddle it. “You can call me Tommy.”

  He was about Robbie’s age, an inch or two shorter and probably twenty pounds heavier, all muscle. Black hair, dark eyes, olive-skinned, with a stubble of beard on his jaw that gave him a slightly disreputable look. He didn’t need the badge or the pistol on his belt for his air of authority; he came by it naturally.

  The sorrow hovering around him, though, wasn’t natural. A new hurt having to do with Ellie Chase, an old one connected to his mother. Anamaria couldn’t tell if Mrs. Maricci was dead; she wasn’t sure Tommy knew himself. But wherever she was, in this life or the next, she wasn’t here and hadn’t been for a very long time.

  “So you’re in the psychic business,” Tommy said.

  “And let me guess—you’re in the skeptic business.”

  “Nah. He’s skeptical enough for both of us.” He jerked his head toward Robbie. “Besides, my great-grandma Rosa was from the old country, and she was a big believer in the evil eye and spirits and all that. Are you setting up business here in town?”

  “My visit here is nothing more than that. A visit. A break from Savannah.”

  “And yet the first thing you do is call Lydia.”

  Who’d told her husband, who’d told his lawyer, who’d told the local cop. “If you don’t believe me, Detective, feel free to keep an eye on me.”

  He glanced at Robbie. “It might get kind of crowded.”

  So Robbie had already made clear his intention of doing just that. She didn’t mind. She’d been viewed with suspicion and distrust before, and would be again. She shifted her gaze to Robbie. “And here I thought it was just coincidence running into you outside River’s Edge this morning,” she said sweetly.

  “No, you didn’t,” Robbie replied bluntly. “You knew when I left your house yesterday that you’d be seeing me again.”

  That she would see him, and have no regrets about him when she left. Whether that meant sleeping with him—or not—she didn’t yet know.

  Whether it meant trusting him—or not—was still a question, as well.

  She picked up her purse and reached for the ticket the waitress had brought with their food. Robbie slid it out from under her fingers and switched it to his other hand. She smiled faintly. She could insist on paying for her share of the meal, but there would be other, more important things to argue about than a salad and half a sandwich.

  “Thank you.” She stood, and her denim skirt fell into place, the cotton of her shirt shifted, and two appreciative male gazes watched. She offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Detective.”

  His hand was warm, his grip strong but restrained. “Let’s do it again without him.”

  She thought of Ellie Chase, doing one of the thousand daily jobs vital to the running of the restaurant, and the way he’d looked at her when she’d walked away from him. He would be a safe choice for a spring affair—handsome, sexy, totally in love with another woman. Her heart might break for him, because she suspected if she got to know him, she would like him very much, but it wouldn’t be broken by him.

  Still holding his hand, she bent close, her mouth almost brushing his ear. “As if you aren’t already taken,” she murmured. “But if you need a friendly ear or a soothing tonic, you know where to find me.”

  When she straightened, Robbie’s gaze was narrowed, not quite forming a scowl but definitely hinting of something territorial, something…primal. As safe as Tommy was, Robbie was twice that dangerous.

  He followed her to the cash register near the front door, paid the tab, then they walked outside. He held the envelope under one arm while putting on a pair of dark glasses. She had sunglasses in her purse, big ones that Mama Odette called her movie-star glasses, but she didn’t bother with them. Perhaps it was the Cuban in her, or the Haitian or the African, but she loved the sun, bright and hot. Loved the air heavy with moisture and the lazy, languid way it made her feel.

  “Do the contents of that envelope concern me?” she asked when they’d walked half a block in silence.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, gee, I don’t know. Your client asks you on Tuesday to look into my background, and on Wednesday your detective friend shows up with an unmarked envelope of ‘papers’ you talked about. Call it…”

  “A premonition?” he supplied drily.

  “Intuition.”

  He didn’t respond but followed when she turned in midblock and jaywalked to the square. The paths there were shaded by giant oaks and were sweetly scented by the plantings along the edges. She was wondering what he would do if she simply slipped the envelope away from him. Would he take it back or let her look inside? Could there be anything inside worth seeing? Her financial history? Her arrest report? The legendary permanent record that had followed her from kindergarten to twelfth grade?

  She knew all those details of her life. Seeing them in official report format didn’t interest her.

  “Tommy’s not available,” Robbie said abruptly.

  “I saw that.”

  “You mean—”

  “Even a blind man could see the emotion coming off the two of them. What’s the problem?”

  He shrugged, obviously unwilling to share. “What did you say to him?”

  She shrugged, too, equally unwilling to share.

  In only a moment, they were approaching her car. She would have walked longer with him. If he offered a tour of downtown, or even the whole town, she would accept. It was a beautiful day, the air fresh with promise, and there was something about walking with him—being with him—that filled her with promise.

  But he wasn’t making any offers.

  She unlocked her car, then opened the door to disperse the heat collected inside. “Thank you for lunch.”

  “You’re welcome.” He held out his hand, and for a time she simply stared at it.

  His voice was taut when he spoke. “You shook hands with Ellie and Tommy. You can damn well shake hands with me.”

  She continued to stare. His fingers were long and lean, hinting at power. The nails were short, the skin tanned, with a few old scars and a callus here and there. They were hands that could arouse and soothe and protect, that could hurt but wouldn’t. Hands that could shake her world so thoroughly that nothing would ever be the same again. She would never be the same again.

  Her own hands stayed at her sides. “Touching can be a very casual thing,” she said softly. “It can also be very powerful. Very hurtful. Very healing.” She paused, moistened her lips, debated the wisdom of her next words and said them anyway. “Come home with me. I’ll touch you there. Not here.”

  For an instant, time stopped. Then anger turned to passion, heat suffused his face, and for an instant his hand trembled, brought to a stop immediately when he clenched his fingers into a fist. He took a step back, opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything.

  What was he thinking? That his demand for a handshake was certainly no invitation to seduction? That she was too bold for his tastes? That she was arrogant to think he wanted her in bed?

  Or that Calloway men didn’t sleep with women of questionable reputation?

  For generations, Duquesne women had been lovers of such men, had
carried on their affairs in secret and birthed their daughters with no help, no money or even acknowledgment from them. Mama Odette speculated that Anamaria’s own father was just such a man.

  Anamaria had never thought she would be drawn to a man who found her unsuitable because of the color of her skin or the life she’d been born into—because of who she was—but here she stood.

  Robbie took another step back, then dragged his fingers through his hair. “Jeez. I haven’t been speechless since I found out that my brother the cop was marrying a stripper.” And here he was, the successful lawyer, fielding a brazen seduction offer from a con artist.

  She could tell him the offer stood. She could let him believe her only intent had been to shock. She could tell him it was inevitable, if they kept seeing each other, if nothing cooled this ardor between them.

  Her smile formed slowly, growing until it was full and sly, looking as real as she knew it wasn’t. “In a lawyer, ‘speechless’ is a good thing,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. She pulled on her sunglasses, then slid behind the steering wheel, gazing up at the dark-tinted view of him. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  He was still standing in the street when she drove away. She wasn’t sure as she watched him in the rearview mirror whether she’d saved herself from a huge mistake.

  Or made one.

  Robbie wasn’t sure how long he stood there—long enough for his brother to come along, thumping him on the back of the head as he came up from behind.

  “I know Mom taught you not to play in the street despite Rick’s and my best efforts to convince you otherwise,” Russ said, not breaking stride until he reached the sidewalk.

  His scalp stinging, Robbie took the few steps necessary to bring Russ into punching range, then shoved him on the shoulder. “I’m not ten years old anymore. Quit hitting me.”

  “I’ve been hitting you since you were old enough to understand the threat implied in ‘Don’t tell Mom.’ Why would I stop now?”

  “Jeez, I don’t know. Because I’m thirty-two freakin’ years old, maybe?” Robbie asked snidely. “Where are you going?”

  “To see my wife.” Russ gestured to Jamie’s office, down the block twenty feet and across the corner.

  “I’ll walk with you. My car’s in her parking lot.”

  “What were you doing in the street?”

  Wondering what the hell was wrong with him. Why he hadn’t gotten in his car—hell, gotten in Anamaria’s car—and gone home with her. It wasn’t the first time a woman had come on to him, but it was the first time he hadn’t jumped at the chance. Anamaria was gorgeous. She was hot. The way she looked, the way she moved, the way she smiled…He choked back a groan.

  He must have made some sound, though, because Russ frowned at him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Just nuts.

  “You working today?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.” Technically he was—Harrison Kennedy had asked him to keep watch on Anamaria. He could take her up on her offer, have incredible sex and get paid for his fun. Normally, the possibility would amuse him, but he was having trouble thinking clearly today. Lack of blood flow to the brain, he figured.

  On the sidewalk outside Jamie’s office, Russ stopped. She was standing behind her desk, flipping through a stack of papers. He tapped on the glass, and she gave him the kind of smile that could cut a man off at the knees.

  No woman had ever smiled at Robbie that way, as if he’d brightened her world merely by being part of it. There had been a few who’d gotten close, but he’d ended things with them before it could develop any further, because he’d never come close to feeling that way about them. He expected that someday he would. It had happened to Mitch. To Rick. To Russ. Odds were, it would happen to him.

  And, no, damn it, he was not going to think about black hair, liquid-chocolate eyes or powerful touches.

  Jamie held up two fingers, and Russ nodded, then leaned against the brick building. “Two minutes, my ass. The more pregnant she gets, the slower she gets. By the time this kid pops, her mama’s going to be slow as a snail.” He didn’t look annoyed, though. He was so excited about the baby that no one could stand him besides Mitch, who had one daughter and another on the way. “We’re having lunch at Ellie’s. Want to go?”

  “I’ve already eaten.” With all the restaurants in town, of course they were going to the deli today. Ellie would give them about five minutes to order, and then she would tell them about him being in there with Anamaria, along with a description that would detail everything down to the color of polish on her toes. Then Russ would know at least part of the reason he’d been standing in the street like a dumbstruck moron.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he claimed another portion of brick. It retained the heat of the morning sun that had moved overhead. “Do you remember a family who used to live here named Duquesne? Mother and daughter?”

  Russ rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Anamaria Duquesne? I met her today.”

  That was right. She’d been surprised that Robbie’s brother would be nice. “You don’t remember her from twenty-three years ago?”

  Russ snorted. “Jeez, I was eleven. If I couldn’t hook it on a line, shoot it, tackle it or beat it up, I wasn’t interested. How do you know her?”

  Robbie shrugged.

  The casual effort didn’t fool Russ or stop his grin. “There was a time when the sight of her could have left me standing in the street, too, with my tongue hanging out.”

  “It’s just a case,” Robbie said sullenly, irritated by how accurate his brother’s description was. Okay, so his tongue hadn’t been hanging out literally. Figuratively, it had, and damned if Anamaria hadn’t known it. That big wicked smile before she’d covered her eyes with those ridiculous glasses…

  “Oh, man, are you gonna get in an ethical dilemma here?”

  “I don’t have ethics.”

  Russ snorted again. “You’re not half as superficial as you want people to think.”

  His brother was giving him credit for being a better person than he really was. Among their branch of the family, Robbie was the superficial one, the shallow one, the irresponsible one. He was the one who’d taken most advantage of the family name, the one who’d really believed that Calloways were better, privileged, entitled. While he’d dated a lot of women, the only ones he’d taken seriously were just like him, with family money, influence and social standing.

  He’d never gone out with a black woman. Never been involved with a woman whose occupation was less than respectable. Never dated a woman he wouldn’t want to introduce to his family and friends.

  But Anamaria hadn’t asked him for a date.

  She’d offered him sex.

  And he hadn’t taken her up on it. Didn’t know if he could say yes. Didn’t know if he could say no.

  “Is she a client or an adversary?” Russ asked.

  “You’re a lawyer, too. Don’t ask me questions.”

  “I have a law degree,” Russ corrected him. “I’ve handled only one case, and you know how that turned out.”

  He’d handled his own divorce. Bad idea, Robbie had tried to tell him, but Russ hadn’t been in the mood to listen to his irresponsible kid brother. It had taken losing half of everything he owned and three long years for him to forgive Jamie for representing his ex-wife. And look at them now.

  Not wanting to look at them now, as Jamie came out of the building, Robbie dug his keys from his pocket. “Hey, Jamie.”

  He bent and she pressed a kiss to his cheek before sliding her arm through Russ’s. “Want to have lunch with us?”

  “No, thanks. Have a good time.”

  He picked up the Vette, drove home and stretched out on the couch before opening the envelope. Glory Duquesne’s life might have been full, but the folder regarding her death was pretty thin. Reports from the officer who’d been assigned the call and the detective who’d investigated, a witness statement from the fisherman who’d found the body and the autopsy report�
�a significant event summed up in a handful of pages. If not for the photographs, the file would have been depressingly flimsy.

  He hadn’t seen many dead people who hadn’t already been prepared for viewing, so he wasn’t sure what to expect from the photos. They were clear, color, glossy shots, exactly what Harrison had described: a woman lying at the foot of the riverbank, snagged on branches. There was a gash on her forehead, but the night’s steady rain had washed away the blood. She looked as if she might have been sleeping, except for her position—half in mud, half in water.

  But she wasn’t sleeping. She was dead. And twelve hours before, her belly had been swollen, heavy with a baby, a living, breathing child who’d needed only to be born to live on her own. To be born anyplace besides half in the river to a dying mother.

  The last photograph wasn’t from the scene. It was Glory alive and laughing outside the AME Zion church. He was vaguely familiar with it—knew the land it sat on had once been Calloway land, that most of its members had worked for one Calloway or another at some time in their lives. It was a neat white building, the grass around it trimmed and green. Other people stood in the background, but the camera’s focus was on Glory and Anamaria.

  The mother wore a pink dress—hot pink and fitted, not quite what he’d expect of a psychic/fraud but exactly what he’d expect of a woman who liked the attention of men. A straw hat shading her face from the noonday sun, she smiled brightly as she held her daughter’s hand.

  Anamaria’s dress was pink, too, but the color was paler, more delicate. Her straw hat was white, with pink ribbons that streamed down and tangled in her hair. She was grinning, her cheeks chubby, her eyes sparkling, and she was missing a front tooth. In her free hand, she clutched a small Bible, the edges of a crayon drawing sticking out.

  One pretty woman, one destined to steal a man’s breath. One dead, the other very much alive.

  He turned back to the notes and began reading. The first contact with the police had come not from the fisherman but from the elderly neighbor babysitting Anamaria that evening. Glory had promised she’d be home by eight; there’d been no sign of her by eight-thirty, and her hysterical daughter insisted that something was wrong, that her mama was in the water. The babysitter was a believer, the dispatcher was not.