Hot Rocks

by Nora Roberts

  she’d pulled on when the deputy had come by the house to wake her. “Should I change?”

  “No.” Now he laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbing until she lifted her head and met his eyes. “You should stay just the way you are.”

  “What do you think you’re falling for, Max? The small-town shopkeeper, the reformed grifter, the damsel in distress? Which one of those trips up a guy like you?”

  “I think it’s the sharp redhead who knows how to handle herself, and gives in to the occasional impulse.” He lowered his head to press his lips to her forehead. He felt her breath hitch, a sob that threatened and was controlled. “There are a lot of sides to her. She loves her dog, worries about her friends, she’s a little anal on the organization front, and I’ve heard she cooks. She’s practical, efficient and tough-minded—and she’s amazing in bed.”

  “Those are a lot of opinions on short acquaintance.”

  “I’m a quick study. My mama always said, ‘Max, when you meet the woman, you’ll go down like you’ve been poleaxed.’ ”

  A smile twitched at her lips. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Hell if I know, but Marlene’s never wrong. I met the woman.”

  He drew her in, and she let herself take the warmth and comfort of him, the sturdiness of being held against a strong man. Then she made herself pull away.

  She didn’t know if love meant leaning on someone else, but in her experience, that sort of indulgence often sent the leaner and the leanee down to the mat.

  “I can’t think about it. I can’t think about it, or what I feel about it. I just need to take the next step and see where I land.”

  “That’s okay.”

  She heard Henry’s crazed barking, and a moment later the sound of tires crushing gravel. There was a quick dip in her belly, but she kept her shoulders straight. “They’re here.” She shook her head before Max could speak. “No, I have to gear up. I have to handle this.”

  She walked to the door, opened it and watched Jenny play with Henry.

  Jenny looked over. “Must be true love,” she called out, then started toward the house. “Getting me out of bed and over here before eight in the morning must be a sign of true friendship.”

  “I’m sorry it’s so early.”

  “Just tell me you have food.”

  “I . . . I have a coffee cake, but—”

  “Sounds great. What are you having?” She gave her big, barking laugh, then shut it down when she saw Max. “I don’t know what I think about you being here. If you’re some big-city detective, why didn’t you say so?”

  “Jenny.” Laine laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “It’s complicated. Why don’t you and Vince go in the living room and sit down?”

  “Why don’t we just sit in the kitchen? It’s closer to the food.” And rubbing circles on her belly, Jenny started back.

  “Okay then.” Laine took a deep breath, closed the door behind Vince. “Okay.”

  She followed them back. “This might be a little confusing,” she began, talking as she set out the pot of herbal tea she’d made for Jenny. “I want to apologize first off. Just say I’m sorry, right off the bat.”

  She poured coffee, cut slices of cake. “I haven’t been honest with you, with anyone.”

  “Sweetie.” Jenny stepped over to where Laine stood meticulously arranging the cake on a garnet glass dessert plate. “Are you in trouble?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Then we’ll fix it. Right, Vince?”

  Vince was watching Laine. “Why don’t you sit down, Jen. Let her say what she needs to.”

  “We’ll fix it,” Jenny said again, but she sat, bored through Max with a steely stare. “Is this your fault?”

  “It’s not,” Laine said quickly. “It’s really not. My name’s not Laine Tavish. It is . . . I changed it, legally, and I’ve used it since I was eighteen, but it’s not the name I was born with. That’s Elaine O’Hara. My father’s name is Jack O’Hara, and if Vince was to do a background check on him, he’d find my father has a long and varied sheet. It’s mostly theft, and cons. Scams.”

  Jenny’s eyes went round and wide. “He doesn’t run a barbecue place in New Mexico?”

  “Rob Tavish, my stepfather, does. My father got popped—” Laine cut herself off, sighed. How quickly it comes back. “Jack was arrested and sent to prison for a real-estate scam when I was eleven. It wasn’t the first time he’d been caught, but this time my mother had had enough. She was, I realized later, worried for me. I just worshiped my father, and I was doing considerably well, considering my age, at following in his footsteps.”

  “You ran con games?”

  There was as much fascination as shock in Jenny’s tone, and it made Laine smile a little. “Mostly I was just the beard, but yes, I did. Picking pockets was turning into my specialty. I had good hands, and people don’t look at a little girl when they realize their wallet’s been lifted.”

  “Holy cow,” was all Jenny could say.

  “I liked it. It was exciting, and it was easy. My father . . . well, he made it such a game. It never occurred to me that when I took some man’s wallet, he might not be able to pay the rent that month. Or when we bilked some couple out of a few thousand in a bogus real-estate deal, that might’ve been their life savings, or a college fund. It was fun, and they were marks.”

  “And you were ten,” Max added. “Give the kid a break.”

  “You could say that’s what happened. I got a break. The direction I was heading in convinced my mother to change her life, and mine. She divorced my father and moved away, changed her name, got a straight job waiting tables. We moved around a lot the first few years. Not to shake my father loose—she wouldn’t have done that to him. She let him know where we were, as long as he kept his word and didn’t try to pull me back into the game. He kept his word. I don’t know which of the three of us was more surprised by that, but he kept his word. We moved around to keep the cops from rousting us every time . . .”

  She trailed off, managed a sickly smile in Vince’s direction. “Sorry, but when you’ve got a rep for scams and theft, even by association, the locals tend to look you over. She wanted a fresh start, that’s all. And a clean slate for me. It wasn’t easy for her. She loved Jack, too. And I didn’t help. I liked the game and didn’t appreciate having it called, or being separated from my father.”

  She topped off cups of coffee, though she’d yet to touch her own. “But she worked so hard, and I started to see something in her, the pride and the satisfaction she got from earning her way. The straight way. And after a while, we weren’t moving every time we turned around anymore. We weren’t packing up in the middle of the night and slipping out of apartments or hotel rooms. And she kept her promises. Big Jack was long on the promises but came up short on keeping them. When my mother said she was going to do something, she did it.”

  No one spoke when she went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water with lemon slices. She poured a glass, drank to wet her dry throat.

  “Anyway, things changed. She met Rob Tavish, and things changed again, for the better. He’s a wonderful man, crazy about her, and he was good to me. Sweet and kind and fun. I took his name. I made myself Laine Tavish because Laine Tavish was normal and responsible. She could have a place of her own, and a business of her own, and a life of her own. Maybe it wouldn’t have all those wild ups she’d ridden on during the first part of her life, but it wouldn’t have all those scary downs either. That seemed just fine. So anytime you asked me about my background, or growing up, I fabricated whatever seemed to fit Laine Tavish. I’m sorry. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “Okay, wow.” Jenny goggled at Laine. “I’m going to have a lot of follow-up comments and questions after my head stops spinning, but the first thing I have to ask is how all this—and there’s a lot of this—applies to you being in trouble.”

  “There’s probably a quote somewhere about not
being able to escape the past, or cover it over. William Young.” She saw Vince nod slowly and knew he was putting some of it together.

  “The man who was killed when he ran out into the street,” Jenny prompted.

  “Yes. He used to run with my father. They were close as brothers, and hell, he lived with us half the time. I called him Uncle Willy. I didn’t recognize him when he came in. I swear that, Vince. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, and it just didn’t click. It wasn’t until after the accident and he . . . God, he was dying.”

  She drank more water, but this time her hand trembled lightly. “He looked so sad when I didn’t recognize him, when I basically brushed him off. Then he was lying there, bleeding. Dying. He sang part of this stupid song he and my father used to do as a duet. ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’ Something they’d start singing when we were loading up to skip out of a hotel. I realized who he was, and it was too late. I didn’t tell you, and that’s probably some sort of offense, but I didn’t tell you I knew him.”

  “Why did he come to see you?”

  “He didn’t get much of a chance to tell me. I didn’t give him much of a chance,” she corrected.

  “It’s a waste of time to beat yourself up over that.” Max said it briskly, and had her swallowing tears.

  “Maybe. Looking back, I know he was nervous, edgy, tired. He gave me his card—just as I told you—with a phone number written on it. I really thought he was in the market to sell something. After, I realized he wanted to talk to me about something.”

  She stared into her empty glass, set it aside. “I think my father must’ve sent him. One of Willy’s best skills was blending. He was a small, nondescript sort of man. Jack’s big and redheaded and stands out, so I think Jack sent him to tell me something or give me something. But he didn’t have a chance to do either. He only said . . . he said, ‘He knows where you are now,’ and for me to hide the pouch. I think he said ‘pouch,’ it’s the only thing that makes sense. Except it sounded like ‘pooch,’ but that’s just silly.”

  “What?” Max snapped the word like a whip. “You’re just getting around to telling me?”

  In contrast, Laine’s voice was mild as milk. “That’s right, and I really don’t believe you’re in any position to criticize timing. Insurance, my ass.”

  “It is insurance, goddamnit. Where’s the pouch? What did you do with it?”

  Heat flamed into her cheeks, not from embarrassment but temper. “He didn’t give me a pouch, or anything else. I don’t have your stupid diamonds. He was delirious, he was dying.” Despite all her determination, her eyes filled and her voice broke. “He was dying right in front of me, and it was too late.”

  “Leave her alone.” A mama bear protecting her cub, Jenny rounded on Max before she shifted to wrap her arms around Laine. “You just leave her alone.”

  While Vince patted Laine’s shoulder in a show of support, his gaze was keen on Max’s face. “What diamonds?”

  “The twenty-eight point four million in diamonds stolen from the International Jewelry Exchange in New York six weeks ago. The diamonds my client, Reliance, insured and would very much like to recover. The diamonds my investigation has led me to believe were stolen by Jack O’Hara, William Young and a third party I believe is one Alex Crew.”

  “Holy shit,” Jenny whispered.

  “I don’t know anything about them,” Laine said wearily. “I don’t have them, I’ve never seen them, I don’t know where they are. I’ll take a polygraph.”

  “But somebody thinks you have them, or access to them.”

  Grateful for the support, Laine rested her head on Jenny’s shoulder and nodded at Vince. “Apparently. You can search the house, Vince. You and Max. You can search the shop. I’ll authorize you full access to my phone records, bank records, anything you want. I’m only asking you to keep it quiet so I can just live my life.”

  “Do you know where your father is?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “What do you know about this Alex Crew?”

  “I’ve never heard of him. I’m still having a hard time believing Jack O’Hara was part of anything with this scope. He was loose change compared to this.”

  “If you had to get ahold of your father, what would you do?”

  “It’s never come up.” Because they stung and burned, she rubbed her eyes. “I honestly don’t know. He’s contacted me a few times over the years. Right after I graduated from college, I got a FedEx letter. Inside was a first-class ticket to Barbados, and vouchers for a week’s stay at a suite in a luxury hotel. I knew it was from him, and almost didn’t go. But hey, Barbados. He met me there. We had a great time. It’s impossible not to have a great time with Jack. He was proud of me—the whole college-graduate thing. He never held any hard feelings toward my mother or me for stepping out of his life. He popped up a couple more times. The last was before I moved here, when I was living in Philadelphia.”

  “The New York business isn’t mine,” Vince said. “But your break-ins are—and William Young is.”

  “He’d never hurt Willy, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not over ten times as much money. And he’d never come into my home and tear it up this way. He wouldn’t do that to me. To anyone, for that matter. He loves me, in his way, he loves me. And it’s just not his style.”

  “What do you know about this Crew?” Vince asked Max.

  “Enough to say Jack and Willy fell in with bad companions. The inside man on the New York job was a gem merchant. He was shot, execution style. His body was found in his burned-out car in New Jersey.”

  His gaze flicked to Laine. “We can link O’Hara to Myers, the gem merchant. But neither O’Hara’s nor Young’s history runs to violent crimes, or any sort of armed offense. Can’t say the same for Crew—though he’s never been convicted of murder, he’s suspected of a few. He’s smooth, and smart. Smart enough to know these stones are hot, hot enough to wait until they’ve cooled off some before trying to liquidate them or transport them out of the country. It could be somebody got greedy or impatient.”

  “If this is Alex Crew, and he’s trying to get to the stones or my father through me, he’s doomed to disappointment.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying,” Max pointed out. “If so, he’s been in the area, and may still be in the area. He copped my wallet, so he knows who I am and why I’m here.” Absently, Max fingered the bandage on his temple. “He’ll have to think about that for a while. I’ve got copies of photographs. He likes to play with faces, change his looks, but if he’s been around town, maybe one of you will recognize him.”

  “I’ll want copies for my men,” Vince put in. “Cooperating with the New York authorities on a suspect believed to be in the vicinity. I’ll keep Laine out of it as long as I can.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Thanks, Vince. Thank you.” Laine lifted her hands, let them fall.

  “Did you think we were going to be mad at you?” Jenny asked her. “Did you think this was going to affect our friendship?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “That’s a little bit insulting, but I’m cutting you a break because you look really tired. What about him?” She jerked her chin up toward Max. “Are you forgiving him?”

  “I guess I have to, considering the circumstances.”

  “All right, I’ll forgive him, too. God, I just realized, I’ve been too preoccupied with all this to eat. Just let me make up for that.” She took a slice of cake, bit in, then spoke around it. “I think you should come stay with Vince and me until this is all cleared up.”

  “I love you, Jenny.” Because she felt the tears threaten again, she rose so she could turn her back and get them under control under the guise of getting more coffee. “And I appreciate the offer, but I need to be here, and I’ll be fine. Max will be staying with me.”

  She turned back just in time to see the surprise wing over his face. She only smiled as she brought the pot over to top off cups. “Isn’t th
at right, Max?”

  “Yeah. Sure. I’ll look out for her,” he told Jenny.

  “Since you’re the one with the mild concussion, why don’t we just leave it that you’ll be staying here. I need to go up and change for work. I have to open the shop.”

  “What you need to do,” Jenny disagreed, “is go upstairs and crawl into bed for a few hours. You can keep the shop closed one day.”

  “I think the cops—public and private—would both say I need to keep it business as usual.”

  “You do that. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the shop and your house until we run this all down. I want those pictures,” Vince said to Max.

  “I’ll bring them by.”

  Laine walked them to the door.

  “I’m going to have tons of questions. We need to have a girls’ night,” Jenny decided, “so I can pump you. Did you ever do that shell thing? You know, the switcheroo?”

  “Jenny.” Vince cast his eyes at the sky.

  “Well, I want to know, for God’s sake. Tell me later. How about the one with the three cards?” she called out as Vince pulled her toward the car. “Later, but I want specific details.”

  “She’s something.” Max watched Vince load his wife into the car.

  “Yeah, she’s something else again. She’s the luckiest thing