by Nancy Martin
I put two and two together. “It was you, wasn’t it? You helped Emma get out of the hospital.”
He shrugged modestly. “Not me personally, no.”
“But you made it happen. I should have known.”
“Emma’s fine, if you were wondering.”
Relief rushed through me so fast that my head went light. “Where is she? Can I see her?”
“Don’t worry. She’s fine. We’re moving her around a little, just to dazzle the competition.”
“Michael,” I said at last, “I am so pathetically glad to see you.”
I kissed him then. He tucked Spike under his arm and ran one of his hands through my hair to the back of my neck to pull me hard against him. I collided with the powerful length of his body and heard myself make a carnal sound in the back of my throat. I slid my hands up his back and hung on for dear life while my insides felt as if they were taking a trip on a roller coaster.
Part of me wanted more than anything to take that last flying, gravity-defying plunge somewhere wonderful with him. But not yet.
A few heart-pounding minutes later I mastered myself again, and he smiled as if he knew better and bundled me into the car. He got in beside me and turned up the heater. Spike stayed in my lap but didn’t take his worshipful gaze from Michael.
I regained my voice and said lightly, “Wasn’t this car in a TV show once? Only with a Confederate flag on the top? And a girl with hardly any clothes?”
“You have no respect for automotive excellence. Maybe I should take you on an educational field trip to Detroit. I bet we could find a romantic hotel and still get you a tour of the hall of fame. I’d take you to the Auto Show, but I can’t wait that long.”
“I don’t think the Detroit Ramada is going to do it for me,” I said, although at that moment just holding his hand was doing plenty.
“I suppose Daytona is out of the question? Or Indianapolis?”
“I was thinking of Venice.”
He deliberately misunderstood. “Vegas? We could catch an Elvis impersonator there to get us in the proper romantic mood. I love Elvis.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
He turned sideways in the seat. “Are we really going to go away together? It’s cruel if you’re just teasing.”
Maybe I’d fallen in love with him. Against my better judgement, I had certainly fallen in lust, and for some women that would be enough. For me, however, after suffering through years of Todd’s addiction and the hell of his final months, I needed some assurance that life wasn’t going to blow up in my face again. Taking up with a convicted criminal, no matter how straight the line he claimed to be walking these days, seemed as sensible as signing on for the Titanic’s second voyage.
But, boy, was I tempted. My lips still tingled, and the rest of me longed for his slow attention.
I clamped my knees together to suppress any involuntary physical response. “Tell me about Emma. Is she really okay?”
He put the car in gear and pulled away from the park. “You mean is she drinking? No, she isn’t.”
Sometimes he was more observant than I gave him credit for. “Michael, did you ask her about Rushton’s murder?”
“A little. She doesn’t remember much. She needs to know what happened, Nora. She’s scared.” He added, “It’s been rough on her.”
“Of course it has. The doctors were very concerned—”
“No, I mean there was something between her and the dead guy.”
Startled, I said, “Oh, no, I was afraid of this. Was she was having an affair with Rush?”
“An affair? That word sounds like old movies. I can’t tell if Emma actually sleeps with all the guys she dates or just ties them to her bedpost and tortures them. She cared about this one, that’s all I know. Does that make an affair or just better-than-usual sex?”
I remember the photograph I’d seen, with Emma looking up at Rush with something more than a sexual come-on in her eyes.
Michael said, “Emma didn’t whack the guy. But she’s afraid she contributed somehow, and it’s killing her. Whatever she had going with him, she’s broken up now.”
“Did she cry on your shoulder?”
“A little,” he said.
While I processed that information, he reached across and patted my knee.
I took his hand in mine again to ease the harshness of what I was about to say. “You shouldn’t have helped her, Michael.”
“What?”
“When Emma left the hospital, she just made herself look guilty.”
“She already looked guilty. I only helped her buy some time.”
“When the police find out you were involved, you’ll be in worse trouble than before.”
“Who’s going to tell them? You?”
I let him withdraw his hand. “According to my sources, you’re not considered the most upstanding citizen at the moment. I’m worried, and not just for Emma. I don’t want your own trouble getting blown out of proportion by a connection with a murder.”
“Stop,” he said.
“I mean it.”
“I do, too. Stop.”
Spike had been looking between us as if we were smacking a tennis ball back and forth. He gave a nervous whine.
I said, “The police think you left the country to avoid prosecution for money laundering.”
“I came back, didn’t I?”
“Do they know that yet?”
“I didn’t set off any alarms at the airport, if that’s what you mean. What’s got you more upset? Emma accused of murder or me looking like a goodfella?”
“Are we going to argue about this again?”
“I’m game if you are.”
I didn’t respond, but my heart was beating very fast. Spike gave a long tremble, and I smoothed the bristly hair on his back.
A moment later, Michael said more gently, “Tell me what you were doing in the park.”
“Talking a walk.”
He shook his head. “You’re a terrible liar. Reed called me to say you were acting suspicious, so I came over. It looked like you were tailing a guy. Who was he?”
“Tottie Boarman.”
“The financier who lost all the money?” Michael sounded surprised. “What’s he doing that needs you to watch?”
“I suspect he was leaving a briefcase for the blackmailer.”
Michael drove too abruptly around a corner and overcompensated, making Spike lurch in my lap. “I thought the blackmailer was dead. Jesus, what the hell are you doing? Getting hit by a car wasn’t the most dangerous thing that could have happened to you tonight. Did you see who picked up the case?”
“Yes. Kitty Keough.”
He frowned. “How does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t. My friend Hadley Pinkham followed her to see what happens, and I was supposed to stick with Tottie.”
“Who’s Hadley Pinkham?”
“And old friend. You’ll hate him on sight, I’m afraid. He’s a completely useless person, but a lot of fun. Anyway, we split up. Hadley followed Kitty, and I went after Tottie.”
“Why?”
“Well, why not? To learn something, of course.”
“And your friend is going to watch what Miss Kitty does with the briefcase?”
“I presume she’ll take it home and start counting the cash.”
“In that case, she’s really stupid.”
“Startled, I said, “Why?”
“What blackmailer goes to the drop in person?” He shook his head in derision. “A rookie move like that should have had the cops getting their promotions long ago.”
I considered the logic of his theory. When it came to crime, Michael was rarely wrong. “So maybe Kitty was picking up the briefcase for someone else?”
“If she wasn’t, your criminal is an idiot.”
My imagination went into overdrive. I thought about what I knew. Kitty had access to Andy Mooney, a photographer who labored at her beck and call. She also possessed
the white envelopes and knew people who had pots of money. And she had the egocentric chutzpah to believe she was more entitled to the money than the current owner.
But if Kitty was the blackmailer, why was Rush Strawcutter dead?
I had finally become aware of our surroundings and didn’t recognize the neighborhood. We had left Rittenhouse Square far behind and were thumping through potholes and passing places of business I had never patronized.
“Where are we going?”
Michael said, “I don’t like doing this with you in the car, but it’ll only take a minute, I promise. Then we’ll get some food. I know a great pizza place near here.”
“Good heavens, you eat something as pedestrian as pizza?”
“Sure. It’s my sister’s place.”
The possibility that I might meet an actual member of the Abruzzo family struck me dumb. I knew he had a great affection for his sister and her two young daughters, but he had never before suggested we meet.
He drove into a dark alley, past a line of trash cans that stood drunkenly against a crumbling brick wall. The snow had tapered to light, lacy flakes. Michael eased the car into a parking space alongside a large dark automobile with a sagging tailpipe. Then he shut off the engine and said, “Hop out.”
With Spike in my arms, I climbed out of the car and met him at the trunk. He unlocked it, and in the dim light I saw two duffel-style suitcases and a long, tubular case for carrying fishing rods. He handed me the rod case and shouldered the larger of the two suitcases before picking up the other in one hand. Then he closed the trunk and led the way to the other car, carrying his gear.
He said, “You’ll like my sister. Vanessa’s my half-sister, of course, but she’s smarter than my brothers. She makes a great pizza, if you can stand the advice that always goes with it.”
With another set of keys, he unlocked the trunk of the other car. It opened, and a light went on inside. He said, “Hey, Em. Warm enough?”
My sister Emma sat up in the trunk and threw a tire iron at him. It missed.
She snapped, “I have to pee, you son of a bitch. Another ten seconds, and I was going to do it right here in your goddamn car. I was supposed to be here just five minutes!”
“I ran into somebody.” Michael picked up the tire iron and reached to help Emma out of the car. She smacked his hand away.
“Oh, Em,” I said.
She climbed out of the car and allowed me to hug her, but she was still angry. Then Spike squirmed and tired to climb onto her. She pulled him out of my arms and gruffly said to me, “Oh, damn, you’re not going to faint, are you?”
I leaned weakly against the tail fin of the car. “I’m just glad to see you in one piece.”
“No thanks to Studmuffin here. What was I supposed to do for half an hour?” she demanded of him. “Hold a seance in there?”
“Scared of the dark?”
My little sister, stiff and pale, said, “I thought I was hiding from the police, not entering some kind of bladder competition. What were you and Rawlins arguing about after you locked me in there? Oh, never mind. My molars are floating and I’m going to burst if I don’t find a place to pee real soon.”
Michael seemed very pleased with himself as he loaded his luggage into the open trunk and slammed it shut. With the smaller duffel in hand, he said, “C’mon. Through that door.”
The three of us trooped through an unlocked, windowless steel door. Last in line, I found we had entered the unsavory back hall of a restaurant. Kitchen steam blew at us from a blindingly bright room on our right. We heard pots banging and voices shouting. Across the narrow hall was a wooden door labeled with a grimy silhouette of a Victorian lady. Emma handed Spike to me and pushed inside.
Michael said, “Give me a minute to do some business.”
And he disappeared down the hall, duffel in hand.
I followed Emma. The bathroom was a two-seater with a rusty sink and a towel dispenser that hung crookedly on the wall. The floor was so scuzzy I didn’t dare put Spike down. Emma went into the first stall.
She’d been cursing under her breath since we left the alley.
I interrupted her to say through the door, “I’m glad you’re safe, you know. The police came looking for you at the farm this morning.”
“I gathered. Did you tell them anything?”
“Did I know anything?” I asked. “Except you’re probably an idiot for staging an escape from a hospital.”
“I knew the cops were going to arrest me in the morning. When Mick’s co-conspirators showed up, it seemed like an opportune time to leave.”
“Co-conspirators?” Things were getting more complicated every minute.
“Oh, yes, delightful chaps. Do you know those guys he hangs out with?”
“Not by name.”
“Good thinking. I’ve never seen so many tattoos in one place at the same time outside a circus tent. With the exception of Rawlins.”
“Rawlins?”
She flushed and came out of the stall, zipping up a perfectly new pair of blue jeans. So new they still had the tags attached to the hip pocket. While she washed her hands and face in the sink, I tore the tags off and presented them to her when she had dried her hands with a wad of paper towels.
“Yes, our nephew was front and center.” She tossed the towels and tags into the overflowing trash can. Spike attempted to lunge after them, but I held him fast. “Afterward, Mick’s posse encouraged Rawlins to have a motherly tribute permanently imprinted on his butt.”
“As a comment on his upbringing?”
“Something like that. He refrained, though.”
I had mixed feelings about Rawlins hanging out with Mick’s motley crew of misfits, but I had to admit my nephew was showing more signs of responsibility now than he had when he’d associated exclusively with his high school pals. Still, it seemed unwise to encourage a young kid to spend his evenings with men who had done hard time and looked like they could cause serious trouble for the Hell’s Angels.
Emma stared at herself in the mirror. She was very pale, and her short, unwashed hair stuck out in a primo bed head. She had a shiner under her left eye that I hadn’t noticed before. Her lower lip was swollen and chapped, and I thought her hands were shaking.
But, dammit, there was nobody who could wear a hospital scrubs shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans along with her own still-muddy riding boots and manage to look as if she just stepped off a flight from Paris. The meager overhead light caught the sharp cut of her cheekbones, and her feathery dark lashes cast delicate shadows beneath her eyes.
I opened my bag and handed her a lipstick. “You okay, really?”
“I refuse to get back into that trunk again. I don’t care if the police haul me off to a chain gang, I’m not getting in the trunk again.” She applied the lipstick gingerly.
“You can come back to the farm with me.” I took the lipstick back when she was finished.
She rubbed her temples and managed a rueful smile. “No, I’m on the lam now, right? Sounds like an adventure I shouldn’t miss.”
“But, Em, if you have nothing to hide, why not go to the police and tell them everything?”
She looked balefully at me in the mirror. “Because I can’t remember.”
“What?”
“I was drunk.” She put both hands on the edge of the sink and leaned there, head down. “Maybe I passed out, or maybe it was some kind of blackout. I don’t remember much about that night.”
“Do you remember going to the hunt club?”
She nodded. “I drove the trailer over there around two in the morning. I was going to sleep in the truck, but I had a bottle.”
“So you drank in the truck?” Alone, I thought with a twist of sympathy.
“Next thing I know, Rush is knocking on my window. I let him into the truck and we had a few laughs, I guess. I don’t remember much.”
To me, she looked as if she hadn’t laughed in weeks. “Do you remember going to the barn?”
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She turned away from the sink and leaned against the wall, hugging herself, face still turned away from me. “Yeah, I guess so. Rush and I left the truck and . . .”
Her voice quavered, and I said, “Em, I’m sorry.”
I saw her summon up the strength to hold back tears, but a single fat one spilled out of her left eye and traced a salty line down her cheek before trembling on the edge of her jaw. She said, “He was a good guy.”
I felt my own heart crack and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
She nodded, and a terrible moment ticked by. At last, she said, “Gussie turned up when we went over to the barn. It was early in the morning—before dawn. Rush hadn’t expected her, and she caught us together.” She frowned. “There were some pictures. Rush was showing them to me and she came in. I remember she got hysterical.” Her hand strayed to the bruise under her eye and her frown deepened, as though she was trying to remember how she had come by her bruise.
“What do you remember about the pictures?”
“Nothing. Just—Nothing. But they were both upset about them.”
“Did Gussie hit you?”
“I think so. Or maybe it was Rush. He was upset about the pictures. I can’t put the pieces together.” She ran her hand through her short hair. “There were other people, too, I think.”
“Like who?”
She squinted at me. “Tottie Boarman. Does that make sense? And other people from the hunt club. Mostly, I heard voices. I think I was passed out.”
“Like who?”
“Tim Naftzinger?” she guessed.
I nodded. “Tim was there with Merrie that morning.”
Emma swiped her hands down her face slowly, thinking. “Merrie’s a good kid, but I don’t remember her being there. I know this is weird, but I think that really stupid guy came in, too. That peckerwood ex-model.”
“Dougie Forsythe.”
She tried to grin but failed. “I must have dreamed that one, right?”
“Not necessarily. Did you see Rush argue with anyone else besides Gussie?”
Before he was killed. But I didn’t say the words.
Emma sighed. “I don’t know.”
“What about your riding crop? Do you remember what you did with it that morning?”
“Did I have it with me? I don’t know. Jesus, I just don’t know anything! It’s driving me nuts, Nora. I was too drunk. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I—”
