by Gayle Roper
At first the only noise was the refrigerator opening and things being put on the counter. Tori peeked back into the room.
“You doing okay, Chloe?” Jenna watched Chloe pile tuna onto slices of whole wheat bread.
Chloe shrugged. “It still hurts, and I wish she had told me so I could have been prepared. But I know she was trying to protect me. It was the surprise of the whole thing that got to me.”
Tori frowned. The kid sounded like her mother, all understanding and bouncing back with a smile, a second-generation goody two-shoes. How sad was that?
Jenna opened cupboards until she found the cookies. She pulled out a bag of Double Stuf Oreos. “You’ve got to remember to keep your mom as she is today separate from the girl who was sixteen. They’re like two different people.”
Tori blinked. When had kids gotten so smart? Where was the me-first, I’m-worth-it mentality? If her Chloe Quest were to succeed, she would have to work a lot harder than she’d thought.
Jenna put several Oreos on a paper plate, closed the bag, and shoved it back into the cupboard. “I have to remember that my mom was a pretty girl who loved Jesus when Dad met her and married her. The bad part of her bipolar disorder didn’t kick in until later. I have to tell myself that all the time, or I’d think Dad was nuts for marrying her. Then that makes my thinking about him get all screwed up.”
Chloe grabbed a sharp knife and cut the sandwiches in half. “Mom’s told me lots of times not to follow her example. But you know something? I want to be like her when I grow up. I really do. She’s pretty and nice and works hard. She even bought us a house all by herself. And her faith is deep and true.” Chloe handed Jenna a sandwich. She made a face. “But still, Icky Eddie!”
The girls looked at each other and chorused, “Eeyew!” They went out onto the patio to sit with their parents.
Tori walked slowly up to her room. She knew she was selfish and demanding and what some might consider shallow. She knew she was beautiful and had deserved being prom queen and Most Popular. She knew she liked things her way and didn’t adapt easily when she was thwarted. She knew she was good at using and manipulating people, at least everyone but Luke, and she was proud of it. She was worth every single one of the accolades and perks that came her way.
She knew she had always been the dominant twin, even if she was the younger.
But while she was busy being vivacious and charming, leaving a trail of broken hearts and accumulating a closet of to-die-for clothes, Libby had been busy too. She’d grown a backbone and inner fortitude. She’d raised a daughter who loved and respected her, which was more than Tori could say for how she felt toward their mother, and she was forced to wonder, if only for a moment, how much Lib’s faith had helped her become this impressive woman.
And what in the world did she do with this new woman? It didn’t take many smarts to understand that she could try and bribe Chloe from now till doomsday, and she might not succeed in luring her away from all that circumspect living. If finding out about Eddie didn’t do it, would anything?
Life had certainly become disorienting.
Libby wasn’t malleable Libby.
Eddie wasn’t biddable Eddie.
Mick was dead and Ruthie was Drew’s ex.
Drew seemed enamored with quiet, mousy Libby. No. Maybe quiet, at least in comparison to her own outgoing nature, but not mousy.
And Luke had called twice in two days.
She shook herself. Too much analyzing was bad for the complexion. She pushed Luke’s number in speed dial and listened to the phone ring. She closed the bedroom door behind her as Luke barked, “Tori, where are you? Why aren’t you here?”
“I’m at my Aunt Stella’s. You know the every-third-night deal. ”
“Well, I don’t like it.” He sounded miffed, and Tori was delighted. He missed her.
“Are you coming up to the apartment tonight?” she asked.
“Probably not. Why don’t you just forget that house and come back here where you belong?”
“You of all people should know that I need Aunt Stella’s money.”
“Yeah, well, we can work something out there.”
“Like forgiving my debt?”
He snorted. “Right.”
Tori glanced at the old furniture surrounding her. Old stuff didn’t appeal to her, but she knew that some people paid big money for things she wouldn’t give house room. Look at what Libby did for a living. She’d actually made enough to buy a house in Haydn, though why she’d want to live so near the parents was another thing Tori couldn’t understand.
“Luke, I think this house is loaded with antiques worth a lot of money. If I leave, I lose all that lovely green stuff that would come from their sale.”
Luke was silent for a minute. If there was one thing he appreciated, it was that lovely green stuff.
“I’ll be with you most nights. Two out of three.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about these nights away another time. I’ve got other reasons that I called.”
She heard the steel in his comment and was immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I just heard Mick Brewer is dead.”
“You didn’t know?” Relief washed over her, making her lightheaded. She’d been right to trust him. He hadn’t ordered the hit on Mick.
“How would I know? When he didn’t show up for work, I thought he and that sick blonde had gone away for a few days. Mick was not the most reliable of my guys.” He paused a moment. “And guess what else I heard.”
“What, Luke?”
“I heard they found him on your Aunt Stella’s stoop. Make that your stoop.” The ice in his voice made her shiver. “A fact you happened to forget to tell me.”
“I-I thought you knew.” She lay on the bed because she was afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her. Her relief had fled, and anxiety chewed at her. Luke’s anger was legendary, and though she’d never experienced it before, she feared tonight would be the first time. “You know everything.”
“How would I know here in AC about a body turning up in Philly? Unless I put it there, of course.”
Tori tried to think of something to say. That’s what I was afraid of didn’t seem prudent. “That’s funny, Luke. Like you’d do something like that.” She gave a strained laugh.
“Tori!” His roar rivaled a jet revving for takeoff. “Did you think I’d actually kill a man?”
“Of course not, Luke,” she lied.
“You did, didn’t you?”
She could imagine him striding back and forth in his office, the tassels on his loafers flopping up and down with the vigor of his steps. She screwed up her face, knowing denial was impossible. She tried to explain. “You didn’t show up at the apartment that night. I called you, and you never answered your phone. And I knew you were mad at Mick for being careless with his bodyguarding. All I could think was how he let that irrational woman get near you and how mad it made you.”
That woman, weeping and screaming about how Luke had ruined her family and sent them into bankruptcy, had actually been able to grab Luke’s shirt before Mick pulled her away. If she’d had a weapon, Luke could have been killed right there on the boardwalk, right in front of Tori.
“I don’t know who you are,” Luke had said to her in a haughty voice, “but I’m not the one who gambled away what he had no right to gamble. I merely lent your husband money to pay his debts. Now he owes me, and I expect payment. Oh, and I suggest Gamblers Anonymous for your husband.”
Luke stalked off, leaving the woman weeping, Tori and Mick scampering behind. After the three of them climbed the steps and entered his office, Luke turned on Mick.
“If you value your life and livelihood, don’t you ever fail me like that again. Do you understand me?”
Mick blanched and nodded. “Yes, Luke.”
Luke dismissed him with a wave of his hand and mumbled comments about incompetent bodyguards and demented clients.
Two days later, as she and Luke walked to
ward his apartment, the same hysterical woman got past Mick again, this time actually punching at Luke as he held her away with a grip on her shoulders.
He glared over her head at Mick, who was frantically if belatedly trying to pull her away. “You’re fired. I never want to see you again.”
As she and Luke climbed the stairs to his private aerie, he muttered, “If it’s not the Joe Bennettons of the world, it’s crazy ladies. It’s a good thing I love my work.”
“Who’s Joe Bennetton? Did he come after you too?” Tori asked, her heart still pounding in reaction to the woman’s assault. And how did you love doing something that made people attack you?
“A crazy man, even nuttier than the woman. And no, he didn’t come after me.” He opened the door, turned, and pulled her close. “But I don’t want to talk about them when I’ve got you in my arms.”
She forgot all about the crazies, at least for the moment.
Three days later, as Luke and Tori had walked from his building to the SeaSide, the madwoman rushed at him from behind. Mick, trailing Luke in hopes of getting up nerve to speak with him and plead for his job, tackled her, knocking her to the boardwalk, grabbing at her wrist and twisting it violently enough that the bone snapped. Her scream covered the clatter of the knife she’d been holding as it fell to the boards.
While Tori was certain she’d have a heart attack on the spot, Luke had looked calmly at Mick. “Well done. Keep up the good work. Good bodyguards are hard to find.”
So Mick had once again become one of Luke’s people, but when he’d turned up dead, Tori had worried that he’d somehow let Luke down another time, and the limits of Luke’s patience had been reached.
Tori told him her fears now, for once not knowing how to spin things to her own advantage. “I’m sorry, Luke. Please don’t be angry with me.”
In the ensuing silence, Tori lay on the bed with her hand pressed to her rampaging heart. What would she do if she lost him? “Are you still there?” she asked after several long moments. “Are you still talking to me?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Tori felt she could breathe again. He didn’t sound angry anymore. In fact, he sounded almost as if he were laughing at her. “It was only for the shortest of moments I wondered. Then I decided to trust you.”
“It’s a good thing because there’ll be other nights when unexpected business keeps me from you. Not that I’ll like it, but money is money. Just don’t go thinking every body that shows up those nights is my doing, okay?”
She laughed, sort of a gurgly, wheezy sound. “Okay. And I don’t think you sent the puzzles either.”
There was another little silence. “You mentioned puzzles yesterday. What puzzles?”
“See? I knew you didn’t send them.”
“What puzzles, Tori?”
“Somebody’s sending me threatening puzzles. Four of them. One was lying on top of Mick. My sister found it. Eddie Mancini gave me two, and the fourth, actually the first, was pushed under my door at the SeaSide.”
“How do they threaten you?” His voice was icy again, but it didn’t bother her now. The anger beneath the ice wasn’t directed at her.
“They’ve got messages in them made from circled letters. The one on Mick said ARE YOU NEXT.”
“And you thought I’d send something like that to you? That I’d scare you or hurt you?”
“I didn’t think you’d hurt me, Luke, but I did think maybe you were trying to scare me.” Some of her spunk returned. “After all, you do scare people when they don’t pay. And they had words in them that showed somebody knows I’ve brought you”—she hesitated—“stuff.”
“Yeah, I been thinking about that. It’s time you stopped with the stuff, Blondie. Somebody’s gonna get wise.”
“I only take from high rollers who have so much they’ll never miss what I take.”
“So far nobody’s put two and two together, but somebody will, and soon. How’m I gonna deal if you’re put away for five to ten? I don’t even like this third-night business.”
Even as her spirit soared at the confirmation that he wasn’t dropping her, that he seemed to really care for her, Tori reached up and felt an earring, the diamonds cool beneath her touch. It was hard, thinking about stopping with the stuff. She got a high when she secreted a piece and walked out of some high roller’s suite as if she were as pure as an angel. Of course, now that she thought of it, Lucifer was supposed to have been an angel, wasn’t he? Doubtless St. Libby could tell her.
“We don’t need the stuff,” Luke continued. “The shops are going great, and with two more, we’ll be more than fine.”
“You giving up ‘helping’ needy gamblers?”
He laughed. “I think I’ll keep on helping the needy. Makes me feel good, you know?”
She laughed with him. Why had she ever felt afraid of him, even for a minute? This was her Luke. She loved him and he loved her. Probably. Maybe. “What about the shoebox of stuff? Should I just give it back to my sister so she can sell it?” Assuming she ever got it from Eddie.
“Still give it to me, and when you do, I’m taking it to the cops.”
“What?” Tori was glad she was lying down because she’d surely have fainted on that one if she weren’t. “You hate the cops.”
“Let’s just say they’re not my favorite people, though I do have a soft spot for cops’ beautiful daughters. But I got someone breathing down my neck here, and I could use a bit of good feelings with the local constabulary.”
“Luke, who’s after you? I mean, are they after you like they were after Mick? I couldn’t bear that, you know. If somebody killed you, I mean. Or are they after the Atlantic City business? The paycheck shops? What’s going on?”
“I wish I knew, sweetheart. But don’t you worry that beautiful head of yours about it. I can take care of what’s mine—and that includes you.”
Now she felt angry with him. “I am not some little girl to pat on the head.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, and she could practically see his leer. She also understood that he wasn’t going to tell her anything.
She hung up on him.
19
I WASN’T QUITE CERTAIN how it happened, but when I left the house at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Drew was with me, though we’d decided to leave the girls to care for themselves.
“We’re trusting you,” Drew told them the previous night just before they ran up to Chloe’s room for bed. Tori had disappeared for her phone call and not rejoined us, no surprise there.
“But you are not to leave the lane,” I instructed the girls. I noticed my index finger waving as I gave the order. So did Chloe.
“Yes, Mother,” she said with great forbearance.
“Yes, Father,” Jenna said with an equally long-suffering spirit.
“Smart mouths,” Drew called after them as they tore up the stairs, and we heard them giggle.
“Hear that laughter?” he said to me. “Chloe’s going to be all right. You too.”
I looked at him with gratitude. I wanted to throw myself in his arms and show him how much I prized his comfort, support, and even his little lectures, but I restrained myself. Instead I gave him a pretty little speech about how much I appreciated his being there for me last evening and being willing to drive me back to Haydn to get my van, a trip we’d decided to put off until Thursday because of an appointment I had Wednesday with Jean, a friend who organized houses and often had thrown-away treasure for me.
He pulled on one of my curls. “Always glad to help out.”
“Wear old stuff you don’t mind getting dirty,” I called softly after him as he went reluctantly home where Ruthie awaited. “This can be messy.”
He paused, turned, and studied me. Then he strode back and pulled me into his arms for a wowzer of a kiss. “I think that’s how a man’s supposed to leave his fiancée.”
With that kiss still humming through me, I was actually happy to get up Wednesday morning. A day with Drew.
Just Drew. I grinned my way through some strawberry and banana yogurt and a piece of pumpernickel toast and was waiting with coffee in portable cups when he emerged from his house.
“I’ve got to see this to believe it,” he said of my picking.
“Remember,” I told him, “there are two rules to collectibles, desirability and rarity. An item is desirable depending on its condition and its aesthetics, both subjective. Rarity is more easily determined. The item must be uncommon, like those first editions of Aunt Stella’s I showed you, or it must be unreproducible. That’s why limited editions are sought after. There will never be any more. Take a Lawton doll. Only so many of any given doll are made, two hundred fifty or five hundred, as opposed to a Barbie, of which there are millions. The Lawtons are collectors’ items. Barbies are kids’ toys.”
He nodded as if he got it.
We headed for the Main Line, that posh area west of Philadelphia where captains of industry built their gracious and very lovely homes decades ago along the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
As we went, if we passed a community that had trash on the curb, we’d detour to inspect the goods awaiting pickup. When people were redecorating or clearing a house for a move or because of a death, all kinds of wonderful goods ended up on the curb.
In Villanova I found three pictures leaning against a large plastic garbage bag. When I stopped to check them, I found one picture to be quite pretty if you were into florals, which a lot of people are. Its frame was as ugly as they came, but the other two had remarkably handsome frames though the pictures were dreadful. Drew stashed all three in the CR-V for me. Two doors down I liberated a rocking chair with its cane seat unraveling. I knew a man who did excellent caning, and the restored chair would sell quickly in the store. As Drew pushed the chair into the SUV, I decided it was very nice to have someone along to do the lifting and carrying.
In Wayne I found a cardboard box awaiting pickup, filled with old Life magazines from the forties and early fifties.
“They’re worth forty or fifty dollars apiece,” I said as we drove away with the box stashed next to the rocker.
