by Nora Roberts
“You always remember. It’s our loss you’re taking those criminal justice courses, the chemistry, instead of restaurant management.”
“I’ll always have time to help out here, Dad. Always.”
“I’m proud of you. Proud you know what you want and you’re working for it.”
“Somebody raised me that way. How’s the father of the bride?”
“I’m not thinking about it yet.” He shook his head, drank more water. “I’m not thinking about the moment when she comes toward me in her dress. When I walk her down the aisle and give her to Vince. Blubber like a baby if I do. It’s easy to tuck that away while we’re dealing with the insanity of preparing for that moment.”
He glanced over, smiled. “Somebody else must’ve heard you were home. Hey, John.”
“Gib.”
With a cry of pleasure, Reena scooted up, flung her arms around John Minger. “I missed you! Haven’t seen you since Christmas. Sit down. Be right back.”
She dashed off, got another setup. When she plopped down again, she scooped up half the spaghetti and put it on the second plate. “You’re eating some of this. Dad thinks I starve myself at college.”
“What can I get you to drink, John?”
“Anything soft’s good. Thanks.”
“I’ll have it brought right out. Gotta get back to work.”
“Tell me everything,” Reena demanded. “How are you, your kids, the grandkids, life in general?”
“Doing good, keeping busy.”
He looked good, Reena thought. A little heavier under the eyes, and his hair was nearly stone gray now. But it suited him. The fire had made him part of the family. No, more than the fire, she corrected. What he had done since. Pitching in to work, answering the endless questions she’d posed.
“Any interesting cases?”
“They’re all interesting. You still up for ride-alongs?”
“You call, I’m there.”
His face softened with a smile. “Had one start in a kid’s bedroom. Eight-year-old boy. Nobody home at the time it engaged. No accelerants, no matches, no lighter. No sign of forced entry or incendiary components.”
“Electrical?”
“Nope.”
She began to eat again as she considered. “Chemistry set? Kids that age often like playing with chemistry sets.”
“Not this one. Told me he’s going to be a detective.”
“What time of day did it start?”
“Around two in the afternoon. Kid’s in school, parents at work. No previous incidents.” He twirled spaghetti, closed his eyes in appreciation of the taste. “Not fair to quiz you when you can’t see the site, or pictures.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m not giving up yet.” Puzzles, she’d always thought, were made to be solved. “Point of origin?”
“Kid’s desk. Plywood desk.”
“Bet he had a lot of fuel on it. Construction paper, glue, the desk itself, school papers and binders maybe, toys. Near the window?”
“Right under it.”
“So he’s got curtains, probably, they catch, keep it going. Two in the afternoon.” Now she closed her eyes, tried to see it. She thought of Xander’s desk when he’d been that age. The careless jumble of boy toys, comic books, school papers.
“What way did the window face?”
“You’re a pistol, Reena. South.”
“Sun should be coming in strong that time of day, unless the curtains were closed. Kid isn’t going to close his curtains. What was the weather that day?”
“Clear, sunny, warm.”
“Kid wants to be a detective, probably has a magnifying glass.”
“Bull’s-eye. Yeah, you’re a pistol. Glass is sitting right on the desk, canted up on a book, over a bunch of papers. Sun beats through, heats the glass, fires the papers. Wood desk, cloth curtains.”
“Poor kid.”
“Could’ve been worse. Delivery guy saw the smoke, called nine-one-one. They were able to contain it in the bedroom.”
“I’ve missed being able to talk shop. I know, I know, I’m just a student, and most of the courses I’m hungry for I can’t take until my junior year when I transfer to the Shady Grove campus. But it feels like talking shop.”
“Something else I need to talk to you about.” He set down his fork, looked in her eyes. “Pastorelli’s out.”
“He—” She drew herself in, glanced around to see if any of her family could overhear. “When?”
“Last week. I just got word.”
“It had to happen,” Reena said dully. “He’d have been out before this if he hadn’t gotten extra time for punching a guard.”
“I don’t think he’s going to give you any trouble, or even come back around here. He’s got no ties to the neighborhood anymore. His wife’s in New York still, with her aunt. I checked. The kid’s already done a stint up there for assault.”
“I remember when they took him away.” She looked out the window, across the street. There were pots of geraniums on the steps of what had been the Pastorelli house, and the curtains were open.
“Which?”
“Both. I remember how they brought Mr. Pastorelli out, in handcuffs, and how his wife buried her face in a yellow dish towel, and one of her shoes was untied. I remember Joey running after the car, screaming. I was standing with my father. I think watching that together strengthened something we already had between us. I think that’s why he let me go with him when they took Joey. After he killed that poor dog.”
“He was closing a chapter for you, one that started when the little bastard attacked you. No reason to think it’s not still closed, but you and your family need to know he’s out.”
“I’ll tell them. Later, John, later, when we’re all at home.”
“Good enough.”
She looked out the window again, and the frown vanished. “It’s Xander. I’ll be right back.” She scooted out of the booth, hurried to the door, then raced across the street and launched herself at her brother.
Being home was like being a child again in so many ways. The scents and sounds of the house were so much what they’d always been. The furniture polish her mother always used, the cooking smells that seemed as much a part of the kitchen as the old butcher-block table. The music that pumped out of Xander’s room, whether he was in there or not. The watery tinkle from the toilet in the powder room that ran unless its handle was jiggled.
It was rare for an hour to go by without the phone ringing, and since the weather was fine, the windows were open to the shoosh of street traffic, and the voices of pedestrians who stopped to chat.
She could’ve been ten again, sitting cross-legged on her sister’s bed while Bella reigned at the little vanity, primping for an evening out.
“There’s just so much to do.” Bella blended tones of eyeshadow with the skill of an artist. “I don’t know how I’ll get everything done before the wedding. Vince says I worry too much, but it has to be perfect.”
“It will be. Your dress is gorgeous.”
“I knew exactly what I wanted.” She shook back glamorous clouds of blond hair. “After all, I’ve been planning for this my whole life. Remember when we used to play bride, with those old lace curtains?”
“And you were always the bride.” But Reena smiled when she said it.
“Now, it’s not make-believe anymore. I know Dad was freaked about how much the dress cost, but the bride’s the showpiece on her wedding day, after all. And I can’t be the showpiece in some knockoff. I want Vince dazzled when he sees me in it. Oh, wait until you see what he gave me for my something old.”
“I thought you were wearing Nuni’s pearls.”
“No. They’re sweet, but they’re old-fashioned. Besides, they’re not real pearls.” She opened the drawer of the vanity, took out a small box. She brought it over, sat on the side of the bed. “He bought them for me at an estate jeweler.”
Inside were earrings, sparkling drops of diamonds and filigre
e so delicate they might have been spun by magic spiders.
“God, Bella, are those real diamonds?”
“Of course.” The square-cut solitaire on her finger flashed as she gestured. “Vince wouldn’t buy me paste. He’s got class. His whole family has class.”
“And ours doesn’t?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” But Bella spoke absently as she held up one of the earrings so it could catch the light. “Vince’s mother flies to New York and Milan to shop. They have a household staff of twelve. You should see his parents’ house, Reena. It’s a mansion. They have full-time groundskeepers. His mother’s so sweet to me—I’m calling her Joanne now. She’s taking me to her salon on the morning of the wedding, for the works.”
“I thought we—you and Mama and Fran and I—were going to Maria’s.”
“Catarina.” Bella smiled gently, patted Reena’s hand before she rose to put the earrings back in the drawer. “Maria’s doesn’t make the cut for me now. I’m going to be the wife of an important man. I’m going to have a different lifestyle now, different obligations. To meet them I have to have the right haircut, the right wardrobe, the right everything.”
“Who says what’s right?”
“You just know.” She fluffed at her hair. “Vince has a cousin, he’s really cute. I thought you might like for him to be your escort at the reception. I think you’d hit it off. He’s a junior at Princeton.”
“Thanks, but I have a boyfriend. He’ll be coming to the wedding. I cleared it with Mama.”
“A boyfriend.” Forgetting her primping for the moment, Bella dropped down on the bed. “When, where, how? What’s his name? What does he look like? Tell me everything.”
The seeds of resentment blew away, and they were sisters again, huddling together over the serious priority of boys.
“His name’s Josh. He’s so sweet and he’s a major hottie. He wants to be a writer, and I met him at college. We’ve been seeing each other a couple of months now.”
“Months? And you didn’t tell me?”
“You’ve been a little preoccupied.”
“Still.” Bella pouted a moment. “Is he from around here?”
“No, he grew up in Ohio. But he’s living here now. He’s got a job in a bookstore for the summer. I really like him, Bella. I’ve slept with him. Five times.”
“Jesus!” Bella’s eyes went saucer-wide as she bounced her butt on the bed. “Reena, this is huge. Is he good at it?” She popped up, closed the door. “Vince is amazing in bed. He can go for hours.”
“I think he’s good at it.” Hours? Reena wondered. Was that really possible? “He’s the only one I’ve ever been with.”
“Make sure you always use protection. I stopped.”
“Stopped what?”
“Birth control,” she whispered. “Vince said he wants to have a family right away, so we tossed away my pills. It’s so close to the wedding, it won’t matter if I get pregnant. We threw them away last weekend, so I might already be pregnant.”
“God, Bella.” It gave Reena a jolt, a hard one, to think of her sister going from bride to wife to mother in one big rush. “Don’t you want some time to get used to being married first?”
“I don’t need time.” When she smiled, everything about her went dreamy. Lips, eyes, voice. “I know just how it’s all going to be. And it’s going to be perfect. I have to finish getting ready. Vince will be here any minute, and he hates when I’m late.”
“Have a good time.”
“We always do.” Bella sat down at the vanity again when Reena went to the door. “Vince is taking me to a fabulous restaurant tonight. He says I need to relax and take my mind off the details of the wedding.”
“I’m sure he’s right.” She went out, closing the door just as her brother came up the stairs.
He glanced at the door, back at Reena and grinned. “So how many times did she say ‘Vince thinks’?”
“I lost count. He’s pretty crazy about her.”
“Good thing, otherwise by now he’d have been driven crazy by her. I know one thing, I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
She walked to him. He’d edged over her in height, so she bounced up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You’ll miss her when she isn’t in the next room.”
“I guess I will.”
“You got plans tonight?”
“On your first night home? What kind of brother am I?”
“My favorite kind.”
She waited until Bella was out to her fancy dinner and the rest of the family was around the dining room table sharing steak Florentine in honor of Reena’s return from college.
“I have some news,” she began. “John told me today, and I asked him to let me tell everyone else. Pastorelli’s out. He was released a week ago.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Not at the table, Xander,” Bianca said automatically. “Do they know where he is, where he went?”
“He served his time, Mama.” She’d had time to reconcile to that, and to sound calm about it. “John doesn’t think we need to worry, and I agree. He doesn’t have any ties to the neighborhood, no reason to come back here. What happened was long ago.”
“And yesterday,” Gib said. “Seems like yesterday. But I think we have to accept this. What else can we do? He was punished for what he did. It’s done, and he’s out of our lives.”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to be a little watchful, at least for a while.” Bianca drew a long breath. “And it’s probably best not to say anything to Bella until after the wedding. She’ll just have hysterics.”
“She can have hysterics over a chipped nail,” Xander put in.
“My point exactly. So we know, and we’ll be a little more careful. But we’ll believe as John does that there’s nothing to worry about. So . . .” Bianca lifted her hands. “Eat, before the food gets cold.”
6
Bo wasn’t a hundred percent regarding the plans for the day, but he was usually willing to go along. His pal Brad was now officially one half of the Brad and Cammie show. And since that show was in its first act, everybody was happy. To spread the joy, the new couple arranged for a double date, and that was fine. The all-day and into the evening term of the date was a little worrying.
A big commitment, to Bo’s way of thinking.
What if he and this friend of Cammie’s took an instant dislike to each other? It happened. She was supposed to be pretty, but that was Cammie’s opinion. And you just couldn’t trust the opinion of a girlfriend.
Even if she looked like Claudia Schiffer, she might talk all the time, or giggle. He really hated gigglers. Or she might be one of those humorless types. He’d rather take the giggling over the super-serious, I’ve-got-to-save-the-world-from-itself-and-so-do-you sort.
On top of that he was still hung up on a girl whose face he’d seen for about ten seconds, and whose name he didn’t know.
Stupid, but what could you do?
This was, he knew, one of Brad’s methods of getting him back to the real world. A pretty girl—at least that was the billing—a day out with a convivial group at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Do the aquarium, hang out, catch some music, eat some seafood. Have a few laughs. He ordered himself to get into the spirit of it as he followed Cammie’s directions.
She and Brad took the backseat of his car, mostly, in his opinion, so they could make out.
He pulled into the lot, waited while his passengers completed their latest lip-lock.
“We’ll all go in.” Cammie unwrapped herself from Brad, grabbed her purse. “This is going to be fun! It’s a totally awesome day.”
She had him there, Bo thought. Blue sky, puffy clouds, steaming sunshine. Better to be out and about than sitting home brooding about some fantasy girl or even fooling around in his foreman’s workshop.
What he was aiming for was a workshop of his own. Once he had enough money to rent a house—or, more fantasy, actually buy one—he was going to have a shop of his own. A n
ice little shed he’d outfit with worktables and power tools. Maybe get his own side business going.
He walked into the apartment building, which looked exactly like every other off-campus apartment building to him. And was just the sort of place he wanted to say good-bye to. What he needed to do was talk Brad into parting with some of his money, going in with him to buy a place for rehab.
“She’s right here on the first floor.” Cammie walked to a door, knocked. “You’re really going to like Mandy, Bo. She’s a lot of fun.”
Cammie’s big smile reminded Bo why he hated being fixed up. Now if he didn’t like her friend, he’d have to pretend he did. Otherwise, Cammie would poke at Brad until Brad poked at him.
But some of his worry lifted when the little redhead with the big blue eyes and curves nicely packed into jeans and a snug gray T-shirt opened the door.
Packed nicely enough he was going to reserve judgment on the eyebrow ring. Maybe it was sexy.
“Hey, Mandy. You know Brad.”
“Sure. Hi, Brad.”
There was just the slightest hint of a lisp—a sexy one.
“And this is Bo. Bowen Goodnight.”
“Hi, Bo. Just gotta get my bag, and I’m ready to roll. Place is wrecked. Don’t come in.” She laughed as she said it, and shooed them back. “My roommate left yesterday for a wild weekend in OC, and tore the place up looking for a pair of sandals. Which I found after she’d gone. I’m not cleaning it up. That’s her deal.”
She talked nonstop, but in a funny, bouncy way, while she grabbed a shoulder bag and a black O’s fielder’s cap.
Ah, baseball, Bo thought. There was hope.
She scooted out, shut the door behind her, then offered Bo a quick, easy smile. “Got a camera in here.” She patted the bulging shoulder bag. “I’m a pain in the ass with it. Fair warning.”
“Mandy’s an awesome photographer,” Cammie put in. “She’s interning at the Baltimore Sun.”
“Horrible hours, no pay. I love it. Hey, look at you.”
Before Bo could comment, she’d turned completely around to study a guy coming down the stairs. He was wearing a suit and tie, and looked a little flustered.
“Dude,” she said with a chuckle. “Looking hot.”
