“Get your hands up.” One of the cops, gun drawn, approached them from behind.
“Are you Grace Marie Becker?”
“Yes.”
“And who are you?” The cop grabbed Pete’s arm and pushed him up on the hood of the car.
“Pete Slade. Can I ask why you’re detaining us?”
“Certainly. We got a call from the South Whitpain police, asking for assistance in looking for this woman’s car. A clerk at the Goodwill reported suspicious behavior. Said you might be holding this woman against her will.”
“I was. I am. But I have good cause.”
The cop snorted. “I’ll bet you do.”
Pete sighed. “I guess we’d better straighten this out at the station.”
Chapter 8.5
Saturday, 4:49 p.m.
Coming Out
Pete ground his teeth. He could feel a migraine starting behind his left eye.
Balboa was supposed to meet Skobelov at midnight tonight to give him the memory key. But Pete didn’t have Balboa or the memory key, and pretty soon he wasn’t going to have a job.
The cuffs bit into his wrists as he turned around in the backseat of the cruiser, trying to get a look at the car behind them. The car Grace was riding in.
He wondered what she was telling the cops. And he wondered how she’d tipped off the clerk at the Goodwill.
Damn. He didn’t have time for this. And on a holiday weekend, too. Everything was going to take twice as long as it should.
But, hey. Nothing had gone smoothly with this case. Nothing at all. Why should that change now?
Chapter 9
Saturday, 7:37 p.m.
Catching Knives
“You’re a Secret Service agent?”
“Yep.”
Grace gripped the edges of the plastic chair in the small interrogation room where she’d been waiting. “Shouldn’t you be guarding the president’s dog or something?”
“That’s a common misconception. The United States Secret Service has a number of responsibilities.”
“But why didn’t you tell the police who you were? Why did you let them arrest you?”
“They didn’t arrest me. “They detained me, which they were going to do anyway until they checked my credentials to make sure I really am who I say. For my own purposes, it was better to be cuffed in front of the Cat’s Meow than to be seen showing the cops an ID.”
“So why didn’t you tell me who you were? Where do you get off, dragging me around like you’re some sort of dangerous felon, scaring the crap out of me?”
“I’m sorry, Grace. But I had no way of knowing who you were. I would have put myself and the investigation at risk.”
“You could have just let me go.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t have anything to do with whatever you’re investigating.”
“So you claim.”
“I’ve been telling you all along. I don’t know Nick Balboa. I went to the hotel to get my stuff. That’s all.”
Pete straddled the chair across from her at the scarred wooden table. “I’d like to believe that, Grace. But I just can’t.”
“You can’t? Why the hell not?”
“Because, as I said before, the Secret Service is responsible for investigating many types of crimes. Financial institution fraud, computer fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting. Identity theft. Those types of things.”
Grace’s heart stopped. “What does this have to do with me?”
Pete opened the folder he’d brought in with him. “Grace Marie Poleiski Becker. Born September twenty-first, nineteen—”
“Cut to the chase, please.”
He turned the folder around and pushed it toward her. “You have a record for forgery and identification theft.”
A pain seared through her stomach. It could have been from the burger she’d eaten at the Cat’s Meow, but somehow she doubted it. “That was a long time ago.”
“Not long enough, apparently.”
“It was a mistake. I was young. We were making IDs so our friends could get into bars.”
Pete leaned back in the chair. “Here’s the thing, Grace. I used to think you weren’t Nick’s type, being so ol—Being so mature and all. But, according to your record, it would seem you’re exactly his type.”
Grace was silent.
“What was the plan? He was going to steal the names on the key, and you were going to help him make up counterfeit identification?”
“What?”
“IDs. False documents. From the names and social security numbers on the memory key.”
“I didn’t even know what a memory key was before today. I swear.”
“But you know what false identification is, don’t you? You know how to make it. You know how to forge names.”
Grace’s throat began to close up. Tears stung the back of her eyelids. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say you’ll help me find Nick. And then we’ll figure out what to do with you.”
“I think I should call my lawyer.”
Pete shrugged. “Sure. But you’re not officially under arrest yet. If you want to call your lawyer, I’ll put you under arrest for suspicion of identification fraud and computer fraud.” He looked at the clock. “Being that it’s a holiday weekend, you should be out by, say, Tuesday afternoon.”
Grace traced her fingertip over a little drawing of Kilroy someone had inked on the table a hundred years ago.
She wanted this all to be a bad dream.
She wanted to wake up next to Tom, with his damp feet and nasal strips, and look out over a backyard littered with soccer balls and hula hoops. In fact, a fourth-grade flute concert was looking pretty good at the moment.
She burst into tears. What was she going to tell the kids?
Pete shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Come on. Don’t cry. I’m not really interested in small fry like you. I’m after the Russian. Even Nick will probably walk, provided he decides to cooperate. I can’t get to Skobelov without him. I just need you to convince him to play nice from now on.”
“But I told you—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You don’t know Nick.” Pete slammed her file closed in disgust.
Grace rubbed her forehead. “Can I have a minute to think about all this?”
“Sure. But a minute is all we got.”
Pete left the room.
Grace swallowed and opened her file. A mug shot of a younger, cockier version of herself stared back at her.
That Grace, twenty-year-old Grace, wouldn’t sit here crying. That Grace would tell off Pete Slade, Secret Service agent. She’d spend the weekend in jail just to spite him.
But that Grace hadn’t been to jail yet.
Jail was not a nice place. Just ask Martha Stewart. No matter how hard the maven of style may have tried to make it nice, it just wasn’t. Maxi-pad slippers and toilet-paper-roll wreaths couldn’t dress the place up enough to hide the cold, gray walls and unbearable loneliness.
And Grace—today’s Grace—did not want to go back.
She’d only spent three weeks in jail, but to say they were the worst three weeks of her life was like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail saying, “It’s just a flesh wound!” when his arm was cut off.
And if she opted to stay in jail, she had absolutely no chance of getting those forged papers back from Nick. She definitely did not want those floating around. Specifically not now that she knew who Pete was.
Nope. No way. She was not going to sit behind bars and wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.
She couldn’t help Pete. She knew that. But he didn’t. And if it meant keeping her butt out of jail, she could pretend, couldn’t she?
She would just have to look at all of this as an adventure. Flirting with disaster. Like the rush the person hanging on a knife-thrower’s spinning target might feel when she sees a nine-inch blade hurtling toward her face.
Grac
e wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, leaving a streak of black from her mascara.
Pete came back into the room, closing the door behind him. “What’ll it be?”
“Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”
Saturday, 8:08 p.m.
Face-lifting
“Why don’t we check the hotel again?” Grace suggested, hoping she could look for her papers. Maybe she’d missed them somewhere in Nick’s room.
“Nah. Balboa won’t be there,” Pete said.
“So, where to then?”
“You tell me.”
Grace was just about to reiterate the fact that she had no idea, when one actually came to her.
“What about the address Ferret gave you?”
Pete pulled the slip of paper from his shirt pocket. “Catharine Street.”
They drove to the Italian Market area of Philadelphia, which was always busy on the weekends. During the day, vendors sold fresh fruits and vegetables from carts and tables lining the streets. Cheese shops, pasta shops, butchers and bakers propped their doors open for the never-ending stream of customers.
And in the evening, the restaurants came alive.
Grace’s stomach growled loudly.
“Don’t tell me you want to eat again,” Pete said.
She did, but that wasn’t why they were there.
“I know where we are,” Pete said. “Nick’s family owns this place. He told me he liked to hang out here in the kitchen when he was kid. Like five years ago.”
“He’s not that young,” Grace said as she searched for a parking spot while diners milled around on the sidewalk in front of a little bistro, waiting to get a seat inside.
“He’s not that old, either,” Pete retorted.
She worked the BMW into a tight spot near the front of the bistro. She’d always had good parking karma.
“So, go on,” Pete said. “Go get him.”
“Me?”
“Sure. What do you think he’d do if he saw me?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not getting involved in this.”
Pete snorted. “Lady, you’re already involved. You’re in so deep you should be wearing diving gear.”
“Very funny.” She rubbed her forehead. “How am I supposed to get him out here? That is, if he’s even in there.”
“Not my problem. Just do it quick.”
Grace checked her face in the rearview mirror. The makeup she’d so haphazardly applied twelve hours ago, when she’d been hungover and much, much happier, looked ghastly. Her yoga pants were streaked with dirt from her expedition scaling Mount Trojan, and her sweatshirt sleeves were stained with mascara.
“You look great,” said Pete.
She gave him a bitchy look and opened the car door. “How can you be so sure I’m not going to take off?”
“It hasn’t seemed to work for you so far.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a first time for everything.”
She slammed the car door shut and pushed her way through the tight crowd on the sidewalk, ignoring dirty looks from hungry women and dodging the men who looked like gropers.
At the hostess station inside the door, a pretty young woman with big, dark curls and deadly looking three-inch spiked heels asked for her name.
“I’m looking for Nick Balboa,” Grace said. “He told me he sometimes hangs out here.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m his…uh, I’m his girlfriend.”
The hostess laughed. “Right.”
“I am.”
The young woman put a hand on one hip, showcasing long, red nails. “One night of staring at yourself in the mirror above Nick’s bed doesn’t make you his girlfriend. Besides, aren’t you a little old for him?”
“I’m not that old.” Grace did the instant face-lift thing. The one on the infomercial where some aging soap opera star explains how to tighten certain muscles in your face to look ten years younger in an instant.
Maybe it worked. Or maybe the hostess felt sorry for her because she said, “Hang on. I’ll go see if he’s here.”
A few minutes later, Nick materialized through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. He smiled, and Grace’s stomach lurched.
Had she really made out with this demigod? This vision of male perfection?
The thought gave her the shivers.
She did the instant face-lift thing again as he approached.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” he said. “Where did you disappear to last night?”
The scent of garlic and Bolognese clung to him like cologne. She moved closer. It was even better than Aramis. “I had to get home. Emergency.”
He nodded. “I think I put something in your pocket by mistake.”
She went for an innocent look, hoping she could pull it off while still face-lifting. “That little black thingie?”
“Yeah. Exactly. You still got it?”
She nodded. “It’s at my place. Why?”
“I need it as soon as possible.”
“Do you have my purse? And my ring?”
“They’re back at my room.”
She tucked a finger under the collar of his shirt. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll go by the hotel and pick up my stuff, and then I’ll take you back to my place and get that thing for you.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Nick smiled. The wattage could have put a disco ball to shame.
When they passed the hostess station, Nick said, “Hey, Elaina. Tell Aunt Aida I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Sure.” Elaina gave Grace a shrug and a look that implied wonders never ceased.
Nick put his hand on her waist as they hit the sidewalk and guided her through the crowd of waiting patrons. Grace’s stomach fluttered, as much from Nick’s touch as from the fact that she knew what was going to happen.
Or was it?
Pete wasn’t waiting in the car.
What was she supposed to do now? Throw Nick down on the sidewalk and tie him up with her shoelaces?
Come to think of it, the idea did have its merits. But this was neither the time nor the place…
“Hello, Nick.” Pete’s voice came from behind them.
“Damn,” said Nick.
“Funny, that was my thought exactly when you didn’t call me this morning. Where are the names you’re supposed to have for Skobelov tonight?”
“You know, funny thing. I didn’t get the memory key. Morton never met me in Boise.”
“Bullshit.”
“He wasn’t at the motel. I—”
“Cut the crap, Nick. I saw you put the memory key into Mrs. Robinson’s pocket last night at Caligula. And I got the feeling you knew I was watching you, or you wouldn’t have done it.”
Nick shrugged. “Then I guess you got the names.”
“No. I got the memory key, but there weren’t any names on it. Just a love note from Morton for Skobelov. Lots of X’s and O’s.”
“You’re kidding.” Nick looked genuinely stunned. “But I checked the key at the hotel. The names were there.”
“You checked it?”
“Of course. What do you think? I’m stupid?”
Pete exhaled. “You checked it, and then you never let it out of your sight?”
“No—” Nick stopped short. “Damn. That little weasel. I can’t believe he double-crossed me.”
“Just like you double-crossed me?”
Nick held out his arms. “Hey, Pete. It wasn’t like that.”
“Then explain it to me, Nick. Because from where I stand it looks like you were gonna take the names for yourself and maybe get a little side business going with your girlfriend here.”
Nick looked at Grace and then back at Pete. “Nah. I was just gonna sell the key to the highest bidder.”
“Thank you,” Grace said. “The truth finally comes out. I told you I had nothing to do with this.”
Pete shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“What now?” Nick asked. “You
gonna arrest me?”
Pete opened the back door of the BMW. “I don’t know. Get in.”
Chapter 9.5
Saturday, 8:21 p.m.
Gin Fizz
Pete felt like his head had gone through a garbage disposal. But that was the least of his worries.
He had an informant he couldn’t trust, a case he didn’t think was strong enough and a woman he didn’t know, period.
If things didn’t come together soon, they were going to blow apart. It was the law of Order and Chaos. Either this all was meant to be, or it wasn’t. And the next twenty-four hours were going to decide that.
Up front, Nick slipped his arm over the back of Grace’s seat and sang some song that Pete vaguely remembered. Something from his early college days. Van Halen. Why Can’t This Be Love.”
Pete remembered it because he’d sung it, in a drunken stupor, to a gorgeous Phi Mu named Barbara at the one and only fraternity party he’d ever attended.
He’d thought the sun rose on her gorgeous pair of breasts and set on her luscious behind. She’d thought he was a hopeless loser, unfit even to lick the gin fizz she’d spilled on her white cowboy boots.
Her boyfriend apparently had thought so, too.
Pete had ended up hanging upside down from the frat house flagpole, his pants in a knot around his neck and his mouth duct taped shut.
It was a moment of supreme humiliation but also one of self-realization.
If he were to ever make it through college and, indeed, the “real world” alive, he would definitely have to become the strong, silent type.
It had worked, for the most part.
But, every once in a while, he was tempted to lick the gin fizz off of some woman’s boots and tell her the “mook” she was with wasn’t worth the cologne he was steeped in.
Nick twirled a lock of Grace’s hair between his fingers, and Pete looked away. He swallowed a couple of Tylenol, dry, and chased them with a Tums.
Screw it. He’d spent the last two years alone, focusing completely on this case. And now, so close to the end, he wanted to risk getting run up the flagpole for some broad with a smart mouth and a nice smile?
A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets Page 25
