by Nancy Martin
I followed Delilah's pointed gaze across the crowded restaurant, over the tops of many heads and through the hazy air to a large table set on the mezzanine that was prime seating to watch the Cupcakes show. Four men and their dates sat before a forest of bottles and plates of food. The women were animated, brightly dressed and vividly made-up, with plenty of long hair that curled around naked shoulders. By contrast, the men were still except for the wreaths of smoke that wafted upward from their cigars. Two of the men were wearing open-necked shirts with gold jewelry nestled in their chest hair.
I found myself staring across the restaurant and directly into the steady gaze of Michael Abruzzo.
He didn't move and neither did I. The woman beside him had somehow entangled her entire upper body around his arm, and she was giggling into his ear. He didn't seem to notice her or the hubbub of Cupcakes around us. As for me, the rest of the room evaporated in a heartbeat and took all the oxygen with it.
"Completely over?" Delilah said from far away. "I don't think so."
I wobbled off my stool just as Emma arrived with our drinks.
"Hey," she said. "Mick's here."
"I heard."
"One of the Cupcakes told me he gave her a three-hundred-dollar tip."
"Well, well," said Delilah. "I guess crime does pay."
Emma put the drinks on the table, and I murmured that I'd be back shortly. Delilah started to apologize, but I waved it off.
"You okay?" Emma caught my elbow.
"I need a minute." I slipped her grasp and headed for the ladies' room.
It was down two steps and along a hallway decorated with autographed head shots of some Cupcake Girls along with the usual jumble of fake antiques, a dusty Western saddle and a lariat pressed into service as decor. My footsteps were quick but unsteady on the tile floor, and I finally found myself at the termination of the hallway, where it widened for two lavatories and an old-fashioned European phone booth with wooden doors and frosted glass.
In four more steps I was thankfully alone in the ladies' room. There, I leaned against the stainless steel sink and tried to quell the new wave of queasiness that had nothing to do with morning sickness or finding dead bodies.
I had been an idiot, yes. For over two months I'd let Richard D'eath into my life in the foolish hope that he could make things better for me. He was supposed to be a plateful of healthy vegetables after months of rich and decadent chocolate mousse. But the vegetables brought only more complications, and now I felt sick.
It had felt like the right choice once. A good man instead of a bad boy.
But now it all felt wrong.
Someone flushed, startling me. In another moment, a teenage girl came out of the stall. The photographer who had been filming Clover.
"Hi," she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.
"Hello." I stepped back so she could have the sink. "Wild party, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess." She pumped soap into her hands and—-just like my six-year-old niece—closed her eyes and began to scrub, humming "Happy Birthday" to be sure she washed for the correct amount of time.
She was of medium height with a square body concealed by a khaki vest over jeans and a frayed thermal T-shirt. Her face was very young, with freckles instead of makeup. Her lower lip had a sexy plumpness, but it was chapped. Her hands were stubby, her nails unpolished. Pinned on her camera bag was a Hello Kitty button and a press badge on which someone had scrawled Jane in large, loopy, childish letters.
When she finished washing her hands, she snatched a towel from the dispenser, still trying to ignore me.
I must have looked pretty scary to a kid, I realized—a grown woman on the verge of tears. I made an effort to control myself, but she jammed her used towel into the trash and bolted out of the bathroom, clearly glad to get away from me.
"Nice," I said aloud. "Now you're scaring children."
Alone again, I blotted my eye makeup and powdered my nose. I steeled myself to act normal. I had been doing it for weeks, and I could certainly do it for another few minutes. Long enough to get away from Cupcakes without speaking to Michael.
I took a deep breath and went out into the hallway.
Where Michael waited.
Tall and watchful, he leaned one shoulder against the opposite wall by the phone booth. He'd cut his hair to something respectable, and he wore a suit, but with the tie undone and his shirt collar loosened—maybe by a woman.
He looked at my stomach. "Is that mine?"
My brain blew a fuse. Then I reached to touch the makeshift belt I had fashioned for the vintage Carolina Herrera suit I'd put on that morning. I'd used a man's silk necktie to belt the jacket, which didn't quite fit me anymore. "Is the tie yours?"
He nodded. "It looks good. You look good."
"You look . . ."
"Scary?" he suggested. "Because you're trembling."
I shouldered my handbag. Above us, music wailed, and we could hear a thunder of cowgirl boots stomping on the bar. I wasn't ready for this. I hadn't decided what to say or even how I felt. So, idiotically, I said, "This isn't your kind of nightspot."
"Or yours."
"Are you having a good time?"
He shrugged. "It's just a place to do business."
"Who are your friends?"
"Not friends. Associates."
Or co-conspirators, I thought.
Michael studied me a little longer, and I feared he was seeing everything I'd tried to repair with makeup. His own beaten-up face—damaged during his misspent youth—concealed many secrets, too.
He said, "Somebody's dead, right?"
"Y-yes." It shook me to know I was so transparent to him. "Emma and I were—it's a long story. The man who owns half this place—he was murdered earlier today."
"Murdered? Who did it?"
"I don't know. I'm a little afraid for my friend, though. Delilah might have been the last person to see him alive."
"Delilah? The black woman?"
I shot him a look. "Her race has nothing to do with anything."
An unamused smile crossed Michael's mouth. "You think the cops are going to be that politically correct?"
"Don't be—look, she's just the last person to talk with the dead man, that's all."
"So you're worried about her."
"I'm not worried—" I stopped, unwilling to concede his point. I forced myself to say calmly, "Delilah's not in any trouble. She's going to have to spend a lot of time answering questions, though, and she's a very busy person. It will be inconvenient for her."
"Whatever you say," he said. "Have you talked with the cops?"
"Emma and I were questioned for a couple of hours."
"That's enough to upset anyone."
"You would know," I said tartly. "Have you been arrested yet this week?"
He shrugged again. "There are a few more days left."
"When you wear a suit, it's usually because you're talking to lawyers."
"Not tonight." He slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers, a gesture I knew he used to disarm people.
Not handsome, Michael nevertheless had a certain manner that Libby once said "makes the drums in a woman's jungle pound pretty hard." When I first met him, I felt struck by libidinal lightning. We got emotionally naked together very quickly, too. The result had been the most satisfying and troubling relationship of my whole life.
He said, "Besides hanging out with the cops, what have you been up to lately?"
"Things have been quiet."
"Still dating Clark Kent?"
"He's not—" I considered counting to ten, but said, "Richard and I have spent some time together, yes."
"I saw him here earlier. He wanted to interview me, in fact."
"To learn your opinion on global warming?"
Michael smiled at last, a smile that reached the very bluest depths of his eyes and changed everything. "I've missed you, Nora."
We heard someone laugh at the far end of the hallway, then start toward us with p
onderous footfalls. A stranger coming to break us up before we'd said anything that mattered. Without thinking—because heaven knows I didn't expend a single synapse to consider my action— I stepped across the six feet of hallway that separated us and put both hands on Michael's chest.
He said my name again as I pushed him backward into the antique phone booth. He bumped his head, and I closed the door, locking us both inside a space barely big enough for one. Tilting my face up to his in the dark, I said, "I've missed you, too."
Okay, maybe it was the exploding hormones. Day and night, I'd been fighting some crazy impulses, and now here was the man who knew exactly how to light my fire, only it was already blazing and what I really needed was an entire engine company to cool me off before a whole city block went up in flames.
But I kissed him anyway. He kissed me, too, hands in my hair, something like a growl in his throat. I pushed my tongue in his mouth and my hands into places they shouldn't go. Every nerve came alive like tinder to a spark. It was the joy of being with someone who didn't need to talk, just knew me and what I needed.
In another instant he had me off my feet with my back jammed against the door. He nudged my knees apart and touched me so surely that I couldn't think, couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop the painfully delicious combustion of heat and desire inside myself. A torrent of pent-up energy and emotion swelled, and when it burst, it was with stars and noise and the sheer joy at being alive.
I gasped and held on to his shoulders, trying to catch my breath again, but it came out in a stupid sob.
"I know," he whispered against my hair, holding me close, but more gently. He smelled of rich food and smuggled cigars and his own familiar, heady scent. His mouth had tasted of expensive scotch. I could feel his heartbeat, but my pulse was twice as fast.
"It's happening again."
He slid one hand up my back, soothing away the tension that had seized me since we'd come upon Zell Orcutt's body that afternoon. He said, "I don't know why you attract so many dead men, but you do."
With my eyes closed, I put my cheek against his rough one, awash with relief and something dangerously close to love. "Are you counting Richard in that group?"
"You bet." I felt him grin. "Do the two of you do this sort of thing often?"
I hiccuped a laugh. "Does your new girlfriend?"
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Does she know that?"
I felt his smile again. "Maybe not."
I pulled away by a few centimeters and looked up into his face, so familiar and yet not anymore. I tried to find something specific that was new and decided he'd lost a few pounds. His body felt tighter. Still good, but harder. Our minds seemed to work just as before, though. He could read me, know my feelings and my fears.
For an instant, it didn't matter what had come between us.
But then it was back.
"Michael, this isn't—"
"Sex in a phone booth doesn't mean anything?"
"No. It's just—sex. If you want me to—"
He stopped my hand. "Let's not make this any messier than it already is." He touched my cheek. "Do you feel better now?"
"Yes." I sighed to dispel the tension in my chest. "And no."
"The dead guy. Is he somebody you care about?"
"He was a pretty awful person, as a matter of fact."
"I guess that's good. Maybe you'll keep your nose out of this one?"
"Yes."
"Is that a promise?"
I steeled myself. "I don't think I need to make any promises to you. We both know they're not binding."
He sighed, too, and let me pull away. "Nora. I didn't think things would go this way when we—when you and I were together."
I tried to put my clothes back where they should be. "I thought you wanted a different kind of life."
"I did. It just went the other way."
"You have choices, you know. You're making a good living. I see your gas stations everywhere now, and surely your other businesses are booming, too."
"It's not about the money."
"Then what is it? Misplaced loyalty?"
"It's complicated."
I couldn't fathom what he was doing. "Michael," I said, "I can't be with you when you're this other person. Not if you're a criminal."
He absorbed that and discarded the part he didn't need to hear again. "So you still think about us?"
"Michael—"
"Forget I asked." He closed his eyes and braced his shoulder against the opposite wall, putting dead air between us. "I know what you want. A house in the suburbs with kids and a swing set. Maybe one of those ducks on the porch—the kind you dress in doll clothes. What's up with those, anyway?"
"I don't know."
He said more gently, "I'm glad you're going to get the family you need."
"Shut up," I said. Taking a handful of his shirt, I pulled him back to me and kissed him until I felt emotion burn in the back of my throat. When I broke the kiss and looked up into his eyes, my vision blurred. "Sometimes I can't believe it's over between us."
"Believe it." He turned his head away. "It's over."
"I still have the ring you gave me."
"Sell it," he said, unable to look at me anymore. "Hock it. You can use the money, right? Fix the roof on that house of yours."
His voice had turned cold.
I turned him loose and fumbled to get the door open. He helped, and we were out in the hallway again, no need to speak anymore. He put his tie right, and I quickly went up the hall to escape the best thing that had ever happened to either one of us, if only he could change who he really was.
Something must have happened in the restaurant while we were gone. I came up the steps into the bar and found Delilah and Emma standing together looking wide-eyed and panicky.
"Hey," I said. "What's—"
"Who the hell are you?" a female voice demanded—Jersey nasal and laced with toxic sarcasm.
It was the woman who'd been sitting with Michael. Her lipstick was a shade that didn't exist in nature, and her contact lenses glowed a poisonous green. In one long-taloned hand, she held the remains of a pink Cosmopolitan.
"You're her, aren't you?" she snapped. "The bitch he was sleeping with before me?"
Delilah snorted at her unintentionally comic semantics, which only fanned the flames.
"Hello," I said with extreme civility. "I'm Nora Blackbird."
She batted my hand away and shot a murderous look past my shoulder just as Michael came up the step behind me. Her face tightened with fury, and the next thing I knew she threw the Cosmopolitan in my eyes.
Michael caught my arm and spun me behind him to prevent further mayhem, saying, "Daria, wait—"
But it was Emma who flashed into action. She took a step and swung her fist. The punch connected perfectly, and we saw Daria's eyes go blank and her knees wobble once before they crumpled completely out from under her.
Which was the moment Richard came through the restaurant door. He caught his balance with his cane to better absorb the scene.
Michael handed me his handkerchief and said curtly to Richard, "Take her home."
Which was how I ended up with Richard long before I figured out what I wanted to do about him.
Chapter Four
In Richard's car sopping up, I said, "My reflexes must be off. I never get hit with drinks."
Richard said, "You must have been distracted."
I heard his tone as I tucked the damp handkerchief into my bag. Clamping my knees together, I tried not to think about what I had just done in a phone booth with someone I truly hadn't intended to see anymore. I had disgraced myself, and I felt ashamed.
It was time to forget about Michael and focus on the new man in my life.
Except he was sulking.
"Is there something else you want to argue about, Richard?" I tried to make my tone light. "Or should we just cut directly to the big distraction himself?"
"I don't want to argue."
"Then tell me why you were at Cupcakes tonight. Did you have an urge for hot wings?"
He didn't bother trying to smile. "I went to Cupcakes to talk to Abruzzo."
"I see. So he's a story you're working on?"
"Half the city's working on his story." Richard took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at me, tension bristling from him. "He went back to the family business, so everybody assumes the Abruzzos are going to be bigger and more powerful than ever. But a guy on the desk called to tell me about the Orcutt murder and that he'd heard your name on the police scanner. So I went out to Fitch's Fancy to look for you. By the time I got there, though, they told me you'd come here, so I thought I'd ride to your rescue."
"Oh. I—I guess I should thank you."
He shrugged. "I should have been here sooner, but the local television trucks were there, setting up to watch the crime scene guys work. I stuck around."
"Did you talk to the police?"
Of course he had. Richard D'eath had come to Philadelphia from New York after a traffic accident required a stint in a respected orthopedic rehab facility. While he recovered from his broken bones, the local newspaper hired him to cover their corruption beat, and he'd seized the job with the extreme relief of a man who hated lounging around in a hospital bed. Once downgraded to an outpatient, he'd put his cane and New York street smarts to good use and driven half a dozen crooked politicians out of the mayor's office. I knew he couldn't pass a crime scene without asking questions.
"Yeah, I talked to the cops."
"What did you learn?"
"I heard all about you."
I turned to look at his profile. Unlike Michael, who looked every inch a thug, Richard was toe-curlingly handsome. Sandy hair spilled boyishly over his smooth forehead, his nose was straight and inquisitive, and his body was more fit than his loose, earth-toned clothing usually showed. Women often slipped him their phone numbers, and one night I actually witnessed a professor of women's studies fall off a barstool when he arrived to meet friends for a drink.
He always smelled delicious and could argue politics late into the night. And his eyes—one blue, one hazel—were direct and observant. But he was ill at ease with emotion, and I was still trying to discover if that meant Richard lacked the capacity to be intimate with anyone other than a story source.
