"But now you know?"
Ybarra nodded. "It's my understanding, at least, that Mr. Willetts
has moved into the house of the late Spyder Nielsen. I now know as
well, although it's purely hearsay, that they were... involved all the
while Ms. Candelaria was on trial." Ybarra frowned. "Very
troubling," he concluded softly.
An understatement, Robyn thought, if she'd ever heard one. Though
Ybarra was speaking frankly, she sensed his feelings were much, much
stronger than his words would indicate. Known to be a very religious
man whose strengths all sprang from his ability to separate his
personal feelings from the law, his emotions from the facts, troubling
was probably the least onerous word he could find for behavior he must
find deeply offensive.
Kiel rolled up his pant legs and let his feet drag the bottom of the
pool. "The reason we ask, Judge Ybarra," he said, "is that Stuart
Willetts told us himself a couple of nights ago that Keller would have
dismissed him from the special prosecutor's staff. Keller's own staff,
of course." '
"As well he should, had he known. I have never before seen misconduct
of this nature, not unless you count the dish running away with the
spoon," He waited for the requisite laughter, the twinkle in his eyes
acknowledging the absurdity. "In any case, I find it highly
unlikely--no, prohibitively unlikely--that Keller True-blood would
jeopardize the prosecution by not coming forward with such information
had he known. Which means he can only have learned of the affair
sometime after Friday at noon the day before he died."
A glimmer of realization lit the old man's nut brown eyes. The timing
of Keller's death, stated as he just had, boded very ill. He shook his
head slowly. "The death of your husband was very fortuitous for Mr.
Willetts, was it not?"
Robyn nodded. "Only fortuitous, do you think?" Judge Ybarra let his
head fall back. His eyes closed. For a long time he appeared to have
fallen asleep. Robyn said no more, only exchanged glances with Kiel.
Their feet accidentally brushed together below the surface of the hot,
churning, sulfur-smelling spring. Their eyes clashed. The slick,
intimate sensation went on as neither of them moved. For a
pleasurable, intense few moments before Ybarra spoke again, Robyn's
heart pounded.
"I cannot think," Ybarra said at last, in the moment Robyn made herself
move her foot, "that Stuart Willetts could have done what the timing
implies."
Robyn nodded her agreement. "I have thought that as well. But then
the question about Detective Crandall remains. What do you think
Keller could have meant by his cartoons?"
The judge's features drew together in concentration. "Is it possible
Crandall was the one who brought Keller's attention to the affair
between Willetts and Candelaria?"
"It's possible, sir," Kiel answered. "But it doesn't explain the tire
in the muck."
"But you indicated the tire appeared in later drawings in the pile
behind the Crandall caricature. Wouldn't that indicate a discarded
possibility?"
"Or," Kiel suggested, pulling his feet from the hot bubbling spring,
"one that Crandall dug up and succeeded in burying again."
"Then, the only remaining possibility, to my way of thinking, is that
Keller became aware of some other damning piece of evidence as to the
credibility of Detective Crandall."
ON THE DRIVE BACK to town, uncertain as to whether their interview with
Judge Ybarra had been at all productive, Kiel reminded Robyn it was
Stuart Willetts who had suggested Crandall's attitude should be looked
into. "Remember what he said? That Crandall had it in for anyone with
two cents to rub together?"
"Are you thinking his attitude can't have been much of a secret?"
"Not a secret at all." Kiel slumped deeper in the leather passenger
seat. "Do you remember Chloe Nielsen had an airtight alibi for the
murder?"
Robyn frowned. "I remember hearing that but I don't know what it
was."
"Well, get this. Chloe was in the county jail house overnight for
driving under the influence. What do you want to bet Crandall was the
arresting officer?"
As soon as they got back to the offices where the files were kept,
Robyn looked up the telephone number for Spyder's daughter. Robyn
kicked off her shoes and leaned against the desk because the seat of
her jeans was still wet from sitting on the rocks at Ybarra's hot
spring. Kiel plunked down into his chair while she dialed the
number.
Spyder's daughter answered on the fifth ring. Robyn got no further
than to introduce herself and ask if they could meet somewhere to talk
about the murder of her father when Chloe cut her off.
"You people never give up, do you? Is this some sick excuse to get a
rise out of me for that DUI? Or print that picture of me behind bars
in the tabloids again?"
"Actually, Chloe," Robyn said firmly, calmly, "I want to know if Ken
Crandall is the one who put you there."
After a long silence, Chloe said simply, "Don't call me again," and
then hung up. But her silence told Robyn their conjecture must be
true--and that if she hadn't feared some retaliation on Crandall's
part, Chloe would have said quite a lot more.
THEY WENT TO DIN that night in a Victorian-style restaurant tucked away
on Durant Street where sepia photos of historical Aspen adorned the
walls and lush green plants separated the bar from the eating area.
After dinner Robyn left their table to go to the washroom. A woman
younger than Robyn slipped in behind her, and went directly to one of
the four sinks in the marble counter. Examining her hair and lipstick
in the mirror, she never made direct eye contact with Robyn at all. It
didn't matter.
"Do you know me?" the young woman asked, as if speaking to the
mirror.
"Yes." Robyn only recognized her from an old newspaper clipping she
had seen of the funeralgoers at the burial of her father, Spyder
Nielsen. "Chloe Nielsen."
Chloe's long dark hair fell past her narrow shoulders, and an aloof
expression reflected in her sculpted, almost anorexic features. Her
clothes and hair smelled of smoke,
as if she'd been waiting in the bar for the chance to catch Robyn
alone.
"Yes. I've changed my mind about talking to you. I've been checking
around. You're digging into what happened to my father. Who killed
him." Her eyes, a murky gray, flicked to Robyn's in the mirror.
"That's true." Robyn put her shoulder bag down on the marble counter
and turned on the faucet to run warm water over her hands. "Is there
someplace we can meet to talk?"?
Chloe took out a brush and began fussing with her hair, still not
looking at Robyn. "It's not really me you need to talk to."
"Then who? Where?"
Chloe grimaced and put away her brush. "I'm not sure he'll talk to
you. He's tending bar at Lucinda's party tomorrow night. He's agreed
to meet me later in. the
evening in the storeroom at the bar. He
doesn't know why." She refreshed her lipstick. "Be them.
Eleven-fifteen." Before Robyn could double-check the time with her,
Chloe had slipped back out the door.
Thoughtfully, Robyn dried her hands and ran her finger through her own
shining black hair. She dashed on a bit of lipstick, though for the
first time in as long as she could remember, she had a little natural
color without-the sleepless bags under her eyes.
She walked back and sat again at the table where Kiel waited. He'd
ordered her a dessert--chocolate gateau with fresh raspberries. "You
must be cheating again." He looked aggrieved. "Angel tricks, you
mean?" "Yes. Angel tricks. How else do you know the combination of
chocolate and raspberries is my complete undoing?"
Kiel looked down at his hands. He didn't even have to make some verbal
slip, to slip big time. He wouldn't know. Keller would. Especially
the undoing part. Keller would order them for the express purpose of
undoing his wife.
Kiel fended off whatever memories of Keller's were hovering with a
supreme effort. "Come on, Robyn. Everybody loves chocolate and
raspberries."
She looked steadily into his eyes. She knew something was up, she just
didn't know what. She had to chalk it up to angel tricks. He'd
promised to leave her fantasies alone, but she was being paranoid
again. A lot of people like chocolate and raspberries.
"Guess who I just ran into in the ladies' room?" "Trudi?" he grinned.
"Elsa?"
"Oh, sure." She shot him a look. "No. Chloe Nielsen."
"Really. Was she lying in wait for you?"
"No, but she slipped in and out, staying only long enough to tell me
that if I could slip away from the party tomorrow night to the liquor
storeroom of the hotel, there would be someone there I should talk
to."
He knew without asking that she didn't intend to keep the assignment
alone. "Any idea who or why?"
Robyn shook her head, savoring a bite of the gateau and berries. "She
just said she'd changed her mind about talking to me. She apparently
did some checking around and heard I was investigating who killed her
father." Robyn put down her fork, determined to make the dessert last
more than thirty seconds.
"Did she seem nervous?"
"No--at least, I didn't get that impression. It was more on the order
of a command that I be there."
Kiel watched her enjoying the rest of her dessert, jabbering between
bites to extend the experience about meeting Chloe Nielsen and the
mystery man at eleven-fifteen on the night of Lucinda Montbank's
birthday bash.
When the waitress brought the tab, Kiel pulled a wad of cash from his
pocket. Cash he'd materialized right out of thin air a few days ago
when he needed to pay for the dinner trays at The Chandler House.
He worried about it a minute, freshly stung for having pulled more
angel tricks, but then, it hadn't occurred to Robyn to think about
asking where an angel laid his hands on money, so this stunt, at least,
she couldn't hold against him.
He dropped four twenties on the table--dinner in Aspen came deafly--and
hustled her out of the restaurant so she could forget that by now,
post-gdteau, she must be undone.
It was ten o'clock when they walked back along the park in the quarter
moon and Kiel spotted the empty swings. Plenty of time, he thought,
and the perfect opportunity.
He knew how they worked, but only because he'd seen kids stretching out
their legs going forward and tucking them under on the backward arc.
"Come on. I've never been in these things."
"You're kidding--no. You're not. You really haven't been, have
you?"
"Nope."
But he took to them naturally; body physics and flying were among those
things he understood on an innate basis.
He. sat sideways on his for a while, straddling the swing seat,
watching Robyn pumping back and forth, her braid catching in the air
vacuum behind her like a little girl's pigtail each time she leaned way
back and pumped higher.
After a few minutes she let the swing slow. The night air was cold. He
sensed her shivering.
"Do you want to go?" he asked.
She wrapped her arms around the chain links and shook her head. "I was
just wondering if this is what it feels like to have wings. To fly."
It didn't compare. Didn't even come close. "A little bit," he said.
She turned her head to look at him. "But it's not really, is it?"
He swallowed. Shook his head. "Only in the way that you don't feel...
earthbound, I guess."
"Could you show me? Could you take me with you?"
"You are undone, aren't you," he teased. "High as a kite on chocolate
and her des
"Is that a no, Kiel?"
He cleared his throat. "It's an "I don't think it's a good idea,"
Robyn."
She gave a petulant sort of sigh. He knew in a heartbeat, in
Keller-memory, that she was not giving up, but turning up the heat, the
way Keller had never been able to refuse. "Are you always such a
killjoy, Kiel?"
He should have shut her down then. No doubt. But he couldn't. He
knew before he even answered her where this was going, and where they
would go if he didn't stop it. Though he could have let Keller's
memories feed his hunger, he wanted the original experience for
himself.
He recognized the seeds of emotional greed, the threat of lust, but the
glimpse of hellfire and damnation wasn't enough. He was, after all,
the soulmate of this earthbound woman, and nothing hat went on between
them could be construed to send him down that path. And so, instead of
shutting her down, he fed her fire.
"You have a real mouth on you, woman."
Her stomach felt as if it had dropped, the way it feels in a dream when
you've missed a step and you feel you're going to fall. "Ken said that
too."
"Then it must be true."
"And is it true that you're a killjoy? That you never cut loose?"
"I cut loose plenty, in my own way."
She slowed and got out of her swing and took the three steps to his
swing. Her leg no longer ached, her hands were healed, and so was her
face where that mugger had knocked her nearly senseless. Kiel had even
made love to her. It was true he had declined to tell her what he'd
done to be cast into the role. of Avenging Angel, but maybe he would
do this for her.
Maybe he would take her to the stars.
"Show me, Kiel. Show me what it is to have wings. Fly me to the
stars. Show me where Keller is."
His angel heart was on fire. He took her hand and laid it on his
chest. Too much to hope, he knew, that that small gesture would tell
her where Keller was. He turned straight on in the swing, then helped
her climb on him, her legs around his hips, and he kicked the earth
with his foot, setting the swing into a gentle back-and-forth motion.
She didn't know if he would take her where she wanted to go, but she
knew he wanted to k
iss her.
She raised her eyes and looked into his. She could only see the moon
shining, reflecting, nothing of their color. His gaze fell to her
lips.
Her pulse raced. Between her legs, his hard masculine body shifted.
His elbow caught around the chain, he let his hand cup the back of her
neck, beneath her braid, and he pulled her closer.
His breath touched her lips, and then it was his lips touching her
lips, pressing, slanting. The gdteau was sweet and wonderful, but as
an aphrodisiac, it paled beside Kiel's kisses.
She felt the swing begin to move higher, felt lighter, safer against
his body, and not so safe. His kisses deepened. Her heart thundered.
The swing went higher up, higher back, higher up again.
Deep in his embrace, deeper still in his kisses, she felt as if the
earth had fallen away, and it had. He let her fall away from him, too,
but held her hand and somehow they were soaring.
Soaring, like Superman and Lois, only that could have been only a slick
cinematic trick, and this ... this was real.
Far away, she saw with her own eyes the blue-green ball that was earth,
the land masses, the seas. She should not have been able to breathe.
Here with Kiel, she didn't need to breathe. She should not have been
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