The Throwbacks

by Stephanie Queen

  Dan made a swiping-his-brow gesture and Nick snickered.

  “The mayor may be a tad self-important, but he’s right about one thing. The perps are dangerous,” David said.

  “I’ll echo that. My ribs are still sore.” Nick stretched and winced.

  “Then don’t you think you should be getting back to your brother and his fiancée?” Dan pointed out.

  Nick finally left. After he called I.C.E. and filled them in, Dan picked up the phone again, tapped out some numbers and put it on the speaker. David was starting to feel like not much more than an observer.

  “Are you sure I’m the lead detective on this case? All I seem to be doing is watching you have all the fun.” They listened to the phone ring on the other end. Someone answered in Spanish.

  After twiddling his thumbs while listening to Dan’s tedious conversation, he had to comment. “You do realize that it took ten minutes to find out that our man won’t be available until later this evening.”

  “We’ll need a translator for that conversation, it looks like.” Dan hung up the phone and gave him a thoughtful look that turned into a grin.

  David knew instantly what he was thinking. “You can’t be serious—there are already enough outsiders involved in this case.”

  “Don’t worry. Better an outsider who’s clueless than another person inside the department who’s going to ask questions and expect answers that make sense. Frenchie speaks Spanish too—very well. She’s been to South America at least three times.”

  David shook his head as his investigation veered off course yet again.

  “I see the advantage. Frenchie won’t have any idea about the connection to the murder.”

  “Then it’s done. I’ll arrange for Frenchie to translate when we call Mateo tonight.” Dan picked up his phone and tapped out a number.

  “And on that note, I’ll take my leave. I’ll follow-up with I.C.E. later this afternoon to see if they have anything for us. See you at six.” David got up and headed for the door. He heard Dan greet his wife as he closed the door behind him and felt a jolt of melancholy. He shook off his wistfulness and moved on.

  It was about four o’clock when Grace arrived to pick him up and take him to the decorating center as planned. He hadn’t called her to cancel because ending their liaison—even though technically it hadn’t started—was something that had to be done in person. She was a delicate and lovely woman and he knew she would take it hard, but bravely. He wanted to minimize any hurt if he could.

  “Grace, you look stunning as usual,” he said upon opening his door. And she did look stunning dressed in black and white from the wide-brimmed, frothy hat down to the patent leather high-heels. The outfit emphasized her curvy figure unfairly and showed off her creamy complexion and short blond curls. He took a deep breath. “Please come in. I’d like to have a talk with you, if you don’t mind?”

  She checked her watch and took him by the arm.

  “How about if we talk on the way—we’re running a little late for our appointment. I had a little problem getting the hat just right. I know you must think I’m dressed more for the Kentucky Derby than work, but you don’t know the design center. It’s filled with designers.” She hurried him to her car. She ran around and got in the driver’s side—the car was still running.

  He could do nothing but smile and go along. He’d have to have their talk at the end of their appointment. He looked forward suddenly to spending this extra hour with her. He figured she’d have to turn his decorating over to someone else at the firm and they could pick up wherever she left off after their design center visit.

  “I’m intrigued, but from the sounds of it I’m afraid I’ll stand out as decidedly unfashionable,” he said cheerfully as he sat in her passenger seat. It was adjusted exactly as he’d left it the last time she drove him somewhere, and that thought comforted him and stabbed him with regret at the same time.

  “Don’t worry—everyone knows, or will know you’re my client. I’m so excited to show you off—a real live ex-Scotland Yard detective! I have to confess, you are the real reason I took extra time and care to dress up today. I wanted you to be stunned by me,” she turned to him with her gorgeous wide brown eyes and an earnestness that squeezed his heart. Luckily they were at a stoplight. He was having trouble coming up with a response that wasn’t a lie to her or to himself.

  “You succeeded. I’ll say the same thing that I said when we first met—you couldn’t possibly make anything but a stunning impression.”

  He watched her face warm and her smile melt and felt the melting inside him too. It was going to be goddamn difficult to send her away.

  “So what made you decide to be a decorator—besides your obvious talent? You could have done most anything, I think.” He shouldn’t have added the last since he was endeavoring to be neutral, but it was too damned hard.

  “I realized it’s mostly a man’s world out there, and I’m too female to fit in.” She had an earnest frown on her face. He raised his brows and stifled his grin.

  “But in the design world I fit in magnificently,” she added with a satisfied smile.

  “I can see why,” he quipped without saying why. Predictably she bopped his arm and her lone dimple appeared. Exactly what he wanted to see, he realized. Then she sighed.

  “Pixie says that’s a big reason why I haven’t found Mr. Right. Not too many men in this business.” Then she stopped and caught her breath, looking at him with her expressive brown eyes opened wide as if she’d said too much. But it wasn’t her words that spoke volumes. He had to put a stop to this soon.

  “Take heart—remember that old Doris Day and Rock Hudson movie? But that’s right, I doubt you’ve even heard of them. They’re well before your time.”

  “I know the movie—where Doris Day plays a decorator and Rock Hudson is her client. It’s called Pillow Talk and I loved it.” She beamed.

  “My god, I believe you are a throwback.” He realized he wasn’t even mildly surprised.

  She laughed, but didn’t comment. He wasn’t sure she knew what he meant by “throwback,” but it didn’t matter. Doubt fogged the edges of his mind as he wondered if maybe he was about to make a mistake. Or more precisely, another mistake in a long line of them in his personal life.

  He shook it off.

  When they arrived at the design center and he escorted her to the door, touching her at the small of her back and trying not to be too possessive when every cell in him wanted to have his arm around her and be whispering intimately in her ear, he was no closer to his goal of sending her away. In fact, he was even less disposed to do so. He felt more like he would be cutting off his entire hand instead of a mere finger.

  The only thing that penetrated Grace’s awareness was the way David quietly possessed her with his hand at her back as they walked through the doors of the Boston Design Center. She felt like she was glowing, and everyone would know she was falling in love. She stopped inside the doors and struggled to stop herself from getting carried away. He was her client. She was a professional and they were in her professional milieu. There would be plenty of time later for their courtship—because that’s what it would be—a courtship. He was so deliciously old-fashioned. Just like her.

  Rory walked fast in her direction with his small quick steps clapping on the tile floor, his hands clasped in front of him as if he were praying and the usual pained smile on his face. He always looked as if smiling was a crime punishable by flogging and he anticipated the painful cost.

  “Dear Grace, you look ravishing—you always do.” Rory took her hands between his and shook them. Then he immediately turned his attention to David. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is David Young, my client with the empty townhouse on Beacon Hill. The emergency case I was telling you about,” Grace said. She realized how silly that sounded to David when he raised his brows. Maybe emergency was too strong a word, but…

  “How do you do?” David shook Rory’s hand with a
nod and a perfectly wonderful, pain-free and understated smile.

  “And he’s British too. This is marvelous, Gracie. Well, let’s get down to it, shall we? Come right this way,” Rory said.

  “I thought we’d start with some fabrics to get a sense of David’s color tastes first.” She smiled up at David, hoping she didn’t lose his interest. “How does that sound?”

  “You know everything sounds wonderful coming from those luscious lips of yours,” he said in a whisper. She felt herself warm and touched her cheek, wondering if it was pink. They followed Rory toward the aisles of upholstery and draperies.

  Then David’s phone rang.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention that they have a strict rule against cell phones here,” Rory said. “Just kidding!”

  “I’ll only be a second. Tell them it’s important police business,” he told Rory as he took a few steps away for privacy in the huge open space. She smiled but wasn’t sure the call really was police business when she saw the way David’s face tightened subtly after he put the phone to his ear. The pleasant smile never left his face. He watched her as he spoke and listened to his call from a few feet away.

  Rory had kept walking and looked back at her, suddenly aware that they’d stopped following him. She shrugged at him. He stopped with his hands on his hips and began tapping his foot as if he were tracking the time in milliseconds.

  When David walked back toward her as he tapped his phone against his thigh, she was certain it was bad news and felt her heart beating faster. Bad news in the police business could be real life-or-death bad, not like her trivial decorating emergency.

  “Was it important police business?” she asked.

  “No, much worse. I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut short our visit here. I do apologize,” he said.

  She froze. He looked as unreadable as a statue and that made her take in a frightened breath.

  “I’ll tell you about it in the car,” he said and went to put his hand on her back, but then dropped it by his side. Instead of escorting her in that beautiful possessive way he had, he walked ahead of her toward the door.

  “What about our appointment?” Rory said with an unfriendly look in the direction of David’s retreating back.

  “I’ll have to call you and reschedule,” she said with haste and followed David out the door. She knew there was trouble. The question was what kind.

  They got in the car and she turned to him. “What’s this all about David?”

  “I have to be somewhere else as soon as possible,” he said with his unreadable law enforcement expression.

  Her heartbeat picked up its pace. This was all wrong. She had been part of the investigation and now he was shutting her out. Or worse, he was lying about the police business and holding something personal back from her.

  “Maybe I should take a cab instead of making you chauffeur me.” He took out his phone to make the call.

  “No—it’s okay. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.” She waited for him to tell her. The pounding in her chest seemed to reverberate inside the small car.

  He stopped, slipped his phone back into his pocket and let his own emotions show. He looked wistful, she thought.

  “All right, then. You can drop me at my townhouse. But I have to talk to you about something on the way.”

  She nodded her head and pulled the car out of its parking space. She gripped the steering wheel tightly to stop her hands from shaking. “About what?” Her voice was barely audible.

  “About us. You must know that I’m smitten with you, but I have to say it would never work out between us, Grace. We’re too different—you’re too young—or more likely I’m too old.” He put up a hand to stop her from saying anything in either argument or agreement.

  She didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak. It was worse than she feared. He’d said he was smitten and she couldn’t stop herself from repeating those words in her mind over and over as if to hold onto something positive so she could hold onto her self-control.

  “Under the circumstances, if you’d rather turn my decorating job over to someone else in your office, I’ll understand,” he said in a quiet, kind voice.

  That made it worse. She held in a whimper and refused to think about it all. But after another few minutes of silence when they’d arrived at his door, she found some pride deep down and told herself if he didn’t want her then she didn’t want him. Because if there was one thing she knew in life, one thing she’d learned, it was that if a relationship wasn’t mutual, it was nothing.

  But he’d admitted to being smitten, and she felt a tremor in her resolve.

  She squeezed her eyes to keep a tight hold on the tears and managed to drop him off without a word. He got out of her car, closed the door and looked back at her through the window with a sad nod of his head.

  She drove away with her tears starting to leak out. She didn’t want to drive back to her studio apartment. It wasn’t much of a home to her—except for her puppy, Noodles. She couldn’t go to work where she’d find her friend Pixie because she didn’t want to be all emotional and unprofessional there. The one place she knew she could go was to “Aunt” Mabel’s. The woman would be having tea about now and she was an expert at consolation. Grace stepped on the gas pedal of her Mustang the few blocks through Beacon Hill from David’s to his aunt’s home. “Hold it together, Gracie,” she said out loud in a high-pitched but determined voice.

  Feeling better because she was doing something, she fished in her pink fake-alligator bag and retrieved her cell phone. She pressed number one on the speed dial and left a message for Pixie—as David had nicknamed her. That errant thought gave her a pang. She clamped down again and told Sophia’s voice mail to pick up Noodles as soon as possible and bring her to Mabel’s. Grace ignored that niggling little thought at the back of her mind that reminded her that Mabel was David’s aunt—his real aunt. And maybe she shouldn’t be running there.

  Grace arrived at the Beacon Hill townhouse on Pinckney Street. Mabel answered the door herself, took one look at Grace and gave her the consoling embrace she’d been hoping for.

  “Oh, Aunt Mabel, I’ve had a setback. I know you didn’t think David was right for me, but I thought we could be perfect together,” she said as she embraced the older woman.

  Mabel hugged her back, small, but sure and strong. “I know, dear. It’s okay. If you think he’s right, then he must be. Heaven knows I’m no star in the romance department.” Mabel patted her back. She held onto the woman’s bony shoulders.

  “But he turned me away,” she whispered, then hiccupped. “And my Batman is so strong-minded. I’ll need some help,” she said. She would feel silly making the admission, if it were anyone but Mabel.

  They stood in the hallway. Mabel indulged her in the comforting hug for a few more seconds. The older woman didn’t feel one bit frail at the moment. Grace supposed she was the frail one now. She sniffed and knew she needed to stand up and stop leaning on the older woman, literally and figuratively.

  “Honey, I know he seems formidable, but now that I’ve thought about it, I’m convinced he needs you as much as you need him,” Mabel said.

  The words felt like an elixir, but before Grace could fully enjoy the effect of wrapping herself in the reassuring concept, she became aware of another person approaching—and it wasn’t Mabel’s maid.

  “Batman? Don’t let him kid you, sweetheart.” The words were spoken in the familiar husky voice of a man who smoked too many cigars and was a bit too sure of himself.

  Grace’s eyes popped open. She stood up from her hunched embrace and looked into the man’s eyes in disbelief.

  “Oscar!”

  Chapter 8

  DAVID arrived for cocktails at the chief’s house before his dinner date with Frenchie, wearing his customary dark suit, starched white shirt and tie. When Dan opened the door he felt like he should have a corsage and they should be going to a prom. It had been too long since he’d courted a girl. They were all wome
n now.

  “Just in time—but not for cocktails. We’ll call Inspector Mateo in Peru soon. They’re an hour behind us so it’s not too late. We have our translator.” Dan led David from the entryway toward the living room where Esther, Frenchie Maria and Jason were seated.

  “You’re sure about this?” David stopped in the doorway before entering the living room. Dan turned and looked behind him at Frenchie. She and Esther were looking back at him and Esther wore a big smile.

  “Come on in.” Dan waved his arm with a glass in hand. “We’re having ginger ale until after the call.”

  David strode into the room and walked toward Frenchie with a nod and a smile. “Aren’t we lucky to have a language professional right here at our disposal,” he said.

  “Maria is fluent in Spanish as well as French—aren’t you Maria?” Esther looked at David expectantly, and Maria nodded rather hesitantly. David thought she clearly lacked Esther’s enthusiasm for the task.

  “Of course.” Dan smiled and raised his drink as if the deal was sealed.

  “But…”

  David could swear Frenchie was about to back out.

  “Of course you’ll help out, won’t you? Translating a Spanish conversation should be a piece of cake for you. You’ll be assisting in official police business,” Esther enthused as if it were everyone’s idea of a dream come true.

  “Of course I’d love to help—if you really think I can?” Frenchie begged him with her lovely astonished eyes for encouragement.

  Dan and Esther watched him, no doubt with their collective breathing stopped, waiting to see how he’d respond.

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine…Maria.” David realized he’d have to stop thinking of her as Frenchie. It also occurred to him that he didn’t know her last name. It was just as well because it was probably something French and he was terrible at French pronunciation.