“Hey, Bella,” Bob called from his ladder, then quickly hopped down and laid his roller on the tray. “Long time, no see. You’re even prettier than you were in high school. How have you been?”
Eliza glanced from Bob to Bella, looking perplexed. Caprice was perplexed herself. Why was Bella here? And why was she blushing as if she were back in high school and she and Bob were dating again?
Although Bella and Bob had split up because he’d been unfaithful, the animosity had been laid to rest years ago. The reason was simple—Bella had found Joe Santini, and they’d made a life. If Bella bumped into Bob at Grocery Fresh or at the mall, ignoring him had seemed foolish.
Bella gave Bob a first-class smile. “Busy with two kids.”
He gave her another once-over. “You and I will have to talk. Maybe we can have coffee sometime. What do you think?”
She only hesitated a few seconds. “I’d like that . . . a lot.”
Bob’s smile was rakish as he asked, “Did you come to get decorating tips from your sister?”
“No, just a sister-to-sister consultation. Can you give me a few minutes, Caprice? I just need to talk to you. When I phoned Mom, she said you’d be here this afternoon.”
Although Bella had gained color in her cheeks when Bob had complimented her, she’d looked pale when she’d walked in, and there were smudgy blue circles under her eyes.
Not sleeping? Caprice knew there was lots of tension between her sister and her husband, Joe, because of her pregnancy.
Eliza picked up the clipboard she’d left on one of the tarp-covered tables. “I have to go upstairs and work on the list for the auction people. Caprice is ruthless when she de-clutters, but I probably can’t use any of it when I move to the West Coast anyway.” With a fluttering wave, she headed for the foyer and the stairs.
Bob crossed to his ladder and said to Bella, “I’ll give you a call soon and we’ll go for that coffee.”
Bella showing up like this was odd, and Caprice really was worried. She said to Bob, “Excuse us,” took Bella’s arm, and pulled her out of the painter’s earshot.
She and Bella didn’t always have the most harmonious relationship. Bella thought Caprice’s penchant for taking in strays was foolish and that her fashion sense was a horror. Caprice, who liked surprises and knew how to roll with the punches, believed Bella was too rigid.
“Has something happened to Mom or Dad, Joe or the kids?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what’s wrong? You look—” Caprice didn’t quite have the word for it. Ruffled? Unnerved? Anxious? She settled for, “You look upset. And what was that little flirty thing with Bob? What are you doing?”
“I’m just going to have coffee with an old friend. That’s not a crime.”
No, it wasn’t. Still, Bob was an old flame, and right now she could imagine where a cup of coffee could lead when there were problems between Bella and her husband.
After a moment of silence, Bella sighed. “I need to talk to you about Joe. I don’t know what to do.”
“Where are the kids?” On a Thursday afternoon, Timmy should be in summer camp. But at four, Megan . . .
“Megan’s with my neighbor. Nellie’s really good with her and in an emergency, she’ll watch either or both of them for me.”
“So this is an emergency?”
“It feels like it. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’m so tired all the time.”
“Did you say you talked to Mom?”
“Not about any of this. My marriage is too hard to discuss with her. With her and Dad married thirty-seven years and perfectly happy, I don’t think she’d understand.”
“Not perfectly happy. No marriage is perfectly happy. You know they argue now and then.”
“Nothing like this,” Bella concluded dejectedly.
Maybe not, Caprice thought. Their mom was a high school teacher, their dad a mason. Money had been tight with four kids and a house that needed constant repair. But most of the time Fran and Nick De Luca had agreed about their kids and, even more important, about family issues.
“So what’s going on with Joe now?” He and Bella had had a huge blowup at their mom’s surprise birthday party six weeks ago. That day he’d found out Bella was pregnant. That day he’d also discovered his wife had told her sisters about it before she’d told him.
“He’s hardly talking to me. He spends time fooling around with the car, puttering in the garage—He’s also been away a lot at night. He comes home smelling like smoke. When I ask him about it, he says he’s been out with the guys. I don’t know what that means.”
“Have you talked more about your pregnancy?”
“I talk, but he doesn’t listen. I can tell. He just keeps saying we can’t afford another kid. I just keep saying each child is a precious gift. He knows that. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at Megan and Timmy or plays with them. With our Catholic background, he knows there’s no way I’d ever consider having an—” She stopped abruptly.
Bella couldn’t even bring herself to say the word.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Bee.” In serious discussions, Caprice always fell back on her childhood nickname for Bella, who was the youngest; her sister’s name, Isabella, had been quickly shortened to Bella by everybody. But when they were little, Caprice’s nickname for her seemed to give them an added closeness.
Bella looked miserable, and Caprice could only try to imagine how she felt. She and Joe had been married more than eight years, and for the most part, they’d been happy. At least Caprice and her family had thought that was true. Now it seemed as if her sister’s marriage was falling apart.
“Is there anyone Joe might listen to? What if you sat down with Mom and Dad to discuss all of it?”
“That won’t work. Joe would be defensive from the start. It’s not just the fact I’m pregnant. He thinks I got pregnant on purpose. I mean, we got married because I was pregnant, and that was both our faults. We should have known better. He’s always said we were going to get married anyway. But maybe there’s always been a small part of me that doubted how he felt. And now—I don’t know if he believes the antibiotic I was taking counteracted the birth control. I really think he believes I did this on purpose.”
“He knew you were taking an antibiotic, didn’t he? Did you talk about the consequences of having sex while you were on it?”
Bella blushed. “One night the kids were both at sleepovers and it just happened. I guess neither of us thought I’d be in the small percentage of women who would get pregnant.” She paused and collected herself. “So . . . we’re not talking. He doesn’t want to find solutions. He just wants to be mad. Most of all, I think he’s angriest because you and Nikki knew I was pregnant before he did.”
“Have you considered going to counseling? Maybe a stranger to talk to would be best.”
“We can’t afford that. Our insurance doesn’t cover it. I checked.”
“You might have to afford it if your marriage is at stake. I thought you told Nikki and me you have rainy-day money stashed away that you earned making kids’ Halloween costumes.”
“But Joe doesn’t know about that. The fact that I have it stuffed in a shoe in the closet would make him blow another gasket.”
If Bella wasn’t going to listen to any of the advice she offered . . . “Why did you come to me today?”
Looking even more dejected, Bella answered, “Because I didn’t know what else to do.”
After taking a huge breath, Caprice blew it out. “All right. So here’s what I suggest. Find a marriage counselor. You need a mediator. Use that rainy-day money. I can help you too, but I know Joe wouldn’t like that anymore than the cash you’ve kept in that shoe.”
Suddenly Juan Hidalgo came thumping down the steps, Eliza close behind him. Caprice’s right-hand man had broken his ankle. Now it was encased in an unwieldy boot that looked like something an astronaut would wear on the moon. For six weeks, while his broken ankle had begun heali
ng, she’d used temporary help. But Juan managed most of the crews for her, supervised furniture arrangement from her floor plans, and was generally her go-to guy.
Now, however, she glared at him. That look made him slow his progress down the stairs. After all, he was also in physical therapy for that ankle.
“I’m okay,” he assured her in response to the glare. Before she could scold him, he continued, “We’re ready to move furniture from the second floor to the storage unit. I’m meeting the movers out front.” Caprice was about to remind him to be careful again, but he was out the front door before she could. He could move faster on that boot than most people could without one.
Not slowing down herself, Eliza passed by her and Bella and returned to the living room. Caprice knew Bob would shortly be moving his tarps and gear to another room—another glaringly purple, soon-to-be-muted to cream room.
“I feel like I’m in the middle of a cyclone,” Bella muttered.
“You’re in the middle of a house makeover. I guess you’ve never been on site while I’m working before.”
“I guess not. Did Roz tell you I’m going to help get her store up and running?”
Caprice had helped keep her friend from being charged in her husband’s murder back in May. Afterward, wanting to change her life and needing a purpose, Roz Winslow had decided to open a fashion boutique in Kismet.
“Is Mom going to babysit Megan and Timmy?”
“Yes, she is. And when she can’t, Nellie can. Roz said it will take a few months to get the store up and running, so most of my help will be behind the scenes. But she feels with my degree in fashion, I was the logical choice.”
“You’ve told Joe about this, right?”
“Yes. And he growled something about not wanting favors from your friends. I got really mad and told him I married him instead of pursuing a career in fashion, so I’m well qualified to help Roz. He kept quiet after that.”
Bella and Joe seemed to be digging their marriage into a deeper and deeper hole. If they didn’t get help soon, there wouldn’t be anything left to salvage.
The huge, front door of the mansion burst open. Juan and two burly men bustled in. In their tank tops and jeans and with their bulging muscles, they looked totally out of place in the marble-floored foyer with its two-story ceiling reaching into the second-floor gallery at the front of the house.
“I’d better go,” Bella said as Juan directed the men up the stairs. “I feel like I’m in the way.”
Caprice wasn’t going to admit that Bella was in the way. She would never do that. Family was everything to the De Lucas, even when they disagreed, even when they squabbled, even when they saw each other taking the wrong road.
“I don’t know what to do to help you, Bella, but you can come to me anytime. You know that.”
Bella gave Caprice an odd look, as if maybe she didn’t know that, as if maybe Caprice’s opinion mattered more than Caprice had ever imagined.
She gave Bella a hug and held on tight, the way sisters should. When she leaned away, she saw tears in her sister’s eyes. Bella didn’t cry easily, and Caprice suspected pregnancy hormones were at work.
“Are you and Joe coming to dinner at Mom’s on Sunday?” No one missed dinner at their parents, not unless blood and a sudden accident were involved.
“Joe doesn’t want to come.”
“Then you and the kids come.”
“He’s never missed a dinner with Mom and Dad, not since before we were married,” Bella said sadly.
“Try to convince him to come, Bella. Try to put everything aside for one day at least. Give yourself a break.”
“I don’t want everybody to gang up on him.”
“We won’t. I promise. Tell him that. Do you want me to talk to him?”
“Oh, no. I think he’s still embarrassed about blowing up at you at Mom’s birthday party.”
She doubted that. Joe had just said what he was thinking—that he wanted to come first with Bella rather than her family always coming first. What a mess.
“Come on Sunday,” Caprice said again. “Seth will be there.” She knew her sisters were still curious about the handsome doctor, and dinner with their parents would give them the opportunity to get to know him better.
“Are you serious about him?” Bella asked.
“Trying not to be.”
Bella shook her head. “I sure don’t have any advice about your love life right now.”
That one statement proved Bella wasn’t really herself. She was always ready to give Caprice advice, and anyone else who would listen too.
After she walked Bella to the door, watched her go down the steps and climb into her car that was parked in the circular drive, Caprice returned inside. She heard men’s voices upstairs and lots of noise. Movers at work.
She headed back to the living room, needing to set up a schedule with Eliza. The real estate agent had mentioned wanting to shoot video and still pictures by the beginning of next week. Everything had to be painted, redesigned, and in place by then.
In the doorway to the living room, Caprice stopped cold because she heard Eliza say—
“You have no right to ask Bella out on a date.”
How awkward was this? But Eliza and Bob obviously didn’t know she was there.
“What I do now is none of your damn business,” Bob retorted with what sounded like menace.
Eliza must have heard menace too, because she took a step back and looked as if she might burst into tears. Was that an act? Or did this multimillionaire entrepreneur really have feelings for this painter? Or . . .
Was she afraid of him?
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2013 by Karen Rose Smith
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-8484-6
First Kensington Mass Market Edition: December 2013
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8485-3
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First Kensington Electronic Edition: December 2013
Staged to Death (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) Page 26
