Winter Roses

by Diana Palmer

  “I’ll do that for you,” he said softly.

  She looked up into his pale blue eyes. “I can do it,” she said. “If you’ll go with me.”

  He smiled. “Of course I will.” The smile faded. “How did she die?”

  “I don’t know. The police aren’t sure, either. He said they’ll have to do an autopsy to find the cause of death.” She laid her cheek against his broad chest. “Her apartment will have to be gone through and her things removed. Then I have to decide whether to have her cremated or bring her home to Jacobsville and bury her there, near our parents.”

  “Rachel wouldn’t have cared what you did with her,” he said coldly.

  “I’d really rather have her cremated,” she told him sadly. She didn’t want to mention that the expense of transporting a coffin to Jacobsville was too over whelming for her. She was sure that Rachel had no health insurance, or life insurance. And even if she had, there was no doubt that Jerry would have had himself put on the policy as beneficiary. But that still left Ivy with the funeral expense.

  “Then, we’ll see about doing that,” Stuart said after a minute. “But first things first. We’ll go to the morgue, then we’ll find a funeral home. After we’ve made the arrangements, we’ll go back to her apartment and see what needs doing there.”

  “You make everything sound so simple,” she remarked.

  “Most things are. It’s just a matter of organization.”

  She sat up on his lap, dabbing at her eyes. “Sorry. I just lost it when I saw you. I thought I’d have to do all this alone.”

  He pulled out a white handkerchief and put it in her hands. “Dry your eyes. Then we’ll call your sergeant and get the process started. Okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  Stuart tried to keep her from looking at Rachel, but she insisted. She wanted to see how her sister looked.

  It was bad. Rachel was gray. There was no expression on her face, although it was pock marked and very thin. She looked gruesome, but it was definitely Rachel.

  Stuart and Sergeant Ames escorted her back to Ames’s office, where they sat around his desk drinking cups of black coffee until Ivy was fortified enough to talk.

  “We’re going to have an autopsy done,” Ames told them, “but the medical examiner says it’s pretty conclusive that she died of a massive overdose of cocaine.”

  “Is that why she looks the way she does?” Ivy asked, dabbing at her eyes with Stuart’s handkerchief. “I mean, her face looks pockmarked.”

  “That’s the crystal meth she’d been using,” he replied. “It’s the most deadly drug we deal with these days. It ravages the user. A few months on it and they look like zombies.”

  “Why?” she asked suddenly. “Why would anyone use something like that in the first place?”

  “People have been asking that question for years, and we still don’t have an answer. It’s one of the most addictive drugs,” the detective told her gently. “Once it gets into their systems, people will literally kill to get it.”

  “How horrible,” she said, and meant it.

  “How long had she been using?” he asked Ivy.

  “Since she was in high school,” she told him dully. “I told my father, but he didn’t believe me. He said Rachel would never do drugs.” She laughed hollowly. “She’d come to see us when she was high as a kite, and my father never even noticed.”

  “Her father drank,” Stuart interrupted solemnly. “I don’t think he noticed much.”

  Ivy grimaced. “I never imagined she’d end up like this.”

  “What about her boy friend?” Stuart wanted to know.

  Ames shrugged. “We’ve managed to get a couple of convictions against him, but even so, he gets out of jail in no time, and goes right back to his old tricks. A couple of his clients are powerful figures in the city.”

  “On all the best television shows, the drug dealers go away for life,” Ivy pointed out.

  Ames chuckled. “I wish it was that way. It’s not. For hundreds of reasons, drug dealers never get the sentences they deserve.”

  “When will they do the autopsy?” Ivy asked.

  “Probably tonight,” Ames said. “They don’t have a backlog, for the first time in months. Once we have a cause of death, we can decide where to go from there.”

  “What about her apartment?” Ivy asked. “Is it all right for us to go there?”

  “Yes,” he replied and, reaching into his middle desk drawer, produced a key. “This is a copy of the key to her apartment, which we have in the property room. I thought you’d need access, so I had this one made. We’ve already processed her apartment.”

  “I’ll need to clean it out and pack up whatever little family memorabilia she kept, so I can take it home with me,” Ivy said dully.

  “How well do you know Jerry Smith?” the detective asked her.

  “I’ve seen him a few times,” she replied. “I never liked him. I have migraine head aches,” she added. “He came home with Rachel when our father died. I had the headache and he switched my medicine for some powerful narcotics. I realized he’d substituted something for my prescription pills, and I refused to take what he gave me. He thought it was funny.”

  Stuart looked murderous. “You never told me that,” he accused.

  “I knew what you’d do if you found out,” she replied. “That man looks to me like he has some really dangerous connections.”

  “I have a few of my own,” Stuart replied curtly. “Including two Texas Rangers, an FBI agent and our local sheriff. You should have told me.”

  She grimaced. “I was glad when Rachel and Jerry went back to New York.”

  “I’m not surprised,” the sergeant said. “I have your sister’s effects in the property room. If you’ll come with me, I’ll get them for you. You’ll have to sign them out.”

  “All right.” She stood up, feeling numb. “Thank you for being so kind.”

  “It goes with the job description,” he assured her.

  Stuart had hired a limousine. Ivy found it fascinating. She wished she wasn’t so transparent to him. He seemed amused that she wanted to know everything about the expensive transportation.

  He had the driver wait for them at Rachel’s apartment building. He escorted Ivy up the stairs to the second floor apartment and opened the door. It was just the way Rachel had left it, except for the white outline that showed where her body had been.

  Ivy was taken aback at the graphic evidence of her sister’s death. She stood there for a moment until she could get her emotions under control. “I don’t know where to begin,” she said.

  “Try the bedroom,” Stuart suggested. “I’ll go through the drawers in the living room.”

  “Okay.”

  She wandered into Rachel’s bedroom, her eyes on the ratty pink coverlet, the scattered old shoes, the faded curtains. Rachel had always told every body back home that she was getting good parts in Broadway plays and making gobs of money. Ivy had even believed it.

  But she should have realized that Rachel wouldn’t have been so per sis tent about their father’s money unless she was hurting for it. A rich woman would have less need for a parent’s savings.

  Ivy opened the bedside table, feeling like a thief as she looked inside. There was a small book with an embroidered cover. A diary. Absently, Ivy stuck it in the pocket of her jacket and moved to the dresser.

  There was hardly anything in the dresser except for some faded silk lingerie and under wear. The closet, however, was a surprise. Inside were ten exquisite and expensive evening gowns and two coats. Ivy touched them. Fur. Real fur. There were expensive high heeled shoes in every color of the rainbow on the floor of the closet.

  She opened the jewelry box on the dresser and gasped. It could be costume jewelry, of course, but it didn’t look cheap. There were emeralds and diamonds and rubies in rings and neck laces and earrings. It looked like a king’s ransom of jewelry. What in the world had Rachel done to get all this, she wondered? />
  Stuart came in, his hands deep in his pockets, frowning. “She’s got a big plasma television, a top-of-the-line DVD player and some furniture that came from exclusive antique shops. How did she manage all that without visible means of support?”

  “That’s a good question,” Ivy replied. “Look at this.”

  Stuart looked over her shoulder at the jewels. He picked up a ring and looked at the inscription inside the band. “Eighteen karat gold,” he murmured. “The stones are real, too.”

  “Do you think she stole them?” Ivy asked worriedly.

  “I don’t think it’s likely that she owned them,” he replied. “There’s about a hundred thousand dollars worth, right here in this tray.”

  Her gasp was audible. “I thought it might be costume jewelry.”

  He tilted her chin up to his eyes. “You don’t know a lot about luxury, do you, honey?” he asked softly. He bent and touched his mouth gently to hers. “I like you that way.”

  The touch of his mouth was almost her undoing, but she couldn’t forget the task at hand. “Where do you think she got all this?” she persisted.

  “If she was hanging out with a millionaire, I imagine he gave it to her.”

  “His wife will want it all back.”

  He nodded. “If she knows it’s here.” He frowned. “I’m surprised that Ames didn’t take it and put it in the property room.”

  “Maybe he thought it was fake, too.”

  He chuckled. “No. That guy knows his business. He may have some sort of surveillance camera in here, waiting to see if anyone carries off the jewels.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” she mused.

  He closed the lid of the jewelry box. “No, it isn’t.” He checked his watch. “It’s going on lunch time. We can go back to my hotel and have room service send something up to us.”

  “I have my own room,” she reminded him.

  “We’ll cancel it and pick up your suitcase,” he replied. “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he added somberly. “Especially while we don’t know exactly why your sister died.”

  She started to argue. He held up a hand. “I won’t give up or give in. Just come along and don’t fight it.”

  “You’re very domineering,” she accused.

  “Years of working cattle has ruined me for polite society,” he said with a twinkle in his pale eyes.

  She laughed, as she was meant to. “All right,” she said after a minute. She didn’t mind being guided at the moment. She was worn. He picked up the jewelry box and put it in her hands.

  “Her boy friend will say these belong to him,” he said. “But he’s not getting them without a fight. We’ll put them in a safe-deposit box for the time being.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she agreed. “He may not have killed her, but he helped her get where she is now. He shouldn’t profit from her death.”

  “I agree.”

  On the way to the hotel, he stopped at a bank where he obviously had an account and asked for access to his own safe-deposit box. They deposited the jewelry box in it. He asked to speak to one of the vice presidents of the bank, who came out of his office, smiling, to motion Stuart and Ivy into it. Stuart asked him about funeral parlors in the city and was referred to a reputable one. The bank officer gave Stuart the number.

  When they were back in the limousine, Stuart dialed the number and spoke to one of the funeral directors. He made an appointment for them later that after noon to speak about the arrangements. The funeral home would arrange for trans port of Rachel’s body when the medical examiner released it. Then they went by Ivy’s hotel and picked up her suitcase. Stuart, despite her protests, paid for the room.

  “We can argue about it when we’re back home,” he told her.

  His hotel room made hers look like a closet. It was a pent house suite, one of those that figured in presidential visits, she guessed. Stuart took it for granted. He phoned room service and ordered food.

  “You should have asked for more than that,” he said when she was through a bowl of freshly made potato soup.

  “It was all I thought I could eat,” she said simply. “It hasn’t been the best day of my life.” She put down the spoon. “I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” she added solemnly. “I feel numb.”

  “So did I, when my father died,” he said, putting down his fork. He poured second cups of coffee for them both before he spoke again. “I was sure that I hated him. He’d spent his life trying to force me to become what he couldn’t. But when it happened, I was devastated. You never realize how important a parent, any parent, is in your life until they’re not there anymore.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Nobody else shares your memories like a parent. My father was bad to me. He always preferred Rachel, and he never tried to hide it.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing that I know he didn’t believe I was his child. It makes the past a little easier to bear. I wish I knew for sure, though.”

  “We’ll find out. I promise you we will.”

  She stared at him across the table. “You must be letting deals get by while you’re up here with me,” she said.

  He shrugged. “There’s nothing any of my managers can’t handle. That’s why I hire qualified people, so that I can delegate authority when I need to.”

  She smiled. “I’m very glad. I could have done this by myself. But I’m glad that I didn’t have to.”

  He finished his coffee and put his napkin on the table. His pale eyes caught hers from the other side of the table. “I’d never have let you go through this alone,” he said quietly.

  The words were mundane, but his eyes were saying things that made her heart jump up into her throat. A faint wave of color stained her cheeks.

  He smiled slowly, wickedly. “Not now,” he said in a deep, slow drawl. “We’ve got too much to do. Business now. Diversions later.”

  The blush went nuclear. She got up from the table, fumbling a little with her coffee cup in the process.

  He laughed. She was as transparent as glass to a man with his experience. It made him feel taller to see that helpless delight in her face. He was glad he’d come to New York. And not just because Ivy needed help.

  They sat in the funeral director’s office, going over final arrangements for Rachel. Ivy decided on cremation. It was in expensive, and Stuart had already mentioned that he was flying his own twin-engine plane home. There wouldn’t be any problem with getting the urn containing Rachel’s ashes through security.

  She picked out an ornate black and gold brass urn. “I can have our local funeral director bury it in the space next to Daddy,” she told Stuart.

  “Some people keep the ashes at home,” the director remarked.

  “No, I don’t think I could live in the house if Rachel was sitting on the mantel,” Ivy said quietly. “My sister and I didn’t get along, you see.”

  The director smiled. “I have a brother I couldn’t get along with. I know how you feel.”

  They went back into his office and Ivy signed the necessary papers and wrote a check for the cost of the expenses, despite Stuart’s protests.

  Later, in the limousine, he voiced his disapproval. “You’ve got enough to do supporting yourself,” he said curtly. “Rachel’s funeral cost is pocket change to me.”

  “I know that,” she replied. “But you have to understand how I feel, Stuart. It’s my sister and my responsibility.”

  He caught her hand in his and held it tight. “You always were an in de pen dent little cuss,” he mused, smiling at her.

  She smiled back. “I like the feeling that I can stand on my own two feet and support myself,” she replied. “I never had a life of my own as long as Rachel was alive. She was even worse than Dad about trying to manage me.”

  He pursed his lip. “Do I detect a double meaning?”

  She laughed. “No. Well, yes. You do try to manage me.” She stared at him curiously. “And I don’t know why. You were just going around with some beautiful debutante. T
here was a photograph of you in a tabloid two weeks ago,” she added and then flushed because that sounded like jealousy.

  But he only smiled. “That photo was taken four years ago. God knows where they dug it up.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “The photograph was taken years ago. See this?” He indicated a tie tack that she’d given him for his birthday three years ago. “I always wear it with my suits. Look in the photo and see if you see it.”

  In fact, she hadn’t seen it in that photo. It amazed her that he prized such an in expensive present. And that he wore it constantly. “You like it that much?” she asked, diverted.

  Instead of a direct answer, his hand slipped to her collar and dipped under it to produce a filigree gold cross that he’d given her for Christmas three years past. “You never take it off,” he said, his voice deep and slow. “It’s in every photo of you that my sister takes.”

  “I…it’s very pretty,” she stammered. The feel of his knuckles against her soft skin was delightful.

  “Yes, it is. But that isn’t why you wear it, any more than I wear the tie tack because it’s trendy.”

  He was insinuating something very intimate. She stared into his pale eyes as they narrowed, and darkened, and her breath began to catch in her throat.

  “We’re both keeping secrets, Ivy,” he said in a deep, soft tone. “But not for much longer.”

  She searched his pale eyes, looking for a depth of feeling that matched her own. He was familiar, dear. When she and Merrie were in high school, she’d felt breath less when he walked into a room. She hadn’t realized, then, that the feelings she got when he was around were the beginnings of aching desire.

  He traced the outline of her soft lips with his fore finger, making her tingle all over. He smiled, so tenderly that she felt she could fly. Any idea she’d had that he was playing a game with her was gone now. No man looked at a woman like this unless he cared, even if only a little.

  CHAPTER EIGHT