THE TROPHY WIFE

by Ginna Gray

  "So…" he began, casting her a teasing look while he shook out his napkin. "What the hell are you doing having lunch with me when you just got married yesterday? Is this new husband of yours stupid? I was hoping he'd be an improvement over Edward."

  "Max had an important business meeting that couldn't be delayed. And I thought that you liked Edward."

  "I thought he was a jerk. But I love you, so I made nice whenever I was around him. You ask me, he did you a favor by running off with Natalie Brussard." Quinton's mouth twisted with distaste. "I don't like to speak ill of women, mind you, but that one's been around the block a few too many times for my taste."

  Elizabeth laughed. "Thanks. I needed that."

  "Anytime. I'm glad to be of service. But let's forget about Natalie and your jerk of an ex-husband. I want to hear about the new man in your life. I gotta tell you, sweetheart, this meeting he's attending, it must have been damned important to let it interrupt a honeymoon with a gorgeous creature like you. What kind of business is he in?"

  Elizabeth toyed with her water glass. "Max is in investments. Finance. That sort of thing," she replied vaguely. "He puts together deals and investors."

  The waiter came and took their orders. When he left, Quinton grinned at her. "So tell me, is he rich?"

  "Quinton! What a thing to ask."

  "Well? Is he?" he returned, not one whit abashed.

  "You're terrible," she mumbled, and looked down at the menu, trying to ignore him and at the same time bite back a grin. Both efforts failed miserably.

  "I know," he agreed cheerfully, and when she looked up he waggled his eyebrows at her. "But you love me, anyway, don'tcha. Now, answer my question."

  Elizabeth laughed. "Yes. He's filthy rich."

  "Hey! Way to go, cuz!" He clinked his water glass against hers then raised it in a salute. "May your life be full of happiness, love and hot sex and your bank account full of dough."

  "I'll drink to that," she said, clinking her teacup to his glass. "So, how is Camille?" she asked, mainly to be polite.

  "Ah well, you know my sister," Quinton said. "I just returned from visiting her and Leon. They've been married three years, and the bloom is definitely off the rose. She was making noises about divorcing him the whole time I was there."

  "Oh, dear. How does Leon feel about that?"

  "He doesn't have a clue, poor devil. He worships at her feet, which is probably why she's bored with him."

  "So do you really think she'll divorce him?"

  "Trust me, sweetie. I expect her to come swooping down on me any day now with enough suitcases to fill the basement. One thing I'll say for my sister, though. Every man she has married has been richer than the last. She'll get a healthy alimony out of Leon."

  Throughout lunch their easy banter continued. It was as though it had been days, rather than months, since they'd last been together. Usually Elizabeth saw Quinton only three or four times a year, whenever she and Mimi came to New York for the fashion shows, or occasionally when he came to Texas to visit, yet he was one of her closest friends and confidants.

  She had told Quinton about Edward's theft of her assets, not in any great detail, but enough for him to know that she was in financial trouble. She was tempted to confide how her marriage to Max had come about, but something held her back. It seemed somehow disloyal to Max to reveal something so private to anyone other than Mimi.

  After lunch Elizabeth walked a block and a half with Quinton to where he'd parked his car. The minuscule back seat of his sports car was overflowing with suitcases. He was leaving immediately to drive down to Miami Beach to visit friends.

  The wind was raw and biting, dank with the feel and smell of coming snow. Shivering, Elizabeth huddled deeper in her mink-trimmed long swing coat, and when they stopped beside his little fireball of a car, she stood on first one foot then the other, trying to ward off the penetrating cold.

  "Well, cuz, it was great seeing you again," Quinton said. Giving her a warm smile, he reached out and smoothed a strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. "All kidding aside, sweetie, I do hope you have a long and happy life with your Max. And you tell him for me that if he doesn't treat you right, I'll personally come to Houston and kick his ass."

  Elizabeth chuckled. She had a sudden vivid mental picture of her lean, elegant cousin and her husband butting heads. In any sort of physical confrontation Max could and would wipe up the floor with Quinton.

  "I'll tell him," she agreed. They hugged and Quinton climbed into his car. Waving goodbye, Elizabeth watched him drive away.

  She was glad she'd made an effort to see Quinton. With his easy charm and "don't take life too seriously" attitude he had a way of keeping her grounded while at the same time cheering her up.

  Another blast of wind cut through her. She shivered and raised the fur-lined hood on her coat and stepped off the curb, raising her hand to flag down a cab. "Taxi!"

  "Hey, watch out!"

  The shouted warning came from behind Elizabeth. Instinctively she turned around partway toward the voice.

  In the space of a heartbeat, though the scene seemed to play out in ultra-slow motion, she saw a car bearing down on her and the cold face of the driver, while from her left an elderly woman, her face twisted in a desperate expression, reached for her with both hands. "Wha—"

  Everything seemed to happen at once. Several more shouts went up. The woman grabbed hold of Elizabeth's coat and did her best to snatch her back out of harm's way, but she wasn't quite quick enough. There was a sickening thud as the sedan hit Elizabeth a grazing blow, and pain exploded in her right hip.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying in the street, partially on top of the old woman who had saved her, and other people were crowding all around.

  "Did you see that? That guy ran her down on purpose!"

  "Yeah. He took dead aim, right at her."

  "Somebody call the cops."

  "Anybody get a license number?"

  "I did!"

  "Here comes a cop."

  "What's going on here? Police. Stand clear. Outta the way."

  Elizabeth found herself looking up into the concerned face of a young uniformed police officer. "You okay, lady?"

  "Ye-yes. Thanks to this lady. You saved my life," she said to the older woman. "I'll never be able to thank you enough." Elizabeth disentangled herself from the woman's grip and tried to stand up, only to cry out in pain.

  The officer squatted down beside her. "Are you hurt?"

  "Of course she's hurt," the old woman snapped, climbing to her feet with the help of some bystanders. "She was hit by a car. It's a miracle she wasn't killed."

  "Si," a Hispanic man in the crowd agreed. "It was no accident, either. The man, he tried to run her down."

  "You sure about that?" the cop asked.

  "Si, I'm sure."

  "Me, too," another man agreed. "He was just sitting there with his car engine idling. The cab driver behind him was honking his horn for him to move—"

  "That was me," said the man who took down the plate number. "Damn fool was just sitting there, blocking traffic."

  "Yeah," the first man continued. "But then the lady stepped off the curb to flag down this guy's taxi and the driver of the black car gunned it and aimed right for her."

  "If this lady hadn't pulled her back he would've run over her for sure," still another witness claimed.

  "I'll call an ambulance," the officer said.

  "No, please. I'm fine, really," Elizabeth insisted. "It was just a glancing blow. I'm sure I'm just bruised." To prove her point she tried to stand again, only to catch her breath at the stab of pain that shot through her side.

  "That may be, but if you're in that much pain you need to get checked out."

  Within minutes Elizabeth was being loaded into an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, she worried about what Max was going to say. He wouldn't be happy to have his business here interrupted, she was certain.

  In the hospital ER
she was examined and X-rayed, and the superficial scrapes, one on the heel of her right hand and the other on her right knee, were cleaned and treated.

  While she lay on a gurney waiting for the doctor on duty to come tell her the results of the X-ray, a man in a dark suit twitched aside the curtains and stepped into the cubicle.

  "Mrs. Riordan?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm Detective Gertski with the NYPD. Sorry to bother you, but if you feel up to talking now I need to get a little information."

  Detective Gertski appeared to be middle-aged, with thinning dishwater-blond hair and the beginnings of a potbelly. His manner was low-key, almost apologetic, but Elizabeth had a feeling that behind those calm brown eyes was a keen intelligence.

  "Is it really necessary for the police to get involved?" Elizabeth asked. "This was probably just an accident."

  "Not according to our witnesses. In New York it's unusual to get one witness who's willing to get involved. To have four, especially four who agree on what they saw, makes us sit up and take notice.

  "Also, we take hit-and-run cases very seriously. In this particular case, since all the witnesses say the driver deliberately tried to run you down, we're classifying it as an attempted murder."

  "Oh, my goodness," Elizabeth said in a shaken whisper.

  "Can you tell us if there is anyone who would want to harm you?"

  "No. No one. I don't even live here. I can't imagine anyone I know in Houston wanting to kill me, much less traveling all this way to do it. Besides, I saw the face of the man behind the wheel of the car. He wasn't anyone I know."

  "Ever hear of a contract killer?"

  Elizabeth gave a startled laugh. "That's … that's preposterous."

  "Maybe. Maybe not," the detective murmured. "I see you're wearing a wedding ring. How about your husband? Would he have any reason to want you out of the picture?"

  "I hardly think so. We're here on our honeymoon. We were married yesterday afternoon."

  "Oh?" Detective Gertski looked around. "So where is he?"

  "Oh, well, uh … Max had an important business meeting today."

  "Hmm. Have you called him, or had one of the hospital staff notify him that you've been injured?"

  "Well … no. I didn't want to worry him, since the injury isn't all that bad." In truth, her hip hurt like the very devil, but she didn't want to be an inconvenience or a burden. Max had married her for business reasons, not because he cared anything about her.

  "What about money? Would Mr. Riordan profit from your death in any way?"

  "No. Not at all. I can assure you of that. Max and I signed a prenuptial agreement."

  "Really? What about insurance? Could he have taken out a policy on you before the wedding?"

  "Detective, I assure you, you're headed in the wrong direction. My husband is a wealthy man. An extremely wealthy man. He would have no reason whatsoever to marry me one day and have me killed the next."

  "I see," the detective said, scribbling in a notepad. "All the same, I'm going to need his name and a number where I can get in touch with him."

  After the past week of calling back and forth, Elizabeth knew Max's cell phone number by heart, but she wasn't about to give it to the detective. She sighed. "Very well. My husband's name is Maxwell Riordan. We're staying at the Ritz-Carlton. You can probably reach him there sometime tomorrow." And with any luck I'll intercept the call or we'll already be on our way home to Texas, she thought.

  "Tell me everything you remember," the detective probed in his deceptively easygoing way. Elizabeth had the feeling that beyond the almost-grandfatherly gentleness was a tough New York cop with the determination of a bulldog.

  "There's not much I can tell you, Detective. It all happened so fast. I don't know what kind of car it was, just that it was dark and had dark-tinted windows."

  "That jibes with the description that the four different witnesses gave," Detective Gertski said. "How about the driver? You said you got a look at him?"

  Elizabeth shivered. "Yes. The side windows were tinted almost black, but not the windshield. I saw him for only a second, but I doubt that I'll ever forget that face. It was cold. As cold as a dead man's."

  By the time Elizabeth returned to the hotel it was almost five o'clock, and the pain medication the ER doctor had given her was beginning to wear off.

  The capsules had made her sleepy. Between the medicine and the harrowing afternoon she'd had, she was almost out on her feet. As she let herself into the suite all she wanted to do was strip out of her clothes, take another painkiller and climb into bed. She hoped that Max hadn't been able to get tickets to a play. If he had, he and Troy would have to use them. She was exhausted.

  It was getting dark outside, but there was no sign of Max. Elizabeth turned on a couple of lamps in the sitting room and limped into the bedroom. She hung up her coat, noticing as she did so that the camel-colored wool garment had a tear and a grimy stain along the right front side and two buttons were missing. Too weary to care, she peeled out of her clothes and boots.

  She pulled a fresh nightgown from the dresser, retrieved from her purse the prescription bottle of painkillers the doctor had given her and headed for the bathroom dressed in only her ecru bikini panties.

  In the bathroom she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and grimaced. She was pale and her hair was disheveled, but worst of all, the bruising on her hip had begun to turn an angry purplish-black color. The size of a dinner plate, the livid mark wrapped around her right hip, spreading almost to her belly button in front and to her spine in the back.

  Elizabeth groaned. She was never going to be able to hide this from Max, she thought, examining the injury closely. She would have to tell him about the incident.

  She hated the thought of that. The last thing she wanted was to be a burden to him right off the bat. Maybe if she broached the subject at just the right moment, then glossed over the whole thing as nothing serious, he wouldn't be annoyed, she thought.

  After taking another painkiller she brushed her teeth and washed her face. She was patting her face dry when the bathroom door opened.

  Elizabeth gave a squeak and turned toward the doorway with the hand towel clutched to her breasts as Max strode in. "There you are. Sorry I'm late. The meeting lasted—" Max stopped in his tracks and stared at her hip. "What the hell!"

  * * *

  Seven

  « ^ »

  Elizabeth caught her lower lip between her teeth and met Max's glare with a chagrined expression. "It, uh … it looks worse than it is," she said. "Really."

  "I sure as hell hope so. Because it looks like you were run over by a tank."

  "Not quite. It was a sedan," she said with a wan smile, but her attempt at humor made his frown deepen.

  "What?"

  "I, uh … I had a little accident."

  "What kind of accident?"

  "It wasn't anything you need to be concerned about. I stepped off the curb, and I guess I wasn't paying enough attention because a car grazed my hip."

  "You were hit by a car?" His gaze dropped again to her hip, then jerked back up to meet hers. "And you don't think I should be concerned?"

  Before she could answer he spied the medicine bottle sitting on the counter and snatched it up. "What's this?"

  "Just a prescription for pain that the ER doctor gave me."

  His eyes narrowed. She had thought he looked angry before, but that was nothing compared to his fury now. "You were hurt bad enough to be taken to the emergency room? Why the hell didn't you call me?"

  "I … I didn't want to interrupt your meeting."

  "Dammit, Elizabeth—"

  The suite telephone rang, cutting him off. Still glaring at her, Max snatched the receiver off the bathroom wall telephone.

  "Yes?" he barked.

  Grateful for the interruption, Elizabeth turned her back, pulled on one of the hotel's cotton terry-cloth robes and cinched it tight around her waist, all the while trying to work through he
r confusion and think of something to say that would defuse the situation. She came up with nothing. She would have expected Max to be angry if she'd called him and interrupted his meeting, not the other way around.

  "I see," Max said to the caller, still looking at Elizabeth as though he'd like to throttle her. "Yes. That will be fine. I'll be expecting you."

  He hung up the receiver and fixed Elizabeth with a simmering stare. "That was Detective Gertski," he said in a chilling, soft voice. "He wants to talk to me about the hit-and-run accident in which my wife was nearly killed."

  "Oh." Elizabeth blinked back the tears that were trying to well in her eyes and pressed her lips together to keep them from wobbling. Between her recent money woes, Max's blunt marriage proposal, the stresses of the past week, the wedding and now this, her emotions were bubbling just beneath the surface.

  "That's all you have to say? Oh?" Max shook his head. "Great. This just keeps getting better and better. First you tell me that you had a minor accident. Then, under pressure, you admit that it was bad enough that you had to go to the ER. Now this detective tells me that according to witnesses, the guy behind the wheel of the car was trying to kill you. Dammit, Elizabeth! What the hell is going on?"

  "I don't know!" she wailed, losing it. She glared back at him, her chin quivering. "I'm tired, I'm in pa-pain and I've had a horrid day. So don't you dare yell at me!"

  His image became blurry as her eyes filled. One tear, then another, spilled over her lower eyelids and raced down her cheeks. Max's expression changed from anger to horror.

  "C'mon, don't do that. Ah, hell, don't cry," he pleaded.

  "I'm not … cr-crying," Elizabeth sobbed between hitching breaths. "I … I never … never cry."

  The ridiculous assertion brought a hint of a smile to his lips. "Yeah, you're right. What was I thinking? A tough cookie like you? Your eyes are just leaking, right?"

  "That's not funny!" she stormed at him, and her face crumpled.

  "Ah, hell, come here." Max stepped forward and pulled her into his embrace. Cradling the back of her head with one hand, he pressed her face to his chest and rocked her from side to side. "C'mon, Elizabeth, take it easy. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."