The plush interior of the establishment was a sea of snowy white tablecloths, sparkling crystal and gleaming silver. The linen napkins were folded into the shapes of exotic flowers. There was muted mood music playing softly in the background. The lights were subdued and the waiters wore black and white.
He requested a booth near the curved wall of glass that looked out over the night-shrouded golf course and the mountains beyond. Not that you could see much of the long sweep of green or the jagged peaks after dark. It was the principle of the thing. Everyone knew the golf course and the mountains were out there somewhere and that the view cost big bucks.
This was the kind of thing you did on a real date, the kind of thing he and Zoe hadn’t had a chance to do before that midnight wedding in Vegas. The hasty marriage of convenience had virtually wiped out the customary courtship phase that was part of the traditional mating ritual.
Zoe closed her menu and looked at him across the table. “I’m going to have the pasta niçoise and the romaine salad. What about you?”
He did not want to look away from her. She was glamorous and mysterious and seductive in the candlelight. The little red dress left her shoulders and arms bare. Her hair was swept up into an elegant chignon. Gold earrings sparkled in her ears.
He forced himself to study the menu. “Well, I don’t think I can have the pasta niçoise. It doesn’t sound like something an ace detective would eat.”
“Better than quiche.”
“Yeah, but still a sissy dish.”
“Probably.” She took a small sip of her chardonnay and lowered the glass. “I trust you are not looking at the steak.”
“Why not? This is Arizona, not California. I can actually eat red meat here without the risk of horrifying everyone else in the restaurant.”
“You’ll horrify me. Didn’t you read that article on the dangers of eating too much red meat that I clipped and underlined for you?”
He thought about the newspaper clipping that he had discovered slipped under the edge of his desk blotter a few days before. “Sure. I even filed it for future reference.”
Amusement danced in her eyes. “Remind me not to inspect your office trash can.”
He let that go without comment and closed his menu. “Relax, I’m not going to order the steak. The grilled swordfish sounds good.”
“Excellent choice.”
The waiter materialized and took the orders without writing anything down. Waiters with good memories were another sign of a classy joint, Ethan told himself.
Zoe raised her glass and touched it to his. “Here’s to your new client.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
They each took a sip and put down their glasses. A flicker of concern crossed Zoe’s face.
“Think Nelson Radnor will get mad when he finds out that you’ve been hired to do an audit on the security program he designed?”
“He won’t like it, but Radnor’s a pro and business is business.”
“This is the kind of work you used to do back in LA, isn’t it?” she asked. “Corporate security stuff.”
“Yeah.” He helped himself to some of the dense, crusty bread the waiter had placed in the center of the table. “To tell you the truth, I don’t miss it all that much and I’m not planning to give Radnor serious competition. This town can’t support two large corporate security firms competing for the same business. But an occasional client like Katherine Compton or Doug Valdez who wants a situation handled quietly is good.”
“Good for the reputation of Truax Investigations and good for the bottom line.”
“Uh-huh.” He wondered if maybe he wasn’t coming across as sufficiently success-oriented. He had made money for a while in LA but eventually the business, like his three previous marriages, had collapsed.
He was well aware that Zoe’s first husband had been connected to a wealthy, influential business family. Although she was not on good terms with any of her ex–in-laws, she did possess a controlling interest in Cleland Cage, Inc. If the company righted itself in the next few years, she stood to make a tidy fortune.
He, on the other hand, might be able to make a decent income with Truax Investigations but that was about all you could say. His prospects of coming into a fortune were somewhere in the minus-zero range.
When the salads arrived, Zoe picked up her fork and attacked the romaine with enthusiasm.
“You know,” she said, “one of the things I admire about you is that you’ve decided what’s important to you and what isn’t.”
The word “admire” made him uneasy. It implied respect but also a certain distance. You admired dedicated doctors and teachers and ballplayers from afar.
“Yeah, well, some of the decisions got made for me,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not really. You could take on Radnor and go after the same business here in Whispering Springs if that was what you really wanted to do. But you’d have to go back into full executive CEO mode to do it and that would mean giving up the hands-on approach to your work.”
He shrugged. She was right.
“You’ve got other goals and priorities these days,” she said.
He winced. “I hate to admit this because it sort of ruins the man-of-vision image, but the truth is that I don’t usually think in terms of goals and priorities.”
“I know. You just keeping going, doing what needs to be done.”
He wondered if that was another way of saying that he was unimaginative. “Okay, I’ll concede that I’m the kind of guy who usually takes the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach until I get to the end, but hey, we can’t all be flashy interior designers.”
She ignored the weak joke and turned the wineglass in her hand, watching the play of the candlelight on the crystal. “You make commitments and you keep them. Regardless of the price you have to pay to do it.”
He was not sure where she was going with this and he was pretty certain he did not want to find out. This was supposed to be a date. The last thing he wanted to do was get mired in a conversation that highlighted his lack of long-range business objectives. Time to change direction.
He hunted for a safe topic.
“How’s the library project going?” he asked.
Without warning, a veil descended between them. He looked into her eyes and knew that she was keeping secrets. He felt his stomach clench. If she were any other woman, he probably would have begun to suspect that she was having an affair. But this was Zoe.
“Good,” she said a little too lightly. “It’s going very well.”
Something was definitely wrong. Maybe it had to do with her past.
“You ever miss your old job?” he asked, trying for the subtle approach.
“At the art museum?” She shook her head. “No. But a lot of what I learned in that job about displaying art and antiques is very useful in my new line. Many of my clients collect. A big part of designing interiors for them involves incorporating the items in their private collections into their living spaces.”
So much for the subtlety. She wasn’t going to give up her secrets easily. Maybe he did not want to learn them.
But he knew that, in the end, he would be compelled to solve the mysteries in her eyes, even if it meant disaster for him. He couldn’t do anything else. One foot in front of the other until you get to the end.
They lingered over coffee. It was a little after ten before Ethan reached for his wallet and pulled out his credit card.
They walked out of the restaurant, past the shadowy entrance to the hotel cocktail lounge, and crossed the spacious lobby.
Outside, the cool, clean desert night enveloped them. As soon as they left the brightly lit entranceway and started through the parking lot, the night sky bloomed with stars.
Zoe wrapped her light shawl around her bare shoulders. “This was a lovely evening. You know, we really ought to do this more often.”
“Funny you should say that.” Ethan got his keys out of his pocket. “I was just t
hinking the same thing. We never really had a chance to date . . .”
He heard the heavy, rushing footsteps coming up behind them even before Dexter Morrow called his name.
“Truax. You son of a bitch.”
So much for a lovely evening. He swung around to confront the looming figure bearing down on them.
“Stay out of the way.” He did not look at Zoe, his attention on Morrow. “Whatever you do, don’t try to interfere. Head for the lobby if this gets out of hand.”
“You know this man?” Zoe whispered.
“Meet Dexter Morrow.”
Morrow must have spent the better part of the evening in the cocktail lounge. The fumes were detectable across a distance of several paces. Unfortunately he was not dead drunk, Ethan thought. More like stupid drunk.
“So much for my theory that you would leave town,” he said to Morrow.
Dexter pulled up about a yard away, hands knotted in fists, mouth drawn back in a grimace of rage. He was probably red in the face, too, but there wasn’t enough light to be certain of that detail.
“I’m not going anywhere until I feel like it,” Dexter rasped. “I sure as hell don’t intend to let you run me out of town. Who do you think you are, you bastard? Who gave you the right to mess with my life?”
“The only thing I messed up was your scheme to rip off Katherine Compton,” Ethan said evenly. “We both know that. It’s over. This is where you cut your losses and find another target in another town, remember? Things are finished for you here in Whispering Springs.”
“It isn’t over until I say it’s over.” Morrow’s voice climbed to a loud, harsh place. “You hear me? It’s not finished.”
“You’re drunk, Morrow. Go back inside and call a cab.”
“Don’t give me orders, you interfering s.o.b.”
“If you want to talk about this, you can come to my office tomorrow.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. You screwed up everything. You had no right.”
“Look, Morrow—”
“I loved her and you screwed up everything. You turned her against me. She trusted me and you turned her against me. I told you you’d pay.”
Morrow lunged forward, swinging wildly.
Ethan sidestepped the blow. Morrow was so unsteady on his feet that he was thrown off balance when his punch failed to connect.
He fetched up hard against the fender of a Mercedes and shook his head as if trying to clear it.
“This is not a good idea,” Ethan said. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and realized that Zoe was preparing to dash back into the lobby to get help. “No, Zoe. Not yet.”
She hesitated. “Ethan, he’s out of control.”
“Bastard.” Morrow shoved himself away from the Mercedes and lumbered forward a second time, right arm drawn back in preparation for another punch.
This time Ethan let him get closer before ducking the clumsy blow. He grabbed Morrow’s right arm and used the man’s own momentum to pull him forward and off balance
Morrow stumbled awkwardly and went down hard on the pavement.
“Ethan?” Zoe’s voice was taut.
“No,” he said again.
She subsided, trusting in his judgment, but he could tell that she was not happy about it.
Morrow pushed himself to a sitting position and tried to get one leg under him so that he could stand. The effort was unsuccessful. After a couple of attempts, he managed to make it to his hands and knees.
“When did you come to the conclusion that you loved her?” Ethan asked quietly.
“Shut up,” Morrow said through clenched teeth.
“Got a hunch it was that day in the hotel room when you realized everything had fallen apart. Was that when it hit you that your scam had cost a hell of a lot more than you realized?”
“I do love her,” Morrow muttered hoarsely.
“Maybe,” Ethan said. “Maybe not. But I’ll tell you something, Morrow. She really cared about you. You had something good and you blew it because you couldn’t resist the shot at a big score. Guess some habits are just too hard to break, aren’t they?”
Morrow started to weep. “I wasn’t going to go through with it. I was going to call it off. Then you came around, offering to buy the projections. I figured I’d expose you and make myself look like a hero to Katherine.”
“It’s a nice story, and maybe, looking back, you wish it was the truth. Maybe you’ve even managed to convince yourself that was the way it was. But you’re rewriting history here, Morrow. You know it and I know it.”
“No.”
“You want to do something to make it up to Katherine? Leave town so she doesn’t have to worry about running into you in places like the cocktail lounge here at Las Estrellas. The best thing you can do for her is get out of her life.”
Morrow lurched to his feet and stood, swaying for a few seconds. When he regained his balance, he walked away without another word. The slump of his shoulders spoke volumes.
Zoe gripped her shawl very tightly around her shoulders. “Think he’ll call a cab? He’s in no shape to be on the road.”
“No, I don’t think he’ll call a cab.” Resigned, he took her hand and started back toward the lobby. “I’d better go talk to someone inside who will do it for him. Damn. I really hate cases that end the way that one did.”
Zoe tightened her fingers around his. “I can see why. Ethan, I think he’s dangerous. Maybe you should report this incident to the police.”
He just looked at her, not speaking.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “So it’s against the PI code to go sniveling to the cops when some drunken idiot throws a punch at you.”
“The code is certainly a major consideration,” he said. “But there’s another, larger issue. Katherine Compton hired me because she wanted her problem handled quietly.”
“And filing a complaint against Dexter Morrow would certainly draw the attention of the local press, which, in turn, would probably mean that the entire sordid affair would make headlines in the business pages tomorrow morning.”
“Honey, you were born to be the wife of a PI. You understand the situation perfectly.”
“What if he tries something else?”
“I don’t think he will. This was one of those wrong-place, wrong-time things. Morrow spent the evening in the bar and it was just bad luck that we happened to have dinner here tonight. He probably saw me when we walked through the lobby on the way out the door and everything just boiled over. He lost it. Tomorrow morning he’ll start thinking like the smart scam artist he is and realize that he had a close call. He won’t try anything else.”
He could tell that she was not convinced, but she did not argue the point.
“Think he really loved her?” she asked.
“No. I think he’s feeling sorry for himself so he’s convinced himself that he never intended to go through with the scam and that what he felt for Katherine was real.”
“That way he gets to blame you for everything that went wrong.”
“Yeah.”
Zoe continued to look troubled. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’ll take an extra all-purpose vitamin in the morning.”
Singleton stuck his gleaming head out the door of Single-Minded Books just as Ethan was taking the Truax Investigations mail out of the box in the narrow hall.
“How’d the big date go?” Singleton asked.
“Things went fine right up to the moment when we left the restaurant and Dexter Morrow followed us outside with the expressed intent of pounding me into the pavement.”
“Oh, man, see that’s what I hate about the modern dating scene. You put on a tie, you take out a loan to cover the dinner tab and then some jerk comes along and wrecks the romantic ambience by trying to beat you up in front of your date.”
“Got to admit that Morrow did somewhat negatively impact the mood of the evening.” Ethan flipped through the assortment of catalogs and ad
vertising circulars. “Lucky I was married to my date or I might have ended up going home alone.”
Singleton surveyed him. “Doesn’t look like Morrow did any serious damage.”
“He was so drunk he could barely stand. The resort management sent him home in a cab.”
“He probably isn’t feeling any more sweet-tempered this morning than he did last night.” A couple of deep furrows appeared in Singleton’s brow. “Watch yourself.”
Ethan tossed everything except a catalog featuring pool and garden accessories into the trash can and started up the stairs. “Guys like Morrow are opportunists. They don’t like to take physical risks. I doubt that he’ll make another run at me, but if he does, I’m prepared.”
“How so?”
He jiggled the new key chain Zoe had given him. “I’ll blow my whistle and shine the little light right into his eyes.”
“Yeah, that should work,” Singleton said. “You know, I may have to get myself one of those.”
19
The following afternoon Zoe extended her arms along the edge of the spa pool and sank deep into the bubbling water. “I think I may be losing it.”
“What now?” Bonnie asked. “Did you buy another safety gadget for Ethan? One of those fold-up ladders that you can drop out of a window in an emergency, maybe?”
Arcadia’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Or maybe one of those nifty hidden wallets that a man can wear under his shirt when he travels abroad?”
Humiliated, Zoe sank to her chin in the frothy waters.
Arcadia was the one with the membership at the expensive athletic club but she seemed to have an unlimited number of guest passes. She used them frequently to invite Zoe and Bonnie to join her in the club’s elegant spa room.
“No hidden wallets,” Zoe said. “I took a break this morning and went to the drugstore.”
“Ah.” Arcadia assumed a knowing expression. “You upgraded his sunscreen again, didn’t you? The one you bought last week was thirty-something, as I recall. What did you get this time?”
“SPF forty-eight-plus,” Zoe admitted. “Full spectrum protection, guaranteed waterproof and sweat proof.”
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