Miranda's Revenge

by Ruth Wind

  “Oh, yeah! Renate Franz. She has a gallery in New York, and she was selling Claude’s paintings by the zillions, for very good prices.”

  “She has a gallery here, too.”

  Miranda’s eyebrows flew upward. “Really?”

  “Maybe you should meander down there and see if she’s around, or when she’s been here. What her alibi might have been.”

  “You think she would kill an artist to make the prices go up?”

  “Not without a little more sweetening in the pot.” He tugged a small notebook out of his front pocket and made a note. “Maybe they had an affair.”

  “I think Tam might have suspected they did. I’ll talk to him, too.”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to Tam—man to man, you know—and you see what you can find out about Renate.” He stood. “Do you mind being an extra pair of hands? We can get it done more quickly.”

  “I don’t mind.” She stood up, too. “You can tell me about the casino as we walk back to the pub, and there you can buy me some lunch for my trouble.”

  He chuckled. “It’s a deal.”

  Miranda turned to head toward the door, and suddenly James grabbed her sleeve, tugged her back, nudging her shoulder around. Very quietly, he said, “Look.”

  A pillar of milky sunlight arrowed through one of the high windows and fell on the altar, illuminating the face of the Madonna perfectly—her tiny smile, her outstretched hands, and a dancing halo of black and cobalt butterflies. The small hairs on Miranda’s body rose, and she shivered.

  James stepped very close to her, the heat of his body radiating over the entire length of hers. A hand fell on her shoulder, pushed away the thick hair and touched the bare skin at her shoulder. His voice murmured into her ear. “Do you think She is giving us a sign?”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “I don’t know.” His fingers moved tantalizingly up her nape, brushed her earlobe, her jaw. “To believe.”

  She didn’t want to move. Her skin vibrated where he touched her, and his breath swept her cheek. “In what?”

  “Ourselves, perhaps.” His fingers threaded gently through her hair. His body moved infinitesimally closer until they were just barely touching. His other hand curled around her waist. “In this.” He leaned in close and touched his nose to her ear. In a hushed, nearly inaudible voice, he murmured, “I have never wanted to touch a woman in so many ways as you make me think of. I know you feel it, too.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, leaning backward so her head nested against his shoulder, a small release. A relief. His fingers floated up the length of her throat, arousing her flesh millimeter by millimeter, and when he took her earlobe in his mouth, she gasped softly.

  A door swung open behind them and they broke apart guiltily. The light prevented them from seeing who entered, but flustered, they clasped hands and dashed toward the door anyway, giggling like middle schoolers.

  The woman coming in froze, her body stiff and disapproving as she stared at them. At first, Miranda thought it was an old woman, and ducked her head in deference, cloaking herself in youth and zest. It was only as they were about to pass that Miranda saw the woman’s feet, clad in blue deck shoes, and she looked up to see Christie Lundgren.

  Miranda slowed, meeting the girl’s eye, wanting to find a way to reach out to her, to find a way they could all work together. But just as Miranda would have reached for the girl’s hand, Christie reeled back, as if in revulsion.

  Shocked, Miranda didn’t move immediately, not until James nudged her between her shoulder blades. “Never mind,” he said, and took her hand again, into the dazzling day.

  James tugged her around the side of a tree and into an alley where the heat of the day had built into a cocoon against the stone church, and with little grace, he pushed her against the hot wall, clasped her face in his hands and kissed her.

  Heat pushed through her clothes from the wall, melting her buttocks, her shoulder blades, the back of her head. Heat from his body burned against her breasts, her belly, her thighs.

  And all of it was forgotten in the taste of his mouth, not a simple tasting kind of kiss, but a fierce, plundering dive to which she opened with alarming and irresistible hunger. His tongue plunged deep, and she met it with a thrust of her own, their lips bruising against teeth.

  She had no idea how long it lasted, how long she tossed on that wave of sensuality. Long enough that her breasts felt heavy, and her hips softened and she had to cling to his shoulders to stand upright. He tasted of denial and longings only hinted at and of knowledge of a woman.

  At last he raised his head and Miranda opened her eyes to look up at him. His dark eyes boiled with unspoken things, with curiosity and sex and regret. His thumb traced her cheekbone, her jaw.

  “Now what do we do?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Eat?”

  “Ah. Yes, let’s do.”

  But even as they turned toward the street, Miranda’s cell phone rang with the song that meant Juliet was calling, the Dragnet theme song.

  Miranda frowned. “Wonder what’s going on now?” She flipped the phone open. “Please tell me that our parents have not arrived early.”

  “No. It’s bad news, though. Desi was hit by a car. She’s at the emergency room.”

  Chapter 7

  At the Mariposa County Hospital, Juliet was waiting for Miranda. James had come with her, and he settled on a white chair in the waiting room. “You go. I’ll be here.”

  She squeezed his hand and rushed with Juliet to an examining room. Desi, wrapped in a blanket, sat on the end of a bed, her arm connected to a saline drip. She leaned dully against Tam’s chest. He looked thunderous.

  “Oh, Desi!” Juliet cried and rushed forward. “Oh, honey!”

  Miranda held back. Desi’s face was smeared with red earth, and a scrape marred her forehead, and she had a fat lip. By the way she held her upper body, it was plain there was more.

  Juliet examined Desi closely, her hands fluttering over her older sister’s head, shoulders, not actually touching her, but waving her hands over the air around Desi. Miranda wanted to ask, but was afraid to—

  Juliet asked it all. “What happened? Where are you hurt?” She took a breath, touched her own diaphragm. “Is the baby okay?”

  Desi’s eyes welled with a vast wash of tears, but she nodded. “They’re going to keep me overnight, but it seems to be fine. I’m fat enough to cradle the uterus.”

  “Desi!”

  Tam said, rubbing her back in a slow circle, “It’s actually true. Her cushioning cradled the baby.”

  “I have a bruise on my hip, but I took the brunt of the landing on my shoulder.”

  “Is something broken?” Miranda asked, noting again the awkward angle at which Desi sat.

  “My arm and collarbone.”

  Miranda let out a breath. “Do you have to go to bed for a few days?”

  Desi nodded. Tam stroked her hair, her back. “I’ll stay with Tam, so he can check on me and wait on me hand and foot. The dogs will need a place to go.”

  “Don’t worry about it right now,” Juliet said.

  Miranda, unable to bear being so far apart, moved closer and put her hand on Desi’s hair. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Desi touched her hand. “It’s okay, honey.”

  “I’m not five, you know,” she said with a smile. And was secretly glad that Desi still babied her. In a dry voice she said, “This is just a ploy to get away from the incoming parents, isn’t it?”

  Juliet chuckled. “Yeah, thanks a lot, girl.”

  “What am I going to do for the wedding?” Desi said, suddenly, her eyes wide with panic. “I’m going to have my arm in a sling and a cast up to here!”

  “Ha!” Miranda felt like a hero. “As it happens, I have a guy from Denver bringing some saris to town. He’ll be here tomorrow with a bunch for you to choose from.”

  “I don’t know how to wear a sari!”

  “I’ll help you,” Miranda said. “On
e of my friends wears them a lot for various family things.”

  “You’ll look beautiful,” Tam said. “It’ll suit you.”

  “The wedding is not the most important thing here, guys,” Juliet broke in. “What the hell happened?”

  “I was crossing the street by the clinic and somebody knocked me down with a car.”

  “They didn’t stop?”

  Desi looked wan. She shook her head.

  “Did you see anything, Desi?” Juliet asked, taking her good hand. “Anything at all?”

  “Not really. It’s not like I wasn’t looking where I was going. I had lunch at the pub and walked back toward the clinic. I do it almost every day, and I take the back way so it’s not so crowded. I guess I just didn’t see the guy.”

  “Was it a car or a truck?” Juliet asked.

  “Car.”

  “Blue, white, black, yellow?”

  Desi looked into the distance. “Not black. Something lighter.” She frowned. “I have a sense of it being a little bit older, with one of those big grates, you know?” She sighed. “But don’t people remember strange things?”

  “Sometimes they remember right, too,” Juliet said. “Good work.”

  “Have the police been here?” Miranda asked.

  “They brought her in. Somebody saw her lying on the side of the road.” Tam’s voice grew rough and he put his nose against Desi’s hair. He swore softly.

  Miranda didn’t blame him. She exchanged a look with Juliet. “James is waiting out there. We’re going to go talk to some people this afternoon.” She eased close and patted Desi’s leg. “I’ll be back tonight, sis.”

  “You don’t have to, Mirrie.”

  Stung, Miranda met her sister’s eyes. “I need to know you’re all right. Can I take care of the dogs or something? Something practical?”

  “That would actually be very helpful. Josh can drive you up if you’re uncomfortable driving my truck.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” She headed back out to the waiting room, her heart pounding furiously. James stood when he saw her, his face grave.

  “Is she all right?”

  “Barely. Some idiot nearly killed her with a car and just kept driving.”

  James’s eyes narrowed. “Did the police think it was an accident?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s go get some food and then chat up some people who might know something.”

  Bill Biloxi was a developer who owned several hundred acres adjoining Desi’s, and his wife was the elegantly beautiful Elsa Franz. James figured the pair of them were a good place to start. After a quick lunch from a sandwich shop, he and Miranda drove up the narrow, twisting road through thick forests of ponderosa and lodge pole pines, and stands of aspens shaking their silvery-green leaves in the bright day. It was impossible not to admire it. “Hard to imagine anything more gorgeous than this,” he commented, his hands loose on the steering wheel.

  “It’s pretty,” Miranda agreed. “I used to hate coming up here for camp, but now I can’t remember why. After the East Village, it’s very peaceful.”

  “I bet.” The curving road suddenly rose to the top of the hill and deposited them at an enormous mansion built in an agreeably tasteful mountain style, gray flagstone and thick timbers. James whistled. “No money there, huh?”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “Who needs ten thousand square feet of house on top of a mountain?”

  Mildly he said, “I’m sure they have to do a lot of entertaining.”

  The front door swung open before they reached it, and a tall, leggy blonde stood there. She wore a crisp, short khaki skirt and a blue halter top that showed off her burnished shoulders and spectacular chest. “Good morning!” she called. “Can I help you?”

  The accent was German, or something of that ilk. “Good morning,” James said, smiling at her. Women like this wanted to be admired, and woe be unto you if you didn’t pay homage.

  She smiled back, politely.

  James extended his hand, waiting to speak until they were face-to-face, eye to eye. There was a faint reserve about her, but it felt normal. “I’m James Marquez,” he said. “I was hoping to be able to talk to you about Claude Tsosie.”

  He’d taken her hand for a reason. She yanked out of his grip, but couldn’t exactly slam the door in his face. “No,” she said. “I’ve said all that I want to say.”

  Miranda came forward, a beauty in her own right, and he saw Elsa notice. “If you won’t talk to him, maybe you’ll talk to me. I’m Desi Rousseau’s sister. She’s a good woman, and you know it.”

  A flicker over the aquamarine eyes, a faint, acknowledging tilt of the elegant jaw. “Tam is my friend.”

  “If we can’t crack this case, Desi’s going to end up in jail,” Miranda said.

  “If she lives that long,” James added. “She was run down by a car this morning.”

  “Oh my God!” Her eyes widened. “Was she hurt?”

  “Her collarbone is broken,” Miranda said harshly. “And were you aware that she’s carrying a child? Tam’s child?”

  “No! I—”

  From within, a male voice said, “Who is it, Elsa?”

  She threw an alarmed glance over her shoulder and called out, “I’ll be there in a minute, baby.” Furtively she pulled the heavy door mostly closed and stepped onto the porch. “My husband does not want me to talk about this.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He’s angry, yes? There is a big land deal he wanted to make and it didn’t go through.”

  James remembered the article in the newspaper, and made a mental note to go back through and read it again. “It’s not just any deal, though, is it?” he said, partly to Miranda, partly to Elsa, “There’s an enclosed aquifer below Desi’s property that could be worth billions, isn’t that right?”

  Elsa waved a hand. “A lot of money. I don’t know about that part.”

  “What about Claude?”

  “A lot of people were mad at him.”

  “You?”

  She shook her head, mouth turning at the corners. “Not me.”

  Miranda said, “He wasn’t your type was he?”

  The blonde’s nostrils flared slightly. Derision? Amusement? James couldn’t tell. “No.”

  “Are you related to Renate Franz?” Miranda asked.

  Elsa’s head jerked around. For one long moment, she stared at Miranda. “It is no secret,” she said, though it obviously had not occurred to many. “She is my sister.”

  The door behind her jerked open and Bill Biloxi, a handsome, fit man well into his fifties, glowered out at them. “What do you want?”

  “Just talking,” James said.

  “They’re just going,” Elsa said, giving them a hard look.

  “Yes,” James said, taking Miranda’s arm firmly. She looked volatile. Fierce. “Thanks for your time.”

  As they walked away, Miranda flung her arm out of his hand. “Why don’t we talk to him? He probably knows all kinds of things.”

  “I’m sure he does. But he’s not going to tell us and it will only antagonize his wife. She knows something, too.”

  “Do you think so?”

  He glanced back at the gabled house. “Oh, yeah.” He opened the door to the car. “Let’s go check your sister’s dogs, and then I want you to call Renate’s gallery.”

  Miranda nodded. Her mouth, that luscious, rich, kissable mouth, was sulky, but she climbed in the car without saying anything else.

  Once settled, she slumped in the seat and rubbed her forehead. “We’ve gotta get to the bottom of this, James,” she said in a hoarse voice. “My sister really doesn’t deserve this. She’s honestly one of the best human beings I’ve ever known, and she hasn’t had that much happiness in her life.”

  He touched her hand. “We will.” He thought of the notes in his hotel room and the interviews yet to do. “Let’s just get the dogs fed and make sure everything is all right there, then I’m going to drop you off and let
you make some phone calls.”

  She nodded. For a long while they were quiet, and between them lay that kiss, so hot and wet and full of promises he probably shouldn’t make. Bad idea to get mixed up with a client, even worse with one who was so plainly out of his league, and nursing a broken heart and as hungry for positive attention as a fatherless fourteen-year-old. A twist moved in his gut.

  “Then what?” she asked into the silence.

  “I’m turning in early,” he said. “I’ve got a race in three days.”

  “Ah.” She sank down lower in her seat. “Turn at the next right.”

  Guilt moved through his lungs. “Miranda, I think—”

  She flipped her hair over one shoulder to pin him with her fierce blue gaze. “Don’t, okay? I’m tired of everyone patronizing me. I’m sure you have lots of good reasons, but you can keep them.”

  Over the glaze of reddish yearning he felt for her, he saw a face that still haunted him. A face that revealed his weakness, his unbridled lack of control over his emotions. “I’m not who you think I am, who you want me to be, Miranda.”

  “I’m sure. Men never are.” She took a breath. “I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, and turned up the volume on the radio.

  By the time he dropped her off at Juliet’s house, Miranda was hungry enough to eat cockroaches raw. She’d had scones this morning and a quick sandwich at lunch. Now, late afternoon, her stomach was growling so loudly she didn’t care about anything—not an old boyfriend or one she sort of wanted or her sister in the hospital or anything except food. In the fridge, there was little to choose from. A bottle of milk, a grim bit of butter, not much else. She took the strawberries from the shelf and started devouring them as she looked for other things. Graham crackers. Soft cubes of some processed cheese thing. Enough for now.

  She poured a big glass of water and carried it all out to the backyard. A picnic table with an umbrella stood beneath a tree, looking west to the opening of the canyon.

  It really was a remarkable view, she thought, admiring the levels of blues, layer upon layer into the distance, contrasted by soft green falls of long-needled pines and rattling aspens and the clay-red earth.