by Nancy Martin
“The statue has nothing to do with Kaylee or Julius dying.”
“Are you sure?”
No. Roxy almost said it out loud. No, she wasn’t sure anymore. Slowly, she said, “I took the statue because it was going to get destroyed when they blew up the house. They were demolishing everything, so I took it.”
“And then?”
“They didn’t blow up the house. Nobody mentioned the statue until now.”
Flynn locked his gaze with hers. “You need to tell the cops.”
“I can’t. I wasn’t the only one who hauled the statue away from the Hyde house.”
Flynn released her and groaned. “You’re protecting Nooch, aren’t you?”
“His probation hearing is Friday. It’s been ten years since his last arrest, and he’s been clean. He deserves to get off. But this—this would be a felony, the real deal.”
“Roxy—”
“I can’t admit anything. Not yet.”
“You’re keeping your mouth shut so Nooch stays out of jail.”
“Yes.”
“And if you’re lucky,” Flynn said, “you’ll get away with stealing an expensive statue.”
“Put it any way you like.” She noted his expression and snapped, “I’ve got bills to pay. Look, there was a day when you weren’t lily white. You joined the service because your other choice was jail. That’s why you and all your pals here went to Afghanistan in the first place. The guns and the action—it’s legal over there. Well, things are a little hot for me at the moment, but not—it’s not too bad.”
“Yet.”
“Shut up. The only reason I’m telling you is…”
When she didn’t say more, he prodded, “Is why?”
“Because you get it. About Nooch. About me. You won’t go blabbing to the cops. And…”
“And?”
Roxy blew a sigh. “Earlier today I put the statue in your refrigerator.”
He stared at her, anger dissipating like air from a balloon. “What?”
“I had a couple of free hours, so I moved it. Nobody’s going to look here.”
Flynn opened the office door and went out into the kitchen. Roxy followed him over to the vaultlike door of the walk-in cooler. He yanked on the door handle, and they went inside. Behind a hanging slab of beef at the back of the cooler stood a giant naked man.
Without a word, Flynn left the cooler and closed the door. He put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor. “I must be crazy.”
She tried to smile. “You always had a crazy side. It was one of your best qualities. That, and you let me be on top.”
“I let you be on top only long enough to catch my breath.” Flynn continued to glower at her. “What about the Cleary kid? What are you doing with him?”
“He’s a volunteer.”
“Has it occurred to you that he may not be a cop yet, but his dad is the chief of police?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And Sage. Don’t forget about Sage.”
“I’m not.”
“What does any of this have to do with Kaylee Falcone getting killed?”
“I don’t know.”
They stood together for a moment with a lot more to talk about.
But Roxy said, “I think I should go toss Paxton’s car. See if there’s anything interesting in it. Do you think he valet parked?”
“You can’t ransack people’s cars in our parking lot. It’ll gives us a bad reputation.”
Zack Cleary skidded into view, catching his balance on the counter. “Hey,” he said. “They’re leaving.”
Roxy grabbed her truck keys from her pocket. “Now? Already?”
“I accidentally spilled some espresso on him, so they’re going.”
“Damn,” Flynn said. “Are we going to have to comp their dinner?”
“Just dessert,” Zack reported. “The other waiter is taking care of it. They talked about all kinds of stuff. Somebody named Dorothy maybe changed her will.”
“Good work, tiger.” Roxy slapped his butt. “Let’s go. We’ll follow them and figure out who she is.”
“Sounds good.” The kid was already tugging off his bow tie.
“Wait a minute,” Flynn said.
“We’re just going to follow them. I want to know who the girl is.”
“You can’t just run off.” Flynn raised his voice as she turned to go. “Roxy, damn you, I want this thing out of here! You aren’t the only one with people to protect! Hey! Are you listening?”
24
In the dark, Roxy followed Henry Paxton’s car in the Monster Truck.
At the first intersection, Zack said, “Who’s the guy at the restaurant?”
“Which guy?”
“The cook.”
“Chef.”
“Yeah, the one you were talking to.”
“Flynn? Hell, he’s your cousin! Or something.”
“Oh, yeah.” Zack smacked his forehead. “I thought he looked familiar. One of Uncle Pat’s.” The kid stared off across the hood of the truck for a second, perhaps mentally trying to climb the branches of the family tree. “How do you know him? I mean, the two of you—I thought maybe…”
“Don’t burn too many brain cells, kid. What do you want to know?”
“He’s Sage’s dad, right?”
There wasn’t much traffic, but seeing the BMW pull in front of a beer truck, Roxy pointed. “See Paxton’s taillights? Don’t take your eyes off them. I gotta hang back, or he’ll spot the truck.”
“I get it. None of my business.”
Paxton drove across the Highland Park Bridge, the last bridge on the Allegheny before leaving the city limits. Roxy slowed to let him get a long way ahead across the empty expanse of the bridge, but she lost sight of him at the end. “Damn!”
“That way.” Zack pointed.
Roxy floored the accelerator and was relieved to spot the back of the BMW as it hung a right off the exit ramp and went up on the highway. She followed. Paxton traveled two exits and then got off the highway and drove up into a wooded suburb where a lot of doctors and executives built grand houses. Trouble was, the roads curved and swooped among the trees, and Roxy began to fear she’d lose him for good. Or get spotted in his rearview mirror. Her truck was hard to miss. She drove cautiously and peered through the windshield. Trees obscured the moonlight, and the hilly terrain made it hard to see where she was going. But Paxton’s taillights flashed ahead, and she blew a sigh of frustration.
“They’re gonna notice my truck,” she said, “if I get too close.”
“Nah, don’t worry. Everybody out here drives big-ass gas guzzlers. You fit right in.”
“I hate the suburbs.”
“Wait.” Zack spun around in the passenger seat. “There he went. Turned into that driveway back there. Turn around when you can. We can go back and hide behind that big clump of weeds.”
The clump of weeds turned out to be an elaborate landscaping display of rare grasses mixed with fall perennials. A scarecrow wearing a Steelers jersey stood in the middle of the bed, holding a pitchfork in one hand, a football in the other. Roxy pulled behind it, cut the Monster Truck’s engine, and rolled down her window to listen.
“I used to have a girlfriend up here.” Zack spoke softly in the sudden quiet. “Her dad was some bigwig at a company downtown. He gave her a car for her birthday.”
“Where are we? Whose house is that?”
Roxy watched Paxton’s BMW sitting in the driveway, engine still running. The occupants of the car were probably talking. Maybe kissing. A little spurt of heat flamed up in her chest. Jealousy? Or something else? “How do we find out who lives in that house? Maybe I should check if there’s mail in the mailbox.” She laced her fingers through the door handle.
“Don’t bother.” Zack had his cell phone in his hand, and his thumbs rapidly tapped on the keys. “I can do a reverse search online. That is, if I can get cell phone reception here. Hang on a sec.”
Clever kid, Rox
y thought. She strained to listen, but couldn’t hear anything in the night air except the soft burble of Paxton’s car.
“Bingo.” Zack held the screen so Roxy could see it. “Somebody named Hyde, Q. And his wife Sandra.”
Roxy stared at the little screen. “No kidding.”
“If I knew his first name, I could Google for more information.”
“Quentin. Quentin Hyde is Julius’s brother.”
“Wow.” More tapping.
A car door slammed, and Roxy instinctively crouched in her seat. The woman who walked away from Paxton’s car was really young. She didn’t seem too steady on her feet, either. Roxy watched her climb the brick stairs at the front of the house, both hands gripping a heavy black railing. Her blond hair hung down around her shoulders, and the wraparound thing she wore on her shoulders trailed on the stairs behind her. She was either stoned or drunk.
Paxton made no effort to get out of the car to help her, which made Roxy’s temper flare. He sat and watched as the girl went into the house. Then he put his car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway.
Zack said, “Quentin’s wife is Sandra Hyde. Says here she’s forty-seven and belongs to AA.”
“That girl who had dinner with Paxton. She wasn’t forty-seven, was she?”
“No way. She was about my age.”
“But she’s living at the Hyde house. Maybe a daughter?”
Zack remained glued to the small screen of his phone. “Says here, Quentin and Sandra have four children. Two girls—Adrienne and Arden.”
“Arden?” Roxy remembered Sage’s conversation at breakfast with Flynn. She was going to meet someone named Arden. At the time, Roxy assumed Arden was a last name.
“Damn,” she whispered as the random facts fell into place.
“What’s wrong?”
Roxy pulled out her own cell phone and dialed Loretta’s house.
Without greeting, Loretta said, “It’s after eleven. I’m asleep.”
“Sorry, Lo. Not everybody goes to bed before the news. Is Sage at home?”
“I’ve had a long day. Of course Sage is here.” Loretta sounded groggy. “I talked to her an hour ago when she was getting into bed.”
“I’m sorry to ask this,” Roxy said, unable to keep the anxiety out of her voice. “Will you go check now? Make sure she’s really there?”
“Why?”
“Please, Lo.”
Loretta sighed, but Roxy could hear background noise and knew her aunt was already out in the hallway and scuffing in Sage’s direction.
A moment later, Loretta said, “She’s here. Asleep in bed.”
“Are the doors locked?”
“You know they are! Roxy, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Roxy let out a long, pent-up breath. “Just me being paranoid. Sorry. I’ll be in touch.”
“Not before seven a.m. The last thing I need is something waking me up besides night sweats. Good night.”
Roxy snapped her phone shut. It was a comfort to hear Loretta talking tough.
Roxy wasn’t sure what she knew. But Sage talking with a Hyde daughter about the statue felt very wrong. And what the hell was Paxton up to?
Zack said, “Should we be following the car?”
Roxy started the engine. “I think I know where he’s going.”
Anyway, Roxy had somewhere else she needed to be.
She dropped Zack at his car. As he climbed out of the truck, she fleetingly thought maybe planning his torture and death for getting her daughter pregnant was not the best use of her time anymore. The kid had potential. Not a lot, Roxy decided, but a little.
She took his parking space and walked across the street to her house. Police tape barred her from going inside, and for once she decided to obey. Looking at Kaylee’s blood on the staircase? Not again.
She went next door and let Rooney out of Adasha’s fenced yard. The dog panted with the delight of seeing her again and ran circles around her.
Roxy gave the dog a thump on his flank, and he eagerly followed her back to the truck. They got into the vehicle, and Roxy started the engine, but sat thinking for a minute. About Kaylee Falcone and how maybe she’d been a silly, shallow girl, but she had a right to her dreams and her life as much as any rich bastard.
Sitting there, Roxy felt her blood pressure rising and decided it was definitely time to pay a call on somebody who could let her in on a few Hyde family secrets. Time to see Trey Hyde.
Fifteen minutes later, Roxy leaned her finger on the button beside Trey’s loft door and left it there. She listened to the buzz for a full minute and a half until Trey finally unfastened the lock and opened the door.
He stood there in his underwear and socks, looking as bleary-eyed as any man who’d ever spent twenty-four hours being grilled by police. He scratched the back of his head. “You woke me up. I thought it was the cops coming back.”
“You should be happy it’s me instead.” Roxy brushed past him into the apartment. The place looked as if it had been ransacked. Pillows and papers all over the floor, along with the contents of his refrigerator and the kitchen cupboards spread out on the countertop. “You need a phone number for the Merry Maids?”
“The police were here. They looked through all my stuff.”
“Did they find anything interesting?”
“I don’t know.”
Roxy turned around and put her hand on Trey’s chest. “Trey, baby, we need to talk.”
“You mean now? Tonight?”
She pinched his nipple until his face woke up, and then she turned and walked into the kitchen.
Trey let the door slam and trailed after her. “The police are probably watching me.”
“They definitely are. A couple of detectives are in the lobby, and there’s a car with two more guys out on the street.”
He rubbed his nipple. “How did you sneak past them?”
“I didn’t. I waved as I went by.”
Trey began to figure out a few things and he started to panic. “I didn’t tell them a word about you, Roxy. Honest to God, I didn’t say a thing. They don’t know about you and me.”
“They do now. I told them that myself.” Roxy pretended to be calm. “They sure left a mess in here, didn’t they? Do you have anything to drink?”
All the cabinet drawers hung open, and Roxy banged each one closed as she headed for the refrigerator. When she opened the fridge to scavenge, all that remained were some maraschino cherries and a liter of Dr Pepper. In the freezer she found seven unopened boxes of prepackaged Salisbury steak dinners from Jenny Craig and a bottle of Grey Goose. She grabbed the vodka.
Then, from a block near the stove, she pulled a very big knife.
Trey caught his balance on the island, and his eyes widened. “What’s the matter, Roxy?”
Roxy pointed the knife directly at Trey’s face. “It’s time for you to do something good for me, Trey. And I’m not talking about sex. Did you hear about Kaylee?”
“Kaylee?”
“Is there some kind of echo in here?” She raised her voice, and he winced. “Or was my question too hard for you to understand? Did you hear about Kaylee Falcone? She’s dead.”
“I heard. I mean—they told me. Somebody killed her today.”
Roxy cut around the island, moving fast toward him, knife in one hand, the bottle in the other. “Somebody shot her. In my house, Trey. Killed her on my staircase. I’m going to need a bucket of soapy water and a very big brush to clean up her blood.”
“I’m sorry, Roxy. Really sorry.” Trey backed up hastily. “I could pay for a cleaning service. Would that help?”
“A cleaning service would take care of the mess in my house, all right, but what about how I feel? Is there somebody you could pay to fix that, too?” She bullied him into the bedroom, watching him stumble over the pillows, his shoes.
“I’m sorry you feel so bad, Roxy. If there was something I could do—”
“There is. You’re going to sit down on t
he bed and tell me everything you told the police. But first? Get out your little leather friends.”
“My what?”
“Your restraints.”
Trey gulped uncertainly, and his hands fumbled on the bedside table. On the second try, he managed to open it. “I swear I didn’t tell the police about you, Roxy. Not a word.”
“Not the velvet restraints, Trey. The leather ones.”
“What?”
“Put the leather around your left wrist and loop it over the bedpost,” she ordered. “Then give me your right hand. Hurry up.”
She twisted open the bottle and took a tiny sip of the syrupy thick vodka.
Watching her, Trey’s expression went from worry to sexual anticipation, then fear, very quickly. In a matter of moments, he was sitting on the bed with his arms outstretched, wrists secured to opposite bedposts with the thin leather cords he once bragged about buying in Amsterdam. Now, though, the look on his face wasn’t nearly as pleased as when he’d told her about the sex shop he’d visited. His breathing came in shallow gasps. His boxer shorts were printed with little sea horses.
He said, “Do we have a safe word tonight?”
“No safe words, Trey. Because this is no game.”
“Just put down the knife, okay? The knife makes me nervous.”
“I like the knife. I want to see how sharp it is. I also want to know about the night Julius died,” Roxy commanded. “I want to know everything you saw and did.”
Trey swallowed hard and tried to summon some courage. “I’m not comfortable with this scenario.”
“This isn’t a scenario, Trey. It’s real life. Do you want me to stuff a sock in your mouth? So I can carve my initials in your arms without listening to you scream, maybe?” She laid the knife blade on his goose-pimpled skin. Then she held the bottle above his mouth. Uncertainly, Trey lifted his chin to accept a sip, and she poured the thick vodka into his open mouth. He swallowed twice, choked, and then the alcohol sprayed. Roxy stopped pouring.
He flinched as if she might hit him with the bottle. “I didn’t kill him, Roxy, I swear.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t!”
“Don’t lie to me, Trey. Not while I’ve got this Boy Scout knife in my hand. What happened to Julius?”
