Man Trouble (26 page)

Ten minutes later, Molly left in a Lincoln Town Car with a Berenger staff driver at the wheel. Following closely—but not too closely—was another car whose passenger, “Big Rick” Rubio, a six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound member of the Berenger security staff, had been instructed to keep an eye on her and to report back at regular intervals.

Jake was at his desk when the first call came. He was not at all surprised to hear Big Rick confirm that Molly had not gone shopping. She had headed uptown, all right, but not on Madison Avenue. Instead, her driver had made a beeline for Central Park West, and within a few minutes, she had been dropped off at…the museum.

“The
museum?”
Jake repeated. “What, the Met?”

“The American Museum of Natural History. She got off on Seventy-seventh. I'm outside right now. You want me to follow her in?”

“Yes,” Jake said, frowning. Either Molly had been overcome by a sudden desire to see dinosaur bones, or she was up to something. “Stay close to her. Call me if she meets anyone.”

It wasn't long before the phone rang again. Jake had been staring down at a pile of legal documents, reading the same paragraphs over and over without processing the words.

“She's with a guy,” Big Rick said ominously. “Still at the museum. They're at a table in the fourth-floor café.”

“Short guy? Brown hair? Bow tie?”

“Nope. Tall. Light hair, no tie. Good-looking. They're talking, seem pretty friendly.”

“What do you mean, friendly?”

“Sitting close. Looking into each other's eyes. She kissed him when she saw him.”

Jake stiffened. He had assumed that Molly was sneaking off to a secret meeting with a journalist, but what if this was something else entirely? What if she was in the middle of a romantic liaison? The Natural History museum wasn't his idea of a steamy setting, but maybe it was a professor thing. He suppressed a sudden feeling of outrage. True, Molly wasn't actually his fiancée, so her personal life was none of his business, but she was hardly anonymous. She might think that she was free to go out on a date, but after all the recent publicity, there was a very real chance that she would be recognized.

“Great,” he muttered. Molly was too green—she didn't know how to play the game at this level, and it was his own fault for not warning her. If she and her friend got too cozy, they were likely to end up on the front page of tomorrow's
Daily News.

“Now he's taking notes,” Big Rick said.

Notes,
Jake thought, baffled. Who was this guy? A reporter? A boyfriend? Both? It made no sense.

“You want pictures?” Big Rick asked. “I've got a camera.”

You and everybody else.
“No,” Jake said. “Definitely not. But stay with her. I'm coming over.”

The American Museum of Natural History covered four city blocks, and was made up of an eclectic mixture of architectural materials and styles, from pink granite to red brick, from neo-Gothic to futuristic. Jake had never been inside, but he guessed that the museum was probably on the Berenger Foundation beneficiary list. Cora had a soft spot for educational enterprises.

He took the elevator up to the café on four, and immediately spotted Big Rick. In a Sunday crowd made up mostly of the under-twelve age group, the bodyguard's massive frame and bald head were somewhat conspicuous. The fact that he was also wearing mirrored sunglasses and an earpiece didn't help. He was sitting at a small table by a window with a coffee cup in front of him. Some of the parents glanced uneasily at him, but others seemed to assume that he was a museum guard. One woman, dragging a kicking toddler by the hand, stopped to speak to him, and Big Rick pointed toward the ladies' room with a nonchalance that suggested that this was not the first time he'd been asked.

Molly and her friend were at a table in the middle of the room, and Jake headed straight toward them. It was likely to be an awkward situation, but at the moment his priority was security, not elegance.

Molly's eyes widened, and she suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence when she noticed Jake approaching. Her mouth stayed slightly open for a moment, and then thinned into a tight line as she began to scowl.

Jake pulled out an empty chair and sat down. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry I'm late. Glad to see you started without me.”

Molly's friend blinked at him for one surprised moment. Jake stared back, sizing him up. He had sandy hair and blue eyes, and he was broad-shouldered, but skinny.

Weak,
Jake thought with sudden satisfaction.
I could take him in a fight, no problem.
He wasn't planning to brawl in the middle of the museum café—it was just a matter of establishing the order.

The man looked uneasy, as if he could read Jake's mind. Molly looked as if she planned to throttle Jake at the first available opportunity. “I knew it,” she muttered through her teeth. “I
knew
it.”

Big Rick had been stretching it to call this guy good-looking, in Jake's opinion. He wondered what Molly thought she was doing, kissing someone so skinny. He would have expected better judgment from her, but there was no accounting for taste. Not that he cared, anyway. She could kiss any loser she wanted to, but she had damn well better do it in private next time.

He shook the man's hand, making a point of squeezing a little harder than he should have. “Jake Berenger,” he said. “And you are?”

“Oh, yes, of course, I know,” the man said with a pained look as he retrieved his hand from Jake's grasp. “Nathan Van Peebles. I was at your opening last night.”

“Great,” Jake said. “In what capacity?”

“Supplicant,” Nathan Van Peebles said earnestly. “I try to go to as many of those events as possible. It helps me catch up with our top donors. I hope I don't sound too pushy if I say that I'd love a chance to tell you about some of our new programs.”

“Programs,” Jake repeated, nodding vaguely. Who was this Peebles person? And what kind of name was that, anyway? There was a little notebook open on the table in front of him, and Molly's e-mail address had been jotted down in neat block letters. Below that were a few messier notes that Jake couldn't read.

“Nathan is the director of the Natural History museum,” Molly said in a chilly voice. “That's this building, where we're currently sitting, in case you don't know.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. “I saw the sign on my way in. And how do you two know each other?”

“Nathan was a student of my father's at Belden,” Molly said.

“Among other things,” Nathan Van Peebles said. “Molly and I have quite a history together.”

Jake raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “Oh?”

“Oh, yes,” Nathan said. “We dated for a while, but—”

“Casually,” Molly interjected.

“Yes, of course,” Nathan said. “And then—eight years ago this month, in fact—was the night that Molly made me the happiest man in the world.”

“Good Lord,” Jake said.

Nathan Van Peebles smiled fondly at Molly. “I'll never forget it. We were at her parents' house in Belden. I had no idea what was in store for me, but Molly had been planning the whole thing for weeks.”

“You don't say,” Jake said.

“It was the first time I'd ever felt anything so powerful,” Nathan said dreamily. “The only time, in fact. Once is enough for a lifetime, of course.”

Jake turned to stare at Molly. He knew from personal experience that she was a great kisser, but it was hard to imagine that anyone could consider one night enough for a lifetime.

Molly exhaled impatiently. “He's talking about
love,”
she said. “Love at first sight. Eight years ago I introduced Nathan to—”

“Lisette,” Nathan Van Peebles said. “The most wonderful woman on earth. She was Molly's college roommate. Now she's my wife.”

“So why didn't you just
say
that you were meeting your friend for coffee?” Jake demanded later. “What was all that about shopping and lunch with Elaine? Why lie? Who cares?”

They were in the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, wading through a sea of schoolchildren. Shiny brown bones loomed around them, arranged into hulking shapes.

Nathan had gone, promising to give Molly's love to Lisette, who was away on a business trip and would be glad to have Molly's new e-mail address. Big Rick had been sent back to the Grand.

“You care, obviously,” Molly said. “I didn't feel like telling you the truth and then needing to convince you that Nathan was just an old friend and not a reporter. Shopping seemed like a simpler explanation. And I was right. I saw the look on your face when you sat down. You almost broke Nathan's hand! He plays the violin, you know. You can't just squeeze him like that.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jake muttered.

“And I
knew
that you were going to send someone to watch me. Listen, Jake, where I go and what I do is none of your business! I—”

“It's my business if you're a threat to me,” Jake said. “Just last night you were amusing yourself with the idea of ruining my life, remember? And today I'm supposed to trust you? No way, babe. I'm keeping an eye on you, so get used to it.”

“Hmm,” Molly said. “Do you know who Howard Hughes was?”

“The tycoon? The one who almost married Ava Gardner?”

“Among others. He was a control freak who used to send his people to spy on whatever Hollywood starlet he was dating.”

“What about him?”

She gazed levelly at him. “He died alone and insane, if I remember correctly.”

“So? What does that have to do with me? This isn't about jealousy, damn it!” A nearby mother gave Jake a disapproving look, and he lowered his voice. “This is about security. You can go off and meet anyone you want, just do it discreetly. And stay away from the press.”

A group of children passed them, and Jake moved out of the way, putting his hand on the stegosaurus's leg.

“No touching,” said a guard.

“Sorry,” Jake said. He dropped his hand, stepped sideways, and almost tripped over a stroller, earning a dirty look from the man pushing it. Regaining his balance, he turned and bumped into an elderly couple.

“Sorry,” he said again. “Excuse me.” He turned to Molly, who was pressing her lips together, trying—unsuccessfully—not to laugh. He seized her by the arm. “Get me out of here.”

The elevator was jammed with people, crushing them against the back wall of the metal box. Jake folded his arms and stared forward at the ground-floor button, which glowed on the panel like a beacon of freedom.

“You look surly,” Molly remarked. She was pressed up against his side, by necessity, and it was more distracting than he wanted to admit.

“I hate crowds,” he said, looking down at her. Even in the warm dead air of the elevator, he could smell the faint sweetness of her perfume. It tickled his nose in a pleasant way. He associated that particular scent with Molly in her Sandra St. Claire guise, and it brought back vivid memories of the day that he had kissed her. She had apparently adopted Sandra's perfume for long-term use, which didn't bode well for Jake's peace of mind.

The elevator stopped on the third floor and disgorged half of the group. They were immediately replaced by a fresh surge of bodies, and Jake exhaled slowly as the doors slid closed again.

He wondered what kind of kiss Molly had given her friend Nathan. A polite peck on the cheek? A friendly brush of lips against lips? Surely not more than that, even if they had once dated. What did “casual” mean to Molly? Something less, Jake hoped, than the steamy invitation that she had surprised him with at Falcon's Point. If she had ever kissed Nathan Van Peebles like that, they would certainly have been lovers. No normal man—under normal circumstances—could resist that kind of offer.

The elevator stopped on the second floor, and Molly began to push toward the open doors. “Hey,” Jake said, startled, and followed her. “This is the wrong floor…”

She turned to look at him as the elevator doors slid shut behind them. “For you, maybe. Not for me. You don't think that I met Nathan here just because I like the café food so much, do you? I'm not ready to go yet.”

“I am,” Jake said.

“So?” Molly shrugged. “Go. I'm not stopping you.”

She wasn't, but something else was. He had come to the museum in the Berenger limo, but he had left the hotel in such a hurry that he had forgotten his cell phone. Given the traffic outside, it was likely that the driver had gone off to find a quieter spot to wait, and now Jake had no way to contact him.

“I can't,” he said. “I don't have a ride. I need to go back with you.”

She looked surprised, then amused. “Take a cab,” she said.

“I can't do that, either,” he muttered.

“Why not? Are you too rich to use normal transit?”

“No,” Jake said, annoyed. “Too poor. I don't have my wallet, either.”

Molly began to chuckle. “I'd be glad to loan you ten dollars,” she said. “Or you could just come with me. I'll only be here for another hour or so.”

“What are you doing?”

Still grinning, she pointed to something behind him. He turned and saw a huge red banner displaying a skull and crossbones, along with large type reading: “Buccaneers! A History of the Caribbean Pirates.”

“Special exhibit,” Molly said. “The director of the Antigua museum was one of the consultants, and he told me to be sure to see it while I was in town. It's been getting great reviews. People love pirates.”

“I hate pirates,” Jake said, with feeling. Caribbean or corporate, in his opinion they could all go to hell. As a category, they were making his life as difficult as that of any eighteenth-century sea captain.

“Yes, and crowds,” Molly agreed. “I remember.”

“Listen, about that ten dollars…”

She shook her head. “I'm rescinding my offer. Since you were so determined to follow me to the museum, I think it would be good for you to stay and learn a little more about Caribbean history. It's relevant to your top resort, and who knows? You may even develop a new appreciation for Mary Morgan.”

Despite Molly's best efforts as a tour guide, Jake did not discover any new affection for Bonny Mary Morgan. He was interested to learn, though, that the real name of the pirate Blackbeard was Edward Teach or—according to some documents—Thatch. It seemed grimly appropriate.