Miranda's Revenge (4 page)

“And he was Navajo?” James frowned at the page, his hand poised with a pen above the page.

“Yes.”

“Do you know what town? What clan? Did he have people he stayed in contact with?”

“Bitter root clan, I think,” Desi said. “And I think he said he was born near Tuba, but he really wasn't a reservation kind of guy. He never really lived there.” She took a sip of her coffee. “His mother died when he was thirteen and he was in the streets for a while, then he ended up in foster care and went to Europe.”

“Europe?” Tam said, “Is that how he knows Renate?”

Desi looked blank. “Renate?”

“The art dealer from Manhattan, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Desi waved a hand. “He always called her
katzchen.
Which I think might be kitten in German. They met when he was a teen. Somewhere in Bavaria, I think, and she came over here not long after he came back to the States.”

A rippling of intuition moved on the back of James's neck. “Who is this? An art dealer?”

“I met her,” Miranda said, her voice startlingly low and sexy. “I think I called you when I saw some of Claude's paintings up in a gallery in Soho. She had a lot of his work, and she had a showing a few months after Claude was murdered. That's what started the media frenzy over the winter.”

James wrote a couple of notes to himself. “I'd like to find out more about her and her connection to the victim. Desi, if you can find anything with the addresses Claude lived at in Denver, or family members in Tuba City, that might be helpful.”

She frowned slightly. “I'm not sure I know where you're going with that.”

Josh spoke. “You think he might not have been who he said he was.”

“Possible.”

“Never looked Navajo to me,” Josh said.

“Right.” He looked around the table. “Anyone have any other ideas?”

“While you're looking into Renate, look into her connection with Elsa Franz,” Josh said. “That was the other weird connection, two accented women with the same last name.”

“Who is she?”

“A model, married to one of the developers now, Bill Biloxi.”

James scribbled it all down. “What else? Who else?”

“Alice Turner,” Desi said. “The dentist's wife. I think he had an affair with her, and she spearheaded a lot of political activity after he died. Trying to boycott the veterinary clinic and that kind of thing.”

James wrote the name down. Drew an arrow up to the art dealer and a question mark—
connection?
“Did the value of Claude's paintings go up after he died?”

“Quadrupled,” Miranda said. “At least.”

He glanced down at her, suddenly aware of her thigh resting against his. His
tired
thigh. He closed his notebook, tucked the pen through the spiral at the top. “It's been a long day,” he said. “I'm going to head back to my hotel and get some rest.”

“Sure, mate?” Tam said. “Let us feed you some lamb stew. Good for your racing, I guarantee it.”

“All right. But let the little one come back and we can talk about other things. Someone is getting married. Is that you?”

“No,” Desi said, though she had a shine in her eyes when she looked at Tam. He reached over and tenderly covered her belly with his big hand.

“She won't marry me till she's in the clear, though she's got me as the baby's guardian,” he said, “so I'm counting on you, mate.”

James nodded. “I'll do my best.”

L
ater that evening, Miranda dozed on the couch as she waited for Juliet to bring cups of decaffeinated coffee for them to drink. A big stack of envelopes and stamps and pens littered the table, and a John Wayne movie from the fifties—they all looked alike to her—played on the movie channel. Miranda couldn't motivate herself enough to change it.

“Here we go,” Juliet sang, carrying a tray of cups and pitchers into the room. “Come sit over here at the table.”

Miranda blinked and stood up. “I'm sleepy,” she said.

“Probably the margaritas at dinner.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged.

“It was a lot of alcohol, sis. Is something bothering you?”

“It was two. Over two
hours.
With food.” She rolled her eyes.

“And something before that. A beer?”

“Don't be so L.A.”

“What does that mean?”

“All into the recovery scene, where all drinking is dangerous. Nobody just enjoys themselves anymore.” Miranda glared at her sister, five years her senior. It was time both her sisters realized that she was an adult. “I really don't need your help in monitoring my drinking. I'm an adult. I'm not driving. I'm technically here to celebrate a wedding, and if I want some drinks, I'll have them.”

“Touch a nerve, did I?”

Miranda sighed. “I don't know. Maybe.”

Juliet raised an eyebrow, passing the sugar. “It's one thing when you have
a
drink. It's another when you slam them down to shut something out. What's bugging you?”

“I was living in Europe for almost a year, you know. They don't fret about drinking there, trust me. And don't even get me started on the New York scene. All people ever do is go for drinks.”

Exasperated, Juliet said, “Miranda, stop talking to me like that. I'm your sister. I know you.” She stirred milk into her own coffee and then tugged her hair back into a ponytail, that was, as everything was with Juliet, adorable. “Something is bothering you. Is it Mom and Dad's arrival?”

“No.” Miranda waved a hand. There were things her sisters didn't know about their parents, but there was no point to getting into any of it now. “I'll live with it.” With a tiny spoon, she measured out superfine sugar and stirred it, watching the bowl of the spoon surface now and then like a fish in murky water.

“Is it Desi's trial?”

“No, I really don't think she's going to go to jail. I can't believe a fair world—”

The phone rang. Juliet answered it, and just as she said hello, Miranda had an intuition over who it would be. She mouthed,
I'm not here,
and waved her hands in front of her throat to gesture the same thing.

Juliet gave her an odd glance, but she dutifully said, “I'm sorry, she's not available right now. May I take a message?” She picked up a pen, and wrote something on a notebook alongside the phone. “Thanks. I'll let her know you called.” The caller said something on the other end of the phone. “All right. Bye.” She put the phone in the cradle and handed Miranda the slip of paper. “He wants you to call him.”

Miranda looked down at the name and number. A dozen dizzying memories rushed through her, redolent with woodsmoke and spring and the crispness of mountain air.

“Curses,” she said, and let her hand fall to her lap, suddenly feeling a slight headache from all the alcohol this evening. “Why is it so hard for all of us to tell each other what we are really feeling?”

“Humans, you mean?”

“No, me and you and Desi.”

“Oh, I don't know,” Juliet said with more than a little sarcasm. “Maybe it's being raised by two narcissists.”

Miranda nodded. Pressure burned in her chest, a tangle of unexpressed anger, hurt, love. She had not told anyone about her intense, painful love affair with Max Boudrain. It was too humiliating.

Juliet reached over and touched her hand. “It's okay to tell me anything, Miranda.”

What if I said,
Miranda thought,
that your father is not my father? That our parents have been having affairs all of our lives?
“I bet I could think of things you wouldn't want to hear.”

“Maybe I wouldn't like it, but I'd still listen.” She paused. “There's nothing you can say that would make me stop loving you, that's for sure.”

Stung, Miranda bowed her head. “It's nothing like that. I just had a dumb love affair and got a broken heart, and he's here. In Mariposa. I saw him this afternoon.”

“Is that
the
Max Boudrain?” Juliet asked, touching the paper with one index finger. “The skier who did so well at Turin?”

“Yeah.” Miranda's mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “I should have known better.”

“Because he's a skier?”

“All of it,” Miranda said wearily. “Beautiful and European and talented and—” She waved a hand dismissively. “All of it,” she repeated. “It takes a saint to resist the women who fawn over a man like that.”

“And I take it Max wasn't a saint?”

“Well, I don't know.” She tossed hair out of her eyes. “The thing is, we didn't really have that kind of relationship. I met him at a dinner party and we had this wild affair for a few months, and then we parted company.”

“Friendly terms?”

“I guess.”

Juliet tucked her foot beneath her knee. “Tell me about him, Mirrie. All of it.”

Miranda sipped her coffee, and opened the mental box where she'd shoved her memories of Max, hurry-scurry, where they'd stop giving her so much pain. They spilled out on the floor, moments of blue and green and vivid pink, the colors of the Mediterranean. “I went to Nice for a show, and to do some research for a new project. Have you been there?”

“Never got further south than Paris, I'm afraid.”

“It's slightly seedy and too colorful and has this air of too much drink—but it's so beautiful. Beautiful. The blue Mediterranean, the palms, the flowers spilling out of window boxes and growing in ditches and waste places…” She shook her head. “There are beautiful humans in the streets and on the beaches and sitting in the sidewalk cafés.” She'd been sketching the scene with her hand, and now dropped it to her lap. “And there was Max, all toned and tanned from the season, his body so big and strong and graceful.”

“Mmm.”

“And he wasn't American. There was that slightly delicious frisson of his accent whenever he talked to me. That worldly sense of everything—” She shook her head.

“Didn't Mother and Daddy go to Nice some summers?”

“Yes. Nice and Zurich—and I think sometimes they went to Cape Town for some reason.” A shrug. “Hang out with all their soignée friends, rent a house and drink all summer long on the beaches talking poetry and science.”

Miranda paused, fingering the edge of the paper with Max's name and telephone number, lost in reveries. Twice, she'd been dragged along—one year when she was too young to go to camp with the other sisters, and another year when she'd had bronchitis severely through the winter and even Carol Rousseau was worried about leaving her child. It was thought the Nice summer would heal her.

No California bungalow for them, of course. That would be so left coast, so not their thing. Blue bloods, the Rousseaus. Or at least their mother was. Their father—that would be Paul, the poet father, not the natural father Miranda had never known, was the son of a factory worker in Maine. But he did have some family in the Nice area, so they had their connections.

“We have a cousin in Nice,” she said now. “Henri.”

“I remember him! He came to stay when you were very little. He's maybe ten years older than I am?”

“Right. I stopped to visit him, and he and his very lovely wife hosted a supper for me in the way only the French can do, with a thousand courses spread over six hours and wine flowing, and everyone talking and laughing, and Max was there, a friend of the family. And we sat together, and he spoke English and French both, so he could smooth things on the conversational front.”

“Wow,” Juliet said softly, and leaned forward with a tiny smile edging her lips. “You're such a good storyteller.”

“Oh, it's nothing,” Miranda said. “Comes from having to sparkle at gallery openings.”

“I don't care, I'm enthralled. Tell me more.”

“He was so charming.” Remembering, Miranda felt the stab in her chest that she'd been running from these past six months. “He had direct, beautiful eyes—not quite blue, not quite gray, not quite green.” She paused, surprised at the detail of her memories, what she'd resolutely refused to let into her daily life. “Sometimes, those eyes seemed they were the color of steel. Sometimes, they were the vivid blue of the sea. How could she
not
have fallen for a man with eyes like that? “He made me feel beautiful, which is kind of rare for me.”

“Oh, Miranda, how can you say that?”

“Lots of reasons,” she snorted. “I'm too tall. I'm redheaded, which you either love or don't love, and more people fall in the not-love category. White skin, the white of a carp belly. Never tans. Ever. And—” she raised a finger “—I'm as flat an egg. A fried egg, not an ostrich egg like you and Desi.”

“You took after Dad's side of the family,” Juliet said, grinning. “The French side. Desi and I inherited the English bosom.”

“And it was in France that I met Max, so maybe that's why he thought I was so beautiful, or made me feel that way. Whatever.” She took a breath. “It was a very intense affair for about two months. We went all over Europe, and then, just like that—” she snapped her fingers “—it was over. He said he didn't want to see me anymore. He had a busy career and there wasn't time for a big romance.”

“Ow! That had to hurt. I'm sorry!”

“It did, but I'm mostly over it. But I hated running into him today. I could tell he was going to do the big apology thing and I'll fall right under his spell all over again, and I'm just not going to go there, you know?”

“Smart decision. Nothing says you have to call him back.”

“You know who he's staying with, though? This is important: Christie Lundgren.”

Juliet scowled. “That woman. She's just got it in for Desi.”

“Well, look at it from her side, Juliet.”

“I guess.” She frowned. “I just want this fixed so we can have a big, happy party on my wedding!”

Miranda laughed. “It's all about you, after all.”

“It is! It's my wedding!”

“I know. And I'm actually pretty excited. Josh is fantastic.”

Juliet nodded, put a hand to her heart. “He is.”

“I like Tam, too. He's besotted with our Desi.”

“He's great.”

Miranda wondered if she'd ever find a mate as her sisters had. Maybe she didn't want it. Maybe she didn't believe in it on some level, even if she wanted to. To distract herself she asked, “Didn't you get some more flower choices today?”

“I did! Do you want to see them?”

“Absolutely.”

Juliet jumped up and brought back a series of photos with various bouquets.

Miranda pushed everything else out of her mind and focused on her sister's joy. “God, it
is
great to see you so happy,” she said. “Especially after—”

“The rape? You can say it. I'll never be glad it happened, but coming here, finding Josh and Glory and the town has been very healing.”

“Will you have babies together?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“I can be an auntie.”

“You will be anyway.”

“Glory? Yeah, but I want more.”

“And Desi, too—don't forget.”

“That's right. It's just so new still, I haven't gotten use to it. Do Mother and Daddy know?”

“No, and she doesn't want them to. She's going to be four months along by the wedding, and we're having some trouble thinking how to dress her.”

“Does she think she can have a baby without them ever knowing?”

“No, I'm sure she doesn't. It's just for now—she'd rather not tell Mother and have to listen to all her crap.”

“In person,” Miranda acknowledged. “I can find something for her to wear, I betcha, either in town or the Internet, then fix it up a little. Does anybody have a sewing machine?”

“You're a godsend, Mirrie. Yes—Helene Mad Calf has a sewing machine. I'm sure she'll loan it to us.” She stood up. “Why don't you get to bed now. You look beat.”

“I need my rest to deal with our parents,” Miranda agreed.