Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (27 page)

Tiff looked down at Chica, who was squirming in her arms. “I’ll do it.”

I ran my fingers through my hair as I took in Tiff’s white pleather couch. Above it she had hung an electric landscape picture that when turned on simulated the movement of the ocean.

“Did you hear me, Sophie?” Tiff asked.

“Huh? Oh, were you talking to me? I thought you were talking to your dog. I have conversations with my cat all the time so I figured—”

“I said I’d do it. I’ll take you with me when I go to Peter’s place.”

“Seriously? Tiff, I swear you won’t re—”

“Don’t jinx this,” Tiff said, effectively cutting me off. “I have tomorrow off so why don’t we go then and just get it over with. You’ll have to drive because obviously my car won’t be working by then.”

“Tomorrow, perfect. Morning, afternoon? Whatever you want.”

“I like to work out on Sunday mornings, so why don’t we say afternoon. Maybe one o’clock?”

“One it is. Thank you, Tiff, I think…” I was going to say “You have made the right decision,” but that was probably one of those comments that would “jinx us,” so I opted for the only safe comment I could come up with. “You have a nice couch. It has a nice…retro feel to it.”

“Retro?” Tiff raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I always thought of it as being pretty modern. Can you believe it’s not real leather?”

I smiled at this and bid her goodbye. I had just gotten on her good side, and if I allowed myself to comment further on her taste I’d be back on her shit list in no time.

17

All these years I thought I was being the perfect Catholic, but as it turns out there’s more to the rhythm method than just having sex on a dance floor.

—C’est La Mort

ON THE WAY HOME LEAH CALLED ME ON MYCELL PHONE.

“I just found out what happened on the news,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

She sighed heavily into the receiver. “Who’d you give grief to this time?”

“No one, which is not to say that I’m willing to deal with it right now,” I said as I rushed through a yellow light. “I have to focus on finding Melanie’s killer.”

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to let the police take it from here?”

“Approximately seventy percent of violent crimes go unsolved in this city,” I retorted. “With that kind of track record, why would I leave something this important to the police?”

“Because it’s what you’re supposed to do! Because some of us would prefer it if you didn’t die young. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

“I have to do this, Leah,” I said quietly, “for Melanie.”

Leah sighed again, but this time it was a sigh of resignation. “At the risk of sounding repetitive, you’re like a psychological case study.”

“Right back at you,” I said with a smile. “And you’re not supposed to criticize me until I hang up, which is now.” I ended the call and after a long search for parking made my way back up to my apartment.

“Hello?” I hung my jacket up on my coatrack and searched for signs of life. The only response I got was from Mr. Katz, who stepped into the foyer long enough for me to see that he was going into the kitchen, where he undoubtedly expected to be fed. Anatoly wasn’t there. “Can you believe that guy?” I snapped as I went to fill my pet’s bowl with kibble. “He blackmails me into letting him stay here so he can protect me and then when I come home at nine o’clock at night he’s nowhere to be found.”

As if in response, my front door opened and Anatoly strode in. “Have a good dinner?”

“Where have you been?”

Anatoly smirked and got himself a glass of water. “You’re upset that I wasn’t here when you got home? You haven’t forgotten that you don’t want me around, have you?”

“No I haven’t
forgotten,
” I snipped. “But you said you were going to do some research. Obviously I want to know what that was about.”

“You didn’t seem to care this afternoon.”

“You know what, that’s fine. Be an asshole. It is, after all, what you do best. I’ll just take my laptop into my bedroom and do some writing. I think I’m going to have my character beat her ex-boyfriend to death with the front fairing of his own stupid bike.”

“I did some research on Sam. He’s been married before.”

“Yeah, I found that out, too. That hardly makes him unusual.”

“No, but he’s not divorced, he’s a widower. His wife was killed in a drive-by shooting.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God! We have to talk to this guy!”

“My thoughts exactly. I called Darrell and he’s going to set it up.”

“But Sam’s seen us before. He thinks we work for
Tikkun.
He’s not going to be open and honest with a couple of journalists.”

“I faxed Darrell a script that he used to explain all that. He’s already told Sam that the
Tikkun
reporters he met are actually detectives whom he occasionally calls when he needs help on a difficult investigation. Darrell is also going to tell him that due to a sudden turn in his health, he can no longer pursue this case and that he’s handing the whole thing over to us. I had him tell Sam that we are considerably more experienced and skilled than he is, which of course is
half
true.”

“What’s Darrell supposed to be ill with?” I asked, ignoring the obvious jab.

“Mono.”

“That’s a stretch. Who would get close enough to Darrell to give him mono?”

“A prostitute?” Anatoly suggested. “I assume he uses them, either that or he’s a virgin.”

“Okay, so when is this meeting?”

“Tomorrow at four. Anne will be at some fund-raiser for MAC.”

I leaned against the white-tiled counter and gave Anatoly a quizzical look. “I only know of two MACs—one makes lipstick, the other makes computers—and neither of them are struggling financially.”

“In this case MAC stands for Mothers Against Censorship.”

“Are you kidding? I thought mothers were supposed to be
for
censorship.”

“Not the ones who support Anne. These mothers apparently want their children to be exposed to depravity on a daily basis.”

“Huh,” I said thoughtfully. “I wonder if Dena would be interested in hosting one of their events. It could be good publicity for the shop…wait a minute, did you say tomorrow at four? I can’t make that! Tiff and I are driving to Danville to go through Peter’s apartment.”

“She hasn’t cleared that out yet?”

“No, she’s never even been inside. No one has since he killed himself.”

“Really?” Anatoly’s tone clearly conveyed his appreciation of this news. “That is a lucky break.”

“Yeah, but by the time I pick her up, drive to Danville, search his place and then drive back to San Francisco to drop her off…there’s just no way I’ll be able to be in Lafayette by four, so you’ll have to reschedule with Sam.”

“Can’t do it,” Anatoly said definitively. “Darrell’s already called and gotten the whole thing set up and I talked to Sam not a half hour later. He wasn’t exactly thrilled with having his case handed over to someone new and I can’t afford to further upset him by rescheduling our first appointment. If he decides to go with yet another detective agency, we lose our advantage. Ask Tiff if she can go to Peter’s place on Monday.”

“I can’t ask her to do that! It’s taken her months to work up the nerve to go over there. If I try to hold her off she might back out completely. Besides, I’m skating on thin ice with her as it is.”

“What are you talking about? She obviously likes you. She agreed to go out to dinner and she even allowed you to drive her home—” Anatoly stopped short and winced.

“You followed me?” I asked, my voice trembling with rage. I pushed myself away from the counter and yanked open my junk drawer by the sink.

“What are you doing?” Anatoly asked.

“I’m getting a permanent marker and then I’m going to a gay biker bar!”

Anatoly came up behind me and held me still by placing a firm hand on each of my arms. “For the record, I did keep my promise. I didn’t go anywhere near the restaurant. I simply followed you to the parking garage on O’Farrell, which is where I waited until you returned with Tiff in tow.”

“How did I not notice you?” I snapped. I considered pulling away, but there was something rather pleasant about being restrained like this. God, I was as sick as Dena.

“I rented a car again,” Anatoly answered.

“What are you, a Hertz Gold Club member or something?” I said, finally finding the will to free myself. I pulled myself up on the counter and sat there, glaring at him. “Why don’t you just buy yourself a car?”

“I don’t know, Sophie,” Anatoly said dryly. “Why don’t you just buy yourself a plane?”

“People who eat salmon and caviar for breakfast don’t get to complain about financial problems.”

“It’s how I choose to spend my money,” Anatoly said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“You can’t keep following me around town, Anatoly.”

“Sophie, I don’t think you understood what I was trying to tell you before. There is a killer out there and he may think that you’re on to him. I know you want your space but you’re not going to get it in a coffin.”

I blanched. “That was harsh.”

“So is murder.”

For a full minute Anatoly and I stared at each other in silence. Mr. Katz seemed to sense the tension and abandoned the meager remains of his late-night snack in order to get out of the line of fire.

“I can’t reschedule with Tiff,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Fine, then you go with Tiff and I’ll talk to Sam on my own.”

“But I really want to meet with Sam!”

Anatoly shrugged. “We can’t always have what we want.” His gaze slipped from my face and took inventory of my more erogenous zones. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“You
had
what you wanted. But that’s what happens when you don’t appreciate what you have, you lose it.” And with that I jumped down and left the room.

It had been twelve hours since my last cup of coffee and yet I still found it impossible to sleep. All I could do was lie in bed and stare up at my bedroom ceiling while Mr. Katz used my stomach as a mattress. In the next room Anatoly was using my futon as a mattress and I suspected that was one of the reasons I couldn’t sleep.

There was part of me (a part that was nowhere near my brain) that was thrilled by his new sleeping arrangement. He was lying in
my
guest room, undoubtedly wearing nothing but a pair of fitted Calvin Klein boxers and a wife-beater, and the only thing that separated us was a wall and a few square feet of floor space.

Of course, the part of me that wanted Anatoly there was seriously pissing off the part of me that didn’t.

I sighed and turned on my side, thus irritating the previously comfortable Mr. Katz. I needed to stop thinking about Anatoly; then again if I did that I would start thinking about Melanie and that was infinitely worse.

Maybe I was in danger. God, if something happened to me, it would destroy my mother. She might actually get that ulcer that she was always complaining about. And Leah would be a mess. Still, Anatoly was being overprotective and I hated that. I had a major aversion to men with white-knight complexes. Of course, Anatoly wasn’t really a white knight. He was a bad boy who occasionally experimented with heroism. That’s what had made our sex life so exciting. I had never been able to predict if he was going to slowly caress me, sweetly exploring every curve of my body with strong, gentle hands, or if he was going to throw me on the dining table, tear off my clothes and plunge inside of me with the force of a hurricane.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that. Come on, Sophie,
sleep, sleep, sleep.

No luck. I scooted into a sitting position, for which Mr. Katz rewarded me by digging his nails into my skin. I was losing it. I needed someone to calm me down. Dena was good at that. I reached for the phone, but the sight of the red digital numbers on my alarm clock stopped me. It was after two in the morning. Dena would either be asleep or orgasmic right now. Either way, calling her was out of the question. I glanced at the wall that separated me from my nemesis. I couldn’t.

Yeah, I could.

I slipped out of bed, the hem of my cotton nightshirt brushing against my thighs as I tiptoed into the guest room. “Anatoly,” I whispered, “are you asleep?”

“I was until you snuck into my room.”

“I was very quiet.”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

“You are, aren’t you? I had forgotten.”

“I highly doubt that you did. What do you want? If it’s not sex, then I’m sure it can wait until the morning.”

“It’s not sex, and it can’t wait.” I f lipped the light on and sat down on the edge of his bed. He was lying on his side with the covers pulled up to the point just bellow his chest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. I closed my eyes for a moment and silently convinced myself not to rip the sheets off the bed to find out what else he wasn’t wearing.

“Are you going to tell me what it is you want or are you going to just sit there thinking about it?” he asked.

“You can’t stay here forever,” I stated simply.

Anatoly groaned and turned away from me. “Good night, Sophie.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not staying here forever. If we can peg Sam as our killer and get him arrested quickly, I won’t even be staying for the week.”

“Good, I’m glad we’re clear on that.”

“Can we have sex now?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t we both go back to sleep.”

“That’s the problem,” I said with a sigh. “I can’t sleep and misery loves company.”

“If I promise to have a nightmare, will you leave?”

“Maybe Anne was sleeping with Peter and Eugene found out so Peter threw himself out a fifteen-story window to avoid the humiliation of exposure,” I suggested.

“The humiliation of exposure?” Anatoly turned back in my direction. “Peter’s a single guy and Anne’s not a bad-looking woman. No one would have shunned Peter for his role in that kind of affair. If I were in his shoes I would have slept with her—ow!”