Quiet as the Grave (20 page)

“Look, Ledge,” Mike said. “I'm not sure I give a damn about your little sex club. My focus is saving my own neck. Suzie was right. You know you're going to
have to go to the police and tell them how that blood got on my bed.”

“I will,” Rutledge said. He put his hand over his heart. “I swear I will. But—not right now, okay?”

“Hell, yes, right now,” Suzie said.

“Hush.” Mike pulled lightly on her ponytail. “Why not now?”

Rutledge wiped his hand over his brow, which had begun to perspire. “I need a little time. I want to talk to Debra, for one thing. And there's this—well, there are details I need to straighten out before—”

“Before they arrest you?”

He shook his head. “Come on, Mike. We go way back. I would only need a few hours. And you don't know how the police are going to react. I don't have a millionaire daddy up in Firefly Glen that they're afraid of. They might decide to arrest me on the spot. I should get some things in order.”

“Mike.” Suzie put her hands on his chest. “Do not let him do this. Don't you watch police shows on TV? This is classic dumb. Don't you know what will happen if you let him walk out the door?”

“No, what?”

“It will be one of three things.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One, he'll run away, and we'll have no corroboration for the story. Two, one of his ‘details' will just happen to involve Justine's killer, and the killer will shoot him, and we'll have no corroboration for the story.”

One corner of Mike's mouth was nudging upward. “And three?”

“Three, he'll decide in a fit of hari-kari nobility that he should shoot himself for dishonoring his family name, and we'll
still
have no corroboration for the story.”

“She's nuts, you know,” Rutledge said. He actually looked awestruck.

“Sometimes,” Mike agreed. He touched her under the chin softly, and she knew she'd lost the argument. Oh, well. It was his friend, and his neck on the line. Contrary to what some people thought, she did know when to back down.

Mike turned to the other man. “Okay. You can wait until tomorrow morning, if you want to. I've known you a long time, Ledge, and I have to believe that you wouldn't leave me with a murder rap hanging over my head.”

And ten minutes ago
, Suzie thought,
you would have been sure he wouldn't break into your house and sleep with your ex-wife in your bed
.

But she didn't say anything. She watched Rutledge thank Mike with tears in his eyes. He almost hugged him, but obviously thought better of it, and settled for shaking hands on his promise to go to the police by ten tomorrow morning.

When he left the boathouse, she plopped back down on her folding chair. She picked up a small oar that had been left propped against the wall. She tapped her toe with it idly and sighed.

“Okay, you win,” she said. “But what if you're wrong? What if you never see him again?”

Mike returned to the workbench and picked up a small, silver case. “Then I'll have to go to the police myself,” he said. “And play them this tape.”

 

T
HEIR NAP LASTED
just three blissful hours.

Mike had clearly been ready to go up to his room, but Suzie had stopped him on the second stair.

“You aren't really going to sleep in that bed, are you?”

The question seemed to amuse him. “It's been two years,” he said. “I don't think there are any cooties left up there, do you? I mean, I do wash my sheets.”

He was right, of course, and she felt foolish. But she didn't want him to go, and she didn't know how to say so.

“I guess not. It's just that…well, it was such a bizarre morning, all around, and I thought…”

He eyed her for a long minute, as dispassionately as a doctor might, assessing her physical and emotional condition. He reached out and pulled the elastic band from her ponytail and let her hair fall freely over her shoulders. Half of it had already come free anyhow.

She reached up self-consciously. “I must be a mess.”

“We're both a mess,” he said. “You're right. It's been an exhausting morning, and a disturbing one. Would you rather not be alone right now?”

She squared her shoulders. “No, no, I'm fine. It's not that.”

But he must have seen through her denial. He came back down the two steps and took her hand. “How about if we share the couch? It's big enough, I think, though it may be a tight fit.”

She shrugged, attempting nonchalance. “I guess that would be fine, if it works for you.”

There was room, but just barely. They had to spoon in order to make everything fit. Suzie positioned herself awkwardly at the very edge of the sofa, determined not to cling to him like a vine. She heard him chuckle, and then he put his arm around her waist and pulled her into him.

“Get comfortable,” he said.

She forced herself to relax. It was nice. She was tall, but he was taller, and her body fit into the contours of his perfectly. He kept his arm around her, holding her so close that she could feel the slow thumping of his heart as he drifted off.

She liked it. She even liked the warmth of his knees thrust into the hollow behind her own. It was sexy in a completely nonthreatening way.

She thought she might be too aware of him to sleep. But within five minutes, she was out.

Though she'd been afraid she would, she didn't dream.

She awoke, three hours later, to a vibration against her hip, and the sense that he was trying to move without disturbing her. After a few seconds, the vibration switched to a low chime.

She raised up on one elbow and looked at him over her shoulder. “Is that your phone?”

He had just extricated it from his pocket. Nodding, he flipped it open and held it to his ear.

She was so close that she could hear almost everything said by the man on the other end, though it didn't quite make sense. Quigley had apparently just spent an hour with Richie, which struck the man on the phone as suspicious, given that it clearly wasn't an official visit. He thought Mike would like to know.

Mike agreed, thanked the man and clicked off.

She struggled to a sitting position and tried to make her hair lie flat. Hopeless, of course. “Who is Richie?”

“Richie Graham. He was Justine's gardener. Millner kept him on after Justine disappeared. I guess right now he's technically the caretaker at the house. He lives in the apartments above the garage.”

“Oh, I know him—I just didn't know his name.
He's creepy.” She yawned. “Why was Quigley over there? Is the gardener a suspect?”

“I think so.”

She nodded. “Me, too. He's creepy.” She smiled. “Did I say that already?”

Mike was still lying on the sofa, resting on one elbow with his head against his knuckles. He looked rumpled and relaxed and sexy as hell. She began fidgeting with her shirt, trying to look less disheveled.

“So who was that calling you? And how does he know what Quigley's up to?”

“It was one of my private investigators. The one who is keeping an eye on Graham for me.”

Her mouth formed a big, round
what?
“
One
of your private investigators? How many do you have?”

“Two,” he said. “Three, if the guy who's supposed to be following Rutledge got going soon enough.”

“Are you kidding?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I had no idea. You never said one word to me. Just exactly how many things have you got going out there?”

“As many as I can think of.”

She scowled. “Well, you could have told me.”

He touched her shoulder. “Look, Suzie, you've been great. I can't tell you the difference it's made to have you on my side. But in the end this is my problem. If I can't solve this thing, I'm going to jail. Obviously I'm coming at it from every angle I can think of. I'm peppering the field. I'm spending money I don't have, checking on people who may be perfectly innocent.”

“I know,” she said, contrite. “I didn't mean to be bossy. You're under no obligation to update me on every one of your movements, obviously. I haven't
got much money myself, but I have some credit cards that aren't completely tapped, so if you—”

“I'm fine,” he said with a smile. “But thanks. If I really needed any, I'm sure my family would help out. Right now, I'm letting them pay for Gavin's bodyguards, and that's enough to ask.”

She shook her head. “Gavin has
bodyguards
? Man, you don't tell me anything!”

His smile turned into a grin. “I thought I wasn't under any obligation to…”

“I didn't mean that, and you know it. I just said it because I ought to mean it.”

He laughed.

“Come on, Mike. Please tell me. I'll pop if I don't know everything that's going on.”

He widened his eyes. “You'll actually pop? Right here on my sofa? Cooties on my bed, popped female on my couch. Where will I sleep?”

“Darn it, you know what I mean. You know how I get. I'm emotional. I can't help it.”

“I know you can't,” he said. He swung his legs around and sat up, too. “That's why I know you're going to want to come with me when I ask Richie Graham a few questions.”

She stood eagerly. She held out her hands to pull him up, too.

“Damn right I am,” she said. “Let's go.”

R
ICHIE
G
RAHAM OPENED
the door in nothing but a pair of white jeans and a smarmy smile, which he promptly dropped when he saw that Mike, not just Suzie, had come calling.

“Mr. Frome,” he said without inflection. “Miss Strickland. This
is
an honor.”

“I'm glad you think so,” Mike responded, equally bland. “Because we've come to have a talk, and we're hoping you'll invite us in.”

Richie leaned forward, and peered around the door, adding a glance down the street. “Is your friend still out there, watching?”

Mike was surprised that Richie knew about the tail, but he managed not to show it. “Of course,” he said. “I always like to have witnesses. Saves a lot of trouble later.”

Richie laughed. “Now isn't that funny? Myself, I'm not fond of them at all.”

He opened the door, though, and let them in. Justine had hired Richie just after the divorce, so Mike hadn't seen the apartment since the gardener took occupancy. He scanned it quickly as he entered, a little taken aback by the expensive leather couch, the high-end electronics, the huge tropical fish tank set into the wall, the carved ebony bar.

How the hell much had Justine been paying this guy?

And for what?

Richie gave him time to absorb it all—obviously aware of the impression it made. “Can I get you a drink?” He glanced at the ultramodern wall clock, which had probably cost as much as a normal gardener earned in a week. “It's not five yet, but my parole officer's not watching, so…what's your poison?”

“Nothing for me,” Mike said. “He's joking about the parole officer, Suzie. He doesn't have a criminal record. If you want a beer, have one.”

“No, thanks. I'm fine.”

She seemed dramatically more subdued than she had this morning, when she had been feeding Ledge his ego on a plate. Mike wondered why. Was she just determined to control her temper, or did this guy scare her?

He could see why he would. Richie Graham was more disturbing than Ledge. Ledge was just a weak ex-jock who had managed to lose everything he had and couldn't stop feeling sorry for himself about it.

Richie, on the other hand, projected power, brains and a certain sociopathic detachment from other human beings. It was, potentially, a dangerous combination.

Which was why Mike didn't really mind letting the gardener know that someone else was aware of this visit and would bring in the cops if Mike and Suzie didn't walk out of here unharmed in a reasonable amount of time.

“So.” Richie rubbed his hands together. “If you didn't come for a good lager, to what do I owe the honor? Have you finally decided to clean up that
jungle behind your boathouse? I'd be glad to give you an estimate.”

Mike picked up a black marble obelisk. “I'm not sure I could afford your rates.”

Richie nodded, acknowledging the probable truth of that statement. He reached over and grabbed a white shirt that had been draped over a chair. He fed his arms into it, then let it hang, unbuttoned, showcasing his torso.

Mike noticed that his chest was clean, no body hair. Didn't quite jibe with the description Loretta Cesswood gave in her diary. But he did have lots of dark, curling hair on his head, and perhaps that was all Loretta had meant. Mike made a mental note to ask Suzie whether she'd specifically said “body hair.”

Richie sauntered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. He opened it with his fingers. If he thought that would impress Mike, he was wrong. Mike worked with his hands, too, and knew that there was nothing mystical about a good, old-fashioned callus.

Richie took a swig of the beer. “So?”

“So…I'm hoping you can explain what Keith Quigley was doing here for more than an hour. I know it wasn't an official visit, so what was it?”

Richie smiled. “Maybe he's looking for a good gardener.”

“I don't think so.”

“No? Okay. Try this. Maybe he wanted to tell me why he hired a couple of stooges to try to kidnap your kid.”

Mike felt the shock wash through him like white fire. He heard Suzie's intake of breath, and he knew that she, too, was struggling to assimilate Richie's bizarre statement. This wasn't even what they'd come
here expecting to find. They'd been looking for evidence of a frame, or perhaps some clue that the gardener was implicated in Justine's death, or knew who was.

This was like lightning from the only part of the sky that had no clouds. Could Richie possibly be serious?

“Kidnapping? That's a slanderous accusation to make against the district attorney, isn't it?”

“Not if it's true. Truth is an absolute defense against slander.” Richie propped one bare foot up on his coffee table, and leaned his elbow on his knee. “Besides, who's going to sue me? Quigley?” He chuckled. “Somehow I don't think so.”

“And
is
it true?”

Richie shrugged. “It might be.”

Mike narrowed his eyes. Clearly Richie loved a good cat-and-mouse game, and Mike had no choice but to give him one. “Okay. Let's say, hypothetically, it is true. Why would he have told you about it? That seems pretty dangerous.”

“Maybe I already knew.” Richie glanced at Suzie and winked roguishly. “Maybe I have, as the song says, friends in low places.”

“Okay,” Mike said again, drawing the other man's attention back from Suzie. “But why? What could Keith Quigley want with Gavin?”

“Still hypothetically?”

“Yeah. Hypothetically. What the hell would the D.A. want with my kid?”

“Maybe he wanted to know something, but he couldn't ask the kid himself. Let's say maybe the kid saw Quigley, saw him somewhere he shouldn't have been. Maybe Quigley wanted to know if the kid remembered that.”

“Where?” Mike wanted to grab the other man by the throat and shake it out of him. This game of one crumb at a time was impossible to endure. He thought of Gavin's nightmare, and his blood ran cold. “Where did Gavin see him?”

Richie rubbed the beer bottle rhythmically across his knee. “You sound a little upset, Mr. Frome. Are you sure you wouldn't like a drink, to help calm you down?”

Suzie finally spoke up. “We don't need alcohol, Richie. We need information. If you've got it, you'd better give it to us now.”

Richie laughed. “Oh, I've got it,” he said. “But I don't give information, baby. I sell it.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Suzie put her hands on her hips. “If you withhold information about a crime, then you've
committed
a crime.”

“Ooooh,” he said, shivering elaborately. He turned his amused gaze back to Mike. “Sexy little spitfire, isn't she? But I'm not sure she quite understands the rules of the game. She's a little…minor league. Which, don't get me wrong, definitely has its own appeal, especially combined with those legs.”

Mike took a step forward. “How much, Graham?”

Clearly enjoying the tension of the moment, the other man chose to stall. He leaned his head back and polished off the beer. Mike watched his throat move as he chugged. One correctly placed elbow to the Adam's apple, and Graham would be on the floor, wondering why he couldn't breathe.

But as satisfying as that might be, it wasn't an option. Mike needed this bastard alive and talking.

“How much?” he repeated.

“Depends.” Richie put down the bottle and eyed
Mike speculatively. “How much information do you want? Or maybe a better question would be, how much information can you take?”

“Let me worry about that. Right now, I'm just looking for a number.”

Richie glanced over at Suzie. “Actually, I'm not a big fan of group negotiations.”

Suzie scowled. She took a deep breath, as if she might be winding up for something, but Mike quickly put his hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you'd be more comfortable waiting in the car.”

“No, I wouldn't.”

“Suzie.”

“No.” She had that look, and he knew it meant trouble. “I'm not leaving you alone up here, and that's all there is to it.”

“Ahh. A guard dog. It's really sort of sweet.” Richie waved toward the patio door. “Maybe you'd like to have a little fresh air? The storm's cleared off, and the view from up here is very nice.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Is that so? What can you see? Can you see, for instance, the
larkspurs
?”

He moved to the patio door and held it open. “Maybe you'd like to look for yourself.”

She gave Mike a glance, her eyebrows raised. He nodded.

Grace in defeat had never been Suzie's strong suit, but he thought she did okay. She gave Richie a dirty look, but she did manage to make it past him without sticking her fist in his gut.

Richie closed the door behind her and turned to Mike.

“I'd say you're a pretty lucky guy.”

Mike laughed. “I was just thinking the same about
you. You should see what happened to the guy who pissed her off this morning.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, she's a great-looking gal, and she's clearly crazy about you. Considering how your first swing at marriage went, it's nice that you're going to get a do-over. Guess that makes her your mulligan, huh?”

Mike met the man's sardonic gaze with a cold one of his own. “I wouldn't know,” he said. “I don't play golf.”

Richie laughed. “I know you don't. Believe me, we all know you don't.”

Mike walked up very close to the other man. Richie widened his stance and locked his knees, signaling that he didn't intend to back up an inch.

“Look, Graham,” Mike said. “I don't give a shit about your blackmailing sideline. If you want to ferret out every dirty secret in this state, and then get the poor suckers to pay you not to squeal, that's your business. What I do care about is some help getting this noose off my neck. If you're selling something that will do that, I'm buying.”

“It won't be cheap,” Richie said. “See, if I give you what you want, it just might dry up some nice little income streams that I've learned to appreciate.”

“I'll pay what it's worth. But it has to be worth something. I'm not buying hot air and gossip.”

“Come back tonight,” Richie said. He glanced toward the patio, as if to be sure Suzie was still safely sequestered. “About midnight. And come alone. Call off the tail. And no friends, especially not the kind with badges.”

“No problem.” Mike laughed harshly. “I don't have any friends like that at the moment.”

“And you can't bring
her
.” Richie nodded toward the patio. “I know she's attached herself to you like a sucker fish, with all that adorable Girl Scout loyalty, but you've got to lose her tonight. We're going to have a lot to talk about. And I think we'll start by watching a movie.”

Mike tilted his head. “A movie?”

“Yeah. A nice home movie. So ditch her. I guarantee it's not the kind of video that good little Girl Scouts are allowed to see.”

 

O
N THE WAY HOME
, as she listened to Mike talking on the cell to his office, his private detectives, his parents and Gavin, she tried not to be mad that he had shut her out again.

But she couldn't help it.

It hurt.

And that made her mad, too. Because why should it hurt? Why should she care?

But she did. Which meant that the Emotional Moron prize went to Suzie Strickland, who had now been fool enough to fall in love with Mike Frome not just once, but twice.

When she'd stood there on Richie's balcony, trying to pay attention to angles and views and evidence, all she could think was, what if he hurt Mike? What if Richie was the murderer, and he thought Mike was a threat? What if he killed him?

It had practically stopped her heart. She'd found herself gripping the banister with white-knuckled hands, feeling the hole in her chest. It had been five whole minutes before she realized that, if he killed Mike, he'd probably saunter out to the balcony and kill her, too.

God
damn
it.

She stared out the window of Mike's car, her hands fisted in her lap. How could she be such a fool?

It was as if the past ten years had disappeared in a puff of smoke. Yesterday, she'd been a happy woman with a business, a home, a life she really liked. And plenty of men, if she wanted them.

Now, she was little Suzie-freaka again, wanting something she could never have.

Why the
hell
hadn't she seen this coming? She ought to walk right into that boathouse, pack her bags and say so long, good luck, hope they don't hang you on a Sunday.

But she knew she wouldn't do that.

He needed a friend. Even if he didn't deserve it.

And even if she wasn't just a friend.

Still, she didn't have to pretend she thought he was being fair, dealing her out like this. She strode up to the boathouse stairs ahead of him, still not speaking. He followed in a leisurely pace, entering some kind of text message into his telephone. She'd die before she'd ask him who he was writing to.

Once inside, she went straight for the refrigerator. Watching that disgusting Richie Graham swilling beer had made her thirsty. She yanked a couple of bottled waters from their plastic web and held one of them out toward him. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah.” Mike took the bottle from her, twisted off the cap and drank about half of it in one go. “Thanks.”

“It's your water,” she said. “So technically I guess I should be thanking you.”

He tucked his forefinger under her chin. “Suzie,” he said softly.

She jerked her chin away. “What?”

He put the water down and put his hands on her shoulders. “Suzie, look at me.”

She did, but she frowned, determined not to be won over. She didn't want to look at him. He was so handsome, damn him. The good fairies had hovered over his cradle and dusted him with a lethal combination of sex appeal and sweetness, courage and humor and just the right hint of sadness in his eyes.