Rooms to Die For (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

As I drove home, I mulled over my visit with Elaine McCahey and its uncertain result. Elaine might be right, after all. Perhaps what I’d read in Austin’s face wasn’t fear, and yet...if I were correct and fear had caused Austin’s reaction, why so? Why fear Harlan? He rarely came into the mall, and then only during business hours when the place buzzed with activity. Usually there was safety in numbers.

Still I’d been mugged in the parking during a busy time.
Hmm.
And another thing had me concerned—the first day I’d spoken to Austin, he warned me to stay away from the third floor level...that it was dangerous. Maybe Harlan’s picture evoked a memory for him, a memory that might be tied to José’s death. I tried to dismiss the possibility as too bizarre, but it wouldn’t dislodge itself from my brain.

I’d almost reached Surfside, with my conscience needling me all the way. Once again, despite Rossi’s earnest request that I not do so, I’d gone to the mall and gotten involved in another—well, to borrow Oliver’s term—incident. An impulse, Irish guilt no doubt, caused me to turn off the highway and go into the Publix Market in the Neapolitan Plaza. Rossi said he’d be by after work, and tonight...unlike last night...we’d go out for a change. But for me to cook a big, old-fashioned dinner would be a change too, and after defying Rossi’s wishes and causing him so much worry lately, I wanted to do something—else—to please him, something comforting. I wheeled a shopping cart as far as produce, blocking the aisle while I decided what to have.

Roast chicken. A homey, soul-food kind of meal. Baked sweet potatoes, fresh green beans, cornbread, Nana’s homemade stuffing and a pear and gorgonzola salad. Nana had never heard of gorgonzola, but that was all right. She’d probably love it. I splurged on a bottle of Taittinger’s Brut. And just in case Rossi had room left over, I bought two squares of tiramisu in the Publix bakery.

I checked my watch. Four o’clock. If I headed straight home, no stopping at the shop—I tamped down another spurt of guilt—I could have dinner ready, the table set, and the champagne chilled by six.

With no time to lose, I hustled the groceries into the kitchen and kicked off my heels. That was when I spotted the house phone’s blinking red light. Since I’m congenitally unable to let the damn thing blink, I pressed it.

The terrified voice of Elaine McCahey came trembling through the line. “Deva, you were worried about Austin, so I thought you should know. He’s in the Naples Community Hospital. He didn’t come home from his run, so I went looking for him. He was hiding under a tree in a neighbor’s yard. He’s catatonic, Deva. So regressed he won’t speak at all.”

A sob caught in her throat. “Something caused this. You may be right about that photograph...oh, I have to go. They’re paging me.”

The phone went dead. So did my enthusiasm for home cooking. “No excuses,” I said to myself, eyeballing the pale, naked bird in its plastic wrap. Moping around the condo wringing my hands wouldn’t help Austin a single bit. Or ease my conscience over the part I’d played, however inadvertently, in what had happened to him. “Get on with it,” as Nana would say, if she were here. With a sigh, I dropped the chicken in the sink, exchanged my skirt and top for cutoffs and a tee, then went back to business in the kitchen.

Within an hour, I had the condo redolent with roasting meat, the cornbread cooling on a trivet, and the stuffing and sweets ready to be popped into the oven. I went out to the poolside garden and cut a handful of late-blooming gardenias. Between the floral aroma, the roast and my Prada Candy, Rossi would be treated to some olfactory overload, not to mention a meal I hoped would be the best one he’d had in days.

At six, I tucked the rest of the dinner in the oven, set the table and put Julio on the stereo—down low. The stage was set. Only the leading man was missing.

I waited for him, trusting that something—the meal, the music and
moi
, or even the Taittinger’s, the tiramisu and the tee—would offset the fact that my latest visit to the mall had resulted in a new disaster.

My heart beating with more than anticipation, I heard his key turn in the lock. For once, I was in the kitchen before him, and at his, “Honey, I’m home,” I hurried out to the living room and stole his welcoming line, “So am I.” I stole his gesture too, and held my arms out wide to receive him.

He closed the distance between us in a couple of strides and kissed me until I was breathless. Only then did he sniff the air. Despite the perfume and the gardenias, the chicken won out.

“You cooking or something?” he asked. Another sniff. “Smells delicious. Roast chicken? Like in a mini Thanksgiving?”

“Bingo! You win the prize. Both legs and a breast.”

He laughed. “We on the same subject here?”

“I wanted to do something nice for you, Rossi. Cooking was the second nicest thing I could think of.”

He loosened his embrace a bit to better study my expression. “Guilty about something?”

God.
Detectives.

“‘’’Course not,” I lied.

He drew me over to a club chair and pulled me onto his lap. “I have some news I can share for a change.”

“Oh?” I lifted my cheek off his chest and sat up straight.

“I met with Señor Lopez today and learned something interesting. He claims José Vega never blackmailed him.”

“What! Then what about the letter José left in the safe before he died, the one Beatriz found?”

“José
thought
he was blackmailing Lopez.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lopez gave Vega the money as an act of charity. He knew the Spanish Galleria wasn’t making it. So to save Vega’s pride, Lopez let him believe he really was a blackmailer. Bottom line, Vega had nothing to blackmail Lopez about. He’s not wanted by Interpol, he’s married to an American citizen and has a green card. Ergo, no arrest, no extradition, no scandal. Instead of laughing Vega off, Lopez went along with the scam. He knew Vega would be too proud to accept the money as a gift.”

“But José wasn’t too proud to blackmail an old friend?”

“Nope. That gave him the upper hand. It’s all about male pride. It has to be preserved at any cost.”

“I see.”

“There’s more. Lopez wants to continue giving Beatriz money each month, but he’s worried that she won’t let him.”

Good for Beatriz.
“He’s afraid her female pride will get in her way.”

“Something like that.

“Probably will. Female pride’s a well-known fact. It has to be preserved at any cost.”

“Touché,” he acknowledged, the trace of a laugh in his voice.

“What about the other little fact I brought up the last time we talked about all this? That Beatriz still believes Raúl killed her husband? You haven’t even mentioned it since she tossed her accusation into the ring.”

“That’s correct. There’s no basis for it in fact.”

“You mean you have no proof that he killed José.”

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

Rossi cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the woman who said, ‘What happened to being innocent until you’re proven guilty?’”

I let my breath out in one big rush. “True. I don’t mean to criticize—or interfere.”

Rossi snorted. Actually snorted.

“But I have noticed there’s been very little forward action in José’s case or in Hugo’s either.”

Rossi substituted a frown for the eye cock. “That’s definitely a criticism.”

“I can’t help but wonder.”

“Understandable. And unwarranted. You do your decorating—”

“Designing.”

“And I’ll do my detecting. In the meantime, may I remind you that appearances can be deceiving?”

“Oh God, I hope so—that’s how I earn my living.”

“Me, too,” he said a wry smile playing about his mouth.

I went to get up from his lap, but his hands gripped my waist.

“The oven—”

“It’ll keep a minute. Among other things, Lopez mentioned that you had a fruitful meeting today—with his wife and the mall owner. Something about a PR campaign.”

Trapped.

“Right, I did go to the mall today. I was planning to tell you all about it after dinner.”

“So that’s what the home-cooked meal’s all about?”

“Partly, not totally.” I wriggled off his lap. “I realize I’ve been doing a lot of things lately that I shouldn’t be doing, and I haven’t been doing a lot of things I should be doing.”

“I think I followed that,” Rossi said, sending me one of his big Chicklet smiles.

“Roughly translated, it means I promise to stay away from the mall until the crimes are solved.”

“You actually mean that?”

“Yes, I do. And I’ve got the chicken to prove it.”

He laughed and came out to the kitchen with me to do the carving. Not that I couldn’t wield a knife myself, but I was filling a role here and happy to be doing so. Let Rossi be the detective and the carver and the alpha male. Nothing wrong with my taking a backseat ride once in a while. Or riding shotgun.

While I put dinner on the table, my mind couldn’t let go of all the intrigue I’d been living with for the past two-and-a-half weeks. That Rossi knew more than I did about the mall crimes, I took as a given, and aware of his ability, I had faith that for him the parts were adding up to a whole. They sure weren’t for me. None of what I’d experienced added up at all.

For instance, whether José’s death was a suicide or a murder still hadn’t been resolved. Hugo, on the other hand, was an out-and-out case of murder one. Most likely because of his drug ties. But were the two deaths connected? Had José found out about the drugs and threatened to go to the police? Or, needing money, maybe he tried to muscle in on the take. If Rossi had found out anything from the thug who assaulted Beatriz and me in the Galleria, he hadn’t let on. Nor had he said much about why I’d been mugged in the mall parking lot. Why that happened was still a mystery—at least it was to me. My only link to the two dead men was my friendship with Beatriz.

The lid on the pot of green beans rattled. I took the pot off the stove and drained it. Strange but kind of lovely that Raúl had gone along with José’s scheme, pretending to be blackmailed, and now wanting to continue helping Beatriz.

I poured the greens into a bowl and stood stock-still for a moment. Suppose he hadn’t pretended? Suppose he’d feared José did have something on him, and only now was pretending to be a South American Santa Claus to deflect suspicion away from himself?

I put the bowl on the table and was about to tell Rossi what I had just surmised, but he was humming as he finished carving. “Hey, honey, any gravy for this guy?” he asked, looking more carefree than he had in days.

So I didn’t say anything, just heated the gravy, filled both our plates and sat across from Rossi, watching him devour the food I’d prepared. It was a great moment, and though torn by conflicting emotions, I had no intention of spoiling it with another one of my theories. Besides, if I had come up with a hunch about Raúl, no doubt Rossi had too.

So I’d decided to hold off true confessions, including what I’d learned about Austin, until after the tiramisu, when the house phone rang.

“Better answer it, Deva,” Rossi said. “I turned off my cell before dinner, and it might be the station. They know I’m here.”

But the call wasn’t for Rossi. It was Imogene bubbling over with Big News. “Deva, you’ve been such a help, I wanted you to be the first to know. Guess what? I’m getting married!”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I cradled the receiver and went back to Rossi in the dining room. “That was Imogene.”

“The showgirl from Baywalk?”

“Yes. She’s getting married. Funny thing, though. She hung up without saying who the lucky man is.”

“Too excited?”

“Guess so. But it must be Syd.”

Rossi pushed back his empty dessert plate. “Then Syd has the right idea.”

Marriage, he meant. Every time Rossi alluded to the subject, I panicked, afraid of tying my life to another man I’d learned to love—afraid I’d lose him too, the way I’d lost Jack. It was as plain and simple at that—or as complicated. Though I recognized the truth as it shouted at me, all I managed was a limp, “You think?”

“I most certainly do. And it isn’t the great chicken dinner that makes me think so.” He patted his belly. “Delicious though it was.”

Reaching out, he enclosed my fingers in his and rested both our hands on the tabletop. “There’s nothing holding us back from doing the same as Imogene and her mystery fiancé.” He stroked the unadorned ring finger on my left hand. “We could go ring shopping tomorrow and be engaged by tomorrow night. Better still, we could be engaged right now. This moment. All you have to do is say yes.”

His dark eyes looked up from our hands. “What do you say, Deva? Will you marry me? We’re perfect for each other. So perfect sometimes I can’t believe my luck in finding you.”

I stared at our entwined fingers. What had I expected? Whether aware of it or not, I’d set up the evening for just this kind of moment, so now I shouldn’t feel blindsided by his proposal. Still, this was do or die. He deserved an answer, and I wanted to give him one, but the same old nagging hesitation held me back—fear that he lived in harm’s way. He went to work every day with a gun strapped to his body, for heaven’s sake. The worst might happen to him at any time.

Could I really marry a man who courted danger the way Rossi did? If I said no, I’d never see him again—not in this way—and if I said yes, we’d be tied together for life. At least for as long as it lasted. I couldn’t get past the fact that should the tie break as it had with Jack, I’d be forever lost. A boat adrift in the fog.

“The longer the jury’s out,” Rossi said quietly, removing his hand from mine, “the more likely the chance for acquittal. Is that what you want, Deva, an acquittal? You want to be absolved? Free of me?”

Rossi hadn’t raised his voice. But I knew that calm, quiet tone. It concealed a volcano.

“No, I don’t want to be free of you, but—” I couldn’t say the words. Demon fear held me by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

“But me no buts.” He stood up from the table. “Dinner was delicious. And you are delicious. But I’m not a fool.”

I’d seldom seen him so grim, so determined. Glued to my chair, I sat unmoving, suddenly scared to hear what he might say.

“I’ll make this fast. I’ve got work to do.”

Mute and waiting, I nodded, my heartbeat thrumming in my ears.

“I’m withdrawing my question. Forget that I ever asked.”

“But—”

“Quiet, I’m not finished. I realize now that you may never want a commitment with anyone.”

I went to get up, but his palm shot out, staying me.

“Should you ever want one with me, you’ll have to ask for it. Understood?”

I nodded.

“On bended knee. Providing I’m still available. Got both those facts?”

“Yes, but let me explain—”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want explanations. You know what I want.” He checked his watch—rather ostentatiously, I thought—and strode out to the foyer. With a hand on the doorknob, he paused. “There’s something you should know. Beatriz is going after that drug dealer who assaulted you. Her testimony should be enough to put him away for a while. If you want to press charges too, you’d be within your rights.”

“No. Having him out of commission is enough, but if you need me as a witness, let me know.”

“Even if you don’t press charges, it’s possible you may be subpoenaed to testify.”

“I understand” was all I had a chance to say, for then, without a kiss or an embrace, he was gone, and I was left with a mess to clean up, in more ways than one. As I sat there alone, looking at the remnants of my love feast, it dawned on me that Austin wasn’t the only one living in fear. So was I. I guess that made me a damaged soul too.