Twilight (16 page)

“My dear, are you sure that’s wise? Isn’t it terribly distressing for you?” she asked.

“It’s not only wise, it’s necessary,” Dana said firmly. “For one thing, the reputation of Yo, Amigo has been tarnished in a way that could lead to its downfall. Ken believed in that program....”

“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Miller, but your husband was a fool,” Lawrence Tremayne declared so vehemently that everyone in the room gasped with dismay.

All except Dana. She rose to her feet and stood over him. Her voice quivering with barely suppressed rage, she said, “I will not allow you to slander a man who is no longer able to defend himself, and I certainly will not allow it here in his home.”

“It’s the church’s home,” Tremayne retorted tightly. “You would do well to remember that.”

She stared at him in shock. It appeared the kid gloves had been removed. “Is that a threat?” she inquired. “May I remind you that you hold nothing over me? You’ve already told me that I’m being kicked out of here. My husband’s insurance will see that my family is provided for. The church doesn’t owe me one single dime of compensation. So what, exactly, are you threatening to do to me, Mr. Tremayne?”

Peter Drake interceded. “I think we should all settle down,” he said in the soothing manner of a man used to dealing with warring factions. “Lawrence, mind your tongue. You always did have a tendency to run off at the mouth, without giving a thought to what was coming out.”

“Lawrence was just saying what many of us thought,” Carolina Vincenzi stated haughtily. “There were quite a few of us who thought Reverend Miller was crazy for defending those hooligans.”

“He was defending young people who’d never been given a chance in life,” Dana reminded her, aware that not so long ago she had shared Carolina Vincenzi’s attitude. Her resentment had begun to fade, as she had started to put faces to the names Ken had mentioned so often. “Isn’t that what Christian charity is supposed to be about? Or haven’t you read a Bible lately?”

“Okay, okay,” Kate said, giving Dana’s shoulder a warning squeeze. “I think perhaps we’ve all let our tempers get in the way of good judgment this afternoon. Obviously, this is a very trying time for Dana. Perhaps, it would be best if you all leave and we postpone this conversation for another time.”

“Not just yet,” Tremayne said defiantly. He scowled at Dana. “I would like your assurance that the church will not be dragged into this so-called investigation of yours.”

Dana met his gaze evenly. “The first rule of any investigation is not to rule anything out, Mr. Tremayne. I will follow whatever leads are necessary. If that brings me to the church’s doorstep, then so be it.”

“Surely you don’t think anyone here had anything to do with your husband’s death?” Vincent Polanski asked in a shocked tone.

“It’s not important what I think,” Dana told him. “I will go wherever the evidence takes me.”

“Then you’ll be dead yourself within a month,” Tremayne said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

Dana stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

The others seemed equally startled by the blunt claim. “Lawrence, shut up!” Peter Drake warned in a tone so uncharacteristically fierce that everyone stared at him in shock.

“No, please,” Dana said. “Let him finish what he began. Is that another threat, Mr. Tremayne?”

He flushed. “Of course not. I just meant that you’ll be hanging around in that violent section of town, just as your husband did. You’re bound to meet the same fate.”

After the past hour, Dana wasn’t so sure that the real nest of vipers wasn’t right here in her living room.

16

D
ana was still pacing the living room, ranting and raving at Kate about the gall of their recently departed guests, when the phone rang. She snatched up the receiver and snapped a greeting.

“Uh-oh,” Rick said warily. “What has your drawers in a knot,
querida?
”

With his faintly accented voice, the question had a certain intriguing panache. “Sorry,” she apologized. “It’s been a lousy afternoon.”

“What happened?”

She thought about what actually had happened and concluded that none of it was likely to seem so terrible to an outsider who wasn’t living the nightmare. “Nothing, really.”

“Tell that to someone who’ll buy it. Try again,
querida.
The people from the church came to call, yes?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, unable to keep a note of bitterness out of her voice.

“And? There were problems?”

“You might say that.”

“Tell me,” he said.

He spoke in a gentle, patient way that suggested whatever she described would be made better for the sharing. Dana wasn’t convinced, but she told him anyway. “They kicked me out of the house.”

“What?”

He sounded satisfyingly incredulous. Dana sighed. “They have the right to do that. It is their house. And I was expecting it. Just not so soon.”

“I’m coming out there,” he announced, and hung up before she could argue that there was no point.

She slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle and turned to find Kate regarding her speculatively.

“Rick, I assume.”

“How did you know?”

“Your color’s better.”

Dana scowled at her. “Oh, go suck an egg.”

Kate burst out laughing. “Sweetie, you’re going to have to do better than that if you’re going to be any match for those jerks who were here this afternoon.”

“Believe me, that was just a warm-up,” Dana assured her, grinning. “I had a very tart tongue before I married a minister and decided I’d better learn to express myself more politely.”

“Spending time with Rick Sanchez ought to help. He is charmingly rough around the edges, wouldn’t you say?”

“Meaning?”

“There’s an aura of barely leashed, street-tough danger about him,” Kate said. “In other words, he’s sexy as hell. I love it that he’s rushing out here to your defense.”

“Who said anything about him rushing out here?”

“Your expression gave it away,” Kate explained cheerfully. “You looked very put out when he hung up on you.”

“How did you know he’d hung up on me?”

“Nobody said goodbye,” Kate replied.

Dana scowled at her. “You really do need to get an investigator’s license. You’re very good at this.”

“It comes from having to be one step ahead of two secretive teenagers.” She tilted her head to one side. “Now, what do you intend to do with him once he gets here?”

“I don’t intend to do anything. I didn’t ask him to come. He invited himself.”

“So you intend to toss him right back out on his ear?”

The prospect of that sight seemed to amuse Kate no end. Dana was thrilled she could provide her friend with so much entertainment.

“No. That would be rude,” she said stiffly. “You, on the other hand...” She allowed the threat to remain unspoken.

Kate chuckled. “I was thinking of going home, anyway, but I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll hang around for a while.”

“Suit yourself,” Dana grumbled.

She really was getting tired of all the bossy, presumptuous people in her life. Rick topped the list, but Kate was a very close second. Not that she normally didn’t count herself very lucky to have Kate around. Kate didn’t try to placate her the way so many of the other women in the church did. Kate had apparently never bought the ridiculous idea that getting into heaven had anything whatsoever to do with tiptoeing on eggshells around the minister’s wife. She viewed Dana as a human being in her own right, rather than one-half of some sort of holy alliance.

None of that mattered at the moment, anyway. She was losing her focus on the investigation again. For several moments, she tried to concentrate, but everything that had happened remained in a muddle. She finally met her friend’s still-amused gaze. “Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Did we learn anything here this afternoon?”

“Sure,” Kate said, sobering at once.

“Care to share your insights with me?”

“Lawrence Tremayne is a bully. Peter Drake, contrary to all appearances, is a born mediator. Caroline Vincenzi is a biased snob. Vincent Polanski would jump at his own shadow. And Gerrold Wald has been rendered speechless in their presence.”

“What about Miriam Kelso?”

Kate’s expression turned thoughtful. “She’s the strangest one in the bunch. I know for a fact that she criticized Ken behind his back. In fact, she tried to stab him in the back and have him removed, but today she was so warm and understanding it made me want to throw up. With that kind of duplicity, she may well be the most dangerous one in the bunch.”

“Who’s dangerous?” Rick inquired, causing both Dana and Kate to jump.

“How did you get in here?” Dana demanded as she tried to coax her heart back to its normal rhythm.

“You left the front door unlocked,” he chided.

“And how would you know that? Didn’t you even consider knocking first?”

He grinned unrepentantly. “Given the dangers that you persist in ignoring, I was doing a very necessary security check.”

“And your qualifications for that would be?”

“Concern,” he replied.

He said it in a simple, straightforward way that sent goose bumps dancing along her spine. Dana swallowed hard and tried not to let him see how affected she was by that sincere declaration.

“Breaking and entering by any other name is still a crime,” she pointed out.

He chuckled out loud at that. “You might do well to remember that yourself,
querida.
”

Dana winced at the reminder of her failed break-in attempt. “Sorry. I lost my head for a moment.”

“Would you like some tea?” Kate asked him, obviously seeking to smooth over the awkward moment. “Or something to eat? We have scads of food left over. People seemed to lose their appetites this afternoon.”

Dana tried to envision the very masculine man standing before her balancing a delicate teacup and a plate of tiny sandwiches on his knee. She couldn’t do it. “Maybe Rick would prefer a beer,” she suggested.

His expression brightened. “A beer sounds great.”

“I think there’s a bag of tortilla chips around here somewhere,” she added.

Kate scowled at her. “With all that good food left over? I don’t think so. I’ll get the beer. Rick, why don’t you check out the sandwiches and desserts? There’s a plate on the table. Dana never did get around to eating, either.”

The last was clearly meant as a very broad hint. Rick took it. He held out a hand.

“Come, then,” he urged. “We will all get something and sit in the kitchen, yes? I like the cozy atmosphere in there. A place like that is the heart of a family.”

Dana wanted to resist, but her hand seemed to have a will of its own. It slipped into his much larger one and settled comfortably against the faintly calloused palm. He closed his fingers around hers and tugged her to her feet.

“We have been over this before. You have to eat,” he chastised her. “You have to keep your strength up.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“A very wise woman, obviously.”

Dana smiled ruefully. “She likes to think so.” She regarded Rick curiously. “What about your mother? Is she very wise?”

“She was,” he said quietly. “She died several years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, instinctively squeezing his hand. “You miss her, don’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”

“Every day,” he agreed. “I admired and respected her, even when we were most at odds. I’m not sure she knew that, though. It is my greatest regret.”

The admission told her quite a lot about Rick, things she would never have expected from this man who’d once embraced gang violence as a way of life. It proved that even the strength and compassion of a caring parent might not be enough to counter the allure of the gangs. She had always assumed that only those who were unwanted or unloved or disenfranchised would turn to gangs for support and acceptance.

She started to ask Rick why he had chosen the path he had, but held back instead. Why wasn’t important. It was because of the choices he’d made that he’d wound up creating Yo, Amigo. That was all that mattered. She cared about him only insofar as he could shed light on Ken’s death. Asking for intimate details about his life would only muddy the waters. It would make their relationship into something personal, when it needed to remain adversarial.

As it was, she was already all too aware of the effect of something as simple as having her hand clasped in his. She was drawn to the warmth he offered in ways that she found both confusing and very troubling. Sharing his secrets would only compound the effect.

Reacting to that rush of confusion, she suddenly withdrew her hand from his, using the pretext of gathering food to make the withdrawal seem less abrupt. The amused glint in his eyes told her that he knew exactly why she’d pulled away.

Settled in the kitchen, where, more and more, Rick seemed thoroughly at home and memories of Ken’s presence were gradually fading, the three of them examined the afternoon’s events and tried to make sense of them.

“Do you suppose this sudden notice of eviction has something to do with panic that you’re going to stumble onto the truth about Ken’s death?” Rick asked thoughtfully.

Dana shook her head at once. “They informed me they wanted me to go before I ever said a word about the investigation.”

“What about Mrs. Fallon?” Kate asked. “She might have said something about you being in Ken’s office. They could have leapt to the conclusion that you were snooping for clues.”

“I doubt it. There was nothing odd about my being in his office to gather his personal items. The only thing odd was the police tossing the place.”

“Maybe they heard about that,” Rick suggested.

“If they had, they never mentioned it. Besides, I think Mrs. Fallon would go to great lengths to protect Ken. I’ll bet she has the office spotless again already, and she’ll never say a word about the drugs they found in there. The church officials won’t know, unless the police question them.”

“I agree,” Kate said. “But I do have to wonder at the timing of today’s little bombshell, especially after Tremayne himself had made a point of telling you a few weeks ago to take your time. I agree with Rick that this turnaround came out of the blue. I think somebody wants you gone before you discover the truth, somebody powerful enough to make Tremayne change his tune.”

“What truth?” Dana demanded impatiently. “That underneath that smooth facade, Lawrence Tremayne is a pompous ass? Who would dare to try to push him around? He’d make mincemeat of anyone who tried.”

“He shut up when Peter Drake told him to, didn’t he?”

“That’s true,” Dana conceded thoughtfully.

“Tell me about Tremayne,” Rick insisted. “That name sounds familiar.”

Kate listed all of the man’s personal and professional accomplishments, as gleaned from the newspaper files. Dana added her own insights from seeing his work on behalf of the church.

“A model citizen,” Rick concluded.

“Until he slipped and told me Ken was a fool and that I was likely to wind up dead,” Dana said.

“He threatened you?”

“I’d say it was more like a generous warning that I was treading on thin ice.”

“How charitable,” Rick said with sarcasm.

“Indeed,” Kate agreed.

“Yet he would toss three children out of the only home they have ever known,” Rick said with derision. “Already I do not like this man.”

“That’s two of us,” Kate said vehemently.

“Three,” Dana added.

“Let me see what I can find out about him tomorrow,” Rick offered, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe there are some skeletons hidden in the closet we ought to know about.”

Dana had the feeling he already knew exactly where he intended to look, which once more aroused the suspicion that Rick was keeping something from her. It was pointless to ask him, though. Maybe she should give some thought to tapping his phone and shadowing him.

“Anybody else strike you as especially suspicious?” Rick asked, bringing her attention back to the moment.

“Oddly enough, Miriam Kelso,” Dana said, drawing a startled glance from Kate.

“Why?” Kate asked. “I know I said she was behaving strangely, but suspicious? That’s a little extreme.”

“Not really,” Dana disagreed. “We both know she was being insincere and two-faced the whole time she was here. I have to wonder why she bothered.”

“Maybe she was just playing good cop to Tremayne’s bad cop,” Kate suggested.

“Maybe, but my gut tells me she was overcompensating for something else.”

“Maybe she just felt guilty for being such a thorn in Ken’s side,” Kate said. “She might have wanted him booted out, but she probably didn’t want him dead.”

“She wanted him out because of the gang issue?” Rick asked.

“No, general principle,” Dana told him. “She found fault with every minister the church ever had. That’s just the way she is. We heard about her from the last pastor before we ever got here.”

“What about this Drake character?” Rick asked then. “You said he ordered Tremayne to shut up and that Tremayne listened, right?”

“Actually, that was a bit of a shock,” Dana said. “I’ve always thought of him as such a mousy man. I couldn’t believe it when he snapped at Lawrence Tremayne like that.”

“What I couldn’t believe was that Tremayne actually shut up,” Kate said.

“Maybe Drake has something on him,” Rick suggested.

“Oh, please,” Dana protested. “We’re getting carried away. Kate, you know Peter Drake. Can you envision him virtually blackmailing anyone, much less Lawrence Tremayne?”

“Not before today, I couldn’t. Now?” She shrugged. “I’m not so sure.”

“That’s three people we should check out more thoroughly,” Rick said. “And the others?”

“Polanski and Wald said almost nothing. Carolina said nothing today that she hasn’t said a million times in public, according to Kate. I may not be crazy about her viewpoint, but I don’t think there are any deep, dark secrets there,” Dana conceded.