White Hot (6 page)

Why, she asked herself for the hundredth time, was Tabak interested in her? What story could he possibly be tracking down that might involve her even in the remotest way? She didn’t even know that many people in Palm Beach.

But two she did know called her from the front gate moments after she’d spread her towel on a lounge chair in the shade. She’d brought her portable phone down with her, just in case an important call she wasn’t expecting came through. If serendipity struck, she didn’t want to miss it.

“Are you lollygagging?” Griffen Welles asked, mock-horrified.

Mollie smiled. She’d met Griffen, an upscale caterer, through Leonardo on a long weekend two years ago, her first real friend in Palm Beach. “Shamelessly.”

“There’s hope for you yet. Your Yankee soul isn’t balking at such decadence?”

“Oh, it’s balking. I’m just ignoring it.”

“Well, hit the gate code and let us in.”

That meant Deegan Tiernay was with her. He was eleven years younger than Griffen, a college senior and the son of Michael Tiernay of Tiernay & Jones Communications in Miami. Instead of doing his internship with his father’s prestigious and very large firm, he’d asked Mollie—after meeting her through Griffen—if she’d take him on. She couldn’t have made as much progress as she had without his ten-hour-a-week contribution.

She punched in the gate code and settled back in her lounge chair, welcoming their company even if she wasn’t entirely comfortable with Griffen and Deegan’s relationship. She’d warned herself to remember that Deegan Tiernay at twenty-one was not herself at twenty. And Griffen Welles was no Jeremiah Tabak.

They joined her at the pool, a paradise of sparkling azure water, terra cotta urns of flowers, a curving terrace scattered with enough chairs and small tables for a throng, and adjoining gardens of flowers, decorative palms, citrus trees, and the biggest bird-of-paradise Mollie had ever seen. She could not even imagine taking care of such a yard by herself. That Leonardo’s gardener could do it in twice-weekly visits amazed her; she never failed to compliment him, and often watched him from her deck, imagining herself with a house and a yard of her own someday.

Griffen whistled, grinning. “You’ve got your shoes off and everything. I’m impressed.”

“I’m working tonight,” Mollie said.

“Of course you are, Ms. Workaholic. I know, I know. One year is all you have before you turn into a pumpkin again.”

Mollie laughed, appreciating Griffen’s irreverence. She was thirty-two, tall and lean, her body all angles and taut muscles and long, thin limbs. Her face was more striking than pretty, framed by masses of dark curls. She wore a long sundress in a deep, dark red that added to her exotic good looks. Deegan, in shorts and a polo shirt, looked eleven years younger, but hardly out of his element. He was blonde, athletic, preppy, and soon to come into a sizable trust fund. His maternal grandmother, Diantha Atwood, was a formidable force in Palm Beach society. If she or his parents disapproved of his choice of internship, they were discreet, kind, and supportive on the few occasions Mollie had encountered them. Deegan claimed he’d learn more working with a newbie publicist who had to do everything herself than with his father’s firm, where he wouldn’t get such diversity of experience. Of course, working with Mollie also conveniently established his own independence and no doubt raised a few eyebrows among the authority figures in his life.

“What about you?” she asked Griffen, who’d immediately kicked off her sandals. “Do you have anything on tonight?”

“A small cocktail party in Boca. Everything’s supposed to be low-fat and ultra-fresh.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I guess it’s a challenge, if I don’t dawdle here too long and have to race around like a maniac. Maybe our cat burglar will make an appearance and liven things up.”

Mollie sat up straight. “Cat burglar? What cat burglar?”

Deegan squatted down beside the pool, scooping up stray impatiens blossoms floating on the water. He cocked a grin at Mollie, his eyes a blue somewhere between that of the sky and the pool. “We’ve got to get you tuned in to Palm Beach gossip. You were at the Greenaway last night. You didn’t know a jewel thief struck?”

She could feel the blood draining from her face and thought,
Tabak.
“No. I left early.”

“It was in the morning papers,” Griffen said. “It wasn’t a big headline. The papers are still playing this one safe. But local gossip says we’ve got a serious cat burglar on the prowl.”

Deegan got to his feet, flicking the dead, soaked blossoms into the grass. “He swiped a jewel-encrusted salamander out of Marcie Amerson’s Armani jacket pocket last night. Supposedly her insurance company has launched an investigation.”

So that was it, Mollie thought, trying to retain her composure. Jeremiah was on this cat burglar story. That explained why he was at the Greenaway last night. And he had tracked her down this morning for the same reasons he had plopped down next to her towel ten years ago: access, information, a way into a world where he didn’t belong. Then, it was college students. Now, it was Palm Beach society. In both cases, Mollie was an outsider in a unique position. And oblivious.

“Any leads?” she asked.

“Not that anyone’s saying publicly,” Deegan said. The jewel thief, however, didn’t hold his interest. “Mind if I sneak upstairs a minute? I left a few threads dangling. It’ll make work tomorrow easier if I deal with them now. Door’s open?”

Griffen frowned. “I’ve got ten minutes to spare, tops.”

“No problem,” he said, and blew her a kiss. “Mollie?”

“Door’s open,” she said, and he took off at a half-trot, his irrepressible energy making her feel enervated. What was she going to do about Tabak?

Nothing, she told herself. She’d already called his bluff. With any luck, he wouldn’t be back.

“You look preoccupied,” Griffen said. She was at the shallow end of the pool, dipping in her toes. “Perfect. I’m such a baby—I hate cold water. Hey, everything okay?”

“It’s just been one of those days.” Part of her wanted to tell worldly, savvy Griffen everything, but Mollie had become accustomed to keeping her affair with Jeremiah to herself. It wasn’t an easy habit to break. Not even Leonardo, the one person in her life who would understand a mad, doomed affair, knew. Her parents would have understood intellectually, but not in their gut. “Do you really think there’s a jewel thief on the loose?”

She shrugged. “Could be. I’m not worried. I only wear costume jewelry and not much of that. I hate having stuff hanging from my neck and earlobes, especially if it’s heavy. Gets on my nerves.”

“Then our thief’s not likely to make you his next target,” Mollie said, amused.

“Damned straight.”

Griffen had both feet in the water now, standing on the top step with her sundress hiked up to her knees. She was born and raised in south Florida, but not of a wealthy family. Her rise as one of Palm Beach’s top caterers was her own doing. She was hard-working, creative, a natural self-promoter, and fun to be around—and scrupulous about the food she served. Mollie felt they were friends as much because of their differences as in spite of them, but she and Griffen shared an entrepreneurial spirit that allowed both to understand the ups and downs of being self-employed. Griffen had simply been at it longer.

Before she aroused her friend’s suspicions, Mollie changed the subject. Deegan came down, finally, and they were off.

Suddenly itching to be away herself, Mollie dove into the pool, the water the perfect temperature, enveloping her as she tried to ease an unsettling sense of loneliness and fear of the future, the optimism and daredevil energy of her first months in Palm Beach gone. Seeing Jeremiah again, she knew—stirring up the past, the confusions and hopes and terror of being twenty and not quite sure of her path—had undermined her confidence, worked on her nerves. Her affair with him had been a lesson not only in the appeal and the danger of such a man, but in her own vulnerabilities. She’d never thought herself capable of falling in love almost at first sight, of throwing caution and reason to the wind.

But of course it hadn’t been love. It had been infatuation, obsession, hormones, a dip into the kind of life she didn’t live. And chose not to live. She didn’t do torrid affairs. She wasn’t even much of a party girl, not at twenty, not at thirty. She worked hard, but she didn’t play hard. Her appearance at the Greenaway last night had been for the music and her work, her need to establish a presence and a reputation in the area—the fun of it was just a pleasant by-product.

It was Jeremiah’s work, too, that had led him to the Greenaway. He had staked out last night’s party in case the jewel thief showed up. Which he had, the police apparently arriving not long after Mollie had headed home.

She gasped, choking on a mouthful of pool water as she shot to the surface.

Of course.

She leaped out of the pool, wrapped up in her towel, slipped on her flip-flops and stalked upstairs. Before she could think, analyze, or calm down, she’d pulled out the phone book and dialed the
Miami Tribune’
s number. The switchboard put her through to Jeremiah, and finally he answered. “Tabak.”

“I don’t know anything about your jewel thief,” Mollie said, breathless from her swim, her mad dash upstairs, her indignation. “I didn’t see anything last night, I didn’t
do
anything last night, and I don’t know one damned thing. I don’t have access to him, I don’t have any information about him, I didn’t even know he was on the loose until twenty minutes ago.”

“You doing anything for dinner?”

“What?”

“I’m in Palm Beach. The call got put through to my truck phone. The miracles of modern technology, eh? I’ll be there in two minutes.”

He hung up.

Mollie stared at her phone. How had
that
just happened? Given Leonardo’s state-of-the-art security, she didn’t have to let him in. But she didn’t think she could explain two altercations in her driveway with a man in a beat-up brown truck to her neighbors. That left her less than two minutes to get into dry clothes before he arrived on her doorstep.

She raced down the hall, pushing back images of Jeremiah peeling off her wet bathing suit and making love to her at the same time.

“This is not good,” she muttered. “Not good at all.”

But like ten years ago, she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

4

M
ollie personally ushered Jeremiah through the gates and almost made him park in Leonardo’s garage. She wasn’t up to explaining him to any friends and neighbors who happened by, but decided sticking him in the garage would only encourage him to stay longer.

“Hop in,” he said through his open window. “We’ll walk on the beach and talk.”

“You mean
you’ll
talk. I have nothing to say.”

He gave a curt nod. “Fine.”

She eyed him suspiciously. Something had changed. The earlier cockiness and game-playing had disappeared. She wouldn’t say he looked guilty, but
something
was different.

“Mollie,” he said, “get in. I’d like to say what I have to say on neutral ground.”

“You want witnesses?”

He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and his eyes sparkled, sending a tremor of awareness through her. “Witnesses would be nice.”

Neutral ground just might be to her advantage, too, she decided, and went around and climbed up into the passenger seat without a word. He had his phone, steno pads, maps, phone books, pencil stubs, and an array of newspapers and magazines tucked on seat and floor. A Post-it note with “lizard food” scrawled across it was stuck to the glove compartment. Jeremiah saw her staring at it and said, “It’s a reminder. There’s no lizard food inside.”

“I see.”

“You spoiled by Pascarelli’s Jaguar?”

She attempted a smile, too uptight still to relax. “Not yet. I admit I’m enjoying it.”

“Well, this old heap suits me. It doesn’t stick out in the neighborhoods where I usually hang out, and I won’t lose any sleep if it gets stripped.” He backed out into the street, and Mollie pulled on her seatbelt, trying not to dwell on the play of the muscles in his arms, the shape of his hands on the gearshift. “What about the gates?”

“I’ll leave them unlocked. I’m sure we won’t be long.”

He didn’t argue, just shifted into first and rolled down the smooth, sunlit road. Mollie sat with her hands fisted on her thighs. If only he’d lost his appeal, she told herself, this wouldn’t be so difficult. He wasn’t handsome in any traditional sense. He was possibly more cynical, harder-edged. But he was also every bit as edgy and sexy as he’d been when she’d first realized he would be her first lover, and time hadn’t tempered her reaction to him. If anything, it was more uncontrollable, more dangerous. She’d had the illusion of her safe world in Boston then. Now, no more. Nothing seemed safe or permanent, which only left her feeling more vulnerable.

“I’m going to have to put your picture back on my dartboard,” she said half under her breath.

He grinned over at her, a touch of this morning’s irreverence back. “And adjust your aim?”

She didn’t answer, just felt herself sinking into her seat high above the road. He drove the short distance to the water and pulled into a narrow parking strip. He got out without comment, and Mollie was still fiddling with her door when he came around and opened it for her. “Watch your step,” he said, staying close as she stepped down.

A stiff wind had kicked up off the water, which lay a good fifty yards down a set of wooden stairs and across the width of sandy beach. The lot was almost full, but she and Jeremiah were the only people around. She took a breath, keeping tension and frustration at bay. “We can talk here.”

He looked out at the sparkling water, the beach that was only lightly dotted with bright umbrellas, sunbathers, kids running with plastic buckets. “I don’t get up here that often. Let’s go down by the water.”

“Jeremiah—”

“I’ve got something I need to say, Mollie. I don’t want to say it in a parking lot.”

“If it’s about this jewel thief, it can be said right here.”