You Don't Know Jack (15 page)

Under Carter Hawks' name, I wrote: Lars' last manuscript. Then added a couple of huge question marks.

Under Bruce's name, I wrote: Was he cheating? Then double underlined the "was".

I had nothing under the bookseller, Patricia Pepper aka Peppermint Patty, but unsubstantiated rumor. And Ruth Lester, the woman who'd sued Lars for plagiarism, was one big question mark.

Five suspects to investigate, not to mention my ongoing probe of Dinah's husband, Frankie. She'd heard about my accident and told me to take time to heal, but I'd decided to start trailing Frankie this week. I couldn't give up the paying job for the non-paying one, no matter the desperate need to solve Lars' murder and save myself and Apollo.

I studied the suspect board again and got an idea. Ruth Lester was a published author. Perhaps I could find out something about her by paying The Peppered Page bookstore a visit. With luck, I'd find Peppermint Patty there. Two tickets for the price of one. I needed a shower.

My phone rang. I wanted it to be Apollo. I hadn't heard from him, though I knew he'd been told about my accident. Caller-ID dashed my hope. Duke Maddox. I hesitated, not totally over my annoyance at him, but in the end, I realized he was a source of information I could use.

"How are you?" he asked.

"I look worse than I feel."

"Up to that dinner yet?"

My annoyance reared its ugly head. "You know we didn't have a dinner date. Why did you make my family and Stone think we did?"

"Is this about what your family thought?" There was humor in his resonant voice. "Or my brother?"

"I don't care what your brother thinks," I said, but damn, some small part of me did or I wouldn't still be annoyed.

"Good," Duke said. "I wouldn't want to poach on my brother's turf, and I kind of had the feeling there was unfinished business between you two."

I gave a sarcastic laugh. "Been there, got over that, moved on. Or hadn't you heard I'd remarried?"

Since Duke spent the majority of each year out of state, taking on clients all over the country, he might not have.

"Dad told me, but I thought he said..." He trailed off, obviously discomfited at delving into my personal business. I had no relief for him. The subject of my second marriage made everyone uncomfortable.

No one more than I. "I had it annulled."

"Sorry it didn't work out."

"Thanks." I could have told him more, but some things were best left unsaid — like confessing to a criminal lawyer that I married someone so he could keep his green card to stay in this country.

Had my accident had anything to do with the strange phone calls I'd received? Had those calls been from Endré? Or somehow related to Lars' murder.

"How is Apollo?" I touched the brass photo frame on my desk staring at the grinning couple, Apollo and me, last year at the Fremont Oktoberfest. We wore matching screwball hats.

Duke sighed. "I have a 'no comment' policy where my clients are concerned, but in this case I will modify it, and say he's doing as well as anyone charged with first degree murder."

In other words: bad. The heat left my face. "Where is he?"

"That falls under privileged."

"He told you not to tell me, didn't he?"

"He's a nervous guy, isn't he?"

Fidgety would be a better word. "He has the metabolism of hummingbird."

"He needs to calm down. So, I secreted him somewhere that he can unwind. I won't risk anyone leading the media to him."

"I wouldn't do that."

"Not on purpose."

Tears stung my eyes, thickened my throat. "I — I have to go."

"What about dinner?"

"Rain check. I'll call you."

I hung up, my gaze riveted on the photo.

My heart ached for Apollo. He had to feel as alone as I was feeling, as scared as I was feeling. Maybe he would rather be alone than with me. But I doubted it. I knew him, knew what would help him. We'd weathered worse.

No.

Actually we hadn't.

We'd gone through my life upheavals, my divorce from Lars, my relationship highs and lows with Stone, my marriage and annulment from Endré. We'd shared Apollo's pain over his horrible childhood, his breakup with Lance, the death of the grandmother who'd raised him. But all those times we'd been on the same team.

This was different.

It was like coming out of an earthquake to discover a retaining wall collapsed and the ground beneath it no longer stable. You could rebuild the wall but without solid footings to support it, the wall would tumble again.

"Darlin', you need to stop wallowin' and figure out who murdered me."

"Geeze, Lars! Stop scaring me!"

"It's not my fault you're jumpy as grease on a griddle. I didn't push you into that car."

"No, but you know who did, don't you?"

"If I did, I'd tell you."

"Oh, you mean like you'll tell me why Dinah Edger hated you?"

"She's a bitch on wheels."

"If you're not going to offer helpful advice, then leave me alone."

"I'll give you some advice. Stay away from that oily voiced attorney. He wants in your pants."

"Thanks. I don't need your romantic tutelage."

"First, he offers dinner in an upscale, candle-lit restaurant, next it'll be a more intimate meal at his downtown loft. He'll prepare a Spanish omelet for the main course and you'll be dessert."

"Duke can cook?"

"His type always can. It's the secret weapon in their seduction arsenal."

Stone couldn't cook. Not even an omelet.

"Pay attention, darlin'."

"Duke isn't a bad guy. He's representing Apollo for free."

"Don't you believe it. Sharks always smell blood in the water. He's furtherin' his own career, or his ego, with yet another high profile case."

"He doesn't need to further his career. He's at the top of the heap already." I was still hung up on the idea that he could cook. Accomplished, polished, sexy... and he could cook? "Duke just wants to take my deposition, not seduce me."

Though, God help me, I was strung out enough to be tempted by the thought of being seduced.

Damned tempted.

"Weren't you going somewhere before that shyster phoned?"

Oh, crap. The bookstore. A shower. I headed toward my bedroom to change into something more appropriate than yesterday's sweats and a sloppy pony tail.

"You want me to help you choose an outfit? Not that there's much choice. You need a personal shopper."

"I had one." Anger and frustration and aching sadness knotted in my chest. "He's accused of murdering you."

"Then prove he didn't do it. Quick! Before the fashion police fine your sorry-lookin' ass!"

"Maybe I could if you'd help me, instead of harassing me."

A knock sounded on my door, jarring my nerves and sending Lars back to wherever he went when he wasn't annoying me. I wasn't expecting anyone. Fear shivered my spine. I tiptoed to the door and peered through the peep hole. Stone. What was it with these Maddox men? Why couldn't they leave me alone?

I decided not to answer. I'd been hassled enough today.

I crept back to my cubby hole office and eased the door closed.

Stone banged on the main door louder. "I know you're in there, Jack, let me in."

"How do you know I wasn't sleeping and that your pounding didn't wake me from a doctor-ordered nap?"

"You weren't sleeping. I heard you talking to someone. Let me in."

No time to improve my appearance. "All right, all right, come in."

He stepped inside, cop eyes searching for whoever he'd heard me talking to, suspicious gaze locking on my closed office door. Desperate for him to forget checking and coming across my suspect board, I said, "No one here but Ken-doll and me."

He looked skeptical. "So, now you're talking to manikins?"

Now? If he only knew. I blurted out, "Why can't you cook?"

That diverted his attention. "What?"

"Never mind."

He closed the door behind him, a solid hulk of masculinity, towering over me, making me feel more feminine than usual. His hellfire green gaze raked me, igniting sensual blazes in intimate places that Duke's throaty voice hadn't even stirred. I tugged at my sweatshirt, embarrassed by the soup stain. "I know, I look awful. Stop staring."

"I've seen you looking worse, Jack, and never tired of the view."

My spine went stiff. How dare he waltz in sounding and smelling all sexy, acting like we were still lovers, making me long for his touch, his love? Like he hadn't caused me to swear off men for good. "What do you want, Maddox?"

He backed me against the wall and planted his hands on either side of me without touching me. It was a possessive stance, an I-own-you stare. In that instant, I wished he wanted me so much he ached. I wished he was jealous. I wished he'd ask if I was dating his brother. I wanted to tell him yes and I wanted that answer to hurt him.

He leaned in as though to kiss me, his breath like warm fingers caressing my face, my mouth. My muscles were turning liquid. If I were a recovering alcoholic with a glass of whiskey pressing my lips I would not be able to resist a taste, a swallow, the whole damned drink.

"I'm just making sure you're okay," he murmured. "Are you?"

I whimpered.

And... he kissed me.

I felt like a courtesan entering an erotica boutique with endless shelves full of playthings that promised sexual satisfaction and carnal gratification. Everywhere I looked I encountered yet another aphrodisiac. Every breath I took, the same. An enticing aroma of super-charged coffee permeated the air, underscored by that unique scent of newly printed reading materials. As electrifying as a climax to an aspiring writer. A bookstore.

Men were wrong. Larger wasn't better. It's how you use the assets God gives you that matters. The Peppered Page in downtown Bellevue was not as vast as some warehouse bookstores. Nor was it a cubby hole crammed to the rafters. It was just right. Room for displays. Room for a reading corner. Room for a corner café. Room for readers and books.

The pleasure washing through me was almost enough to shake off the persistent sense I had of being followed from my apartment. Almost. Not that I'd seen anyone either on the road, in the parking lot, or once I entered the building.

I stayed just inside the door, getting my bearings, unwrapping my neck scarf, torn between heading straight to the Romance section where I'd find Ruth Lester's book and straight to the café for a latte.

My eye caught on a table stacked with Lars' books. I went over for a closer inspection. All seven titles. Each one autographed by the author himself. A sign warned the supply was limited to what remained displayed.

A clerk labored to the table with another box of the "limited" supply and began replenishing the dwindling remains. "Is Ms. Pepper here today?"

"Every day," the clerk sounded like a ruptured appendix victim. He glanced at me over his shoulder, a squat man in his forties, with thinning hair and weary blue eyes that widened as he took in my scraped and taped face. I'd showered and done the best I could to cover the worst of it, but apparently my best needed work. Apollo could have made the wounds invisible. I had no such skills.

The clerk was polite enough not to ask what had happened, though obviously curious. He crooked his head to the left. "She's over that way, seeing to the last details of the book signing. If you're here for that, it doesn't start until one."

"Thank you."

I stared at Lars' books, fighting back the sadness his loss still gave me, and puzzled that he hadn't popped into my head with a comment or two about the display — especially if he really had been trying to get a restraining order against Peppermint Patty at the time of his murder.

"There she is!" The familiar timbre ripped through the bookstore and riveted my feet to the floor. I would know that bark anywhere. Ida Schultz. And wherever Ida went, Sophie Ferman and Madam Zee were sure to follow.

Refrains of "my Hermie" and a clang of gypsy jewelry confirmed it. Madame Zee's eerie voice reached for me, "Jack B."

I turned to face the Golden Oldies, tresses freshly coifed. Ida hobbled toward me leaning on her three-clawed cane, her thin, stooped frame looking even thinner in electric-blue, elastic-waist pants, the matching top sporting a crocheted orange kitten. Sophie Ferman's plump curves were swathed in purple elastic-waist pants, her red top flashing purple and gold glitter, and Madame Zee in black stretch everything with enough costume jewelry to open her own kiosk.

The surprise I felt at seeing them was as prominent as Lars' books. Had they followed me from home? Before I could ask what they were doing on Bainbridge Island in this bookstore, Ida brayed, "You here for the book signing too?"

My puzzlement prompted Madam Zee to point toward the store's entrance, where I'd somehow missed the gigantic poster.