A Job to Kill For (11 page)

“Why would I be a cop?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been expecting one to show up since Cassie died.”

I nodded. “I did come to talk about Cassie. But only as her friend.”

“Lacy Fields?” He looked at me suspiciously. “If you’re a friend, why don’t I recognize the name?”

“I probably got to know her long after you two had split. She hired me to decorate her penthouse.”

“Oh, sure. The decorator.” He nodded knowingly. “We talked about you.”

“You did?” I wondered what they’d said. Had Cassie mentioned my talent for tracking down antiques? Vanity aside, the bigger point didn’t escape me. They’d talked in the last couple of months.

“Yeah, Roger had recommended you, right?” He looked me over carefully. “She always got nervous when Roger talked about a woman, because she worried that he screwed around. It wouldn’t have been with you, though.”

“It
could
have been,” I blurted, unexpectedly insulted.

He gave his sly, Russell Crowe smile. “Sure, it could have been. I didn’t mean it that way. I’d screw around with you anytime.”

Well, that was better. I mean, not really better. I didn’t want to screw around with him. But I took yoga, waxed my legs, and highlighted my hair. I got rose-petal facials and never went to sleep with my makeup still on. I shouldn’t be immediately dismissed.

“I’m just trying to figure out what could have happened to Cassie,” I said, getting down to business. “I’m making some inquiries to get to the bottom of it. She collapsed in the apartment when I was there. Horrible.”

“Goes to show you,” Billy said, kicking a pebble underfoot with the edge of his square-toed boot. “I always say, ‘Live fast and free, because tomorrow you may die.’ But I’m the one who was supposed to die young.”

“Why?” I asked.

Billy looked surprised. “Why? Because I ride hogs and compete in dangerous races where people smash and crash. I spent two weeks in intensive care once, but other than that, I’ve never had a scratch.”

“Good for you.” Then trying to be delicate, I said, “I understand you and Cassie used to date.”

“Date?” Billy smiled, and his teeth were unexpectedly straight and white. Either he had good genes or biker dudes in LA went to cosmetic dentists.

“Not date,” I amended, realizing I’d used a word that was, well, dated. “So how would you describe it?”

“Probably as mind-blowing, earth-moving, proof-that-God-exists sex.”

“Now you’re bragging.”

“Just being objective. As I’d be glad to show you.”

“No thanks.” We both smiled, and the little flirtation didn’t hurt. I’d been around long enough to understand that earth-moving sex didn’t depend on positions, practice, or never-ending potency. Forget the Kama Sutra or even Viagra. Nothing could beat lying naked next to my husband, the man I’d adored for nearly two decades. We’d gotten married on a faraway beach, then come to LA, had children, and learned to deal with teething pains and teachers’ meetings, bills and mortgages, disappointments and disagreements. But at the end of the day—okay, not every day, but enough of them—we still turned to each other for passion and sex. Nothing could be more mind-blowing than that.

Billy gazed at me with his green eyes and stroked the three-day stubble at his chin as if deep in thought. Then he stood up straight and snapped two fingers together.

“I’m going to do it,” he said.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Show you the e-mails. I know we’ve just met, but I’ve got to trust someone and better you than the cops. You seem a lot like me—no agenda but the truth.”

That sounded like a motto of the FBI. Or at least the local Cub Scout troop.

“No agenda but the truth, right?” he repeated. He raised his hand, as if taking an oath.

“The truth is always good,” I said.

“High five!” he shouted. He stretched his hand higher, and when I didn’t move, he said, “Come on, give me five!”

Not sure what else to do, I awkwardly raised my hand to reach his. Instead of just smacking palms, he clasped my hand tightly, then twisted his fingers in what I guessed served as some odd biker’s salute. Could be we’d just become blood brothers—or else I’d pledged to be his Harley chick.

Maybe the latter, because he put his arm on my elbow and steered me toward the side of his shop.

“These e-mails from Cassie,” he said. He stopped, hesitating. “Well, maybe I won’t say anything until you see them. They speak for themselves.”

“What do they say?”

“Volumes.”

“Give me a hint.”

“Casssie kept talking about how Princess Diana had worried that her husband might off her, and how after she died, nobody believed Charles had anything to do with it.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “She got killed in a car accident, remember? Chased by photographers through a tunnel in Paris.”

“Cassie wasn’t so sure. She seemed scared.”

Cassie as Princess Diana? My client didn’t exactly arouse the passions of the paparazzi, but I got the not-so-hidden agenda. Cassie worried that she might die—and Roger would never be a suspect.

We were standing in front of a shiny motorcycle now, and Billy handed me a helmet.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you over. Just a ten-minute ride. I really want you to see these.”

I looked dubiously at the helmet. Riding a Harley made my list of “top ten most dangerous things to do,” right up there with hang gliding, bungee jumping, and arranging blind dates for Molly. But what the heck. As Billy said, he lived fast and free—and still lived. Cassie, protected in her gilded cage, had died. Maybe I’d relabel my list “top ten things that could be darn fun to experience if I weren’t such a chicken.”

Should I launch those experiences right now? I didn’t have to rush home. Dan had arranged to take the kids out to dinner tonight at Tijuana Taco. I rarely came along for his Mexican family feasts. Stated reason: Dan deserved bonding time alone with the kids. Real reason: Who wanted to eat refried beans? My thighs couldn’t handle food that had been fried once, never mind twice.

Enchiladas or not, I had three kids who needed my attention and devotion. On the other hand, my client Cassie had been murdered and my best friend, Molly, had gotten herself entangled with Roger—and she needed help. Friendship mattered, and the kids needed to know that, too.

I held the helmet uncertainly. Billy obviously knew his way around a motorcycle, but I’d only trust him sane and sober. Mothers Against Drunk Driving had made vigilantes of us all.

“So, Billy, are you high?” I asked bluntly.

“Only on life,” he said.

I rubbed thumb and forefinger against my nose. “I noticed you rubbing your nose when I first arrived, and you’ve been sniffling since I got here,” I said.

“Allergies,” he said. “Nothing more exciting than that. Do you think I’d be hanging out here if I had enough cash for cocaine?”

“What would you do instead?”

“Go clubbing with Britney Spears,” he said snidely.

“Or club Britney Spears, which might be a better idea,” I said.

He laughed and I decided to believe him. Maybe I was deceiving myself because I wanted to see if the e-mail messages gave a glimpse into Cassie’s mind. Either way, I put on the helmet, and Billy reached over to help me adjust the strap.

“You okay riding in that skirt?” he asked.

I swished the prettily pleated silk Escada, which had plenty of swirls to settle around me without hiking up. Fortunately, I’d given up wearing pencil skirts long ago. No use pretending you were still a thin line Pentel when you’d moved to Uni-ball extra-wide.

Billy patted the seat and I climbed on. He put on his own helmet, settled in front of me, and revved the engine.

“Ready?” he asked.

He turned around and flashed a devilish grin. I grinned back, my excitement rising. My face flushed and my whole body throbbed with anticipation. No wonder good girls like Cassie fell for bad boys like Billy Mann. Dancing on the edge of danger—whether with men, motorcycles, or sex—made you feel alive.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Hold on to me,” he said, facing front again and grabbing the handlebars.

We took off down the road, and I felt a surge of adrenaline. Not the scary
I’d better fight that tiger
sensation, but the
Wow, I could soar forever
feeling. Wind in the face, hair blowing, world rushing by in a blur of color wasn’t a bad way to get from here to…

Here to where?

Maybe I hadn’t acted quite as responsibly as I thought.

I peeked sideways around my helmet and strained to get my bearings. Late afternoon and the sun glimmered to my left, so we were heading north. Good for me. But after that, my internal GPS gave up the ghost. Pressed up against the leather-clad back of a man I’d just met, I couldn’t see very much, and I didn’t dare let go for a better view.

Billy made a quick left onto a highway, and in just a couple of miles took an exit. I thought I caught a sign for Lincoln Boulevard, but now the pumping adrenaline had turned me into a heart-pounding, ears-buzzing, hands-trembling mess. I had to calm down.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to relax. When I opened them again, a boat basin came into view, the very blue water broken by long piers packed with vessels for sailing, motoring, and showing off newly minted money. Surrounding all of it, high-rise condominiums stood like glass-and-steel lighthouses, beacons of success for the smaller dinghies passing through.

I sighed. Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey. Not exactly South Central LA. The only gang warfare here involved faux gangplanks. Billy drew the bike to a stop and jumped off. He held out a hand and I climbed down, more tentatively. My legs felt stiff from the tension of straddling the seat, and I took a few bowlegged steps.

“Walking like that is the sign of a good ride,” Billy said with a wink.

“My first time on a bike,” I admitted.

Billy cupped his hand at my chin. “Do it a lot, and it gets better and better.”

He turned around, and I expected Billy to head inland, toward one of the less-opulent apartment buildings. Instead, he began striding toward the water. At a gate marked B
OAT
O
WNERS
O
NLY
, he waved me forward.

“Boat owner?” I asked. “Sunfish or six-masted schooner?”

“You’ll see.”

We walked down the pier, where boats ranged from twenty-four-foot day-sailers to motor cruisers four times that size. The boats all had names gracefully painted on the stern, but the tradition of christening a ship after a beautiful woman seemed to have given way to showing off. A huge sailboat, clearly the toy of a Hollywood producer, boasted
Big Opening Weekend,
and another with shiny wooden detailing that must have cost a small fortune declared
Ain’t I Smart
.

“I like this one. The
Lucky Duck,
” I said reading the name off a smaller sailboat halfway down the dock. “At least someone can count his blessings.”

“The owner’s a nice guy,” Billy said. A moment later he swung onto a boat prosaically christened
DreamRide,
which didn’t tell me much.

“Is this yours?” I asked, struck by the contrast between the grimy store where we’d just been and the clean, well-ordered boat.

“Nah, I just pick a different one to sail every night,” Billy said. Then, seeing my shocked look, he laughed. “Of course it’s mine. Help me rig and we’ll get out of here.”

I hadn’t been sailing since age twelve, when I spent two weeks at a sleep-over camp on the shores of Lake Pashakee. Back then, we had a one-hour period for sailing and usually spent forty-five minutes of it trying to rig the boat. Since one of the older girls at camp had told me that Pashakee was Native American for “People drown in this lake all the time,” I didn’t mind staying close to shore.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, trying to remember the difference between starboard and leeward.

“Grab this mainsheet,” Billy said, handing me a thick rope. I figured I’d be pulling it to raise the sail, but instead he pushed a button and the sail began rising on its own.

“Neat,” I said, smiling. Apparently boats had changed since my camp days.

With the sail raised, Billy tied down the rope he’d handed me, then hit some more buttons to start the engine humming. Within five minutes, we’d pulled out of the slip and cruised slowly into open water. If sailing had been this easy for Christopher Columbus, he’d have zipped to the Orient and never discovered America.

Billy’s boat had a full-size steering wheel and the oceangoing version of cruise control. He set some dials that put us on a straight line to a distant point, and the wheel moved gently all by itself. With the steering under control, Billy disappeared underneath for a moment and came back with two frosty glasses.

“Beer,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. It’s all I have.”

I took the glass, and Billy sat down next to me. I had about a million questions I wanted to ask him, including how he managed to afford a getup like this. But I had more urgent business.

“So these e-mails from Cassie,” I said, getting right to the point. “I take it you keep them on the boat?”

“Yup,” he said. “We’ll get to them.”

“Obviously, you two stayed in touch even after she got married.”

“Roger traveled a lot,” Billy said, briefly checking the horizon and glancing again at his directional settings. “Cassie needed a friend. Now that she was so rich, she didn’t trust a lot of the people who suddenly wanted to hang out with her.”

“But you two had been hanging out for years.”

Billy got up and leaned against the railing. “Old friends are the best friends. You give each other whatever you each need.”

I suddenly got it. “Cassie gave you the boat, is that it? And you’d take her out whenever she wanted to get away?”

He shrugged. “Let’s say she did. That’d make it pretty obvious that I didn’t kill her, don’t you think? I mean, you don’t knock off the goose that lays the golden egg.”

I thought about it for a moment. His logic made sense. But something didn’t add up. Billy said he’d been waiting for the cops to come since Cassie died.