Death by Diamonds (16 page)

I gave him my cell phone. “Thanks.”

“I don’t like that you were threatened.”

I scoffed. “It sure weirded me out.”

Werner stepped between us. “Don’t you think that somebody telling Mad to go home means that she’s getting close to the truth?”

“Are you saying, Detective, that you stayed with her to protect her?”

I smacked his arm with the back of a hand. “Cut the snark, Nick.”

“Did you Taser him because he got in bed with you?”

“No, I Tasered him then I dragged him to the bed.” Nick eyed Werner. “You had to be dragged?”

“This is no joke, Jaconetti.” I stamped my foot. “We were both nearly unconscious. First thing we knew, it was morning and Eve was barging in on us.”

“Really? What did she interrupt?”

“I was concussed in my suit, thank you very much,” Werner snapped.

“And you, Mad?” Nick asked. “Were you concussed in your clothes?”

“I don’t like you right now, Nick, just so you know. I was wearing one of Dom’s peignoir sets, at her request,” I stressed, “if you must know.”

Nick looked suddenly sheepish. “Dom’s peignoir set? Okay, I get it.”

“Well, I don’t get it,” Werner said. Not knowing about my psychometric ability to read vintage clothes, he wouldn’t, of course.

Nick shut the nightstand drawer with the toe of his shoe. “I’m not usually jealous, but with us on again—”

I had to tell him about returning Werner’s mighy fine kiss, even if I was half asleep. And I would someday. I crossed my arms and leaned against the window. “We’re not on again.”

Nick chuckled as if I’d made a joke. “May I see the peignoir set?”

I got the set and the note asking me to wear it, and put them in his hands, trusting he wouldn’t give my psychic ability away to Werner. “We’re losing track of the murder investigation,” I pointed out.

Nick stared at his hand through the fabric then he looked up at me. When Nick is mad, he doesn’t think, because he was brought up in a family of hotheads. Usually, he controlled himself, but his silent accusation, this was too much. “I’ll thank you to take your bags and go find other accommodations.”

Werner was already packing his things, but Nick’s expression questioned my statement.

“Both of you,” I said. “I’d like to be alone right now.”

“Mad,” Nick said. “I apologize. I’ve missed you and I—”

“Don’t trust me.”

“I trust you, but look at this place. We leave a room like this, after we’ve—”

My head came up. “Kindly refrain from finishing that statement.”

Werner straightened and looked around the room.

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. Sure, I had some questions about the kiss I remembered from my dreams, or from sleep, or whatever, but, well, Nick should trust me. I held the door while the two men left with their bags.

“Feel free to take the morning train tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll be taking a later one. I have some things to go over with Kyle before I leave.”

“But shouldn’t we discuss what we found in Victor’s rooms, if not the entire case so far?”

Werner asked. “Not that I’m an official investigator, but then neither are you, Mad.”

“Thanks for pointing that out and ticking me off just a little bit more,” I said. “By the time I get home, or the day after at the latest, my temper should have cooled enough for the three of us to compare notes. Get one thing clear. I wouldn’t feel like talking to either of you if Dom wasn’t my friend.”

“Where did I go wrong?” Werner asked.

“You have a Y chromosome. Right now, that’s enough. And Jaconetti, consider us very off-again.”

“I guess I deserve that. Have a good trip home, ladybug.”

Thirty-six

Never let your frog outdress you.

—MISS PIGGY

Eve had taken the early train with the two men in my life, about whom I had mixed emotions, which, several hours later, my time on the train failed to clarify. As we pulled into the station, I saw Werner sitting in his car waiting for me. The Wiener, my frog frickin’ prince? No way.

Damn Eve for putting that shadow of doubt in my mind. I did remember what happened that night. Nothing. Well, a kiss . . .

I stood at the top of the train steps and glanced at the sky. Please God, Goddess—or whoever watches over concussed sleuths with itchy Taser fingers—let that night have amounted to only one hot kiss. I didn’t need any more complications in my life. Werner took my bag as I reached the edge of the platform.

“I expected Nick,” I said, “but thanks for picking me up. Hey, do you have a black eye?”

He led the way to his car. “You should see the other guy.”

“Not Nick?”

“No, it’s from kissing the floor with my face. You gave me the black eye. I call it Mad Taser blue.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He opened his trunk and put my bag inside, then he took a bottle of Dos Equis out of each pocket and gave one to me before he urged me to a nearby bench. I sat in the cold winter sunshine watching people board the train, Werner beside me, my brain stuck on the fuzzy memory of a dream kiss.

Werner cleared his throat. “Nick is in DC until tomorrow, but he stopped by to apologize for his green routine before he left.”

“Green as in jealous, you mean?”

“That would be correct.”

Knowing Nick had been honorable made me miss him more. “He was a jerk yesterday.”

Werner shrugged. “He was protecting something he holds dear.”

“Aren’t you the forgiving soul?” I said. “Didn’t you kinda wanna hit him? I did.”

Werner chuckled. “Are you going to tell him that we don’t totally remember what happened the night we spent together. I mean, I had some thermonuclear dreams that night.”

I came up coughing. He shouldn’t have said that while I was drinking. When Werner stopped slapping my back and I could breathe again, I was practically speechless. “I’m . . . honored?” It was the best I could manage considering my own sizzling dreams.

“Mad? Suppose you are, you know?”

“Obviously I’m not or I wouldn’t be drinking this beer.”

He chuckled. “Good try.”

“I’m hardly the immaculate conception type and that’s what it would have to have been. Let it go, Lytton.”

“But suppose what I dreamed did happen and bears results.”

Hot face. Hot face. “Lytton, we weren’t that concussed.”

“You mean,” Werner said, speaking carefully, “you couldn’t have been so concussed—read, stupid—that you might have been attracted to me?”

“I mean, so concussed that we forgot we had sex, which we didn’t, because I would remember. Stop putting yourself down. You’re something of a hunk, Detective, but if you tell Jaconetti I said so, I’ll deny it.”

Werner really looked at me then. “Tell Jaconetti? I’m taking out an ad in the program for our next class reunion.”

I barked a laugh. “We slept. That’s it. You know that right?”

“I can dream.”

“Obviously quite well. Just as long as you know a dream is what it was.”

“Didn’t you dream?”

“A kiss. I dreamed a hot and excellent kiss.”

“Yeah, that was a stunner, wasn’t it?”

I elbowed him. “Stop trying to embarrass me. Your body spoke volumes when we were hiding in Pierpont’s top-floor closet.”

Werner ran a slow hand down his face. “Gee, thanks. I nearly managed to forget about that.”

I stood and threw my empty bottle in the recycle bin while Werner downed the last of his Dos Equis and did the same.

A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of my father’s house. Werner got out and came around to open my door.

“Nick and I decided that since you’re determined to find Dominique’s killer, and we were both with you to observe the funeral and theater at different times, we should get together to compare clues and suspects tomorrow night at his place. Are you up for that?”

“I am. What time?”

“Seven. I’ll bring Dos Equis.”

“I’ll bring a margarita pie.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Think key lime pie but made with tequila and triple sec. Yum.”

“Dos Equis and tequila pie sounds like the perfect way to mellow us out and even the playing field, after, you know.”

“A kiss,” I said. “It was only a kiss.”

“Yeah, like Noah’s ark was only a boat.”

My father came out and welcomed me with a big bear hug. Dad’s arms were where I could forget death threats and thermonuclear kisses.

“It’s sure good to be home,” I said. “Not that my work for Dom is finished.”

My father kissed my brow. “Why isn’t it?”

“I have a fashion show of her vintage clothes collection to put on for charity, and—hold on to your mortar board—I’m the executor of her will.”

Werner opened his trunk as my father and I talked. “Ms. DeLong really trusted you.”

“Heck, she practically dared me to try and find her killer, like it’s a game or something.”

“Sleuthing again, eh?” my dad said, accepting my bags from Werner. “You approve of this, Detective?”

“I must. I chased her to New York so I wouldn’t miss anything.”

“Is that what you did?” I asked.

“And to see if I could find out who tried to break into Nick’s house, presumably for Ms. DeLong’s gown.”

“Did you find anybody who might have done that?” my father asked. Werner scratched his nose. “So many, you can’t imagine. Second to finding Ms. DeLong’s killer, the attempted break-ins are another reason Nick, Mad, and I need to compare notes. See you then, kid,” Werner said with a wave.

Dad and I watched him drive away.

My father carried my bags inside. “Are you hungry? Fiona came over and made dinner. She left a plate in the oven for you.”

“Did she already go home?”

“Yes. She’s working tomorrow. She has fewer bad nights these days, which doesn’t mean she hasn’t called in panic in the middle of a few.”

I smiled. “Not hungry,” I said. “I just want a bath and my own bed.”

The minute my father set down my bags in my room and left, I called Nick.

“Ladybug,” he said answering. “This is an unexpected surprise. I didn’t think you were talking to me.”

“I’m not. This is business.” I missed him something fierce and I wished I wasn’t so stubborn. Then again, he’d been a Neanderthal, and I find it hard to be treated like a possession.

I sighed. “I have psychometric readings to discuss with you before we meet with Werner tomorrow night. I’ll have to be careful not to mix up fact with visions, so I need to get you up to speed with my visions.”

Nick’s silence spoke volumes.

“I guess we should decide how to present any nebulous but crucial clues to Werner.”

“Why present them at all?” Nick asked. “He’s not working the case.”

“Because somebody sent him to New York and he got involved. Not my fault.”

“Okay, so I may have hinted that he might find the answer to the attempted break-ins at my place if he stuck by you in New York.”

“Why?”

“Because I was worried about you. With good cause, it turns out. Somebody threatened your life, ladybug.” Silent pause.

“Nick? You’re being eaten up with guilt, I hope.”

“It’s envy. That Werner was there that night and not me.”

“You sent him.”

“More or less. He wanted to go or he wouldn’t have taken my subtle hint. Headquarters couldn’t do a trace on your phone, by the way. Whoever threatened you used one of those disposable phones.”

“Scrap.”

“You didn’t get a vision as to where the diamonds might be, did you?”

“No, but Dom did a pretty good job of playing musical gems.”

“You mean, Dominique was suspicious?”

“Definitely.”

“Are you home by the way? Safe?”

“Safe in my father’s house.”

“Good. Mad, why didn’t Dominique go to the police?”

“Hell if I know.”

Nick sighed. “I’ll be back from DC around eleven tomorrow morning. I’ll bring Chinese takeout to Vintage Magic, and maybe you can close the shop for lunch and a talk.”

I didn’t normally close for lunch, but I had a “be back at” clock, so I could get away with it.

“Make it Thai food and you’re on.”

“Deal. Mad, I’m really sorry about my petty jealousy the other night.”

I didn’t know what to say. My personal guilt—over the kiss, and nothing more, had put as much of a kink in our relationship as Nick’s suspicions, and frankly, I didn’t know what to do about it. “Yeah, me, too, Jaconetti.”

Thirty-seven

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

—CECIL BEATON

Over our unopened Thai and Chinese food, Nick looked at me across the table as if I should be lunch.

For my part, I tried to keep my yearning to myself. I had a right to be angry. But at whom?

Myself or him? Perhaps both.

Meanwhile, we had to stop drooling, start eating, and start talking about our reason for being here: my most recent visions and how they might relate to Dominique DeLong’s death.

I opened the boxes and served myself. “Okay,” I said to reestablish our purpose as I got up to pace, mostly so I could sit another chair length away, where his pheromones couldn’t get me. “We agree that Dom was acting suspicious.”

“Well,” Nick said. “Suspicious of everyone around her.”

“Check. And the substance that killed her might have been in her makeup, specifically in one of those small glass jars of something that might be clear skin tightening or hair gel, that she switched in one of my visions.”

“The one in which you wore the trench coat.”

“The black Armani trench. Yes.”

“A man or a woman’s coat?”

“A man’s, but I found it in Dom’s dressing room, so door-peeker guy must have left it there by accident.”

“He might still not know where it is. Where is it?”

“I left it in Dom’s vintage clothes collection closet off her bedroom.”

Nick picked up his cell phone. “Brad,” he said, “I got a lead on an Armani trench coat in Dominique DeLong’s house, stored with her vintage clothes. Want to pick it up there and get some forensics done on it?”

Nick listened for a minute, his face pensive. “Anonymous tip. Sorry.” He listened again.