Fatal Deduction (10 page)

I didn’t understand everything, but I understood one glaring fact: My twin was in trouble. Therefore so was I.

Lord, here I am, right in the middle of everything I’ve tried to stay away from and keep Chloe away from! Help!

I slid both puzzles into the
Times
book for lack of another place to keep them. Tori and I would talk tonight whether she wanted to or not.

No, we wouldn’t. She was going back to Atlantic City this afternoon, and I was willing to bet she’d see to it that she and I were not alone before she left.

Well, I didn’t think waiting until she came home on the Fourth would hurt anything. If she was gone, the danger should be gone too. But on the Fourth we were definitely talking. I knew Tori saw me as weak, but she hadn’t accounted for the fact that mama bears do most anything to protect their cubs, even confront twin sisters who historically have come out on top in every fight we’d ever had.

Feeling strangely at loose ends, I sat at my computer and logged onto eBay. Work was just what I needed to put Tori and her situation from my mind. I quickly checked the items Madge and I had listed. One, a lovely and unusual white Wedgwood pitcher with gold grapes and vines all over its surface, had caught the eye of three collectors, and they were bidding against one another with all the fervor of three enemy generals campaigning in battle for the same spoils. A seller’s dream scenario.

Bidding with equal enthusiasm but smaller purses were a pair of collectors who wanted the twenty-five pairs of fifties-era cat’s-eye sunglasses we had listed. To my surprise, the hobbyhorse with the real-hair mane and tail that Madge had found at a flea market and refurbished was far outstripping what we expected to get on it. In contrast, the pieces of cut crystal hadn’t caught anyone’s eye yet.

I heard the front door lock turning and got up from the table. I arrived in the living room just as Chloe burst into the room, Jenna on her heels.

“I got it, Mom!” Chloe swung a black backpack off her shoulder and unzipped it. She pulled out a sleek little laptop and ran a hand lovingly over it. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Tori entered the room more sedately. She looked at me and smiled. Sharks looked friendlier when they bared their incisors.

My blood chilled as I recognized the old I-won-this-round smirk
tilting her lips. For the first time I understood she was competing with me once again, and Chloe, not Eddie Mancini, was the prize this time. The realization made me dizzy with dread.

I forced myself to
ooh
and
aah
enough to make Chloe happy while Tori went upstairs. I heard the shower run, and when she came back down an hour later, her hair was a perfect halo of shining golden curls and her makeup was flawless.

“You look so pretty, Aunt Tori. I love your hair.”

Tori lightly touched her carefully highlighted hair with the satisfied air of a woman who knows she looks better than anyone in the room. Not that she had much competition. “You and your mom have hair just like mine.”

“Yeah, right.” Chloe looked from Tori to me. “Not.”

“Well,” Tori said lazily, “maybe I should rephrase. You could have hair just like mine.”

For how much?
I was certain I couldn’t afford either the time or the money. That mortgage again.

There was a knock on the door. Tori opened it, and there stood a uniformed chauffeur. Chloe’s eyes grew large, as did Jenna’s.

“Ready, Miss Keating?”

“Ready, Carl.” She gave a little wave in our direction and left, Carl trailing behind.

Chloe and Jenna rushed to the door. I followed, curiosity and my Chloepanic warring inside, and watched my sister saunter out to the street where the limo waited. Carl opened the back door for her, and she stepped gracefully inside.

“Wow!” Chloe’s voice was reverent.

“I never knew anyone who had a limo pick them up before,” Jenna breathed.

I had to admit I was impressed too. Obviously Tori’s employer thought very highly of her, and obviously she had perks that I’d never see in a million years. All those hated inferiority feelings flooded back, and for a terrifying moment I was sixteen again.

Tori sat back in the cushions of the limo, a glass of pinot grigio in her hand. Carl was good about having her preferences waiting for her. On the seat were three of her favorite magazines, and in the little dish in the limo bar were cashews, lightly salted, just as she liked.

Too bad Carl wasn’t the man she had to deal with. Carl had a crush on her, not that he’d ever act on it, and he’d be a pushover, forgiving any offense, any debt.

Luke Henley was an entirely different matter. Even thinking of him made her heart beat faster. She was used to being the one in charge of an affair, but she might have met her match in Luke.

She picked up
InStyle
and flipped through the pages. Features, photos, and articles that would normally have held her attention couldn’t compete with the vision of the dead man lying on her front step.

Poor Mick. She’d known he worked for Luke long before she met Luke. Mick was one of the contacts she used when any client of hers at the casino needed quick cash. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had been nice. What had he done to incur someone’s wrath? Luke’s wrath?

The idea made her go cold, the kind of cold that all the fur coats in the world couldn’t take away. She was well aware that Luke skated happily on the wrong side of the law, but there was a huge difference between loan sharking and murder. The thought of him killing people
scared her. It scared her enough that she knew she wouldn’t mention Mick to him. If she didn’t know, she could make believe everything was all right, that Luke was the man she thought he was.

Still, poor Mick.

And poor Ruthie What’s-her-name. Not that she was any great shakes, but she seemed to care for Mick. Did she even know he was dead? Probably not. How would the cops know to notify her, assuming they were able to identify him so far from his home turf?

That puzzle found on him bothered her the most. There had been no guarantee that she or Lib would find the body. What if it had been Tinksie or the effete Tim or Mark? Or the bombshell Maxi? They wouldn’t have hidden the paper. They’d have given it to the cops, and all kinds of offal would have rained down on her.

“How do you know the dead man? What connection is he to you? Where does he work? Who does he work for?”

No, it couldn’t have been Luke who’d left that puzzle, because he knew that if trouble fell on her, it would fall on him. Their association was hardly a secret. They’d been an item for almost a year.

So where had Luke been last night when he stood her up? Her anger at him burned white hot when she thought of waiting for him for hours at the hotel. He’d made her feel like a fool, a simpering woman waiting for her man. Too much like Mom and Nan, and she wasn’t going there for anyone, not even Luke.

Tori was still furious when she emerged from the limo in Atlantic City, when she climbed the steps to Luke’s office on the second floor of a shoddy-looking building that sold popcorn and fudge down on the boardwalk level. When she stalked in, raring for a fight, he rose from his black leather ergonomically correct executive’s chair behind his massive desk, smiling his welcome. “Blondie! You’re back.”

“And where were you last night?” She squinted at him in the glare of the huge window that gave a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean, today a shiny gray blue reflecting the late-afternoon sun.

Luke moved around his desk toward her. His eyes were steel blue beneath his newly barbered, spiked brown hair. He was dressed as usual in tasseled loafers with no socks, tan gabardine dress slacks, and a navy silk long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Personally Tori always thought he looked more Vegas or Hollywood than Atlantic City. Still, the man was gorgeous. Beautiful.

Not that anyone would call him soft, either physically or professionally. He radiated strength and power, and she liked going toe to toe with a man strong enough to give as good as he got.

He held out a hand to her. “Come here.”

“Where were you, Luke?”

“Missing you, babe.” He grabbed her hand and started pulling.

“Don’t you dare!” She put her hand on his chest and pushed. “I want an answer.”

He just smiled lazily and continued to reel her in. When he lowered his head, she turned hers so he found only her cheek.

He looked down at her, still smiling, his arms holding her tight against him, her hands trapped between them. “You’re the only person I know who can get away with challenging me, Blondie. Just shows how much I love you, doesn’t it?”

“Ha! You keep putting pressure on me to pay up!” The puzzles flashed through her mind in spite of her previous conclusions. No one else knew the things the puzzles knew about her. “If you loved me, you’d forgive the debt!”

This time when he kissed her, he connected. For about five seconds she held herself rigid. Then she melted against him as she
always did. He eased his hold, and she raised her arms to encircle his neck. Her anger transmuted into a rush of a very different passion.

When they came up for air, he led her to the cozy nook that had another huge window overlooking the ocean and held several comfortable chairs, a sofa, and a well-stocked wet bar. This elegant sitting room, where favored business associates were greeted and entertained, was the other half of the second-floor throne room from which he ruled his little kingdom—this half above a run-down boardwalk store that sold what Luke always called “cheapy tourist junk that no one in their right mind would sell, let alone buy.” The store did a brisk business all summer, much to Luke’s perverse delight.

The third floor of the building was Luke’s private living area, and Tori was one of very few ever invited there.

He poured her a glass of wine and himself two fingers of Jack Daniel’s. When his free hand circled her waist, she leaned into him.

“What’s your work schedule for tonight, Blondie? The usual?” He kissed her ear, making her shiver.

“I’m finished an hour after the floor closes.”

“I’ll see you then.”

She looked up at him. “I’m still mad, you know.”

“Over last night or the money?”

“Yes.”

“I know.” He tossed back his drink and released her. “Remember, business is business and sex is sex. Separate.”

She was hurt more than she ought to be—after all, this was Luke—and she turned quickly for the door before he saw how distressed she was. She had never let him see her cry, certain he’d see it as a sign of weakness, and she wasn’t about to start today. She yelped when he slapped her on her bottom.

“See you.” His voice was rich with sensual promise.

She nodded, not looking back. As she clattered down the narrow stairs to boardwalk level, she fought tears. She’d read how guys compartmentalized but women didn’t. For sure she didn’t. Couldn’t. When she loved someone, it spilled over into every aspect of her life.

She loved Luke with everything in her.

He said he loved her, but she questioned his definition of love. It was more that he sort of, maybe, kind of cared for her. He certainly liked her in bed. But she owed him one hundred thousand dollars, and he wasn’t about to forgive her debt.
“Business is business and sex is sex.”

But if you loved someone…

She put on her dark glasses to shield her eyes from the sun and to hide their unseemly sheen. There was nothing she could do to change him.

Once the limo disappeared, carrying Tori off to the SeaSide, I saw with great relief that Chloe and Jenna seemed to forget Tori. They played with their laptops, with the new games Tori had bought, and wrote endless messages they posted on Facebook for their absent friends.

I puttered around the house for the rest of the week, leaving only to go to another estate sale at an old farm in southern Chester County horse country very early Saturday, the morning of the Fourth. The site of the sale was a small gentleman’s farm that had somehow survived amid the large surrounding spreads that trained Olympic-quality horses. The old gentleman who had died was an only child of an only child and had never married. At least that’s
what the sales ad said, and it was a clarion call that no family had pillaged the contents of the house.