I'm No Angel (20 page)

“M
r. Hudson will be with you in a few minutes, Miss Devlin. Would you like some coffee or tea while you wait?” the butler asked.

“Tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

Angel had been in Holt Hudson's library at least half a dozen times since she'd first been given permission to step through the lavish gates of Palazzo Paradiso. The mahogany bookshelves were strewn with leather-bound first editions of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and a host of classics by other authors.

With the drapes open, she could look through the massive windows at the swaying palms and the gentle waves lapping up on the beach. She'd thought this could easily be a girl's dream home. A palace of magnificent proportions, with gilt walls and frescoes painted on the ceilings.

But she saw it in another light now. It was cold and impersonal, nothing more than collection upon collection of priceless artwork and furniture. It was more a museum than a home.

Mere Belle was just the opposite. The rooms might be mostly empty, but when she and Tom had strolled from one room to the next and when they'd made love in his tub and in his bed, and he had told her about his father's love for him, she could see a family in the place. A big family filling the vacant rooms with laughter and music.

She'd known Tom such a short time, but already she felt as if she might be falling in love with him. But love and all that it entailed frightened her. She was so darn afraid of making another mistake.

Of thinking lust and love were the same thing.

Of falling in love and then marrying someone, only to find that he was so much different from what she'd imagined.

She laughed at her worry. Tom hadn't proposed. He hadn't even professed love.

He'd simply made love to her. A lot.

Maybe he didn't want anything more.

God, she hated to speculate, but there was nothing else to do while she waited for Holt to make his appearance.

“Good morning, Miss Devlin.”

Angel spun around at the sound of Holt Hudson's deep baritone. “Good morning, Mr. Hudson.”

Angel shook Holt's hand, then slyly tucked it into the pocket of her jacket and turned on the small tape recorder.

“My secretary tells me that arrangements for the gala are going quite well,” Holt said. “And thank you for faxing over the newest RSVP list. I had an opportunity to look at it last night.”

“The turnout is far better than I expected. Much bigger than last year's gala,” Angel said. “I have you to thank for that.”

“Don't doubt your capabilities, Miss Devlin. You have worked hard on this event for the last three years and, like all functions of this sort held in Palm Beach, they get bigger and better—and far costlier—every year.”

“Fortunately this one isn't costing an arm and a leg.”

Holt smiled, something he rarely did. “You have quite the knack for twisting the arms of caterers and florists. Should you ever decide to give up your private investigative business, I believe I could offer you a lucrative job working for Hudson, Inc.”

“Getting rich has never been one of my goals. I like what I do for a living. I might not have the biggest and best P.I. business in town. In fact, it's probably the smallest and least diverse, but it serves my purpose, which is to give me time for my family and—I'm sure you and everyone else are tired of hearing this from me—it gives me the time I need to raise money for Alzheimer's research.”

“What about your personal life?” Holt asked, clasping his hands behind his back. “You shouldn't neglect that.”

“Funny you should mention that, Mr. Hudson.”

“Oh? Have you met someone?”

“As a matter of fact, I have.” Time to go in for the kill. “Your godson. Tom Donovan.”

Holt's face seemed to melt. The sparkle that
had been in his eyes disappeared. They were dull now. The color nearly drained from him. He looked sallow. Old. Like a man stretched out in a coffin.

“I know it's been a long time since you've seen Tom.”

“Twenty-six years,” Holt said, as if he'd kept count of the years, and maybe even the months and the days, on a calendar.

Holt walked to the bar and poured himself a whiskey. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Holt sipped on the whiskey and walked to the window. “Are you aware that Tom has contacted me numerous times in the last few months, asking if we could meet?”

“He told me. He also told me that you refuse to see him.”

“I don't like to dredge up old memories, especially memories about that night.”

“He just wants to know the truth.”

Holt turned. His eyes had grown cold. Narrow. “The truth was in the newspapers. It was in the police report.”

“But he wants to hear it from you. Don't you think you owe him something?”

“This isn't something I want to talk about.”

Oh, man, she was going to be in big trouble if she kept this up, but it was getting pretty damned obvious that Holt was hiding something.

“You and Chase Donovan were best friends, weren't you?”

“Yes, we were, and that was the worst night of my life,” Holt offered, when she was sure he'd
just clam up. “It plays over and over in my mind like a nightmare, every single night.”

“Tom has nightmares, too. Nightmares he doesn't understand. Maybe if the two of you talked, the nightmares would end—for both of you.”

Holt laughed, shaking his head. “I don't see the need to justify my reasons for not seeing Tom, but I will tell you this once and once only. I have seen photos of Tom and he is the spitting image of his father. He has the same eyes, the same dimple at the side of his mouth, and the same color of hair. If Tom walked into this room right now, it would be like having a ghost stare at me. An angry spirit.”

Holt's jaw clenched. “I cannot forget the look in Chase's eyes when I shot him. The hurt, the pain. And I can't bear to relive those times. So please, do not ask me about this again.”

Holt's anguish was far greater than she ever would have imagined. It was as if he felt tremendous guilt over what had happened, instead of feeling justified. And maybe a little piece of her understood why he didn't want to see Tom.

“Since it's impossible for you to talk with Tom, would you tell me what happened that night?” Angel asked politely, softly, hoping he'd say yes.

“As I said, it's not something I talk about.”

She put all of her P.I. skills to use and kept right on asking questions. “Did you and Chase get into an argument earlier that day?”

Holt poured himself another whiskey and slugged it down as he stared out the window. “Do you plan to badger me all morning?”

“I'm not badgering you, Mr. Hudson. I'm just curious about what happened, and I don't want to go by gossip, or even the police report. I'd really like to hear it from you.”

He sighed heavily. “All right. Chase and I played golf that morning, just as we had most every day for I don't know how long.”

“And you had a fight?”

Holt turned. “Why don't you just read the police report? All the details are there.”

“I have read the report. Tom's read the report, too.”

“Then neither one of you should have any questions.”

“I'm an investigator, Mr. Hudson. I always have questions.”

“All right, I'll give you the complete rundown of the events as I remember them. You can relate this information to Tom and then I don't want to hear anything more about it.”

Angel sat in one of Holt's chairs and crossed her legs. “I'm listening.”

“Chase and I did have a fight…over money, of all things. He always spent too much. He didn't invest. He didn't save. He'd bought so damn much for Amélie when she was alive and even more for his son and it was killing him because he didn't have any money coming in. I told him how to invest. I told him how to save, but instead, he asked to borrow money. A hell of a lot of money, and I said no.”

“Was that the first time he asked you to help him out?”

“No. He'd asked Amélie's parents to begin
with, but they'd already given them Mere Belle. They'd washed their hands of Tom after that. Even when Amélie died, they refused to come to the funeral. They wanted nothing to do with their grandson—while they were alive, at least, although I hear they provided for him quite well when they died.”

Holt looked out the window again. “Chase came to me time and time again asking for money. He was my best friend and God knows I would have done anything for him, but there came a time when I had to tell him no.”

“And that happened the same day you…” Angel paused, almost afraid to go on.

“You can say it, Miss Devlin. Yes, it happened the same day I shot him. It was in the morning. Chase was angry. Furious, in fact.” Holt's entire body was reflected in the window, and Angel could see him wipe his eyes, as if tears had built up inside. “Chase told me a friend always helps a friend, no matter what, and when I told him again that I wouldn't give him another penny, he said our friendship was over. He said he'd get money one way or another, and then he'd get even with me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that meant he'd break into my home, steal one of my most prized possessions, and then”—Holt took a deep breath—“attempt to rape my wife. If I hadn't heard her screams, Chase might have gone through with it. But I was here in this room and I grabbed the gun out of my desk. I ran up the stairs and saw him there in bed with Carlotta.”

Holt turned slowly. His eyes were clouded as he poured whiskey into the glass he hadn't even
touched. “I begged Chase to stop what he was doing, but he just looked at me and laughed. Carlotta was screaming and…” Holt sighed heavily. “And I shot him.”

“Six times?”

“Yes. Six times. One bullet just inches from his heart, the other five in his back because he wouldn't stop what he was doing, and I couldn't let him hurt my wife.”

Holt walked across the room and slumped down in an easy chair. “Chase should have died right then and there, but he didn't.”

“He escaped through a window?”

“No. He left the same way he came in—through the front door, although the papers wanted to sensationalize the whole account by printing that he went through a window. If you read the police report carefully, you'll see the truth. As I've said, Miss Devlin, everything that happened is in the police report.”

“Do you know why he went home to get Tom? Do you have any idea why he drove to the Everglades?”

“Maybe he knew he was going to die and needed to be with Tom when it happened. That's my best guess. As for the Everglades…” Holt shrugged. “Perhaps he was trying to get to his dad's place. But we'll never know for sure.”

“And he had
The Embrace
with him when he left?”

“He was choking my wife with it. If you'd seen the entire police file you would have seen the photos of the bruises on her neck, pictures of Chase's blood in our bed. I wasn't paying all that much at
tention to what he was holding in his hands when he ran out of the house, all I could think about was taking care of my wife.”

“So you're only assuming he stole the statue?”

Holt's eyes flashed with anger. “The statue disappeared that night and I haven't seen it since.”

“Then why didn't you file an insurance claim?”

Holt's eyes narrowed. “You've talked with my insurance company?”

“I haven't, but I did hear that bit of information from a fairly reliable source.” That was a lie, but…

“I'll answer this last question, Miss Devlin, and then I suggest you leave. I didn't file an insurance claim because I had too many other things on my mind. My wife was traumatized that night, and afterward she sank into a horrid depression. Long before Alzheimer's hit her, she was little more than a shell of the woman I loved.”

Holt heaved a heavily burdened sigh. “That statue had always been my most prized possession. My friendship with Chase was something else that I cherished. But none of that mattered to me after that night. I needed to care for my wife. To protect her in a way that I'd never protected her before. Getting a couple of million dollars in insurance money meant nothing to me, Miss Devlin—that's why I never filed a claim. It just didn't matter.”

“I'm sorry I've made you rehash bad memories.”

“As I said, those memories are rarely gone from my mind.” He stood. “Now, if there's nothing else, I'd like you to leave.”

“I have just one more question, Mr. Hudson.”

He clasped his hands behind his back again. “What is it?”

“I'd like to invite Tom Donovan to the gala—as my guest.”

“No. That's where I draw the line, Miss Devlin. If he walks through the door that night, I will order everyone to leave.”

T
om wanted to get the hell out of Frederike's freakish maze of a home. The woman collected “everything, dahling, simply everything!” or so she'd told him when he arrived at Mirasol with two extravagantly wrapped six-hundred-dollar-apiece dog collars he'd picked up at Ma Petite Bow-Wow.

Everything
dominated every nook and cranny of the thirty-one-room mansion, the main attraction being a brightly lit full-size 1913 musical carousel that twirled around and around in the massive entrance hall from nine in the morning until midnight, every day of the year.

Frederike liked carousels almost as much as she liked outlandish hats. Dogs, of course, were the loves of her life. If her late husband Evan LeVien had been a dog, he might have been buried by now instead of cooling on ice until Frederike could take the time to throw a proper—and opulent—funeral.

Tom slugged back a glass of champagne and
grabbed another, figuring if he got drunk he might make it through the birthday party. One minute in the chaos of Frederike's home and he'd found himself longing for the Glades, for his grandfather's fishing boat, Jed and Sarah Devlin's small but comfortable and inviting home in West Palm Beach, and most of all his own empty mansion.

As long as Angel was there with him.

“Are you really the son of
that
Chase Donovan?” Stephania Allardyce, the diamond-bedecked woman who'd been conversing with him for the past five minutes about her
lovely
little dog, Flagler, interrupted his faraway thoughts, her surgically young face—with skin stretched to the limit—beaming up at him.

He'd been asked the same question by two other people since he'd arrived at the party. Rather than saying anything, Tom nodded.

“Oh, my!” Stephania giggled. “Here come the dogs.”

Tom slugged down the rest of his champagne as Cosette and Celine tramped between his legs for the second time in the last fifteen minutes. A moment later a pooch the size of a swamp rat snapped at the toes of his best crocodile boots, and Stephania's overly male Schipperke humped his right leg.

Stephania batted her false eyelashes at Tom, put a diamond-encrusted hand on Tom's chest, apparently for balance, and bent over to have a little chat with her puppy. “Now, now, Flagler, darling, you know you're not supposed to do that.”

Flagler let out a loud, piercing bark, humped
Tom's leg one more time, snapped at Stephania's scolding finger, then scampered across the room to annoy someone else.

Tom snatched another glass of champagne as one of the waiters passed by and thought about Bessie and her appetite for new and different things. If Flagler didn't watch himself, Tom just might snatch the nasty little dog in the middle of the night and hightail it to the Glades to feed the thing to his favorite gators. Bessie and Ralph would love him forever.

“They're such darling little creatures, aren't they, Mr. Donovan?”

Again he nodded, forcing a smile.

“As I was saying,” Stephania went on as if they hadn't been interrupted, “your father was such a lovely man. And your mother…What was her name?”

“Amélie.”

“Yes, yes, that's right. She had such a divine accent. Hungarian, I believe.”

“French.”

“Oh, yes, French. She was always the life of every party—until she died, that is.” Stephania took a dainty sip of her champagne. “All of the men loved her but she wanted nothing to do with anyone but your father.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, I do believe I have my facts straight on that, although it is difficult at times to stretch one's mind back twenty-six years.”

For half an hour Tom had wanted to get the hell out of this place, but Stephania had finally caught his full attention. He wanted to know everything
possible about his parents—the good, the bad, and even the ugly. It was the only way he had of knowing them.

“Tell me everything you know, Mrs. Allardyce,” Tom said, taking Stephania's empty champagne glass from her fingers, putting it on the tray of a passing server, and grabbing her a crystal-clear flute full of the best bubbly money can buy.

“Thank you so much,” she said politely, taking the glass. “If I remember correctly,” she continued, “Holt Hudson was quite enamored with your mother, too.”

Tom's eyes narrowed. “Holt Hudson and my mother?”

“They weren't an item, of course. Carlotta never would have allowed that, not after she fought tooth and nail to win the attentions of Holt Hudson in the first place. She was desperately in love with him, you know.”

“Was she jealous of my mother?”

“No, no, of course not. They were the best of friends and went everywhere together. All four of them were friends. I remember Carlotta crying uncontrollably at your mother's funeral. You were a newborn, of course. And your poor, poor father looked like a zombie that day.”

“What about Holt Hudson?”

“He was, I daresay, as lovely a man as your father.” Stephania frowned, as if thinking back to that day so long ago. “I remember Holt comforting his wife, then sending her off with their chauffeur so he could stay at the grave with your
father as everyone else departed. It was quite the funeral, you know.”

“No, I didn't know.”

Stephania pressed a hand to Tom's arm. “I suppose you wouldn't.” She smiled warmly. “Holt planned the entire affair because your father was too distraught. There were flowers everywhere. Unimaginably beautiful bouquets.

“I remember Holt holding you in his arms while your father wept on your mother's casket. I remember him crying, too, as if his heart were broken.”

A waiter passed by for the umpteenth time and Stephania picked a canapé from his silver tray and nibbled on the edge. “It's terrible what happened that night—when your father was shot. I only saw Holt and Carlotta once after that, when I went to Palazzo Paradiso the next morning to offer my support. Frederike went with me. She took a lovely little cake and I took chocolates.” Stephania smiled sadly. “We always exchanged gifts when we saw each other. Poor Carlotta. She was beside herself, running around the room looking for something to give us in return. The doctor had given her something for her nerves and”—Stephania sighed deeply—“it was all so terribly sad. Carlotta was never the same after that. Neither was Holt. Their lives were shattered, I believe. Such a shame.”

Stephania put a cool, age-worn hand on Tom's cheek. “Just between you and me, I never believed your father did any of the things he was accused of. He may have been a cat burglar in his youth,
but the man I knew would never have broken into Holt's home and stolen a statue. And never, ever would he have attacked Carlotta.”

“Yoo-hoo! Tommy!”

Damn it.
The last voice Tom wanted to hear right now was Frederike's. He wanted to spend more time with Stephania, but she blew him an air kiss and rushed off, trying to get to Flagler, who was humping the leg of Frederike's stuffed giraffe—a gift, she'd told Tom, from an African king.

Tom thought about rushing after Stephania, but when Frederike called his name again he turned, and thanked the gods for smiling down on him. Angel strolled alongside the Countess, looking beautiful in a bright green suit that showed off all of her curves, and, of course, was slit up the side so she could easily access her stiletto.

And not for the first time that day or the day before, he was pretty darn sure that he had fallen in love.

“Look who finally arrived.” Frederike's heavily made-up eyes beamed beneath a pink and purple hat shaped like a three-tiered birthday cake. At any moment Tom expected someone to stick candles in the top and set the thing on fire.

“Sorry I couldn't get here sooner,” Angel said, “but the court case was a fiasco and I ended up on the stand far longer than normal.”

“You've come,” Frederike said, “and that's all that matters, except, of course, for the lovely presents you brought for Cosette and Celine. We'll have such a lovely time unwrapping them later.
But come, come, now that you're both here—and together, of course—let me show you around.”

“Do you have more collections for us to see?” Tom asked, slipping his arm through Frederike's and winking at Angel over the top of the Countess's hat.

“Oh, yes, of course I do. There's my hat collection, which is a must-see on any tour of my home, plus all of the artwork I've been given as gifts, and next time you come, I'll take you to the private room where Evan kept his ancient Greek phallus collection. It's quite a sight.”

“Sounds intriguing,” Angel quipped, and Tom couldn't help but notice her rolling her eyes.

“I like mentioning that collection to first-time visitors to my home,” Frederike told them. “It's such an attraction and because I never show it off to first-time visitors, it always guarantees they'll come back a second time. After that, I tempt them with something else, not that they wouldn't come back just to see me, of course.”

“Frederike! Darling!”

The muscles in Tom's arms, neck, and shoulders went on alert when he heard the voice he recognized as Dagger's. Angel's entire stance was filled with uneasiness; her eyes with out-and-out hate.

“What a lovely surprise to have you show up for Cosette and Celine's party,” Frederike said, abandoning her hold on Tom and Angel and slipping her arm through Dagger's. “I trust you're feeling better?”

“Yes, darling,” Dagger said. “I'm terribly sorry
I had to cancel our plans last evening, but I must have eaten something that disagreed with me.”

“You had an upset stomach?” Tom said, trying not to laugh.

“Yes,” Dagger admitted. “But like anything that upsets me, I bounce back quickly and make sure I'm prepared should I get caught unaware in the future.”

“Goodness,” Frederike said, “please don't even think about having another upset stomach in the near future. It's quite depressing. Personally, I'd rather think about hats. Wouldn't you?” she said, smiling at each of her companions.

“I'd love to see your hats,” Angel said. “Are they all as unique as the one you're wearing this afternoon?”

“Just wait until you see them. They now take up three rooms here at Mirabel and I've had to hire a man who does nothing but keep them dust-free and in tip-top shape.”

“Have you decided which one you'll be wearing to the Alzheimer's gala?” Angel asked, as Frederike led them up a stairway lined with portraits of all eight of her husbands—all dearly departed, she'd told Tom earlier—and each one of her past and present “little butterflies,” all of them with French names and painted with their jeweled collars.

“I have an absolutely fabulous new hat that's being created for me now. It will be the hit of your gala, Angel, my dear. And what about you? What will you be wearing?”

“I haven't quite decided yet,” Angel said.

“I thank God that I don't have to struggle with
such a decision,” Dagger said, trying his damnedest to sound like a stuffy, upper-crust bastard. “I've just picked up a new Armani which will see me through the rest of the season, and”—he kissed Frederike's cheek—“I'll be taking it with me to Newport, too.”

“Isn't it divine?” Frederike said, beaming at Dagger. “I have a spectacular oceanview condominium in Newport that was left to me by”—she frowned—“I believe it was Marcus Pennington, my third husband. It's rarely used, so I've offered it to Dagger for the summer and he's graciously accepted.”

“Then you'll be leaving town soon?” Tom said, hitting Dagger with the full force of his disgust.

“When the season ends. In the meantime”—Dagger grinned—“there will be many parties to enjoy.”

“Speaking of your gala,” Frederike said, opening the double doors that led into a room filled to the brim with a mishmash of anything and everything gaudy, “I understand Holt will be auctioning off much of his late wife's jewelry and donating all of the money to charity. Is that true?”

“Yes. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am at the prospect.”

“I'm quite excited, too. Carlotta had a hat-shaped pin that I always admired, just a small piece, about the size of…” She looked at Dagger's hand resting on her arm, then at Tom's hand clutching Angel's. “Oh, I'd say it was about the size of Tommy's palm. I would love to bid on that piece.”

“When I see Holt next, I'll ask him if that's one of the pieces he'll have on display that night.”

Frederike laughed. “Oh, don't be silly, Angel. We all know he won't have the real pieces on display. He'll have fakes made up. God forbid that anyone should walk off with the real thing. That hat-shaped pin, all by itself, has got to be worth at least two, maybe three hundred thousand, and heaven only knows how many other pieces of jewelry he has locked away.”

Angel looked uncomfortable. It was pretty darn obvious to Tom that she didn't want to discuss Holt Hudson's security in front of Dagger. Maybe she didn't even want to discuss it in front of
him.

“Mr. Hudson hasn't mentioned anything to me about having fake jewelry on display,” Angel said, “and I do know he'll have all kinds of security that night.”

“Well, I'm glad to hear that. I've heard rumors that Holt hates security personnel or cameras monitoring his grounds or the important parts of his house. It's all rumor, of course, but if it's true, anyone, and I mean anyone, could pretty much just walk into that place and take whatever they wanted.”

“I'm sure Holt has security,” Dagger said. “He'd be foolish not to, and I seriously doubt he's a foolish man.”

Frederike frowned. “You're a private investigator, Angel, and you've been to Palazzo Paradiso. Have you seen any signs of security?”