In a Heartbeat (10 page)

“I wanted to tell you, back then, that I loved you,” Mel said. “But I didn’t dare. I mean you can’t just go saying that to a man, even one who’s just taken you to heaven and back. He might think you were looking for a commitment.”

And I was looking at you. Your eyes were
closed and I was wondering what you were thinking . . . hoping you would say I love you, because I
dared not, in case I scared you away. . . . I didn’t
know how you felt. Whether I was just a one-nightstand or what. Then you opened your eyes
and said, “You’ve got to be careful what you do
with that thing. It could get you into a lot of
trouble. . . .”

“I shouldn’t have been joking,” Mel said. “I know it now, but I was scared of that much emotion. And then your great bellow of laughter almost crushed my chest, and I was laughing along with you, helpless. And I felt you grow hard again.”

“I’ve never laughed when I made love before,”
Ed remembered saying to her.
“I just wanted to
eat you up.”

“Now don’t go telling me about all the oth
ers,” you said in that firm no-nonsense voice. “I
want to believe I’m the only one.”

“You are the only one,” I told you. And I
meant it, Zelda, I meant it. You will always be
my only one.

“Great,” you said. “So are you. My only one.”

A giggle erupted from your throat and I kissed
it away. “Then we’re even,” I said. “Life starts
from this day. This moment.” I raised myself up
on my arms. Our eyes locked. I was inside you
again, and your body reacted. You swore it had
nothing to do with you, nothing to do with your
head at all. Your body wanted me and it was not
going to take no for an answer.

“I knew you would always be ready to oblige
a lady,” you murmured, running your hands
across my naked butt, making me laugh again,
even as I moved deep inside you.

Oh, Zelda, Zelda, it was a night that should
never have ended. . . .

“It was our beginning,” Mel said sadly. “Who would have dreamed that this could happen? But they can’t take you away from me. I’ll find those bastards and I’ll kill them. I swear, Ed, if you die, I’ll kill them with my own hands.”

Another reason not to die,
Ed thought with a sigh. . . .
He couldn’t let her become a murderer,
just because of him. . . . Don’t be crazy, he
wanted to say, but telling Zelda not to be crazy
was like telling a canary not to sing.

Standing in the doorway to the hospital room, Detective Camelia heard Mel’s final words and he knew without any doubt that he had been accusing the wrong woman. Knowing she was unaware of his presence, he had heard her speak the truth.

She turned and looked at him. She was haggard from lack of sleep, drooping with fatigue, devastated by Ed’s fight with death. Camelia’s heart lurched.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he said.

24

Camelia sat opposite Mel Merrydew—a.k.a. Zelda—in the steamy little deli around the corner from the hospital. Another sleepless night had not enhanced her appearance. Her skin had lost the peachy California glow he had noticed when he first saw her. Now it looked dull, grayish, with shadows as dark as bruises under her eyes. It hurt him just to look at her.

“You look like hell,” he said bluntly. “You can’t go on like this. You know—not eating, not sleeping. Ask yourself, what good is it doin’ him anyways?”

Mel lifted her head from her coffee cup. She stared at him, stunned.

The waiter came over. “What can I get you?” He was brisk, efficient, no time to spare, like all New Yorkers. He looked inquiringly at Mel, but she just shook her head and turned away.

Camelia said, “The lady will have scrambled eggs, bacon, and a toasted sesame bagel. I’ll have lox and cream cheese on the same. And make those bagels well toasted, will ya?”

“I’m not hungry,” Mel protested wearily.

“Oh yes you are. You’ve just forgotten about food is all. Kinda need retraining into the food mode.” Camelia grinned at her, but she did not smile back. “Look,” he said gently, “I know what you’re thinking. That it’s none of my business. But Ed Vincent has become my business. And right now I need you more than he does.”

Suddenly panicked, Mel pushed back her chair and grabbed her bag, ready to run. “I shouldn’t have left him.”

“He’s not going to die, y’know, just because you’re not around. In fact, he may just not die at all. Did you ever consider that fact, Miss Melba?”

“Mel,” she corrected him automatically. She sank back into the chair, then added, as though he needed to know, “I always hated my name. Melba Eloise Merrydew. Like a marshmallow-Georgia-peach sundae, all whipped cream and froth. And there I was, this great galumphing lanky kid. A long way from my mother’s idea of a genteel southern belle.” She grinned suddenly. “I always told her you can’t win ’em all, honey.”

She fixed him with a sudden glare, but her bottom lip was trembling. “And what d’you mean, have I considered he might not die? What the heck d’you think I’m fighting for, every minute I sit there by his bed, holding his hand, talking to him, urging him to fight back, to wake up and look at me?”

“One thing I can tell you is that when he does wake up, he’s in for a hell of a shock when he looks at you. He’s gonna say, ‘Who the hell is this old broad sitting on my bed. . . . Where’s my Georgia peach?’ ”

Mel’s laugh rang out and Camelia grinned at her in relief.

“Do I really look that bad?”

He nodded. “That bad.”

She sighed as the waiter placed the scrambled eggs and bacon in front of her. “That’s what happens when you’re not a true beauty. A girl can only fake it so much with lipstick and blush.” She looked at the eggs, realized she was starving, and took a huge forkful. “So how long have you been married?”

He bit into his bagel piled high with cream cheese and lox. “Twenty-six years already. Almost your entire lifetime, I’ll bet.”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“And I’m forty-six.” He noticed, satisfied, that she was enjoying the eggs. He didn’t know why he felt pity for her, but he did. She was different from the women he usually encountered. For starters, she was dead honest, and in his job that was not a given. Plus, she left herself wide open to being hurt, like now, with this guy Ed Vincent. Lord knows what Vincent had been up to for someone to want to take him out this bad, but he’d bet his boots it was something that involved deals gone wrong and a lot of mazoolah. Money and sex were at the root of all evil. He had found out that little fact in his twenty-six years of police work.

“You have kids?” She held a strip of crispy bacon in her fingers, nibbling on it. It was the best thing she had tasted in what seemed like weeks.

“Four.” Always the proud father, he told her their names: Gianni, Daria, Julio, and Maria. “A combo of Italian and Puerto Rican,” he added.

“I’ll bet you’ve got photos.” She smiled as he quickly fished in his inside jacket pocket for his wallet.

“This is my eldest, Gianni. He’s a senior at M.I.T. Daria works as a production assistant on the
Today
show. Julio—known as Jules—is in his junior year at Rutgers. And this is my baby, Maria. She’s sixteen and still wondering what to do with her life.”

Mel studied the photos carefully, not just skipping through them the way most people did when you showed off your kids’ pictures. “Pretty good-looking family you’ve got there. You’re right to be proud of them, Detective Camelia.”

“Marco,” he corrected her.

Their eyes met for a long moment. Mel was thinking she didn’t understand him, but she instinctively liked him. Camelia was thinking she was way out of his league, he had never known a woman like this before. And she touched him in some deep, vaguely troubling way.

“I have a daughter, Riley.” She pulled her wallet out of her handbag and showed him the picture. “This was taken last year. Now she’s missing her two front teeth.” She smiled, recalling Riley’s cheeky, toothless grin. Oh, God, she hadn’t even called her yet. . . . Harriet must be frantic. . . .

“She looks like you, though. A pretty girl.”

Mel made a little face. “Thank you, kind sir, but I don’t think ‘pretty’ was ever in my vocabulary.”

He thought about it for a second or two. “Then maybe you should add ‘beautiful’ to your vocabulary, Miss Melba.”

A breathless silence hung between them. Then she said, smiling, “Why, Detective Camelia, I do believe you’re flirting with me.”

He grinned, amazed to find that he was enjoying himself. “I make it a practice never to flirt with married women.”

She shook her head. “I’m not married. Never was. When I knew I was pregnant with Riley, I realized that the guy wasn’t good enough to be my kid’s father. He would never have stayed around anyway.” She shrugged. “So I said good-bye to him. Decided to bring my baby up on my own. Take full responsibility. Lots of women do nowadays, you know,” she explained, seeing Marco’s shocked expression. “It’s better than chasing after a deadbeat dad.”

He nodded. “I guess you’re right. But I’m just an old-fashioned guy.”

“What’s your wife like?” She reached across and took a bite out of his bagel. “Mmm, that’s good.”

“Here, have the other half.” He pushed the plate across to her, signaling the waiter for more coffee. “Claudia? She’s great. Nice, y’know, a good woman.”

Her eyes mocked him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Go on. You’re crazy about her, aren’t you? I’ll bet she’s gorgeous.”

He shrugged, smiling modestly. “How else d’ya think I got to have kids that look like that? It surely wasn’t from the Camelia genes.”

“But they got their brains from you, then, as well as your good sense. And your kindness.” She finished his bagel. “I’ll bet the sex is great too.”

He choked on his coffee and she laughed. “It’s okay, Marco, I’m a grown-up girl, you can tell me.”

“Okay, so it’s great. And I swear to God I’ve never told anyone that before in my whole life.”

“Well, I certainly hope you’ve told Claudia.”

She was impossible, he thought, laughing.

Mel contemplated the bagel crumbs on her plate. “It was great with Ed, too,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know it could be like that . . . you know, so . . . so filled with love. I really love him, Marco.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. No married-in-church wife could have sat such a vigil. And I apologize for ever believing you might be involved.”

He did not tell her that he had overheard the final part of her whispered words to her mortally wounded lover. He felt guilty even thinking about it. But because of it, he knew her as he never could have. Knew who she was. And that made a world of difference.

“I said I needed your help,” he said.

“I’ll do anything, you know that.” She took out a tawny-colored lipstick and applied it without benefit of a mirror.

“That’s quite an art.”

“Years of practice. Not that it’ll make much difference, considering I look like hell.”

“I’m sorry I said that.”

She shrugged. “It’s probably true. I haven’t looked in a mirror since I got here. Anyhow you’re right, when Ed wakes up I should be looking beautiful. Or at least my best.”

“Just look the way you usually look and he’ll be a happy man.”

“Then you think he’s going to wake up, Marco? Seriously.”

Her huge brown eyes had that urgent look again, he could see the fear lurking behind them. “I’m no doctor, Mel, and I can only tell you this.

Any other guy would’ve been dead. Four slugs from a Sigma .40 semi at that close range would fell an ox. But he’s a strong guy, a fighter. I believe he’s got a chance.”

She nodded, lips tightly compressed to stop the tears. “Thank you for that,” she said softly. She really liked this man. Sure he was tough, but that was his job. Compassion was not, and she knew that must come from his Italian soul. She reached across the table for his hand again. “Friends?” she asked.

“Friends,” he agreed, meeting her eyes.

25

Camelia finished his coffee. Clearing his throat nervously, he was suddenly all business. “Ed’s P.I. faxed me the report, said he was sure some incident had taken place at the house. He confirmed what Ed told you about the missing money. Now, a hundred thou’ is no small change, so somebody out there has to be livin’ it up good by now.”

Mel stared blankly at him. “But who?”

“I was kinda hopin’
you
could tell me that.”

She groaned. “Are we back to square one again? With me as chief suspect?”

“No. You didn’t do it, but I want you to help me find who did. Let’s start with the body in the library.”

“Just like an Agatha Christie novel.” This time Camelia looked blank and she added, “You know, the mystery writer. Somehow there always seemed to be a body in the library.”

“And the butler always did it.”

They laughed together, and for a moment Mel felt her heart lift. If she could laugh, there was hope . . . hope for Ed. . . .
Oh, Ed, Ed, I’ll do anythingto help you . . . anything. . . .

“The killer, your attacker . . .”

“More like assassin,” she retorted, remembering.

“The killer and your would-be assassin. Now, I know it was dark, it was raining cats and dogs, the wind was howling, and you didn’t get a good look at him. But you must remember something. Anything at all. Come on, Mel,
think
.”

She slumped back in her chair, eyes closed, and Marco signaled the waiter to refill their coffee cups.

Mel was concentrating on the sensory memories, how she had felt when he touched her, the way he had smelled, sounded. . . .

And Marco was thinking how innocent she looked, just a babe herself, though “babe” was hardly the right word. Or was it? With those legs, those lips . . . Her eyes flew open, she was staring into his . . . and oh, God, those eyes, deep and round now as twin shots of single malt. . . . What the hell, he wasn’t a poet but he knew what he meant.

“I think he was foreign,” Mel said. “He had a guttural accent. You know, kind of like spies do in James Bond movies. And he must have been a heavy smoker, I smelled it on his hands. I almost threw up, and that’s when he let me go. I stuck my fingers in his eyes, I felt my nails digging into his flesh. A fat face—no, not fat exactly, but big, and a big neck. I’m tall but he was a good bit taller, maybe six-four, a really big guy. His hand covered my face from ear to ear. . . .”

She sighed as she sat back again. “That’s about it,” she said soberly, taking a sip of the fresh, hot coffee. “I really didn’t get a good look at him. It was dark in the house, dark outside, dark in the cab, although . . . wait a minute.”

She closed her eyes again, shivering as she relived the moments when she thought her end had come. There had been a flash of light as she aimed the huge truck at that tree, her headlights bouncing back at her. The gun was still at her head, she could feel its icy coldness even now. The coldness of death.

Marco watched the tears slide down her face. Her eyes were still shut and he had to hold himself back from grabbing her there and then, and just holding her tight, telling her it was okay, not to worry, he would take care of her. God, what was he thinking! He was a cop, a professional. He took a gulp of the hot coffee, burning his mouth in the process, welcoming the jolt it gave him that brought him back to his senses.

Mel remembered swiveling her eyes just as she slammed her foot on the gas, that sideways glimpse of her would-be killer. . . .

“He looked like a pit bull,” she said softly, almost whispering as the memory came to her. “A lowering forehead, sort of bulbous. Narrow eyes, a tight mouth, clean-shaven, a lot of dark hair. And he was wearing a business suit and a tie. . . . I remember thinking I didn’t know killers wore ties. . . .”

She sighed and took another sip of coffee. “That’s all.”

Camelia nodded. “It’s enough, to start. You’ll talk with the Identikit artist, tell him what you remember while he constructs an image on his computer. And we’ll get a language expert to play some tapes for you, try to identify the accent.”

“Okay.” She nodded, eager to help.

“So tell me, Mel, what exactly do you
know
about Ed Vincent?”

Again, her eyes widened and she stared blankly at him. “Why, I guess just what
you
know. I mean, everybody knows who Ed Vincent is.” Then she had the grace to laugh. “Except me, I guess. I seemed to be the only one who didn’t know he was the New York developer guru, rich and handsome and . . . and oh, so kind. He’s a good man, Marco, if that’s what you want to know. I can’t believe there’s a reason someone would want to kill him.”

“And yet someone did. Does, in fact.”

Alarm bells rang in Mel’s head, she was already on her feet. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Take it easy, take it easy, no one’s gonna get to him in the hospital. There’s a uniform outside his door twenty-four hours and another standing by the elevators. Plus we have surveillance set up outside the hospital.”

She sank back into the chair with a troubled sigh. “Then what do you mean, what do I know about Ed?”

“Well, for a start,
who
is he?”

She shook her head, puzzled. “I don’t get it.” “Where does he come from, his family, his life before he was the famous Ed Vincent? I thought for sure you would know.”

“I know he was poor.
Really
poor. It’s a media myth about him being an heir to a fortune. He told me he’d been brought up in a two-room shack in the Tennessee mountains. Hainstown, I think, or something like that. He was proud that his father owned his own piece of land. They were farmers. And he had brothers and sisters.”

“Brothers and sisters, huh?” Camelia said, thoughtfully. “Now, Ed doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would abandon those poor brothers and sisters when he’d made himself a pot of money. What d’you think?”

Mel thought, surprised, that he was right. “But he never mentioned them by name, never really talked about them, except one. His eldest brother, Mitch. I’ve no idea where they live, or if he ever sees them.”

“A family falling-out,” Camelia said, then added wryly, “It happens in the best.”

“Yes, but Ed’s not like that. I mean, he’s not the kind of man to hold a grudge. He’s the giving type, he helps strangers, gives to charities. I can’t believe he would just ignore his own family, especially knowing how poor they were.”

Camelia said soberly, “Then I guess it’s up to me to find out the answer to that riddle. Hainstown, Tennessee, here I come,” he added with a grin. “But first I have to find it on the map.”

“Maybe it was Hains
ville
,” she said. “And you can bet it’ll be a mere pin dot on the map,” she added. Then she realized that Camelia was going to find out about Ed’s life, a life she had hoped to share with him, a life that he had kept a secret, even from her. “I wish I could come with you,” she added wistfully.

“Think you’d be of any help?” Camelia’s voice was deliberately casual as he picked up his coffee cup. Dear God, he thought, here she was, the one woman on God’s earth who could probably seduce him just by batting those golden eyelashes, or smiling at him with those pouty lips, and she was offering to go on a trip with him.

Visions of a rustic motel room, set among pine trees and soaring mountains, of dark black nights with the stars a trillion miles away, of foggy, dewy mornings and a warm tumbled bed, pushed their way into his mind. He took a deep breath, downed his coffee, and signaled for more.

Mel looked doubtful. “I can’t leave Ed. He might . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say
he
might die,
though she knew the odds. Besides, she wasn’t going to let him die without her there. “Ed needs me,” she said fiercely.

Camelia pulled his wits together, canceled the coffee order, and asked for the check. “Better put you in touch with the Identikit guy and the accent expert, see if we can get tabs on this killer,” he said gruffly. “I’ll go to Hainsville in search of Ed’s past, while you do what you can to come up with an ID.” He pushed back his chair, stood, held up his hand. “Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, smiling as she gave him a high five.