Authors: Natasha Rostova
The Naked Truth (9 page)
‘Probably.’ Sam Houston lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke in Adam’s direction. In his mid-fifties with a shock of greying, Albert Einstein-style hair and slouched shoulders, Sam appeared more suited to the role of mad scientist than sharp PI.
‘So, how do we find out who it is?’ Adam asked.
‘Look, kid, this isn’t as exciting a case as you want it to be,’ Sam replied. ‘Women leave their husbands all the time for thousands of reasons. Maybe Waterford was punching her around.’
Adam drew in a breath. ‘How dare you?’ he snapped. ‘Logan would never do something like that! You can just cross that idea right off your list, detective.’
‘Call me Sam, for Lord’s sake. This isn’t
Columbo
.’
Columbo
.’
The office door opened. Logan stepped in, his gaze going over Adam and Sam in one swoop. Adam sat up a little straighter, thinking that Logan looked rather magnificent in a charcoal-grey suit and tie. And how did he always manage to get his hair to look so perfect? Adam dragged a hand through his shaggy, blonde hair and tugged furtively at his eyebrow ring. He decided he’d get rid of it soon. If Logan thought it looked stupid, then what was the point?
‘So, Mr Waterford, you want to tell me when you last saw your wife?’ Sam asked.
‘I saw Callie the night before I left for Boston,’ Logan replied. ‘I was gone for three days, and I returned around noon on Thursday. She wasn’t at home, and I assumed she was off to one of her charitable society meetings. When I hadn’t heard from her by nightfall, I began to wonder.’
‘And you called all her friends?’
‘Of course. Starting with her sister. No one had heard from her, or so they said.’
‘I’ll need lists of all her activities and friends,’ Sam said. ‘Phone numbers, addresses, that kind of thing.’
‘Yes. Adam has been working on compiling such a list for you.’ Logan nodded at Adam, who reached quickly into a folder on a nearby table.
‘I hope I have everything,’ he said. He’d been working on the list nonstop for the past three days. ‘I have listings of friends going back to her school days, and also friends of her family. Her charity activities are substantial, so I’ve listed all the members of those organisations as well. There’s also information about her brother-in-law’s family and her sister’s friends.’
‘Did she work anywhere?’ Sam asked.
Logan shook his head. ‘Only for the charities that pricked her bleeding heart.’
Sam eyed him with a curious look. Logan returned it with an irritated one. ‘What?’
‘You’re sure she wasn’t involved in something you didn’t know about?’ Sam asked.
‘Of course not,’ Logan snapped.
Adam bit his lip and shifted in the chair. ‘Uh, sir?’
Both Sam and Logan turned to look at him. He quailed slightly under the combined authority of their gazes. When Logan alone looked at him like that, it was enough to make him feel like a kid from a village school.
‘Well, Adam?’ Logan said impatiently. ‘What is it?’
‘Sir, if she was involved in something you didn’t know about, you . . . uh . . . well, you wouldn’t know about it,’ Adam said. He mentally kicked himself for contradicting Logan, but he was determined to examine all aspects of this case. ‘So you wouldn’t know if she was involved or not.’
Sam chuckled, then coughed to hide his amusement when Logan shot him a deathly glare.
‘Well, the kid’s right,’ Sam pointed out. ‘He must have studied philosophy at school.’
‘Callie wouldn’t run off and do something without my knowing about it,’ Logan replied coldly. ‘And I don’t need Aristotle, Plato or Friedrich fucking Nietzsche to tell me that.’
‘She ran off and left you,’ Sam said. ‘That’s what I conclude, prima facie, as you lawyers like to say.’
‘Look, enough with this damn logic.’ Logan’s eyes flashed as he looked from Sam to Adam and back again. ‘I think we all know the situation here. Yes, Callie left me and, no, I don’t know why. Do you think you can manage to find her or do I need to hire someone else?’
‘I’ll try my best, Mr Waterford,’ Sam replied.
‘Don’t try,’ Logan said, his voice flat and cold. ‘Do it.’
A little quiver ran down Adam’s spine. He wished he could issue dictates with the same kind of masterfulness that Logan did.
Sam cleared his throat. ‘OK, we’ll get to work, then,’ he said. He headed towards the door. Adam grabbed his folder and stood up. He put his hand on Logan’s arm, getting a thrill out of the fact that he could feel the other man’s muscles clear through the suit jacket.
‘Don’t worry, Logan,’ Adam said firmly, squeezing Logan’s arm. ‘We’ll find her.’ With that, he trotted after Sam and closed the door behind him.
‘So where do we start?’ Adam asked Sam as they walked out of the office.
Sam gave him a sideways glance. ‘Kid, I don’t exactly need your help with this. I’ll find that woman within a week.’
‘Logan said I was supposed to help you,’ Adam retorted. ‘So you’re stuck with me. Should we start at the house?’
He’d never been to the Waterford mansion, but he couldn’t wait to see where Logan lived, ate and slept when he wasn’t at the office.
‘We’ll go there tomorrow,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll check out these charities and her Ladies Guild association first.’
Adam shook his head. ‘You suppose she was one of those stuck-up society matrons? That doesn’t seem like the kind of woman Logan would want.’
Sam shrugged. ‘I have some photos of her back at my office. And it doesn’t make a rat’s ass difference what kind of woman Logan wants. It just matters that we find her.’
‘Well, it’s just that he’s so furious about this.’ Adam kicked at a pebble on the street, suddenly wondering what Callie and Logan did in bed. Or didn’t do. ‘What’s so great about her that he wants her back so badly?’
Sam chuckled. ‘It probably has less to do with her and more to do with him and his ego.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘People don’t betray Logan Waterford, kid. That’s the bottom line.’
‘Cinnamon or chocolate?’
‘Chocolate, please.’ Callie watched the young woman behind the counter sprinkle chocolate powder on her cappuccino. She accepted the cup with thanks and turned to find her date for the evening.
The coffee house on River Street was filled with people drawn in by the cosy, living-room atmosphere of worn, overstuffed chairs and couches. Eldrich had commandeered a small couch in the corner. Callie smiled at him as she sat down, balancing her cup and saucer on her lap. He looked quite unique this evening in a black, velvet coat and leather trousers, surrounded by a light haze of clove cigarette smoke. A large, silver cross dangled from his neck.
‘Thanks, Eldrich. I enjoyed the movie.’
‘No problem.
Nosferatu
is one of the greatest films ever made.’
Nosferatu
is one of the greatest films ever made.’
‘So, what do you do during the day?’ Callie asked.
Eldrich sucked on his herbal cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. ‘I don’t go out during the day much, but I’m a DJ most evenings for this Goth club just off of St Julian. It’s called the Snake Pit. You should come sometime.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Callie sipped her coffee and considered her next words carefully. ‘However, I think I should tell you something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, this isn’t good news,’ Callie admitted. ‘I’m married. Separated, but married.’ She glanced at him quickly, relived to see that he looked surprised, but not angry.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s cool.’
Callie raised her eyebrows. ‘It is?’
‘Yeah. I don’t want some dude attacking me with a knife but, philosophically, the idea of you being married doesn’t bother me. Marriage is lame, anyway. Human beings aren’t meant to be monogamous.’
‘They aren’t?’
‘Hell, no. Look at how few other animal species mate for life. Humans are supposed to experience different people. It’s called polyamory.’
Callie looked at him for a moment. A sudden recollection of her fantasy blow job flashed in her mind, causing a heated flush to rise to her cheeks.
‘Well, I’m glad to know that,’ she murmured.
Eldrich eyed her with a rather sly look. ‘Why else would you have left your husband? You know that you were just sick of him.’
Callie’s flush deepened. ‘Well, that’s partly true,’ she admitted.
‘And your sex life?’
Callie figured that she should have been shocked by the question but, oddly enough, she wasn’t. Must have something to do with the sequel to her fantasy, which was currently screening in her mind. ‘That was . . . less than exciting.’
Eldrich sat there looking at her through his mascara-coated eyelashes until Callie shifted uncomfortably.
‘What?’ she muttered. ‘Lots of people have less than exciting sex lives.’
‘But not all of them want to do something about it.’ Eldrich dragged on his cigarette again and continued watching her.
‘Who said I wanted to do something about it?’
‘You did.’
‘Now you’re a mind-reader?’
‘No, I’m just perceptive.’
Callie shook her head at him. She was beginning to feel light-headed from the effects of smoke and the turn of this conversation. Eldrich leant forward and took her hand in his pale one, sliding his fingers over hers.
‘Remember, Callie,’ he murmured, ‘your Tarot reading said you had to question who was in control.’
Callie swallowed hard. ‘I don’t have to question that. I know who’s in control.’
Her voice sounded unconvincing even to herself. Eldrich put down his coffee mug and crushed out the cigarette.
‘Are you sure about that?’ He stood up, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he looked at her. ‘Or do you want to find out?’
Callie’s courage suddenly faltered. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Eldrich, or at least Tess’s opinion of him, but she’d never been with anyone like him in her life. Maybe that was the point, an inner voice reminded her. Sex didn’t have to be all hearts and roses. Heaven knew it hadn’t been with Logan. And Callie knew deep down inside that she wanted to have experiences with other men, if for no other reason than to reassure herself that the problem with her and Logan’s sex life wasn’t her fault; if only to reassure herself that sex didn’t have to simply be
pleasant
.
pleasant
.
‘All right,’ she finally said. ‘But I’m not making you any promises.’
‘That’s cool,’ Eldrich replied.
Callie’s nerves tightened as she and Eldrich drove back to his flat. He lived on the top floor of a Tudor building complete with wrought-iron balconies and a tended garden. Dark colours dominated the interior, which was complete with Renaissance-style furniture, a canopied bed and an entire bookshelf full of CDs. The smell of incense and candle smoke clung to the air.
‘Interesting place,’ Callie observed, picking up a silver candleholder welded into the shape of a naked woman.
‘So why did you separate from your husband?’ Eldrich went into the kitchen and took a bottle of wine from a small wine rack.
‘We just weren’t compatible,’ Callie replied dismissingly. She picked up a box of matches and began to light the candles. ‘We’re quite different in personality.’
‘Any chance of reconciliation?’
‘No.’ A tinge of regret appeared in Callie as she said the word. ‘I don’t think there’s any chance of that.’
‘You don’t think?’ Eldrich asked.
Callie shrugged and didn’t reply. She hated the notion of giving up completely on her marriage, but how on earth could she convince Logan of the need for change?
Eldrich poured the wine and handed Callie a glass. ‘Cheers, then.’
They clinked glasses. Callie took a long swallow of the velvety, red wine. The alcohol flowed into her nerves, loosening them and making her feel more relaxed. She sat down in a chair near the doors that led to the balcony, slowly processing the thought of actually fucking another man.
‘So, what do you do when you’re not working at the club?’ she asked.
‘I write poetry, and I’m working on a novel,’ Eldrich replied. ‘Or I go to Renaissance fairs and shit like that.’
Callie smiled. ‘I had a feeling you wrote poetry. Would you read me something?’
To her amusement, Eldrich flushed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on,’ Callie urged. ‘I’d love to hear something.’
‘Maybe later.’ He went to slip a CD into the stereo. ‘This is a band called the Sisters of Mercy.’
Callie listened to the thumping sound and the singer’s wails about his contempt for the social order, before coming to the conclusion that she would probably never be a Goth. Probably, hell. Never.
‘I meant to ask you how your mother was enjoying her Tarot cards,’ she said.
‘She loves them.’ He lit a stick of incense, and the spicy scent filled the air. ‘She’s doing readings for all her friends and she’s thinking of charging people now.’ He stretched out on the bed, crossing his legs at the ankle, and regarded Callie with a curious look. ‘And what about that reading you did for yourself?’
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