The Ring on Her Finger (31 page)

“Two men make a bargain that one can sleep with a woman in exchange for a horse, and I’m the one who’s not nice? I have news for you two gentlemen,” she added, fairly spitting the last word. “You’re mean and thoughtless and horrible, the pair of you, and neither of you deserve the nice things you have.”

Nathaniel opened his mouth to protest, but seemed to have trouble deciding what to say.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said. “All those nice things of yours. That’s why you are the way you are. You have everything you’ve always wanted, everything you thought it would take to make you happy. But it’s not enough, is it? You’re still not happy. That’s why you gamble so much, and so recklessly. It’s why you make bets like this one. Because you think having more will make you happy. And because you know that even if you lost everything, it wouldn’t change the way you feel having everything. Because you don’t feel anything. Not the way a decent human being feels.”

“Rosemary, you don’t understand,” he said.

“Oh, don’t I? I think I understand quite well, even if that understanding comes too late. All the money in the world can’t buy what you could have had for free. What would have made you happy. That’s your curse. You could have been happy for nothing. And now you’ll never, ever, be happy, no matter how much you spend. And a fitting curse it is, too.”

He said nothing in response to that, only continued to gaze at her in silence.

“Well, you may have won your bet,” she told him. “But you lost more than you could ever know.” And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she hissed, “Bastard.”

She felt tears prick her eyes, and the last thing she wanted was for either of these men to see her cry. So she turned her back on both of them and walked as calmly as she could out of the room. She heard Nathaniel call her name—twice—but she ignored him. And she told herself she only imagined the panic in his voice.

She climbed the back stairs to her room, swiping away her tears as she went. She could take care of herself around Justin Cove just fine. It wasn’t the fact that he had made such an atrocious wager with Nathaniel that bothered her. That he would do such a thing didn’t surprise her at all. It wasn’t him from whom she needed protecting. Him she had always seen with clear vision.

What had surprised her, what she hadn’t seen coming, was that it would be Nathaniel—her protector—from whom she would need the greatest protection of all.

At her oceanfront condo in Newport, Phoebe Bloom was having a bit of trouble, and it wasn’t even 7:00 A.M. Not because Dave, ex-boyfriend and eleven-toed homicide detective, showed up at her door before she even had her coffee. Dammit, they’d dated long enough for him to know she couldn’t function without at least two cups—which, okay, now that she thought about it, was probably why he showed up when he did. It wasn’t even because Dave still had six toes on one foot—she’d already asked. It was because Dave, shockingly, seemed to think she was lying about not knowing the whereabouts of her friend Lucinda Hollander.

Men. Who could figure them?

“Dave, I told you almost a month ago, I don’t know where Lucy is.”

Although she addressed Dave by name, Phoebe was actually talking to the coffeemaker, because she had her elbows propped on the countertop watching it as she waited impatiently for the last few dribbles to sputter into the carafe. But she wasn’t lying to either of them. She really did tell Dave almost a month ago that she didn’t know where Lucy was.

And when she told him that almost a month ago, she wasn’t lying then, either. She really hadn’t known where Lucy was at that point. Sure, she’d assumed her friend was on a Greyhound headed for Louisville, and she’d figured it was probably headed down I-95 at the time. But she hadn’t known that, not for sure. The bus could have been pulled over at a diner somewhere. Or it could have been at a gas station. Or it could have been on an interstate other than I-95, depending on whether or not it was making good time. The last thing Phoebe wanted to do was lie to the police.

“You know where she is, Phoebe,” Dave said from where he leaned against her kitchen doorway. “And I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

“You’re nuts, you know that, Dave?”

Phoebe reached for the coffeepot, ignoring the hiss of the last few drops that hit the heat pad beneath. She couldn’t wait any longer. Her response was, once again, honest. Any man who would pair that necktie with that shirt couldn’t possibly be of sound mind. Seriously. What had she been thinking when she was dating him?

“You’re not working Lucy’s case, anyway,” she reminded him. “So why are you here bothering me?”

“Aren’t you going to offer me a cup?” He nodded toward the coffee she cradled so lovingly in her hand.

“No.” She enjoyed a long, careful sip of the hot, full-bodied brew. “Mmmm,” she said enthusiastically. “It is soooooo good. Jamaica Blue Mountain. Bet you can’t afford that on your salary, can you?”

The dig struck home. He frowned at her.

“I’ll offer you a cup when you tell me why you’re here,” she said.

He growled something unintelligible under his breath. “I’m here because the department isn’t getting anywhere finding Lucinda Hollander. Neither is the FBI.” He shoved a restless hand through his dark hair. “And Archie Conlon claims he doesn’t know where she is, either.”

That woke Phoebe up almost as much as coffee would. Almost. “You found Archie?”

Dave nodded. “Yesterday morning. Holed up in a roach motel in Atlantic City. We’ve started extradition proceedings with New Jersey.” He eyed Phoebe thoughtfully, as if he were trying to decide if he should tell her any more. Obviously thinking it might sway her, he added, “Archie insists Lucinda had nothing to do with the murder.”

Holy moly. That actually might sway her. If Dave was telling the truth. “Well, duh,” she said eloquently. “Then why are you still looking for her?”

“Because Archie says she has evidence on her that will clear him.”

Phoebe eyed him warily. There was no way Lucy could have any kind of evidence on her. She showed up at Phoebe’s condo the night of the Wemberleys’ party with nothing but the clothes on her back—which Phoebe drove to another county to dump the following morning—and was carrying nothing but Phoebe’s belongings when she left Newport.

“What kind of evidence?” she asked.

“We don’t know,” Dave said. “Archie won’t tell us. He just keeps insisting that if we can find Lucinda, he can clear everything up. And I think you know where Lucinda is. So I figured I’d come over and pump you again.”

Phoebe narrowed her eyes until they were mean little slits. “You never pumped me a first time, Dave. We only dated a month. What are you telling the boys down at the station?”

He grinned crookedly. “I meant I should come over and ask you questions again.”

“Oh.” She straightened, sipped her coffee, and looked at him normally again. “I knew that.”

“And what I tell the boys down at the station is that you have a hell of a tongue,” he added, his grin growing.

“You what?”

He laughed outright at that. “I tell them you’re witty, Phoebe.”

Oh, right. Like she was supposed to believe that. Dave would never use the word witty. Not even in a desperate Scrabble strategy. “Have some coffee,” she said. But she made clear he’d have to get it himself by striding past him to the living room.

She didn’t need to tell him twice. He really couldn’t afford Jamaica Blue Mountain on his salary. When he returned to the living room, he sat in a chair opposite from the sofa.

“You know where she is, Phoebe,” he said confidently. “You and I may have only dated a month, but I know you and Lucinda are tight. Too tight for her not to have contacted you at some point.”

“And by ‘contacted’ you would mean...?”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Phoned you?”

“No,” Phoebe said honestly. “She hasn’t phoned me.” Because Phoebe was always the one to call Lucy.

“Emailed you?”

“No.” Honest again. Lucy wouldn’t go near a computer if it was spitting out thousand-dollar bills.

“Sent you a postcard?”

“Nope.”

“Letter?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Birthday card.”

“’Fraid not.”

“You wouldn’t tell me, even if you had heard from her, would you?”

“Oh, Dave. You know me well enough to know the answer to that.” Yes! Honest again! She hadn’t lied to the police once!

He nodded. “Yeah. I do. So I guess it wouldn’t make any difference if I told you that, after questioning Archie, we and the FBI are fairly convinced that Lucinda is an innocent party in all this.”

Ding ding ding ding ding! Warning bells went off all over Phoebe’s brain. It was a trick. Dave was hoping that by reassuring her Lucy wasn’t a suspect anymore—while Phoebe was still on her first cup of coffee—then she might come clean with some info on Lucy’s whereabouts. Well, not...so...fast, Davy boy.

She drained her cup and fled to the kitchen for her second.

“What do you mean?” she asked when she returned, sipping as quickly as she dared. Come on, caffeine.

Dave hooked one leg over the other in a relaxed pose that was probably feigned. Phoebe would need to finish this cup before she could tell for sure. Hastily, she lifted her mug to her lips again.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “but we came across some evidence that pretty much backed up what Archie told us and suggested there was little chance Lucinda was involved in the murder.”

“What kind of evidence?” Phoebe asked, still suspicious. Still sipping.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Then I can’t help you out.”

“Oh, come on, Phoebe.”

“Sorry,” she apologized without a bit of apology.

“All right, all right,” he finally relented. “Here’s what we know. We know Lucinda Hollander is dyslexic.”

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Phoebe eyed him warily. “Who told you that?”

“Her mother did.”

Ding ding ding ding ding!

“Mrs. Hollander told you Lucy is dyslexic?”

“Yeah. She showed us evaluations from a couple of experts who tested her when she was a kid. Her reading skills then were pretty much nonexistent, and both experts said there was almost no hope of improvement unless she got treatment. There’s no indication she ever got treatment.”

“Why would Mrs. Hollander tell you all that?” Phoebe asked cautiously.

“Because we told her whoever was behind all this had to have a lot of sophisticated knowledge about computers and recent technology. A computer genius, if you will. Mrs. Hollander told us there was no way Lucinda could be that, because she was dyslexic and hadn’t received treatment. And she had proof. So there’s little chance Lucinda could have been involved with what Archie was doing.”

Ding ding ding...

Oh, hell.

Poor Mrs. Hollander, having to decide what would be worse to have in the Hollander family, a dyslexic or a murderess. What a dilemma. Still, she’d done the right thing, telling the police the truth about Lucy’s inability to read properly. The part about the police thinking Lucy might be innocent as a result of that knowledge, well... Phoebe had to be very, very careful here about what she said.

“Archie Conlon, on the other hand,” Dave continued, “is a computer genius.”

“What?” Phoebe demanded incredulously. “He can’t be. He’s a moron.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a brainiac. He’s been creating some of the most sophisticated technological equipment the U.S. military has in its arsenal.”

“What?”

“You didn’t know what he does for a living?”

“Lucinda said he has some boring government job,” Phoebe said. “I figured he probably wrote reports and filed stuff all day. I mean, I guess I never really thought about it. I just assumed a moron like him...”

Dave studied her for a moment, as if he were now the one who was weighing carefully what he should say. He uncrossed his legs and placed his cup on the table, then propped his elbows on his knees and tented his hands over his mouth. “A moron like him, Phoebe, has been creating sophisticated technology for our military and selling government secrets to foreign powers who aren’t necessarily our friends.”

He mouth dropped open in disbelief.

“And now he’s got the Russian mob wanting to be a client.”

Now her mouth snapped shut.

“And the Russian mob doesn’t take nyet for an answer.”

Phoebe stared at Dave for a solid minute before she was able to respond. Finally, she said, “See? I told you he was a moron.” She blew out an incredulous breath. “So who’s the stiff? And why does everyone think Archie killed him?”

“The stiff is George Jacobs,” Dave told her. “AKA Georgie Jakes. AKA Georgi Jakov. He’s a lowlife scumbag, and the world is a better place without him, but we have to investigate it as a homicide because he had human DNA. Though I suspect he stole it, like he stole everything else. And we think Archie Conlon killed him because Archie Conlon did, in fact, kill him.”

“What?”

“Probably in self-defense,” Dave acknowledged. “We’ve learned a lot more in the past few weeks than we knew that night at the Wemberleys’, and Archie’s claiming self-defense. But we won’t know everything for sure until we find this evidence he says Lucinda has. Even if he’s innocent of murder, though, he still has to answer to charges of treason and some other things. The government will probably want to put him away for a good long time.”

Holy moly. Phoebe had known Archie was a moron, but he was like...like... He was like the Moron King.

“So how did Lucy get suspected of murder?” she asked. She needed to know as much as she could before making her decision on whether or not to turn her best friend over to the wolves...ah, authorities.

More coffee. She lifted the mug to her lips again.

“Lucinda was at Archie’s place the day the murder occurred,” Dave said. “We found the body in Archie’s apartment.”

“Ew. Lucy was in the same room as a dead body?”

“She didn’t know it at the time. Jacobs’ body was in Archie’s closet. But that’s another reason we need to talk to her, to see if she can corroborate any part of Archie’s story of what happened that day, or add anything to it.”