West Palm: The Complete Novel (23 page)

“I
see him surrounded by water,” said the psychic into the TV cameras. “I've told the police: look for him near water.”

“Another genius,” muttered Ingersoll. “With the ocean on our doorstep, how could she go wrong?”

Although the official search went forward, Smoker e-mailed his final bill to Zaratzian, with a note, “The amazon is out of danger.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“You don't want to know.”

“So she's free to travel?”

“She might welcome it.”

“I got a perfect job for her.”

Smoker buried himself in a string of investigations he referred to as
What happened to Grandma's money?

Sometimes what happened was she'd been conned into thinking the kids would love a $90,000 DVD of her talking about her life. Sometimes, a charming young man convinced Grandpa he'd save on taxes by putting his house into the charmer's name. There were phony gold investments; bogus green investments; gypsy fortune-tellers who told Grandma bad things would happen to her loved ones if she didn't pay for advice; and the usual sham contractors.

Sometimes Smoker got Grandma's money back. Other times it disappeared across the blue Caribbean Sea to finance a con man's condo on the beach. No one involved in these jobs tried to sell him a Casablanca bar, vintage cocktail shaker, or anything else. Dottie was pleased to see his midlife crisis was over.

But by Christmas it was clear he needed a break. “After the holidays,” she warned, “I'm taking you on a vacation.”

“What about Honolulu?”

She raised her eyebrows. “That was easy.”

In Honolulu, while Dottie was off shopping, Smoker took a cab to ZZ Navigation.

The shipping company had an office tower on the harbor. Its windows glittered like vertical stripes of gold in the Polynesian sun. He took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and told the receptionist he had an appointment with the Director of Logistics.

A pleasant young man came out, introduced himself, and led Smoker down a corridor. The fact that she'd sent an assistant instead of coming to meet him herself made him realize his visit was a mistake.

When he entered, she was talking on the phone about a freighter in Thailand that had to get to Hong Kong by Tuesday to pick up thirty-two containers of Barbie dolls. He hardly listened to the words. It was her voice, unrecognizable, that hit him like a blow. The old laryngitis hoarseness was gone. No doubt she was glad to have her normal voice back, but he'd fallen in love with her rough, injured tones.

She hung up the phone and rose to greet him with that smile of hers that made him feel there was no one on earth she'd rather see.

“I was afraid you'd forgotten me.”

“We've both been so busy,” he said tritely, unable to reconcile her old smile with the new voice.

To avoid more meaningless conversation he pretended to admire the view of the bay. He tried to make out Zaratzian's ships among the others, but his focus was drawn, as if by a magnet, to the city streets. Honolulu or West Palm, a con man was out there wracking his brains for a new scam, and a killer was stalking someone. That was where he belonged. Not in this office, not with this woman. She was just another case he'd had.

“Will you please stop pacing.” She took him by the hand, led him to a couch, and sat beside him.

She wore a knockout sleeveless dress with a high mandarin collar that hid her scar. “You've gotten very glamorous,” he said.

“Makeup will do that for a girl.” She hadn't let go of his hand, and he noticed that the tips of her fingernails were painted.

“Why did you take so long to get in touch?” she demanded. He had to keep looking at her to be sure it was his amazon speaking in this ordinary voice.

“You didn't need me anymore,” he replied.

“What made you decide I didn't need you?”

“It was evident that night.”

“Everything?”

“The essentials. The rest I found out later. It's what I do. I dig. Even if nobody's paying me, I dig until I've no more questions.”

“Then I'm grateful for your silence.”

“It's guaranteed in the contract.”

He realized what was nagging at him about her outfit. “I see you traded in your red bracelets.”

“They were too delicate for me. I'm not the delicate type.”

The new snake bracelets definitely weren't delicate. She had to wear them above her elbows.

“They're
his,
” she said.

He stared at her. He couldn't tell if she was pressing his hand, or if the pressure was on his heart.

“I thought he came to Matthew's place to kill me,” she said, “but I was wrong. He'd just come courtin'.”

“Courtin'?”

“Like the song.
Froggy went a-courtin' and he did ride, uh-huh.
”

“And he gave you his bracelets?”

“We stripped them from his corpse. I meant to ditch them when I had a chance, but . . .” She withdrew her hand from his, slid the bracelets off, set them in her lap, and gazed down at them. “I couldn't get him out of my mind. I was still obsessed with him.”

She carefully put the bracelets back on, pushing them to her upper arms. “The first time I wore them was real creepy. They felt like ice.”

“And now?”

“He's stopped haunting me.”

He met her gaze and missed the secret beauty her eyes had held when they were bare of makeup, with just that black ring around the pale blue iris.

It was painfully clear this wasn't the vulnerable woman he'd once been hired to protect. The whole executive setup told him he belonged in her past. “I should let you get back to your work,” he said.

“Will you be here long?” She asked the casual question in such a way he knew he didn't have to belong to her past. She'd gotten her groove back and was ready to explore that unspoken thing between them. For a dizzy moment he tried to figure out how he could sneak the time. Then he saw Dottie in his mind, and knew that if he let this thing start up again, he'd be back handcuffed to the desk with his arms stretched out in opposite directions.

He could tell by the twinkle in her eyes that there was less at stake for her than there was for him. It was easy for her. For all he knew, she wasn't even making a pass at him. He was up against the case no one ever solves, the mystery between man and woman.

“A couple more days,” he replied, “but I'm kind of tied up.”

She followed him across the carpet to the door.

“Congratulations . . . on your job,” he said. “I bet you're great at it.”

“Oh, I'm a killer.”

“No. You're just a loyal friend.”

She frowned. “You think it was Matthew who pulled the trigger?”

“I don't think it was you
or
Matthew. I told you, I did a lot of digging. All the way back to the death of Faith's husband. It was treated as an accident, but there was one detective who didn't agree. He said with all the barriers and signs to keep people away from the edge, no sober adult just topples off the Cliffs of Moher. Why are you surprised? Remember what she said to us,
I never liked the son of a bitch
.”

“She says that about lots of people.”

“Maybe only those she's killed. Think back. You'd know better than I do.”

“True, she never said it about you.”

“I was wise enough to placate her with pie.”

“I thought you brought her that pie because you liked her.”

“It was you I liked.”

“And I liked you. Why are we talking as if we no longer do?”

He let himself relax into a grin. “You think it's cheap to come to Honolulu?”

She raised her hand and touched his face, so lightly he could hardly bear it. “Will you stay in touch with me?” she asked.

He nodded, opened the door, walked swiftly through the corridor out to the reception area, and pressed the button for his escape. In his rush to get away he thought, Maybe we
should
stay in touch. Maybe in e-mails I'll be able to hear the old voice.

As the elevator sped to the ground floor, he was brought down to earth. You can't regain what you've never had.

He put Hawaii behind him.

He went to the annual meeting of the Palm Beach Irregulars.

The evening's highlight was a hot debate over the original location of 221B Baker Street.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Gundy

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ISBN 978-1-4767-3271-8