White Hot (11 page)

“You arrive before or after Mollie was attacked?”

“Ah.” His clear gaze settled on Jeremiah. “You’re making sure I didn’t swipe the necklace. Well, I didn’t. Too much effort involved.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jeremiah pointed out.

“True.”

Stonewalled. Croc didn’t like to divulge his tactics. Jeremiah gave up for the moment. “I suppose now you can eliminate Mollie Lavender as a suspect.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because she’s up there bleeding, Croc—”

“Yeah, so? Why did she wear an expensive necklace? Why didn’t anyone see anything? Why no trail? You got no clues, no suspects, no witnesses, no evidence. You can’t eliminate her or anyone else yet.”

Jeremiah checked a hiss of impatience. “You think she ripped the necklace off her own neck?”

“Why not?”

“The question is
why?”

“How the hell should I know? Okay, here’s one. Insurance.”

“It’s Pascarelli’s necklace. The money would go to him.”

Croc was unchagrined. “Then she wanted to inspire fear in potential victims—make them nervous so they won’t put up a fight next time she gets light fingers.”

“That doesn’t wash, either. If there’s a threat of violence, people will leave the real stuff in the vault. It’d dry up business.”

Croc frowned. “Okay. I’ll give that one some thought.” A foot started going, then a hand, fingers drumming. “She could also want the thrills, the attention. High-profile party, daring thief. Makes good drama, Tabak.” He paused, a half-second halt in his fidgeting as he eyed Jeremiah. “So what’s the story between you two?”

“Between Mollie and me?”

“No, between Diantha Atwood and you. Come on, Tabak. Don’t bullshit. You’re no good at it.”

Jeremiah balled his hands into fists. Tension. Irritation. Frustration. He felt them all. Sitting there and trying to appear calm required every scrap of self-control he had. “Mollie and I had a brief relationship about a million years ago. It ended badly.”

“How brief?”

“A week.”

“When?”

“Ten years ago. She was a music student on spring break.”

Croc was silent a moment. Then he sighed.
“Now
you tell me.”

“It has no bearing on your jewel thief.”

“Bullshit. It explains why you’re not seeing this thing with your normal cold, clear, cynical eye. Jeez, I can’t believe I missed this one. You and our Miss Mollie. I tell you, Tabak, she’s involved. You mark my words. I’m checking into her clients—and that caterer friend and her boy-toy, Miss Mollie’s intern. Look like a couple of nitwits to me.”

Jeremiah gave him a steady look. “Croc, if you’re not careful and keep landing yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, people are going to start suspecting you.”

He went still, a rarity for him. “Do you? Come on, seriously. Do you suspect me?”

“Not yet,” Jeremiah said.

He couldn’t tell if Croc was insulted or not. “I guess that’ll have to do.”

“Maybe if you quit holding back—”

But Croc hurtled to his feet, suddenly looking as if he wanted to jump out of his skin. “Listen, I need to get out of here. Atmosphere’s getting to me. I might be barking up the wrong tree with this Mollie Lavender character, but I don’t think so. I think she’s right up there on a high branch, laughing at the rest of us while we scurry around in the muck.”

“Your instincts about people aren’t reliable, Croc.”

“Maybe not, but you put Miss Mollie up on a bulletin board, and all roads lead to her.”

Croc wasn’t known for his felicitous metaphors, but Jeremiah got his point. Mollie as common denominator. Mollie screaming. Mollie bleeding. Mollie up there with the police and hotel security even as he and Croc sat there discussing her.

What did Jeremiah know about her anymore?

But it was nuts. She was the goddaughter of a world-famous tenor, the daughter of flaky musicians, a publicist for flaky clients. Considering her as their jewel thief was just silliness. A diversion. A way of
not
thinking about her in other terms, such as in danger, in despair…or, Jeremiah thought grimly, in his bed, which maybe was scariest of all.

“Hey, Tabak, you’re lucky I’m on your side.” Croc grinned, somehow looking even bonier, out of place yet not the least bit awkward in the elegant surroundings. “I’m the one here who’s clear-eyed and without prejudice.”

“There’s nothing between Mollie and me.”

Croc just laughed, and Jeremiah watched him saunter over to the revolving doors and walk out of the hotel without anyone giving him so much as a second glance.

Mollie stumbled onto the escalator with the hotel manager hovering behind her. She felt unsteady and vaguely embarrassed, but the nausea had abated. Her neck stung. It was like a nasty rope burn, one of those short, intense bursts of pain that would subside quickly, the worst probably over by morning. Or so she kept telling herself as she clung to the escalator rail.

The police were still up with hotel security, searching for clues. She didn’t expect they’d find anything useful. The thief had been quick, deft, clever, and daring. He wouldn’t leave a trail. She knew nothing about crime and criminals—mercifully, she thought—but what she knew about
this
crime and
this
criminal told her the police weren’t going to find him. Not tonight.

She gave an involuntary shudder. “Are you all right?” the manager asked, worried. His concern seemed genuine, not simply strategic.

“I’ll be fine, thanks.” She smiled, trying to encourage herself as much as him.

He held out a hand, ready to catch her if she passed out as the escalator came to the lobby and she slid off. She must look even worse than she felt. Neck bloody, face pale, dress askew. And she couldn’t seem to stop shaking. Her eyelids were heavy, and even as she shivered and shook, she felt as if she could drop off to sleep. The aftermath of her ordeal, she knew. The excess of adrenaline, the drop in blood sugar, plain old nerves. Her entire system was out of whack.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride home?” the manager asked. “I can have someone drive your own car back at the same time.”

Her own car. It wasn’t hers any more than the necklace or the dress. Or her “home.”

He’d made the same offer twice on the mezzanine. Mollie understood. He thought she was being needlessly, even recklessly, stubborn about driving herself back to Leonardo’s. Certainly she needed to reassert normalcy into her life, but she could do it tomorrow, after she’d had a chance to rest from her ordeal. But she wanted to do it now.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jeremiah making his way across the lobby. If possible, he looked even more devastating, more darkly unpredictable than he had upstairs. It was the combination of elegance and irreverence, she decided, feeling giddy from champagne and adrenaline. He moved with such ease no matter where he was—or with whom. He wasn’t fazed by the Atwood and Tiernay crowd, and he’d seemed right in his element with a crime committed, a woman crumpled at his feet, police and security people swarming.

“I’m a friend,” he told the manager with unsurpassed gall. “I’ll drive Mollie home.”

The manager looked relieved. “Wonderful. Ms. Lavender, if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate. You can reach me anytime, night or day.”

She mumbled her thanks, and he retreated back up the escalator, leaving her alone with Jeremiah. “The hotel can send your car,” he said, taking charge.

“I’m fine. There’s no need for you to drive me home—”

“Mollie, you’re not getting behind a wheel.”

“I look worse than I feel.” She knew she was white-faced, her eyes sunken, her mascara smudged. With her low-cut dress, there was no hiding the marks on her neck. Why couldn’t the thief have stolen her handbag? She could feel rage roaring to the surface, but banked it back down.

“This isn’t about you, it’s about me and everyone else who doesn’t want you on the road right now. Indulge us.”

“You just want to grill me about the thief,” she said, not willing to give in no matter how much she knew he and the manager both made sense.

“Believe whatever you need to believe. It just doesn’t make sense to drive, not when there’s an alternative.”

“I know,” she said reluctantly. “But I’ll be back up to snuff in the morning.”

“Of course you will.”

She shot him a look, but immediately saw he wasn’t being patronizing, just simply stating his belief. She’d be okay in the morning. She could drive, she could make her own decisions without the influence of adrenaline, a touch of alcohol, not enough food. To her surprise, Jeremiah’s quiet confidence helped ease some of the tension that still had her in its grip.

They went outside—the air warm, cooler gusts coming in off the water. Limousines and expensive cars rolled up in long lines, depositing ball-goers in their elegant clothes and glittering jewels. Mollie didn’t regret her decision not to stay. She wanted to be alone, sitting out on her deck listening to the crickets and the palm trees in the evening breeze.

They spoke little on the short drive to Leonardo’s house. Mollie just sank into the ratty truck seat, staring at the lizard food Post-it on the glove compartment. She really knew nothing about this man. Nothing at all. Except she was glad he was driving her home, not some nameless security guard from the hotel.

“I’ll wait until you’re inside,” he said, stopping at her driveway. “Griffen left before you were attacked. If you know where she and Deegan are, maybe she can come stay with you.”

She nodded, suddenly exhausted, and climbed down out of the truck, her legs wobbly. She tapped in the code on the keypad outside the gates, grateful for Leonardo’s elaborate security system. It was dark now, the truck headlights on. As the gates opened, she went to Jeremiah’s open window. Her throat was tight, her head spinning. “It was no accident I was the victim tonight, was it? Even if I hadn’t been wearing that necklace, the thief was gunning for me. I think—” She swallowed, trying to make sense out of the flashes of memory, the bits and pieces of information all vying for attention. “I think the thief was lying in wait. The dinging of the elevator…that was just to throw off the police.”

The truck’s interior lights and the angle of the streetlight cast Jeremiah’s face into shifting, eerie shadows, his eyes darkened, his straight, hard mouth unyielding. “Mollie—”

She didn’t let him finish. She was too keyed up with her own theories. “But I don’t
know
that. I just—” She exhaled. “Why me? Especially when I’m the only ‘common denominator’ you have.”

“Don’t try to make sense of it tonight,” he said. “Look at it in the morning.”

“He could have been at the party and seen me in the necklace, then slipped out after I went to the ladies’ room and waited for me…”

“Mollie, at this point anything’s possible.”

Her head shot up. “Including that I’m the thief? That I did this to myself?”

He sighed. “No. I really don’t believe that’s possible.”

“But you considered it,” she said.

“I consider everything.”

His matter-of-factness, his truthfulness, had calming effect on her. In her frazzled state, she would have reacted strongly to even a hint of condescension or lying. “Fair enough. I should go on up now.”

“The hotel will be here any minute with Leonardo’s car. Why don’t I stay and handle that for you?”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “I’d appreciate that. And—well, you might as well come upstairs when you’re finished. We both missed dinner. I’ll fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

“Mollie—”

She glanced back at him as she headed inside the gates. “You’re not hungry?”

The truck hadn’t moved. “You don’t have to fix me a sandwich, Mollie.”

“It’ll give me something to do. I’m ready to jump out of my skin as it is. It’s just as easy to make two sandwiches as one.” She smiled, already feeling better. “And I’m more likely to throw up if I
don’t
eat something.”

“Well, then,” he drawled, and she heard his beat-up old truck grind into gear, “by all means, fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

7

T
hey ate sandwiches at the kitchen table. Turkey and lettuce on sourdough with pickles on the side. Although she knew she needed to eat, Mollie’s stomach had turned midway through fixing them. “I wonder what they’re having at the ball,” she said. She’d thrown a sweatshirt over her dress to ease a sudden chill; she’d deal with her bruised, raw neck later, after Jeremiah left. “I could have made it through dinner if they were having something good.”

But she could only get halfway through her sandwich. Her stomach clamped down. Nerves. Jeremiah finished off her second half while he stood up and rummaged in her freezer. Without a word, he got out a tray of ice, set it on the counter, found a dish towel, dumped most of the ice in it, tied it up, and handed it over to Mollie. “Put this on your neck. First aid stuff in the bathroom?”

“The hall bathroom,” she said, pointing.

He withdrew down the hall. She could hear him rattling around in the medicine cabinet. She didn’t have much by way of first-aid necessities. A box of Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, aspirin, a thermometer. She’d been blissfully healthy since her arrival in south Florida.

Jeremiah returned with a tube of antibiotic ointment and a dampened face cloth. “You want to do this or shall I? I’ve had basic first aid, but I haven’t had to use it since I dropped my turtle in the kitchen sink while I was cleaning his cage.”

“I’ll do it.”

She took the face cloth first and gently wiped off her neck, which didn’t sting when she touched it nearly as much as she’d anticipated. That finished, Jeremiah squeezed out some of the ointment on her finger, and she dabbed it on.

“You need a mirror—you’ve missed a couple of spots,” he said, and proceeded to squeeze goo on his own finger, then dab it onto her neck. His touch was gentle, functional, but still sent warm, welcome tremors through her. “I’d leave it uncovered.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks. I guess I know a little of what it feels like to be garroted.”