Wild Ride: A Changing Gears Novel (12 page)

“Oh. Thanks.”

He walked over and laid it carefully over the swollen knee, bending it into place, but careful not to touch her flesh with his bare hand. Then he backed away. “Can I get you a soda or something?”

“I don’t have any soda in the house.”

“Oh. Some water? Tea?”

She smiled a little. “Thanks. I’m fine.” She looked at him as he retreated to the entrance to her bedroom, half his body inside the room and the other half still in the hall.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

She looked a little wary but scrunched herself up higher on the pillows and put her book aside. She closed the cover and flipped it to its back before placing it on her night table, but not before he’d made out one word in the title: addiction. “Well, it’s not like I have a lot else to do. What’s on your mind?”

He decided to ease into this conversation sideways, so he asked, “How’s your cousin coping since the murder?”

“You work in the same building—wouldn’t you know best?”

“I only see her when she has her public face on. I thought you might know
more.”

Gillian’s laugh was low and bitter. “It’s not like we’re the best of friends. I turned to her for help and she called the cops.”

“Maybe she was worried about you.”

She shrugged and he saw her hands clasp tightly together. “Maybe.”

“How did you get the black eye, Gillian?”

She blinked rapidly, twice. “I was angry. Upset. I walked into the door and fell down the steps.”

And he was the First Lady. “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me the truth.”

“You can’t help me anyway.” She sounded so defeated.

He took a step into the room and then another and sat gingerly on a wicker chair upholstered in pale blue. Everything was neat, clean, orderly. “Try me.”

He couldn’t lead her. She needed to tell him her story herself. Her gaze connected briefly with his and then away. “I don’t think so.”

“You asked me to believe you last night. I did. Why not give me another shot?”

He spoke gently, leaning forward in a casual pose and resting his elbows on his parted knees so his hands slipped between them. Since he’d seen the black eye last night, and the way she was fleeing town, a lot of things had fallen into place. But he couldn’t put words into her mouth. This had to come from her. He was good and sure it was her bastard ex who’d hurt her but until she went on record and admitted to spousal abuse, he couldn’t touch the guy.

Besides, although in his gut he knew it was Eric, he also had to clear her of any involvement with a recently murdered drug dealer. There was an outside chance that he was wrong and her supplier had decked her when she couldn’t pay her bill. That they’d fought and she’d killed him. He didn’t believe that’s what had happened, but he’d like to clear her so everyone in town could believe her.

He glanced around. “You do a better job keeping things clean than I do.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a lot else to do.” She shrugged. “I’ll be moving out soon, anyway. We have to sell the house for the divorce.”

“It’s a nice house. Don’t you want to stay?”

She shrugged again. “Can’t afford it.”

She seemed so lonely, sitting here in a too-clean house with a reference book that couldn’t be a great escapist read for someone with her history. “Why don’t you get a job?”

“Who’d hire me? Come on.” She stared at him, one gorgeous eye so big and sad, the other half shut and badly bruised. “I know what everyone says. I’m a screw-up. A junkie. Unreliable, com—”

“So prove them wrong.”

Her mouth was still half open and she didn’t bother to close it. “How? I tried to volunteer at the library, but after last night, I doubt Alex will have me back.”

“Maybe you could start your own business.”

“You make it sound so easy. But I think I need to get a paying job. I have no capital to start a business, and no ideas anyway. I’m moving into my grandparents’ place temporarily. But eventually we’ll have to sell that, too. It’s half Alex’s. I’m going to have to support myself.”

It wasn’t his affair so he kept his mouth shut. But he wondered why she was so short of money. Forrest Art and Antiques seemed busy, and there was the stipend from Eric’s gig as councilor. Eric Munn was probably doing pretty well for this part of the world. They didn’t have kids or go on expensive vacations. He was going to have to have a chat with the bank manager real soon.

Things weren’t adding up here, and there was one obvious reason why there wasn’t enough money. Oh, hell. He couldn’t dance around the subject. He decided to come right out and say what was on his mind.

“Gillian, if you have a drug problem, there are programs—”

A scream of such frustration howled out of the slim body on the bed that he felt for a moment as though he’d stumbled into a scene from The Exorcist.

Her head didn’t spin off her shoulders, but she leaped off the bed, wincing as her sore leg hit the ground and said, “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Test me. I want the full range of tests. Right now. I am so sick of this.”

“Hey,” he said rising from the girl chair and wishing he were miles away in a place that smelled of beer and sweat and guys were telling dirty jokes. A place he understood. “I’m trying to help.”

“You said you believed me last night.”

“I did believe you. You weren’t drunk. Doesn’t mean you don’t have a drug problem.”

She turned to him and anger crackled all around her. “I am clean and sober!” She stormed as fast as her ungainly, limping gait would allow her to her dressing table, yanked out a drawer, and threw something at him.

She had terrible aim but he was a pretty good catcher. He blinked at the small, round disk in his hand. “What is this?”

“A progress pin from AA. And I’m almost at two years with Narcotics Anonymous.”

He glanced up at her and she was standing there, flushed and half angry, half hopeful. Suddenly he saw how difficult this must be for her, to ask a stranger to believe in her. But he knew those closest to her didn’t. Sure, she could be cheating AA and NA. She wouldn’t be the first.

But once, long ago, she’d given him a break. They’d shared a few fumbling kisses. Fumbling, because he was so excited to be touching her and so eager that she not think him foolish that of course he bungled the whole thing. Their teeth crunched, his nose struck hers so hard he made her eyes water and he’d been so eager to stick his tongue down her throat she’d almost choked to death. After he’d drawn back, she’d touched his face as though he’d made the earth move for her.

Instead of laughing at him or telling him where to go, she’d stroked his cheek and told him she’d leave her window open every night for a week. And he should climb up and visit her. The hottest girl in the world was asking him to come and have sex with her.

She’d offered him heaven and he’d been too scared to climb up there. So frightened it was a big joke and he’d be a laughingstock among her girlfriends. A girl like her? Known to be so experienced and into sex, what would she want with him? Probably the only guy his age who was still a virgin.

Now she was asking him to believe her. Begging him with her eyes, and he needed to give her that.

Because at the end of that week of torture, of gazing up at her window and wishing he was man enough to make the climb, she was the one who’d climbed out that window and down the tree at dawn, not him.

She’d left home.

He looked her straight in her good eye. “Congratulations on two years of sobriety,” he said.

Her smile made her beautiful, so he didn’t even notice the black eye.
“Thank you for believing in me,” she said, and tottered over to give him a hug.

He didn’t want a hug. He wanted to be eighteen and climbing the tree.
She stepped into his arms and snugged up tight and he dropped a kiss on her hair. As he’d hoped, surprise made her look up at him, and he took advantage of the posture by kissing her lips.

After a quiet gasp of shock, she eased right into the kiss. This time their teeth didn’t grind. His nose didn’t rearrange hers. His tongue went nowhere near her tonsils.

This time he wasn’t a bundle of nerves warring with an overload of eager testosterone. This time he was easy with her, more interested in giving than taking. This time, they fit.

He’d expected lust to blast through him when he kissed her and that happened, but something else happened. She wasn’t throwing herself at him like the wildcat he remembered. She was hesitant. Her lips trembled against his. In fact, she trembled all over.

Tenderness washed over him and he gentled his mouth, loosened his grip on her.

“I’ve wanted you for half my life,” he admitted.

“But you didn’t come to me when I invited you.” She’d tipped her head so her forehead rested against his chest. Her voice came out muffled and he couldn’t see her face, only the fall of blond hair down his front.

It wasn’t easy for him to admit the truth, but he figured he had a small window of opportunity here to get this right. A little honesty wouldn’t kill him. “I was scared.”

She chuckled, still not looking up. “Scared of me? No one’s ever been scared of me.”

“You’re wrong.” His fingers traced patterns on her back, silly loopy patterns that kept a little more of him in contact with a little more of her. “I was terrified you’d laugh at me. I didn’t have much of a clue about what to do with a woman back then.”

Gillian sighed and wrapped her arms around his middle. “I’m feeling scared right now.”

He was puzzled. Was she still talking about them getting naked together or was she onto a whole new subject, like who gave her the black eye and why. He knew that as an officer of the law he should be delighted if she was about to give him any kind of clue as to what was going on around here.

But the raging teenager who still lived somewhere inside of him had a one-track mind. He only cared about the getting-naked part. And what came after. “What are you scared of?” It couldn’t be the sex. Why, she’d practically invented the act.

She pressed her forehead harder against him, as though trying to hide. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

Ready or not, he thought, here I come. But not while she was battered and bruised, and absolutely not in the home she’d shared with Eric.

“Come on,” he said, walking her gently toward the bed.

She hesitated and the glance she sent him was part panic, part desire. He was going to have to rid her of the first emotion and overwhelm her with the second. Very soon, but not today.

“I’m putting you back to bed where you belong. With an ice pack.”

She laughed softly, but he heard a measure of relief in the
sound. “That’s not very romantic.”

“Wait until you’re recovered, lady. Then you’ll see romance.”

He helped her onto the bed, wincing when she clamped her lips together as her knee bent. When he’d bunched those absurd mini-pillows behind her, he picked up the ice pack from the floor and resettled it, then dropped a quick kiss on her lips.

There was a phone by her bed, and he scribbled his cell number on the pad of paper beside it. “That number reaches me day or night.”

“Thank you.”

“When are you moving?”

She glanced at her knee. “Next Saturday.”

“You can’t move out of this house soon enough for me.”

Duncan strolled into Forrest Art and Antiquities mid-morning when the place was empty and he was certain the owner, Eric Munn, was on the premises. A bell tinkled merrily as he walked into the kind of place where you could buy sterling flatware, delicate china and antique furniture as well as vintage jewelry.

But the glory of Forrest Art and Antiquities was displayed on the walls. Paintings and prints hanging so close together on the walls that if you squinted each wall looked like a page from a stamp collector’s album.

“Can I help you?” a mousy young woman asked Duncan.

He replaced the ornate silver fork into the faded and worn blue velvet lining of the walnut box where a twelve-piece setting of sterling cutlery resided. Late Victorian. Circa 1890, read the hand-lettered card bearing the Franklin Forrest Art and Antiques logo.

Duncan smiled at the woman in her navy skirt and white blouse, sensible pumps. Her face was pleasant rather than pretty and her brown hair was pulled back in some kind of bun.

She looked as though she should be around the corner working at the library, and he suspected that were the women to swap places, Alex would have sales of antiques skyrocketing.

“I’m interested in paintings,” Duncan said, not bothering to keep his voice lowered since he was the only customer in the shop.

As he’d hoped, his loud pronouncement flushed Eric from a back room. “I thought that was your voice,” Alex’s former cousin-in-law said with false pleasure, putting out a hand to shake. “First time in the store?”

“Yes,” Duncan lied. It was the first time during office hours. He’d had a good snoop late one night and found nothing more interesting than a large commercial safe which contained a few hundred in cash and the smaller, expensive pieces that were displayed for sale during opening hours, such as an ancient burial mask from the Salish tribe, some sterling, and the best of the estate jewelry.

The art on the walls was decent, priced a little on the high side. He suspected that Franklin Forrest had picked up most of the works on display. He saw some of the same artists the man had displayed in his own home.

“We don’t have much to tempt an art professor,” said Eric with his glossy politician’s smile, “but I’m proud of this one. I bought it as part of an estate.”

He led Duncan to a small landscape. “What do you think?”

Duncan obligingly leaned closer and spent a minute contemplating the painting as though he’d never seen it before. If the price weren’t so inflated, and he didn’t hold an aversion to Eric, he might have been interested. “Anna Hills. Looks to be from the twenties, painted in California en plein air style. I love her work.”

The oil wasn’t large, measuring about twelve by fourteen inches, but the colors drew him, and the stylized trees against the water. “Very nice.”

“We’re open to offers,” Eric said cheerfully, sending a wink to the mousy assistant who’d followed them.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Duncan. “I love the American Impressionists, though I really prefer the Europeans. Gauguin, Monet—have any of those lying around?”

The three of them shared a polite laugh.

“My true favorite is Van Gogh.”

Was it his imagination or did Eric’s politico grin morph into a shark’s grimace? “We don’t get many of those around here.”

Duncan let a beat pass. “You never know when a buried treasure will turn up.”

There was a moment of absolute silence when he could hear the sonorous ticking of a two-century-old grandfather clock, almost feel the dust motes suspended in the suddenly thick atmosphere. Then Eric said, “Well, the Hills isn’t going anywhere. Come on back anytime.”

“I’ll do that,” said Duncan, and turning to the woman who’d first helped him, he said, “and while I’m here, I’d like to buy a small gift for a woman I’m seeing. I thought I saw a display case over there with some jewelry?”

He didn’t look at Eric, but he’d delivered his second message. In case Eric was in any doubt, he wanted it known that Duncan and Alex were more than librarian and patron.

He already knew what he wanted to buy her. He’d seen the platinum and onyx art deco earrings before. Sleek, geometric, and, like Alex, they managed to be both wild and elegant.

He followed the assistant—Sheri, according to her name tag—to a locked display case of assorted watches, jewelry, and pricey little knickknacks.

“The deco earrings,” he said, pointing.

She unlocked the case and passed them to him. He studied them in the light and nodded.

As he was paying, Eric walked behind the counter. “I’ll wrap them for you,” he said to his assistant. From her glance of surprise, this wasn’t his usual behavior.

“They’ll look beautiful on Alex,” Eric said as he wrapped the box in gold paper. “And are a better choice for her than, say, a heavy necklace.” His gaze flicked to Duncan’s.

“You wouldn’t want anything to disguise that fantastic beauty mark.” He didn’t mention the word breast in front of Sheri, but he passed his fingers over his left chest, exactly in the location of Alex’s mole.

Duncan didn’t think of himself as the jealous type. But at the words—and worse, the sly expression that accompanied them—he experienced a burning urge to knock this man’s too-white teeth down his throat.

He hung on to his composure while Eric tied gold ribbon into a bow and slipped the package into a brown paper bag with the store’s logo printed on it.

The man was scum and trying to cause trouble, Duncan told himself. But even as he sauntered out the door as though his blood weren’t pounding against his temples, he knew he’d also been sent an unwelcome message. That Eric had seen Alex’s naked breasts. There was no way that mole would be revealed by clothing, not even the skimpiest bathing suit.

At the thought of that dickhead with his hands on Alex’s naked body, Duncan wanted to go kick something. Hard.

The bell tinkled once more as he left as though laughing at him. As he strode down the sidewalk, he tried to convince himself that the Alex he knew wouldn’t sleep with her cousin’s husband, not even once they’d broken up. For all her wild clothes, and even wilder sex drive, he sensed she had a strong moral core.

Unlike Eric.

He’d probably seen pictures of the two as little girls in the bathtub together in Gill’s photo albums, that’s how he knew about the mole.
Since Duncan had dropped hints as subtle as a meteor shower, Eric was scrambling to fight back.

Well, Duncan wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of causing trouble between Alex and him. He wouldn’t say a word to her.

Since she’d let him know she’d be out tonight at a Friday night birthday dinner with some women friends, he’d agreed to meet her at her place around midnight.
He grabbed some takeout and once home, decided to use the anger burning his gut for something useful. He pulled out one of his enlarged photocopies of the black-and-white photo of the missing Van Gogh.
He tacked the blurry photocopy to the wall above the table which was his temporary desk and rapidly prepared paints, brush, and easel. He dove in with enough emotional intensity for any tortured artist.

The black-and-white photo taunted him with its lifelessness. Van Gogh would have hated the idea of his colorful paintings being reduced to shades of gray. A line from one of the anguished artist’s letters popped into Duncan’s mind.
Trying to render intense color and not a gray harmony,
he’d written to his brother Theo.

Ironically, all that remained of
Olive Trees and Farmhouse
was this gray corpse of a photograph. But Duncan imagined those flowers there would be yellow, the bright, pitiless yellow the painter loved so much. And the tree in the foreground a sun-scorched, muted sage.

Duncan would never be an artist—he’d accepted that. He had technical proficiency but no elusive spark of genius, but he could draw and he’d learned a great deal about art by mimicking the best. At first his dad had held out hope he’d become a forger, but he’d let the family down again, using his talent only to help him recreate the colors of stolen pictures.

This painting had been done in the late summer of 1889 in the south of France. The light would be heavy and golden.

While he worked, he hoped his subconscious mind would also get to work. It wasn’t simply a search anymore. Since Plotnik had been left in the library like a sordid bookmark, it seemed the search for the Van Gogh was also a race. Accepting the unspoken challenge only sharpened his competitive drive.

He was interrupted once, by the phone. He grabbed his cell quickly but saw it wasn’t Alex’s number. A local one, though. “Forbes,” he said.

“It’s Tom Perkins.”

“Sergeant.”

“It’s Tom when I’m not on duty. Listen, tomorrow’s forecast is for dry weather and sunny skies. What say we climb?”

Even as he agreed he didn’t think for one second that Sergeant Tom wasn’t on duty.

He painted until almost eleven, then cleaned up and took a shower.

It was time to check in with one of his unwilling partners in this mission. He picked up the phone, calculated time differences. Friday night in Swiftcurrent, Oregon was Saturday morning in London. He placed a call to a London suburb crawling with row houses, factories, and Uncle Simon.

“Simon?” He said loud and cheerfully when an old man’s grumpy voice answered. “It’s Duncan Forbes.”

“What in bloody hell time do you call this then?” the crotchety voice complained.

He grinned, pleased with his timing. Early enough to wake the old buzzard and before he got going on the booze or out bookmaking for the horse races. “Sorry, I must have miscalculated. How are you?”

“My back’s bent like a bleedin’ corkscrew, I’ve got bunions, and my head aches. What do you want?”

Simon and Duncan’s dad had been business associates for years. Neither had yet recovered from the fact that Duncan had gone straight. To add insult to injury, he’d developed a fascination for art and antiques at his father’s knee, and now spent his life getting back the very treasures that men like his dad and Simon stole.

But, somehow, they’d developed a grudging respect for each other. Duncan would no more turn his father and uncle or their friends over to the law than he’d saw off his own leg. But the balance to that equation was that he was given information when he asked for it. And Simon, the fence, had worldwide connections.

His daily business was carried out in a jumble stall in Petticoat Lane, where it was famously known one could lose a wallet at the beginning of the lane and buy it back at the end. Simon sold a lot of second-string antiques and collectibles to tourists. His undeclared, and far more lucrative, income came from fencing the goods that men like Duncan’s father stole. Simon was one of the best.

While he was less than thrilled when Duncan got involved in recovering recent thefts, Uncle Simon never minded getting a cut of the finder’s fee.

He was also paranoid about getting caught and imprisoned, so Duncan had learned to be circumspect in their communications. “Heard any more about our friend Vinny?” he asked his Uncle.

“No, lad, not since the last time he wrote.”

“I’m out here at the address you gave me, and some of his friends from L.A. dropped by.”

“I heard. Sorry to hear one passed on. They’re no friends of Vinny’s or yours,” Simon warned.

“Do you think Vinny’s moved? Maybe there’s a new address?”

“Dunno. That’s the last I heard of him. The old bloke had been in touch.”

“Well, the old bloke died. No one else has Vinny’s address.”

“If the fellows from Los Angeles are there, you leave it to them. They’ll find him, all right.” In other words, back off.

Duncan was frustrated, but not surprised. There were no new rumors about the Van Gogh. Nobody looking to sell, and Mendes was still on the trail.

“You’ve got my number. I’ll be here a couple of months. Call me if you hear anything.”

“You take my advice. Pack up and go on home. Or come home and visit the family. I’ve got a nice Chagall etching you might like.”

“Did it come in the front door?”

A heavy sigh. “Of course.”

“Hang on to it for me. I can’t leave yet. There’s a woman involved.”

A long suffering sigh. “Isn’t there always? You watch your back, son.”

“I will. Say hello to Dad.”

Ending the call, he grabbed the earrings he’d bought Alex and headed out. It had been sixteen hours or so since he’d last heard her crying out beneath his thrusting body. It seemed like a century.

As he’d promised, he was at her place by five to midnight. He saw her light and knew she was home. Eric’s snide insinuation wormed its way into his brain and he forced it out.

She sounded breathless when she answered the intercom.

“Hi,” he said, feeling breathless himself. “What are you wearing?”

“The dress I wore to dinner.”

“That’s a problem.” A chilly breeze brushed the back of his hair as he stood outside talking on the intercom phone.

“Why is it a problem?”

“I bought you something to wear. I guess you’ll have to get naked.”

A beat passed. He felt her excitement, imagined the expression on her face. “Take the stairs instead of the elevator. I’ll be ready when you get here.”

He took the stairs, all right, but he ran, a shade embarrassed at his eagerness. He’d had lots of sex with lots of women, but no one had ever made him so absurdly eager before.

He knocked on her door and heard the deadbolt click back and then the door opened half an inch. “Duncan?” she whispered through the opening.

“Are you naked?” he whispered back, pressing his mouth to the crack in the door.

For answer, she pulled the door the rest of the way open, hiding herself behind it.

He entered her apartment, the small package from the antique store clutched behind his back. It was dim inside, with only a small lamp from the living room lighting the place.

He eyed her naked body. “How is it that every time I see you, you’re more beautiful?” Her shoulders were so creamy, the arms so finely muscled, and her breasts would make a sculptor weep. Round and full, the tips rosy and tight, growing tighter as he stood staring at her, so her beauty mark stood out in relief, taunting him.