Death of a Pirate King - lanyon Josh - Страница 28

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I had this sudden Ebenezer Scrooge moment. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Maybe Lisa was right. Maybe I had grown hard, bitter. In any case, I seemed fresh out of the milk of human kindness.

I said, “He showed up here deliberately, Guy. He was challenging me, letting me know he was back, staking his claim.”

A look of distaste crossed Guy’s face.

I said, “Yeah, it is very high school. I agree. And we’re both too old for this shit.”

“I think you may have misinterpreted --”

I laughed. Shook my head. “I didn’t misinterpret anything. He wants you back, and he wanted me to know that. He believes you still have feelings for him -- and I’m not so sure you don’t.”

“I told you at the start there was nothing…serious between Peter and me. That is to say, I’m fond of him, I consider him a friend, and I want to see to him through this…difficult time. He needs someone, Adrien.”

I need someone, I thought. But what I said was, “And you need to be needed?”

“Everyone needs to be needed,” Guy answered succinctly. “Even you.” He replaced the pirate coin in its place on the bookshelf.

When I didn’t respond, he asked quietly, “Are you asking me to choose between you?”

I’d been massaging my temples against what felt like a looming headache. Migraine. Brain cloud. I looked up. “Wow. I guess I didn’t realize it would be that tough a choice. No, I’m not asking you to choose.”

“What does that mean?”

I gave a helpless laugh. “Damned if I know. I think…we seem to have reached impasse. I feel betrayed by your friendship with Verlane. I realize that’s not logical. I realize that if I’d made the mistakes Verlane has made, I’d want my friends to stand by me, hope that someone would help me when the time came. I just…”

“What?”

I met his eyes. “I just need to come first for someone, Guy.”

He said, “Is it fair to ask for that when I don’t come first for you?”

Fair question. I’m not sure why it felt like I had suddenly run out of highway. I replied, “Probably not.”

Neither of us seemed to have anything to add.

At last he moved. “Maybe we both need some time.”

“Yes,” I said, and I rose, as though seeing a guest to the door.

We went out on the landing, I followed him down the stairs; saw him out the side door. He hesitated. I knew he was trying to decide if he should offer to give his key back. I didn’t want him to, but I couldn’t seem to make myself say anything.

He said, “I’ll call you.”

“I’ll be here,” I said.

And he smiled as though we both knew that wasn’t true.

* * * * *

“Morning,” I called as the glass door swung open with a cheerful jangle of bells.

“I will never understand men. Why can’t they just say what they want?” Natalie deposited the large pink box of pastries on the counter with strudel-smooshing force.

I glanced up from the register. “What’s that mean?”

“That!” She jabbed her finger at my nose. “That look. That’s exactly what I mean. It’s like you think it’s a trick question.”

“It is a trick question,” I said, “because if we just tell you what we want, you won’t like the answer. And then it will be loud and messy and take up a lot of time we don’t have.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Lisa asked you to talk to me about Warren, didn’t she?”

“God, no.” I opened the pastry box. “Is it somebody’s birthday?” Hopefully not hers -- or anyone else’s I was now related to.

She said huffily, “I thought I would like a doughnut this morning.”

I blinked. “There must be twenty-four doughnuts here.”

“Twenty-eight. You get two free ones with each dozen. Have one. Anyway, they’re not all doughnuts.”

“I see that.” There was quite a nice selection of baked goods. I took a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. “I thought carbs were out this month?”

“I don’t give a damn about carbs,” Natalie said viciously, and I raised my eyebrows, before returning hastily to counting out the register.

We always do a brisk business on Saturdays, and that day was no exception. In between helping customers -- which she did charmingly -- Natalie brooded and somehow managed to eat four doughnuts, two cheese Danishes, a cinnamon pecan roll, and a bear claw.

“I’d offer to take you to lunch,” I said when twelve o’clock rolled around, “but I’m afraid you’ll explode.”

“We can’t close the store anyway,” she said. She fastened me with a darkling eye -- well, as darkling as a blue-eyed blonde who looks like a Ralph Lauren model can get. “This is why we need some help in here, especially since you’re busy out sleuthing half the time.”

“We’re going to get some help,” I promised. “And it’s not like I’m going to continue sleuthing --”

“So you are on a case!” she said triumphantly. “I knew the minute I heard about that murder at Paul Kane’s mansion. I knew it.”

I’d been so busy brooding over Guy and the situation with Peter Verlane I’d walked right into that one. I said, “You make it sound more organized than it is. I just agreed to ask a few people some questions, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell you right now, the wife did it,” Natalie said.

“That seems to be the consensus of opinion. Why do you think she did it?”

“Well, for starters, did you see him? He was old enough to be her father. And he looked like a frog.”

“Yeah, but love is blind,” I said.

“No, it’s not!” she scoffed. “Not for girls like her.”

Now this was interesting. The feminine perspective. “What do you mean, girls like her?”

She made an exasperated little clucking sound. “Adrien. She is a total bimbo.”

“Hey, bimbos have feelings too,” I said. “Look at Anna Nicole Smith.”

She just shook her head.

“Okay,” I said, “but Anna Nicole Smith didn’t knock her elderly husband off. So why take that risk -- especially when the wife is always the immediate suspect?”

“Maybe she couldn’t wait.”

“Why wouldn’t she be able to wait?”

Natalie shrugged. I thought it was an interesting point, though. What if there was some time factor involved? Like…what if Ally’s lover had given her some kind of ultimatum? Or what if she was pregnant again? Or what if Porter -- as Paul Kane had hinted -- was planning to change his will?

I said, “But why do it in such a public way? Why not just arrange a quiet little accident?”

“Maybe she didn’t know how. Or maybe she thought someone else would be blamed.”

I stared at her. She had something there, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Would Ally have any reason to believe someone else would be suspected before her in her husband’s death?

Natalie said, “That detective in charge of the case: is he your Jake?”

My mouth dried. The words felt arid and dusty as I forced them out. “Who told you his name?” Like I had to ask.

“Lisa pointed him out on television the other night, and I recognized him as one of the cops who was in here the other day.”

I opened my mouth, and then shut it. Jake had to know he was fighting a rearguard action. And I was through lying to my own friends and family. “Yeah,” I said. “We used to be friends. A long time ago. He’s married now.”

“Bastard,” she said.

I shook my head. “Not really. He never lied to me. I just didn’t ask the questions I didn’t want to know the answers to.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t always known this was the truth, but as I it said aloud, I absorbed that I was finally able to accept it without being angry at myself or Jake.

Natalie went to lunch, came back, and I spent my break surfing the Web finding out what I could on Langley Hawthorne. It was mostly a tangent. I started out doing some more searching into Nina’s background, but a couple of references to Hawthorne’s accidental death diverted my attention.

There wasn’t as much information as I would have expected. Despite his wealth and his interest in movies and moviemaking, Hawthorne had kept a low profile. His relationship with his daughter was apparently always a stormy one, but he had doted on her. When he died, she inherited the bulk of his fortune.

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