The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2)

by Nicole French

  A few white lies here and there, okay.

  But the coveting. Yeah, by far, the coveting was the worst.

  I hadn’t exactly slipped back into my old ways that involved too many one-night stands with too many taken ladies. It was because even now, two and a half months since I’d last seen her, Nina de Vries was still stuck in my mind and my heart, right where I knew she’d probably stay until I took my last breath.

  Okay, so even that wasn’t totally true. Because like a maniac, I couldn’t help but stalk her a bit. I was like a junkie who needed just a little hit to get through the day. I’d justified it by telling myself her building needed to be watched. Her husband was a suspect, and Derek was busy enough.

  It was how I knew that, like always, she spent most of her time alone in her penthouse apartment.

  It was how I knew that her daughter, the little blonde girl with sun-kissed skin and dark, brooding eyes, had come home for exactly a week this summer before leaving again (I was guessing for camp).

  It was how I knew that Nina spent most days and nights alone at that apartment, waiting for someone to come find her.

  God, I wished it could have been me.

  She must have known I was there. Why else would she linger outside her building, chatting up her doorman for several minutes longer than necessary when she returned from the gym or some ladies’ lunch? Or turn suddenly to gaze up and down the street, lingering on parked cars or the street’s shadows with the intensity of a hawk scouting its prey? Though I knew she couldn’t possibly see me from where I sat in the back of a cab or under the awning of the building across the street, I knew she felt me, just like I felt her, as immediate and sensory as the wind on my cheek or the hum of the subway beneath my feet.

  “Fuck,” I mumbled, momentarily forgetting where I was.

  The woman in front of me, who looked maybe ten years older, but maybe a little too overdressed for confession, gave me a dirty look over her shoulder. I almost said something, but was interrupted by a text.

  Jane Lefferts: Got plans in a few days? We’re hosting a big party up at the house on Long Island. Come be the only other normal person there with me?

  I smiled. Jane de Vries, still listed as Lefferts in my phone, was a good friend from way back. We hadn’t talked much since the terrible night her husband had shot John Carson point blank in the middle of their apartment—while the guy was holding Jane hostage. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to anyone either if that had happened to me. It was pretty damn impressive that she was feeling good enough these days to host a party.

  Me: How very Great Gatsby of you. Are you dressing up like Daisy?

  Her reply chimed almost immediately.

  Jane Lefferts: Ha ha. Only if Daisy has a bunch of magenta streaks in her hair.

  I chuckled. Jane would never fit in with the ice cream cones that inhabited the Hamptons, but that was part of why I liked her. She walked to the beat of her own drum, just like I did.

  Before I could answer, she texted again.

  Jane Lefferts: Seriously, tho. Last year’s white party was such a damn disaster. Now Eric’s entertaining investor peeps, and I’ll go insane without one normal friend there.

  I hovered my thumb over my screen. I shouldn’t ask. I had to ask. No, I shouldn’t.

  Fuck you, you big pussy. Just ask.

  After all, it was my job. Wasn’t it?

  Me: Are the Gardners going to be there?

  The three little dots appeared on the screen and seemed to hover indefinitely. Then:

  Jane Lefferts: Nina maybe? But prob not Calvin. Eric still isn’t feeling the most forgiving toward him.

  I smirked. Yeah, if I suspected a family member of landing me in jail, I wouldn’t be too welcoming either.

  I could go. I had a reason, and if Calvin wasn’t around, I wasn’t technically breaking any rules. The line to the confessional shuffled forward, like it was reminding me to walk toward absolution instead of the Long Island beach and a leggy blonde who would probably look fuckin’ incredible sunbathing at a pool party.

  Shit. Nina.

  Just her name was a punch to the gut.

  The fact was, I missed her. The logical side of my brain wondered how I could miss someone I had barely spent any time with, but here I was, two months through a long, very dry spell with no end in sight. Summer was usually a time when women around the city let their hair down a little. They prowled the streets like cats in heat, and I was more than happy to take advantage. This year, however, going home with a new girl every weekend had about as much appeal as a weekly dentistry visit.

  The problem with trying the best chocolate in the world is that everything else tastes like shit after.

  And for a short time, I hadn’t just had a taste. I’d been consumed. Nina de Vries had ruined me for life.

  With a sigh, I punched in a quick response.

  Me: I don’t think so. I have a lot of work coming up. Probably not the best time to leave.

  Jane Lefferts: No worries. If you change your mind, the offer stands. All jokes aside, it should be nice.

  I sighed. Yeah, I bet it would be nice. The salty sea air, a cocktail in my hand, and Nina in a bikini? That didn’t sound nice. It sounded like paradise.

  Before I could contemplate and talk myself into it all over again, my phone buzzed, this time with a message from another number.

  Derek: Call me. We finally got a name change for Pantheon.

  I didn’t waste any time. On top of fighting with my conscience for the last two months, I’d also been fighting an uphill battle on the Gardner investigation. Everywhere we turned, there were roadblocks. It wasn’t just that we were running out of time to find witnesses to the trafficking we suspected him of doing. It was bureaucratic. Every record we requested on the guy, every paper trail we tried to follow, all of them were stymied again and again. Too often for there not to be some kind of motivating factor.

  The Delaware Chamber of Commerce had been the worst so far. Three times, I’d sent in requests for the name change associated with Pantheon. Two had been “lost,” and the other had only been done with the threat of a federal subpoena (they didn’t need to know we didn’t yet have any Feds willing to take the case). But even they couldn’t skirt us forever. We needed a breakthrough. Bad. I was really fuckin’ hoping this was it.

  “Yo,” Derek answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

  “Standing in line for confession.”

  “On a Saturday? I thought Sunday was the church day.”

  “It takes time to cleanse the soul, man. Especially when you’re a damn dirty sinner like me.”

  The middle-aged woman in front of me turned with a scowl. “This is a church!”

  “I apologize, ma’am,” I said with a tip of my head. “Obviously, I need to be here more than most, don’t I?”

  When I winked, her mouth dropped, and she turned back around, shuffling forward a step or two, as if she needed the extra space to protect herself from my sinning ways.

  “Are you done making trouble yet?” Derek asked on the other side of the line.

  I smirked. “For now. What’s the name?”

  “I don’t know if this will help. Kate Csaszar.”

  I frowned. “You look her up yet?”

  “Zola, you must really think I’m stupid.”

  “Sorry. I don’t think you’re stupid. You’re a fuckin’ champ, King. You’re the best detective I’ve ever met, and I bow to your investigative prowess, all right?”

  “Thanks, and go fuck yourself,” Derek said.

  “You’re very fuckin’ welcome,” I rejoined.

  The lady in front of me whirled back around with a hiss. “Language!”

  I grimaced and held one hand up in surrender. “I promise I’ll say an extra Hail Mary if it makes you feel any better, ma’am. At least I’m here, right?”

  She scowled hard enough that it made her look like a gargoyle, and I almost started laughing right there in the mi
ddle of the apse. Wouldn’t have been the first time I got kicked out of a church for bad behavior, but I had to admit, it had been a while since secondary school.

  “You’re a real ne’er-do-weller, aren’t you?” Derek said.

  “Terrible influence on God’s flock,” I agreed. “So what do you know about this Kate character?”

  “That’s the thing. Absolutely nothing. Cliff ran the name through a bunch of systems and even asked a friend at the Newark DMV to check it out. There’s a Katarina Csaszar listed on the 1990 census in Paterson, but I don’t know if that’s the same person, given the name difference. I think it’s a dead end, man.”

  I, however, did not. “That’s pretty close. She could have changed her name,” I said as I shuffled forward in line. “They sound Russian or something.”

  “Bulgarian, actually,” Derek said irritably. “I know how to google, Zo.”

  I ignored him. “Who else was on the census?”

  “Head of house was listed as Benjamin Vamos, forty-two. Household includes a Sara Berto, a few years younger, and another man, twenty, named Károly Kertész. Then Katarina, age one. But I checked with immigration. Sara went back to Hungary the next year and took the little girl with her. I’m telling you, man. It’s nothing.”

  I wasn’t buying it. “You by a computer?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Look up the names Berto and Csaszar in the social security database. Check for any name changes.”

  As I waited, I could hear the clicks of the keys under his fingers.

  “Nothing,” he said. “In New York or New Jersey.”

  I frowned. “How about the other kid? The boy. Kertész.”

  More keys.

  “Holy shit. Zola, you slick motherfucker. What do you have, a sixth sense for slime?”

  I might have smiled if I hadn’t known it to be true. After all, it takes one to known one. “What did you find?”

  “I still can’t—this is insane. Zola, in 1996, Károly Kertész changed his name to—get this—Calvin fucking Gardner. You asshole. You fucking nailed it.”

  “Fuck, yeah, I did!” I crowed, loud enough that the “fuck” bounced around the stone arches of the church like the tolls of its bell.

  “Shh!” This time it was several people in line hushing me, not just the witch in front.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I muttered to everyone. “I’ll keep it down, I promise.”

  “You should just leave!” hissed the gargoyle lady.

  “Tell it to the priest,” I snapped at her. Then, back to Derek as quietly as I could: “I knew it!”

  “All right, all right,” Derek said. “You figured that out. But we still don’t know who this Csaszar girl is and what happened to her. Is she Calvin’s sister? Are they related?”

  “Someone does,” I said. “And we’re going to figure out who. Calvin Gardner doesn’t keep his associates under wraps, and he isn’t smart enough not to tell at least someone he trusted with Pantheon. This thing was run by one of the richest, most powerful men in America. The others working with him know. Someone knows. These slimy uptown fucks all known each other’s business.”

  “So, what, you thinking a surveillance warrant?”

  I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “We got cause, and we’re under a tight deadline.”

  “Good. The fucker has just been holing up in his office all summer. He’s not doing shit right now—someone has been doing it for him.”

  “I got the extension on discovery, but we’re not getting more than another two months, no matter how much the judge hates Gardner’s lawyers. I think she’ll give us the warrant if we ask.”

  “Okay, but if she doesn’t?”

  I shrugged. “Keep following him, but we should focus more on known associates. Anyone who might be in his social circle, you know?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Derek, what?”

  “Zola, we need another way to figure this out.”

  “No,” I cut in. “No Feds. You know what’s going to happen. They’ll drown the whole damn case.”

  “I don’t mean that, asshole. I’m talking about…look, Cliff and I can follow Gardner all you want around the city, but we gotta be real. On the Upper East Side? We stick the fuck out.”

  He didn’t have to say what he meant by that. The Upper East Side was the whitest part of New York. And my detectives were definitely not.

  Shit. I shouldn’t. This was not a good idea.

  And yet somehow it was.

  “Well, I did just get an invite to a party in the Hamptons. Hosted by Eric de Vries. His wife asked me to be her plus-one because she said the party was going to be full of business types.”

  “Shit. You gotta go. All those assholes love jerking each other off.”

  “Yeah, but I figured Gardner might be there.”

  Liar. I wasn’t going because I knew she might be there.

  “Hmmm,” Derek said. “Look, if we had a bigger investigative team, I’d say stay away. But, it’s not against the law for you to attend a party.”

  I ground my teeth. “Yeah, but—”

  “Besides, I thought you said the family hated him ever since Eric got pinched.”

  I searched for another way, any way that we could possibly get this kind of information. But surveillance was hard enough when we could count the people we trusted on more than one hand. And it wasn’t going to get easier than this to poke around. See who knew what.

  Derek knew it too.

  “Zola, I’ll be straight with you. If there is any way you can nose around that party and find out who this chick is, it could potentially save this investigation a shit load of time,” he said. “Find out if Gardner’s going to be there or not. I think you need to get your ass on the Jitney, man.”

  I sighed. All sense of victory had suddenly morphed into fear, plain and simple. Not because I was worried about Calvin Gardner. Because I was worried about her. And the fact that when she was around, I couldn’t seem to control anything I did.

  But just as quickly, another landslide of questions rattled through me.

  How much did Nina know about her husband’s past identity?

  Was she aware of Pantheon’s existence?

  Did she know the name Katarina Csaszar?

  Maybe she had been trying to tell me these things the entire time. And I, of course, had blocked her out as a potential source completely, as much to protect my own hide as to protect hers. I had said it myself: the only way for her to evade spousal privilege was to name herself as an accomplice in the crimes.

  I hadn’t ever once considered that maybe she actually was one.

  I shook my head toward the apse to my right, where several rows of candles stood flickering in red votives, symbols of the prayers offered by parishioners for their loved ones. Gestures of faith, grace, and hope.

  No. I knew this woman. Knew her on a soul level. I had seen her with her daughter, watched her break bread with my family, worshipped her as she fell apart in my arms. There was no way Nina would ever be a part of a sick racket like this.

  But then again, there was only one way to find out for sure.

  “All right, man,” I said heavily. “I’ll do it.”

  We hung up. The line shuffled forward.

  “Fuck,” I muttered with each footstep. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Language!” The gargoyle reared back from her place in line, which was now next for the priest.

  My head snapped up. I hadn’t been in the mood for this before, and now I really didn’t give a shit about protecting these parishioners’ pretend-virgin ears. “Ma’am, with all due respect, go fuck yourself.”

  “Excuse me?” she hissed. “What did you just say to me?”

  “We’re both in line for the priest,” I cut back, ignoring the astonished looks behind me. “I’m pretty sure you aren’t any more of an angel than I am. So why don’t you focus a little more on your own fuckups and leave me to think about mine, all r
ight?”

  She opened and closed her mouth like a fish, and for a moment, looked like she wanted to punch me. Hell, I probably would have let her. With a comment like that, I probably deserved it.

  But I never promised anyone I was a nice guy. The best I could offer was saying sorry afterward. That was, after all, why I was here.

  Gargoyle lady apparently couldn’t bear my presence long enough for her weekly dose of absolution, however. She jumped right out of line and scurried out of the church, muttering something to herself in Spanish that I couldn’t make out. I was pretty sure it was no better than anything I’d said.

  The door to the confessional opened, and another parishioner stepped out, crossing himself. I took his place, for the eighth time in as many weeks. Sank to my knees, faced the screen, and ignored the smell of stale cedar and incense that threatened to consume me. This wouldn’t take long. After all, the priest already knew the story. I’d been telling the same one for weeks and weeks.

  About the woman I wanted but couldn’t have.

  The sins I’d committed but could never repent.

  The future I craved but could never produce.

  I could talk all I wanted, but I knew it wouldn’t save me. Because you can’t have grace without true repentance, and I could never truly regret anything Nina de Vries and I did together.

  Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. I’d keep coming back, going through the motions until something clicked.

  Except now that I knew I might see Nina in just a few days, I was pretty sure those motions were going to get about ten times harder.

  “Matthew,” droned the familiar voice of Father Deflorio. “Causing an unusual stir today, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, well. It’s an unusual day, Father.”

  There was a long sigh from the other side of the screen. “Why don’t you tell me about it, then?”

  I crossed myself and took a deep breath. “Sure, all right. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Or at least, I’m pretty sure I’m about to.”