He went to the bedside table, picked up his phone, glanced at the time. Odd—were they going somewhere? Did he have an appointment? Then he said, “Can I get dressed? And how about breakfast?” He shot a look at his grandmother that Delaney prayed would never be directed at her. “You’re buying.”
“Of course, darling. I’d like to hear those answers myself.”
Bemused—whatever Delaney had dreaded about the morning, she hadn’t expected this—Delaney went to find her clothes.
Forty-four
“First off, the friendly lady I met in Lake Como, and again in Venice, just happened to have a set of clothes in my size?”
They were seated at the hotel’s outdoor café, Rake with a Virgin Mary and Delaney with iced tea. Rake’s grandma had hot tea she fussed over (one and a half spoons of sugar, a splash of cream, just a splash, absolutely no lemon, and stir and stir and stir) but didn’t drink. If Delaney was right—and she’d been wrong about everything else this week—Rake’s grandma was embarrassed. Not about catching them postsex; she seemed positively thrilled about that. About the other. About setting spies on her grandson, then taking all his money.
Rake was shaking his head. “I assumed you’d hooked up with some stud in Italy. I was even a little jealous of your mystery guy.”
“I don’t do that,” Delaney said quietly, looking at her tea.
“No?” he teased.
“Well, okay, but believe it or not, I made an exception for you. You’re the stud in Italy.”
“O, glorious words, music to my ears.” He turned back to his grandmother. “Then there was this.” He showed them his phone. “This isn’t a used one that happens to be in incredible shape from eBay. My grandma knew exactly what kind I had and sent you exactly the right replacement.”
“We didn’t have to go to FedEx, though,” Delaney said quickly. “I really didn’t think you should have to wait for it to get to the hotel.”
“Sweet,” the nuclear option commented. When Delaney leveled her a look, she didn’t drop her gaze. “No, really. That was sweet. I knew you were a nice girl under all that bravado.”
Delaney snorted.
“And I don’t think I ever told you my last name,” Rake continued. “Maybe when I was shit-faced in Como—sorry, Nonna—but I don’t think so. You knew it, though. And when I called myself a millionaire, you weren’t surprised. You didn’t even blink. You knew I wasn’t an ordinary tourist, when all you were supposed to know was that I was some random idiot who pitched his wallet and woke up stranded in Venice.” He took something out of his pocket and looked at it. She realized with a start that it was her business card. He’d kept it? And looked at it quite a lot, judging by how worn it was.
He showed the card to Mrs. Tarbell and turned back to Delaney. “I. C. Delaney. I See Delaney. Not just seeing people. Seeing what they’re up to, good and bad. I must have seemed like everything you hate: a spoiled rich guy who never gave much thought to anyone who needed help.”
“No,” she choked out. “No.” Then, because it actually hurt to keep the truth from him, she elaborated. “At first. Yeah. But it didn’t last long. You couldn’t hide your essential wonderfulness.” She blinked. Man, falling in love shot her vocabulary to hell. And wasn’t it strange? Irony: She could finally tell him everything without breaking her word … and didn’t want to. Almost didn’t dare.
“It’s how I found her,” Mrs. Tarbell said, giving Rake back Delaney’s card. “She’s a special kind of private investigator—”
“No. I don’t even have a license.” Too much paperwork, too wide a trail. Too many questions she couldn’t answer.
“—and Teresa couldn’t recommend her enough.” And when they both stared at her: “Yes, I know Teresa. One of her little charges tried to steal my purse when I was here last summer. Ohhh, the scolding she gave that child! I slipped him fifty euros when she wasn’t looking.”
Delaney smiled, the first real one since the three of them had sat down. “Teresa sees everything, Mrs. Tarbell.”
“Those big beseeching dark eyes, I couldn’t help it.” She stirred her tea more. She hadn’t so much as taken a sip, as far as Delaney could tell. “Though he cheered up quick enough when he had my cash.” Then she glanced over Rake’s shoulder. “And speaking of big dark eyes…”
He turned and saw Elena approaching while leading Lillith by the hand. Who promptly lit up and ran the rest of the way to the table. “Hi, Grandma!”
Rake felt the muscles in his jaw give up as his mouth fell open. “Lillith, you know who this is?”
“Sure! Why, do you need an introduction? This is Nonna Tarbell, my paternal great-grandmother.” She stepped into the nuclear option’s welcoming hug. Then, to Rake: “But I bet you don’t know who this is.”
“Hey, guys, how’s it goin’?”
“Elena? Why do you sound like you’re from Massachusetts?”
“It’s Ellen, actually. And I’m from Andovuh.* Figured we were lettin’ all the cats outta all the bags, time to drop the accent. Well. That accent, anyways.”
“What is happening?” Rake wailed. “Do you all have deep dark secrets and/or multiple identities?”
“Yeah,” Delaney admitted.
“Pretty much.” Elena—sorry, Ellen—shrugged.
“How do you know my grandmother? Lillith, when did you guys meet?”
“Just a few days ago.”
“But it’s only been a few … oh, hell. The Fedex office.”
“Well…”
Forty-five
Thank goodness, Lillith thought as she entered the ladies’ room. She liked Delaney, and Rake seemed nice (if deeply confused), but she hated peeing when she knew people could hear it. Even strangers. Side effect of being an only child, maybe?
And speaking of strangers, an old, pretty lady was standing beside the sinks
(not washing her hands, not checking makeup, not on her phone, standing straight, facing the door)
waiting for someone.
She was pale and chubby, with silver-streaked brownish blond hair pulled back and pinned in place. She was wearing light blue pants, a white blouse, black tennis shoes, a black cardigan, and she had a black purse the size of a pillow slung over one shoulder.
When she spoke, her voice was warm and welcoming. “Buongiorno, darling.”
“Ciao, signora,” Lillith replied, smoothing her slightly too-small shirt over her belly and standing straighter. “Come va?”
“Just fine.”
“Posso aiutarti con qualcosa?”
“I’m sorry, dear, but you just heard the extent of my Italian. I’m much better in French.”
“Oh. Puis-je vous aider avec quelque chose?”
The woman’s smile brightened. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, sweetheart? Did you know that we have a friend in common? Her name’s Delaney. I wanted to meet you and asked her to arrange it. I’m so happy to see you.”
“Oh.” Lillith studied the woman’s elegant clothing and nonthreatening mien. “That makes you Rake’s mother or grandmother. If you don’t mind, when’s your birthday?”
The woman blinked, then replied, “Nineteen fifty-seven.”
“Grandmother, then.” She held out her hand and answered the unspoken question. “You and Rake have the exact same eye shape and color. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Tarbell.”
“Thank you, darling. Lovely to meet you, too. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve joined our family.”
“Have I?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then … can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
So she did.
Forty-six
“I get that you’re a pack of duplicitous sociopaths, but did you have to drag the good people at FedEx into it?”
“Don’t whine, Rake dear. It’s unbecoming.”
“I’ll whine anytime I like,” he whined. To Lillith: “She’s a horrible human being. Never say I didn’t warn y
ou.”
“You’re just mad because you don’t know what’s going on.”
“You’re right, Lillith,” he admitted. “That’s exactly why I’m mad.”
The waiter chose that moment to check on them, and Lillith chatted with him in Italian while Mrs. Tarbell visibly puffed up with pride. “Isn’t she brilliant? I can’t wait for her to meet the rest of the family.”
“Take it easy. She’s been through a lot.”
“Oh, I heard.” The nuclear option lowered her voice. “Delaney told me about her mother. Are you any closer to finding out if the car accident was accidental?”
“Yes, which may or may not work out for us.” Delaney spread her hands. “It’s too soon to tell.”
“It’s always too soon to tell,” Rake pointed out. “That’s pretty much the theme of the week.”
“Got that right,” Delaney agreed. “But getting back to how you knew my employer was your grandmother…”
“Yeah, I’d like to hear that, too,” Ellen said, making herself comfortable and helping herself to Delaney’s drink. To Delaney: “We’re gonna recruit him, right? Boy’s got skills.”
“Well, Ellen-not-Elena, I’m flattered and also a smidge terrified. But getting back to my brilliance—shut up, you asked—Delaney not only kept a set of clothes in my size on hand, she also knew how my brother lost his virginity.”
From Ellen: “Ew.”
“And she knew because my grandma knew.”
“Again: ew.”
“She only knew because I ratted him out. Which was shitty,” Rake acknowledged, “I won’t deny it.”
“But such a good story,” Nonna Tarbell added.
“That was a big one, Delaney.”
“You’re right,” she said, seeing the scope of that particular blunder. At the time, he’d seemed to think he had blurted that out to her in Lake Como. She’d been relieved that he’d given her an out. Now, of course, she realized he’d just filed it away with all the other clues she, forever a fool, had dropped. “I’ll say it again: Underestimating you was stupid.”
He reached past his glass and took her hand. “That means a lot, coming from you.” The gesture wasn’t lost on anyone except Lillith (who was trying to coax the waiter into bringing her chocolate milk). “You also said you hadn’t been warned I was tenacious. My grandmother would have warned you that I’m kind of a slut—”
A snort from Mrs. Tarbell. “Kind of. Hmm.”
“—and careless, and self-deprecating, but tenacious wouldn’t have come up. The worst, though.” He let go of her hand. “That was pretending you wanted to hear about the Sweetheart situation, even though you would have known all about it.”
“No.” She was shaking her head so hard, her face was momentarily obscured by hair. Mrs. Tarbell had opened her mouth, maybe even to defend her, but she raced ahead. “Rake, I promise that isn’t true. I’d only heard about your part in all of this. At the time, when your grandma hired me, I didn’t give a shit about your brother or his predicament. I didn’t give a shit about yours, either. But…” She looked away, and then back. “That changed. And then I wanted to know more about you. And the people you love. That’s why I asked. Your family is so interesting. Not just to me, either. I bet a lot of people think you guys—”
“Put the fun in dysfunctional?”
At least he said it with a smile. “No. You’re good, you’re all—I mean, you love each other. Even when you’re yelling at each other. You’re not afraid to get dirty to help each other. Literally, in Blake’s case. He’s shoveling horse shit, for God’s sake, to help his mom. That’s interesting to me. I don’t—” She broke off as two men in dark suits approached their table. She didn’t recognize either one, which could be good or bad.
“Signore Tarbell?” The shorter, balder one took out his wallet and flashed ID. “Per favore, vieni con noi.”
Shit.
“What’s this about?” Mrs. Tarbell asked sharply, knuckles whitening as she clutched her gigantic purse. But Rake was already getting to his feet.
“I know what it’s about. My sordid past finally caught up with me. Twice in one week,” he added with a wry look at Lillith. “Lead the way, gentlemen.”
“Rake, you can’t just—” Delaney realized Ellen had already done a discreet fade; wise, considering the circumstances. “You can’t assume you know what—”
“I’m not assuming I know anything,” he replied. “Believe me.”
“Don’t worry, dear.” Nonna Tarbell was already poking her phone while glaring at the men taking Rake into custody. “I’ll get my lawyer on the line and meet you at the consulate.”
The short one cleared his throat. “You, too, miss.”
Now that’s interesting. Delaney didn’t move while she weighed her options: (1) assume they were government suits and go along quietly, (2) assume they weren’t and kick their asses, or (3) stay put. Of course, there was Lillith to think of, so she couldn’t just—
A high-pitched yowl shattered her thought process. And possibly glass. “Don’t you take my daddy!” Lillith shrieked. She’d lunged for Rake and was now sitting on his feet, both arms clamped around his knees, face turning red as she held on with all her strength and kept shrieking. “I wanna be with Daddy!”
“Agh, Lillith! You’re pinching a bunch of my leg hairs!”
“Don’t you take my daddy away!”
“Rumore veeramente inaccettabile,” the taller one mumbled. Then, louder: “Molto bene lei viene.” And when that did nothing to decrease Lillith’s impression of an air raid siren: “You may come with us, child!”
Well, then, Delaney thought, getting to her feet. Decision made.
Forty-seven
“This isn’t the consulate.”
Delaney smirked. “No kidding.”
One of the more hilarious dilemmas presented by the city of Venice: If you need to take someone(s) into custody, you can’t just bundle them into a car and drive them away. You can hop a vaporetto, and in a pinch you can rent a gondola and pole your suspects/prisoners away, but it’s not especially intimidating.
Instead, Tall and Small had marched them, on foot, for several blocks until they reached …
“No. No. Nooooooo!”
… the church of San Basso.
“We had to get all the way inside before you knew where you were?”
“I was half-asleep last time!” he yelped. “And we came in by a different door.” Rake was looking around the hall as they walked along a narrow corridor leading to the offices. “Jesus, what is this?”
“Phones.” The short one—Delaney didn’t remember the name from his ID and didn’t much care—held out a proprietary hand. They’d stopped just short of a closed door and clearly weren’t going farther until the niceties were observed. Delaney took her time as she carefully pulled it from her pocket and handed it over. Passive-aggressive tart, as Donna would have pointed out with a smirk. Rake took even more time, possibly because he had trouble bitching and digging out his phone simultaneously, which culminated in the tall one all but snatching the thing out of Rake’s hand.
Amateurs. Should have taken them right away.
“You stay put, okay?” Delaney said to Lillith, who had been with them the entire way, sometimes holding her hand and sometimes Rake’s. The child had obediently taken one of the chairs outside the office and was idly looking around and swinging her feet back and forth. Small and Tall were clearly relieved she’d stopped with the tornado sirenesque yowls, and they had no interest in damaging the child’s equilibrium, which could result in frightened hysterics or, worse, more yowling. “You stay out here and we’ll be just inside, talking to his boss and straightening everything out. See? We can all see you through the windows.”
“How do you know what we’re going to do?” Small asked, having the hilarious nerve to look affronted.
“Because you’ve got no imagination.” Delaney opened the office door and gestured for Rake and Tall to enter. “Not a sin
gle one of you.”
“Non tieni la porta per me,” Tall grumbled, trailing her in. “Ti tengo la porta per te.” Then, louder: “Mr. Kovac, you wanted to talk to these people.” Then, unnecessarily: “Here they are.”
Kovac nodded and tossed him a small hammer, the kind with a head you could unscrew and replace with any number of screwdriver heads; the handle was decorated with small pastel flowers for that extra surreal touch.* Small and Tall took turns destroying Rake’s and Delaney’s phones and, judging from their grunts of exertion and wide smiles, quite enjoyed themselves. Delaney took a step closer and slightly in front of Rake, in case the hammer was going to be utilized in even less pleasant ways.
“Hey! Knock it off, dickheads!” Rake yelped, because his survival instincts were for shit. “Do you have any idea how hard I had to work for that thing? The debasing tasks I had to perform? I don’t even want to think about them, but being here is bringing it all back.”
Tall let out a disbelieving snort, which paired nicely with Delaney’s eye roll.
“All right,” Kovac said with a mild American accent. He was short—Delaney could see that although he was seated, he was like one of those crash-test dummies with no legs—announced his baldness with a bad comb-over, and his eyes blinked slowly behind rimless glasses. He looked like an insurance adjuster, which, she supposed, was valuable in his line of work. “Let’s get to this. Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Rake asked.
Kovac sighed. “Jesus. Really? You’re gonna make me do the threats and intimidation thing, and then rough you up a little? Can’t we just get to the part where you put my mind at ease and we all go back to our lives?”
The Love Scam Page 20