Perfect Touch: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “I bet there’s a card room or two in the back,” Sara said, fiddling with her coffee mug with one hand. The other was held by Jay.

  “You win,” he said.

  “Are they legal?”

  From the back of the main dining room came the clack of pool balls and the loud cursing of the loser. From the sound of her voice, she hadn’t been home since yesterday.

  “If things get too raucous, the sheriff notices,” Jay said. “Otherwise, he waits for the good citizens to complain. A lot of the women are semipro, which, like the illegal gambling, is a big draw.”

  “Semipro as in part-time hookers?”

  “Yeah. They do a big lunch trade with truckers,” he said.

  “And you say Liza belongs here, hmm?”

  “JD and Custer met her in a place just like this down in Nevada.” Jay glanced impatiently at his watch. “Three more minutes and we’re gone.”

  Sara looked around again. Nothing had changed for the better. “Odd choice for a meeting. I can’t imagine that returning here is very comfortable for Liza. Unless the food is better than the coffee.”

  “If she’s here to chew on anything, it’s us.”

  The front door opened, sending more unfriendly sunlight through the dark room. Sara looked at Liza. The older woman wore black jeans, a turquoise jacket, and matching turquoise sweater. Her needle-heeled black leather boots hit the stone floor with a tattoo that sounded like small bones snapping. She had left the diamonds at home, settling for some old, exquisite, and seriously expensive Indian jewelry. Her lips and nails were stoplight red.

  Sara said quietly, “That outfit would support months of lawyers.”

  “I know. The ranch paid for every bit of it. The jewelry had been in the family for three generations. Mother loved it. Wore it every chance she got and talked about the granddaughter who would someday enjoy it.” He shrugged. “Win some, lose some.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “So am I. Liza only wanted the ‘Indian stuff’ because JD’s first wife had made it her trademark. She’s wearing it today to remind me of who won that particular battle.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He watched as Vermilion Ranch’s biggest enemy stopped in front of their table. He could smell the stale liquor on her breath and wondered if she had reached the stage where she sweat booze because her liver couldn’t handle it anymore.

  “Good morning, Jay,” Liza said, glancing at his hand holding Sara’s. “Ms. Medina.”

  He nodded—and didn’t stand up.

  Sara just watched Liza. If Jay had shelved his ingrained manners today, so would she.

  After a brief hesitation, Liza sat down like she had built the place with her own two hands.

  “Tomato juice,” she said, without looking at the waitress who was a step behind her. “Nothing else.”

  The waitress looked uncertainly at Jay.

  “We ate at home,” he said to her. “Coffee is all we need.”

  The waitress smoothed her hands over the hips of her skintight short skirt, calling attention to an unusually nice ass. “Whatever you want, sir. No charge for the coffee . . . or anything else. Boss said it’s been too long since he’s seen a Vermilion in here.”

  “Bless him,” Jay said blandly.

  Sara choked back a laugh at his echo of the sheriff.

  After a long look over her shoulder, the waitress sauntered off to get Liza’s tomato juice.

  “Well,” Liza said brightly. “What should we talk about?”

  Her eyes burned as she held herself absolutely still, waiting for a reaction.

  “We don’t have time to play games with you,” he said evenly. “There’s a ranch to be run.”

  “You called the meeting. Get to the point,” Sara’s cool voice did nothing to hide her dislike.

  Liza let the silence grow until the waitress set down a tall glass of thick red fluid. The shock of living color with no artifice made Liza look like a bad reflection of life. Without the height of her heels, she was small, almost frail.

  Don’t fall for it, Sara silently advised Jay. Like tears, it’s the oldest trick in the female playbook.

  “This is the thanks I get for doing you a favor?” Liza asked, her voice raw.

  She took a long drink, leaving a lipstick mark on the rim of the glass that was redder than the tomato juice. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, leaving another mark on the stark white paper.

  He watched her like the venomous snake she was.

  “No questions?” she asked. “How disappointing.”

  Silence answered her.

  Liza fixed him with eyes that were somehow glassy, vague, and yet eerily intent. “My lawyers tell me we have a very good chance of vacating the previous judgment in the case of the Custers.”

  “On the basis of what evidence?” Jay asked, playing idly with his coffee spoon.

  “Conflict of interest.” Liza smiled like a child, but the gaze she turned on Sara was anything but innocent.

  A chill moved over Sara’s neck. “What conflict?”

  “You. Obviously you lied in your assessment of the paintings in order to please your lover.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “We didn’t even meet until after the judge decided the case.”

  “Barton talked to your last clients. The Chens,” Liza said, her eyes avid on Sara’s face. “They said you were in an awful hurry to get to Wyoming.”

  “I had been in Atlanta for months already. Get to the point.” Sara’s voice was calm, but what she saw in Liza’s eyes made her want to run.

  Does Jay know that his father’s ex is more than fashionably insane?

  “You were expected to be in Atlanta for two more weeks,” Liza said in a rising voice. “But you rushed here to get some cock time with your client. Was that your payoff, or did you expect a crack at the Vermilion money, too?”

  Sara’s fingertips flexed on Jay’s hand in a silent demand that he let her handle this.

  “Don’t judge me by what you would have done in my place,” Sara said calmly.

  “Does she hiss like a cat in bed, too?” Liza asked Jay.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice calm and his eyes promising hell. “More money?”

  “I want everything,” Liza said, no longer hiding the vicious rage that animated her. “JD dumped me like yesterday’s garbage.”

  “Wrapped in diamonds and couture? Try again.”

  “I want everything that JD loved more than he loved me. The ranch, the Custers, everything.”

  “And then what?” Sara asked. “You expect the black hole in your soul to be magically filled? News flash, sister. It doesn’t work that way. You’d be no more happy—”

  “Shut up! I don’t need your whore’s wisdom.”

  “If whores were wise, you wouldn’t be here,” Jay said to Liza. “But you aren’t and here we are. You can spend the rest of your life trying to piss in my coffee or you can cut your losses and enjoy the good life you have.”

  “You’ll learn,” she said. “I promise you. Just like JD did.”

  “I already figured out why he divorced you,” Jay said. “That’s all the learning I have to do.”

  “I will be respected.” Liza’s shrill voice hung in the suddenly silent room.

  “Not until you grow up,” he said, his voice cold enough to burn. “Now, is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

  “You wipe that look off your face,” she said, her hands trembling against the glass.

  Jay smiled slowly. “Better?”

  It wasn’t.

  Sara squeezed his hand lightly in warning. Baiting a crazy woman wasn’t going to accomplish anything but a huge scene.

  Maybe that’s why she chose this roadhouse, Sara thought. Anything short of knives won’t be noticed.

  The thought of knives reminded her of the Solvangs, slashed and bloody, silently waiting for whatever justice there was.

  Suddenl
y she was soul-deep tired of Liza and her constant search for a way to the bottom of the Vermilion pocketbook.

  “You will increase my stipend by one hundred percent,” Liza said.

  “You already get more than the ranch can afford,” he said.

  “You can afford it. I’ve a good idea how much the ranch makes.”

  “Are you familiar with the Golden Goose whose owner killed it by demanding more and more eggs?” he asked sardonically.

  Liza’s hands gripped tightly around the juice glass.

  For the first time Sara noticed that one of the older woman’s thumbnails was bitten past the quick. The dried blood on the rim was darker than the nail polish.

  “Barton will get control of his one quarter of the ranch right now,” Liza said.

  “No.”

  “And one more thing,” she said.

  Jay watched her with the eyes of the combat veteran he was. “Since all you’re blowing is air, go ahead.”

  “I will have Muse.”

  “We can’t prove it exists,” Sara said. “Jay can’t give you what doesn’t exist.”

  “Custer painted it for a friend of mine,” Liza said. “I watched him. I get that portrait or there is no deal.”

  “We’ve had this discussion and you’ve lost at every step of the way,” Jay said, putting on his hat. “The answer hasn’t changed. No.”

  “That was before Sara,” Liza said quickly, harshly. “What do you think a new judge would make of the word of a so-called expert who is fucking you on her way to the Vermilion riches?”

  “Not one word of the judge’s verdict would change,” he said. “It was based on law, not gossip.”

  “Perhaps. But,” Liza added slyly, “can your whore’s professional reputation survive the gossip?”

  There it was, the reason Liza had brought them here. She thought she had a lever big enough to pry more money out of Jay.

  “My reputation will do just fine,” Sara said. “I’ve got a list of happy clients who keep me very busy.”

  “After Guy Beck gets through with you,” Liza said, smiling like a death’s head, “your clients won’t call you.”

  “My clients know Guy. Whatever he says won’t worry them,” she lied without hesitation. I’m damned if I’ll be the cause of her ruining Vermilion Ranch.

  “The painting exists,” Liza said to Jay. “It was mentioned in the receipts.”

  “Only a portrait was mentioned,” he said. “No name attached.”

  “If you can’t find Muse, it’s because you’re hiding it.”

  “Or Custer burned it before he left,” Jay said.

  “He wouldn’t have done that! You have a week to cough up that painting. Then I’m going to hire lawyers and turn Guy Beck loose to destroy little Ms. Medina’s reputation.”

  From the corner of Sara’s eye, she saw the spoon between Jay’s fingers flash as he fiddled with it, his big fingers turning it over and over in one hand.

  “Your so-called conflict of interest is too thin a twig to hang a new case on,” he said to Liza.

  “No thinner than any of the other motions that kept dragging out the case for so many years,” Liza said. “God, it was sweet knowing that you paid my lawyers to tie yours up in knots. Too bad I couldn’t bleed you into selling the ranch.”

  “You’ve misread me from the jump,” he said, his eyes gleaming from beneath his hat brim, the spoon flashing between his fingers.

  “The hell I have. You want the ranch all to yourself, but your brother has his own ideas about what the ranch is worth and how best to extract it. He deserves his chance.”

  “He’ll have it in seven years.”

  “No. Now!”

  The spoon bent back on itself. Jay tossed it aside.

  “I’m done,” he said to Sara. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Liza said urgently. “I can keep my son’s focus off your precious ranch. He’s a realist. You’re a romantic. But since Barty is a realist, he can be redirected more easily than you.” She crossed her arms on the table and leaned toward Jay. “Give me twice my stipend and Muse. I’ll see that no more fences get cut or holes get dug in the creek and chemicals left behind. We won’t ask any more of you. Ever.”

  Sara’s lips pulled tight across her teeth. “Every boy loves his mother, right?”

  “He may love me or hate me, but he listens to me if he wants money to spend.”

  “I’ll require it in writing,” Jay said, curious about how far Liza would go. “You get twice your stipend and Muse. I get an end to the engineering raids on the ranch, you make no more demands, and you give me your word that you won’t trash Sara’s professional reputation.”

  “No,” Sara said angrily. “Don’t let her use me against you!”

  His fingers wrapped gently around hers beneath the table.

  She looked at him and saw the faint negative movement of his head. “But—”

  His fingers squeezed harder. With a muttered word, she sat back silently.

  “You get nothing in writing,” Liza said. “You’d just call it blackmail.”

  “Which it is. And that’s why this isn’t coming through Mr. Abrahamson Esquire and Mr. Wilkie Esquire, of Abrahamson and Wilkie Law Practice, two of Wyoming’s most expensive lawyers. This meeting would have cost you about five thousand, coffee not included.”

  “Did I mention that you will pay for any lawyers involved?” Liza asked, wide-eyed.

  “Unless you forget about me paying for your lawyers, we don’t have anything in front of us but bad coffee.”

  Liza waved her hand and her big engagement ring flashed in the gloom. “I can afford to be gracious about the lawyers.”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything right now,” he said.

  “Think about it for a day or two. You’ll figure out that lost causes aren’t worth fighting for. Again. No matter what you decide, the deadline is still two weeks.” She pushed herself away from the table and stood. “Do let me know when you’ve found the portrait. Until then, all pieces remain in play.”

  She began walking away.

  “Have you heard about Fish Camp?” he asked casually.

  Liza stiffened and turned toward him. “Awful, just awful.”

  “You wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you?”

  “Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with that sordid business? Shame on you.”

  “The painting you want so much could have been stolen from Fish Camp. Have you thought of that?”

  “Barty said nothing was stolen.”

  Jay smiled grimly. “We don’t think anything was stolen. We can’t prove a negative.”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “Like the murders?” Sara asked. “Nothing is your problem, is that it?”

  “I don’t need to kill anyone to get what I want,” Liza said impatiently. “I just need to know other people’s weakness. Then they’ll do whatever I want. Like you, Jay Vermilion. You’ll do what I want and you’ll be damn glad for the opportunity.” She turned her back again. “Let me know when you find the portrait.”

  Her heels bit across the room as she left the chrome and TVs and bad memories behind.

  For the first time in her life, Sara understood why people wanted to kill.

  “Keep a lid on it until we get to the truck,” Jay said.

  “I hate that she’s using me to get at you,” Sara said through clenched teeth. Her hands were trembling with anger, so she clenched them into fists. “If not for me, you’d have told her to eat sh—”

  “Right,” he said over her words, standing up, taking her with him. “We’re leaving.”

  By the time they reached the truck, she had herself under control. Mostly.

  He slid behind the wheel and started the truck as calmly as if he had just been to the hardware store.

  “Slow down and think,” he said as he backed out of the parking spot. “Liza is shooting blanks with her threats, but as long as she believes she has me by th
e balls, she’ll go back in the woodwork for two weeks. We have to act like we’re really worried.”

  “Shooting blanks?” Sara asked.

  “An engagement ring on your finger would stop gossip quick enough.”

  Silently she chewed over that. Finally she asked, “Do you believe Liza about the Solvangs?”

  “That woman is a lot of things, none of them to my taste. But murder for hire? You need connections to get to that kind of people. She doesn’t have them. Blackmail? Hell, yes, she’ll do that and laugh all the way to the bank.”

  Sara frowned. “Why does she want Muse enough to try extortion?”

  He shrugged and drove out of the parking lot. “Remember what you said about the prototype Spyder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe that’s what Muse is to Liza. It’s also her way to shove the knife in me and twist it. I said no more and she gets the most expensive painting anyway.”

  “If she gets the chance, she’ll bleed the ranch to death and laugh,” Sara said. “And it would be my fault.”

  “Bullshit. I’ll survive this skirmish. The Vermilion-Neumann war was being fought long before you came and it will likely be fought long after you leave.”

  Whatever she was going to say scattered in the face of that blunt truth.

  She would leave.

  He would stay.

  Silence grew in the truck, broken only by the sound of the turn signal as he drove onto the main road.

  “We’ll have at least a week before Liza gets too impatient,” he said. I hope. “There was a receipt for a five-foot-by-six-foot portrait, so we have to assume it’s the one she wants.”

  Sara closed her eyes and struggled for the acceptance of losing that Jay had found on long-ago battlefields. Even though he said they had to pretend to go along, she wondered if that was the whole truth, or even a part of it.

  “Since I know that Custer didn’t take any of his work to Roanoke,” Jay began.

  “How can you know that?” she asked quickly.

  “Custer left behind paints, brushes, easels, everything but the clothes he walked out in. He hitchhiked his way to Roanoke. I can’t see him doing that with a big painting under his arm.”