Mr. Jones’s reappearance saved her further embarrassment. He couldn’t have hurried over to Quinn fast enough, his about-face enough to make Dulcy do a double take. Quinn crossed his arms, standing silently as the manager blathered on and on, offering up one apology, then another, and even extending a free night’s stay for the, er, confusion.
“Of course, we’re talking for both the lady and me,” Quinn stated rather than asked.
“Of course, Mr. Landis. I’ll personally see to it you have one of the finest suites.”
“We’ll need two,” Dulcy interjected, feeling suddenly jittery. “We’ll need two rooms.”
“With connecting doors,” Quinn added.
She practically gawked at his audacity. Didn’t he realize that news of connecting rooms between a bride and the groom’s best man would make the gossip circuit before they even inserted their card keys into the door locks? She quickly looked away, judging by his expression that he did know that. And he appeared to like knowing that she did, too.
Dulcy shivered. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t in anticipation, but her body wasn’t having any of it.
Within minutes she and Quinn were not only being led to their suites, but also promised that a fresh set of bed and day clothes from the exclusive boutique in the lobby would be delivered to each of them posthaste. Mr. Jones himself escorted them up. At the end of a long hall, he opened the door to a room and gestured for her to enter.
Dulcy hesitated, glancing at Quinn as if waiting for answers. He didn’t offer any as he scanned the hallway. She offered a weak smile in Mr. Jones’s general direction, then stepped inside. The door whooshed closed behind her.
Done in pale blue and white stripes, muted florals and tasteful antique replicas, the room was impeccably designed with the utmost comfort and visual appeal in mind. Only Dulcy wasn’t feeling very comfortable. She paced from one side of the spacious room to the other, pressing her ear against the connecting door to seek out any sounds in the next room. Even after the clothes and toiletries were delivered, she felt like a caged animal waiting for the trainer to feed her. Speaking of food, she hadn’t eaten since a quick bagel that morning and her stomach was making sure she knew about it.
Another trip to the connecting door. The metal cut to resemble carved wood yielded nothing. She knew there was another door behind the door she was trying to listen through, but she was afraid that if she opened hers, she’d find the other one open as well. And then where would she be?
Instead, she plucked up the phone and asked to be put through to Mr. Landis’s room. No one answered. She slowly replaced the receiver. That’s odd. Could he be taking a shower? She went into her bathroom and listened through the wall in there, but she couldn’t make out a sound. Sighing, she went back to the phone and put a call through to Mr. Jones, who was all too happy to tell her that Mr. Landis had requested a list of Mr. Wheeler’s golf companions and had already arranged to meet with the sole member that remained on the premises for an extended weekend visit.
He’d gone without her.
Dulcy forgot to thank the man as she slowly hung up the phone a second time.
Oh, this was ridiculous. She refused to sit around moping because Quinn thought he could do a better job without her. If he found out anything that might lead them to Brad, he’d tell her.
Speaking of Brad…
A moment and a quick dial later she was listening to the incessant ring of his cell phone. Ever since getting the news yesterday, she’d tried his wireless countless times and had gotten his service provider’s message just as many times, telling her to try again later.
She hung up the phone for a third time. What would she do if Brad did pick up?
Slipping off her shoes and suit, she headed for the marble-tiled shower. A half hour later she was freshly scrubbed, wearing the simple white cotton panties that had come with the rest of the clothing, and the hotel robe. This time when she went to the connecting door, she opened it, only to stare at the closed one behind it. She tried the knob, finding it locked. So she knocked quietly. She wasn’t surprised when there was no answer.
She stood there for a minute considering her options. Only, there didn’t appear to be many. Sitting down on the bed, she put the phone down on the spread in front of her folded knees and leafed through her address book, then she put a call through to Mona at home. While Barry and Jena never thought twice about contacting the secretary after hours, it was the first time Dulcy had ever done it. She didn’t feel comfortable with it. Mona answered on the second ring with the same efficiency she did at work.
Without giving away too much information, Dulcy asked for her messages, told Mona she’d be late getting to the office the following day, and asked Mona to track down Barry for her. Mona hesitated, then told her that Barry hadn’t returned to the office after their appointment with the police chief. He’d called later in the afternoon and said he’d be gone the following day as well. No itinerary, no number to be reached, he was just simply going to be gone.
She thanked Mona and pressed the disconnect button, still holding the receiver in her hand.
On the surface, she supposed that Barry and Beatrix made an obvious couple. Both were from the wealthier part of town and were around the same age and still relatively good-looking. If, in Beatrix’s case, you found cannibalism attractive. Still, Dulcy had been surprised when Barry had called Brad’s mother Trixie in the elevator earlier. Even more surprising, Beatrix had never batted an eyelash.
She knew given Barry’s three failed marriages that the legal community at large believed him to be a terrible flirt at best, a philanderer at worse. But they didn’t know what she did, mostly because Barry had kept the information close to his chest.
Two of his three ill-fated marriages had come later in his life. His first wife, to whom he’d been married for over twenty-five years, had died by her own hand.
Dulcy rubbed the skin between her brows and sighed. Of course, their problems had begun long before Janice Lomax had convinced a male nurse to fiddle with the valve on her morphine tube. More specifically, they had started ten years into their marriage, when Janice was involved in a car accident that left her a quadriplegic.
Dulcy had met Janice once. And had never really been the same afterward. While the unconditional, overwhelming love between her and her husband had been palpable, so had the tone of impending tragedy. Simply, Janice had had enough of life as it had become for her, and Barry could do nothing to change her mind.
The receiver in her hand began to beep, telling her to hang up, and the noise pierced Dulcy’s thoughts. The mere idea of dear, sweet, wounded Barry with that…barracuda made her stomach upset.
She slowly depressed the disconnect button again, then dialed information, wanting to empty her mind of Barry and Trixie. A couple of minutes later she learned that there was no Manny’s Flowers listed in Albuquerque, or all of New Mexico for that matter.
She lay back against the pillows. That’s strange. First the deliveryman had refused to give the flowers to anyone but Brad. Then he had coincidentally shown up at the same strip club, even though it was on the other side of town from Brad’s town house. She fingered the black and neon-pink card from the club. Maybe she’d gotten the name of the flower shop wrong. She got up from the bed, stepped to the connecting door, then returned to the bed when she received no answer to her knock. She pushed the card aside and scanned her shorthand notes of the messages Mona had passed on. Exasperating bride-to-be Mandy Mallone had left no fewer than ten messages for Dulcy to call her. No specifics. Just call her.
Despite the little voice screaming not to, she dialed Mandy’s number, then settled against the pillows. The ex-stripper picked up in the middle of the second ring.
“Thank God!” There was urgency in the response. “I was going crazy over here wondering what I should do. Crazy? Did I say crazy? Yes, I did. What I meant is that I’m going out of my mind.”
“That’s all right. There’s nothi
ng wrong with feeling a little crazy considering what you’re going through,” Dulcy said.
“Yes, there is,” Mandy nearly whispered. “When your mother is carted off in a straitjacket right in front of you when you’re six… Never mind.”
Dulcy briefly closed her eyes. Damn. “Tell me what’s happening, Mandy. Did you change the locks?”
“Yes. And Jason wasn’t very happy about it, either. Wait a minute while I sit down. No, I can’t sit.”
Dulcy heard the phone being juggled as Mandy presumably began pacing. “That was the whole point.”
“What was?”
“To make Jason think about what he’d done.”
“Well, then it worked. Not only did he think about it, he sent the police a-knockin’. They left like an hour ago.”
“Police?” Dulcy sat up.
“Yeah. Since you told me not to take his jacket to him, I had it messengered over to his office. In pieces. Along with everything else he ever left in my apartment.”
Dulcy cringed. “You didn’t.”
“I did. And I was very happy about doing it, too. Until the police showed up, that is.”
She made a sound and the phone was juggled again. Dulcy guessed she was pacing up a storm and moving the receiver from ear to ear.
“Jason told them he felt physically threatened.”
Dulcy thought of the short, slender, stacked blonde, then Jason Polansky with his ex-college football player physique.
“The police, um, pointed out that what I’d done to his boxers was proof of Jason’s claim.”
Dulcy didn’t ask. Instead, she berated herself for ever having spoken up at the meeting the day before. For having suggested Mandy change her locks. For telling the jittery bride-to-be that her fiancé was playing her for a fool.
But how was she supposed to know all this would happen?
“Dulcy? Are you there?” Mandy asked.
She blew out a long breath. “Yes, I’m still here.”
“Good, I was afraid you’d hung up.”
Which is exactly what she should do, she thought. Tell Mandy to sign the damn prenuptial agreement, marry Jason and go on with life as usual.
She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m just trying to figure out where I should go with this.” She wrote a couple of notes on her pad, then tapped her pen against it. “Tell you what, Mandy, why don’t I give Jason’s attorney a call?” She knew just where to get his personal contact information. “I’ll get back to you the minute I’m done, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and Mandy?” she said quickly, before the girl had a chance to hang up. “No more mangling of Jason’s personal belongings. And if he calls, or if his attorney tries to contact you, you refer them to me.” She gave Mandy her contact information at the hotel, even though she quietly wondered at the wisdom of doing so.
She hung up the phone and sat silently for a moment. She’d known there was a reason she stayed away from family law. There was something orderly and manageable about corporate law. In that area, you knew going in that all the participants were interested in their own bottom lines and that the name of the game was compromise. Unemotional. Logical. In family law, that entire schematic was turned on its ear.
Which, as luck would have it, appeared to be the sum total of her life right about now, as well.
She picked up the phone and dialed Jena’s number, only to replace the receiver the instant the line began ringing. She closed her eyes. Okay, so, yes, she was a coward. Facts were facts, and the facts in this case were that she would have a hell of a time explaining where she was and who, exactly, she was with. She bit her bottom lip and glanced toward the closed connecting door. Then she called Jason’s attorney’s office, relieved to find Steve Saragin still in.
In, but completely unreasonable.
It seemed Mandy’s skills with a straight razor had tipped the scales in Jason’s direction.
“Come on, Steve. You know we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you’d met me halfway on that prenup.”
“She was going to sign it as is.”
“Key word being was.”
“Speaking of keys, did you advise Mandy to change the locks to her apartment?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“You know my client pays for that place.”
No, she hadn’t. “Whose name is on the lease?”
He sighed. “You and I know that doesn’t matter.”
Mandy’s name was. Good. At least her client wouldn’t end up homeless. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.
Dulcy crossed her legs and moved the body of the phone to the side. “So where do things stand with the prenup?”
“They don’t.”
“So your client isn’t even willing to consider revising it?”
“I’m advising him not to.”
“Well, then, I hope he likes the prospect of going without. Because that’s exactly what he’s facing if he doesn’t come around.” Dulcy smiled to herself, proud at having adopted one of Jena’s sayings.
“Define going without.”
“You should know, Steve. I’m guessing going without is a permanent state with you.”
“Shows what you know.”
“Shows what I’d prefer not to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dulcy bit her tongue to stop right there. Was this really her talking to a professional colleague? She cleared her throat, trying to get a grip on her runaway emotions. “It means that you shouldn’t call me, and your client shouldn’t try to contact Miss Mallone, until that prenuptial agreement looks…more agreeable. Have a nice night, Steve.”
She slowly hung up the phone and savored the moment. There was something about standing in a courtroom after having just won a case, but having just bested one of Albuquerque’s better attorneys felt equally satisfying. She put in a quick call to Mandy, told her to sit tight, then sat drumming her fingers against the phone.
Placing it back on the table, she decided to deal with the rest of her messages in the morning. It was after eight. She pushed from the bed, resisted the urge to check the connecting door again, and instead stepped toward the French doors that led to the balcony. Swinging them open, she was immediately aware of the scent of cigarette smoke. She blinked into the growing darkness and found Quinn leaning against the marble railing connecting their balconies.
Dulcy’s heart teeter-tottered in her chest, and just like that she forgot about Mandy, Steve, Mona, Barry, and all the reasons why she shouldn’t want the guy stubbing a cigarette out in the soil of a planter. He glanced her way. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“You went information hunting without me,” she said.
“That I did.”
“And?”
“I came up a little short on the information end.”
“Tell me.”
He was silent as he crossed his own arms over his broad chest. His dark hair was held back in the usual leather strap. “Only one of the men Brad was supposed to meet yesterday is still in residence. Nathan Armstrong.”
“And?”
“And he has no idea where Brad might be. Brad didn’t call to cancel or apologize. The last time he spoke with Brad he didn’t seem distracted or nervous.” He glanced at his watch. “And right about now Brad’s old college bud is probably hightailing it home in his Beemer to cover for the platinum blonde he had draped over his arm.”
“Nathan’s having an affair?” Dulcy nearly croaked.
“It would appear so.”
She backed up, nearly collapsing into the ironwork chair positioned beside a matching table.
She knew Nathan and his wife Nancy. She and Brad had gone out to dinner with them on a couple of occasions and had even attended a party at their house. Dulcy had played with their three kids. They all had seemed so…close. So happy. So in love. The model family.
So then, what was Nathan doing at the resort with another woman?
She n
oticed movement on the next balcony, and suddenly Quinn was standing next to her chair. She stared at the three feet that separated his balcony from hers, but couldn’t seem to add the two and two involved to get him from there to here.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
Dulcy pressed her fingertips against her closed eyelids, thinking of her most recent case, Brad, and everything else in between. “Yes. I guess so. It’s just that I feel like I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of Ally McBeal. And it’s not even a particularly good episode.”
Quinn’s chuckle was so quiet she nearly didn’t hear it. She grimaced. “You know, I never thought of myself as gullible. As naive. But after today I wonder how long I’ve had my head buried in the sand.” She looked at him. “Have you seen a lot of that?”
“A lot of what? Gullible women?”
“No. Men engaged in extramarital activities.”
“It’s not limited to men.”
She sighed. “You would have to tell me that, wouldn’t you.” She sat back, feeling the robe slip down over her shoulder. She absently pushed it back up, only to have it flop down again. “This is a new millennium, for Christ’s sake. No more obligatory sex or arranged marriages.” She pushed the robe up. “There are…diseases.”
Quinn watched the soft Turkish terry cloth skim down over her arm, and resisted the urge to cover the bare flesh back up. The one-size-fits-all robe all but swallowed her slender frame in a sea of white foam. From where he stood beside her, he had an unhindered view of the deep V between the flaps of the robe and the pink, clean skin it revealed. Dulcy covered her shoulder and the material bowed, the tightly cinched belt the only thing preventing the robe from falling off altogether.
He swallowed hard.
“Given what’s, um, happened between us…well, I must sound like an idiot,” she said.
“No.”
She turned her head to stare up at him, her mouth soft and inviting. “You don’t think…I mean, do most of the men here… Is the resort known for such activity? Could Brad…”
The robe dipped again. Quinn reached out and fingered the soft material, then drew it up, his knuckles grazing her hot, soft skin. “No.”
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