“And real butter on the popcorn and penny candy at the concession stands,” he said. “They’re showing Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I.”
“Is the kidnappee allowed to get her purse?”
He chuckled, nodding, and she dashed back to the office to retrieve her things. She was back in moments, and after a quiet murmur to Kevin, slid her hand into Nate’s.
“This is a great idea,” she told him as they walked out the door.
“I thought so,” he agreed. “Especially since we can neck when the lights go down.”
“A really great idea,” she amended, and they stepped out into the sunlight.
Chapter Fifteen
In the middle of Young Frankenstein, right when the unsuspecting doctor was about to discover the secret laboratory, Lily’s cell phone buzzed.
She’d put it on vibrate so as not to disturb the rest of the patrons—though there weren’t many for the matinee triple feature—but since she was still on call for any emergencies at the hotel, she had to keep it on.
She whispered an apology to Nate and rose from her seat, slipping down the aisle and out the door to the lobby as she dug in her purse for her vibrating phone. She dug it out and flipped it open.
“Hello?”
“Lil?”
“Bridget! Oh thank God, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”
“I know. I turned my phone back on and it almost blew up. What’s going on?”
Lily snuck a glance over her shoulder at the theater door and moved farther out into the lobby. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to talk. Can I call you back tonight?”
“What? I can barely hear you.”
Lily bit down on frustration as static crackled across the line. “I said, can I call you back tonight?”
“Lily, you’re freaking me out. Just tell me what’s going on?”
“Have you talked to Max?”
“What? Max? No, I’m not talking to Max. I mean, he’s left a few more messages. What’s he got to do with anything?”
Lily checked over her shoulder one more time to make sure she was alone before saying, “I think he broke into my apartment and tore your wedding dress into shreds.”
“What?”
Lily jerked the phone away from her ear with a wince. What a time for the static to clear.
“Someone broke into my apartment and tore the place apart, but the only thing that really got destroyed was your Vera Wang. I think it was Max.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s him since he also left me a threatening note at work. Anonymous, of course, but the clerk on duty described him perfectly. Do you have anything of his, anything he might want back? Something he’d have reason to believe you’d have given to me?”
“No.”
“Don’t you still have the engagement ring? It was his grandmother’s, maybe he’s looking for that.”
“No, I sent that back to him before I left town.”
Lily blinked. “You did?”
“Well, I put it in a bag of dog shit and had it couriered to his offices.”
“Bridget!”
“What? It was ironic.”
“Oh Christ.” Lily pressed her fingers to her temple in an attempt to soothe the sudden pounding there.
“He really broke into your apartment? I can’t believe that. The threatening note I can believe, but it’s so not like him to get his hands dirty.”
“Who else would want to destroy your wedding dress?”
“Good point,” Bridget conceded.
“You don’t have anything else that he might be looking for?”
“I don’t think so, but if I did it would be at the storage unit. You’re welcome to go look, Charles knows the lock combination.”
“We already did,” Lily sighed. “That place is so unorganized you couldn’t find anything even if you knew what the hell you were looking for.”
“Well, excuse me, Nancy Reagan.”
Lily frowned. “Nancy Reagan?”
“Yeah. ’Cause, you know, she was so organized.”
Lily waited a beat then said, “Have you gotten hold of some crazy Hawaiian hallucinogenic pot or something?”
“I wish,” Bridget said.
Lily drew a deep breath. “Do me a favor, will you, and just try to think if you have anything of Max’s that he’d be willing to break into my apartment to find. And if you think of it, try to remember where in that…insane pile of crap you call a storage unit it might be.”
“You’re judging, Lily Ann.”
“I don’t care, Bridget Carlotta.”
“Don’t call me Carlotta, you know I hate that!”
Lily restrained herself from punching out a promotional poster from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but only because she was afraid she’d cut herself on the glass.
“Can we pull ourselves out of the third grade, please?”
“You started it,” Bridget muttered.
“Just try to think about what could be lurking in your storage unit. I’d like to avoid having my apartment broken into again.”
Bridget sighed. “I’m sorry, Lil. That really must have been awful for you.”
“It wasn’t a picnic,” she agreed. “But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Nate was there.”
“Things are getting serious, huh?”
“Well. Um. Not, you know, not really.”
“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that, sweetie.”
“Bridget…”
“Okay, okay, back to the problem at hand. But I’m just saying, it’s nice that he was there for you.”
“Yeah.” Lily leaned against the wall and smiled at the scarred tile under her feet. “It was. Although he can be a smidge overprotective.”
“Beats underprotective.”
Lily opened her mouth to respond but a creak behind her had her head snapping up and her mouth snapping shut. Her heart, which had leapt into her throat at the sound, settled back into her chest when she saw it was just one of the ushers. A quick glance at her watch told her it had been almost five minutes since her phone had rung, and she figured she’d better get back into the theater before Nate came looking for her.
“Listen, I have to get back. Call or email me if you think of anything, okay?”
“Okay. I still can’t believe Max would do something like that. He’s such a spineless toad.”
“Yeah, if he calls, you sweet talk him just like that.” Lily shook her head as she disconnected then slipped her phone back into her purse. She made a quick stop at the concession stand for red licorice then slipped back into the theater.
“What’d I miss?” she whispered.
Nate reached for the licorice as she slid into her seat. “He’s just about to put the monster onstage. Everything okay?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah. Just a minor work thing, all taken care of.” She settled into her seat and took a licorice whip, trying to swallow the guilt with the candy as the movie rolled on.
* * * * *
They got up to stretch their legs during the intermission. Nate decided he wanted a second bucket of popcorn, so he went to the concession stand while Lily went to the restroom.
After a quick glance at the line she was in—why was there always a line for the ladies room, anyway?—he pulled out his cell phone and keyed in a number.
“Jonah Keller.”
“Jonah. Nate MacIntyre here.”
“That’s handy,” Keller drawled. “I was just about to call you.”
Nate stepped forward as the concession line moved. “You have some information for me?”
“More speculation at this point than solid information, but I looked into Max Carelli’s finances and found a few question marks.”
Nate frowned. “What kind of question marks?”
“Nothing solid, just a feeling I have that everything might not be on the up and up. I’ve only done a surface searc
h so far, but my office is doing a deeper run. My gut tells me something’s going to come up.”
“How long until you know?”
“A day or two at the most. Meantime, I’m set up at the hotel as agreed.”
Nate risked a glance over his shoulder at the ladies’ room. The line had moved and he could no longer see Lily, so he assumed she was in the restroom. “She doesn’t know who you are?”
“I gave her my real name, real address. You can get into a sticky area when you start falsifying ID and credit cards. She was there when I checked in, noticed I was local. I told her my house was being treated for termites.”
“Okay, she’d buy that.”
“No reason not to,” Jonah said easily. “It should be pretty easy to keep an eye on her while she’s at the hotel.”
“Low profile, right?”
“Absolutely. I’ll call when I have more on the financials check.”
“Great. I appreciate it, Jonah.”
“All part of the service,” he said, and clicked off.
Nate flipped his phone closed and slid it into his pocket just as Lily stepped up next to him.
“There’s twelve people in this theater and there was still a line for the ladies’ room.”
Nate slung a companionable arm around her shoulders. “I noticed. Why is that, do you think, when there’s never a line for the men’s room?”
She shot him what could only be described as a sardonic look. “Do you want me to get into the differences in male and female anatomy and how that translates to greater restroom time for women?”
He grinned and shook his head. “Not really.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She nudged him with her elbow as they stepped up to the counter. “Do you want to split some gummy bears?”
“Why not?” he said, and dug out his wallet.
Chapter Sixteen
The next week passed without incident, and Lily started to think maybe she was being paranoid. She knew Nate was being paranoid, but she didn’t say anything when he followed through on his threat to install a security system. It seemed like a small enough thing to make him feel better, so she decided to save the battle for something big.
She found herself sliding into this new relationship with surprising ease, falling quickly into the habit of going over to his place for dinner or having him to the apartment for takeout. They discovered they were both home bodies, more interested in staying in than going out, and spent a lot of nights on his couch or hers, watching movies or just talking into the wee hours.
She found they had a lot in common with their taste in movies, music and politics were almost parallel, though he had a disturbing affection for Flock of Seagulls and that gave her more than one moment of concern.
“How can you listen to that without vomiting?” she would ask, and he would put “I Ran” on its third play just to make her scream and run from the room.
In spite of that, she was really growing to care for him, and part of her wanted to just relax into it and let it all happen. But she was still worried about Bridget, about Max, and wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.
She was manning the front desk and wondering how she would go about figuring out if Max really had broken into her apartment when the ringing of the desk bell had her blinking back to attention to find Jonah Keller standing in front of her.
“Where were you?” he asked, amused.
She smiled back sheepishly. “Nowhere fun. What can I do for you, Mr. Keller?”
“Oh nothing. I just wanted to thank you for the complimentary spa package.”
“It’s no trouble,” she assured him. “All guests who are with us for a week or more receive a spa package as part of the service.”
“Still, it was nice. So, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. So, what spa service did you go for?” She grinned at him. “The seaweed facial or the bikini wax?”
He chuckled richly. “Neither, actually. I had a massage.”
“With Karoline or Jason?”
“Karoline,” he said, lips twitching. “Jason was booked.”
“Ah. Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m sure you could use some relaxing, it must be stressful dealing with your house problems.”
He shrugged. “I’m not thrilled, but there isn’t much I can do about it.”
“Still, it must be difficult. I can’t imagine living out of a hotel for so long.”
“You work in a hotel,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but I get to go home after work. My own space, my own things.”
“Well, I get to go to my office every day, and that’s practically home anyway.”
“That’s nice.” She tilted her head, curious. “Do you own your own business?”
“I do,” he said. “I’m a private investigator.”
“Really?” she said. “That must be interesting.”
He shrugged again. “It has its moments, but it’s mostly boring work. Background checks for employment, financial investigations for divorces, that kind of thing.”
Lily straightened slowly as a thought popped into her head. “That’s really interesting. Listen, do you have a minute to chat about something?”
“Um…yeah, sure.” He checked his watch. “I’m free for about an hour then I have a meeting with a client.”
“Great.” She picked up the phone and dialed reservations. “Hi, Julie? It’s Lily at the desk. I need to speak with a guest about something, can you send someone to cover the front for me? Thanks.”
She hung up and smiled at him. “How about a cup of coffee?”
* * * * *
Lily smiled at the waiter as he delivered their coffee then discreetly stepped away again.
“So that’s pretty much the story,” she told him as she stirred in cream and sugar. “I’m almost sure it was Max, but I don’t have anything really to tie him to the break-in. The police didn’t find any fingerprints that weren’t supposed to be there.”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” he said, and stirred sugar into his own coffee. “You said he’s smart, right? Smart people wear gloves.”
She sighed and sipped her coffee. “I just wish there was a way I could find out for sure.”
“Well.” Jonah leaned back in his chair and cradled his coffee cup in one broad palm. “You think he broke in looking for something, right? What would be important enough for him to risk breaking and entering charges to find?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted.
“What’s important to him? What makes him tick?”
“Status,” she said promptly. “He’s a big deal—at least he thinks he is—and he has to make sure everybody knows it.”
“That’s something,” Jonah said. “After status?”
“Money and power.”
“Sounds pretty shallow,” was Jonah’s casual comment, and Lily winced. “He’s not shallow?”
“No, he is. But he’s charming too. Very charming, very attentive. It’s hard to see the calculation under that.”
He studied her over the rim of his cup. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about you?”
She laughed. “The charm had me fooled for a while.”
“But you weren’t blinded by love.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“It’s gotta sting, having your fiancé cheat on you like that.”
“It did,” Lily said quietly, her eyes on her lap.
“Enough so she’d want revenge?” Jonah asked, and Lily’s head came up with a frown.
“What do you mean?”
“Would she have deliberately taken something of his, something that he’d be this desperate to get back?”
Lily opened her mouth to respond with an unequivocal No then stopped. “She might,” she replied slowly. “She definitely might. Vengeance is somewhat…sacred, to Bridget.”
“Sacred?”
“A sort of ‘fuck with me and I’ll put you through the wall’ mentality
.” Lily grinned. “She takes it very seriously. She spent more than one night in county lockup when we were in college.”
Then she sobered. “But she would not put me in danger.” She shook her head. “No, the minute I told her what happened, if she knew what he was after, she’d have told me.”
“You’re sure about that.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Absolutely.”
“Okay.” He set his coffee cup down and pulled a small notebook with a stubby pencil stuck in the spiral binding out of his hip pocket. “Tell me this guy’s full name again?”
“Max Carelli.”
“What’s Max short for?”
“Oh.” Nonplussed, she had to think for a minute. “Maximilian, I think. His middle name is Giovanni, if that helps.”
“Everything helps,” he said cheerfully, and noted it down. “Do you know when his birthday is?”
“April fifteenth,” she told him, and grimaced. “Tax day.”
“Should have been a sign. Do you know what year?”
Lily shrugged. “He’s in his mid-thirties, I think thirty-six or thirty-seven.”
“I can track that down,” he said, and made another note. “Address?”
Lily rattled off the address of Max’s townhouse then the address of the apartment complex and the name of the restaurant supply company his family owned. She watched Jonah take it all down, then tuck the notebook away again and pick up his coffee.
“I can start with a basic background check,” he told her. “Simple criminal and financial history. If anything pops there, we can dig deeper.”
“What will you find in a financial history that would tell you why he’s breaking into my house?”
“Money motivates people to do all sorts of things,” he told her with a smile. “Chances are if there’s something in his history, it’ll turn out to be part of this.”
She shrugged, unconvinced. “I guess you’re the expert. How much do I owe you for the background check?”
He waved her away. “On the house.”
“Oh, I can’t let you do that,” she began.
“Sure you can,” he said with an easy smile. “If something comes out of it and we have to take the investigation further, then we’ll talk about my rates. Until then, just think of this as a favor from a new friend.”
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