Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  Aiden took hold of Olivia’s hand and started for the door. “Thanks,” he said. “I just want to hear his excuses for this.”

  “You’re welcome,” Friedlander said. “By the way, Flynn, you really look like hell.”

  When they finally found Vanni, rather than being in bed, he was swathed in warm clothes and walking in the parkland behind the hospital. His mother was at his side, and two plainclothes detectives followed at a pretty tight distance.

  Vanni saw Aiden and Olivia and cast wildly about. Aiden felt him deciding where to run, but his mother put both of her arms through one of his and held on tightly. She spoke softly to him, and he slowly faced Aiden and Olivia again, then walked toward them.

  He stopped a short distance away, and Aiden saw how much it cost the man to look directly at his partner. “Sorry,” he said. Muscles flexed in his jaw. “That’s the best I’ve got.”

  “They said you’d tried to kill yourself,” Aiden said. “You look okay to me.”

  “They found a scalpel in his pocket,” Mama said. “He’d taken it from emergency. He was going to cut his wrists.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Vanni said. “I was going to cut my throat.” His mother cried out and covered her mouth.

  “Why?” Aiden asked. “Why would you set me up like that? You didn’t give a damn if Olivia and I died. In fact, you were doing your best to make sure that happened.”

  “I did care, damn you. I didn’t want you dead. Things went screwy on me. I made a mistake, got dragged into something, then couldn’t get out. And I wanted the money. I wanted to give Pops a chance. I was wrong—he didn’t want another chance. If he had, he could have paid for it. I’ve said I’m sorry. That doesn’t make anything better, but it’s all I’ve got. I want to go in now.”

  “You made sure Boswell was with us,” Olivia said, surprising Aiden. “And you asked about him.”

  “Who cares now,” Vanni said. “You’re something, Olivia. Good enough for Aiden. Not that I’m sure he’s good enough for you.”

  Olivia wasn’t to be distracted. “You asked what happened to Boswell before I’d even mentioned he’d been hurt. What was that about?”

  Vanni smiled, a ghostly attempt that didn’t encourage confidence. “No biggie. I put a homing device in his neck. It helped until it quit sending signals. The dog got shot and the device was destroyed. End of mystery. Is he okay, by the way?”

  “Yes. He’s with Chris and Sonnie.” Even though she supposed she shouldn’t, she felt sorry for Vanni.

  “How did it start?” Aiden asked,

  “Fats was the one who spilled everything,” Vanni said. He raised his hands and let them fall, limp, against his legs. “He went on a drunk one night, and I ran into him. Bragged and bragged about how much he and Hill were going to make. Got so chummy, he offered me a part of the action. I accepted. I accepted after I knew what they were involved in. But you just stumbled into the middle of things, Aiden. Olivia was set up by Kitty Fish, but you didn’t have to be any part of it all. If you’d stayed out of it, everything would have worked out fine, and no one would have found out about thieves stealing from thieves. What the hell. Take care of each other.” He walked away. Mama peered repeatedly backward past his arm.

  The two detectives drew in closer behind them.

  Aiden watched them until he couldn’t bear to watch anymore, and he turned away.

  Olivia’s strained face greeted him. She pointed, and he spun around in time to see Vanni heading back toward him. Mama made to follow, but he waved her away, and when the detectives started after him, he yelled, “Get your piece out, Aiden. Tell ‘em you’ll kill me if I make a run for it.“

  “It’s okay,” Aiden called. “I’ll take responsibility for him.”

  The two men looked at each other but stayed where they were.

  Vanni came so close, Aiden could see that his eyes were bloodshot and, what he hadn’t noticed earlier, his partner had lost weight and his shoulders sagged.

  Every rough hour was making itself felt on Aiden. He wanted to pick Olivia up and run with her, run and run until they’d never be found again.

  “I don’t think I can handle this one,” Vanni said. His face shone with a thin film of sweat. “Everything I worked for. Everything I did that made my family proud. It’s all turned rotten because I couldn’t control my emotions.”

  Olivia held Aiden’s hand so tightly it hurt.

  “You loved your grandfather,” Aiden said. “Hell, I loved him. I miss him.”

  Vanni was crying, and Aiden’s throat tightened. He murmured, “Get it out if it’ll help.”

  “Nothing will ever help again,” Vanni said. From a pocket he slid a hypodermic, shielded by his palm and wrist so that only Aiden and Olivia could see it. “Do this one last thing for me, Aiden. Stand right there as if we’re still talking and let me finish it. It’ll be fast. You look at the ground, Olivia. I’m so sorry I won’t have a chance to know you better.”

  “What’s in the hypo?” Aiden said, frantically searching for a way to divert Vanni.

  “Nothing but air,” Vanni said. “Nothing but air. Should cause a massive stroke. Gotta try for the artery, but if I miss, the vein will do the trick.”

  “I can’t help you do this,” Aiden said. “You’re going to pay for what you’ve done by taking it in your pride. You’re going to live with shame until you pay off your debts. But you didn’t kill anyone, thank God.”

  “I’m an accessory to everything that’s happened. I owe it to Mama to—”

  “To what?” Olivia broke in with such quiet anger, Aiden stared at her. “You owe it to your mother to add to her pain by killing yourself? At least she knows you did what you did out of love for your grandfather. You owe it to her to do what takes real guts—face up to the crime and pay however you have to pay. Now give me that thing.”

  Aiden looked at her outstretched hand, then at the alert detectives.

  Olivia saw that look and put her hand on Vanni’s shoulder. She rested her head on his chest and said, “Please, Vanni, give it to me.”

  “Time to go inside,” one officer announced loudly. “Let’s go, Zanetto.”

  Aiden shifted restlessly, afraid to grab for the hypo in case he caused disaster.

  “I can’t do it,” Vanni said, shaking his head. His left arm was around Olivia. “Understand that I can’t do it, both of you.” He raised the hypodermic in front of him and rested the side of the needle against his throat.

  “Shit,” Aiden said. “Give me time and I may learn not to hate you for everything you’ve put us through. But if you pull this number, I hope you rot in hell.”

  Olivia cried openly and clung to Vanni.

  “You’re asking us to help you kill yourself,” Aiden said. “I know you aren’t into friendship, but shouldn’t some shred of decency stop you from that, at least?”

  “I’m not ready to give up on you, Vanni,” Olivia said. “Give me a chance and I’ll be there for you, whatever that means.”

  Vanni looked at the sky, and Aiden saw when the needle stopped pressing into the flesh of his neck.

  “Me, too,” Aiden said, although he didn’t want to. He’d work on it, but he wasn’t ready to forgive and forget yet.

  Vanni broke down. He slipped to sit, hunched over, on the grass. But he’d dropped the hypodermic.

  Thirty-two

  The elevator doors slid open, and Aiden waved Olivia ahead of him onto the observation deck. She’d never been to the Empire State Building before. He wasn’t about to tell her, but neither had he.

  An icy wind whipped against the few hardy souls determined to be able to say they’d been there.

  Olivia jammed a green woolen hat well down and tied a brown scarf around it and under her chin. She made straight for the nearest telescope and crowded an eye against the viewfinder. After several minutes, she stepped away. “You get a better view of the lights without that, and you can’t see anything else in the darkness anyway.”

&n
bsp; “It’s worth it to come up here for the lights, though,” he said, and meant it. The city shimmered beneath lowlying clouds.

  “Okay, been here, done that,” she told him. “Now I think we should make sure you go home and sleep for several days.”

  His heart rose. “Sounds like a great idea to me.”

  Her eyes slid away, and she turned from him. “People need time to get over shocks, and you’ve had some terrible shocks.”

  Aiden settled a hand on the back of her neck and said, “So have you.”

  “I know, and I intend to be smart about it all. We must both be.”

  “Oh, yes, Olivia. We must.”

  She stared at colored lights across the city until they blurred and ran together. What a fabulous place. It didn’t matter that her nose and face were frozen, or that exhaustion made the inside of her head muzzy.

  What mattered was that she was here in this magical, unreal place with Aiden—and the danger was past. She’d have to appear in court as a witness, but not for some time since Aiden had explained that cases like this took a great deal of preparation.

  Aiden tried to see the city through her eyes. He’d lived here a very long time, but it still excited him. New York had its own energy. Every day it woke up like a lion, and when it finally quieted down, it was the lion who slept, but with one eye open.

  Soon they were the only sightseers left on the deck and they stood, side by side, staring out through the safety wire that surrounded the area.

  “Thank you for doing this,” she said, “for bringing me up here even though you should be in bed.”

  “You wanted to come and I’m glad I did. We should both be in bed, and I’m not going there without you.”

  Olivia averted her face sharply. She would find the words that needed to be said now. Even if she stumbled over them, she would say them.

  “Olivia, sweetheart, you keep clamming up on me. It’s really cold. Let’s go somewhere corny but cute, like the Rainbow Room. I’ll buy you something hot and exotic to drink. And get you a meal.”

  He was making this so difficult, Olivia thought. “I’m packing you off home, Aiden. Thank you for caring so much about me. Your face is a mess. You’re all beaten up. You must feel awful, but you’re still worrying about making sure I see something of New York before I have to leave. But I’ll be back one day, so I’ll have another chance.”

  This was one complex lady. He knew she’d fallen as hard as he had. What he didn’t know was just how convoluted a game she was playing in her head right now.

  “Ah, I’ve got my second wind,” he said. “I feel like an Irish Coffee and some Tiramisu.”

  At first Olivia looked aghast, but then she grinned. “Sounds good.” The smile drifted away. “Don’t you think we’ve got some talking to do? Serious talking that shouldn’t be put off?”

  He wanted to scoff and tell her they knew each other’s hearts so why talk? “Yes, I suppose we do. I think I know where to go to do that.”

  “Not your place, Aiden.”

  “Not my place.”

  Once down on the street again, Aiden hailed a cab, opened the door for Olivia, and told the driver to take them to the St. Regis Hotel.

  On the ride, Olivia concentrated on the scene they passed. It grew very late, and the hardy souls abroad were swathed in layers of clothing, except for those coming and going from fashionable nightspots in their chauffeur-driven cars and limousines.

  They arrived at the St. Regis, and Aiden took pleasure in watching Olivia’s sharp eyes assess her surrounds. They went to the King Cole Bar with its gorgeous, cherry-oak bar and leather chairs that invited patrons to sink in and stay. The room was crowded with expensively dressed people. Jewels winked and carefully made-up faces showed an animation so many people couldn’t all be feeling. Men in evening dress smoked and discussed cigars over cognac.

  Olivia leaned close and said, “I will only speak for myself, but I don’t want them to think I’m a bag lady and throw me out.”

  He faced her, untied the scarf from around her hat, and took both off. These he tucked into his overcoat pocket.

  “You’re wearing a suit,” she said, and sounded as if she were accusing him of cheating. “Your collar shines in the dark. You look as if you’ve got a fashionable couple of days of beard growth. And even if you do have a swollen nose and two black eyes starting every woman in the room is staring at you, dash it all.”

  He smiled down at her and placed a soft kiss at the corner of her mouth. Then he ran his fingers through her hair, fluffing up her dark curls. “Do you have a lipstick?”

  “Yes,” she said, but didn’t sound happy. “I suppose I have to go and find a washroom and have a bunch of these women sneering at me.”

  “You’re overreacting. Give me the lipstick.”

  She hesitated, but gave in and handed him a tube from her pocket. He took off the top, used a knuckle to tilt up her chin, and applied lipstick as if he were a makeup artist in his off hours. He made a second, slower pass, this time watching her mouth as if he’d never seen anything as fascinating before. His next kiss landed on the end of her nose. “Mascara.”

  “Oh, Aiden, we’ll draw a crowd.”

  “You’re the loveliest, sexiest woman in the room. Of course we’ll draw a crowd. Mascara?”

  She worked the much too large black bag from her shoulder and fished around inside until she found her scantily equipped makeup bag. She did have mascara, and this she handed to him.

  “Good. Look up. That’s a good girl. Now look down slowly. Very slowly, Olivia, to glide your lashes over the brush. I could really get into this. Voila. We make a hell of a team. Now the other eye.”

  “You’ve done this before,” she accused him. “Are you sure you’ve never been married?”

  He chuckled but enjoyed the hint of jealousy he heard. “Never. And I’ve never put on a woman’s makeup, but I’ve seen it done on one of those makeovers on TV. You are gorgeous. I’m going to tie the scarf under the collar of your coat. You glow, know that?”

  A woman in sparkling black and wearing a sable jacket passed by and made a low, purring noise at Aiden. To Olivia, she said, “You make me jealous. He’s a dish and he’s besotted. You lucky woman.” She cast Aiden another look through lowered lashes before she was swallowed in the crowd.

  “Why did we come here?” Olivia said.

  “Because it’s a nice place, and you should only be taken to nice places. And I can afford to take you to nice places. Quick. Two empty chairs.”

  They sprinted and claimed the chairs, despite a sensation that people were converging on the prize from all over the room. Once seated, Olivia felt unbearably warm and said, “Brace yourself,” as she removed her coat, revealing another unlikely collection of borrowed clothing. At least she now had tennis shoes that fitted, even if they were black with silver stripes. And Vanni’s sisters had sent over an assortment of clothing. Too bad Olivia had only considered the cold and selected sweats again, these matching. She rather liked herself in yellow, although the nylon fabric swished every time she moved, and the pants hung on her. She hitched them up and pulled the jacket down.

  “You’re one of a kind,” Aiden said. “And I’m so glad. Ordinary women bore me.”

  “Who’s that?” She pointed at a huge painting.

  “Keep your voice down,” Aiden hissed. “King Cole. That’s the name of the bar, remember?”

  “Nope. Didn’t hear the name.”

  A waiter approached, apparently on wheels. “Champagne,” Aiden said.

  The waiter inclined his head and proceeded to make suggestions, finishing with the idea that they might be more comfortable with champagne cocktails.

  “We’ll be comfortable with a bottle,” Aiden said. “You’re clearly a man of developed taste. I confess I’m no expert. Please surprise us.” He beckoned the man to lend him his ear and when he did so, whispered at length.

  Nodding seriously, the waiter left.

  Very quickly an
array of desserts, some in individual chocolate or china dishes, arrived. They were displayed and described with subdued flourish—and the entire tray left on the table. “We need to discuss some things,” Olivia said.

  “I know. And this is a good place because everyone is so involved with seeing who’s seeing them, they couldn’t care less about us. Talk away.”

  “Yes. Aiden, we came together by accident.”

  “Yes, and isn’t that usually the way it happens?”

  She would not let him distract her, not that she thought he was doing so deliberately. “This was different. I was in trouble, and you decided to help me, just as you would have helped anyone. Probably.”

  He scooped a spoonful of key lime filling from a chocolate shell and said, “But I don’t think I’d have fallen in love with just anyone. I never have before. How about you?”

  “Of course I haven’t. This is the first time.” She’d have liked to swallow her tongue.

  “Just as I thought. Ah, here comes Lewis.”

  Lewis displayed a bottle of Dom Perignon with the reverence of the keeper of some sacred place. “I assure you, sir, that this is a masterpiece. I’ve heard people speak of its smoke, its presence, its unforgettable nose. Phooey, say I. This is a marvel bound to transport even the most spoiled among our clientele. I think you will find it most appropriate.” He uncorked the bottle and smiled mysteriously through the faint smoky haze that rose above a thin rim of foam. He offered Aiden a small amount to taste. Aiden did so, and even his uneducated mouth knew it had suffered a taste treat.

  “What do you think?” Lewis whispered.

  Aiden smiled and said, “A wonder. Thank you.” Beaming broadly, Lewis poured for Olivia, then for Aiden, placed the bottle in a cooler, and backed away.

  “Try it,” Aiden said, wishing the butterflies attacking his insides would die.

  Olivia did try, and she giggled. “Here we are like Fred and Ginger. It’s really lovely. Thank you. Aiden, I’m not your type. You’re much too full of life and too charismatic for me. Not, I know, that you have any idea of bowling me off my feet or anything like that. But I do think you want to be kind and try to give me a good time when we aren’t under duress. It’s not necessary. I shall always think of you with affection and—I might as well be honest—I think there will be some longing for me. After all, this staid woman has lived on the edge for a while.”