Voices spoke in low whispers from the kitchen, and I buried my face into the couch cushions when I realized who was talking to my mother. His name was Vince Walker, and he’d been my dad’s partner for a lot of years up until my dad died about a year and a half ago. Dad had been too young to die, but he’d had a massive heart attack while watching a Falcons game and was gone in an instant. No warning or early symptoms. It had taken us all by surprise. I missed him terribly.
Vince was a good cop and very distinguished looking, his dark hair threaded with silver and his shoulders broad and muscular—kind of like James Brolin on steroids. He was a distant relative of the Walkers who owned the whiskey distillery our town had been founded around, and he’d been hanging around at the house a lot lately. His interest in my mom was plain for anyone to see, and she blushed like a schoolgirl whenever he was around. But my dad’s death was still too recent for me to deal well with another man in the picture. Yet another reason for me to escape the house as soon as possible.
I dragged myself off the couch and into the bathroom to splash water on my face, and then headed into the kitchen. My mom was at the stove doing something scandalous to potatoes and Vince was standing entirely too close behind her, as if the secret to frying potatoes was related to the movement of his hips. I narrowed my eyes and went straight to the fridge to get a beer.
My mom broke out of his embrace and came over to give me a hug. “I heard about your job when I was buying groceries this morning. It’s all that stupid Stella Larson could talk about standing behind the register. She never did have a lick of sense.”
I put my head down on her shoulder and just took a minute to bathe in the comfort of her arms like I was a little kid again.
“Well, she has good reason to talk,” I said. “This should keep mouths running for a few weeks at least.”
“Nonsense,” my mother said, patting me once on the back before going back to the potatoes and draining them. “As soon as Mitch Clumsky gets arrested for beating on that poor wife of his again, everyone will forget all about you.”
For as long as I’d known Mrs. Clumsky, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard anyone call her by her first name. Everyone always called her Mitch’s poor wife, since he’d been drinking away his paychecks and taking it out on her their entire married life. She would never press charges and she refused to take help from the neighbors who kept trying.
I grunted in agreement and went to set the table. The three of us sat down and I looked at the meatloaf and the surrounding bowls of food, congealed and lumpy. Vince put on a brave face and started dishing out the food. He must have really liked my mom, and it made me smile a little at his determination.
“So have you thought about your other options?” he asked, trying to cut through the meatloaf with his fork. He finally gave up and went to get a steak knife out of the silverware drawer.
“I have, actually,” I said, tackling my own meatloaf. “Maybe you could give me some pointers.”
“Sure, what do you have in mind?”
“You know I’ve been doing surveillance work for Kate, but I figure I can make twice as much money if I become an actual agent. I’ve decided to get my private investigator’s license.”
The piece of meatloaf Vince had finally managed to get into his mouth fell out onto his plate and he covered his face with his napkin as he started coughing. Before he could say anything about it one way or the other, my mother piped in.
“That’s a terrific idea,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Don’t you think, Vince? She’s done such a great job bringing down those lowlifes. I saw her with my own eyes. She’d be a natural. Just like Jessica Fletcher. But without the sweaters.”
Vince had the wild-eyed, panicked look of a man whose woman had him by the balls, and he nodded reluctantly.
“Do you know the requirements for the state of Georgia?” I asked Vince, a full smile coming to my face for the first time that day.
He cleared his throat and said, “Kate can probably give you the specifics, but as far as I know it’s a written test, and then you’ll have to go through the Citizens’ Police Academy. You might want to see what Kate thinks about this. All of her agents are either current or former cops. They’ve got a lot of experience, which is why her agency has such a good reputation.”
“Kate’s going to think this is a great idea,” I lied cheerfully.
In reality, Kate was going to think this was one of the worst ideas I’d ever had, right up there with the time I’d decided to give the both of us home perms and burned our hair off to the scalp.
But I knew Kate. She was the best friend I had in the entire world. She’d bluster and try to talk me out of it, but when push came to shove, she’d be there for me because she’d know I needed the help.
After dinner and the dishes were done, I headed to my childhood room with a sense of peace I probably shouldn’t have felt considering the situation. The house was a perfect square—living room, dining room, and kitchen at the front of the house, and three bedrooms and a bathroom at the back. The master bedroom was in the middle and the two smaller bedrooms on each side. It was always best to keep me and my sister separated whenever possible, so there had been a modicum of peace in the house during our teenage years.
My room was still decorated with yellow walls and white lace Priscilla curtains. A full size bed sat in front of the window and a chest of drawers was pushed into the corner. There were still Nirvana and Pearl Jam posters on the wall, a shelf filled with books and trophies, and pictures tacked to a bulletin board of me and Kate and me and my dad.
The room was comforting and terrifying at the same time, but now instead of seeing myself living out the rest of my days in this room, I saw the possibility of something else. I had a purpose. I was making the right decision. A good decision. I was an intelligent human being. Surely I could become a competent agent over time. Maybe all I needed was the right mentor.
The thought had Nick’s face flashing through my mind, and I fanned myself with my hand like an adolescent girl. Maybe Nick and I had needed a few weeks of cooling off. It had been instant attraction between us, but we’d slowly been getting to know each other when the tranquilizer incident happened. And if I hadn’t seen red the moment I saw him with another woman—another woman who had no business touching him the way she had been, informant or not—then we would have already been sleeping together.
Maybe now that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was a good time to rekindle things as far as my love life went. With that settled, I turned my iPod on random and Patsy Cline’s Crazy came on first thing. I shook my head and went to bed, wondering if the Fates were also in charge of the soundtrack of my life. I couldn’t seem to turn my mind off, so I lounged on the bed, staring at a poster of Marky Mark above my head.
I’d lost track of the time somewhere, and maybe I’d actually dozed for a while, but my eyes popped open when Def Leopard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me came on, accompanied by an unusual and atonal noise that didn’t belong. At first I thought someone had broken into the house. I reached into my nightstand drawer to grab my nail file just in case it was an axe murderer, while I felt around in the dark for my cell phone so I could call 911.
My eyes widened as the sounds became more familiar and the need to retch violently became most prevalent in my mind. Apparently Vince had decided to stay the night. From the animalistic sounds coming from the room next to mine, and the rhythmic thumping of the bed hitting the wall, I was guessing he was planning to stay all night.
I’d spent eighteen years in this house growing up, and in all those years I’d never heard those sounds coming through the wall. Not that I didn’t think my parents had sex or anything. But I’m pretty sure they never had the kind of sex that my mother was now having with Vince. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever had that kind of sex.
I shook my head violently to clear out the images that were bombarding my fragile psyche. This was not something any daug
hter should have to listen to, no matter how old. And there was no way in hell I’d be able to face either of them in the morning.
I slapped a pillow over my head and tried to suffocate the sounds out, but they were hitting their stride and nothing but death was going to keep me from hearing. I waited patiently for half an hour, thinking surely it would have to end soon, but they were still going strong and I couldn’t take it any longer.
I got dressed quickly in denim shorts and a stretchy tank top and slipped on my flip-flops. I shoved a few belongings into an overnight bag and was glad I’d opened the window earlier so my escape didn’t make unnecessary noise. I’d perfected the art of sneaking out during my teenage years, and I hadn’t lost the touch.
I jumped in the Volvo and waited to close the car door until I’d pulled out of the driveway and was down the street. Not that I thought Mom and Vince would stop what they were doing to listen to my escape, but I didn’t want to throw them off their stride.
The problem with escaping in the middle of the night was that I didn’t exactly have anywhere to go. I could call Kate, but she’d done enough for me lately. I didn’t want to get her out of bed in the middle of the night. I could call Rosemarie, but I’d have to share the guest bed with her two Great Danes. My third option was Nick, but he’d have my clothes off by the time I crossed the threshold, and I was still sunburned and in pain. My last option was the agency. I had a key to the outer door, and I’d have access to the shower and the lounge, which had an overstuffed couch I could sleep on.
With the decision made, I headed toward Savannah. And the first chance I got, I was going to look for another place to live. I had enough to make a deposit, and if I ate like I was in college again I could probably pay most of my bills every month. Maybe every other month.
CHAPTER THREE
Friday
“What do you know about Vince Walker?” I asked Kate the next morning.
She hadn’t looked surprised to see me asleep on the couch when she’d come into the office a little after seven. Nothing much surprised Kate, so I rolled off the couch and followed her into her office, my clothes rumpled from sleep.
Kate’s boxy linen suit was already creased with wrinkles and her hair was still damp from her shower. She’d pushed it back with a black headband, and her face was free of makeup except for a touch of mascara. Kate was one of those women who didn’t need makeup. Her skin was flawless, her cheeks naturally rosy and her gray eyes wide and clear. She had a cute little button nose and delicately arched brows a shade darker than her blond hair. She hadn’t changed much since high school—mostly she was a little fuller in the hip and a lot more cynical.
“He’s a good cop,” she answered. “Solid reputation and someone who’s looked up to in the department. No smirches on his name or badge. I’d think you’d know all that considering he was your dad’s partner for ten years. What’s going on?”
“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s hard to know what a person’s really like until it’s too late. Especially when they ruin a perfectly good song.” I’d forever associate Pour Some Sugar on Me with debilitating gorilla sex.
I watched Kate go through her morning ritual—hang ugly suit jacket on the coatrack by the door, lock gun in desk drawer, turn on computer, get messages out of the box that had arrived after she’d left the office. Kate was very regimented. It was an impressive sight to see, and I wished frequently that I could be more like Kate.
I sighed and went to the Keurig coffeemaker she kept on a sideboard, making us both a cup and doctoring it the way she liked—with too much sugar and a third of a cup of milk. I’d never seen the point of drinking coffee at all if you were just going to turn it into dessert. I sat in the chair across from her massive walnut desk and waited for her to sit down, staying unusually silent.
Instead of taking the chair behind her desk, she sat in the one next to me and gave me an arched look.
“Spill it, Addison. What do you know about Vince that I don’t?” she asked.
“You have to promise not to laugh. And you can’t tell anyone.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Let’s just say that Vince doesn’t seem to have a problem with premature ejaculation. And the walls of my bedroom are thinner than I thought.”
She tipped her head back and laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You promised not to laugh.”
“No, I promised not to tell anyone,” she hiccupped. “Jesus, Addison. That is not something I needed to have a visual of. So your mom is doing the nasty with Vince, huh?” Kate’s grin was evil and I shot her a dirty look.
“Either that or he was giving her a hell of a pelvic exam.”
“All women should be so lucky.”
The bitterness in Kate’s voice had my head snapping up and my eyes zeroing in on her face, but Kate was really good at not showing anything she didn’t want to be seen. A hell of a poker player was Kate.
She’d been married for a handful of years to Mike McClean, another Savannah cop, and I’d never gotten the impression that anything was wrong in their relationship. In fact, I would have described their devotion to one another as damned near perfect. Before I could ask if anything was wrong, she changed the subject, and I knew whatever it was, she wasn’t ready to talk about it.
“The FBI will be here at ten to meet with us about the case,” she said. “It’s very high profile and they’re trying to keep it as quiet as possible, so everything said in this room is privileged information. Understood?”
I made an X over my heart and tried to look trustworthy and unassuming. The secrecy was my least favorite part of the job, considering most women in the south cut their teeth on gossip.
“No offense, but I can’t imagine why you’d need me for this job. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d use me for.”
She smiled and moved out of the chair next to me and into the one behind her desk. “Normally you’d be right, but we’re dealing with professional criminals in this case, and professionals can sense a cop a mile away.”
I straightened my shoulders and examined the cuticles on my nails. I needed a manicure, only that was one of the recent budget crunches I’d had to make.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to take offense at that statement,” I said. “I’m going to pretend like you need me because I’m so good at blending with my surroundings.”
“Yeah, you blended right in with the bushes when you fell out of that tree on your last case.”
Kate opened a thick file on her desk and pushed it toward me. The photo on top was gruesome enough that I felt the color drain from my face and a clammy sweat pop out on my skin.
“Geez, Kate. Warn a girl, would you?”
“Sorry. This whole mess started when a man named Christian DeLuce was the highest bidder for a package of loose gems during a series of auctions the Russian government was holding to raise money. The gems supposedly belonged to the Romanovs, and DeLuce bought them sight unseen.”
“Christian DeLuce, jewelry designer for the stars? That Christian DeLuce?” I asked.
“The one and only.”
“Why would he buy gems sight unseen?”
“Apparently, that’s all the rage right now among jewelry designers. It lends a little mystery, as well as history, to whatever pieces they design. Countries in need of actual cash are making a killing doing auctions this way. They state only how many loose gems are in the package—not what kind or the carat. They promise the gems came from a specific time in history, and were worn by specific historical figures. The bidding wars normally exceed six figures, sometimes seven. The jewelers in turn easily make that back ten fold because the story is often more lucrative than the actual gems. Though to be fair, all of the gems auctioned so far have been of good quality, if not especially large.”
“Nice,” I said, turning the photo of the mutilated corpse over since I couldn’t seem to stop staring at it. “I assume the body th
at looks like it’s been through a meat grinder and left in the sun too long is important to this case somehow?”
“DeLuce made the money transfer from his bank after he won the bid on the gems per the auction rules, and the package was opened via Skype so he could see what he’d gotten out of the deal. Turns out there was an engraved emerald the size of a baby’s fist inside that hasn’t been seen since the reign of Catherine the Great.”
I let out a low whistle and looked at a photocopy of the emerald. “The Heart of Ivan,” I said, recognizing it immediately. “Lots of rumors about the emerald’s origin, but apparently Ivan the Terrible procured it through dubious means from China’s Jiajing Emperor.”
“No one cares about Ivan the Terrible,” Kate said, getting up for more coffee. “It’s the Romanov legends that send all the crazies out.”
I gave Kate an arched look. “As I was saying, Ivan’s first wife, Anastasia Romanovna—”
“Oh,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry. You know I could never stay awake during history.”
“Anyway, Anastasia became ill not long after she and Ivan married. She was very young, early thirties if I remember right, and she was really the only one able to truly keep Ivan’s temper under control. The sickness tore through her body for weeks, leaving her frail and unable to eat. Ivan reportedly never left her side and was out of his mind with worry because he really did love her.”
I sighed a little because I’m a romantic at heart. I cry at commercials and sappy greeting cards, and despite the hand fate’s dealt my love life, I believe in happily ever after. Kate shook her head at me and I knew she’d read my mind.
“Ivan somehow got word about the emerald and that it supposedly had healing powers, so his men took it from the emperor of China, and Ivan brought it to her while she was in the last hours on her death bed, hoping for a miracle.”
Kate’s eyes were starting to glaze over, and I shook my head in wonderment that the two of us could be so different. Tingles were shooting all through my body at the excitement that a new piece of history might be discovered, and Kate looked like she was about to bury her cat.
Whiskey Sour (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 2 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) Page 4