“Your choice, Mom. Think it over,”
“I have thought it over. Come get me, Keely. I’ve got no money, no car—”
“I’ll call you tonight.”
“Ungrateful brat!” Moira’s whiskey screech rose to fill the car. “I sacrificed my life after your noaccount father walked out. I worked two jobs so you’d have pretty dresses and food on the table. How can you abandon me like a wore out shoe? I’ve told people here about you, Keely. About how you pretend to be such a good person—!”
The swearing began. Vile accusations, tumbled on furious profanities, the voice rising to a howl of animal outrage.
Keely cut the connection. The car travelled two more blocks before the phone rang again. She pictured her mother standing in the corridor at a pay phone, her bitten lower lip quivering and her beautiful coppery hair disheveled.
She pressed her own lips together and took the next corner too sharply. During the conversation, she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. She felt humiliated and shamed.
If Max dared to answer that phone now, she’d shove him out of the car. If he said one word, she’d wail like a banshee. Her companion remained silent, his hands cupping his knees and his head averted.
The phone stopped demanding attention. Grateful for Max’s unexpected diplomacy, Keely calmed, although her stomach felt as if someone had shredded it with a cheese grater. “Ignore her, Keely,” the doctor often said. “She doesn’t mean what she says. It’s the addiction talking, not the heart.”
But the words came out of her mother’s mouth, in her mother’s voice. Sometimes slurred, too often hateful. Keely would be paying off Moira’s stay at this expensive detox clinic for years. Emotionally, the debt of her mother’s grievances would never be canceled. Strange how every abusive utterance hurt just as much as it did when Keely was a child. She pressed harder on the accelerator.
Max stole a glance at the woman sitting rigid behind the wheel. Her breath came harshly, her cheeks reddened with emotion. Who could blame her? When Anna Marie berated Max, underneath the bluster beat a loving heart. Keely’s mother sounded as flaky as coconut seviche.
The parking lot for the newspaper building was full, but on their second roaring circuit, a slot opened up when a Chevy backed out. Keely wrenched the wheel hard right and braked, slamming the vehicle into the narrow space with the violence of a round into a gun chamber.
“We’re here.” She switched off the engine.
Max, massaging the back of his abused neck, exhaled. Silence was the most judicious response to this curt announcement.
“My mother’s an emotional pinwheel.” Staring straight ahead, Keely gripped the wheel. As if, without her restraining hands, the car might lunge forward. “The slightest breeze makes her spin out of control.”
Max shifted uncomfortably, at a loss for words. The women in his family wept and laughed with abandon, emotions displayed as openly as choice vegetables at a farmer’s market. He was unfamiliar with a poker-faced reaction to verbal abuse.
He waited for his companion to climb out of the car, but she remained motionless. The reins of control were stretched so thin, the slightest pressure could snap them irrevocably.
“I’m sorry,” Max offered.
Keely gulped. The outer layer of poise peeled back enough to reveal the wounded child huddled inside.
“It’s okay to cry,” he told her gently.
“Did you ever see an egg burst during the boiling process?” Keely sagged back against the seat and closed her eyes, lashes cobweb fine and dark against her fair skin. “Instead of hardening, the egg cracks open because it’s too thin-skinned to withstand the heat—”
She covered her face with her hands. Listening to her choked sobs. Max wanted to stroke her hair, cradle her against his chest, and whisper comfort. However, she’d made it painfully clear that such intimacies were unwelcome. He waited patiently in silent sympathy until her muffled sobs quieted.
“I’m sorry.” She dug a tissue from her purse, dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “I’m very sorry that you had to hear that.”
“No apology necessary. Ready to beard the lioness in her den?”
Keely drew a quivering breath. “Let’s go.”
Max bounced on his toes, flexing his arms and expanding his chest. “You do the talking and I’ll be your muscle.”
Keely faced him over the roof of the car. “What exactly does that role entail?”
“I’ll frown in a suitably menacing fashion and throw in an occasional Neanderthal grunt.”
Keely offered him a watery smile. “Thanks, Max. Both the offer and the humor are appreciated.”
As they entered the building, Max sighed. He’d agreed to come along to keep an eye on Keely, not to be drawn into the emotional turmoil hidden beneath her enticing exterior. Her analogy of the ruined egg haunted him.
Decorated in emerald accents and black lacquer furniture, the lobby possessed all the coziness of a snow bank. A vase of flowers on the reception desk attracted Keely’s attention and she nudged Max.
“Nerine lilies,” she whispered. “Ida says they symbolize majesty and power. I’ll bet Flo chose them.”
Max nodded. “This is your show. You do the talking.”
The receptionist had a mop of vanilla yogurt curls and nails long enough to spear fish. Her smile bypassed Keely and stuck on Max. “May I help you, sir?”
Keely said crisply, “We’re here to see Flo Netherton.”
“Do you have an appointment?” Again, the question was addressed to Max.
He turned on the charm. “No. Does it matter?”
“She sees no one without an appointment.” The young woman looked past Keely as though she were invisible. “Would you like to make an appointment, sir?”
“Ask Ms. Netherton if she can see Keely O’Brien and Max Summers, there’s a good girl.”
After further persuasion, she consented to contact Flo. “Yes, Ms. Netherton. I’ll send them right in.”
She pointed to the right. “You have five minutes. Corner suite, end of the hall.”
Max paused before the door of a corner suite where a brass plaque the size of a bath mat read “Publisher.” “Stay in the neutral corner till you hear the bell and come out fighting.”
“My knees are shaking.” Keely squared her shoulders. She knocked and they entered to find Flo enthroned behind a horse shoe-shaped black lacquer desk the size of a dining room table.
The publisher folded her hands on a green leather blotter and inclined her head. “I rather expected this visit.”
Max glanced at Keely, expecting her to take the lead, but she remained mute, eyes enormous in her pale face.
Flo said coolly, “Is this fair? Two against one?”
Max had to admire her nerve. “We’re here to discuss some of your recent columns.”
“Reader interest. How flattering! One pours one’s heart out on the printed page, but rarely hears from the public.”
Max paused to let Keely jump in, but again she contributed only silence.
“Discussions are a waste of time.” Flo’s chin held the arrogant slant of a cat surveying an inferior. “My attorney assures me neither of you has grounds for a libel suit.”
She swiveled to the side and crossed long, elegant legs with the whisper of silk stockings. Whatever her age, Flo was well preserved. Max decided the smartly styled black suit only proved that real class wasn’t defined by the cut of one’s clothing.
“Anything else? If not, you’ll have to excuse me.” With her sculpted features, milky skin and natural arrogance, Flo possessed a seductively dangerous quality. Max reminded himself that no matter how luscious the icing, the filling of this particular confection was pure poison.
Flo gave him a provocative smile as she toyed with the marble-sized pearls at her throat. “You should have come alone, Mr. Summers. Perhaps I might have accommodated you.”
Anna Marie claimed you could catch more flies with honey than vinegar, although
in actual practice, Max’s aunt only used the sweetener in her cooking.
He returned her smile. “We’d like to appeal to your better nature—”
“I’m afraid you’re making an unwarranted assumption, Mr. Summers.” Silver-filigree Art Deco lamps framed the lovely picture she made seated behind the desk. An enormous ruby glittered on her right hand and a galaxy of diamond stars on her left.
Max reminded himself the subject of this exquisite portrait was bent on destroying Feast of Italy. “And that assumption is?”
“That I have a better nature, of course.” Leaning back, Flo ran her fingers across the keys of her computer.
The languid gesture couldn’t have been more evocative if the keyboard was on a baby grand and those were ivories Flo tickled. Each movement was calculated to create an effect.
“Care to guess my real nature, Mr. Summers?”
Max decided to take off the gloves. “When it comes to bad girl seductions, you don’t hold a candle to Bette Davis.”
Flo stiffened. He’d mocked her, the unforgivable sin. Her nails clattered on the keys and she exhaled in an angry hiss. Keely came to life and took a step toward the desk. “Why are you persecuting us?”
Removing a cigarette from an enamelled case, Flo thumbed a gold lighter. “Innuendos sell papers. Since I bought this rag, circulation has increased forty percent. I plan to double that.”
“At whose expense?” Keely demanded passionately. “You don’t care who you destroy, do you?”
“My source at City Hall tells me the mayor’s pushing for an arrest. His Honor’s pride, like his mother, took a beating. Amusing, don’t you think?”
“You’re disgusting.” Keely lifted her hands in a baffled appeal to the heavens. “Mrs. Westhaven could have been killed!”
Flo’s lips, startlingly red, pursed as she drew on the cigarette. “So?”
“So while you’re selling papers, people get hurt and we lose clients. You’re abusing the power of the press.”
Atta girl! Max cheered silently.
Flo exhaled a stream of smoke. “In spite of his bad manners, Mr. Summers is just a sidebar to the main story. In your case, Ms. O’Brien, it’s personal. When I’m through, you won’t have a reputation or a business left.”
Keely looked like a kitten who’d wandered into a strange backyard and found itself facing a pit bull. Max’s instinct was to defend her, but she wouldn’t thank him for intervening.
“What’s the matter, Ms. O’Brien?” Flo’s lip curled. “Run out of impertinent questions?”
Max’s hand closed over Keely’s. She squeezed back, as if she’d been handed a lifeline.
Despite her brave talk, from the moment they walked in, she’d been intimidated. Cowed by the decor, Flo’s critical gaze, and the aura of power which even seemed to exude from the green velvet draperies.
Hearing Flo’s vow to crush Key Shot had shaken Keely. “Why try to hurt me?”
“I asked for your cooperation and you refused.” Flo turned her hard, bright gaze on Max. “Would you excuse us? We ladies have a private matter to discuss.”
“Whatever you’re going to say, you can do so in front—”
“It’s okay, Max,” Keely surprised herself by saying.
“Careful in the clinches,” he muttered. “I’ve met piranhas with more appealing personalities.” Max couldn’t resist a parting shot. “Madam Publisher, if I found you unconscious, I would dial 911. But I’d dial it slowly, very slowly.”
An ugly stain spread like an oil slick across Flo’s creamy complexion. “You don’t get it, Summers. Get on my hit list and in two months, no one will know Feast of Italy ever existed.”
“I’m putting you on notice, lady. Try to destroy my aunt’s business and I’ll destroy you. I can guarantee you won’t like my methods.”
As the door closed behind Max, Flo strolled to the glossy wet bar which dominated one wall and poured an amber stream from a decanter into a tulip glass.
Sipping the liquor delicately, she eyed Keely over the gold rim of the glass. “We can still do business.”
Keely had had enough of the woman’s posturing. “Get to the point,” she said through tight lips.
“I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for the videotape.”
The woman had a definite obsession. Or else she couldn’t live without getting her own way. “A thousand dollars?”
“Sight unseen. I’ll pay five thousand if you guarantee that I have the only copy of the videotape in existence.” Flo tossed down the rest of her drink. “Deal?”
Keely wondered again why the tape was so important. “I don’t have it to sell.”
“Don’t tell me you turned it over to the police because I’d know you’d be lying.” Flo reached for the bottle of scotch and refilled the glass.
“I suppose you’ve a source at the police department.” Keely decided on a new tack. “But you’ve got one thing wrong—there isn’t any tape. I never turned on the camera.”
Flo sipped the fresh drink. “I suggest you forget about ever running for public office. You can’t lie convincingly. Get that tape to me by noon on Friday or suffer the consequences.”
“What consequences? You’ll ruin me? Turn up the heat? For a writer, your threats are rather unimaginative.”
“I know some very unpleasant people.” Flo’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Choose to be difficult and you’ll find there are more painful things than being flayed alive in the press.”
Keely’s skin crawled. She was looking into the face of an enemy.
“I think we understand each other.” Flo blew a final cloud before stubbing out her cigarette in a jade bowl the same pale green as her eyes. “Friday. Noon.”
“Compassion’s an alien concept to you, isn’t it? Someday, you’ll be hurt the way you’ve hurt others.” Keely’s voice dripped with loathing. “I hope you’re shown no mercy.”
After the door closed behind her visitor, Flo clicked off the hidden recorder. She finished her drink and lit another filtertip before picking up the telephone.
She hummed until she heard a familiar voice. “Hello, lover. O’Brien and Summers just left. In my opinion, darling, you’re better looking than Mr. Summers. His manners, however, are atrocious and you know how rudeness turns me on.”
Wicked laughter on the line.
“I’m sure you’re the best where it counts, babe,” she reassured him and listened to his suggestive response.
“They want me to stop printing nasty things.” Flo chuckled. “I gave O’Brien an ultimatum. She’s scared stiff, lover. You’d have enjoyed watching her tremble in her cute little sandals. If she refuses to cooperate, pretend she’s a toothpaste tube and squeeze the tape out of her. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Flo hung up, smiling. She’d unleashed her personal Hound of the Baskervilles but, unlike the fictional hound, her beast ran silent. The little bitch would never know it was on her track until it was too late.
Chapter 13
Max clutched at the arm rest as Keely’s tires squealed around another corner.
“I’ve been replaying the scene in my mind.” Keely seemed oblivious to the gouges Max’s nails were inflicting in her upholstery. “Jackson could have watched me hide the tape. I concentrated on playing keep-away, not whether Flo and I had an audience.”
Max tore his gaze from the surging speedometer. “You think this guy’s going to admit he stole it?”
“That’s why I’m taking you with me.” Keely tossed him a whimsical grin. “You promised to supply the muscle, didn’t you?”
“Brake lights ahead! I was speaking rhetorically. Anna Marie dictates that I save my hands for more delicate work—you don’t really expect me to beat up this guy, do you?”
Max closed his eyes as Keely accelerated to pass a slower vehicle. He wondered if she got bonus points for leading each lap. Whatever the publisher had said to Keely in private had transformed his companion from a wee, cowering beastie into Boadicea, Qu
een of the ancient Britons, cracking a whip over her foam-flecked horses as her chariot thundered.
“Bluff him,” Keely recommended crisply.
No longer sure what his question had been, Max nodded jerky agreement as a passing mailbox lunged like a striking snake. His foot was as heavy as the next guy’s, he told himself. Only a sniveling, weak-kneed coward would ask a woman to slow down—
A garbage truck? Max peered through the windshield. Only Mario Andretti in his prime would dare to try to squeeze by that lumbering beast—
“Slow down!” he begged. “I, for one, want to live!”
The engine’s roar moderated fractionally; he squinted through one eye at the blur of the passing landscape. “If it’ll help, I’ll beat Jackson to a pulp and arm wrestle the butler. Just tell me why this tape’s so important to Madam Publisher.”
Keely slammed her palms against the steering wheel. “If only I knew! She offered me money, Max. Five thousand dollars for an exclusive copy.”
Keely slowed behind a string of cars, allowing Max to concentrate on something other than the odds of surviving the ride. “Then it’s my guess she wants it for one of two reasons: either embarrass the Postwaites socially or else destroy proof of her tryst with this fellow you mistook for me.”
“My money’s on the former.” A lock of Keely’s hair blew across her mouth and she brushed it away impatiently. “Rose’ll be devastated if copies of that tape get into circulation. The only thing worse than eye witness accounts would be to replay the invasion in living color. I’m sure the guests are already dining out on the story.”
When Keely braked for a four-way stop sign, Max released his death grip on the arm rest. Their destination, Lakewood Estates, bordered on the rippling waters of Lake Hope, a scenic journey to the outskirts of town. Wild flowers filled the ditches. Glimpses of homes were infrequent, most of them sheltered from view by a heavy screen of trees.
“I keep remembering Flo’s vindictive tone when she called Rose a drunk,” Keely said reflectively. “She lives to embarrass the society mavens. If she got her muckraking hands on a videotape of those people making fools of themselves—”
Wedding Chimes, Assorted Crimes Page 10