“Hi, Nicky.”
“Hey, Shannon. Looking good.”
“Hey, Nick.”
“Lisa, wow. Nice dress.”
“He’s smooth,” Louis said. Grace thought she detected a tiny note of admiration in his tone.
“Nicky, where you been?”
“Hey, Maria. Where’s the boss?”
“He’s waiting for you at the back booth.”
“Thanks.”
“Here we go,” Nick muttered under his breath.
For a few moments, all they could hear was the sound of dance music pumping in the background.
“Nicholas. How is the car running?”
“It’s the Russian,” said Louis to Grace, as if she couldn’t hear the accent.
“Car’s running great,” they heard Nick say. “Just got some new rims. I’m gonna show her at the Classic Car Expo.”
“Good. Good. She’s a beauty.” Belch. “You remember Tina?”
“Of course. How are you, honey?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“So, Nicky,” said Skobelov. “How was your trip? You got something for me?”
Nick beat a rhythm on the table with his fingers. “Morton screwed us over, Viktor.”
Bass thumped in the background. “What you mean, screwed us over? You don’t have?”
“Nah. I got to the hotel near the airport and Morton wasn’t there. Maybe he was being followed or something. I have a friend working on it.”
“A friend?”
“Yes. A good friend. One who can be trusted.”
“I don’t trust nobody. I don’t trust you.”
“You can trust me, Viktor. I’ll get the names.”
“I should kill you. You know that?”
“I know. I know. But it wasn’t my fault. I’ll have what you want by tomorrow.”
A long pause. “What you think, Tina?”
“Ah, give him till tomorrow. What’s it gonna hurt?”
Ice cubes clinking in a glass. Music thumping.
“Tomorrow,” Skobelov said. “If you got no names, I won’t be happy. First, I cut your fingers off. Then your pretty nose. Then we see what else stick out, eh?”
Skobelov’s laughter faded and the music grew louder. Grace could hear the sound of Nick walking away from the table. Fast.
“Nice guy,” Louis said, switching off the receiver as Nick emerged from the club’s front door. He hightailed it across the parking lot and climbed into the backseat of Grace’s car.
Nobody said anything.
Grace wondered what the men were thinking. Because she knew what she was thinking.
Holy shit.
Sunday, 2:35 a.m.
The Chopping Block
They were about a block from Pete’s place when they passed the all-night supermarket. Louis was in the driver’s seat. Grace didn’t think her nerves could handle it.
“Pull over here,” Grace said.
“What for?” Louis asked.
“You have to eat, don’t you? And I have to cook. But just about all that’s left in that kitchen are a few packets of soy sauce and a banana. Even I can’t do much with that.”
“You heard her. Pull over, Louis,” said Nick. “The lady needs to cook.”
Louis double-parked in front of the grocery store.
Grace was in and out in fifteen minutes, struggling to the car with three big paper bags of groceries.
“What’d you get?” said Louis, grabbing the bags and throwing them in the backseat next to Nick.
“You’ll see.”
Back at Pete’s, Grace shed her coat and shoes, poured herself a glass of wine before she remembered her vow never to drink again and went to work. She watched Nick out of the corner of her eye, waiting for a chance to talk to him when Louis wasn’t lurking nearby.
“You want to help me chop here?” she said to Nick.
“Sure.” He unbuttoned the sleeves of his silk shirt and rolled them up to his elbows.
She never knew a man’s wrists could be so sexy. She took a gulp of wine.
In the other corner of the kitchen, near the command center, Louis turned on a small television set and flipped through the channels before settling on a late-night western. He propped his feet up on a chair and opened a bag of potato chips.
Trying to keep her voice beneath the sound of galloping horses and the ping-pings of gunshots, Grace said to Nick, “Maybe we should finish our conversation from before.”
“What conversation?”
“Hello? The one where you insinuated you know my ex-husband?”
“I didn’t insinuate anything. I do know your ex-husband. I met him at a car show about six months ago. He’s the one who got me thinking that we should hook up.”
“What?”
“That you and I should get together.”
“Jesus! Does he think I’m so desperate for a date that he has to set me up? What a sick f—”
“Hey, he didn’t try to set us up like that.” Nick grinned. “That was my idea.”
Now she was confused. “I’m not following you.”
Nick looked over at Louis. He’d fallen asleep, head tipped back, mouth open, potato chip crumbs on his shirt.
“Tom and I were talking one time about your…skills. I got to thinking that maybe I could use you for a little plan I cooked up.” He checked on Louis again and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was gonna get these names, see, and set up a little business for myself with the help of a friend in Trenton. Maybe fill out some credit applications, or make some fake ID’s. Tom happened to mention once that you were an expert at forging names.”
Grace got a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. The cabbage she was cutting suddenly looked an awful lot like Tom’s head. She gave it a solid whack with the knife.
“So what you’re telling me is that you met Tom at a car show, and he started off the conversation by telling you I have a record for forgery and ID theft?”
“Nah. Nothing like that. We didn’t have that conversation until after…”
“After what?”
Nick stopped chopping. “What are you so shocked about? Like I said last night, did you think it was a coincidence that we hooked up at the club?”
“But I came to you. On a dare.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Okay. Think about this. There were a hundred guys at that club. Why’d you come to me?”
“Because…”
Because you are so much sexier than Ludmilla. Because your eyes make me want to do things that might be a teensy bit illegal. Because I was feeling obsolete, and you made me feel like a teenager again.
“Because you were looking at me.” Realization hit her like a softball to the head. “You knew if I saw you looking at me, I’d come over.”
Damn. It had all been a setup.
Her throat tightened. She chopped unmercifully at the cabbage. Die. Die!
“How did you know I’d be there?” she asked.
Nick shrugged. “I followed you from your house.”
“You know where I live?” She took a deep breath. “Then why didn’t you just come to the house to get the damned computer key this morning?”
“I did, but you were gone already.”
Chop, chop, chop.
“Hey.” Nick gently removed the knife from her hands and took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “I was looking at you because I wanted you to come over. But I kissed you because I couldn’t help myself.”
She couldn’t move. The combination of Nick’s beautiful hands on her, his gorgeous eyes staring into hers and the smell of food drove her over the edge.
“Kiss me one more time,” she said, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 11.5
Sunday, 5:45 a.m.
Taking a Dive
Pete pressed the buzzer screwed on to the check-in desk at the Sleep-In Motel, three miles from the Boise airport on Interstate 85.
He
’d checked the room Balboa had said Morton was in, but it was empty, the open curtains revealing no sign of occupancy. He wasn’t surprised.
Pete yawned. He would have liked nothing better than to check into one of these rooms, as skeevy as it might be, and sleep for ten hours. But he wasn’t there to sleep. He was geek hunting.
The night manager staggered out of the room behind the desk in a bathrobe that looked like it hadn’t been washed since…well, ever. His hair stuck up on one side at a ninety-degree angle.
“Hey, Gumby. Where’s Pokey?” Pete said.
The manager gave him a blank look. “Help you?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for someone.” He pulled a grainy picture of Morton out of his pocket.
The manager shook his head without even looking at the picture.
“His mother’s been in an accident. I need to find him.”
“I can’t help you, sir. Our guest register is confidential.”
“Why? Is the president staying here?”
The night manager shook his head and again turned to go back to his room.
Pete pulled a crisp fifty out of his wallet and snapped it. “Hey. I’ve got a president right here. President Ulysses S. Grant. Can he check in?”
Gumby rubbed the back of his neck, and turned around. “Okay. Let me have a look at the picture.” He stuffed the fifty into the pocket of his robe and held the photo of Morton up to the light.
“Uh-huh. This guy checked in a couple of days ago. With a girl.”
“He still here?”
“Nope. Only stayed one night.”
Which proved Morton had had no intention of waiting around for Nick to deliver the key to Skobelov, and for Skobelov to courier him a check for the goods. He knew there’d be no check for an empty key.
“How’d he pay?” Pete asked.
“Credit card, I think.”
Oh, the irony. “Can you look it up for me?”
The manager flashed him a look of annoyance. “Come on, man. I’m tired.”
Pete slid a twenty onto the counter. “Here. Andrew Jackson wants to check in, too.”
Gumby powered on the old computer behind the desk. The hard disk whined and clicked as he tapped on the keys. Eventually, the printer behind him spat out a sheet of paper. He tore it off, gave it a quick look and handed it to Pete. “Can I go back to bed now?”
“Just one more thing. Where does the trash from the rooms end up?”
“In the Dumpster behind room sixteen.”
“Has it been taken away in the last two days?”
“No. Pickup is Monday and Thursday mornings. Your guy checked out Friday.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“In the trash? Knock yourself out.”
Pete located room sixteen with little problem. The Sleep-In was laid out like a horseshoe that started with the office and ended at a maintenance unit across the wide driveway. The rooms were numbered one to twenty-six, excluding thirteen. He guessed anyone unfortunate enough to have to stay at this dump already had all the bad luck they could handle.
Room sixteen was located on the curve of the horseshoe, next to a narrow alley containing vending machines and an ice maker. The alley led through to the back of the building, where the Dumpster stood beside an access road off the main highway. A regular rodent fast-food drive-through.
Pete shinnied up the side and peered in. The Dumpster was nearly full.
“Great. Just great.”
He climbed into the Dumpster and poked through a few bags, soon realizing he was going to have to dig deeper. He covered his face with the collar of his coat, and worked his way down through the refuse.
How did Ferret do this for a living? A professional Dumpster diver—a guy who dug information on individuals and businesses out of the trash—Ferret spent the majority of his nights knee-deep in other people’s Chinese takeout, used tissues and liquefied vegetables.
It was definitely freaking Pete out.
He hacked down through the refuse, ripping open dozens of large trash bags until he found one that contained a bunch of smaller bags—the kind that lined little motel room trash cans.
He began ripping them open, like small piñatas filled with delightful prizes. Beer cans. Coke cans. Tissues. CornNut wrappers. Half-eaten donuts. And—
Pete gave an involuntary shudder.
Used condoms.
He was about to give up when he struck pay dirt.
A Sleep-In notepad with several phone numbers starting with a 215 area code. Southeast Pennsylvania. And a 609 area code. Central New Jersey.
In the same bag he found a list of airlines and flight times, and it didn’t take an agent’s intuition to guess where the flights were landing.
Morton was playing games. And he was playing them right in Pete’s backyard.
Pete pocketed his treasures and climbed out of the Dumpster, picking a crumpled Band-Aid off of his shoe.
He flicked open his cell phone.
“United Air Lines. How can I help you?” The voice on the other end of the line was annoyingly chipper for—he looked at his watch—six-fifteen in the morning.
“I need to get on the next flight to Philadelphia.”
Chapter 12
Sunday, 6:50 a.m.
Kulebiaka and Bad Boys
By the time breakfast rolled around, Grace had worked up a pretty good appetite chopping and trying to quell the sexual tension that had built up between her and Nick.
Louis awoke refreshed from his nap, and Grace served up a huge platter of flaky pastries filled with eggs, meat, cabbage and rice.
“What is this stuff?” Nick asked through a mouthful of food.
“Kulebiaka. It’s an Eastern European dish.”
“Where’d you learn to cook like this?”
Grace finished off her third glass of wine, ignoring the little voice that told her she’d pay for this tomorrow. Or rather, later today. “An executive at Tom’s company was Russian. I took lessons so I could have him and his wife over for dinner. Impress them.”
“Mmmph.” Louis bent over his plate like a vulture protecting a zebra carcass.
“You did all that for your husband?” said Nick.
“It was important to him.”
“Was it important to you?”
Grace thought about that.
She supposed it was important, at the time. Very important. Her whole life had revolved around the ability to make a good impression. To make Tom happy.
But looking back on things now, she wished she hadn’t been so obsessed with making everything perfect. She wished she would have had more fun, like she did in her life before marriage.
She said, “Tom was important to me. And my kids were. Are. They’re the most important.”
“But what do you want, Grace? For yourself?” Nick’s heavy-lidded gaze felt like a thousand tiny fingers on her skin. She turned away, not wanting him to see her blush.
She’d been asking herself that very question for months now.
“I don’t know.” She stood and began clearing the plates.
“Don’t worry about that,” Nick said. “Lou will get the dishes.”
Louis grunted again.
Nick poured her another glass of wine and took her arm, leading her into the small living room, where he sat beside her on the sofa.
Close.
Too close.
She edged away and took a swig of wine.
Nick reached out and twirled a piece of her hair in his fingers. “I like you, Grace. Even though you’re not my type.”
“So I’ve been told.” Grace tried to breathe slowly. She recited her mantra in her head. Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.
Despite the fact that being with Nick would be wrong on so many levels, Grace’s heartbeat quickened. It was like the time in high school when she had gone beneath the bleachers at a football game to look for the pencil she’d dropped—the one with a troll doll on the top. Bobby Gaither was already down there, l
eaning up against one of the metal supports, smoking a cigarette. He had looked so cool in his Members Only jacket, with his hair hanging over dark, dark eyes.
“Come here,” he’d said. And because she hadn’t wanted to look chicken, she’d gone over.
“You want a cigarette?” He’d held out a pack of Newports. And because she hadn’t wanted to look dorky, she’d said yes.
It was the first cigarette she’d ever smoked. She’d coughed a little bit and her eyes had watered, and when she had finished she’d been light-headed and had felt like she might throw up. It was a feeling she’d have around men many times to come.
“You wanna make out?” Bobby had asked. And because she hadn’t wanted to look like a goody-goody, she’d complied.
The ground had lurched, and above her the bleachers had spun like they were caught in a tornado. Bobby’s tongue had slid over hers, tasting of cigarettes and Pop Rocks from the concession stand.
She’d felt bad, and wild, and her lips had burned deliciously. She’d forgotten all about the troll pencil. She’d gone below the bleachers a girl, and had returned a woman. Or, almost a woman. She was changed.
That Monday, Bobby had lied to all the boys in wood shop that he’d gone to second base with her. She hadn’t bothered to deny it. Those few, carefree minutes when she hadn’t thought of anything else but the way she’d been feeling with Bobby had been worth the smudge on her reputation.
Nick moved closer to her on the sofa, and she realized she could have that again. Right now. A few transcendent minutes in the arms of a bad, bad boy.
He leaned in and kissed her, and she felt herself letting go.
She pulled away. “I’m going to bed now.”
Nick grinned. He stood when she did, but she shook her head.
She realized she’d had just about enough of bad boys.
“Let me clarify,” she said. “I’m going to bed now. Alone.”
Sunday, 2:29 p.m.
Primates
Grace woke up drooling on a strange pillow, in a room decorated with subdued animal patterns and framed prints of African savannahs in gold-gilt frames.
She was sprawled on a bed in her underwear, her sweatshirt and yoga pants lying in a heap beside the bed. Downstairs, she could hear the sound of men arguing.
A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets Page 27