A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets

by Donna Birdsell

  She looked at her watch and realized Kevin would be finishing up his soccer tournament about now.

  She pulled on her clothes, combed her hair with her fingers and marched downstairs to the living room, where Pete and Nick were facing off against each other like a pair of apes in the wild, posturing and beating their chests.

  Pete looked wiped out. “Didn’t you even bother to check the damned key before you took it from Morton?” he snapped.

  “Hell, yes. What do you think I am? Stupid?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  “I told you, I checked the damned key. The names, the social security numbers, they were all there.”

  “Then what the hell happened?”

  Nick rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe he switched it with another key or something before I left.”

  “Well, did you give him an opportunity to do that? Did you leave him alone with the key?”

  “No.” But Nick’s face flushed.

  “What?” said Pete.

  “I don’t know. Maybe…” He sighed.

  “What happened?” said Pete.

  “There was a girl in the room with Morton. Great hair, long legs. Stacked.” Nick lit a cigarette. “She followed me into the bathroom, and one thing led to another…”

  Pete gave Grace a sympathetic look.

  “What?” she said. “I don’t care what he does.”

  Pete turned back to Nick. “And then what? You did her in the bathroom?”

  “Nah. Nothing like that. We just fooled around a little.”

  “And during that time, Morton was alone with the key?”

  “Well, yeah. But how would I know he’d pull something funny? He was there to sell me the damn thing. Why would he tamper with it?”

  Pete flopped down into a chair. “I don’t know.”

  Nick crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table. “Now what? I told Viktor I’d have the names for him by tonight.”

  “Well, you won’t. Even if we could set up a fake key, it would take time.” Pete buried his face in his hands. “Shit.”

  Louis came in to the room. “Fegley wants you to call him, Pete.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Who’s Fegley?” said Grace.

  “My boss.” Pete pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I guess I’ll have to tell him we’re done. Finished. I’ll have him set Balboa up in witness protection, and we’ll pull out.”

  “Ho, hey.” Nick snatched the phone from Pete. “Not so fast.”

  “Listen,” Pete said. “I know you’re not thrilled with the prospect of entering the program, but you’re my only chance of making a case against Skobelov. I won’t have much now, but if I can’t get anything on him at all, I’ve wasted two years. And I can’t risk you getting popped or taking off on me before I have the chance to build the case.”

  Nick held his arms out. “I wouldn’t take off on you.”

  “I’m supposed to take your word after what you pulled Friday? You’d screw me in a heartbeat.”

  Nick grinned. “Nah. You’re not my type.”

  Pete grabbed his cell phone back from Nick.

  Nick drummed his fingers on the coffee table. “Maybe I could make it up to you.”

  Pete shook his head. “It’s over.”

  “What if I could buy some more time? Another day or two? Just enough time for you to find Morton or put something else together.”

  Pete was quiet for a while. “How?”

  Nick jerked his head at Grace. “Her.”

  Grace sat up straight. “Me? What about me?”

  “What about her?” Pete said.

  “Her cooking.” Nick stood up and began to pace behind the sofa. “The only thing the Russian loves more than money is food. He’s always complaining he can’t get a decent Russian meal in Philadelphia.” He pointed at Grace. “She can give it to him.”

  Louis nodded. “She’s good, Pete.”

  “What, that hamburger stuff?”

  “Nah,” said Lou. “That was bush-league. She’s been making some great food here. “You missed it while you were out in Boise.”

  “Viktor would do anything for good borscht,” Nick said, his voice rising with excitement. “He’d definitely give us more time.”

  “Uh-uh. No way,” Pete said.

  “No way,” Grace agreed. Her arms broke out in gooseflesh just remembering Skobelov’s evil laugh.

  “See?” Pete said. “She’s just a suburban housewife. She’s not up for something like that.”

  A tiny spark flared in the back of Grace’s brain. “Excuse me? How do you know what I’m up for?”

  She knew it was crazy, but them were fightin’ words.

  As “just a suburban housewife,” she’d battled forty-one hours of childbirth labor, months of colic, years of poopy diapers, endless nights of croup, homework, broken hearts and broken bones.

  She’d cooked, cleaned, finessed, flattered, cajoled, faked orgasms, faked joy over crappy anniversary gifts and faked holding it all together when Tom walked out on them.

  Surely, she could survive cooking for one maniacal Russian mobster for a day or two.

  Despite earlier vows to go back to her mundane life, she discovered she really did want to do this. Her inner Charlie’s Angel begged to be free.

  “I’d be there,” Nick argued. “I’d protect her.”

  Pete snorted. “Right.”

  But Grace could tell by the look in his eye that he might at least consider the idea.

  She touched his arm. “I want to do it.”

  Chapter 12.5

  Sunday, 3:22 p.m.

  Salvage Work

  Grace was clearly out of her mind.

  The Russian was volatile. Dangerous. Three hundred pounds of menacing flesh.

  If she were tougher, more familiar with the underworld, he might consider it. But it had become clear to him that what Grace had been saying all along was true. She really wasn’t Nick’s girlfriend.

  He knew, because there wasn’t a woman alive who could hear her boyfriend confess to making out in a sleazy motel bathroom with another woman and not bat an eyelash. If he knew nothing else about women, he knew that.

  He still wasn’t completely sure she had nothing to do with this case—he couldn’t completely ignore her record, after all. But putting her in close quarters with Skobelov?

  He couldn’t do it.

  He looked down at her hand, so pale and fragile looking, resting on his arm. Her touch was gentle, and he felt a surge of uncharacteristic protectiveness.

  Damn. What was he getting all sappy about? She was the one offering to put her neck on the line. She knew what she was getting into, and if she could possibly save his case, why shouldn’t he take her up on the offer?

  Grace and Nick and Lou looked at him like they were waiting for him to sing something from Yentl or start spinning plates on broomsticks.

  His cell phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at the number.

  Fegley. Crap.

  He took a deep breath and flipped open his phone. “Fegley? Hey, there might be a way to salvage this thing after all.”

  Chapter 13

  Sunday, 4:40 p.m.

  Tangled Up

  Pete followed her through the front door of her house, into the foyer.

  “Nice place. How long have you lived here?”

  “Fourteen years. My ex-husband inherited it from his aunt. When we got it, it was just about falling down, so we had our work cut out for us.”

  He strolled into the living room, hands behind his back, peering at everything as if he were a detective in an old-fashioned mystery. He pointed to the walk-in fireplace. “Is the cartouche original?”

  “Most of it. But a few of the pieces had to be recreated.” The fleur-de-lis shield beneath the mantel had been a pet project of hers. It had taken weeks of research and phone calls to find the perfect craftsmen to handle the restoration. But it had been worth it
. In Grace’s opinion, the cartouche was the heart of the house. She’d remodeled the entire interior around that design.

  Pete strolled to the cabinet in the corner. “Nice étagère.”

  What was this guy, gay? Nobody knew what an étagère was, except for interior designers and gay men.

  “Tom always called it the junk cabinet. He can’t stand knickknacks.”

  “Those are hardly knickknacks. I see some Lladró there. Royal Copenhagen. And is that Lalique?”

  Definitely gay.

  “Do you collect figurines?” she asked.

  Red crept up from beneath his collar like the liquid in a thermometer, turning his entire face the mottled color of a bruised apple. “My mother does. I get her one every Christmas.”

  “So how do you know so much about the other stuff? Cartouches and étagères?”

  “My sister’s an interior decorator. I guess I just picked up some of the terminology.”

  Grace was inexplicably relieved that he wasn’t gay. “Did your sister decorate your house in Philadelphia?”

  If possible, his face grew even redder. “No. I decorated it myself. I guess I picked up a little more than terminology.” He cleared his throat. “Are you gonna go pack some clothes, or what?”

  “Do I have time to take a quick shower?”

  He looked at his watch. “Make it fast.”

  “There are drinks in the fridge if you want something.” She ran up the steps, avoiding the squeaky one, the third from the top, out of habit.

  Her bedroom was at the end of the hall, through ivory-painted French doors. She and Tom had combined two smaller bedrooms to create a modestly sized but luxurious master suite with a fireplace at either end; a large bathroom with a claw-foot spa tub, shower and double sink; and a huge walk-in closet and dressing area.

  It was the one part of the house that didn’t have an authentic colonial feel. But she was addicted to long, hot baths, and she had a lot of clothes and shoes, things that weren’t exactly priorities in colonial times.

  She locked the door to the bathroom and stripped off the dirty yoga pants and sweatshirt. She hadn’t showered or used deodorant in nearly three days—a bodily state unknown to her since her brief membership in an environmental group her freshman year in college.

  She and a bunch of fellow EarthSavers had camped out with video cameras in the woods next to a fertilizer plant to prove phosphate chemicals were being dumped into a nearby stream. But instead of nailing corporate America, the trip had pretty much turned into an excuse to drink a lot of beer and nail each other.

  She’d left pretty quickly, since she really had no desire to make naughty videos with people who hadn’t showered or brushed their teeth in several days.

  Now, she showered in record time, then attempted to blow-dry her new coif with the round bristle brush Tammy had given her. Halfway through, the brush got hopelessly tangled in her hair. She turned off the dryer and cursed the time-sucking style.

  She could only hope it would turn out to be her biggest regret of the weekend.

  Pete called to her from downstairs.

  “Gimme five minutes!” she yelled.

  She sprinted from the bathroom to her closet, where she dug through a drawer full of “functional” undergarments until she found a pair of underwear and a matching bra. Tom’s idea of a nice Mother’s Day gift.

  She leafed through the hangers, picking out a pair of black Liz Claiborne pants and a pink, loose-weave sweater. She had the sweater halfway over her head when she heard the squeaky step and realized that Pete was upstairs. And that she’d left the door to her bedroom open.

  “I’ll be right out!” She tried to pull the sweater on, but it got stuck halfway over her head.

  The brush! The brush was still tangled in her hair!

  She bent over and clawed at the sweater, which only became more and more snarled in the brush the harder she tried to get it off.

  “Grace?” Pete’s voice came from inside her bedroom.

  Pleasepleaseplease. Don’t let him see me like this.

  Why? What do you care?

  I don’t.

  Yes, you do. And you were just kissing Nick last night.

  So what? I can kiss whomever I want.

  Slut.

  Prude.

  Hey. Both of you. You do realize you’re talking to yourself.

  “Grace?”

  “Don’t come in!”

  A warm hand touched the small of her back. “Too late. Can I help you?”

  “No!” She wrestled with the sweater some more but only succeeded in getting out of breath. She stood up and peered out at him through an armhole.

  One side of Pete’s mouth was curled up into a smirk. “Let me get it. There’s a piece of wood sticking out through the sweater.”

  Pete worked the sweater over her head, leaving her standing there in her closet in nothing but her underwear. Why, oh, why couldn’t she have worn a camisole to cover the road map of stretch marks across her belly?

  Luckily, there was something to distract Pete.

  “What’s that thing in your hair?” he said.

  “A hairbrush.”

  “Mmm. Are you just going to leave it there?”

  “Yes. It’s an accessory.” She pulled on her pants. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

  “Your phone was ringing. Someone left you a message, and it sounded like it might be important.”

  “You listened to my message?”

  “I couldn’t help it. I was sitting right next to the answering machine.”

  “Get out.”

  “Hurry up.”

  She pushed Pete out of the closet and slammed the door.

  “You were kidding about the hairbrush, weren’t you?” he said from the other side.

  Sunday, 5:23 p.m.

  Feeding Dracula

  By the time she came back downstairs, Pete was sitting on the sofa leafing through her wedding album.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “On the bookshelf over there. Behind Divorce for Dummies and A Hundred Healthy Ways to Channel Your Rage. Who’s the guy in the tux?”

  “That would be my husband.”

  “You mean your ex-husband.”

  “He wasn’t my ex-husband at the time, obviously.”

  “You didn’t look very happy on your wedding day.”

  “Yeah, well. I had PMS.”

  “Must have been a fun honeymoon.”

  She snatched the book from his lap. “Are you ready?”

  “What about your message?”

  “Right.” She stuffed the wedding album under the sofa, and went over to the answering machine on the mahogany console table.

  Three messages.

  The first was from Kevin. “Hi, Mom. Grandma said your cell phone wasn’t working. Guess what? We won! Dad took us out for pizza after. Don’t forget to feed Dracula. Bye.”

  Oh, crap. She’d forgotten about Dracula. She hit the pause button.

  “Dracula?” said Pete.

  “Kevin’s frog. I was supposed to pick up some crickets at the pet store yesterday.”

  “You want me to go check on the frog? I mean, just in case he’s…”

  “Okay. That would be good. If he is…you know, there’s a shoe box under Kevin’s bed. If he’s not, there’s a container up there that might have a few crickets left in it. Just put them in the frog’s tank.”

  “Where’s Kevin’s room?”

  “Up the stairs, make a left, second door on the right.”

  Pete headed for Kevin’s room, and she unpaused the answering machine.

  The second message was from Lorraine. “Grace. How are you? I’m calling to remind you that you’re up next to host cards. I know things are hard for you right now. Call me if you need a friend, okay?”

  Sure. Will do. Because I’d like my business broadcast to every woman in South Whitpain in the eighteen to forty-five demographic.

  Third message. “Grace? Pick up,
Gracie.” Tom’s perfect diction streamed out from the machine. “Did you sign those papers yet? I really, really need them. Call me as soon as you get this.”

  She punched the erase button, wishing there was a button big enough to erase Tom himself.

  Chapter 13.5

  Sunday, 5:32 p.m.

  Three-hour Tour

  Pete listened to Grace play the message he’d just heard come in, wondering who the guy with the Cary Grant voice was. Her ex-husband, probably. Didn’t she say he called her Gracie?

  He felt a twinge of something low in his gut that felt suspiciously like jealousy. Her ex was a good-looking guy. An all-star quarterback type. Prom king. Class president. At least, that’s the way he looked in the wedding pictures.

  But hey, a lot could change in fourteen years. He could have gained fifty pounds. Come down with some horrible skin disease. Lost his hair.

  Pete raked his fingers through his own dark red mop. At least he didn’t have to worry about that anytime soon.

  He sucked in his stomach and walked into the living room. “Good news. The frog’s still kicking. You ready to go?”

  Grace spun around, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  No. No, no, no. No tears. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I just miss my kids.”

  “Hey, listen.” He touched her arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  She shook her head. “No. I want to.”

  “I’m gonna warn you again. Skobelov is a dangerous man.”

  “But you’ll be listening in, right? You’ll have Nick wired. And all I’m going to do is cook for him.”

  “You could get caught in the middle of something.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Good.” And the next thing he knew, he was kissing her.

  It started as hardly more than a peck, the kind of kiss he might give his sister. But the heat hit him like a nuclear blast, and soon he pulled her closer, losing himself in the taste of her lips. The flowery scent of her shampoo.

  She melted against him and made little kitten sounds.

  And then, as if she’d suddenly found herself embracing a tiger, she backed slowly out of his arms.