White Hot

by Carla Neggers

  They spoke little on the short drive to Leonardo’s house. Mollie just sank into the ratty truck seat, staring at the lizard food Post-it on the glove compartment. She really knew nothing about this man. Nothing at all. Except she was glad he was driving her home, not some nameless security guard from the hotel.

  “I’ll wait until you’re inside,” he said, stopping at her driveway. “Griffen left before you were attacked. If you know where she and Deegan are, maybe she can come stay with you.”

  She nodded, suddenly exhausted, and climbed down out of the truck, her legs wobbly. She tapped in the code on the keypad outside the gates, grateful for Leonardo’s elaborate security system. It was dark now, the truck headlights on. As the gates opened, she went to Jeremiah’s open window. Her throat was tight, her head spinning. “It was no accident I was the victim tonight, was it? Even if I hadn’t been wearing that necklace, the thief was gunning for me. I think-” She swallowed, trying to make sense out of the flashes of memory, the bits and pieces of information all vying for attention. “I think the thief was lying in wait. The dinging of the elevator…that was just to throw off the police.”

  The truck’s interior lights and the angle of the streetlight cast Jeremiah’s face into shifting, eerie shadows, his eyes darkened, his straight, hard mouth unyielding. “Mollie-”

  She didn’t let him finish. She was too keyed up with her own theories. “But I don’t know that. I just-” She exhaled. “Why me? Especially when I’m the only ‘common denominator’ you have.”

  “Don’t try to make sense of it tonight,” he said. “Look at it in the morning.”

  “He could have been at the party and seen me in the necklace, then slipped out after I went to the ladies’ room and waited for me…”

  “Mollie, at this point anything’s possible.”

  Her head shot up. “Including that I’m the thief? That I did this to myself?”

  He sighed. “No. I really don’t believe that’s possible.”

  “But you considered it,” she said.

  “I consider everything.”

  His matter-of-factness, his truthfulness, had calming effect on her. In her frazzled state, she would have reacted strongly to even a hint of condescension or lying. “Fair enough. I should go on up now.”

  “The hotel will be here any minute with Leonardo’s car. Why don’t I stay and handle that for you?”

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “I’d appreciate that. And-well, you might as well come upstairs when you’re finished. We both missed dinner. I’ll fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

  “Mollie-”

  She glanced back at him as she headed inside the gates. “You’re not hungry?”

  The truck hadn’t moved. “You don’t have to fix me a sandwich, Mollie.”

  “It’ll give me something to do. I’m ready to jump out of my skin as it is. It’s just as easy to make two sandwiches as one.” She smiled, already feeling better. “And I’m more likely to throw up if I don’t eat something.”

  “Well, then,” he drawled, and she heard his beat-up old truck grind into gear, “by all means, fix us a couple of sandwiches.”

  7

  They ate sandwiches at the kitchen table. Turkey and lettuce on sourdough with pickles on the side. Although she knew she needed to eat, Mollie’s stomach had turned midway through fixing them. “I wonder what they’re having at the ball,” she said. She’d thrown a sweatshirt over her dress to ease a sudden chill; she’d deal with her bruised, raw neck later, after Jeremiah left. “I could have made it through dinner if they were having something good.”

  But she could only get halfway through her sandwich. Her stomach clamped down. Nerves. Jeremiah finished off her second half while he stood up and rummaged in her freezer. Without a word, he got out a tray of ice, set it on the counter, found a dish towel, dumped most of the ice in it, tied it up, and handed it over to Mollie. “Put this on your neck. First aid stuff in the bathroom?”

  “The hall bathroom,” she said, pointing.

  He withdrew down the hall. She could hear him rattling around in the medicine cabinet. She didn’t have much by way of first-aid necessities. A box of Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, aspirin, a thermometer. She’d been blissfully healthy since her arrival in south Florida.

  Jeremiah returned with a tube of antibiotic ointment and a dampened face cloth. “You want to do this or shall I? I’ve had basic first aid, but I haven’t had to use it since I dropped my turtle in the kitchen sink while I was cleaning his cage.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  She took the face cloth first and gently wiped off her neck, which didn’t sting when she touched it nearly as much as she’d anticipated. That finished, Jeremiah squeezed out some of the ointment on her finger, and she dabbed it on.

  “You need a mirror-you’ve missed a couple of spots,” he said, and proceeded to squeeze goo on his own finger, then dab it onto her neck. His touch was gentle, functional, but still sent warm, welcome tremors through her. “I’d leave it uncovered.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks. I guess I know a little of what it feels like to be garroted.”

  “Nasty business,” he said.

  “Yes, it is.” She narrowed her gaze on him. He was still standing, not pacing, but not at ease, either. “You’re not going to tell me how you got involved in this story, are you? How you found out I was your ‘common denominator’?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I can’t.”

  “You’re protecting a source?” But he didn’t answer-didn’t need to answer-and she said hotly, “But if you have a conflict of interest because of me and can’t do the story, why do you need to protect this source?”

  “Because that’s how I operate.”

  And because he didn’t owe her an explanation, she thought.

  “Mollie, pour yourself a glass of wine, keep the ice on your neck for as long as you can stand it, and try to put tonight out of your mind and get some sleep.” He walked over to her, tucked a fat lock of hair behind her ear. “If you want, you can call me tomorrow.”

  “Will you tell me anything then that you won’t tell me now?”

  “Probably not. But you’ll take it better after you’ve rested.” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Now, I’d better get out of here while I still can.”

  “Wait.”

  She placed her towel of ice on the table and took his hand, pulling herself to her feet. She brushed his mouth with the tips of her fingers, cold from the ice, and then followed with her lips, kissing him softly, sinking against his chest just for a moment. His arms went around her, and she could have stood there all night.

  He kissed the top of her head, said, “Mollie, you need that glass of wine.”

  “And the good night’s sleep.” She smiled, pulling back. “I know. Thanks for your help tonight.”

  “We’ll talk soon.”

  She nodded, and he left. She wondered if his sense of honor was at work again-she was in pain, in shock, out of balance, and he wasn’t going to take advantage-or if he simply wanted to make sure she hadn’t ripped a necklace off her own neck before he got into bed with her. The Tabak-as-rogue of her imagination would have capitalized on her trauma and stayed the night, eliciting every bit of information he could in the process.

  This complicated, honorable Jeremiah Tabak had her mystified. And frustrated. How much easier to get her addled brain around a driven, unethical skunk of a reporter than the man she’d encountered tonight. Irreverent, suspicious, intriguing.

  She returned to the kitchen and added more ice to her sopping towel before wandering into the den, not sure what to do with herself. She put on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Leonardo as the tenor soloist. She turned up the volume, the entire apartment pulsating with the rich, swelling sounds of orchestra and chorus, the emotion and passion and wonder of a piece written more than two hundred and fifty years ago by a dead man.

  Tears streamed down her face.

&
nbsp; She collected up her darts and threw them one by one, hard, her aim off, but she gathered them up and threw them again, harder this time, her aim truer. It was the aftereffects of the shock of the attack, the confusion of dealing with Jeremiah and his jewel thief, the realization that she was alone, alone, alone.

  At the end of the symphony, she was singing along like a maniac, and it was just as well her godfather was on another continent.

  But she felt better. This, she thought, was what she’d needed. And maybe Jeremiah knew it.

  She aimed a final dart, threw it, and stuck out her tongue in defiance when it went wild and hit a lamp. She returned to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat out on her deck, letting the sounds of the Palm Beach night soothe her tattered nerves and absorb her soul.

  When she finally ventured to bed, she had it solid in her head once more: It would be stupid to fall for Jeremiah Tabak all over again.

  Griffen and Deegan stopped by first thing Saturday morning with muffins, coffee, and the Palm Beach Daily News, or the Shiny Sheet, as the locals called it. They dragged Mollie out to the pool and made her sit in the sun. She noticed how the morning light intensified the yellows, pinks, oranges, and reds of the impatiens, hibiscus, begonias, and bougainvillea and brought out the nuances in all the different shades of green of the palms and live oak and shrubs, even the grass. She seemed hyper-aware of everything, and the smell of fresh, warm blueberry muffins struck her as perfection.

  Griffen spread the muffins and coffee on a small table and mock-slapped Mollie’s hand when she started to serve herself. “You are going to sit back and be pampered-at least for ten minutes. Let’s see this neck,” she said, and winced when Mollie peeled back her polo shirt. “Ouch.”

  “It only hurts when I touch it.”

  Deegan made a face. “Nice color, anyway.”

  “I consider myself lucky,” Mollie said. “He could have slit my throat.”

  Griffen shuddered. “Don’t even think about it. I’m sorry we weren’t there to provide moral support, but we’d already made our exit. I’ve had my fill of Granny Atwood, that’s it, I’m on the move.” She handed Mollie a generously buttered muffin, coffee, and a napkin. “Sorry the napkin’s not cloth, but we have to work with what we’ve got.”

  Deegan helped himself to a muffin. “You must have been scared shitless, Mollie. I can’t imagine. I’ve never been attacked like that.”

  “It was pretty scary, but I’m feeling much better now.”

  “Here we were thinking we had kind of a fun jewel thief on our hands-daring but nonviolent. Nobody sees him, nobody gets hurt. Now…” He shrugged, tearing open his muffin. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah,” Griffen said, “last night changes everything. I don’t think this guy’s in it for the money. It’s not greed with him, it’s the thrills. Maybe he changed his MO to get a bigger thrill. You know, go extreme.”

  “What’s the Shiny Sheet say?” Mollie asked, biting into her muffin, trying to stay focused on the present, not relive last night.

  Griffen showed her the article, which was short, stuck to the facts, and had nothing to report that Mollie didn’t already know. “It was silly of me to wear that necklace,” she said.

  Griffen didn’t argue. “Have you told Leonardo?”

  “Not yet. He’ll be very understanding-this’ll just confirm his suspicion that that necklace was jinxed. Deegan, how’s your grandmother? The attack really ended her party on a sour note.”

  “I haven’t talked to her, but she’s an old pro. She’ll find a way to work it all to her advantage. My bet is she’ll throw it off onto the hotel. You’ll notice the article says you were attacked at the hotel, not at Gran’s pre-ball cocktail party. It doesn’t even mention the party, just says you were at the Sands for the charity ball.”

  “I keep thinking if I’d been more alert…” Mollie sighed, sinking back into her chair with her muffin and coffee, the warmth of the sun on her. “If I’d at least gotten a good look at him.”

  “Did you see him at all?” Griffen asked.

  Mollie shook her head. “There wasn’t enough time. I tried to get back up on my feet-” She stopped, her stomach lurching at the memory. “I guess I didn’t really know if he was finished with me.”

  Griffen shuddered, plopping down on a chair next to her. “Jesus, Mollie.”

  “Well. It all worked out in the end.”

  “I heard Jeremiah Tabak got to you first.” She angled Mollie a look. “You sure there’s nothing between the two of you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure there’s nothing between us, but I guess-well, we did meet before, when I was in Miami on spring break in college. It was pure happenstance that we ran into each other again.”

  “You’re kidding.” Instantly intrigued, Griffen sat up straight, muffin crumbs falling on her lap; she had on one of her many sundresses, looking exotic and beautiful even on a Saturday morning. “Must have been a hell of a spring break for you to remember each other.”

  Mollie ate more muffin, welcoming the sweetness of the blueberries, noticing everything about this moment. The flowers, the sun, the slight breeze, the birds. If she could stay in the moment, she could keep herself from spinning totally out of control. She debated how much to tell Griffen about her past relationship with one of Miami’s more famous reporters, “I sort of got caught up in a drug-dealing story he was working on. I wasn’t involved or anything. Anyway, it ended up on the front page after I headed back to Boston.”

  “I see,” Griffen said, dubious.

  “It’s true.”

  “I’m sure it is, as far as it goes.” She reached for another still-warm blueberry muffin and placed it on Mollie’s lap. “You need to eat. You’re still pale as a damned ghost. I wished I’d run into that thief last night.” She squinted up at Deegan, who was eating his muffins and drinking coffee on his feet. “We’d have nailed his ass, wouldn’t we, Deeg?”

  He grinned at her. “I’d have let you have first crack at him.”

  “And relax, Mollie,” Griffen said, giving her a friendly pat on the knee, “I’m not getting out the thumbscrews to find out the rest about you and Tabak, although, I don’t know…I think I can see you two together…”

  “Griffen!”

  She laughed. “You can be such a Boston prude, you know that? Honestly. However, we didn’t come here to harangue you. The police will step up their investigation now that this guy’s shown a capacity for violence. The Palm Beach crowd won’t stand for a cocky thief waltzing into their parties and ripping necklaces off their throats. I expect they’ll beef up security, too. In fact, I’m catering a luncheon on Tuesday on that very subject. One of the women’s societies is sponsoring it. You should come.”

  “I might,” Mollie said.

  They finished the muffins and coffee, chatting about the weather and the weekend goings-on and a little bit about work. Griffen and Deegan were off to the beach for a couple of hours before she had to pull together a small dinner party up in West Palm that evening.

  After they left, Mollie found herself wandering around on the terrace and in the yard, smelling flowers, trying to stop herself from shaking. She’d thought she’d be fine this morning. And she wasn’t. She kept thinking of the gloved hand on her neck, of her relief when Jeremiah came to her side, of his questions and suspicions and his damned open mind.

  “Damn it,” she said aloud, charging across the lawn. She didn’t stop at the pool’s edge. She just thought, to hell with it, and jumped in, clothes and bruised, cut neck and all. The muffins and coffee churned in her stomach, but the water was just cool enough, refreshing, swirling around her and slowly, inexorably easing out the accumulated tension in her mind and body. She swam until her muscles cried out in protest, then crawled out of the pool and lay on her stomach on the warm terrace, letting the sun dry her, telling herself if Jeremiah had stayed last night, they’d both be regretting it now.

  Finally, she headed upstairs with a vague plan for
the rest of her Saturday. First, she would report the stolen necklace to Leonardo’s financial manager and let him deal with the insurance company and the hotel. Second, she would grit her teeth and call Leonardo and talk him out of taking the next plane out of Florence-she thought he was still in Florence-to see her through this crisis.

  If her conversation with Leonardo didn’t totally exhaust her, she would do a little work before lunch. Then she’d go for a long walk on the beach, take a nap, and afterwards see which of her new friends were around for dinner.

  With any luck, the police wouldn’t call, and Jeremiah wouldn’t show up at her door.

  Or, she thought, she at his.

  Jeremiah knew this whole damned jewel thief nonsense, and maybe his life as a reporter, was really falling apart when he found himself back in Helen Samuel’s office. It was Saturday, and he ought to be cleaning his apartment, listening to tunes, and whittling with the boys-and if he was going to work, find a damned story he could actually write.

  Helen was hammering out her column a half-hour before the midnight deadline for the Sunday paper. “Goddamned computers,” she said, cigarette hanging from her lower lip as she pecked on the keyboard. “No satisfaction hitting a ‘delete’ button. Give me a bottle of Wite-Out any day.” She glanced up at him with a skeletal grin. “I miss the fumes.”

  “Why not do your column from home? You could just-”

  “Modem it in?” She snorted, setting her cigarette on her overflowing ashtray. “Modems scare the shit out of me. Trust me, Tabak. I was right about television. I’m right about modems.”

  Jeremiah didn’t ask her to elaborate. Her predictions on televisions or modems no doubt included the end of civilization as she knew it. Helen was even more doomsday about human nature and the future of mankind than the average reporter-which in Jeremiah’s experience was saying something.