White Hot

by Carla Neggers

  Mollie chose a dressy suit from her own closet and joined Deegan, Griffen, and Griffen’s small part-time staff on the terrace. Leonardo’s house and grounds were immaculate, designed for parties, and Griffen, with enviable calm, had whisked in food and drink, tossing brightly colored cloths over folding tables to make instant hors d’oeuvres tables and wine bars. She’d rearranged Leonardo’s pots, added more of her own, did up strings of dried flowers, and somehow, with very little apparent effort, made the terrace look festive.

  George Marcotte’s security guard had posted himself at the gates, which he’d agreed to leave open for arriving guests. Mollie was unaccustomed to having security guards lurking. The guard was big and beefy and intimidating enough that if Mollie were a thief, she’d stay away from Leonardo Pascarelli’s house tonight.

  The weather was perfect, warm and calm under a cloudless sky. A night for spontaneity and friends, she thought, feeling optimistic.

  Jeremiah had called from the hospital. Croc was being released, still no charges filed against him. His parents had compromised, agreeing to let him stay in their guest house until he recuperated. Mollie wondered if Bobbi Tiernay really felt she knew her son after more than two years. She couldn’t imagine becoming that alienated from her own family. Why hadn’t Croc just stewed awhile, then gone home? Was that ever an option?

  She found herself articulating her thoughts to Griffen, who was, she said, enjoying the lull before the storm. Guests hadn’t yet started to arrive. Griffen was uncorking wine bottles. “I’ve known kids like Kermit Tiernay my whole life,” she said, looking tired but not unduly so. “The poor little rich kid who’d practically commit murder to get his parents to acknowledge his existence. Or her. I don’t know if it’s worse with girls or not. People feel sympathy for poor kids with neglectful parents, but not rich kids, because they’ve got all the trimmings. The camps, the private schools, the lessons. But they still want the nights home watching TV or playing cards with their mums and dads. That’s only normal.”

  “You’re not describing yourself, are you?” Mollie couldn’t contain her shock at the depth of Griffen’s emotion; she seemed personally outraged. “Is that what your upbringing was like?”

  “Mine? No, no. I’ve got a great relationship with my parents.” She seemed a bit irritated, even offended, at Mollie’s misinterpretation. “Not all us rich kids are fucked up, you know.”

  “Deegan doesn’t seem to have suffered his brother’s fate.”

  “No.” She uncorked a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, calmer. “Some people are just naturally more resilient, I think. But imagine, Mollie. You’re the child of rich, selfish parents who think they adore you. I mean, they really believe they adore you. They believe you can do no wrong. That you’re perfect.”

  “That would be a hard way to live. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody makes mistakes.”

  She set the wine bottle down, a slight tremble to her long, thin hands. “Yes, exactly. So you have these adoring parents, and they never ask you to do anything hard in your life. In fact, they make sure you never do anything hard, which makes you wonder if they really do believe in you-if all that adoration is just an excuse for them to ignore you. If you’re perfect, you don’t need attention. If you can do no wrong, you don’t need attention. If you never have to do anything hard, you don’t need attention. They get to congratulate themselves for the wonderful life they’ve given you.”

  “And you end up perpetuating the illusion that you’re perfect, because that’s what’s expected of you.”

  “But you grow up craving your parents’ attention, only you’re cocky and you’re fun to be around and you’ve never, ever had to face the consequences of your actions.”

  “That would be tough,” Mollie said carefully, wondering if Griffen was trying to tell her more than was on the surface, but she could hear Jeremiah warning her against speculating. “At some point, you will make a mistake. You’ll shatter the illusion.”

  “It’d take a lot to shatter that kind of illusion.”

  Mollie felt a chill despite the warm temperature. “I suppose you could also grow up and realize your parents are what they are and there’s no changing them.”

  “Yeah. I suppose. But how many people accept their parents’ shortcomings before they’ve acted out against them?” She grinned suddenly, but there was no humor, no pleasure, in her dark eyes. “God, I’m sounding like a therapist. Not to worry. I’m just a Palm Beach girl who knows how to cook.”

  “Griffen, are we talking about Deegan here? Or are you getting theoretical? Where is he, anyway?”

  “He’s out front meeting guests.” She grabbed another bottle of wine, shoved in the corkscrew. “If I give everyone food poisoning, I guess I can always become a shrink. Here comes Chet Farnsworth. The guests must be arriving. I’d better concentrate or I will poison the guests.” She spun around, her cheeks rosy with exertion, a touch of embarrassment. But she was being evasive, and Mollie knew it. “Look, what I said-forget it, okay? It’s bullshit. I’ve been working too hard. It’s my busy season, and I just…I’ve just been thinking too much, I guess. You won’t mention this conversation to Tabak, will you? Reporters. You know what hounds they are. And he was born suspicious. God knows what he’ll read into this, and then he’ll have to know.”

  “I understand, Griffen. I don’t need to tell anyone about our conversation, unless you know something that the police-”

  “No!” She paled, horrified. “No, of course not. God. I’d better get to work or there go both our reputations.”

  She breezed off into the kitchen of the main house, which was brightly lit, almost looking lived in. Mollie greeted Chet and his wife, still feeling vaguely uneasy. But she pushed back her questions and concentrated on her guests and her party.

  “You’re okay?” Chet asked, concerned. He was a man who missed nothing, a good thing, Mollie supposed, in both an astronaut and a pianist.

  “Just a little nervous. I’ve never done this kind of party.”

  “Relax. It’ll be fun.” He winked at her. “If things start dragging, I’ll pull everybody inside and play the piano. Pascarelli has one, I assume?”

  “A grand piano in the front room. He likes to play it and sing drinking songs with his friends.”

  Chet laughed. “I think I’m going to like this guy when I finally meet him.”

  He and his wife drifted off to the hors d’oeuvres and wine, and Mollie moved to greet the Tiernays and Diantha Atwood as they came down the brick walk. They were simply but elegantly dressed, and only if one were looking-and Mollie was-would one see the strain of the past forty-eight hours. What a horrible way, she thought, to have a long-lost son reenter their lives.

  Before she could welcome them, Deegan materialized behind his parents and grandmother with, incongruously, Jeremiah at his side. Mollie’s breath caught. Jeremiah wore a dark, casual suit that fit his frame perfectly, emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his legs.

  Mollie smiled, “Welcome-thank you for coming.”

  “Our pleasure,” Bobbi Tiernay said, taking her hand briefly. “What a wonderful setting, Mollie. Deegan told us you’d considered canceling after what happened. I’m so glad you didn’t. We brought Kermit home late this afternoon.”

  No mention of shoving him in the guest house. “Are the police any closer to finding out who attacked him?”

  “No,” Michael Tiernay said, his wife visibly uncomfortable beside him, “and I’m afraid Kermit’s not able to be of much help. The attack happened fast, and it was dark.”

  Diantha Atwood smiled politely. “There’s so much confusion right now. We’re just delighted to have an evening free to meet some of the people Deegan has been working with. I see Chet Farnsworth.” And she subtly moved in his direction, her daughter and son-in-law following her lead.

  Deegan, looking sheepish, said with just a hint of sarcasm, “Gran’s the expert at coping with the socially awkward moment.”

  Molli
e grimaced. “I should learn to keep my big mouth shut.”

  “You’re just direct,” he said. “Be glad. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go give Griffen a hand.”

  “By all means.”

  Mollie turned to Jeremiah, who, she knew, had been watching and listening with interest, if not objectivity. “Anything new?”

  He shook his head. “Croc has no idea how the necklace ended up in his back pocket. None. Zip. Or so he says. I think he has ideas-Croc always has ideas-but I’ve been on his case for two years about sticking to the facts.”

  “What’s his mood like?”

  “Contemplative. When he has something to say, he’ll say it. That’s one thing, anyway, he and his Kermit Tiernay alter ego have in common.”

  Mollie could sense Jeremiah’s confusion, his sense of betrayal mixed in with his loyalty, his affection, for a troubled young man. “Have you had a chance to speak with him alone, or are his parents always hovering?”

  He smiled thinly. “Trust me, Mollie, the Tiernays don’t hover. Michael’s trying, and maybe in her own way so is Bobbi. But, Jesus, could you be here tonight? Sure, they want to support Deegan, but he’s right-they’re also running up the flag, demonstrating that their older son might be a suspected jewel thief, but they’re from strong stock, they’ll carry on.”

  “Where would you be if you were in their shoes?” Mollie asked.

  “We’d all be with Croc.” His eyes darkened, lost in the shifting shadows of the pool lights, Griffen’s candles. Mollie could feel his somber mood. “The parents, the grandmother, the brother. I’d have told him his publicist boss could throw a cocktail party without him.”

  “Which I did tell him.”

  “I know you did. I’m not criticizing them, him, you. Look, you’ve got guests,” he said. “See to them. Have fun tonight.”

  She sighed, felt a little breathless, asked abruptly, “Do you think the real jewel thief will show?”

  He went still. “Mollie…”

  “It’s not Croc. You know it’s not. And it’s not me.”

  It was as if a mask had dropped over his face. “This isn’t the time. I think your mutt owner has just arrived.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll go mingle.”

  She watched him saunter off to the wine bar, couldn’t stop herself from imagining more parties, all different kinds of parties, with him at her side. His was a commanding presence, mitigated by his dark good looks and easy humor. Like herself, he was accustomed to going it alone, forging his own way, yet he was also surprisingly good with people, at ease with them, tolerant if opinionated.

  He wandered among the crowd, saying little, and she could see that a Palm Beach cocktail party just wasn’t his thing, that where he was most comfortable, most himself, was when he was working a story. And that knowledge slammed her fantasies up against the hard wall of reality. Resolving mysteries, unraveling intricacies. Those were what made Jeremiah Tabak get up in the morning. And once he had things sorted out in his mind, resolved and unraveled, finished, he was on to his next mystery, his next set of intricacies.

  And no matter how good his intentions, how much he believed he wanted to be with her now, his attention span for her just might not extend beyond figuring out who’d ripped the necklace off her neck Friday night, and why, and how all the pieces fit together.

  He joined her at the wine bar. “You’re looking restless,” he said.

  She managed a smile. “I was just thinking the same about you.”

  “I am restless. Have you noticed Griffen and Deegan? They seem to be on the skids to me. I’m wondering if they know more than they’re saying.”

  “Me, too.” She inhaled, thoughts and images swarming over her, snippets of conversations flooding her brain. “Jeremiah-”

  He stiffened. “What is it?”

  “I haven’t thought of this before, but it’s been sifting around since I talked to Griffen a little while ago. It’s possible-they could be another common denominator.”

  “Griffen and Deegan?”

  She nodded. “I’m not positive. She said something to me earlier, and it’s been eating at me…” She paused, pushing through her uncertainties about him, about what she was saying. “I could never testify to it-and maybe it’s just the wine and the stresses of the past few days-but I wouldn’t be surprised if they made some kind of appearance at every event the thief hit. They might just stop in for a few minutes, like they did on Friday, or Griffen would be catering-”

  “Like the luncheon yesterday.”

  Mollie nodded. Guests were floating around, but not within earshot. “I’m not suggesting they’re involved, just that with Croc turning out to be Kermit Tiernay, maybe we need to look at this thing from a different angle.”

  “Croc might have known they were common denominators, too, and just not told me. He could have suspected his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, his brother’s boss, or any combination of the three of you. He asked me to check you out first, maybe hoping you’d be the thief, and you were acting alone, and his worst suspicions about his brother weren’t true. He didn’t know about our past.”

  “But once I was eliminated as a serious suspect, he had to take a good, hard look at his brother.”

  “And it got him beaten up and left for dead.”

  “Deegan couldn’t have-”

  Jeremiah cut her off. “We’re speculating, Mollie, and I hate it because it usually ends up making me miss something important. But there’s nothing wrong with keeping an open mind and entertaining all the possibilities.”

  “Then you’re saying it’s possible-just possible-that Deegan had his brother beaten up-or did it himself-to throw suspicion off himself.”

  “Only the police aren’t biting,” Jeremiah said thoughtfully, “at least not yet. Frank Sunderland’s instincts are telling him the necklace was a plant.”

  “Griffen?” Mollie suggested, her heart pounding, blood rushing to her head.

  “Possibly. Maybe she’s the thief and Deegan’s protecting her. Or they’re in it together. I’ll go talk to Croc.”

  “Now, you mean?”

  “Sure. You’ve got a crowd here, a security guard. It’s a good time. And if Croc will level with me, maybe we can end this thing tonight. It’s a distraction,” he said, “from things I’d rather be thinking about. And doing.”

  She felt a welcome rush of heat. “Tell Croc I forgive him for thinking I was a jewel thief.”

  Jeremiah grinned, the light suddenly catching his eyes. “You think he’ll care?”

  After he’d gone, Deegan joined her on the terrace. “I see Tabak just left.”

  “Oh-yes, he promised your brother he’d stop in.”

  “Mollie, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She hated herself for what she was thinking. That her intern could be a thief capable of beating up his own brother, that her best friend could be in on it. She gave him a phony smile. “Looks as if you, Griffen, and I are pulling off a pleasant party. Shall we see to our guests?”

  Jeremiah made the fifteen-minute drive to the Tiernays’ elegant oceanside home in ten minutes. There was a security system, but no fence, no gates. He felt a little strange driving a Jaguar up the long, curving driveway of a very expensive, beautifully landscaped home. As if he could belong here if only he tried.

  And this was Croc’s home, he thought, gritting his teeth.

  He parked in the driveway, hurried up the brick walk to the front door, and rang the doorbell. A uniformed maid answered and sent him around back to the guest house, which was easily three times the size of the glorified shack where he grew up. The door was open, the maid had said. He knocked and went in.

  Croc was installed in a cheerful blue and white room with an incredible view of the water. His swelling had gone down even further, which made talking somewhat easier. He was sitting up in bed with a basketball game on a small television. His posh surroundings seemed to have no effect, positive or negative.

  “Hey,
Tabak.” His words were slurred, but intelligible.

  “How’re you doing? Settling in okay?”

  He nodded. “For now.”

  “Doesn’t look as if your parents want to crowd you. If you’re going to go back to living out of a box, that’s what you’ll do.”

  He shrugged, saying nothing.

  “You’ll sort it out, Croc. Hell, a year from now maybe you’ll be a suit at Tiernay & Jones. You never know.”

  Croc’s brow furrowed, and he hurled a pillow at Jeremiah, missing by yards, groaning in pain as he sank back against his pillows.

  Jeremiah grinned. “You won’t be playing shortstop in the majors, that’s for sure. You’re young, Croc. You’ve got time to screw up your life and put it back together again.” He walked over to the windows and looked out at the horizon, sky and sea meeting in a haze. Twilight. Calm. He thought of Mollie and her party and her worries. “Provided you don’t get yourself killed.”

  “I came too close this time.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Croc made a slurping sound, trying to keep spit from running down his chin. “You’d have blamed yourself?”

  “And whoever beat the hell out of you.”

  Jeremiah sighed, feeling his fatigue, the frustration of his role in this mess. As a journalist, he knew where he stood: his job was to get the story and report it. But this time, he wasn’t acting as a journalist. He didn’t have a prescribed set of rules to follow. He was involved.

  He walked over to the edge of Croc’s bed, his body barely visible under the blue-and-white striped coverlet. “Croc, you didn’t steal Mollie’s necklace.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Kermit Tiernay said, “Nope.”

  “But you know something,” Jeremiah said.

  Croc turned his attention back to the television.

  “I’ve had most of today to think because my best source on this thing has his jaw wired shut and can’t yak at me the way he usually does about conspiracies, fantasies, goblins, and ghosts.” His stab at humor failed, his voice registering all the tension and urgency he was feeling. “Left to my own devices, I’ve come to the tentative conclusion that we’re dealing with more than one person. One is willing to use violence. One isn’t.”