Riva turned her head. In the light from the fixture hanging under the gallery, she saw a bright red Alfa Romeo.
She slammed her car door and stalked back to where Dante was getting out of his sports car. “Damn you,” she cried. “You scared me half to death!”
“Sorry,” he said, smiling, though his eyes were dark. “At least it made you speak to me. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
“Because you abused my hospitality by taking Anne Gallant to the cabin? That’s entirely your own affair.”
He grimaced. “I thought that might be you on the phone. Not many people have that number, and no one else knew I was there.”
“Very clever.”
“Not clever enough. I got caught. Will you let me come in and explain—and defend myself against this idiotic idea that I might have tried to kill Edison?”
“Is it so idiotic?”
He was silent for a moment and there was pain in the depths of his eyes. “I can understand Anne; she doesn’t really know me and she’s upset over her son. But I can’t understand you, Riva, never you.”
Riva looked away from him with a sigh. “I suppose she called you, told you about our talk?”
“Yes. Could I come in?”
She had promised to find out what she could from him about the airplane crash. It might as well be now. She gave her assent and led the way into the house.
Abraham was still on guard. Dante shook his head at the butler’s offer of coffee and cake, and Riva also refused before dismissing the elderly man. Erin had apparently gone up to bed, for she was nowhere in sight. There was a light in the library, a sign that Noel might still be up. Otherwise the house was dark and quiet.
Riva led the way into the parlor on the opposite side of the hall and shut the door. Dante did not wait for her to face him. To her back, he said, “I didn’t do it. I know my saying it doesn’t mean much, but I have to tell you I didn’t do it.”
She released the doorknob and turned to look at him. “I want to believe you, really I do. The only problem is, someone did it, and you had the best opportunity—plus an excellent motive.”
“Anne being the motive, and my supposed mafia connections the opportunity?”
“Can you deny either?”
“Not on the face of it, no. What bothers me is that I should have to deny it to you.”
“Anne seemed to think that was another reason, that you might have done it for me.”
“I might have, if you had asked me.”
“Don’t!” she said sharply.
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier for me to believe you!”
“I can’t help that.”
“But it turns me into something I’m not, don’t you see?” she cried. “You set me up as a madonna, a woman somehow pure and impossibly good, someone worth that kind of sacrifice of your principles. I’m not like that! I’m just me. I don’t want to be worshiped. I want to be loved with all my faults, in full knowledge of them. I just want to be loved!”
His face appeared as if carved in stone. “I’ve always known that what I felt wasn’t enough. That doesn’t mean I would kill for you in the hope of making it more.”
“If you didn’t make the attempt, either for Anne or for me, then who did?”
The door that led into the dining room creaked as it opened. “Excuse me for eavesdropping,” Constance said as she sauntered into the room, “but I have been wandering around in total boredom all night, looking for something to do, and I find this conversation too fascinating to miss. Besides, I have a thing or two to add to it.”
Surprise held Riva silent. She watched the other woman as she moved toward Dante with the amber silk of the robe she wore outlining her curves with lascivious fidelity. Constance spread her arms in a gesture that was wholly Italian, one that encompassed and, at the same time, asked that she be viewed as totally candid.
“I have interfered in your life, Dante Romoli,” Noel’s former wife said, “I admit it. My reasons were—well, I will tell them to you sometime, if you are interested. Never mind that now. It was I who suggested to Riva that you had taken Anne Gallant with you to the mountains.”
Dante’s brows met over his dark eyes in a frown as he stared at her. “You did what?”
The woman walked right up to Dante, so close it almost seemed she would fling her arms around him. She stopped short of that, but the look she gave him from under her lashes was bold. “It was an impulse; I’m very impulsive when I’m angry. But to repair the damage in some small way, and to satisfy my own suspicions, I made a few inquiries among family connections here in New Orleans—Sicilian family, you understand? I am ready to swear that you are not the person who arranged to have the plane of Edison Gallant—shall we say?—fixed.”
There was absolute silence for the space of ten full seconds. Dante studied the Sicilian princess as if he had never seen her before. Constance returned his gaze with an embarrassing lack of reserve.
At last Riva said to the other woman, “Do you know who did do it?”
“That isn’t the kind of information one is freely given,” Constance answered without taking her gaze from Dante’s.
“But they gave you the other?”
“Yes.”
“Did they, by chance, tell you who hired the men to attack me and my driver?”
Constance turned to give Riva a mocking stare. “That was Edison; the fact was mentioned to me in passing, as a matter of curiosity. Edison has been…acquainted with these connections for some time, at least to the point of taking their money. They have been reassessing their support of him in the last few days, however. He’s been getting greedy, asking for too much. He attempted to talk them into undermining Staulet Corporation, buying up stock for a hostile takeover bid, but too much was held by you and Noel for it to succeed.”
Attempting to attack the company was, Riva thought, just another avenue explored with the design of bringing her to her knees. It might well have worked.
Constance turned back to Dante. “It seems Gallant also asked his ‘friends’ to concentrate on your place on the lake for distribution of the drug Ecstasy. This was done out of spite. You were a friend of Riva’s, therefore he wanted to make trouble for you. There now! You see how I trouble myself for you? Aren’t you grateful?”
“Immeasurably,” Dante said, his voice without expression. “And do your informants intend to go on trying to ruin me?”
“I think not,” Constance said, pursing her full lips. “I told them it was stupid, but they knew it already. With all of Gallant’s demands, plus the request for men to attack Riva, it begins to appear to them that their candidate is unstable. They talk of abandoning him. I would imagine the recent accident, with its whiff of incompetence and personal enemies, will make it certain.”
Riva frowned in concentration as she spoke. “I still don’t see why, if you found out so much, you can’t find out who caused the crash.”
Constance gave a shake of her head, which ruffled her dark hair. “I heard a lot of excuses, but I think it may be that it wasn’t done through the families. In other words, they don’t know.”
“This business of the restaurant on the lake,” Riva said to Dante. “Surely some of your so-called friends could have told you Edison was behind it?”
Dante shrugged. “My friends are just that, friends I made when I was a teenager working around the French Market and the restaurants; they are not in any way business contacts. If one of them heard a rumor, discovered something concerning me, they might tell me. But their influence does not extend throughout the entire New Orleans mafia.”
“Then why the secrecy all these years?”
“People don’t understand. Anyway, it’s not something you discuss, or those involved don’t remain friends, and some of them I’ve known as long as I’ve known you, or even longer.”
“To Italian men, such friendships are a bond to match that of brothers.” Constance reached to pu
t her hand on Dante’s arm, smoothing it slowly up and down.
Constance’s patronizing tone set Riva’s teeth on edge. Dante appeared not to hear it. Riva could only suppose, given her actions, that Constance was being so helpful toward him because she was attracted to him. If that was so, Dante must take his chances. He seemed to be adept at juggling his women.
“Anyway,” she said to him, “I still think you might have asked and saved Constance the trouble.”
Still Dante did not look at Riva. “I might have, except I was afraid of the answer.”
“What do you mean?” Riva’s voice held impatience.
Dante glanced at her then. “I knew I had been set up. Everything pointed to it: the overnight appearance of the drag, the great quantities available at the club but not at other places nearby, the new people who had appeared, people with bad reputations and plenty of money to spend.”
“You never said a word.”
“I didn’t want to accuse someone who might be innocent.”
“Such as?”
Dante’s face hardened, and he reached to clamp his hand on Constance’s hand, which she was sliding up his arm to his neck. “Such as your houseguest here.”
Dull color surged into the woman’s face. She jerked her hand free and stood massaging her wrist. “What are you saying?”
At the same time, there came the sound of sharp, steady clapping behind them. They swung around to see Noel leaning in the doorway, applauding. How long he had been there was impossible to say, but it was obviously long enough for him to have a good idea of what was taking place. His hair was ruffled, as if he had been running his fingers through it while he worked, and under his arm he carried a sheaf of profit-and-loss statements. He inclined his head toward Dante as he said with quiet emphasis, “Congratulations. It’s not often men see through the lady so quickly.”
Constance gave her ex-husband a fulminating look, clenching her hands into fists, before she turned back to Dante. “Explain what you meant. Explain at once!”
“By all means, Romoli, let’s hear it,” Noel agreed.
Dante cleared his throat. “Well, it was like this. I’m not exactly Prince Charming, so I was a little surprised at first at getting a play from the princess. When it kept up, I became downright suspicious, especially when I realized that our conversation always came around to you, Riva. I began to realize just how much Constance disliked you.”
“Me?” Riva asked, frowning. “But why?”
“You need not try to look so innocent,” Constance exclaimed. “You destroyed my marriage.”
“That’s crazy,” Riva protested.
“Hah!”
Riva glanced at Noel, but his face gave away nothing of his thoughts. He was looking at Dante. “You were saying, Romoli?”
“I was saying that Constance seemed so set on collecting my scalp, and so big on vendettas in general, that I was forced to wonder if she wasn’t using me to score off Riva. On top of that, she was more interested in the club than it deserved for someone who makes a habit of going to places such as Maxim’s. The old Sicilians were just like what she was saying about Edison; they used to carry their acts of revenge against an enemy even to the close friends of that enemy. I couldn’t be sure Constance had New Orleans connections, but it made sense that she might. I had to suspect, then, that she was setting me up. It seemed that if I didn’t succumb to her charms, thereby hurting Riva, she might blow the whistle on the drug situation she had created at the club.”
“Such a thing never crossed my mind!” Constance cried.
“For which we must be thankful?” Noel said.
His ex-wife faced him. “Truly, I would not have carried a vendetta so far. And if I had thought to do so, I would have had the sense not to be so obvious about it!”
The lean planes of Noel’s face did not relax. “I think I believe you, on both counts.”
“Oh, you’re impossible!” Constance swung away from him.
Riva stirred. “Where does that leave us?”
Constance, her arms crossed over her chest, spoke at once, as if to divert attention from herself. “It could be this is a question for you, Riva. There is still the matter of this man Gallant. From what I can discover, you are the one who would most like to see him dead. Perhaps you arranged it but accuse others to cover your own guilt.”
“No,” Dante said, his voice sharp. “She would not.”
“No?” Constance accepted the reproof with no more than a toss of her head. “Well, then, there is Noel. Gallant was a threat of some kind to Riva, therefore to Staulet Corporation. Protecting the company his father built would be all-important to him.”
“No!” Riva said. “Anyway, he had no idea of Edison’s trip.”
“Didn’t he, indeed?” Constance smiled with a sly glance at her husband. “He went to visit him only a short time before, you know.”
Riva’s eyes widened. Her voice stifled with disbelief, she said, “He what?”
“Odd, isn’t it? But I know he went, for I heard him making the calls to find out where this Gallant would be. You did go, didn’t you, darling?”
“I saw him,” Noel agreed.
“But why?” Riva asked.
Constance answered for him. “He was concerned. About the corporation, of course.”
“I was concerned for everything and everybody who might be affected by Gallant’s actions. It was important to discover what those actions might be.”
Constance gave him a scathing look. “How very reasonable.”
“I am that, above all else.” Noel returned his ex-wife’s gaze with such steady force that the woman looked away.
“And reasonable men,” Riva pointed out, “don’t usually try to kill, even when others are unreasonable.”
She met Noel’s gray gaze for only a moment before looking at Dante. There was such sympathy in her old friend’s face that she turned away at once. There were times when the ties of friendship could be too close.
“Someone did it,” Constance pointed out impatiently.
“Edison must have other enemies.” This observation came from Noel.
“That may be,” his ex-wife said. “But none have attacked him before this time, and it is here at Bonne Vie that he has caused the most recent disturbance.”
Riva could only agree as she thought of Boots and Margaret, and also of Dante and Anne, though they could not really be said to be of Bonne Vie.
Dante gave a tired sigh and rubbed his hand over the back of his head. “This is getting us nowhere. I think I had better go. Anne is alone at the hospital, and someone should sit with her.” He looked at Riva. “Will you see me out?”
She followed him from the parlor and into the hall. At the door he turned, taking her hand. “I’m sorry if all this has upset you; I didn’t mean to start it. I just couldn’t rest knowing you thought I might be to blame for what happened to Josh.”
She managed a smile. “If I did, it was only for a moment.”
“Thanks for that much.” He leaned to press his lips to her forehead in a quick salute. “Good night.”
There was a curious tentative quality to the words. She thought that something had changed between them this evening. Whether it was caused by her lack of trust or Constance’s belief, her questions put to him or her failure to question Noel’s motives, it was as if Dante had withdrawn ever so slightly from her.
Or was the withdrawal within herself? She could not be sure.
When the door had closed upon him, she turned to find Constance directly behind her.
“You warned me not to hurt him,” Noel’s ex-wife said, “but you have hurt him more than I ever could.”
She was right, Riva knew. The ones we care about were the ones who could hurt us the most. Still, it wasn’t necessary to admit it to the other woman. Riva said, “Why the concern now?”
“He’s a man of strength, and smarter than I expected. Coralie and Pietro like him.”
“That isn’t a reason.�
��
“I like him very much.”
“If you are warning me again, you needn’t bother.”
One corner of Constance’s mouth turned downward. “I can see that, though it’s only courteous. I am not, perhaps, so reasonable as Noel, but I am courteous.”
Riva, at a loss, said, “Thank you.”
“Not at all,” Constance said. Turning, she walked with slow grace back toward the stairs at the end of the hall.
Noel had moved to stand in the parlor doorway with one shoulder resting against the frame. He rolled the papers he still held into a tube that he pushed back and forth in his hands. As Constance’s footsteps receded on the stairs, the house settled into silence around them.
He said, “I didn’t have a chance to ask before: How is Gallant’s son?”
“The same,” Riva answered, “which is apparently considered good news.”
“And Erin?”
“She’s all right. She wants to go back to the hospital tomorrow.”
“If you expect to go with her again, I hope you’ll tell me or at least take George. And you might try to get some rest. You look as if you could use it.”
A brief smile curved her lips for his unusual lack of tact, but it did not quite reach her eyes. “I expect so,” she answered.
There was an awkward pause. Neither quite met the other’s eyes. It was the first time they had been alone since the night before. The tension between them stretched. Riva’s pulse began to throb in her head.
Abruptly, Noel pushed away from the door and turned in the direction of his bedroom at the end of the hall. “Well, goodnight.”
Her voice was strained as she called after him. “Noel?”
“Yes?” He swung around to walk back toward her.
For an instant, she forgot what she wanted to ask him. Even when she remembered, she still could not put the question of his guilt to him as bluntly as she had to Dante. She clenched her hands and looked down at them as she searched for words.
“What is it?” he asked.
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