by Ryan, Jenna
Marlowe’s gaze fastened on hers for several long seconds.
She didn’t look away, and truthfully, he didn’t know where it would have gone from there if Val hadn’t cleared his throat and scraped his chair across the tiles. “I’ll take my coffee to another corner, shall I?”
Darcy smiled, held her position for another steamy second, then backed off. “No need, Val. I really do have an appointment.” She widened her eyes at Marlowe’s stare. “With my doctor. I travel, remember? I’m overdue for a series of booster shots.” Sliding her purse strap over her shoulder, she stood. “I still think this is Vince Maco’s deal. None of the people on Lugo’s private list have a reason to want me dead. Frankie’s is the only life I’ve affected in a direct and negative way. The Macos make sense. Right down to the guy in the Yankees baseball cap. Vince hired him to kill Lugo once Lugo’s usefulness ended. Now it’s on to me.”
Marlowe kept his tone neutral. “I didn’t see Maco’s name on Lugo’s list, Darcy.”
“You can’t be sure that’s the only list he had. You’re being a mule, Marlowe.” But her eyes were still dancing when she fisted his hair and gave him a hot, hard kiss.
She was gone before his vision cleared. Val was beaming and the counterman was staring longingly at the door.
Crowd noises buzzed in his head. Dishes clinked, fans whirred. Then reality hit. His cell rang.
“Still ‘Tears in Heaven’?” Val gave his head a shake. “It’s time to move on, M.”
Ignoring the remark, Marlowe unhooked his phone, glanced at the screen before answering. “What’s up?”
Clearly feeling better, Val sang to himself as he drummed his knuckles restlessly.
“Yeah, I’ll tell him. You’re sure about Maco?”
The singing stopped. “Who is that?” Val asked. “What about Maco?”
Marlowe held up a hand, listened for another few seconds, then ended the call. “Frankie’s had two strokes in the past month.”
“And the other question?”
“It was no one, Val. A contact.”
“His name wouldn’t be Blydon, would it?”
Sitting back, Marlowe rehooked his phone. “Okay, yes, it was Blydon.”
“Why’s he calling you? I have a cell, too, you know.”
“And it’s where?”
“Right—Uh, hell.” Val closed a bloodshot eye. “On my dash.”
“That’s what Blydon said.”
“Great. What else did he say?”
“That Frankie’s not expected to make it.”
“Third stroke’s usually a killer. The business reins’ll be in son Vince’s hands. If Darcy’s right about the Macos and sonny boy’s smart, maybe he’ll call off his hit man once Papa’s gone.”
“Maybe we can find out.”
“How? Fly to L.A.?” Val considered the idea. “Actually, I could handle that.”
“So could I, but it’s not gonna happen.”
“Oh, come on. One mistake and Captain Bligh sticks me back behind a desk?”
Grinning, Marlowe raised his mug. “Nothing that drastic, old friend. Vince isn’t in California.” His eyes glittered. “He’s in Atlantic City.”
Chapter Eight
Darcy arrived at her doctor’s office with five minutes to spare. She got her shots and then detoured to historic Elfreth’s Alley for a chat with a woman who would be celebrating her one-hundred-and-sixth birthday in late September.
Between the woman’s refusal to wear a hearing aid and Darcy’s concern that the baseball cap guy might have followed her to the interview, their conversation had an off-kilter feel to it. Like the tilt of the centuries-old floor.
Darcy cut the morning short and returned to the office.
Not surprisingly, Elaine was still fuming about the incident with Trace and her assistant. On the positive side, Darcy was able to slip in unnoticed and spend some time with her computer.
At the end of three frustrating hours, she found herself wanting to punch something—preferably with Maco’s face on it.
Or maybe she’d find Marlowe instead, push him down and tear off his clothes. Yeah, that could work. She was in the mood to bite hard right now.
“Darcy?”
She was also in the mood to snap. However, for the sake of workplace harmony, she summoned a pleasant tone.
“I’m busy, Trace. Go away.”
Of course, he didn’t. Shoulders stiff, he came to stand in front of her desk. “I’m not a pervert.”
She glanced up. “Good to know. Bye.”
He didn’t move. “Hickey’s son lived in Los Angeles until last year. Now, he’s in New York.”
Darcy regarded him with a blend of suspicion and curiosity. “Are you sure?”
“Would I say it if I wasn’t?”
Would he? Standing, she walked to the water cooler and drew herself a glass. “Go on.”
“He does impersonations.”
She stopped the glass halfway to her mouth. “Of who?”
“Different celebrities. It’s a sort of jumbled musical montage. The trouble is, he tends to go through it at warp speed.”
“Right. Does he also go through rehab?”
“Every few months.”
“Drugs or alcohol?”
“Mostly cocaine, I think.”
Which was, or had been, Frankie Maco’s primary source of income.
Darcy’s smile had a lethal edge.
Using the fingers of her right hand, coupled with that smile, Darcy nudged Trace toward her sofa. “Why don’t you sit down right there. One call, and we’ll have a nice long talk. About a man who could potentially be a murderer. And how you happen to have so much information on him.”
“YOU SPENT TWO HOURS in your office with a guy who looks up old women’s skirts?” When Darcy didn’t stop walking, Marlowe caught her arm. “Are you nuts?”
She swatted at his hand. “It’s been suggested. Let go of me, Marlowe, or at least keep moving. Hospitals freak me out. And for what in this case? All I got from Matilda was a vague reference to a pair of blue shoes and a compliment on my blond hair.”
“She has a bullet wound and a concussion, Darcy.” He slowed her down, but didn’t stop her as she made for the exit. “She’ll be more coherent in a day or two.”
“Which could be good or bad, depending on how you view it.”
“You’re wondering why she was attacked at the shelter, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you? Matilda saw the killer. She can identify him. He has to locate and eliminate her. But he messes up, then he compounds his mistake by running from the scene. He hops in a cab. Driver sees him, too. Yet that man’s alive and unharmed. Why?”
“Opportunity,” Marlowe said simply. “The killer couldn’t get to the cabdriver through his cage. And if he’d shot him at the drop-off point, a hundred people would have seen him. The plan’s falling apart from his perspective. Time to reevaluate. Things aren’t going smoothly. Okay, he tried to take out a homeless woman. But the cops are watching the driver. Pursuing that problem’s too risky. He has to let the guy go, focus, do the job he was hired to do.”
Darcy refused to laugh. “Well, I feel better.”
“This will end,” Marlowe promised, still holding her arm. “In the meantime, be glad no one who shouldn’t be dead is.”
“Oh, I’m glad about that—although I’m not sure Lugo would think he deserves to be dead.” She paused. “What do you think Matilda meant about blue shoes?”
“Maybe the guy was wearing blue sneakers.”
“Maybe. Anyway, the fact that she noticed my hair proves her vision’s fine, so that’s a plus.” She twisted on her arm. “Did I mention that hospitals freak me out?”
Had he mentioned that he liked her hair, too? And every other damn thing about her?
“Think of this as a nightmare winding down,” he suggested, but let her pick up the pace. “We’ve placed Vince Maco in Atlantic City and Nelda Hickey’s son at the Boho…”
“Boka,” she
corrected. “The Boka Club in lower Manhattan. Trace says he does everything from Buddy Holly to Eminem, with a hefty dose of Cher mixed in. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a straight answer from him about how he knows that. I called Elaine in to help pump him, but no luck.” She broke off as they emerged through a side exit. “It’s still light. I thought it must be past midnight by now.”
“Not even close. But the light you see is strictly ahead of us. Behind is all black cloud.”
She lifted her face to the sky in search of a breeze. “If there’s a thunderstorm attached to those clouds, I hope it’s packing a strong wind. The air’s gone dead—no foreshadowing intended.”
Marlowe searched his jean pockets for keys. “You spent too long with your boss’s cousin today. He sucked the optimism out of you.”
“No, I was good until we hit the hospital.” She raised her left arm. “I fractured my wrist when I was in Jakarta with my mother. She was on leave and wanted to do a little trekking. I thought a summer vacation sounded like fun, but I quickly learned that some countries have very low standards of health care.”
“Scarred you for life, huh?”
“This life and the next three, none of which I’m eager to move on to, so backtrack to the singer’s son. Are the police checking him out?”
Marlowe kept an eye on the lights flickering inside the clouds as he unlocked the passenger door. “Val left for New York when we left for the hospital. I figured you’d rather do Atlantic City.”
Delighted, she grabbed his face and gave him one hell of a kiss on the mouth. “Casanova couldn’t hold a candle.”
His thoughts scattered as heat speared from his lungs straight to his groin. “Uh, why?”
She kissed him again with gusto. “You knew what I’d want. You cared.”
Kudos to him, he reflected. They’d been talking about Atlantic City, right?
When she hooked her arms over his shoulders, he wondered if she realized she was blowing his system apart cell by screaming cell.
“Darcy…”
“Yes, I know. The time and place are not good.” She tugged on the ends of his hair. “When do we leave?”
Trapping her jaw between his thumb and fingers, he feathered his lips across hers. “Tomorrow,” he said, and let the sparks zinging through his veins ignite a fire he hadn’t experienced in years. “I have a different plan for tonight.”
FORTY MINUTES LATER, they were standing inside a cramped pantry at the boardinghouse. Overhead, deep rumbles of thunder made the jars and bottles clink, while the smell of dried herbs threatened to make Darcy sneeze.
Marlowe’s plan wasn’t exactly what she’d envisioned. But it was an intriguing idea—planting a fake garrote in the kitchen. And they were together, so the good outweighed the bad. Who knew, she might even live long enough to tell her grandchildren the sordid details.
With her cheek pressed against Marlowe’s neck, she strained to see through the cracked door. “Anything?” she whispered.
“We’ve only been here for five minutes, Darcy.”
“So claustrophobia’s not a problem for you.”
“I have my moments.”
His murmured response made her laugh. She tickled his shoulder. “I love it when you go all cryptic on me. Are you sure anyone coming into the kitchen will see it?”
He cast her a dry look. “Maybe not, but as traps go, I thought it might be too obvious to hang it from the pot rack.”
“And so we segue from cryptic to moody.” But she stopped talking when they heard footsteps in the hallway.
Cristian poked his head around the swinging door. “Aunt Hannah? Are you here?”
The way his face brightened when he realized she wasn’t had a laugh climbing into Darcy’s throat. He looked like a kid whose teacher hadn’t showed up for class.
Shedding his pack, he came inside. He paused when he spotted the garrote, cocked his head this way and that, then picked it up and twirled it like a jump rope.
“Cool,” he said, but brought his brows together. “Kind of weird though, Auntie.”
Setting it on the island, he went to the fridge, rooted around for a minute and then finally maneuvered his carefully balanced plates across the floor and back through the door.
“Well, that was dull.” As more thunder rattled the shelves, Darcy leaned against one of the posts and let her eyes travel around the shadowy pantry. Not surprisingly, they came to rest on Marlowe.
She battled a sigh. How long could a normal, healthy female be expected to ignore such an incredibly hot male? He smelled like soap and sex and man, and if she hadn’t been keeping the words time and place firmly in mind, she probably would have pushed him a lot harder by now.
Because she appeared to be the only one affected by the tight quarters, Darcy kicked his ankle.
He looked back. “What?”
“Nothing. Just moving my foot.” She heard a swish behind her. “Great, now the cat squeezes in.”
Marlowe crouched. “Is this the cat I’ve seen in your yard?”
“His name’s Hodgepodge.”
“Yours?”
“No, but I feed him. Money for pets tends to be a bit tight around here.”
“Why?”
“Hannah’s husband gambles it on sports.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He stopped as the kitchen door squeaked open and a second person entered.
When Marlowe remained in his crouch, Darcy went to her knees behind him. “Who is it?”
“Hancock.” Marlowe’s hand moved to the gun at the back of his jeans. “And he’s not a happy man.”
Not happy at all, Darcy acknowledged. Hancock snatched the garrote from the counter so fast she almost missed the motion. What she didn’t miss were his bared teeth. Or the fact that his darting eyes came to rest on the pantry door.
“Up,” Marlowe said, and drew her to the far wall.
Podge stretched, front paws first, followed by the back ones.
And meowed.
Darcy’s heart slammed into her ribs. Through the slit on the hinged side, she watched Hancock wind the cord around his hands and snap it.
“What’s he doing?” Marlowe asked in her ear.
“Coming this way. And he’s angry.”
Thunder shook the jars again. Podge pawed at the door. On impulse, Darcy used her foot to ease it open just far enough for the cat to amble out.
Uncertainty slowed the man’s advance. “Was it only you in there, cat?”
Podge stared for a moment, then flattened his ears and hissed. Hancock immediately stopped snapping.
Voices in the hall brought him around. His features tightened. Giving the cat a wide berth, he stuffed the garrote down the front of his pants and hastened toward the rear staircase seconds before Hannah and her husband pushed through the swinging door.
DARCY TOOK MARLOWE TO a crowded Greek restaurant, where the lights were low, the noise level was high and the platters were stacked with food. Colorful dancers worked the limited space between tables. Smoke and shadows hung like a thick veil in the heavily spiced air.
“I can’t believe a murderer would try anything here,” Darcy shouted above the music. She made an elaborate hand gesture at one of the servers and was immediately waved to the back wall.
“Another gym pal?” Marlowe surmised.
“We do yoga together from time to time. Her uncle owns this restaurant and two others in the city.”
A woman bumped her on one side, a man on the other.
“I’m not sure this is any safer than a walk in the park.” Marlowe took her hand and, Darcy suspected, a hard jab to the ribs. “Is that the table she meant?”
“It’s reserved for family. If unoccupied, yoga pals qualify.”
Grateful to have made it, Darcy sank onto the padded bench. “Now that we’re semisafe in a crowd, let’s talk about Mr. Hancock. He took the garrote. Obviously he recognized it. Does that mean he’s the one who left it in my closet? Possibly. Unless someone s
tole it from him to use on me. Unlikely. Did Mrs. B. know it was there? I want to say no, but money talks, and I gather from the discussion she and her hubby had tonight that he lost some number of thousands when the Phillies fell to the Rangers on Monday. Brings us full circle to the so-called root of all evil.”
Marlowe picked up the ouzo that had magically appeared in front of him. “You think Hannah Brewster has it in her to strangle you?”
“What, you don’t think a woman’s capable? My mother can take down a guy with fifty pounds on her. It’s called technique, and it’s not as uncommon as you might think.”
“Having been taken down by a female instructor at the police academy, I won’t argue. However, from what I’ve seen, Hannah’s not into technique.”
“No, she’s into snooping. It’s possible she spotted Hancock heading for my place and followed him. He realized what was happening, hid, then took off, minus his weapon, when she wasn’t looking. I realize believing that would mean there are two people after me, which sucks, but it isn’t completely unreasonable where the Macos are concerned.”
Marlowe poked at a heaped platter, which, like the drink, had simply materialized in front of them. “Does everyone here get the same dinner, or did I make an unconscious hand motion, and this is the result?”
Darcy gave him a napkin. “I made the motion. My friend’s uncle is hearing impaired. I know a little sign language. She knows a lot.”
He shook his head. “I’m never going to fully understand you, am I?”
“Probably not. Doesn’t mean we can’t have hot sex. At some point,” she added when his eyes slid to hers. “After we polish off this mountain of souvlaki.”
When he still didn’t say anything, she smiled and glanced away. Then she paused as her gaze returned to the seat. To a brown envelope that was stuffed in the side pocket of her purse.
“Uh, Marlowe?”
“What, you want a doggy bag?”
She continued to stare. “There’s an envelope in my bag.”
“And that’s significant because?”
“It didn’t come in here with me.”
HE WATCHED THEM FROM across the room. Tuning out the boisterous Greek music, he let a more soothing song play in his head. Elvis hadn’t been totally rockabilly in those early years. He’d done a ballad or two, as well.