"Have you ever heard his name mentioned by your business partner, Kevin Carter?" Captain Luchetti asked.
"Kevin? What does Kevin have to do with the man in the picture?"
The captain explained the connection between Katzinger and Kevin and their suspected involvement in the theft of Hillard's Monet. Joe watched Gabrielle's gaze dart between Luchetti and himself, and every imaginable emotion was right there on her beautiful face. He watched her push her hair behind her ears and get all squinty-eyed as she fiercely defended a man who didn't deserve her friendship. "I would certainly know if he were selling stolen antiques. We work together almost every day, and I could tell if he were hiding a secret like that."
"How?" the captain asked.
Joe recognized the look she gave Luchetti. It was the look she reserved for the unenlightened. "I just would."
"Any other reasons?"
"Yes, he's an Aquarius."
"Sweet baby Jesus," Joe heard himself groan. He heard his exasperation and listened to her explanation about Lincoln being an Aquarian, and this time he laughed. She'd certainly made his head spin that day. Then about every day afterward too. He chuckled as she explained about the time she'd stolen a candy bar but felt so bad that she hadn't really enjoyed it all that much. Then he watched her cover her face with her hands, and his laughter died. When she looked up again, tears swam in her green eyes and wet her lower lashes. She wiped them away and looked into the camera. Her gaze accusing and hurt, he felt as if he'd been hit in the stomach with a nightstick.
"Shit," he said to the vacant room and hit the eject button on the VCR. He shouldn't have watched it. He'd avoided watching it for a month now, and he'd been right. Seeing her face and hearing her voice brought it all to the surface again. All the chaos and confusion and desire.
He grabbed the tape and went home for the day. He needed to take a quick shower, then head over to his parents' house for his father's sixty-fourth birthday celebration. On the way there he planned to stop and pick up Ann.
He'd been spending time with Ann lately. Mostly in her deli. He'd stop by for breakfast, and a few times when he couldn't get away from his desk, she'd bring him lunch. And they'd talk. Well, she would talk.
He'd dated her twice now, and the last time he'd taken her home he'd kissed her. But something hadn't felt right, and he'd ended it almost before it began.
The problem wasn't Ann. It was him. She was just about everything he'd always looked for in a woman. Everything he'd thought he wanted. She was pretty, smart, a great cook, and she would make a great mother for his kids. Only she was so boring that he couldn't stand it. And that really wasn't her fault, either. It wasn't her fault that when he looked at her he wished she would say something really weird that would make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something that would set him back on his heels and make him look at things in a whole new light. Gabrielle had done that to him. She'd ruined his view of what he wanted. She'd turned it on its head, and his life and his future were no longer so clear to him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was just going through the motions. That he was standing in the wrong place, but if he just stood there long enough, waited long enough, everything would click and his life would return to the old, familiar rhythm.
He was still waiting that evening. When he should have been having a great time with his family, he couldn't. Instead, he stood alone in the kitchen staring out at the backyard and thinking about Gabrielle's interrogation tape.
He could still hear her appalled voice when she'd been asked to take a lie detector test. If he closed his eyes he could see her beautiful face and her wild hair. If he let himself, he could imagine the touch of her hands and the taste of her mouth. And when he imagined her body pressed close to his, he could recall the scent of her skin, and it was probably a very good thing she wasn't in town.
He knew where she was, of course. He'd known two days after she'd left. He'd tried to contact her once, but she hadn't been home, and he hadn't left a message. She probably hated him by now, and he didn't blame her. Not after that last night on her porch, when she'd told him she loved him and he'd told her she was confused. Maybe he'd handled everything badly, but typical of Gabrielle, her announcement had shocked the hell right out of him. Coming when it had like that. Right out of the blue on one of the worst nights of his life. If he could go back and handle things differently, he would. He didn't know exactly what he would say, but it didn't matter now anyway. He was fairly certain he was one of her least favorite people these days.
His mother walked through the back door, and the screen slammed behind her. "It's about time for the cake."
"Okay." He shifted his weight to one foot and watched Ann conversing with his sisters. They were probably telling her about the time he'd lit their Barbies on fire. His nieces and nephews ran around the big yard, hosing each other with squirt guns, screaming at the top of their lungs. Arm fit right in, like he'd figured she might.
"What happened to the girl in the park?" his mother asked.
He didn't need to ask what girl. "She was just a friend."
"Hmm." She took out a box of candles and stuck them in a chocolate cake. "Of course, she didn't look like a friend." Joe didn't respond, and his mother continued just as he knew she would. "You don't look at Ann the way you looked at her."
"How's that?"
"Like you could look at her for the rest of your life."
In some respects, the Idaho State Correctional Institution reminded Gabrielle a bit of high school. Maybe it was the speckled linoleum or the plastic chairs. Or maybe it was the smell of pine cleaner and sweaty bodies. But unlike high school, the large room where she sat was filled with women and babies and a sense of depression so suffocating that it pressed down on her chest.
She folded her hands in her lap and waited like the rest of the women. Several times over the course of the past week she'd tried to write Kevin, but each time she'd stopped before she'd written more than a few lines. She needed to see him. She wanted to see his face when she asked him the questions she needed answers to.
A door to her left swung open, and men in prison blue jeans and identical blue shirts filed into the room. Kevin was third from the last, and the minute he saw her, he paused before he continued into the visiting area. Gabrielle stood and watched him walk toward her. His familiar blue eyes guarded, red flushed his neck and cheeks.
"I was surprised you wanted to see me," he said. "I haven't had many visitors."
Gabrielle took her seat, and he sat across the table from her. "Your family hasn't come to see you?"
He looked up at the ceiling and shrugged. "A few of my sisters, but I'm not real big on seeing them anyway."
She thought of China and her best friend Nancy. "No girlfriends?"
"You're kidding, right?" He returned his gaze to her, and a frown wrinkled his brow. "I don't want anyone to see me like this. I almost didn't agree to see you, but I figure you probably have some questions, and I owe you that much."
"Actually, I only have one question." She took a deep breath. "Did you purposely choose me as a business partner to use me as a front?"
He sat back in his chair. "What? Have you been talking to your friend Joe?"
His question and the anger behind it surprised her.
"The day I was arrested he came in and said I'd used you. He actually had the balls to act all pissed off about it too. Then the next day he came to my holding cell, and he goes off on me about how I took advantage of you. Isn't that a laugh, especially when he used you to get to me?"
For a moment she considered telling him the truth about Joe and herself and her part in his arrest, but in the end she didn't. She supposed because she didn't have the energy to discuss it, and it didn't matter now anyway. Nor did she feel she owed him anything. "You didn't answer my question," she reminded him. "Did you purposely choose me as a business partner to use me as a front?"
Kevin tilted his head to the side and studied her for a moment. "Yes. I
n the beginning, but you're smarter than I originally thought, more observant, too. And I didn't end up doing as much business out of the store as I'd originally planned."
She didn't know what she'd expected to feel. Anger, hurt, betrayal, maybe a little bit of all of those things, but mostly she felt relief. She could move on with her life now. A little older, a bit wiser. And a lot less trusting, thanks to the man sitting across the table from her.
"In fact, I was thinking about going completely legit until the cops stuck their noses in my life."
"You mean after you had the money from the sale of the Hillard Monet?"
He leaned forward and shook his head. "Don't shed any tears for those people. They're rich and they're insured."
"So that made it all right?"
He shrugged without the least bit of remorse. "They shouldn't have had such an expensive painting in a house with such a lousy alarm system."
Stunned laughter escaped her lips. There was no accountability for his own actions, and even in a society that liked to blame lung cancer on tobacco companies and death from handguns on gun manufacturers, blaming the Hillards for the theft of their own painting went beyond superlatively appalling straight to sociopathic. But the truly scary part was that she'd never seen it before.
"You need mental help," she said as she stood.
"Because I don't feel bad that a bunch of rich people get their art and antiques stolen?"
She could try to explain it to him, but she figured her words would fall on deaf ears, and she just didn't care.
"And you didn't come out so bad. The government took everything I own, but you get to keep the shop to do with as you please. Like I said, not bad."
Gabrielle took her keys from the pocket of her skirt. "Please don't write me or try to contact me in any way."
As she walked through the prison gates, a feeling of freedom brushed her spine that had nothing to do with the chain link and razor wire she'd left behind her. She'd closed one part of her past; now she was ready to start her future. Ready to turn in a new direction and see where life would take her.
She would always regret the loss of Anomaly. She'd loved her store and she'd worked hard to make it succeed, but she had a new idea churning in her brain that woke her up at nights and had her reaching for a legal pad. For the first time in a long time, she was excited and charged with positive energy. Her karma had taken a turn for the better, and it was about time, too. She was real sick of accumulative punishment for past misdeeds.
Thinking of her new life brought her thoughts around to Joe Shanahan. She didn't even try to delude herself. She would never be completely over her feelings for him, but each day got a bit easier. She could look at the paintings of him in her studio without feeling as if her heart had been ripped from her chest. She still felt a bit hollow at times, but the pain had lessened. She could go for hours now without thinking of him. She figured by this time next year, she'd almost be ready to look for a new soul mate.
Chapter Seventeen
Silent wipers cleared raindrops from the windshield as the last limousine wound its way up the wet mountain road to the Hillard mansion. With each splash of the tires, each inch the vehicle rolled up the ribbon of asphalt, the knot in Gabrielle's stomach twisted. She knew from experience that no amount of visualization, no amount of deep breathing, was going to help. But then, they never had where Joe Shanahan was concerned. It had been one month, two weeks, and three days since she'd told him she loved him and he'd walked away. It was time to face him again.
She was ready.
Gabrielle clasped her hands in her lap and turned her attention to the mansion ablaze with lights. The limousine rolled to a stop in front of the canopy that had been erected from the front door to the drive, and a doorman stood ready to assist Gabrielle.
She was late.
Probably the last to arrive. She'd planned it that way. She'd planned everything, from the loosely tucked braid in her hair, to her black sheath dress that hit her at midthigh. From the front, the dress looked conservative, like something Audrey Hepburn would wear, but seen from the rear, the sheath plunged to the small of her back. Something sexy.
She'd come prepared.
The inside of the Hillards' home somewhat resembled a hotel. The doors to several rooms had been thrown open to create one huge space filled with people. The parquet floors, cornices, arched doorways, frieze and columns were spectacular and overwhelming all at once, but they were nothing compared with The Potato King's view of the valley below. Not that there was ever a doubt-Norris Hillard had the hands-down best panoramic view of the city.
A small band filled the room with soft jazz, and a knot of people danced to the soothing music. From where she stood, Gabrielle could see a bar and buffet against the far wall in a room to her left. She didn't see Joe, and she took a deep cleansing breath, then slowly let it out
But he was here somewhere. Here with the rest of the detectives and sergeants and lieutenants dressed in suits. Wives and girlfriends hanging on their arms, chatting and laughing as if tonight was just any other party. As if her stomach weren't in knots and she weren't so nervous that she had to force herself to stand perfectly still.
Then she felt his gaze a split second before her eyes locked with his, the man who'd made her love him, then broken her heart. He stood within a small circle of people, and his dark gaze reached down deep inside and touched her battered heart. She'd prepared herself for that treacherous reaction, and for the warm flush drifting across her flesh. She'd known it would happen, and she forced herself to stand there and absorb as much of his face as she could see. Subdued lighting from the ornate chandelier above his head caught in the curls touching his ears. Her gaze moved to his straight nose and the mouth she'd dreamed of kissing her all over. She made herself feel every little flutter of her pulse and hitch in her breath. There were no surprises. She'd expected this would happen.
The crowd parted, and Gabrielle's gaze took in the fit of his dark gray suit and white shirt. The width of his shoulders and his light gray tie. Now she'd seen him. She hadn't died. She'd be okay. She could close this chapter in her life. She could start her future. But, unlike the last time she'd seen Kevin, she didn't feel free of Joe.
Instead of freedom from her anger, it welled up inside. The last time she'd seen him, she'd been so-so desperate for him to love her. So sure that he had to feel something. But he hadn't, and all she had left was pain in her heart and anger in her soul. So much for true love.
She let her gaze linger on his face a moment longer, then she turned and headed for the bar. Never again would she love a man more than he loved her. True love sucked.
She'd turned her back on him. She'd walked away, and he felt as if someone had kicked in his chest. His gaze followed her auburn hair as she made her way through the crowd, and with every step that carried her farther away from him, his chest got a little tighter. Yet at the same time, he'd never felt more alive. Little pleasure currents zipped along his nerves and raised the hair on his arms. The crowd in the Hillard mansion moved and shifted, their voices a clustered hum in his ears. Everything around him seemed so meaningless and unimportant. Everything but her.
It hadn't happened like the knock-out punch he'd always expected. No bolt of lightning to let him know he wanted her in his life forever. Nothing painful about it. Loving her was more like a cool breeze and warm sunshine on his face. Simple truth. It was like Gabrielle herself. And all he'd had to do to see it was clear away clutter and get out of his own way.
"The son of a bitch was hiding beneath the bed with his girlfriend," laughed a cop from the Uniform Division who'd been the first to respond to Mr. Hillard's call the night his painting had been stolen. The other police and their wives laughed too, but not Joe. His thoughts were occupied across the room.
Gabrielle looked even better than he remembered. Which was near impossible, because he remembered her looking like some sort of sun-worshiping goddess. He'd wondered if she'd come tonight,
and until the moment she'd walked in, he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath, waiting for her.
He excused himself and wove his way through the crowd, nodding to the men he worked with and their wives but keeping his eyes on the redhead with the dress that had no back to it. Keeping track of her wasn't hard. All he had to do was follow the trail of swiveling heads. He remembered the night he'd asked her to wear something sexy to Kevin's party. He'd been half joking, trying to irritate her a little bit, and she'd purposely worn that awful blue checked thing. But tonight she'd definitely worn something sexy. He had an urge to throw his jacket over her shoulders.
His progress was slowed several times as he moved past friends and colleagues who wanted him to stop and chat. By the time he caught up with Gabrielle at the end of the bar, the only other single detective, Dale Parker, had zeroed in and struck up a conversation with her. Normally, Joe didn't have anything against the rookie, but the attention Dale showed Gabrielle's dress irritated the hell out of him.
"Hey, Shannie," Dale said as he handed Gabrielle a glass of red wine. She smiled her thanks to the younger man and, for the first time in Joe's life, jealousy swamped him, grabbed ahold and pulled him under.
"Parker." Joe watched her shoulder stiffen before she glanced across her shoulder at him. "Hello, Gabrielle."
"Hello, Joe."
It had been a lifetime since he'd heard her voice and looked into her green eyes. Not the taped image of her, but her. Hearing and seeing her in person added a few pounds to the heaviness in his chest, and he had that holding-his-breath feeling again. Standing so close, he realized how much he missed her, but looking into her cold, indifferent gaze, he realized something else: it just might be too late.
There had been many times in Joe's life when he'd felt fear tighten the base of his skull. He's felt it most often chasing felons, running them to ground, never knowing what waited at the end. He'd felt it then, and he felt it now. In the past, he'd always been sure of himself, so certain he would win. He wasn't so sure this time. This time the stakes were too high. This was one blind chase he wasn't certain would end the way he wanted, but he had no choice. He loved her. "How have you been?"
It Must Be Love Page 24