A Rare Chance

by Carla Neggers

  He’d stayed away from Gabriella Starr.

  Their brief phone conversation on Saturday had convinced him she’d been as taken aback by their dinner that Monday evening as he had. It would be very, very easy for them both to plunge in over their heads. But he hadn’t been straight with her, and she knew it. How could he tell her about the rumors that one of her bosses was a gun nut? They were just that: rumors.

  It was a gray, rainy day. Cam had camped out in the foyer of a family friend’s house across and up from the Fairfaxes. Chestnut was a quiet, picturesque street, running parallel to Beacon and perpendicular to Charles, not as steep as some on Beacon Hill. The traffic was one-way down the hill, toward Charles.

  Lizzie Fairfax haphazardly swung her parents’ Mercedes into an empty space just a couple of doors down from her house. She hopped out, slammed the car door shut, and bounded down the street and up the front stoop, all honey hair and long legs. She had her keys out and was in the house a few seconds later.

  Cam waited.

  In three minutes, Pete Darrow’s crummy Toyota cruised down Chestnut. He wasn’t moving fast. Cam made it out to the street just as the Toyota was starting past his friend’s house.

  Darrow hit the brakes and rolled down his window. “I figured you weren’t finished sniffing around.”

  Cam shrugged. “You follow Lizzie Fairfax home?”

  “What, I gotta have a reason for being in your neck of the woods? I can’t just drive around on Beacon Hill, see how the rich folks live?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Pete.”

  His dark eyes narrowed, and Cam could see the anger working on his nerves. Darrow would like nothing better, surely, than to leap out of his beat-up, rusting car and pounce on his ex-partner, thrash him bloody, and then go home and try to tell himself he felt better for it. Cam could see the urge fraying Darrow’s self-control.

  “The best thing that could happen,” he said in a low, tight, threatening voice, “would be for you to go to the Bahamas and for Lizzie Fairfax, Gabriella Starr, and her old man to go off orchid hunting.”

  “Why?”

  “They’d be happier, and so would I. You’d be happier too, Yeager. Waiting for me to step off the straight-and-narrow must get old after a while.”

  Cam ignored the sarcasm and hatred underlining Darrow’s words. “Find Joshua’s gun collection yet?”

  Darrow’s face was impassive. “You listen to too many rumors.”

  A cool drizzle was falling, misting on the Toyota’s windshield. Cam leaned forward, close to Darrow’s face. “Money isn’t worth resorting to blackmail, betraying everything you believe in. You know that as well as I do. Better.”

  “Listen to Saint Cameron. Easy for you to talk about what money’s not worth. You’ve always had it.”

  “My guess,” Cam said nonchalantly, “is that you’re planning to get the goods on Joshua’s stash of illegal weapons and use it to make yourself a bundle. You figure a guy like him will just be satisfied keeping a bunch of grenades and shit around. He just wants to feel macho, he won’t ever use them. So why not bleed him? What’s it hurt?”

  Darrow’s eyes darkened. “Yeager, I suggest you back off before I get out of this car.”

  Cam didn’t back off. He didn’t even consider it. “Or you figure a guy like Reading won’t ever get caught, no one’d touch him?”

  “I’m losing patience, Yeager. I warn you. I don’t care if this is fucking Beacon Hill, I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Have you put any of your plans into action, Pete? Do you already have a wad of Joshua Reading’s money in your pocket?”

  Darrow shifted the car into neutral and pulled on the emergency brake, ready to jump out and give his ex-partner a thrashing.

  Cam was undeterred. “You’ve always felt entitled to a chance at the ‘easy’ life, Pete. So when you stumbled onto Joshua’s secret, you figured this was your chance, especially with me not around anymore, and you went for it.”

  Instead of following through on his threat, which Cam fully expected would happen, Darrow gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “I got tired of the job, Yeager. That’s all. When you quit and Joshua came to me with his offer, I jumped. End of story.”

  “Bullshit,” Cam said quietly.

  Darrow fastened his gaze on him, the anger banked, under control. “Climb back on your white horse, Cam, and ride it out of my life.”

  The Toyota eased down Chestnut, and Cam stood on the brick sidewalk, watching it. Darrow kept his old car in good working order. He used to pride himself on it and make fun of guys who traded in for a new car every year or two. He could have afforded a new car. He wasn’t that damned broke. But knowing he couldn’t compete with Cam on money terms, Darrow would drive a decrepit car just to remind himself why he deserved to grab for the brass ring when it dropped in front of his face. He deserved to break the rules. He’d worked long and hard at being a good cop, he’d put his life on the line for the public good and his fellow police officers, he’d paid his dues.

  The hell of it was, he’d done all those things. He deserved more than he had. But a lot of people did, and they didn’t break the rules.

  Cam turned up the collar on his baseball jacket, a relic from his college years, and thought of Gabriella Starr. She was a rule-breaker. Hell, she and her old man were law-breakers.

  By the time he reached Charles Street, the drizzle had stopped and a soft breeze was stirring. It was just three o’clock. Gabby Starr had hours of work yet ahead of her, which would leave her father alone in her rooftop greenhouse.

  “Probably the old guy wouldn’t mind a little company,” Cam said under his breath, already cutting over to Beacon Street.

  He buzzed Gabriella’s apartment half a dozen times and waited a good ten minutes before Tony Scagliotti deigned to acknowledge he had company. Cam had begun to wonder if he’d had a heart attack or was just even more ornery than he’d thought. “What?” the old man growled over the intercom.

  “It’s Cam Yeager.”

  “The cop?”

  He skipped trying to clarify. “Right. I’d like to talk—”

  The buzzer sounded, unlocking the inner door. When he got up to the fourth floor, the door was ajar and Tony Scagliotti had already headed back up to the roof. Cam noted the security lapse with a shake of the head, but decided the old guy probably had worse habits than leaving the door open for a perfect stranger to walk in.

  Scag was squatted down in a narrow aisle amidst dozens of overgrown-looking orchids in the second section of the greenhouse, examining the leaves of a drooping plant. His cane was leaned up against a trestle table crowded with more orchids. His position must have been awkward and painful, but he seemed oblivious to any discomfort.

  “What if I hadn’t been who I said I was?” Cam asked mildly.

  The old man glanced around at him. “Bad enough you are.”

  Cam grinned. “Like father, like daughter. Can I talk you into a cup of coffee?”

  “No, but you can help me look for scales.”

  “Scales?”

  “Parasites. Every time I’m in here, I find something else to convince me my daughter’s no gardener. I don’t know how she’s kept these plants alive as long as she has. This corner here is its own little orchid hell. Scales, black rot, mealybugs. See this epiphyte here?” He thrust his hand toward a bit of greenery, with no discernible flower, tucked on a slab of what appeared to be bark. “Doesn’t belong there. Not enough light.”

  “I see.”

  The old man looked around at him. “The hell you do. Bet the only orchids you’ve ever touched have been on corsages. You game?”

  Cam wasn’t about to let Tony Scagliotti get the better of him over orchids and parasites. “Just tell me how to recognize a scale and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Here, look over my shoulder. See that?” He’d peeled back a dark green waxy leaf, where Cam could clearly make out tiny brown spots. “Scales. They’re oval shaped or round, on either
the leaves or the pseudobulbs.”

  “What’s a pseudobulb?”

  “An aerial shoot or stem. Like this.” He pointed to a thick growth at the base of the leaf just above the root. “Scales tend to turn leaves yellow, so be on the alert.”

  Cam was already regretting his acquiescence. “Where do I start?”

  “Next aisle, there are a half-dozen miltonias got me worried.”

  Miltonias. What the hell was a miltonia?

  Scag, however, must have read his mind. “They’re the orchids look like pansies. The imogenes are in bloom—red with white edges. You’ll see. They probably should be moved into Number One, but let’s make sure they’re not diseased.”

  With a fan whirring and rattling to circulate the air and industrial shelves crammed with orchids between them, Cam found he couldn’t talk to the old man. After three minutes examining orchid leaves, he regretted ringing Gabriella’s doorbell. He was bored, he was cramped, he was getting impatient. How did Tony Scagliotti stand hour after hour of this work? Yet he seemed to thrive in it.

  “My father was an estate gardener out in Chestnut Hill back before the war,” the old man said, materializing behind Cam after another five minutes. “He started taking me to work with him when I was a tot. I’d pull weeds, plant seeds, dig beds, clear brush and rock, pick off wilted blooms. Lots of dull, hard work. I learned to keep my mind occupied.”

  Cam got stiffly to his feet. “You must also have learned you didn’t want to tend someone else’s garden the rest of your life.”

  Tony Scagliotti grinned, suddenly looking younger than his seventy-five years. “I did get to like plants.”

  “Why orchids?”

  “Old couple my father worked for—they seemed old then—had a small collection. It doesn’t take much to get hooked. You spend a day or two up here, even you’d get the bug.” Using his cane, Scag started down the main aisle toward the first section of the greenhouse. “If I had my way, I’d require all cops to take up orchid growing. I can think of a couple jail cells I’ve been in that’d make good greenhouses. You coming?”

  Cam was on his way. Instead of stopping at his worktable, Scag headed out onto the rooftop deck, where the sun was breaking out between the clouds, glistening on the water droplets on the teak umbrella table and chairs. Scag pulled out one of the chairs and plopped down, water and all.

  Seeing little other choice, Cam did the same.

  “I’ll bet,” the old man said, “you want to talk to me about Lizzie Fairfax.”

  “Why not your daughter?”

  “Because you can find out about her for yourself and likely will. Lizzie’s tougher. Now that she’s taken up with that Joshua Reading character, she’s hard to reach and even harder to understand.”

  “You’ve met Joshua?”

  Scag waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t need to. I know the type. Inherits a little money when his bastard old man dies, big brother turns it into a fortune, he’s along for the ride. He never knows deep down if he’s any good or not. So he likes to swing his dick around, prove to everybody he’s no phony.”

  This about a man he’d never met. Yet something about his assessment of Joshua Reading rang true.

  Not that Cam had met the guy either.

  He could feel the water seeping into his jeans. He’d have a damp seat walking home. Lovely. “Is that how Lizzie sees him?”

  “How do I know? I haven’t talked to her.” He stretched out his bony legs, staring up at the shifting sky. “A guy like Joshua Reading, he’d like having a Lizzie Fairfax on his arm. Smart, pretty, good manners—what we back years ago’d call a lady.” He glanced at Cam. “Not like Gabriella. Oh, she’s smart and pretty and can have good manners when it suits her—her mother taught her that, not me—but she’s more direct than Lizzie, more in your face. This is what you wanted to ask me about, isn’t it?”

  Cam shrugged. “I guess so. I’ve got some bad feelings about what’s going on with your daughter and Lizzie and the Readings, particularly Joshua. I need information, all I can get. I don’t know what will prove useful and what won’t.”

  The old man grunted, leaning forward, his dark eyes zeroing in on his uninvited guest. “Cop talk. I know your type too, fella.”

  “I’d appreciate whatever information you’re willing to give me,” Cam said evenly.

  “Yeah. You’d like to stick a vacuum cleaner in my ear and suck out every goddamned thing I know and sift through it yourself.” He settled back in his chair, calming down as abruptly as he’d gotten riled up. “Gabriella tell you Lizzie keeps me going?” Cam’s eyes must have given the old man his answer. He nodded without amusement, cockiness, or pleasure. “Yeah. She sits in Miami and rescues me when I’m up to my fanny in fines, poachers, snot-nosed landowners. My own personal benefactor. She sends me money, plane tickets, bus tickets, sets up charters and hotel rooms if needed. She once arranged to replace all my gear after bandits stole it in southern Mexico.”

  “And she never leaves Miami,” Cam said.

  “Nope. She likes a good drama, provided she’s assured of not getting hurt herself. It’s the same with her and men. She creates a whirlwind and dives into it, but she pulls back the minute things get a little wild.”

  “You’ve met some of her male friends?”

  “Oh, sure. When I’m in-country she’s often put me up at her place in Miami. She’ll stay with her parents or a new boyfriend if she can, give me the run of the place. I’ve got stuff stored there. Anyway, she’s always falling in love or out of love. But my guess is, when a man’s with Lizzie Fairfax, he’s in the center of her world. There’s nothing else. Nothing.”

  Cam arched a brow, not sure he could believe the old man’s assessment.

  “You’d never know it, looking at her, would you? Nice, pleasant Lizzie Fairfax, heart doctor’s daughter, debutante, art history major, doer of good deeds on behalf of threatened islands and birds. But trust me, the poor kid doesn’t know the difference between love and obsession. How the hell could she? Her parents barely noticed her growing up. Someone pays attention to her, any kind of attention, she’s going to respond.”

  “Yet she and Gabriella are friends.”

  “Why shouldn’t they be? Lizzie’s a good kid. She means well. Gabriella’s got her faults too. She knows Lizzie’s had lots of men friends. The rest of it—I don’t know, we’ve never talked about it. It’s none of my damned business, really.”

  Tony Scagliotti, Cam was coming to realize, was considerably more articulate than he often pretended to be. “But you think Lizzie has a problem with intimate relationships?”

  “Yes, I do. She says she’s been working on it. I thought she’d been making some progress, but now…” He breathed out, shaking his head once more. “I know I’ve never met the man, but I’d bet Joshua Reading would love to feed on Lizzie’s worst instincts.”

  Cam wouldn’t be surprised if that were indeed the case. It would fit his emerging profile of the younger Reading brother. “What about Lizzie and Gabriella? Can you tell me more about their friendship?”

  Scag’s mood brightened. “They were just eight when they met—two cute, wise-assed little girls, different as night and day. Lizzie fair, Gabriella dark. Lizzie rich, Gabriella scraping by. Lizzie always running away from her problems, Gabriella willing to get her head bit off rather than to run. But they both had odd fathers—me because I was away much of the time and had never married her mother, Eugene Fairfax because he was an asshole.” He grinned, unself-conscious. “Not that I haven’t been called an asshole myself, including by my own daughter.”

  Cam could see it, could understand it. Gabriella having to square things with her eccentric, nomadic father the only way she knew how: right out there in the open. Toe to toe. No having to guess where she stood on any given topic, including her father’s failings.

  “And they were both smart,” Scag went on, “and they loved the ocean, the islands, birds. Gabriella introduced Lizzie to orchids, Lizzie introd
uced Gabriella to scones. Once, when I came for one of my visits to the Cape and periodic scoldings from Gabriella’s mother, I found them on the beach together, building a sand castle. They were fighting over how close the castle ought to be to the water. Lizzie wanted it far enough away that the tide would never get it. Gabriella wanted it close enough that the tide would get it. The sand was better there, she said, and they could build another one—a bigger, better one—tomorrow.”

  Cam waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He just stared up at the shifting clouds as if he’d said everything that needed saying about Gabriella Starr and Lizzie Fairfax. Finally, Cam asked, “Who won?”

  The old man blinked at him. “You know, I haven’t thought about that in years….” He broke off, remembering. “They compromised. That’s what they did. They built the main body of the castle above the tide, and then Gabriella built this elaborate moat that led to a tower or knights’ quarters or some such thing that she could sacrifice to the tide. They’ve always been clever about smoothing over their differences. I don’t have that ability, or maybe I wouldn’t be a lonely old man mooching off his daughter’s best friend. Anyway, the point of that story, I guess, is that when there’s trouble, Lizzie will sneak off to the high ground. Gabriella won’t. She’ll go sloshing around in the muck to get what she wants, do what she thinks is right.”

  “But isn’t Lizzie’s obsessiveness in relationships a risk in and of itself?”

  Scag didn’t answer at once. “She’d have walked away that day on the beach rather than go through all the trouble of building a castle where the tide’d get it. Whatever she does, she wants it to last forever. When she goes into a relationship, she doesn’t think of it ending. She doesn’t even conceive of it ending. It’s forever. And a man’s got to feel that,” the old man added, tired all of a sudden, gray-faced. “Hell, and this time it’s Gabriella’s boss. It won’t work out, you know. It can’t, not the way it’s going. It fits Lizzie’s pattern too closely. If I hadn’t let her drag me up here…”