Lucky Break

by Deborah Coonts

  The investigator—Stone, was that his name?—knelt down next to the melted mound of my former jetted tub. “They planted the device here, a charge carefully designed to blow straight out.” We followed his gesture into the bedroom and out the window. The bed was in the direct path of the blast. “If you’d been taking a bath, getting ready for bed, sleeping … any one of those things and you’d …” he trailed off not wanting to state the obvious, I guessed. “You were home?” he asked me.

  “Yes. Well, sort of.” I waffled, then decided the truth was the only way to go. “I was upstairs.”

  I felt Romeo look at me. I thought maybe he might understand, but I didn’t know.

  I explained about the back staircase, passing off my foray upstairs to checking on the place, since I knew Teddie wouldn’t be home for a bit. The investigator didn’t ask where he was. Maybe he knew. It didn’t matter.

  “Perhaps you could tell the owner there was some pretty serious smoke damage?”

  “Will do.” Teddie was coming home today, at least that’s what his lawyer had promised. And, somehow, I felt Squash Trenton didn’t welch on his promises. So Teddie would have to find a new home to come home to.

  Apparently, Romeo and I were riding the same track. “House arrest at the Babylon? Your old apartment?”

  “Doable. Set it up with Jerry, but you’re going to have to clear it with Mona.”

  Romeo looked like I’d asked him to donate an organ or something. “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “Mona and Teddie are tight. She’ll be nice.”

  Romeo’s disbelief was written over every square inch. He’d have to grow a set sometime when it came to Mona and other pushy women, myself excluded, of course. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this?” Investigator Stone’s expression didn’t change, his monotone consistent despite the gravity of the topic.

  One way of coping, I guess. But spontaneous self-combustion could be a future downside.

  Romeo and I filled him in on what we knew and what we believed. It took a while. He listened without speaking, only occasionally tapping a note or two into an iPad. When we’d finished, he tucked his pad away, and then reached into his pocket, pulling out a plastic bag he handed to me.

  A gold button. With a familiar crest embossed in the metal. It still gleamed, unadulterated by the fire.

  “Where’d you find that?” I asked, transfixed by the audacity.

  “In the drain of your tub, affixed to the grate with a wire. I’m assuming it’s not yours?”

  “Do I look like the kind of gal who does gold crested buttons?” Both men looked at me like I’d just asked them if my slacks made my butt look fat. “Not a trick question. No, the button is not mine.”

  “Then we can assume someone put it there on purpose,” the investigator stated, causing Romeo to roll his eyes.

  I jumped before Romeo could trot out the surly lurking behind his benign expression. “We have a pretty good idea who put it there and who it belongs to.” I turned to Romeo. “I’ll leave you two to trade secrets. I’m assuming you’re done with me?” I asked the investigator.

  He nodded. In any other circumstance, I’d work to see if I could get just one grin out of him but I didn’t have it in me today.

  “Where are you going?” Romeo asked.

  “I have a date.”

  “Don’t you need a ride?”

  “No, I’ll take my car.” I motioned with one arm, taking in the devastation. “This is why I leave the keys in it.” Well, that and the fact they were always hiding from me, but I didn’t feel like admitting that.

  The garage was dark, the motion-sensitive lights failing to pop on. Either maintenance needed a swift kick or I was having a Bruce Willis Sixth Sense moment. Today, that thought had some appeal. What I would do if I could influence life and no one could see me! Of course, the whole being dead part wasn’t that attractive. The shadows taunted me, tickling my fear, sending a chill racing down my spine. Something scratched in the dark. I jumped. No one is here. The garage is locked, gated, and guarded.

  My ride, a sweet classic 911, waited for me where I always left it: in Teddie’s parking spot. His was closer, and he didn’t have a car. I wouldn’t have one either except this car had been with me for almost as long as I could remember. And she was getting as creaky and as temperamental as her owner. Couldn’t really blame her; it’d been a bumpy ride.

  I knew I was alone. Still, the frayed ends of my nerves crackled. I hurried, my mind playing tricks.

  Another rustle.

  I hurried for the car, opened the door, dove in, then slammed and locked it behind me. Taking a few moments to catch my breath, I chastised myself. Way too pansy-ass, O’Toole. He’s got you jumping at shadows. I pulled air deep into my lungs, then reached for the ignition with my left hand.

  No keys.

  I knew I’d left them here.

  Something glinted, catching a weak light from the next row over. Hanging on a string from the turn indicator.

  A gold button. Embossed crest.

  It hit me like a sucker punch. My head snapped up, my eyes scanning as I yanked the door handle.

  A man; a face swam into view, half-hidden in the shadows.

  Irv Gittings.

  He smiled.

  I ripped open the door and ran, then dove behind the nearest pillar.

  The air around me erupted in flames.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE deafening echoes of the blast reverberated, lessening with the distance. Sitting, with my knees tucked to my chest, my arms around them, my head tucked between my elbows, afraid to move, I smelled singed clothing and hair. My ears rang, my head pounded, I must be alive. But I was afraid to move.

  Silence settled. I sensed it more than heard it, my ears screaming in protest to the assault.

  Scuffling.

  Irv Gittings. That thought propelled me to my feet. I’d seen his face. I know I had. His mocking smile. I cast around wildly, swiping my hair out of my face. Footfalls reverberating. Running. One set. Which way?

  The cement walls created a great echo chamber. I whirled one way, then the other. No one.

  I thought I heard a laugh, evil and taunting.

  Then the single footfalls were drowned out by many. People running. Growing louder, I thought. Hard to tell with the ringing.

  Romeo rounded the corner coming down the ramp from the outside. Forrest and the investigator with the unremarkable name and flat affect followed behind.

  “Shit. Lucky are you okay?” He skidded to a stop in front of me, grabbing my shoulders.

  Emotion welled from a deep primal place. Relief. Anger. Energy burned through me. “Did you see him? Which way did he go?”

  “Who?” Romeo stared hard into my eyes.

  “Irv Gittings. He was here. I saw him.”

  “Where?”

  “There.” I motioned to the aisle that I would’ve seen as I sat in the car. “You didn’t see him? He had to go out the ramp. The door inside is locked.” And then I thought of my keys. The car keys. There was a building key on the ring. And they’d been gone when I’d reached for them. “He had a key.”

  “How’d he know we’d come down the ramp?” the investigator asked.

  “He didn’t,” Romeo answered for me. “He waited, then used the entrance we didn’t.”

  “Fuck!” I shouted it because if I didn’t, I’d explode. “I’ll kill that man.” That I said much more quietly.

  Romeo shook his head. “We’ve got to catch him first.” He gave me a half-hearted smile as he relaxed just a bit. He probed my arms, touched my face, then shook his head. “All parts accounted for.” He tried for a smile.

  Forrest punched his phone. I heard him calling in the auto-cide. The investigator went over to the car, or what was left of it. “Hell of a thing to do to a Porsche.”

  “How could you tell what make it was?”

  He pointed to an emblem, the Porsche shiel
d, resting neatly on top of the pile, as if someone had put it there. They hadn’t. I’d been here the whole time. And Irv Gittings couldn’t drift into smoke anymore than I could, although his skill thus far bordered on otherworldly.

  Romeo folded me in a one-arm hug as we watched the investigator probe the smoldering pile of twisted metal and scattered parts.

  “Scared the hell out of me,” Romeo said. “When that thing went, it shook the whole building.”

  I stuck my fingers in my ears to try to stop the ringing. It didn’t help.

  “You’re really testing the whole cat theory,” Romeo continued.

  Even though my brains were scrambled, I thought I followed. “Just don’t tell me what life I’m on, okay?” His smile confirmed I had.

  The investigator stood, putting away the pen he’d been probing with. “Still hot,” he said as he wandered over. They guy had a knack for the obvious.

  “Their backup plan.” I could play the obvious game as well, but I had an excuse. “My poor car.”

  “Your poor car?” Forrest sounded incredulous as he joined the conversation; he’d rescued me more times than I could count after having lost an argument with the temperamental hunk-o-junk. “Fire department is on its way.”

  “That car did have an Italian personality cloaked in German equanimity, but we’ve been together a long time.” I fought the urge to grab the steering wheel from the smoldering pile. Hardwired to hold on when letting go was the right choice. Would I never learn? Now the Fates, with a little help from Irv Gittings, had taken all I owned. A sign, of sorts, perhaps. “After this, I have a feeling the Homeowners Association is going to vote me off the island.”

  Nobody disagreed as we stared at what remained of a very sweet little ride. Funny how we remember the good things. That car had stranded me all over town, but I remembered her fondly. If anyone else had done that to me there would’ve been serious bodily harm involved.

  Sirens sounded, closing in. Romeo shepherded us up the ramp and outside. “Let’s give them room to do their work.”

  We sat on the grass, close to where we’d sat last night as we’d watched the fire consume my life’s possessions and, thankfully, not my life. Today was anticlimactic in a way, although I’d come much closer to meeting my Maker.

  “How do you feel?” Romeo asked. He’d wandered off, and I hadn’t noticed until he loomed over me with a cup of water in his hand. “Here. Wish it was 101.”

  “Not me.” I closed one eye and looked up at him, trying to hide the glare of the floodlight behind him. “Not yet. I’ve got a score to settle.”

  Romeo dropped down beside me, his legs out straight, his back against a pole. “You have an uncanny knack for surviving the unsurvivable. Last night it was a trip down memory lane that saved you. What was it today?”

  “Arrogance.”

  “Yours?” He sounded disbelieving, which made me feel good.

  “No. Ol’ Irv’s. I’m speculating here, but I’d be willing to bet they put the bomb in the car when they planted the other one.”

  “In case they missed you the first time,” Romeo nodded, warming to my story.

  “This isn’t hypothetical. I almost died.”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t. Go on.”

  I knew he was trying to keep me from getting too close to the emotional ledge, but he was seriously pissing me off. I tried to ignore his act. “But they were pretty sure the first bomb would do the job. And they really didn’t have enough time to wire the car bomb into the ignition. The risk of someone driving into the garage grew the longer they stayed, and that would’ve taken more time.”

  “So it was remote detonation.” Romeo nodded.

  “I wish you’d stop doing that. Just let me finish.” He met my glare with a smile, but did as I asked. “That’s why Irv had to be here, had to be watching. He’d know he didn’t get me last night; it was all over the news. And he’d know I couldn’t keep my nose out of the investigation.” I beat Romeo to that punch line.

  “So, he waited.” Romeo apparently bought into my theory. “Where was the arrogance?”

  I looked off in the distance, but I was seeing Ol’ Irv’s face, his grin. How the hell had I ever slept with him? Love blinders on. Young and stupid—wouldn’t go back there on a bet. “He had to let me know it was him. I had to see him, to realize what was about to happen. And, in that fraction of time, I moved fast enough, thought well enough, that I survived.” I put my finger in my right ear and wiggled it. “Although this ear is pretty much shot. The ringing is loud enough to call the townspeople to Sunday services.”

  “In Vegas that’d have to be loud enough to wake the dead, or the seriously hung-over. Like one of those air-raid sirens.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well,” I eased myself to my feet, still testing all the parts. They seemed to be sound, if a bit wobbly. “About that date.” I extended my hand and pulled Romeo to his feet. “I’m going to need a ride.”

  Romeo insisted on escorting me through Cielo and up in the elevator. I pretended I didn’t want him to, but he saw through to my thinly disguised appreciation. Reality had tamped down the adrenaline rush, and it was starting to hit me just how close I’d come. My nerves quivered from some deep place inside, working their way out. Romeo handed me off to Dane, who sat at the entrance of Cielo under the Van Gogh as he had before, two masterpieces. I gave Romeo a squeeze and Dane a smile, ignoring the question in his eyes, and went off in search of a hug and a stiff drink, in that order. It didn’t dawn on me that I might look a bit worse for wear.

  I followed my nose to my chef, who was absorbed in a culinary masterpiece. Pausing in the doorway, I drank in the sight of him, letting this reality overwrite the memory of the past couple of hours. This was good. He was good. We were good. Solid in a way I’d never had before. With him I could be me. And I needed a hug in the worst way.

  Stepping behind him, just before I touched him, before I dove in for that hug, he sensed my presence and turned. His shock registered in widened eyes. As I tried to snake my arms around his waist, he grabbed them.

  “What?”

  He couldn’t talk. Instead, his eyes roamed over me, drinking in the details. With two fingers, he touched my cheek softly, a world of hurt creasing his face. My hurt.

  I hadn’t thought. “Just hold me.” I buried my face in the crook between his shoulder and his neck, breathing him in as his arms wrapped me tight. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said, my voice muffled. “Scratch that. It is as bad as it looks.”

  He held me until my shaking stopped. When I could find the words, I told him everything.

  After I’d finished, he parked me on my stool next to the stove, then brought me back a whole bottle of Schramsberg. He popped the top, took several long swigs, then handed the bottle to me. He tended the meal as I watched him wrestle with his emotions, searching for control. The words would come. I focused on my bubbly—I needed both hands to steady the bottle to my lips.

  I’d had enough alcohol to begin to thaw the ice inside when he spoke, his voice tight and soft, filled with emotion. “I cannot lose you.”

  “We can’t control that.”

  He slammed a spoon down on the counter next to the stove. “Yes, yes I can. You must stop this.”

  “I was getting in my car.” I wanted to argue, to fight, but my fight wasn’t with him. And logic never prevailed over emotion. Logic could win only when the emotion was gone.

  Jean-Charles vibrated with anger, and perhaps fear. Hadn’t Desiree warned me the one thing he was afraid of was losing someone he loved? I had my way of coping. I’d let him have his.

  “Please don’t burn whatever that is.” I said, wishing today was a normal day. Then it struck me: all things considered, this was par for the course in my corner of the Universe. I didn’t know how to reconcile with that, so I didn’t. “It smells amazing and I’m starving.”

  The anger left my chef. I saw it in the slackening of his posture, the rig
idity of anger melting. “I cannot ask you to be who you are not.”

  Relieved, I took another pull on my bottle, not feeling the least bit embarrassed. I thrust it at him. “Bubbles make everything better.”

  He drank greedily—the first time I’d seen him slug the good stuff, or any stuff for that matter. He polished off the rest of the bottle, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave me a knowing smile. “I am learning American ways, yes?”

  “Boardinghouse manners, but American, yes.”

  I could tell he wanted to ask me what I referred to, but banter wasn’t in his repertoire right now. “I’d be a fool to ask you to change—I am in love with you the way you are. But perhaps I can ask you to be more careful?”

  “For you, anything.” I contemplated which to feed first, my growling stomach or my still unslaked thirst. I decided neither. “I’d like to ask you something about the night Holt Box was killed.”

  “Not the sort of romantic whisperings I’d like, but okay.” He put two beautifully marbled pieces of meat on the hot grill.

  They spit and sizzled, making me salivate. “Detective Romeo is having a hard time placing the man with the white dinner jacket with the gold buttons in the kitchen. I know he has questioned you, but is there anything you remember, anything at all that might place the guy in the kitchen?”

  He stirred and tested, then held a spoon out for me to try. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  I licked at the sauce, then took a full taste and groaned. “What is that?”

  He gave his patented Gallic shrug; he knew it irritated me. “A secret.”

  “Of course.”

  His grin faded to serious. “I am sorry, I was not in the kitchen much once the party started. I could not say if the man of whom you speak was in here or not. Theodore says so.”

  “Yes, but he is the only one, and he has the most to gain.” I slipped off my stool, feeling a bit more energetic. Nothing like having a murder to investigate and an old love to pin it on to make me feel like myself.

  Love and hate, a fine line between them, like a tightrope strung between two tall buildings. One slip and terminal velocity was a surety as you plummeted.