She collected her cards and tucked them in her basket. “He’s not what he seems to be on the surface. He’s very brave, yes, but also afraid. Only fear could make someone so brave.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Mark my words.” She stood and headed for the sliding glass door, her dainty slides clip-clopping with each step. “Tell Trey to enjoy the soup—it’s good for his electrolyte balance. And you should get some sleep—you’re going to need it.”
“Why? What—?”
But she was already gone.
Chapter 41
Trey slept through everything, which was just as well. When I checked on him, his breathing had deepened, dropping into a steady rhythm.
I left him to rest and flipped on the television just in time to catch the press conference. The gist was this: the APD announced that they had arrested William Aloysius Perkins, AKA Bulldog, and were charging him with the murder of Eliza Abigail Compton. Mark and Charley did a nice concluding piece about community, culminating in a big fat check to the Police Benevolent Fund with lots of hurrah-hurrah and general back-patting.
Mark spoke with solemn relish. “There will be justice now, not just for Eliza Compton—”
Wow, I thought, he finally got the name right.
“—but justice for all.”
A smattering of applause. I shut it off before I got sick. Now that Bulldog was behind bars, everyone was eager to move on, case closed, let’s get some Champagne. Forget that Dylan’s body just got pulled from the Hooch, forget that Nikki was missing.
Life keeps going, Eric said. Yes, it did.
I collected all the tobacco-related trash on the terrace and took it to the kitchen. The miso soup simmered; other than that, the silence of the apartment was stunning. Combined with the stark black-and-white décor, the hard floors and empty walls, the place was downright spooky.
Gabriella. I had one brochure on her spa, four sentences from my brother, and a morning riddled with French cigarettes and tarot cards. Other than that, she was a cipher.
A cipher who was sleeping with Trey, my gut reminded me.
I shoved the butt-filled Pellegrino bottle deep into the trashcan. I had no right to feel territorial, and yet her presence nagged at me. I finished straightening the apartment, including putting the file folders I hadn’t used back in Trey’s desk. I noticed that he’d left his computer on, his Phoenix laptop. This didn’t surprise me—he’d been uncharacteristically haphazard with his things the night before—but what did surprise me was that his desktop was up.
Gabriella had been after more than cards—she’d been on his computer.
I sat at the desk too, and my conscience gave a twinge. Not snooping, I told myself. Investigating.
Thirty minutes later, I’d examined all the files that had been opened recently—nothing suspicious, just lots of premises liability reports, a couple of other Phoenix forms. Boring stuff. And none had been opened in the last hour.
His web history was a different story. An e-mail program had been pulled up during the time of Gabriella’s visit. I clicked on it and got a log-in page, password required. But there was no chance of retrieving the message, or even seeing where it had gone.
She’d trespassed on his work computer to send an e-mail? Or perhaps something more nefarious?
I fetched Rico’s portable drive from my bag. From what I’d observed, running his security program was a simple matter of turning it loose and letting it do its thing. It ran a virus scan first, then a more intensive search for more dangerous malware. The second part of the procedure—fixing what it found—was more complicated. But then, I wasn’t interested in correcting the problem. I just wanted to know if one existed.
While the program hummed along, I checked out Trey’s desk—everything looked just like I’d left it when I reassembled it that morning. His gun drawer was locked, just like it had been the night before. I checked the drawers—papers, folders, pencils. The meds and the GQ magazine.
I picked up the magazine and thumbed through it. There was a single sticky note marking an article about formal wear. I thumbed through the rest of the pages, but found nothing else of interest. I did, however, notice an ad for Trey’s watch, a Bulgari Diagono GMT. It retailed for $6,600. Right beside it were his shoes, Ferregamo classic black lace-ups: $595. I turned back to the front cover, to the model wearing Trey’s suit.
Always Armani, Garrity had said, or some other Italian crap I can’t pronounce.
I flipped rapidly through the pages. The first article featured his apartment, B& Italia with La Scala marble in the kitchen and bath. I kept going, seeing his coffee table, his trench coat. I even found shaving soap, Acqua di Gio, and I knew if I could put my nose to it, it would smell faintly of the ocean.
And then I saw it, the pièce de résistance, stretched out languorously on a two-page centerfold spread—the Ferrari F430 coupe in all its sleek glory. La Dolce Velocità, the headline read. The sweet speed.
I held him in my hands, all of him, or rather, all of who he was now. No wonder Garrity was confused—Trey had reconstructed himself as precisely as from a blueprint, obliterating the previous Trey like razing a construction site. I realized my hands were shaking.
I didn’t have time to ponder the implications, however. Rico’s program had done its job. I examined the screen—a flashing green light. No viruses, which wasn’t a surprise, since Trey had rather formidable firewall.
But then the second part of the program kicked in.
And that was a different story.
***
I’d just finished talking to Rico when I heard the bedroom door click open. Trey stood in the doorway, his dress shirt a wrinkled mess, untucked and unbuttoned.
“You were supposed to go home,” he said.
Trey’s GQ still rested in my lap. I slipped it nonchalantly into the drawer. “I was waiting to make sure you were okay.”
He didn’t move. “I’m okay. Go home.”
I stood up and got right in front of him, then put the back of my hand to his forehead. He yanked away and scowled.
“Good,” I said. “Still no fever.”
“Go home.”
“You are such a one-trick pony sometimes.”
He was getting exasperated. “This could be contagious. I don’t want you to get it. I want—”
“I know, I know, you want me to go home. But we need to talk first.” I waved toward his desk. “Did you know you have a key logger program on your computer?”
That got his attention. “What? How?”
“Good question. I’m assuming you didn’t install it.”
He frowned and moved past me, sat down in front of the computer. Sick or not, he typed like wildfire. “What did you run?”
I moved to stand behind him. “One of Rico’s programs. It’s behavior-based, looks for things that are trying to hide, which makes it more effective than the signature-based stuff. Or so Rico says. I mean, virus scans and firewalls are nice, but they don’t protect you against something that’s recording your every key stroke.”
“But this isn’t possible,” he said, studying the information I’d scrawled on a sticky note. “Rico. I know that name.”
“He came to Phoenix once—big guy, piercings everywhere. He says it was most likely a physical installation since you’re not exactly a high-risk user, and the program didn’t find any Trojan horses.”
“A physical installation isn’t possible. I mounted the locks on these doors myself. They’re grade one deadbolts.”
“So it was someone who has a key.”
I let the words fall. He shook his head.
“Only three people beside me have keys to the apartment—the concierge, Garrity—”
“And Gabriella.”
He was still staring at the computer screen. “She wouldn’t—”
“She would. She came over and dropped off some soup right before she went th
rough your things.”
He turned around. “How do you know this?”
“I saw her do it.”
He fixed me with the look.
“Okay, not exactly.” And then I told him the story—the picnic basket, the cigarettes, the tarot cards, the e-mail, the magazine with the sticky note inside. He stopped me there.
“She looked at the magazine several days ago, when she ordered my tuxedo.”
“So? It’s not any one thing that makes her look guilty, it’s all the things.”
“There’s no evidence.”
“Screw evidence, I thought you trusted me.”
“I do.”
“Then you should believe me without evidence.”
“Belief and trust aren’t the same thing. For belief, I need evidence.” He stood up abruptly. “Go home now. I’ll deal with this.”
“You’re still—”
“Go home.”
He pushed past me toward the kitchen, where he got a bottle of Pellegrino from the refrigerator and unscrewed the cap. He took one tiny tentative sip.
“Go,” he said.
I walked over to my stuff, slung my bag over my shoulder. “You want me to go home, you have to go back to bed.”
“But—”
“That’s my offer.” I pointed toward the front door. “Home.” I pointed toward his room. “Bed.”
He turned around and went to his room without another word. I called after him, “Yes, and thank you, Tai, for saving me in my hour of need. Oh, you’re very welcome, Trey, it’s what I do. Saving people and all that.”
His voice carried from the bedroom. “Go home.”
“I’m going! Enjoy the soup your two-faced spying mistress brought you!”
I slammed the door on the way out. It felt really, really good.
***
I’d barely hit the lobby when my phone rang. I kept walking as I answered. “Now what?
“Thank you, Tai, for saving me in my hour of need.”
My pace slowed from huffy to merely annoyed. “Whatever. Are you in bed?”
“Not yet. I decided to take a shower.”
“Not a bad idea. For the first time since I’ve known you, you do not smell good.”
A pause. “I mean it. I couldn’t think of the words to say it, but I felt it. Thank you.”
His voice was soft. It melted away the last scrap of resistance. “I know, Trey. Just be careful, okay? You’re still pretty weak.”
“You are too. You couldn’t have gotten much rest.”
I stopped at the exit. The concierge watched me with disguised disinterest.
“I can rest at the shop.”
“Okay.”
“Or I could come back up. But if I come back up, we have to talk about this Gabriella thing.”
“Okay.”
I sighed. “Fine. I’m coming back up. But I’m going to get you some crackers and ginger ale first.”
Chapter 42
When I got back to Trey’s, I put a six-pack of ginger ale in the fridge and a box of saltines on the counter. He was just getting off the telephone and was back in full Armani mode. He even smelled good again.
He poured a steaming cupful of tea. “Would you like some lapsang souchong? It’s decaffeinated.”
“We need to talk first. About you-know-who.”
He looked down at his mug. The tea smelled like lemon and herb, and he held it cradled between his palms. I took him by the elbow and led him to the sofa. He sat with me, but didn’t look the least bit comfortable about it.
“I’m not trying to interfere,” I said.
“With what?”
“With your relationship with her.”
He thought about that. “We don’t have the kind of relationship that you can interfere with. She’s—”
“It’s none of my business what she is. I don’t poach on other women’s property.”
“I’m not property.” He said this with the slightest edge, but his expression was placid, as always.
“Look, I’m guessing she means something to you, but she’s up to no good, Trey. And I’m betting it involves the Beaumonts.”
Trey looked puzzled. “Why?”
“She and Charley are thick as thieves, and Charley’s hiding something, I can tell. And that something involves Eliza.” I ticked off the points on my fingers. “Landon’s in their pocket, Marisa too. All of Phoenix. Senator Adams. Janie’s a member of the fold now, and even the cops seem willing to toe the party line. I promise you, Trey, if you did one of your little circle graphs, you’d see them right in the middle, connected to everything.”
“The Beaumonts are clients, not suspects.”
“So what? Remember what Garrity said, everybody’s guilty of something, and—”
“—it’s a cop’s job is to find out what. I know.” He shook his head. “We’re not cops.”
“No, the cops seem to think idiotic drug-addled Bulldog is the guilty party.”
“He admitted—”
“Oh, come on! The best the cops can do for motive is that Eliza refused to sleep with him. Or sheer confounded meanness, that’s their other theory. And then he conveniently leaves her purse and the murder weapon in his truck before narrowly escaping death?”
“That’s the official narrative.”
“Which you are not buying, please tell me you’re not.”
He exhaled. “It has its weaknesses.”
“Hell yeah, it does. That hypothesis is a goldmine of weaknesses. But here’s one that isn’t: Gabriella put a key logger on your computer, and she did it because she’s up to something, and that something involves the Beaumonts.”
Trey stood up and started pacing a tight line in front of the sofa. Six steps, then reverse, then repeat. “We have no proof. She was at my desk, yes, but you were too. Why shouldn’t I suspect you?”
He had a point. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“It’s not an accusation, just a logical analysis.”
“I suppose you didn’t check your e-mail to see if she’d sent you something?”
“Until I get the key logger quarantined, I can’t use the computer for anything.”
He stopped pacing and went to his deck, where he stared at his computer for a long time, his hands on his hips. Then he straightened up and disappeared into the bedroom. I heard a drawer open and shut, decisively.
“Trey?”
He reappeared in the living room wearing his shoulder holster. He headed right for the bottom desk drawer, keys in hand, and my stomach flipped.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting my weapon.”
Oh great, I thought, he’s gone vigilante. I jumped up from the sofa. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”
He unlocked the drawer and then the gun case. “The security of my home and my belongings has been compromised. For your safety as well as mine…”
He stopped talking and stared into the drawer. Then he shut it. Then he looked at me.
“My gun is gone.”
“What!”
“The magazines and ammo too.”
Another flip of the stomach. “Trey, I swear to you, I didn’t—”
“I know. You don’t have the keys to the desk, and you don’t know where I keep them. Only two other people do.” He grabbed his jacket from the chair and was out the door in two seconds, not even looking to see if I was keeping up.
But I was. “You’d better wait for me, Trey Seaver! And you’d better be headed where I think you’re headed!”
***
The attendant at the day spa was, like all of Gabriella’s employees, gorgeous and tall and as poreless as a magazine page. This one, whose nametag read Arion, had a forehead like a black onyx cliff face and eyes like shards of obsidian. She also had no idea where her employer was.
“Check her book,” Trey said.
“I did.”
�
�Not that book.”
“There’s nothing in that book either.”
“Show me.”
Arion opened a drawer and pulled out a leather portfolio, which she then spread open on the counter. There was a note inside addressed to Trey. She looked startled to see it, but Trey seemed to have been expecting it all along.
“What does it say?” I said.
He slipped it in his jacket. “It’s says that she’s sorry and that she’ll explain later, after tonight.” He addressed Arion. “Would you please double-check my delivery order? Everything should be scheduled to arrive no later than four.”
Arion looked relieved to have something to do. “Of course, Mr. Seaver.”
She tapped some information into the computer. The boutique portion of the store was empty, and the soft sounds of the spa seemed very far away.
“That thing at Lake Oconee is tonight,” I said. “I’d completely forgotten.”
“Cocktails at six, dinner at seven-thirty.”
“You think Gabriella will be there?”
“She’s Charley’s stylist. She’s at every event the Beaumonts attend.” He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Would you like to come?”
I blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t invited.”
“You don’t need an invitation, not if you’re with me.”
“I don’t have a dress.”
He ran his eyes over my body, lingering at the hips, then looked around the gallery. He went to the red dress that had caught his eye on our first visit, ran his hand along the seam. “Have this delivered too, please,” he said. Then he looked at my feet. “Size eight?”
“Wide.”
He nodded at Arion. “Shoes too. I’ll leave the choice to you.”
“Certainly.” She was looking at me differently now too. “Will this be on the Phoenix account as well?”
“No, my personal account.”
His expression was composed, the same old Trey Seaver I was fast becoming accustomed to. But his eyes held something flickery and sharp, right at the center. I shook my head.
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