Twisted Taste

by Michelle Dayton

  He threw her a mock pout. “Most people I interact with think it’s perfect.”

  She tilted her head to one side, unimpressed. “Most people you interact with haven’t spent years in the Pacific Rim.”

  He laughed and gave a deferential nod. “True. I’ll work on it.”

  She ran her eyes over the length of him, probably looking for a weapon or any other threat. “You’re an acquaintance of Celeste’s? Same line of business?”

  He entered the room slowly, not wanting to spook her. There was an antique dressing table in the corner on the opposite wall. He crossed the room and perched on its stool. “Indeed. When I saw her at your party on Thursday night, I realized we had a conflict. Took her for a turn on the dance floor to get to the bottom of things. I assumed that while I’d been working Todd to get close to the Scarlet, she’d been working you. Imagine my shock when she told me you were actually partners and that you all were taking the necklace on Saturday night.”

  Helen didn’t say a word, which was the right tactic. Other than Celeste’s body, she knew she’d left no tangible evidence of the plotted theft or Todd’s poisoning. Until Adam proved he knew something damaging, her best course of action was to stay silent.

  He shrugged. “The thing is, I haven’t seen Celeste since and I haven’t heard anything about a major jewel theft at the party, so I suspect things didn’t go as she expected.”

  Helen kept her lips closed. Her eyes were watchful but not particularly concerned. That was about to change.

  Adam upped the ante. “Celeste told me you were a bit more than she’d bargained for and that you despised Todd. Interesting coincidence that he’s sick now.” He grinned at her. “Doesn’t matter to me, of course. Not if the price is right.”

  Helen laughed and pushed her long hair behind her ears. Giving him a condescending smile, she walked to an open armoire at the opposite side of the room, putting the king-size bed between them. “You’re blackmailing me? Ridiculous. I haven’t done anything and there’s no evidence I did.”

  “True,” he answered easily. “Which is why I’m only going to ask for the Scarlet.” She snorted, but he continued. “You’re right. I have no proof. But I could make things very unpleasant around here if Todd dies. Everyone knows we’re friends. I could say he confided in me that he was scared of you.”

  She lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Or,” he said, “I could take him to the hospital right now. I’m pretty sure an excellent medical center could figure out what’s wrong with him.”

  Her eyes flashed and then narrowed. Good—she didn’t like that at all.

  “Aha!” he crowed. “Not a fan of that idea, are you? Not after you’ve worked so long, and—” he looked down pointedly at Helen and Todd’s bed “—ahem, worked so hard.”

  Her calm demeanor turned furious in the blink of an eye. No woman liked to be called a whore.

  He held up his hands, changing his face to wear an earnest expression and his voice to carry a tone of sincerity. “That was shitty, I’m sorry. No judgment, here. Truly. I’ve obviously done my share of unsavory things in my line of work.” He lowered his voice, averted his eyes for a second. “I get it. Hell, you should have seen some of the women I’ve had to, ah, befriend in order to survive.” Not true, that, and he hoped Jess knew it. Otherwise, he hated to imagine that conversation.

  After a long moment of silence, she spoke. “So if I give you the Scarlet, you’ll go?”

  “Forever,” he answered. “It’s all I was ever here for, you know.”

  Helen’s brow smoothed. She turned and pushed aside some clothes in the armoire to reveal a small safe. Automatically, Adam noted the make and model. It was top of the line. If the stars had aligned completely differently on this whole job, he and Jess would have had to hire outside help to break into it.

  As Helen fussed with the combination, Adam said, “I don’t understand why you got mixed up with Celeste anyway.” He’d honestly wondered about it all day.

  “You got this great setup all on your own. Trust me, I know what kind of planning and strategy and fucking patience that takes. You landed it perfectly.” He hoped he wasn’t overdoing the flattery. But playing to someone’s vanity—and more important, giving someone the opportunity to talk truthfully—was a powerful weapon. To people who lived a lie round the clock, having a chance to take off the mask could be unexpectedly cathartic.

  “So why’d you even involve her?” He flavored the her with a perfect blend of scorn and dismissal. Helen was quiet as she pulled the necklace out of the safe. Shit. She wasn’t taking the bait.

  But then, mercifully, she smiled a little. “Originally, this was going to be a short-term thing. I just wanted out of Tokyo on Todd’s dime. I figured I’d siphon cash off him for a few months and then get a big payout from selling the Scarlet. I didn’t have the right connections over here to fence it, though. I needed Celeste.”

  Okay, that made sense. “What changed?”

  Helen smiled bigger. “I like California. I like the wine community and being part of its elite. I even like this house.”

  Adam smiled along with her. He threw her a wink. “You just don’t like Todd.”

  Her smile disappeared and she rolled her eyes sharply to the ceiling. “He’s disgusting. All the money in the world and zero sophistication, zero refinement. He’s a bull and the world is his china shop. I can’t stand being in public with him.” She waved her hand around the exquisite master suite. “The only thing worse is being in private.”

  Inwardly, Adam winced, picturing Todd hearing these comments at the police station. She wasn’t done. “Maybe I could have put up with him if I respected his business decisions. But he makes stupid calls. He’s probably going to run the winery into the ground with all his bleeding heart decisions. I’m his wife and his business partner, and he didn’t even think to consult me before he gave away half the Miracle Fields to Lyons.” She huffed, an expression that made her look about sixteen years old. Well, a sixteen-year-old with black flinty eyes.

  He nodded at her in sympathy and commendation. “Well done, you. He’s a fool and a disrespectful one at that. Good riddance. Wish you all the best.” With a cheeky smile, he stood and reached his hand over the bed. “The Scarlet?”

  She tossed it on the bed. He picked it up. “Gorgeous.” Turning toward the door, he paused. “Wait. How’d you leave things with Celeste? I don’t have her connections—it’s going to take me a few weeks to fence this. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder the whole time. Did you pay her a cut for it or something?”

  She stared at him, her black eyes flat. “Or something.”

  He feigned irritation. “That bitch can be like a dog with a bone. I don’t want her on my trail.”

  Helen closed the safe. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “She’s not going to be a problem.”

  Adam raised his voice. “If she causes trouble for me, our deal is off. I’ll come back for more.”

  “Celeste won’t ever cause trouble again,” Helen said simply, turning to face him.

  He blinked twice slowly as if letting the implication wash over him. “You went for a more permanent solution.”

  She didn’t say anything, just lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug.

  “Smart.” He nodded at her respectfully again. Take the time to give the lady her due, he told himself. She’s been on this job for more than half a year and no one understood how clever she’d been. “How?”

  She leaned casually against the armoire. “Same as Todd.”

  Now he frowned. “That’s sloppy work, Helen. Two people who were seen with you dying in the same week in the same way.”

  She didn’t like the reproach. “By the time some fisherman pulls her out of the Santa Rosa Creek Reservoir, her body will be too decomposed for a cause of death t
o be determined.”

  And...there it was. That was all they needed. The transmission would be through to the cops in minutes. They would order divers to drag the reservoir, and take Helen in for questioning. Downstairs, Jess would be waiting for him to appear before anyone showed up at the house.

  He was still curious about one thing, though. He held the necklace up to the light as if most of his attention was on the jewels. “Why’d you decide to kill her?” Maybe it was because Celeste knew too much about Helen, but that didn’t seem quite right. Even though she had good qualities, Celeste always looked out for herself first and foremost. If she’d known Helen was going to kill Todd, she wouldn’t have interfered in any way.

  Helen spoke impatiently now, done with her cleansing truth and ready for him to be gone. “It’s like you said. She was like a dog with a bone.”

  Comprehension dawning, Adam looked at the necklace carefully for the first time. “Oh, I see,” he said. Helen got rid of Celeste purely out of greed. “You killed her because you decided you wanted not only the life of a single wine country queen, you wanted to keep the Scarlet free and clear too.”

  Helen’s eyes flashed. “And why shouldn’t I? Celeste didn’t deserve it. All she had to do was dress up for some fancy parties, talk with a jewelry designer and work her connections to find a buyer. Compare that to what I’ve done! I’ve clawed my way out of hell! I spend twenty-four hours a day with a pigheaded moron.” She shook her head. “On Thursday morning I told her over mimosas and grapefruit that I’d pay for her expenses and a perfectly reasonable amount for her time spent on the job, but I wanted to keep the necklace. She wouldn’t accept my terms.” She did another one of her elegant shrugs. “So I served the omelet.”

  Adam felt sorrow and fury like a shard of glass in his heart. Celeste had died purely from the avarice of this stone-cold bitch. He dangled the necklace like a pendulum, his finger on the incorrect fastening. Anger clouded his judgment, and he spoke without thinking. “You’re still trying to keep it. This isn’t the Scarlet. This is Celeste’s replica. Wrong clasp.”

  The minute the words left his mouth, he knew they were a mistake. Damn it. He should have walked away. Helen noticed his mistake immediately. “Uh oh, Chase. Caught in a lie.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Now it was his turn to stay silent.

  Helen looked amused. “You told me you took Celeste for a ‘turn on the dance floor’ on Thursday night and didn’t see her after that. But I happen to know the replica didn’t arrive until Saturday morning, and you’ve obviously seen it before.”

  Still next to the armoire, she swiftly reached into an open drawer and pulled out a gun.

  Well, shit. “Seriously, Helen? What are you going to do with that gun?” He held up his hands as she pointed it at him. She walked slowly from the armoire to the corner of the room between the door to the hallway and the door to the patio, effectively blocking both exits.

  “I don’t know what your game here is exactly,” she said. “But you lied to me, and that’s enough of a transgression when you know too much about me as it is.”

  He considered mentioning the recording—everyone in the world was soon going to know too much about her—but he worried she’d run straight out of the house and he didn’t want her encountering Jess with the gun in her hand.

  Of course, that was a scenario he couldn’t prevent. Any minute now, Jess would hear the word “gun” burst through the transmission, and he knew his partner wouldn’t wait for the cops to show up since they were ten minutes away. The thought of Jess rushing to his aid was a little terrifying. The last time Jess had tried to save his life, she’d ended up with a bullet in her shoulder.

  Helen bit her lip, raised and lowered the gun a little. She wasn’t comfortable with it, which was a good thing. On the other hand, she seemed to have no problem shooting him, which was a bad thing. “This will work out quite nicely,” she mused. “Todd will die, and if the story needs a bad guy, now it has one. You’re a thief who came after both of us. I’ll find a way to link the mushrooms to you.” She adjusted her angle, probably trying to figure out a realistic way to shoot him that would support her intruder story.

  He sat down on the bench next to the dressing table again, both to seem as non-threatening as possible and to make her pause. After all, it wouldn’t look right to a forensics team if an intruder had been sitting down with no weapon when she shot him to death.

  She wouldn’t let that go for long. If she told him to get up, he wondered if he should dive under the bed or scramble over it. Maybe she’d move away from the doors, if so. Also, a moving target would be much harder for a novice shooter to hit. She wouldn’t let that stop her, though. She’d likely keep shooting until he was hit. He took a deep breath. Damn it. There was no way he was getting out of the room without being shot. The very most he could hope for was a flesh wound.

  * * *

  Parked in the car on the driveway, Jess listened anxiously to the transmitted bursts of conversation between Adam and Helen.

  God, he was good. Helen didn’t trust him at all, but she bought into his “fellow criminal” routine enough to let the information about the reservoir slip. As soon as she did, Jess started the car and waited.

  Actually, it was a little strange that she needed to wait. With the slight delay in the transmission, she would have expected Adam to be at the car by the time she heard it.

  Uneasy, she got out of the running car and stood on the mansion’s driveway. It was awkward to walk and listen to the laptop speakers, so she missed pieces of the conversation. Adam said something about the necklace replica, Helen said something about Saturday morning.

  But then there was a sentence that she heard clearly, one that would haunt her nightmares for years to come. “Seriously, Helen? What are you going to do with that gun?”

  She started running.

  Easy, Jess. She could practically hear Adam’s voice in her head. There was no gunshot yet—he was still okay. She needed to be quiet if she was somehow going to sneak up and help him with Helen. She forced herself to shut the laptop, which silenced the conversation.

  Tucking it under her arm, she touched the knob to the front door. But then she hesitated, thoughts racing. If Helen had pulled a gun intending to shoot Adam, she’d need to put herself between Adam and the door if she didn’t want him to escape. Which meant that Jess would have a hard time sneaking up on her if she had to walk down the second-floor hallway while Helen was standing right by the door.

  Another option, another option, there had to be some other option. Yes! Remembering the Thursday night barbecue, Jess ran as fast as she could around the outside of the house to the southwest corner and silently climbed the outdoor stairs that led to the patio of the master suite.

  The shades were open. Oh God, there it was. A scene from a terrible dream. Helen, in profile, pointed a gun at Adam who sat across the room with his hands up. He glanced at the doorway to the hall and Jess’s gut clenched. Was he expecting her to run through that door and save him?

  His eye movement distracted Helen as well. She took a step closer to him and anchored herself more firmly against the frame of the door leading to the second-floor hallway. She probably figured that if he was going to try and escape, he’d more likely launch himself through an open doorway than have to fiddle with a locked patio door while she stood three feet away with a loaded gun.

  Hunched low, beneath eyesight, Jess dug in the copper pot closest to the stairs for Todd’s hide-a-key. Luckily, it was right on top. Moving silently forward on her knees, she took a deep breath and inserted it into the lock. She hoped like hell this door worked as silently and seamlessly as everything else in Helen’s perfect home.

  The lock turned. No movement from the master suite. Inside, she could hear Adam’s cajoling tone, but not the actual words. Helen appeared to be ignori
ng them and working on some sort of internal calculation.

  If she rose from her knees, would Helen see her? Maybe not. It was dark outside and bright within. If Helen looked quickly at the glass back door, she’d see her own reflection.

  Jess lifted her chin and peeked through the glass. Helen’s back was still to Jess. Dressed all in white, her long black hair fell to her hips. Her shoulders were stiff and raised.

  It was time to move. At any moment, Helen could decide that Adam was too big of a threat and just shoot him. She might convince herself that staging the crime scene after he was dead might work. Jess said a silent prayer that her action wouldn’t make things worse. If she made a noise while opening the door, Helen’s focus would be diverted long enough for Adam to either tackle her or take cover. Right? Right? Oh God. For a moment, Jess thought longingly of her old life, of her safe office, of losing herself for hours in nice, sterile code.

  But... Adam.

  Staying low, Jess raised herself to one knee and tucked her other foot under, almost like she was preparing to run a race. With her laptop still tucked under her right armpit, she turned the knob with her left hand and pulled.

  The door opened soundlessly. Only an inch, sure, but it was open and neither Adam nor Helen noticed.

  No. Adam had noticed. Maybe no one else in the world would realize it, but Jess knew his face like she knew her own soul, and the corner of his mouth turned just the tiniest fraction of a millimeter up.

  “I’m standing up now,” he announced loudly. “Don’t shoot.” Jess took advantage of the volume and Helen’s renewed focus on him to pull the door open wide enough for her body to slide through.

  “I wanted you standing anyway,” Helen said. “In fact, I want—”

  They never found out what Helen wanted, because the moment she started talking, Jess took two large steps closer, raised her laptop with both hands, and then cracked Helen over the head with it as hard as she could. Without a sound, Helen crumpled to the floor.