Criminal Deception

by Pappano, Marilyn

  He didn’t notice her until he was halfway up the steps, bike gripped in both hands. He stopped abruptly and stared at her until something—maybe the weight of the bike or the rain in his face—made him move the last few feet to shelter.

  “Hey.” He set down the bike, then removed his helmet. His hair was dry, but it was likely the only part of him that was. His baby-blue T-shirt and jeans hugged him like a second skin, and water sluiced off to puddle at his feet.

  The temperature had dropped enough to make wet clothing chilly, but he didn’t look cold. She didn’t feel it. Struggling to sound unaffected, she said, “If you had a car, you wouldn’t have gotten so wet coming home.”

  “If I had a car, I’d be part of the problem, not the solution. Do you know how much pollution they put into the atmosphere?”

  “Sometimes, though, a bicycle isn’t a reasonable option.”

  “Sometimes. Some places. Copper Lake isn’t one of those places.”

  He toed off each shoe, kicked them against the wall, then stripped off his socks and stood there, barefooted like her. There was something incredibly appealing about the sight. Apparently unaware that she’d discovered an all-new fascination with bare feet, he said, “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “I am.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Probably because you need to get out of those clothes.” The instant the last word was out, she swallowed hard. Wrong thing to say, very wrong thing to think about. Joe out of his clothes would be too tempting, and she was already feeling weak.

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said, but he didn’t move toward the door.

  “I hope you don’t mind me inviting myself over, but I thought I’d repay you for the cherry limeade last night. I ordered two medium pizzas to be delivered in—” Rocking forward, she slid her fingers around his left hand and lifted it so she could see the face of his watch.

  His skin was warm, not as soft as her own but not particularly callused either. His fingers tensed for just a moment, then went lax in her grip, and his pulse throbbed just the slightest bit harder. There was a small scar on the back of his hand, right where the blood vein was most prominent, reminding her of the time in the hospital when an IV had been taped there. When he’d looked so pale, so vulnerable and still so damn handsome.

  “Delivered when?” His voice was husky, sliding over her skin, bringing back the sharp edginess that had plagued her earlier.

  It took a few heartbeats to remember her reason for taking his hand. “Twenty minutes.” Hers was husky, too. Edgy.

  “What kind?”

  “One vegetarian, one supreme.”

  “My favorite. But I should change first.” He was waiting for her to release him, she realized belatedly when he tugged free. Taking a step back, he pulled his keys from his pocket, propped the screen with one foot and unlocked the door. Before opening it, he asked, “Do you want to come in?”

  More than she wanted to admit even to herself—and less, too, because Mika had told her to get a look inside. She forced a breath and let the chair rock back with a squeak. “You just want me to deflect the puppies’ attention from you.”

  His grin started out a bit shaky, but reached full-force as he twisted the doorknob. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

  He opened the door just enough to squeeze through and the dogs’ yips increased in volume, making it difficult to separate his words from the din. “Hey, Bear. Hey, Elizabeth. What did you guys destroy today?”

  With a sigh, she settled back in the chair as a sound from the right broke the gentle patter of the rain. When she turned, her gaze connected with Natalia, standing motionless on her porch. The younger woman’s expression was utterly blank. If she was jealous or resentful or feeling a little hostile, she hid it well.

  She pivoted as if to return inside, prompting Liz to speak. “Hey, we’re having pizza. Want to join us?” There was nothing like a third person to keep things from getting too intimate, a lesson she and Joe had learned once before. She should have thought of it sooner.

  “No, thanks. I don’t like pizza.”

  “Really. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like pizza.”

  Natalia offered no response, not even a shrug.

  “You could bring your own food, or we could add pasta or a sandwich to the order. I’ve heard everything from Luigi’s is wonderful.”

  “No, thanks.” Natalia’s gaze flickered to the bicycle. “Is Joe inside?”

  “Yes. He’s changing clothes.” Liz’s stomach clenched, and her temperature spiked.

  “Tell him I’ll replace his pillow. Have fun.”

  Before she disappeared, Liz spoke again quickly. “Natalia, seriously—”

  “Have fun. Seriously.”

  And for the first time Liz had seen that didn’t involve the puppies, Natalia smiled.

  They ate on the porch, the two rockers facing each other with a small table in between to hold the pizza boxes and iced tea. Breaking the last bit of crust into two pieces, Joe tossed one to each dog before he closed the empty boxes and set one on top of the other.

  “I love pizza,” Liz said with a satisfied sigh.

  “It’s in your blood, huh?” When she glanced at him, brows raised, he lifted one shoulder. “Josh said you were half Italian.”

  “On my mother’s side. I always thought it would be fun to eat my way through Italy.”

  “Do you cook Italian food?”

  Her smile was faint in the growing darkness. “Does macaroni from a box count?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t cook.” Before he could respond, she raised one finger to make her point. It was slender, the nail curved gently and polished the same shade as her toes. “I can. I just don’t.”

  “I can and I do. Mostly Cuban.”

  She tilted her head to one side to study him. Did she have a clue how incredibly relaxed and beautiful and sexy she looked? He doubted it. That was okay, though, because he damn well knew.

  “Blond hair and blue eyes. You don’t fit my stereotyped image of a Cuban.”

  “My father’s not Latino, but his adoptive parents were.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Bear came around to sniff the napkin resting on Joe’s leg. He pushed the dog away, then crumpled the napkin into a ball. “Why should you? Josh was never big on heritage or family or much of anything besides himself.”

  “And yet people love him.”

  All sense of ease fled as Joe’s muscles tightened. Half surprised he could unclench his jaw to speak, he asked sharply, “Do you?”

  She drew her gaze to him, her dark eyes rounded. “Love Josh?”

  “You were with him a long time.” His tone was accusing, but he couldn’t soften it. “You must have felt something…I don’t know…serious? Significant?”

  He would bet his next shipment of Salvadoran strictly high-grown Arabica that she wouldn’t have answered at all if she could have avoided it. As it was, her answer was a non-answer. “It was…complicated.”

  His laughter was short and sharp. “With Josh, everything is complicated.”

  Her own laugh was rueful. “You’re not too simple yourself.”

  “Of course I am. What you see is what you get.”

  She looked as if the idea of “getting” might tempt her. It had better. If he were the only one wanting things, the only one who’d damn near burst into flames at the simple touch of her fingers around his hand, life truly wasn’t fair.

  Elizabeth shot to the edge of the porch, nose quivering, and Bear joined her with a shuffle, staring into the deepening shadows with the same intensity. Liz watched them, smiling faintly. “Are you missing a pillow?”

  “Yeah. From my bed. The best one I ever had. I figure Elizabeth is responsible. She has this defiant screw-you look when she does something wrong. She probably smelled me on it and that’s why she shredded it.”

  “Natalia said she would replace it.”

  “Nah. I’ll ask Mom where
she bought it—” Abruptly he broke off. He wouldn’t get comfortable enough with Liz to talk about his parents. Not when he couldn’t trust her.

  But she didn’t pounce on his slip, try to get more information out of him or even look at him. She continued to watch the dogs as they stared out a moment longer, then, with Elizabeth in the lead, returned to their places against the wall and curled up. After a long time, she said, “I’m not in love with him.”

  Relief seeped through him, his muscles easing from tension that had become so familiar he only noticed it when it was gone. He would tell himself it didn’t matter whether she loved Josh, but unlike his brother, he wasn’t in the habit of lying. It did matter.

  For whatever it was worth.

  “Then why are you looking for him?” He was surprised at how even his voice was, as if he didn’t give a damn about the subject.

  “I’ve told you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s got something you want. What?”

  “Charm to spare?”

  He scowled at her, even though she still wasn’t looking at him. She must have sensed it, though, because she did meet his gaze at last. “I’ll make you a deal, Joe. I’ll tell you why I’m looking for Josh right after you tell me where your parents are.”

  He scooted his chair away from the table so he could stretch out his legs. “Ain’t ever happenin’, darlin’.”

  She mimicked his drawl. “Ditto, darlin’.”

  After a moment, he asked, “Do you ever miss Kansas?”

  “Not the place so much as what it represents.”

  Home. Family. Simpler times. At least, that was what Chicago meant to him. Truth was, he hadn’t realized how much it meant to him until he had to leave it.

  “Are you ever going back there to live?”

  “I don’t know.” She folded her arms across her chest as if chilled. “Probably not, though my mother wonders how I could even consider raising her grandbabies in any other state.”

  “Planes fly to all fifty of them. You’ll visit.” But he understood. His parents had chosen to make their new home in Savannah in part because it was only two hours from Copper Lake. She might never see Josh again, his mother had sniffed, but she would always be close enough to spend an afternoon with Joe’s kids.

  Assuming he found someone to marry and have them with, and no way was Liz that someone.

  “Try telling my mother that a visit with her only grandchild is sufficient.” She tucked her feet into the seat of the rocker. “Is it different with sons? Does your mother nag you? Has she already got plans for the son or daughter you don’t yet have?”

  “Of course. She intends to do all the things we did with our grandmothers—teach him to cook, have Saturday night sleepovers, let him get away with breaking all the rules we had to abide by.”

  “Rules you abided by,” Liz pointed out. “Not Josh.”

  “Yeah.” He tilted his head back, letting his eyes close. Besides Bear’s snuffles and the steady drip of the rain, distant music drifted. Country, with the dominant whine of a steel guitar. “Nat’s got the blues.”

  The rocker creaked as Liz presumably twisted to see the other house. “I invited her to dinner, but she said no. She’s an interesting girl.”

  “Girl? She’s just a few years younger than you.”

  “But she seems so young.”

  He knew exactly what she meant. Natalia pretended to be tough, but she was one of the most vulnerable women he’d ever met. The people who should have protected her and made her feel safe had done a lousy job of it, and he felt as if he needed to make up for it but didn’t know how other than by being friends with her. He suspected the damage already done was so great that a little thing like friendship couldn’t begin to repair it.

  “I didn’t figure you for the waif type.”

  It took a moment for Liz’s comment to sink in, and when it did, he grinned. He liked Natalia a lot, maybe even sort of loved her in a big-brother-kid-sister way, but when it came to steamy, hot, wicked sex, it wasn’t big-eyed vulnerable Nat who turned him on. She didn’t even enter the picture, thank you, God. Just the thought struck him as perverse.

  “Nat and I are buddies.” He emphasized the last word. “My type is…” He glanced at her peripherally: black curls, outfit that was neither particularly snug nor revealing but sexy as hell anyway, killer legs, bare feet, expression guarded—not too open, not too friendly, not too invested. Yeah, right.

  He left the sentence hanging as the breeze freshened, and she shivered, rubbing her hands over her arms. He stood, gathered the pizza boxes and glasses, then opened the screen door. Elizabeth and Bear shot past him, rocketing through the living room and into the kitchen. “Want to come in?”

  It was a stupid invitation that she had luckily refused the first time. He no more wanted her inside his house, touching his things, leaving her scent on the air, than he’d wanted her in his car with Josh two years ago. If he’d turned down his brother’s request, he wouldn’t have gotten shot, at least not that day.

  Would Josh have been shot instead? And maybe Liz, too, because she was with him? Would either of them have been as lucky as Joe had? Or would one or both of them be dead now?

  He touched one wrist to his ribcage, where a scar marked the entrance wound of the second bullet. That was the first time in two years that he’d considered himself lucky.

  She hesitated so long that he thought she was going to turn him down again, but then she got up and walked to the door, slipping past him with so little room to spare that he’d swear he felt the air ripple between them.

  His house was laid out exactly like hers: living room, eat-in kitchen, bedroom, bath. He hadn’t brought any furniture from Chicago. All the leather and chrome stuff had sold with the condo. Instead, he’d borrowed a few pieces from Miss Abigail in the beginning while he looked for what he wanted: old oak and pine for the wood pieces, overstuffed comfort for the upholstered ones. Color brightened the walls, and rugs warmed the wood floors. It was cozy, his mother had proclaimed on her one visit. He preferred to think comfortable.

  What did Liz think?

  She hardly glanced at the television that dominated one corner of the living room but turned her attention instead to the bookcases. They were filled with books, both fiction and nonfiction, and stacked in one shelf corner was a pile of magazines. He watched stiffly as she picked up the top one, glanced it, then laid it back. He usually recycled magazines as soon as he finished with them, but he’d kept these to camouflage the one at the bottom. Alone, it would rouse interest. Just part of a pile, no one noticed it.

  Next she glanced at the wicker basket that stored paper for recycling, then a group of pictures on the wall: his parents on their wedding day, both sets of grandparents and all of his great-grandparents in their youth. Everything more recent—everything including Josh—was packed in a box in the attic.

  She stopped in the kitchen door. The dogs had checked their food dishes, upended now in the middle of the floor, then vacated. They were probably on his bed, seeing what other trouble they could cause, but Joe didn’t go looking for them. He watched Liz’s gaze skim the counters as if nothing there held any interest to her, besides possibly the coffee maker. She scanned the walls, with their photos and framed recipes, handwritten by various long-gone women in his family, and the square oak table that took too much room. “You actually live here,” she remarked.

  “Did you think I slept in the storeroom at the shop and just changed clothes here?”

  “Didn’t you pretty much use your condo for just changing clothes?”

  He smiled ruefully as he brushed a patch of Bear’s fur from the sofa cushions before sitting down. “I didn’t like the condo much. Cold and sterile wasn’t my idea of home.”

  “That’s what you get for giving an interior decorator free rein.” She sat, too, in the armchair, drawing her feet onto the cushions, wriggling into its depths. “The only place to sit in my house is the wicker sofa that belongs on Mrs. Wyndha
m’s porch. It’s nice, but I do miss solid furniture.”

  “I used that sofa, too, when I moved in.” Had sat on it, eaten dinner on it, slept on it with his feet hanging over the arm. “But you’re not staying long enough to need real furniture.”

  Her only response was a shrug.

  He didn’t move—sprawled on the sofa, one arm resting along its back, legs stretched out underneath the coffee table—but the tension ratcheting through him made him feel as if he’d compressed in place. “If I knew where Josh was, I’d tell you.”

  “To get rid of me?”

  To save me. “But I don’t know.”

  “He’ll come here.”

  “He’ll go somewhere. He’s got a lot of friends and relatives who haven’t moved in the last two years. It’ll be easier to get help from them than to bother finding me.”

  “Relatives who know where you are? Where your parents are?”

  Joe stared at a painting on the wall, an oil done decades ago by a great-great-grandmother he’d never met. It was one of the few possessions her daughter had been able to bring to the U.S. when she fled Havana. It wasn’t very well done, the brush strokes too heavy, the perspective too fuzzy. It was like looking at the city through cloudy glass, but it held sentimental value.

  Josh held sentimental value, too. Not necessarily to him, but to some of his friends. Dory’s best friend had been appalled when Dory asked everyone not to give Josh any information about them or Joe. He’s your son, your own flesh and blood! How can you turn your back on him?

  Nothing, Opal had declared, could ever make her abandon her children, and she was ashamed that her friend could even think about doing so. If Josh contacted her—not likely but always possible—she might give it a second thought, but in the end, she would give him their addresses and phone numbers.

  Maybe a warning phone call to Opal was in order. Maybe Thomas P. Smith, U.S. Attorney’s Office, would make it for him.

  “What did you guys do after I left Chicago?”