5.
Miami Law Office of Alierdi, Moss, and Carpenter, afternoon
Tommy Carpenter cringed when he saw Gloria. She looked drawn and sick. Gorgeous of course, even trauma couldn’t mess with her natural beauty, but wiped out.
Her hands shook and she kept smoothing her hair as she relayed the goriest details of her morning.
Tommy felt his stomach clench when she told him she had hidden under the bed. He nearly upchucked the almond croissant he’d eaten for breakfast when she said that one guy died from a knife wound and the other was rendered unconscious with a face so badly bludgeoned that it looked like a bloodied piece of liver.
“They tried to kill me before, Tommy. That’s why they came to my hotel room, to finish the job. To kill me.”
“Maybe they were just hoping to find any pretty girl in a room and rape her.” That was a stupid thing to say, he thought. As if that scenario would have alleviated her fear.
“They called my name. They banged on the door and said, ‘Miss Hanes!’ Used a room service dodge. Not too bright but Tommy, it wasn’t random.”
He didn’t know what to say. Mick had obviously put out a hit on her. Tommy would have to call Mick out on this as soon as he could, but for right now what could he say to calm her down? “So one of them was the same guy you saw at the airport, the one who you say pushed you in front of a bus?”
“His face was unrecognizable. A mash of pulpy—”
He put his hand up. “I get it, Gloria. That’s enough.”
“But it must have been him. Kurt brought me to a whole new hotel and they found me anyway. They did it to Donna, and they mean to kill me now, and it all has to do with our child, Tommy!”
Tommy picked up his coffee mocha latte and sipped it. A shot of Stoli would have been better but this would have to do as long as she was sitting here.
“I believe you up to a —”
“You believe me . . . ” She took a long moment to allow this to sink in. “You finally accept the fact that someone has been sent out to kill me because I’m getting a little too close to finding our daughter?”
“No.” He shrugged. “I don’t think the two are related.”
Gloria’s eyes bore through his and he nearly fell off his chair. That same angered scorned look she had given him years before in divorce court. That same determined stare that made him want to tell her everything, beg her forgiveness. But doing so would be at his own peril. He viewed the picture of his new family on the desk. Their peril too.
Time to pull out the heavy artillery. The lie that was supposed to be his ace in the hole if he ever needed it. Cruel, but she left him no choice.
“You keep carrying on that the fetus was five months old but it wasn’t.”
“Twenty-two weeks,” she said. “But what does that have to do with—”
“Stop it. Don’t you remember? You were only sixteen weeks.”
“I was not. I was twenty-two weeks. I got pregnant on May eleventh.”
He put his head down, making a show of his frustration. He threw his hands up for good measure. He did feel bad for Gloria, but it was time for her to let the damn thing go. Yeah, someone had tried to kill her, but for God’s sake if she had just kept her nose out of this it wouldn’t have happened. He didn’t want her dead, but she was digging her own grave. Tommy couldn’t seem to get her off track. Any more upsets and Mick might very well decide to take it out of his hide.
That PI Tommy hired had kept Gloria from dying but Malone seemed to be fueling her fire. Of course, calling him off the case now would only make Malone suspicious. Tommy tugged at his suddenly too tight and stiff collar. Hearing the graphic description of the damage Malone had inflicted was even more reason for Tommy to stay out of his way. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kurt was banging Gloria. She was still a beauty.
“Tommy?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Gloria, listen to me.” He reached over and held her hands. He was a litigator after all and bullshitting was his specialty. “I still care about you. You must know that.” Not a complete lie there but she was being a royal pain in the ass right now. “But I was with you when you got pregnant, and when you had all your tests, and when you lost the baby. After twenty weeks it’s a stillbirth. You did not have a stillbirth. It was only sixteen weeks.”
She stared at him. Shocked.
“Do you know what hospitals do with—well, I hate to term it this way but, the spare parts?”
She shook her head.
“They cremate them.”
“Cremate?”
“Yes, Gloria. Cremate. When they removed the fetus from you, they burned what was left. It’s called medical waste at that point, you see.”
She dropped her gaze.
He remained silent, but even from this angle he could see tears pooling in her eyes.
She finally looked up, through clouded vision. “If she’s really gone—cremated gone! Then damn it, Tommy, who’s trying to kill me? And why?”
“An irate reader?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Why not? Someone who didn’t like something your firm published. Or maybe a scorned author whose work you rejected because it sucked? Everyone has enemies. You just have to try to figure out who they—”
“Mick Puglisi.” She yanked her hands away and practically spit at him.
“What?” Where the fuck did she pull that name from?
“Remember Mick Puglisi from college?”
“No.”
“He dated Marcia Donali.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“Well I do. He was a sleaze—a royal sleaze from a crime family.”
“Okay. And?”
“Guess who owns New Age Adoption Agency?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Sibli Corp.”
Tommy felt his gut clench and his throat tighten. Being a criminal lawyer, he knew firsthand that Sibli owned a lot of companies but he didn’t delve into Sibli’s financials.
“Sibli owns the fucking adoption agency, and guess who owns Sibli?”
“I don’t know. Enlighten me.” He bunched his hands up under his legs to hide their trembling. He did know but hoped against all odds that she didn’t.
“The Puglisi family. You know, the Puglisi crime family out of Providence. That’s who my enemy is. That’s who’s trying to kill me—and I’d bet my life’s savings that they had Donna murdered because she uncovered the same connection.”
No surprise there. But he couldn’t believe that Gloria had figured it out. He wondered now though, had Tad Boucher taken their baby alive and kicking out of Gloria, and then adopted the infant out through the agency? Could this Alison be his child? The ages were wrong, yes, but he had never seen the fetus—not dead or alive. What if they had somehow kept the child alive as some part of sick experiment?
Tommy sat in his swivel chair, the smell of expensive leather cloying. He knew this was one of those pivotal moments in his existence. A point where whatever choice he made would affect the rest of his life. Would affect his family’s life and Gloria’s.
He thought of the Rudyard Kipling poem, If. Of course he couldn’t remember the whole work verbatim but knew a few odd lines. “Or watch the things you gave your life to broken.”
Am I a man?
Was he going to step up to the plate and tell her what he had done? That he had sold their fetus for an experiment to make partner in a big law firm in Miami? And that once Gloria and he divorced, that he had never looked back and had been wallowing in the spoils of his ill deed ever since? And what would he tell the new wife?
He looked into Gloria’s eyes. They were tear-filled but strong. She was waiting for an answer.
Tommy knew if he chose to spill his guts to Gloria and agreed to help her get Alison back, and to expose the Puglisi clan, and to figure out what other crooked things New Age Agency was up to, that he’d be killed before the end of the week. Maybe the end of the day.
&n
bsp; Sorry Gloria, he thought. It’s self-preservation. Survival of the fittest.
He put on his litigator hat and decided he needed to do some serious intimidating.
“So now you’re adding Mafia conspiracy to the pot? God, Gloria!” He got up and sashayed around his office, pretending to be in the courtroom. It always worked to confuse the jurors when he moved around. “Give it up, Gloria. Yeah, it sure as hell seems someone is trying to kill you but I’d bet on my mother’s life that it’s not a major crime family. Maybe they do own the adoption agency, but maybe they own a lot of things. I hate to burst your bubble, feeding this ridiculous conspiracy theory further, but you are now and were before—” he caught himself before he slipped out, “hereinafter” or “aforementioned” or other legalese he normally peppered his speech with to sound smart— “just a regular woman. You’re just a run-of-the-mill, ordinary woman who had a miscarriage and can’t cope. You’re not important enough to even catch the eye of the Mafia, if that’s even what this Puglisi family is, much less have them put out a hit on you.”
He waited for her to speak up but she failed to do so. Good.
And the big finish. He leaned down on her chair and braced the arms, locking her in. “There’s nothing for you here. I want you to go back to Massachusetts. There’s a little girl with parents who love her, and an agency that brought them together. Maybe you’re jealous of that. I don’t know. But what I do know is that you’re going to be facing some serious slander charges if you don’t leave New Age and Sibli alone. The Ganders’ll most likely slap you with other charges: harassment, attempted kidnapping maybe. And where will you be then?
“I recommend as your ex-husband and as a lawyer, that you leave this alone. See a psychiatrist and attend to your life before it unravels like the last time.”
With that, he stared her down. He towered above her as she sat in the chair. She looked down and nodded. He released his grip on her chair and let her leave.
When finally she had gone through the door, Tommy Carpenter smiled. His bluster and bluff had worked. He could tell. He hardly ever lost a case, and he had just won her over too. He’d probably get an email from her next week saying she was sorry she’d gone off the deep end. She’d thank him for being stalwart and strong and steering her from inflicting pain on herself and others like little Alison. And as far as the truth of what was going on? To hell with that.
Tommy couldn’t be bothered with truths. No room for that kind of honesty in his business or his life. He’d call Mick though and ask him to lift the hit on Gloria. Tell him she’d be going home now and dropping it.
Tommy opened his drawer and pulled out the bottle of Stoli and a paper cup. He poured the liquid then held up the cup and quoted his favorite words of the Kipling poem. “If you can make one heap of all your winnings/And risk it all on one turn of the pitch and toss . . . .”
He toasted the pictures on his desk and the diplomas on the wall then drank the liquid. It burned as it went down. For the first time in days he felt good. “Yes, Tommy Carpenter. You are a man.”
6.
Starlite Motel, Miami, evening
Gloria sat on her bed in a new, but still seedy room in the Starlite Motel. Her old room was designated a crime scene so the manager had relocated her to a deluxe room on the opposite side of the building. Deluxe translated to two locks and a king-sized bed facing a wall of mirrors. For her trouble, he’d also thrown in a complimentary bottle of wine.
As Gloria maneuvered a plastic fork and knife from the wrapped package that accompanied her takeout Greek salad, she reflected that this had to have been one of the worst days of her life. Normal people like her didn’t have lives like this. She was used to getting up, showering, commuting to Boston, reading manuscripts, and working with editors, booksellers, and writers. Not a wild life by any means.
Today? The room service guys trying to get to her, Kurt killing them . . . She shook her head at the call from Detective O’Grady telling her the surviving one had died a couple of hours ago from a brain hemorrhage.
To top it off: Tommy turning on her, again, trying to convince her it was all in her head.
The worst though was what had happened between Kurt and her. Or what had almost happened.
This morning she had made a fool of herself in the bathroom. Threw herself at Kurt. Ripped his towel off like a brazen hussy. He had reached out to unbutton her blouse. So close to making passionate love with him right there in her hotel bathroom, only minutes after viewing the bodies of the men he’d pulverized.
Instead of being sickened by Kurt’s ability to snuff out life at will, she had been more excited and hot than she had ever been in her life. Damn near frenzied by the marauding, violent Kurt. Overwhelmed with lust.
And then Detective O’Grady banged on the bathroom door. She had blocked the outside door, but he’d managed.
Kurt had jumped in the shower behind the curtain and she’d opened the door a crack. Steam poured out over the detective’s face.
“Sorry, Ms. Hanes. I knocked and you didn’t answer. I was worried.”
“I’m ready to get into the shower.” She hadn’t made any effort to keep the impatience out of her voice.
“Sure. Sorry.”
“What was it you wanted?” All she had been able to think about was Kurt’s naked muscular body, and the hot water cascading over it.
“I just wanted to give you my card. In case you had any questions.”
She took it. “Anything else?”
He had said no and left the hotel room. When she had opened the shower curtain Kurt shut the water off and wrapped a towel around himself. “Listen, Gloria. What almost happened, well, we shouldn’t let that happen.”
“Why?” She had folded her arms and leaned against the sink.
“I think you’re sexy and I like you. But you’re my client for one. And you’re also very vulnerable and likely to do things you wouldn’t normally do. I don’t want to take advantage.”
“All right.” It was a stupid response but no other words would come out.
After that Kurt scrubbed his shirt in the sink to remove the blood. The stains didn’t come out but pink circles wouldn’t draw as much attention.
As it dried, he told her all about the Puglisis and the Sibli corp. When Kurt revealed that Mick Puglisi attended the same college she did, Gloria remembered the name, though she didn’t know Mick then. Only in passing and from his family’s reputation.
As soon as the cops cleared the bodies from the hall and left, so did Kurt, promising to return in the morning to relocate her once again. A quick chaste kiss on the cheek and he was gone.
A couple of hours later she’d braved the outside world to go see Tommy. That was a complete disappointment. What an arrogant jerk!
She’d managed to hold back tears while she visited a cell phone store and replaced hers. Then she held herself together until she got back to her room, salad in hand. And now she broke down crying. It took a few moments for her to compose herself enough to eat.
Two bites into it, Gloria looked at the salad.
How can I eat after all that’s happened today? Kurt, why haven’t you called me?
She dumped the meal in the trash. No appetite. Gloria bunched the scratchy bedspread up in her hands. You’re supposed to protect me.
Gloria flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling yearning for Kurt to hold her. The locks did little to assuage her fear. She closed her eyes tight and hugged her pillow, wishing it was Kurt Malone.
Chapter Five
1.
Starlite Motel, Miami, Thursday, February 9th late morning
Gloria put a piece of stale gum in her dry mouth and chewed. Nothing happened. Too nervous to make saliva. She counted the seconds until the elevator door opened. When it finally did, she hesitated before stepping out. Kurt would be on the other side and she had mixed feelings about seeing him.
She hoped he’d either have forgotten about her attempt to seduce him yester
day, or that he’d changed his mind about her attraction to him.
Sure to his word, when the door opened he was standing right outside wearing faded jeans and a well-worn collared gray shirt. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said tentatively.
“Come on. We’ve got a lot to discuss.” He walked out of the hotel in front of her in bodyguard fashion, eyeing everyone nearby. She followed close on his heels. He acted as if she was still in serious danger.
“More since yesterday?” she asked as they walked to his car.
“I’m a private eye. I called around and emailed all night and early this morning.”
“So what did you find out?”
“Let’s just wait until we get to my place.”
“Your place?”
“You’re staying at my apartment until this gets sorted out. It’s safe there.”
Gloria rode in silence, neither of them mentioning the intimate moment between them or the fact that Kurt had killed two people. Two that she knew about.
It didn’t take very long to get to Kurt’s place. It was a tan brick building, big plain light square planted on gray pavement. Palm trees around it of course, but those were so commonplace here they blended in. His apartment building was so non-descript that she inwardly laughed. Such a big place but easy to miss. Safe.
“There’s no number on the front. Isn’t that against the fire laws?”
“Sure is. The management company has already gotten a few violations but as quick as they replace the metal ones and threes, I rip ‘em off. Makes it hard for people to find the place, you know?”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
He rolled his mischievous blue eyes up at her. “You wanna be safe or not?”
She nodded. Ripping street numbers off a building was probably the least of Kurt’s offenses; besides, but he was right. He kept her safe and that’s all she cared about anymore.
Hope House Page 12