by Cassie Page
Olivia bit the hook. “Except . . .?”
“JR got attacked.”
“You mean someone walked in on them? Who?”
They were at the Port of Sonoma by now, traffic starting to crowd onto Highway 37. Matt had to slow to 35 mph.
“Not a someone. A cat. Lola. I guess the commotion woke her up and she pounced on him. Left some deep cuts. He was a doctor. He knew he had a compromised immune system and what Cat Scratch Fever could do to him. He panicked. Jocelyn was already dead, so he dumped the rest of the bottle of champagne on her so it looked like she got herself really drunk. Then he got out of there to tend to his wounds.”
Olivia hooked her hands around her headrest and stretched her legs, then sat up again. “So no prints on the wine glasses because they never used them. He probably had gloves on so you never found his prints on anything.”
“No gloves. Jocelyn would have been suspicious. He hooked the glasses by the stems like this.” Matt scissored his index and middle finger. “No prints on the glasses and he wiped everything else he’d touched clean.”
Olivia said, “But instead of a perfect crime, he left a mystery that kept the police giving it more attention than he expected.”
“Right. Oddly, he forgot the part about leaving his phone with Jocelyn and took it with him, locking up on the way out. Probably force of habit. And he was starting to lose it. People who need control like he does can’t handle it when something goes awry. He was worried about cat saliva in his body. When Xavier got there in the morning, nothing was out of place. He had only opened one safe by the time we got there, not the one JR had emptied all over Jocelyn. Didn’t think anything was amiss until Jocelyn dropped in our laps.”
Olivia said, “I think Xavier has to give Lola a diamond collar.”
Matt looked over and said, “You, too. With all the things you figured out.”
Olivia smiled. But it wasn’t a diamond collar she wanted.
After meeting up with Interstate 80 east, Matt asked for the address of their destination and he punched it into his GPS. In thirty minutes they were dodging Sacramento traffic on their way to a 1940’s brown shingled, two-story beauty with a wide lawn and wraparound porch in the Fabulous Forties, the posh neighborhood in the Capital. It was a few minutes before eight a.m.
“It looks like we’re here first. Pull over and let’s wait for the others.” Olivia patted his knee reassuringly. “Relax. This won’t hurt.”
Soon two cars pulled up, an eighties vintage Toyota Corolla that nobody would look twice at and the knockout pale blue and white 1949 Delahaye 175 Saoutchik Coupe de Ville that Charles had just acquired.
The three men congregated on the sidewalk, admiring the French car while Olivia walked around the side of the house to the cottage in back.
When she returned to the street fifteen minutes later, she was guiding the blindfolded Francesca by the hand, assuring her that she would not regret putting her trust in Olivia, and that her office knew she would be a little late for work. Francesca wore jeans and a sweatshirt for a site visit to a toxic dump later that day, but at Olivia’s insistence, carried a pair of high heels.
“Where are we going, Olivia?”
“You’ll find out soon.”
Matt held the door of the Delahaye while Olivia helped Francesca into the back seat and then squeezed in next to her. The driver took off, the Toyota and Matt’s car followed. No one in the Delahaye spoke for the twenty minutes it took to reach a storefront near the bus station.
The caravan approached the glass and chrome front door and Olivia, still guiding the blindfolded Francesca, tapped with her keys until the owner appeared and welcomed them in.
“Senora,” he said to Olivia, kissing her hand. “Welcome to the Palace of Love.”
With that, Francesca tore off the blindfold yelling, “Palace of Love? What is this place Olivia?”
She looked around the mirrored ballroom and saw reflected behind her Matt, Martin, who drove the Toyota, and Charles.
“You!” she said when she saw her ex- fiancé. “I’m leaving,” she said, brushing past Charles. “If you’d told me he would be here, I wouldn’t have come.”
Olivia blocked the front door. “You can’t do that, Franny. Remember our deal.”
That stopped Francesca’s forward motion and she turned and said, with as much enthusiasm as a dental patient waiting to have a tooth pulled, “Okay. What are we doing here?” She refused to acknowledge Charles, despite his pathetic hangdog expression.
The owner introduced himself as Tomás Fernandez, proprietor of the Palace of Love Dance Studio. He clapped his hands and from the back room came the orquesta tipica, five men playing a bass, cello, violin, flute and a bandoneon, the Argentine concertina. A sixth man sat down at the piano against the far wall and his fellow musicians arranged themselves around him.
Tomás walked over to a closet and, with his back to his students, retrieved a fedora and wide-shouldered, pinstriped suit coat, which complemented his two-tone wing tips and all but transparent silk socks. He pulled out a mirror and kohl pencil and drew a thin mustache above his upper lip.
When he turned around he had transformed himself into a heavy-lidded, smoldering bailarin, the master of the tango. Olivia and Francesca changed into their high heels, and he ordered the partners to face each other. Both Matt and Charles, coming to this dance reluctantly, held Olivia and Francesca at a distance as though they had a communicable disease.
The master pushed them together until they were eye to eye, showed them how to dip their heads into each other seductively and commanded, “We begin with the abrazo.” The embrace.
He signaled the musicians and for the next hour he and Martin demonstrated the holds and turns, the sweeping barridas with its dangerous kicks, twirling legs and stamping feet. The students danced with their bodies entwined, the feverish music making them breathless with longing. Forehead to forehead they slunk backwards and forwards, intense and unsmiling as Martin and Tomás insisted. Olivia and Francesca learned to surrender to their partners. The entregarme.
Until, at the end of the hour, Tomás suddenly clapped his hands and the music stopped.
“Finished,” he said.
The musicians unceremoniously began packing up their instruments and changing into work boots. They grabbed their lunch boxes and hustled out the door to their day jobs.
Olivia paid Tomás and Martin. The two bailarins shook hands and spoke Spanish for a few minutes. Tomás locked up as his students headed for their cars, still wrapped in the dream of the tango.
Charles and Francesca walked to the Delahaye wrapped around each other, temple to temple. Matt took Olivia’s hand and kissed it. “You were right. How could it not have worked?”
The dream created by the tango continued into McKinley Rose Garden where the five friends sat on a bench and enjoyed the fruits of Olivia’s picnic basket; coffee, croissants, strawberries, brown sugar and sour cream. Then they headed back to the Bay Area and their normal lives. Except for Charles and Francesca, who had decided to spend the day together planning their wedding.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Radio Silence
Matt changed lanes in the heavy traffic trying to get on to I-80 West. With a fast zip in and out that made Olivia suck in her breath, they were headed back towards Darling Valley. Matt checked the rear view mirror. The Toyota came up behind them, Martin waving as he zipped past.
With the tricky driving maneuver over, Olivia nudged him. “I think we should continue studying with Martin and become bailarins.”
Matt took his eyes off the road for a second to glance at Olivia. “Can women become masters?”
She said, “It’s America in the twenty-first century. We women can do whatever we want.”
Matt patted her knee. “But the tango isn’t a twenty-first century dance.”
She teased, “That’s always the way.” They remained quiet for many miles, the suggestion hanging in the air.
“Back home?” M
att asked when they exited the highway and turned toward Darling Boulevard.
Olivia nodded.
It was just short of twelve-thirty when Matt pulled into her driveway, in plenty of time for his staff meeting. He put the car in park and turned to Olivia. “So what was the deal with Francesca? How did you get her to go along with your scheme?”
Olivia stared out the side window at her front porch. When the signature arrangement of annuals in pots were alive with lush blooms, she had photographed them for her website. Now, along with her roses, the flowers needed attention. She mused, “It’s a good thing Mrs. Harmon can’t see my porch from her apartment.”
Matt said he didn’t understand.
Instead of explaining, she turned to him with a question that had been burning in her brain the entire drive back from Sacramento. “I’ll tell you about Francesca, but first you have to come clean about Jocelyn Payne.”
“Come clean? What are you talking about?” He turned to face her, his arm around her headrest. “You watched Johnson’s briefing last night. Nothing new has come in since then.”
“I’m not talking about the briefing. I’m talking about how well you knew her.”
“But Olivia, that was all cleared up when we discovered how JR Payne doctored those photos. You can’t still believe I was kissing her.” He turned away to study the rose garden on his side of the driveway, disappointment lowering his voice. “I thought we were done with all that.”
She faced him, but all he showed her was his profile. “I’m not talking about the photos. I need to know why you had a conversation with her that you wouldn’t tell me about. You’re hiding something. I know it. I know you too well not to see it.”
Matt stayed quiet for a moment. Olivia tried to prepare herself for the worst.
Finally he said, “I don’t want to do this now. Not like this.”
“So you are covering up something. I knew it.” A knot was growing in Olivia’s stomach, making it hard to breathe.
Matt became solemn. “It’s not what you think. Or what you’re suggesting.”
“But the case is over. Why can’t you tell me?”
“You have to trust me. I don’t want to do it this way.”
Olivia snatched her purse roughly from the floor. “Then I’ll tell you about my deal with Francesca. She’s always bugging me to propose to you since you won’t take the step. I told her that if she agreed to let me blindfold her and get in the car with me, no questions asked, I’d ask you to marry me. But I’m not going to marry someone who keeps secrets. The deal’s off. Permanently. Goodbye, Matt.”
She got out of the car and retrieved her picnic basket from the back seat, ignoring Matt’s pleas to wait, to give him some time. She ran to the porch and let herself into the showroom, breaking into tears as she heard Matt’s car drive away.
“Wow, girl, you’re a tough cookie.” Tuesday had her arms around Olivia. “Where did that come from?”
Olivia had grabbed the box of tissues from the bathroom before they sat down at the island. “It struck me while we danced. How could he hold me close and look in my eyes the way he did and withhold something so important. He hedged the first time I asked him how he knew her and he clams up every time I bring it up. What’s so hard to answer? I knew her because, blah, blah, blah. Fill in the blanks. Simple and innocent. Except if it isn’t innocent.”
This was too heartbreaking. She needed to change the subject. “Where’s Cody?”
Tuesday let go of her hands. “He’s good. He’s catching up on his to-do list. He went to work today. I think he’s checking on a defective curtain rod or something.”
Olivia nodded. “At the Parsons. I hope he’s not going back to work too soon. He doesn’t have to. That was a nasty fall.”
Tuesday put her mind at ease. “From the way Cody danced down those stairs after breakfast, I think he was suffering an attack of cabin fever. Youth. You know how they bounce back.”
Talking about Cody brought up the fight scene. That was too painful to dwell on, even though at Hugo’s she and Tuesday had laughed about Matt acting like Sir Lancelot and defending his queen.
Olivia grinned. “Ah the wisdom of an old crone. What are you, all of thirty-two?”
Tuesday zipped her lips. “I’m not talking while the flavor lasts.”
Olivia turned her phone back on to check her messages.
“I see Marguerite Fredericks is after me. I’d better get cracking and tie up the loose ends for the engagement party. Do you know what you’re wearing?”
Day Five
Olivia and Matt maintained radio silence for the rest of the week. Absolom Arthur Payne had been charged in Jocelyn Payne’s death. The case against the father, David Arthur Payne, was dropped. Olivia explained to Tuesday the deadly foreshadowing in the names she had discovered on the Internet.
“Absolom overthrew his father, King David. I guess JR’s father never read the bible.
They never figured out Melissa Payne’s relationship with Michelangelo. The murder overshadowed her drug overdose and it never made it to the headlines. At least so far. Olivia was sure the press would dig into every aspect of the Payne family’s lives until the next celebrity scandal broke. They would find the story about Melissa and Michelangelo and figure it out. The voyeur in her wished she’d had time to investigate Roger Phillips. Though clearly he was not connected to the murder, she was sure there was a juicy story there about something.
Not only had Cody not held a grudge against Matt for the sock in the jaw, it hadn’t even penetrated that Olivia had broken up with him. Why else would he bring up his name so often? Olivia did her best to ignore the praise he kept heaping on Matt.
Two days after the Sacramento trip, Olivia got a surprise text from Taz, Matt’s sister, wanting to set up their overdue lunch for the next day. Olivia texted back, My clndr a disast now. Nother time.
She told Tuesday, “I didn’t know she was still in town She’s trying to patch things up between me and Matt. Sweet of her but not a good idea.”
She kept busy working on the engagement party and gradually got ahead of the work she had shoved to the side during the murder investigation. When she could, Tuesday dragged her away from her desk early to play, her way of fending off her friend’s blues. Mostly though, Tuesday was left alone during the day while Olivia toiled, so she clocked more miles on Cody’s bike and obsessed over her outfit for the party.
Day Eight
Xavier’s renovation finished a day ahead of schedule and both Olivia and Tuesday attended the black tie opening. Matt did not, though Xavier said he’d been invited.
Olivia was leaning over the second story railing admiring the excellent work done by her crew, nodding to people she knew, smiling at strangers. Xavier introduced her to the sheik and his wife, as well as the crown prince. After a brief chat, she still couldn’t figure out what country he ruled. Olivia recognized a model from a popular lingerie ad. Xavier introduced her as his date, but whispered in Olivia’s ear that it wasn’t serious.
At one point she looked down and spied Xavier escorting the sheik into his office. They came out half an hour later smiling and shaking hands. The sheik handed a suitcase to one of his bodyguards, and the burly former wrestler and his partner exited the back door. A second set of bodyguards took their place behind the sheik. Olivia assumed the enormous diamond had a safe home for the evening in the reinforced armored Hummer in which the sheik and his wife had arrived.
Later, Xavier told Olivia that the sheik did not believe it was the De Beers, but one of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s lost gems. “Or,” the royal personage had posited, “it was mined illegally and never made it onto the world market. Someone copied the faceting of the De Beers.”
Whatever its pedigree, they agreed the stone was real, huge and without flaws. Xavier was more than happy with the price.
Chapter Forty: Cheek To Cheek
Day Twelve
With the finishing touches on the engagement party comp
leted only an hour earlier, Olivia was getting dressed, having taken the third shift in the bathroom. Tuesday was downstairs in her pink and lilac Scarlett O’Hara lookalike gown trying to wrestle Cody into a sport coat, dress shirt and tie he had borrowed from his father.
Olivia had advised against the antebellum fright dress. “The colors aren’t good with green hair, Tues. How about a soft yellow number, knee length to show off your legs?”
But Tuesday marched to her own drummer. She twirled in front of one of the mirrored armoires in the showroom imagining she was dancing with Leslie Howard when the doorbell rang. Olivia called down, “Tuesday, will you get that?”
When she opened the door and saw who was standing there, she fanned herself with her hand and drawled, “Why I do declare. If it isn’t Rhett Butler.”
Matt, in a tux, asked a bit sheepishly, “Is she still here?”
Tuesday pointed upstairs. Cody came rushing forward, “Hey, bro. Nice threads.”
Matt put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. I’m going to surprise her. Do you think I dare, Tuesday?”
Tuesday swished her skirt around like the belle of the ball. “Why not? All she can do is throw you down the stairs. How much is the deposit on your tux?”
“It’s mine.”
“Fiddle-de-dee, sir. You have nothing to lose.”
She swept out of the way and Matt headed up to the loft.