The invitation seemed calculated, almost like he was asking me out on a date. I hoped Venus hadn’t said anything to lead him on, because I wasn’t interested in jumping into another relationship just yet. On the flip side, what could it hurt? Dr. Rich might know something about quetzal feathers that might help me understand why one had been left at a murder scene. I agreed to meet him at the restaurant at six on Tuesday evening.
I fed Muldoon more kibble and headed for Riley Deegan’s singles’ party.
Chapter 11
The Luv Bugs party was being held at the home of Riley Deegan’s sister, a large Spanish-style house on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Palos Verdes Estates. The roof was made of terra-cotta tiles, and the courtyard driveway was lined with lush vegetation. I wondered how Claudia and her husband, Matt, could afford to live in such fancy digs. I’d only seen Claudia once. She was my age, thirty or so, and attractive. I assumed her husband was the same. On the other hand, she could have married a troll with a trust fund.
I arrived twenty minutes late, to find light spilling out of every window in the house. I adjusted the spaghetti straps on my little black cocktail dress and pulled my Nanook of the North parka around my neck to ward off the cold. As soon as I got out of the car, I heard music blaring. The party was obviously in full swing.
The door was ajar, so I stepped inside. A moment later, Riley Deegan vaulted across the room like a member of the Olympic cheerleading squad. Her smile was welcoming, but there was tension in the creases around her eyes.
“How’s it going?” I said.
She took a deep breath. “I should have opened a pet store.”
I glanced at the half-dozen people standing in the foyer. A couple of them looked as if they belonged in a cage. “It’s early. Give it time.”
Riley grabbed my hand. “Come with me. I’ll get you a glass of wine.”
The decor in the living room was spare. There was a couch, a couple of chairs, and a few well-placed works of art, but the look was minimalist, which allowed visitors to see the centerpiece of the house—a 180-degree view of the ocean.
Claudia was nowhere in sight, but about forty singles were crowded into the living room, drinking wine and chatting. They all looked young, thin, attractive, and impossibly cool in their high-priced designer jeans and tight leather jackets. I felt like a dork in my little black dress. Along with my abysmal dating skills, choosing the proper attire for any event other than a day at the office had never been my forte.
Riley showed me where to stash my coat and then guided me through the living room and out to a patio overlooking the water. A boyish-looking man with an unruly head of reddish-brown hair was holding a pilsner glass filled with amber liquid and gazing at the ocean.
“Josh, I want you to meet Tucker Sinclair. Could you entertain her for a few minutes while I get her some wine? I have to change the music. Nobody’s dancing. I need to play something . . . else.”
Riley bolted toward the living room.
Josh smiled. “So, what’s your sign?”
If this was an example of Luv Bugs’s clientele, the company was in deep doo-doo. Josh must have noticed the look of incredulity on my face, because he laughed.
“I was just joking. My grandpa told me that line got him lots of action back in his day. I guess it’s not ready for a comeback.”
“I’m afraid that line went out with tube tops and wide lapels. So, you’re a Luv Bug?”
He hesitated. “Not really. I’m sort of Riley’s boyfriend.”
“Sort of ?”
“Yeah, as in she’s sort of mad at me right now.”
“What did you do?”
He threw his arms up, clearly exasperated. “See? Why do you women always think whatever happens is our fault?”
Before I had a chance to say, “Because it usually is,” Riley came rushing out to the patio. A moment later, the doorbell rang. She looked as if she was being pulled in every direction and couldn’t decide which way to turn first.
She grabbed the pilsner glass out of Josh’s hand and slammed it on a nearby table. “I need your help. I ran out of white wine. There’s a case downstairs in the cellar. In a box on the floor. Grab as many bottles as you can carry and bring them to the bar. Use the door in the kitchen.”
Josh gave me a look that said I told you she was mad at me.
The doorbell rang again.
“You want me to get that?” Josh said. “Or the wine?”
“The wine. No, the door, then the wine. I have to go. Noah’s freaking out. Emma has him pinned to the couch, talking about the mandible of the trap-jaw ant.”
Just as Riley turned to leave, a young woman approached.
“Just thought you should know,” she said. “There’s no toilet paper in the bathroom.”
Riley groaned and rushed from the room like a whirling dervish. Josh ambled toward the living room to answer the door.
Poor Riley. The party was full of bugs, but not the Luv kind. Since I was just standing around doing nothing, I decided to help her out by getting the wine from the cellar. My one-stop consulting service had now expanded. In addition to business doctor and hand holder, I could add wine wrangler to my list of services.
A door off the kitchen led to a flight of stairs to the lower floor. At the bottom was an arched wooden door. I opened it and entered a room filled floor to ceiling with racks containing hundreds of dusty bottles of wine. Either Claudia and Matt had invested major bucks in this cellar, or they’d been Dumpster-diving for empty bottles.
The light was dim. It was too cold down there for my little black spaghetti-strap dress. It took me a few moments to locate the box. I was stooping over to grab a few bottles when I was startled by a man’s voice.
“Riley? You down here?”
I looked up and saw Joe Deegan standing in the doorway. Riley had lied to me. I’d been set up.
My gaze traveled over the familiar lines of his six-foot-two frame, from his spiky hair to his sensual lips to his oatmeal fleece jacket and stonewashed denim jeans. Under all that clothing, his body was hard and chiseled. I knew because at one time or another I had run my fingers over ever inch of it.
“What are you doing here?” I said, not even trying to keep the irritation from my voice.
He seemed surprised to see me, too. “Maybe I should ask you the same question.”
“I’m here because your sister hired me to do a business plan for . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say Luv Bugs in his presence. “. . . Her dating service.”
Deegan shifted his weight to his left leg and leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. His thumbs were hooked onto the front pockets of his jeans. He looked relaxed and confident.
“You’re wrong if you think Riley set this up,” he said. “Claudia called me this morning. Said there was a party at her house and invited me to stop by.”
“Whatever.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just ran into Josh at the front door. He sent me down to pick up some wine. I didn’t know you’d be here. Since you are, I guess we should talk.”
I weighed wounded pride against curiosity. Curiosity won.
“Talk about what?”
He assessed me with his gaze. “You look good. Your hair is longer. I like it that way.”
Cold air had crept into my bones. I started to shiver. I crossed my arms over my chest to keep warm. “Is that what you needed to say to me? You like my hair longer? Or is that just your version of foreplay?”
He cocked his head and smiled. “Some things never change. Do they?”
“Wrong. Some things do change. They change a lot.”
He must have noticed I was shivering. “Cold?”
“A little.”
He took a step toward me, unbuttoning the top button of his jacket. “I guess you want to know why I haven’t called you.”
“Not anymore.”
That was a lie. Of course I wanted to know. I just didn’t want him to know I wante
d to know. Life was so complicated.
“Mind if I tell you, anyway?” he said.
“If it helps ease your conscience, go ahead.”
“I almost lost my job.”
“I hear you found a shoulder to cry on.”
He kept moving toward me. “Who told you that?”
“A little bird.”
“A Riley bird?”
He was so close I could smell the faint aroma of white T-shirts drying under a warm sun. All of the buttons were now undone. I wasn’t sure if he was going to take the jacket off and put it around my shoulders, or if he planned to enclose both of us in one warm cocoon. It troubled me that I cared either way.
Before he had a chance to do anything, I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairway. A moment later, Riley burst through the door. Deegan and I stepped away from each other, but not before she saw how close we’d been standing.
“Omigosh,” she said. “Tucker, I didn’t know he was coming here tonight. I swear. You’ve got to believe me. I would never trick you like that.”
“Cool your jets, Riley,” Deegan said. “I already told her.”
I heard another set of footsteps. I glanced toward the door and saw a woman standing on the threshold. In the real world, you rarely encounter anyone so beautiful they take your breath away. She was one of the rare few, the kind of person men love and women envy. Everything about her was perfect. Her blond hair had no split ends. Her luminous skin had no freckles. Her toned thighs had no cellulite. Even her breasts looked real.
The woman glanced around the room, from Riley to me to Deegan. “Did you find the wine, honey?”
The honey was unnecessary. She was just leg lifting, marking her territory. Deegan’s eyes narrowed. I could tell he was embarrassed, because he wouldn’t meet my gaze. The woman seemed to sense the tension in the room. She smiled, but the gesture was forced.
“What’s going on, Joe?” she said. “Am I missing something?”
“Jeez, Carly,” Riley mumbled under her breath. “Where should I start?”
Deegan shot his sister a warning glance.
Carly frowned. “You don’t like me, Riley. Believe me, I get that. But your brother does, and that’s what counts. And just so you know, I love him.”
Deegan was staring into the stacks of wine bottles. There was no flicker of emotion on his face.
“You love him?” Riley said. “You mean like last time? When you were engaged to my brother and screwing your boss?”
Carly looked at Deegan as if she was waiting for him to defend her. An uncomfortable silence followed before she turned and ran up the stairs. A moment later, I heard the door to the kitchen slam shut.
“What the hell was that all about?” Deegan’s tone was low but intense.
A flush appeared on Riley’s neck and began creeping toward her cheeks. “I have a right to my opinion. Carly McKendrick broke your heart once and she’ll do it again. You’re my brother and I love you, but somebody needs to save you from yourself.”
Deegan gave his sister a look that could only be called intimidating. “I’ll deal with you later.” He sprinted up the stairs, and for a second time that night I heard the door slam shut.
Deegan had told me he was engaged once. He didn’t give me details. Just said the woman cheated on him and he found out. I couldn’t understand why he’d hooked up with Carly McKendrick again. If it had been another man, I might have said it was because she was so beautiful, but Deegan wasn’t that shallow.
The relationship between Carly and her boss had obviously ended. The guy was probably married. As soon as it was over, she must have set her sights on Deegan again. Whatever she’d done to get him back, she’d used powerful mojo, because forgiveness seemed alien to his nature. At least he hadn’t been willing to forgive me.
My chest felt crushed beneath all that heavy thinking. Maybe Venus was right. Maybe I was still vulnerable. I had to work on that before it became a problem.
Riley’s shoulders were hunched inward as she stood staring into nowhere. I grabbed a couple of bottles of wine from the box on the floor.
“Hey, Riley. What do you say? Let’s party.”
Chapter 12
By the time Riley Deegan and I returned to the Luv Bugs party, a crowd had gathered in the hallway outside the guest bathroom, listening to a conversation through the closed door. Unless oh, baby and lower were entomology terms, Emma and Noah were no longer talking about ant mandibles.
The Noah and Emma show was about as good as the party got. Even so, I stayed until the bitter end. After the last person had left, Riley gave me some financial data on Luv Bugs and retired to her sister’s spare bedroom for a good cry. I let myself out. On Sunday, I looked over the paperwork she’d given me, but the information was too sketchy to be of help. I’d have to start from scratch.
Aloneness has its merits, but by Monday morning, I was happy to be back at the office. The lobby was empty when I arrived, but I heard papers rustling in Charley’s office. I went to investigate and found him sorting through stacks of files on his desk.
“What’s up?” I said. “Where’s Eugene?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I thought he was with you.”
“No. Did he call to say he’d be late?”
“He’s probably tied up in traffic. How about you stop worrying about Eugene and help me find the Seabrook interview notes.”
Charley resumed pawing through the files on his desk. I walked to the drawer in the cabinet marked R-S-T, where I found the file. I pulled it out and handed it to him.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
He grabbed it out of my hand and studied the label. “Yeah, where did you find it?”
I started to tell him, but figured it was wasted breath.
“Find anything interesting on Friday?” I asked.
He sat at his desk and opened a Manila file folder marked HELEN TAGGART. “My buddy told me a road crew found Lupe’s cleaning bucket in some brush near the Ten Freeway. The police think Ortiz threw it out of the window of his car after he fled the scene, but it’s just speculation, because the rain destroyed any chance of lifting prints.”
“What did you find at the courthouse?”
“Lupe Ortiz’s criminal history came up clean. Nothing on Brad Taggart, which didn’t surprise me. He lives on the East Coast. I didn’t expect to find a record in California. I got a hit on Bob Rossi, though. He pleaded no contest to a domestic violence rap last January. He got probation and a one-way ticket to anger-management classes. I drove to the restaurant on Saturday to talk to him, but he wasn’t there. One of his employees told me the guy is volatile and he doesn’t like Helen Taggart. Guess what else I learned? His restaurant is serving Nectar’s chocolates.”
I sat in a chair and stared at Charley from across his desk. “I thought Helen said that deal fell through.”
“She did.”
“Then how did he get the chocolates?”
Charley leaned back and put his freckled hands behind his head. “Who knows? Maybe Rossi sent one of his employees to buy them.”
“He wouldn’t pay retail prices. That would cost too much.”
He picked up a yellow number 2 pencil on his desk and made a note in the file. “The employee told me Rossi was friendly with Lupe Ortiz. He brought her dinner most nights she was cleaning at Nectar.”
I remembered the container of garlic shrimp. It must have come from Rossi’s restaurant, which meant he’d been at Nectar the night Lupe was murdered. I was beginning to think Eugene might be right. Roberto wasn’t the only person who had the opportunity to kill Lupe Ortiz. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had a motive, either.
“What if Lupe was exchanging chocolates for garlic shrimp?” I said. “Rossi has a history of violence toward women. Maybe he killed her because the exchange rate wasn’t working for him anymore.”
“It’s an interesting theory, especially since the employee claimed Rossi left the restaurant Thursday
night at six thirty and didn’t get back until eight thirty. What time did you get to Nectar?”
“About eight fifteen. Your snitch didn’t mention what kind of car Rossi drives, did he?”
“No, but I can find out.”
“You think Rossi is behind those crank calls Helen keeps getting?”
“That’s going to be hard to prove unless we tap her telephone line. I mentioned it to her, but she didn’t warm to the idea.”
“We have to do something. I can’t save Nectar if somebody keeps sabotaging my efforts.”
By ten o’clock, Eugene still hadn’t arrived at work. I called his cell phone number, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t pick up at home, either, and his answering machine wasn’t on. I walked into Charley’s office and sat in his guest chair.
“It’s not like Eugene to be late,” I said. “He always calls.”
Charley looked up from the papers he was reading. “His mom probably grounded him.”
“I know you’re joking, Charley, but I’m worried.”
“Look, Sinclair, I like Eugene, but the kid is high-strung. Give him some space and let him work out his issues with his mom. If you ask me, he needs to have a down-and-dirty talk with Nerine and make peace.”
“You mean like all those down-and-dirty talks you’ve had with your son?”
“Leave Dickhead out of this.”
Charley’s skepticism aside, I knew Eugene. Something was wrong.
“I’m driving to his apartment to check on him,” I said.
“It’s a waste of time, but suit yourself.”
Chapter 13
Eugene had recently moved to an apartment in Silver Lake, a quaint residential neighborhood just northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The lake isn’t a lake. It’s a reservoir that was built in 1907. It’s not silver, either. More like blue, at least on a sunny day. The name came from Herman Silver, a member of Los Angeles’ first Board of Water Commissioners. Renowned Los Angeles Modernist architects, like Neutra and Ain, from the 1920s and ’30s had designed many of the homes and apartment buildings in the area. Eugene lived in an apartment featuring connected stucco cubes that had been inspired by the early work by R. M. Schindler.
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