Billionaire Blend

by Cleo Coyle

  Quinn’s temperament was naturally circumspect. He felt things deeply and was rarely impatient. In fact, he told me that waiting was a detective’s game—waiting for witnesses to tell their story, for suspects to incriminate themselves, for forensic labs to deliver the kind of results that could nail a case closed.

  Mike’s police academy instructor had driven that point home with a test for his class of eager, young cadets. “Go into your garage and sit alone in your car for twelve hours,” he’d ordered them one Friday night. Those without cars were instructed to stay awake in their bedrooms. “Remain alert and respond immediately to a mock distress call from me, when and if one comes.”

  In the wee hours of the morning, that call came for Police Cadet Quinn, and he’d not only been ready, he’d beaten every other member of his class to the rendezvous point.

  Likewise, his steady, determined nature helped him build a solid career in the NYPD. I’d watched him make his cases, painstakingly working them for weeks, months, even years. But that was before he’d gone to Washington.

  At first, things had been fine—sometimes better than fine. I enjoyed my trips to see him, and we’d shared some lovely weekends, including romantic outings in Maryland and Virginia. But the last month had been trying; Quinn was drinking more and acting chronically impatient.

  I’d been making excuses for him, but Franco’s revelation made me realize something. A new supervisor had come on board for Quinn around a month ago, the same time he stopped regularly checking in with his squad. Were the two events related? It seemed to me they were.

  While I was itching to discuss this with Mike, by now we’d reached the bed, and the last thing I wanted was for his work to come between us. He clearly felt the same.

  Too bad his new boss didn’t share our feelings.

  As Mike’s mouth began nuzzling my neck, his cell phone buzzed.

  “Son of a—” He froze and closed his eyes.

  “It’s past midnight,” I whispered.

  Mike’s expression was stoic, yet his jaw was clenched tight, and I knew he was warring with himself, part of him wanting to throw the phone through the window. In the end, Cadet Quinn and his lifetime in professional law enforcement won out.

  “Quinn,” he answered, half turning his back on me.

  His shoulders slumped as he listened for a long moment.

  “I’m in New York,” he protested. “I’m sorry that Tom didn’t place my weekly update in the case file, but I just got here, and I’m not doing a turnaround—”

  Interrupted, Mike listened, his frown deepening.

  Can this boss actually expect Mike to fly back to DC to retrieve a file? That’s ridiculous . . .

  Mike thought so, too. His shoulders squared and he pushed back.

  “Look, the situation report is fairly routine. Call me again on a secure line and I’ll summarize the salient points. Or you can get Tom on the horn and tell him to open his safe in the morning. Or you can wait until Monday morning, when I’ll be back in Washington.”

  After impatiently enduring another long response, Mike’s reply was icy.

  “I’ll speak with Tom to make sure this doesn’t happen again. You’ll have that report on your desk Monday, first thing.”

  He ended the call and slammed the phone on the dresser.

  We sat in silence for a moment. “Your boss is calling you at midnight?” I whispered. “Over paperwork?”

  He turned on the bed to fully face me. “Forget it, sweetheart. I’m going to.” He touched my cheek. “We have all weekend now, and I’m going to make sure it stays that way.”

  This time Mike’s hug caused me to yelp—he’d pressed too hard on one of my cuts.

  “Clare, what is this?” He found the bandages on my shoulder.

  “I caught a little shrapnel today. Flying glass.”

  Mike spun me around, pulled the tee up to my neck, and examined my naked back.

  “There’s fresh blood on one of these dressings!”

  “Oh, right. The paramedic told me to change them—”

  I hardly got the words out before Mike peeled off my shirt completely.

  “Don’t move.”

  He went to the bathroom and returned with my first aid kit. Soon the man’s firm but gentle hands were stripping off the old bandages and applying new ones.

  “That’s it,” he said with a sigh. “You’ll take it easy tonight. No physical activity.”

  I felt a stab of disappointment and turned to face him. His eyes took in my naked curves, and the expression in them changed. Concern melted into something else, something that prompted me to meet his gaze and smile.

  “You really mean it?” I pressed. “No physical activity?”

  “Well, you can’t lie on your back—”

  “No I can’t, but—” I grabbed the man’s tie and rolled him onto the bed. “You can.”

  Mike’s grin nearly outshined the glow of the fireplace.

  Nine

  “ARE you there? Can you hear me?”

  A whisper in the dark.

  With my back in its current crappy state, I was lying stomach down on the mattress, one arm dangling over the edge.

  “Mike?” I yawned, rubbing my eyes. “Was that you?”

  Silence.

  The room felt cold; the hearth was barely glowing. I swung my arm back and connected with Mike’s solid form. He lay still as a stone beside me, breathing with the regular rhythms of comatose sleep. But if Mike was sleeping, then who was whispering?

  “Mom, pick up!”

  That was no whisper. My daughter was shouting at me through the cell phone on my nightstand. How did she manage this? I didn’t care. (Mother’s Calculus: When your child is calling, you don’t ask questions. You lunge for the phone.)

  “Joy, honey? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “The airport.”

  “Charles de Gaulle?”

  “I’m in New York. You have to come. There’s a bomb.”

  “What?!”

  “There’s a bomb on my plane.”

  *

  “NOW boarding at Gate 91 . . .”

  I must have dressed and hailed a cab, but I couldn’t tell you how. Between a moment and an instant, my dark bedroom transformed into the bright bustle of JFK, and I was running through the crowded center aisle of Terminal One.

  “Last call for Air France, Flight 911 . . .”

  Joy’s flight!

  I careened down the corridor, counting gate numbers aloud, arms flailing like a Sesame Street Muppet.

  “51 . . . 52 . . . 53 . . .”

  I pushed through a knot of travelers, shoving aside backpacks, kicking over suitcases. People turned, stared, and cursed.

  “There’s a bomb!” I shouted. “A bomb on my daughter’s plane!”

  Then I was moving again, through the sixties, the seventies, and the eighties. At Gate 89, the phone in my hand vibrated again.

  “Mom? Are you there?”

  “I’m here, honey! Where are you?”

  “On the plane. I’m buckled in. They want me to end my call—”

  “Don’t turn me off! Listen to me, Joy, please, listen . . .”

  By now, I’d reached Gate 91, but the gangway door was locked. I ran to the terminal’s picture window, and saw the jumbo jet pulling away.

  I spotted Joy’s face through a passenger window, the round glass receding like a collapsing telescope. Every yard the plane moved, her face grew smaller and (somehow) younger . . .

  There she was at her high school graduation, laughing in cap and gown, handing out Diploma Fortune Cookies. Another yard and she was blowing out candles on a Sweet Sixteen cake she’d insisted on baking herself, dancing with her father like she was all grown up. Another and she was fifteen, crying over a bully boy’s hurtful remarks. Back she moved until she was winning the Tri-State Junior Gingerbread House Challenge; marshaling fellow Girl Scouts to stage a Thin Mint–palooza in front of the local supermarket. Finally, she was waving a
t me in her tomboy braids and braces, looking just like she did in my little Honda when we moved out to the suburbs; mom and daughter together, taking on the world—starting with New Jersey.

  “Stop!” I pounded the glass with my fists. “Come back!”

  But my daughter’s flight seemed inevitable.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, what’s wrong?” A steward approached. The young man’s shaggy, golden hair and winning smile looked oddly familiar—like Eric Thorner’s.

  I grabbed his arm, dragged him over. “You see that plane? We have to stop it!”

  “I’m sorry, Clare, but you missed the plane. You’re early.”

  “Early? What do you mean early?!”

  Air-France-Eric shrugged and pointed. I followed his finger to the terminal wall. A huge clock hung there, hands moving counterclockwise, noisy ticking growing louder.

  “Mom! What do I do?”

  Tick, tick . . .

  “Stop your flight, Joy. Come back to me!”

  TICK, TICK, TICK . . .

  Finally, it happened. The blast was massive, severing the jet, savagely breaking its solid, silver body in two. Flames erupted, igniting both halves of the plane, incinerating every helpless passenger.

  “NOOOO!”

  The destructive energy moved in almost visible waves across the tarmac, shaking the high window, and driving me to the floor. Then the glass splintered and a thousand brittle shards arrowed toward my back.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed.

  Ten

  I opened my eyes.

  Pain.

  Sometime during the night, I’d shifted off Quinn’s sturdy chest and rolled onto my ravaged back. Gritting my teeth, I sat up. The events of my nightmare may have been a grand illusion, but the pain was undeniably real.

  I checked the glowing digits on my alarm: 3:55 AM. With a deep breath, I tried closing my eyes—

  “I’m sorry, Clare, but you missed the plane. You’re early.”

  “Early? What do you mean early?!”

  Tick, tick, tick . . .

  The images would not go away. Neither would the stark feeling of terror. It flooded my waking mind; dislodged bits of memory: the fear in Eric Thorner’s eyes; the blood seeping from his wound; my landmark shop, wrecked and damaged; and the charred black body of that firebombed car, human remains trapped inside.

  “Charley” was just a name to me, remote and unknowable. Like the subject of a TV news reports, he was just another casualty of war or random violence. Yet Eric’s chauffeur was a person, a fellow soul, and his senseless murder should have mattered more to me. I was ashamed to say it didn’t.

  “Mom! What do I do?”

  TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK!

  Maybe that’s why I dreamed of my daughter suffering the same fate. If she’d been in that car, the paramedics would have had to sedate me.

  I glanced across the mattress. Quinn was still sleeping, so I slipped quietly out of bed.

  I have to call Joy . . .

  I knew my nightmare wasn’t real, but my heart was still hammering, and I wasn’t closing my eyes again until I made sure my daughter was safe. Tying on my robe, I stepped into slippers and shuffled down to the kitchen.

  *

  “MRRROOOOW . . .”

  My little, furry raptors wasted no time circling my legs.

  “No,” I firmly told the pair. “It may be morning, but it is not time for breakfast.”

  Java and Frothy begged to differ—in stereo—and loudly enough to send me groping through the cupboard for a giant can of Savory Salmon.

  Reading the label made my stomach rumble, and my mind conjured a brief, happy vision of Murray’s pink-smoked salmon glistening on a toasted bagel with a snowy schmear of cream cheese. Despite knowing the difference between premium lox and Fancy Feast (really, I did), by the time I dished up their grub, I was salivating.

  Ignoring my pangs of hunger, I sat down at the table and hit the first number on my mobile phone’s speed dial. Joy’s voice mail asked me to leave a message. Instead, I placed another call—to Joy’s best friend.

  “Bonjour!”

  “Yvette?”

  “Oui?”

  Yvette’s name might have been French but she was as American as mass-produced soft ice cream—a product that had made her family a small fortune. She and Joy had been friends since their first day of culinary school. Now they shared an apartment in Paris.

  “You can speak English, Yvette, this is Joy’s mother. I tried her cell, but she’s not picking up—”

  “Joy’s at work, Ms. Cosi, and she never answers calls at work on pain of a Gallic tongue-lashing. Have you forgotten the time difference? You’re six hours behind us in New York, and—”

  “Joy is on the dinner brigade. Her shifts don’t begin until two o’clock, your time.”

  “Her day starts earlier now.”

  “I see. But she’s all right?”

  “Mais oui! I just stopped by the restaurant to talk to her and she’s perfectly fine—considering the incident.”

  I tensed. “Incident?”

  “Last week the sous chef went a little fou.”

  “Crazy? He went crazy?”

  “The Bresse supplier shorted the restaurant on poulardes for, like, the third time in six weeks. So the chef drove all the way to Bourgogne, got into a shouting match with the chicken farmer, accused him of taking a bribe from a rival restaurant to sabotage their menu. They hurled insults at each other, then vegetables, then poulardes, then it really got ugly.”

  “Joy wasn’t with him, was she?”

  “No, but she totally heard all about it. They called in the gendarmes. It took, like, four to pull the two apart. So now the sous chef is stuck in the country, charged with assaulting an officer and cruelty to poultry, which in Bresse is a huge deal.”

  “What does all this have to do with my daughter?”

  “After the executive chef had a meltdown, he revised half the brigade’s duties. The saucier was promoted to sous chef, and Joy is now the restaurant’s new saucier, at least until the sous chef gets out of jail for assaulting the policemen—and the farmer.”

  “And the chickens.”

  “Especially the chickens. Joy’s thrilled, of course; it’s a promotion, even if it is temporary. She’s getting a bonus, too, but she has to start work much earlier in the day.”

  “Will you tell her to call her mother as soon as she’s able?”

  “Oh, sure, Ms. Cosi, no problem.”

  I was about to sign off, when I remembered the little talk I’d had on Hudson Street with Sergeant Franco. Since I couldn’t be sure Joy would be forthcoming about her love life (and I didn’t have the bank account to hire a private eye), I took a chance . . .

  “Yvette,” I said, “before I let you go, would you help me solve a little mystery? I understand things didn’t go so well on Manny Franco’s last visit. Do you have any idea what went wrong?”

  Dead silence.

  “Yvette? Are you there?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Cosi, but . . . um, why do you care?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, why do you—”

  “I heard what you said. I just can’t believe you asked a question like that. I care because Joy is my daughter. And I like Franco.”

  “Ooooh, that’s right. You’re dating a cop—so you would.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “No offense. It’s okay for you. I mean, you’re divorced, you know? And of a certain age . . .”

  Oh, for the love of—

  “. . . but Joy’s got her whole life ahead of her. She doesn’t want to make a mistake, you know?”

  “No. I don’t know. Why is Franco a ‘mistake’?”

  “Oh, come on. You have to admit the guy’s salary is a joke.”

  “A joke?”

  “Yes, and if Joy walked down the aisle with a man like Franco, the punch line would be a lifetime of sweating in kitchens like the ones she’s in now. Th
ere’s no way a young couple can make it in New York on a cop’s wages.”

  “Your definition of ‘making it’ and mine are apparently different.”

  “Apparently.”

  “And my daughter has ambition. She has dreams. She wants to be in that kitchen because she wants to own and run her own restaurant one day.”

  “Exactly! A boyfriend with real resources could help her do that a lot faster. Franco’s sweet, I’ll give him that. He makes Joy laugh and he’s got great abs, but he’s not going anywhere. Like I said, she can do better.”

  “Well, I’ve had enough of this conversation.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Please tell my daughter to call me as soon as she’s able.”

  “I will, Ms. C. Au revoir!”

  I flipped my cell closed, but it failed to satisfy. Oh, for the days when I could slam down a receiver! Instead, I kicked the table leg. (Bad idea in fabric slippers.) Big toe throbbing, I frowned in fury at the tabletop, until a deep voice interrupted my mental tantrum—

  “So? What’s the joke?”

  Quinn was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed. I had to admit, the sight of him standing there bare-chested, wearing nothing but a curious, slightly bemused expression and low-slung pair of panda bear pajama bottoms (a gift from his kids) did wonders for soothing some of my ire, but far from all of it.

  “You heard the call?” I presumed.

  “Only your end, something about a joke?”

  “Franco’s salary . . . apparently.”

  “Joy said Franco’s salary is a joke?”

  “No. Her roommate did.”

  Yawning, Mike rubbed his newly stubbled jaw. “And this is something that couldn’t wait till morning?”

  “I had a bad dream. I wanted to make sure Joy was okay.”

  “Is she?”

  “Yvette says she’s fine.”

  “So what did you dream that upset you so much?”

  “It doesn’t matter—because that call upset me more.”

  “Go on.”

  “I will, but first I’m reheating that dinner we never ate.” I pointed to Java and Frothy, still smacking their lips over the Savory Salmon. “They’re not the only ones who need sustenance. I’m starving.”