A woman who spoke her mind, Rowena Willow was.
Joe accepted that she had a right to be angry. He accepted that he had been a moron for not having told a woman with a computer-mind like hers much, much sooner that his grandparents had been among Tyhurst’s victims. She was bound to figure it out all by herself.
How had she figured it out? Tyhurst had had hundreds of anonymous, innocent victims like Mario and Sofia Scarlatti.
Joe went into the entry and yelled upstairs, “Tyhurst tip you off?” A door clicked shut somewhere in the upper stories of the cavernous house. Rowena wasn’t the door-slamming type, either.
He turned to the suit of armor. “Tyhurst tipped her off.”
One point to the ex-con. Joe sighed. Then it occurred to him that he wasn’t particularly bothered by Rowena’s anger. He regretted his role in it. He hated seeing her feel bad. But he wasn’t bothered. He didn’t feel defensive or hurt or angry.
He wasn’t bothered, he thought, because he knew, deep down, that this was just the first time he had really and truly pissed her off. There would be more times. And times when she would really and truly piss him off.
“Ah, hell,” he muttered.
All the woman needed now was to have him falling in love with her.
Eleven
By the time she reached Eliot Tyhurst’s hotel, Rowena felt wrung out. She was drained of any anger. She doubted she’d ever gotten so mad at anyone in her entire life. Joe Scarlatti had a way of getting to her.
His words kept ringing in her ears. Was she hard on people who died broke? She prided herself on not judging the financial mistakes of others. She’d made her own, although none as disastrous as her parents’, and she’d never been so stubborn about money as Aunt Adelaide.
But they’d died broke, her parents and Aunt Adelaide. In trying not to repeat their mistakes, had she judged them too harshly?
Tyhurst was waiting for her in the lobby. He was handsomely dressed in an elegant evening suit and greeted her warmly, murmuring something complimentary about her appearance. She couldn’t quite make out all the words. She’d put her hair back up into a severe twist and had on very little makeup, and a flowing, comfortable dress in a fabric two shades darker than her hair. She imagined herself out on the town with Joe. He wouldn’t wear a suit anything like the former banker’s. Yet he would go anywhere, feel at ease anywhere. He put on absolutely no airs.
But he had lied to her. How could she stand here imagining ever again doing anything with him?
It hadn’t been an outright lie, she reminded herself. It had been an omission of an important fact.
Wasn’t that worse?
He had been in the kitchen playing with Mega and Byte when she’d left. Aunt Adelaide’s training had gotten the better of her and she’d said a tight goodbye.
He’d told her to have a good time. That was it: have a good time. Nothing more.
What did she expect?
“Rowena, is everything all right?” Tyhurst touched her shoulder with apparent concern. “You look a bit tired.”
She attempted a smile. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.”
They entered the quiet dining room, where Tyhurst had reserved a table in a dimly lit corner. Rowena immediately ordered a bottle of mineral water with a twist of lime. Her throat was dry from nervousness and now-spent anger. Maybe she should have let loose and yelled at Joe instead of controlling herself as she had.
Tyhurst ordered scotch and watched her from across the table.
“You don’t have to tell me about Joe Scarlatti’s grandparents,” she said abruptly. “I know.”
“He didn’t tell you,” Tyhurst said knowingly.
His unexpected insight grated on her already-raw nerves. She hadn’t had enough sleep. Her routines were shattered. She had made love last night for the first time in her life. That was plenty for anyone to tackle without having to face a man whom she had helped send to prison.
“No,” she said, “he didn’t tell me. I did some research on my own.”
“You and your computer.” He laughed.
Rowena couldn’t come up with an answering smile. Indeed, her and her computer. “Mario Scarlatti died two years ago.”
Tyhurst’s eyes clouded; she couldn’t read his expression. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at him. “I wonder if you are.”
“Do you doubt me?” There was no bitterness in his voice—he wanted to know.
“What I think doesn’t matter. Eliot, I can’t work for you. It wouldn’t be proper. You’re entitled to your fresh start, but I can’t be a part of it. I wish you well.” Their drinks arrived. She didn’t touch hers. “If you want me to leave now I will.”
“No—no, don’t leave. I’ve changed in so many ways thanks to you.” He raised his glass of scotch to her, as if in a toast. “I owe you, Rowena Willow.”
* * *
They finished dinner early. It wasn’t so much unfriendly as awkward, their relationship finally, Rowena felt, coming to an end. Eliot Tyhurst promised to keep in touch. She assured him she was glad he had paid her a visit upon his release from prison and once again wished him well.
She grabbed a taxi outside the hotel and asked the driver to take her to Sofia Scarlatti’s apartment a block from Mario’s Bar & Grill on the waterfront. She had looked up the address in her telephone book and, of course, remembered it.
Sometimes she wondered if she remembered too much.
A sudden fog had descended over the city. Rowena shut her eyes and breathed in its dampness. It wasn’t even nine o’clock; Joe’s widowed grandmother might still be up. Rowena would make up her mind whether to bother her when she got there.
“Here you go,” the driver said.
She paid him and climbed out onto the curb. So close to the water, the fog was thicker, enveloping her in its silence. She went up the short walk to the main entrance of the three-story stucco building. About a half-dozen rosebushes were tangled together on a wooden fence, their riot of color penetrating the gray fog.
Rowena hesitated at the front door. There was a light on inside, but she didn’t know if Sofia Scarlatti had the first-floor apartment. The upper two floors were dark. Would she only frighten the old woman, banging on her door uninvited?
“Go on up,” Joe Scarlatti said behind her.
She spun around in surprise, stopped just short of screaming. She could tell nothing from his expression, whether he was angry at having her there, shocked, saddened. Her own expression, she was sure, betrayed her uncontrolled reaction to his overpowering sensuality. Every fiber of her being wanted to touch him again, to feel him inside her again and again.
It was madness.
“My grandmother’s a night owl,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“Did you follow me?”
“Yep.”
“All along? I mean, you followed me to the hotel, then here?”
“Right again.”
“But I...” She remembered her anger and straightened her shoulders. “Never mind.”
Joe grinned. “You were going to say you never saw me, weren’t you? I’m pretty good at what I do once I know what I’m up against.” His gaze darkened. “And I wasn’t going to leave you to Tyhurst no matter how mad you were at me.”
“Are, Scarlatti. I’m still mad.”
He moved toward her. “No you’re not.”
She wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t. “I want to be.”
“Yeah. That I can understand.” An outside light came on. Joe grinned. “Uh-oh, Granny’s on the prowl. She doesn’t miss a trick. You go on in. I’ll wait out here.” He trotted up the steps as a tiny elderly woman pulled open the door. “Grandma,” he said lovingly, giving her a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug. “Somebody here to see you, a friend of mine.”
Sofia Scarlatti answered him in Italian. He answered her back. Then she shoved him aside and gave Rowena a wide, friendly smile. “Come in, come in, don’t stand out there in the rain.” Her smi
le broadened. “We’ll let Joe do that.”
He shot Rowena a look that she realized was a warning not to point out to her grandmother that it wasn’t raining. One, she could see, did not contradict Sofia Scarlatti.
Joe settled down on the top step, just under an overhang.
Rowena went inside.
“My, my, you’re all dressed up,” the old woman said, eyeing her guest’s flowing, expensive dress as she led her down a short, narrow hall.
“I’ve been out to dinner.”
“Not with Joe,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Rowena shook her head.
“I’d skin him alive if he went out wearing those holey jeans with a pretty woman. I don’t know how often I’ve told him I’d mend them.” Like her grandson, Sofia Scarlatti, Rowena noticed, didn’t have a trace of an Italian accent, yet she spoke the language of her ancestors fluently. “Come in, sit down. Would you like a nice glass of brandy?”
“That would be lovely, yes. Mrs. Scarlatti, my name is Rowena Willow—”
“I know. Joe told me, but he didn’t need to. I’d have remembered you from the trial.”
“Eliot Tyhurst’s trial,” Rowena said unnecessarily.
“Yes.”
There was a note of finality to Mrs. Scarlatti’s tone, as if they were talking about something very much over and done with. Already Rowena could see that Sofia Scarlatti was not a woman who dwelled in the past; she lived in the present. They went into a brightly lit, simple kitchen, much in need of remodeling, and she seated her guest at a small table covered with an attractive, if worn, cloth splashed with grapevines.
In the light, Rowena guessed that Joe’s grandmother was closer to eighty than seventy and not over five feet tall, her hair snow white, her face heavily lined. But her movements and smile were quick, and her dark eyes— her grandson’s eyes—missed nothing.
She filled two glasses with brandy and set them on the table. “I wished I’d never heard of Eliot Tyhurst,” she said, sitting down. “We were too complacent, my Mario and I. We believed a man like that wouldn’t rob two old people. And he didn’t. He robbed hundreds of old people!”
“He abused your trust in him. It could happen to anyone.”
“To you?”
Rowena shrugged, remembering Joe’s earlier words. “We all have financial setbacks, even catastrophes. We try to know the risks but we can’t always. That’s what was so terrible about what Tyhurst did—he didn’t give you the information you needed to make your decision. He didn’t inform you of the true risks.”
“We didn’t ask enough questions.”
“Buyer beware? That doesn’t always save you from deceit. Tyhurst was an expert. You’re no more at fault than if you’d been robbed on the street at gunpoint.”
Sofia Scarlatti wrinkled her nose. “I’d have been at fault if I’d been stupid enough to carry everything I own in my pockets! Ten, twenty dollars, you let it go—but everything? No, that’s my fault.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. She seemed more embarrassed by her ordeal than embittered.
“I really do think you’re being hard on yourself, Mrs. Scarlatti,” Rowena said. She tried her brandy; it was strong but smooth, and more welcome than she wanted to admit. She pushed aside an image of Joe on his grandmother’s front stoop. “I’m very good with this sort of thing and it took me a long time to unravel Tyhurst’s scheme. If someone put a little grass or dirt in your lasagna you’d know it, wouldn’t you?”
“I should think so,” Sofia Scarlatti said.
“But what if they mashed the grass so thoroughly you couldn’t detect it? What if they carefully mixed the dirt with the meat? You might know something’s wrong but you might not figure it out right away. Someone who doesn’t know lasagna might not even realize anything was wrong. Is that their fault?”
“You’re saying you know money. I know lasagna.”
“I’m saying we all have our areas of expertise and that Eliot Tyhurst deliberately used his against the very people who put their trust in him. It would be like you putting ingredients you know are bad into your lasagna and then feeding it to your own children.”
Mrs. Scarlatti leaned back in her chair and regarded Rowena thoughtfully. “I see your point. I can tell you, though, I’d never make the same mistake with the likes of Eliot Tyhurst again. But I won’t get that chance. I have no money left to invest.”
“Others learned from your ‘mistake.’ It won’t be so easy for the Eliot Tyhursts of the world to get away with such larceny in the future.”
“I suppose it’s something, serving as an example,” Sofia Scarlatti said, a surprising twinkle in her alert eyes, “but I’d rather have my money.”
Rowena smiled. “I’m sure you would.”
“My Joe, he thinks his grandfather died a broken man, but I want you to know he didn’t. He died of a heart attack. He’d had a bad heart for years. He was angry with himself, yes, for trusting Tyhurst, but he’d survived much worse hardships in his life than losing his money.” 7 She sipped her brandy, studying Rowena. “You know, my Joe needs a good woman in his life.”
“I can’t cook lasagna.”
“Who cares? You know money.”
* * *
Joe realized he was probably going to go through life being periodically mystified by Rowena Willow.
All she said upon leaving his grandmother’s apartment was, “I found the grass, but I haven’t even looked for the dirt.”
He didn’t bother trying to figure that one out.
He got her into the car he’d borrowed from a friend for the express purpose of tracking her. It was one she hadn’t seen before and therefore her computer-mind wouldn’t remember.
She didn’t even comment on it. She just climbed into the front seat and stared straight ahead.
Joe started the engine and glanced sideways at her. Strands of hair had come out of her twist and fallen down her forehead and the back of her neck. Very sexy. Most of her lipstick had come off during dinner, and she’d never bothered to apply a fresh coat. Even sexier. And her dress—
But the woman was thinking about grass and dirt.
“How’d your dinner with Tyhurst go?” he asked.
Nothing. Just that glassy-eyed stare out the window.
“My grandmother liked you. I could tell because she gave you the good brandy. She’s got some rotgut you wouldn’t believe. Keeps it around for the landlord.” She’d been carrying her glass when she saw Rowena to the door and thrust a helping of some leftovers wrapped in aluminum foil at Joe. He could never leave empty-handed, even if he hadn’t actually gone inside for a visit. “I don’t know what’s in the foil but it’s probably good. Granny’s a hell of a cook. She does great Italian, of course, but also Mexican. Makes a terrific dish she created, sort of a taco lasagna.”
He was talking to himself. He knew it. Rowena’s mind was occupied in some realm he couldn’t access.
Back on Telegraph Hill, he had to hunt for a parking place. If Hank Ryan hadn’t told him about the prison-mate who claimed Eliot Tyhurst was a cold-blooded bastard out for revenge, Joe might have let Rowena off at her front door. As it was, he didn’t plan to let her out of his sight.
Not that she noticed.
Joe pulled into a tight parking space, turned off the engine and unlocked his door.
Rowena just sat there.
“We’re here,” he said.
She might have been catatonic.
He touched her shoulder. “Rowena.”
She screamed and jerked up, looking as if he’d jumped her in a dark alley. More hair escaped from its pins. Catching her breath, she looked around at him, her eyes wide and faraway. ‘Tm sorry, I’m thinking...”
And she was out of the car and on her way, turning right when she needed to turn left even though this was her own neighborhood. She might as well have been on the moon for all she was aware of her surroundings. Joe caught up with her and took her by the shoulders and pointed her in the right direction. Not onl
y did she not look embarrassed, she didn’t even look aware he’d touched her.
Unlike last night, he thought.
“Eccentric geniuses,” he muttered. “Who can figure?”
He fell in behind her, observing as she unlocked her door and pushed it open and dropped her purse and turned on lights and headed upstairs, on automatic pilot. She was oblivious to what was around her, lost in her world of thought.
Joe assumed he was in for a long night and headed back to the kitchen to find the cats, Mega and Byte. Hell of a couple of names for two not-so-bad cats. He liked them because they could play fetch, almost like dogs except they had sharper claws.
“Hey, kitties,” he said when they didn’t pad out to greet him. “Mega? Byte?”
He called them a few more times, whistling and clapping his hands, but they didn’t show up. He checked their dishes. Rowena, still in full snit, had fed them before she’d left for her dinner with Eliot Tyhurst.
The cats had hardly touched a bite.
Joe’s cop instincts kicked into gear. Every part of him went on high alert. He stopped calling the cats. He backed up toward the kitchen wall and listened.
Something was wrong.
Then he heard a scratching at the pantry door. He opened it, and Mega and Byte wandered out. They were genius’s cats, he knew, but cats, he didn’t care how smart, couldn’t close themselves up in pantries like that.
And then he heard Rowena scream.
* * *
“Don’t scream,” Eliot Tyhurst said.
Rowena stepped backward toward her computer desk, trying to control her terror. “You startled me.”
“You were so intent on destroying me, you just didn’t hear me.” He nodded at her blank monitor. “Find anything?”
She licked her lips. Her heart was beating much too fast. He had interrupted her high level of concentration, scared the proverbial living daylights out of her. He must have used the key Joe had warned her not to keep outside to get into her house. He must have hidden while she and Joe were at his grandmother’s.
Although she’d gotten over his startling her, her heart rate hadn’t diminished, and her fear had only grown. She felt nothing but dread.
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