by Nora Roberts
He did another thorough tour of the shop, automatically picking up a few small trinkets as he went, including the jade Foo dog Terri had tried to sell him.
Resigned, DiCarlo headed upstairs. He cursed, but without much heat when he encountered the lock on the door at the top of the steps. This one was basically for looks, and he was through it quickly.
He listened, heard nothing. No radio, television, conversation. Still, he moved silently down the hall, peering out the door to be certain the parking lot was still empty.
Three minutes later he was inside Jed’s apartment. That search was over almost before it had begun. There were no paintings on the wall, none tucked into the closets. He found nothing under the bed but a dog-eared paperback copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and a balled-up sock.
He did find the .38 in the nightstand of some interest, but after a brief examination, replaced it. Until he’d found the painting, he couldn’t afford to steal anything noticeable. He gave the bench press and weights in the living room a quick glance on his way out.
He was in Dora’s apartment in a matter of seconds. She hadn’t bothered to lock it.
The search here was a different matter. Where Jed’s apartment had held a minimum of furniture, Dora’s was packed. The clutter in Jed’s came from carelessness. In Dora’s it was a lifestyle.
There were several paintings. A watercolor still life, two oval portraits, one of a stern-faced man in starched collar, one of an equally stern-faced woman. Other art ranged from signed lithographs, advertising posters, and pen-and-ink sketches to the finger paintings stuck to the refrigerator. But the abstract wasn’t on the wall.
He moved into the bedroom to search the closet. Because he, too, had left the door unlocked, he barely had time to react when he heard it open. By the time it slammed, DiCarlo was deep in the closet hidden behind a colorful assortment of outfits that smelled erotically of woman.
“I have to be crazy,” Dora told herself. “Absolutely crazy.” She peeled out of her coat, laid it over the back of a chair and yawned hugely. How did she let her parents talk her into it? Why had she let them talk her into it?
Still muttering to herself, she walked straight to the bedroom. Her plans for the evening had been so simple, she thought. A nice, solitary meal of grilled chicken and wild rice; a long, fragrant bath with a glass of chardonnay as a companion. She’d intended to top it all off with a good book by the bedroom fire.
But no, she thought, and switched on the Tiffany lamp beside the bed. Oh, no, she had to fall into that old family trap of the show must go on.
Was it her fault that three stagehands had come down with the flu? Was it her fault she’d let her father badger her into joining the union?
“Absolutely not,” she decided, tugging her tight-fitting black cashmere sweater over her head. “I didn’t give them the damn flu. I didn’t have to feel obligated to jump into the void just because I have an IATSE card.”
Sighing, she bent over to unlace her black Chucks. Instead of a quiet, relaxing evening at home, she’d answered her mother’s frantic call for help and had spent hours handling props and hauling scenery.
She’d even reluctantly enjoyed it. Standing backstage and listening to the voices echo, rushing out when the lights dimmed to make a scenery change, feeling a vicarious pride when the cast took their curtain calls.
After all, Dora thought with a yawn, what’s bred in the bone . . .
Through the two-inch crack in the closet door, DiCarlo had an excellent view. The more he saw, the more his annoyance at being interrupted faded. The situation had possibilities, previously unexplored ones.
The woman who was bending and stretching at the foot of the bed had performed a very intriguing striptease and was now wearing only a couple of very tiny, very lacy black swatches. DiCarlo studied the smooth curve of her bottom as Dora bent to touch her toes.
She was beautifully built, in a firm, compact style. And from the way she was moving, it appeared she’d be very, very agile.
She’d changed his plans, but DiCarlo prided himself on creative thinking. He’d simply wait until the very pretty, very alone lady had gotten into bed.
Dora turned, and he took the opportunity to admire the thrust of lace-trimmed breasts.
Very nice, he thought, and smiled in the dark. Very nice indeed.
And once she was in bed, DiCarlo figured it would be a simple matter, using his considerable charms—and his .22 automatic—to convince her to tell him where the painting was.
And after business, pleasure. He might not even have to kill her afterward.
Dora shook back her hair, rolled her shoulders. It was as if she were posing, DiCarlo thought. The blood surged into his loins and throbbed impatiently. With her eyes closed and the beginnings of a smile on her face, she circled her head gently.
She lifted her hands to the front hook of the bra.
The pounding on her door had Dora jolting. In the closet, DiCarlo’s breath hissed out in a combination of rage and frustration.
“Hold on!” Dora shouted, grabbing a white terrycloth robe from the foot of the bed. She struggled into it as the pounding continued. Switching on lights as she went, she hurried out to the living room. She hesitated with her hand on the knob. “Jed?”
“Open up, Conroy.”
“You gave me a start,” she said as she opened the door. “I was just—” The look on his face stopped her. She’d seen fury before, but never quite so intense, and never aimed so fiercely in her direction. Instinctively, she lifted a hand to her throat and stepped back. “What?”
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“Ah . . . going to bed,” she said carefully.
“Do you think because I pay you rent you can use your fucking key and poke through my things anytime you want?”
She lowered her hand again, gripped the knob firmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the crap.” Jed snagged her wrist and yanked her into the hall. “I know when my place has been tossed.”
“You’re hurting me.” Her attempt at sternness failed miserably. She was afraid, really afraid he could do a lot worse.
“You took that risk when you messed with my privacy.” Enraged, he shoved her up against the opposite wall. Her muffled cry of surprised pain only added to his fury. “What were you looking for?” he demanded. “What the hell did you think you’d find?”
“Let go of me.” She twisted, too terrified for denials. “Take your hands off me.”
“You want to go through my things?” His eyes burned into hers.
The animal was out of the cage, was all she could think.
“You figure because you’ve got me churned up inside you can paw through what I keep in my drawers, in my closet, and I’ll let it go?” He jerked her away from the wall and, pushed by his own demons, dragged her stumbling after him. “Fine.” He slammed his door open, shoved her inside. “Take a look now. Take a good one.”
Even her lips had lost color. Her breath shuddered in and out through them. He was between her and the door. There was no possible hope of getting past him toward escape. As her heart drummed hard against her ribs, she saw by his face there was no chance of reason.
“You’re out of your mind.”
Neither of them heard DiCarlo slip down the hall and away. They stood two feet apart with Dora tugging with a shaking hand at the robe that had fallen off her shoulder.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” He moved too quickly for her to evade, grabbing her robe by the lapels and yanking her to her toes. Seams gave way with quick pops. “I was a cop for fourteen Goddamn years. I know the signs.”
“Stop it!” She shoved against him. The sound of her robe ripping at the shoulder was like a scream. Tears of terror and rage sprang to her eyes, drenching them, clouding her vision. “I haven’t been in here. I haven’t touched anything.”
“Don’t lie to me.” But the first seed of d
oubt squeezed through his fury.
“Let me go.” She tore free, falling back and ramming hard into the table. Slowly, like a woman waiting for the tiger to spring again, she backed away. “I haven’t been in here. I just got home ten minutes ago. Go feel the hood of my car, for Christ’s sake. It’s probably still warm.” Her voice hitched and sputtered in time with her heart. “I’ve been at the theater all night. You can call, check.”
He said nothing, only watched her edge for the door. Her robe had fallen open. He could see her muscles quiver and the sheen of panic sweat. She was crying now, fast, choking sobs as she fumbled with the doorknob.
“Stay away from me,” she whispered. “I want you to stay away from me.” She fled, leaving his door swinging open and slamming her own.
He stood exactly where he was, waiting for his own heartbeat to slow, waiting for some grip on control, however slippery.
He hadn’t been wrong. Goddamn it, he hadn’t been wrong. Someone had been inside. He knew it. His books had been moved, his clothes run through, his gun examined.
But it hadn’t been Dora.
Sickened, he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He’d snapped. No surprise there, he thought, dropping his hands. He’d been waiting to snap for months. Wasn’t that why he’d turned in his badge?
He’d come home after a miserable day of dealing with lawyers and accountants and bankers, and he’d snapped like a twig.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d terrorized a woman. Why had he picked on her? Because she’d gotten to him. She’d gotten to him and he’d found the perfect way to make her pay the price. Nice going, Skimmerhorn, he berated himself, and headed for the kitchen. And the whiskey.
He stopped himself before he poured the first glass. That was the easy way. He dragged a hand through his hair, took a long breath and walked over to Dora’s to take the hard way.
At the knock, she stopped rocking on the arm of the chair. Her head jerked up. She scrambled to her feet.
“Dora, I’m sorry.” On the other side of the door, Jed shut his eyes. “Damn,” he whispered, and knocked again. “Let me come in a minute, will you? I want to make sure you’re all right.” The silence dragged on, tightening his chest. “Just give me a minute. I swear I won’t touch you. I want to see if you’re okay, that’s all.”
In frustration he turned the knob.
Her eyes widened as she watched it rotate. Oh God, oh God, she thought in panic, she hadn’t locked it. A little sound caught in her throat. She lunged for the door just as Jed opened it.
When she froze, he saw the wild fear on her face, something he’d seen on too many faces over too many years. He hoped he remembered how to defuse fear as skillfully as he’d remembered how to incite it. Very slowly, he lifted his hands, palms out.
“I’ll stay right here. I won’t come any closer.” She was shaking like a leaf. “I won’t touch you, Dora. I want to apologize.”
“Just leave me alone.”
Her cheeks were still wet, but her eyes were dry now, dry and terrified. He couldn’t walk away until he’d eased that fear. “Did I hurt you?” He swore at the stupidity of the question. He could already see the bruises. “Of course I hurt you.” The way she’d cried out when he’d shoved her against the wall played back in his head and made his stomach clench.
“Why?”
The fact that she would ask surprised him. “Does it matter? I don’t have any excuses. Even an apology’s pretty lame after what I did. I’d like to—” He took a step forward, stopping when she flinched. He’d have preferred a fist to the gut. “I’d like to say it was justified, but it wasn’t.”
“I want to know why.” Her hand clenched and unclenched on the neck of her robe. “You owe me why.”
It was a hot ball in his throat. He couldn’t be sure which would be more painful, holding it there or spitting it out. But she was right. He owed her why.
“Speck tossed my house a week after he killed my sister.” Neither his face nor his voice gave away what it cost him to tell her. “He left a snapshot of her, and a couple of newspaper clippings about the explosion on my dresser.” The nausea surged, almost as violently as it had all those months ago. He paled as he fought it back. “He just wanted me to know he could get to me, anytime. He wanted to make sure I knew who was responsible for Elaine. When I came home tonight, and I thought you’d been in, it brought it back.”
She had a beautifully expressive face. He could read every emotion perfectly. The fear, and the anger that had been building to combat it, faded away. In their stead were flickers of sorrow, understanding and, like salt to his wounds, sympathy.
“Don’t look at me like that.” His tone was curt and, she thought, defensive. “It doesn’t change what I did, or the fact that I was capable of doing worse.”
She lowered her eyes. “You’re right. It doesn’t. When you kissed me last night, I thought something was happening with us. Really happening.” She lifted her gaze again, and her eyes were cool. “But it can’t be, or else this wouldn’t have happened. Because you’d have trusted me. That hurts too, Jed, but that’s my mistake.”
He knew what it was to feel helpless, but had never expected to feel it with her. “I can move out if you want,” he said stiffly. “I can leave tonight and pick up my stuff later.”
“It isn’t necessary, but you do what you want.”
Nodding, he stepped backward into the hallway. “Are you going to be all right?”
For an answer, she walked to the door, closed it quietly and turned the lock.
She found the flowers on her desk in the morning. Daisies, a little wilted and smelling of far-off spring, were stuffed into a Minton vase. Sternly, Dora quashed the first surge of pleasure and ignored them.
He hadn’t moved out. That much had been clear from the monotonous thud of weights bumping the floor when she’d passed his door earlier.
She wasn’t about to let that please her either. As far as she was concerned now, Jed Skimmerhorn was a paying tenant. Nothing more. No one was going to terrify her, threaten her and break her heart, then lure her back with a straggling bunch of daisies. She would cash his monthly check, nod to him politely if they happened to pass in the hall and get on with her own life.
It was a matter of pride.
Since Terri and Lea were handling the shop, she took out her accounts payable, opened the checkbook for Dora’s Parlor and prepared to work.
A few minutes later she snuck a peek at the daisies and caught herself smiling. Then the sound of boots coming down the stairs had her firming her lips and staring at her electric bill.
Jed hesitated at the base of the stairs, searching for something reasonable to say. He would have sworn the temperature had dropped ten degrees since he’d come into the storeroom. Not that he could blame her for giving him the chill, he decided. But it only made him feel more foolish for buying flowers on the way back from the gym.
“If you’re going to be working in here, I can finish up those shelves later.”
“I’ll be doing paperwork for a couple of hours,” she said. She didn’t glance up.
“I’ve got some stuff to do downtown.” He waited for a response, got nothing. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”
“No.”
“Fine. Great.” He started back upstairs. “Then I’ll finish them up this afternoon. After I go out and buy myself a hair shirt.”
Dora lifted a brow, listened to the top door slam. “Probably thought I’d throw myself in his arms because he bought me flowers. Jerk.” She looked over as Terri walked through from the shop. “Men are all jerks.”
Normally Terri would have grinned, agreed and added her own examples. Instead she stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.
“Dora, did you take the jade dog upstairs? The little Chinese piece? I know you like to shift things around.”
“The Foo dog?” Lips pursed, Dora tapped her pen on the desk. “No. I haven’t circulated any inventory since before
Christmas. Why?”
Terri gave a breathless laugh, a sickly smile. “I can’t find it. I just can’t find it anywhere.”
“It probably just got moved. Lea might have—”
“I’ve already asked her,” Terri interrupted. Her voice sounded weak. “I showed it to a customer the other day. Now it’s gone.”
“Don’t panic.” Dora pushed away from her desk. “Let me take a look around. I might have moved it myself.”
But she knew she hadn’t. Dora’s Parlor might have looked like a homey, cluttered space where treasure and trash were carelessly arranged side by side. But there had always been a method to the arrangement—Dora’s method.
She knew her stock, and its place, down to the last silk postcard.
Lea was busy with a customer and only sent her sister a quick, concerned look, then continued to show tobacco jars.