by Nora Roberts
“It was in this cabinet,” Terri said quietly. “I showed it Christmas Eve, right before closing. And I’m positive I saw it here yesterday when I sold the Doulton figure. They were side by side; I would have noticed if it had been missing then.”
“All right.” Dora patted Terri’s shoulder soothingly. “Let’s look around.”
Even the first glance was alarming. Dora homed in on a satinwood bonheur. She made sure to keep her voice calm and low. “Terri, have you sold anything this morning?”
“A tea set—the Meissen—and a couple of cigarette cards. Lea sold the mahogany cradle and a pair of brass candlesticks.”
“You didn’t sell anything else?”
“No.” Terri’s already pale cheeks went whiter. “What is it? Something else is gone.”
“The vinaigrette, the enamel one that was there.” Dora controlled a curse. “And the inkwell that was beside it.”
“The pewter?” Terri turned to the bonheur, groaned. “Oh God, Dora.”
Dora shook her head to ward off any more comment and did a swift tour of the entire shop.
“The Chelton paperweight,” she said a few moments later. “The Baccarat perfume bottle, the Fabergé desk seal—” That one, priced at $5,200, was tough to swallow. “And the Bakelite cigarette case.” Which, at roughly $3, infuriated her almost as much as the Fabergé. “All small enough to fit into a purse or a pocket.”
“We haven’t had more than eight or nine people in all morning,” Terri began. “I don’t see how—Oh, Dora, I should have watched more carefully.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
“It’s not.” Though she felt sick with anger, she slipped an arm around Terri’s waist. “We can’t treat everyone who walks through the door like a shoplifter. We’d end up putting in those damn security mirrors and shoving all our stock behind locked glass. It’s the first time we’ve been hit this hard.”
“Dora, the Fabergé.”
“I know. I’ll report it to the insurance company. That’s what they’re for. Terri, I want you to take your lunch break now.”
“I couldn’t eat.”
“Then go for a walk. Go buy a dress. It’ll make you feel better.”
Terri blew her nose. “Aren’t you mad?”
“Mad? I’m furious.” Her eyes narrowed and snapped. “I’m hoping they come back and try to lift something else so I can break all their sticky little fingers. Now go, clear your head.”
“Okay.” She blew her nose again and left Dora alone in the small side parlor.
“Bad?” Lea asked when she stuck her head in.
“Bad enough.”
“Honey, I’m sorry.”
“No ‘I told you to lock things up’?”
Lea sighed. “I figure this should prove I was right, but after working here these past few weeks, I understand why you don’t. It would spoil the atmosphere.”
“Yeah.” Defeated, Dora rubbed at the beginning of a headache between her eyes. “You can buy a lot of atmosphere for ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand,” Lea repeated. Her eyes widened. “Ten thousand dollars? Oh my God, Dory.”
“Don’t worry, I’m insured. Goddamn it. Look, put up the Closed sign for an hour. Go out and get some lunch or something. I want to go in the back and have a tantrum, and I’d like privacy.”
“Are you sure?” Lea took one look at the glint in her sister’s eyes. “You’re sure. I’ll lock up.”
“Thanks.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Jed wondered if going back to the cop shop for the first time since his resignation was just another way to punish himself. He could have set up a meeting with Brent elsewhere and avoided the wrenching reminder that he was now a civilian.
But Jed walked into his old precinct, the place where he’d spent eight of his fourteen years on the force, because he knew he had to face it. After the way he’d spun out of control the night before, he admitted there were plenty of things he was going to have to face.
Everything was the same. The air still smelled of spilled coffee, underwashed bodies and stale smoke—all with a much nastier undertone of disinfectant. The walls had been painted recently, but the color was the same institutional beige. The sounds—all familiar. Ringing phones, clattering keyboards, raised voices.
The fact that he walked in this time without the weight of his weapon strapped to his side made him feel more than awkward. This time he felt naked.
He nearly walked out again, but two uniforms turned toward the doors on their way to patrol. Recognition flickered on both of their faces. The one on the left—Snyder, Jed remembered—jerked to attention.
“Captain, sir.”
They were getting younger every year, Jed mused. This one was hardly old enough to shave. The only way through it was ahead. Jed nodded to both of them as he passed. “Officers.”
He stopped at the desk, waited until the bull-shouldered sergeant turned. “Ryan.” The man might have had shoulders like a bull, but he had the face of a teddy bear. When he spotted Jed, that face creased into a smile so big his eyes seemed to disappear into the soft folds of ruddy Irish skin.
“Captain. Son of a bitch.” He reached over the desk to grasp Jed’s hand like a vise gripping steel. “Good to see you. Really good.”
“How’s it going?”
“Oh, you know. Same old same old.” He leaned companionably on the counter that separated them. “Lorenzo got winged in a liquor store hit last week.”
“I heard about that. How’s he doing?”
“Milking it,” Ryan said with a wink. “Time was, a guy took a pop, he mopped up the blood and got back on the street.”
“After he chewed the bullet out with his teeth.”
“That’s the way.” Someone shouted for Ryan, and he shouted back that they should hold on. “We miss you around here, Captain,” he said, leaning on the desk again. “Goldman’s okay as an acting captain. I mean he pushes paper with the best of them, but let’s face it. The man’s an asshole.”
“You’ll break him in.”
“No, sir.” Ryan shook his head. “Some you do, some you don’t. The men knew they could talk to you, straight. Knew they’d find you on the street as often as you’d be riding the desk. With Goldman you gotta climb up the chain of command and tippytoe through regulations and procedure.” His genial face wrinkled into a sneer. “You won’t catch him going through the door, not unless there’s a camera and three reporters on the other side.”
Whatever Jed felt about Ryan’s easy flow of information, he kept to himself. “Good press doesn’t hurt the department. Is Lieutenant Chapman in? I need to talk to him.”
“Sure, I think he’s in his office. You can track him down.”
Jed waited, then lifted his brow. “Give me a visitor’s badge, Ryan.”
Ryan turned pink with embarrassed dismay. “Shit, Captain.”
“I need a visitor’s badge, Sergeant.”
“Makes me sick,” Ryan muttered as he pulled one out. “I gotta tell you, it makes me sick.”
“You told me.” Jed clamped the badge onto his shirt.
To get to Brent, he had to walk through the bull pen. He would have preferred a nice slow waltz on hot coals. His stomach clenched each time his name was called, each time he was forced to stop and exchange a word. Each time he forced himself to ignore the speculation, the unasked questions.
By the time he reached Brent’s door, the tension was rapping at the base of his neck like a dull spike.
He knocked once, then pushed the door open. Brent was sitting at his overburdened desk, the phone at his ear. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He glanced up. Instantly the irritation in his eyes cleared. “Yeah, yeah, and when you’re ready to shoot straight, we’ll deal. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up and leaned back in his chair. “I thought the noise level out there rose a few degrees. You were in the neighborhood, thought you’d drop by, right?”
>
“No.” Jed sat down, took out a cigarette.
“I know, you needed a fix of cop coffee.”
“When I get that bad, I’ll have myself committed.” Jed struck a match. He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to get involved. But he had to. “Is Goldman being as big an asshole as Ryan claims?”
Grimacing, Brent rose to pour two cups of coffee from the pot on his hot plate. “Well, he’s not exactly Mr. Popularity around here. I caught Thomas down in the locker room sticking pins in a Goldman doll. I recognized it because it had those little beady eyes and big teeth.”
Jed took the coffee. “What did you do about the doll?”
“I stuck a couple pins in it myself. So far, Goldman doesn’t seem to be in any particular discomfort.”
Jed grinned. The first sip of coffee wiped that off his face. “You know, I could put in your name with the chief. I figure he’d listen to my recommendation.”
“Not interested.” Brent took off his glasses to wipe ineffectively at the smudges. “I’m lousy at delegating. Thomas might end up sticking pins in an incredibly handsome doll wearing horn-rims.” He leaned against the edge of his desk. “Come back, Jed.”
Jed lowered his eyes to his coffee, slowly lifted them again. “I can’t. Christ, Brent, I’m a mess. Give me a badge right now and I don’t know what I’d do, or who’d pay for it. Last night.” He had to stop. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Somebody’d been in my place, in my things.”
“You had another break-in over there?”
Jed shook his head. “This was slick. A couple things out of place, a drawer shut when I’d left it partway open, that kind of thing. I’d been out most of the day. Elaine’s estate, the settlement on her house.” Weary, he kneaded the back of his neck. “After all that, I went and had a drink, I went to a movie. I came home, took one look around and went after Dora.”
He picked up his coffee again. It was no more bitter than the taste already lodged in his throat. “I mean I went after her, Brent. Saw the crime, made the collar.” In disgust, he crushed out his cigarette and rose. “I pushed her around.”
“Christ, Jed.” Stunned, he watched Jed pace the office. “You didn’t—you didn’t hit her?”
“No.” How could he be offended by the question? Jed wondered. “I scared the hell out of her, though. Scared myself after I pulled it in. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t keep it chilled. I just snapped. I’m not going to take the chance of doing something like that from behind a badge, Brent.” He turned back. “That badge used to mean something to me.”
“I’ve known you almost ten years. I never once saw you misuse it.”
“And I don’t intend to. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. Dora didn’t go into my apartment. So who did?”
“Might have been a return from whoever broke in the other night. Looking for something to lift.”
“I don’t have a lot in there with me, but there was a couple hundred in cash in the drawer. My thirty-eight. A Sony Walkman. Dora’s place across the hall’s loaded.”
“What about the security?”
“I looked it over, couldn’t find anything. This guy’s good, Brent. A pro. It could be a connection to Speck, somebody who wants revenge.”
“Speck wasn’t the kind to inspire loyalty after death.” But, like Jed, Brent wasn’t willing to dismiss the possibility. “I’m going to do some checking. Why don’t I put a couple of eyes on the building?”
Normally Jed would have cringed at the thought of protection. Now he merely nodded. “I’d appreciate it. If somebody wants me, I wouldn’t like to have Dora caught in the middle.”
“Consider it done. So tell me, how are you handling things with Dora?”
“I apologized.” He snorted, turned to study Brent’s poster of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. “Big fucking deal. I offered to move out, but she didn’t seem to care one way or the other.” He muttered under his breath, but Brent’s ears were keen.
“What was that? Did you say something about flowers?”
“I bought her some damn flowers,” Jed snapped. “She won’t even look at them. She sure as hell won’t look at me. Which would be just fine and dandy, except . . .”
“Except?”
Jed whirled back, a bleak expression on his face. “Goddamn it, Brent, she’s got me. I don’t know how she did it, but she’s got me. If I don’t have her soon, I’m going to start drooling.”
“Bad sign,” Brent said with a slow nod. “Drooling’s a very bad sign.”
“You getting a kick out of this?”
“Well . . . yeah.” Brent grinned and pushed up his glasses. “A big one, actually. I mean, as I recall, you’ve always been smooth and on top of things—no pun intended—with women. Always figured it was all that high-class breeding. Now you’re standing there with this hook in your mouth. It looks good on you.”
Jed just glared.
“So she’s pissed,” Brent continued. “She’ll make you sweat for a little while, beg a little.”
“I’m not begging. Screw begging.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I’d rather she be angry than frightened.” No, he realized, he didn’t think he could handle having her look at him with fear in her eyes again. “I thought I might pick up some more flowers on the way back.”
“Maybe you’d better think sparkles, pal. The kind you hang around your neck.”
“Jewelry? I’m not going to bribe her to forgive me.”
“What are the flowers for?”
“Flowers aren’t a bribe.” Amazed that a married man could know so little, Jed headed for the door. “Flowers are sentimental. Jewelry’s mercenary.”
“Yeah, and there’s nobody more mercenary than an angry woman. Just ask my wife,” Brent shouted when Jed kept going. “Hey, Skimmerhorn! I’ll be in touch.”
Chuckling to himself, Brent went back to his desk. He called up the Speck file on the computer.
Jed was surprised to find Dora still at her desk when he returned. He’d been gone more than three hours, and in the short time he’d known her, he’d never seen her huddled with paperwork for more than half that time. Dora seemed to prefer the contact with customers, or perhaps it was the satisfaction of collecting money.
Probably both.
It didn’t surprise him that she ignored him every bit as completely as she had that morning, but this time he thought he was prepared.
“I got you something.”
Jed set the large box on the desk in front of her. When she glanced at it, he had the small satisfaction of spotting the flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
“It’s, ah, just a robe. To replace the one that got torn last night.”
“I see.”
He moved his shoulders restlessly. He wasn’t getting much of a reaction from her, and he figured he’d paid big time. Poking around a woman’s lingerie department with the salesclerk beaming at him had made him feel like a pervert. At least he’d been able to settle for practical terrycloth.
“I think I got the size right, but you might want to check.”
Carefully, she closed her checkbook and folded her hands on top of it. When she looked up at him, the curiosity had been replaced by glittering anger. “Let me get this straight, Skimmerhorn. Do you think that a bunch of pathetic flowers and a robe are what it’s going to take to clear the path?”
“I—”
She didn’t give him a chance. “You figure a handful of daisies will charm me into sighs and smiles? Is that what you think? I don’t know how you’ve played it before, pal, but it doesn’t work that way with me.” She rose from the desk, slapped her palms down on the department-store box and leaned forward. If eyes were weapons, he’d have already bled to death. “Inexcusable behavior isn’t reconciled by a couple of lame gifts and a hangdog expression.”
She caught herself on the edge of a shout and paused to fight for control.