Take Me Two Times Page 18

  She spared him barely a glance. “No.” She wasn’t rude, just dismissive, which was worse.

  “Then I’m coming with you,” he said, tamping down his anger.

  “Coming with me where? I don’t even know yet where to find Esteban. And—please excuse me if this sounds obnoxious—but where is it written that because you have a penis, you’re more bulletproof than I am?”

  “That’s really uncalled for. I’m not trying to be Captain Testosterone, here—I’m just worried about you. Why can’t you understand that?”

  Gwen went into the bathroom for her clothes, came back out, and dumped them on the bed. She stepped into her panties and pulled them up. Then she put on everything else, including McDougal’s jacket, since it was surprisingly, blessedly chilly.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn. I do understand. And I think you’re sweet. But just because we’ve slept together doesn’t mean that you get to control me or dictate to me.”

  “I’m not!”

  “I know you don’t mean to.” She came over and took his face in her hands. Kissed him. “It’s just your nature. Now, will you take me home?”

  chapter 23

  The car purred through the gaudy, pastel, art deco-flavored streets of South Beach. The interior smelled of leather cleaner and combustible memories. Gwen thought about the two stupid kids they’d been, setting up house without understanding all the ramifications.

  She thought about how livid her father had been at the shotgun wedding . . . and how pleased her parents were to have their daughter back afterward, even under the circumstances.

  She thought about how utterly infatuated she’d been with Quinn, his hard body and soft words. His raw ambition and take-no-prisoners attitude. His rebel streak and occasionally incorrect grammar. The way he filled out a pair of jeans.

  Quinn turned down Ocean Drive and then cut over to Collins. She looked at his hands on the wheel of the Mercedes. He didn’t belong in this thing. He belonged in a muscle car or some kind of truck.

  He pulled up into her driveway and she got out. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  He stared at her.

  She stared back.

  “Gwen . . . please. I’m not trying to dictate. I’m not trying to control you. We can be equal partners in this thing. You’ll gain an extra pair of eyes and hands, and I’ll gain some peace of mind. Okay?”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Thank you.”

  She knew he wanted to come in. She didn’t ask him to. Gwen needed some time alone and told him so.

  He watched her from the car until she stepped into the house and raised her hand in a wave good-bye. She turned on a light, let the door close behind her, locked it.

  Gwen stood for a long moment listening to the empty, silent little house. She needed to get a pet. Avy had Kong, her cockatiel, to keep her company when Liam wasn’t around. All Gwen had were a couple of dust bunnies.

  She made her way into the kitchen and looked into the fridge. A half-empty container of orange juice, a lone stale bagel repressed in its bag by a twist tie, and a bunch of celery stared back at her. The celery made her think of crazy rock star Sid Thresher, who was partial to Bloody Marys.

  She shook her head, then went to see what she had lurking in the liquor cabinet. Her reward was three-quarters of a bottle of vodka, a plastic squeeze container of lime juice, and the dregs of some triple sec.

  She made herself another almost-Caipiroska and went outside to the patio, where she sat on the edge of the closed-up hot tub and sipped at her drink.

  Old Mrs. Santos’s house was dark, but the smell of meat cooking on the grill wafted over from behind the plastic trellises to the left. Her husband’s name was Jerome, and he called to his wife for a platter.

  Gwen took another sip of the drink and set it on the lid of the hot tub. She scooted back and sat Indian-style on it, shoving her hands into McDougal’s coat pockets. Her thumb caught on something in the left one. Puzzled, she looked down and pulled her hand out. The pocket lining came out with it. Gwen stopped breathing.

  Part of the khaki fabric had torn and there was a small triangle missing.

  Morning brought a spectacular pink-and-gold sunrise and another unwelcome realization: For the last fifteen years, Gwen had gotten her period like clockwork on the twenty-eighth day of each month . . . until now. It should have come yesterday.

  She told herself not to be silly. She’d been under every kind of stress lately, and her system was just out of whack. She’d get it this afternoon. She stocked her purse with supplies, because after all, the only time she’d had unprotected sex with Quinn was that night in the hot tub, and what were the odds? It was the wrong time of the month.

  It’s still possible. . . .

  But not probable.

  Really? The man has turbo sperm. They climb vertically, judging by Brazil. The women in her family were all fertile Myrtle’s.

  But the chlorine in the hot tub . . .

  Is not effective birth control, and you know it.

  What if she was one of those women who ovulated twice per month?

  Ridiculous. She was being paranoid. She had more serious things to think about—like the missing fabric from McDougal’s jacket. The hole was a match to the piece of cloth she still had. Had the pocket been turned inside out when it caught on the nail? McDougal . . . She still couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

  Gwen got ready quickly, drove down to Brickell, and wiped her face clean of all anxiety before she entered the office and took inventory of the ensemble that greeted her.

  Sheila had clearly gotten a pedicure recently and had decided to show it off in lime green wedge sandals. Her toenails were orange with little green palm trees painted on the big toes.

  She wore a lime green leather jacket over an orange camisole and white pants. Today’s reading glasses were of a brown-and-white giraffe pattern.

  “Hi, doll face,” she said to Gwen. “You didn’t sleep, did you?”

  “Not much.” So much for the two coats of concealer she’d put on under her eyes to camouflage the fact. “Is Dante in this morning?”

  “Yes, our Dapper Don is here,” said McDougal, apparently on his way out. “He’s in his office on the phone with some poor peasant, making him an offer he can’t refuse.”

  Gwen could hardly look at him. “Thanks.”

  “How you doin’?”

  “Fine.”

  If this hadn’t been McDougal, she’d have thought that hurt flitted through his eyes at her tone. But it was. He merely quirked an eyebrow and then turned to scan Sheila in all her glory. He winced, shaded his eyes, and put on his aviator sunglasses. “Damn. And we need electricity, too?”

  “Get lost,” the receptionist retorted. “You wouldn’t know fashion if it bit you in the left nut.”

  “If that’s fashion, babe, then I’m happy to remain unacquainted with it.”

  “Out,” Sheila said, pointing at the door. “I have better things to do than talk to you.”

  “Yeah, like strangling yourself with a chain of paper clips.” McDougal winked at Gwen as he sashayed out the door. She didn’t wink back.

  “Where’s he going?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.

  “Some obscure errand for Kelso. He’s headed to the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood to try to get some info from a regular gambler there. Wonder how many free drinks he’ll suck down as just part of the job.”

  “Couldn’t tell you.” Gwen also couldn’t tell her why part of McDougal’s jacket had been stuck in the Velasquez brothers’ doorway. It unnerved her.

  She took her morning smoothie down the hallway and stuck her head into Dante’s office. He was there, impeccably groomed as usual, in a monogrammed custom-made shirt. His clean dark hair was swept back from his forehead in a GQ style, and his brow was knit in concentration.

  His crutches lay propped against a visitor’s chair, and he’d draped his jacket over them. His elegant hands clicked away
on the keyboard.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He looked up with an abstract smile, minimized the screen he had up on the monitor of his computer, and pushed back a little from his desk. “Ciao, bella. I hear that you made an unfortunate discovery yesterday morning. I am sorry.”

  Gwen said, “I’m fine. Really. Everyone seems to think that I’m going to come apart at the seams because I saw a dead body.”

  “You must admit that such a thing is upsetting.”

  “Sure, I’d rather see a field of flowers or a great painting any day than a corpse. But what can you do?”

  “Call the undertaker. Eccolo, how may I help you this morning?” He gestured toward the other visitor’s chair.

  She closed the door and then took a seat. “Dante, there’s something I have to talk to you about.”

  He seemed somewhat amused. “Si, evidently. Talk away.”

  She didn’t know how to begin. “How do I say this? I was waiting for the police yesterday morning and Sheila sent McDougal out to babysit me. He let it slip that he knew exactly how Carlos had died—but when I questioned him he had a good cover reason, a buddy on the police force.”

  Dante nodded.

  “But I found a piece of fabric stuck to a finishing nail in the door there. And McDougal . . . he loaned me that old barn jacket of his. I put my hands in the pocket later and discovered a rip that’s the same shape. It’s also the same fabric. He was there, Dante. Sometime before I ever arrived. And he didn’t call the cops.”

  Dante no longer looked amused. “What time did you get there?”

  “Around nine a.m.”

  “What’s the estimate of time of death?”

  “Carlos had been dead for hours. Long enough for rigor mortis to set in.”

  “Where was McDougal the night before?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Dante sat for a moment in thought. “Have you told the police any of this?”

  “Not yet. I guess I didn’t want to believe my suspicions. Like I said, he had an explanation for his knowledge, and I didn’t find the rip in the jacket pocket until last night.”

  His mouth had flattened into a grim line. “You must inform them. I don’t like to say this, because he is one of our own, but . . . if he had anything to do with the murder, then he must answer for it.”

  “Of course, but I wanted to give the office a heads-up.”

  Dante nodded, his expression inscrutable.

  Gwen threw up her hands. “McDougal . . . why? Why would he be involved? I keep asking myself that question and I’m not coming up with any good answers—except that he’s sleeping with Angeline Le Fevre, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s behind the theft of the mask.”

  “Angeline?” Dante’s brows shot up. “Why?”

  “Gut. Art world connection. McDougal connection.”

  Dante nodded again. He rolled his chair toward her and took her hands. His were steady, warm, comforting. “Gwen, who knows? It’s possible that Eric commissioned the theft himself. . . . We all have contacts in this business or we wouldn’t be here. Maybe he saw a way to make money. Maybe he has a special buyer. But you must tell the police, and it’s good that you gave me a—what did you call it?—heads-up. I won’t put him on anything high-profile until we know what’s going on.”

  Gwen crossed her legs and leaned back in the visitor’s chair, withdrawing her hands. “God, I’m so stupid! I asked McDougal to check Angeline’s house for the mask. Of course he didn’t find it.”

  “You had no way of knowing.”

  Gwen stood up. “He gets on my nerves just as much as he gets on everyone else’s. But I never thought he was a . . . a killer.”

  “And perhaps he is not. There may be a reasonable explanation, for all we know.” Dante rolled backward again, pushing himself with his good leg. When he reached his desk, he propped an elbow on it.

  She nodded. “Yes. But I doubt it.” She moved toward the door. “Avy is going to come unglued when I tell her this.”

  “She won’t be pleased,” Dante said.

  “Thank you for listening. I’ll keep you up-to-date. Right now I need to find Esteban Velasquez to ask him some questions, and he seems to have disappeared. I’m sure the Nerd Corps can track a credit card of his or something.”

  “You’re doing a good job, Gwen.”

  She lifted a shoulder to acknowledge the words, but they bothered her, simply because he wouldn’t have said them if he didn’t think she needed to hear them. Gwen didn’t want people to feel that she needed reassurance.

  “Ciao, bella.”

  “Bye.” And she went off in search of Miguel, who could almost certainly help her track down the mysterious jeweler, too.

  chapter 24

  Avy remembered Venice as an antique, cut-glass perfume bottle of a city: delicate and exquisite as long as the sterling stopper remained closed. Once opened, especially in summer, it smelled like a rotting fish head.

  She’d never visited Venezia in early February, though, and it retained all of its fluid, romantic charms without the ripeness of June or July.

  She and Liam shivered in the crisp air as they sat entwined on a noisy vaporetto, headed down the Grand Canal. Despite the overcast day, she felt that they were motoring straight into a Canaletto painting. The light from the Venetian sky gleamed metallic and silvery on the warm-toned buildings, which were reflected in the moody gray-green water.

  Other than the noise of the vaporettos, or water taxis, Venice was a quiet, upscale city that pulsed with both old poetry and crass tourism. It had survived against the odds for centuries. While it reflected a mélange of architectural styles—Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque—the actual layout of Venice had changed little over the past five hundred years.

  The shabby-chic yet elegant buildings seemed to float on the waterways, impossibly buoyant. They were all built on pilings sunk into the caranto below the water, a mixture of sand and clay. Avy found it miraculous that the pine pilings hadn’t decayed over the centuries.

  Liam, of course, wanted nothing to do with anything shabby, no matter how chic it might be. He insisted upon staying at the Gritti Palace, one of the best-known five-star hotels in Venice.

  “Isn’t that a bit too high-profile for what we’re doing?” Avy cautioned him.

  “Not at all. Besides, nobody will even begin to guess what tricks we’re up to, my love. Think about it: All of the security measures taken in each villa, palazzo, or museum are geared toward one thing, and one thing only: keeping inventory in. Not a single one will have taken precautions against keeping it out.”

  Avy had to admit that this was true. What they were doing was probably unprecedented in the entire history of art theft.

  “Now, things to be aware of tonight, my darling,” Liam said into her ear. “Our magistrate snores like a tuba, so his long-suffering wife sleeps in a separate room. Ideally they will both be unconscious when we pay our visit, but il signore is known to have various other sleep disturbances, as well.”

  “He’s an insomniac?” asked Avy.

  “No. He’s actually narcoleptic during the day—falls asleep on the bench quite often—and occasionally sleep-walks at night.”

  “Then why don’t we break in during the day when he’s gone?”

  “Staff, wife, and children scattered about then, I’m afraid. Also nosy neighbors. We’re still better off dropping in on the other side of midnight, my darling.”

  “I don’t like this sleepwalking issue at all,” Avy said. “What if he wakes up and sees us and starts hollering?”

  “That would be rather tough luck,” Liam admitted.

  She stared at him. “Tough luck? You have a talent for understatement. I’m not going to jail for you.”

  “We’re not bloody well going to jail,” Liam said crossly. “We’re returning something, after all.”

  “Right. Which means first we get slapped for possession of stolen property and then we get cha
rged for B and E. No, thank you.”

  “Do stop being dramatic, darling. Nothing’s going to go amiss. Trust me.”

  “Dramatic? You want to see dramatic, I’ll push you off this farting tub of a taxi. . . .”

  Liam seized her and kissed her to shut her up as the vaporetto sputtered under the Scalzi Bridge. He was warm and annoyingly sexy, and his lips distracted her from her doom-and-gloom thoughts.

  She barely noticed as they passed the Casa Adoldo and the Palazzo Foscari-Contarini, and then their hotel, the Palazzo Gritti. Liam finally released her as they sped by San Geremia to play tour guide, pointing out the early Renaissance Palazzo Vendramin Calergi.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it? Venice’s casino is there. We could go and play later, if you like.”

  “I think I’m gambling quite enough on this trip,” Avy said, “But thanks.”

  “Ah. Well, in that case, you will be delighted to know that the cat-strangling German composer Wagner died there.”

  She laughed. “He’s not my favorite.”

  Liam shuddered. “Nor anyone’s, I daresay. No one cheerful or good fun, anyhow.”

  They were thoroughly chilled by the time they got to the dock at the Ca’ d’Oro, where Liam tugged her off. “Lunch, my darling! Then we’ll explore what this house of gold has to offer. It was commissioned in the early fourteen hundreds and designed to be the most fabulous palace in the city, but fell upon hard times in later centuries. Then it was torn to pieces by a mad Russian ballerina with atrocious taste and no reverence for history. I wonder if she listened to Wagner? What do you think, my love?”

  “It’s hard to say, Liam.”

  “At any rate, an Italian baron, unable to stand the barbarity of it all, rode to the rescue and restored it. It is from him that I acquired—”

  “I knew there was a point to all of this.”

  “—my magnificent Caravaggio Bacchus.”

  “Which you’re going to replace after lunch?”

  “You’re wonderfully quick-witted, my love.”