Читать книгу A Perfect Stranger - Jenna Ryan - Страница 13

Darcy had seen death before in the Amazon rain forest. And all things considered, the circumstances had been much more grisly. But she hadn’t expected Lugo to be there when she’d opened the curtain.

“Drink this, Darcy.”

She felt something cold in her hand and, looking down, saw a bottle of mineral water.

“Thanks.” From her perch on the bed, she regarded Marlowe, then the now-closed bathroom door. “I’m okay. Shocked, but not in shock. It’s just…” The memory repeated in garish neon. “He’s fully dressed, Marlowe. Shirt, pants, tie. And yet the only visible blood relates to the bathtub. So he was what? Running a bath when the killer came in? Killer forced him into the tub?”

“It’s as good a theory as any. You’re sure you didn’t recognize him?”

“Positive. Believe me, I got a very good look at his face.”

Crouched in front of her, Marlowe trapped her chin so he could bring her gaze in line with his. “I called a friend of mine, Darcy. He knows Lugo hired me to find you. His name’s Val Reade.”

A single brow winged up. “Reade, as in the detective who punched an elderly woman in a bar brawl?”

“There’s a story attached to it, but yeah, that’s him.”

Another man’s face superimposed itself over Lugo’s. Light brown hair, a little curly, wholesome features. A faint smile appeared. “I was one of the reporters who cornered your friend after his disciplinary hearing. Wrong place, right time. Elaine needed two filler pages before deadline.”

“Did you write the article?”

“I started to. I had another piece to do about a political scandal in Alabama, so Elaine filled in the missing pieces.” The smile grew. “She’s not as diplomatic as me when it comes to matters of dubious police behavior.” A sigh rose when she looked at the bathroom door. “Frankie wasn’t big on murdering people.”

“Frankie’s not in control now, Darcy.” Marlowe ran his thumb over her jaw. “Are you okay here if I go back to the desk?”

“Marlowe, I’m an army brat. I’ve heard and seen true horror. This is—” she searched for a fitting word “—tidy by comparison.” Standing with him, she sipped her water. “Tell me, do all P.I.s erase rules like this?” When he merely glanced at her en route to Lugo’s computer, she took another drink. “Figured that.”

As he tapped the keys, she circled the room, letting her mind return to the attack at her house. She wanted to lay the blame at Vince Maco’s feet, but it was possible he’d hired someone to attack her so he could deal with Lugo.

She caught the distant wail of sirens and moved to the window. “You’ve got about ninety seconds before your ex-cronies arrive, Marlowe.”

“Let me know when you see the lights.”

The word accomplice sprang to mind, but she blocked it and rested a shoulder against the window frame. “Are you plucking out any clues as that information whizzes past?”

“Only the e-mail he didn’t send. Recipient unknown, text incomplete.”

“Sounds like he was interrupted. Or he thought the tub might be full and he went to check on the water level. What does it say?”

“That the target’s been located and the end is imminent.”

“Efficient, ominous, and more personal than he knew.” She thought for a moment while she watched the horizon. “It also shows he was doing his job, so why kill him? Vince is nasty, but as far as I know, he follows Daddy’s instructions.”

“As far as you know. Three years might change a person’s attitude.”

“I see headlights. Three sets, and another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction.”

The tapping continued. With each click, Darcy pictured Lugo’s face. With each click, the face came closer, grew clearer.

Pushing on her temples, she turned from the window. “The rules you’re ignoring are going to get you arrested in a minute.”

A man’s voice reached them from outside. “M, it’s Val.”

One last series of taps as gravel crunched in the unpaved lot, and suddenly he was behind her.

Val Reade strode in ahead of six uniformed officers. His eyes flicked from Darcy to Marlowe, then back again in mild suspicion. “Why do I recognize you?”

“Disciplinary hearing, three months ago. I was one of the people firing questions at you.”

His expression cleared. “Thank God. I was afraid I might have hit on you.”

“And been rejected?”

“It’s been known to happen on rare occasions.” His almost twinkling eyes moved to the man behind her. “Still in the tub?”

“Just as Darcy found him.”

Val motioned to the uniforms. “How hot was the water?”

“Room temperature.”

“Which borders on body temperature at the moment.” Val ran a hand through his brown curls. “That’ll hinder the medical examiner. Did you know him?” he asked Darcy.

“No.”

“Any idea who he was working for?”

“Possibly Frankie Maco. But that’s assumption, not fact,” she added at a look from Marlowe. “Frankie’s the only person I can think of who’d bear a grudge strong enough to send lawyers and P.I.s after me three years down the road.”

“I’ll check him out.”

“You?” Surprised amusement colored Marlowe’s tone. “The captain put you in charge of the case?”

Val scratched his neck. “The word shorthanded came up during his telephone tirade. For some reason, Blydon likes you. You called me, I called him, case is mine. Now, Darcy, you and I need to have a nice long talk.”

“About the discovery of Umer Lugo’s body, or the attack outside my home?”

He stopped scratching. “You were attacked?”

“Guy got away,” Marlowe said. “On a bicycle.”

“Has all the earmarks of a three-ring circus, doesn’t it?” Darcy remarked. “Except for…” She indicated the bathroom.

“That’s a big exception.” Pulling out his notebook, Val cast a level look at Marlowe. “And given the outcome, I hate to think who else might wind up in the same condition.”

HE’D MISSED HER. She’d been underneath him, pinned and struggling, ripe for the taking. Then, wham, she hadn’t been, because Lugo’s P.I. had decided to play hero. He’d ruined the perfect opportunity with a broadside tackle that had shocked, infuriated and freaking hurt.

He’d pay for the bruises he’d inflicted. He’d pay like the lawyer had paid, only not so easily, not without pain. Oh, yeah, shooting off vital body parts was starting to sound real good about now.

In the end, though, it was all about Shannon. No, wait, call her Darcy. Live the charade. Until the charade ended and life became death ever after.

“Gonna get you, Darcy doll,” he promised.

Shaping his thumb and index finger into a gun, he aimed at the TV set in front of him. He grinned as he pulled the imaginary trigger.

Then he pulled out his iPod, popped in his earbuds and bopped to the music of The King.

NIGHT MELTED SLOWLY into day. Marlowe spent most of both sweltering in the Center City police station.

Lugo’s laptop had been bagged and tagged. So had his suitcase and wallet. Pictures had been snapped, the body removed, the motel room taped. Forensics would be dusting and sweeping throughout the weekend, and both Lugo’s paralegal and his ex-wife had been notified.

It was a police matter now. Legally, Marlowe knew he could wrap things up in Philadelphia early Saturday morning and be back in his office by mid-afternoon.

So why wasn’t he blowing off what had the potential to become a complicated tangle of red tape, blurred lines and emotions he had no desire to awaken? Why wasn’t he putting as much distance as possible between himself and a beautiful blue-eyed blonde who was bound to screw up the structure, the fabric and the dubious integrity of his not yet unscrewed life?

Because those questions were far too heavy to think about, let alone deal with, he spent another night at another bar with Val, a long one that ended with him collapsed on the sofa while Val snored and muttered on a cot across the room.

He let his friend sleep the next morning, made a stale pretzel and coffee work as breakfast and, ignoring a hangover the size of Texas, headed out to purge his mind of the few loose ends he’d neglected to mention to the police.

On the drive back from the Declaration Inn, Darcy had told him about a man named John Hancock. He’d recently taken a room at her neighbor’s boardinghouse. Probably nothing to it, but the cop in him couldn’t let it go without a cursory look.

Only a look, though, he promised himself as he worked his way through the vaguely seedy streets of Val’s neighborhood to Darcy’s southwest Philly home. A look, a chat, an unimpassioned goodbye. End of case.

As he parked, Marlowe took note of a sunburned man pushing a hand mower around the front lawn of Hannah Brewster’s boardinghouse.

A woman and a somewhat older man sat on the shaded front porch. The woman, in an odd flowered muumuu, used her foot to rock the hanging swing while she waved a folding fan in front of her face.

Her eyes brightened when Marlowe took the stairs two at a time. “My goodness, someone has more energy than me this fine August morning.” Elbowing her companion, she stood.

Marlowe kept his smile easy and leaned a hip against the railing.

Beside her, the forty-something man with the receding hairline offered a rather feral smile. “Glad to know you. I’m Hancock from Houston.”

By way of northern England, unless Marlowe had his accents wrong. And he doubted that, since his mother came from southern Scotland.

“Hannah Brewster.” The woman smiled broadly. “My husband Eddie’s inside watching a ball game.” Shielding her eyes, she peered through the bushes. “And that’s Cristian, mowing the lawn. He’s my cousin Arden from Oklahoma’s middle boy.” She patted her chest. “Arden died, oh, it must be fifteen years ago now. I feel terrible we couldn’t make it to the funeral, but Eddie was laid off at the time, and we didn’t dare borrow against our properties. As it is, we’re down to three from four, two on this street and a much older one on Faldo Road.” She used her fan to slap at a wasp. “Would you like some iced tea, Mr…?”

“Marlowe. No, thanks. This is a very nice house, Mrs. Brewster.”

“Nice and expensive,” she agreed. “And it’s Hannah. If you’re looking to rent a room, I have one left. Second floor, faces the garden. Oh, here he is, Arden’s boy. Come out of the sun, Cristian. This is Marlowe. He might be taking our last room.”

Cristian’s mop of blond curls, his eager expression and his lanky build reminded Marlowe of Val. But then Val reminded him of pretty much every college quarterback he’d played against at Michigan State.

“My last name’s Turner.” The twenty-something man cast an uncertain glance at Hancock, whose garish smile was starting to distort his mouth. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

Hannah beamed. “Cristian’s a painter. He came to Philadelphia because of our thriving artistic community.”

Cristian rubbed at a bump on his neck. “I think something bit me, Aunt Hannah.”

“Well, you march right inside and put some ice on it.” Moving his hair, she tutted. “Will you look at that ear. Today it was a mosquito. Ten years ago it was— What was it again, dear? A schnauzer?”

“Rottweiler.” Cristian tugged on his ragged left earlobe. “Owner figured he was going for my earring. I think he was going for my throat.”

“You should have kicked him.” Hancock raised a leg, but lowered it at a stern look from Hannah. “Gotta show it who’s boss,” he finished with a nasty grin.

“Yeah, right. Uh, where’s the ointment, Aunt Hannah?”

“In the downstairs bathroom, dear. Oh, and would you mind calling for Eddie to open up the garden room as you go past the study?”

Hancock smirked at Marlowe. “Don’t know how long you’re planning to stay, but if you get wind of any openings for a short-order cook, you let me know. My specialty’s a burger… Whoa there, Silver.” He broke off mid-sentence to leer. “Who would that pretty little darlin’ be?”

Hannah rapped him again with her fan. “You put your eyes straight back in their sockets, Mr. Hancock. That’s Darcy. Now, she’s sweet as can be, but the two of you would simply not be compatible.”

Both Cristian, riveted on the threshold, and Hancock, whose mouth had curled back into that Grinch-like smile, watched her bend and stretch as she extracted three bags of groceries from her trunk.

Exasperated, Hannah shooed both men along, then smiled at Marlowe. “Do say the garden room will suit you. It’s on the cool side of the house.”

Annoyed that he’d wanted to do a great deal more than move John Hancock along, Marlowe returned his attention to the woman in front of him.

“Darcy’s a reporter,” Hannah revealed with a sly expression. “Sadly, she had some trouble a few days ago. Poor dear was mugged right outside her front door. I feel somewhat responsible since I’d talked to her not five minutes earlier.”

“You didn’t see anyone?”

Catching his arm, Hannah brought him down to her level. “See those hedges? A body could be murdered on the far side, and no one would ever know about it. If only she’d screamed.”

“Guess she didn’t think of it.”

“Fortunately, the man ran away, no real harm done. Cristian will be trimming those bushes down to waist height as soon as he gets his second wind. I’d ask Eddie to do it, but it’s difficult to schedule outdoor chores between sporting events.” She dismissed the matter and straightened. “Now about that room. Seeing as it’s my last, and Eddie scored on one of his long-shot bets this past week, we might be able to negotiate the price down a tad. Say forty-five dollars a night from fifty?”

Marlowe glanced at Darcy’s hedge. “Does that include breakfast?”

“Lunch, as well, if you want it.” She held out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Big mistake, Marlowe’s instincts warned. He felt the darkness rolling through him. But in the end, it was Darcy he saw, and Darcy he continued to see even as the carousel of his mind revolved.

And with the darkness still slithering through his head, he accepted her hand.

“THANK YOU, THANK YOU, thank you.” On the threshold of Darcy’s office, Elaine hugged an eleven-page printout to her chest. “You not only made deadline, but you also made the moon chocolate readable.”

“Well, hey, what are sleepless nights for if not to draft and redraft feature articles?”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Removing thick reading glasses, her editor, a tall, narrow-chested woman in her early fifties, came in to perch on the arm of the sofa. “Some pervert jumps you outside your front door, and I hear about it from a cop? Really, kiddo, there’s such a thing as a telephone.”

Keys and sunglasses in hand, Darcy checked her e-mail. “There was more to it than I could tell you.”

“Like a dead man in a sleazy motel room?”

“I can’t give you details, Elaine. You know how the system works.”

“I also know how much attention you usually pay to that system.” Elaine leaned forward. “Was it anyone you knew?”

“No comment.” Darcy reached for her shoulder bag, popped the glam sunglasses on top of her head and started for the door. “At least not until Monday.”

Elaine bared her teeth. “This is so annoying. We both know how this stuff sells, and you’re shutting me out.”

“All I want to shut right now is the door.”

Reaching back inside, Darcy snagged Elaine’s wrist. “Give me a break, okay? It’s a thousand degrees today, my landlady’s given me five casseroles that no one with half a brain would eat, and if you think the cops are keeping me apprised of the investigation, you’re wrong.” At the elevator bank, she pressed Down. “I answered questions, gave my statement, answered more questions, then went home and spent the rest of yesterday and most of last night refining an article you insisted had to be done by Monday. Be happy. It’s only Saturday, and there it is, in your freshly manicured hands.”

Elaine admired her fingernails as they boarded the elevator. “I got the works for my date tonight.”

“Yeah? Are we talking hot stud at last?”

“So-so. He’s the CEO of a cable station that aspires to rival CNN.”

Darcy let her eyes sparkle. “Does personality enter the picture at all?”

Elaine’s lips smiled, her eyes didn’t. “I’m fifty-something, kiddo. I’ve been married twice and lost money both times. I want Ebenezer Scrooge this time. Rich and stingy—except when it comes to me. Barring that elusive miracle, I’ll have to hope and pray our little newsmagazine can break a story that has our big Manhattan brothers scrambling to catch up.”

“So that would be a no to the personality question.”

On the street with the burn of the early-evening sun on her shoulders, Darcy let Elaine pull her to a stop. “Get me an exclusive, okay? The magazine needs it. Your coworkers need it. I need it.”

“I’ll do my best.” Darcy tweaked her editor’s collar. “In the meantime, go home, cool down, get ready for tonight. I’ll see you Monday.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

It was the tone of her voice more than her words that echoed in Darcy’s head.

Too revved to return home, she detoured to the gym, the wonderfully cool gym with the fitness instructor whose hot body paled next to the memory of a certain P.I. she was determined to run, punch or meditate out of her system.

Of course it didn’t work, but then she didn’t expect it to. Any man whose face haunted her patchy sleep wasn’t likely to be blown off that easily.

After showering, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a white tank top, packed her gear and headed for home.

Her arrival was greeted by a barking dog and the lingering traces of a barbecue. Mrs. Brewster’s cat, Hodgepodge, lay on his back on the sidewalk with his paws in the air. Overhead, a faint breeze rustled the neighborhood trees.

Crouching as she passed, Darcy tickled Podge’s tummy and received a yawning meow in response.

She realized with a twinge that she’d forgotten to set her house alarm when she’d left today. Foolish? Yes. But on the plus side, the front hedge had been trimmed as promised, and there was still a glimmer of light in the sky.

Her cell phone rang while she was climbing the porch stairs.

She glanced at the screen. “Oh, good. Perfect.” She flipped it open. “I thought you’d be long gone by now, Marlowe.”

“Guess we both thought wrong.”

“So are we talking choice here or police order?”

She imagined his faint smile. “You found the body, Darcy.”

“After you got us into the motel room.”

“What can I say? Val’s captain’s a fan.”

“Which means you’re staying by choice, then.”

“A dead client in a bathtub isn’t good enough reason to stay?”

She dropped her keys in a bowl, her purse and gym bag on a high-backed chair. “Aren’t you the one who said he didn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody—what was it your friend called you— M?”

“Val can’t get his tongue around my name after a few drinks. Calling me M is the simple solution.”

“Your friend had more than a few drinks last night if the coat I saw on his tongue today was any indication. I’m going out on a limb here, Marlowe, but I’d speculate that Detective Reade has some serious issues in his life.”

“And you know someone who doesn’t?”

Removing the bush hat she’d bought in Sydney, she shook her hair. “Tell me, have you always lived on the dark side?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Darcy.”

“To which you give very few answers.”

Wedging the phone between her shoulder and ear, she reached into the cupboard. “I saw your Land Rover at Hannah Brewster’s this morning. I’m sure she was delighted to talk and talk and talk to you, but I could have saved you the headache and told you she didn’t see or hear a thing Thursday night. If she had, the guy who attacked me wouldn’t have made it out of the yard.”

“Thanks for that.”

“No offense. She just goes into superhuman mode in times of trouble, which, frankly, I’m surprised she missed that night.”

“She misses more than you think.”

Darcy dropped three large ice cubes into a glass. “Sorry, I’ll need a hint for that one. Has something else happened?” When he didn’t answer, she frowned. “Marlowe?” Sighing, she opened the fridge. “Come on, it’s too hot for games. What is it you know that I don’t?”

“Look behind you, pretty lady. You’re not alone.”

Darcy’s heart leaped into in her throat. Her fingers froze on the handle.

The voice hadn’t come from her phone.