Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Nancy
I regretted my decision once I was seated across from Liam in the mirrored pink interior of Luigi’s Diner. I also regretted that I hadn’t left my hair loose or worn contacts instead of glasses. And something a little lower cut.
Not that I had cleavage to speak of, but still.
He just waited patiently across the table from me, sipping his tea. After a couple of minutes of that, my control snapped. “What?” I demanded. “What are you waiting for? What are you looking at?”
He discreetly looked away. “I was looking at you. You look ...”
“What?” I demanded. “Unapproachable? Aggressive?”
His mouth twitched. “Not at all.”
“What, then?” I demanded.
“Great. You look great, Nancy.” His velvety voice was low, caressing.
I wrapped my arms across my chest. “I’m sorry. Long, significant silences make me twitchy. I appreciate you being nice, but I look like hell, so please stop saying that.”
His eyes narrowed. “You look stressed and scared, but that doesn’t keep you from looking good. And I’m sorry about the long, significant silences. They’re hardwired into me. I’m not much of a chatterbox.”
“Oh. That’s okay.” I stared down into my coffee and fished Liam’s copy of Lucia’s letter out of my pocket, unfolding it.
“And yes, I am scared. Very scared. Mostly, I’m scared that things didn’t happen the way the cops think they did.
Lucia wrote this letter, but we never received it.
Someone took it during the first break-in.
And your classic dickhead burglar looking to trade a TV or a diamond ring for a hit of meth?
That guy is not going to take this letter.
That guy does not give a shit about this letter. ”
Liam nodded. “Agreed. He absolutely doesn’t.”
His quiet agreement rattled me even more. I’d been half-hoping that he would talk me down from this terrifying line of reasoning, but now it looked like I had to face it head on.
“So who took it?” I went on. “And what is this ‘thing’ she’s referring to? What’s the deal with these pendants she gave us? And if she had this great big hairy family secret, why didn’t she tell us before, goddamnit?”
Liam cleared his throat. “Maybe she was?—”
“What the hell does she mean by that crack about ‘what it did to her father’? And who even knew she was married at all? What kind of mom just sort of forgets to mention that pesky detail to her daughters? Even if they are adopted?”
Liam waited patiently for me to get my ya-yas out. People were starting to peek at the scene I was making. I hunched over my coffee cup, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m freaking out on you in public. The breakfast date from hell.”
“You’re a great breakfast date,” he said. “Very entertaining. It’s just one humdinger after another. I can’t wait for the car chase.”
My snorting giggle sprayed coffee over the table, but when I looked up from sponging coffee off my cuffs, he was looking pleased with himself.
“You know what scares me the most?” I said.
“The responsibility. Because I have no proof. Nothing to help the cops. Nothing to convince them things are different from what they’ve already concluded.
Just spooky hints about a menacing secret.
Some mysterious, sinister ‘thing’ that I’ve never heard of.
I don’t know what or where it is, just that somebody wants it.
And that somebody might have killed my mother.
And gotten away with it. And I’m the only one who knows. ”
There it was. I’d said the unsayable. I let out a shaky breath. Liam just accepted my words, not reacting, not negating, just acknowledging them with a grave nod.
I hid my face with shaking hands. “If somebody killed Lucia, I have to do something about it,” I said, my voice low. “I can’t just let it go. But what?”
“One step at a time,” he said in a soothing voice. “Let’s start with the necklaces. She said that they’re a key. Do you know what she’s referring to?”
I held up the pendant that glittered at my throat.
“She has to be referring to these. They came the day before yesterday, hand delivered directly from the jeweler’s shop.
Evidently, she’d commissioned them for us before …
before it happened. Three pendants, each one decorated with our three birthstones.
They’re reproductions of Renaissance jewelry, but knowing Lucia, the gold and the gems are definitely real. ”
He leaned forward, peering at the pendant. I unclasped it and handed it to him. He examined it from every angle and passed it back. “Very pretty. Looks great on you.”
“Thank you,” I said, reclasping it. “That’s what I thought, too.
It’s just pretty. A beautiful replica of a fifteenth-century noblewoman’s pretty bauble.
No mysterious keys to menacing secrets that I can tell.
And probably expensive. More than Lucia should have spent, considering that she was renovating the house. ”
He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “It might be worthwhile to talk to the jeweler who made them. Find out more.”
I nodded. “An excellent idea. I will do that. This very day.”
“I’ll take you,” he suggested. “We can go together.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I have my car, and you must have all kinds of things to do, so?—”
“Nope. Nothing at all to do. I was going to work on Lucia’s house today, and I can’t do that now, so I’m just kicking my heels. Don’t fight me on this. You’ll lose.”
Whew. There it was, a naked challenge, right out there in the open. I blinked as I studied his set jaw, his narrowed eyes. Hello, Mr. Alpha Dog.
Here it was: the part in the script where I made it abundantly clear that he was not the boss here, that he was not dealing with a fluttery pushover, and that my decisions were entirely my own, thank you very much. Buh-bye.
The words wouldn’t come out. Just a strangled silence and lots of nervous blinking.
The truth was, having some company today would be very nice. Having big, tough, hard-muscled, keen-eyed, hyper-protective company? Even better. Stellar, in fact.
Maybe, just maybe, I could let him have this one. Like a chunk of meat flung to a hungry wolf. But just this once, mind you. Never again.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said.
He lifted his teacup, eyes smiling over the rim, figuring he’d scored a point. “Whatever you like,” he said magnanimously. “Be my guest.”
His expression made me squirm on the cushion. “What do we talk about, then?”
His lips twitched. “You were the one who wanted to change the subject. I was fine with the subject.”
“Don’t start with me,” I warned.
“Not at all. Relax.” He reached out, pausing as I flinched, and touched my forehead with the tip of his finger, massaging the anxious crease between my brows as if trying to erase it. Hah. Good luck with that.
“Oh, that’s just my face,” I said. “That never goes away.”
His boldness made me feel naked. I hadn’t known there was a good side to feeling naked, but with Liam Knightly, there was. The feeling was both exciting and unsettling.
I stiffened my spine. “So, Liam,” I said. “Tell me about yourself. Lucia told you about me, and that puts me at a disadvantage.”
His smile faded. I felt a flash of regret for killing the charged moment, but I hardened myself. I had to be tough with this guy. Guarded.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Whatever is relevant. You’re not married, engaged, or seriously involved, I assume. Lucia wouldn’t have thrown me at your head if you were.”
“True enough,” he agreed.
“So what’s wrong with you?” I threw out the challenge.
He looked mildly curious. “What do you mean, ‘wrong with me’?”
I shrugged. “One would think that a guy like you would’ve been taken by now. You must be, what, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-six,” he confirmed.
“Thirty-six,” I repeated. “How have you escaped the noose for so long?”
“I don’t see it as a noose. I haven’t met the right woman yet, and I won’t settle.”
My phone rang as the waitress arrived with our food.
It was the manager of the venue in Indianapolis where Peter was performing in three weeks, calling to postpone the date.
I made a note, promised to check the artist’s availability, then hung up and gave Liam a tight smile.
“Back to this ideal woman. What’s she like? ”
His eyes narrowed. “How would I know? I haven’t met her yet.”
“You must have a list of qualities you want. What’s on your list?”
Liam eyed me over his cup as he sipped his tea.
“Not really a list,” he said. “None of these items are dealbreakers, just preferences. My ideal woman is a good cook, I guess. Likes to bake. Wants children. Would consider being a stay-at-home mom, but I’m flex on that.
She’s relaxed, mellow, likes flowers, gardening.
Loves to hike. Likes animals. Dogs, cats, horses. ”
My heart sank like a stone . Which was dumb.
After all, I had no designs on the guy. Why should it matter if I was the opposite of his ideal woman?
I loved my cat, but I couldn’t tell a pumpkin from a hollyhock.
Children? What a concept. I hadn’t given up hope of maybe having at least one someday. But cooking? Baking? Hah.
Liam went on. “She puts home and family first. She’s content with simplicity.”
“I get the vibe,” I said. “Earth mother. Cultures her own yogurt. Dips her own candles, makes her own soap, carves her own toothpicks.”
His lips twitched. “You’re jerking me around.”
My cell rang again. It was a presenter of a concert series in Portland, Oregon, who wanted Mandrake’s promo packet. I took down his data and promised to send it.
“You know, that thing has an off button,” Liam said.
I looked at him blankly. “What’s your point?”
He sighed. “Never mind. You haven’t touched your sandwich.”
I looked down at my turkey club. “I’m not really that hungry,” I admitted.
Liam frowned. “Try to get down at least half of it.”
“I don’t want to argue about my sandwich. I want to know more about this ideal?—”
“You’re not going to learn anything worth knowing if you come at me with that attitude,” he said.
I carefully set down my coffee, startled. “Oh. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Okay,” he said. “Didn’t mean to snarl. You get a free pass after what happened today. Multiple free passes, actually.”
I stared down while Liam finished his omelet. “I’m not sure what just happened,” I said after a few minutes. “But it was definitely my fault.”
“All I know is, one minute I was talking to you, and the next minute I had an uptight, bitchy stranger wearing a Nancy mask all up in my face. It was jarring.”
“Sorry.” I blinked back a startling rush of tears.
“Don’t be. Come on, Nancy. Indulge me. Eat some of your sandwich. Please.”
Oh, please. What did I have to lose by obliging him? I picked it up and took a bite.
We talked, carefully, about neutral topics. I managed to eat almost three quarters of my sandwich. When the bill came, he snatched it from my hand and looked offended when I tried to pay my share. Wow. I’d never met one of those guys, although I’d heard that they existed in the wild.
Liam opened the truck door for me, then climbed in. “Where’s the jeweler located?”
The paperwork was now buried in the rubble at Lucia’s house, but the name, Baruchin’s Fine Jewelers, was burned into my mind, and the search engine on my phone revealed that it was a couple of towns away.
The time it took to drive there was spent in conversation that was probably calculated to keep me calm, but it didn’t work.
We pulled up in front of the jeweler’s storefront, but the metal sliding doors were down. Closed, on a Saturday at noon? Those were prime shopping hours. Everything else around was open and bustling with activity.
My neck prickled as I got out of the truck. A small restaurant, Tony’s Diner, was next door. I went inside and slid onto a stool at the counter. Liam followed.
A middle-aged lady with a dark red bouffant came over with a coffeepot. I smiled and held out my cup. “Coffee, please. I have a question. I need to speak to the jeweler next door about a delivery. Are they on vacation, or something?”
Hot coffee slopped out of the pot and onto my thumb. I jerked back with a gasp as the red-bouffant lady’s face crumpled.
She set her coffee down, covered her face, and fled into the kitchen.
I glanced at Liam as I sucked on my scalded thumb. “Not a good sign,” I said.
“It sure isn’t,” he agreed grimly.
After a moment, a bent, scowling elderly man with bushy white eyebrows and a paper cook’s cap came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. He scanned the counter and headed straight for us.
“You folks was askin’ Donna about Sol Baruchin?”
“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t know Mr. Baruchin personally. I just needed to ask a professional question?—”
“Old Sol’s dead,” the man said heavily. “He got murdered.”
Cold silence seemed to grip the entire room. Everyone was frozen, listening. Not a spoon clinked.
“M-m-murdered?” I echoed, in a tiny whisper.
“When?” Liam asked.
“Last night sometime. Hell of a thing. Him, his wife and his mother-in-law, all three of ‘em. Christ, the mother-in-law was bedridden. Musta been ninety, ninety-five years old. Goddamn animals. I got this cop buddy, comes here for breakfast. He tipped me off about it. Frickin’ horrible mess. Just horrible.”
I covered my mouth with my hands. I couldn’t breathe. Cold pooled in my belly and spread in every direction. My vision swam.
“Sol’s been having breakfast and lunch in this joint every day for the last thirty-five years,” the old man said, his voice dull.
“Donna’s all broke up. Christ, it’s hard enough at my age, with friends dropping like flies from heart attacks and strokes, without some sick bastard murdering ’em.
So, anyhows.” He shook his head, his wrinkled mouth compressed into a grim line.
“Sol’s shop ain’t gonna be open anytime soon, miss. ”
I tried to answer him politely. Nothing would come out of my mouth.
Liam smoothly filled the gap for me. “Thanks for telling us what happened,” he said. “I’m so sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks.” The old man turned and shuffled back toward the kitchen, shoulders bowed.
I stumbled out into the street, desperate for a gulp of air, but it was worse out there, with the murdered Baruchin’s shuttered shop right in my face. “Let’s get away from here.”
“Sure thing.” Liam unlocked her door, hoisted her in. “Where to?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere.”