2 Bodies for the Price of 1 (25 page)

Allegedly, it was the hobby to which he attributed his sobriety. Indeed, it looked as if it required a steady, patient hand.

After being in the company of Jack Terry with his rough edge and unpredictable moods, being with Coop was a relaxing break from all the conflict in her life. Too soon, they were pulling into the town house driveway.

She smoothed a hand over her ponytail and sighed with pleasure. “Thanks for the ride, Coop. That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

“I’m glad.” He nodded toward the closed garage. “I’m pretty handy with cars. I’d be happy to take a look at the Miata some time.”

“Would you? I’d be eternally grateful.”

He grinned. “Yeah?”

His flirting warmed her face, and she recalled her thought last night that she should be opening her heart to someone who seemed eager to embrace it. “Coop, why don’t you have a girl?”

His eyes danced. “I’m working on it.”

At the sound of a car slowing down on the street, Carlotta turned to see Peter’s Porsche pulling up next to the Corvette.

“I’ll let you go,” Coop said with a wink.

“Thanks again for the ride.” She climbed out and waved as he backed out of the driveway, nursing the odd feeling that something unidentifiable was floating just beyond her grasp.

“Hi.” Peter climbed out of his car and removed his designer sunglasses.

“Hi, yourself.”

“Out for a ride?” he asked, watching Coop drive away.

“I was at a cigar bar downtown and ran into Coop. He gave me a ride home.”

Peter looked puzzled. “Are you smoking cigars now?”

She angled her head, a little irritated that she felt as if she had to justify her actions. “Sometimes. The owner is a new friend who attended the service yesterday. I wanted to pay her a visit and try to explain what happened.”

“Oh.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, frowning slightly, she realized, at the taste of cigar smoke on her breath. “It was a beautiful service, Carly. You would’ve loved it.”

She hid a secret smile that he didn’t realize she’d been there—with him—in disguise. “I’ll bet I would have. What brings you here?”

“I came to say goodbye,” he said ruefully. “I have a business trip to Manhattan, and I’ll be gone all week.

I’m sorry—I feel like I should be here for you.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m fine.”

“What if your father calls me again?”

“Then call me at home. The wiretap is gone. And I, uh, haven’t replaced my cell phone yet.”

“I figured as much,” he said, then reached inside his car and pulled out a small, slick phone, still in the package. “It’s on my service plan. You can use it for as long as you like.”

“Peter, I can’t—”

“Please, just for me. I want you to have it for emergencies.”

She sighed. “Okay, just for emergencies. And only until I get a new phone. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll call you later this week.” He turned toward his car, then snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot.” A sly smile slid over his handsome face. “I have two tickets to the Elton John concert next Monday night at the Fox. Go with me. I might even be able to arrange for him to sign your autograph book.”

She grinned. “It’s a date.”

Peter blew her a kiss, then climbed into his car and backed out onto the street.

Carlotta watched him drive away, thinking she could get used to Peter’s life of travel and entertainment.

For him and his family, money was no object. Take the concert tickets, for instance—they were probably the best seats in the house.

And not a bad way to keep her mind off Liz and Jack attending his awards dinner that night.

34

L
iz lifted herself up on one elbow and lit a cigarette. “Want to share?”

“Sure.” Wesley hated how his voice came out all squeaky. It wasn’t so much the sex—which had been great—that had him reeling. It was the fact that Liz would have sex with
him.

She took a drag off the cigarette and handed it to him. “That was great.”

“Yeah,” he said, taking the smoke and thinking he was going to have to brush up on his after-sex talk. He hadn’t had that many occasions to practice. “So, do you do this with all your clients?”

She recoiled. “Of course not!”

“I didn’t think so,” he said quickly, giving himself points for a nice recovery. “You have great tits.”

“Thanks. You have great stamina.”

“Yeah? ’Cause I can go again if you want.”

She took the cigarette from him. “Down boy. I need a drink before round three.” Liz pushed herself up from the bed and shrugged into a slinky robe. “Want one?”

“Got a beer?”

“I’ll see. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Watch some TV if you want.”

“Okay.” He watched her leave the guesthouse through a set of French doors and walk across the lawn to the main house, her body perfectly outlined in the nearly transparent robe. Man, she was smokin’ hot.

Chance would not believe this.

Wesley got up and lit another cigarette, watching until she was inside the house. Then still naked, he went into her office and started opening drawers. She was a neat, organized woman, with her client files beautifully labeled and alphabetized. In the last drawer he found the W’s, then what he was looking for:
Randolph Wren.

After a long drag on the cigarette that got his heart pounding even faster, he opened the file and began to read.

35

C
arlotta lifted her head and pulled down her beauty-sleep mask. Was that the doorbell? She squinted at the alarm clock that read 6:36. At this hour of the morning? Not again.

She climbed out of bed and stumbled to the front door, noting wryly that at least Wesley had come home last night—his fan was running. She didn’t even want to think about what could’ve kept him out so late.

Carlotta glanced out the side window and at the sight of Jack Terry standing on the stoop, groaned loudly.

She surveyed her oversize pink T-shirt and one white sock and decided she didn’t care what she looked like. After fumbling with the deadbolt, she swung open the door.

“What are you, my daily wake-up call?”

He looked her up and down, then jammed his hands on his hips. “You’re needed at the morgue.”

“Let me guess—I’m dead after all, and this is purgatory.”

He looked heavenward, then back to her. “We have an ID on the body. Get dressed. I’ll make coffee.”

She weighed her choices, which seemed to be few, then waved him in. When he closed the door, she noticed his suit was disheveled, his jaw shadowed. “You look worse than I do.”

“I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Are you bragging?”

“Hardly. Do you mind if I wash my face and hands at the kitchen sink?”

“No, go ahead.”

She scrubbed her face and teeth, ran a comb through her hair and dressed hurriedly. She rummaged until she found an unopened toothbrush that the dentist had given her and carried it to the kitchen along with a tube of toothpaste. The coffeemaker gurgled and Jack was wiping his face on a paper towel, his shirtsleeves rolled back to reveal his powerful arms.

“Thought you might need these,” she said, setting the items on the counter.

“Thanks.” He tore open the package and squeezed paste onto the brush.

“So. The woman. Who is she?”

“I don’t know yet. Abrams has the info.” He wet the loaded toothbrush and began vigorously scouring his teeth.

Carlotta frowned. She and Jack had reached a disturbing level of casual domesticity. She could count on one finger the men she’d seen brush their teeth.

On the other hand, after seeing him wearing her robe, there was no place else to go.

“Was the identification made from the prints on the ATM card?”

He nodded, then turned his back and spit into the running water. “Abrams was able to lift some partials from the body—or rather, Coop was.”

“Coop? He’s allowed to work in the lab at the morgue?”

“I think Abrams made an allowance in this case and brought him in as a consultant or something.” He resumed brushing.

From the breakfast bar, she picked up a stack of credit-card statements. “I found two of the items that the woman was wearing in the photo on my statements—the sunglasses and the earrings.”

Jack spat and rinsed. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Today,” she said irritably. “I was up until two this morning looking over these statements.”

He wiped his mouth and hands and took the sheets from her. “This will definitely help to seal the case.”

She pulled two mismatched travel mugs from the cabinet and poured coffee in them, adding a liberal amount of sugar to hers. “Ready?”

He nodded, still scanning the statements. “I’ll make copies of these once we get to the morgue.”

She picked up a scratch pad of paper. “I need to leave a note for Wesley.” Carlotta made a rueful noise.

“He still wasn’t in when I went to bed. I hope he wasn’t out doing something stupid.”

“Me, too,” Jack muttered as they went out the door.

The city morgue was about the most unimpressive building imaginable, barely noticeable to anyone driving by. “Kind of depressing, isn’t it?” she said when they pulled up.

“Guess it’s hard to justify great architecture on a building that people don’t really want to know is even here.”

She climbed out and headed for the front door. “I’m not going to have to view the body, am I?”

“No. I want you to look over the personal effects. We just need to tie up some loose ends so we can contact the family.”

A receptionist directed them to Abrams’s office and to her surprise, Coop was there. He had a special smile for her, then made introductions and added for the coroner’s benefit that it was Carlotta’s brother who worked for him.

Dr. Abrams was a slender, heavy-lidded man who looked as if he belonged in a morgue. Coop, on the other hand, looked much like he had yesterday—cool and casual. Yet utterly competent. She reminded herself that he was a physician, albeit a discredited one. But from the way Dr. Abrams responded to him, she could tell he respected Coop, if begrudgingly.

“The woman is Barbara Rook, age thirty-five,” Abrams extended a photocopy of an expired Tennessee driver’s license for a woman with long dark hair. “Last known address is Nashville. If she has a local residence, we haven’t been able to locate it.”

She and Jack studied the photo. “Do you recognize her?” Jack asked.

“No.”

“But the two of you could be sisters.”

“Except for the smile,” Carlotta said, tonguing the gap between her front teeth.

“I like your smile,” Coop and Jack said in unison, then looked at each other.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Coop lifted a cardboard box to the top of Abrams’s desk and removed the lid. “These are the items she had with her, Carlotta. Among them, a Social Security card with your name and number, a duplicate of your driver’s license and a health insurance card in your name.”

Carlotta reached into the box and removed the woman’s purse—Burberry. The wallet was Chanel, the lipstick case Judith Leiber. “I wonder if I paid for all this stuff.”

“I’d say that’s a safe bet,” Jack said. “We found a complete list of your credit-card numbers in her phone.”

“How did she get that much information about me?”

“Bought it online maybe. There’s a credit card theft ring in the Buckhead area that we can’t seem to crack.”

From the bottom of the box, she pulled a tarnished keyring that looked cheap compared to the other belongings. It had some sort of symbol on it that tickled a memory chord.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know, but it must have meant a lot to her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s cheap, yet she kept it.”

Carlotta scrutinized the abstract symbol. “I’ve seen this before, but I can’t remember where.”

“Is it a logo of some kind?”

“Maybe…I just don’t know.”

Jack’s phone rang and he walked out into the hallway to take the call.

“We’re finished here,” Coop said. “We wanted to make sure you didn’t recognize the woman and that she wasn’t a relative. The personal information of yours that she had will be destroyed.”

She nodded. “Did you find anything to explain why she killed herself?”

“No.”

“It appears that the woman just snapped,” Dr. Abrams said. “Maybe she was afraid she was about to be caught and couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Or maybe she was murdered,” Jack said from the doorway.

They all looked up.

“What are you saying?” Carlotta asked, her heart tripping double-time.

“We just got a tip from a woman who said she saw your car traveling toward the Seventeenth Street bridge and that another car was trying to get the driver to pull over.”

Jack leveled his gaze on her. “The question is, was the car chasing her because she was Barbara Rook or because they thought she was you?”

“But who would want to hurt me?”

“How about anyone connected to the two previous murder cases you were involved with?” Jack asked dryly.

“Did the witness ID the car that was chasing the Monte Carlo?” Coop asked.

“No. She said it could’ve been a Mercedes.”

“Maybe the person in pursuit wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” Coop offered. “Maybe they thought they were following Carlotta and tried to get her attention. Maybe Barbara Rook freaked out and jumped out of the car.”

Carlotta’s face grew cold as the blood drained out of it.

Jack was looking at her. “What?”

Her mind raced. How many people with Mercedes tastes would follow her and try to get her to pull over?

Only one person came to mind.

Jack came to stand in front of her. “You know something. What is it?”

“I can’t say.”

“Yes you can.”

Perspiration warmed her neck as they all stared at her. “All of you have to swear not to tell the D.A.”

Jack sighed. “I can’t do that, Carlotta.”

She turned toward the door.

“Okay.”

She turned back and he looked like an exasperated man. “I won’t tell the D.A.”

“You swear?”

He rolled his eyes, then nodded.

She looked at Coop and Abrams. “Do you two swear?”