Fat Chance (11 page)

Once I was alone, I checked every lock on every door and window. Still a little spooked, I hunted for things to jam in the window tracks. I spent the better part of an hour duct-taping pens together to make sticks to prevent the windows from being opened. Well, they probably wouldn’t hold, but at least I’d hear them snap if my skeleton freak decided to come back.

I reheated my dinner, then multitasked by channel surfing and powering up my laptop. Just for good measure, my cell phone was on the sofa next to me. Every so often, I was distracted by movement outside my sliding glass doors. Palm fronds swaying on the breeze, gecko skittering across the patio—everything inspired a stab of fear.

“Get a grip,” I muttered. I had every light burning, including the floodlight mounted over the back door. So much for cutting corners on my Florida Power and Light bill. Every shadow had me itching to call Liam and ask him to…
what
? Nope, there was no way I’d call him to play protector.

When I went into the kitchen, I peered through the dusty blinds, hoping to see Sam’s car in the parking lot. No such luck. Not that it mattered. Sam, bless him, is a bigger girl than I am.
At best, he’d probably try to subdue an intruder by wrapping him in tulle.

Going back to the sofa, I logged into eBay. If anything could get my mind off the skeletons—a word that should never be plural, by the way—it was a cruise through the online auctions for new Rolex parts. I found a couple of links, but the end dates for the auctions were days away. Only eBay novices place bets days out from the end of an auction. No, the smart way to do it is to wait until the last minute of bidding, then swoop in and grab the item away from the high bidder. I clicked them into my
watched items
files and switched to searching for new clothes.

The rational side of me knew I should be conserving every penny, but the put-upon side of me knew I was going back to school on Tuesday night. Like a six-year-old, I decided a new dress might be just the thing to make the first day of school tolerable. Tolerable was going to cost me, though, because I’d have to use expedited shipping to get anything before Tuesday.

The eBay gods were smiling upon me. In under a minute I found an adorable, worn once, Juicy couture silk dress in my size. I winced at the two-hundred-dollar minimum bid, but the painterly circles and scalloped hemline called to me. With just a hair of hesitation, I typed in my bid but didn’t hit the Submit button. There were still four minutes until the end of the auction and no bids listed. I couldn’t risk alerting other professional eBayers to my interest.

Opening a new internet window, I logged into the
Palm Beach Post
archives. I searched for robberies on Palm Beach covering the Melinda foster care years up to six months ago, when she lost the house. There were literally hundreds. Narrowing the search, I entered the zip code for the 33480 area. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that as the population of Palm Beach County
swelled, so did zip code boundaries. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

I spent three and a half minutes constructing a time line of zip codes for the area, then flipped back to eBay and submitted my bid. As I’d feared, my two-hundred-dollar bid was rejected as too low. Quickly, I raised it to two fifty, but that was rejected as well. Disappointed, I muttered, “You win,” to ClothesHorse2 and decided a Sunday trip to the Gardens Mall was my best alternative.

Opening a Word document in the background, I began cutting and pasting three dozen robbery articles into a single location.

The sound of my cell ringing made me jump. Glancing at the iPhone screen, I read Liam’s number and chewed my lip as I debated answering. Screw it—I let it go to voice mail, which I ignored as well. A minute later I received a text message from him: I’m standing outside your front door.

I texted back: Go away.

Instead, he started pounding, and, fearful that Mrs. Hemshaw might take up arms again, I reluctantly went and opened the door. A crack. With the safety chain attached.

He smelled male and comforting, but I knew from experience that didn’t mean safe. “What?”

“Heard you had another skeleton in your closet.”

“It wasn’t real.”

“Heard that too,” he said as he raked his fingers through his hair. “Still, I figured you might be freaked out.”

“You figured wrong,” I said with more conviction than I felt.

“Let me in,” he said, clearly irritated.

Okay, so I was totally trapped between a rock and a Liam place. If I didn’t let him in, I’d practically be admitting that I
didn’t trust myself around him. If I did let him in, there was a possibility I’d prove that to be true.

Closing the door, I slapped the chain off and yanked the handle. Pivoting on the balls of my feet, I walked back to the living room pretending that I didn’t care if he thought I looked good in my Betsey Johnson dress. Or that he noticed my freshly pedicured bare toes before I tucked my legs beneath me on the sofa.

If he did, it didn’t show as he casually sank down next to me. “What are you doing?”

Trying not to think about the fact that your thigh is brushing against my knees.
“Since you alienated Melinda, I’m looking into robberies. My mother said the medallion was stolen, and it happened while Melinda was living in the cottage. I really want to know who that girl is…
was.
”

He lifted his arm and rested it on the back of the sofa. My heart skipped a beat when he absently wrapped a lock of my hair around his forefinger. The temperature in the room felt as if it had vaulted twenty degrees. Perspiration trickled between my breasts as my stomach knotted in a tight ball of desire.

Correction. A tight ball of
stupid
. I swatted his hand away, which, judging by the curve of his smile, amused the hell out of him.

“You’re over the rebound period,” he said, his voice an octave deeper as he began leaning toward me. “New rules.”

Placing my palms flat against his chest, I stopped his forward motion. “Don’t.”

Those blue eyes locked on me and drew me in like a tractor beam. “Don’t do this?” he asked, pressing his lips to my collarbone.

“Yeah.”

“Or this?” he asked as his hot mouth trailed upward until I felt his tongue against my lobe and his warm breath tickled my ear.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said easily. “Wanna let go of my shirt?”

Only then did I realize that I’d grabbed the front of his shirt and was practically clinging as every nerve ending in my body quivered with desire. “Yeah.”

“Got any beer?”

“In the fridge,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek so my body would focus on pain rather than pleasure. I watched him stroll into the kitchen. More accurately, I zoomed in on how his faded jeans molded his particularly fabulous butt and muscular thighs. “Bring me one too, please,” I said, hoping more alcohol would addle my brain.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a beer drinker.”

“I’m not, but I didn’t think you’d mix me a Cosmo.”

“Happy to.”

“Okay, then I’ll take the Cosmo.” Screw beer—a 100 percent alcohol drink was far more expedient than a beer. Besides, as far as I was concerned, the only difference between beer and urine was temperature. Oh, and I knew beer was the not-so-ex-Mrs. McGarrity’s beverage of choice.

Thinking about Ashley doused me like a cold shower. I might be past the rebound stage, but Liam’s life was still tangled with his ex-wife’s. The last thing I needed was a man with baggage.

He delivered the Cosmo and I took a sip. It burned sweetly down my throat, bringing with it some liquid sanity. I motioned to his beer with my glass. “Feel free to take that with you when you leave.”

He smiled. “Tossing me out?”

“Yes. I’m working.”

He tipped the bottle and took a drink. “You’d rather work than fool around?”

Um, no!
“With you? Yes.” The lie rolled off my citrus-liquored tongue with ease.

He drained the bottle. “Your call. Lock up after me.”

I should have been thrilled that he made a speedy departure. Instead, I leaned against the cold faux-wood door and guzzled my Cosmo to drown my loneliness and the residual desire that still had my insides all twisted.

The man made me crazy, and the last thing I needed was more crazy in my life. What I needed was mindless entertainment.

After placing my glass in the sink, I went into my bedroom and stripped off my clothes, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and washed my face. Going to my dresser, I opened my lingerie drawer and rummaged around, looking for the new stuff I’d bought last week. “Son of a bitch!” I muttered.

My intruder had left the skeleton but taken my brand-new-tags-still-on LaPerla thongs. “Great, just what I need!” The image of some frat boy wearing my expensive panties on his head really frosted my cookies.

A
T LEAST YOUR INTRUDER
had good taste in lingerie,” Becky said as we strolled past the fountain in front of the Gardens Mall.

I’d valet parked by the entrance next to the Brios, knowing without even discussing it that the two of us would have dinner after I replaced my pilfered panty.

“Where to first?” she asked.

I was itching to take the immediate right into Crate & Barrel, but I didn’t dare. Whatever money I’d decided to blow would be on new school clothes and replacement undies. “Victoria’s Secret.”

As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy the Juicy Couture dress at full price at Nordy’s than it was to do my back-to-school shopping. I came within seventeen dollars of the five-hundred-dollar limit on my Victoria’s Secret credit card.

“Sephora?” Becky asked, her green eyes glinting.

“Absolutely. A new shade of lip gloss will cheer me up.”

“Doing Liam would have cheered you up more,” Becky said quietly as we waited by the glass elevator.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you about that.”

“Sure you should have.” Becky and I stepped into the elevator. “It’s the closest I’ve come to foreplay since the Clinton administration.”

I laughed, glad we were alone in the elevator. I was pretty sure a stroller-pushing mommy would have been horrified by our conversation.

“Don’t repeat that,” she said. “I already get enough grief from the other girls on my pitiful social life. Speaking of Liv and Jane, how come they didn’t join us?”

“I haven’t called them yet,” I admitted as we exited the elevator and turned toward Sephora. “I know they’ll both freak out, and it isn’t exactly something I want to shout from the rooftops.”

“Did you give your thirty-day notice at your condo?”

My shoulders slumped. “Not until Harold gives me a completion date. After yesterday, I’m half tempted to call and tell him to work around the clock.”

Becky was eyeing the fragrance row. “You can stay with me.”

I gave her arm a squeeze. “I know, thanks. But I’m not going to let a silly prank rule my life. I went out this morning and bought metal protective bars and industrial locks for the windows and the sliding door. Installed them myself without breaking a nail.”

Becky laughed. “Practicing to be a homeowner already, eh?”

“I think I was more motivated by the memory of my dresser drawer and that stupid skeleton.”

I detoured over to the display of new lip glosses from Stila. Unable to decide between a sweet watermelon shade and a deeper, bright fuchsia, I bought them both.

We spent the next two hours meandering through the designer shops and upscale department stores—Coach, Tiffany’s, Nordstrom. Of course, I punished myself by going to visit the couture section. A mannequin was wearing the adorable, painterly circled, silk sundress with the scalloped hemline. I stood there admiring it as one might admire a Matisse or a Rembrandt. Debt sucks.

Unlike me, Becky was free to purchase three new dresses and four pairs of shoes. I felt a pinch of envy, but that was nothing new. Unless I took a stealthy detour to the clearance section, I was done shopping. Odd that I felt just fine telling Becky all about some guy raiding my panty drawer, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her know that I couldn’t afford full retail. We’d been friends for more than a decade, but admitting my shopping secret to my best friend would make it too real.

Eventually, after we loaded the packages in my car, we were seated alfresco at the Brios. Becky ordered a gin and tonic, while I opted for a San Benedetto iced tea. This was one of the few restaurants that carried the Italian import, and since I was driving, I went nonalcoholic. Reading the stack of fifteen-year-old police blotters I’d printed out promised to be mind numbing enough.

“What do you think about Tony?” Becky asked as she ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass.

“Tony the man or Tony the guy they just brought in as a new partner?”

Becky frowned. “Can you believe they just decided to open a new division and brought in an outsider?”

“I’m sorry.” This was the first chance I’d had to tell her that since learning about Caprelli joining the firm. “I know it sucks for you.”

Becky blew out a breath and twisted her more-red-than-
brown auburn hair into a knot at the base of her neck. “Caprelli is a rainmaker. He’ll bring in business and make the partnership shares bigger.”

“You bring in business,” I countered.

“Criminal cases can generate hefty retainers. Contracts, while lucrative, don’t usually command hundred-thousand-dollar retainers.”

I felt my eyes grow huge. “That’s what he charges?”

Becky nodded, then lifted her menu as the waiter arrived. She ordered the pasta special, while I, still hearing my mother’s unflattering comment about my four-pound weight gain, went for a large salad. Twenty-nine, and my mother was able to remote control my diet.
Pathetic.

“He was a big deal in the New York DA’s office,” Becky said. “Then after his wife died, he went to work for the largest criminal defense firm.”

I ripped a hunk of warm bread from the basket but passed on the herbed oil dip. “Think he’s still in mourning?”

“I can’t tell. I’d respect it if he is, but if he isn’t, did you catch those dimples?”

“I dreamed about them,” I joked. “But he’s got a kid.”

Becky waved her fork for a few seconds. “That could be a plus. Skip the whole pregnancy thing but still have a family with the added bonus of no ex-wife to fight over alimony, custody, and visitation every six months.”

“That’s a little cold.”

“It’s practical,” Becky insisted. “Marrying a widower is way less complicated than playing stepmother to a child whose parents are divorced. How many stepmothers do you know who are loved and cherished by their stepkids?”

“Jonathan,” I answered quietly.

Becky groaned. “Yes, my point exactly. Your stepfather never had to compete with your biological father.”

“Whoever he might be.”

“My point exactly. It would be the same kind of deal with a guy like Tony.”

“Have you met the daughter?”

“She was in yesterday.”

“And?” I prompted, my interest genuinely piqued.

“She’s polite. A little on the shy side. About as beautiful as a kid can be. She’ll break a lot of hearts growing up. Then marry an equally pretty man and have a bunch of pretty children.”

“Aren’t you rushing ahead a bit? Isn’t she, like, ten?”

“Yep, but I have a good eye for this sort of thing.”

“Being such an expert on children, of course.”

“At least I didn’t waste two years on lying Patrick.”

“Touché.”

“Is he still trying to weasel his way back into your life?”

I nodded.

“Wearing you down?”

I waited to swallow my mouthful of salad and then said, “Nope.”

“Really?” Becky pressed.

“He sends me flowers every week and he’s called a couple of times.”

Smacking her hands on the armrests of her chair, Becky frowned at me. “He’s getting to you. I can see it in your eyes.”

“He wasn’t
all
bad.”

“No, he was all liar. C’mon, Finley, you have to be strong on this one. Past behavior is always the best indicator of future behavior. And his sucked.”

“I know,” I admitted, folding my napkin and placing it to the right of my half-eaten meal. “I just hate being single.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be single, either. One crook of your little finger and Liam would come running.”

“With Beer Barbie right behind him.”

“You don’t know that,” Becky said for the millionth time. “Maybe they’re just happily divorced people.”

“Divorced with benefits.”

A mischievous grin curved Becky’s lips. “So offer him a better benefit package.”

I
WAS HAPPILY STUFFING
the third handful of Lucky Charms into my mouth as I picked up a document on the Palm Beach robberies. So much for any plans for getting rid of my four bonus pounds. On the plus side, with my fancy new locks and metal bars jammed in the tracks of all the windows, I felt completely safe and secure.

I’d changed into a pair of cotton ladies’ boxers with cute pink hearts on them and a matching spaghetti strap top. To complete my ensemble, I pulled on a pair of aloe socks I’d bought online. Cracked heels were the kryptonite of cute sandals, and besides, I just liked the soft feel.

To go with my Lucky Charms, I made a fresh pot of strong coffee and settled into my bed, with all the throw pillows behind me for support.

Reading the crime beat is about as interesting as reading the ingredient list on a bottle of cough syrup, but I couldn’t think of any other way to find out if the skeleton and the robbery at my
parents’ house were somehow connected. Popping a marshmallow clover into my mouth, I focused on the oldest cases first. Most of the things listed were a line or two, giving me little more than stuff like “A break-in occurred in the such-and-such block of S. Ocean.” Quickly, I printed out a map of Palm Beach, went into my kitchen junk drawer, and retrieved a set of Sharpies. Using a different color for each year, I started marking the locations of the robberies.

Information on the first few years didn’t yield much, but slowly a pattern started to emerge. After 1994, all the robberies took place within a five-mile radius of my cottage. Maybe the cluster meant something, but without specifics about mode of entry, items taken, dates, times, et cetera, it was tough to find anything tying the robberies together.

About three hours into my task, I came across an article written in May 1996. The credited reporter’s name was Justin Kearney. Aided by an unnamed law-enforcement informant, he claimed the robberies were linked by the way the robbers had entered the homes and that there was strong evidence to indicate inside help.

Glancing at my bedside clock, I decided ten thirty wasn’t too late to phone the only person I knew who knew everything. The question was, could I call Liam without caving and asking him to come over?

“McGarrity.”

“How do I get my hands on the actual police reports for robberies on Palm Beach from January 1993 through May of 1996?”

“Hi, Liam, is this a bad time?” he mocked.

“Is it?”

“No. Why do you need the reports?”

I heard an annoying female giggle in the background. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. Was it Beer Barbie Ashley, or did he have some other woman? “So how do I get the reports?”

More silly girly giggles. “Give me an hour or two and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks,” I said and pretty much slammed the receiver back on its cradle.

Knowing that he was spending an hour or two having sex with God-knew-who really screwed with my confidence. On the bright side, at least we were both getting screwed. Only I wasn’t enjoying mine at all.

I did discover that in a two-hour-and-seventeen-minute span you could consume an entire box of Lucky Charms and a half carton of cookie dough Häagen-Dazs. Oh, and three pots of coffee. It was almost 1:00 a.m., and I was on such a sugar and caffeine high that it would be hours before I could even consider falling asleep. Like some sort of sick stopwatch, every fifteen minutes my mind conjured a vivid image of Liam sweating up the sheets.

I hated him and I hated myself. I hated him more. A soft knock at my door startled me. Seeing Liam through the peephole flat out shocked me.

Removing the chain, I yanked the door open and tilted my head back so I wouldn’t break eye contact. “What are you doing here?”

From behind his back, he pulled an eight-inch stack of file folders. “Police reports?”

“How did you…forget it,” I said, taking the files and standing there in awkward silence. “Was there something else?”

“I used to be a cop, remember? I thought you might want my help deciphering some of that stuff.”

“You thought wrong, but thanks,” I said breezily as I derived great pleasure in closing the door on his handsome face. I slipped the chain in place, then listened for the unmistakable belch from the motor of his Mustang.

Silence.

Looking out the peephole, I saw him leaning against the doorjamb. I winced, knowing it would only be a matter of seconds before I crumbled and let him inside. I winced because obviously he knew I’d let him in too.

Resigned, I opened the door and led him into the living room. As I placed the folders in the center of my coffee table, Liam cozied up right next to me. I turned and gave him my best back-off glare.

He was impervious. Sitting, he grabbed me around the waist and planted me next to him. My top had ridden up slightly, so his large, callused hands made contact with my flushed, traitorous skin. He was still wearing jeans and one of his signature Tommy Bahamas shirts, making me feel ridiculously under-dressed.

“Let me go put on some clothes and makeup.”

His grip tightened. “You’re fine as you are.”

Not a compliment, not criticism. Pent-up desire was eating my brain like some sort of parasite. “I don’t feel very professional like this,” I insisted, twisting away from him and practically hurdling the coffee table and ottoman to get to my bedroom.

In record time—twenty-two minutes—I switched to shorts and a baby doll top over one of my new bras and thong. With so little time, I had to do the blush on cheeks and lids with a little mascara and some lip-gloss thing. Almost by habit, I squirted some Lulu Guinness on, then picked up my laptop and marked-up map on the way back to the living room.

“Very colorful,” he commented as he looked at my map.

I explained the color scheme, then asked, “Are these in chronological order?” as I pointed to the folders.

“Yep. When do you want to start?”

“January of ’93.”

Liam grabbed a folder. “January second at nine in the morning a call came in from the housekeeper at 101 El Marisol.”

“Wait!” I grabbed the folder from him and scanned the two-page report. “That was my mother’s and Jonathan’s house. He died in April of that year.”

“Sorry about your stepfather, but I thought that might get your heart started. The housekeeper showed up at her regularly scheduled time and found one of the east-facing doors—that would be the beachside—open. Since none of the Tanners were in residence, she checked the house and found jewelry, a coin collection, and several small statues missing.”