Flipped Out (30 page)

And that really was all. Sure, what they’d done was probably unethical, and it was certainly unpleasant. But it wasn’t illegal. Nobody had made Aurora Jamison get into that car. She could have called a cab to take her to the TV station. What happened to her, ultimately, was her own fault. Even if someone seemed to think it was Nina’s. And Tony’s, if that person had killed him because of it. And it was starting to look that way.

“You need to be careful,” I said.

“I’ve already figured that out,” Nina answered.

19

After Wilson filmed Derek installing the kitchen counter, we all moved outside to the front porch.

I wasn’t sure how many of the others had heard Nina’s and my conversation in the utility room, but I thought a few of them looked at her sideways. Nina didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she pretended otherwise. I exchanged a look with Derek while Ted moved next to Nina in a silent show of support.

Fae really seemed to enjoy my Adirondack chair, especially after I started painting it yellow. It did look amazingly like Swiss cheese, and it would look adorable sitting next to the front door. Maybe I could find a pillow with the Jarlsberg logo, or at least something burgundy and dark blue, to approximate it. Stamped with the number of the house, maybe. Fae wanted to know how to make the holes, so Wilson filmed me painting the chair while I explained—to Adam—that we’d cut the holes with a drill and different drill bits in different sizes. This morning, Adam’s name for me was Evie, so it took twenty minutes to get the thirty-second segment in the can.

While we were doing that, Derek hauled out the old door we were planning to make into a porch swing and we got to work, drilling holes in the corners to attach chains and nailing on the small headboard. Wilson filmed that, as well.

In the middle of the day, we broke for lunch. The crew dispersed, and Derek turned to look at me. “Wanna take a break?”

I stood and stretched my back. “I wouldn’t mind driving over to Cortino’s Auto to see if Peter’s had a chance to look at Josh’s car.”

“We could just call,” Derek suggested.

“I’d rather just go.”

“You just want an excuse to look at Peter,” Derek said, but he was grinning. I grinned back. Peter Cortino is probably the best-looking man in Waterfield, although Derek runs a close second. Except for this week, when Adam’s polished good looks might have them both beat. Personally, however, I find both Derek and Peter infinitely more attractive than Adam, with his gym-rat muscles and high-gloss veneer. There was nothing real about Adam, while neither Derek nor Peter are afraid of getting their hands dirty by doing an honest day’s work.

“What did you and Nina talk about in the laundry room earlier?” Derek wanted to know as he drove the car down Cabot Street in the direction of Cortino’s Auto Repair. “I caught a few words, but between the drilling and the camera and Adam screwing up the words, I couldn’t keep up.”

I gave him a rundown of what had been said, and he whistled. “Fae looked pretty disgusted when she came into the kitchen.”

I nodded. “What they did to Aurora Jamison was despicable. But it wasn’t criminal. I really don’t think they meant for her to die.”

“Probably not,” Derek admitted. “And Tony didn’t deserve to die for it, either. If that’s what happened.”

“Don’t you think it was?”

“Twenty years is a long time to wait.”

“Maybe it was—” I stopped as a thought ran swiftly through my head and out the other side.

“What?” Derek said.

“Something Nina said. That Aurora had a baby. That’s why Tony wasn’t interested in her; he didn’t want to get tied down.”

“So?”

“If Aurora had a baby twenty-one years ago, that baby would be around twenty-two now.”

“Or a few years older,” Derek said. “Some people call them babies until they’re at least three or four. And if Nina and Aurora weren’t close, she might not have known exactly how old the child was. Aurora probably didn’t bring it to work.”

“You just want it to be Adam.”

He looked at me. “Don’t you?”

“I’d rather have it be Adam than Fae,” I admitted. “I like her. But I think he’s probably too old. Would Fae have the strength to stab Tony several times with a screwdriver, though?”

“I imagine she might, if the incentive was big enough. And he’d be less likely to worry about being alone with her, too.”

True. “I can’t remember where either of them are from. Fae’s attending Kansas City University, but I don’t know if she was born there. And Adam . . . I just can’t remember. But neither of their last names are Jamison. Adam’s is Ramsey, and Fae’s is . . .”

“Cameron,” Derek said, and swung the truck into the lot in front of Cortino’s. Waterfield is such a small town it takes only a few minutes to get anywhere. “Aurora sounds like a single mother. The baby may have had the father’s name.”

“Or Jamison could have been a stage name. Or TV name.”

“Let’s get this out of the way first, and then we can try to figure out where they were born and whether either of them could have been Aurora’s child. One thing at a time.” He got out of the truck and slammed the door. I did the same.

Jill Cortino nee Gers was Derek’s high school sweetheart, and through the ordeal of his marriage to Melissa and hers to Peter, and everything that had happened since, the two of them had managed to remain good friends. It’s Peter’s former loft on Main Street that Derek lives in, and it was the Cortinos’ little boat we’d used to get back and forth to Rowanberry Island for the past four or five months.

Jill was in the office when we walked in, and lit up when she saw us. Getting up from the stool she’d been perched on—with a little difficulty—she made her way around the counter and over to us to hug us both. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You, too,” I said, while Derek put a hand on Jill’s stomach.

“How are things in there?”

She beamed. “Just fine. Due date is still November.”

“Do you know what it is yet?”

She turned to me. “Another girl. Now we’ll have two of each.”

“What’s her name going to be? Petunia?”

The other Cortino children are called Peter Jr., Paul, and Pamela. Petunia seemed a logical, if unlikely, choice.

She made a face. “God forbid. Peter wants to name her Portia. I’d prefer Penelope or Polly. Or maybe Piper.”

“Lots of pretty
p
names out there.”

She nodded. “We still have a few months to figure it out. So what can we do for you two?”

“Wanted to see if Peter had had a chance to look at Josh Rasmussen’s car,” Derek said, glancing through the window in the door into the shop itself, where a couple of cars were sitting high up on lifts while men in greasy overalls walked underneath. “It drove off the road into the ocean yesterday.”

Jill nodded. “Peter pulled it out last night. Took the biggest tow truck up there, with the longest hook and line he could find, and pulled it all the way up to the road. It spent the night drying out, and he’s been looking at it this morning.”

“And?”

“Ask him.” She opened the door to the shop and yelled for her husband. A few seconds later, he came running and burst into the office, eyes worried.

“What’s the matter,
cara
?”

I mentioned Peter’s good looks earlier. He’s Italian, with curly black hair, velvety brown eyes, and the kind of bone structure Michelangelo used to carve. He’s also wonderfully devoted to his wife, who doesn’t look like the type who ought to have ended up with a gorgeous specimen like Peter. Jill’s a little dumpy, with fluffy blond hair, a plain face, and too much junk in the trunk. Peter adores her. As evidenced by their rapidly expanding brood.

That’s where the worry lay, of course. Jill was pregnant, and Peter treated her like she was made from spun glass. When she called, he came running, just in case something was wrong.

“Oh,” he said now, smiling as he noticed us, “it’s you two. What can I do for you? Truck need servicing?”

Derek shook his head. “Just wondered about that car you pulled out of the Atlantic last night. Have you figured out what was wrong with it?”

“I already called the chief of police. Brake lines were cut. Simplest way in the world to cause an accident.” His brown eyes glanced off mine. I shuddered. Yes, I knew. It wasn’t that long since we’d been here, hearing the same news about Derek’s truck.

“Foul play?” Derek said.

Peter shrugged. “Doubt anything that wasn’t a knife could have cut ’em that cleanly.”

“Thanks.”

“That all you wanted to know? You coulda called for that.”

“We’ve spent every waking moment over at the house on Cabot Street,” I said. “We needed a change of scenery.”

Derek grinned and put an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll get outta your way.”

“How are things going at the house?” Jill wanted to know. “We heard about Tony Micelli. How awful!”

Peter put his arm around his wife, as well. “Any idea who did him?”

“We’re working on it,” I said.

“Same guy who cut the brake lines on Josh’s car?”

“That’s the assumption.”

“Be careful, then. That could easily have gone much worse.”

“I need to talk to Wayne,” I said when we had left the auto shop and were back in the truck. “Tell him everything Nina told me. And tell him to keep an eye on her. If someone killed Tony because of what happened in Kansas City, then Nina has to be next. Don’t you think?”

“Seems that way,” Derek agreed. “Unless whoever killed Tony did it for a different reason.”

“What reason could that be? Given the anonymous letters, isn’t Kansas City the most logical explanation?”

“It’s logical. But it doesn’t explain Stuart. Or Josh’s brake lines. Unless someone thought Josh was taking Nina to dinner.”

I sat back on the seat. “So maybe someone’s just trying to ruin the show. Maybe Tony caught someone in the house trying to rig another accident, and then she had to kill him to keep him quiet.”

“She?”

“Fae is the logical person. She’s the right age to be Aurora’s daughter, and she’s got a connection to Kansas City. I think maybe Wayne needs to put her in the cell next to Melissa’s. That would protect her, too, if Josh’s brake lines were cut to get Fae.”

“In that case, I guess Nina was the one who cut them,” Derek said. “She realized that Fae knew about what happened to Aurora, and that Fae had been writing the letters, and that Fae had killed Tony. So Nina sabotaged Josh’s car thinking that he’d taken Fae out to dinner again. If she was upstairs, and saw Josh drive up, and saw—from the third floor—Shannon get into the car, she might have thought Shannon was Fae.”

I shuddered. “Now we
really
need to talk to Wayne. Before anything can happen to anyone else. If Nina tried to kill Fae, and Fae is planning to kill Nina . . .”

“I’m on it,” Derek said, and stepped on the gas.

We found Wayne at the police station, struggling with paperwork. He looked relieved when we interrupted him, although that passed as soon as he heard what we had to say.

“Fae?” he said, looking dismayed. “That sweet little thing? You really think she could have stabbed Tony to death?”

This was directed at Derek, who shrugged. “Rage can give people extra strength. Fear, too. And she’d have surprise on her side. Tony wouldn’t expect it.”

“Or,” I said, having just thought of something, “maybe she didn’t do it. Maybe Wilson did. He’s her uncle.”

“How do you know that?” Wayne turned to me.

“Someone told me. Josh, I think. She’s a college student at Kansas City University in Missouri, and this is just a summer job.”

“Nice work if you can get it.”

I nodded. “That’s what I said. And Josh told me that Wilson is her uncle and he set it up for her.”

“No one mentioned that to me,” Wayne said.

“Maybe they didn’t think it was pertinent.”