Key West (61 page)

Nothing Ryan needed to know there. She must have the wrong address for her Sam. But what, he wondered, was a kill fee? He might consider it a foreign term for a hit contract, but the context didn’t fit.

Maybe it would be kind to take a look at another post from her and see if he ought to let her know Sam wasn’t reading what she wrote. Evidently she was a Brit. Wouldn’t hurt to do his bit for international relations.

“It still amazes me to think about the way we stumbled on each other. Imagine you writing to me by mistake, just trying to remember an address and getting me. Life is so odd. How can we only have met a couple of weeks ago? It feels as if we’ve known each other forever.”

And Vanni thought his partner was lonely? The way Olivia wrote to her Sam made Aiden pity her. He might even feel sad if he could remember how.

“Having a dog yourself, you’ll understand how I felt about Wilbur. He was just in too much pain to go on. I stayed with him at the end. We’d been pals for 11 years, since I was 15. Felt like forever. Even though it’s more than two years later, there’s still a hole where he used to be. Forgive me for going on about it. You’ve been so understanding. This is strange, but I can feel how kind you are.

“Your Boswell sounds a dear. How perfectly awful that those bad men hit his mouth with a baseball bat. I’m sure it was very expensive to have some of his teeth capped with metal, but you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t spare any expense to help a beloved animal.”

Aiden’s eyes glazed. Well, hell. That was it. Ryan Hill was Sam, had to be since he’d evidently claimed ownership of Aiden’s Boswell, Boss to people he didn’t hate. Very few called the dog Boss.
Bad men? Baseball bat?
Wait till Vanni got a load of this. Ryan Hill, alias Sam, and a dog-hater trying to impress some Brit female with his generosity to animals. And lying about Aiden’s Boss, an ornery retired police dog who had earned his titanium mashers by keeping his teeth embedded in a rapist’s arm while the crazy bastard slammed away at the animal’s mouth with the butt of an empty gun.

And Olivia could feel how kind Ryan was?

“Anyway,”
she continued,
“thank you for writing back so quickly. How do you stand the unpredictable weather in New York? I melt when the temperature gets close to 80, and freeze at anything below 40. Must admit that you make Hell’s Kitchen sound intriguing…”

Dear Ryan was definitely Dear Sam. So the stud who boasted that he had a woman for every night of the week and some to spare, still went looking for extra jollies among what Vanni called “virtual pals.” Who’d have thought it?

“Are you sure you have an extra room I could use? Oh,What am I saying? I know I won’t come, but it is awfully sweet of you to offer. Toddles, Olivia.”

The message had been sent about two hours ago.

He ought to check his mail and get out of here.

Slowly, he clicked on Olivia’s next post and felt an unfamiliar rush of remorse. He was snooping out of idle curiosity—and boredom.

“Sam: Thank you for saying you do mean it about the room. As I already wrote, I really appreciate the offer.”

Aiden fell back in the chair and stared. Obviously Ryan had read and responded to the first post Aiden had read. Ryan was communicating with Olivia from wherever he was right now. He was picking up his e-mail at a remote location and answering Olivia from that location.

If he brought her here, it would be obvious he’d lied about the dog. Which meant he didn’t intend to bring her here. Why would he lie about something like that?

It was just a game. People played these games all the time. Like Olivia said, she would never come to the States.

Ryan might hate Boss, but the feeling was more than mutual. So what? This was fiction—mostly fiction.

“Okay, I’m just going to tell you the truth. I’m frightened, Sam, and you’re the only one likely to give me sensible advice.

While I was out today, someone must have got into the house. I know what you’ll be thinking—why am I just writing about it now? They searched my darkroom—nowhere else—and I only just went down there. It’s in the basement. I probably wouldn’t have known they’d been here at all if I wasn’t so compulsive about keeping my work organized.

“This is weird, but! I think I know what they may have been searching for: the photos for Penny Biggles’s
London Style
layout. Ι don’t know what made me take all the prints and pegs

with me when I went out, Ι just did. Maybe it was what you told me that made me more cautious. I rang up
London Style
a little while ago. They don’t know anything about the kill fee that man called to offer me. I should try to explain myself better. As you know, I photographed a London house for Penny.
It’s a fabulous place in Notting Hill—and some of the shots will be used to illustrate an article being written about her work. At least, I still hope they will. Penny was the designer. Whoever was in here didn’t actually take anything in my workroom as far as I can tell, or move a thing in any other part of the Douse. They must have wanted these.

“London Style
told me they still expect to use the piece. So the call about someone coming here to see me and bringing money, the kill fee, but wanting to have the pictures in case they could place them was a hoax, right? Which means my photographs are valuable to someone. The authorities are the best ones to deal with this now—or they might be if I had something more definite to tell them. My friend, Mark Donnely, is an investigator for an insurance company. He’d probably have a good idea.

Aiden let the screen go black and stood up. He’d taken the prying too far.

The door opened and he jumped before he heard Vanni say, “Thought I’d find you up here. Jealousy is bad news, buddy. You covet the guy’s orchids. I hope he counted ‘em before he left.”

“Petty theft isn’t my thing.”

Vanni came all the way into the apartment. Even by the subdued light, his solid bulk and the vitality that hovered around him were big, powerful. He said, “What is your thing?”

“Reading Ryan’s e-mail,” Aiden said, for the shock value. “Actually, Sam’s e-mail. That’s who our slimy colleague is when he’s chatting up women online.”

Vanni chuckled, then was silent. Rain glittered in his dark, curly hair and on his leather jacket. He approached the computer, his substantial shoulders swinging as he sidestepped the chair to stand over Ryan’s screen. Vanni tapped the mouse and jutted his chin when he started scanning the list of mail that appeared.

“What d’you think you’re doing?” Aiden asked. “Don’t you have a conscience?”

“Yeah. Around here somewhere. Probably hangin’ out with yours.”

Aiden took a seat in the gray-leather chair again and watched while Vanni read Olivia’s first epistle, and the second. “Sheeit,” he muttered. “What’s he up to?”

“If we read on, we may find out. But we aren’t going to read on, are we?”

Vanni turned his head to look at Aiden. “Aren’t we?”

“Let’s say someone’s sneaking into Ryan’s setup…” Aiden swung the chair gently to and fro. “No, let’s say someone’s hit Ryan, buried him up in those hills, and now the killer’s infiltrating Ryan’s persona. A crazy, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Vanni said, grinning. “Poor old Ryan. And we never had a chance to finish figuring out if he’s really a cop gone bad.”

This was one of Vanni’s favorite theories. He was convinced Ryan Hill—and maybe his sinuous little partner, Fats Lemon—were on the take.

Aiden shook his head and took the mouse away. He opened the next piece of mail from Olivia. When had he started calling this stranger Olivia?

“You really think I should keep quiet about all this and bring the photos and negatives to America for safekeeping? This seems extreme, but I want to agree. I wonder why you’re so against my idea of approaching Mark. You must be reacting as an FBI agent. And you’re nervous, too, aren’t you? You think whoever’s doing this could be anyone—including Mark. That wouldn’t make any sense, but you aren’t to know that.”

Vanni snorted. He gestured as only he could. “Will you look at that? He thinks he’s more irresistible as a fed than NYPD. Schmuck. Maybe my ambition’s changed. Why help him retire altogether? Why not get him busted down to the beat?”

“Mama,” Aiden said, “wouldn’t approve of plotting, in particular plotting for no more honorable reason than you don’t like a guy.”

“Schmuck,” Vanni muttered.

“Read on,” Aiden told him.

“Sam, maybe I’m overreacting and letting my imagination run away with me, but what if I did come to you and someone frightful followed me on the plane? Wouldn’t that be terribly dangerous? They could hold up the plane, hijack it or something. “

“The lady’s a dramatist,” Vanni said.

Aiden said, “The lady’s scared. She ought to be. Whatever game friend Ryan’s playing—if he really means he wants her and her photos here—there’s something very wrong with the way it smells.”

“Read the next one,” Vanni said, bracing himself on the desk.

“Yeah. Only twenty minutes between the two.”

“All right, I’ll come if you think it’s best to put distance between me and London. Oh, dear, Ι really am quite frightened now, Ι must say. We’ve never met, yet I feel I know you better than I’ve ever known any man. I don’t know when I should do without you. I’m alone here. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t understand, and Daddy would blunder about making such an embarrassing fuss.

“I suppose Ι could book up and let you know when I’ll be arriving. Thank goodness for credit cards. I never thought I’d say that. I hope we’ll know each other when we meet—if we meet. We should have found a way to exchange photographs. I have a scanner, of course. I know you don’t, but you could have used someone else’s.”

Aiden looked not only at Ryan’s scanner, but at the digital camera on the desk beside the keyboard. Explanation needed—soon.

“I’m very ordinary looking,”
Olivia
continued.
“Brown hair and eyes, sturdy, average height and, according to Penny, a sartorial disaster. Sorry about that. I’ll be wearing a hat. I almost always wear a hat. And I know it’s corny, but I’ll put a flower on my lapel. You could do that, too. We may as well try to lighten things up a bit.”

That was the last post.

“Batty,” Vanni said.

Aiden agreed. “Deranged.”

“They could be perfect for each other.”

“He could be planning to rip her off.”

“What’s she got to rip off?” Vanni asked. “She doesn’t even have the price of an airline ticket.”

“It’s an expensive ticket.”

“Not that expensive.”

The bell announcing incoming mail rang on Ryan’s computer. OliviaFitz’s name showed up together with,
“That man just rang up again. He asked if I’d thought about the kill fee and said he was on his way to talk to me in person. They obviously don’t think I suspect anything. I tried to get Penny, but
s
he’s not at home and I can’t find her. I’m getting out of here. I’ll call the airport, then I’ll give you the flight number. See you in New York.”

Two

Stress made Olivia hungry. In moments of boredom, anxiety, or when the weather got really gray—which was often in fair London Town—she found herself in the kitchen, in front of the open fridge door with no memory of how she got there. But middle-of-the-night raids on Hampstead’s fragrant twenty-four-hour bakery on Heath Street spelled out-of-control emotional upheaval.

She was having one of those out-of-control upheavals tonight, or this morning. It was very early on a clear morning and Olivia FitzDurham, she who was considered slightly wacky but generally cautious, was standing before the display cases in GIVE IN AND DIE HAPPY, prepared to do just that.

The aromas were incredible. Fresh bread, Banbury cakes, Chelsea buns, custard-filled donuts that still sizzled, macaroons and Madeira cake. And those trays of marzipan fancies, the heaps of tender Battenberg slices. She wanted one of each, but most of all she wanted fresh, dissolve-in-the-mouth raspberry jelly rolls coated with coconut shavings and powdered sugar. A fresh batch would soon slide onto a wire rack and cloud the glass case with titillating steam through which she would play peekaboo with the objects of her desire.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes. Then she drew in a deep breath and heard the only other customer in the shop, a man who had just entered, echo that sigh. From the corner of her eye she saw him pick up a French loaf. Light and flaky on the outside, it would be so soft and warm on the inside.

With his teeth, he tore off one end. Olivia watched his reflection in the mirror at the back of a wall case, watched him chew rhythmically—and look at her. Even behind his dark glasses, in profile, she saw how he eyed her slowly from head to foot while steadily turning a mouthful of light bread back into dough.

She averted her face, only to be confronted by herself, and a not very appealing picture she made. Her red woolen boater sat foolishly on the back of her head and did nothing to tame the ringlet-like curls her hair sprang into when there was even a hint of moisture in the air. For the rest, her old tan raincoat belted haphazardly around her middle was a disgrace.

This was all nutty. The truth was that she knew any thought of hopping on a plane to New York to meet a man who had accidentally fallen over her on the Internet—only two weeks earlier—was out of the question. But her rapidly withering hopes for adventure made her want to do it anyway. One of her occasional silly tendencies to be superstitious caused her to fear this could be her last chance at something even remotely daring, and she didn’t want to miss it.