Little Black Book of Murder (30 page)

“I can fend off a seduction attempt all by myself.”

“But what would he do?”

I took the question seriously and thought for a minute about the way Michael's mind worked. Finally I said, “He'd probably have you ambushed when you least expected it. I'm not sure about how much bodily harm would be involved, but it would be a terrifying incident forever seared into your mind. And I'd never hear a single detail about it.”

“So you keep secrets from each other?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will you tell him about you and me?”

“There is no you and me.”

“Does he tell you everything?”

“There are no other women, if that's what you're asking.”

“You seem very sure about that. But I meant about his business. Does the pillow talk include mob secrets?”

“He doesn't have to tell me about his business if I don't ask about it.”

Into a short silence, Gus said, “That's interesting, isn't it? A version of don't ask, don't tell. And here I thought all you Americans set great store by truth and honesty.”

“Truth isn't always in Michael's repertoire. So I don't push.”

“And you can live with that?”

“Yes,” I replied, having come to terms with the way things were. To have Michael in my life meant reaching an uneasy impasse on many touchy subjects. I understood that now. His fidelity was faultless. But there were issues—­business issues, family issues—­that he would always keep close to the vest. And with a child on the way, it was perhaps even more important than ever that I trust him to make the right choices.

“What's this?” Gus said when his headlights lit up the roadblock beside my mailbox. Two gigantic SUVs were parked nose to nose, and a band of dangerous customers hung around in the cool air, smoking cigarettes. When it became apparent that Gus wanted to turn into the lane, they backed off, taking up positions that could best defend the house against invaders.

I said, “Heightened security measures.”

“Bloody hell, what for? The zombie apocalypse? Are they armed?”

They weren't supposed to be armed—that was all I knew. I rolled down my window. The man who came over to my side of the convertible was one of the part-­time mechanics in Michael's motorcycle shop. I suspected he was the full-­time leader of a marauding biker gang. He wore a chain for a belt and had a long, crooked scar on his cheek. If the zombie apocalypse was coming, I wanted this one on my team. I leaned out the window and said to him, “It's just me.”

He waved us through, giving Gus the evil eye through the windshield.

Sedately, Gus drove up the lane and around the house. He parked and turned sideways in his seat as I unfastened my seat belt. “Nora,” he said.

“Thank you for bringing me home. And for behaving yourself. I'm really not up to fighting with you tonight. I'll be in touch in the morning.” I reached for the door handle.

He put his hand around the back of my neck. “Nora.”

I turned my head to look him straight in the eye, one brow raised. “Do you have a death wish?”

He kept his hand where it was, gentle, with his thumb extending up into my hair. Quietly, he said, “I was only going to say that you've held up admirably through all this. You've worked hard on the story, and I know you have learned more than you've told me so far. I'm trusting you to come clean eventually, though, right?”

“Don't ask, don't tell,” I said. “Try it on for size.”

He leaned a little closer. “Have you ever been to Australia?”

“I get sunburned.”

“We have beautiful moonlit nights.”

“Good night, Gus. Don't walk me to the door.”

I climbed out of the car and walked to the back porch in the too-­high, loose shoes and the skimpy dress with as much dignity as I could muster. Gus made a spin in the gravel. I wondered if he was heading back to finish what he'd started with Marybeth Starr. I didn't think he was going home to his own bed.

I was just about to go into the house, when another vehicle roared up the drive and narrowly missed nailing Gus's car to the pasture fence. Emma's truck.

She braked and climbed out, leaving the engine running. Still wearing my black suit, she ran around to the passenger door and opened it. She was fumbling with something inside, so I went to investigate.

“Em, what are you doing back here?”

Over her shoulder, she said, “My conversation with Hart was short.”

“How short?”

“Like, he was having a fight with his wife, so we didn't have much time for pleasantries.”

“What happened? Did you talk? Did you reach any conclusions about—”

She turned around to face me. In her arms, she held a baby in a blue blanket.

“Oh my God.” I could barely remain standing. “Is that—?”

“His name is Noah.” She had a funny grin on her face—­half giddy, half terrified.

“Emma!”

“Quiet, Sis. You'll wake him up. Although I think he's a champion sleeper.”

“What are you
doing
?”

“I took him. Why the hell not, right? His parents don't want him.”

“They don't
want
him?” I realized I was holding my hair with both hands, as if to rip it out of my head if one more disaster showed up on my doorstep. Setting fire to Starr's barn was bad. But this was the big one—­the colossal explosion at the end of the sizzling fuse that was my little sister.

“With all the shouting, it was hard to tell. Look. Doesn't he have a cute nose?” She tilted her bundle ­toward me.

I looked at the little boy in her arms, and my panic melted into something almost like sanity. I tried to speak calmly. “Em, do they know you have him? Hart and Penny?”

“I'm not sure,” she said. “Maybe. Kind of. Things were a little dicey. So, look, I need some help.”

“I just sent our lawyer home.”

She dug back into the front seat of the truck and came up with a huge bag. She looped the strap over my shoulder. “Here's the diaper bag. There are diapers and wipes and a change of clothes. And some of my milk, too. It's frozen, but all you do is thaw it out, and you're good to go. I don't know how the bottles work, but I figured you'd know. He's got stomach trouble, so take it easy when you feed him.”

“Have you gone completely crazy?”

“And he needs some special kind of vitamin, but I'll have to pick those up tomorrow. I think he can go a day without them.”

“Em,” I cried, not caring if I woke every baby from here to Siberia. “You can't do this!”

“Yes, I can. I'm leaving him here with you.”

She dumped the baby into my arms, and I made an instinctive grab to hold him tight.

Emma had tears in her eyes, but she was laughing, looking both completely insane and delighted with herself. “I gotta go,” she said. “I've got a lead on a Filly Vanilli. Black market. It'll cost me a bundle, but you'll see—­he's gonna love it. I'll be back in the morning.”

“You're going back to see Hart, aren't you?”

She started back around the truck, but she turned. Instead of responding to my question, she said, “How are you? Pregnant?”

“I don't know yet,” I managed to say. “Maybe.”

She gave a howl of delight. “Way to go, Sis! See you tomorrow!”

“Em!” I called before she jumped behind the wheel.

“Yeah?”

I had a zillion questions to ask her. I wanted to wrestle her to the ground and ask them all—­or maybe beat her senseless. But I said, “What's his name again?”

“Noah!”

I watched her go tearing out the driveway. Then I stood for a long time in the darkness, cold in the Versace dress, but somehow hot inside, too. I held the sleeping baby and looked down into his moonlit face, wondering if the day could possibly get any more bizarre. But also thinking there was nothing, but nothing more amazing than a perfect child held close to the heart.

I went into the darkened house and found Michael asleep on the sofa in the dark living room, wrapped in the cashmere throw, his face buried in a throw pillow. The dying embers of the fireplace flickered across his sleeping frame, and nothing had ever looked so comfortable and tempting to me in my life. In that moment, I was overwhelmed by a tsunami of exhaustion, and all I wanted was to be held in his arms and told that everything would work out soon.

I dropped the diaper bag on the coffee table and put Noah down in the middle of the big armchair across the room where he would be safe. Then I kicked off Emma's shoes and stripped off the Versace, leaving it on the floor. In my bra and undies, I climbed onto the sofa to wake Michael as gently as I knew how.

I slid under the throw and wrapped my arms around his neck. I kissed his bristled cheek and snuggled my breasts against his chest. He woke up a little and gathered me closer, murmuring something against my hair. At once I felt him ready to make sweet, hot love with me, and there was nothing I wanted more at that moment.

But first I whispered, “I brought a surprise home.”

Over my head in the gloom, Michael said, “I think it's you who's gonna get a surprise.”

I looked up at him standing over me in the dark, but at the same time I felt his arms around me, his legs tangled with mine and his hands on my bare back. My brain couldn't quite make the jump to understanding why he was both beneath me and standing beside the sofa. It took a second before the right synapses kicked in.

I gave a shriek and leaped off the sofa in a single bound. I grabbed Michael and spun around to see who was the man on the sofa.

A complete stranger sat up with a bleary grin. “You must be Nora.”

Michael eased me behind him and said, “Nora, this is my brother.”

I peeked out from behind Michael at our newest houseguest. “I—­I—­I thought he was in jail!”

“Not that brother,” Michael said. “This is Frank. Little Frankie. My dead brother.”

“Not so dead.” Little Frankie lazed on the sofa, one arm cradling his head as he smiled up at the two of us. He had Michael's curly dark hair and the same shape to his face. The same lazy-­eyed grin, except his eyes were dark, not blue. He wasn't quite as substantial as Michael, not quite as broad through the shoulders and chest. Clutching Michael from behind, I couldn't fathom how I could possibly have mistaken them.

Michael yanked the cashmere throw off his brother and calmly passed it to me. “He's not staying. He'd be out of here by now except for a transportation problem. He'll be gone in the morning.”

“Probably,” Little Frankie said.

I wrapped the throw around myself. “Why are you here in the first place?”

“I made the drop.” Pleased with himself, he stretched like a cat. “I brought the cash, saved the day.”

I looked up at Michael. “You borrowed money from your dead brother?”

Grimly, Michael said, “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Stay away from him. He's trouble.”

His phone rang in his pocket, and he walked down the dark hallway to answer it.

While I hugged the throw around my body, his brother continued to smile at me with a lazy-­lidded, secretive Abruzzo attitude. He said, “Mick didn't tell me you were a babe.”

W
hile Michael muttered to someone on the phone, I hastily gathered up my dress and the diaper bag and the sleeping baby and endeavored to make a dignified exit.

“G'night!” Little Frankie called after me. The throw slipped off me, and he laughed.

From the beginning of my relationship with Michael, I knew he had two living brothers who rotated in and out of jail. But Little Frankie had disappeared a few years ago and was presumed to have been killed by an enemy of the family. I had tried reading through newspaper archives to learn more because Michael certainly hadn't welcomed any discussion of the subject. The details of Little Frankie's disappearance had been hazy.

I guessed his reappearance was supposed to be equally hazy.

When I got upstairs and put Noah in the middle of our bed, the baby gave a yawn and a burp, but didn't wake—­a champion sleeper, Emma had said. He rubbed his nose with his tiny fist and relaxed back into sleep. I put a fresh pillowcase down in the Pack 'n Play where Max sometimes slept. Then I changed Noah's diaper. He woke up for that but seemed content to take a long, solemn look at me while I dressed him warmly in a pair of Humpty Dumpty socks and a sleep sack from the diaper bag. The room was already cold and would be colder by morning. When I put him down into the portable crib and covered him loosely with his blue blanket, he dozed off again. I turned off the bedroom lamp, and the crib disappeared into the shadows.

I sat down on the bed, got out my cell phone and called Hart Jones.

When he answered, I was all business. “Hart, it's Nora Blackbird. Please don't worry. I have Noah here with me.”

“Hi,” he said, sounding rushed. “Can I call you back?”

“Of course, but—­well, I just want you to know that he's fine.”

“Okay, great. I'll call you.”

He hung up on me, and I stared at the phone for a long moment.

“For heaven's sake.”

I put the phone down and took a quick shower. I had just pulled my nightie over my head when Michael let himself in the dark bedroom.

He dropped his cell phone on the bedside table and turned to me. Because he hadn't shaved in hours, he had a criminal sort of bristle on his face, but his gaze was warm with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said, brushing out my hair. “Armand was wonderful.”

Michael looked blank. “Who?”

“Cannoli. That's his name. Armand.”

“Really?”

“He's been your friend for years, and you don't know his name?”

“I guess I forgot it.” Michael was starting to look a little punchy. “He's been Cannoli since we were kids when his dad was my father's lawyer. Did the cops ask you questions?”

“No, there was a fire alarm that disrupted everything. I have to go back sometime. But I told them about Zephyr's track record, so they're going to be busy for a while.”

“And Rawlins?”

“They let Rawlins go tonight, too. They still don't know who killed Swain Starr. Libby was there, and a girl whose boyfriend pulled a fire alarm—­but that can all wait. Michael, why is your brother here?”

He sat down on the bed. “Because Dolph took my car and ran off with Zephyr.”

My hairbrush hit the floor with a clatter. “He did what?”

“Dolph quit and left with the supermodel. She said he was just her type and she couldn't wait to be alone with him.” Dazed, Michael said, “They stole my car. I imagine they went off to find a hotel to consummate whatever they forged in the last twenty-­four hours of staring across the kitchen table at each other. Personally, I think it's only going to last until she sees what he eats for breakfast.”

In shock, I stood in the middle of the bedroom floor. “Dolph and Zephyr are an item? Did you warn him about her?”

“I did. He thought I was kidding. The cops showed up about half an hour ago, looking for her. Little Frankie had to hide under a bed while I reported my car stolen. The cops have escalated a full-­blown manhunt for Zephyr. Dolph, too, now. Me, I just want my car back. Ironic, huh? Me getting my car stolen.”

“Michael.” I was dizzy, keeping it all straight. “Dolph and Zephyr?”

“Hey, I couldn't stop them. There was lust in the air. Speaking of which—” He made a grab for my waist and pulled me to the bed. “Every time I saw you today, you seemed to be wearing less than the time before.”

“Your brother certainly got an eyeful.”

“My turn,” he said, tugging at my nightie while pulling me down onto the bed. “Right now I want to stop thinking about everything and just be with you.”

I managed to deflect his hands. “Michael, we have a lot to talk about.”

“Can it wait until morning? All I want is—”

His plan was interrupted by a little squall from the portable crib.

Michael sat up. “Max is back?”

“No,” I said. “This is someone new.”

I went to the crib and picked up the baby. He was wide-­awake this time, kicking his way out of his blue blanket. He put his fist in his mouth and frowned when it wasn't what he wanted. He had feathery fair eyelashes and the Blackbird dark blue eyes.

Michael stayed where he was, his face slack with surprise. “What the hell is this?”

“Emma's baby.”

Michael couldn't speak.

“His name is Noah.”

I sat beside Michael and showed him the little boy. “Emma gave him to me in the driveway. I called Hart to say his son was here with us, but he hung up on me. He said he'd call back, but I—­well, he sounded very distracted.”

Michael still hadn't touched the baby. He said, “Emma kidnapped him?”

“That's what I thought at first, but now I don't think so. Hart was abrupt on the phone just now, but he didn't seem surprised or concerned really, just in a rush. There's something going on, but I don't know what.”

“Call him back. Call him now.”

“Okay, but—­look, I think Noah must be hungry. Emma brought some milk. He has a delicate tummy, so we probably shouldn't let it get too empty. Here, take him, will you? And I'll make him a bottle.”

Noah was kicking up a fuss and gave a full-­throated yell.

Michael didn't take the baby from me. Instead, he said coldly, “Call the kid's dad.”

“I will, but I can't do everything at once. Take him, please?”

Michael moved back on the bed. He shook his head. “He doesn't belong here, Nora. We need to get rid of him. Tonight.”

“It's after midnight. We can keep him for a few hours.”

“No. Get him out of here.”

“Michael—”

“I mean it, Nora. For one thing, the police will have a field day. But more important, it's not good for us having him here, even for a night. It's going to get complicated—­you know that.”

“It's all right to have your brother downstairs, but not an innocent child? What's wrong with you?”

He made a grab for his phone. “What's Hart's number? I'll call him myself.”

I checked and gave him the number, but when Michael punched the keys and listened, Hart didn't pick up.

“I'll try Penny,” I said. “Hold the baby.”

“I don't want to hold him.” Michael got up and backed himself against the dresser.

“What has gotten into you? You play with Max and Lucy all the time.”

“Max and Lucy are family.”

Noah might have been family, too. Maybe I hadn't realized how hard the decision had been on Michael. His face was stormy.

“Okay, I'll call Penny,” I said. “But I'm going to feed him first. I can't talk to her on the phone with her baby crying in the background.”

One-­handed, I found the milk in the diaper bag and carried it into the bathroom. I ran one of the half-­frozen bottles under the hot tap until it was warm enough. By the time I managed to assemble the bottle, Noah was howling. Finally, I got everything right, and he seized onto the bottle as if he'd been starved for days. I carried him back into the bedroom and found my phone again. Michael paced the room while I tried searching for a number for Penny. But I couldn't manage the baby and the phone at the same time. The cell phone slipped from my hand and fell on the floor.

Without a word, Michael finally took the child from me.

Unencumbered, I rapidly went through my phone and flipped through my old day planner before I found a viable number for Penny. I dialed.

She picked up on the fourth ring, sounding sleepy.

I gave her the same quick explanation I had given Hart. “I have Noah here,” I said. “He's safe and sound.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

“Would you like to come get him?”

She yawned. “No. Not right now.”

Whatever was going on in her household, I couldn't imagine. I must have said something about talking again in the morning, but she only sighed and hung up.

I tried Emma's cell phone. She didn't answer.

I sat down on the bed. “I think Emma's with Hart.”

Michael didn't argue with my theory. “Where?”

“I don't know.” I looked over. Michael had Noah in the crook of his arm, and the baby was still sucking down milk like a pro. I said, “I don't know what's going on. I can't imagine what anybody is thinking.”

“They're not thinking,” Michael said. “They're certainly not thinking about this kid.”

He still hadn't called Noah by his name.

Michael's cell phone jingled.

Sounding a little chilly myself, I asked, “What's going on that you're getting phone calls at this time of night?”

“It's a thing,” he said, easing Noah into my arms. “A thing I have to do for Little Frankie.”

“Because he lent you money?”

Michael didn't answer me. He went down the hall before he took the call.

By the time he came back, I had fed and burped Noah and put him back down to sleep. I brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. I could have crept downstairs and found the shopping bag from the drugstore. I wanted to take the pregnancy test. But I'd have to make my way past Little Frankie. And tonight really didn't feel like a night for celebrating anything.

And I wondered if Michael would welcome the news of a baby. His reaction to Noah's appearance in our home worried me.

I put my phone on the night table in case Hart should call. Or Penny. Or Emma. Anyone who could explain what was going on with the baby in our midst. I turned off the lamp. I was half asleep when Michael slid into the bed and pulled me close.

“You okay?” he murmured.

I sighed, unable to express how many ways I wasn't okay.

He kissed the back of my neck. “I'm sorry about the kid,” he said in my ear. “It's just—­it's dangerous, him being here.”

“Dangerous?”

Gently, Michael said, “I don't want you getting your heart broken, Nora.”

I turned into his arms, grateful to hear his words. He kissed my mouth and found a warm spot with his fingertips, and I felt my whole body grow languid at his touch. In a while, he rolled me onto my back and whispered that he loved me. I let him have what he wanted, felt his mouth on me until I gasped, both of us forgetting the complications, the tensions. For a while, we were slow and quiet with each other.

“Better?” he asked when he had finished.

“Yes,” I whispered in his arms. “And no. In the morning, we'll talk. Can we talk?”

But Michael was already asleep.

It occurred to me that he had been using sex to try to make everything better, to make me happy. It was his way, like cooking me enormous quantities of comfort food, I thought fleetingly as I drifted off to dreamland. It was easier for him than talking things through.

Noah did not turn out to be a champion sleeper, after all. He woke us up at five, wanting breakfast. I slid out of bed and made him a bottle, but he wasn't satisfied with food alone. He wanted to be entertained, so I took him down the hallway to another bedroom to rock him. He knew my face wasn't familiar, but he studied me and listened to my voice. Finally, when I was singing “Little Bunny Foo Foo,” he rewarded me with a big, toothless smile that melted my heart, and I knew what Michael had meant. I was getting attached already.

So I put Noah down in the portable crib and tried to go back to sleep. But he was soon crying again, and this time Michael got up and walked him around while I zonked out for another hour. Eventually I figured it was time to give up on sleep. I dressed, tucked my phone into the pocket of my jeans and took Noah downstairs, tiptoeing past Little Frankie snoring on the sofa.

While I warmed a bottle and toasted the last of the artisan bread, I tried to find the drugstore bag with the pregnancy test inside. I couldn't locate the bag anywhere in the kitchen or the scullery or the laundry room. I began to think somebody had thrown it away. Noah was happy to be carried around, though, and eager for his breakfast. I tried to feed him slowly and burped him twice to ease his digestion. After we ate, I put on the old jacket I kept on a peg at the back door. I wrapped Noah up in a towel from the laundry room and grabbed the jar of maraschino cherries from the fridge. Then we went outside to look for Ralphie.