Pieces of You (2 page)

Arianna ignored his comment. “It’s a complicated situation. You do not want to get involved.”

Oh, yes, I do.
“I’m just curious.”

She shook her head and a swirl of golden blond sifted along her back. “She’s lying low for a little while. I took her in as a favor to a friend.”

“Lying low as in hiding?” He’d heard those words before. Classic for
in trouble and trying to get out of it.
“What did she do? Skip out on her rent?”

Arianna looked him straight in the eye and said, “She shot her husband.”

Chapter 2

The beautiful mystery woman imploded Quinn’s senses, tormenting him in ways other women never had. Her name was Danielle. He could see that name on her, could hear himself calling to her, letting the syllables slip through his lips in soft, sensual longing. He could even picture her response, a low throaty laugh pulling him in, challenging him to take what he wanted, what he needed.

He cursed his damn wandering imagination. He’d bet the Audi that Danielle wasn’t even her real name. A woman capable of shooting her husband could come up with a fake I.D. or two. Apparently this woman was quite skilled in the art of deception and storytelling. Arianna’s lips quivered when she told Quinn how
Danielle
shot her estranged husband when he showed up at their home, a residence he’d been court ordered from six weeks before. But, the ogre of a husband entered anyway while Danielle slept. She woke when she heard someone in the bedroom and just like that, had the sense of mind to grab the Glock under the pillow and blast her husband in the gut.

The stomach was a nice touch, lots of internal bleeding. Supposedly, Danielle didn’t know it was her husband, another nice touch, until she turned on the lights and saw him crumpled on the floor, bloody fingers clutching his gut. Even if Quinn believed the story, which he didn’t, how would she explain the 9-1-1 call that never happened?

“Why didn’t she call 9-1-1?” he asked, casually sipping his whiskey.

“She said she was in shock, that all she wanted to do was get away.”

“From what? A murder rap?” How could he have thought her appealing?

“A monster. Quinn, he threatened to kill her. Several times.” Arianna tilted her head to the side and watched him with cat eyes, green, glittering, opaque.

Who was she trying to convince, him or herself? “She told you he tried to kill her?” His lawyer brain created a series of sadistic possibilities; estranged husband stalks wife and tries to shoot, stab, strangle, run over, push out a window, or dismember, maybe a combination. Scenes ran through his head, a mass of black hair sticky with blood, Danielle’s pale face starch white. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d fabricated the whole story. Maybe she’d invited her husband to the house and greeted him with a bullet.

“Danielle doesn’t like to talk about it. Most of my information came from Nina, the friend I told you about. Danielle’s her niece.”

“How convenient she doesn’t like to talk about it.” Quinn swirled the whiskey in his glass and said, “Less stories to keep straight.”

“You think she’s lying?”

Of course she’s lying.
He didn’t want to hear another of Arianna’s lectures on the inherent goodness of mankind, minus her ex-fiancé, so he merely shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time a wife tried to kill her husband and claim self-defense.”

Araiana’s eyes grew wide and too damn trusting for her own good. She and Annie would make a good pair. “She’s afraid for her life. She says he’ll come after her.”

“So, that’s why she’s holed up here, making you a sitting duck?” If a sixteenth of the story were true, Arianna could be in danger and that didn’t sit well with him.

She leaned forward and clutched his shirtsleeve. “I think he beat her up. There’s real fear in her voice when she talks about him.”

The idea of a man using a woman as a punching bag sickened him. “Did she press charges? That’s why we have laws, to protect the innocent.”

“She won’t talk about it. I’m telling you, she’s afraid.”

There was too much that didn’t add up. Or maybe it did. Maybe she had been tossed around and staging a break-in was the only way to get rid of the guy. “She’s pretty good at this, isn’t she?”

“How can you talk like that? You’re a lawyer, for heaven’s sake. Not that the law does much good for the victims these days.” She pointed to him. “You know how wonderful our illustrious legal system is. It’s made you a ton of money. You and your clients with carpal tunnel, pinched nerves, bad backs. Tying up court dockets and collecting zillions from corporate America while women get beat up and left for dead by estranged husbands. Welcome to America’s judicial system.” She held up her glass and saluted him.

“You want me to feel bad for making money? Now you sound like Annie.”  

“Who’s trying to make you feel bad? I’m just telling you that while you’re raking in the cash for all those poor injured clients of yours, there are people like Danielle out there, scared for their lives.”

He didn’t want to hear any more about the mystery woman or her problems. “People create their own destinies, Arianna. You can’t tell me there’s nothing she can do about her situation but hide like a scared rabbit.”

“She
is
scared. He did a number on her.” Her voice dipped. “You know she spent three months in a psych unit after she lost her baby? She miscarried after a supposed fall, but you know that means her husband pushed her or beat her. Her aunt says she’s a different person.”

That was not what he wanted to hear, some sob story about a woman who lost a child and then lost her mind. He could see where a situation like that would make murder the necessary retribution. Lawyer or not, it’s what he would do if anyone hurt Annie, which only strengthened his gut feeling the shooting was intentional. 

“Why don’t you meet her and form your own opinion?”

“No.” He meant it. He didn’t want to meet her. Not anymore.  

“Why? Too messy for you? Might make you regret all those personal injury clients?”

“I thought you were my friend.” Sometimes Arianna could be downright brutal with her opinions. He downed the rest of his whiskey and set the glass on the bench.

“I am your friend, you know that. Maybe you could help her.” Her gold hoop earrings glistened as she leaned forward. Light, dark, dark, light. Black, white, right, wrong. “Do a little investigation. Please. See if Danielle’s husband is still alive.”

He didn’t want to get involved. Arianna was right, it was too messy. “I can’t help her. I don’t do that kind of work.”

“Please?”

He should say no and forget the mystery woman with the long black braid and full red lips. But there was Arianna to think about. “Maybe I can refer her to somebody, let me think about it.”

She looked down at her hands. “You could do it. You know you could, if you wanted to.”

The challenge hung between them. She was right. He could help if he wanted to.

“Please, Quinn. Would you help her?”

He opened his mouth to speak and was free falling to fifteen again. “He’ll probably never find her anyway, even if he is still alive. People disappear all the time. One day, they’re washing dishes at the kitchen sink, and the next, boom, they’re gone. Nobody ever hears from them again.”

***

 “I’m worried about him, Michael.”

“You’re always worried about him, Annie. And he’s always worried about you. Sometimes I’m glad I’m an only child.”

“I’m serious.” She searched for the right word to describe her brother’s lifestyle. “Quinn’s just coasting. And avoiding.”

“Avoiding what?”

“Life.” She rolled over and planted a kiss on her fiancé’s forearm. “Can’t you see it? The cars, the trips, the house, the women, especially the women.”

“They look pretty good to me, especially the last one, the blonde. Remember, the one with the big—”

She poked his shoulder, yanking the sheet closer to her naked body. “They’re all big-chested. It’s a prerequisite, didn’t you know? If they don’t have it naturally, he’ll order them up a double injection of silicone.”

“He seems happy enough, Annie.”

“How can he be happy? He buys
everything
, I think sometimes, even friendships.”

Michael traced the small birthmark on her shoulder. “There are worse tragedies than being loaded.”

“Not if it numbs you to the real world. I worry about him all the time; this trip to New Zealand, that one to Italy. A Porsche, an Audi. When does it stop?”

“Why does it have to stop? It’s the way he wants it.”

“If that were true, there’d be nothing to him but a hollow shell, but Quinn’s full of love.”

“Tell that to his women.”

“Don’t you see, they’re always the wrong ones? He does it on purpose. Surely, you know that, Michael. You’re a man, you have to see it. He chooses women he could never want long term, that way there’s no risk of falling for one of them. He settles for the foo-foo, airheads with the beautiful bodies and no backbones because he knows he’ll tire of them.” She buried her hands in her hair and groaned. “He drives me crazy. I’m going to have to watch out for him the rest of my life.”

“He probably says the same thing about you.”

“He probably does, but he’s wrong.” She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, the tip of her tongue dipping inside.

“Baby, stop. I’ve got to be at the hospital in half an hour.”

“So, that gives us ten minutes.”

He smiled and slid his hand under the sheets. “Then we better stop talking.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Annie watched Michael pull on his scrubs and sneakers. His scent, his words, his touch, filled their tiny apartment on Sycamore Street. He’d come to her two years ago as the leaves turned heavy and brilliant with color. He was in a Pediatric rotation at Hanehman where she was a caseworker for a battered three year old girl. Annie had held the child in her arms, waiting for the doctor and when he arrived, it was Michael.

He planned to continue research after he finished his residency; stem cell or Alzheimer’s. Next spring, they’d marry and buy a Brownstone with three or four bedrooms, enough to contain the four dark-haired children they planned to have. Michael was an only child whose parents belonged to a retirement community in Fort Lauderdale. He wanted a large family with tradition; turkey with stuffing and homemade pumpkin pie, stockings hung on the fireplace side by side, Easter egg hunts and hand-crafted birthday cards.

Annie wanted those traditions too, but she never told him she had no experience with any of it, that it had all evaporated eighteen years ago. Most of the pain remained in Corville, buried in a house now occupied by a young couple with two children. But some of that pain still lived inside her, lived inside Quinn too, layered too deep to be unearthed or even understood.

Chapter 3

After his conversation with Arianna, a morbid curiosity strapped itself to Quinn’s subconscious and refused to let go. Life had been too routine lately; the work, the women, the play. But this tidbit set his senses on the hunt. He visited
The Silver Strand
three times in four days under the guise of checking on Annie’s bracelet, but Arianna was no fool. She watched him with a sly smile as he sidled toward the studio and peeked through the glass window for a sign of the mystery woman.

He didn’t ask about her until the third visit. Maybe the husband was on her trail or maybe the police were. San Diego was only a phone call or a mouse click from Philadelphia. A good private eye should be able to track someone down unless the person was cunning enough to change the circles she moved in and strike out on a completely different path. Then it would be much harder, impossible almost. Desire and desperation fostered brilliant deceit. A person had to really hate something; their husband, children,
life
, to disappear with such calculated efficiency.

Then again, maybe the husband
was
dead and now the police were hunting her down for murder. He was through guessing. He’d decided to make a few phone calls to the West coast and see what he could find out.

“Annie’s bracelet should be ready tomorrow afternoon,” Arianna said, attaching a small white tag to a pair of onyx earrings. “I would have had it ready sooner, but I had to wait for the jade.”

“I didn’t come about the bracelet.”

“Oh?”

“Cut the innocent routine before I change my mind.”

Her pale face lit up. “You’ll really help her?”

Her complete faith in his ability to exact a positive outcome unsettled him. “I’ll talk to her, that’s as much as I can promise.”

She wasn’t listening. Minutes later, he found himself in the basement of her shop sitting on a purple futon. The area intrigued him with its nomadic décor of floor length tapestries covering cinder block and separating various sections of the basement. Oranges, yellows, brilliant purples and pinks splashed the walls. A group of boxes lined five high in one corner alongside a toolbox and bright red air compressor. Was this where Danielle lived? Was there a bed behind one of the tapestries or was the futon her bed?