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Authors: Barbara Colley

BOOK: Polished Off
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“Oh my goodness, that’s terrible.”
“Considering that my husband is a horrible patient, yes, it is terrible,” Janet agreed. “Anyway, that happened on Friday, and he had to have surgery that night. Last night, the doctor said he could come home from the hospital today. But it’s going to be a while before Harry can put any weight on that foot, and I have to take him in each day for some physical therapy.”
Charlotte frowned. “Please give Harry my best, and don’t worry about work. I’ll manage.”
“Thanks, Charlotte. How about I give you a call when Harry is well enough to navigate on his own.”
“Good enough,” Charlotte answered. “Be talking to you. Bye now.”
Charlotte slowly hung up the receiver. The only thing left to do was either figure out how she could pull a double workload on Tuesdays and Thursdays or simply tell Patsy she couldn’t provide maid service for her for a while.
Charlotte shook her head and thumbed through the Rolodex until she found Patsy Dufour’s phone number. Patsy’s answering machine clicked on after the fourth ring, and Charlotte ground her teeth in frustration.
Once the beep sounded, Charlotte left her message. “Patsy, this is Charlotte LaRue. I’m having a scheduling problem, but I wanted you to know that I’ll try to be by a little after lunch tomorrow to clean. If this isn’t acceptable, give me a call at home tonight or call my cell phone number tomorrow.” Charlotte rattled off the two phone numbers, then she hung up the receiver and headed for the kitchen.
Now all she had to do was to figure out what she was going to fix for supper, something that she hoped a little three-year-old boy would eat.
 
 
 
Usually Charlotte like to read a bit in bed at night before going to sleep. With Davy sleeping in her bed, she’d had to settle for reading in the living room instead.
Charlotte had just decided that she would read one more chapter before calling it a night when the phone rang. The noise both startled her and frightened her. It was already past nine, and in her experience, any calls that time of night were never good news.
She grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”
“Charlotte, hang up the phone, but turn on your cell phone, and I’ll call back.”
“Nadia?”
But it was too late. Nadia had already disconnected the call.
Chapter Eleven
F
or several moments Charlotte simply stared at the receiver. The caller had been Nadia. Of that she had no doubt. But why the cell phone business?
The cell phone.
Charlotte slammed the receiver back down and scrambled for her cell phone. Almost the instant that she switched the POWER button on, the little phone jangled to life. She pressed the TALK button.
“Nadia?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Charlotte.”
“What on earth? Where—”
“Just listen a minute. Please,” she added with emphasis, her voice low. “I’m afraid the police might have your regular phone tapped, so I thought it would be safer to talk over the cell phone.”
Charlotte had never considered such a thing, and just the thought of someone listening in on her conversations raised her hackles. She began pacing the living room. “I’m not sure,” she said, “but I think the authorities can also trace a call through a cell phone.”
“Maybe ... but I’m on a cell phone too, and I figured if I was moving around, they wouldn’t be able to get a good fix on me.”
“Where are you? Why on earth did you take off like that?”
“I-I can’t tell you where I’m at.” Her voice broke. “Oh, Charlotte, I-I’ve made such a mess of everything.” For long seconds, only the barely audible sound of Nadia’s soft sobs came through the line.
“S-sorry,” she finally stammered.
Charlotte wavered between sympathy and anger sympathy for a confused young woman who had suffered at the hands of an abusive man who also happened to be her son’s father, and anger on behalf of Daniel and Davy.
Anger won. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” she lashed out. Then, realizing how loud she was talking and afraid she might awaken Davy, she lowered her voice. “Daniel was left holding the bag, and Davy—that poor little boy—over and over, he keeps wanting to know where his mommy is. Just what am I supposed to tell him?”
“Then Davy is with you?”
“Yes, he’s with me,” Charlotte snapped. “It was either that or the Child Protection Agency.”
“Thank you,” Nadia whispered, tears in her voice. “I’ve been so worried about him. How—how is he?”
“Just how do you think he is? How would any little three-year-old be if his mother abandoned him without a word of explanation?”
“Oh, Charlotte, please don’t be so angry with me. Please let me try to explain.”
“So explain. I’m listening.”
“I-I
thought
I was doing the right thing. I really did. And—and I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“No, no, there’s not. Not always, and not this time. We both know that the first person the police would suspect is me. I thought that if I left—just disappeared—then they would concentrate on me and leave Daniel out of it.” She hesitated. “You have to believe that I would never purposely hurt Daniel. I love Daniel, and, other than Davy, he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But I also figured that even if, by some remote circumstance, Daniel got arrested, his firm would get him out on bail.” Her voice trailed away.
“Didn’t exactly work, though, did it?” Nadia whispered after a pause. “But, Charlotte, either way,
I
couldn’t risk going to jail.”
Charlotte frowned. “Wait a minute. Back up a bit. You know about Daniel being denied bail?”
“Yes, I know.”
“But how? I only found out myself this morning.”
“I—I have my sources. But how doesn’t matter. I need you to understand, Charlotte. No matter what, I still can’t go to jail.”
“But what about Daniel? What—”
“I’m pregnant,” Nadia blurted out. “Daniel and I are going to have a baby.”
Charlotte was stunned into silence. Sinking down onto the sofa, she stared at the opposite wall with unseeing eyes. No wonder, she thought. The elopement. The hasty marriage. Nadia’s so-called stomach virus. In retrospect, it all made sense ... maybe more sense than it should.
God forbid, what if Madeline had been right all along about Nadia? What if Nadia had killed Ricco? And what if she’d latched on to Daniel as insurance, just in case she was found out. Who better to have for a husband than a highly respected attorney, especially someone like Daniel, who was also considered a good catch by any woman’s standards. After all, getting pregnant to trap and hold a man was the oldest trick in the universe.
Charlotte suddenly felt her face grow warm with shame for even thinking that Nadia would be capable of such elaborate manipulations.
And since when has Madeline ever been right about anything?
“Please tell me you understand,” Nadia begged. “Please don’t think I’m a horrible person.”
“Does Daniel know? About the pregnancy?”
“Yes, of course he knows. But no one else does. We were going to announce it at the reception party we were planning for next month.”
There was one other question that Charlotte had to ask, and though it pained her, the only way to ask it was to just do it, straight out. “Nadia, did you kill Ricco?”
“No!” she cried. “Even through the worse times, it never entered my mind to kill him. All I could think about was getting away from him, getting him out of my life. Charlotte, I swear to you, I had nothing to do with his murder.”
Charlotte wanted to believe her. With all of her heart she wanted to once again be able to trust her instincts when it came to the people she cared about. But
once bitten, twice shy.
And she’d been bitten before badly.
“If anyone had Ricco murdered,” Nadia continued, each word dripping with bitterness, “it had to be Lowell Webster.”
Once again, Charlotte was stunned into silence.
No way.
“Are you talking about
the
Lowell Webster?” The man was almost an icon in New Orleans, for Pete’s sake—in the whole of Louisiana, for that matter.
“You got it,” Nadia retorted.
How was that possible? Charlotte wondered. Lowell Webster was a self-made millionaire with a sterling reputation that was beyond reproach. Numerous articles had been written about him, how he had worked his way out of the quagmire of a childhood of poverty and turned a failing import-export company into a huge success. But it wasn’t just the fact that the man was wealthy. He was respected and beloved due to his numerous philanthropic gifts to the poor. He was also the most favored candidate for the next New Orleans’ mayor’s race.
“What on earth makes you think that Lowell Webster murdered Ricco? Why would a man like Lowell Webster have
anything
to do with the likes of someone like Ricco Martinez in the first place?”
“Nothing directly,” Nadia answered. “I don’t have any real proof. But Lowell has a son, Mark, and Mark Webster is nothing like his father. In fact, he’s probably just the opposite of everything his father supposedly stands for. But Mark is Lowell’s only child, and Lowell would do anything to protect him.”
Charlotte frowned. “Maybe you’d better explain.”
Nadia sighed. “It’s a long story.” She cleared her throat. “According to Ricco, he and Mark met while they were both serving time in a Florida juvenile detention center when they were teenagers. Believe it or not, Ricco came from a well-to-do family in Miami, but he got mixed up with the wrong crowd. He was in the detention center because one night, for kicks, he and some of the gang he belonged to robbed a liquor store and got caught. Mark was in the center because he’d been busted for running drugs from Florida to Louisiana. And get this. Mark’s father thought he was on his high school senior trip.
“Anyway, while they were in detention, Ricco and Mark struck up a friendship of sorts. Mark was released first, but he told Ricco to look him up when he got out.
“When Ricco did get cut loose, he tried to go home. Ricco’s story was that his father wanted to teach him a lesson and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He supposedly told Ricco that he had shamed the family and from now on he could fend for himself. At least that’s what Ricco claimed.
“After Ricco’s so-called rejection by his father, he hitch-hiked to New Orleans and found Mark. Mark warned Ricco never to mention their detention in Florida. He said that his father had pulled in favors to get him released and was still angry about him getting caught in the first place.”
“Okay,” Charlotte told her. “That explains why Ricco knows the Websters, but it still doesn’t explain why they would want him dead.”
“According to Ricco, Mark was into some pretty nasty business. The cemetery thefts, for one. But he was also a big-time gambler. And Ricco was right in the thick of it with him. Whether it was the cemetery business or something else, you can bet that Ricco knew too much about something. Again, I can’t prove it, but I figure that Lowell was simply trying to clean up another mess his son had made so it wouldn’t come back to haunt him when he runs for mayor.”
The revelation about the Websters was almost more than Charlotte could comprehend. “That’s all well and good,” she told Nadia, “but I have to admit, I find it all a bit hard to believe. And unless you convince the police of what you just told me, they’re going to continue thinking that you’re the one guilty—either you or Daniel. Right now, as best as I understand it, the authorities aren’t even considering that anyone else could be guilty. You need to turn yourself in.”
“I can’t do that,” Nadia whispered. “Not yet. If I can’t even convince you—”
“I didn’t say you haven’t convinced me,” Charlotte retorted. “I simply said I find it hard to believe.”
“Well, it’s for sure I won’t be able to convince the police. I’m a nobody. My word against a man like Lowell Webster or even his son? No way.”
“At least tell me where you’re staying,” Charlotte urged. “In case of an emergency with Davy or Daniel,” she added.
“I-I can’t do that, either. I know you, Charlotte. You’d think you were doing what’s best for me, and you’d tell Judith.”
“But, Nadia—”
“No buts. You know that’s exactly what you’d do. But I’ll call again. I promise. And Charlotte, thanks again for taking Davy in. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather him stay with. And please tell Davy and Daniel that I love them both.”
“Nadia, you—” The line went dead. Charlotte pulled the phone away from her ear and glared at it. Nadia had hung up on her.
If ever Charlotte had felt like swearing, she felt like it right then and there. She was also tempted to pitch the cell phone just as far as she could throw it. Barely able to control her rising temper or her trembling hands, she switched off the phone and stuffed it back inside her purse.

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