Sailing to Capri (20 page)

“He left a letter saying he wished he could be there, but he wanted everyone to have a good time and to remember him.”

She shook her head, sighing. “I don’t know. I really don’t know if I can …”

“He wanted you to be there for the reading of his will at his villa in Capri,” Montana added. “He will make you a gift of one hundred thousand dollars if you will take the cruise—to remember him.”

She got to her feet, and he could see she was disturbed. “I must think about it,” she said. “It’s late …” She held out her hand and Montana bent respectfully over it.

“Thank you for listening to me, Señora,” he said. She smiled as she turned away. “It was Roberto I was listening to,” she said as she walked back into her house.

Bordelaise was supposed to have arrived yesterday. I’d sent a car to the airport to meet her, only to be told by the driver she was not on the flight. And not a word from her since. I paced the apartment, wondering where she’d gotten to. The house phone rang, and I grabbed it, angry as a hornet.

“You could at least have called!” I yelled.

“You missed me that much?” Montana said. Sighing, I apologized. He said he was downstairs and I told him to come on up.

“Sorry,” I said again as he stepped from the elevator. “I thought it was Bordelaise. She was supposed to be on yesterday’s Continental flight, but she’s gone missing somewhere between Chicago and London. And she doesn’t answer any of her phones.”

“Has she ever done this before?”

I said she had. “She’s a creature of impulse, a spur-of-the-moment gal. If anything more exciting comes along, she’ll take it. Regardless.”

“Want me to do anything about it?”

“She’ll show up,” I said, hoping I was right.

We sat side by side on the white sofa in front of the tall windows overlooking the gray park. It was late afternoon, and I asked Montana if he would like tea, coffee, a drink. He shook his head and said he wanted to get down to business.

“I met Dopplemann,” he said, and my eyes opened wide in surprise.

“Oh, you really
are
good,” I said. “You found him after all.” I listened while he filled me in on their meeting.

“But why did he run away?”

“That’s what I need to find out. I have a meeting in Washington tomorrow with a man who claims to have known him well.”

“An old friend?”

“I doubt it. Dopplemann’s a very inward person; it would be hard to be ‘friends’ with him.”

“And what about Rosalia and the Andalusian honeymoon hotel?”

“You could do worse than spend a honeymoon there.”

“I could do nothing worse than be condemned to go on another honeymoon. My first one was hell—ten days in Hawaii with half of L.A. and their noisy offspring and my new husband on the cell phone all the time, calling God knows who—probably some other twenty-year-old blonde he wished he was
with.
And
I got food poisoning from bad shrimp and spent two of those days in bed—alone—while he went out fishing with the guys. At least that’s what he told me. Now I wonder.”

“You can’t hang on to the bad memories for the rest of your life. Get past it.”

“Trouble is, I still don’t know what I did wrong.”

“You did nothing
wrong
except marry a bad guy.”

I looked Montana in the eyes. “Seriously, though,” I said, “do you believe I did nothing to cause a husband to walk out on me?”

“I’d guess he was just a walking-out kind of guy. I’m willing to bet he’s already walked out on the twenty-year-old he left you for and is on to the next, or maybe even the one after that.”

“He’s a jerk,” I said.

He agreed; then to my surprise, he took my hand in both of his and brushed his lips across it. Heat swept up my arm. I told myself it was only a little kiss on the hand and that of course it meant nothing, that there was nothing between us but a failed marriage and a lonely childhood. “We’re both walking wounded,” I said in a voice that trembled as he let go of my hand.

“Then let’s make a deal. I promise to protect you from the bad guys of the world, and you promise to keep me company so I won’t feel lonely.”

“It’s a deal.” We stared solemnly at each other for a long moment, then he took my chin in his hand, tilted my face up to his, and this time he gave me a proper, though gentle, kiss. I had an urge to clasp him to me, to give him the other, harder
kind of kiss, but I pulled myself together and, eyes lowered, cheeks pink, moved away.

Montana was all business again. “So now we’ve located all the suspects on Bob’s list, plus we have motives for each of them. I’ve also invited the red herrings; a guy Bob knew by the name of Brandon van Zelder, in his forties, good-looking, knows everybody who counts, good backgammon player, and women love him. He’s bringing along a young woman singer. I know her well. I thought she’d create a good diversion, entertain us when things got a little sticky. Then there’s Reg Blunt.”

“Reg?
From the Ram’s Head?”

“Bob wanted to invite him. He said he was a true friend, and believe me, Bob didn’t have many. He also wanted to invite Ginny Bunn. So, that’s our little cruise group,” he said.

Before I could comment, the house phone rang. It was Bordelaise, and she was downstairs.

She breezed in wearing skintight jeans, stiletto boots, and a Chanel tweed jacket, smelling delightfully of Arpège, the scent she’d used since we were both in our teens.

“Sweetie,” she yelled, dumping her Chanel tote and skidding across the parquet, flinging her arms around me in a giant hug that almost sent me sprawling. “I missed you,” she added, holding me at arm’s length and peering worriedly at me from under her thick blond fringe.

“I’m okay,” I said, not sounding too confident about it. “Where were you?”

She gave me a familiar grin that lit up her elfin face. “I made a small detour to Paris, darling, somebody I met in the
departure lounge at O’Hare. He was young and hot and”—she shrugged—“well, you know, I’ve never been one to resist temptation.”

I sighed. “Bordelaise, this is Harry Montana. I told you about him.”

She took in his lean, cool length. Out of the side of her mouth she whispered, “Yours or mine, sweetie, just let me know,” then she sauntered up to Montana, who was standing by the window looking very Darth Vader in his black, kind of sinister in a way that was catnip to a woman like Bordelaise.

“Harry,” she said, offering him her hand and a challenging smile.

He grasped her hand and gave her a little bow. “I’ve heard all about you from Daisy.”

She threw me a look over her shoulder. “I do hope not
all.”

“I told him you’re coming on the cruise with us.”

Bordelaise widened her eyes as she smiled up at him. “I always wanted to go cruising.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the
Blue Boat.”
Montana looked across at me. “You two have a lot to catch up on. Nice meeting you, Bordelaise.”

“Likewise,” she said, watching his narrow butt appreciatively as he walked away. “See you onboard, Harry,” she called, grinning that wicked little grin.

“Well.” She beamed as the door closed behind him. “You kept him a nice little secret, girlfriend, didn’t you? Anything going on between the two of you, might I ask?”

“Not a thing,” I said firmly. “And I’m sure he’s never even thought about it. He’s not interested, nor am I.”

“Then you certainly
have
lost your touch, sweetie. We’ll have to see what we can do about getting it back again.”

“We’ll catch up on everything,” I said, showing her to my room, which course we would share, the way we always had. “And I want to hear all about the Paris interlude.” Still remembering her with Montana, I found myself having to push back a niggling feeling of something that just might have been the green-eyed monster.

Time passed quickly with Bordelaise to keep me company. In the few days before leaving for the cruise, we shopped, we lunched, we got our hair and our nails done. We behaved like a couple of real girly girls, and we enjoyed it. We took Rats on long treks on Hampstead Heath in the rain and the wind; then, teeth chattering, we finished up in the pub for a restorative drink and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. We lunched at Le Gavroche in memory of Bob, and dined at the Bombay Brasserie, where I introduced her to good Indian cooking. We flipped pancakes for breakfast and doused them in Mrs. Wainwright’s homemade strawberry jam with dollops of heavy cream, washed down with gallons of hot coffee. The night before we were to leave for the cruise, we ended up side by side in the twin beds in my room, she in unexpectedly childish flowered flannel pj’s with Victoria’s Secret written in sparkles across her bosom, and I in my virginal white granny
nightie with bed socks for my perpetually cold feet. Our bags were packed and ready, out in the hall. We were flying to Nice the next morning, prior to boarding the
Blue Boat
in Monte Carlo.

“So, what’s really with you and Montana then?” Bordelaise cradled a cup of hot cocoa in both coral-nailed hands, blowing on it to cool it. She peered at me over the tops of her glasses. “You two interested in each other or what?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged away the question she’d been asking more obliquely for the past few days, rubbing in hand cream and inspecting my own French-manicured nails, so prettily tipped with white. “He’s different,” I admitted. “He’s a bit wounded, like I am, only his was a bad childhood.”

“So what does the mysterious Chinese tattoo mean, anyway?”

“I never asked.”

Bordelaise rolled her eyes. “Lord, I’d have asked on the first date.”

“We’ve never had a date. It’s always been business.”

She gave me a long tell-me-another-one look. “You mean to say all you talked about was Bob and the suspects and the cruise and if the butler really did it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well then, sweetie, you really have lost your touch. Where’s the woman I used to know? The one who knew what she wanted from life, and
who
she wanted and went out and got him, even if he did dump you later.” Frowning, she slurped a mouthful of cocoa impatiently. “Montana’s sexy as hell, Daisy. And he’s available. And I’ll bet my boots he’s interested.”

“I thought you two were interested,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

“Hah! And exactly how long have you known me, Daisy Keane? Thirty years? More? Don’t you know by now I never go after my friends’ men? And I never date anybody else’s husband. Not that yours didn’t try,” she added, taking another gulp of the cocoa.

I gaped at her. “He
didn’t!?

“Of course he did, the creep. And he got a mouthful of the truth about himself from me that he’ll never forget.” She eyed me in a conciliatory fashion. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to hurt you, but if you’re still carrying a torch for him I figured it was time you knew the truth.”

I slithered under the duvet, eyes shut. “How could he?” I moaned.

“Because that’s the way he is. But not every man is like him, you know. For God’s sake, get over him, give yourself a chance, why don’t you?”

“Okay. So Montana kissed me,” I admitted.

Bordelaise was alert in a second, sitting up straight, gazing interestedly at me. “And?”

“It was nice.”

She threw back her head and groaned. “You’re impossible. How many times has he kissed you?”

I thought about it. “Well, if you count hands and cheeks as well as lips, I think about four or five.”

“Hmmm, that’s
definite
interest. So, where do you plan to take it from here?”

“I’m attracted to him,” I admitted. “He’s exciting …”

“And
hooray
for that. What a relief, you’re a woman after all.”

“But I haven’t anything planned, if that’s what you mean.”

“And has he?”

“Of course not.” Any thoughts in that direction were pure fantasy. “He’s like you. He tells me I have to get over it, move on. He said he’ll protect me from the bad guys of the world if I will keep him company and stop him feeling lonely, though I have the feeling he hasn’t minded being lonely until now,” I added thoughtfully.