Tempting Danger (9 page)

“Enough! You are overwrought. Be quiet. I must think.”

With difficulty, Lily subsided. Grandmother’s fingernail tapped the rim of her cup—
ting, ting, ting.
She sat very still, very straight. There was a distant look in her eyes and a worried tuck to her thin lips that made the wrinkles show more than usual.

Of course Grandmother saw the implications, and a good deal more. That’s why Lily was here. A lupus’s magic was innate, like Lily’s ability to sense it. If one could be reft away, so could the other. As could other things.

“You were right to bring this to me,” she said at last, reverting to Chinese. She gave a sharp nod. “But I do not know the meaning. I will have to inquire of . . . another.”

“Who?” Lily asked, startled. “Someone who knows—”

“You will not ask,” Grandmother told her firmly. “This is not someone I go to lightly, but a favor is owed . . . has been owed for a long time. A very long time now.”

Alarming possibilities skittered through Lily’s mind. She leaned forward, touching Grandmother’s hand. Magic purred from the wrinkled skin into hers. “Don’t put yourself at risk.”

The thin lips twitched, and the dark old eyes softened. She patted Lily’s hand. “I am very fond of you, it is true. But I do not do this for you. Not
just
for you. And now,” she said, settling back in her chair, “I will tell you what else I know about lupi.”

SIX

THE
Fuentes apartment was in La Mesa. The bland, two-story buildings formed a square with a swimming pool and parking filling the center. Some poet wanna-be had named the complex The Oasis—a name it failed to live up to. There were two royal palms street side. No gardens, porches, or balconies. No green.

At least the exterior wasn’t pink. Lily sighed as she hunted for a parking spot, thinking of her own tiny apartment. She put up with the Pepto-Bismol paint job and lack of space because the place was three blocks from the beach, but sometimes she suffered dwelling envy.

She had to park two blocks away, but the walk was pleasant. It was one of those clear, perfect days that hit the city sometimes in the fall, the kind of day people move to California for. It made Lily want to get her hands in the dirt. Not that she had a garden of her own, except for a few pots, but she had free rein in the naturalized area around Grandmother’s place. Maybe she could squeeze out an hour later.

Lily buzzed Rachel’s unit; after a long wait, the girl told her to come up.

The Fuentes apartment was a corner unit, second floor. The staircase was enclosed, and the stairs themselves were cement and led to a landing that served two apartments. Lily would talk to the residents of 41-C later, see what they knew about Rachel and Carlos Fuentes.

She rang the bell and waited. She was debating whether to ring it again when it opened.

Rachel Fuentes looked like hell. Her face was splotchy, and the big eyes that had glowed last night were dull and red today and hidden behind a pair of rimless glasses. She wore shapeless sweats that had been washed with something red at some point; they were a funny shade of purple. That luxuriant mass of hair was tied in a rough knot at her nape. “I guess I have to talk to you.”

“This is a difficult time, I know. I’m sorry to intrude.”

“Come in.”

Despite the pleasant weather, Rachel had the air conditioning on. The apartment was downright chilly. It was larger than Lily’s, but whose wasn’t? It was also more cluttered—not out of control, but not the place of a neatnik, either. And a lot more colorful.

All the color that tragedy had sucked out of Rachel still lived in her apartment. The walls glowed a rich, multihued gold. The couch was slipcovered in red and strewn with throw pillows in orange, yellow, and lime green. The chairs in the dining area were each painted a different color. There were paintings on the walls, not prints but actual oils—a bright, slightly surreal landscape, a grinning blue dog surrounded by colorful shapes.

“Did you do the room yourself?” Lily asked.

“What?” Rachel paused in the middle of her pretty room, blinking. “Oh. Yes. Carlos likes bright colors, too, but he isn’t . . . he wasn’t interested in decorating.”

“I’m impressed.” And she was. Too bright for her tastes, but it had taken an artist’s eye to put so many vivid colors in a small space and make it work. There was passion here, Lily thought. That didn’t surprise her. The sense of balance and harmony did.

She wasn’t sure Rachel had heard her. The young woman stood near the couch, hugging her elbows to her body and frowning around at the room as if the sofa or table could tell her what she was supposed to do. How do you treat the detective investigating your husband’s death?

Lily tried to help. “Your sister isn’t here?”

“She had to work.”

“Would you rather do this when she can be with you?”

“I want to get it over with. And there are some things . . . it will be easier to talk about it without her. She’s protective.” Rachel shrugged. “My big sister, you know?”

“I’ve got one of those. She’s okay, but she never forgets that she’s the big sister. Can’t quite get it that I know how to tie my own shoes these days.”

A glimmer of humor appeared in Rachel’s dark eyes. “Sounds familiar. Della, she wants to help, but she didn’t think much of Carlos. And she really hated Rule—oh, not him, exactly, but that I was involved with him. It’s hard to be around her right now.”

“Your parents don’t live here, I understand.”

“No. Mama moved back to Tucson after Daddy left, and none of us knows where he is. She . . .” Her grimace held pain and guilt. “She’s praying over me. I hate that. I hate it that she thinks I’m some sort of adulteress. It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

Rachel gave her a long, hard look, but Lily saw her throat work when she swallowed. “I guess I have to tell you. I want you to catch him. I want him punished, whoever it was. Carlos . . . he was a mess.” She gave a short, harsh laugh. “More of a mess than me, believe it or not. But he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to have all his chances taken away.”

“No, he didn’t. Maybe we could sit down, and you can tell me about it.”

“Oh. Sure.” She dropped onto the couch. “I should have . . . I’m not thinking right.”

The chair opposite Rachel was striped in yellow and lime green. Lily moved a newspaper to the floor and sat down. “You won’t be, for awhile.”

“I guess not.” A long strand had worked loose from the knot. Rachel shoved it behind her ear and leaned forward, her hands gripping each other between her spread knees. “You want to know who did it, who killed him. I can’t tell you that, but it wasn’t Rule.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“He didn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .” She had to stop and swallow. “I could tell you that he couldn’t have sat there with me at the club and talked and smiled if he’d just killed my husband, but that’s just my opinion, isn’t it? And you’re thinking that of course I’d say that. Otherwise Carlos’s death would be my fault. But it is anyway, isn’t it?”

Lily’s throat ached with pity. “Why do you say that?”

“It was a lupus who killed him.” She shot to her feet and began pacing. “It wasn’t Rule, but it was a lupus, so it has to have something to do with Rule, or with the club. Something to do with me. Only I can’t figure out what it could be.”

“I’d say you’re thinking pretty clearly.”

Rachel paused, shot Lily a bitter look. “And maybe that’s not a compliment. Maybe I should be falling apart.”

“We all deal with grief differently.” And there was no doubt in Lily’s mind this woman was grieving. “Did your husband own a gun, Ms. Fuentes?”

“Yeah, he . . .” She rubbed her forehead. “Did you say something about that last night?”

“I did.” But Rachel had been incoherent then. “We found a gun nearby. We’re running the serial number, but it would help if you could tell me what kind of gun your husband had.”

“It’s a pistol. A twenty-two.”

“Did he often carry it with him?”

“No, but when we went to Club Hell, he did. It’s not a safe neighborhood.”

Lily’s eyebrows rose. “He went to the club with you?”

“Not . . . not lately.” She stood very still, hugging her arms to her, looking down—or into the past. “I’m going to tell you how it happened, how Rule and I got together. I don’t want to. I don’t want it to be any of your business, but I want you to catch him. Whoever did it, I want him to pay.”

“Catching him is my job. Making him pay is up to the DA.”

“Good enough.” But she didn’t move or speak, just stood there, her arms wrapped tight around herself.

Lily tried to give her a place to start. “I understand you met Rule Turner at the club.” That much she’d learned from Turner. He’d been closemouthed about most everything else about his relationship with Rachel, though he had admitted to knowing Carlos.

“Yeah.” A small, sad smile played over Rachel’s mouth. Her eyes softened as if she was looking back at memories that comforted. “I never thought it would work. Most men are easy—they think they have a chance at sex, they take it, you know? But Rule . . . he could have pretty much anyone, and I’m nothing special. Not ugly, but not beautiful, either. But he made me feel beautiful.”

Heady stuff,
Lily thought.
And all related in the past tense
. “You fell for him.”

“Not the way you mean. I was dazzled, I guess. But not in love or anything, no more than he was.” She woke from her memories to give Lily a sharp look. “He liked me. He was kind to me, too, the sort of kindness that’s hooked to respect, not pity. But he wasn’t jealous, not at all. You might say he was born with what Carlos wanted, or thought he wanted.”

“What do you mean?”

Her mouth thinned, though whether from pain or anger or some combination of the two, Lily couldn’t tell. “You must have guessed that Carlos and I didn’t have a picture-book marriage. More like a roller coaster. Things were really good, or really bad. He’d be super sweet for awhile, then he’d twist off, and I’d be the one trying to hold steady so we could put things back together.” She took a shaky breath. “I got tired of being the steady one.”

Lily took a guess. “He had affairs.”

“He screwed around.” She’d held still as long as she could, apparently. Her legs pushed into motion. “He loved me. I knew that, even when I was crazy with hurt. But he had to prove something to himself, over and over. See, he had mumps when he was sixteen.” The words stopped; her legs kept moving.

“He was sterile?”

She nodded, reached the wall, and turned back. “We’ve been together ever since I was a sophomore, got married right out of high school. He was the only one for me. The only one I wanted, the only one I’d ever been with. I needed him to feel the same way. I needed to be the only one he wanted, too, but he couldn’t give me that. Time came when I couldn’t deal with it anymore. So finally I gave in. This last time, when he started in about how jealousy’s the big evil, not infidelity, I said, okay. Let’s see who’s right.”

“You decided to have an affair.”

“I
agreed
to have an affair.” She stopped, chin up, mouth in a bitter twist. “Does that shock you? It was Carlos’s idea. He wanted me to unlearn my jealousy, he said. He talked about equating sex with love, said it was a childish attachment to a romantic ideal that messed up people.” Her eyes blazed. Her fists clenched at her sides. “Only it was all
their
words. Not his. He was just mouthing what they’d taught him.”

“Who taught him to say that?”

“That stupid church he went to. The Azá.”

AT
eleven-thirty on Friday night, Lily was curled up in the chair and a half that constituted one-third of the furnishings in her living room. The other two-thirds were the teak coffee table by the window and the red floor cushion next to it. What she lacked in furniture, she made up for in plants—ivy on the kitchen pass-through, an ambitious azalea in one corner, and eleven terra-cotta pots sharing space beneath the single large window.

Lily had a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in one hand, a pen in the other, a yellow pad on the arm of the chair, and a nineteen-pound gray tabby with one and a half ears curled up on her feet.

Much as she appreciated her laptop, it didn’t help her think the way a yellow pad did. She’d turned the pad sideways so she could make columns. The names of the lupi who’d been at the club last night topped four of them; the others were Carlos, Rachel, Azá, and Lupi.

She couldn’t assume the killer was a lupus who’d been at Club Hell that night, but the club was tied in somehow. Someone had killed Fuentes less than a block away. That couldn’t be coincidence. Two of the lupi who’d been there last night were solidly alibied; no known motive for the others, except Turner.

Her pencil tapped the second name. Cullen Seabourne. He stood out in one way: he wasn’t Nokolai. The other three were. When she’d asked the name of his clan, he’d smiled sweetly and told her he didn’t have one.

Back when registration was being enforced, every lupus who’d been caught had claimed to be clanless to keep the authorities from using them to flush out others. But there was no reason for a lupus to insist on that fiction anymore.