To Catch a Thief (16 page)

“Leave her alone,” Emma advised. “She needs time to think.”

“No,” Lauren said adamantly. “What she needs is to listen to her heart for the first time in her life.”

“Hey, you guys can stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” Gina said, waving a protesting hand in front of their faces. “I don’t know what I need or what I want or even what my heart is saying.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. “I’ll keep you posted.”

She got her first clue when she walked into her room at the hotel and saw the message light blinking. Sure that Rafe must have called, her heart thumped unsteadily. Filled with an unfamiliar sense of anticipation, she grabbed the phone and asked for the message.

“Deidre called,” the desk clerk reported, dimming Gina’s excitement. “She says it’s urgent. Call her at the restaurant or at home, no matter what time it is.”

“Thanks, Lucille,” Gina told the woman. Now her heart was beating too hard for another reason entirely. She glanced at the clock, then dialed the restaurant’s number. Deidre picked up at once. “Hi, it’s Gina. What’s going on?”

“Three of our biggest investors were in here earlier tonight demanding to see you or Bobby,” she said without preamble. “I didn’t know what to do, so I lied. I told them you were away on a family emergency and couldn’t be reached and that Bobby was due back soon. They seemed to accept that.”

Gina was surprised they’d bought it. “Are you sure they didn’t know Bobby had taken off with the money?”

“Apparently not, or maybe they were on a fishing expedition. My hunch was that they’d heard rumors and came by to check them out, but they took my story at face value.”

“Did they leave right away or cause trouble?”

“Neither. I invited them to stay for dinner. I made sure they had the best meal of their lives, a bottle of our best wine and great service. It didn’t hurt that the place was packed. They left happy men. I still think you might want to call them, though, follow up on their visit, so to speak. I got their business cards.”

“Give me the names,” Gina said, taking them down. “I’ll call first thing in the morning. Thanks again, Deidre. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Are you coming back soon?” Deidre asked wistfully. “I like running this place and I’m good at most of it, but dealing with this kind of thing gives me hives. I’m a wreck.”

“But you did exactly the right thing,” Gina said. “That fib you told was pretty close to the truth, and it got the job done.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you coming back soon?”

“Another couple of weeks,” Gina said. “I promise.”

By then Tony and Francesca should be back. With any luck Gina would have sorted through her own options and be ready to deal with the fallout, whichever way she went.

“Okay, I can hold the fort that long,” Deidre said, sounding more optimistic. “By the way, I’ve managed to bring nearly half the bills up to date. If business stays like this for the rest of the fall, they should all be caught up by the time you get here. That’ll just leave the payments to the investors for you to handle. And with the holidays coming and all the parties and catering, you should be in good shape.”

“Business is that good?” Gina said, surprised and pleased. “We have catering jobs booked for the holidays?” There had been a trickle of requests for information before she’d left, but she’d expected word of their financial straits to make most people too skittish to book them for critical holiday entertaining.

“Business is great,” Deidre said. “We have a big catering job for almost every night between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. And Ronnie and I have been able to cut a few costs in the kitchen. Nothing to harm the quality of the food,” she said hurriedly. “We’re just cutting waste.”

“Thank you again,” Gina said with heartfelt sincerity, as an idea began to take shape in her head.

If her sous-chef and Deidre were doing such a great job of running Café Tuscany and the catering staff, maybe Gina could end up having it both ways. Maybe she could work out a partnership with them for the restaurant and the catering business, and divide her own time between Winding River and New York. It was definitely something to consider.

That just left Rafe. She would never have believed it a few weeks ago, but deciding what to do about him was a whole lot more complicated—and more important—than figuring out how to straighten out the mess that Bobby had left her in. She had a feeling that fate had brought him into her life for a reason, and she’d be a fool to let him get away.

No sooner had she said goodbye to Deidre than the phone rang again. She picked it up, still lost in thought. “Did you forget something?” she asked, assuming it was her manager calling back.

“Only you,” Rafe said, his voice low and seductive. “I never should have left you behind.”

Gina sighed and settled back against the pillows. Suddenly space didn’t seem nearly as important as letting the sound of his voice wash over her. “Is that so?”

“Are you through thinking things over yet?”

She chuckled at the wistful note in his voice. Hearing that filled her with an amazing sense of satisfaction. “You’ve only been gone a few hours. I’m just getting started. Are you home now?”

“I’m in New York,” he said. “Funny thing about that, though.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t feel half as much like home as that hotel room did, especially the last few nights.”

“Oh, Rafe,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“But it just makes it harder.”

“Makes what harder?”

“Thinking.”

He laughed. “I told you before, stop thinking so hard. This is something you have to decide from the gut.”

“What is your gut telling you?” she asked curiously.

“That what I’ve found with you is too important to let slip away.”

His words were oddly reassuring because they so closely echoed her own thoughts. He hadn’t yet mentioned love. She had a feeling if he had she would have felt overwhelmed and even more pressured. These words simply hinted that what they had should be explored, tested…clung to until they knew exactly what it meant. She could live with that without panicking.

“Call me tomorrow?” she asked.

“Tomorrow and every day after,” he said. “Sweet dreams, Gina.”

If only, she thought. Something told her that without Rafe beside her, she’d be lucky to sleep at all, much less dream.

R
afe felt an overwhelming sense of relief when Charlie Flynn called to report that he had Bobby Rinaldi under surveillance in the Cayman Islands.

“He’s living pretty quietly,” Flynn said. “He’s certainly not throwing his money around.”

“What’s your take on the guy?”

“Frankly, I was surprised. I expected a lot of flash and dazzle, a woman on each arm, especially after what you’d said about the way he took in your mother.”

“And?”

“He’s just an average guy. There are no women, though he hangs out at the hotel bar most evenings. If one comes on to him, he certainly flirts back, but he goes back to his room alone.”

Rafe was as startled by that as Flynn. “That doesn’t fit the image I had, either.”

“What do you want me to do?” the investigator asked.

“Keep an eye on him. If the opportunity presents itself and you can do it without stirring up any suspicion, get to know him. See if you can figure out what his motive was in running out with all that cash.”

“Will do,” Flynn said. “I’ll check in when I have something.”

“Just don’t lose track of him,” Rafe warned.

“As if I would,” the investigator said scathingly. “Not for what you’re paying me. I don’t shut my eyes for a second.”

“I’m counting on that.”

Rafe hung up, his expression thoughtful. Why would Bobby Rinaldi betray Gina, run off with all that cash and hide out in the Caymans? He’d left a reasonably clear trail, so Rafe doubted he was trying to drop out of sight to avoid paying heavy gambling debts. What else could it be? Was he in trouble with some married lover’s husband? With the IRS? Rafe wondered if anyone at the restaurant might have a clue.

Knowing Gina would probably object, he didn’t tell her his intentions. Instead, he dropped in at Café Tuscany just before opening the next day. From the instant he entered the soothing, classy foyer, he understood what Lydia had been saying all along about the place. It was a step above most flash-in-the-pan successes. Café Tuscany wasn’t a trendy fluke. It was here to stay. Somehow he found that reassuring. It suggested that once she’d sorted through some things, Gina would be back. They could resume their relationship right here in New York, where they both belonged.

A slender, dark-haired woman wearing a simple, stylish black dress came toward him from the kitchen, a questioning expression on her face.

“We’re not open for another half hour,” she said with a warm smile.

“I know. You must be the famous Deidre that Gina has told me so much about.”

Her expression faltered. “And you are?”

“Rafe O’Donnell.”

“Ah,” she said slowly. “The attorney for the investors.”

Rafe tried not to let it matter that she’d heard of him only in his professional role, not as Gina’s lover. Maybe that was for the best, since he was here to get answers.

“Some of them,” he admitted. “If you have a minute, could we talk?”

She shook her head. “Without a subpoena, I have nothing to say to you.”

“It won’t take long,” he promised, though he could see from her expression that time wasn’t the issue. He was pretty sure he knew what was. He added, “It could help Gina.”

That seemed to surprise her. “You want to help her?”

“Yes,” he said with total sincerity.

She studied him intently, then nodded and led the way to a table. She gestured for him to sit.

“Would you like some coffee? A cappuccino?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She sat opposite him. “What do you want to know?”

“How well did you know Bobby Rinaldi?”

“Not intimately, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” she said with a touch of indignation.

“I’m not suggesting anything improper,” he soothed. “I’m just trying to get a picture of the guy. Why would he run off with all that money?”

“A woman,” she said at once.

“But he’s in the Cayman Islands all alone,” Rafe said.
Her eyes widened. “You know where he is?”

“Yes.”

“Does Gina know?”

He nodded. “Was Bobby a gambler?”

“No way,” she said.

“A big spender?”

“Yes, but he had the money. His take out of here was pretty substantial.”

Rafe was relatively certain that Gina had been taking very little out of the business. Why had Bobby gotten so much more? And why hadn’t that shown up on the books he’d picked up from Deidre a couple of months back?

“More than Gina’s salary?” he asked.

“I think so. I could look at the books. I’ve been paying bills while Gina’s away.”

It occurred to Rafe then that the books he’d been given had been for the restaurant’s early years, not the current one. Perhaps quite a lot had changed in the months immediately before Bobby had disappeared.

“Let me take a look with you,” he said, concluding there was no point in criticizing Deidre for not giving him the current financial records along with the others, even though the subpoena had been for everything.

He followed her into the office. She removed the latest record book from a file cabinet and opened it to the first of the year. Sure enough, Bobby’s draw from the company was dramatically more than Gina’s and higher than what he’d been taking out in past years. Had Gina known about that? Was it part of some deal they’d made? Maybe he was supposed to be paying the investors with the additional funds, though that would certainly be an unorthodox way of conducting business.

“Who wrote those checks? Gina or Bobby?” he asked Deidre.

“Until this mess, Bobby handled all of the financial details,” she revealed. “I don’t think Gina ever touched the checkbook, though she could sign checks if she needed to.”

That must have been what Bobby had counted on, that she wouldn’t even see the size of the checks he’d written to himself. He’d taken four careful years to establish a routine, then taken advantage of Gina after she’d been lulled into a false sense of complacency. Rafe’s impression of the man, never very high, sank even lower.

“Thanks, Deidre,” Rafe said when he’d jotted down a few notes. “One last thing. What was Bobby’s relationship with Gina like?”

“He adored her,” she said without hesitation. “In fact, I think he might have been half in love with her, though she wouldn’t give him the time of day, not that way. He paraded women through here, but I always thought he did it because he was trying to get Gina to pay attention, not because he cared about any of them.”

Deidre’s assessment echoed in Rafe’s head throughout the day and for the rest of the week.
He did it because he was trying to get Gina to pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention.

Dear God, was
that
what this had been about? Was this entire mess an attempt on Bobby Rinaldi’s part to get Gina to look at him? It was a screwy idea, but once it occurred to Rafe, he couldn’t seem to shake it. Goodness knows,
he
knew the power of her appeal. Why wouldn’t Rinaldi, who was reputedly an expert on women? To a charming scoundrel used to getting any female he wanted, the one who proved immune was bound to be the most alluring.

There was only one way to find out if he’d hit on the answer, Rafe concluded. He needed to talk to Rinaldi
face-to-face, to confront him with what he suspected and see how he reacted.

He called Charlie Flynn. “I’m coming down there. Make sure Rinaldi sits tight. I can’t get away this week and possibly not next week. I’m due in court on a couple of cases, and I can’t ask for postponements.”

“He won’t go anywhere,” Flynn promised.

“Thanks.” He hung up slowly. What if he was right? Did Gina suspect that Bobby might be in love with her? How would she feel if she knew? Was that the reason she was so hesitant to commit to Rafe, because she returned Bobby’s unspoken feelings? Rafe really, really hated that idea, but he couldn’t ignore it.

And until he knew a whole lot more than he knew right now, maybe it was best if he kept not only some physical distance between himself and Gina, but some emotional distance, as well. Losing her now wouldn’t hurt any less than losing her later, but it might be just a little easier on his pride.

Rafe hadn’t called for three weeks, not since the night he’d left town. Gina was beside herself trying to figure out what it meant. One minute she was furious with him, the next resigned, the next hurt.

“I don’t get it,” she said to Emma. “He was the one who was so anxious for us to see where things would go.”

“He’s probably just busy. He was away from New York for a long time. I’m sure he was swamped with work when he got back. I know the type. I
am
one,” she admitted ruefully. “When I’m caught up in a case, I don’t see anything else.”

“I suppose,” Gina said, but she didn’t entirely buy it. And if this was the way a future with Rafe was going to
play out, with him getting so caught up in work that he forgot all about her, did she want him in her life, anyway?

“If you want to know what’s going on, call him,” Emma advised. “You have his number.”

“No. I’m the one who said I wanted space. I guess I ought to be grateful that he’s giving it to me.”

On top of Rafe’s odd behavior, there was Bobby’s. She hadn’t heard a word from him, either. Nor had he sent a dime to pay off the restaurant’s debts. She was half tempted to fly down to the Caymans and snatch back every penny he had stolen.

Of course, it was an idle threat. She couldn’t go anywhere until Tony got back. He had called the week before and asked if she would mind if he and Francesca extended their stay in Italy.

“Who knows if we’ll ever get back here again,” he’d said. “We’d like to take advantage of our time here now, that is if you’re sure you can stay on in Wyoming.”

“I can stay,” Gina said, praying that Deidre would understand the delay. “You and Francesca enjoy yourselves. How’s her sister?”

“Much improved, thank goodness. Francesca is very relieved. In a few days her sister might even be well enough to go with us to Florence and Venice.”

Gina had sighed. It sounded wonderful. She had loved her time in Italy. “Enjoy every minute of it,” she told Tony. “And take lots of pictures.”

“You are an angel,
cara mia.
And when I get home, there are things you and I must discuss.”

“What things?”

“Not yet. Face-to-face,” he insisted. “A few more weeks. No more. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“You could never take advantage of me,” she told him. “I owe you way too much. If it’s going to be longer than
a week or so, though, would you mind if I closed for a few days so I can take a quick trip to New York? Everything’s running smoothly at Café Tuscany right now, but I need to look in on Deidre before she starts feeling totally abandoned. Also, it might help me to decide a few things I’ve been thinking about.”

“Go, of course. Anything that will help you to clarify what you really want. Perhaps we are on the same wavelength,” he said hopefully.

“Perhaps,” she said, though she was not entirely certain what was on his mind. He’d been way too vague for her to interpret his intentions. “I love you guys. I miss you. So do the customers.”

“I doubt that, when they have you,” Tony scoffed. “But it is nice of you to say.”

Ever since that conversation, she had been putting off the trip she had mentioned to Tony. With no word from Rafe and with Deidre still reporting that everything at Café Tuscany was under control, Gina lost the sense of urgency. In fact, the only place she felt truly needed was right here in Winding River. Tony needed her to stay. Karen seemed glad of her company. Her parents were delighted she was nearby, even if they thought it was absurd that she was wasting money on a hotel room when her room at home was empty. Maybe it
was
crazy, especially now that there was no longer any potential danger that she might be dragging them into her problems with Bobby.

In the end, though, purely by chance she happened across a small apartment with big windows, cozy nooks, comfortable furniture and a surprisingly spacious kitchen filled with light. It was tucked behind a house on Main Street, in what had once been a garage. She spotted the
For Rent sign while walking to Tony’s one morning. The next day she stopped by to see it.

Now she stood in the middle of that kitchen and suddenly felt at peace. Without pausing to consider the ramifications, she pulled out her checkbook and turned to the owner.

“I’ll take it,” she told Mrs. Garwood.

“For how long? Are you home to stay?” her mother’s friend asked. “I know that would please your mother.”

Gina’s hand faltered over the check. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Is that a problem? Could we go month to month for now?”

“Normally I wouldn’t agree to that,” Mrs. Garwood said, then smiled. “But for your mother, I will take a chance that you’ll decide you’re back for good.”

“Thank you,” Gina said and wrote the check for a deposit and a month’s rent.

“I’ll leave you alone, then,” Mrs. Garwood said. “If you need anything, just knock on the back door.”

After she had gone, Gina turned slowly. The sun was streaming through the kitchen window. Funny, she thought, recalling Rafe’s words a few weeks earlier. This place felt more like home already than the apartment she’d had in New York for years.

“He’s right over there,” Flynn told Rafe, pointing to an unremarkable-looking man sitting at the poolside bar, his expression glum as he sipped beer.

“That’s Bobby Rinaldi?” Rafe asked, not even trying to hide his shock. He’d expected someone more handsome, but maybe Bobby’s appeal wasn’t obvious to a man.

It had taken Rafe almost a month to fit this trip into his schedule. The holidays were approaching. He wanted this
settled so he could spend them with Gina. With any luck at all they could be engaged by New Year’s.

“The one and only. Come on. I’ll introduce you. We’ve had quite a few chats lately.” Flynn hesitated. “Is he going to recognize your name?”

“Most likely.”

“Want me to use an alias?”

Rafe grinned. “No, let’s play it straight. What’s the worst he can do?”

“Run,” Flynn suggested.

“Maybe, but I’m sure you’re faster, and between us we’re not going to let him out of our sight until we get him back to New York.”