Two O'Clock Heist: A Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 2) (21 page)

She went into the living room, her pride still stinging, and turned on the TV. She flipped through a bunch of channels, and realized that despite the hundreds of channels he seemed to have available, she couldn’t find a thing she wanted to watch, not even
It Happened One Night
, which was one of her all-time favorite classic movies.

She turned the TV off again.

She was in a sorry state. She had never before turned off Clark Gable.

She couldn’t take it any longer. She knew what she had to do.

o0o

Rebecca walked into Big Caesar’s wearing her green cocktail dress. With a little foundation make-up, and the lounge lighting, her bruises scarcely showed.

The place was packed, as usual. As the band played the upbeat and fun,
Zoot Suit Riot,
she headed for the bar but saw, near a wall, a small table for two. She took it.

She didn’t see Richie, and didn’t ask for him when the cocktail waitress came by to take her order.

She was sipping her mai tai when she saw him strolling towards the bar, his hand on the waist of a beautiful redhead. Rebecca could feel her heart begin to pound, which was silly, she told herself. It was just Richie.

As usual, his dark eyes surveyed all that was happening in his club, but when he saw her, he did a double-take. Their eyes met and held, but then he turned back to the woman he was walking with and he continued to lead her to two other couples.

Rebecca took several deep breaths. She told herself she only wanted to talk to him about her case, so why should it matter if he was interested in some other woman? But then she stopped. She wasn’t fooling herself anymore.

She drank more and waited. He was only being polite, she thought, talking to the small cluster around him. He would come over to see her soon.

The band began to play a slow love ballad,
“The Nearness of You.”
She watched Richie walk the redhead to the dance floor.

Rebecca tried to ignore the sexy, innuendo-filled words to the old Hoagy Carmichael classic.

Richie seemed to have eyes only for his dance partner.

Rebecca finished her drink, stood, picked up her purse, and was about to leave when she changed her mind.
Let’s see how long you ignore the person living in your house.
She sat back down, folded her arms and watched.

“May I join you?”

She looked up to see a pleasant looking young man holding a martini. “Get lost!”

He hurried away.

This wasn’t a pick-up kind of place. Most people who came were couples, but there were a few loners—like her—who wandered into the bar area. She ordered a second drink, and the cocktail waitress quickly brought to it her.

She sipped on it until the maudlin song ended and Richie walked the woman back over to the group they had been with. She expected he would come over to see her next.

The same singer rolled right into an old torch classic,
“Cry Me A River.”
At times she had felt it should be her theme song.

But no more.

Her gaze narrowed on Richie who still had his back to her. A nice looking back it was, though.

“Want to dance?”

A smug-sounding fellow who looked like he had too much to drink appeared beside her. “Beat it,” she said, then went back to glaring in Richie’s direction.

“I’ve watched you sitting here.” He put his drink on the table and
leaned towards her. “Whoever you’re waiting for isn’t going to show up. But I’m here. Come on. I know you want to dance.”

“I said, go away.”
Her whole day now added up to an I-hate-the-world situation. 

He smirked. “Y
ou don’t mean that.” He took hold of her wrist, stood up straight and gave it a tug.

“I’m warning you,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let go of me.”

“No way.” His grip tightened and he pulled on her again. This time, she did stand, twisted his arm behind his back and lifted in a way that made his head bob forward as he yelped in pain.

“Do you still want to dance, shithead?” she asked sweetly.

“Let him go.” Richie was beside her, pulling her away as a couple of his bouncers took hold of the guy and whisked him out of the club so fast his feet scarcely touched the ground. The whole thing was over in less than five seconds.

She faced him and didn’t say a word.

He ran his hand along the back of his head, which she learned was his usual gesture when trying to regain control of his emotions and to think before blurting out something he might regret. “Sorry about that. We try to keep guys who’ve had a few too many out of here, but sometimes one slips by.” His dark eyes drifted over her cocktail dress, then caught her gaze and held.

Words raged through her head, but she still was too angry to speak.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

“Waiting for someone?” She managed to keep her voice down, despite her wanting to shake him. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m here to see you.”

His jaw tightened, and she knew he was keeping his temper in check the way she had failed to do with her own. “Let’s go.” He took hold of her arm and led her towards the back offices.

“Richie, sweetie?” the redhead called as they walked by.

He didn’t say a word to her.

He brought Rebecca to his office and shut the door. “What’s going on?”

“Maybe I should ask you that?” She could have kicked herself as soon as the words came out and she saw his eyebrows lift. She sounded like some jealous girlfriend, which she was not. She put her hands on her waist. “I thought you might be interested in knowing that I’ll be moving back to my own place soon.”

H
is lips tightened. “You want your privacy, I take it.”

“Me? I should think that’s more what you want, ‘Richie, sweetie,’” she said, mocking the redhead’s tone.

His eyes narrowed and hardened. She had never seen him look at her that way. “No, I don’t, but then I don’t have a new friend from San Rafael to entertain, do I?”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “A what?”

“Don’t play dumb. I know you spent yesterday and last night with him. Dinner, and then who knows what. But I can imagine. Then today, you went back to your apartment, I guess to make sure it was ready for company. He seems to be everything you’re looking for. Nice, dependable, and he’s a cop. Bully for you!”

Her jaw dropped. “We’re working together on Karen Larkin’s case.”

“Don’t lie. You’re no good at it.”

He started towards the door, but she grabbed his arm and made him face her. “You had me followed?”

“No. But I hear things. When you didn’t come home last night, I was worried. About the Russians, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“You knew I was on-call.”

“Is that your excuse?”

She let go of him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Shay knew where the Beemer was, so it was easy for him to learn about you and your deputy friend. Later, the Beemer didn’t move.”

“Shay put a tracker on the car? Took off the Russian’s and put on his … or yours. How dare you!”

“How dare I?” he shouted. “What if Charkov tried again? Was I supposed to ignore the danger? Not be able to find you? Oh, but I found you all right.” His voice turned low, deadly. “Found you huddled in some restaurant with a guy you then left with.”

Her breath came shallow. “You could have phoned me.”

“What, and interrupt your date? As if you always take my calls. And yes, I thought I might be wrong, so I talked to Sutter around two a.m.,” Richie added, “and learned
nothing
was going on last night. Nothing involving Homicide, I should say. But you never made it home. Fast work, Mayfield.”

She was so angry she shoved him and gladly watched him stumble back a couple of steps. “Yes. I spent the night with Mike Vargas after we both fell asleep in
your
BMW on a stake-out. It was a big nothing.”

He stepped towards her, furious, grabbing her wrists so she wouldn’t push him again. But almost immediately let go as he saw the bruises that still showed a bit on her arms. She watched a multitude of emotions play across his face.

“All right,” she said, trying to calm herself. “Vargas is a good guy. He even asked me out. But I stupidly turned him down. So there. Does that make you feel better?”

He lifted his chin.

She wanted to shove him again, wanted to do anything to try to break through this brick wall of injured possessiveness between them. She tightened her jaw, then spat out the words, “I’ll be sure to remedy that mistake tomorrow. How about that?”

To her surprise, his mouth curved into a half-smile. “Good.”

She was sure her head would explode. “
Good what?
Good I turned him down, or good that I’ll remedy my mistake?”

He stepped closer, still smiling. “You figure it out.”

She didn’t know if she most wanted to kiss him or slap him. Instead of deciding, she spun towards the windows, needing her breathing to return to normal, or as normal as it could be around him. She shut her eyes, but then she pictured him in the arms of that stupid redhead.

“You wanted to tell me that you’re moving back to your apartment, right?” he asked.

She could tell from his voice that he had backed away from her.

She waited a long moment, then turned. He was seated in a chair near his desk.

She strode to the main desk chair, a high-back leather that swiveled and rocked, and sat in it. “Your spies had a lot wrong about how I’ve spent my time. A call came in at five a.m., and I worked on it most of today. The only thing the spies had right about my day was that I did go back to my apartment,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yuri Baranski is hiding out in it.”

He looked stunned.

She relayed their conversation.

“His story makes sense,” Richie said. “Or maybe it sounds true because you obviously believe him.”

“I do,” she admitted. “The way he talked about Karen, about her excitement over the jewel thefts, that made sense to me. I think”—she caught his gaze—“I think we’ve been wrong about Yuri and the Russians as the cause of her death. I think it had something to do with the jewelry heists. It was right in front of us the whole time—the jewels that were found in the houseboat. Yuri insists neither of them was involved in the thefts, and I believe him. Karen was no thief. So, who put the jewels there? And why?”

Richie nodded. “Go on. I think you’re onto something.”

“She sent Nina off with Yuri so she could meet someone. Obviously, whoever she met must have gone back to her houseboat with her and killed her.”

“The jewel thief?” Richie asked.

“I suspect.”

Richie thought a moment. “But why would she put herself in such danger? It makes no sense.”

Rebecca rubbed her forehead. “I was wondering that myself. There was no reward being offered, so that wasn’t it.”

“Wait a minute.” Richie said. He stepped towards her. “She mentioned that the value of the stolen jewels was ten million dollars. That’s got to be it.”

“What’s it?”

He spun the desk chair around so she faced him, then leaned forward, his hands on the arms. “Find out who insured the jewels. You might find that one company held most of the policies. If so, it’s fairly standard in something like this that an insurer will pay a reward, finder’s fee, whatever you want to call it, to retrieve the stolen goods, especially if the law isn’t making any headway. When really big money is involved, companies have been known to pay up to ten percent of the amount insured. Ten percent of ten million … Karen was looking at a cool million reward if she could find and return the jewels to the insurer.”

“Oh, my God,” Rebecca said. “That would have solved all her problems.”

Richie nodded. “I know someone who lost jewelry in one of those thefts.  Let me call her.” He took out his cell phone, and in a short while had Marlena Carbini on the line. He gave her a quick rundown about a friend investigating the robberies, and then asked the name of her insurer. He jotted down the answer. “Thanks, Marlena. I’ll be back to your restaurant soon.
Ciao
.”

He handed Rebecca the paper with the company’s name. “Sometimes, the Italian hotline serves a good purpose.”

“Thank you.” She tucked the note into her handbag. “It may sound odd, but finding this out makes me feel better. This is definitely the Karen I knew—active, headstrong, and clever. I can see her figuring out who was behind the heists, even without all the data and resources of a police department.”

“Not that those resources seemed to be doing the police any good,” he said.

Her phone started to buzz. “Nothing helps if you don’t know how to use it.” She reached for her phone. “The dispatcher,” she murmured.

He waited as she took the call. She needed to leave.

“You’ve decided Yuri’s okay, despite everything?” he asked.