Don of the Dead (22 page)

"No way," I told Quinn. "Not a chance in the world. Benny wouldn't have been out there. It was too cold."

Quinn came back into the living room. "Nobody at The Family Place is talking. There's a big surprise."

"But he was their friend."

"He was their business associate. And if there's one thing you need to learn about these people, it's that—"

"It all comes down to business. Yeah, I know." I shook my head, trying to order my thoughts. If Benny's tumble down the steps wasn't an accident…

My stomach flipped. Blame it on the wine. Or the couple rounds I'd danced with Albert. Blame it on the picture that formed in my head, the one of Benny's skinny body, broken and battered beneath the polar fleece, lying on the beach with those cold, gray waves lapping over it.

"Now do you believe me?" Quinn dropped onto the couch next to me. "Do you see how dangerous these people can be?"

"But nothing happened. Not when I was there. We talked. That's all. And Benny didn't say anything that would have gotten him… " I couldn't say it. I didn't have to. Quinn knew what I meant.

He twined his fingers through mine. "I'm not saying it has anything to do with you. How could it? But I did want to give you the heads-up. Just in case you had some kind of idea about going to see those guys again."

I think it was pretty safe to say that Albert's visit had disabused me of that thought.

"Thanks." I gave Quinn's hand a squeeze. "You're right. I was dumb to get involved in the first place."

"No more book?"

I thought of everything that had happened. Of everything that would have happened if Quinn hadn't happened to happen by. Cheap & Chic sling-backs aside, was any of it really worth what Gus was paying me?

Not if I ended up too dead to spend the money.

That's when I made up my mind. As of right there, right then, I was officially off the case. "No more book," I promised Quinn. "No morewiseguys . No more Albert." I looked toward my shattered front door and snuggled closer. "And what's that you were saying about tomorrow morning?"

Quinn's eyes lit with interest. His voice dropped along with his gaze until he was looking at my lips. "It would be wrong of me to abandon you in your hour of need. If you want me to stay… "

Instead of answering, I kissed him. It made more sense than talking and it was what I'd been wanting to do since I met him, anyway. When Quinn helped me out of mypeacoat and wrapped his arms around me, I knew it was what he'd been wanting, too.

"He's not much of a kisser."

I heard the voice but to tell the truth, I figured it was just some leftover echo, the result of my poor little brain getting bashed by not-so-little Albert. Besides, it couldn't be real because it was dead wrong.

Quinn was a very good kisser.

"And why you'd want to waste your time with a cop, anyway… "

I jolted out of the warm and fuzzy haze that began and ended with Quinn's lips and Quinn's body and Quinn's hand where it was unbuttoning my white blouse.

Gus was standing behind the couch, watching us.

"Water." It was the first thing that came to mind and I blurted it out. Quinn was a nice guy and he wasn't about to argue. Especially since I'd been so recently waylaid. He patted my knee, got up, and headed for the kitchen.

"Out. Now." I glared at Gus. "Right now. There's no way in hell I'm going to let you stand there and—"

"So the boy can't kiss. This is my fault?" Gus shrugged. Without seeming to notice them, he stepped around a couple pieces of shattered glass and sat down on the couch next to me. "I'll just stay a while.

That way, I can tell you what he's not doing right. I realize a girl of your age, you don't have much experience. But you should know this. So that when you meet the man who will someday become your husband—"

"Oh, no!" I leapt off the couch. "If you think I'm going to let you get your jollies at my expense—"

"Actually, I was hoping we'd both be getting something out of this." Quinn stood in the doorway, water glass in hand, his brows low over his eyes. He was staring at me. And me? Well, I was pointing at the empty couch. Or at least at what Quinn thought was an empty couch. That is, until I realized what I was doing and pulled my hand back to my side.

"I'm willing to chalk some of your behavior up to shock." Quinn handed me my glass of water. "But if there's something else going on here, Pepper, something you'd like to talk about… "

I took a long drink of water and shook my head.

"Good. But you should also know that if you're playing some kind of game… well, let's just say I'm not the kind of guy who appreciates that sort of bullshit."

I set the glass on the coffee table. "I'm not. I don't. It's just—"

"I don't think I like the way he talks to you." Gus got up and stood toe-to-toe with Quinn, who looked right through him to me. "He should treat you with respect."

"He does." I cursed when I realized I was talking to Gus again. "What I mean is, no. No games. I don't play games, either." My hormones had been leaping like salmon up a stream. Now they plunged into the icy depths and lay shattered on the rocky bottom. My shoulders slumped. "I'm not trying to mess with your head, Quinn. I'm just a little confused, that's all. It's been a long night."

"Fine." He headed for the door. "If you're not ready, I can understand that. If you're never going to be ready… Well, if you're never going to be ready, then I've been getting the wrong signals since day one.

You'll understand if I'd like to know where I stand."

I glanced from Quinn to where Gus stood with his arms folded over his chest, watching the show. "This just isn't a good time," I told both of them.

"And let me guess… " Quinn stepped over bits of broken wood. "Next time won't be a good time, either."

"No!" I went after him. Call me needy. Call me desperate. Maybe I was both. "It's just that right now—"

"Right now, you're not thinking with your head." This was Gus's voice but I ignored it. Instead, too angry at Gus for putting me in this predicament, I watched Quinn step into the hallway and walk away. The next second, though, he was back. "You got somewhere you can stay tonight?" he asked and before I could get the wrong impression, he added, "I mean somewhere here in the building? A friend you can stay with until you get somebody in here to fix this door?"

In the space of just a couple minutes, I'd gone from the next morning's project to somebody else's problem. I thought about Todd and Bob, the gay couple on the second floor who'd slept on my couch for a week earlier in the month when their heat wasn't working. They owed me. For the heat and for the fact that I'd put up with the two of them giggling on the couch like teenagers.

"I'll be fine," I told Quinn. "Not to worry."

"I'm not," he said, and this time when he left, he stayed gone.

My anger burst and I turned to fire it full force at Gus.

I would have done it, too. Except that he was nowhere to be found.

There were only so many ways to say, "I quit
," and on my way to the cemetery the next morning, I practiced every one of them. Just in case Gus still didn't get the message, I stopped at the bank and withdrew eight thousand dollars on the theory that nothing says
I'm packing it in
like cold, hard cash.

Why eight? The way I figured it, I was owed something. For my time. For my energy. For nearly getting my larynx crushed by Albert.

Not to mention coming off looking like a nutcase to Quinn and having my love life blown to pathetic bits by Gus's untimely arrival at my apartment.

Oh, yeah, I was more than ready to quit. And so angry, I could barely see straight.

Maybe that's why I couldn't find Gus anywhere.

It was one of those mornings that are all too rare inCleveland . After the blustery gray misery of the day before, the sky had cleared. It was like crystal above my head, not a cloud in sight. It was still plenty chilly but once the sun was a little higher in the sky, I knew it would warm up fast. Until then, my sneakers left a trail in the dew that coated the grass around Gus's mausoleum.

Carefully, so that I didn't hit the bandage Todd and Bob had insisted on sticking on my forehead just above my left eyebrow, I pressed my nose to the glass mausoleum door.

No sign of Gus.

I retraced my steps and got back into my car. I drove past the angel statue where we'd had a confrontation of sorts early in our relationship of sorts. I checked out the picnic tables outside the monument to the dead president. I cruised Garden View from one end to the other and when I didn't see hide nor ghostly hair of him, I gave up and went to the office.

No doubt, I'd find him already there and waiting for me.

Except that he wasn't.

I was carrying around the eight thousand dollars in a brown paper lunch bag, and I dropped it into the bottom drawer of my desk and sat down, my chin propped on my fists, my insides simmering and ready to boil over.

Kind of hard to give notice when there was no one to give notice to.

And something told me Gus knew it.

Which only made me angrier.

"Oh! There you are."

The last person I wanted to talk to was Ella, but it was already too late for that. I'd made mistake NumeroUno and left my office door open and she spotted me and came inside. "Did you find the research materials I left for you?"

"Sure." I answered automatically, even though I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Er…

thanks."

"No. Thank you." Ella dropped into the seat in front of my desk. That day she was a vision in peppermint-pink and white. Her rose quartz earrings shimmered. "You've given me real hope, Pepper. I see you hard at work like this and I know my own girls have a chance to make something of themselves, too. My fondest wish is that they turn out as well as you."

I hardly knew Ella's three daughters but I was hoping they'd do better for themselves.

I was, after all, the girl who had once had big dreams. Looking back on the whole mess now, I saw exactly where my mistakes began and ended. I could have been what Ella wanted her girls to grow up to be.

But I blew it.

All because I'd depended on Joel loving me enough to marry me, even after my life fell apart. All because I thought I'd always have Dad and Mom's money to shore me up. Not to mention their undivided attention and their unwavering support.

All because I'd never dreamed that someday I might have to take care of myself. I never knew I'd need it, so I'd never developed the self-confidence or the sense of self-worth that would make it possible for me to boldly go where I should have known I'd have to go all along—off on my own.

What had it gotten me?

My love life was a zero.

My career prospects were just as bad.

My head hurt.

And did I mention the part about talking to a ghost?

I sighed and looked at Ella only to find her with her brows low. She pointed at my forehead. "What happened?"

I gently touched the wound. "Eyebrow piercing," I told her, then remembered that I was supposed to be a beacon of hope and beacons did not come with bodypiercings . "I came to my senses at the last second. Decided not to go through with it. It should be back to normal in just a couple days."