I couldn’t believe this was happening! “I’ll give it a
day
. But if I don’t turn up any leads, I’m off the case.”
That seemed good enough for Matt. He thanked me. Then he actually extended his hand across the table. “Thanks, Quinn. You’re not so bad.”
The detective shook Matt’s hand, declining to return the compliment. “Listen, Allegro,” he said instead, “can you give me a few minutes alone with Clare here? I’d like a word with her.”
“Yeah, sure,” Matt said. “And I’ll bet I know
which
word.”
“Matt!” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
As my ex stood and walked away, Quinn unfolded his lanky frame from the metal chair and crossed the little interview room to shut the door.
I rose, too, and stepped right up to him. “
Why
did you set me up, Mike? I don’t appreciate—”
His lips found mine before I could finish the sentence. Despite my complete and total annoyance with the man, my arms drifted north, circled his neck, and hung on. He backed me against the wall and got serious.
God, the man liked to kiss. He took his time with his lips and tongue, let my taste and smell roll over his receptor cells like a sommelier who’d finally found the time to get down to his cellar and savor the rarest vintage in his collection.
When we finally parted, he smiled down at me. There were stray locks of chestnut hair on my cheek. His fingers brushed them aside, curled them around my ear.
“Tonight, sweetheart,” he said softly. “My place.”
“No way. I’m not forgiving you for this.”
“For what?” He knitted his brow, a shameful attempt to appear clueless.
“Don’t even
try
to play innocent with me. You’re obviously pissed that Matteo’s moved back in with me for a few days. Hooking me up to investigate Breanne is your pathetic ploy to steer me clear of the man.”
“You’re way too cynical, Cosi. You know that? I honestly think Allegro’s theory is worth checking out.”
I might have believed him, if I hadn’t caught his fleeting half smile.
“You owe me, Quinn.” I poked his hard shoulder. “Do you
hear
?”
“Yeah, I hear. And I’ll make it up to you. I promise . . . starting
tonight
.”
I parted my lips to protest again, but once again Mike Quinn’s mouth was faster.
TEN
THERE are things you do for people you
don’t
like because they’re attached to people you
do
like. Take a sarcastic sister-in-law who drives you nuts with her barely veiled insults. She’s never once thanked you for all the Christmas gifts you’ve sent her over the years, but you keep sending them because if you drop her off the family list, it’s the brother you love who’s going to get his ear chewed off about the slight.
Breanne Summour was like that for me now. She was not my favorite person. But she was about to become Matteo’s wife, and since
he
cared whether she lived or died, I was stuck caring, too. I know that sounds appalling, but I found the woman barely tolerable on a charitable day.
Still,
I reminded myself,
she did come through for Joy.
Last fall, when my daughter was falsely accused of murder, Breanne had used her VIP connections to secure Joy a top criminal defense attorney. I had to give Bree credit for that. After all, Randall Knox had taken embarrassing public swipes at the woman for being connected to Matt. It must have been mortifying for her, yet she hung in there. I tried to keep that in mind as my ex began hustling me from West Tenth to Hudson.
“Where are we going, Matt?”
“Uptown. Bree’s having a final fitting of her wedding gown. I got hold of her on the cell while you were with Quinn.” Matt shot me a smirking glance. “What were you two
discussing
up there, by the way?”
“Uh . . . the case . . .”
“Then why do you smell like the guy’s cheap drugstore aftershave?”
“Mind your own business.”
“I am,” Matt said, as we racewalked the tree-lined street. “You and Quinn
are
my business now that you’re going to help me figure out who wants to kill Breanne.”
“I wouldn’t count on Quinn this week. Not unless Breanne ODs on painkillers.”
“What are you talking about?!”
I told Matt about the OD Squad that Quinn was supervising.
“Well, then, Sherlock, I guess it’s up to
you
to figure this out.”
We reached the corner, and Matt stepped off the curb to look for a cab. Hudson Street was one-way uptown, and the traffic was sporadic. The April breeze was mild, and the sun felt warm on my cheeks, which was lucky, because I’d failed to foresee this private investigation gig, and I hadn’t worn a jacket.
At the moment, I was dressed for espresso bar work in hip-hugging Old Navy blue jeans, low-heeled boots, and a long-sleeved cream-colored jersey. I really liked the jersey ($26 at the Gap). It was super-soft cotton blended with clingy spandex; and the line of tiny cocoa buttons that marched all the way down the V-neck highlighted a somewhat sexy hint of cleavage—which, now that I think about it, was probably what provoked Mike Quinn’s cop stare in the first place, not to mention the “word” we had in private.
There was nothing wrong with my outfit per se. It was cute, casual, certainly presentable, but it wasn’t close to appropriate for a Fifth Avenue house of haute couture, where the least expensive item was probably a small imported silk print scarf retailing for $295. I shifted my weight from one scuffed boot to the other, anticipating the crap I was probably going to get from Breanne.
“Listen, Matt, don’t push me with this investigation. Like I told you in the precinct, I’ll give it a day. If I don’t find anything suspicious, you’ll have to open that tight fist of yours and hire a professional.
True
, you might have to give up that overpriced French cologne you’ve been wearing lately, but I’m sure Quinn will tell you which drugstore you can get his aftershave.”
“Very funny,” Matt said, craning his neck down the street for a glimpse of a yellow cab. “And, by the way, it’s not a matter of money, Clare. It’s a matter of motivation. You saw that girl gunned down in the street last night. Don’t you want to help catch who killed her?”
I closed my eyes. “Of course.”
“Then stop qualifying your involvement.”
Matt raised his hand to signal an approaching cab, but the driver whizzed by us. He already had a fare.
“Okay . . .” I said with a surrendering exhale. “I’ll stop bellyaching. But you can’t bug out on me with the Blend this week. Double-check the schedule with the baristas and make sure our orders are coming in for the wedding on Saturday. We’ll need the extra milk and half-and-half.”
“I will.”
“I’m going to roast the single-origin green beans myself. I brought in Janelle Babcock to handle all of the pastry and cookies, but we need to start roasting the extra house blend for the espresso drinks. You can get started on that—”
“Okay, Clare. Don’t worry. Once I explain things to Breanne, I’m coming right back down here.”
“Fine.”
As I took a breath, it occurred to me that my priorities probably
were
a little skewed. In the end, showing off the Village Blend’s catering abilities at a Metropolitan Museum of Art reception would be all for naught if the bride got whacked before the wedding day.
“Taxi!” Matt whistled, at last scoring us an empty cab.
The driver swung to our side of the street. But as I began to open the back door, I heard a woman’s voice urgently calling, “Matteo! Matteo Allegro!”
Matt and I both turned to find a gorgeous young woman striding up to us. She was model slender with large dark eyes and long black hair. Her smooth, light-mocha skin was a sharp contrast to the pastel-pink minidress.
I expected her to say something sweet and charming to my ex. But she didn’t. She spat on the ground, cursed him in what I think was Portuguese, and then slapped him hard.
Red-faced (literally), Matt watched in stunned silence as the woman turned on her platform sandals and stormed away.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“An old friend,” Matt said, rubbing his cheek. “Get in the cab.”
We piled in, and Matt told the driver where to go.
“She didn’t look
old
,” I pointed out to Matt as the cab pulled away. “In fact, she looked quite a bit younger than you.”
“She’s an old girlfriend, okay?”
Right. No kidding.
“What have you been up to, Matt?”
“Nothing! I swear. She and I were hot and heavy in Rio for a few months, two years ago. I haven’t even spoken to her in a year.”
“So why did she slap you?”
“I can’t imagine.” Then Matt’s eyes narrowed with a thought. “Or maybe I
can
.” He glanced over at me. “Why do I suspect my mother’s up to something again?”
“You think?”
By now, Madame already had launched half a dozen schemes to change Matt’s mind about the wedding. The fake letter from Joy begging him to remarry
me
didn’t fly. The anonymous invitation to the Playboy Mansion (mysteriously coinciding with the week of his wedding) didn’t dissuade him, either. The pretend heart attack almost succeeded, but Matt got wise inside of three days.
“I spoke to your mother this morning,” I told him. “I think she would have let me in on any last-minute scheme. Besides, she admitted her last hope was your plan to move in with me this week.”
Matt grunted. “Then she’s working on the wrong ex.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means, Clare.”
Silence descended after that statement. The cab suddenly seemed to lack oxygen. We sat motionless for a few moments, then I turned to my ex.
“Matt—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t waste your breath. You’re never going to forgive me for what I put you through during our marriage. Not enough to take me back, anyway. I’ve finally accepted that.” He looked away, cracked the window. “You moved on. And I’m
trying
to.”
As nice a boost as that was to my ego, it frankly unnerved me. Matt wasn’t wrong about me. It had taken years, but I’d finally gotten over my recurring, perilous infatuation with the swaggering, globe-trotting father of my child, a man who couldn’t stay faithful if his life depended on it.
Maybe the eternal boy really had reached some midlife phase where he was ready to nest. But so what? The wild pirate’s acute need for calm, dependable waters to drop anchor couldn’t remedy the decades of rough sailing I’d endured with him. (And I remained skeptical that he’d really be able to settle for one woman for long, anyway, no matter how spectacular she was.)
What did shock me about Matt’s little taxicab confession was his admission, four days before his wedding, that his impressive fiancée was essentially
sloppy seconds
—that Breanne Summour was someone with whom he was “trying” to rebound.
Despite my continual lectures to Madame about butting out of her son’s love life, I suddenly wanted to ask the man:
Are you sure you should be
marrying
this woman?
Before I could open my mouth, however, we pulled up to the corner of Fifth and Fifty-second. Matt exited the cab, slamming the door hard behind him. He paid the cabbie through the window and barreled straight up the sidewalk to the House of Fen.
ELEVEN
I climbed out of the yellow taxi and paused, needing to get my emotional bearings as much as my geographical ones.
The low buildings and narrow streets of the Village were a sharp contrast to the skyscrapers around me now. Mid-town’s concrete sidewalks were huge, the crowds dense and loud, the traffic a perpetual snarl of taxis, buses, limos, trucks, and luxury cars.
People were in a much bigger hurry in this part of the city and generally dressed more formally. North of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (where we were now) the Avenue also boasted some of the highest temples of haute couture: Gucci, Prada, Bulgari, and Tiffany.
Even though my desire to stay out of debtor’s prison restricted me to the less exclusive stores on these rarified blocks (i.e., Esprit, Banana Republic, the Gap), I never failed to appreciate the restoration jobs some of the more exclusive establishments had done on the older structures that housed them. Just across the avenue, for instance, was Cartier, which sold its million-dollar diamond chokers out of a converted neo-Italian brownstone, circa 1905. It sat next to a landmark turn-of-the-century town house with a stunning white marble facade, originally erected for the family of George Vanderbilt and now occupied by Italian designer Versace, who’d spent a small fortune to restore it.
Even Henri Bendel was worth a stop now that the exclusive store had moved into the dignified old Coty Building. During that multimillion-dollar restoration, a priceless discovery was made in the upper story windows: more than two hundred panels of molded glass that formed a translucent tangle of stems and flowers. An architectural historian identified the work as that of René Lalique, the legendary French master of glass and jewelry design. (To view the only other example of this artisan’s work in the United States, I’d have to fly 3,000 miles to L.A.)