Finders Keepers Losers Die (12 page)

Mrs. Scarletti lived in a part of Renford
where houses were solid but old and in need of TLC. That about
summed up the residents too.

I cruised slowly down her street and stopped
outside her house. A leafy garden out front shaded a neat, green
lawn, with a brick path leading to the door. The house was freshly
painted and the stoop swept clean. Lou might have been an asshole
but he'd been a good son if the garden was the result of his
Wednesday visits.

My knocks were eventually answered by a tiny
woman dressed head to toe in black. She squinted up at me through
thick glasses. "What do you want?"

"Mrs. Scarletti?"

"Of course I am and you know it. Don't ask
questions you already know the answer to. Don't they teach you that
in the police school? Huh?"

"I'm, um, sorry. I'm not the police. My name
is—"

"Not the police? Then what do you want? Who
are you?" She squinted some more and adjusted her glasses. "Oh!"
Both hands flew to her gray cheeks. "Valerie! You must be Valerie.
I know we haven't met yet, but I'd know you anywhere."

"Mrs. Scarletti, I'm not—"

"I know, dear, I know, you're not coping."
She opened the door, put her arm around my waist and pulled me
inside. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder but she had
a grip that could cut off blood supply.

She led me into the kitchen, feeling her way
along the wall. She was almost blind. All the curtains were drawn
and the lack of natural light added to the morbid atmosphere. "Why
don't you open the curtains?" I said.

"I'm in mourning." She had the voice of a
pack-a-day smoker and the yellowed teeth to go with it. She pushed
me into a chair at the solid wooden kitchen table and gave me a
whiskery hug.

"You poor dear," she said in her gravelly
voice. "Poor, poor Valerie."

God help me, I didn't correct her. I don't
know what came over me, but I saw an opportunity laid out before me
like a red carpet. I had to take it. I'd be a fool not to. "I'm so
sorry about Lou," I said, because I didn't know how else to
start.

Mrs. Scarletti dabbed at her eyes with a
lace handkerchief and sat heavily in the chair opposite. "Thank
you, dear. You're a sweet girl to be thinking of me at this time.
After everything you've been through. After waiting for Lou for so
long, then him finally leaving that bitch of a wife," she spat,
"only to have this happen…"

She and Valerie had a lot in common when it
came to an opinion on Roberta. Then again, they had the same source
of information.

"Isn't there someone you can stay with for a
while?" I asked. "A relative?"

"My daughter's coming from overseas," she
said. "As you know, my sister passed away last year, and her good
for nothing children are useless, so it's just me."

How depressing. I sort of wished Lou wasn't
dead. Just for a second. Not even that long, really.

It's a testimony to the complexity of
humans. You have your mind made up about someone—in this case Lou
and how much of a bastard he was—and then someone else turns that
opinion on its head. It seemed no one acted the same around every
single person. Lou behaved differently with his mother than he did
with his wife and differently again when around his friends. I
suppose I was just as guilty of being a chameleon. In fact, I
prided myself on it. Jeez, I wasn't even being
me
around
Mrs. Scarletti.

Guilt over not telling her the truth began
to weigh as heavily as the black clouds outside. Thunder murmured
in the distance and light rain fell silently on the trim lawn.

"My car leaks," I said. "So I can't stay."
It wasn't a lie. The seal on the driver's side door had
disintegrated. "Before I go, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, dear. What is it?"

"Did Lou ever give you a wooden box, inlaid
with mother of pearl? It was filled with jewelry."

"No it's not." She heaved herself up and
waddled out of the kitchen.

Oh-kay. What the hell did she mean? She had
the box but no jewels?
No, don't do this to me.

She returned a moment later carrying a small
box. "That's it!" I leaped out of my chair and took it. I turned it
over and studied the inlay. It was definitely the box Roberta had
described, right down to the pattern. It was locked.

Mrs. Scarletti handed me a key dangling from
a chain. I inserted the key and turned, hardly breathing, hoping
she was wrong and the jewels would sparkle back at me. I lifted the
lid and…

Fuck
. No jewels.

I sat back down, deflated, and tossed the
box on the table.

"Sorry, dear," said Mrs. Scarletti, peering
inside. "So this key doesn't mean anything to you?"

"Key?"

"And a piece of paper with some numbers
written in Lou's hand." She handed the paper and key to me.

Unfolded, the paper was only about two
inches by three, with a jagged bottom and right edge as if it had
been torn off the top corner of a notepad. Only four digits were
written on the paper.

8510

"What does it say?" Mrs. Scarletti asked,
squinting at the paper. "I haven't got my reading glasses."

"It's just a little love message in our
secret code," I said. "Something personal. Mind if I take the box,
key and paper?"

She smiled sadly and patted my shoulder. "Of
course, dear, he would have wanted you to have it."

Like hell, but I wasn't going to miss this
opportunity. I might feel guilty but I wasn't stupid.

CHAPTER 7

The clouds finally unloaded five minutes
into my journey home. I could barely see the road through the
sheets of rain and I definitely couldn't make out more than one car
ahead. I slowed to a crawl and hunched over the steering wheel,
trying to ignore the water streaming in through the leaky door.

Fortunately the downpour didn't last long.
When the rain eased, I noticed a dark-colored sedan sitting on my
ass. If I stopped suddenly, my rear bumper would take a hit, so I
sped up to put some distance between us. Guess I wasn't the only
one having trouble seeing through the rain.

When I checked my mirror again, the black
sedan was still behind.

I squinted into my mirrors but it was no
use. The plates and driver's face were obscured by the rain.

I turned off the highway and traveled the
scenic route home. The sedan followed.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled a
warning. I was about to call the police like I had when Lou
followed me, but just a few streets from home, it peeled off and
disappeared.

Creeped out, I hustled into my apartment,
trying to look inconspicuous. But how inconspicuous can a damp
woman carrying a box and glancing over her shoulder every two
seconds look?

Once inside, I relaxed. I stripped off and
put on an oversized shirt, leaving my legs bare. I curled up on the
couch with the jewelry box and ran my hands over the beautiful
piece of craftsmanship.

I'd decided not to call Roberta until I'd
figured out what the code meant and what lock the small key fit
into. I didn't want to appear unprofessional in front of my client.
I also wanted to figure out who the hell had been following me
before I involved her.

It must have been someone after the box.
Someone who knew I had it. Which meant someone had followed me to
Mrs. Scarletti's. I'd been watched the whole time.

I hugged the box close to my chest. Who
could it have been? Roberta knew my movements because I'd told her,
so she was a possibility. But why would she follow me when she'd
employed me? It didn't make sense.

Maybe Valerie, or Grimes. Valerie knew about
the box and jewelry but Grimes didn't. He
could
just be
following me for the sport.

Or maybe someone else was suspicious about
me snooping around. Maybe the murderer had got wind of me
questioning Lou's loved ones. His associates sprang to mind. Any
one of them could have followed me and seen me carry the box out of
Mrs. Scarletti's house. I wouldn't put it past Mad Max or his
buddies to have heard about the jewelry and want a cut. They might
have even killed Lou for it…

I tucked my legs under me and hugged my
knees with one arm, still clutching the box with my free hand. The
experience had definitely put a sour note on my discovery. I didn't
feel like celebrating anymore.

Whoever it was, I decided Roberta was better
off not knowing the details of the box's contents until I'd figured
out who was following me. No need to worry her unnecessarily. More
to the point, no need to let her think I couldn't get the job done
on my own.

I opened up the box and picked out the
little brass key then the piece of paper. I turned the paper over,
held it up to the light, and turned it over again. I discovered two
things. It was a plain piece of paper and it had never had anything
else written on it.

Good start, Einstein. Now what the hell do
the numbers mean?

A locker number? A safe code? A code
representing letters? A date? There were so many possibilities.

8510

I stared at the paper until my eyes drooped
and I fell asleep.

***

"Show me," the naked, oiled man
murmured.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." I
giggled.

The gorgeous, faceless man laughed and lit a
cigarette. It glowed between his fingers, burned up then turned
into a pile of ash at his feet that grew and grew.

"Show me," he said, suddenly lunging. He
grabbed my throat and squeezed.

I fought to breathe but I could only inhale
smoke. It filled my nostrils, my head. It stung my eyes and I
looked to the man for help but he was running away. He turned and
laughed and I noticed he wasn't gorgeous anymore. His hair was
white and his skin orange. Barry Grimes.

I awoke trying to scream but it stuck in my
burning throat.

I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe.

Panic slammed into me but I managed to make
out one thing: my apartment was on fire.

Fuck!

I leapt off the couch and ran through the
smoke toward the door. I felt across the side table until my hand
closed around my car keys and handbag.

Out in the hall, I yelled as loudly as my
raw throat could manage. "Fire! Fire! Get out!"

I banged on doors and hustled old Mrs.
Krenski down the stairwell. Jimmy Jones, the unemployed couch
potato from number six upstairs, surprised me by turning out to be
a capable guy in a crisis. Between us we rounded up all the
frightened cats, dogs and hamsters and reunited them with their
elderly owners on the street.

By then, the fire department had arrived and
doused the flames in my apartment. Thank Christ it hadn't spread
elsewhere and everyone was able to return unscathed, although
shaken, to their homes.

Even me. I surveyed my ruined apartment.
Fire had destroyed the bedroom but the rest of it suffered only
smoke and water damage.

"You can't stay here until it's cleaned up,"
the fire chief said.

No shit, Sherlock
. I nodded weakly. I
might be fighting furious on the inside but on the outside I felt
numb. My home was ruined. One minute I was asleep having erotic
dreams and the next my apartment was a charred mess. Sure, it
wasn't a palace, but it was mine and I was attached to it. And to
the things in it.

"Your closet and everything in it are gone."
The fire chief indicated the blackened door. Beyond hung burnt rags
and melted shoes.

"My autographs!"
Oh no, please, not
those
. I pushed aside the debris on the floor with my toe,
searching for my most valuable possession.

The only thing I'd gained out of my time in
Hollywood, apart from independence and massive debt, was an
autograph book filled with personal messages from stars I'd worked
with. I'd wanted to hand it down to my grandchildren one day, so
they could see that their old Nanna had once been almost
famous.

Losing the book was far worse than losing
the Jimmy Choos.

"You are insured aren't you?" the chief
said.

"Not against emotional loss."

He clicked his tongue. Clearly he didn't
think autographs qualified as requiring sympathy. "Where were you
when the fire started?"

"Asleep on the couch."

"So you didn't hear anything
suspicious?"

That got my attention. "Like what?"

"Someone breaking in."

I stared open-mouthed at him. "Someone broke
in while I was asleep and set my apartment on fire!" I hugged
myself and realized I was still only dressed in my oversized shirt.
No wonder all the firemen kept looking at my legs. Lucky I'd shaved
them the night before.

"They probably climbed through the bedroom
window and slipped in an accelerant-soaked rag. The curtains went
up first."

I shook my head, over and over. "Let me get
this straight. Someone lit this fire deliberately? But why?"

"That's for the police to work out. They'll
need a contact address for you. Anyone you can stay with for a
while?"

"My mother." I gave him the address then he
left with his crew.

When they'd gone, I stood in the middle of
my bedroom and cried. I felt better after a few minutes. Roberta's
box sat on the floor next to the couch where I'd dropped it. I
picked it up and packed a few toiletries then left.

I drove to my mother's on autopilot. It was
only eleven o'clock. Mom was often up till the wee hours chatting
on the Internet.

When I arrived, I sat in my car for a long
time, not wanting to get out. I felt safe in my car. I could move
quickly if I had to. I'd be a sitting duck inside Mom's.

Even worse, so would she. Anyone with half a
brain and a phone book could link me to her.

I shivered. I'd never been hated before. It
was a new experience and not a good one.