Ocean Beach (36 page)

Avery glanced at Madeline’s face, which was tight. Her gaze was focused on her grandson. Even Max seemed inordinately preoccupied with the baby food Kyra was practically shoveling into Dustin’s mouth.

“So your mother and the others would have been at that party even if you hadn’t gone?” Troy prodded.

Madeline’s mouth opened and then closed as if she’d thought better of whatever she’d been about to say.

“And what are you doing fooling around with that self-centered asshole anyway?” Troy asked. “Don’t you have
any
self-respect?”

Avery was kind of glad that someone was giving Kyra the talking-to she needed, but listening in was distinctly uncomfortable.

Kyra’s head shot up. She stopped shoveling baby food. “You are so over the line it’s not even funny,” she said, standing and turning to face him. “Last night was a big screwup from every point of view. But you can take that up with my mother and her merry band, not me.”

Troy snorted with derision. “You like to pretend you’re an adult, but you sure as hell don’t act like one,” he chided.

“And you do?” Kyra scoffed right back. “I’m getting really tired of this.” She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You’ve been in my face since the day we met. What is it with you?”

“Like you don’t know,” Troy ground out.

“I
don’t
know,” Kyra snapped. “Maybe it’s time you
enlightened
me.”

Avery stole a look at Madeline, who was removing the baby’s bib and wiping his face with it.

Max speared the baby’s attention with a silent disappearing-quarter trick. The baby’s laughter struck an oddly normal counterpoint to the words Kyra and Troy were flinging at each other.

“Oh, forget it,” Troy said with an angry shake of his head. “But I will tell you one thing. I’ve looked the other way to try to protect Dustin from the wrong kind of exposure and because you asked me to. But that’s over.”

“Is that right?” Kyra’s tone remained belligerent, but her face was ashen.

“That’s right.” Troy took another step toward Kyra so that she was forced to look up at him. “You tell your boyfriend that if he shows up here again, he better be wearing a disguise I damned well can’t see through. Because Daniel Deranian’s free pass is over.”

The tick in Troy’s cheek grew more pronounced as he struggled visibly to get himself under control. “And so is yours.”

By the end of the week, Nicole felt like a laboratory rat, trapped and surrounded. The slave driver known as Avery Lawford had cracked the whip and put them back to work, but every movement was observed and in many cases reported. Unwilling to jog through the mass of photographers who still littered the sidewalk, Nikki had barely exercised, and her temper, like the others’, had frayed. At the moment she was clinging to Giraldi’s promise of a sunset boat ride, which would include just the two of them and no audience. She glanced down at her watch. Only eleven hours to go.

Max and Andrew had been posted at the gate to verify the credentials of all workmen and subcontractors, while Troy and Anthony roamed freely shooting inside the house and out. Kyra and her camera moved as well, but she focused primarily on the interiors and kept her face behind the camera when she ventured outside. She didn’t respond to the photographers’ clamorings to “look this way” and “just give us one clean shot!”

When she passed near Troy, they aimed their cameras at each other, but they didn’t speak.

Mario arrived with his nephew, Giuseppe, shaking his head and muttering about the photographer who’d asked to be added to Mario’s crew and another who’d offered a camera and a thousand dollars for anything Mario managed to capture on it.

His muttering lapsed in and out of Italian as he presented Madeline with a pan of homemade baked ziti then began to unpack his tools. “Look at my hands,” he said. “They’re shaking. I don’t know how those barbarians could think I would allow them to get anywhere near you. They are
pazzi
—crazy!” He spoke as if to everyone, but his gaze remained on Madeline.

None of them could miss Madeline’s blush.

A short time later Mario and Giuseppe were on their hands and knees regrouting and filling in the Moroccan tile. The window people arrived with a sizable crew and Deirdre pressed everyone into service. The only thing Nikki heard more often than Deirdre’s voice was the ringing of Deirdre’s phone.

Nicole’s phone rang too, far more often than she would have liked. Each time she fished it out of her pants pocket
and saw Amherst’s phone number, she muted her ringer, let the call go to voice mail, and promptly deleted the message without listening. It figured that the man who’d played so hard to get when she’d been pursuing him as a client refused to disappear now that she wanted nothing to do with him. Despite the bright sunlight streaming in through The Millicent’s openings and the pandemonium created by the people around her, she shivered at the memory of the empty mansion and its owner’s equally empty stare.

Madeline carried the baby into the living room and joined Nicole, turning her back to the windows in an effort to keep Dustin out of camera range. Avery hurried in, her baggy shorts and T-shirt covered in grime. Standing next to the immaculately groomed Deirdre, they looked like a magazine’s “before” and “after.”

“I can’t stand all of those people camped out here,” Avery said. “Every time I look up I see some camera lens aimed our way.”

“There is an upside,” Deirdre said. “My phone’s been ringing all morning. Superior Pools saw all the publicity and they’re coming out in the next few days to resurface the pool and the pool deck, undoubtedly hoping to end up on camera even before the series airs. Walls of Windows has committed their entire work force to us today, which means they’ll be done in half the time.”

“Yeah, I noticed those snazzy uniforms they’re wearing,” Nicole said. “I bet you can read the company logo from all the way across the street.”

“Or at least from our sidewalk,” Madeline added.

“I also got a huge response to the call for gardeners that
Kyra put out. A whole group of Miami Beach Botanical Garden volunteers are coming. I’m telling you, everybody wants to be a part of this now,” Deirdre said. “Honestly, if I’d known we’d get this kind of response, I would have danced on a table at an actor’s party sooner.”

Nicole noted her expression and knew that Deirdre wasn’t joking. Nicole’s phone rang; it took her several rings to get a hand on the power slide. She looked down at the screen and frowned.

Madeline followed her gaze. “Oh, it’s the Roman numeral. Aren’t you going to answer it?” she asked.

“No.” Nicole hit the mute button.

“But I thought he was the possible key to getting your business back on track. If you need more time off from the house to pursue things, I’m sure we can work it out.”

“No, there’s no point,” Nikki said, remembering her last meeting with Amherst. “He’s not a serious prospect. Rich people can be so strange.” A few moments later she deleted the message.

The shadow of movement out on the scaffolding drew her attention and she watched a window guy move into position at the second-floor level. A shaft of light poured through the glass transom and the chandelier glinted, shot through with gold.

“Gosh, I love that chandelier,” Maddie said, her eyes drawn by the sparkle of sunlight through the luminescent panels. “Did you hear anything from your friend in Chicago?”

“I got an e-mail this morning,” Deirdre replied. “He couldn’t find a Gentry on the current membership list, but I figure if she was about Millie’s age, she’d be what—eighty-five
now—and most likely retired. He’s only been in Chicago for five or six years. He promised to ask some of the older members. And I thought maybe we should ask Max if he has any other information that might help us locate her. I just hate the thought of having to replace the whole chandelier.”

The crowd that surrounded The Millicent did not disperse as the day wore on. In fact, from what Nicole could see out of her bedroom window when she finally went upstairs to shower and change, it had grown and become somewhat rowdier. She’d put on her bathing suit and was slipping shorts and a T-shirt over it when she heard shouts and looked out to see Max escorting Kyra and her stroller through the gate. A number of photographers followed Kyra on what had become a regular late-afternoon trek. Max stayed to entertain those who remained.

It had been a long day and getting out of the gate without running over a photographer proved challenging, but Nicole was so ready to get out on the boat with Giraldi that she’d decided that a certain amount of collateral damage was acceptable. She was almost disappointed when the photographers in her path managed to leap out of the Jag’s way.

On the MacArthur Causeway she followed her GPS’s prompts past Star Island with its unsettling memories of
her meeting with Parker Amherst. Not for the first time she wondered if her disappointment and desperation had fueled her imagination and allowed it to get the better of her.

She was still debating this when she turned onto Palm Island then followed the GPS’s prompts across the small bridge to Hibiscus Island. Giraldi’s house was one of the smaller homes on the oval-shaped strip of land, an unpretentious one-story with stucco walls and a barrel-tile roof.

“Welcome,” he said as he ushered her into a far more contemporary interior than she’d expected.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping onto the dark wood floors and taking in the high-ceilinged, open space. The living area was to her right. A beautifully updated kitchen with concrete countertops and stainless-steel appliances bled into an equally large dining area to her left. The back wall, composed of floor-to-ceiling glass and windows provided an unimpeded view over the pool and dock to the gentle swell of Biscayne Bay.

“Wow,” Nikki said, her gaze fixed on the water and the glint of cars moving on a causeway beyond. “This is fabulous. How do you make yourself leave?”

“It’s not easy,” he said. “I was really lucky to stumble on this house when I moved down. The owner had just finished the renovation, but he was upside down on his mortgage. He just wanted out.”

She looked at the living room, which was defined by an earth-toned area rug and anchored by a tobacco-colored leather sofa and two tweedy club chairs. A flat-screen TV took up most of the only solid wall, but bookcases had been built around it and they were jam-packed with books, all of which appeared to have been read and not just placed for
effect. The decor was sophisticated, with brightly colored modern art on the living-and dining-area walls, but there were cozier touches too: a hand-knit throw draped over one of the club chairs, a stack of well-thumbed magazines teetered on the coffee table.

A collection of framed photos covered the wood-and-glass sofa table and Nicole moved closer to look at them. She saw Giraldi with what she assumed were his parents and siblings at food-laden tables and with arms slung around one another. There were others taken on ski slopes and on beaches. It was the ones of Giraldi with babies cradled in his strong arms and older children smiling beside him or holding on to his pant legs that made her realize for the first time that Special Agent Joe Giraldi had a life outside his work. A life that, unlike her own, was filled with family and friends.

She picked up a photo of Giraldi holding a gap-toothed child upside down by the ankles as if he were about to drop him on his head. “One of my nephews,” Giraldi said.

She turned to another of what appeared to be a young Giraldi and an even younger little girl on a boat. He was focused on the fishing line and hook in his hands while she was staring up at him adoringly. An older version of Giraldi looked on.

“Me and my younger sister, Maria, on our dad’s boat. To this day she only fishes if someone else will bait her hook.”

Nicole thought about her own childhood, or lack thereof.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“Of course.” She turned from the photos and smiled. “Do we have time for a tour?”

“There’s not a lot more to see,” he said. “But there’s a half bath right here off the kitchen.” He pointed to a door
on the opposite wall then walked her to a bedroom that had a queen-size bed and a sofa sleeper. “I’ve crammed whole families into this space,” he said. “But it doubles as a home office.” He gestured to the simple desk, with a laptop open on it. A pair of filing cabinets and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, this one clearly dedicated to work-related reading, had been built into a corner. The space was completed by a small bathroom and closet.