Looks to Die For (18 page)

Dan stopped. “Scared of me?” he asked.

I tried to recover quickly because I hadn’t meant to cower. Hadn’t meant to act like I was afraid of my husband. But Dan had seen the panic.

“Of course I’m not scared of you.” I got out of bed, knees shaking. “You just startled me, that’s all. Turning on the lights. Acting so angry. That’s it. I’m sorry if my going back to Chauncey annoyed you. But it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

“You don’t?” Dan picked up a pillow handmade from the remnant of a Tunisian rug and threw it against the headboard. “This is my case and my problem and Chauncey happens to be my lawyer. If you have doubts, tell me, not him.”

“No doubts,” I said.

“Bullshit, Lacy. That’s bullshit.” He stood on the opposite side of the bed, glaring across the huge distance that separated us. “Chauncey told me exactly what you said. You’ve been checking up on me. So what’s the real story, Lacy? You think I did it? You think maybe the police are right?”

“Of course not.” I should have gone over and taken his hand. Given him a hug. Anything to make the assurance seem real. But instead I stood where I was, my arms folded tightly in front of my chest.

Dan hesitated, staring at me like he barely knew who I was. Or maybe that’s how he thought I was looking at him.

“Do you want me to move out?” he asked.

I teetered slightly. “Why would you do that?”

“If you think I’m guilty, I should get the hell out of here. Leave tonight. Right now. Okay? Let’s decide.” He folded his arms in front of his chest, unconsciously mirroring me.

We stood there facing each other. Is that what eighteen years of marriage got you? Doubts, anger, guilt — and a husband storming out in the middle of the night? I bit my lip and felt tears stinging my eyes. No, we also had love and friendship, three kids, good sex, and an original Jasper Johns hanging in the foyer. That had to add up to something.

“There’s nothing to decide. I want you here,” I said. Whatever my doubts, he was my partner. For life. “All I was trying to do was get some evidence for our side. For your side. That’s all.” The tears splashed against my cheeks, and I wiped at them furiously with the back of my fist.

“I hate thinking that I’m ruining your life,” Dan said, but the anger had ebbed out of his voice. He couldn’t bear it when I cried.

“You’ll ruin my life if you leave. I was a silly girl from Ohio when we met. You were a smart boy being bullied by your father. Everything we have we’ve built together.”

“Oh God, Lacy.” Dan sat down on the edge of the bed, and I saw his lip trembling. My stoic husband, who never revealed emotion. Dan the Doctor, who’d learned to keep his feelings under control and never admit vulnerability to anyone, including me. A trembling lip wasn’t much after all this, but it pierced my heart as surely as if he’d thrown himself at my feet, begging for love.

“I want everything to be right for us, don’t you know that?” I asked, coming over to sit next to him. “I’m sorry if I upset you today. That’s not what I had in mind.”

“Then stop playing detective. Don’t check up on me.”

“I promise,” I said softly.

Dan wrapped his arms around me, and when I buried my head in his chest, he held me even tighter. Just like in the old days. I leaned into him, clenching him fervently. I didn’t want him ever to leave me. However embattled we were, we had to trust in the other’s devotion.

“Kiss me,” Dan whispered, and I didn’t need any encouragement. His anger and my fear had turned to mutual desire. I slipped my bare leg over his and inched my hips closer, trying to erase any space between us.

“Hold me, I need you close,” I said. Then, meaning it devoutly, I added, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He leaned into me, pushing me back onto the pillows. Then he was lying on top of me and we were kissing and groping so hungrily we could have been back at the Sunset Vue Motel. Dan tugged at the blue silk camisole I was wearing, yanking it over my head, and for the first time in all these weeks, I felt the heat of my husband’s naked chest searing into mine. He dropped his head to my breasts, gently kissing them, then painted circles with his tongue, faster and faster, until my whole body was aching for him.

“Oh God, I want you,” I said, pressing hard against him, and he said, “You have me.”

Dan’s lips lingered on my skin, and his hands moved from my back so he could continue massaging my breasts. Then he turned his attention upward, his fingers slipping slowly toward my neck….

My neck.

I froze. All the eager passion drained from my body and I felt myself turn to stone.
Don’t touch me there,
I thought. I tried to sit up, but Dan’s full weight was pressing against me and I braced myself not to flinch as his fingers flitted at the suddenly overly sensitive, soft space under my chin.

“Come here,” I whispered to him urgently. “Come kiss me.” If he moved away from my neck, maybe I could lose myself in his embrace.

Dan stretched his long body over mine and our lips connected and our eyes locked. But instead of my husband’s face, all I could see was Tasha Barlow — alive, then dead. Dead and strangled and pale. Thumbprints left at her neck.

I closed my eyes, willing the images to go away but not able to make them disappear.

“I want to make love to you,” Dan said, not yet noticing that my lust had drained away and that I was suddenly cold and tense.

For an answer I swayed my hips, avidly pretending an ardor that I didn’t feel. I couldn’t push Dan away. Not now, when we fervently needed to connect. Dan wanted to know his wife loved and trusted him, and I was desperate for proof, any proof, that my husband hadn’t changed from the caring, honorable man I’d vowed to love and cherish. If a little married sex could make us believe in each other again, I was all for it.

I dug my fingers into Dan’s back. He slid into me, and a moan escaped my lips — a mix of passion and panic as I wondered what would happen next.

Chapter Seven

I
woke up the next morning
with Dan asleep next to me, his arm gently encircling my waist and his warm breath tickling my ear. I lay still for a while, staring at the luminescent digits on the Bose clock radio, hoping they’d be hypnotic enough to put me back to sleep. No luck. By the time they’d changed from 7:01 to 7:09, I was as tense as a violin string and ready to pop.

I got out of bed because even though it was Saturday, I had to get to work. Roy Evans had left three messages to confirm that I’d be coming by at ten that morning to look at his apartment and lay out floor plans. I slipped quietly into the bathroom and turned on the water in the granite shower, swiveling the oversized nozzle that promised to make you feel like you were frolicking in a tropical rain. Seventy-five jets of water releasing three gallons per minute to rejuvenate body and spirit. Or at least get you wet really fast.

I adjusted the spray from
AERATE TO MASSAGE
and let the water throb against my back. Dan had made it pretty clear last night that he saw my role in this drama as supportive wife. He didn’t want me checking up on him or acting like an extra on
Law & Order.
But as I scrubbed my elbows with the Guatemalan loofah (much gentler than the regular ones), I convinced myself that visiting Roy wasn’t a problem. Even Dan would understand that was decorating, not detecting.

Still, I didn’t mention where I was going when I left to meet Roy at his apartment in Venice, just a few miles from where Tasha Barlow had lived. Once Venice had been the funky, eclectic beach town where outcasts and druggies drifted when they had too many tattoos, too little money, and too much interest in bongs. Now the boardwalk was a mecca for tourists to visit on a sunny Sunday so they could marvel at the weird collection of fire eaters, crocodile walkers, and Muscle Beach boys who still gathered. Shops offering tongue piercing or full-body tattoos lined the beach, but incense was no longer as popular as T-shirts and cheap jewelry. It was Disney on the Pacific.

Away from the water, Venice was a charming jumble of neighborhoods. Twenty years living in L.A. and I’d never actually seen the canals, but now I drove down some narrow, one-way streets, admiring the ’20s and ’40s Spanish bungalows, Craftsman-style cottages, and stately, turn-of-the-century homes. Maybe decorating here wouldn’t be so bad.

Though I should have known. When I got to Roy’s address, the building was recent vintage, white brick and nondescript, teetering unattractively a few blocks from the beach. I made my way upstairs and rang the bell. The door was answered so quickly that the woman who opened it might have been standing there waiting for me.

Instead of saying hello, she just stared at me, and I returned the favor. I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but it wasn’t easy since her plunge-neck lace shirt revealed a cleavage so enormous that it must have put a serious dent in the world’s supply of silicone. Some unnatural substance had been injected into her lips, too, which were puffy and painted with sparkling gold gloss. I worried that if she stepped outside into the sun, she’d start to melt.

Apparently she wasn’t too impressed with my looks, either, since she glanced at my Lilly Pulitzer capris and Gucci flats with undisguised distaste.

“I’m looking for Roy Evans,” I told her politely. “I’m Lacy Fields.”

“I know who you are,” she said snappishly, her low voice whiny and irritated. “Come in. Don’t worry, I was just leaving.” She blinked her eyes, thickly streaked with purple kohl liner top and bottom and enhanced with too-long fake lashes. Maybe the right makeup for a porn video but a little much for a morning at home.

“You don’t have to go,” I said, but she bumped against me as she sashayed into the hall, the four-inch spike heel on her orange-jeweled strapped sandal grazing against my ankle. If I hadn’t just seen those shoes for five hundred bucks at the Helmut Lang store, I’d have figured she’d found them in a Hollywood dumpster outside Trashy Lingerie.

She strutted away down the hall. Her ample, well-toned butt swung from side to side with each step, every curve evident through her leopard-print Spandex skirt. I wasn’t the only one watching her grand exit.

“Some body on that woman, don’t you think?” purred a mellow voice next to me.

I jerked around to see Roy standing in the doorway, a contented smile on his face. He put a solid arm around me and then, looking me up and down lasciviously, added, “And some body on this woman, too.”

I gave a little smile but quickly erased it, not wanting him to see that I was briefly grateful for the compliment. Falling for Roy’s flattery would be like confusing a wolf whistle with a love song.

With a firm grip on my elbow, Roy propelled me over the threshold and closed the door with a decisive snap of the deadbolt. I noticed that he was freshly shaved and showered and smelled lightly of Burberry aftershave.

“You look gorgeous,” he said, giving me a half hug.

Once flattered, twice prepared. I stepped away from him, not returning the affection. “I didn’t mean to scare away your friend,” I said.

“Nothing scares her away,” Roy said with a laugh. “That was Deanna. The woman who expects to be the next Mrs. Roy Evans. And whose antics ended my marriage to the last Mrs. Evans.”

“Oh, well then, all the more reason. I mean, we’re decorating, and if she’s going to be spending a lot of time here —”

“She’d like to spend
all
her time here,” Roy said, interrupting me with a chuckle. “Great va-va-voom body, don’t you think? And great party girl. PAR-TEE. But not much heft in the brains category.”

“Generous heft in other categories,” I offered.

“You bet.” Roy chuckled again. “I’ve lusted after her tits and ass for years.”

“Known her a long time?”

“Since high school,” Roy said. “She wouldn’t go out with me because I wasn’t cool enough. Her breasts weren’t quite so big in those days. But lately my bank account’s gotten as inflated as her breasts — and bam. We meet again.”

“Best reason to be on television,” I said. “You finally get the girl who ignored you in high school.”

Roy laughed. “Once I hit the network, she started waving her booty at me. And wavin’ and wavin’. That snagged me pretty fast.”

Booty and breasts sounded like the perfect basis for a Hollywood marriage. I gave Deanna good odds. Plenty of women had made it down the aisle on a lot less.

“Is she in the business?” I asked.

“Dirty business,” Roy said with a wink.

Okay, I was pretty much done with Deanna. “Well, time to get to work,” I said. “Let’s look at this condo of yours.”

I started walking around, taking it all in, even though there wasn’t much to see. Boxy rooms. No charm. Decent windows and good light, but not much else. Roy had moved into a building that had nothing to recommend it. Through the living room windows, the Pacific was just visible in the distance, and Roy had probably picked the place figuring the ocean view would impress his friends. And it might — if they had high-magnification binoculars.

“Great views, huh?” Roy said predictably, trailing behind me.

“Great,” I echoed.

I strolled around the living room, trying to get inspired. Not much to do with the green velveteen sofa. Or the worn and slightly chipped wood-framed mirror that had vague pretensions of being early American.

“I bought that in an antiques store in Vermont,” Roy said, when he saw me looking at the mirror. “Very classy, don’t you think? Very expensive.”

So that was it. He wanted to buy some class but was clueless about quality. Or value.

“Classy as long as we stick with originals,” I said. “No more reproductions.”

“But that is —”

“A reproduction,” I said firmly. “We need to think about getting a few terrific pieces. Maybe a Louis XVI console with a marble top for the entryway. I just saw one at Sotheby’s. If you don’t mind the price, it definitely makes a statement.”

He nodded. “I’d go for that. What else?”

“We splurge on a few good pieces and save by using items you already have.”