Scarlet Nights (30 page)

“Yesterday while you were lusting over those expensive cake pans, I called a friend of mine. She got everything and left it outside the front door. She’s going to meet us at the gym.”

“
She?
You’re introducing your
wife
to one of your former lovers?”

“You can try to start all the fights you want but you’re still going to the gym. She’s a yoga instructor.”

“Yoga? Why would you think I’d want to do that?”

“I happen to know that you can put your knees in your ears and your ankles in my ears at the same time—and that’s when we’re standing up. I don’t know why, but I thought yoga and you seemed to be a perfect match.”

Sara had to look out the window to hide her smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “Her name’s Megan, and for the record, I’ve never been to bed with her.”

“I’d rather go to bed with her than exercise with her,” Sara mumbled unhappily.

“Yeah?” Mike asked, eyebrows raised.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

He laughed, and minutes later they pulled into a big parking lot full of cars.

“Who in the world goes to the gym this early in the morning?”

“Us,” Mike said, and Sara groaned.

Once they were inside, she followed Mike and saw that he knew nearly everyone. Men—with arms the size of truck tires—shook his hand and leaned toward him in what she assumed was a masculine greeting in South Florida. Women—who had behinds hard enough to repel buckshot—kissed his cheeks and stood much, much too close to him.

Mike introduced her as his wife to all the men, but in Sara’s opinion he reacted too slowly with the women, so she introduced herself.

When a pretty, young woman, Megan, came in, Sara was reluctant to leave him alone. But Mike sent Sara off with the yoga instructor and they went into the big wooden-floored court.

“So let’s see what you can do,” Megan said.

An hour later, Sara was released, and Mike, showered and freshly dressed, met her by the door.

“Well?” he said to Megan.

“Exactly as you said.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mike said and kissed Megan’s cheek. He opened the door for Sara, and they went outside where it was just barely daylight.

“What was that all about?” Sara asked when they got in the car.

“It was Megan’s report and she agreed with my assessment of you. You have no muscles to speak of, but you’re flexible as all hell. She thinks that if you work really hard, in a year or two you could be good enough to become a real student of yoga. From Megan that’s high praise.”

“Yeah?” she asked, pleased. Not that she wanted to do that, but it was nice to hear.

“But you need some muscle. I’ll take care of that.”

“Does that mean I’m to get on top more often? Good for the ol’ legs.”

“Don’t start tempting me. I have to go to work.”

“And what am I supposed to do all day?”

“You can—” He broke off because his cell phone rang. He checked the ID before answering. “I’ll be there—Oh. All right. I have no idea.” He looked at Sara. “Can you type?”

“Yes.”

Mike listened at the phone, then turned back to Sara. “Can you take dictation?”

“Luke dictated his first book to me.”

Mike looked impressed. “She writes Luke Adams’s books for him,” he said into the phone.

“I do no such—” Sara began before she realized he was teasing.

Mike said a few more words then hung up. “That was the
captain. He said I needed to write down everything I’d done and learned in Edilean, and since I’m the world’s worst typist, he suggested I dictate it all to you. And what’s the mystery about the tarot cards?”

Sara wanted to jump up and down in happiness that she and Mike would get to spend the day together. If her body hadn’t just been twisted into several unnatural positions, she might have done so.

They’d reached the house, and Sara waited until they got out before answering. “Shamus made portraits of the people of Edilean.”

“He did what?”

“He painted everyone on the cards.”

“I guess ‘everyone’ means the people from the founding families, not the newcomers like me.”

“Don’t get snobby on me. Your picture and Tess’s are on there, and Shamus included a lot of clients from the dress shop.”

Mike’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that Mitzi Vandlo’s picture could be on those cards?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but possibly. I have another set in my suitcase. You can go through them while I take a shower—unless you’d like to join me, that is.” She fluttered her lashes at him.

“I want to see the cards now. You should have told me what was on them last night.”

Sara gave a melodramatic sigh. “And ruin my twelve-hour honeymoon? How could I have been so selfish?”

Mike didn’t smile but his dimple showed. “Take your shower then we’ll go get bagels.”

“With or without flaxseeds?”

“Go!” he ordered.

Sara was in the shower when Mike came in with the cards.

“You’re going to have to tell me who most of these people are.”
He held up a card, but she couldn’t see it through the foggy glass. He stepped closer to the shower and she moved nearer the glass.

“That’s Mr. Frazier, Shamus’s father. Mrs. Frazier,” she said to the next one.

“And I know these three oxen are Shamus and Ariel’s brothers.”

“Your beloved Ariel. Think she’ll like this apartment?” Sara had her eyes closed as she washed her hair. When she turned around, he was naked and in the shower with her.

“Need some help?” he asked as he put his hands in her soapy hair and massaged her scalp.

“Always,” she replied.

22

W
HILE THEY WERE
having bagels and orange juice Mike began to have second thoughts about letting Sara hear all that he’d found out in Edilean. For one thing, all the DNA samples they’d taken had come back negative, so they were no closer to identifying Mitzi than they had been. He was concerned that telling Sara this might frighten her.

“What’s made you so quiet?” she asked.

“I’m a very quiet person.”

“Unless you’re making me do something I don’t want to do, then you have a lot to say.”

“You liked the gym and you were good at yoga,” he said.

“I most certainly did not! All those girls were drooling over you. What fun was that?”

“I saw you in there with Megan, and I could tell that you enjoyed it, and you got into every position perfectly.”

Sara looked at him over her juice. “You didn’t answer my
question about what’s bothering you. I’m beginning to learn that when you don’t want to answer something, you digress.”

“Digress, do I? Maybe you could explain the meaning of that word to me. I didn’t have the advantage of a college education, as you and Tess did, so forgive me if I have trouble keeping up with you two.”

“College doesn’t change a person’s intelligence.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re thinking about something really hard and I want to know what it is.”

“No more digressions?” he said, showing that he very well knew the word.

“None!”

He put down his bagel. “I found out some things while I was in Edilean that I don’t think you should know.”

“Why shouldn’t I know? Because the knowledge will put me in danger or my feelings will be hurt?”

“Feelings,” he said.

“I can take it.”

“Sure?”

“Haven’t you learned yet that I’m very strong?”

Mike put his hand on his lower back. “This morning in the shower I thought you were going to break me.”

Sara didn’t smile. “I want you to pretend I’m some woman who works in your office and tell me what you’ve found out. I’ll type it and I promise not to have palpitations.”

“Not even for kisses on the back of the neck?”

“That is altogether different. Can you treat me as though I’m just a regular person?”

“No,” he answered quickly.

“Good!” Sara said just as fast.

When they stopped at an office supply store to buy a printer, Mike asked why she wasn’t still typing Luke’s books.

“My mother. I was only fifteen when he wrote his first novel, and I spent an entire summer with a computer on my lap. When he finished it, Luke had half a dozen ideas for more books. I was going to help him, but my mother gave him a copy of Mavis Beacon—the typing software—and told him to let her daughter have a life.”

“Think you’ll someday be just like your mother?”

“I pray nightly not to be.”

Once they were back at the apartment, Sara turned on Mike’s laptop. After he told her to quit trying to access his personal files, he began to dictate.

He told of making contact with the “victim” and taking up residence with her. Mike glanced at Sara to see how she was taking this admission, but her face was stoic. She was concentrating on recording what he said.

It wasn’t until he got to the part about Merlin’s Farm that she interrupted. “I think you should mention your grandmother’s attachment to the farm.”

“That has nothing to do with this case. Now, as I was saying—”

“I think there is a connection. Your grandmother wanted the place and so does Greg … Stefan.”

“My grandmother left Edilean in 1941. What’s going on now has nothing to do with then.”

“I’m sure you know better than I do,” she said in a way that let him know he was wrong. She put her hands back on the keyboard.

Mike turned away. The truth was, he agreed with her. Even though he couldn’t see how the two events were related, he planned to work on it. But he wasn’t going to worry Sara with that now. He went on with his story, and she didn’t interrupt again until he got to his conversation with Ariel.

“Ariel
knew
Greg was fornicating with other women but she didn’t tell me?”

“I thought you were going to disassociate yourself from this.”

“I’m not angry at Greg. He’s the snake that doesn’t change character no matter how nice you are to him, but Ariel … What in the world can she imagine that I’ve done to her that she’d let me
marry
a man she knew was that bad?”

“If she’d told you about him, would you have believed her?”

“Not a word of it.”

Mike looked at her in astonishment. “Maybe she knew that and that’s why she didn’t tell you. Would you have told her if she was marrying a philanderer?”

“Oh, yes!” Sara said with a smile. “I would have run so fast my feet wouldn’t have touched the ground.”

Mike shook his head at her.

“And Colin!” Sara said. “I can’t believe
he
didn’t tell me about Greg. Colin and I have always been friends! When we get home I’m going to have a talk with the Fraziers.”

“That should scare them,” Mike said, deadpan. “You ready to get this done? The faster we send this off, the sooner we’ll be free. You want to return to Edilean and say you didn’t even see the ocean?”

Sara put her hands back on the keyboard. “Lead on, oh fearless leader, and tell me who else has betrayed me.”

Smiling, Mike continued. He told what he’d learned, but he also outlined the plan for the next week. For the first time, Sara heard what the police and Federal agents were hoping would happen.

After they finished the document at noon, Mike started to draw a map of the fairgrounds, but Sara took over.

“The booths and rides and the game field are in the same place every year, so I know what goes where.”

“Except for Joce’s fortune-telling tent.”

“Luke’s putting it right next to where he sells his weeds, which is beside my kissing booth.”

“Your what?!” Mike said.

Sara smiled smugly. “Just seeing if you were listening.”

By one, the maps and reports were done. They printed them out on the new printer—which Sara had set up while Mike dealt with the TV delivery—and put it all in a big envelope.

Mike turned to look at Sara. In the next second they had their clothes off and were making love on the big white couch.

Later, Sara lay in his arms and said, “It’s odd but I won’t even be thinking about sex, then I’ll look at you and it’s all I
can
think of.”

He kissed her forehead. “My virgin princess. Want to go for a swim?”

“Love to. I brought a blue bikini.”

“I bet Henry the counterfeiter will enjoy that! You just might see yourself on a thousand-dollar bill.”

“When do I get to meet the neighbors?”

Mike was heading to the bathroom and he didn’t look at her. “We have to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“Which is no answer to my question,” Sara said under her breath as she reached for her clothes. Mike hadn’t given even the slightest hint that she’d ever return to Fort Lauderdale, that she’d ever again see this beautiful apartment.

He looked around the bathroom door. “Showering alone wastes water.”

“I’m all for green.” Sara ran to the bathroom to join him.

“It’s been a wonderful day,” Sara said as she snuggled against Mike in bed. It was nearly ten
P.M
. and they had to get up early, but she wasn’t sleepy.

“It’s been great,” he said.

She could tell he was in a mellow mood. “I’ve enjoyed my honeymoon.”

“Me too. I’m not sure but I think the captain had me return here to keep me from marrying you.”