The Lies That Bind (21 page)

Naomi’s face was a sickly gray. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. “I can’t . . . it’s not . . .” She mumbled something incoherent, pushed away from her desk, and ran from the room.

“Well, that went well.” I blew out a breath and wandered back to the gallery, looking for someone else to browbeat.

“Hello, darling.”

Shock and pleasure overcame me. Derek was loitering by the bookshelf in the north alcove, thumbing through one of the many other copies of
Oliver Twist
on exhibit.

I slipped my arms around his waist and rested my head against his rock-solid chest.

“Ah, that’s lovely.” He wrapped his arms around me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Hoping to see you, of course.”

“That’s so sweet.”

“I’m a sweet guy.”

“But isn’t Gunther giving a class tonight?”

“Is he?”

“Very funny. That’s why you’re here.”

“Yes, well, I’d still rather see you.” He seemed reluctant to let me go and I was perfectly happy to stay right where I was. After another minute or so, he said, “No matter what happens, I’m taking you out tonight.”

“Are you?”

“I am.” He leaned his head back and frowned at me. “You’re not otherwise engaged, are you?”

“Do you care?” I asked.

His mouth twisted into a sexy grin. “Of course I care.”

I patted the lapel of his bazillion-dollar Savile Row suit. “Then I’m available.”

“I’m glad.”

We continued to smile at each other and I tried to put a name to the emotion running through me. I felt . . . happy. No, more than happy. Blissful. Complete.

There was that sappiness again. Really, I didn’t need anyone to complete me, for God’s sake. I was complete all on my own.

And how complete could someone else make me feel when I’d never even been on a date with him? Crime scenes, yes. But unless crime scenes counted as dates, I barely knew him.

And just how happy and blissful would I be when he left? Did I really want to open myself to the pain I would suffer then? Because he
would
leave. His home was six thousand miles away. He’d only been to San Francisco a few times on business.

But none of that mattered to my heart right now. Or any other parts of me, either. I didn’t know what was going on between Derek and me, didn’t know where we would end up, but I was tired of fighting against the tide. I just wanted to be with him.

I rested my head on his custom-suited shoulder.

“Don’t ever play poker,” he said, brushing back my hair to nuzzle my neck.

“Why not?”

“Your face is an open book.”

I lifted my head and studied his face for a moment, then frowned. “I can’t read one word on yours.”

“That’s because I’m a highly trained operative,” he said, bending his head to graze his lips along my jaw.

I laughed. “Oh, Commander, does that line really work?”

“I believe it’s working right now,” he murmured, and kissed my neck.

 

After that exhilarating dinner break, I found myself racing through the second half of the class. There was more laughter and lots of questions. I tried to slow down, tried to be attentive to everyone’s needs, but I just wanted to get out of there.

I’d already given myself the lecture about appearing too eager, but let’s face it, that ship had sailed. Apparently, my heart was on my sleeve. Go ahead and call me an idiot. It couldn’t be worse than the names I’d already called myself, including fifty-seven kinds of stupid.

Somehow I managed to get through the class. I made sure everyone had someone to accompany them to their cars. For once, Mitchell wasn’t paying attention as he strolled off with the other two librarians, deep in conversation.

I straightened the room and walked out to the gallery. Derek wasn’t in the immediate vicinity so I checked the alcoves and the hallways, then wandered into Gunther’s classroom. It was empty. I could see lights on in the office wing so I ambled down the hall, thinking Derek might’ve struck up a conversation with one of the managers.

Naomi was the only one still around. She sat at her desk, pounding on a calculator and writing numbers on a sheet of paper. A single lamp illuminated the desk surface, leaving her face in shadow.

“Hi, Naomi,” I said.

Her hand jerked and the pencil slid across the page, leaving a dark mark. “Damn it.”

“Sorry to startle you,” I said.

She exhaled and I could see a frown appear on her face. “It’s okay. I thought everyone had left. Look, about the book,” she said, erasing the pencil smudge.

“Oh, we can talk about that later,” I said, glancing down the hall. I had bigger things on my mind than the
Oliver Twist
. “I’m looking for Derek Stone. I was supposed to meet him after my class.”

“Really?” Her eyes gleamed with intent. “He left awhile ago.”

I frowned. Maybe she misunderstood. “Derek Stone? The British guy? He left?”

“I know who he is.” Thump-thump-thump went the eraser. “He left with the police.”

I froze, unsure if I’d heard her right. Her thumping eraser was getting on my nerves. “The police were here?”

“Yeah. Oh, you must’ve been in class.”

“Right. So he left at the same time the police did?”

She chuckled scornfully. “Not exactly.”

I had to hold myself back from strangling her as my voice rose. “Then what, exactly?”

She stared up at me and I could see how much she loathed me at that moment. I guess maybe I’d laid it on a little heavy earlier, when I accused her dearly departed aunt of lying.

“The police took him in for questioning,” she said.

In shock, I had to force the word out. “Why?”

She made an exasperated sound and waved the pencil around. “Oh, come on, Brooklyn. You know, about his thing with Layla.”

My ears were starting to buzz and I felt dizzy. “What thing with Layla?”

She pulled a face. “What rock have you been hiding under?”

“I’m not sure.” My knees were wobbling and I grabbed the doorjamb. “Spell it out for me.”

Her smile was gloating. “Derek and Layla?”

“What about them?”

“They were having an affair, Brooklyn. Layla broke up with him. He carries a gun. You do the math.”

Derek? Layla?
Affair?

No, it wasn’t true. I staggered out of her office, then stopped and stared at the wall, trying to focus. But I couldn’t. I felt nauseous and my throat was so dry I couldn’t swallow.

I swung around and stepped back into Naomi’s office. She looked up and I caught a glimmer of triumph in her eyes. And in that moment, I knew she was fabricating the entire story. Evidently, the bitch strain ran deep in Layla’s family. I braced myself, sucked in a few deep breaths, and struggled to gain back some of the strength that had drained away a minute ago.

“You’re lying,” I said, taking another step into her office.

Naomi’s lips curved into a smirk. “Uh-oh, looks like Brooklyn’s jealous. So you didn’t know about the two of them?”

“No,” I said, more easily now. “Because there’s no such thing as the ‘two of them.’ ”

She licked her lips, an obvious clue that she was making it up as she went along. “Yes, there is.”

“I’m not sure why you’re lying to me, Naomi. Maybe because I threatened you earlier about the book. But right now I don’t care about that. I just want you to know that if you lied to the police about Derek, that book will be the least of your worries.”

“I’m not lying and it has nothing to do with the book.” She stood and walked around the desk, then sat on the edge. It was an imitation of her aunt, and even knowing she was lying, I wanted to smack that fake sympathetic smile off her face. “I’m sorry, hon. I guess you didn’t know. But it shouldn’t be such a big surprise. You know Layla would screw anything that moved. Of course, in Derek’s case, I couldn’t really blame her. He’s totally cute.”

“Cute,” I murmured, and wanted more than anything else to throttle her. All of a sudden, pictures flashed in my head of Layla gripping Derek’s arm that first night. Of Layla rubbing her leg up against Derek’s. Of Layla patting his backside.

And right then, I was immensely glad she was dead. I hated her. There, I’d said it. To myself, anyway.

Meanwhile, Naomi sighed dreamily. “Actually, cute doesn’t really describe Derek, does it? He’s more hot and sexy than just cute. And dangerous, you know? Wouldn’t mind getting some of that myself.”

The crass words were so incongruous coming from her mousy little mouth, I just shook my head. “You know,
hon
, I have no idea why Layla thought so little of you, because you’re so much like her.”

She gasped and her cheeks began to blotch. Guess I had struck a nerve.

I continued. “I’m sure if we call the police right now and tell them that you made a mistake, they’ll understand.”

“It’s no mistake,” she cried, and her lower lip popped out in a pout.

“Okay, you stick with that story, but I suggest you start looking over your shoulder, because something’s going to come back and bite you on the ass.”

With that, I walked out, grabbed my coat from the gallery rail where I’d draped it earlier, and ran all the way to my car.

The drive home was touch and go, emotionally speaking. I knew Naomi was full of crap, but my mind kept drifting into possible scenarios that could very well be true.

I thought back to the first night I’d met Derek at the Covington Library, the night Abraham died. Derek had been stalking the crowded main hall, an outsider observing the goings-on of the wealthy and influential people who filled the space. More than once I’d caught him frowning at me from across the wide room. Later, in Abraham’s workroom, he’d found me covered in blood and accused me of murder. It was a strange beginning to what had become a lovely friendship—and more.

But now I recalled that Layla Fontaine had been there that night. Had she and Derek met there? Maybe they’d attended Abraham’s show as a couple.

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered. Then something else occurred to me and I pounded the steering wheel in disgust.

Layla had been in Edinburgh for the book fair. Now I recalled several nights when Derek had been unable to see me. I hadn’t given it a second thought at the time. Why would I? I thought he had obligations at Holyroodhouse Palace. Now, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe he and Layla had been frolicking all over Edinburgh while I . . .

Oh, God, at this rate I would be insane before I got home. So I didn’t go home. Instead, I drove through the city, to Pacific Heights. I was feeling just perverse enough that driving up and down astoundingly steep hills might actually soothe my jumbled brain. Or at least give me something else to obsess over.

When I first moved to San Francisco, I considered it my civic duty to practice my hill driving. I realized after doing it a few times that it was actually fun in a strange and crazy way, and always provided a nice distraction.

Tonight, I had a breathless moment going up a treacherous hill on Filbert Street where I stalled out and had to alternate between the emergency brake and my fancy foot-pedal work. And prayer. It wasn’t pretty, but it was exhilarating and I made it to the top of the grade.

Because of all the one-way streets, I had to circle around, taking Leavenworth to Chestnut to Larkin before I was able to drive down beautiful, touristy Lombard Street with its absurdly winding turns, vivid pink hydrangea bushes, neat green hedges, and incongruous palm trees. The night was clear, and as I took the first turn, a carpet of city lights undulated toward the shining pillar that was Coit Tower standing sentinel at the top of Telegraph Hill.

With the next turn, I could make out the ebony surface of the bay. Many miles beyond the water, the vague outline of the Berkeley hills was silhouetted against the night sky.

At this time of night, there were only a few other cars making the descent, so I eased off the brake pedal and drove briskly around the two remaining sharp, twisting curves for which the redbrick-paved street was justifiably famous.

Years ago, when my parents had first brought us kids here, we piled out of the car and clambered down the stairs that lined both sides of Lombard. I’m sure we were shouting and pushing and laughing all the way. When we got to the bottom, we crossed and climbed up the other side of the street, stopping every few steps to turn and gaze out at the incredible view of the city, with the blue waters of the bay and Alcatraz Island beyond. I remembered thinking how cool it would have been to live in one of the houses that lined the crookedest street in the world. Now, as I drove down, I thought how awful it had to be to deal with the daily onslaught of tourists and the constant line of cars, the photographers, the screaming kids.

Despite the ubiquitous tourists and the cars and the kids, I loved San Francisco. Who wouldn’t fall a tiny bit in love with a town where you could walk into a bar and sit down between a Trotskyite and a drag queen and wind up three hours later at a Giants game with both of them? For a place that was remarkable for its lack of pretension, San Francisco was unashamedly self-indulgent. San Franciscans adored their town. One of the first things a new resident learned was that San Francisco dwellers capitalized the
t
and the
c
when referring to the city of San Francisco. This was
The City
. And while most cities didn’t require full participation, San Francisco did.

I smiled as I coasted down Filbert again, feeling much better than I had earlier. The hills had done their job.

I headed for home, and less than fifteen minutes later drove into my parking garage. I found my space, turned off the engine, and rested my forehead on the cool plastic hardness of the steering wheel.

Unfortunately, the reeling thoughts of Derek and Layla were back in full force and I knew I wouldn’t survive the night if I didn’t find another distraction. So I pulled out my cell and called Robin.