Unscrewed (23 page)

“There were no bruises, Chrissy. No signs of a struggle. No DNA.” His grip tightened like a vise. He gritted his teeth. “No fucking witnesses.”

I strained away from him.

He gave me a crooked grin. “But you’re not buying any of it, are you? Not Christina McMullen, Ph.D. You’re still betting on me, aren’t you?”

I didn’t move away, didn’t move at all. Barely breathed. “You didn’t kill her,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said, and squeezed a little closer. “What makes you think so?”

“You didn’t care enough,” I said. “You don’t care enough about anyone.”

He eased up a little on my arm and pulled away half an inch, curious. “Is that your professional analysis? Is that what you think? People only kill if they care?” He ran his free hand through his hair and chuckled. “And they gave you a license to peddle that crap?”

Anger mixed with indignation and turned cold. He could insult my morals, my hair, or my mother, but it really pissed me off when he took swipes at my career. “You saying you’re guilty, Rivera?”

He shrugged. The movement was stiff, his fingers hard. “Doesn’t matter now that the boys in tox finally got their shit together.”

I waited, mind churning. He didn’t continue.

“What are you talking about?”

He dropped my arm and shrugged, but his movements were stiff, jerky. “There was a gas leak.”

“What?”

“In the kitchen.” He nodded once, eyes narrowed. “The oven.”

I hissed in surprise and half shook my head. “That’s what killed her?”

He laughed. “What’s the matter, Chrissy? Hoping for something juicier? You can call the captain if you like. He’ll corroborate my story. Hell, call Graystone, if you want.”

My mind was reeling. “If there was a leak, why didn’t it kill you?”

He propped a hip against the wall. “I left the front door open.”

“But…” My brain was sputtering over facts and suppositions. They were all half-assed at best, but nevertheless, there was something wrong here. I could feel it in the soles of my feet.

“But what, darlin’? This is good news. Now you can fuck me with a clear conscience instead of worrying that you might be screwing a—”

“It smells.”

His brows rose. “What?”

“Gas smells.”

“Wrong again, Chrissy love. It’s odorless.”

“But they add something. Just so this sort of thing doesn’t happen. They add a scent. Just—”

“It was a small leak.”

“Still—”

“Damn it!” he snarled, hands fisted. “Tox says it was the gas!”

He watched me from inches away, eyes sparking.

As for me, I felt strangely calm. “And you believe them?”

He laughed. The sound was grim. “Fucking right I do. So I guess I’ll have to admit that dear old Dad is innocent. And I’m a…” He raised a brow. “What am I, Chrissy? Just a guy who wants to live out his adolescent fantasies of retribution. Wasn’t that what you said? Wasn’t that the shitty line you fed me?”

“You’re an asshole,” I said, and sweeping the sheet in front of me with dramatic flare, I stepped away.

He was in front of me in a heartbeat. “And you’re still horny.”

I looked him up and down. “I’ll get over it,” I said.

He took another step forward. My throat convulsed. Other stuff pulsed. Literally pulsed. I could feel my heart beating between my legs. Weird. I’ve been called an uppity broad, but I’ll tell you what, my body is a slut down to my toenails.

“Want me to help you with that?” he asked.

I laughed. It sounded more like a croak. “Over my dead body.”

“I don’t do that, remember? Guys in tox verified it.” He reached for me. I slapped his hand. He snarled a grin. “So you won’t have any need for that dewy-eyed little boy toy you brought home.”

“Eddie’s twice the man you are.” I was slipping back into elementary school, but it was too late to retract the words. Next I’d be calling him names and giving him purple nurples.

“Yeah?” He pressed up against me. “Eddie who?”

I almost spit out his name, but contrary to popular opinion, I’m not completely brain-dead. I drew my tattered dignity around me and gave him a look.

He looked back. I had some cleavage showing, and most of one leg. He looked for quite a while. “Give me his last name.” His eyes were glowing. The muscles in his arms and chest bunched. My heart pounded like a jackhammer. “I’ll just have a talk with your little friend,” he said, and reaching up, pushed my hair away from my face. I didn’t swoon. “Make sure he’s treating you right.”

I laughed. The last time he’d talked with one of my “little friends,” things had gone weirdly awry. And if there’s anything I’ve figured out in the past decade or so, it’s that I can ruin perfectly good relationships all by myself. “I wouldn’t tell you his name if you tortured me with a cato’-nine tails.”

He gave me a weird look, snorted, and turned away. “Never mind,” he said, “I’ll just go to the club and ask around.”

I grabbed his arm. The sheet slipped and a nipple popped out. His scar jumped. I dragged the toga back up. He did the same with his eyes, except slower. Harlequin whimpered at the door…I think.

“Please.” I’m not sure why I was down to begging. Maybe it was for the little Mexican boy who’d made his way to the land of the free on stolen pesos and terror. And maybe I should have told the cops what he’d told me, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Not while I remembered the look in his eyes. “Don’t.”

He watched me. Waited.

“Eddie’s a friend,” I said finally. “Nothing else. We just…we were just bored. Heard about the Strip Please.”

His lips curled up in a half-assed parody of a smile. “You were in there half the night, McMullen. I would think you would have had time to get your rocks off before coming here.”

He’d been watching, waiting. He was playing with me…again. The idea made my blood boil. “What were
you
doing, Rivera, sitting in the corner, living out some forbidden fantasies?”

“Decided to bring Travolta home, live a few fantasies of your own, did you, McMullen?”

I didn’t say anything.

He pulled his arm free, turned away. “I’ll give the other stripping stud muffins your regards,” he said.

I ground my teeth, debated for a fraction of a second, then blurted, “He’s gay.” The words ripped through me like a kidney stone.

Rivera stopped dead in his tracks. I closed my eyes, steeling myself against the fallout. I could feel him turn toward me, could feel him draw nearer, almost touching.

When I opened my eyes, he wasn’t exactly smiling. His expression was too stunned, as if he’d just captured a fairy and couldn’t quite believe his good fortune. “What’d you say?”

In that moment I would have given my left boob for a pocket stocked with Mace. But the sheet was damnably short on pockets. Long on tails, though. I tried, with quiet dignity, to pull it up my shoulder, but it was caught on something. So I sniffed instead. “You heard me,” I said.

He tilted his head. “Your lover is gay?”

He made my teeth hurt. “Eddie’s not my lover.”

“Because…he’s gay?”

“What is it, Rivera?” I asked, conjuring all the hauteur possible with snake hair and a bedsheet. “You prejudiced or just jealous?”

He stared at me for an instant, then he threw back his head and laughed.

I glared at him, blood simmering. He continued to heehaw like a wild ass. My temper perked up a notch, tripping toward the boiling point. I tried another tug at the sheet. But it was stuck fast…beneath his feet.

The beautifully balanced justice of the situation struck me with silent bliss.

I stared into his eyes. He stared into mine, still laughing, and then, ever so slowly, I unraveled the sheet. It fell away from my boobs with silky disregard, slithered down my belly, and pooled gracefully at my feet. Rivera’s jaw dropped like a rock.

And in that instant, in that beautiful nip of time, I reached down and yanked the sheet with all my blood-boiling might.

I watched his eyes go wide, watched his arms begin to flail. For one terrible moment I was afraid he might recapture his balance, but then he fell, windmilling backward to land with a solid
crack.

I didn’t give myself more than a couple of seconds to enjoy the view. Then I turned and sprinted toward my bedroom.

He snatched me to a halt before I reached the door. I swung around, drew my arm back, and slammed the heel of my hand into his eye.

He stumbled backward.

“Shit.”

We said the word in unison. I was covering my mouth. He was covering his eye.

He lowered his hand first. The area around his iris was no longer white, but crisscrossed with a hundred scarlet tributaries.

“Holy crap, Rivera—”

“Not bad,” he said. “But remind me to teach you how to strike with your elbow.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Me, too.” He dabbed at the corner of his eye with his thumb. It was seeping. “I think you might be driving me crazy.”

Okay, I’d just popped him in the eye and I was standing there naked three feet from my bedroom door, and I might have been considered a little defenseless, but I was still mad.

“I can recommend someone for that,” I said.

He chuckled. It sounded tired. I wondered when he’d slept last. Something dark and lonely shone in his eyes. Was it fear? Confusion? Guilt? Shit, I had no idea. But, oddly, at that precise moment, it didn’t matter. I stepped forward, wanting to touch him, to be touched. But he backed away.

Silence whispered like a draft between us, then he turned, walked away, and closed the front door behind him. Harlequin barked. I imagined him jumping circles around his fallen hero. I remembered the haunted look in Rivera’s eyes when he’d seen the pictures, the look of trust slashed.

I sighed, feeling guilty. But what the hell was I supposed to do? Had he expected me to accept the fact that he may or may not have killed Salina Martinez? Should I have dabbed on some lip gloss, grabbed my handbag, and headed off to Spago to score a glimpse of Jennifer Aniston?

I didn’t work that way.

Tripping over the fallen sheet, I stumbled into my bedroom and flopped onto the mattress.

Photos lay scattered across the floor. A picture of Daniel lay on top. He still looked sharp, but angry as he gazed at…Salina?

My mind clicked over. I snatched up the image, staring, google-eyed. Was that Salina in the crowd? Were they together?

Jumping to my feet, I raced bare-assed into my office, grabbed a magnifying glass from the drawer, and aimed it at the paper. The image was tiny and indistinct. The photographer had just caught the edge of her profile, but it was Martinez. I was certain of that. She was wearing a slim, sweeping evening gown. Her sleek hair was piled up above her elegant, swan-smooth neck, and her hands were gloved. One rested on the chest of a tuxedoed man. His hair was dark, his face hidden. But hers was just visible, and the expression, even half-hidden, was one of absolute adoration.

I felt myself pale as tiny puzzle pieces clattered into place.

“Holy crap,” I breathed. “Those guys in tox are morons.”

28

R
OBERT PEACHTREE LIVED up in Santa Clarita, where there’s still enough room to breathe. But I couldn’t appreciate the view. My nerves were stretched as tight as Laney’s longbow, my fingers gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, and my stomach felt queasy and uncertain. Maybe my mother had been right, maybe women weren’t supposed to eat pure fat first thing in the morning. I considered stopping for an orange juice to straighten out my blood-sugar level, but couldn’t force myself to take the time.

I knew what had happened. All I needed was a little corroboration.

It took me over an hour to reach Peachtree’s property. The house was the size of a baseball field. The driveway wound around it, ending beside a copse of persimmon and poplar. I parked between it and a black BMW and got out.

The sun was warm against my skin, but I still felt chilled as I rang the doorbell. Facts and rumors and suppositions ran through my head like raw sewage.

Peachtree himself answered the bell. He was wearing shorts that showcased saggy knees and blue-veined lower legs, but had still donned the traditional straw hat and ten-gallon buckle. “Ms. McMullen,” he said, and reached out with a leather-clad hand to shake mine. His grip wasn’t strong. The other hand looked a little shaky on the head of his cane. “Excuse my appearance. I was just helping Eldwardo with some work outside.” He looked thrilled to see me and shuffled back a little, holding the screen door wide. His socks were pearly white where they showed through the open toes of his leather sandals, and somehow it was that sight that made my uncertainty swell like a river. Someone loved him enough to wash his socks. And he loved, loved Daniel Hohl like a son. “But I’m happy as a clam that you’ve taken me up on my invitation. Welcome, welcome.”

“Mr. Peachtree.” I felt a little breathless. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” I had called him less than two hours before, giving myself enough time to shuffle through the photos, both Solberg’s and the crime scene’s. My heart was pounding.

“No problem. No problem at all. Come in. Please.” He waved me inside, then took off his hat and gloves and tossed them onto a wooden bench. He looked smaller without his nod to the Old West. The house rambled away. To my left, I saw an office decorated in rich browns and forest greens. To my right was the dining room, table neatly set for eight. A bottle of Chardonnay stood at the corner, a corkscrew beside it, its handle pewter and shaped like a rattlesnake. Like all the rooms, the great room we were standing in was vaulted and rugged.

“Have a seat.” He waved to a trio of leather chairs arranged around a wagon-wheel coffee table. Against the left wall there was a fireplace. Nights can get cool so close to the mountains. “Or we could sit outside by the pool, if you like.”

“No.” I settled into a chair, feeling light-headed with my own soaring sense of knowledge. “This is fine.”

“Good. Good.” He glanced out the window and scowled. “If you’ll excuse me just one minute.”

“Of course.”

Stumping toward the deck door, Peachtree opened it and stuck his head out. In profile, his neck looked long and scrawny, like an aging turtle’s. Guilt spurred me. This was going to hurt him. “That’s great, Eldwardo. Don’t worry about the magnolias. I watered them yesterday. But you’d best see to Mrs. Peachtree’s flowers, or there’ll be hell to pay when she gets back.”

I didn’t hear Eldwardo’s answer, but the old man chuckled a response, waved, and returned to me.

“So…” He stumped past again, heading to a side table near a couch the size of Montana. “Christina McMullen…” He did a fair Gaelic impression. “Is that Scotch or Irish?”

“Irish as mutton stew,” I said.

“Well…” He poured himself a Scotch and raised the glass. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there now?”

“Not a’tall,” I said, playing along, impatience tap-dancing on my nerve endings.

“You want a nip, then?”

“It’s kind of early in the day, but sure, why not?” I had unraveled the mystery.

“That’s the spirit.” He poured me a hundred thimblefuls, then made his laborious way back toward me.

“Thank you.” The glass was as heavy and clear as…well, crystal.

He nodded, then sighed as he sank into a chair not far from me. The cushions groaned. “So, lassie, you’ll be wantin’ to know more about my offer, will you?”

I had been intentionally vague on the phone, merely saying that I was ready to talk. I cleared my throat. “I’m flattered you’d consider me,” I said. “But actually, I came by to discuss something else entirely.”

He stuck out his lower lip and narrowed his eyes, not comprehending.

“It’s a matter of some importance.” I drew a deep breath and plunged. “It’s about Daniel Hohl.”

“Danny Boy?” His scowl deepened. “What about him?”

“He works for you. Is that correct?”

“I’m no fool,” he said.

It was my turn to look bemused.

“Danny’s smart as a firecracker. I wasn’t going to have him working for my competition. Don’t get me wrong. I love him like a son. But even if I didn’t, I’d a found a way to convince him to work for Sharpe.”

“How about for True Health?”

“What’s that?”

“True Health. He does a considerable amount of work for them, too, doesn’t he? Research, that sort of thing.”

He shook his head and drank. “Danny does what he wants on his own time.”

“Even if it involves murder?”

The old man drew himself up with righteous indignation. “I don’t know what the hell you’re hinting at.”

“Daniel said it was over between Salina and him. That he hadn’t seen her in over a year, but that wasn’t true, was it? Even after his engagement to Cindy, he was still seeing Salina. I found a picture of them at a fund-raiser for True Health.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“True Health is a new company. Not more than six months old. They’re working with experimental drugs. Plants from the Amazon. That sort of thing.”

“He’s a pioneer. All the great minds are. So?”

I nodded. “I saw a picture of Salina and Daniel at a True Health function. He lied about his association with her.”

He snorted and waved a hand at me.

But I continued, on a roll. “His fiancée didn’t know about them. Maybe no one did. But Cindy was willing to believe my merest suggestion. Woman’s intuition maybe. He’d told her other lies, about being uninvolved with hair restoration. It made me wonder why.”

“Danny’s a good boy.” His brows were low, bushy over eyes that were suddenly teary. “I won’t have you slathering up his name.”

I set my Scotch on a nearby table. “She wanted to end it, didn’t she?”

He looked from the glass to me. “You’re crazy.”

“She was in love with someone else, so she wanted to end it. She baked cocoa cookies for him, just like your wife used to do, only she was planning to say good-bye. But Danny’s used to getting what he wants. And he wanted her. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he growled, and shakily turned away.

Guilt and exhilaration sluiced through me in a powerful blend. My head felt light. I grabbed the arm of my chair.

He turned back toward me with a scowl, anger and caring chasing each other across his creased features. “You okay?”

I straightened. “I’m fine, Mr. Peachtree,” I said. It might have been a little bit of a lie. My hands felt shaky. “But it’s time for you to face the truth. I wanted to talk to you before I went to the police.” And I wanted him to tell me I was right.

He glared at me. “Blast it, girl, you’re pale as a ghost. I’m not going to be explaining to the missus why some gal swooned on her favorite wool rug. I’m getting you something to eat,” he said, and shambled off, but he was back in a second, grumpily handing over a plate with a trio of cookies. Dottie’s revered cocoa treats. I picked one up and looked at it.

“Now’s not the time to be worrying about your weight, girl. Eat it before you keel over.”

I took a bite and waited for the euphoria, but it wasn’t as good as I’d expected, and then, suddenly, like a reel from an old movie, I remembered Daniel’s admitted aversion to them.

I stopped, mind whirring slowly to a halt. The world was quiet. “They weren’t his favorites,” I said.

Peachtree was watching me like a spider, head pulled tight between his bony shoulders.

“They’re yours.” I jerked to my feet, propelled by the power of the truth. The floor tilted beneath me. “Holy crap! She was going to leave
you. You
were in love with her.”

“Couldn’t leave things alone, could you?” he asked, and stepped toward me.

I backed away. My chest felt tight. “You killed her,” I said. “With a drug too new to be detected.”

He grinned. It didn’t look so harmless anymore.

“But…” I tried to shake my head, remembering the crime photo of the glass imprinted with Salina’s lipstick. The world shifted. “I didn’t drink anything. Hardly ate…” I darted my gaze to the cookies he’d offered.

He chuckled. “That Danny’s a genius, ain’t he? Developed stuff that’ll absorb right through the skin. It’s hardly nothin’ but a damned plant extract.”

I looked down at my hands. They felt disconnected. My vision wavered. “It was on my glass?”

“Don’t work real good on smooth surfaces. But on leather—”

I jerked my gaze back up. “Your glove.”

“Has a latex lining. Stuff has a kick like a mule if you get it on your skin. It’ll make a damned fortune. You just got a middlin’ dose, but you’re feelin’ it, ain’t you?” He chuckled. “Topical anesthesia. It’ll do some good, too. Damn doctors, always poking around for a vein like I’m a fuckin’ lab rat. Just rub a teensy bit of this on the skin and I wouldn’t feel a thing. Numbs you clear down to the bone. ’Course, if you get too much…” He grinned. He was stalking me, shaking his head. My legs felt like noodles beneath me. I was only a few steps from the deck door. From help. “You pretty gals. You think you run the world these days. Sali…”

I backed into something, fumbled around it, gasping for air, for sense. The world seemed cloudy.

“…she was a beauty.” He snorted. “Morals of a tiger shark, but pretty as the sunrise. Slept with every man-whore in town. It’s a shame.”

My fingers touched something. It felt indistinct as it came away in my hand. Nothing but a pillow. A pillow. I hadn’t gotten past the couch.

“’Cuz I woulda given her the world.”

“You were sleeping with her, too.” I stumbled around the end of the couch. The floor slanted up to meet me. I fought the incline.

He laughed. The sound ricocheted off my ears. “There wasn’t much sleepin’ done when she was in the room. Hell, she’s been draggin’ Danny around by his pecker ever since the beginning. Ever since we started making some real money. Thought he might quit her when he became engaged, but…” He snorted. “Sali, she’s like a drug. Can’t just say no. And we was all about to make a bundle of cash. She liked to stay close.”

I shook my head. The room shifted erratically.
“We?”

“Had us a good thing goin’. Sali, too. Stood to make a fortune on that hair goop. There was some cancer in the test animals, true enough. But cancer…” He huffed a snort. “…it’s in the air these days. Don’t mean nothing. Miguel, though, he was being difficult. Wanted more testing done. Getting all high and righteous. And after all the shit he pulled with his aides and such. Hell, his own son won’t hardly talk to him.” He shook his head. “Family’s everything. Kids these days, they don’t know that. Divorce everywhere you look. But I guess that don’t matter to you no more. Anyway, Sali—she could have brought Miguel around. Only all of a sudden she wanted to come clean. Start fresh, she says.”

I remembered Salina’s adoring expression, her hand resting on a dark-haired gentleman’s chest. “She was in love with Julio. The senator’s double. She was in love with him.”

“The drug’s undetectable,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Stops the lungs if you get too much. Tricky that way. Danny’ll figure out how to make it work for us, though. But why am I telling you? You must have figured that out. Smart girl like you.” He scowled, scrunching his face. “Smart girls, takin’ jobs from men. Blackmailing men. That’s what you had in mind, wasn’t it? Blackmail. I knew the minute I saw you talkin’ to Danny’s girl at the zoo.”

“You saw me.”

“I’m old but I ain’t blind. Or stupid, neither. I know folks. Can read ’em like a book. I knew you was trouble the minute I laid eyes on you. Was hopin’ you wouldn’t cause no ruckus, though, seein’s how you had your hands full with Miguel’s boy. But then I checked into your past.” He shook his head. “Nosy broad, ain’t you? Can’t—”

“You can’t kill me.” My voice was raspy. “Too much of a coincidence. Salina…now me. They’ll figure it out. Rivera—”

“Sali thought she could just pull up stakes and take off. But hell, she knew everything. Got her hands on some reports. Figured out there were problems. That gal could get a man to confess to murder.” He giggled at his own pun. The sound echoed eerily in my rocking brain. “Besides, there wasn’t no reason not to tell her. Wasn’t like she cared if half the country croaked. But all of a sudden she wanted out. I went to Miguel’s house to change her mind, but she wouldn’t budge. In my heart, I knew she wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Like I said, I know folks. So I brought the stuff with me.” He curled his paper-white fingers as if he held the drug in his hand. “I hated to do it.” For a moment his eyes looked distant, almost dreamy, then he laughed. “She fucks like a hungry whore, but money talks.”

“You wore her rubber glove.” I yanked my gaze from his fingers. “The mate to the blue one in the photo. I thought it was Daniel at first. But his hands were too big. You wore her glove to avoid fingerprints.”

“I helped her with dishes. Like one of her New Age pansy boys. But I didn’t wear ’em just for fingerprints, lass. That’s where you’re wrong. The drug don’t absorb through rubber.”

“You put it on her glass.”