Gold fooling, p.19
Gold Fooling, page 19
He froze. “Um...”
I was about to offer Felicia the shotgun seat in my Jeep when my front door banged open and a blue-haired teenager appeared, silhouetted in the doorframe.
“What’d I miss?” Willow shouted. “School stinks, you know that? You guys get to do all the fun stuff.” But she pulled up short when she saw the dazzling array on the countertop. “Whoa.”
So that changed the seating arrangements. “I’ll explain later,” I told her. But then I turned to Jeremy. “You can’t keep track of all of us.”
Was that another grin peeking through? “I’ve recruited a couple guys I know,” was all he’d say as we unceremoniously scooped the stolen jewelry back into the Trader Joe’s bag and hustled out the door.
So maybe he was learning.
~oOo~
We formed a three-vehicle cavalcade as we peeled out of the marina’s gravel parking lot—two rather obvious cars in Bettina’s pearl-white Cadillac and my rusty-red Jeep and one marvelously nondescript car in Jeremy’s Honda. I wondered if owning boring vehicles was a job requirement for FBI agents.
I wished I could ask Bettina how Ned had been occupying his time while she was off gallivanting with me, because about five minutes later I noticed a distinctive Ford Bronco in my rearview mirror. Ned drives an old beast, a relic from the 1990s. The big utility vehicle sports a curious mélange of rust-orange and dingy-beige oxidized paint and is raised well clear of the ground on big, knobby tires. It’s a fisherman’s vehicle, designed to get its driver to those private fishing holes that only he knows about. But it’s also not a subtle vehicle, and it sped up to my rear bumper.
I waved, and Ned waved back before he let the Bronco recede to a safe following distance. He’d wanted me to see him, so maybe that meant he was our assigned tail for the afternoon. But there was no question the two of us were going to stick out like sore thumbs in Patsy’s neighborhood.
Willow, too, was peering in the side mirror and keeping an eye on the rust-orange behemoth behind us. But she was scowling.
In the first few minutes of the drive, before Ned had made his presence known, I’d given her the gist of Bettina’s and my morning activities and how that stash of glittering jewelry had appeared on my kitchen counter.
“Did Collin set you up?” she said. “He’s not the brightest...well, Luna says he’s a screwup. He might’ve even done it unintentionally somehow.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, in all honesty. “Where’s Luna?” I had a burst of panic—I’d forgotten about the other teen and didn’t want to leave the girl unchaperoned.
“She’s still with Petula,” Willow said. “Petula called Gran around lunchtime and said they were heading over to that food bank where she volunteers. I guess a whole semitrailer of potatoes had been delivered, and they needed help sorting and stacking the bags.”
“Yikes.”
Willow nodded—or maybe that was just the Jeep bouncing across the ruts worn into the pavement on the interstate highway—and grabbed the handle over the door in order to stay in her seat. “Good thing hard work builds character,” she quipped in her best sassy voice.
“Don’t I know it.” I’m always telling her this.
“Hey.” She pointed with her free hand. “Isn’t that Vaughn?”
Sure enough. The tailgate of my husband’s white pickup truck has a little crinkle in it from when he helped our neighbor, Cal Barclay, hoist the new mast into place aboard his sailboat, the Ecclesiastes. I love that little crinkle—because of what it stands for and the character of the man it represents. I also happen to love the man inside the truck.
But he was already speeding past us in the left lane—and I was doing seventy-five miles per hour in a fifty-five-miles-per-hour zone.
“Not police business?” Willow muttered.
And she was right. Vaughn has a police light he can either stick on the dashboard or slap onto the roof of his truck when he needs to hustle people out of his way, if he’s responding to a call for service while on duty. And I happened to know that he was on duty at the moment.
But he was on duty back in our little town of Fidelity—not here on the interstate freeway in Portland.
Unless he was on loan.
“Ahhh,” I might’ve said.
“Uh-huh,” Willow agreed.
“I think Jeremy knows something we don’t,” I added. Or maybe he wasn’t quite as certain as he’d claimed that he hadn’t been spotted by the other watcher over the past few days.
“Ya think?” Willow quipped. “How many exits are there to this fancy-schmancy neighborhood we’re invading?”
“You’ve been there—Patsy lives near the Carricks. At least two. Maybe more. The roads curve around a lot up there since it’s on a hill. And heavily forested,” I added, after a pause, picturing the setting in my mind—at least as best I knew of it.
One thing was certain, the neighborhood had lots and lots of hiding places in addition to the exits.
CHAPTER 27
Jeremy was nowhere to be seen when I pulled the Jeep to a stop at the curb outside Patsy’s house, with my front bumper a prudent eighteen inches from the rear bumper of Bettina’s Cadillac.
It’s difficult to stay in a cavalcade on the freeway, especially when you’re all flooring it, so I wasn’t surprised. But I’d expected to spot that little navy-blue Honda again at some point once I’d started winding up the road into Patsy’s neighborhood.
But Ned had dropped back out of view as well, and I hadn’t seen Vaughn’s white pickup again either.
I slid out of the Jeep and tossed the keys across to Willow. “Just in case.”
She bit her lip, but nodded, then she climbed over the center console and dropped into the driver’s seat. “You sure?”
“Lock the doors and keep them locked,” I commanded. “Turn on the engine if you get cold.”
The street outside Patsy’s faux-Tudor was quiet. The house itself was quiet too, and foreboding. The diamond-pane windows reflected the pewter underbellies of the scuttling clouds. You could tell, from down here on the street, that the panes were single sheets of glass, crisscrossed by fake white leading into the iconic diamond shapes, unlike real diamond windowpanes which are each separate pieces of glass. Nope, the house’s builder had been smooth and cost-efficient and had skipped original construction methods in favor of speedy approximations. The veneer, when you looked closely, so obviously did not hold authenticity that maybe they shouldn’t have even bothered with the illusion.
A breeze twisted down the street, and I shivered. Bettina, too, had climbed out of the Cadillac, and her orange bob lifted and ruffled in the wind.
“Lose the vest,” I called softly. We had an image to keep up, and pregnant-orangutan outfits didn’t fit.
Bettina had stuck her head back into the car and seemed to be giving Felicia instructions, but she’d heard me and disrobed down to her more typical attire.
We marched to the door together, Bettina with the Trader Joe’s bag clenched under her arm.
Patsy must’ve been peeping through the blinds at us, because she opened the front door before we had a chance to press the buzzer. She looked far worse than she had on our first visit, but she was still clothed for action in a classy tracksuit—jewel-tone velour must be her daily uniform, when she isn’t wearing Felicia’s creations to galas, that is.
She had deep-purple shadows under her eyes that concealer couldn’t effectively mask, but that didn’t stop her from peering up and down the quiet street before backing out of the way and gesturing Bettina and me inside. “Why’d you drive separately?” she asked. Her words bore no hint of slurring.
“Places to go, things to do,” Bettina barked, and elbowed her way around our hostess. She kept right on trudging, down the hallway toward the cozy library.
“Oh yes,” Patsy mumbled. “You’ll want to go in there.”
I might’ve been the only one to hear her, and the abject dejection in her tone set the hairs on the back of my neck on end.
“Patsy?” I whispered.
But she shook her head and took off after Bettina. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “She’ll get what she wants. It’s easiest just to give it to her.”
I had a horrible feeling she wasn’t talking about my favorite little tyrant of a mother-in-law.
And then I turned the corner into the library and just about ran up the back of Bettina’s heels. Patsy joined the clog, but I was the tallest, so my view was uninhibited.
And that view was dominated by the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.
~oOo~
She wasn’t large. She wasn’t petite. But she was striking.
And she had her hand out. “Cell phones.” Her voice was low and husky, and while not obnoxious, her words were clearly a command.
My first thought was that the operation had now turned professional. Hayden had been an amateur dealer. Patsy had been—still was—an amateur customer. Bettina and I had been playacting. But this woman in front of us—she was the real thing.
Bettina didn’t even argue. I didn’t either. We handed over our cell phones.
“Make yourselves comfy,” the woman said, as though she were the mistress of the house instead of Patsy.
She dropped our phones into her purse, and I noticed that the lining was stiff inside the leather. She snapped her purse closed with a magnetic snick—and I knew what it was.
Her purse was a small, designer version of a Faraday cage, consisting of metallic mesh that redistributes electromagnetic charges. In other words, her purse blocked cell phone signals—both coming and going. It probably blocked other types of signals too, forming a dead zone equivalent to a concrete-lined underground bunker that she could carry over her shoulder.
Like I said—professional.
Which explained a lot. Just not too belatedly, I hoped.
“Why don’t you introduce me, Patsy,” said the woman. It was a command, not a question.
Patsy looked as though she’d rather fizzle into a heap of ashes, but she dutifully pointed at each of us in turn. “Bettina Godinou...” A dash of momentary confusion flickered across Patsy’s face as she hunted for what might be Bettina’s new surname—if she’d chosen to take Ned’s name, that is (and I happened to know she had), but then Patsy’s train of thought departed as quickly as it had come and she just repeated, “...Godinou. Eva Malloy. Della Corzi.” The gorgeous woman’s name was said with such flatness that Patsy sounded like an automaton.
“What a lot of bollocks this is,” Bettina announced, having gotten over her starstruck awe at the woman’s intimidating presence. She shook the Trader Joe’s bag for emphasis. “If you’re not a potential client, you should just get out.”
“Ah, I see you brought the evidence with you. How charming,” Della said. She lunged with serpentine speed and snatched the bag out of Bettina’s hands.
In that moment—far, far too late—I realized there was one thing I should never, ever do, and that was underestimate Della Corzi.
She had a grace, a poise, a confidence that beauty pageant contestants only play at—as though her entire body were made of high-tension wires that worked in perfect synchronization, as though she somehow controlled her own marionette strings with brutal efficiency and from underneath a demeanor that never lost its calm smile.
A calm smile with perfect lips and perfect cheekbones and a perfect chin. Even her hair was parted perfectly, and her eyebrows were full and perfectly shaped and made entirely of real hair. There were wrinkles—I’ll give her that—at the corners of her eyes and in small parentheses at the corners of her mouth, but they looked as though they’d been etched by Michelangelo and only enhanced her beauty rather than detracting from it.
Della had body fat too, but it was in all the right places and in none of the wrong ones, and she wore a pair of linen pants and a light sweater that perfectly draped her figure and were perfect for the weather and impossibly chic at the same time. There was a heavy gold chain around her neck and a pair of dangly earrings swung from her lobes.
I thought perhaps Bettina would be impressed by all this glamorous finery, but one glance down at my mother-in-law told me that, instead, she was doing everything within her power to keep her fury contained.
We didn’t have a lot going for us.
Except for impertinence and a burning curiosity. “What’s Patsy got to do with this?” I said. Then I strode across the room and dropped into an armchair as though I had all day to hear the answer. As though I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Ah,” the woman said again. “Patsy’s a pawn. Just like the rest of you poor souls.” But she perched on the edge of the armchair opposite and fixed those striated green eyes upon me.
“You’ve been following us,” I said.
Della flipped her hand over at the wrist—a simple, arrogant acknowledgment.
“Why?”
“Why not? My distribution chain has been disrupted. I put all my new employees through a battery of tests to see if they’re up for the challenge.”
“Did we pass?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Bettina might’ve growled, but at least she moved over and rested her skinny bottom on the sofa that formed a counterpoint to the pair of armchairs.
I pointed at the woman wavering in the doorway. “Is Patsy in the running?”
Della laughed. It was a delighted tinkling sound, as though fairies and nymphs were clanging little silver tambourines. “My, my, aren’t we competitive.”
Whatever you want to think, lady.
“I like your spirit,” Della continued. “Eva, was it?”
Even though we both knew full well that she was aware of my name, and of where I lived, and of what type of vehicle I drove, and of who I was married to. There was no question that Della Corzi did her homework.
So I said it out loud. “Whatever you want to think, lady.”
That made her blink.
But she recovered quickly. “Let’s see if you’ve stolen from me.” She tipped the Trader Joe’s bag over on the coffee table and dumped out the contents.
It didn’t take her long to assess the watches and other items.
She picked up the heaviest gold watch and lobbed it at Patsy, who ducked just in time. “For your troubles,” Della said in her cultured voice, but there was a hard edge underneath the words.
Patsy scrabbled to retrieve the watch from where it had thudded onto the rug in the hallway. She’d turned a bit green, and she fiddled with the watch as though examining it for internal injuries.
This was going downhill—fast—and I needed to keep Della talking. I didn’t like where her inner monologue might be leading.
“Why would we want to work for you? You killed Hayden Carrick,” I said.
Della’s laugh was a harsh bark this time. “Murder is such a strong word. Hayden did that to herself, you know.”
“And you provided the goods,” I shot back.
“She was addicted.” Della tsk-tsked and smoothed her hands over the lack of wrinkles in the linen on her thighs. “That’s an operational risk I just won’t take.”
“So you think we’re good bets, then,” I replied, waffling a finger between myself and Bettina.
A tight smile puckered Della’s lips. “You’ll do. But you’ll follow my rules. All of them. Or else you’ll end up like Hayden.”
How I wished I had my cell phone, and that I’d been recording with it because that was about as close to an admission of guilt as we were likely to get from her.
“Yeah, we’ll do, all right. We’re going to supplant you in the chain. You’ll see.” I boasted, narrowing my eyes.
Bettina sucked in a breath, but she narrowed her gaze right along with me. I had to hope we appeared as domineering and belligerent as I was forcing my words to be.
Della just laughed harder. “You’re a riot. You can’t supplant me. I’m it.” She flicked a strand of her perfectly tinted golden-honey hair over her shoulder.
“You go only as far as Pittsburgh,” I said. “Maybe you don’t know the difference, but Pittsburgh’s not that great.” I shook my head. “Grimy, second-rate backwater.” As though somehow Portland is better. But I can play the buffoon when I need to.
Della’s color was rising. So she wasn’t made of stone.
Bettina must’ve noticed too, because she took up my refrain. “What a bunch of mediocre, traceable pieces,” she huffed, flapping her hand at the sparkling assortment on the coffee table. “You’re actually trying to unload items with serial numbers on them?” she screeched in her own approximation of a derisive cackle. “If you can’t get us the good stuff, then there’s no way we’d do business with you.”
Della jumped out of the chair. “There’s plenty more where these came from.” Her voice had risen. “If you prove yourself by moving something difficult, then you can move something easy. My uncle always said...” But then she stopped, flushed and panting.
The sudden space in our conversation was awkward, gaping—somehow significant. It went on long enough for us to hear Patsy whimpering by the door, providing the white noise to our tension.
And then Bettina rent the gap wide open. “I think your uncle said you’re past your prime,” she said in a quiet, but fierce, voice.
It’s true that Della wasn’t a young woman. But I should be so lucky to look like her—at her age, whatever it was. Maybe she’d had work done, but if she had, the Botox was awfully subtle. I trusted Bettina’s judgment on this matter since it wasn’t a subject I had any interest in.
But it was clearly a sensitive topic for Della. “Impertinence,” she hissed. “You old hag.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled knobs.
Well now, them’s fightin’ words. I sucked in a breath, and my gaze ricocheted between Bettina and Della.
But Bettina just cackled some more, and wiggled her bottom deeper into the overstuffed sofa. Other than the fierce glittering of her brown eyes, she could’ve been a kid—her feet barely touched the floor. “You’re on probation too, aren’t you,” she said, pointing a be-ringed finger at Della. “Your uncle’s not so sure you’re up to the task. Maybe he’s going to mothball you. Washed up.” Bettina shook her head, sending her own dangly earrings flying about her chin, and sneered. “You keep losing sales agents, don’t you? I must admit, your motivational manner leaves something to be desired.”
