Fast Women

  “Here’s another question,” Gabe said. “How big a coincidence is it that we find a box with Trevor’s name in it at roughly the same time a woman starts blackmailing him, which is also roughly the same time that Lynnie calls in sick?”

  Riley sat very still, looking at the possibility from all sides while Gabe waited. “Maybe,” he said finally. “It’s sure not out of character for her.” He looked up at Gabe, frowning. “Doesn’t explain Jack and Budge.”

  “Jack, maybe,” Gabe said. “He was a partner in ’78.” He pulled the box back and closed it so he wouldn’t have to look at the damn title transfer, and the devil leered up at him. “My dad loved that car. The last fight he had with my mother was over that car.”

  “You love that car,” Riley said. “Maybe this is a sign that it’s time for a new one.”

  “There are no signs,” Gabe said. “Stop talking to Chloe.”

  “Well, there are clues,” Riley said. “I don’t know about this one, though. If it was Lynnie, how the hell did she know the box was here?”

  “Maybe she didn’t,” Gabe said. “Maybe she was just snooping around and found it and took what she wanted and then put it back.” He shook his head. “No, that makes no sense. She was looking for something.” He stood up and picked up his jacket. “You may now investigate Jack Dysart at will.”

  “What are you going to do?” Riley said.

  “Find Lynnie,” Gabe said grimly. “And then I’m going to talk to Trevor.” He looked around the office and saw his dad everywhere. “About the good old days.”

  * * *

  Nell watched Gabe leave and gritted her teeth. She’d never been evicted from anyplace as fast as he’d thrown her out of that office. And she could have helped, if he’d just—

  “Back later,” Riley said, coming out of his office and heading for the street door. “Much later.”

  Well, the hell with you guys, Nell thought and went back into the bathroom to wipe down the last shelf. She was just finishing when she heard the street door rattle and pop open. “Nell?” she heard Suze call, and she said, “Just a minute,” and climbed down from the toilet, the last of the cleaning done. It wasn’t very satisfying.

  When she came out into the office, Suze said, “We have to talk to you,” and Nell looked beyond her to see Margie’s tearstained face.

  “What’s wrong?” Nell went to Margie. “What happened? Did Budge do something? Is it about the teashop? Because you don’t have to—”

  “Oh, Nell!” Margie threw her arms around her.

  “What?” Nell looked over the top of Margie’s curly head to Suze, who looked equally miserable, although her misery was mixed with rage. “Did Jack do something? What’s going on?”

  “Margie talked to Budge last night,” Suze said grimly. “She suggested that since she was getting a job like you, maybe they shouldn’t get married.”

  “I told him that marriage wasn’t an answer,” Margie said wetly into Nell’s shoulder. “I told him you’d had a good marriage and it just ended for no reason, so I didn’t see why we’d be any luckier, and that’s why I needed a job.”

  “You shouldn’t do that to Budge,” Nell said, patting her shoulder. “You probably shouldn’t marry him, either—”

  “That’s not the problem.” Suze swallowed. “Budge told her your marriage didn’t just end.”

  “What?” Nell said, going suddenly cold.

  “Tim was seeing Whitney all along,” Margie said, pulling her face out of Nell’s shoulder. “Way before he left you. He was cheating the whole time.”

  I knew that, Nell thought, and then the office swooped around her and her knees buckled and light exploded in her head like stars.

  Chapter Four

  Nell felt Suze grab her before she hit the floor, easing her down to sit on the Oriental rug. We should replace this rug, Nell thought. It makes the place look ratty. She started to fall backward, but Suze held her and shook her.

  “No, you don’t,” she said. “Stay with us.”

  “He cheated,” Nell said, and saying it made her want to throw up.

  “I hope he dies,” Suze said, still holding onto her. “Are you okay? You look awful.” She hooked her hands under Nell’s arms and hauled her onto the rickety brown couch. “Put your head between your legs.”

  Nell obediently dropped her head between her knees. He cheated. He made a fool of me. “Did you know?”

  “No,” Suze said. “I swear, I would have told you. But it never made any sense that he’d fall out of love with you. You gave him everything. I couldn’t believe he’d have the guts to leave you to do everything for himself. He’s such a toad, and that kind never leaves without backup.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Margie said.

  Nell took a couple of deep breaths to get some oxygen back to her brain. Tim had cheated. She’d been fair and practical and adult, and he’d cheated. He’d cheated twice, first when he slept with Whitney and then when he’d told her there wasn’t anybody else. The second betrayal was worse. That was the lie that he’d used to swindle her out of her anger. He’d taken her job and her house and half her china, and he’d broken her life, and then he’d lied so she couldn’t even kill him for doing it. The bastard.

  Nell sat up straight, rage making her blood thick. “I hate him.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” Suze said. “What are we going to do about it?”

  I’m going to scream. “I have to go,” Nell said, pushing herself up from the couch, and Margie moved out of her way as she headed for the door.

  * * *

  Gabe spent a frustrating hour getting nowhere, so when he got back to the agency and Nell was gone, he was not amused. What the hell? he thought and grabbed the phone when it rang. It was a client from out of town and he sat down at Nell’s desk and took down the details with the gold pen that lay precisely to the right of her notepad. Everything on the desk was precise, right down to the expensively gold-framed photo of Nell and a much younger man who looked enough like her to be her son. The boy was good-looking, and Nell was flushed and happy and healthy. What happened to her since then? he thought as he hung up and then forgot about her as the phone rang again.

  “What did you find out?” Riley said, when he answered.

  “Not much. Lynnie wasn’t home and her landlady was watching from next door so I couldn’t go in on my own. And Trevor was not a help.”

  “He never is,” Riley said. “The question is, was he not a help because he was clueless, or was he not a help because he was stalling?”

  “Stalling,” Gabe said. “He couldn’t remember signing over the car.”

  “He forgot a Porsche?”

  “His position is that he couldn’t possibly remember it after twenty-three years.”

  “His position is flawed,” Riley said. “Is Nell there?”

  “No,” Gabe said looking around. “Which is why I’m answering the phone.”

  “Well, when you find her, get her to dig out the ’78 files,” Riley said. “I know this is something Patrick was covering up, but there might be something in there, and if there is, she’ll find it. That woman can find anything.”

  “If she ever comes back. She left some of her things, so I suppose we’ll see her again when the mood strikes her.”

  “Will you get off her case?” Riley said. “She’s probably at lunch, for Christ’s sake. You’re developing a fixation here.”

  “Speaking of fixations, how’s Jack?”

  “I’m just getting started,” Riley said, his voice thick with anticipation.

  Gabe sighed. “So am I. Oh, and before I forget, you have a decoy for tonight. Can you get your hort major to help?”

  “She has a paper due,” Riley said, and Gabe thought, This is what you get for dating infants.

  “I’ll get somebody,” Gabe said and went to find Chloe in the tearoom. She was opening the oven behind the counter. “Can you do a decoy tonight?”

  “No.” Chloe said. “I hate thos
e things. They mess with my karma.”

  “Right.” Gabe said. “Have you seen our new secretary?”

  “Nell? No.” She pulled a cookie sheet out and then nudged him out of her way with her hip to put it on the granite counter.

  “She didn’t seem like the type to take a long lunch,” Gabe said.

  “She doesn’t seem like the type to take lunch at all,” Chloe said irritably, shoving a sweaty curl out of her eye. “Not that you’d notice.”

  “What did I do now?” Gabe said. Chloe shook her head and waved him away, but he stayed. “Chloe, do you remember much about my dad?”

  She stopped, her irritation evaporating. “Patrick? Sure. He was good to me. And he was crazy about Lu, remember? I hated it that he died so soon after she was born. He loved her so much.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe said, trying not to remember. “Do you think he was bent?”

  Chloe put the spatula down. “Like a crook?”

  She hesitated, and Gabe thought, Oh, hell. He’d been hoping she’d say, “No, absolutely not, are you crazy?”

  “More than you,” she said finally.

  “Me?” Gabe looked at her, dumbfounded. “You think I’m bent?”

  “I think you do what you need to when you need to. I don’t think you’ve needed to do anything particularly shady for a long while, but I think you’re capable of it. I think you’re capable of almost anything if the motivation is right.”

  “Jesus,” Gabe said.

  “Your dad was, too,” Chloe said. “Except I think he liked money a lot more than you do. I think he liked women more than you do.”

  “Hey,” Gabe said, insulted.

  “Well, you’ve been faithful to me and you’re not even particularly interested in me,” Chloe said. “Your dad would have cheated on me on the honeymoon.”

  “We didn’t have a honeymoon,” Gabe said. “God, I love this conversation. So I’m crooked and undersexed?”

  “I didn’t say undersexed,” Chloe said. “I said that wasn’t a motivation for you. What’s going on?”

  Gabe felt the gloom close back over him again. “I think my dad may have done something really wrong. Something he didn’t want me to know.”

  “Wow.” Chloe leaned against the counter. “He told you everything. It must be pretty bad.”

  “It’s something to do with the car.”

  “Really.” Chloe tilted her head at him. “Something to do with your mom?”

  “My mother?” Gabe frowned at her. “I don’t—”

  “You always said she left because of the car,” Chloe said. “I never knew her, but I know you, and you don’t get whatever morals you have from your dad. So maybe he did something really bad, and that’s why she left and not because of the car.”

  “She left because he treated her like hell,” Gabe said.

  “She left a lot of times because he treated her like hell,” Chloe said. “The car was the time she didn’t come back.”

  “Maybe she just got fed up,” Gabe said. “He did a lot of cheating and yelling.”

  “He shouldn’t have been married.” Chloe picked up her spatula again. “And from what he told me, she did things to get even with him and that made it worse. Marriage can be so awful.”

  “Thank you,” Gabe said. Chloe began to take the cookies off the sheet, and Gabe inhaled the almond scent and thought, That’s always going to remind me of her.

  “Well, it’s a gamble,” Chloe said, as he picked up a cookie. “For women, anyway. Men can always start over again. The value of the male is based on money. The value of the female is based on youth and beauty. Men can always get more money, but women can’t get back those years when they’re gone. That’s why they take men to the cleaners in a divorce.”

  “Cheap talk,” Gabe said around a bite of cookie. “You wouldn’t even take alimony.”

  “I wanted to be independent,” Chloe said. “But I wanted Lu to grow up with you, too. I knew what you were doing when you bought the house next door for us, but it was so good for Lu. And then you gave me this place to run, and that was fun, too. But I should have said no. I should have gone.”

  The regret in her voice hurt. “If you want to go,” he said, “go. I’ll take care of Lu. You’re still young. Close this place and go.”

  Chloe slapped down the spatula, and he stepped back in surprise. “See? That’s why you’re such a son of a bitch. If you’d throw a fit, if you’d cheat, if you’d act like your dad, I could walk out and be free, but you’re always so damn decent about everything and you make it so hard—” She broke off.

  “Hey.” Gabe put his arms around her. “I can be lousy. Let’s talk about astrology.”

  “I have to go away,” Chloe said into his chest. “Just for a little while.”

  “I’ve got you covered,” Gabe said, his cheek against her hair. “How much money do you need?”

  She pulled away and smacked him on the chest. “Stop it. I have to do this on my own.”

  “Okay.” Gabe let go of her and took another bite of cookie. “Do you have any money?”

  “Yes,” Chloe said. “I know this place doesn’t look like it right now, but it’s been doing pretty good.”

  “Okay,” Gabe said. “Are you going to get mad if I tell you to call if you need anything?”

  “Yes,” Chloe said. “But I’ll call anyway.”

  She looked so sweet standing there, flushed from the heat of the oven and from her own frustration, and he knew it really was over, he’d known it for days, maybe longer than that. He bent and kissed her one last time, softly, and she put her hand on his cheek and said, “I really do love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Gabe said. “Just do me a favor and make sure the guy who replaces me deserves you. I sure as hell didn’t.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Chloe said. “Just stop it. Act like your dad for once.”

  “Astrology is crap,” Gabe said, and she smiled and shook her head.

  “Tell me that when I come back and you’re madly in love with Nell,” she said.

  “God forbid,” Gabe said and went back to his office.

  * * *

  When Nell had slammed open the door to the insurance agency an hour earlier, her old assistant Peggy had said, “Nell!” sounding pathetically grateful to see her, but Nell had kept right on going and banged open Tim’s office door without knocking.

  “Nell!” Tim looked up, as handsome as ever, and got to his feet. “How nice—”

  “You lied to me,” Nell said through her teeth, and his smile vanished. “You cheated on me.”

  Tim’s surprise shifted to cautious sympathy. “I’m sorry, Nell. I was hoping you’d never find out.”

  “I bet you were, you son of a bitch,” Nell said, and Tim jerked his head back.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said, looking wounded. “I didn’t want to hurt you. And I didn’t really lie. Our marriage had been dead for years.”

  “Had it? Well, gee, then why we were still sleeping together and running a business and—”

  “Because I didn’t realize it.” Tim sat on the corner of his desk, professional, adult, calm, and understanding in a shirt another woman had picked out. “It wasn’t until I met Whitney that I realized there was more to life than insurance and…” He spread his hands, helplessly. “… I had to follow my heart.” He smiled at her sadly. “The heart has its reasons.”

  Nell looked around for something to throw, something to hit him with, something that would jolt him out of this calm, let’s-all-be-adults hypocrisy and into something a little more satisfying. Like naked terror.

  “Don’t take it personally, it didn’t have anything to do with you,” Tim said, and Nell saw the Icicles lined up behind him—fourteen awards for best Ohio agent of the year—and felt suddenly, insanely calm.

  “Well, don’t take this personally, either, sweetie,” she said and walked behind him while he slid off the corner of the desk to get out of her way. She picked up the first o
f the crystal statues and smashed it on the desk where he’d been sitting. It splintered into shards, almost exploding on impact, making a huge gouge in the mahogany, and she thought, Yes, as Tim yelled, “No!”

  “I’ve just realized that you are a completely worthless human being,” Nell said, picking up another Icicle. “I spent a year and a half in purgatory because you’re such a lying coward that you didn’t even have the decency to tell me the truth.”

  “Nell,” Tim said, backing up, warning in his voice. “Be fair. You always told Jase when he was little that feelings are feelings and you have to pay attention to them.”

  “That’s true, and right now I’m feeling a little angry.” Nell raised the crystal over her head and smashed it into a thousand jagged pieces as Tim scrambled around her to grab up as many Icicles as he could.

  Peggy came to the door and said, “What—” as Nell picked up an Icicle he’d missed. Peggy stopped, her eyes wide.

  Nell ignored her to focus on Tim. “Although actually, if I was following my heart, I’d bury one of these suckers in your spleen.”

  Tim took a leap back as she smashed the third crystal, smacking it against his desk so hard that the pieces flew across the room.

  “Oh, my,” Peggy said as Nell picked up another one.

  “Okay, that was dangerous.” Tim drew himself up, his arms full of Icicles. “If you’ll just calm down—”

  “This one’s for Jase,” Nell said, brandishing the fourth crystal at him. “Because I think he knows the truth, which means you forced my son to lie to me.” This one she threw all her body weight behind, and it splintered with so much force that one of the shards ricocheted into the window behind her and cracked it.

  “Nell!” Tim yelled. “Stop it!”

  What she needed was a rhythm. She grabbed and smashed a fifth one, swinging it like a tennis racket served at the floor. The tennis serve smash felt good, traveling up her arms, making her muscles sing. That was what she needed, good pacing and a smooth delivery.

  “Goddamn it, I lied for you!” Tim said, trying to pick up another crystal even though his arms were full.

  “You lied”—she grabbed the next crystal, swung it, and smashed it on the desk—“because you’re a cheating”—swing and smash—“cowardly”—swing and smash—“spineless”—swing and smash—“slimy”—swing and smash—“son of a bitch who didn’t want to take the responsibility for wrecking his marriage.” She stopped to catch her breath and because there weren’t any more Icicles on the shelf; Tim was holding the last four in his arms, his eyes defying her to take them.