Faking It

  Right, Tilda thought. Lucifer, right here in my sheets. He did not learn to scam people in heaven. But the next morning, after she’d taken Steve out for his morning Dumpster encounter, she found out Davy might be on the side of the angels after all.

  “Good morning,” she said to Gwen and Eve when she got to the office. “What’s new?” She poured a glass of pineapple-orange juice as Steve attacked his food bowl, and then she turned to find them watching her. “What?”

  “Louise had a talk with Simon last night,” Gwen said.

  “You talked?” Tilda said, raising her eyebrows at Eve.

  “He’s with the FBI,” Eve said, and Tilda sat down hard in the desk chair, gripping her juice glass like death.

  “What’s he here for?” she said.

  “He’s here because he’s working with Davy,” Eve said.

  Tilda swallowed. “Davy’s FBI?”

  Eve nodded. “Louise found that exciting. Then I woke up this morning and realized what it meant.”

  “Tell me you’re being nice to Davy,” Gwen said to Tilda. “Don’t make him mad.”

  “I’m not making him mad.” Tilda bit her lip. “Well, I haven’t made him mad lately. You know, that would explain why he was so good at scamming that painting. If he’s FBI, he probably knows all there is to know about crime.”

  “How is he on art fraud?” Gwen said grimly.

  “He was asking a lot of questions about it,” Tilda said. “But I think it was general information. I don’t think he’s here for ... me.” She swallowed. “I mean, we met burgling Clea’s closet, he couldn’t have planned that.”

  “So what was he doing in Clea’s closet?” Eve said. “The FBI is investigating Clea?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tilda said. “He told me she’d made his financial manager embezzle all his money and he’s here to get it back. It sounded personal, not professional.”

  “If he’s FBI, why doesn’t he have her arrested?” Eve said.

  “I don’t know, Eve,” Tilda said, still trying to wrap her mind around the new information. “Maybe it’s part of a plan. He’s a devious son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t get angry with him,” Gwen said. “We need him to like us.”

  “Well, hell, I slept with him,” Tilda said. “You’d think someplace in there he’d have mentioned something like the FB-fucking-I. Are we sure Simon wasn’t just trying to impress Louise into bed?”

  “Louise was in bed,” Eve said, looking at the ceiling. “There were handcuffs. Nice ones. Louise asked him where he’d gotten them.”

  “Great,” Tilda said. “Tonight have Louise ask him what he’s here for.”

  “She can’t,” Eve said. “It’s Sunday. She doesn’t exist again until Wednesday.”

  “She’s not supposed to exist here at all,” Tilda said. “Are you going to tell him who you are?”

  “No. It turns out he has a thing about sleeping with women who are mothers. If I tell him, he’ll be furious.” She sighed. “I’m thinking maybe Louise won’t be back on Wednesday. I’ll leave her at the Double Take.”

  “Well, figure out where the hell she is tonight because Simon’s going to want to know.” Tilda put her juice glass down, not thirsty anymore. “Men tend to miss women who get to the handcuff stage by the second night.”

  “I’m going to miss him, too,” Eve said miserably, and Tilda thought, You’re going to? Not Louise?

  “Miss who?” Nadine said, coming in from the hall. “Steve, baby, poochie, how’s the nose?”

  Steve lifted his head from his food bowl, barked once, and went back to eating.

  “Doesn’t he have a beautiful voice?” Nadine picked up the orange juice carton. “So who’s leaving?”

  “Nobody’s leaving, baby,” Eve said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “How was singing with Burton last night?”

  “The singing part was good,” Nadine said, pouring her juice. “The Burton part, not so. He wants to see me today, though, so maybe he’s sorry.”

  “What did he do?” Eve said, moving into dangerous mother mode.

  “Well,” Nadine said, sitting down at the table. “He acts like he’s this big rebel, walks on the wild side, but it turns out he’s pretty conservative after all. He didn’t like the Lucy dress at all.”

  “What a fool,” Eve said. “You look great in the Lucy dress.”

  “I know.” Nadine sounded perplexed. “I think I may have misjudged him. Men are so seldom what they seem to be.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tilda said, thinking of Davy upstairs, asleep in the security of federal employment. She picked up her orange juice glass, “I have to go work. I start that Monet in New Albany tomorrow.”

  She went down to the basement, Steve with her in case Ariadne decided to come down to the gallery. She really didn’t think Davy was going to arrest her, she wasn’t even sure he was really FBI, but he was still a danger. She locked herself in her dad’s studio, cut a piece of foam core board to dimensions in ratio with the wall in New Albany, and began to lay in the colors for the bathroom lilies while she obsessed on the question. “You’d think he would have told me,” she said to Steve, who lay with his chin on his paws, gazing patiently up at her. “I told him I painted murals. But is he honest with me? No, he says he’s in sales. He consults. What the hell is that, consults!” She was still obsessing when somebody knocked on the door two hours later.

  “What?” she said when she opened the door, and was only marginally relieved to see it was Andrew. “Oh. Hi.”

  “Can I talk to you?” he said, coming in and pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Sure.” Tilda went back to the drawing board.

  “It’s about Simon. And Louise.”

  “Get a life, Andrew.”

  “I can’t really blame him.” Andrew pulled up a stool and sat down beside Tilda. “He seems like a nice guy and Louise probably made the first move.”

  “She jumped him at the door.” Tilda picked up her brush. “Real bundle of lust, our Louise.”

  “But she’s sleeping with him here” Andrew said. “Suppose Nadine finds out?”

  “Finds out what? Nadine knows about Louise.”

  “She doesn’t know Louise is a ...”

  “Yes, Andrew?” Tilda said, laying in another ultramarine wash.

  “She thinks Louise just sings,” Andrew finished.

  “Andrew, you’re a good man, but you’re an idiot. Nadine knows exactly what Louise is. Nadine is smarter than the rest of us put together.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t be seeing it.” Andrew shifted on the stool. “I wish Eve would give up Louise.”

  Tilda sighed. “Right. Then who headlines the Double Take?”

  Andrew blinked at her. “Well, she’d be Louise there. Just on stage.”

  “You know,” Tilda put down her brush. “There are times when you talk like a straight guy.”

  “What?” Andrew said, appalled. “What did I say?”

  “You only want Eve to be sexual in service to you,” Tilda said. “That sucks, Andrew. You dealt her a lousy hand, and now you want her to play by your rules.”

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t know I was gay. I meant it when I said I loved her. I do love her.”

  “Yeah,” Tilda said. “Well, if you love her, respect her for what she is.”

  “I would,” Andrew said, frowning, “if I knew what that was. I don’t think she does.”

  “Well, she’s the one who gets to figure that out, not you.” Tilda picked up her brush again.

  “So it didn’t go well with Davy, I hear,” Andrew said.

  Tilda set her jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Eve said you had lousy sex on the couch.”

  Tilda looked at the ceiling. “Are there families that don’t discuss each other’s sex lives? Because if there are, I’m going to go live with them.”

  “Why didn’t you marry Scott?” Andrew shook his head. “The sex was good. He was perfec
t for you.”

  “And yet, he left me,” Tilda said. “Anything else depressing you want to talk about?”

  “No.” Andrew stood up. “Talk to Eve, will you?”

  “I don’t need to,” Tilda said, keeping her back to him. “She’s already decided to keep Louise at the Double Take. All your wishes are granted.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Andrew said and went upstairs, much relieved, leaving Tilda below, much annoyed.

  At least her next mural was Monet, easy to copy. Even Monet had forged the water lilies, turning them out like a factory. She didn’t feel nearly as guilty painting one on a wall. Monet would have done the same if somebody had paid him enough.

  Why didn‘t you marry Scott?

  Tilda sat back from the drawing table and looked at the bank of white cabinets, full of family secrets. “You’ve mortgaged your life to them,” Scott had said, but he didn’t get it, and that’s why she couldn’t marry him. She’d already betrayed enough family by going straight. The least she could do was make sure everybody survived, that everything her father had worked for wasn’t lost. It wasn’t going to take that much longer. Maybe fifteen years. She could do it. Scott didn’t understand.

  Of course, that was because Scott didn’t know there were three hundred years of bad Goodnight forgeries in her basement.

  There was no way she could have told him about the buried gallery of Durers and Bouchers and Corots and God-knew-who-elses, all painted by Goodnights, most of them before they changed the family name from Giordano, and every one a little too wrong to safely sell. She couldn’t tell him about those, she couldn’t tell anybody, and it was probably a bad idea to marry a guy you couldn’t tell everything to.

  She stood up and began to clean her brushes for the next day. She had a painting to retrieve that afternoon, and the guy who was helping her get it back might be working for the FBI.

  “As God is my witness, Steve,” she said to the dog. “Once I get these paintings back, I will never go wrong again.” He looked skeptical, so she sighed and went upstairs to get ready to scam with a possible Fed.

  Chapter 10

  THREE BLOCKS AWAY, Clea went into her bedroom to get her purse for an early brunch with Mason and saw Ronald standing over the unconscious body of Thomas the Caterer.

  “What are you doing here?” she said to him, closing the door behind her. “And what did you do to Thomas?”

  “He was in your closet,” Ronald said virtuously. “I caught him stealing.”

  Clea forced herself not to frown. Then she forced herself not to beat Ronald senseless with her Gucci bag. “Ronald, you caught him cleaning. He’s the new hired help.”

  “Oh.” Ronald looked down at him. “Well, I just tapped him a little.”

  “With what? A tire iron?” Clea tilted her head to look at Thomas. He was breathing okay and he didn’t look unnaturally white or red even though he had a red mark and a bad bruise on his forehead. “Why’d you hit him twice?”

  “I didn’t,” Ronald said. “The first bruise was already there.”

  Clea straightened. “Well, now what are you going to do with him?”

  “I’ll get rid of him,” Ronald said. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  “You will not get rid of him, I need him to make dinner tonight.” Clea shook her head at his general callousness and stepped over Thomas to get to her dressing table. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she said, as she sat down to check her face.

  “I had to see you.” He beamed at her as he sat beside her on the vanity bench. “Darling, you look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said automatically. “How did you get in?”

  “The back door was unlocked.” Ronald put his arm around her. “I had to see you. I had to make sure you were all right. I’m taking care of you.”

  “Yeah,” Clea said, disentangling herself from him. “You knocked out my help before he could do my laundry, and you sent me a hired killer. Thanks a bunch.”

  Ronald looked wounded. “I thought you wanted a hired ...” He made vague motions with his hand.

  “No,” Clea said patiently. “I wanted you to send one to Davy. Direct trip.”

  “I wanted you to know I’d come through for you,” Ronald protested. “I paid him, you know. All you had to do was tell him what to do.”

  “That’s true,” Clea said, “that was nice of you to pay him. Thank you, Ronald.”

  Ronald relaxed.

  “But next time just do it,” Clea said. “He was a very scary man, Ronald.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Ronald said. “I talked to him on the phone and wired him the money.”

  Clea looked at him, exasperated. “So for all you knew, you were sending me some crazed serial killer.”

  Ronald blinked back at her. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

  Where do I find these guys? Clea thought. Do I have some kind of homing device that draws them to me?

  “I thought we could go out and celebrate,” Ronald said, moving closer. “Or stay in.”

  Clea shifted away. “Not a good time, Ronald. Maybe next week.” She stood up. “Now really, you have to get out of here.” She looked back at the body on the floor. “And do something about Thomas before—”

  “Is that one of the paintings you bought?” Ronald said.

  She turned and saw the Scarlet Hodge leaning against the wall, back from being framed. “Yes. That’s part of the collection.”

  “I like it,” Ronald said. “You have very good taste.”

  Clea looked at it doubtfully. It looked sort of amateurish to her, and it had a lot of colors. And she already knew how bad Ronald was at valuing art, the dummy.

  “The artist has a very distinct style,” Ronald went on. “What did you pay for it?”

  “A thousand,” Clea said, still bitter about that even though she hadn’t actually written the Goodnights a check yet. “And she can’t have been very good. She only painted six of them before she died.”

  “She’s dead?” Ronald whistled. “That really increases the value. You’ll probably make a nice profit on it. We should take it down to Miami where there’s real money.” He stood up and put his arm around Clea’s shoulders. “You really have an eye, honey. Too bad you couldn’t get all six.”

  Clea looked up to tell him not to call her honey, and he kissed her. It was an okay kiss, better than some, worse than others, but his timing was terrible. Still, she let him finish. After all, he was paying Ford. And he’d promised to check up on Gwen.

  “So,” she said when he was done. “Did you find out anything about Gwen Goodnight?”

  Ronald blinked, looking a little taken aback, and then he said, “Well, she’s broke. The place is mortgaged to the hilt.”

  “How is that going to help me?” Clea moved away from his arms.

  “Help you what?” Ronald said.

  “Get me something better,” Clea said. “Find out that she was a hooker or killed her husband or something. Get me something that will bring her down and that gallery with her.”

  “I don’t think she’s that kind of woman,” Ronald said doubtfully.

  Clea stepped close again and looked up at him, and he swallowed.

  “Every woman has secrets, Ronald,” she said softly. “Find out Gwen Goodnight’s and I’ll show you some of mine.”

  “Okay,” Ronald said faintly.

  Mason knocked on the door and said, “Clea?” and Clea thought, Honestly, and shoved Ronald toward the closet.

  “Get in there,” she said. “To the back. And to the right, the far right, in case he opens the door. And do not make a sound.”

  “But—” Ronald began and then saw her face. He nodded and backed into the closet, and Clea closed the door on him. She remembered the painting and opened the door again to shove it in after him. It was supposed to be a surprise, given to Mason on his birthday with cake and wine and sex in return for a nice ten-carat engagement ring. It was too soon to let him see
it. Rushing a man was always a mistake.

  Then she turned and almost fell over Thomas.

  Honest to God. Well, Mason just couldn’t come in her bedroom. She grabbed her jacket, stepped over Thomas, and eased herself through the door so Mason couldn’t see inside.

  “You ready to go?” he said.

  “Absolutely,” Clea said, cheerful and supportive.

  She looked at Mason from the corner of her eye as they went down the stairs. She could tell him Gwen Goodnight was broke and the gallery was in hock, but would that put him off Gwen or make him decide to rescue her?

  “You look lovely,” Mason said, smiling at her.

  He’d rescue her. Ronald was going to have to dig deeper.

  “Thank you,” Clea said and kissed him on the cheek.

  And she was going to have to try harder. “Too bad you didn’t get all six,” Ronald had said. That meant Mason would like all six. It would be a fabulous birthday gift. Well, how hard could that be? She could put an ad in the paper, see if anybody had one of the dumb things in an attic.

  “I have an appointment after brunch,” Mason said as he opened the door to his Mercedes for her. “But this evening, the museum is having an opening. I thought we’d go.”

  “I love it there,” Clea said, and thought, Oh, hell, more paintings. When Mason died, her next husband was going to be in something bearable, like fashion. She saw herself in the front row at all the runway shows and smiled.

  “You really do, don’t you?” Mason patted her hand. “I had no idea.”

  “Oh, there’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Clea said, and sat back in his Mercedes to plan.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  TILDA SEEMED more cautious than usual with Davy when she came downstairs after lunch, and he thought it might have been the hair and the clothes: she was a redhead with dark eyes wearing a blue jacket that looked very businesslike and remote. To cheer her up, he found Shelby Lynne on the radio.

  “Terrible jacket,” he told her when she was in the car.