You Don't Know Jack Page 11

  "Dad told me, but I thought he said..." He trailed off, obviously discomfited at delving into my personal business. I had no relief for him. The subject of my second marriage made everyone uncomfortable.

  No one more than I. "I had it annulled."

  "Sorry it didn't work out."

  "Thanks." I could have told him more, but some things were best left unsaid — like confessing to a criminal lawyer that I married someone so he could keep his green card to stay in this country.

  Had my accident had anything to do with the strange phone calls I'd received? Had those calls been from Endré? Or somehow related to Lars' murder.

  "How is Apollo?" I touched the brass photo frame on my desk staring at the grinning couple, Apollo and me, last year at the Fremont Oktoberfest. We wore matching screwball hats.

  Duke sighed. "I have a 'no comment' policy where my clients are concerned, but in this case I will modify it, and say he's doing as well as anyone charged with first degree murder."

  In other words: bad. The heat left my face. "Where is he?"

  "That falls under privileged."

  "He told you not to tell me, didn't he?"

  "He's a nervous guy, isn't he?"

  Fidgety would be a better word. "He has the metabolism of hummingbird."

  "He needs to calm down. So, I secreted him somewhere that he can unwind. I won't risk anyone leading the media to him."

  "I wouldn't do that."

  "Not on purpose."

  Tears stung my eyes, thickened my throat. "I — I have to go."

  "What about dinner?"

  "Rain check. I'll call you."

  I hung up, my gaze riveted on the photo.

  My heart ached for Apollo. He had to feel as alone as I was feeling, as scared as I was feeling. Maybe he would rather be alone than with me. But I doubted it. I knew him, knew what would help him. We'd weathered worse.

  No.

  Actually we hadn't.

  We'd gone through my life upheavals, my divorce from Lars, my relationship highs and lows with Stone, my marriage and annulment from Endré. We'd shared Apollo's pain over his horrible childhood, his breakup with Lance, the death of the grandmother who'd raised him. But all those times we'd been on the same team.

  This was different.

  It was like coming out of an earthquake to discover a retaining wall collapsed and the ground beneath it no longer stable. You could rebuild the wall but without solid footings to support it, the wall would tumble again.

  "Darlin', you need to stop wallowin' and figure out who murdered me."

  "Geeze, Lars! Stop scaring me!"

  "It's not my fault you're jumpy as grease on a griddle. I didn't push you into that car."

  "No, but you know who did, don't you?"

  "If I did, I'd tell you."

  "Oh, you mean like you'll tell me why Dinah Edger hated you?"

  "She's a bitch on wheels."

  "If you're not going to offer helpful advice, then leave me alone."

  "I'll give you some advice. Stay away from that oily voiced attorney. He wants in your pants."

  "Thanks. I don't need your romantic tutelage."

  "First, he offers dinner in an upscale, candle-lit restaurant, next it'll be a more intimate meal at his downtown loft. He'll prepare a Spanish omelet for the main course and you'll be dessert."

  "Duke can cook?"

  "His type always can. It's the secret weapon in their seduction arsenal."

  Stone couldn't cook. Not even an omelet.

  "Pay attention, darlin'."

  "Duke isn't a bad guy. He's representing Apollo for free."

  "Don't you believe it. Sharks always smell blood in the water. He's furtherin' his own career, or his ego, with yet another high profile case."

  "He doesn't need to further his career. He's at the top of the heap already." I was still hung up on the idea that he could cook. Accomplished, polished, sexy... and he could cook? "Duke just wants to take my deposition, not seduce me."

  Though, God help me, I was strung out enough to be tempted by the thought of being seduced.

  Damned tempted.

  "Weren't you going somewhere before that shyster phoned?"

  Oh, crap. The bookstore. A shower. I headed toward my bedroom to change into something more appropriate than yesterday's sweats and a sloppy pony tail.

  "You want me to help you choose an outfit? Not that there's much choice. You need a personal shopper."

  "I had one." Anger and frustration and aching sadness knotted in my chest. "He's accused of murdering you."

  "Then prove he didn't do it. Quick! Before the fashion police fine your sorry-lookin' ass!"

  "Maybe I could if you'd help me, instead of harassing me."

  A knock sounded on my door, jarring my nerves and sending Lars back to wherever he went when he wasn't annoying me. I wasn't expecting anyone. Fear shivered my spine. I tiptoed to the door and peered through the peep hole. Stone. What was it with these Maddox men? Why couldn't they leave me alone?

  I decided not to answer. I'd been hassled enough today.

  I crept back to my cubby hole office and eased the door closed.

  Stone banged on the main door louder. "I know you're in there, Jack, let me in."

  "How do you know I wasn't sleeping and that your pounding didn't wake me from a doctor-ordered nap?"

  "You weren't sleeping. I heard you talking to someone. Let me in."

  No time to improve my appearance. "All right, all right, come in."

  He stepped inside, cop eyes searching for whoever he'd heard me talking to, suspicious gaze locking on my closed office door. Desperate for him to forget checking and coming across my suspect board, I said, "No one here but Ken-doll and me."

  He looked skeptical. "So, now you're talking to manikins?"

  Now? If he only knew. I blurted out, "Why can't you cook?"

  That diverted his attention. "What?"

  "Never mind."

  He closed the door behind him, a solid hulk of masculinity, towering over me, making me feel more feminine than usual. His hellfire green gaze raked me, igniting sensual blazes in intimate places that Duke's throaty voice hadn't even stirred. I tugged at my sweatshirt, embarrassed by the soup stain. "I know, I look awful. Stop staring."

  "I've seen you looking worse, Jack, and never tired of the view."

  My spine went stiff. How dare he waltz in sounding and smelling all sexy, acting like we were still lovers, making me long for his touch, his love? Like he hadn't caused me to swear off men for good. "What do you want, Maddox?"

  He backed me against the wall and planted his hands on either side of me without touching me. It was a possessive stance, an I-own-you stare. In that instant, I wished he wanted me so much he ached. I wished he was jealous. I wished he'd ask if I was dating his brother. I wanted to tell him yes and I wanted that answer to hurt him.

  He leaned in as though to kiss me, his breath like warm fingers caressing my face, my mouth. My muscles were turning liquid. If I were a recovering alcoholic with a glass of whiskey pressing my lips I would not be able to resist a taste, a swallow, the whole damned drink.

  "I'm just making sure you're okay," he murmured. "Are you?"

  I whimpered.

  And... he kissed me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I felt like a courtesan entering an erotica boutique with endless shelves full of playthings that promised sexual satisfaction and carnal gratification. Everywhere I looked I encountered yet another aphrodisiac. Every breath I took, the same. An enticing aroma of super-charged coffee permeated the air, underscored by that unique scent of newly printed reading materials. As electrifying as a climax to an aspiring writer. A bookstore.

  Men were wrong. Larger wasn't better. It's how you use the assets God gives you that matters. The Peppered Page in downtown Bellevue was not as vast as some warehouse bookstores. Nor was it a cubby hole crammed to the rafters. It was just right. Room for displays. Room for a reading corner. Room for a c
orner café. Room for readers and books.

  The pleasure washing through me was almost enough to shake off the persistent sense I had of being followed from my apartment. Almost. Not that I'd seen anyone either on the road, in the parking lot, or once I entered the building.

  I stayed just inside the door, getting my bearings, unwrapping my neck scarf, torn between heading straight to the Romance section where I'd find Ruth Lester's book and straight to the café for a latte.

  My eye caught on a table stacked with Lars' books. I went over for a closer inspection. All seven titles. Each one autographed by the author himself. A sign warned the supply was limited to what remained displayed.

  A clerk labored to the table with another box of the "limited" supply and began replenishing the dwindling remains. "Is Ms. Pepper here today?"

  "Every day," the clerk sounded like a ruptured appendix victim. He glanced at me over his shoulder, a squat man in his forties, with thinning hair and weary blue eyes that widened as he took in my scraped and taped face. I'd showered and done the best I could to cover the worst of it, but apparently my best needed work. Apollo could have made the wounds invisible. I had no such skills.

  The clerk was polite enough not to ask what had happened, though obviously curious. He crooked his head to the left. "She's over that way, seeing to the last details of the book signing. If you're here for that, it doesn't start until one."

  "Thank you."

  I stared at Lars' books, fighting back the sadness his loss still gave me, and puzzled that he hadn't popped into my head with a comment or two about the display — especially if he really had been trying to get a restraining order against Peppermint Patty at the time of his murder.

  "There she is!" The familiar timbre ripped through the bookstore and riveted my feet to the floor. I would know that bark anywhere. Ida Schultz. And wherever Ida went, Sophie Ferman and Madam Zee were sure to follow.

  Refrains of "my Hermie" and a clang of gypsy jewelry confirmed it. Madame Zee's eerie voice reached for me, "Jack B."

  I turned to face the Golden Oldies, tresses freshly coifed. Ida hobbled toward me leaning on her three-clawed cane, her thin, stooped frame looking even thinner in electric-blue, elastic-waist pants, the matching top sporting a crocheted orange kitten. Sophie Ferman's plump curves were swathed in purple elastic-waist pants, her red top flashing purple and gold glitter, and Madame Zee in black stretch everything with enough costume jewelry to open her own kiosk.

  The surprise I felt at seeing them was as prominent as Lars' books. Had they followed me from home? Before I could ask what they were doing on Bainbridge Island in this bookstore, Ida brayed, "You here for the book signing too?"

  My puzzlement prompted Madam Zee to point toward the store's entrance, where I'd somehow missed the gigantic poster.

  "Stella Cameron." Sophie beamed her Mrs. Santa twinkle. "A favorite local author. Even my Hermie was a fan, God rest his soul."

  "We have all her books!" Ida bumped her cane against the floor for emphasis, like her voice needed backup.

  "Sex and murder," Madam Zee whispered, as though she'd done another Tarot card reading and were predicting future events.

  I could use some sex, but not another murder. I had the uneasy sense that this thought would come back to haunt me.

  "Get that book of yours done and sold!" Ida shouted, making me jump. How did a small, ninety-year-old woman have such a loud voice? It was as if with each millimeter of bone she lost another decibel was added to her vocal chords. God making up for the waning of one asset by bolstering another? "We want to come to your book signings, Jack B!"

  A fantasy about actually signing my own books for readers swept me away from the moment and from my mission, but Madam Zee's eerie voice brought me back. "You're here about Lars' murder, aren't you?"

  Ida's eyes grew round within the folds of skin, and she cane-clawed toward me. "You on the hunt!?"

  I realized this conclusion had been reached by the fact that we were standing beside Lars' books.

  Before I knew what was happening, the three women were huddled around me, attempting to whisper. I was reminded of Maxwell Smart and the Cone of Silence as Ida brayed, "Can we help?"

  The thought horrified. "No!"

  Six silver eyebrows lifted in unison and uncertainty.

  "No," I said calmer. "I'm not investigating. I'm just here for something to read while I'm recuperating."

  "You do look a bit peaked, dear. As my Hermie always said, it's best to err on the side of caution."

  I wasn't sure how that applied to my looking peaked.

  "You sure you should be outta bed so soon?" Ida barked as Madame Zee seemed to be reading my aura and finding it black.

  I assured them I was feeling better than I looked, but I did need to get a book and leave.

  Ida caught sight of a woman striding through the front door. "Oh, there's Stella!" she squealed. "Come on, Jack B, we'll introduce you! You're gonna love her books!"

  "That's okay. I'm actually looking for a particular book by another author this time."

  "Suit yourself, dear," Sophie said over her shoulder, hurrying to catch up with the others, who'd dismissed me like a forgotten footnote in the novel of the day.

  I followed in their wake, hoping to run into Patricia Pepper as well as hunt down a copy of Ruth Lester's one published book. I spied the Golden Oldies gathered around the book signing table, their favorite author welcoming them with a wide grin.

  The bookstore owner was nowhere to be seen. I headed into the Romance shelves, alphabetically scanning the L's. The hairs on my neck stood up and that sense of being watched returned. I spun around but didn't find anyone paying attention to me. Which meant nothing. I wouldn't put it past Stone to sic someone on me. His idea of keeping me safe. One kiss. One breath-robbing, libido jolting kiss and that man thought he could order me around. He actually suggested he move in with me until after the trial.

  I was so addlepated by his kiss I'd even considered it.

  But then I realized he'd said, "until after the trial." As if Apollo being locked up for Lars' murder would keep me safe, as if Apollo was the one who'd tried to kill me.

  I'd kicked Stone out of my apartment.

  But now, with shivers crawling my spine, I wondered if I hadn't been too hasty, if I shouldn't have taken Stone up on his offer of police protection. Or... maybe the reason I was spooked was that Stone had put the idea into my head that the murderer might not be done with me.

  Not that I didn't acknowledge that possibility... but I wasn't going to allow anyone to keep me locked in my apartment, cowering and frightened. Then why was I feeling again the spookiness I'd felt in the nightclub dressing room before being pushed into traffic? Maybe I wasn't done with Stone altogether. Maybe I needed to ask him to recommend a weapon and a source to obtain it. Maybe he could teach me to shoot.

  The whole idea made my stomach pinch. I was being pushed to consider a means of self-protection that went against everything I believed in and I didn't like it.

  My perusing of shelves stopped as my gaze snagged on the name "R Lester" on the spine of a book. Forgetting the sense of being spied on, I pulled the book free. I'd found it. Ruth Lester's Lipstick and Larceny.

  The cover, a lurid blue, depicted a half nude woman, her backside smashed against a handsome hunk in a cop uniform as though she were protecting him from the bad guys, rousing thoughts of Stone and me. At their feet lay a dead body. Talk about "sex and murder."

  This was her debut book. The beginning and the end. My chest tightened at the thought of finally being published only to have the first book be the one and only. Landing a publishing contract wasn't the end of what I wanted. I wanted a career. That meant one contract after the other.

  I knew from other writers what a tough business I had chosen, knew that most published authors couldn't make a living at it. Lars wasn't the norm; he'd been the exception. So much depended on elements outside of the writer's control — like marketing and n
umbers of copies sold. The current trend of digital readers and e-books added even more upheaval to a writer being able to count of their writing as solid income.

  The public didn't realize writers were paid a pittance of the price of each book, and were paid nothing for used books bought in used bookstores. I had no idea if this book had sold well. Ruth bringing suit against Lars for plagiarism had sealed her fate. There were too many writers waiting to take her place for a publisher to put up with a trouble maker. I carried the book toward the café, unable to resist the lure of a latte for another minute. As I stood in line thumbing through Ruth Lester's book, I wondered what had become of her. Had she crawled back into whatever mouse hole she'd crept from? Stopped writing? Or was she now using a pen name? Writers often took on different pseudonyms, for all sorts of reasons, such as if they switched genres, or bad numbers. Or if they had to overcome a bad reputation.

  I ordered a grande skinny white chocolate mistos; I needed the caffeine. I found a table. As I set the cup and book down, my scarf slipped to the floor. I bent to pick it up.

  "You hear there's a New York Times best seller signing copies of her books in the store right now?" a man near my table said.

  I turned. The guy was eyeing my ass like a hungry logger looks at a twelve ounce steak. He was not my type, not my anything, but being admired like that had me regretting not falling into bed with Stone earlier and dealing with the fallout afterwards. I needed release. I needed a man. I needed what only Stone offered.

  No. I needed to stay strong. To keep my resolve. I took a sip of too hot coffee and plunked down on the part of me that was causing so much indecision, hoping the hard bump against the wooden chair would squelch unwanted desires... at least for a while.

  My gaze wandered the café and snagged on the very person I sought. Patricia Pepper aka Peppermint Patty. She was schmoozing the patrons at a nearby table, hyping the product of the moment as though the line for the book signing weren't already out the door.

  Patty cast a Beam-Me-Up-Scotty grin in my direction, figuring me as fresh meat for her sales pitch, but as she neared my table, recognition slid through her bright eyes and the halogens dimmed. Was the reaction due to my being Lars' ex? To her having witnessed Bruce's and my smack-down at Lars' memorial? Or to her being a raving lunatic?