An Adrien English Mystery: The Dark Tide (17 page)

“I'm handing it over now. As for why I didn't report it last night, once again the guy was long gone. I guess I thought three attempted break-ins in a row might be getting monotonous, even for LAPD.”

“This is crap.” He thrust the bag back at me. “That whole story is crap. You know what?

I'm having a lot of trouble believing in these alleged break-ins.”

“Why would I make something like that up?”

He shrugged. “Attention for your bookstore? I could see that. Or maybe it's an insurance scam.”

I stared at him in fascination.

“I'll tell you what I think, English. I think you're up to something. And I plan on keeping a very close eye on you.”

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Josh Lanyon

“Great. Police protection. I won't have to worry about any more burglars, will I?”

“No,” he said darkly. “You'll have other things to worry about.”

It was a good parting line, and he made use of it. I followed him out onto the book floor.

He left with a long look at Natalie, who raised her chin and delivered the snub direct.

“What was that about?” she asked after the jangle of bells signaled Alonzo was well and truly departed.

“The usual.”

I filled her in, and she said dazedly, “He thinks you're making this all up for a publicity stunt?”

“That's the way it sounded, though I can't believe he's that stupid.”

“He's not stupid,” she said. “He hates you—or maybe it's Jake—so much he's willing to convince himself of anything.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor and don't call Bill or Lisa. Please. I can handle that asshole.”

“I don't understand why you're so hostile to the idea of your family's wanting to help.”

“I'm not hostile. I appreciate the help. I do. But I don't need help with this.”

“We
like
to help.”

“Sure. But I need to start feeling normal again. I need to start feeling like myself. And part of that is being allowed to solve my own problems.”

She considered this. “You're never going to convince Lisa of that.”

“But if I can at least keep the rest of you from ganging up on me, it'll be a start.”

She rolled her eyes, looking disconcertingly like Emma for an instant.

“And I promise I'll let you all help as soon as I get in over my head. Which will probably be any minute.”

She reminded me that we were supposed to go to the house for dinner. I went up and changed, and we drove out to Chatsworth. As we got out of the car, the scent of barbecue reached us on the summer breeze.

Natalie sniffed the air. “Uh-oh. Hide the salami. Daddy's got the Weber out.”

Bill was a devotee of outdoor grilling, but he tended to get carried away. I'd often thought it was a good thing the Dautens didn't own any pets.

We found the family out on the patio having cocktails. Bill was enthusiastically barbecuing enough steaks to feed the troops for the next week—the troops overseas—and discussing the merits of mesquite wood chips over hickory with Lauren, who had the glazed look of a woman rethinking her plans for divorce.

I celebrated the next phase of my recovery with a glass of red wine—after Alonzo, I felt I'd earned it even if it was a few days early—and told Lisa about the trip to Chino to look over Adagio, concluding with, “I think he's worth every penny. I think we should make plans to drive down there with Em on Tuesday.”

Lisa moaned. “I saw this on Lifetime only last night. A young girl's parents bought her a horse for show jumping, and she was paralyzed in a fall. It was a dreadful.”

“Lisa—”

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81

“And Anna Kelly's daughter broke her jaw falling from her horse. She lost all her front teeth. Anna broke her own wrist in a spill.”

Bill interrupted the wood-chip lecture to say calmly, “Em's not going to break her jaw or her neck, my dear. She's a very good rider.”

Lisa threw him a reproachful look that managed to convey that, despite his
many
fine qualities, he was either heartless or obtuse. “I don't think you should bring it up, Adrien. Emma hasn't mentioned that bloody horse since you were here last. I think she's forgotten all about it.”

“I don't think she's forgotten.”

She stared at me with those wide blue-violet eyes. If she read something in my face, it certainly wasn't anything I intended her to see. Her expression altered. She bit her lip. “Oh bother. If it's so
awfully
important to you.” Her gaze sharpened. “Are you seeing Mel again?”

“We're just friends.”

She continued to watch me with that alert look.

“Really.”

“Perhaps he's grown up.”

Hadn't we all?

Cryptically, she added, “But there's no question Jake Riordan is mad about you.”

I blinked. “There…isn't?”

“Although I suppose it's beside the point.”

“It is?”

“Of course.”

Was I drunk on one glass of wine? “Anyway, Mel and I are
just
friends.”

She raised her elegant brows and sipped her drink.

Emma was providing inadequate supervision to a naked Barbie and Ken when I sat down across from her on the floor in the den. At fourteen, she didn't exactly
play
with Barbie so much as act out elaborate and occasionally disconcerting screenplays. My kid sister, the budding performance artist.

“Kiddo.”

She smiled and jammed Ken into the pink Corvette beside Barbie. Ken looked pretty uncomfortable to me. Barbie seemed smug. Granted, she had the car keys.

“I drove out with a friend today to have a look at Adagio.”

Like that Emma was bolt upright, a look of painful intensity in her gaze. She swallowed.

I smiled. “I like him. I think maybe you should come with me to check him out on Tuesday.”

She threw herself into my arms, hugging me tightly. I looked down at her silky, dark hair, touched it lightly. Baby hair. Skinny arms wrapped around me. Fourteen was so
young
. She was making snuffling noises into my shirt.

Oh. Man.

“Hey, at least you could stop laughing for a minute.”

She raised her wet face with a watery giggle. Her face fell. “But Lisa won't…”

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Josh Lanyon

“Yes, she will,” I said firmly. “Lisa knows all about this. In fact, she's going to drive us out to the farm on Tuesday.”

She wiped her wet face on my shirt, nodded doubtfully.

“Em?”

She raised those big blue eyes that looked so uncannily like Lisa's.

“I know it hasn't been very long for you, but Lisa—she really does love you. Pretty much from the minute she saw you. She's trying to keep you safe, you know?”

She nodded, clearly unconvinced she didn't have Maleficent for a stepmom.

“She worries about…stuff because of my dad dying. And then I got sick when I was only a little older than you are now.”

Emma considered this. “My mom died. I'm not afraid.”

“It's different for Lisa. She thinks it's her job to keep us all safe.”

She lifted a bony shoulder in dismissal.

I left Barbie and Ken to Emma's matchmaking skills and went to join the others on the patio. I had to pass through the kitchen, and as I crossed the threshold, I heard Natalie say coldly,

“But it's not your business, is it?”

Lisa answered, “For heaven's sake, Natalie. What kind of man takes money from his girlfriend? How often has he done this?”

“It's none of your business.” Natalie's voice rose. “You turned Daddy against Warren.”

“Your father didn't need me to point out that Warren is
at best
a slacker.”

I was already retreating, but both turned my way like lionesses on the Serengeti scenting an unlucky zebra.

“Don't go, Adrien. This concerns you too.” Natalie's tone was chillier than dry ice.

“I'm pretty sure it doesn't.”

“You're part of this conspiracy.”

I stopped. “Say what?”

The look in her eyes should have pinned me to the paneling. “You don't like Warren. You wouldn't help him when he needed help—not even for me. You all think you can break us up by making things hard for us.”

I opened my mouth, but Lisa got in first.

“Leave. Adrien. Out of it.” The warning in my mother's tone even sent a prickle down
my
spine. Maybe the Maleficent analogy wasn't so far off. It shut Natalie down for an instant, and unwisely, I pressed on.

“Natalie, it isn't anything personal. I don't think hiring family is a good idea. It worked out with you, but I'm not bringing Warren on board.”

She said defiantly, “You're not going to keep Warren out of my life. You'll both be interested to know that Warren and I are moving in together.”

“Does Warren know?”

I had no idea why that came out of my mouth, but the effect was instant and awful.

Natalie's face crumpled.

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“
I hate you, Adrien
!” She turned and fled down the hallway. A door slammed in a nether region of the house.

“He stole money from her purse,” Lisa said bleakly. “And it's not the first time.”

I looked at her but managed to keep my mouth shut this time.

Lisa shook off her preoccupation. “Darling, don't look like that. She'll have a good cry and be over it by supper.”

Natalie did not join us for supper, however. In fact, her car was not in the drive when Lauren drove me home later in the evening.

Rarely had I been more relieved to return to the peace and quiet of my bachelor sanctuary.

And yet the first thing I did—after verifying that there had been no further attempt at a break-in—was check to see if there was a message from Jake.

There wasn't.

Sunday was quiet. Too quiet. Natalie worked downstairs. I worked upstairs.

Midmorning, I used my morning walk to buy doughnuts as a peace offering, but Natalie informed me that she was on a Zone diet and was not currently entertaining pastries. Or the men who offered them.

I left the pink box on the sales desk in a hope of luring her later in the day, and I retired to my lair to work on
A Deed of Dreadful Note
. It was a relief to focus on the made-up problems of someone else's life. I appreciated my wisdom in making Jason an orphan.

As I wrote, I listened to one of the CDs from the Women in Jazz collection.

“You and I and moonlight in Vermont,” crooned Ella Fitzgerald, rudely interrupting my train of thought.

“
But there's no question Jake Riordan is mad about you
.”

Was Jake really going to leave? Or more to the point, was I really going to let Jake leave? I thought of those long two years when he had been out of my life.

I thought of the ten months we'd been together. Okay, “together” was probably not the word for it. Still…

I thought about how it had felt after he'd told me he was going to marry Kate.

I didn't blame him for the choices he'd made. He'd done the best he could. I believed him when he said he'd never intended to hurt me. That he would never deliberately hurt me. I understood intellectually that there was no insurance policy on affairs of the heart.

But something had happened to me between waking up in the hospital and those moments on the
Pirate's Gambit
when I had believed—for a few terrible seconds—that he was willing to sacrifice me to protect himself, his web of lies. I never wanted to feel that again. That…broken, that betrayed. Because for those fleeting seconds, I really hadn't cared if I died. I knew in some shadowy corner of my brain, I'd hoped that I
would
die. That I would never have to face the day after.

I didn't want Jake to go to Vermont. Couldn't bear the thought of it. I couldn't make myself stop him either. It was like getting thrown from a horse and waiting too long to remount. I'd lost my nerve.

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Josh Lanyon

I worked all afternoon in between napping and listening to music. Very productive from the viewpoint of the rest-and-relaxation crowd.

Natalie did not relent. She locked up and left without looking in to say good-bye. I hated to admit how much it bothered me.

In the evening I made fruit salad with cocktail olives and maraschino cherries and read more of
The Long Goodbye
. It was not my favorite Chandler novel—that would have been
The
Lady in the Lake—
though Chandler at his weakest was still better than almost anybody else at full strength. Not that this Edgar-winning novel was Chandler's weakest effort. It was an interesting work both for the social commentary and the way Chandler cannibalized his own life for material. As always, when reading Chandler I resolved to keep my day job.

When the phone rang a bit after eight, it occurred to me that I had been waiting all day for it. The number that flashed up was like the winning fruit combo on a slot machine.

Jake was brisk. “I've got progress to report. First thing. I found Dan Hale.”

“That's great.”

“He's living at one of those retirement-home things in Santa Barbara. Sea View Manor.”

“Is he all there? Mentally, I mean.” I thought it was safe to assume that, at what must be an advanced age, Hale was probably missing a few of the original parts. “Is he well enough to talk to us?”

“I didn't get the impression he's in great health. He seems alert, and he's willing to talk to us, yes. Would you like to take a drive out to Santa Barbara tomorrow?”

I opened my mouth to say yes—only to remember my cardiac-rehab session. I'd cut Friday's session to go to Ojai. I could imagine the hue and cry if I dared to miss two appointments in a row.

“I can't tomorrow.”

“Hot date?”

“Yeah, with my cardiac-rehab team. I don't get out of there until lunchtime.”

“So we'll go after lunch.”

I felt a surge of gratitude that he didn't simply do the easy thing and say, in that case, he'd head up the coast on his own.