Dangerous Melody (5 page)

Luca and Stephanie retrieved their bags, and the three headed outside into the hot southern California air to pick up their rental car. Tate arranged to follow in the truck he’d borrowed from Gilly. After only a few paces, however, Stephanie stopped them both.

“I just figured it out.”

“What?” both men said at once.

“The guy who tried to take my laptop.”

“You said he was a stranger,” Luca said.

“He is, but I’ve seen him before.” Her dark eyes danced in thought. “I remember cutting around his van in traffic.” She looked at Tate. “When we left Bittman’s mansion, right after he flew off with Dad.”

Tate’s eyes widened. “I thought he seemed familiar.” He snapped his fingers. “The hair. It was Bittman’s pool guy. He followed you from San
Francisco.”

“Who is he?” Luca grimaced in thought. “Someone Bittman hired to keep tabs on us?”

Tate shook his head. “Seems like he wouldn’t have his flunkies interfere. What good would that do? His pool guy might be working against him.”

“Why?” Stephanie’s expression was grave. “Who even knows the violin still exists?”

Luca’s face was grave. “Is it possible Bittman was right
about what happened all those years ago at his father’s shop? About the arsonist?”

“Not just an arsonist,” Tate said. “Remember, the fire killed Bittman’s brother.”

“He’s returned and he’s after the violin. The person who has it might be able to finger him for murder. He wanted my laptop to see if we’d found anything that could help him.” Stephanie felt her pulse pound. “I think we’d
better get moving.”

Tate was already on his way to the truck. “I think you’re right.”

FIVE

T
wo hours after leaving Bakersfield, Tate guided the truck behind the rented Ford into a nearly empty parking lot, which served the music store and a sandwich shop in the minuscule town of Lone Ridge. The heat pressed in on them, making the asphalt shimmer in spite of the early fall color he detected on a few of the twisted trees. Tate wondered idly how Luca, who owned a car
worth more than the trailer Tate lived in, felt about driving a regular vehicle. It was good for him to come down from his rich man’s tower once in a while.
Might be a refreshing change,
he thought bitterly.

He shifted uneasily on the hard seat. Was that what had attracted Stephanie to him? He was a country boy who ate grits and drove a dinged motorcycle. Was he a diversion for her? A form
of rebellion against her upper-crust family?

He rubbed at a spot on his jeans. He’d seen rebellion firsthand in Maria, becoming completely unmanageable when she turned eighteen, and then worse after their father died. The truth pricked at him.

How would you know, Tate? You were so strung out on painkillers, you did nothing to rein her in.
He yanked open the door and plunged into the
heat. Time for that to change.

Luca led the way into Devlin Music and Repair shop. The interior smelled musty, every square inch crammed with saxophones, trumpets, bins of neatly filed music and packages of reeds and guitar picks, old photos plastered to the walls with yellowing tape.

“We’re here to see Mr. Devlin,” Luca said to the short man who appeared at the counter. He was round
and florid-faced, wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt tucked into neatly creased pants. Around his neck hung a pair of reading glasses fastened to a brown cord.

Devlin looked closely at the three of them. “I’m Bruno Devlin. What can I do for you?”

Stephanie flashed a brilliant smile. “We’re looking for an instrument—a very special instrument—and we were told you might have a lead on
where we can find it.”

Devlin’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “You’re not from around here.” A German accent clung to his words.

“No, we came from San Francisco,” she continued. “The instrument is a rare violin, a Guarneri.”

His mouth opened and closed. “A Guarneri?” He choked out a laugh. “Here? In this nowhere town? I am afraid you have the wrong information.”

Luca frowned. “I
don’t think so. Our facts came from a reliable source. I think you probably know him.”

Devlin’s Adam’s apple jerked. His response came in a low tone. “Joshua Bittman sent you, didn’t he?”

Stephanie nodded. “You contacted him and told him that someone had been in your shop, looking for some repair advice.”

He looked at his glass counter and buffed at a spot. “Yes.”

“Why deny
it?”

“Please,” Devlin said, wiping at his forehead. “I don’t know what is going on. I called Mr. Bittman because he contacted every music repair store in southern California asking for any information on a rare violin. I did what he asked as a courtesy, and that’s that. Just business. I don’t know where the violin is.”

Tate shook his head. “It’s more than business. You knew Bittman’s
father.” Stephanie and Luca started slightly at Tate’s statement, as if they’d forgotten he’d been standing there.

“I...” the man started.

Tate pointed to an old yellowed photo on the wall, a smiling Devlin outside a shop sporting a sign that read Feather Glen Music, with the year scrawled in marker on the corner. “Feather Glen’s in New York.” He looked at Stephanie. “In your files you
said Bittman’s father owned a music shop in New York around that time, not too far from Feather Glen. The instrument repair business is a pretty small world.” He looked at Devlin. “You must have known Bittman’s father.”

Devlin scratched at his chin. “Yes, I knew Hans Bittman. Our families were neighbors in Germany once. We spoke from time to time. He allowed me to come and see the Guarneri
after he inherited it.” Devlin’s eyes shone. “Never have I seen such an instrument. People say the Guarneris are second to Stradivaris, but it is not so. The sound is darker, more intense, and it would take years to master one, perhaps a lifetime.”

Stephanie pulled the conversation back on track. “So you saw the Guarneri?”

Devlin sighed deeply. “Yes, the very day before the fire. Tragic,
tragic. I helped him try to salvage his business after, but it was no use. He was ruined, his eldest son dead. His other son, Joshua, he became a different person then, too. Something switched off inside him when his brother perished in that fire. Something...died.” Devlin pointed to his chest. “He went a little crazy. He always claimed that a thief made off with the violin and another man set
the fire.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth about that night?”

He shrugged. “He was a child, and he believed what he thought he saw. Maybe it was one of the bums Hans took in from time to time. He was a soft man, let them sleep in the workshop and fed them sometimes. One of them probably snatched it, and the fire started accidently. Maybe Joshua made up the story in his mind to
make sense of his brother’s death and the loss of his father’s beloved Guarneri. No one will ever know.”

Tate saw Stephanie puzzling it over. “So you told Mr. Bittman that someone came in with a Guarneri. Who was it?”

Devlin shrugged. “A wild man. Crazy hair and beard. He brought only a picture of the Guarneri, an old-fashioned Polaroid.”

“Do you still have the picture?” Luca asked.

“No, but he said he would send me another so I could get a replacement string. He said he would return, but he did not say when.”

Luca leaned forward. “Where did he live? Around here?”

Devlin shrugged. “In the desert, a town called Bitter Song.”

“Sounds like a real tourist mecca,” Tate mumbled.

“It’s in the Mojave,” Devlin said with a shake of his head. “No sane person
would want to go there.”

Stephanie gave Devlin a card and instructed him to call if the stranger returned. Devlin did not touch the card, but left it on the counter.

“Mr. Devlin, can I ask you one more question?” Stephanie said. “Has anyone else been here asking about the violin? A man with a crew cut or a dark-haired girl?”

“No, no one.”

She pressed her palms to the countertop.
“Then who are you afraid of?”

He blinked. “Afraid? Why would I be afraid? Mr. Bittman wants his violin, and I am helping him get it. You’ll tell him, won’t you? That I am helping him? Only him?”

Devlin didn’t wait for an answer, but scurried away into the back room.

Stephanie stood staring after him. “
Only
Bittman? Do you think the pool guy or Maria beat us here and Devlin doesn’t
want to tell us?”

Tate’s pulse quickened. “Let’s ask some more questions around town. Maybe someone else will be more cooperative.”

“And then—” Luca sighed “—we’re headed to the Mojave.”

“The place where only crazy people go,” Tate finished.

“Then we’ll fit right in,” Stephanie said, leading the way back outside. “By the way.” She pressed Tate’s shoulder. “That was pretty good
detective work in there, with the photo.”

He shrugged, her fingers warm through his T-shirt sleeve. “Just trying to keep up with the real treasure hunters.”

Luca gave him a quick nod of approval. “We would have come up with that eventually, but you saved us some time.”

Tate put a hand to his baseball cap. “Anything to help.”

She smiled, but beneath the expression he saw the
deep current of fatigue, and something else...fear.

He flashed back to his own feelings the moment he’d woken up in the hospital and asked about his father after the car accident that took his life. Was the terror still etched deep inside his own eyes? he wondered. One moment had been rich with laughter and teasing.

“When you gonna seal the deal and propose to that Stephanie gal? She
needs a real man in her life.”

He remembered his father’s hand, thick and callused, waving out the window of the truck as Tate followed in a second vehicle until the unthinkable happened. Before Tate’s unbelieving eyes, his father suddenly careened over the side of a cliff. After a moment of frozen shock, Tate was out of his car, panic propelling him down the slope. Flames spurted from the
wreck.

I’m coming, Dad. I’m coming.

But he was still fifteen feet away when there was a boom that shook the ground. He could not get out of the way as a hurtling piece of metal barreled at him with missilelike intensity. There was a sense of something slicing through his leg, the feel of bone snapping and then...darkness.

The darkness had not gone away when he came to. In fact,
it seemed to have burrowed deep down inside him, awakening pain so excruciating he’d believed the pills were the only solution. His own weakness disgusted him. He was sure, even though he was no longer the same person he’d been, that his weakness disgusted Stephanie, too.

“Tate?”

He blinked back to the present. “So what’s the next step?”

Luca pointed to a small café, fronted in
sun-parched wood. “I’m going to go there, ask around. I want to run Mr. Devlin through our computers and see what comes up, and give Tuney a call.”

Stephanie explained that Tuney was a private investigator who had helped them find Brooke’s missing painting. “We’re going to have him look for Dad.” Her voice trembled a tiny bit until she cleared her throat.

“Tuney’s not conventional, but
he’s more tenacious than anybody I’ve ever met. If anyone can find a crack in Bittman’s plan, it’s him. Steph, see if you can find out if Maria’s been sighted around here,” Luca said.

“So what am I supposed to do while the Treasure Seekers are hard at work?” Tate asked.

Luca marched across the street. “Poke around,” he fired over his shoulder. “Check in with your source and see if anything’s
turned up on Maria’s computer.”

Tate scanned the street, a wide swath of worn asphalt, bordered by a few storefronts standing on either side, interrupted by flat stretches of dusty ground and piñon junipers. The mountains rose in the distance, giving Tate an uncomfortable, hemmed-in feeling. The street was completely deserted. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. He sighed. “Poke around, huh?”

Stephanie shouldered her laptop. “Luca is focused. He knows how to follow a trail. That’s what we do.”

He didn’t answer. His leg was stiff from the long drive, a dull ache throbbing above the knee.

“We’re going to find Maria,” she added.

The token effort goaded him. He rounded on her. “So you’re concerned now? Why did you let her hook up with Bittman in the first place? If you
were trying to punish me, you did a great job of it.” It wasn’t fair and he knew it, but there was no taking it back now.

She glared at him. “I introduced them before I realized what kind of a man he was. Then I tried to steer her away from him, Tate. I did everything I could.”

“You knew the truth about Bittman. Maria was just a kid. You didn’t try hard enough.”

Fire sparked in
her eyes. “I’m no substitute for her big brother, and you weren’t around. You can’t blame me for that.”

He wanted to snap off an angry reply, to meet her challenge with one of his own, but he found there was nothing to say. He turned away, determined not to limp.

“Tate, hold on,” she called after him, voice contrite. “I know you had your own problems.”

The shame burned through his
good sense. He’d take her anger, her disgust, any emotion at all, but not pity. He stopped and spoke to his boots. “I took pills, Steph. Let’s not soften it.”

Her voice was soft. “You were in pain.”

“Stop it.” He whirled on her. “You don’t need to make excuses for me. I’m clean now. I don’t need your pity.”

Her expression hardened. The gentleness in her eyes filmed over with something
rougher. “You don’t need me at all. You never did. You made that clear when you shut me out.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I could have helped. That’s what people do when they really love each other.”

The words hung heavy between them. “I...” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m going to check around.”

Pain rippled through his leg, circling like a biting dog, along with more
severe discomfort of another kind. He was wrong to blame Stephanie for Maria’s predicament. Wrong. Shamed. Furious.

He pushed himself faster.

Ahead was the gas station, a run-down place sporting two pumps and a banged-up soda machine. Fighting to keep his mind off the conversation he’d just mangled, he passed a narrow alley between an empty warehouse and a storage locker facility. So
lost in his own thoughts, Tate almost missed the muffled sound coming from the darkened alley.

* * *

Stephanie stalked back to the restaurant, her stomach in a tight ball of anger. When she forced herself to take some deep breaths, she realized she was furious with herself. Tate was history—whatever past they’d had was lost under a pile of disappointment and hurt. He was weak, because
of the addiction he’d fallen into and his inability to accept the blame for his own failure toward Maria.

“Weak,” she grunted to herself. She allowed herself a look back to confirm it, but her eyes saw something different than her brain. His wide shoulders were silhouetted by golden sunlight, head bent as if under some heavy burden. His limp somehow made him even more alluring. She exhaled
loudly, certain that her mind was succumbing to pressure and worry.
Nuts, Steph. You’re losing it completely.

She slammed open the diner door so hard that the three patrons looked up in surprise. The waitress was the only one who did not look nonplussed. She smiled, her lipstick feathered slightly in the tiny lines around her mouth. “Table, miss?”

Stephanie pointed to her brother. Head
ducked, she scurried to Luca.

“You look like you’re ready to take on the world heavyweight champion. What’s wrong? Did that idiot push your buttons?”

“He’s not an idiot, Luca. He’s a stubborn cowboy with a chip on his shoulder who wouldn’t know a diamond from a doorknob, but he’s not an idiot.”