Hot and Irresistible (14 page)

“And you took care of the gangs.”

“If you say so. Otis and his partner, William Carswell, bought this here Magnolia House that we’re sitting in this very night. It took more money to fix up than they figured on. William’s wife had a necklace and my wife fancied it. It would have taken every penny, but a pretty woman has her ways. The Carswells agreed to meet at nine o’clock at the funeral parlor, keep it friendly and we both knew the owner. Except when I showed up with the money the Carswells were dead and there was no necklace. A car had run into the iron fence in front of the funeral home and the owner was out of the place dealing with that. When he came inside he saw me running. I was going for the phone, but there was no way of proving that a fact and not me just running away. There was a scandal. My money went to lawyer fees and my wife went to a rancher from Brazil. She took our daughter. Said I ruined her life and she was hell-bent on ruining mine.”

Cleveland took a long drink this time. “And,” he added in a whisper “in a lot of ways she did. When you lose a child, you’re never the same. A piece of you dies.” For a second, a tortured expression replaced badass, then Cleveland continued in a normal voice, “I married Beau’s mama when he was seven. Seems I have mighty poor judgment in choosing good women, but when she left, I kept Beau. In a lot of ways he saved me. Gave me a son to raise.”

“You have a nice lifestyle now. Maybe your plan was to get the necklace, keep the money, and ditch a bitchy wife in the bargain.”

“The Carswells were friends and down here that counts for plenty. And that plan of yours makes it certain I’d lose my baby girl ’cause she’d go with her mama. I’d never take that chance, but I lost her anyway.” He stared across the room, but it was one of those stares that only saw memories. “I remember the color of her eyes, her laugh, the way her hand held on to my finger. Do you know I could put her whole foot in my mouth? I remember everything about her.”

“What did the room look like when you went to meet the Carswells?”

Cleveland raised his brow and rubbed at his chin. “Well, I have to tell you no one’s ever asked me that before. Let’s see now, the casket room was off the main hall and down a few steps in the back of the morgue. Maroon carpet, caskets along the wall, a velvet settee and some chairs and an overhead light of some sort. Do you want to know what I think happened? Something spooked Addie and William and they hid the necklace someplace in the morgue, someplace nobody’s looked yet, and the reason I think that’s what happened is because that someone who did the spooking is still hunting around.”

Donovan finished off the whiskey. “Mr. Cleveland, you had a good lawyer thirty years ago or you wouldn’t be sitting here talking to me now.”

Cleveland chuckled. “He cost me a damn fortune; the case never made it to trial with things being circumstantial and all, but the way you’re going after me I’m thinking I just might be needing that lawyer all over again.”

Donovan put down the glass and stood. “If you say so.” He walked to the door and Cleveland asked, “Did you learn anything you didn’t know before?”

He eyed the table. “I learned I’m developing a taste for Southern Comfort.”

“And it looks like we done killed the bottle. Think I’ll head on down and get another.”

Donovan closed the door behind him and went for his room at the other end of the hallway. He pushed in his room card, the light going red to green, and when he went inside, he was greeted with, “You’re a low-rent no-good creep, you know that, Donovan McCabe.”

He switched on the light to see Bebe sitting on the edge of his bed, and was that steam curling from her ears? “That’s the second time tonight I’ve been hit with the low-rent crack and you should know there’s no such thing as low rent in Boston and even though you’re sitting on my bed looking damn gorgeous as always, I’m guessing this visit isn’t going where I’d like for it to, and how the hell did you get in?”

“I’d like to wring your neck and everyone in this hotel knows me, so getting in wasn’t a big deal.” Bebe was wet, her hair in blond ringlets as if she hadn’t taken time to grab an umbrella and had been too pissed to dry off. Neither a good sign. “You went behind my back…again. You went to see Cleveland. I give up all I have on Jimmy and you can’t even level with me on this and who knows what you really found at the morgue with Anthony and Vincent. We’re done, McCabe, and that’s what I came to tell you.”

She sliced her hand through the air and stood. “This is one of those user relationships and I’m the one getting used by you. All I get in return is a pack of Oreos and not even the double-stuff kind.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets because if he didn’t he’d snatch her up and kiss her and probably get decked in the process, not that he blamed her. “If I’d brought you along tonight you’d interject and explain everything Cleveland said because you two are friends. I wanted to talk to him alone, see how he came across on his own.”

“You’ll do anything, say anything, use anyone to get this memorial project off the ground. You didn’t level with me and this isn’t the first time. Why should I trust anything you say? You do what suits yourself and the hell with anyone else.” Her eyes turned dark and sad and suddenly they weren’t talking about Cleveland at all.

“You got this all wrong, Bebe. You’re getting the case and what’s us all mixed up. What I said to you last night about you is the God’s honest truth, I swear it. It had nothing to do with Cleveland or Sly. It was you and me and us.”

“I…I don’t believe you.” Her voice cracked and he felt a tightening in his chest that nearly made him sick. “You lie to me, then you say you don’t lie. How am I supposed to know the difference?”

“I didn’t lie about going to see Cleveland.”

“You just didn’t do full disclosure. Same thing.” She pushed past him and yanked open the door.

“Bebe, stop.” He followed her into the hallway. “We need to talk.”

“Can you please hold that elevator for me, Mr. Rutledge,” Bebe called down the hall to the elevator opening with Edwina and Shipley and Ray Cleveland. Bebe turned back to Donovan. “We just did talk and the whole blessed hotel’s hearing us loud and clear and don’t you dare follow me.”

She had a defiant walk with her chin high and backbone rigid like someone used to being messed over but determined not to show the hurt. Except this time he’d been the one doing the messing and the hurting. In Bebe’s eyes he was no better than Dara. Bebe couldn’t trust either of them to do right by her. This was not the way he wanted things between him and Bebe. Their relationship had gone from trusting to fragile to in the toilet.

Rutledge held the elevator, Shipley and Edwina and Cleveland staring at the little scenario playing out before them. Bebe stepped in, all the rest got out, and Rutledge gave Donovan a sympathetic smile as the doors slid shut. “Don’t you fret now, Mr. Donovan. She’ll come around. It’ll work itself out.”

Donovan straightened the picture of Lee on the wall that was forever crooked, then went back in his room and closed the door. “Fuck this damn job!”

“Last time it was fucking a duck. I think you need one of those sexual awareness books.” Sly chuckled as a thin ribbon of cigarette smoke circled to the ceiling. He sat in the club chair, feet propped on the desk.

“You better be here with something a hell of a lot better than your smartass talk. I’ve got bubkes on this case. I can’t nail Cleveland with that.”

“What you have is a hard head and you’re not listening to a word I’ve said.” Sly pulled a drag off his cigarette. “What happened to my
follow the girl
lecture? Did you get a brain freeze and forget it all? You don’t know what Cleveland’s guilty of.”

“He’s guilty of something. The problem is—”

“I’m dead and you’re not and you got a bad case of the ‘why me’ syndrome and you’re sacrificing a relationship with the best woman who’s ever come your way to make things right.” He blew smoke rings. “That task force isn’t going to bring me back, Donovan. It’s not your fault I caught the bullet and you didn’t.”

Donovan rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes, feeling bone-numbing tired.

“Didn’t you ever watch
Scrooged?
You listen to the ghost, and in this particular story that happens to be me. Somehow I’ve got to get though to you before it’s too late and you throw it all away for nothing.” Grumbling, Sly faded into the swirl of cigarette smoke; the last thing disappearing was the rim of his Sox hat. Donovan would have sworn this was aftershock of sipping a half bottle of whiskey in the middle of the night except for the lingering hint of smoke and a shoe scuff print on the mahogany desk where Sly had propped his feet. Donovan rubbed at the smudge.

Sly was right about one thing; Bebe mattered and she was the best thing to come his way. Donovan needed to find her and tell her that and somehow make her understand that what happened with Cleveland was police business and what happened between the two of them was personal and they weren’t the same. Donovan took the steps to the lobby, the cute little maid running the vac in the deserted hallway. “Did you happen to see which way Bebe Fitzgerald went?”

The lights blinked and the maid switched off the vac. She looked nervously around, then shivered. “The ghosts get right lively in thunderstorms. Once I was alone in the kitchen and this plate of blueberry pie went flying across the room and…” She gulped. “I hate thunderstorms and I haven’t seen Bebe. But the elevator went and got itself stuck on the fourth floor, so maybe she’s trapped in there.”

“I didn’t know the hotel had a fourth floor.”

“Storage attic. The employees have elevator keys to get there, but that doesn’t always work, either. Usually we take the stairs around back. Tonight there isn’t enough money in all of Christendom to get me up there in that attic no matter what. It’s spooky enough in broad daylight. Lordy, I hope Bebe didn’t get stuck in that place.”

If Jimmy Waters hadn’t been whacked earlier in the day, Donovan wouldn’t be thinking much about a stuck elevator on the fourth floor of a hotel older than dirt. But Jimmy was on a slab over at the city morgue and Bebe was God-knows-where and who the hell knew what got her there in the first place. Another rumble of thunder shook the hotel. Again the lights flickered and the maid paled. “A night not fit for man nor beast. You need to be finding Bebe.”

The elevator doors closed behind Bebe. Why weren’t the lights on? This was not the lobby. Then again, when the elevator went up instead of down, she figured something was screwed up, but this was Savannah and old and screwed up wasn’t all that uncommon. Groping the wall behind her, she pressed the elevator button to get the elevator back, but nothing happened. No light flashing overhead as to where the thing was or where it was going.

“Terrific,” she muttered, another rumble of thunder rattling the rafters; least she thought it was the rafters. It could be anything rattling, because there wasn’t any light except the red glow of the exit sign across the room. Stairs? Stairs would be good. She started toward the sign until something moved across the room. “Hello? Anybody here? Anybody know how to get out of here, wherever here is?”

No answer. If it was a bat or one of those big owls that could turn their head all the way around and carry off small dogs, Magnolia House would have a new skylight because she’d jump right through the roof. “Hello? Polly want a cracker?” Except she didn’t have any crackers.

She took a few steps and a
phoof
whizzed by her head. That was no owl, that was a bullet! Heart racing, she dove for the floor and reached for her weapon, which wasn’t there because she left it with her cell and handcuffs and other cop stuff at the station because she was pissed and not thinking. She’d had severe Donovan brain, meaning
no
brain, and she deserved being in this situation now. Men were nothing but trouble, and they didn’t even have to be on the premises to cause it.

She started to get up again, then heard, “Heavenly days, child, stay down. You’re in a heap of danger here. I told BrieAnn to keep you all away from this here place. She needs to listen to me.”

Bebe looked around, but there was nothing but dark. “What? Who?”

“Shh,” the voice whispered. “Be real still now if you want to keep your head attached to your shoulders the way it should be.”

“We can’t stay here forever.” Bebe peeked around something large and another muffled shot rang out. She ducked back, calling herself every name for stupid for not having her weapon. Some cop she was!

“Told you to keep yourself put,” the voice said again.

“No need to rub it in. Who are you?”

“Someone with more sense than you got.” Another sound came from the opposite direction of the gunfire.

“Hey, Bebe? Are you up here? What’s wrong with the damn lights? They weren’t working on the stairs, either.” The red exit sign silhouetted Donovan’s fine build, which was also a fine big target.

Shit! Shit! Shit! “There’s a shooter. Get down!” she yelled, followed by another
phoof
sound across the room. Donovan jerked back as if hit and her heart stopped dead in her chest. Her lungs froze and the whole world moved in slow motion. She could see Donovan falling, falling back, her head screaming, or maybe she was doing it out loud. “Donovan!”