Hot Button (9 page)

His sense of fashion… That was another matter. At least I could be certain that sometime in the last two weeks he’d actually changed his clothes; he was wearing a different tie. This one was green-and-white stripes, and as ugly as any tie I’d ever seen.

Apparently, he was sizing up my fashion sense, too, because his gaze traveled from the scooped neckline of my black-lace dress to the hem, which skimmed my knees, and back up again. “You look amazing,” he said. Exactly what
Kaz had told me when he saw me in the lobby earlier in the evening. Only coming from Nev, the compliment was warmer and more sincere. Or at least that’s how it felt when it curled around my heart. Before I had the chance to turn completely mushy, he tempered the compliment with, “What are you doing here?”

“At the hotel? Or here? Here in the laundry room?” I realized it didn’t matter. “Conference,” I explained. “You remember. The International Society of Antique—”

“And Vintage Button Collectors.” He nodded. “Of course I remember. Your annual meeting is the reason you’ve been so busy, and you’ve been so busy, we haven’t had much of a chance to see each other.”

It didn’t seem fair to lay the whole blame on me. “And you’re working nights.”

“I would apologize if it was my fault.” The smallest of smiles relieved an expression I knew he was obliged to wear at the scene of a crime. “But I’m only on the schedule for working nights for another month, and by then, you’ll have this conference wrapped up. Maybe then…”

I guess the way my insides warmed even further was all the proof I needed that I hoped it was more than a maybe. “Dinner at my place. If the remodeling is finished.”

“And it looks like we’ll have plenty to talk about.” Nev’s expression twisted. He glanced over his shoulder toward the linen room. “The deceased—”

“Is… was… my guest of honor.” I looked toward the linen room, too, but not for long. I’d seen enough blood for one evening. “Do you have any idea what happened?”

He didn’t answer, but then, I really didn’t expect him to. Like most cops, Nev is a ducks-in-a-row kind of guy. No way he was going to say anything until he had all the facts,
and plenty of time to digest them. “What can you tell me about the victim?”

I shrugged and started with the fact I deemed most pertinent. “He’s an expert on Western buttons.”

This bit of information might have confused a lesser cop. I guess by now, Nev had come to expect that if I was involved, buttons had to be, too. He simply scribbled a line in the notebook he was holding.

“His name is Thad Wyant.” I should have said this first, of course. “He’s here from Santa Fe and…” I weighed the wisdom of gossiping against the sure knowledge that Nev couldn’t do his job properly if he didn’t have all the facts. “There’s been plenty of trouble since he got here.”

He raised his flaxen eyebrows. “Trouble because of Wyant?”

I shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I mean, not having Chase Cadell’s nametag, and misplacing my scrimshaw buttons… That kind of stuff can’t possibly have anything to do with Thad. But there have been other things. Bigger things. And I don’t know if Thad was the cause or just on the receiving end. Last night, he had a fight on the dinner cruise with a woman named Beth Howell. And this morning, one of our vendors accused Thad of stealing from his booth. Chase Cadell can’t stand Thad, and Thad’s posters were vandalized and…” I pulled in a deep breath and forced myself to let it out slowly. “I guess it’s not so hard to say. Yeah, there’s been trouble. And it’s all because of Thad Wyant.”

Nev made another note, glancing up only when he was done. “So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say people didn’t like him.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“And you know I need the names of all those people.”

“Of course.”

“And it would help if you came along when I talked to them and made the introductions. I mean, I know how button people can be…”

I wouldn’t have been so defensive if he hadn’t caught me at such a bad time, but the way it was, I couldn’t help but bristle. “How?”

Nev wrinkled his nose. “Careful,” he said. “Button people are careful. At least that’s what I think. But then, there’s only one button person I really know. And I’m thinking the fact that that particular button person is careful might have more to do with past experience with a certain ex-husband than it does from working with buttons.”

He’d picked an odd time to bring up a subject more personal than any we’d talked about before.

Or maybe not.

One of the uniformed cops called to Nev to come and have a look at something, and I saw right through his strategy: it was safe to discuss a topic so highly personal here at the scene of a murder because Nev knew we’d never have a chance to finish the conversation.

Another woman might have been miffed. Me? I was actually kind of grateful. I have never been known as a daredevil. I like the idea of wading more than I do of diving right in. That’s true when it comes to swimming, and relationships. (Well, except for my relationship with Kaz, but then, that was never much like swimming; it was more like surfing a tidal wave.)

Wading into talking about Kaz and the damage he’d done to my heart and my ability to trust was far less shocking than closing my eyes and taking a plunge.

And I was surprised Nev realized it.

I guess that explained why I was smiling just a little bit
as we walked back to the linen room side by side. Not to worry. I knew better, and I erased the expression the moment we walked through the door.

Good thing.

Otherwise, my smile would have been flash frozen when I stepped into the room and saw an officer wearing latex gloves holding up a blue blazer.

Yeah, one with shiny brass buttons on it that I would have recognized anywhere.

“Y
OU DON’T ACTUALLY
think I had something to do with some guy who got murdered, do you?”

Kaz looked at me when he asked the question. He would have been better served to keep his eyes on Nev. After all, Nev was the one leaning against the far wall of the hotel’s security office, writing down every word Kaz said.

Nev’s eagle-eye gaze didn’t flicker away from Kaz for a second. “So you admit that’s your suit jacket in the linen room with the victim?” Nevin asked.

Kaz ran his tongue over his lips. “Well, yeah. It was in the linen room, all right. But not in the linen room with the victim. At least last time I saw the jacket. Last I was in that room, there was no victim. Just towels and such.”

Nev made note of this, too.

While Nev was busy, Kaz smoothed one hand through his hair. It was a gesture I’d seen him use before, mostly when he was nervous about telling me he’d lost some sure bet. I can’t say I felt sorry for him. I can say I was glad Kaz had the sense to be worried. “This cop boyfriend of yours…” Kaz lowered his voice and tipped his head toward Nev. “He doesn’t really think—”

“That it’s pretty funny that your jacket just happened to
be at the scene of a murder you claim you don’t know anything about? He sure does.” I made a mental note: Nev has really good hearing. No doubt the ease of Nev’s movements had come with long practice. He crossed the security office, whirled a chair so that when he sat in it he was facing Kaz, and gave my ex a level look. “When you think about it, you’ve got to admit it’s more odd than funny.”

“It is.” Kaz had loosened his black bow tie soon after two plainclothes detectives had plucked him out of the banquet and walked him into the office. Now, he played with the ends of it. It was a fidgety thing for a guy who is usually all about cool, calm, and collected, and just watching him, my stomach jumped.

It clenched into a painful ball when Nev asked the next logical question. “You want to explain?”

“I do.” Hearing those two particular words from Kaz did nothing to calm me. I’d been sitting at a desk flanked by monitors that showed the goings-on in the lobby, the hotel gift shop, and the loading dock behind the building, and I stood and paced to the other side of the room. When I turned around, Kaz’s eyes were still on me. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said.

Believe me, it took every ounce of self-control I had not to throw my hands in the air and tell him it couldn’t possibly be. Over the years, Kaz had done so many boneheaded and heartless things, adding another one to the list shouldn’t have been a stretch.

Which made me wonder why this incident in particular was so different.

And that only made me more jumpy than ever.

I held my breath and watched Kaz twine his hands together on his lap. “I kind of need a place to stay,” he said. “Just for a little while.”

“That’s why you went around to my apartment the other day!” OK, so raising an arm and pointing a finger at Kaz was a tad overdramatic. It’s not like he didn’t deserve it. “You were going to ask me if you could crash at my place. That’s why you’re being so nice to me here at the conference, too. Pretending to be my assistant and picking up Thad at the airport, and—”

“Did you? Pick up Mr. Wyant from the airport?”

This was one little detail Nev knew nothing about, and I had to give him credit. He stuck to his guns (no pun intended) and did his objective homicide detective best to ignore the current of emotion that shivered between me and Kaz like the electrical charge that builds before a thunderstorm. “Was that the first you ever met the victim?”

“Sure.” Kaz nodded. “You don’t think I hang around with this button crowd, do you? I mean, except for Jo. And Jo was there, too. At the airport, I mean. She’ll tell you. It’s not like I knew this Wyant guy or anything. It’s not like I even cared. I was just trying to… you know, help Jo out.”

“So I’d invite you to stay in my hotel room with me.”

This came out sounding far more personal than I’d intended, but once I’d spoken, it was too late to call the words back. I couldn’t do anything about the heat that shot into my cheeks, either.

Kaz’s shoulders should have drooped. I mean, anybody else in this situation would have had the brains to look remorseful. Instead, he pulled his shoulders back, and his eyes glinted.

“I knew you’d cave sooner or later,” he said, proving once again that he’d never gotten to know me very well in the three years we’d been married or the year since we’d gotten divorced. “Last night I didn’t know what else to do so I hung out in the bar and the lobby for as long as I could, and
then… Well, I just sort of wandered around until I found my way down to that linen room.”

“And what, got cleaned up in one of the washing machines?”

I don’t do sarcasm well, which might explain why both Nev and Kaz looked at me like I had begun speaking in some foreign tongue. That is, right before Kaz shrugged. “You brought your briefcase down to the registration table this morning, and your room key was in it and—”

“You broke into my hotel room?”

“Well, technically, I had a key, and—”

The stress of the last hour exploded in me and I swung toward Nev. “You can arrest him, right? You heard what he said. He said—”

“I needed a place to clean up,” Kaz admitted. “And I figured you wouldn’t mind, Jo.”

A memory clicked inside my brain. “You moved my comb!”

“Dang! Did I? I hate it when I’m careless. I used it, see, and I meant to put it back. I just…” Like one twitch of those broad shoulders was supposed to explain? “Housekeeping knocked, and I figured I should get out of there as soon as I could. You know, before they noticed anything weird.”

My hands curled into fists, I stepped toward Kaz.

Lucky thing, cooler heads prevailed. And that the cool head belonged to Nev. “We’ll sort all that out later,” he said. “For now—”

His cell phone rang.

Nev checked the caller ID, excused himself, and stepped out of the office.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t even try.” I shot Kaz a look. “You’ve never been
sorry in your life, and you’re sure not sorry now. You’ve been playing Mr. Nice Guy just so I’d let you stay with me. And you broke into my hotel room.”

“You gonna press charges?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “It would serve you right if I did.”

A smile shivered at the corners of his mouth. “But you won’t.”

“I should.”

“But—”

Now, Kaz’s cell rang. He answered, and that hopeful little shimmer in his eyes dissolved in an instant. “Amber! It’s great to hear from you.” Kaz turned his back and continued his conversation. “No, it’s like I said; I’m in Paris, and I won’t be home for at least a few more days. You understand, don’t you?” He listened for the space of a heartbeat. “I knew you would. I’ll call. Really. It’s just that I have to catch the Metro now and—”

With that, he hung up.

“I can explain,” he said.

I knew he was talking about the phone call, not about why his blazer was at the scene of a crime. I held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“But—”

“And really, I don’t care.”

It was nice of Nev to walk back into the room so I didn’t have to prove it.

“You’re free to go,” he told Kaz. “But not until you give these officers your clothes so we can test them for traces of blood. After that, you’ll want to stay close.”

“Sure.” Kaz sidled out of the office.

“What next?” Nev knew I wasn’t talking about Kaz. Or at least I hoped he did.

“We’ll interview everyone tomorrow, starting with those people you mentioned earlier.” He shook his head, and his hair fell in his eyes. “Who would have thought there could be this much drama at a button conference?”

Chapter Six