ItTakesaThief (25 page)

“You bastard!” she shrieked, clawing at him with her
undamaged hand. He backhanded her face, making her feel lightheaded despite the
pain ripping through her. He lifted her, spun her until dizziness overcame her.
Surely this sensation of falling was only an extension of the pain and the
ringing in her ears, she thought. Then her body became a mass of blinding agony
and she thought no more.

The man did not watch her fall. Although he wanted to, he
could not afford to lose those few precious seconds, the seconds it took for
her to fall twenty stories to her death.

Wishing the girl had clomped across the room or shouted
before she left, the man shoved a small tape recorder between the cushions. How
he would have loved to have that on tape! The sound of rushing footsteps, the
shriek of rage that would convince any listener that Tiffany Cartierri had
pushed her loving stepmother over the parapet to her death.

Oh well. What was done was done.

* * * * *

TC rounded the corner of the hotel at a dead run, then
skidded to a stop. People were running toward the hotel. Others, shrieking, ran
away. In the distance, over the shouts and shocked moans, she could hear the
sound of a klaxon growing ever louder as it neared. A small circle formed
around an object in the street, then expanded slightly. She could imagine the
words—“Move back.” “Give us room to work. To breathe.”—although she couldn’t
hear them. She caught a glimpse of red—Titian, the shade of Esmé’s hair—a
splash of yellow and orange, the colors of Esmé’s caftan.

“No,” she whispered. The denial rose in her throat like
gorge. She screamed “no” over and over while she shoved and elbowed and kicked
her way through the crowd until she reached the inner circle.

Then Ian was there, his wide shoulders blocking her view,
his hard chest absorbing her tears. She fought him while the phrase of a song
clamored through her mind—”a hank of hair, a piece of bone.”

That couldn’t be all that was left of Esmé. Esmé was too
vibrant, too full of life to be reduced to a limp pile of rags lying in the
street like tossed-out garbage.

“Let me go, Ian. She needs me. Even if she’s unconscious,
she’ll know I’m with her. I’ll hold her hand all the way to the hospital and
she’ll know she’s not alone. Please, Ian.”

His voice sounding very far away, Ian said, “She isn’t going
to the hospital, Tiffany love.”

“Then she’s all right? We’ll take her upstairs and put her
to bed. We’ll order room service and buy out the flower shop. Esmé loves
flowers. Charles had a greenhouse built so that she could always have flowers.”
She looked up at him. “Can we do that, Ian? Can we?”

“If that’s what you want, love.” Tucking her shoulders under
his arm, Damian maneuvered them through the crowd and into an elevator.

“They’ll be gentle with her, won’t they, Ian? She’ll be
sore, so they’ll need to be gentle with her.”

“They will be,” he said. Finding her key in the pocket of
her jeans, he opened the door to the suite. Though most of his attention was
focused on Tiffany, he noted the open door to the veranda, the telephone pulled
from the wall, an odd pattern in the thick carpet that looked as if someone had
danced there. They could not stay here, the scene of what might be murder.

Closing the door, he guided Tiffany to the fire exit door
and half-carried her down the stairs. At the door to his suite, she balked.

“I have to go upstairs, Ian. I have to be there when Esmé
comes back. I need to draw a bath for her, turn back the covers and call the
flower shop.”

“All that will keep for a few minutes,” he soothed, opening
the door and leading her inside. Holding her shoulders, he gazed into her
shock-glazed eyes. “I am only going to say this once, so listen closely and do
not argue. If you fight me, I shall have the hotel doctor give you a sedative
and have my wicked way with you. ¿Comprendes?”

“Gotcha,” she said, feathering her fingertips over his
waggling eyebrows and smiling wanly.

“I will check the shower while you get undressed.”

“Déjà vu all over again.”

“Yeah, but this time we will shower together.” Seeing the
protest forming in her eyes like glowering thunderheads, he shook her gently.
“Shower or shot, Tiffany darling.”

“Shower,” she mumbled. “But only if it’s safe.”

“It had better be,” he muttered, stalking away. He was not
sure what they had on the floor above, suicide or murder. All he knew for
certain was that Tiffany was in no condition to answer questions. He needed her
to stay that way long enough to get some answers from other sources.

He started the shower, turned toward the door and found
Tiffany standing there, her eyes glistening like dew-kissed spring leaves.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, love, she is.”

“Oh Lord, Ian, what’s happening? We had a fight, but it
wasn’t—”

“Hush, love. We will talk about it later.” He shed his
clothes, skimmed the lime-colored blouse from Tiffany’s body and tugged off her
jeans. He guided her into the shower.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, she let him bathe her,
let him turn her as he would. He hated the way she looked like no one lived in
her body, yet he knew she needed to retreat. She would need every ounce of
strength later, but for now she needed rest.

Eyes vacant of all emotion, Tiffany swallowed the sleeping
pills he handed her, then snuggled down under the covers. Damian kissed her
forehead before looking down into her open eyes.

“I don’t trust you,” she said.

“I know, love, but you will. We are in this together—for better
or worse.”

Her snort of disbelief turned into a yawn and she slept.

Damian found Nick in the living room.

“Have you reached Colonel Mendez yet?”

“I didn’t try. I think you better hear this first.” Using
the tip of his pen, Nick pushed the play button on the tape recorder. Tiffany’s
voice, then that of another woman, sounded in the otherwise silent room.

“Where did you find it?” Damian asked when the tape ended
with an abrupt click.

“Upstairs, between the cushions on the couch.”

“Put it back, then call Mendez. And see if you can find
Reynard. His vanishing act is making me itchy.”

“Put it back?” Nick said, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Are
you crazy? This tape incriminates Tiffany as if it were an eyewitness. Motive
and opportunity.”

“It seems to,” Damian agreed. “Use a phone in the lobby,
will you? And on your way down the stairs, time the descent. There’s a good
chap.”

“Don’t patronize me, good chap. Why aren’t you burning that
tape? Protecting the woman you love?”

“I am protecting her, Nick. We saw Esmé Cartierri fall, did
we not?” Wearing a deep frown and a befuddled expression, Nick nodded. “And not
thirty seconds later we saw Tiffany round the corner of the hotel.”

“At a dead run,” Nick said pointedly.

Damian echoed Nick’s words, then said, “How did she get from
the twentieth to the ground floor in thirty seconds? And even if she could, we
still have one unanswered question.”

“Which is?”

“Who turned off the tape recorder?”

Chapter Sixteen

Despite his prayers, when Tiffany opened her swollen eyes
the next morning, Damian could read the memory of yesterday’s tragedy in them.

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” she said in a flat tone.

“No.”

“She wouldn’t have jumped, Ian.”

“I know, love. You need to get dressed. We have company.”

“The police?” She sounded resigned and unwilling to fight
for her freedom should she need to.

Although he wanted to pump her up to defend herself, Damian
just nodded. Carefully watching her expression, he said, “And your father.”

“I don’t have a father.” She kicked off the covers and then
surged to her feet, magnificently regal and unashamed of her nakedness. “Make
them go away, Ian. I don’t want to see either of them.”

“You have no choice. Colonel Mendez wants to question all of
you together.”

“You know what Esmé told me yesterday, don’t you? How? How
do you know? And how did you find me?”

“Get dressed, Tiffany. We will talk later.”

When she entered the living room some twenty minutes later,
TC’s gaze flew to Sir James Foster.
My father
, she thought, striving to
steel her heart against him and failing.

He looked as if he had aged a lifetime since she had last
seen him two nights ago. His hair lay in lank clumps against his scalp and pink
flesh showed between them. His face was as gray as his eyes. His shoulders,
always held so proudly, so militarily proper, slumped under a burden obviously
too heavy for him to carry. Guilt? she wondered. Or shame for the life she’d
had to lead without him in it?

Charles Cartierri, on the other hand, looked as if he had
just stepped out of Savile Row. His linen jacket fell straight from its padded
shoulders, his trousers’ creases were sharp as knife blades, his hair and
fingernails as perfect, as if he had come from the barber and manicurist only
moments ago. To give the devil his due, his eyes were red and puffy. Either he
had wept all night or he’d drowned his sorrows in a bottle of demon rum. Or
whatever he was drinking these days.
Uncharitable
, TC mused. But, given
what Esmé had told her yesterday, perhaps not unfounded.

Ian’s frown disapproved her own apparel, a frothy confection
of swirling orange, yellow and hot pink. She didn’t care. These were Esmé’s
favorite colors and TC wore them proudly, mourning her stepmother in her own
way.

“Señorita Cartierri, I am sorry for your loss.”

Looking into the limpid pools of Colonel Mendez’s eyes, TC
believed him. Of all the men in this room, this stranger seemed the most
sincere in his sympathy.

“Thank you, Colonel Mendez,” she said, letting him lead her
to the couch. She gratefully sank onto it and accepted a cup of coffee from
Nick. “What is that?” she asked, pointing at the tape recorder on the coffee
table. Lifting her gaze to Ian’s face, she willed him to explain. If Colonel
Mendez intended to question her, shouldn’t she have a lawyer at her side?

“It’s a recording of your argument with Esmé,” Charles
Cartierri said from across the room. His voice sounded tear-clogged and his
shoulders slumped. Perhaps he had truly loved Esmé and they might have worked
through their differences. Then he added, “The argument you had with her before
you—before she died.”

Any sympathy she had for him shriveled. He’d always been a
cold man. No one had ever lived up to his expectations—especially not TC.

“Silencio,” Colonel Mendez ordered in a low voice that
achieved his purpose. “You did not know of the recorder?”

“No.” Feeling helpless under the scrutiny of five intense
men, TC could only stare at the now-silent witness to her shame. “Why…did she
tape us?”

“Señor Cartierri has explained that la señora was a
psychologist before they married. She sometimes took new patients and always
taped her sessions.”

TC didn’t know what to say so kept silent.

“Were you aware of that, señorita?”

“I suppose I was, on a subliminal level. I know she quit her
practice when she married my—when she married Charles. And I recall that she
went back to it, off and on, once I started school.”

“When you traveled together, which Señor Cartierri says you
did often, did your stepmother carry a recorder?”

“Not to my knowledge. Esmé always said that our time
together was too precious to let work intrude.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks.
She brushed them away with the backs of her hands, but accepted Colonel
Mendez’s snowy white handkerchief. It smelled of sandalwood, a scent TC found
so comforting she cried even harder.

“Good Lord, TC, compose yourself. You’re behaving like a
fool.” Charles Cartierri looked as if he wished the earth would open and
swallow her whole.

“Shut up, Charles, or I’ll throw you off the balcony,” James
Foster said, drawing TC’s blurred gaze to him.

He looked more like himself now, she thought, glad to see
once more the leonine tilt to his head, the lift of his shoulders. But the haze
of violence in his eyes made her shiver, as did his reference to the balcony.
Had he thrown Esmé to her death? But why would he? Unless… Did he know what
Esmé had told her? Would he fear Esmé would disclose TC’s parentage?

Cutting off this line of inquiry, Colonel Mendez said, “You
never saw a recorder in la señora’s luggage?”

“Esmé enjoyed her privacy and respected mine. Even when I
was young, we had separate rooms.”

“I see. Thank you, Señorita Cartierri.” The dapper colonel
stood and then bowed over her hand.

“That’s all?” Charles Cartierri growled, clenching his
fingers into fists.

Expecting him to lunge at her, TC surged to her feet.

“Well?” she heard her own voice say, followed by Esmé’s
suggestion that she shower. Mesmerized by the hatred in Charles Cartierri’s
eyes, she could only stare at him while the tape played on, revealing all their
sordid secrets in camera-ready sound bites.

“Incest was never an issue.”

TC felt the blood drain from her face, watched it drain from
James Foster’s.

“Turn it off,” Ian said, rushing across the room to catch
Sir James before he collapsed.

“No, let it finish,” TC countered, her gaze again locked
with Charles’.

“Damn you, Esmé. Damn you to hell.”

“Is that why you killed her?” Charles demanded in a
tear-choked voice. “Is that when you picked her up and threw her over the
parapet?” He advanced with his hands outstretched.

TC could almost feel his fingers closing around her throat.
She swallowed hard, but held her ground. She was finished with letting him
bully her, finished with letting him ruin her life. He always had to blame
someone—most often her. She understood his compulsion, but she no longer had to
prove anything to him.

“Señorita Cartierri did not throw your wife over anything.
On the other hand, Señor Cartierri, you could have.” Colonel Mendez’s voice was
low, almost genial, but his hand rested on his gun’s hilt.

Charles halted in mid-stride, then spun on his heel. “Any
further communication can be made through my attorney, Diego Sanchez.”

“Do not leave Colombia, señor.”

With a fulminating glare over his shoulder, Charles
Cartierri exited the suite, slamming the door behind him.

“Gee, I wish I’d slammed the door like that,” TC said, then
laughed, a shaky sound that ended with a hiccup when she saw Ian’s eyes. “Don’t
you dare pity me.”

Ian’s gaze shifted to Nick. “Call the doctor, then take
Tiffany down for breakfast. I will join you shortly.”

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter with Sir James?”

“Tiffany, for once in your life do as you are told.”

She growled, a wild, uncontrolled sound. “All my life I have
done what I’ve been told to do. For once I’m going to do what I want.”

“Which is?”

“Take care of my f-father.”

* * * * *

An hour later Damian stood with his arm around Tiffany’s
shoulders while they watched Sir James sleep.

“Do you think he knew?” Tiffany asked in an
uncharacteristically small voice.

“Knew what, love?” Taking her hand, he led her from the
room, but left the door ajar so they could hear if Sir James called out.

“That I’m his daughter. Did he know all my life that he’s my
father or did he learn about it later, when I married William?

“Ian?” she said when he said nothing.

Sighing, he pulled her into his arms and cradled her head
against his shoulder. What he had to tell her was easier if he did not have to
look into her eyes. He had questions, too, but they would have to wait.

“It is possible he did not know until he heard the tape.”
When she tried to pull back and look at him, he pressed her closer. “It is
possible he is not your father at all.”

“But why would Esmé lie?”

“To hurt Charles.” He sat and tugged Tiffany down on the
couch beside him. “You heard what she said, Tiffany. She hated him.”

“But if she lied to me, that means she hated me, too.”

“I do not doubt her love for you, Tiffany darling. But
sometimes love and hate get all mixed up until you cannot tell the difference.
By then you do not care who you hurt.”

Tiffany turned in his arms, leaned back against his chest
and laid her head on his shoulder. “Do you think Charles killed her?”

“I do not know. Yet. Unfortunately, I do not believe he did.
Esmé had skin under her fingernails. Whoever killed her has some pretty deep
gouges, probably on his face, possibly on his hands.”

He felt her exhale and smiled into her fragrant hair. “No,
Sir James did not kill her. Aside from the lack of scarring, he has an alibi.
Even in a jet, he could not have flown here, killed Esmé and then flown back to
Bogotá in time for a highly public dinner last night. Dios, you are tense.”
Shifting her slightly, he began to massage her neck and shoulders until she
purred under his fingertips.

“Yum. I’ll give you a millennium to stop that.”

“Tell me about William,” he whispered in her ear. “No, do
not tense up, just let your thoughts flow. Do you remember the first time you
met?”

“I don’t want to do this, Ian.”

“Okay.” He moved her away, then took his hands off her
shoulders.

“This is blackmail,” she said, looking over her shoulder, a
simmering gleam in her emerald eyes.

“Yep.”

“I suppose I owe you. I mean, if you weren’t so intent on
proving I stole Isabella’s Belt, the real one, you wouldn’t have followed me to
Cartagena. Which you still haven’t explained. How did you know I was here?
Hmmm,” she sighed when he kneaded her spine, his thumbs tracing small circles
along the indentation. “And if you hadn’t followed me, you wouldn’t have seen
me when…when you did. I’d probably be in prison.”

“Probably.”

She turned her head far enough to glare at him from one very
green eye. Grinning, he kissed her cheek.

“I don’t want to talk about William. You heard the tape.
Isn’t that enough?”

“No, it is not enough. It does not explain why you married
him. It is important, Tiffany.”

Damian wanted to shake her. Instead, he quieted his hands on
her slender back and absorbed her conflict through his palms. He could feel her
trembling, could imagine her face flushing with embarrassment that he knew the
secret of her marriage.

“Esmé was right. I did adore him, but not in the way
everyone thought. I loved him because he was everything I wanted to
be—charming, witty, intelligent. When we were together, it was as if he held up
a mirror of himself so that I could see everything he was in my own reflection.
Pure selfishness on my part.

“There was some trouble. I don’t know all the details, but
there were threats to expose William as a… Demands for money. Sir James—James
was fighting for his position at Bijoux and a scandal would have ruined him.”

She expelled a sigh heavy with remorse. “I don’t suppose our
marriage fooled anyone, especially not when William’s latest lover appeared on
Capri a week after our wedding. But the British are masters at maintaining
appearances. To them, ours was an eccentric marriage, but a marriage
nonetheless.” She gave a short laugh then went on. “By then William was being
careful and monogamous, but it was too late. Jerry, William’s lover, stayed
with us until he could no longer bear the sight of that once magnificent body
wasting away to nothing.”

“But you stayed.”

“What was there to go back to? Had I returned to the States,
Charles would have bullied me into going back to work for him and railed at me
for the failure of my marriage. England was William’s home not mine, so I
stayed with him on Capri until he was too ill to travel.”

He heard her swallow her tears, but resisted the urge to
take her in his arms, to love away her pain.

“When William died, Sir James came to me with a proposition.
Since my marriage to William, there had been a noticeable drop in the number of
hotel jewel thefts.” A wry tone had invaded her voice and Damian felt like
cheering. Anything was better than the lifeless monotone of her earlier
recitation. “Still, according to James, there was enough fraudulent thievery
going on to keep someone with my ‘unique skills’ busy and on the right side of
the law.”

A soft, bitter laugh preceded, “I was something of a pariah
in England. After all, AIDS is highly contagious and one might contract it
simply by shaking hands, mightn’t one?” she said with obvious sarcasm at the
continuing myths surrounding the disease. “So we agreed that I would return to
the States. As far away from Charles as possible, but in a city where my
pedigree gave me access to society.”

“San Francisco.”

“You’ve done your homework.” She wiggled her shoulders.
Obliging her unspoken request, Damian resumed rubbing her back. “I went to work
for a jeweler, where I could pick up little morsels of gossip. Any hints of
prospective malfeasance. As a designer rather than a shop girl, I was privy to
all sorts of secrets and, as Charles Cartierri’s daughter, I was invited to
every important social event from Sausalito to Burlingame.”