Knock 'em Dead (22 page)

The real estate office was upscale but basically no different than every other sales office. Well, except that the receptionist offered us everything from bottled water to champagne while we waited for Jace Andrews. Oh, and most of the listings being offered for sale ran upward of eight figures.

It took less than two minutes for the real estate broker to appear. Probably because I’d used the same ploy on him. Apparently a single mention of the Special Assessment was enough to get an audience with the owner.

The first thing I noticed was that he was way cuter in person than in the eight-by-ten photograph in his Fantasy Dates file. The second thing was that he was pissed.

With slitted brown eyes and a forced smile, he ushered us into his private office. It was very big, very masculine, and very neat. Lots of large, dark wood furniture with masculine printed fabrics in burgandies and navy blue.

“Take a seat,” he said as he held his Hermès tie against his chest, while he sat behind a massive mahogany desk.

“We’re here about the extra fees you’ve been paying,” Liam said without preamble.

Jace’s cheeks reddened as he glared angrily at the two of us. Liam’s cell phone rang and he went out into the hallway. Though I knew he was only a shout away, I also knew someone—not Jane—had stabbed and mutilated Paolo. Maybe Jace, who I was now alone with.

With no other option, I picked up where Liam left off. “We know about the Special Assessments you’ve been paying.”

His eyes squeezed shut for a minute and he raked shaking fingers through his dark brown hair. “How much more?” he asked, his fury bubbling toward the surface.

“More what?”

“Money,” he said, sliding open a drawer and pulling out one of those large, leather-bound business checkbooks. “Like I told Paolo, I’m willing to pay to keep this quiet. It isn’t like I have a choice, now, is it?”

“Uh, no. I doubt your client base will increase when word gets out that you’re an S&M freak.”

His head shot up and the pen he’d just grabbed from the desk set froze in midair. He put the pen down and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A DVD of you
not
on your best behavior. Ring any bells?”

“No.” He rose out of his chair. “I’m sure you can find your way out.”

Whoa.
What was I missing? “Paolo is dead.”

“So I read. The door is that way,” he suggested again.

“The woman who was arrested didn’t kill him.”

“Not my concern.”

I didn’t budge from my seat. In fact, I gripped the armrests so tightly he’d have to move the furniture to get me out of the room. “Wrong. I’m making it your concern. I know Fantasy Dates charged certain clients special fees for…for special requests. You just admitted you’ve been paying the Special Assessment.”

“So you say. Repeat it and I’ll deny it.”

“To a judge?”

Jace Andrews looked like he’d enjoy nothing more than to wring my neck, administer CPR, then do it all over again.

“To support a local children’s charity.”

Same bullshit line Kresley had used earlier. “I’ve—” I glanced toward Liam, who was still chatting away on the phone. “We’ve already got confirmation from one of the individuals being blackmailed by Fantasy Dates. We know about the S&M and we know about the DVDs.”

He shook his head and snorted at me. “Then you don’t know anything, Ms. Tanner. I’ve asked you to leave twice. Now I’m telling you to get out.”

“We were just leaving,” Liam said as he stepped back into the room and closed his fingers around my arm. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Andrews.”

“But!”

Liam’s eyes bore into me. “Now,” he insisted in a low growl.

We were barely out the front door when I practically screamed, “We have to go back in there! Press him, squeeze him, get him to crack.”

“Get him to crack?” Liam repeated. “When did you start channeling Edward G. Robinson?”

His obvious amusement didn’t sit well with me. “Confess. Whatever the hell you call it. When he thought Zack and Shaylyn sent us, he was all set to pay. Then when I mentioned S&M, he blew me off.”

“We can come back later. He’s not going anywhere.”

“He was lying. Something you would have noticed if you hadn’t had that phone glued to your ear like some teenager.”

“Speaking of phones, yours is dead.”

“What?” I reached into my purse only to see the LED display was, in fact, blank. “I can charge it in the car.”

“Don’t bother. Becky called me. Faulkner docketed the motion to reconsider bail for nine tomorrow morning.”

“That’s great!” My excitement was tempered as I did a mental calculation. If the hearing was over by ten, I could still hit the florist, pick up the roses, and be at Willoughby Country Club to meet my mother in Stuart with a few minutes to spare. “I hope Taggert is ready. My car’s parked over there,” I said once I realized we were walking in the wrong direction.

“We’ll come back for it. I’ve got to get to The Lord’s Table ASAP.”

“We’re going to a soup kitchen?”

“Yep. Now that you’re unemployed, I thought it would be good for you to familiarize yourself with your dining options.”

I slapped his rock-hard biceps. Definitely causing me more pain than him. “That was so not funny. Where are you really taking me?”

“The Lord’s Table.”

“Why?”

“We have to get there before Crazy Frank leaves.”

“Please tell me Crazy Frank is another one of Fantasy Dates’ clients?”

“Nope.”

“Then who is he? And why do they call him crazy?”

“They call him crazy because he hears voices.”

“So it’s a derogatory term for a guy who’s either psychotic or schizophrenic? And why is he more important than interviewing the Fantasy Dates people? They’re the ones leading the perverted double lives.”

“Lots of people lead double lives. Crazy Frank, on the other hand, is the guy who sent you Paolo’s penis.”

“E
ver been to a soup kitchen?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I’ve done my civic duty more than once.” The quick slash of his grin told me he had my number. I gave him an innocent look. “What? You think I’m lying?”

“Nope. But I doubt it was your idea. Community service?”

Lucky guess.
“I got a few speeding tickets, so it was either eight Saturdays of driver reeducation classes, six weekends of picking up litter on the side of I-95 wearing some hideous yellow reflector jacket, or volunteer at a shelter for a month.”

The seat belt rubbed against my neck, forcing me to reposition myself against the cracked leather upholstery. Unlike my whisper-quiet BMW, Liam’s vintage Mustang conducted an entire concerto of assorted noises. The soloist in this case was the muffler. It backfired often; a loud, pounding blast that would have made John Philip Sousa proud.

The seat belt wasn’t the only thing rubbing me the wrong way. “Don’t you think it’s odd the way Payton and Jace didn’t ask us who we were? It was almost like they were expecting us or something.”

He shrugged. “Your notes implied we were connected to the dating service. At any rate, Payton didn’t strike me as a shrinking violet. I’m sure she liked talking about her kinky sex life.”

“Jace was a hairsbreadth away from writing a check. Then I casually mentioned the whole S&M thing and he shut down. How weird is that? On one hand, I got the sense that he was a real tight-ass. But I’m also having trouble picturing him as the whip and leather type. I’m going to go back there and talk to him. He knows something and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Do you always act first and think second?” His tone was only half teasing.

“No. I’m battling a ticking clock here.”

“Is that why you went into Fantasy Dates alone?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly while I prayed for patience. As usual, God put me on hold. “In case you didn’t notice,” I reminded him, “it gave me time to search the office.”

“Still no word from Zack or Shaylyn?”

I shook my head. “Liv is supposed to be hunting them down. I should call her later. Becky too. I can’t believe my damn phone is dead.”

“Not Patrick?” he asked, one dark brow arched tauntingly.

There was no winning answer for that kind of question. If I said no, it sent the signal that our relationship was on the rocks. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. If I added Patrick to my call sheet as an afterthought, well, that just made me look like it
was
an afterthought. In reality, calling Patrick was a nonthought.

I cracked the window and gathered my hair to one side as warm, humid air swirled inside the car. At least that air was moving, which was more than I could say for the weak stream of exhaust-scented stuff spewing out of the air vents.

“Hot?”

Loaded question number two. Temperature-wise, yes. Libido-wise, hell yes. I couldn’t control the weather, but I was in complete charge of my body’s inappropriate desire for Liam. Besides, I had Jane to think about. What kind of friend lusts when another friend is in jail?

“Where is this place?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Off Forty-fifth.”

I knew the area well. Strip malls, gas stations, fast food places, and most importantly, a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through. “Could we stop for some coffee?”

“You want coffee when it’s ninety degrees?”

“Iced coffee.”

Again I knew he was smiling without turning to look at him. Well, not smiling so much as smirking. “What sin did I commit now?”

“Oh, nothing. No one will mind when you walk into a soup kitchen carrying a grande whatever that costs more than most of these guys have in their collective pockets.”

“So I’ll skip the whipped cream as a show of solidarity.” I tried not to heave a giant sigh. “I can leave it in the car while we talk to Crazy Frank. Okay?”

“Your call.”

I glanced at his profile. “I think better with caffeine in my system.”

“Then you must have been a few mugs short when you went inside Fantasy Dates. Especially when you knew someone had called you from there, threatening you. Not smart, Finley.”

“So you’ve said.”
Three times.
Add that to the ninety-nine times I’d said it to myself, and that was a hundred and two times stupid. I got it. “How much blood was in the kitchen?”

“Not a lot,” he answered. “Someone got hit, but it wasn’t fatal.”

“How can you know that?”

“The blood splatter was oval. That’s high-velocity spray, indicating the victim was in motion at the time the blow was struck.”

Now I needed coffee and a barf bag. “In English, please.”

Liam took the Forty-fifth Street exit, drove two blocks, then turned into the drive-through lane. His car belched another backfire, startling the elderly gentleman crossing the parking lot. Though it was Liam’s car that caused the old guy to drop his newspaper, I was the one he glared at.

“You should get this heap fixed.”

“Working on it.” Liam shifted the car into park.

It didn’t idle so much as it vibrated.

Releasing his seat belt, he turned and lifted his fist, swinging it at his own face in slow motion. “The natural reflex is to turn away from a punch. Like this,” he said, demonstrating the move. “That sends the blood spraying in the direction the person was moving at the time of impact.”

“What about the glass?”

“Could mean there was some sort of struggle, or it’s completely unrelated. Until I know what happened, it’s impossible to tell.”

“Until
we
know,” I corrected. “I’m thinking Zack punched Shaylyn, maybe after he called and threatened me.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t tell the gender of the person who called.”

“I couldn’t, but Shaylyn doesn’t strike me—no pun intended—as the battering type. She’s too…cultured. Zack, on the other hand, gives me some serious willies.” I shivered.

“So how come they sprung for an attorney for Jane?”

I wondered the same thing. “Maybe they didn’t want anyone to find out about their tawdry sideline? I’ve gone over their records a zillion times and I’m pretty sure the majority of their dealings were legitimate. The S&M perverts represent a small fraction of their business.”

“S&M isn’t illegal.”

“It should be,” I said. “If for no other reason than the fact that wearing leather in Florida in the summer is just wrong.”

He flashed me a very sexy, slightly crooked smile that caused my stomach to flutter. “Not into the smell of leather and the crack of a whip?”

I vehemently shook my head. “No.” Forget the whip. But the image of Liam stripped down and wearing nothing but black leather pants made my stomach dance and gave me a serious hot flash. “You seem to know a lot about it, though. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

“I worked vice for a few years.”

It was hard to reconcile the man next to me now in a police uniform. He didn’t impress me as a rules and regulations kinda guy. Probably why he wasn’t a cop anymore. “Why’d you leave the police force?”

Liam moved up another two spots in line and checked the Breitling Chronograph adorning his left wrist. “It was time.”

“Why?”

Liam eased the car forward until he was even with the speaker. As he placed the order, he leaned to one side and pulled a worn wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.

At the same time, I was rummaging in my purse for my cash. He looked at my pathetically limp five-dollar bill and said, “It’s on me.”

“Thanks.”

He reached across me and opened the glove box, retrieving an antiquated plastic cup holder that clipped into the small slot between the door and the window. He handed it over, then passed me my whipped-cream-free iced latte.

I left the cup holder in my lap, preferring to jab the straw in the drink and savor the much-missed taste of icy coffee. “You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded him after I’d drained nearly a third of the cup before we’d even exited the parking lot.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Is it some sort of state secret?”

“Nope. Just not something I talk about.”

Well, he might as well just wave a red flag in front of my face. “You know I can Google you, right?”

“Yep. But you won’t.”

Wrong. I started to and now I definitely will
. I added it to my mental list. I did have a strict rule about against Googling friends, but Liam and I weren’t friends. We were…oh, hell, I didn’t know what we were. “You sound pretty sure. How come?”

“You didn’t know about Jane’s past.”

“That’s different. My friends and I have an agreement.”

“You should rethink that agreement.”

“Why?”

He shook his head and sighed heavily. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

Okay, the whole Jane arrest thing had blown up in my face, but his cryptic remark puzzled me. Did he think Becky and Liv had secrets as well? And frankly, even if they did, I didn’t see the relevance to Jane’s case. I would have pressed him, but we’d reached our destination.

I knew from several profiles done over the years that the soup kitchen was the creation of lovely eighty-something Bea Gaitlin. Bea and her husband had made a, by Palm Beach standards, modest fortune. In the late 1950s, Bea and her husband had bought a large tract of land in Martin County, about twenty miles north. They opened an unassuming restaurant that developed a loyal following. Thirty years later, they began selling off parcels of property and Bea used some of the proceeds to start up the soup kitchen. Her philanthropy didn’t stop there; she and her family sponsored everything from Little League teams to Red Cross relief efforts. Still, The Lord’s Table remained her baby and she could often be found serving up plates in spite of her age.

The single-story, cinder block building was painted a bright salmon background color with a large mural of the Disciples breaking bread as decoration. The hand-painted sign at the entrance to the small grass lot next to the building tilted heavily to one side. A leftover hurricane repair, no doubt.

Double doors were propped open with metal folding chairs, and the instant I stepped from the car, the scent of roasted turkey hung in the heavy air. Unfortunately, it was tempered by the smell of two or three dozen people milling around the entrance. A few shirtless men were at the far end of the parking lot, availing themselves of the open freshwater shower.

I’m charitable. Almost all of my M&M’s come from schoolchildren hawking fund-raisers in the front of the grocery store, and I’m really good about regularly culling my closet and donating my unloved cell phones to battered women’s shelters. But looking at the people waiting patiently for what was probably their only decent meal of the day made me feel guilty.

I reminded myself that I was unemployed and carrying nearly as much debt as a small developing nation. Yet I still had a great place to live, beautiful clothes, and as much food as I wanted.
I
could take as many showers I wanted,
whenever
I wanted. Looking at this mass of humanity waiting patiently for their one meal of the day made me realize just how damned lucky I was.

As we approached the building, Liam pulled a photo from his shirt pocket. I glanced over and realized it wasn’t a photograph, it was the dual-view mug shot of a grungy-looking man with half-closed eyes, dirt-brown hair, and really bad teeth.

I got a couple of catcalls that were instantly silenced by a harsh glare from Liam. I needed to learn that look; it was damned effective.

The interior was set up like a school cafeteria, long metal tables with attached benches. There was very little conversation and a great deal of spoon-fisted food shoveling.

“Far table on the left-hand side,” Liam said, leading the way.

I practically glued myself to his back as we weaved our way through the throng of people devouring sliced turkey, mushy green beans, and blobs of potatoes. Much of the meal was coated in a layer of thick beige gravy and topped with a single slice of white bread.

“Shit,” Liam mumbled, then took off running.

Crazy Frank bolted toward the back door. He moved amazingly quickly for a guy wearing about seven layers of clothes. I, on the other hand, was quite limited by my trendy but impractical wedges.

Frank was maybe twenty feet into the field behind the building when Liam caught hold of his collar, yanking him to an abrupt halt. Another five feet and Crazy Frank would have ended up in the canal.

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of wading though calf-deep weeds, but it was the only available option. The two men tussled a bit, but Liam was larger, stronger, and not distracted by hallucinations about aliens.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Liam told the man as he placed him in a tight hold.

Crazy Frank earned his moniker, rambling for several minutes about Liam being sent from the outer galaxy to harvest his liver. Given the strong odor of liquor on Crazy Frank’s breath, my guess was his liver was already long gone.

Liam eventually managed to quiet him by dangling a twenty-dollar bill in front of him. Crazy Frank made a grab for it, but Liam held it just out of reach. “Tell me about the package you mailed a couple of days ago.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes,” Liam countered, again waving the money, “you did.”

Frank’s eyes darted back and forth, following the movement of the bill like an animal hunting prey. “It was a long time ago.”

“Think, Frank,” Liam said.

“Please?” I asked.

At the sound of my voice, Frank jerked his head around and his chapped lips curved into a smile. He’d lost a couple of his front teeth since his last mug shot. Some of the longer, stringy strands of hair fell forward and caught in his food-crusted beard.

“The box, Frank?” Liam prompted. “Where’d you get it?”

“She gave it to me.”

“Who was she?” Liam asked.

“Dunno.”

Liam waved the bill again. “Where did you meet her?”

“She came to my place.”

“You have a place?” I asked. My uncensored question earned me a nasty look from Liam.