Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (27 page)

     "I'm a landscape architect. At least, I was until I became a hotelier." Working two and three jobs, going to night school, obtaining her degree
had all been for one end: to find her child. And good private detectives did not come cheap.

     "You're staring at me, detective."

     He fumbled for words, and she said, "I know, you don't find many women in that profession. Once I had my license, it was impossible to find a job. Most established landscape architects did not want to hire a woman back then, and those who agreed to take me on, would not give me creative freedom, and didn't listen to me when I suggested they were doing something wrong." Abby's growing-up years in her grandfather's nursery had taught her more than any college classes could. But who cared?

     "So I decided to go independent, find clients on my own." She remembered the day she had pulled up to the curb on a street in Bel Air and surveyed the scene.

     She smiled at the memory. "A new house was being landscaped," she said to Jack, "and the men were putting the tall trees on the wrong side of the property. They should be on
this
side, to mask the noise of the traffic on Sunset Blvd. The walkway to the pool was straight, it should meander and be planted with a sequence of visual experiences—shrubs, flowers, bird bath, benches. And the flowers! The prevailing wind in the area was westerly for half the year, offshore for the other. But the flowers they were putting in bloomed during the westerlies, which meant the fragrance would be wafted into the neighbor's garden with no benefit to the owner of
this
house!"

     Jack was noticing how animated she became, talking about flowers and prevailing winds, and he was thinking of Crystal Creek Winery, the brochure he had kept even though he had put aside his dream of buying the place, when his doorbell chimed. Abby paused in her story while he admitted the room service waiter, who mumbled apologies for the breakfast being delivered late, immediately reddening when he saw his boss. After the man left, Jack said, "Did you land the job?" He had her fingerprints. He could leave. Why was he doing this?

     For Nina. Yes, it was for Nina.

     "I found the owner in the back and told him my observations. He said, 'What would you say if I told you these were my own ideas?' I was blunt with him. 'You won't be happy once it's done,' I said. He challenged me. So I
pointed out that he was placing water-loving plants under a drought-loving tree. For the plants he would have to over-water it and the tree would die. And it was a very expensive tree."

     She poured coffee from the silver service and handed a cup to Jack, as if this were her room and she were the hostess. "We walked over the property for an hour and when we were done, he fired the landscaper and hired me. He was my first client and that led to many more."

     She didn't tell Jack Burns the rest: that that first client's name was Sam Striker, a wealthy realtor, and that sixteen years ago, Sam had brought Abby out to the desert to show her his land. "Bought it dirt cheap," Sam had said. "My friends called me crazy, but I hired a geologist and he said there was artesian water here, it just needed a way to come up. That's what I did. Brought up the water and then I planted these trees."

     Abby had been astonished. Barren wasteland as far as the eye could see, yet here was this grove of greenery, as if transplanted from the banks of the Nile.

     "There's plenty more water underneath," Sam had said. "The geologist tells me it could last a hundred years or more. I figure to make this my retreat. Marry me, Abby. I'll protect you." By then, she and Sam had become lovers and he knew her story. "Bounty hunters will never find you. We'll build something special here."

     "Sam," she had said that day sixteen years ago. "I'm fond of you but my child—"

     He put a finger to her lips. "I know. Your child comes first. I won't get in the way. I'll help you in your search. But I want to take care of you. You brought so much beauty and tranquility into my life. Let me do the same for you."

     "So," Jack Burns was saying now as he surveyed the breakfast offering on the room service cart—eggs, fruit, muffins—"As a landscape architect you were able to afford this property?"

     "Oh no. My husband owned this land."

     He turned and looked at her. "I didn't know you were married."

     "I'm a widow. After he died and left this property to me, I decided to develop it into a retreat from the outside world."

     Jack noticed a careful avoidance of her husband's name. But now he had a new lead to go on: a search at the County Hall of Records would give him the name of the owner of this land, prior to Abby Tyler.

     Her pager went off. "Pardon me" she said, and spoke into her cell phone. "I'm sorry," she said to Jack, pocketing the cell. "Crisis at the health club that needs my immediate attention." She was reluctant to leave. The reason she had accepted his invitation to breakfast was that she hoped to learn more about him and the murder he was supposedly investigation.

     She started for the door, then stopped and said, "Is that your sister?"

     Jack turned to see where she was looking. Standing on an end table was a color portrait in a pewter frame. A pretty young woman with long blond hair. Jack's favorite picture of Nina, taken when she was twenty.

     "She's lovely," Abby said.

     Fury rose in him, suddenly and swiftly. He had been lulled into complacency by this beguiling woman. How could he fall for her, while she stood there blatantly lying, pretending not to know Nina?

     
The feel of her in his arms as they had drawn the bowstring back.

     Jack mentally kicked himself. He was weakening, forgetting why he was here!

     When she saw his features twist with emotion, she thought of the news articles she had requested from the Palm Springs
Sentinel
, special-messengered to The Grove, and which she had read before coming to his bungalow. When Vanessa suggested that Jack Burns was here on false pretenses, saying, "How do you know he's investigating his sister's murder? He could be here for
you
," Abby had requested the back news articles. And what she read had shocked her.

     It explained some of Jack's mystery. He was burying his emotions. His sister's death was too recent, the wounds too raw—he was living a surface life. But it was an unhealthy way to live, perhaps even a dangerous one.

     "Would you like to talk about it?" she asked gently.

     "You have to go," he said in a tight voice. "Crisis at the health club."

     She followed him to the door, distressed with this sudden turn. What was it about his sister? He had talked to Ophelia, Sissy and Coco. Was Nina adopted? Had she been searching for her birth mother? It stood on Abby's
lips to tell him about herself, that she too was involved in an adoption search, but that would mean telling him everything—the murder, the escape from prison, the bounty on her head—and she suspected that Jack Burns followed a strict code of ethics when it came to police work. Once he knew that she was wanted by the FBI, he would have no choice but to arrest her.

     "Detective, when you told me you were investigating your sister's murder, I had some news articles brought in from Palm Springs. I read about it. I am so sorry. If there is anything I can do to help."

     "There's nothing," he said in such a painful tone that Abby's heart went out to him. "Very well," she said, "but if you should change—"

     "It's just that my sister was very special to me. I was fourteen years older and I always looked after her. I took care of her. She depended on me. I let her down."

     Abby heard in his voice a tone she herself had once spoken in. Jack was blaming himself for Nina's death.

     "We can't always save those we love," she said, laying a hand on his arm.

     He turned a furious expression to her. "Nina walked into a dangerous situation and I didn't do a damn thing about it. She left a message on my phone—a damn phone message, saying she was meeting someone later that night, someone who wanted to remain anonymous—" His words came out harsh, splintered. "She said she had stumbled upon something big, she said—I came home late and fell asleep on the sofa. I was on a case, I was exhausted. I didn't check my messages until the next morning when it was too late—" His voice broke.

     "She left a message? Then how could you have helped her? Jack, it's not your fault. She had no way of knowing when you would hear the message."

     He snapped the door open, and sunshine and desert breezes spilled inside. He had the fingerprints. There was nothing more here for him. He would leave on the next plane out.

     "Jack, in her message, did she
ask
for help?"

     He stood silently by the door, a tortured look in his eye.

     "I know what it's like to blame yourself for something like this. The guilty feelings. But it was nothing you had any control over. I know, I've been there."

     His stance was rigid and she knew he was fighting for control. She wanted to tell him that it was the malleable trees, like palms bending beneath a storm, that survived. Not the sturdy oak that became uprooted and was toppled.

     She stepped outside and turned. "If you want to talk about it, I'm here," she said, wondering how she could help, but knowing that there wasn't much time. She knew that Jack was due to check out of The Grove on Saturday.

     The same day she herself was leaving.

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT FLYING AT THE SPEED OF SIX
hundred miles per hour that always made Michael Fallon horny. It was the image of himself shooting through open space in a phallus-shaped vessel. He could not concentrate on what his secretary was saying.

     She was a looker. Tawny curls bent over a steno pad, smooth legs crossed at the knee so that one silken calf swung as she wrote. Her blouse was unbuttoned down to plump cleavage. She had a narrow waist and wide hips, the way Michael liked them. His concentration drifted. "Where were we, Miss Jones?" he said.

     "The Governor and his wife, Senator Watson and wife, Arnold Schwar-zenegger and Maria..." They were reviewing the RSVP's to the guest list for his daughter's wedding reception.

     "I'll give you a million bucks if you unbutton your blouse," Fallon said with a sexy smile. Outside, fleecy clouds engulfed the private jet while inside soft music filled the luxuriously appointed cabin. Uri Edelstein was snoozing
a few seats away—flying always knocked him out. But not Michael. He was suddenly rock hard.

     Laughing softly, Miss Jones set her pad aside and slowly undid the buttons of her blue silk blouse, giving her boss a good view of mammoth breasts barely contained in lacy cups. Her real name was Ingrid and she had been a Vegas stripper before she learned shorthand.

     Michael got up and went to the back of the plane. She followed. He pulled a curtain across the small galley and leaned against the wall. Ingrid knew what was expected of her. Secretarial skills were only part of her job. Kneeling, she unzipped his fly and took hold of his erection. Some gentle caressing and then she took him into her mouth. Michael didn't move, letting her do all the work. He didn't even touch her. He closed his eyes and thought of jet planes and speed, and soon came in her mouth.

     She left him right away, to return to her seat while Michael stepped into the small john to clean himself. Sex always brought out his fastidious nature. As he restored himself and washed his hands, and made a mental note to give the secretary a bauble from Florida, a diamond bracelet maybe, the captain's voice came over the intercom: "We will be landing in a few minutes, sir."

     Fallon was paying a visit to his mother.

     If Michael didn't know who had sired him, he knew at least where and when the deed had taken place: at the Flamingo Hotel during its inaugural opening in 1946. "Born with Vegas," Fallon liked to brag. Born in the glory days of crime and men like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel. Now
there
was juice. Anybody not liking them moving into town and building casinos with Mexican drug money and millions of dollars made on heroin was either bribed, frightened, or killed into silence. The moxie! Bugsy Siegel had killed thirty men by his own hand, and countless others through his goons. Bugsy had gotten away with so many gangland executions that he believed murder wasn't a crime if it was done by him.

     Though Michael had never met the man, and Siegel wasn't Italian, Fallon admired him: Bugsy had single-handedly created and built the Flamingo Hotel. Without it, Fallon wouldn't walk the earth today.

     Michael was ten years old and snooping through his mother's jewelry,
hoping to find something to sell—but it was all junk, they were so poor—when he came across The Chip. He was only a fifth-grader, but he knew what a teal colored gambling chip signified. Someone had gifted his mother a thousand dollars. It came from the Flamingo. There was even a date on it: December 1946, so it had been made specially for the opening of the new casino. She had never cashed it in. Kept it as a souvenir. A reminder, Michael decided, of the night she had slept with one of the big juices.