Riptide (25 page)

The kid stared. “No problem.”

The place was deserted inside.

“Good evening, folks. You’ve got your choice of seats tonight.” The maitre d’s face fell when he got a look at Christina. “Good evening, Mrs. Cardiff.” His voice lost some of its booming quality. “And you, sir.”

“Cunningham.” Danny, unsmiling, extended his hand. “Daniel Cunningham.”

“Right.” The maitre d’ shook hands while giving an
uneasy glance at Christina, who was feeling the effects of the last few lines of coke.

She rubbed her nose and sniffed, shifting her dress around. Her skin was crawling.

Danny Cisco rubbed his nose and sniffed. “You got a table for us or what?”

“But of course, sir.” The maitre d’s voice was overloud as he grabbed two menus and swept his arm across, taking in the empty room. “Your choice, sir.”

Danny swept past and Christina followed, unsteady on her feet.

Rain lashed the windows, shut tight. Normally, there would be a beautiful sunset over the bay.

Tonight, the wood-paneled room felt desolate as a tomb.

“Bring us a bottle of French champagne, your good stuff,” Danny ordered.

Christina winced. All champagne was French.

The maitre d’ frowned. “What type of champagne would you prefer?”

There was silence.

Both men turned to Christina, who was attempting to push a lock of hair into place. The wind had mussed it. She looked, she knew, a mess. “Huh?”

The maitre d’ cleared his throat. “Do you have any preference as to which type of champagne?” The question was directed at Danny, who in turn stared at Christina.

Christina shrugged. Jason always chose the wine. “You pick,” she said to Danny, scratching her arms.

Danny looked down and began tapping his left foot.

A moment passed.

The maitre d’ developed a smirk.

Another second or two passed.

Christina felt dumb, standing in the center of an empty dining room unable to choose where to sit or what to drink. She wasn’t used to this, and worse, she was starting to sway.

“Mrs. Cardiff?” The maitre d’ took a step in her direction.

“Got it,” Danny said brusquely, grabbing her arm. “She just needs a little something.”

The maitre d’ gave a knowing look.

Christina had had enough of this. “You pick,” she told the maitre d’, making a beeline for the nearest table.

The man raced past to pull a chair away from the table she was aiming for.

She tottered, ready to sink down.

“No.” Danny’s voice rang out. “This one’s no good.”

Christina struggled to stay upright as the maitre d’ frowned. “Sir?”

Danny glared. “Place is empty. Why should we sit near the door?”

“Of course.” The man backed off, waiting with his menus. “Whatever you would like, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Pick one,” Christina said at last. “Pick two.” She laughed at her own joke, then couldn’t stop.

One look at Danny’s face silenced her.

He was quiet and still except for the muscles in his jaw, which were working overtime.

She remembered an argument he’d had over a parking spot with one of the landscapers last summer. After, Danny had backed the white construction van up over the man’s Toro edging machine while the man gestured and shouted wildly in Spanish.

“Sorry,” Danny had said.

But the Toro machine was crumpled beyond repair.

“That one.” Danny pointed at a table in front of the windows. “I want that one.”

“Very good. Please follow me.” The man led the way, pulling both chairs away from the table Danny had indicated.

Danny made a show of pushing Christina’s chair in before seating himself and grabbing both menus. “Get the champagne,” he said, waving the man off.

“I’ll send your waiter at once,” the maitre d’ replied.

Christina did not tell Danny how rude he was being because she knew it would provoke him. So she pretended it wasn’t happening, the same way she ignored the cooking staff who peeked at them through the kitchen doors.

They clinked glasses in a toast when the champagne arrived.

“To us,” Danny said.

“To us,” Christina echoed.

He kept his glass aloft. “To a good partnership.”

It was an odd choice of words.

Christina’s Grey Goose buzz was almost gone. She downed her glass, and Danny refilled it.

Dinner passed in a haze.

They picked over the steaks they ordered and sent back, after Danny insisted neither of them was truly rare enough, concentrating instead on polishing off a second bottle of champagne.

When the plates were cleared, Danny raised his glass once more. “Time for another toast.” He smiled.

Christina hoisted her glass, spilling a little. She was pretty wasted. But it was okay. Danny never cared about that.

“To the future.” There was a light in the depths of Danny’s eyes. “To us.” He clinked his glass against hers, which caused her to spill more.

She laughed, covering her mouth with one hand.

“Christina.” Danny leaned forward. “I want this to be the beginning of us, our lives.” He grabbed her hand across the table as she nodded, not quite following.

“Sure,” she mumbled.

“Together.”

Christina clinked her glass and took another swallow, closing her eyes as the bubbles bit the back of her throat. What she wanted was vodka, cold and clean. Because this champagne was only giving her a mild hit. Her buzz from earlier was fading.

Danny was saying something, squeezing her fingers.

It took a moment for his words to sink in.

“Married…” he said. “A fresh start…fuck everyone else.”

The word “married” had a sobering effect. Christina sat up straight and began to pull her hand away.

Danny tightened his grip.

“What?” Christina struggled to focus.

He kept on smiling. “You and me. We’re good. Fuck everything that happened before. We’ll get married, live however we want.” He paused, lowered his voice. “Like we said.”

Christina looked out the window.

The night was black. There was nothing to see but raindrops glistening on the glass like silver bullets. And her own face staring back at her. She turned away.

From across the table, Danny watched. “Now’s the time,” he said quietly.

The room seemed to shift, like some unseen hand had
rotated the walls a quarter turn. Christina’s stomach turned queasy. She shook her head, trying to take it in, her voice came out barely above a whisper. “It’s just way soon.”

Danny’s gaze did not waver. “This is what we wanted.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “But these last few weeks…”

There was a small pucker in the tablecloth, and she gathered it now, making little folds of fabric and pressing them against the base of her champagne flute over and over again.

It gave her fingers something to do.

Danny grabbed her hands. He didn’t wait for her to finish. “Fuck these last few weeks. That place you went to was bullshit.” He spat the words out. “Bullshit,” he repeated. “You don’t need that psycho crap. You just need to live how you want to live. With me.”

Christina looked at him uncertainly.

He squeezed her hands, leaned forward across the table. “Just you and me, like we said. From now on, we do whatever the fuck we want with nobody to tell us what to do.” His eyes were penetrating, his voice intent. “All this”—he hesitated, looked around for the right word—“all this bullshit is over, starting now.

“We get hooked up, we go down to the Bahamas, have some laughs, party, and get all this bullshit behind us. Starting now. Tonight.”

Christina nodded uncertainly. She couldn’t think straight with him holding her hand.

But he was not loosening his grip.

She hesitated. “There’s Tyler.”

“Tyler’s fine,” Danny burst out.

Christina stared, her eyes widening with alarm.

Danny stroked her hand, lowering his voice a notch. “You know what I mean. He’s fine. He’s got his place at school, he’s busy with his grandparents and his friends. You know how kids are.”

Christina nodded slowly. “Yeah.” But she didn’t see it that way.

Danny hunched even closer. “Listen, doll. We talked about this a lot, and I know it’s tough for you. I know that.” His voice was warm now and sweet.

Christina nodded.

“But I live my life with a plan. And one thing I’ve learned”—here Danny loosened his grip long enough to stab his index finger onto the table to make his point—“is you stick to the plan. You don’t abandon the plan because times get tough. You stick to it and ride it out.” He made a sliding motion sideways through the air with his fingers. “You ride it out.” He paused. “You see what I’m saying?”

Christina had been holding her breath. She let it out now.

Danny watched her intently. Waiting.

“I get it.”

“Good,” he said. “Because now’s the time to ride it out. Like I said.”

He picked up her champagne flute and pressed it into her hands. “That bullshit they told you at that place you went. You don’t need that.” He picked up his own glass. “You don’t need to go cold turkey on anything.” He lowered his voice again. “Don’t listen to these bullshit people. You got money, you go live your life. Don’t try to do so much at once.”

Their eyes met.

“You see what I’m saying?”

Christina, weary and wobbly and confused, nodded.

Danny smiled. “Good.” He clinked his champagne flute against hers. “To us.”

Christina closed her eyes and drank. The rest of her life stretched out before her, empty and uncertain. Her old life was gone. Jason was gone. And Tyler might be gone as well.

Danny was talking again. “We’ve had laughs,” he was saying. “Good times. We’ll have more.”

Christina nodded. She didn’t know what else to do.

“Good.” Danny beamed. As though that settled it.

Christina was about to say more, but he jumped out of his chair and came around the table. He picked her up, sweeping her off her feet so fast she lost one of her sandals under the table.

He kissed her right there, long and hard and deep, bending her over backwards like a rag doll.

When he released her at last, he made a loud
s
macking sound with his lips.

Christina had a bad landing, with one shoe on and one shoe off. She grabbed the edge of the table for balance. She had lost weight since purchasing her dress last spring, and one of the straps slid off her shoulder, exposing most of her breast.

A flash exploded outside, then another and another.

Christina fumbled for her strap, but Danny was moving much faster than she.

He hiked her arm high overhead in a victory flourish. “She said yes,” he shouted. “Yes!”

Christina heard a smattering of applause from the staff gathered at the kitchen door.

Danny bowed, pulling her down with him, and she fell.

Danny helped her up.

She blinked in the glare of flashing lights as Danny hoisted her up and put her sandal back onto her foot.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re beautiful no matter what, dollface.” He clapped a hand on her buttocks, hard, and planted another big kiss on her mouth.

There was more applause from the kitchen.

The waiter insisted dinner was on Jimmy Langdon, waving off her credit card.

Danny, Christina noticed, made no attempt to pay.

They left, stepping directly into a maelstrom Christina never could have anticipated.

At least a dozen flashbulbs exploded as a crowd of paparazzi closed in, oblivious to the howling wind and lashing rain.

“Christina! Christina!” they cried, closing in.

Langdon’s must have tipped them off. Christina remembered how rude Danny had been to the maitre d’ when they arrived. She shrank against Danny now, uttering a cry of fright as the pack closed in on them.

“Is it true you’re engaged?”

“Who’s the lucky man?”

“How’d you two meet?”

“Is it true your husband wanted a divorce?”

“When’s the wedding?”

Danny answered this last, skidding to a halt while the rain drenched Christina’s new dress. “Soon, boys,” he called with a smile. “Real soon.” He kissed her again while the cameras clicked and whirred. “C’mon, baby, give ’em what they want.”

Christina felt too trapped to argue. Squinting in the glare, she did as he asked. “Please,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “Please, can we go?”

“Sure.” He grinned from ear to ear. “We’re done now. Fuck them.”

They ran to the car.

Danny gunned the engine, taking off in a squeal of tires and a chorus of shouts from the paparazzi, some of whom had to jump out of his way.

Danny just laughed, slapping his free hand on the flesh of Christina’s bare leg. “It’s official.”

I
t was going on two in the morning, and Frank McManus could not sleep. The storm kept him up.

He rolled over, grabbed the clicker, and switched on The Weather Channel. The tropical storm that had been looming changed its rotation and was now spinning away from Long Island, out to sea. The storm surge was probably at its peak right about now, although the surf would remain rough for days.

Long Island had dodged a bullet.

He got out of bed and padded down the center hall of the small ranch, into the kitchen for a cold beer. Twisting the top, he opened the back door and got hit full on with a wet wind.

There wasn’t much to see, what with the wind blowing in sideways gusts, blowing rain every which way against the asbestos shingles outside the house.

Frank took a swig of his tall boy. He could probably fall asleep again if he put his mind to it. But there was no joy in returning to an empty bed and, truth be told, Frank McManus loved a good storm. His plan was to spend tomorrow, his day off, at the ocean to see what the storm had washed up.

At the moment his mind churned with the events surrounding Jason Cardiff’s death.

His thoughts kept returning to Biz Brooks and her noisy little dog.

She had left a message on Frank’s machine earlier today, just back from the reception at Christina Cardiff’s house.

“Shep barked at something in the woods the night Jason Cardiff died,” Biz said in her message.

Even on a machine, her voice sounded nice.

“I know the car I heard belonged to Daniel Cunningham,” she said firmly. “Or Danny Cisco. Whatever his name is. It’s his car, and it’s a Toyota that needs a new muffler. He drove up our road the night Jason died. I know it was Danny Cisco’s car because I saw him drive it to Christina’s house for the reception after the memorial service today.”

Frank McManus didn’t doubt Biz was right.

Her observations fit the time line he and Ben Jackson had constructed for the night of Jason Cardiff’s death. The way they figured it, the group from Hang Ten left Cardiff’s place sometime around midnight. Danny Cisco returned later, parking his noisy Toyota at one of the empty houses close to Dunemere and returning on foot for a private meeting with Jason Cardiff.

A meeting that had resulted in Cardiff’s death.

He thought about Biz Brooks alone in her tidy Cape way out on Jonah’s Path. Alone near the ocean in a storm, except for her crazy neighbors and that yappy dog. He hoped that yappy dog was too high-strung to sleep through storms like the one that was brewing out there tonight.

So Biz would have some warning if that scumbag Cisco was driving around in the rain near her house.

“Here’s to you, Shep,” Frank muttered as he took another swig of his beer.

“Our man Cisco was planning a runner,” Ben Jackson had observed as they pulled out of Cisco’s driveway in the Springs this morning.

“ ’Fraid so,” Frank had agreed.

“He ain’t getting far now.”

“Nope.”

Ben Jackson had grinned. “Confucius say, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’”

“More like six miles,” Frank mused, “due north to Jonah’s Path.”

Biz Brooks’s call confirmed that Danny Cisco had, indeed, headed straight for Christina Cardiff after their meeting with him on his driveway this morning.

So had Frank’s impromptu visit late in the afternoon from the Cardiffs’ cleaning ladies, Señora Rosa and her niece, Marisol.

Marisol had done most of the talking. “She is with that man. Daniel.” She spat the name out and looked at her aunt Rosa, who was clenching her gold crucifix like it might leap off her necklace. “The house painter,” Marisol added, to make sure Frank got it.

Frank nodded to show he got it.

“Those two,” Marisol leaned forward, raising her index fingers to illustrate her point, “together are no good.” She pushed her index fingers together, dark eyes flashing. “No good.”

“No good,” Señora Rosa had echoed.

Frank McManus agreed, despite his hunch that Marisol’s motive for hauling in here in the rain today was the simple fact that she was jealous of her late boss’s widow because she, Marisol, had been sleeping with him.

Or perhaps Marisol had been collecting overtime on Jason Cardiff’s payroll, keeping an eye on things while Jason was out and about with his gal pal, Lisa.

Or maybe she just wanted to throw them off the scent of her Dream Date. Roberto Torres.

Or option D), All of the above.

The wind shifted, sending a heavy dose of spray through the screen.

Frank closed the door, grabbed a kitchen towel to mop at his arms before swiping it across the floor with his foot.

Floor could use a washing anyway.

There was still half a Bud remaining.

He headed for the living room, whose main décor consisted of a giant Hi-Def flat-screen TV and a desk with a hutch that contained his computer. He switched the computer on and settled in his chair while it flashed through start-up screens, flipping on the lamp while he waited to sign on to Google.

Google, as any widowed or divorced person could tell you, was the insomniac’s best friend.

He had long ago tracked the marital status of every girl he’d had a crush on since junior high, even Mary Jean McCoy who he played spin the bottle with in seventh grade. She had decked him hard after his turn. She never married and was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Frank McManus typed in Christina Cardiff. Nothing new. The same photos, now almost forty-eight hours old, of the Mercedes ramming her front gate on Jonah’s Path.

Sometimes it took a while for his Mac to get cached pages.

He went directly to a popular Hamptons gossip site and was rewarded with photos barely three hours old.

“Wow.” Frank stared at the screen. He reached for the phone and hit speed dial, checking the time as the call was being placed. Just after 2:00
A.M.
Oops. Frank dropped the receiver back into place before the call went through. It was Ben Jackson’s loss. These photos were worth a look-see.

A grainy one, shot with a telephoto lens showing the inside of Jimmy Langdon’s Roadhouse, a place Frank knew well and liked, of Christina Cardiff clinking champagne glasses high in the air with none other than Danny Cisco.

Everyone grieves in their own way. “My ass,” Frank muttered, draining the last of his beer.

There was another of the couple leaving the restaurant, with Cisco holding Christina’s thin arm high overhead like he was hoisting the Stanley Cup after a playoff win.

The caption underneath read, “Cardiff widow to wed mystery man.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Frank said out loud. He set the empty bottle down on the desk with a clank and kept reading. “Sources at Langdon’s Roadhouse tonight confirmed Christina Cardiff, brand-new widow of Wall Streeter Jason Cardiff, whose drowning death just days ago has shocked the East End, was out celebrating her engagement to the mystery man (pictured here).”

There was a photo of Cisco with his tongue halfway down Christina Cardiff’s throat.

Frank McManus frowned.

“It was gross, according to one witness, who said the pair were both pretty wasted.”

Unbelievably, there was another series taken later at a jewelry store on East Hampton’s Main Street, which reportedly stayed open late for their benefit. In one, Christina Cardiff waved her left hand in the air so she and her “mystery man” could admire the ring while the salespeople looked on.

There were more, but they were overkill. Frank McManus didn’t need to see any more to know that Danny Cisco was directly involved in Jason Cardiff’s death.

McManus kept playing the crime scene over and over in his mind. Jason Cardiff’s body showed no sign of bruising, according to the ME’s report. Meaning he hadn’t been pushed into the pool. At least not hard enough to lacerate Cardiff’s bare skin.

Frank McManus stared at the screen. If he wanted to push someone overboard, he’d be damned careful not to leave any marks. He’d be careful not to use enough force to cause bruising, which wouldn’t be much of a problem if the guy was as wasted as Jason Cardiff had been.

He’d push him squarely in the seat of his pants, so as not to scratch the skin or scoop any of the guy’s DNA under his fingernails by accident.

Swim trunks didn’t collect fingerprints.

Frank McManus squinted his eyes shut. They were sore now. He rubbed his eyes, knew he should probably go back to bed.

Something he’d read came back to him, headlines from the not-too-distant past.

Frank’s eyes sprang open.

Grabbing the mouse, he directed the browser back to Google and JonBenet Ramsey. There were close to half a million hits on the tragic strangulation of a little girl in Colorado in her own home on Christmas morning.
Frank scrolled past the most-viewed cached pages with details of the 1996 crime, the autopsy photos and the gooey cyberspace tributes to the slain beauty-pageant queen, till he found the link he wanted.

CNBC reports that Jon and Patsy Ramsey, parents of the little girl, had been exonerated following discovery of evidence that a stranger had touched the little girl’s pajamas, using brand-new technology that hadn’t been available at the time of JonBenet’s murder.

None of which changed the fact that Frank McManus, like most of America, believed the Ramseys were guilty as hell.

The cached pages contained the information he sought.

The Suffolk County DA, he knew, would welcome his request for a warrant with open arms. The district court judge on call for the weekend would consider their request, and if things went Frank’s way, sometime tomorrow he’d go back to Jonah’s Path to collect Jason Cardiff’s swim trunks for complete testing.

Frank McManus directed his browser to the Google home page once more.

He entered “DNA touch technology.”