Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

The Royal Mess (19 page)

BOOK: The Royal Mess

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Only the real idiots stayed in the drug trade, she knew. Too much heat, the feds had no tolerance for it, and the fall was long if you got pinched. Carlotti, of course, was a real idiot, and thus he fancied himself a mob drug lord. And, as a faithful disciple of mob movie fiction, he was still after her. As he'd proved tonight.

Shivering a little, she got up off the couch and headed for her mini bathroom. No shower, a cracked tub, and a rust-stained sinkâthe room was so small, when she sat on the toilet her knees touched the wall. It didn't matter. It was hers and she liked to think of it as a snug fox den, a haven from predators.

She sat down on the rim of the tub and started to fill it with warm waterâafter tonight, she needed to get Carlotti's stink off herâand thought about the idiot. She'd run for the hospital, naively thinking he wouldn't follow her to a well-lit, populated building. She hadn't counted on how deserted a hospital would be at three
A.M.
He'd finally cornered her and found out that a thief was never more dangerous than when her back was to the wall.

And the doctor who had seen everythingâwhat was
that
about? He'd watched her, tried to warn her, and she could still feel the heat of his dark gaze. If she closed her eyes she could still see himâso broad-shouldered he nearly filled the doorway, with a lush mop of dark hair and the blackest eyes, strong, long-fingered hands, and a grin like lightning, a grin that lit up his whole face.

He'd chased her, but, to her surprise, not to hurt her or turn her in. To ask if she was all right. To ask if she needed a safe place to stay. She must have stared at him for an hour, or so it seemed. Who knows what she might have saidâor doneâif security hadn't shown up. His gaze had been so curiously intense and his smile, this marvelous charming smile . . .

A sudden thought made her straighten up so quickly she nearly tumbled into the tub. The doctor had seen Carlotti. And could testify against him. If the D.A. found out, he'd subpoena the doc in a nanosecond. The doc couldn't testify to much of anything, but anything was a startâdidn't Capone go down for tax evasion? The D.A. would be glad to get Carlotti on trespassing and attempted assault, if only so that he could introduce his suspicions to a judge.

If word got out that there was one eyewitness, others would certainly follow . . . the D.A. could build a case from whispers. God knew they did it all the time. And Carlotti's worst fear was doing time. When he was thirteen, he'd killed a witness to his shoplifting, just to avoid being shipped back to juvie.

The doctor was in very real danger. Carlotti had to shut him up, the sooner the better. The psycho wouldn't have to worry about herâthe D.A. was at least as interested in putting her behind bars as he was in Carlottiâbut he had to worry about the doctor. He probably had thugs working on the problem already.

“Crap,” she sighed, and got up to make the first of several cups of coffee.

And you've got another laugh-out-loud
treat coming in November:
“WICKED” WOMEN WHODUNIT!

“T
his is all Jeannie Desjardin's fault,” Caro declared to the people in the hallway.

Lynn Myers blinked at her. “Who-who's Jeannie Desjardin?”

“My friend. She's this awesomely horrible woman who generally revels in being bad. You knowâshe's one of those New York publishing types. But every once in a while she gets an attack of the guilts and tries to do something nice. Her husband and I try to talk her out of it, but . . . anyway, this was supposed to be
her
Maine getaway. But she gave me the tickets instead and stayed in New York to roast along with eight million other people.”
And the yummy, luscious Steven McCord,
Caro thought rebelliously.
That lucky bitch.
“And now
look,”
she said, resisting the urge to kick the bloody candlestick. “Look at this mess. Wait until I tell her being nice backfired again.”

“Well,” Lynn said, blinking fasterâCaro suspected it was a nervous ticâ“we shouldâI meanâwe should call theâthe police. Right?”

Caro studied Lynn, a slender woman so tall she hunched to hide it, a woman whose darting gray eyes swam behind magnified lenses. She was the only one of the group dressed in full makeup, panty hose, and heels. She had told Caro during the first “Get Acquainted” brunch that she was a Realtor from California. If so, she was the most uptight Californian Caro had ever seen. Not to mention the most uptight Realtor.

“Call the police?” she asked at last. “Sure. But I think a few things might have escaped your notice.”

“Like the fact that the storm's cut us off from the mainland,” Todd Opitz suggested, puffing away on his eighth cigarette in fifteen minutes.

“Secondhand smoke kills,” Lynn's Goth teenage daughter, Jana, sniffed. She was a tiny brunette with wildly curly dark hair, large dark eyes edged in kohl (making her look not unlike an edgy raccoon), and a pierced nostril. “See, Mom? I told you this would be lame.”

“Jana . . .”

“And secondhand smoke
kills,”
the teen added.

“I hope so,” was Todd's cold reply. He was an Ichabod Crane of a man, towering over all of them and looking down his long nose, which was often obscured by cigarette smoke. He tossed a lank of dark blond hair out of his eyes, puffed, and added, “I really do. Go watch
Romper Room
, willya?”

“Chil
dren,”
Caro said. “Focus, please. Dana's in there holed up waiting for
les flic
to land. Meantime, who'd she kill?”

“What?” Lynn asked.

“Well, who's dead? Obviously it's not one of us. Who's missing?” Caro started counting on her fingers. “I think there's . . . what? Maybe a dozen of us, including staff? Well, four of usâfive, if you count Danaâare accounted for. But there's a few of us missing.”

The four of them looked around the narrow hallway, as if they expected the missing guests to pop out any second.

“Right. So, let's go see if we can find the dead person.”

“Wh-why?” Lynn asked.

“Duh, Mom,” Jana sniffed.

“Because they might not be dead,” Caro explained patiently. “There's an old saying: âA bloody candlestick does not a dead guy make,' or however it goes.”

Jana was startled out of her sullen-teen routine. “Where the hell did
you
grow up?”

“Language, Jana. Butâbut the police?”

“Get it through your head,” Todd said, not unkindly. “Nobody's riding to the rescue. You saw the Weather Channel . . . before the power went out, anyway. This is an island, a private islandâ”

“Enjoy the idyllic splendor of nature from your own solitary island off the Maine coast,” Lynn quoted obediently from the brochure.

“Don't do that; it creeps me out when you do that.”

“I have a photographic memory,” she explained proudly.

“Congratufuckinglations. Anyway,” Todd finished, lighting up yet another fresh cigarette, “the earliest the cops can get here is after the storm clears, probably sometime tomorrow morning.”

“But they have helicoptersâ”

As if making Todd's point, a crack of lightning lit up the windows, followed by the hollow boom of thunder, so loud it seemed to shake the mansion walls. The group pressed closer to each other for a brief moment and then, as if embarrassed at their unwilling intimacy, pulled back.

“They won't fly in this weather. We're stuck. Killer in the bedroom, no cops, power's out. The perfect Maine getaway,” Todd added mockingly.

“It's like one of those bad horror movies,” Caro commented.

“Caro's right.”

“About the horror movies?”

He shook his head. “Let's go see who's dead. I mean, what's the alternative? It beats huddling in our rooms waiting for the lights to come back on, don'cha think?”

“What he said,” Caro said, and they started off.

BRAVA BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40
^thStreet
New York, NY 10018

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Brava and the B logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-7582-1209-2

BOOK: The Royal Mess

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