The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3 Read online

  But he had options. Any number of options. The first of which should be coming along any minute.

  This first business deal would be a stopgap, buy him time. He had other avenues, and they could be widened if necessary. He had contacts, and prospects.

  Tereza Giambelli would be very sorry she’d underestimated him. A great many people would be sorry.

  In the end he would land on his feet, as he always had. He had no doubt of it.

  The knock on the door made him smile. He poured two glasses of wine, set them and the bottle on a tray with the cheese and crackers. He set the tray on the coffee table in the living room.

  He shot his cuffs, smoothed his hair, then walked to the door prepared to begin negotiations.

  PART TWO

  The

  Growing

  Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming,

  is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.

  —MATHEW ARNOLD

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I don’t know why we had to come back here.”

  “Because I needed a few more things.” She could have put it off, Sophia admitted. But no reason to waste a trip into San Francisco without stopping by her apartment. Hadn’t she taken pity on Ty and driven Eli’s SUV instead of her convertible?

  “Look,” she continued. “I explained that at the beginning I’m going to have to spot-check the offices. Kris is going to continue to resist the new feeding chain. She needs to see you and me together, a team.”

  “Some team.”

  “I’m managing.” She pulled into her parking slot, set the brake. “I think we should call a holiday truce. At the moment, Ty, I just don’t have the time to fight with you.”

  She climbed out, slammed her door, jammed her keys in her briefcase. “What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. You’re the problem.”

  He walked around to her side, leaned on the fender. She’d been edgy for two days, he thought. Long enough for anybody to stew. He didn’t think it was about their incident at the Christmas party. She’d come out on top of that one.

  “A team, remember? Are you still upset about the angels?”

  “No. I took care of them, didn’t I? Good as new.”

  “Yeah, you deal, all right. So what’s the problem now?”

  “You want to know the problem? Fine. I hate getting up at the crack of dawn every day, tromping around the fields in the cold. But I’m doing it. Then I go back and do the work I’m trained to do. But I’m obliged to juggle it from the villa and the offices here, where I have a second-in-command who’s not only slept with my father but is ready to mutiny.”

  “Fire her.”

  “Oh, that’s an idea.” She tapped a finger to her temple, while her voice dripped disdain. “Why hasn’t that occurred to me? Could it be because we’re weeks into a reorganization, in the middle of a huge and intense and vital promotional campaign and I have no one qualified to take over her work? Yes, you know, I think that might be the reason I haven’t kicked her bitchy, cheating ass out.”

  “Look, brat, you got sand in your shoe, you shake it out.”

  “I don’t have time,” she snapped and, to prove it, yanked out her Filofax. It bulged. “Would you like to take a look in here, see my schedule for the next six weeks?” She jammed it back in her briefcase.

  “So you’re pressed.” He gave a little shrug. “Take the mornings off to do what you have to do. I’ll carry you in the vineyard.”

  The look she gave him shot like a bullet.

  “Nobody carries me, MacMillan. But you’re damn right I’m pressed. I’m supposed to be training my mother, who has little to no interest in public relations. I’ve had to cancel three dates with three very interesting men because I’m buried in work. My social life is going down the toilet. I haven’t been able to get through goddamn Rene for two days to contact my father, who hasn’t been to his office. And it’s imperative I speak with him about one of our top accounts within the next forty-eight hours as someone—who unfortunately won’t be me—is going to need to fly to San Diego for a meeting in approximately forty-nine hours.”

  “What about Margaret? I thought she was taking over most of the major accounts.”

  “Do you think I didn’t try that? Do I look stupid?” Tired, frustrated and fed up, she stalked to the garage elevator and stabbed the button. “She left for Italy yesterday afternoon. Neither she nor her office is fully updated on the Twiner account because it’s always been my father’s baby. Since I don’t want the people at Twiner to know we’ve got a hole in the loop, I’ve been tap-dancing with them for days.”

  “Nobody carries you,” Ty pointed out. “But you’re carrying Avano.”

  “No, I’m through carrying him. But I’ll carry Giambelli, and that’s why I’m covering for him as long as I can. I don’t like it, I’m pissed off and I have a stupid headache.”

  “Okay.” He surprised them both by reaching up to rub her stiff shoulders when they stepped onto the elevator. “Take some aspirin, then we’ll work it through a step at a time.”

  “She’s got no right to block me from speaking to my own father. Not on a personal level or a business one.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” That, Ty assumed, was the real headache. “It’s a power play. She won’t get her kicks unless you let her know it steams you. Work around him.”

  “If I work around him, it makes him look like a . . . damn it. He is a fool. I’m so angry with him for putting me into this spot. If I don’t clean it up by end of day—”

  “You’ll clean it up by end of day.”

  “Yeah.” She let out a breath, stepped off the elevator on her floor. Turned to study him. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “It throws you off. Plus, Twiner is a big stake. I don’t spend all my time in the fields,” he said when she lifted her eyebrows at him. “If you’d told me you were trying to track down your father, I’d have given you a hand with it. You haven’t gone to Cutter.”

  She pressed her lips together. “No. But I figure he knows something’s up. He’ll pinpoint the target soon enough.”

  “Then we’ll just have to be faster. Teamwork, remember?”

  “That’s only because you dislike him more than you dislike me.”

  “And your point is?”

  It made her laugh as she put the key in the lock. “As good a reason as any. I just need to grab a few things, including some old files I want my mother to study. And I think I might have some notes on Twiner that’ll partially plug this hole. I’ll have you back home by dinner.”

  She stopped, turned. “Unless,” she said, adding a slow smile, “you’d like to order in and try out a different kind of teamwork.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “You liked kissing me.”

  “When I was a kid I liked green apples. I found out they’re hell on the system.”

  “I’m ripe.”

  He reached past her to turn the knob. “You’re telling me.”

  She gave his arm a friendly squeeze as she turned. “I’m starting to like you, MacMillan. What the hell will we do about that?” She pushed open the door, took one step inside, froze.

  “Dad?”

  She had a brief impression, no more than a blur, before Ty was shoving her out the door again. But that blurred image stayed in her mind, was all she could see.

  Her father, slumped in her chair, the side of his face, the glinting silver at his temples, the front of his shirt all crusted and dark. And his eyes, his handsome, clever eyes, filmed over and staring.

  “Dad. He’s . . . I have to . . . My father.”

  She was pale as a sheet and already beginning to shudder when Ty pushed her against the wall outside her apartment. “Listen to me, Sophia. Listen. Use your cell phone. Call nine-one-one. Do it now.”

  “An ambulance.” She fought her way through the fog that wanted to slither over her brain, and began to fight Tyler. “He needs an ambula
nce. I have to go to him.”

  “No.” He gripped her arms, gave her one brisk shake. “You can’t help him.” He tabled the idea of going back in to check on Tony himself. Sophia couldn’t be left alone. And he’d already seen enough to be certain there was nothing to be done.

  He pulled Sophia to the floor, opened her briefcase himself and dug out her cell phone. “I need the police,” he said.

  Sophia lowered her head to her knees as Tyler gave the emergency operator the necessary information. She couldn’t think. Wouldn’t think yet. Somehow she had to steady herself and get through.

  “I’m all right.” Her voice was quiet, almost calm, even if her hands couldn’t be. “I know he’s dead. I have to go in to him.”

  “No.” He settled down on the floor beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders as much in restraint as comfort. “You don’t. You’re not. I’m sorry, Sophia. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “There’s always something.” She lifted her head. Her eyes were dry. Burning dry. “Someone killed my father, and there has to be something I can do. I know what he was.” Her voice broke there, and the tears that were scalding her throat poured up and out. “He’s still my father.”

  “I know it.” He tightened his grip until she laid her head on his shoulder. There was something to do, he thought as she wept. Even if it was only to wait.

  He didn’t leave her. Sophia told herself to remember that whatever happened between them—or didn’t—when things had been at their very worst, Tyler had stayed with her.

  She sat on the sofa in the apartment across the hall from her own. She’d been to a couple of parties there, she recalled. The gay couple who lived there threw delightful parties. And Frankie, a graphic artist who often worked at home, had opened the apartment to her, and the police. And bless him, had discreetly closed himself in the bedroom to give them privacy.

  No doubt the story would make its way like an electric fire through the building. But for now, he was being a pal. She’d remember that, too.

  “I don’t know what he was doing in my apartment,” Sophia said, again. She tried to study the face of the man who questioned her. Like his name—Detective Lamont? Claremont?—his features kept slipping out of focus.

  “Did your father, or anyone else, have a key?” The name was Claremont. Alexander Claremont.

  “No, I . . . Yes.” Sophia lifted a hand, pressed a fingertip against her temple as if to loosen the thought. “My father. I gave him a key not long after I moved in. He was having some decorating work done on his place, and I was going to be out of the country. I offered to let him use my place while I was gone. I don’t think I ever got the key back. I never thought of it again.”

  “Did he often use your place?”

  “No. He didn’t use it when I offered, but stayed at a hotel.” Or said he had, she thought. Had he used her apartment then, and since? Hadn’t there been times she’d come back from a trip and felt someone had been there in her absence?

  Little things out of place.

  No, that was stupid. It would have been the cleaning service. Her father would have had no reason to use her apartment. He’d had his own, with Rene.

  He cheated on your mother, a voice murmured in her brain. He cheated on Rene.

  “Ms. Giambelli?”

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “You want some water? Something?” Tyler interrupted, to give her a moment to tune back.

  “No, no thanks. I’m sorry, Detective. I keep losing the thread.”

  “It’s all right. I asked when was the last time you had contact with your father.”

  “Saturday night. There was a party at our vineyard. It’s an annual event. My father was there.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  “I couldn’t say. There were a great many people. He didn’t say goodbye to me.”

  “Did he attend alone?”

  “No, his wife was with him. Rene.”

  “Your father is married?”

  “Yes, he was married the day of the party. Rene Foxx. Hasn’t she been contacted?”

  “I was unaware of her. Can I reach her at your father’s address?”

  “Yes, I . . . Yes,” she said again, biting back what had nearly tumbled off her tongue.

  “Do you own a gun, Ms. Giambelli?”

  “No.”

  “You had no handgun in your apartment?”

  “No. I don’t like guns.”

  “Did your father own a gun?”

  “I don’t know. Not to my knowledge.”

  “When was the last time you were in your apartment?”

  “Over a week ago. As I told you, I’m staying primarily in Napa for the next several months. I came here today, after Mr. MacMillan and I left the offices downtown, to pick up a few more things.”

  “What was your relationship with your father?”

  She toughened up. Sitting beside her, Tyler felt it. “He was my father, Detective. Why don’t I save you the trouble of asking me if I killed him. No, I didn’t. Nor do I know who killed him, or why.”

  Claremont’s voice remained steady. “Did your father have any enemies?”

  “Obviously.”

  “That were known to you,” he added without skipping a beat.

  “No. I don’t know of anyone who would have killed him.”

  Claremont looked down at his pad, appeared to study some notes.

  “How long have your parents been divorced?”

  “They’ve been legally separated over seven years.”

  “Separated?”

  “Yes. They haven’t lived together, in any real sense, since I was a child.”

  “Would this Rene Foxx be your father’s second wife?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Just married a couple days ago.”

  “So I was informed.”

  “When were your parents divorced, Ms. Giambelli?”

  There was a cold ball in her belly now. She wouldn’t let him see the nerves. “I believe the decree was final the day before my father married Rene. It was only a legality, Detective.”

  Though her knees shook, she got to her feet. “I’m sorry, I have to go to my family. I don’t want them to hear about this on the evening news, or from a stranger. I need to go home. Can you tell me . . . what happens with my father now? What arrangements need to be made?”

  “We’ll continue our investigation. My partner is working across the hall with the crime-scene unit. I’ll discuss arrangements with next of kin.”

  “I’m my father’s only child.”

  “His wife is his legal next of kin, Ms. Giambelli.”

  Her mouth opened, closed. When her hand fluttered up, Tyler simply took it in his and held it. “I see. Of course. I have to go home. Ty.”

  “We’re going.”

  “Mr. MacMillan, I have some questions for you.”

  “I gave you my address.” Tyler shot a look over his shoulder as he led Sophia to the door. “You know where to find me.”

  “Yeah.” Claremont tapped his pad as the door closed. “That I do.” He had a feeling he and his partner were going to take a ride into the country, very soon.

  He walked to the bedroom door, sure if he opened it, the neighbor would tumble out, ear first. Instead he knocked. Might as well keep things friendly while he asked more questions.

  Alexander Claremont liked French wine, Italian shoes and American blues. He’d grown up in San Francisco, the middle son of solidly middle-class parents who’d worked hard to ensure a good life and good educations for their three boys.

  His older brother was a pediatrician, his younger a professor at Berkeley. Alex Claremont had planned to be a lawyer.

  He’d been born to be a cop.

  The law was a different entity in the hands of a cop than it was in the hands of a lawyer. For a lawyer it was there to be bent, twisted, manipulated and tailored to fit a client’s needs.

  He understood that and, on a very
basic level, respected that.

  To a cop it was the line.

  It was the line Claremont worshiped.

  Now, barely two hours after walking onto the crime scene, he was thinking about the line.

  “What do you think of the daughter?”

  He didn’t answer at first, but his partner was used to that. She was driving because she’d gotten to the car first.

  “Rich,” he said at length. “Classy. Tough shell. Didn’t say anything she didn’t want to say. Thought it, lots of thinking going on, but she watches her words.”

  “Big, important family. Big, juicy scandal.” Maureen Maguire braked at a light. Tapped her fingers on the wheel.

  She and Claremont were polar opposites, which was, in her opinion, why they’d found their rhythm after the initial bumps three years back, and worked well together.

  She was as white as a white woman could be. Irish and freckled and strawberry-blond with soft blue eyes and a dimple in her left cheek. At thirty-six, she was four years Claremont’s senior, comfortably married where he was radically single, cozily suburban where he was uptown urban.

  “Nobody sees the guy go in. No vehicle. We’re running the cab companies to see if they had a drop-off here. From the looks of the body, he’d been dead at least thirty-six hours. Key to the place was in his pocket, along with three hundred and change in cash and plenty of plastic. He had a gold Rolex, gold cuff links with pretty little diamonds in them. The apartment had plenty of easily transported items. No robbery.”

  He shot her a look. “No kidding.”

  “Just crossing off the list. Two glasses of wine, one full, one half-full. Only one with prints—his prints. He got plugged where he sat. No tussle, no signs of struggle. From the angle of the shots, the killer was sitting on the sofa. Nice little wine-and-cheese party and oh, excuse me, bam, bam, bam. You’re dead.”

  “Guy was divorced and remarried within a day. Romantic interlude gone bad?”

  “Maybe.” Maguire pursed her lips. “Hard to say from the scene. Three shots, twenty-five-caliber, I’d say, and close range. Not much of a pop, but it’s surprising nobody heard anything in a snazzy building like that.”