Too Lucky to Live Page 15

  I glanced at Princess, who’d wedged herself as close to Tom as she could get and was gazing up at him. Adoringly. I knew how she felt.

  “Oh, Princess. I wish you could come with us to the Marriott.” I laid my hand on her colossal brow and scratched fondly. This caused the Princess to close her eyes, let her capacious mouth gawp open, and her prodigious tongue loll out. A shimmering strand of drool cascaded all the way down to the ground.

  “Then again, probably not.”

  Time to go. We made a pact to stay safe, one and all. As I hugged Margo goodbye, I grabbed one of her hands in both of mine. “Margo, do you know that thing the kids say? ‘BFF?’”

  She shook her head. “I try not to hear anything the kids say. They’ll corrupt you into wanting to be young again if you give them half a chance.”

  “BFF. Best Friends Forever. Margo. You and me. Regardless of the current situation. Whatever that may be. Best Friends Forever.”

  “Well.” She cleared her throat, and made a funny scrunched up face. “Well, if you insist. I would have settled for…ah…Current Best Friend, if I had to. But if BFF sounds better to you. Let’s go for that.” I hugged her again, my own tears too close for speaking.

  I drove away from Margo’s, past my little cottage and up my beautiful, ragtag street. Back to Lake Shore, the Shoreway and downtown, checking the rearview mirror, inspecting every car that passed us, without letting them know I was looking.

  As we went, I thought to myself, We need a different rental car. Different make, different model, different color, totally different. First thing tomorrow.

  Tom was quiet with his own thoughts until we pulled up to the valet.

  “Did you by any chance just make four right turns in a row?”

  Chapter Thirty

  The Marriott Grand Ballroom was vast. And mostly empty. A small crew of hotel staff had begun to set up for a banquet. Round tables. Rows of stacked up chairs. The chandeliers were amped down to a romantic, electric-bill-saving glow. The sound system was playing “Tequila Talking.”

  The workers were moving slow. Folks with no urgent deadline and no bosses around, late in the evening, getting out ahead of tomorrow’s game plan, listening to a little country on this quiet night in the big hotel, just to ease the time. The mood of the room, its dreamlike, unhurried pulse, called out to me like the longing for peace.

  Tom and I had taken a late evening stroll through the quiet, public spaces. It was after ten p.m. on a Monday night. Not rush hour at the Marriott. Our aimless feet had brought us here to a beautiful tall-windowed corridor that buffered the entrance to the ballroom. I guided Tom through the open doors, taking in the grand space through my newfound experience of what it’s like to let all your senses that aren’t sight tell you everything you need to know.

  I closed my eyes. The room was cool, the air still. Our steps were hushed by carpet. There was the fragrance of Murphy’s and well-buffed wax from the dance floor. The papery perfume of wilting flowers from the last party they’d had. Lonestar was winding down about the guy being so drunk he’d accidentally told his ex-girl he still loved her. The way the sound echoed in the emptiness was telling me that the room was bigger than life.

  “Where are we, Allie?” Tom’s voice was low. “A large space—Ballroom? It smells romantic.”

  “You’re right,” I whispered back, opening my eyes, seeing it for Tom. “It’s the ballroom. There are a few people here, setting up for a party of some kind. The lights are low. The air conditioning is on. That romantic smell, though…that’s all me.”

  The tequila had stopped talking and a few slow chords signaled the intro of the Trisha Yearwood version of “How Do I Live.”

  The longing in the music, the heartbreak of a cello in there, drew me to Tom. I took his hand and led him out into the middle of the big dance floor and put both my arms around his neck. “Let’s dance,” I said. “There’s no one to run into. We can both close our eyes.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  How do I,

  Get through one night without you?

  If I had to live without you,

  What kind of life would that be?

  It was all there in the song. The sweet attraction, the elemental passion, the bonds we’d been forging between our bodies and our minds. Knowing, learning, discovering each other. I felt the sorrow of comprehending, too late, that I’d put my own heart into someone else’s body. And that person now had the power to take me away from me. He was a good dancer, too. For a man who always danced in the dark, he knew how to lead.

  Trisha was telling somebody that without him her whole life would be trashed.

  No love = No world.

  Without you,

  There would be no sun in my sky,

  There would be no love in my life,

  There’d be no world left for me.

  Too darned bad, Allie girl. Too darned late.

  And I,

  Baby, I don’t know what I would do,

  I’d be lost if I lost you.

  As if he’d read my mind in the words, Tom said, “We’re cooked, Alice. We were both doing fine on our own. You were your own free spirit. I was satisfied with having everything in my life all worked out. It wasn’t just the Mondo that blew up our worlds, honey. It’s us. Us together.

  “Us is what we have to lose now. Everything we’re counting on. You telling me about the sunsets over the lake, and me getting you to slow down and listen to the world and breathe the world and make love to me about ten thousand more times. If it doesn’t work out like that, neither one of us will ever get over it. That purely sucks.”

  “You’re right.” I agreed, adoring the warmth of his neck under my fingers, the rhythm of our bodies, moving to the hungry sadness of the song. “We are so screwed.”

  But he kissed me anyway. And I kissed him back. The music ended and the set-up crew applauded. We took a bow and went upstairs and got started counting on down from ten thousand.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Tuesday, August 25

  You would think that such an idyllic moment of romance and sweet-talking would have satisfied my restless mind. It did. It did. Then it didn’t. The more idyllic things got between Tom and me, the more the watchdog of my mind paced and growled about the danger. My dog wasn’t half as unflappable as Princess, probably because my dog wasn’t a giant slobbering hulk.

  I addressed the onset of this agitation by handling the rental car swap. It was a piece of Mondo cake. Silver Maxima got picked up by one rental outfit. Black RAV 4 got dropped off by another. Slick.

  I had to admit I wasn’t as enchanted by rental-cars-on-demand as I might have been a week back when my ride was a bus. I knew better now. Money simplifies things. But it costs you. Now a simple, smelly old bus ride—just Tom and me, headed to my house for chili, for example—was beyond our reach. Lost in the money.

  Respect the Mondo, Allie. Remember what Margo said. Shut up. Be responsible. Move on.

  Okay. I was reassured by the new car. Truly. But after I breathed my sigh of relief, I checked inside my head, and there was Ms. Restless Librarian, still wringing her hands. Here’s what she was worried about now: our credit cards; the Internet; the Cloud; the phones, slow, unmarked vans with tinted windows; CCTV; possible corruptibility among the valets….A low-voltage electrical charge fizzed around under my skin. I couldn’t handle every single thing I was worried about.

  I had to pick one.

  How about my scrap of plaid? It was still nagging at me.

  Here was a detail I could manage. The scrap had everything. It was easy. It was on my own dear kitchen windowsill. In my own dear house. A place I was aching to escape to.

  No kidding. It made sense to protect the plaid. It could still turn out to be important evidence. I mean, what if we found the killer? And there he/she was, wearing a plaid something with
a uniquely shaped piece hacked out of it? And—ta da!—here was me stepping smartly up with the perfect match.

  How Sherlock Holmes and Miss Jane Marple would that be?

  And if I then whipped out that other fragment, the DIRTY!!! one that every now and again whispered “jail time” in my anxious little ear? Who, then, would throw Miss Alice Jane Harper Holmes Marple in the slammer after such a triumph? Another teeny voice at the back of Restless Librarian Mind chirped, “Valerio.”

  I told her to butt out. I had to have that scrap.

  Okay. That was part of it, but maybe not the truest part. Something even worse than my vision of me in an orange jumpsuit was taunting me. Everything Tom had said about our Us Together dream? That was a coin toss. Heads, you win your heart’s desire. Tails, you lose it all.

  My own irreplaceable coin was up there. For grabs. Threatened by forces I couldn’t see. Was I woman enough, brave enough, detective enough to go after it now?

  Well, first I had sneak by Tom.

  I braced myself for an altercation.

  “What if I just wanted to run down to my house to check it out and grab some more clothes and stuff. I miss my favorite jeans. Okay?”

  Simple plaid pick-up. A nice anonymous black RAV 4 ride. Gone for a minute. Back before dark.

  “Allie, wait until tomorrow. I’ll come with you. I have to get these forms for next semester e-mailed back to the dean. I don’t want to get Mondo-fired on top of everything else.”

  “Tom. Stay here. Do your work. I’ll be careful. I’ll have my phone. Margo will be right across the street. Princess will be there, too.”

  I went over to where he sat with his school things laid out like soldiers on the large desk the hotel provided for high-powered, executive guests such as ourselves. I put both my arms around his shoulders, touched my lips against the back of his neck, leaned in, inhaling the soapy goodness, and whispered into his ear, “Tempting as it is for me to spend every single moment of the rest of my life with you, Thomas Bennington, PhD, you know that’s not going to work. I’m a grown-up. I have to go somewhere, sometime.”

  I’m scared. And way out of my league. I want to go home.

  “What if it were me, wanting to grab a cab and go down to my place by myself?”

  “That’s different.”

  He pulled back. “Different why? Because I’m blind. Because that somehow makes me not a grown-up?”

  “No.” Think fast, Allie. “Because you are The Blind Mondo and everybody knows it. I’m still merely me when I’m not all plastered up against you. Like I am right now. Mmm. Danger by association…”

  I moved in again, wondering to myself why I wanted to go anywhere. His back was so deliciously…Tom. I could feel the taut muscles of his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt.

  But he swiveled his chair around and slipped away. “This is serious, Allie. I’ve had almost ten years to get capable of doing whatever I put my mind to. On my own. I have no intention of taking you everywhere I go.”

  “Okay. Okay. Is there somewhere you’d like to go alone right now? Because that’s up to you.”

  Bluff. Bluff. Don’t call my bluff.

  “No! Right now I want to get this e-mail out but I can’t because you—you’re distracting me.”

  My hands snuck back. To his lovely chest this time. So warm. So Tom.

  “I am, aren’t I?” I kissed him then and he kissed me back, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

  “See? You’re busy. I’m going.”

  He puffed out a sigh. “Go ahead, then. You’re right. I can’t stop you. But Allie. Be careful.” He turned back to the desk, and I got that weird punched-in-the-gut feeling like when you’re in a tug of war with your ten-year-old buddies. You’re pulling and straining and then some joker lets go.

  But I went anyway and walked right into another security debate. Trust the valet? Or take my chances poking around in another dimly lit parking garage?

  Oh. No contest.

  The girl at the valet stand remembered the car change-out and where they’d put the car. Was that exceptional service or sly surveillance?

  Chill, Allie.

  I hid in the lobby until I saw the car.

  ***

  The intense late afternoon sun had bleached the color out of the day and left it blank and strange. I had that eyes-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling, except in my stomach. It had been hardly twenty-four hours since the Arco garage incident, and a part of me was never going to be the same. That part wanted me to turn around, return the vehicle, and go back inside. I could feel Tom wanting that, too. From all the way down here.

  The part of me that needed to muster up some guts had to go.

  I drove my pristine RAV 4 up Chester to East 105th. My fellow drivers were unremarkable. Rush hour was tapering off. I was part of a congenial stream of folks gliding along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, heading for the Shoreway, going home.

  Home. I was going to dash in, grab my piece of key evidence off the windowsill, take a deep breath, and get my equilibrium back. What’s more, I’d pick up a new flavor of Jo Malone. Jo has always made me feel invincible. My scary new world was screaming for about a gallon of invincibility.

  It was cool and wonderful down among the trees. MLK traverses Rockefeller Park, where manicured cultural gardens fly the flags of many nations. I slowed as I passed my favorite. The one Clevelanders from India had made. There was Mr. Gandhi, my special friend, his tall statue striding along, staff in hand, calling forth his Satyagraha, which he said meant, “truth force.” Seeing him makes me feel better about us people. I gave Gandhi a little wave as I drove by. You go, Gandhiji. And if you’ve got some of that truth force to spare, I could use me a splash of that right now.

  I was smiling as I sped off MLK and into the Village of Bratenahl. The splendid estates along the lake were marinating in golden light. The sun was lower in the sky than I expected. August is where fall thinks it can start sneaking up on you.

  Almost home, I’d drifted away from my heightened state of DEFCON 3, so when the big, black Cleveland Police cruiser swam up behind me, my heart jumped and I hit the brakes, but I didn’t freak all the way out. I wasn’t speeding. I swallowed hard and kept driving like a solid citizen. When I rolled out of Bratenahl and back into Cleveland, however, he lit up and pulled me over.

  It disappoints me to say that I still didn’t realize who I was dealing with. I was rifling through the glove box for the rental paperwork and preparing my “I have no idea why…” speech, when there was a tap on the glass and I found myself face-to-face with Officer Tony Valerio. All by himself.

  Me, too. Alone. Alone. Alone.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Officer Valerio? What—?”

  He cut me off. “Ms. Harper. We need to talk. Come sit in my car for a minute.”

  I had calculated that should I be accosted on this outing, I could always run into traffic screaming for help and any evildoers would be sufficiently put off by my fuss to abandon the attempt. But I’d been pulled over by a policeman. Any running performed by me would be fugitive behavior. If he wanted to haul me out of my front seat, cuff me, throw me into his backseat, and drive me straight into landfill, who would even notice?

  I got out of the RAV. Fortunately there was no cuffing. He walked me around and opened the passenger door. Not the trunk. Not even the backseat behind the wire grid. I scooted in, trying to look as innocent and compliant as possible. He got in on his side, slammed the door, and faced me with the stony expression I’d learned to associate with interrogations.

  Too much crime TV, Alice.

  I needed to change my viewing habits. Assuming I lived long enough.

  I waited for him to lead off. My felony and his inquiries into the putative disturbed crime-scene evidence were foremost in my fevered brain, but who knew what he might be t
hinking? Sure enough, he came right out of left field.

  “You got kidnapped yesterday.”

  Was it only yesterday?

  “Sort of.”

  “And a guy got killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “How many does that make? How many people have died who are in some way related to you and Dr. Bennington and his jackpot? By your count.”

  Counting carefully now. In order of their expiration. “Well, Mr. Reposado and his associates Muff and Frank. That’s three. And then Ulysses Grant. Four. And five: Renata Davis. And now Dan. Randall, I think it was. Six. Altogether.”

  So far.

  Please, God, let me not have said that out loud.

  “So far.”

  He said it. Not me.

  I decided to pretend for a minute that he was on my side. “What do you make of that? A pattern? Besides the high-rise housing being a health hazard? We can leave Dan out. He was a wild card.”

  He shook his head and muttered something that sounded like “We?” Then he hesitated as if he were the one editing his comments for me now. Maybe he was.

  Anthony Valerio was a stocky guy, mid-forties, handsome once-upon-a-time but not aging all that gracefully. Florid. Tired-looking, with pouches of darkened flesh under weary eyes and the monobrow like a brushy cliff hanging over them. I wondered if he ever thought about retiring and becoming a security guard like Otis. Walking the same route through a damp, dusky parking garage, day in, day out. Unless he found some other way to make money.

  His face hardened, almost as if he’d tracked my thoughts around to his motive for maybe killing some guys. What he said was, “That kind of money is a curse.”

  I nodded. “That’s what Ulysses said, too. Did you know him?”

  “Some. Not much. We—Officer Clark and I—spend a decent amount of time up there. Lot of petty stuff. Drugs. Domestic. Stealing. People get cut sometimes. Five deaths in less than a week is atypical, though.”