From Barcelona, with Love (26 page)

“Wherever you like. Madrid? Málaga? Marbella? And we'll ask Rodolfo to draw up a contract today, I'll call my producer, we'll be in the recording studio tomorrow. Please,
please,
Vida, say you will come to the session, say you'll play guitar with me.”

“I'll see,” she said, but he'd seen her green eyes; he'd heard her song, maybe he knew who she was and maybe he was going to use that in the recording. But no, she could trust him, she could tell by the sincere look in his eyes. Yet hadn't Bruno had that same sincere look when he'd first met her?

She disentangled her hands, remembering that thud of sexual frisson when Jacinto kissed her. She was attracted to him. More than attracted, she was captured by his energy, his life force. She had been like that herself, not too long ago, but the person she was then had become lost in the mists of time …

Hadn't she said those words just a few minutes ago? And now here she was back in the music biz, back in recording studios, back with a man who wanted her and whom she wanted. Back with a star.

It was all too good to be true. And she wanted to share it with Paloma.

 

Chapter 38

Barcelona

Mac had spent a
sleepless night with Lorenza on his mind. After all, he told himself, how can a man walk into a room and find his past waiting for him, and looking almost exactly the way she had all those years ago, her eyes warm with memories, smiling and beautiful, sexy and available. Shared memories like theirs would never go away, even though he knew they should be kept as simply that. Memories.

He'd risen early, showered and shaved, managing to cut himself in the process. Blotting his chin he thought wryly it would look good with the black eye. He looked like a fighter, not a lover.

He got on the phone and ordered a rental car, then called Lorenza and got her housekeeper on the line. Buena said she would get the Señora right away, but he cut her off and asked her to give Lorenza a message saying he would drive to the bodega himself and to tell her he would arrive that evening.

Then he e-mailed Sunny and left a message saying he loved her and missed her. It was true. He did. He was careful, however, not to mention Lorenza. Sunny might not understand that she was in his past and her only role now was as Paloma's grandmother.

He made several other calls, one to a contact in Málaga, asking for information on problem boy, Antonio de Ravel. He'd also already checked Floradelisa and her life seemed to be an open book. But Jassy was something else.

He got Lev on the phone and discussed the possibility that Jassy was funding Bibi, for Paloma's sake, because there was no doubt Jassy adored her niece.

“That's if Bibi is still alive,” Lev said. “And I'm beginning to doubt it.”

“I'm not getting a single lead on her,” Mac said. “How can a woman disappear so completely? Especially a famous one.”

“Beats me,” Lev said.

“There has to be some link. And that link could only be through the daughter she loved. I'm off to see Paloma now.”

“At the Ravel bodega?”

“At the bodega.”

“Watch out for that Lorenza,” Lev warned. “She's quite a woman. But then you already know that.”

As Mac clicked off the phone, he wondered how Lev knew about him and Lorenza.

*   *   *

He arrived at the
bodega that evening after several wrong turns that had taken him miles—kilometers, he'd forgotten he was in Europe—out of his way.

He'd driven through endless fields of vines, heavy with bunches of still-unripe grapes. The headlights of his small rented Ford Fiesta picked up the startled glowing eyes of rabbits before they took off into ditches, tails bouncing, and for one incredible moment he thought he was being attacked when something swooped fast toward him, almost brushing the roof of the car with its wings as it soared suddenly upward. A horned owl beginning its nightly predator prowl.

The sky was clear, studded with a thousand stars that seemed brighter in the unpolluted countryside than they ever did in L.A., but nowhere did he see a sign with an arrow pointing the way to the Bodega de Ravel.

In the end he got there by mistake, simply by taking a left when he'd thought he should have taken a right, and found himself on a newly paved road, wide enough for two trucks to pass and with vines crowding to the very edge. Half a mile farther on was a long, low white house with dormer windows and blue tile roof, set in a wildflower meadow. A huge tree dominated the lawn. A table and chairs were set in its shade and a plaid rug with an open book lay on the grass, maybe forgotten by Paloma. He wondered what she knew about her mother that might give him a lead, if not to Bibi's whereabouts, then at least a clue as to who Bibi really was. Mac had found in the past that the most important thing was not what and where, but
who
you were. It had solved many a case for him.

Paloma had been watching out for him and now she flung herself under the portico and down the wide front steps into his arms.

“Mr. Reilly, Mr. Reilly!”

He laughed as he caught her and swung her into the air. “Hey, it's
Mac.
Remember? And I'm glad to see you too, sweetheart.”

“You came specially,” she said, back on terra firma, looking up at him with those conker-brown eyes, so unlike her mother's that Mac wondered for a second exactly
who
her father might be.

“No thanks to you,” he said, taking her hand and walking up the steps with her and into the house. “
You
didn't even ask me.”

“But Jassy did, she told me she'd called you. And Lorenza asked too.”

“Ah. The Matriarch,” he said, looking for her.

Lorenza was not around but a little girl was; short, blue eyed, and blond pigtailed.

“This is my best friend, Cherrypop,” Paloma told him.

“Pleased to meet you, Señor Reilly,” Cherrypop said, speaking English. “My mother's from Brooklyn.”

“Isn't everybody?” Mac said, laughing, because sometimes that seemed true. “And I'm pleased to meet you too, Cherrypop.”

“Aren't you going to ask how I got my name?” She gave him a pert glance from those china blue eyes. “Everybody always does.”

“Then I guess I've no need to ask, you're just gonna tell me.”

Cherrypop pouted. She glanced at Paloma, then back at him.

“It's a long story,” she said, just as Lorenza came down the stairs, barefoot, in a pale green caftan that skimmed her breasts and floated round her ankles, cool and elegant and simple all at the same time. Mac felt glad he had not made the drive alone with her. He didn't know if his resolve could have stood the test.

“Mac,” she called. “I thought you must be lost!”

“I was, but remember I'm a detective, ultimately I can find anyone, anywhere.”

“And you found
me.
”

She came and put her arms around him, pressing her cool cheek against his. He breathed in the faint elusive flowery scent he remembered so well. He decided to buy Lorenza a gift; a bottle of perfume that came without memories. He'd heard Chanel No.5 was good.

He kissed her cheek and took a step back. “Another beautiful home, Lorenza,” he said, glancing round the spacious hall with its polished wood floors and the big round table centered with an immense bowl of flowers, the wide low stairs and the raftered ceilings.

“De Ravel history is written in these walls,” she told him. “As it is in the Ramblas house. But you know, of course, that the Ramblas house now belongs to Bibi, and to Paloma.”

“Oh, but you can always live there, Grandma,” Paloma said impulsively, making Lorenza smile.

She said, “Paloma, why don't you and Cherrypop show Mr. Reilly to his room, then we'll have dinner.”

“Thanks,” Mac said. “I could use a shower first though.”

She met his eyes, smiling flirtatiously. He knew she was thinking what he was thinking and it wasn't good. Or was it? He took Paloma's hand.

“Okay, girls,” he said, following Cherrypop, who hefted his Tumi bag and started up the stairs. “Let's go.”

“You're at the end of the hall,” Paloma told him, as they walked down a wide corridor, past her own room. “It's the biggest guest room. Lorenza keeps it for special people. Her room's at the other end.” She pointed back, past where the staircase was, to a pair of double doors. “Of course hers is the biggest room of all. It used to be the place they kept cows, once upon a time.”

“Eons ago,” Cherrypop said, flinging open the door and then flinging Mac's bag onto a large tester bed, with silk gathered at the top into a sort of gilded wooden crown carved with vine leaves. Feminine, Mac thought, like Lorenza.

Cherrypop turned to look at him. “You still haven't asked about my name.”

He laughed and told her he'd probably have lots of questions to ask her later.

“I know,” she said, gazing at him, all solemn trusting blue eyes that Mac instantly suspected held more mischief than she was showing.

“Cherrypop knows why you're here,” Paloma told him. “She knows everything and she says it's all crap about my mom being a murderer.”

“I agree,” Mac said, taken by surprise because this was the first time Paloma had really addressed the question of her mother's guilt.

Paloma looked down at her feet. “I agree too,” she said in a small voice. “At least, I think I do.”

“Why don't we talk about it later,” Mac said. “After my shower.”

“And dinner,” Cherrypop said, because she was starving.

“It's paella, the kind from Valencia, with chicken and bits of pork and shrimp and mussels,” Paloma told him.

“I can't wait,” he said.

*   *   *

And nor could
Lorenza, who was pacing the floor, hands clasped together, brow knotted in a frown. Buena came in with two bottles of chilled white wine—a de Ravel white, of course, the one with the touch of fizz, typical of the area.

“You'll wear out that carpet,” Buena said, watching Lorenza knowingly. She hadn't seen her like this in years, and she'd guessed why. Lorenza was no angel, and Buena knew there had been other men since Juan Pedro passed on. How could there not? She was a woman after all, and a beautiful and passionate one. Juan Pedro had loved her for it. You couldn't live in the same house as those two and not be aware of their lovemaking and their passion. It was the kind of thing servants always knew, just as she'd always known later, when Lorenza had taken lovers. The lover would sometimes join her here, as a guest, like this one tonight, though of course Buena understood Mac Reilly was not Lorenza's lover. Not yet anyhow, though she knew if Lorenza had her way he would be. But Mac Reilly was also here on serious business.

“Never mind the carpet, I'll wear myself out,” Lorenza said, stopping in her pacing to look at Buena. “I've known him a long time,” she added.

“You told me.” Buena opened the bottles and put them in the ice bucket, along with a Fanta orange for the girls. Only one each, Lorenza was firm about that, especially after the story of Cherrypop's baby teeth.

“He was special to me, all those years ago, Buena.”

Buena pushed back her hair and skewered it more firmly with the pins. She smoothed down her blue cotton overall and folded her arms over her large bosom, looking at her friend and employer.

“I understand,” she said simply. “And I can see you're jumping in with both feet. Be careful. And remember
why
he's here.”

For a moment Lorenza had forgotten that Mac
was
here for Paloma; for a moment she'd thought he'd come to just see
her,
to be with her again.

She said, “He has a girlfriend. But I'm back in love with him, Buena. I want him. I
need
him. My life can begin again with him.”

Buena adjusted the wine bottles in the ice bucket, worried. “He's different,” she warned. “A man like that—he has his own way of life, his work. And anyway he already has a woman.”

“Things can change,” Lorenza said, thoughtfully.

And then Cherrypop burst rocketlike into the room, followed by a more sedate Paloma. “Here we are,” she said. “And we're starving.”

“Then go quickly and wash your hands,” Lorenza ordered, pouring herself a glass of wine and sipping it gratefully; she'd need a drink to get her through the next hour or so. Then Mac walked in, long and lean in his eternal blue jeans, a chambray shirt, sleeves rolled, his black eye now yellowing and a cut on his chin. He was the best thing she had seen in years and she gave him a smile that dazzled.

“I'd forgotten you were so cute,” she said.

“Not a word I'd ever use to describe myself,” he said, accepting a glass of wine from Buena.

“Nor would I,” Buena whispered to Lorenza. “He's too sexy for his own good. Or yours,” she added. “And anyhow, I'll bet he's married.”

“No, he's not,” Lorenza whispered back, face turned from Mac, who was inspecting the room, which was furnished country-style, for comfort, with deep sofas and big chairs, a piano in the corner, exotic-looking paintings on the walls, and a large bronze sculpture of a herd of sheep, crowding on each other. Mac wondered if a group of sheep was called a herd; maybe he'd got that wrong.

“Anyway,” Lorenza was still having a whispered conversation with Buena, “in life, and love, it's every woman for herself. I'm in love all over again, Buena, and I want him back. I'm declaring war on any woman he knows. And you know I always win.”

Buena sighed loudly. She knew when Lorenza wanted something, nothing would stop her.

The children came back and Lorenza herded them, like the sheep, into a small informal dining room where the table was set with a wooden bowl of salad, and a large round cast-iron dish of paella, the yellowed rice firm and fragrant with saffron and crisp round the edges, that Paloma told Mac were always the best bits.