From Barcelona, with Love (28 page)

He caught her underwater, kissing her, bubbles streaming from their noses until she almost had no breath left and they emerged spluttering, laughing, wrapped around each other, her arms entwined round his neck, legs around his hips. He had her buttocks in his hands, happiness and excitement in his eyes.…

She was drowning with pleasure as he let go of her and dived under, and she was laughing as she felt his mouth on her, his tongue inside her, his fingers holding her to him. She was drowning with pleasure as they made love in the water, on the water, under the water, and then on the grassy bank next to the water, holding madly on to each other, crazy for each other, with the heat of sex and the excitement of the long night and, for Bibi, the freshness of his young body after her long years of being alone, when she had not even so much as thought of another man.

High with pleasure and excitement and heat as she lay back, his mouth on her, then hers on him, devouring each other; her cries of excitement and his long final groan.

They lay, spent, still entwined, damp from the pool and from the sweet sweat of sex. Glancing at him lying on his back beside her, Bibi took in his slim young body, the flat abdomen, his lean flanks, the sweet round curve of his buttocks and the glorious darkness of his still-swollen penis that had transported her, along with his tongue, to unspeakable delights.

He was so young, she thought with a sudden pang. Only twenty-two. She was ten years older. My God, for the first time in her life she was “the older woman.” It was almost funny and she smiled.

He turned his face to her and said lazily, “What's so funny, sweet lover?”

“You,” she said. “Me.”

“Bibi,” he said softly.

“I am who I am,” she said. “I'll just be me.”

She looked at her new lover. This one she was sure would never betray her.

 

Chapter 41

With Ron at the
controls of the Citation and a female copilot by the name of Betsy next to him, cute, blond, calm and collected and perfectly in control, the ride to Barcelona via Teterboro was uneventful. Apart, that is, from what was going on in Sunny's feverish brain.

Mac and the Matriarch! It sounded like a sitcom, only it was real and she was the joke.

Ron left the plane on autopilot and came to sit with her. The flight attendant kept the Cosmos coming until Ron finally said, mildly, “Don't you think three is enough, hon? After all, you're gonna have to deal with sober reality when you get off this plane.” He wasn't always mild-mannered and could be very forceful; now though he was gentle because he knew she was unhappy.

“True.” Sunny reclined her seat and curled up under the comforting blanket even though it wasn't cold. She was wearing the pink bed socks but not the matching eye mask. “What do you think he's up to, Ron? I mean, can he have fallen for her all over again?”

“He might have given it a passing thought,” Ron admitted. “Y'know, old times and all that.”

She curled deeper into her seat. It was extremely comfortable, dove gray leather with a Frette pillow and a soft gray blanket and her little pink bed socks.

“I remember girls in junior high in socks like that,” Ron said. “You look about fourteen.”

“I wish,” she said miserably.

Exasperated, he threw his hands in the air. “For fuck's sake, quit it, Sunny. Mac's only met up with an old flame. It was all by chance, he didn't go out and search for her. Get yourself together, woman, and put on your best face. Because for sure, she will, and
she's
on her home turf. Goddamit, Sun, I thought you were a fighter.”

“I am. I
am.
” She sat up quickly, pushing her hair back, pulling her shirt down, sniffing away the self-pitying tears.

“I'm telling you, hon, you have nothing to worry about,” Ron said. And when Ron told you something you believed him, unless you were the IRS, of course, but that was in the past.

“We'll be landing in an hour,” he said, getting up and making his way forward. “I have a car waiting, we'll be at the hotel before you know it.”

Sunny didn't know whether to be pleased or anxious. Of course Mac didn't know she was coming but now she was wondering if this surprise thing was such a good idea after all. A man taken by surprise—anything might happen.

*   *   *

Mac spent another
restless night, much of it on the phone or e-mailing. Now he knew all about Antonio, knew the identity of his mistress and the fact that he kept her in an expensive apartment in Marbella. Mac doubted there would be enough left over for Antonio to be supporting his runaway half sister, and anyhow it was obvious from the contemptuous way Antonio had spoken about her at Floradelisa's, there was no love lost between them. He believed Floradelisa cared about Bibi, but she cared more about her niece, Paloma, and what was good for her.

Jassy was the only one who might have helped Bibi, but Jassy was the one who had also asked him for help. This family was getting him nowhere. Especially Lorenza.

He'd thought about Lorenza a lot in between calls, only too aware that she was just down the hall, behind that door. In bed. Asleep. Or perhaps awake, like him. He paced the floor. Of course he was tempted, what man wouldn't be, but he knew his biggest mistake in life would be to walk down that hallway and step through that door. The consequences would be terrible and there would be no going back.

He stood by the open window, quietly thinking about his life with Sunny, about how heart-stoppingly beautiful he found her and how she made him laugh; about their dogs and their Malibu home; about her cooking and her chronic untidiness that drove him crazy, about her body next to his in bed, or on the beach, or anywhere they could make love. He knew he could not live without her. He put Lorenza firmly back in the past and got on with the present. And his own life.

Of course he had to call Sunny again, longing for her, but all he got was her voicemail. He did not leave a message—he needed to speak to her, hear her voice. Sighing, he went back to his work. Paloma had to come first right now.

The only lead he had to Bibi was through her music. It was also the only way she could make money, unless of course she had money invested here in Europe, and nothing to do with the de Ravel vineyards or businesses. Ron Perrin was the man to ask about that but when Mac tried to get him in L.A., there was no reply. He sent an e-mail, asking him to call. Next he contacted a well-known L.A. money manager, one who specialized in showbiz and knew all about stars and their spendthrift ways and their big money. His name was Ted O'Mahoney and they had known each other, slightly, for years.

“Good to hear from another Irish-American,” O'Mahoney said, when he took Mac's call.

“This one's hanging out in Spain.”

“Lucky man. I hear the women are beautiful and the wine is good.”

“Both are true,” Mac said. “So, okay, Ted, this isn't a social call out of the blue, inviting you to lunch. I have a couple of questions for you, and I'll tell you up front, I'm talking about Bibi Fortunata.”

Ted's astonished whistle came down the line. “I'm listening,” he said.

The answers were what Mac had been hoping for. Yes, Ted said, Bibi could have money invested in Europe. He knew for a fact she worked with an investment broker by the name of Rodolfo Hernandez. “He's well known,” he told Mac. “Runs an Andorran company, one of those secret tax-free investment businesses that makes him a fortune, I'll guarantee. Not that he needs it, I understand there's been money in that family for a couple of centuries.”

“Then Hernandez lives in Andorra?”

“He'll certainly spend some time there, but it's not a place rich men choose to live, stuck away in the mountains between Spain and France, cold, no high life. No, I'm pretty certain your man would not be living there. Can't help you more than that, I'm afraid.”

“But Bibi would have access to that money?”

“If she wished, yes. From what I know here, she hasn't touched a penny. Must think it's guilt money or something, you know, after the murders.”

“Bibi didn't commit those murders.” Mac knew it for certain.

“Then you know who did?”

“I'm working on it,” Mac said. But in his heart he knew there was only one other person it could be. Bruno Peretti. The question was why did he do it? And how to prove it.

One thing he was sure of, it wasn't for Bibi's money. There would have been easier ways than murder for Bruno to get his hands on that, via the California court system. Peretti didn't love Bibi, he'd made that clear. Nor did he care about his stepdaughter. The question was—why?

At 9
A.M.
there was a knock on the door. Buena came in carrying a tray. The smell of coffee wafted from the silver pot as she set it down on the table and removed the little knitted covers from two boiled eggs in pale blue cups, and the basket containing toast and small sugar-dusted rolls.

“Soft boiled, sir,” she said, leveling a look at Mac. “The way the Señora says she remembers you like them.”

If Mac was the blushing type, he might have blushed as Buena's penetrating dark glance took him in. He felt like a boy again, caught with a girl, except this time he wasn't tangled in the sheets and he wasn't guilty.

He smiled a thank-you, poured a cup of coffee, added a forbidden (by Sunny) two sugars, drank it down in a couple of gulps, and poured some more. He needed the coffee to stay awake.

*   *   *

Sunny needn't have worried.
Mac was not at the hotel. But Allie was.

She was waiting in the lobby, a baseball cap pulled over her ponytail, trying to look inconspicuous behind a marble pillar because, even after all those years of fame, she still hated the celebrity thing fame had brought her. She spotted them as they came through the glass swing doors and ran to Sunny. They threw their arms round each other in a tight hug.

Allie said, “Haven't we been through all this last year in Monte Carlo? Only with the roles reversed? You running off, not Mac?”

“Almost,” Sunny admitted. “The difference is Eduardo was never my lover.”

Allie heaved a sigh. “True. But Lorenza de Ravel was never Mac's lover either.
Lorenza Machado
was.
And
that was more than twenty years ago.”

“Oh shut up,” Sunny said, managing a smile. “I'll bet he's with her now and that's not twenty years ago.”

“So? You are here now, too. And you know what, you have nothing to worry about.”

“That's what I keep telling her,” Ron said, barreling toward them, head thrust forward, a smile for his wife on his face.

“Did I ever tell you you were beautiful?” he asked, burying his face in the nape of Allie's neck, where he said she smelled like new-mown hay.

“It's just that Jo Malone perfume,” Allie told him, laughing. “Now, let's go to our suite, get you two cleaned up, then we'll find Mac.”

“Do you know where he is?” Sunny asked, as they walked to the elevator.

“Oh, yes,” Allie said, who'd made it her business, via the hotel manager, to find out. “I know exactly where he is.”

*   *   *

It was late afternoon
when Mac finally went downstairs, and Lorenza was nowhere to be seen. Paloma was though, and her friend.

“We waited for you to come down to breakfast.” Cherrypop pouted accusingly. She thought Mac was glamorous, and even sexy. At least Lorenza certainly thought so, though he was a bit old.

“I was busy being spoiled,” Mac said. “Buena brought breakfast to my room.”

“Huh, she never does that for me,” Paloma said, trying to pout the way Cherrypop did and only succeeding in making Mac laugh.

“Tell you what, I'm waiting for a phone call,” he said. “Then I'm going to have to leave. Why don't we all take the dog for a walk, you can show me the vineyard.”

“But we don't have a dog,” Paloma said. “Lorenza doesn't like them. Of course I do, and maybe now I'm going to be living here she'll let me get one. Unless I can borrow Pirate, of course.”

“You can borrow him any time you come stay with us,” Mac said.

“You and Sunny?” Cherrypop had been hearing a lot about Sunny.

“That's right.” Sunny was on Mac's mind a lot. If he hadn't got so much to do, he would have been on that plane hours ago, but things were coming together, he needed to be here.

“My stepfather had a dog,” Paloma said suddenly. “A pit bull, old and mean, all he did was snarl and snap at me. He looked like Peretti. I always called my stepfather Peretti,” she explained. “I never wanted him for a father. I never wanted any father, but especially not him.” She eyed Mac hopefully, with those big brown eyes. “Though you would do, I guess.”

“Only in a pinch,” Mac said, patting her shoulder, and thinking about the young pit bull he'd seen in Peretti's Corvette, the night Peretti had decked him at Melvyn's. Paloma was right, Peretti did look like the pit bull.

“He called the dog Bach after his favorite composer,” Paloma said. “He was always playing, like, kind of
funeral
music. He knew Mom hated it so I guess that's why he did it. He was always doing mean things like that to her. But anyway it caused problems with the neighbors because whenever he'd call for Bach, it sounded as though he was shouting ‘bark, bark,' and the dog did.”

Mac laughed. “What happened to it?” he asked, remembering the young dog parked in the Corvette.

She shrugged. “I don't know. It went everywhere with him. He always had it in the car when he went to a restaurant, or whatever. It was his shadow. He had it with him in Palm Springs, the night … well,
that
night.”

Of course Paloma meant the night of the murders. When Peretti was in Palm Springs with his old dog and Bibi was home in the Hollywood Hills with Paloma. It seemed everybody in this case had an alibi, even the dog.