Miranda's Revenge (3 page)

“Oh, good.” She put her hand on her chest. Then she realized she'd tipped her hand, and bowed her head. Embarrassed.

“Are you blushing, Ms. Rousseau?”

“I could be,
Monsieur.
”

“That would be
Señor,
wouldn't it?”

She laughed. “I suppose it would.” Then she sobered and looked at him, curiosity welling up like a monster. “I would like to hear your story,” she said frankly.

“Not likely,” he returned with as much directness. “I don't tell it very often,” he said, his hands laced between his legs, his large eyes direct. Maybe too direct. She found herself sliding toward the fall, the dive into those dark, deep irises, wanting to put her fingertips on the edges of his eyelid, brush the thickness of his lashes.

“I suppose not.”

Then that direct gaze shifted, swept over her face, touching her hairline and brow, her lips and throat, her chest and hands. Miranda raised her eyes and smiled, very, very slightly. The silvery connection blazed for a moment, as they exchanged visions of what might be to come, what they might whisper to each other in a future moment, when there was no murmuring of other voices, no barriers of clothing, nothing but their bodies and skin and voices, trading secrets. A distinct prickle burned over her flesh at the thought, rolling from throat to groin, nape to hips in a sudden wash that made her touch her brow, lift the big glass of ale and take a long, cooling swallow.

“Maybe,” he said in a gruff voice, “we should go over a few things here.”

“Sure. Absolutely.” She took a breath. “What do you need to know?”

“Let me look at my notes,” he said, and flipped through the pages of his notebook.

As she waited, the movement of a man caught the corner of her eye. She couldn't say what it was, what familiarity in the shift of a shoulder, the gesture of a hand, but she raised her head just as he turned around. A solid Austrian type, blond, tanned, very handsome and leanly muscular. A skier.

Next to him was a blond woman, beautiful if her lips had not been pursed in such peevish annoyance. Also a skier, and one Miranda knew. “Uh-oh,” Miranda said.

James raised his head.

“This is not good,” she said, and found herself perching forward on the seat of the chair, ready for flight.

The couple had not seen them yet, but it was only a matter of seconds. Miranda grew aware of a wash of nerves burning through her, but was it over him, or her? Impossible to tell.

And what was he doing here, anyway?

“Isn't that Christie Lundgren?” James asked.

“Yes,” Miranda said. “The skier.”

“The woman Claude Tsosie was having an affair with, am I right?”

“Yes.” Miranda's gaze was fixed on the pair.

“And who is that with her?”

“Max Boudrain.” Miranda's voice was flat. Max shifted, putting his hand on Christie's elbow, tossing a heavy duffel bag over that powerful shoulder. He scanned the room, arrogantly, noticing everyone and no one.

Except Miranda. His step faltered, noticeably.

She stood with as much grace as possible under the circumstances. “Hello, Max. What brings you to Mariposa?”

“Miranda,” he said in his nearly perfect English. “How wonderful to see you.”

She felt snared by his very, very blue eyes, fixed with that intensity he had upon her face, and he came forward, limping slightly. She only realized as he bent toward her that he was going to kiss her cheeks, in Continental fashion, and there was no time to pull away. His hands—those hands that had explored every inch of her skin, had uncovered secrets she'd never known about her body—captured her upper arms, and then his lips brushed one cheek, then the other.

Backing away slightly, she stammered, “What…why are you…shouldn't you be in Peru or somewhere training?”

He gestured toward his leg. “A minor accident. I am not to ski for another month.” He gestured toward the woman, her tousled blond curls artlessly sexy. “I am staying with my friend Christie. Are you acquainted?”

Friend. Did that mean girlfriend or not? Probably not. Max wasn't the type to be coy. “No,” Miranda said politely. “Of course I know your reputation, but I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you.” She extended her hand. “Miranda Rousseau.”

Christie stiffened, and Miranda realized too late that she should not have mentioned her last name. Desi had not taken her late husband's name when they married; she, too, was a Rousseau. “I don't think I should be talking to you,” she said, pulling back. “Nice try.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“You won't get any information from me, or from Max, so forget it.”

“I had no intention of—”

“Miranda and I are old friends,” Max said smoothly. He gave a nod toward James, who'd come to his feet in polite fashion when the couple had approached. “Max Boudrain,” he said, holding out his hand.

“James Marquez. I watched you in the Olympics. Two golds, right?”

He shifted his head. “Yes. And you, are you here to run the Trifecta?”

“Among other things, yes. I am.”

Max smiled stiffly. “I see.”

Christie glowered. “I'm leaving.” She stormed away, all sleek cat fitness and blond good health.

Looking after her with an expression of bewilderment, Max said, “I'm sorry. She is not ordinarily rude.”

Miranda waved a hand. “She has good reason. Her ex-boyfriend—” She broke off, waved a hand. “Oh, never mind. Let her tell you.”

“It was good to see you,” Max said. He nodded at James. “Perhaps we'll have a drink while I'm here, yeah?”

“Sure,” Miranda said, though she had no intention of going. “Call my sister Juliet. She's in the book.”

He nodded, his mouth still and sober. Miranda wanted to turn away, but he caught her hand, pressed his thumb to her palm. “It is very good to see you, Miranda.”

She pasted a false smile on her face, gently pulled out of his grasp. “You, too, Max,” she lied.

J
ames watched the exchange between Miranda and the skier with the practiced eye of a trained priest. Miranda's body was slightly angled away, her head often dipped left, her chin arrowing over the skier's shoulder, her gaze indirect.

Boudrain, in contrast, reached for her unconsciously, his hand lifting, then falling, his body tilting down toward her. James could see they'd been very passionate lovers. A beautiful couple, he judged, ignoring the flicker of possessiveness that made him wish to push between them, seize Miranda, fling her behind him.

The vision startled him. Ridiculous. She
was
beautiful. Healthy. His body responded to the moist allure of her, and his mind threw up pictures in response. Just like, he told himself, the times his body needed particular vitamins and his brain gave him pictures of oranges or pinto beans.

Forcing his attention away from Miranda, he took a moment to study Christie up close. She had been the murdered Claude Tsosie's mistress when he died. The notes showed a rock-solid alibi; at the time of Tsosie's death, Lundgren was drinking in the company of a dozen others, three of whom had seen her home.

As with Max, he knew her face from watching the Olympics on television. Both had won gold medals, and both had been media darlings, in part for their beauty, but also because of their talent. Max had taken a gold and a silver, in slalom and giant slalom; Christie had taken the gold in women's downhill, a long and difficult challenge.

In person, she was smaller and more delicately made than she seemed on television, bundled in ski clothes. Also, there was a vulnerability about her heavily lashed blue eyes that made her seem like a fierce but frightened animal. Her thighs were the strong, powerful legs of a skier, but her face was finely boned, her chest small.

He didn't think she and Max were lovers—they used the body language of siblings, none of the leaning in and pulling toward that lovers would show. Her expression when she looked at Miranda was not jealous, but sharp and angry. “Come on,” she said to Max. “We can't talk to her!”

She practically tugged him out, as if Max was attached to Miranda by some invisible cord.

When they left, Miranda picked up her barely touched glass of ale and took a long swallow, then dropped a couple of bills on the table. “We should head over to the pub,” she said. Soft color burned beneath her pale cheeks.

“Old lover, I gather?”

The color deepened. “Yes. Was it that obvious?”

“Not a good ending?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulders. “He's a professional athlete. Not technically, of course, but sports will be his life.”

“And?”

“And men who are in the spotlight are too much trouble. Musicians, sports stars, actors, writers, painters, even professors—if they're in the public eye, women put themselves in their paths, and even with the best intentions, they'll usually be unfaithful eventually.”

“That's a harsh assessment. Did someone break your heart?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You are direct, aren't you?”

“Saves time.” They headed into the evening. Cool air, tinged with glacial edges, swept off the mountains rising in spectacular display around them.

“Max broke my heart,” she said tightly, and put on her sunglasses, even though they were not strictly needed.

He smiled. “Take off your glasses, Jackie. The view is great and I won't ask any more questions. At least about your personal life.”

“Jackie?”

“Yeah, as in Onassis? Known for her glasses?”

“Oh. Of course.”

He smiled down at her, feeling a tenderness all out of proportion to the moment and their acquaintance. She took off her glasses, stuck them back in a case in her purse, not on top of her head. Her vibrant blue gaze lifted to his.

“Now I can see your eyes,” he said, and switched gears, trying to keep his focus on the business he was here to tackle. “So, Christie was Claude's girlfriend, right?”

“Yes.”

“And by all accounts, she adored him.”

“He was a very good-looking man, charming, artistic.” She raised an eyebrow cynically as if to say,
see?

“I saw the photos,” he said, and scowled, nagged again by something odd. “What nation is he? I thought it was Navajo.”

“Maybe. Desi will know. Does it matter?”

“Not really. Just—” he stepped to one side to let a woman and her dog pass on the narrow sidewalk, smiling when she dipped her silver head at him “—maybe it's the photos I saw, but he doesn't look Indian at all to me.”

Miranda inclined her head. “Really.”

“I'm no expert, of course, and genetics are weird, but I grew up around a lot of Indians and he sure doesn't look Navajo. Or Apache. Tsosie is a Navajo name.”

“What benefit would there be in pretending to be Indian, though?”

“There must be some.”

Miranda nodded. “I guess. Some artists joke around about becoming authentically ethnic in some way, to bring more value to the work. New York and L.A. both go crazy for authentically not-white.”

“I can see that.”

They crossed a narrow street, and passed through long bars of sunlight, arrowing between buildings. Miranda's hair caught fire, sparkling with gold and red and a dozen other colors. Of course she did not notice, only walked along with her astounding cloak shining like something from a vision. James forced himself to stop staring.

“Here it is,” she said, pausing before a door propped open to allow an exchange of air. Cheerful voices spilled into the street.

James waved her ahead, and followed her in. The smell of frying onions made his stomach growl. She paused momentarily just inside the door, and he took a moment to look around while his eyes adjusted. The room was decorated in the fashion of an old English pub, with heavy beams in the ceiling and wide, weathered boards on the floor. Rugby jerseys lined the walls, a sport about which he knew little. He knew enough to recognize the jersey of the New Zealand All-Blacks, a team that carried a mythical tone, thanks to the haka—a Maori war dance—that the players performed before each game.

Miranda waved at a table of several people in a corner booth, and he followed her. Two women, a little girl and a man sat there, and the man rose immediately as James and Miranda approached. “Everyone,” Miranda said, “this is James Marquez, from Albuquerque.”

“How do you do,” the man said, a curiously old-fashioned greeting James had not heard in a long time. He was quite tall, with a long braid and the uniform of a tribal cop. Now
this
guy, James thought, looked Indian. “Josh Mad Calf,” the cop said. “Good to meet you.”

James gave a nod, taking the proffered hand. Strong, straightforward grip. Intelligent eyes.

“These are my sisters,” Miranda said, gesturing first toward a curvy, pretty blonde. “Juliet is engaged to Josh, and Desi—” she indicated the other, a woman with serious dark eyes, and the care-worn hands of a woman who worked with the land or animals or both “—is the one in so much trouble.”

“Hello,” he said, assessing each one. Juliet was sharp, an observer, her index finger tapping as she checked him out. Desi was weary, with soft bluish shadows beneath her eyes. Not as pretty as he would have expected for the charming, good-looking Claude, though there was a Sophia Loren appeal about her, all breasts and hair and sultry eyes. With a quirk of an eyebrows he took in all three sisters. “Wow. Neopolitan.”

The brunette scowled. “As in ice cream?”

Miranda laughed, and the sound drew his attention once again. Such an earthy, sensual sound. “Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry! I love it!” Seeing that her sister was not quite as amused, she rolled her eyes. “C'mon, Desi, lighten up! It's a joke. Remember jokes?”

“I apologize,” James said. “It was inappropriate, but I didn't mean to be offensive.” His attention caught on the little girl, with her black shiny hair and solemn dark eyes. She obviously belonged to the cop.

James said, “Hello. You must be about five, huh?”

She blinked, her mouth unsmiling. “I don't talk to strangers.”

“Ah. Good.”

A man, big as a bear, with the springy curls of an islander, came into the area. “Hey, mate,” he said, extending a tattooed arm, “You must be the man, eh? I'm Tamati Neville. Everybody calls me Tam.”

“James Marquez.”

“Do they call you Jimmy?”

“Not really.”

Tam grinned. “All right then. Sit down, what can I get you?”

“Just water, please.”

“He's in training,” Miranda said. “But I'll have a nice juicy margarita.”

Tam said, “Are you running the Mariposa 50?”

“Yes.”

“Good on ya.”

The blonde—Juliet?—said, “Don't sit down yet, you guys. Glory and I are going to move over to another table while you talk about all this stuff.”

“I'm not a baby!” Glory protested.

“Nobody said you were,” Juliet said calmly. “It's icky stuff, though, and I don't want to hear it, either. 'Kay?”

“All right.” She scooted out, carefully skirting around James, not even allowing her braid to touch him.

Miranda slid into the booth first, and James moved in behind her. The slippery faux leather of the booth rubbed static into her hair, and long tendrils stuck to the back of the seat in a fan. He pointed it out to her. “Looks like something in the ocean, doesn't it?”

“It does!” She used one finger to gather it and pull it back to her. “Have enough room?”

James nodded. Flipping open his notebook, he pulled his glasses from his pocket and put them on.

“Wish I could run again,” the Maori—Tam—said. “I busted up my knee a few years ago and can't run like that anymore, but I miss it.”

“I've never run this one,” James said, “but it has a great reputation.”

“We're counting on you, mate, to figure out who killed this sorry bastard. Get my girl—” he gripped Desi's shoulder “—out of this kettle of hot water she's stewing in, eh?”

“I'm going to do my best,” James said. “Let me just go over the basic facts quickly, so we're all on the same page, all right?” Everyone nodded. “Claude was found on the reservation on the night of October 16. He was shot to death with a single bullet. The last person who officially saw him was a casino employee who watched him kiss his girlfriend—sorry—goodbye.”

“So far so good,” Desi said. “And really, if you stop to apologize over every tawdry bit of this, we'll be here all day. You don't have to tiptoe with me.”

He liked her, liked the directness of her gaze, the steadiness of her voice. “Okay. It looks bad for you, honestly. You have motive, weapon and opportunity. Add to that the fact that when a member of a love triangle is murdered its nearly always one of the other members who did it, and you fit like Cinderella's glass slipper.”

“Right. Don't forget that I threatened to kill him in front of about twenty people, too.”

James let himself smile slightly. “There's that, too.”

“I didn't kill him,” she said.

He met her eyes. “All right.”

“Not that I didn't have some pretty brutal torture fantasies going, but I wouldn't kill him.”

“So who else wanted him dead?”

Next to him, Miranda snorted softly, “Who didn't?”

He glanced over. She caught his eye, and it seemed they shared one moment of something secret. He looked back to his notes, flipped one page up. “Tell me if I miss anyone—developers, a different jilted lover—since I gather Christie Lundgren wasn't his first affair?”

“Right,” Desi said. “I don't know how many, though.”

“Somebody knows,” James said. “Did he have a good friend in town?”

“No. Only women.”

James tapped the end of the pen against the page. “It might also be someone in the art world, or someone he double-crossed in some deal we don't know about.” He raised his head. “I know there was a big story about the developers who want your land for the aquifer, but I really doubt they're responsible for Claude's death.”

Josh turned his lips downward. “You must have reasons.”

“Well, it looks like a crime of passion, which can be staged, but a professional would be more thorough. This was pretty sloppy in a lot of ways—any number of places the killer could have been seen or caught.”

Desi raised her eyebrows. “I never thought of that.”

James asked, “Desi, can you give me Claude's story? How did you meet?”

“We were in the Peace Corps in Peru.”

“Where did he grow up?”

“Mostly Denver, I think. He was born on the res, but then his parents divorced and his mother went to stay with an aunt in Denver.”