No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (24 page)

“I was working undercover,”
he insisted. “It was necessary to the success of the operations. My
first wife was the granddaughter of the head of an international
criminal syndicate. It took us five years to get close enough to
break through the layers of secrecy enough to take them down. My
second wife was helping her brother smuggle blood diamonds out of
Sierra Leone and into Antwerp. We’re talking about millions of
dollars worth of diamonds, funding terror organizations and
empowering criminal gangs, Kimmy. It was my job to get in and out
of their circle without them realizing we knew what they were up to
before we were ready to shut them down. So I didn’t marry the first
two times for love. Is that a crime? This is different.”

“You really want to marry
me?” Was I dreaming?

“Well,” Mac raised an
eyebrow, “not if you’re going to be this dumb about it.”

“But you’ve never even
kissed me,” I told him.

“Not true. I seem to recall
a rather magical moment on a roof,” he grinned.”You were ten and
almost as adorable as you are right now.”

“I thought you weren’t
interested in me,” I confessed, feeling rather foolish. “I thought
you didn’t find me attractive.”

Mac shook his head and
sighed, before opening his arms wide, inviting me into them. I
wrapped my arms around his waist, my face against the soft cotton
of his oxford shirt.

“I have a confession to
make,” I announced. “I fell in love with this place the second I
saw it. All I could think of was how much I wanted to be here with
you, and how jealous I was that another woman would be living here
after the year was up.”

“It is a magical place,
isn’t it?” Mac nestled his lips against my ear. “The first time I
saw it, I pictured you here with me. You know, you have Mae to
thank for that kitchen.”

“I do?”

“She asked you to describe
your perfect kitchen,” Mac laughed. I thought back to that day a
year ago, when Adelaide and I took Mae to lunch at the Four Winds.
We were sitting out on the terrace and Mae was quizzing me on my
cookbooks and my favorite meals. “I needed the information, so I
could make the kitchen just the way you wanted it.”

“The master bedroom!” I
suddenly understood. “Mae asked me what I like in a bedroom, and I
said it all depended on the man involved, that I could never plan a
bedroom without his input!”

“Looks like we’ll have
plenty of time to work on that room now.” Mac began to sway, easing
me across the floor as he hummed in my ear. I found myself
following the rhythm of his body, finally feeling like we fit
together. It reminded me of that prom so long ago.

“Oh, Mac,” I sighed as he
dipped me. “What fun! We’ll have to pick out paint colors. I can
make drapes. We definitely need some artwork on the
walls....”

“It’s very clear,” Mac began
to croon, “our love is here to stay. Not for a year....”

I recognized the tune. It
was one of my favorite songs. For a moment, I gave myself up to the
magic of being in Mac’s arms. But then I started
thinking.

“When did you know you
really loved me, Mac?”

“The night you wore that
sapphire gown.” His lips were on my throat, nibbling tenderly. I
felt a shiver go through me, but I shook it off.

“All these years, you never
said a word!” I frowned, leaving the accusation hanging in the air.
I thought about all the missed opportunities. “Why didn’t you tell
me?”

“Kimmy?” Mac twirled me
around, waiting until I looked up at him.

“Yes, Mac?”

“Shut up and kiss
me.”

Mambo with a Maniacal
Mako

We all have emotional
baggage and we often bring it with us when we travel through life.
This is the tale of two people brought together by crazy
circumstances, similar trust issues, and self-absorbed ex-spouses.
When they packed their luggage for this particular trip, they
managed to pack their good sense, although it took them a while to
find it underneath all the stuff they didn’t really
need....

Chapter One --

“You have just over twenty
four hours to get here. If you’re not here by four tomorrow,
consider yourself fired.”

“But I haven’t found an
available flight,” I protested. “I’m still stuck here in
Florida!”

“It doesn’t matter, Kelsey.
Be here or don’t bother showing up at all. This exhibition should
have been ready Wednesday. Prudence made a very big mistake giving
out worthless promises she couldn’t keep. I’m not going to tolerate
any more delays. And if I don’t see those last two canvases
installed on the wall by noon on Sunday, I’m cancelling that bank
check. You tell that to Walter.”

Those were the last words
Warren Fripp ever spoke to me. I found out later that they were
probably the last words the much-hated art collector ever uttered
to anyone, other than his killer. If I had known the bloody horror
of what was going to happen to him, could I have altered the
outcome? Could I have saved his life? I asked myself that question
over and over again. To tell the truth, I honestly don’t know if I
could have done anything to change the outcome.

At that moment in time,
however, I was almost a thousand miles away, desperate to find a
way back to DC. I folded my flip phone shut, cursing the jerk. Here
I was, stuck in the amusement park Mecca of Florida, finishing up
my work for Uncle Jack. The local realtor I hired on his behalf had
sold the third-floor unit at the Costa del Sol in nine days, thanks
to an aggressive marketing effort and Uncle Jack’s willingness to
drop the price by five thousand dollars. I had packed his things
into boxes over the last three weeks and arranged for them to be
sent to Merriweather Woods, the assisted living paradise where he
was now comfortably ensconced with his lady friend, the lovely
Leonora. None of this would have come about if it hadn’t been for
the serious fall Leonora had out by the condo pool. She shattered
her knee cap on the cement, leading her son and daughter-in-law to
decide that it was time for Leonora to move back to New Jersey,
closer to them. Heartbroken, Uncle Jack decided to follow his lady,
and that’s when he enlisted my help. I finally took that vacation
time I had been saving for a big trip, and instead of lying on a
beach in Fiji, coconut drink in hand, I had spent the better part
of a month in Celebration, Florida. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t
really mind helping out. Uncle Jack has been good to me and I knew
he was desperate to be with Leonora as she recovered. Her injury
had been serious enough to warrant three surgeries, with a lengthy
physical therapy program planned as soon as she was able to endure
it. I focused myself on the positives. Once Uncle Jack was settled
in New Jersey, I’d be able to visit him more often. Uncle Jack was
a guy who deserved happiness. He had cared for Aunt Amelia, my
mother’s sister, for six long years as she slipped into the black
hole that is Alzheimer’s. Leonora brought him out of the darkness
and back to life, filling his days with joy and kindness, not to
mention golf and fishing. I wanted what they had, that lovely
companionship and true delight in each other. I’m a sucker for a
real romance, even late in life. I was hoping the magic of their
relationship would rub off on me. Call it Kismet, but I wanted to
believe that if I helped these star-crossed lovers to be together,
I would be rewarded for my goodness with my own version of true
love. It’s just that all this work for my uncle complicated the
work I did for the ever-demanding, abrasive Warren
Fripp.

The moving van, loaded with
all of Uncle Jack’s worldly possessions, had been on the road
exactly six minutes when I called Warren to tell him I was working
on travel arrangements. And now I had twenty four hours to get
myself to St. Michaels, where my boss was entertaining friends and
business acquaintances at the opening of his new gallery, Bliss
Redux, on the Chesapeake Bay.

“Son of a....” I sputtered
as Warren hung up on me.

“Easy, girl!” It was Mr.
Wilfred, Uncle Jack’s neighbor. “You look like you’re going to blow
a gasket. What gives?”

I gave him the short version
of my woeful tale, ending with the fact that I would soon be out of
a job. There was no way I was going to find a flight on such short
notice, not without filing for bankruptcy to afford the ticket. The
fact that Warren was insisting that I come back early from my
vacation just sent me over the top. If it weren’t for the fact that
I had just bought a new condo in Arlington, and used almost all my
savings for the down payment, I’d have told him to go pound
sand.

“I am totally screwed,” I
sighed heavily. “No way out.”

“Nonsense. Take the auto
train. You can even bring your car with you,” he told me. “It takes
about seventeen hours, so you could be there by
tomorrow.”

“But I don’t have a car,” I
confided.

“You definitely need a car
to ride the auto train,” Mr. Wilfred admitted. “What about Jack’s
car?”

“I’m supposed to sell it
when I come back in two weeks for the closing.”

“Why don’t you take the car
today? Uncle Jack won’t mind.” Mr. Wilfred reached into his back
pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I have the number for the auto
train in here somewhere. If you hurry, you should be able to make
it there on time.”

“But I’m not even packed,” I
groaned. “There’s so much to do!”

“No problem,” said the
friendly neighbor. “Let me get the car all ready for you. I’ll gas
it up and check the oil. You just get packed.”

“Great,” I said. It took me
half an hour, but I managed to pull it all together. I gathered my
clothes and shoes from the walk-in closet, stuffing everything back
into my suitcases. I took a last look around Uncle Jack’s condo. It
looked presentable for the closing.

Since I was going to use his
car, I decided to stop at a local gallery on my way to the station.
I had seen a couple of prints of street scenes done by a local
artist with a decent reputation the week before, planning to ship
them up to Merriweather Woods. Now I could just bring them with me.
I knew Uncle Jack and Leonora would enjoy them as a reminder of the
start of their romance in Celebration.

“Any chance you could wrap
these for me now? I’m kind of in a rush,” I explained. “I’m taking
the auto train to Lorton.”

“No problem,” said the older
man behind the counter. “Anything else?”

“That gecko over there -- is
that papier-mâché?”

“You like it?” He walked
over and picked it up to show me. “I can let you have it for fifty
bucks.”

I hesitated, wondering if I
really needed it, especially at that price. Nearly three feet tall,
it was bright green and blue, comical and fun. Warren’s show was
contemporary and I thought it made a nice accent piece for the
lobby of the gallery, to greet visitors as they walked in. The
uplifted claws on one of the gecko’s hands might allow me to add a
sign.

“How about forty?” the man
suggested.

“Forty? That sounds good.
I’ll take it. Can you wrap that, too?”

Another customer came in as
the gecko was whisked into the back for wrapping. Tall,
good-looking, he sported a Florida tan and an intensity that was
disconcerting.

“Raul, is my sculpture
ready?” he demanded as the gallery owner returned.

“Oh, Mr. Cañizo, I am so
sorry. I wanted to let you check it before it’s wrapped, to make
sure it’s what you wanted. Let me go get it.” As he turned to
leave, I called out.

“Excuse me. I hate to
interrupt. I just want to pop into the drugstore for a couple of
things. I’ll be right back.”

“No problem, miss,” was the
reply.

Dashing up and down the
aisles, I searched for the things I needed for the trip and the
gallery opening. Pantyhose, sugarless mint gum, a diet soda, and a
pack of pretzels would tide me over. I plunked everything down on
the checkout counter, swiped my debit card, and signed on the
dotted line. I took the bag from the clerk and tucked it into my
oversized purse before returning to the gallery. The owner was
still talking to his customer. I could see an employee working with
boxes and brown paper in the back room as I stood off to the side.
He carried out a rather large box for the man who was waiting and
put it down on the counter. He left momentarily and returned with
my three packages. “These are for you, miss. Let me carry them to
your car.”

“Thank you.” I smiled at the
gallery owner and his customer. Only one of them returned my
farewell.

When we got to Uncle Jack’s
car, I popped the trunk and the young man loaded my packages in
beside my suitcases.

“Going on a trip?” he
wondered.

“Auto train,” I
explained.

“My auntie took that last
year. She said it was great. Enjoy,” he told me.

An hour later, I was sitting
in line at the Sanford station, waiting to load Uncle Jack’s 2002
blue Camry on the train. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation and
Mr. Wilfred’s negotiations with the clerk in the ticket office, I
booked a coach seat for the ride to Lorton.