Now or Never (6 page)

The best thing was, there was nothing the vicious old bastard could do about it. She had cleared every point, every single detail with legal before she had left. He had threatened to sue, but he would not. How could he, when it was the truth. What happened next was up to the police and to his fiancée, though it looked as though she was sticking by him.

Mal shook her head, bewildered. It just went to show the power of that kind of money. Absolutely all that was in the woman’s head was that she had caught a Mr. Rich, and not that when he got tired of her, she might easily be the next to “fall” down those stairs. Because this old man was not about to part with one cent. He would take it to his grave or else leave it all to build a monument to himself—an arts center, or a museum with his name on it—so that when he was gone, he would still be spoken of every day. He intended to live after death if anybody could.

Mal yawned wearily; even the Concorde could not eliminate time zones and jet lag completely. She wished now she had taken time to see something of London but, except for her own production crew, she didn’t really know anyone there. Of course she’d had plenty of invitations—to dinner, to openings, to charity affairs—the English social season. But that sort of thing was no fun. In fact, it was hard work—just a roomful of strangers who only wanted to be seen with her because she was a celebrity. She would have been the entertainment of the evening. She would have had to smile and be polite, sparkle, and make conversation. She had declined them all.

Only later, after a solitary room-service dinner in her lavish flower-filled hotel suite, had she wondered wistfully if she had done the right thing. After all, there might have been one person out there whose eyes would have connected meaningfully with hers. There might have been one man who recognized
who
she was, not
what
she was. He might have been someone who could make her laugh, someone she could have fun with.

The clouds covered the sun, and she wrapped her soft cream robe more closely around her, tucking her bare feet underneath her on the rose-patterned chintz sofa.

Visitors were always surprised by Mal’s apartment. They expected it to be decorated the way she dressed: cool, simple, and monochromatic. Instead, they got an old-fashioned country house, complete with family pictures and a terrace garden.

Mal’s home was filled with English antiques and comfortable sofas covered in artfully faded floral fabrics. The tables were crammed with silver-framed photographs. There were rare old books on her shelves as well as current biographies and best sellers and crime fiction, and perfectly lit paintings of ancestors and horses and dogs on her pale, expensive silk-covered walls. There were water-colors of villas in Tuscany and soft English landscapes, and
art books piled on the massive oak coffee table in front of the French limestone fireplace. Even on a sultry evening like this, a fire glowed in the grate, its heat combated by air conditioning, simply because she loved the way it looked.

And she liked flowers around her too, great bouquets of garden flowers: spiky blue delphinium and fragrant white stock, snapdragons and huge daisies, and fat, fragrant, tumbling pink roses that were duplicated in a painting by a great seventeenth-century Dutch artist that hung on her wall. But the evocative scent of lilacs was her favorite, and when they were in their short, sweet season, she wanted nothing else.

Few people knew it, but in the privacy of her home, more was better for the publicly cool, spare, and uncluttered Mallory Malone.

Hauling herself from the comfortable depths of the sofa, she walked out onto her terrace. Twin stone fountains splashed musically as she inspected her plants, rooting her manicured fingers in the earth, pulling out an errant clump of chickweed, deadheading the azaleas, picking a tiny branch of rosemary and crushing the leaves for their scent.

She sat on the carved wooden bench overlooking Manhattan’s towers. “If I closed my eyes,” she said aloud, shutting them tightly, holding the rosemary to her nose, “I might be in Provence. I might be listening to cicadas and birdsong and the wind in the olive trees, instead of traffic and the telephone ringing.”

She opened her eyes and looked around uneasily. She wasn’t used to leisure time. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Standing up, she paced the terrace again. She picked off another dead flower head, frowning up at the lowering clouds as the first large drops of rain plopped down. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. Within seconds
it was a downpour. Wrapping her robe around her, she fled back indoors.

The phone was ringing again. She ran to the study to answer it, stopping as the answering machine clicked on. She reminded herself that a break was what she needed. That meant no phone calls.

She hesitated, glancing at the machine. There was no harm in seeing who had called, just to make sure they hadn’t all forgotten her.

She listened to twelve messages and was bored by the time she got to Beth Hardy’s at number thirteen.

“Sorry to interrupt your peace and quiet,” Beth said, “but there’s a touch of urgency to this one. Remember the BU student? The one who was raped and murdered? You asked me to get the research team onto it in case you got interested? Well, a Detective Harry Jordan called from Boston this morning. He wants you on the case. I told him your schedule was fully booked and you were on vacation. He seemed pretty pissed off that you weren’t available, but I thought you would want to know anyway. Meanwhile, I hope you’re having fun, or at least a rest. Oh, by the way, I have his office number, and his home number too. Unlisted. Pretty fancy for a cop, huh? Just thought I’d pass that on to you. Here they are, just in case,” she added again, with a laugh.

Mal sank into the rose-patterned chair in front of the desk. She hadn’t forgotten the young girl who had been so brutally raped and killed.

“Summer Young,” she said out loud. It was such a magical name, she knew the parents must have loved their daughter very much. She pulled her bare feet up onto the chair and clasped her arms around her knees, staring into space, thinking. Then she picked up the phone and called Detective Jordan.

His office number rang ten times before his machine answered.

“No wonder you need help, detective,” she said irately into the phone. “I almost didn’t wait to leave a message, the darn machine took so long. Do me a favor and try for only three rings in future. It saves my time and my temper. You know where to reach me. Oh, by the way, it’s Mallory Malone.”

Irritated by him already, she slammed down the receiver and stalked into the kitchen. She filled the kettle, drumming her fingers impatiently on the polished limestone countertop while she waited for it to boil. She put a Wild Berry Zinger teabag into a pink-flowered mug and poured the boiling water over it, stirring until it was brewed red enough. Then she grabbed a slab of no-fat lemon pound cake and marched back into the sitting room.

She ate the cake in two minutes flat.
“You
made me do that, Detective Harry Jordan,” she said out loud, guiltily assessing the calories. And then she laughed. “Darn it, what I really need is a good dinner. I can’t even remember the last time I ate when it wasn’t on the run. Or else on my own. And what fun is that?”

Bored, she picked up the phone from the coffee table and dialed Jordan’s home number.

Harry was just walking in the door. He was wearing gray shorts, a sweat-wet gray T-shirt, and scuffed sneakers, and he was wheeling a twelve-speed Nishiki mountain bike and carrying a helmet. Squeeze got to the phone before he did, but the snooze-button trick was the extent of his technical abilities. He just barked joyfully at it.

“Out of the way, dog. This is man stuff.” Harry hurled himself into the chair and grabbed the receiver.

“Yeah, Jordan here,” he said, still panting.

“And Mallory Malone here, Detective Jordan.”

“Mallory Malone?” He was astonished. She was the last person he expected to hear from.

“I hope the panting doesn’t mean I’ve caught you doing something you shouldn’t,” she added spikily.

Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Ms. Malone, I hope you will never catch me doing something I shouldn’t. But then again, we may have different views on what I should and should not do.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” Her voice was crisp, even tart.

He grinned, enjoying her. “Thanks for calling me back. Just out of interest, how did you get my home number?”

“Never underestimate the power of a good research team.”

“In other words, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

“Possibly. Meanwhile, why don’t you tell me about your problem?”

“More specifically, three problems, Ms. Malone. Three murders, all young college women in New England. The pattern is the same. They were abducted in a parking lot or quiet street at night and driven to a lonely place. Their hair was cut off. They were raped, then their wrists were slit, neatly and cleanly, as though with a surgical knife. They were left to die in pools of their own blood. The first in a derelict country farmhouse; the second, at a deserted boathouse on the river; and this last one on a remote beach. In the first two cases the women had been reported missing but their bodies were found only by chance several weeks later.

“The latest victim, Summer Young, had been studying late at the college library. She walked to the parking lot to pick up her car. She was abducted and driven to a lonely beach. But the beach wasn’t as lonely as the murderer expected.

“The attacker took off, but a pair of fishermen caught a brief glimpse of his face in the beam of their flashlight. From their quick impression of him, we managed to put together a photo-fit.”

She said, surprised, “You have a picture of him?”

“That’s right, ma’am.”

“It’s Ms. Malone,” she retorted, and he could hear the irritation in her voice. “I hate that word
ma’am,”
she added. “It makes me feel about a hundred years old.”

He said teasingly, “No one would ever believe you were a day over thirty-five, Ms. Malone.”

“Thanks a lot, detective.” Her voice was edged with ice. “I assume your own looks are standing up to the pressure of time and the pull of gravity. Meanwhile, let’s get back to Summer Young. I’ve been in London for the past week. I didn’t realize you had a photo-fit. I want to see it and talk more about the case. I’ll need to know all the facts you have. No holding back.”

“Then you’re interested in helping us?” Harry wasn’t joking around anymore.

“I’m interested in helping innocent victims and preventing more killings, detective. Not in helping the police do their job.”

Harry took that on the chin. “Yes, ma’am.
Ms. Malone
. Since our objectives are the same, I’m sure we can work together. Amicably.”

“Are you free tomorrow evening?”

“I can be. Just tell me the time and the place, and I’ll be there.”

“I’ll come to Boston,” she said, surprising him.

“There’s no need for that. I’ll come to you.”

He might not have spoken for all the interest she displayed. “I’ll take the seven o’clock shuttle from La Guardia. Is there a restaurant where we could meet?”

“Sure. Around the corner from the precinct house. Ruby’s, on Miller.”

“I’ll be there at eight thirty, detective.”

“I’ll look forward to meeting you, Ms. Malone.”

The phone clicked and the line went dead. “Like hell I
will,” Harry muttered, running his hands through his thick dark hair.

Squeeze cocked his head to one side, tongue lolling, eyes alert. “They were right, Squeeze.” He ruffled his silver fur affectionately. “Ms. Malone
ma’am
is a toughie.”

R
AIN BOUNCED
from the slick sidewalk as Harry hurried around the corner to Ruby’s. It plastered his dark hair against his skull, dripping inside the collar of his old black leather bomber jacket.

The dog trotted at his heels, shooting wary glances at the flashing sky, skittering nervously at the quick rumble of thunder. Harry hoped Mallory Malone would make it through the thunderstorms that had plagued the area all day, but he wouldn’t blame her if she canceled. It was a bitch of a night.

The bell on Ruby’s glass-paneled door jangled as he pushed inside. The small café was jammed, every booth and Formica-topped table taken. There were a couple of cops and some regular locals he recognized, plus a few strays. The plate-glass windows above the red-checkered curtains were steamed, shutting out the miserable night; and the smell of hot coffee and fried food and chicken gravy hovered permanently over the room, like smog over L.A. A couple of matronly waitresses in red and white aprons and wilting caps maneuvered laden trays skillfully between the scarred red vinyl banquettes, and blue cigarette smoke wreathed to the nicotine-yellow ceiling.

Squeeze shook himself, scattering a waterfall of raindrops over Harry’s fraying Levi’s, then sat on his haunches, sniffing the air eagerly.

Grabbing a paper napkin, Harry mopped the water
from his face and the inside of his collar, then tried to catch the waitress’s eye.

“Hey, Doris,” he called as she hurried back behind the counter. “How long for a booth?”

She shrugged. “Ten, fifteen maybe.”

He grabbed her arm. “I need a guarantee on that, sweetheart.” He smiled at her. She was plump and fiftyish and harassed, and he had known her since she was plump and forty and had time to flirt. Time had taken its toll, but they were still good friends.

“You bringing a hot date to Ruby’s tonight, cheapskate?” she asked, raising a painted eyebrow.

“It’s business, Doris. Just business. But it’s a woman and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

She grinned. “I always did like a guy with manners. I’ll make sure you have the booth in the far corner, even if I have to kick those guys outta there.” She sniffed, glancing at the wet dog. “Smells like a farmyard in here,” she added as she walked away.

She returned a couple of minutes later carrying a dish of meat. Squeeze did an eager little dance on his hind legs.

“Every dog deserves steak once in a while,” she said, setting the dish down in the corner. “Even a smelly hound like you.”