Set Up (31 page)

Amanda asked, “You didn't think it was wrong?”

“Wrong? When Callaway's so rich? Sonny says he spends more money on his wine every year than what his diamonds were worth.”

“I believe the operative word is
said
, not says,” Callaway said. “And that comment about my wines isn't true.”

Tears welled, trickled down Noelle's cheeks. “I keep forgetting. Sonny's dead. What am I going to do? I’m sorry, Manda. I thought it was all right, I really did,” she wailed.

Callaway didn’t soften. “Do you know who killed him?”

Noelle, weeping, shook her head.

Callaway chewed at his lip.

Amanda almost reached out to stop him.

He quit of his own accord. “Sonny took more than my studs, Noelle. Do you know what he did with the other things?”

Snuffling, Noelle clung to her cushion. “What other things?”

“Think, Noelle,” Amanda broke in. “This is important. Did Sonny say anything to you about taking something else with the diamonds?”

“Like what?”

Callaway leaned over so that his face, ugly and threatening, was bare inches from Noelle's.

Amanda had been terrified when he’d stuck his face up to hers that same way.

“If you’re lying,” he told Noelle in an icy, contained voice, “I'll see you spend the rest of your life rotting in prison. Down here. And a Mexican prison isn’t nearly as sanitary as our own vermin-infested penitentiaries.”

Noelle squeaked, tried to pull away.

He grabbed her chin, snapping her teeth together in the process of bringing her face back in line with his. “I'm efficient, Noelle. I know the right people to see you get put quietly away.”

Amanda couldn’t stand to see her sister bullied. “Callaway, please. She doesn’t understand what she’s done. She’ll tell the truth, won’t you, Noelle?”

Noelle nodded wordlessly.

Cal chewed his lip but leaned back. “Now,” he said, pleasant as before, “back to the studs. They went to Miles de Graffen, is that right?”

“Maybe,” Noelle stammered. “I don't know, but Sonny talked to Miles a lot. Does he collect old jewelry?”

“Yes,” Cal said. “So they talked about the diamonds?”

“I guess so,” Noelle mumbled. “I didn’t pay that much attention. I just know there was a lot of money involved from some collector.”

“It wouldn’t have meant anything to her if she heard them bargaining, Callaway,” Amanda said. “I told you, she doesn’t always take in things.”

Callaway was patient. “All right, let’s try another tack. What happened to the other things Sonny took?”

“What other things?” Noelle threw a wild-eyed look toward Amanda. “What else would he take?”

Callaway stood, hands turning into fists.

“Noelle.” Amanda didn't think he'd hit Noelle, but she wasn't going to wait and see. “For heavens' sake. Was there a book?”

“A book?” Noelle looked relieved. “Oh, yeah, there was something about a book. I didn’t pay much attention, though. All I had to do was beg you to get my ring back.” She burst into fresh tears.

Callaway's fists uncurled.

“Is that all you remember, darling?” Amanda asked quickly, before Callaway could start in again. “Did he say anything else about the book? Anything at all.”

Noelle’s forehead creased, she thought so hard. “Just that he found some kind of old book. He thought he could get some money for it maybe. I can’t remember exactly what he said.” She paused, her face brightening. “But that's why he stayed on after the wedding. He was supposed to leave right afterward, but he couldn't talk to anybody about it until Sunday and then he had to wait for them to get their money together.”

Callaway nodded and sat back down. His voice was quiet as if calming a child. “Very good, Noelle.” He gave her time to settle down. “Who did Sonny talk to about the book?”

Noelle began to twist the cushion again. “I don't know.” She looked back and forth from Amanda to Callaway like an anxious rabbit. “Do you think whoever it was killed him?”

“Maybe.” Callaway left the subject.

Amanda eyed him.
Doesn’t he want to know who it was?

But he was going on, “You've done very well, Noelle. I'm pleased with how you're cooperating. Where’s the book now?”

Amanda held her breath.

“I dunno, I never even saw it. Honest.”

“Noelle, this is very important,” Amanda put in.

“But I don't know.” Noelle's red rimmed eyes shifted to her sister. “I guess it's somewhere in Sonny’s things.”

They went to Noelle's hotel where Cal ransacked her room from top to bottom.

He didn't find the journal.

Chapter Nineteen

Cal questioned Noelle until she was faint from exhaustion and he was ready to drop. Desperate to find his mother's journal, he used threats and persuasion but nothing worked.

Amanda finally beseeched him, “Can’t you see she doesn’t know any more?”

He could. And he could see Amanda was drooping as much as her sister. He stubbed his final cigarette into an overflowing ash tray and walked over to the window.

Afternoon had changed into evening. Looking out at the lights lining the path to the sea, he could ignore Amanda’s glazed eyes. Her head must be hurting as bad as it had in Las Vegas.

Too bad. She’d have to get over her headache as best she could. The day had been exhausting for all of them. For him, it had been educational as well. He'd learned how gullible he was, despite years of bitter experience. He’d also learned redheads held no monopoly on deceit.

“I'm tired,” Noelle whined. “My feet hurt from all that walking and I haven't had a thing to eat since this morning.”

He turned toward her.

Noelle shrank.

Amanda intervened. “Will you eat with us?”

“I prefer my own company. If you want to run away, feel free. If you want air fare home, the airport bus leaves at nine tomorrow morning. Be there.”

“Callaway.” Amanda started toward him.

He turned on his heel, his glance stopping her in mid-step.

He wanted never to see her again, never think of her again. He should have left her alone from the beginning.

* * * *

Amanda rued taking Callaway to bed before she met Noelle. If she'd waited, he wouldn't be so disillusioned. But she hadn't thought of anything except her own desires. Every other consideration had fled.

She ordered from room service for her and Noelle. The grilled salmon looked appetizing, but Noelle sniffled throughout the meal and barely ate a bite. “I’m sorry, Manda,” she kept saying. “It sounded like a good idea.”

Amanda picked at her fish, too. She couldn’t soothe Noelle but she couldn't fuss, either.

After they ate, she told Noelle she was going to bed.

“Can I take a sleeping pill?” Noelle asked anxiously. “I’ve had to take them so I don’t toss and turn all night, but if you think I shouldn’t, I won’t.”

Whenever Noelle made a bad decision, she hesitated to make others that might be wrong, too. Her confidence had to be restored.

Not that Amanda cared. But Noelle was her sister and old habits die hard.

“Go ahead. A sleeping pill’s a good idea.”

When Noelle went to bed, Amanda went looking for Callaway. She needed to talk to him.

He wasn't in the common area. After hesitating, she knocked on his bedroom door but got no response. An ear against the panel heard no sounds so she pushed on the door.

It was unlocked, but he wasn’t there.

Thinking, she stood looking at the neat bed and used towel tossed on the floor. She had to convince him she didn't make love to him because of Noelle.

Okay, I know what I can do.

Wheeling, she went to her bathroom, showered, and donned the pajamas bought in Las Vegas. Of fine but unadorned cotton, they were plain classics.

Turning in front of the mirror, she checked several angles before shaking her head. “Nope. These won't do the job.”

In the bedroom, Noelle's steady breathing confirmed the effect of the sedative. Good. This was no time for Noelle to interfere.

Re-dressing, Amanda went downstairs to the sundries shop. As she passed through the lobby and hallways, she looked for Callaway but didn’t see him.

Probably at a bar, drinking away his cares. Stupid man.

Maybe he wouldn't be picking up any slutty women.

Back upstairs, she pulled out her travel case and took out the slip she’d worn under her dress the previous night.

Silk and made in the French style, it laced up under her breasts to push them up and show them off.

Rummaging in her purse, she brought out the perfume used in Houston, a light expensive scent bought from a perfumery near Lenox Square and hoarded for special occasions. She lavished the citrus fragrance behind her ears and knees, on her neck and the insides of her wrists, elbows, and thighs.

Individual ringlets were coaxed out of a topknot to fall in soft clusters round her face. After foundation and blush, she used a liberal hand to apply newly purchased eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara. A startling magenta shaded her lips. Hanging prism earrings, also chosen downstairs, caught the light and broke it into rainbows.

She turned back and forth in front of her reflection.

There. Provocative, cheap, and available. Everything that turned Callaway McIntyre on except red hair.

This was as good as she could manage on such short notice and without the proper equipment. Maybe it would be enough.

* * * *

There wasn't enough beer to make him stop thinking of her.

“Jésus.” Cal tapped his empty glass. “
Un otra cerveza, por favor
.”

In the dim main floor bar, he lingered on a stool, chain-smoking while the doleful bartender grumbled between customers.

Jésus, according to Jésus himself, supported a wife and thirteen of his nine children and ten grandchildren. One son was in prison. Jésus suspected two of his grandsons were headed there. Three of his girls had married and gone up north across the border, but they were ungrateful females, seldom sending home as much money as dutiful daughters should.

Cal nodded or shook his head. Jésus had obviously never heard that bartenders were supposed to listen and commiserate.

Why did people always have to talk to him? He hid his disinterest in Jésus’s burgeoning monologue by a polite
“Lastima”
put in now and again as his mind mulled his own problems.

Noelle’s scanty information might have confirmed that Miles de Graffen had bought his diamonds from Sonny, but if he believed her, the whereabouts of his mother's journal remained a mystery.

Could Miles have killed Sonny and taken the book?

Cal didn't think Miles was a killer. Miles was avaricious about his jewels, but he wasn’t a murderer.

What if he was threatened with exposure?

No, Miles couldn’t kill anyone.

But if not Miles, who? If something didn't turn up soon to lead to the journal, Cal would have to go the authorities, and that would make Claire and Tip prime murder suspects.

And involve Amanda.

Overshadowing all his worries was Amanda.

Not that Cal would have admitted to Jésus or anybody else what a fool he'd been over another frigging woman. Why couldn't he learn? He downed his beer and lit another cigarette as Jésus droned on. One more beer, he decided, signaling Jésus. One more to delay going up.

He’d stay away from the suite until they were asleep, the two she-devils who'd brought him to this sorry pass. He could imagine them huddled in the bed together. Maybe one of them was a restless sleeper who would kick the other.

It wouldn't be Amanda.

She slept the way she walked, softly, gently, moving so lightly he'd never have felt her get up this morning if he hadn't already been half-awake, trying to make some sense out of what had happened between them the night before.

They'd been so perfect together. He'd begun to believe he could change, turn his life around.

Fool
. He swore under his breath.

Jésus set a foaming glass before him. “Your beer, Señor Cal.”

Cal looked at it, puffed on his cigarette, looked at his watch, listened to Jésus, looked at the clock, and waited for the moment when he could down the beer and go up to bed and crash.

When the time finally came, the alcohol had numbed him and he was glad. He wanted to be numb. He didn't want to feel anything ever again. Though this misery was no more than he deserved. He’d yielded to his old instincts and failed Claire.

So what else was new?

The elevator ascent was interminable. The hallway leading to the suite was deserted, and once inside he crossed the living area quietly so as not to wake the two women. No sound of television or any other noise filtered through their closed doors.