Target (13 page)

“I
've got to go,” Aurelie said. She hadn't wanted to come back to Delia's after work in the first place.

“Go then,” Sarah said. “Run away. That's what you do best. Instead of sticking around and figuring things out, you run.”

“How can you say that to me? If I've done some running away it's been because I didn't have a choice. And you ran with me, Sarah, so let's not go there.”

“I wasn't in New Orleans when you couldn't take the heat. You scuttled back here all on your own.”

“That's not playing fair,” Aurelie said. “I can't believe you'd get so low. I'm not going to repeat my reasons for leaving the practice. My only mistake then was to come home.”

Nick looked at them over his shoulder. They were in the place that had been their favorite retreat since they came to Place Lafource. The conservatory. Palm crowns touched the glass in a two-story-high roof. Orchids bloomed everywhere, even trailed flowers and leaves onto the old green-and-white stone floor tiles.

“Why don't you say what you're thinking?” Aurelie said to Nick. “You've hardly said a word since you got here. Did you get in to have your fingerprints taken today?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “Bickering isn't going to help us. Why don't you two calm down. I'm the one with the decisions to make.”

“I'm sick of this,” Aurelie said. “What's the point of staying here, staring at one another and panicking?”

“Are you panicking?” Nick asked.

“I don't panic,” she told him. “I was talking about you two. Holed up here trying to figure out the impossible. We don't have a choice. Before we get hauled in for obstruction of justice, we have to tell the whole truth about everything. We know Colin has to be behind this.”

“We're trapped.” Sarah reached the end of a walkway between beds and spun back. “Do you realize that? After all we got through together—and before we were together—we're finally stuck. I don't see a way out.”

“Garbage,” Nick said. Like Sarah, he wore shorts, sandals and a polo shirt and looked fresh as long as you didn't see his face too close up. “We never have to stay in a box unless we give up. I don't give up. But you two worry me. We can't afford to have you crack up or it will be all over. I want to find out if we can finger Colin.”

“Yes,” Aurelie said. “Present the cops with as close to a wrapped-up case as we can.”

“If Matt gets wind of what's really going on here—he'll insist on going to the cops in California. He'll have to. Details will get out and any one of us could be Colin's next victim.”

“Darn, don't state the obvious again,” Aurelie said.

“Why is Delia outside with Hoover?” Arms akimbo, Sarah stared out into rapidly fading dark pink light. Since that morning's unpleasant interludes with Matt and Buck, the four of them had gone in different directions, keeping busy, going through the motions of being in control. No matter what Nick said, they were no longer in any driver's seat.

“As long as Delia's out there, she's not in here stirring things up.” Nick sounded nothing like himself. “She's always enjoyed a good purple evening.”

“Hoover's having a good time, too.” Aurelie smiled at her pooch, whose snout never left the ground. She hoped he didn't manage to contract a stomach ulcer with all the crap he ingested.

“I want everyone here in the house tonight,” Nick said. “The alarm system's been thoroughly checked and as long as you all use your heads, you should be okay.”

Aurelie got out of her basket chair and stood parallel with Nick, facing out, but with several feet between them. “You can be an ass,” she said. “Have I told you that lately?”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” Nick said. He glanced sideways at Aurelie. Looking at her brought him hope. As long as she was within reaching distance he felt powerful, and he had purpose. “Are you calling me an ass now?”

She looked back at him. Tired, her once crisp beige suit rumpled, it seemed as if she needed the hug he was all too ready to give her. He wanted her so badly she turned his heart. The stare she gave, that bright and intense blue, looked inscrutable in a pale face. He sensed her considering the next words out of her mouth and tried giving her a grin.

“That's what I'm calling you,” she said, but smiling just a little herself. “You're an ass, Nick Board. We've been here forty-five minutes and accomplished nothing. But you've managed to put Sarah, Delia and me down just the same. You're the only one with decisions to make. If
we
keep our heads the bogeymen will be kept at bay. We women, that is, according to you.”

“I didn't say anything like that.” Women had a way of twisting a man's words. “You're looking for things to get upset about.”

“You did say them,” Sarah said from the far end of the conservatory. “You don't even know you're putting us down.”

“Thank you, Sarah,” Aurelie said with a smug downturn of the mouth.

“Why would someone break in?” Sarah said. “For them to take Nick's letter and whatever was in the package when it was put in the safe means they knew exactly what they wanted. Now they've got it and they don't need to come back.”

“Use your head,” Aurelie said. “They may have what they want, but they could just as well want us all dead. That would make things tidy for them. I wish Delia had read the letter so we'd have some idea what we might be up against.”

Nick grunted assent. “I'm bummed she won't hire a regular security company to patrol the outside. There are too many windows in this place. She admits the doors to that little terrace outside her study were open throughout the afternoon yesterday. Whoever took that stuff didn't even have to break in.”

Aurelie sat on a wicker couch with loose, faded floral cushions and Nick joined her there with his jaw set as if daring her to say she didn't want him near her. She did want him near her, but she didn't trust her own reactions.

“I got the keys to my new apartment this afternoon,” she said. “It's furnished, Sarah, so I may leave my stuff in storage when it finally gets here.”

“This is the place in that strip mall?” Nick asked. “What made you go there when you could have been at Oakdale?”

Near you?
“I don't want to live where I can almost see the place where I work,” she said. The excuse had begun to feel real. “Frances Broussard showed me around. It's nice. Small but cozy. I don't need anything big.”

“It's dark back by those shops,” Sarah said. “Aurelie and I drove in there last night to take a look. I didn't think you'd go ahead with it, Rellie.”

“Because you said it was too dark?” She took a breath. “Sorry. You care about me, thank God, but I make up my own mind. They are going to get spotlights put up. They'll be on motion sensors. Frances said they've been thinking of doing it anyway.”

“You'll stay here for now, though,” Nick said. “With Matt sending a car around regularly and all of you together you'll be safer.”

“Safer from what?” Aurelie said. Her temper rose again.

“Sure I'm scared, but all we've got is speculation. I'll be staying in my apartment tonight. I'm looking forward to it. I was going to ask you to take Hoover to your place, Nick. He gets anxious when there's a lot of running in and out. I'll get him in the morning.”

“I'm not comfortable with you moving into that place,” Nick said.

“Lighten up a bit,” Aurelie said. “We don't even know if we're at risk other than from you getting arrested for interfering with evidence in a murder investigation.”

“Don't,” Sarah said.

“You of all people should be scared, Sarah,” Aurelie said.

“Why? What does that mean?”

She was stupid, Aurelie thought, stupid and out of control. “Nothing.”

“I haven't had a chance to take a good look at what Baily was working on before she went up to the roof,” Nick said. “I need to get that done.”

He was trying to change the subject, Aurelie thought. Sarah stared at her as if she hadn't heard a word Nick had said.

“You did mean something. I, of all people, should be scared. That's what you said.” Sarah approached, a yellow orchid whirling between finger and thumb. “I am scared now, so don't try and put me off again.”

“Aurelie meant she thinks we all need to be cautious until we know this thing's over.”

“No, she didn't.”

Hoover shot into the conservatory, his beard dripping red spots on the tiles.

“Oh, Hoover, what did you do to yourself?” Aurelie dropped to her knees and took her big pet's head in her hands. “You've cut your mouth.”

“He was eating berries,” Delia said. She closed the door behind her with something close to regret in her expression. “There's paper towel in the little painted cupboard.”

Aurelie found the towels, wiped off Hoover's mouth and cleaned up the floor. The dog went immediately to Nick and rested his jaw on the man's knees. Aurelie had noticed her pet showed traitorous tendencies to adore him.

Goose bumps rose on her arms and legs.

Each time he looked at her she had no doubt he was thinking about them making love. She contracted everything in her body that would contract and held herself stiff. Whenever she was alone and let her mind wander, she imagined Nick naked and enjoyed the experience too much.

“We've been talking,” Nick said to Delia. “I called the security people and the alarms checked out fine. With a cop car coming around regularly and all of you staying here together, I think you should all be okay.”

Delia wore a large hat with a floppy brim, and an orange cotton shirt and pants. Her toenails were painted the same shade of orange, and when she flung her gardening gloves aside, her fingernails matched.

“Aurelie's got some idea of moving into a little hole of an apartment over that salon Lynette Cayler and Frances Broussard run. Talk her out of it, will you, Delia? She won't listen to us.”

Aurelie and Sarah squinted at each other and shook their heads, waiting for Delia's reaction.

Nick carried right on. “We should get our stories straight about Baily's briefcase. I would have told Matt about it right out but I don't want him looking any closer at us.”

“At you, you mean,” Aurelie said. “You're the one who took the thing. I still can't imagine why.”

“Because,” Nick said, patiently enough to make her teeth itch, “at that point we thought Baily had killed herself and it looked as if she could have been suffering from a major dose of guilt.”

“But she was already dead,” Sarah said. “It didn't matter anymore.”

“It mattered to me to save her reputation if I could.” He turned his eyes away. “She hadn't been happy and if she was trying to get back by developing a knockoff product at the lab, I wanted to take it out of the picture.”

“Get back at you, you mean,” Aurelie said.

He faced her and she saw she'd hurt him. “I'm not proud of the way things turned out between us. I didn't give her enough of a chance.”

Aurelie reminded herself that one of the nicest things about Nick was his sense of fair play. “I think you did,” she told him. “She needed time to heal. And she would have if someone hadn't taken the chance away from her.”

“Did you decide what you intend to tell the police about that briefcase?” Delia asked. “And about what went missing yesterday?”

“Not exactly,” Sarah said. “I'm not sure we can reach a consensus.”

“We have to.” Delia took off her hat. Her thick hair shone. There was a harsh set to her mouth. “First we deal with our behavior from now on. We don't huddle together here and change the way we live. I won't do that.”

Aurelie barely stopped herself from kissing the woman.

“If there's a way to make sure we look guilty of something, that's it,” Delia said. “I want you to tell the truth about Baily's briefcase, Nick. Your reasons for what you did were honorable. Baily was already dead when you took it, too, so it can't tie you to anything.”

“I'm sure someone could find a way to incriminate me anyway,” Nick said. “Only, I'm not guilty. I'm also not worried about it. Leave it to me.”

After a tap at the door from the house, Sabine came down the steps into the conservatory with her husband behind her. She looked around at the Boards and slapped her hands into the folds of a long green skirt. “Will you look at the four of you? You'd think you was goin' to a funeral, you look so miserable.”

Nick felt like saying they probably would be going to a funeral—Baily's—but didn't.

“We wanted a word with you,” Sabine said, urging Ed forward. He wore one of the khaki jumpsuits he used for work. “Come on now, Ed. You back me up with this.”