Текст книги "Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Stagg tried to settle Diana down in front of the TV in the cinema-large entertainment center. A Discovery Channel show on hunting was playing; a deer fled through the woods with baying hounds in pursuit. But she wouldn’t stop chattering about Brad’s miraculous return to life.

Stagg tried to watch the show. But her comments grew more and more irritating. “Brad was the loveliest man” and “you have no money, really.”

“I make plenty of money.”

“How? All you ever did was puppy-dog behind Brad.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Oh, I know. You are taking bribes. From that gangster who moved to Haddonfield. That’s why the mean man in the bow tie wants to put you in prison.”

Slumping even deeper into the huge, overstuffed chair, Stagg said, “Diana, maybe you should go to bed. Have you taken your meds?”

This behavior was new. She’d been mostly lethargic in recent months. The doctor said to be careful if she became delusional. The risk of suicide was small, but couldn’t be shrugged off. Stagg kept the kitchen knives locked up. Ditto the German Luger, which Brad’s father had brought back from World War II.

“Since Brad is back, we should get our marriage annulled. I can’t be married to you. You aren’t Brad. I only married you because I needed someone to take care of me. But you are nothing.”

“How thoughtful of you to say. I’m going outside.”

“Brad will take care of me again.”

Stagg fetched a large sweater and poured himself a modest measure of Chivas. It was a bit chilly on the patio, but better than listening to her insanity.

He sloshed scotch around in his tumbler, standing next to the empty pool with its dead-leaf-coated bottom. The plastic rope with the floats, which divided the deep end from the shallow, lay coiled on the greening lawn like a dead snake.

Stagg’s memory fell back to high school days. Brad always had a pool party here for the football team. Stagg, as team manager, was also invited. Senior year, to everyone’s delight, Brad and Denny swung little Stagg by his ankles and wrists, and tossed him into the pool. Stagg couldn’t swim. That was even funnier.

The night after that party, Stagg stayed hidden among the trees and spied on Brad and Diana, the virgin queen of Haddonfield High. It was the apex of his life up to then, seeing Brad deflower lovely, naked Diana, poolside.

Another big, world-beating memory: how, tending to the stunned Diana in the wake of Brad’s death, he brought her groceries in on a night as starkly moonlit as this one. How Diana rose from the swimming pool, water glistening on her bare skin, her forty-year-old body as taut as a teenager’s.

How under that hunters’ moon, she had smiled at him. Diana, naked for him. That night was the true apex.

Diana’s shrill cry broke the reverie. She stood in the French doors to the study. “You have a phone call.”

Stagg trundled inside. The landline phone display read Joe Dogan. Wonderful. That dirtbag must have kept the unlisted number from a year ago. “What do you want?”

Diana was climbing the stairs. “I’m tired. Wake me up when Brad comes.”

Dogan had ingested his usual royal portion of spirits. “You gotta help me out.”

Had Dogan heard that he was on Mister Man’s priority boarding list for evacuation from the planet? “I’m getting sick of this, you idiot.”

“You think you’re smarter than everyone,” Dogan slurred. “Well, I’m not the idiot. You’re the idiot.”

“Brilliant comeback,” Stagg said. “Repartee worthy of Dorothy Parker.”

“Never met the bitch,” Dogan said. “We got a problem,”

“We do, huh? Let me guess. You got another drunk-driving arrest on that stupid motorcycle, and I have to fix things with the cops. No, your supervisor on the county road crew called, and you told him you’d kill his children if he didn’t back off. No, you were drunk and groping women at T.G.I. Friday’s happy hour, and one called the cops. I’ve bailed you out so many times for so much asinine behavior that I’m losing track.”

With a moan, Dogan said, “Have you seen him?”

“Who?”

“Brad Acton came to me in a bar in H Town this afternoon. He said he wanted to see us. Both. Tonight.”

Stagg sighed. “My wife had the same hallucination. Her, high on meds. You, high on booze. Astute observers, the two of you.”

“He was real, man. I mean, not like a ghost. I couldn’t, like, see through him.”

“I can see through you. You are a serious alcoholic. Go get dried out.”

“He knew how much you paid me to do him. Plus, the no-show job on the county roads. How could he know that?”

“Because it is in your drink-addled head. Today is the anniversary. It brings back the trauma, makes you imagine things. You don’t have to be Freud to understand that.”

“He knew you are gonna get a barbed-wire enema from the feds. Mister Man pays you off, Stagg. Everybody knows it.”

“You know nothing,” Stagg snarled. “Brad was ten times as dirty as me. He came from family money, but wanted more. He introduced me to Mister Man. Then when Javers came sniffing around, Brad wanted me to be the fall guy. He wanted me to take Mister Man down, too.”

“I remember every minute from a year ago.”

“Meantime, King Brad stays simon-pure. Well, ha-ha, Brad. For the first time in your pampered life, you lost.”

Dogan didn’t seem to be listening anymore. “I tell you, he seemed like flesh and blood. Like you and me. I bet I could put another bullet in him, and that’d be that.”

“Check yourself into rehab, you cretin.”

“I don’t want to face him alone tonight, man.”

Stagg slammed the phone down.

A wind came up and blew about the budding branches of the ghostly trees. Winter and summer warred in the sudden draft off the river, and Dogan shivered. What was he doing sitting here like a frozen pond toad?

Dogan got on his bike and blasted away from the riverfront park. In a jiffy, his Harley’s loud engine was invading the smooth, quiet roads of Haddonfield, Brad Acton’s hometown. In Haddonfield, trees flower first, and their perfume seeped down from the elegant mosaic of branches that covered the old lanes.

The Harley brayed down King’s Highway, the town’s main street, where subtly lit colonial storefronts displayed chic clothing and leather goods. Tomorrow, the slender, blond women of the marvelous men of Haddonfield would float past those storefronts, browsing, blasé.

A year had gone by and beer had fuzzed his thinking, hence Dogan took a while to find Brad Acton’s house. He clattered through the lovely streets until he saw the right landmarks. Left at the three-century-old church, right at the giant white-board mansion, left onto Cypress Avenue.

Front yard carriage lamps shed soft glows on the brick and flagstone walkways flowing from the smooth road to the fine wood doors that guarded the aristocratic stone houses. Through the latticed windows of those handsome homes came the lamplight of the Haddonfield elite, who ran the world.

Acton’s house, though, lay in darkness. Girded by vigilant firs, watched over by towering oaks, it seemed almost uninhabited. Then Dogan saw the two cars parked to the side: Stagg’s Volvo and Diana Acton’s Jaguar. He killed the bike’s motor and dismounted.

It had been a year ago, around midnight. About now, his watch said.

He couldn’t stand there forever, hypnotized by the house, the night, the clock. Dogan walked cautiously up the sloping, well-barbered lawn, bathed in intense moonglow. The wind, a devilish mix of warm and cold, made small gasps among the trees’ flowers.

A shadow shimmered among the tree trunks. Dogan gave a start and yelped. He yanked his .45 out of his coat pocket, tearing more fabric. “Killed you once, I’ll kill you twice, bastard,” he said through bared teeth.

His gun moved in small semicircles, pointed at where the movement had been, as he marched up the lawn. With his attention fixed on the trees, he missed seeing the ankle-high miniwall bisecting the lawn in front of him. Dogan went down hard, swearing.

Hell, last year, making this same approach, he’d tripped on the miniwall. He had been drunker then, but this couldn’t be a coincidence.

The wind came again, colder now, and enveloped him with a harsh sense of dread. Was he reliving the same night from a year ago?

The castlelike front door loomed in front of him. Dogan punched the doorbell button, and heard sweet chimes inside. As he had a year ago.

He hit the button again. As he had a year ago.

Somehow, he smelled burnt gunpowder. As he had a year ago.

Stagg had clumped wearily up the stairs, left his clothes on the floor of his dressing room and climbed into his pajamas. He heaved into the broad bed, where Diana lay, asleep. Good. No more nonsense from her. He had barely slipped into sleep’s welcome oblivion when the doorbell chimes rang. Repeatedly.

Diana was screaming. “Don’t go down there, Brad. Don’t go.”

He was fully awake. “I’m Robert, dammit.”

Finally, Dogan heard footsteps beyond the door. A muffled voice asked him who he was and what he wanted. Just like a year ago.

He replied the same. “It’s me. Joe Dogan. Robert’s guy. It’s about Mister Man.”

An inside light went on. The bolt slid open. The door swung inward. A man was in the threshold.

Brad Acton stood there, in his nice suit, with his nice hair, smiling. No one could smile like Brad.

Dogan raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The first shot splattered that handsome head. He pumped bullet after bullet into the body, as it lay on the Persian rug.

He stumbled down the lawn. He needed a drink. Was he out of beer?

A Mercedes slid to the curb, beside the parked Harley. A large black man, in a white suit and fedora, climbed out. He glanced at the motorcycle, then spotted Joe Dogan weaving toward him. Joe carried a gun. In the moonlight, Mister Man could see the slide was back and the weapon was empty.

“I’m on my way home and I see that this human garbage has blown into Haddonfield. They don’t allow your punk-ass kind here.”

“I killed Brad again,” Dogan said.

“Do tell. A lotta killing going around.”

Mister Man pulled his Glock out of its shoulder holster and blew a large hole in worthless Joe Dogan’s chest. The fool fell backward onto Brad Acton’s fine lawn and began to bleed on it.

Mister Man turned to his car, then stopped when he glimpsed the silhouette of a man up in the Acton house. A tall man standing in an upstairs window, taking in all that had happened on the moon-bright lawn. A witness.

Was it Stagg? Mister Man had better find out the state of play, before the neighbors called the cops. Of course, the lots here were far apart and the refined folk nearby may not have heard the gunfire. Or if they did hear, they wouldn’t know what it was. This was Haddonfield, not H Town. He had a little time, he figured.

Mister Man loped up the lawn, Glock at the ready. The tall fellow in the window waved. He was blond, well-dressed and familiar. Then he stepped out of sight.

The front door gaped open. Mister Man stepped gingerly inside.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

A pajama-clad Robert Stagg lay on the fine carpet, in a lake of blood. His bald head was a mass of goo. Bullet holes riddled his globular body. He was as dead as Camden’s hopes.

“You can’t come in here. This is Brad Acton’s house.”

A woman’s voice. Mister Man looked up.

Diana Acton, lovely in a diaphanous nightgown, stood in the hall. She held a Luger in a two-handed grip. It was pointed at Mister Man.

He held out a conciliatory hand and advanced toward her, speaking low. “Let’s be cool. I was in business with your husband. Both of them.”

Diana opened fire. Mister Man keeled over and landed on Stagg’s body. The gangster twitched a few times. The blood stained his white suit. Whether it was Stagg’s blood or Mister Man’s own blood was hard to tell. She dropped the gun.

Robert Stagg, Joe Dogan and Mister Man were all dead. Diana was pleased. Brad always kept a promise.

Diana turned. She had heard a voice say her name. “I’m coming, Brad, darling,” she called with a radiant smile. “I’m coming to bed.”

She ran up the stairs.

LISA JACKSON

Lisa Jackson is known for her legion of fans and for her fascination with the motives of her characters. Her stories explore the puzzle of complex relationships and the clues that can only be found in the rich personal histories of her protagonists. In a way that makes her novels as moving as they are thrilling, she confronts the fear faced by her victims and doesn’t shy away from the harsh truth that terror and madness touch far too many lives in the real world.

Nowhere is that skill more evident than in “Vintage Death.” Here we have a story that is classic Lisa Jackson—a perfect blend of romantic suspense and danger that creates empathy and suspicion for the characters in equal parts. She shows us the complexity of family relationships and how important—and dangerous—families can be.

VINTAGE DEATH

“Don’t go.”

The words rang through the vestibule, an anxious plea, but then that was my mother, always the worrier, forever on the verge of a breakdown. That her voice trembled was no big deal. The original drama queen, that was Mom.

“I have to go, okay?” I yelled my response through the closed bathroom door in the upper hallway. I wasn’t going to put up with her overhyped paranoia. Not that she didn’t have a reason to be frightened, terrified even, but, hey, someone had to get the job done and that someone had to be me. No one else was volunteering.

“You should call the police. There was that nice detective…what was his name? Kent something? I can’t remember.”

Noah Kent, I thought, Noah way. Noah police. Not this time. “Forget it, Mom.”

“He’s still on the force.”

Of course he was. Noah Kent was a lifer—married to his job. Even after the accident that nearly cost him his badge. Just ask his ex-wife.

“Then call Lucas. You’ve got to still have his number?”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Lucas Parker.

Ace detective.

Handsome as sin.

And a major prick.

Of course I still had his number.

Oh, yeah, that’s what I’d do. Give Parker a call. “I’ll handle this on my own.” I wasn’t about to be budged. I put on my bra, which, gently padded, added two cup sizes to my breasts, giving my slim frame a little bit of a curve…like hers.

Then I slipped on a sleek black dress, one with a nipped-in waist and wide neck. A little on the sexy side for my taste, but tonight it would do nicely, I thought, critically eyeing my reflection in the vanity mirror. And besides, the invitation had indicated everyone was to wear black. Just as there were those “all white” parties, Silvio D’Amato had gone with a black theme. All the better.

After pulling my hair away from my face and securing it, I donned a dark auburn wig, which curled softly under my chin and brushed my shoulders. Spidery eyelashes much longer than my own highlighted my eyes, which were now a deep shade of brown, compliments of tinted contact lenses. A little padding tucked into in my cheeks helped with the transformation. My teeth were a little off—nothing I could do about that but keep my mouth closed. I added a tiny spot of color under my cheekbones and blended it with my foundation, making my complexion appear seamless. Carefully, I brushed on a touch of smoky eye shadow.

The effect was amazing.

I was barely recognizable.

No one at the party would suspect my true identity. Which was perfect.

I stepped out of the bathroom, made my way down the hall in three-inch heels, then discarded them for a pair with a shorter heels that didn’t pinch my feet so much. Besides, they were easier to walk in. Considering the fact that I’d be holding a glass of champagne while mingling with the other guests on uneven flagstones, the second pair just made more sense.

Especially if I needed to run.

And, of course, I snagged a pair of leather gloves that I tucked into my purse.

Once in the hallway again, I paused for a second at the open door to Ian’s room. A cold sense of déjà vu settled over me like a shroud. Everything was as it had been. A set of Transformers action figures displayed upon a bookcase with a few Legos, picture books, his twin bed, perfectly made, the dinosaur motif evident in the curtains of the wide window…Oh, God, the window…

My throat tightened as I stared at it, the innocent-looking panes overlooking the garden and farther away, over the tops of other houses on the hill, the bay with its blue waters turning dusky as night approached.

I closed my eyes.

Leaned against the doorjamb.

Thought of him. Ian…only five…poor, poor baby.

“Are you all right?” Mother’s voice floated up the staircase from the floor below. I had to pull myself together. No matter how much pain blackened my soul, tonight, I had to act as if I were carefree, as if I truly was the woman I was pretending to be.

I took a deep breath before clearing the thickness from my throat. “I’m fine, Mom,” I lied, sounding cheery. “Be down in a second.”

Now, just do this!

At the top of the second-floor landing, I stared down the curved steps and faced Dear Old Mom who, on her scooter, gasped as she saw me. “Oh…my…God…I…I can’t believe it.”

I forced myself down the long flight. “Think I’ll be able to pull this off?” I asked, making my voice breathy and low and twirling at the top of the landing.

“I…I…”

“You’re in shock.” That was encouraging. Very encouraging. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” I hurried down the stairs where my mother sat dumbstruck in the marble foyer, soft light from the chandelier bathing her in its kind illumination. At “somewhere north of seventy” she still looked great, her hair a shimmering platinum shade, only a few slight wrinkles visible, her petite body, if not as svelte as it once had been, damned close.

If it hadn’t been for the scooter, she would seem a decade younger than her age.

“You can’t do this,” she said desperately, gnawing at her lower lip. “You won’t get away with it.”

“Just watch me.”

“Seriously.”

“Look, Mom, no one will recognize me. And she’ll be there.”

“That’s why you can’t go.” Mom was in a near panic. Good Lord, the woman was high-strung.

“Don’t worry. If anything goes wrong, I’ll call and you can dial 911 to your heart’s content.”

“No reason to be snide,” she sniffed.

“Then let it go.” In the front hall closet I found a long black coat and a scarf, both of which I donned as Mom fiddled with the cross dangling from a chain around her neck. No doubt she was whispering a dozen Hail Marys to save my wretched, vindictive soul.

Little did she know that my own heart was beating as wildly as a timpani being pounded by a frantic heavy metal drummer. My hands were clammy and adrenaline spurted crazily through my veins.

“Just…be careful.”

“I will,” I promised. I reached for the doorknob but stopped and faced my poor mother once more. “You know I have to do this. She killed Ian.”

“You can’t be certain.”

“I know she did it. I was there! I found him! In the garden—” I pointed frantically to the side of the house, the area I’d loved as a child with its dark foliage, creeping vines and gravel paths leading to secret, private hiding places where squirrels nested and owls roosted. I hated that place now. I fought the urge to break down completely. “I saw her in the window. Looking down. But she tried to blame me,” I said. “And you.”

Mom nodded slightly, unable to meet my eyes as the ancient grandfather clock near the door ticked off the remaining seconds of our lives.

“He was just a child,” I reminded her gently. “Your only grandson.”

Mom’s eyes closed. She swallowed back tears and rubbed the gold cross for all it was worth. “This isn’t the way. It’s not right.” Her lower lip quivered.

“An eye for an eye, Mom. It’s in the Bible.”

“Wait…” She was confused. “‘An eye for an eye’? But I thought you were just going to talk to her….”

Damn. “Just an expression.” Anger burned through my blood again, the same quiet rage that overtook me every time I thought of my baby’s senseless death. My outrage and pain hadn’t always been silent. I’d wailed and screamed, shouted oaths and sworn vengeance. When I’d found my son’s body, broken from a horrible push through his bedroom window, I’d come apart at the seams, had been forced into seclusion, drugged and analyzed and then, of course, accused of being out of my mind. I’d actually had to suffer accusations that I had shoved my son through the window to his death on the garden path below.

It made me sick to think about it. Even now I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat and shuddered at the image scored in my memory. Ian’s tiny broken body lying upon the cold stones of the manor.

Black rage poured through my soul.

“I think…I think you—We should let it go,” Mom said, blinking to stave off tears. “It’s been five years.”

“And she got away with murder. Your grandson’s murder.”

“Oh, please, don’t do this.”

“Too late, Mom. I just want to talk to her. Let her know that I’m on to her. Give her a good jolt.”

“Why would she confide in you?”

“Because they always do. Murderers want to crow. To brag about their accomplishments, or…if it truly was an accident, I’ll see her guilt, her remorse. She won’t be able to hide her emotions.”

“You think.” Clearly Mom was skeptical. From the hallway near the den came Mom’s little dog, Peppy, a brown-and-white terrier-Chihuahua mix, toenails clicking on the polished marble. The beast gave me its usual response—a nasty little snarl. “Peppy, stop that!”

The dog jumped into Mom’s lap and continued to growl as it regarded me with dark, suspicious eyes.

Time to leave.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon!” I brushed a kiss over her brow, leaving a lipstick mark and rubbing it out before Peppy had the chance to lunge. Then I dashed out the door, my heels clicking on the brick walkway that curved to the front gates. Ferns and rhododendron shivered in the breath of wind and rising mist.

Mom really pissed me off. I love her to death, but she has never been one to take action. Ever. While Dad was alive she let him push her around, just so she could live in this grandiose house. Perched high on the hill, the “Old Dickens Estate” with its four floors, brick facade and glittering beveled glass windows had an incredible view of San Francisco Bay, the angular rooftops of Victorian mansions and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nice house. But was it worth the verbal and physical abuse she’d had to endure until Dad finally decided to end it all by hanging himself in his private den?

I didn’t think so.

In the garage I found my old, nearly forgotten BMW and climbed behind the wheel, then saw her Mercedes, barely used, parked in another bay. Wouldn’t the Benz be a better choice? Arrive in a shiny luxury car and have it valet parked, rather than screeching up in the old three series with the dent in one side? Of course it would. Mom kept her keys in a crystal dish on a small Louis XVI table near the front door.

And the gun.

The damned pistol.

I’d forgotten to pack it in my purse. It was up in my bedroom where I’d left it earlier, but I’d have to make some excuse to run back upstairs. Luckily Mom couldn’t get that decrepit old elevator to move fast enough to chase me down, even if she wanted to.

I checked my watch.

No doubt I’d be late.

Even with the valet parking.

But so be it.

I hurried back inside, bolstering myself to go one more round with Lorna and her insipid dog.

Security detail.

What a laugh.

Lucas Parker walked through a two-hundred-year-old breeze-way that was part of this aging monastery. The monks were long gone, the archdiocese having sold off the stucco and stone buildings and rolling acres to Ernesto D’Amato over a century before. Nowadays the vines they’d so carefully cultivated produced some of the best grapes for Syrah in the country, making D’Amato Winery world-renowned. Thus Silvio D’Amato Junior was currently the “King of Syrah,” if you believed his overblown press.

Parker didn’t.

In fact, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about any kind of wine.

Not that it mattered. He was just the hired help tonight. An ex-cop from the local police force here to ensure that the snobs and wanna-be snobs sipping the famed wine and nibbling on overpriced cheese and razor-thin crackers were safe.

And why wouldn’t they be? Located in the hills surrounding the quaint tourist town of Sonoma in the Valley of the Moon, D’Amato Monastery Estates had never, to date, had a break-in. Not one bottle of their prize-winning Syrah had been reported stolen, never even a trespasser discovered, not so much as one grape missing.

Parker thought hiring security was overkill.

Yet, here he was, wearing a tux with a collar that was far too tight, his shoulder-holster properly hidden, feeling useless. He’d retired from the force a couple of years back. Early retirement, thanks to a stakeout gone wrong and a stray bullet that had lodged in the lumbar region of his spine.

The bullet had been surgically removed and Parker had learned to walk again, but active duty was out. His partner, Noah Kent, still felt like shit that he wasn’t able to stop the bullet that had nearly severed Parker’s spine. Like so many cops, Kent thought he was Superman. “Your name isn’t Clark Kent,” Parker still told him. Kent was still on the job and Parker was a P.I., one with a very slight limp and sometimes a lot of pain.

And he’d known he should never have taken this job.

Unfortunately he’d been chosen for this detail by Silvio D’Amato Junior himself. Silvio just happened to be Parker’s brother-in-law. Well, technically ex-brother-in-law, as Resa, a few years back, had decided that living with a cop just wasn’t her style.

Trouble was, Parker had known it wouldn’t work a long time before she’d come to terms with the truth. They’d married over Silvio Senior’s objections, then divorced over his shame. No one in Silvio D’Amato’s lineage had ever been divorced. Parker could still hear the old man ranting, that fake Italian accent rumbling as he called Theresa, “Resa, my bambina Resa. How could she do this to me? I am blessed with six children and my youngest brings shame to the family. It breaks my heart.”

There was plenty of that going around, Parker thought as he shot a look toward Silvio Senior, who had passed the family business to the hands of his namesake a couple years ago. Silvio Senior’s dark eyes were huge behind his spectacles as he pressed a plump, manicured hand onto Junior’s shoulder, whispering, always whispering in his ear.

When Parker had married Resa, he’d had no clue how enmeshed a family could be, each member tied into another, torn and tortured, loyal and yet longing to escape. From Silvio Junior’s need to please and outdo his father right down to the seething jealousies of Mario and Antonio that they had not been the chosen ones, the family was rotten with dysfunction. Anna, now collecting appetizers, would no doubt head to the restroom to purge soon. Julianna, who was greeting guests at the door, had gone under the knife so many times that Parker was convinced her eyes wouldn’t close at night. Only Theresa, his Resa, had survived the family unscathed.

Or so he’d once thought.

Add to that the sick rivalry between Silvio Senior and his brother, Alberto D’Amato, bad relations that didn’t even die with Alberto awhile back. Parker had learned, the hard way, that the D’Amato familia was one sick clan. In the end he’d found it ironic that Resa’s old man had bulked so much over their divorce while the rest of the family was quietly going to hell.

According to family lore, the divorce had nearly caused Resa’s ailing mother, Octavia, to die of mortification. However, Octavia had survived and was now holding court in the garden, a bejeweled cane at her side and a blanket on her lap. She was attended by one of her sons, Antonio, the happily married father of four who couldn’t keep it in his pants. Octavia didn’t notice Parker as she sipped from a glass that didn’t so much as quiver in her elegant long fingers. The matriarch forever. Diamonds dripped from her ears and encircled her throat, wrists and fingers. Not one to hide her wealth was Octavia D’Amato.

All six of her children were in attendance. Parker caught sight of Mario and Anna, two of Resa’s siblings, schmoozing up clients near the flowering vines that had overtaken a wall of the old cloister. He told himself he was prepared in case Resa showed.

He tried not to think about her, about how hard he’d fallen or how fast. It had been unlike him. Until Theresa D’Amato he hadn’t believed in love at first sight, or being obsessed with a woman, or even settling down. But Resa with her smoky brown eyes and naughty, knowing smile had caught his attention. She was coy and smart, and when she threw her head back and laughed that throaty little chuckle, he was doomed. Dark coppery hair, long legs, a tight butt and firm breasts that filled his hands—you get the picture.

Getting her into bed hadn’t been difficult; she’d been as hot for him as he’d been for her and their lovemaking had been nothing short of mercurial.

Until it had gone cold.

Stone cold.

On the heels of Ian’s death.

Oh, hell.

His heart twisted and he forced his mind to the present. To the D’Amato winery and the party where he was supposed to be sharp and steady, the “heat” even though he was no longer a cop.

What the hell was he doing here? Why had Silvio asked for him by name?

But Parker knew.

Parker’s duty was not so much to keep out terrorists, thugs or would-be thieves, but more to ensure that the riffraff, specifically anyone connected to Silvio Senior’s brother, Alberto, did not make an appearance. Years ago Silvio Senior had scammed half the family fortune from the significantly less clever Alberto, his younger brother. Alberto had died a few years back, but his progeny had survived, and they all had long memories, fueled by acrimony.

Parker walked through an arbor wrapped in grape vines and about a billion sparkling lights. The evening was cool, bordering chilly, but the party was in full swing. Knots of guests clustered outside on the flagstone patio, an open garden area that had once connected the cellarium, a storage area for the monastery, and the chapter house, where the monks had met to mete out chores and discuss their sins. Rumor had it that some monks had been buried beneath the flooring, though Parker thought that sounded like something D’Amato had made up to give the place more mystique.