White Hot

8

The telephone didn’t stop ringing in Mollie’s living room office all Monday morning, but most of the calls were about business, none were about Jeremiah, only two were from friends about her Friday-night attack-and Deegan was there to answer them all.

“You are a godsend,” Mollie told him as he left with a stack of stuff for the printer.

He laughed. “Nice to be appreciated. You’ll manage without me the rest of the day? I don’t mind coming back this afternoon.”

“Thanks, but I’ll manage. I’ve got to write those press releases for the Renaissance Music Society. I’ll probably just hang in here the rest of the afternoon. I’ve got a dinner tonight.”

“Not another one-”

“It’s not business. Some friends of Leonardo’s invited me over. Anyway, if the phone doesn’t let up, I’ll just let voice mail handle it.” She smiled. “And if you see your grandmother before I do, please thank her for the flowers.”

A big bouquet had arrived first thing that morning, with a charming card from Diantha Atwood, wishing Mollie a speedy return to normal. Her thank you card was already in the mail. Deegan said, “I’ll do that,” and headed out, leaving Mollie to the phone, a stack of mail, and tons of work.

Her own parents had called last night after Leonardo, as promised, had ratted her out. They’d listened carefully to the details of the attack and offered to fly down at once-and said if she wanted to return to Boston, they’d clear out her old room, which they’d converted into a music library, and she could stay there until she got settled. Mollie had to fight back tears at their unconditional support. Unanchored in the real world as she knew them to be, she never doubted their love and affection for her, nor their total, if sometimes irrational, belief in her. But she’d assured them that the worst was over-and for a moment, she almost believed it herself-and when she’d hung up, she had to admit she felt better.

After Deegan left, she sat at the computer. The weather was as unsettled as she felt, with dark clouds, intermittent showers, and a breeze that was downright chilly. At least she wasn’t tempted to go sit out by the pool. She could just stay in and work.

The phone rang, and she briefly considered leaving it to her voice mail, but picked up. “Mollie Lavender.”

“I know.”

She sat up straight at the tinny, obviously altered voice on the other end. “Who is this?”

“Miami’s a dangerous place, Miss Lavender. Perhaps you should consider going back to Boston.”

A click, and then silence. Her hand shaking, Mollie quickly got a dial tone and hit the code for a playback of the most recent number called. But the disembodied voice said that the number wasn’t available.

She laid the portable phone on her computer desk.

“Oh my God.”

Her voice was a panicked mumble, and she thought she would throw up. Holding her stomach, she jumped to her feet and raced into the kitchen, not thinking, just reacting to the urge to get out, away from her office, her phone, her life. She grabbed keys and handbag and tore outside, not knowing where she was going, only that she had to get out of there.

“Shoes,” she said, stopping midway down the steps.

She ran back inside, still shaking, still nauseous, and pulled on a pair of old sandals she kept by the door.

Two minutes later, she was in Leonardo’s Jaguar, chewing on a knuckle as she beat back panic, not thinking, not planning, just driving. She hit winding A1A and cursed the tourists going too slow, gawking at the beautiful houses, the beautiful beaches. She spun off onto a street that connected with 95. She took the south on-ramp. A truck honked furiously when she wove into the middle lane too close in front of him.

She gripped the wheel with both hands and tried to calm herself. Concentrate on the present, she told herself, the moment. Early Monday afternoon, I-95 South, drizzle. She flicked on her wipers. She lifted her foot off the gas. She breathed.

There, she thought.

The call didn’t have to be from the man who’d attacked her on Friday night. Perhaps she’d made a business enemy who was capitalizing on her experience, which was no secret, and trying to tip the scales into having her leave town. Go home to her family and friends and old life in Boston. That scenario was bad enough, but not as bad as having whoever had attacked her in the Palm Beach Sands Hotel take another crack at her.

But she couldn’t imagine how she, with her short list of fun but not exactly wealthy clients, could be a business threat to anyone.

The rain picked up as she headed south, became briefly torrential, a perfect distraction. She turned her wipers on high and had to concentrate to negotiate the slowing, half-blinded traffic. Then the shower was over, and the sun was shining, and traffic speeded up-and her mind again raced, replaying the call, running down all the possibilities.

She spotted the Miami Tribune building up ahead, just off 95. She took the exit and found her way to the visitors’ section in the parking garage. She still wasn’t thinking, just acting on instinct. She locked up and headed for the elevator before rational thought could assert itself.

Jeremiah, she told herself, had just the kind of bulldog tenacity-the arrogance, the skill, the connections-to help her find out who was responsible for Friday’s attack and this afternoon’s call. Whether two different people or one, he could help her get to the truth. Unwittingly, against her will, she was involved, if not in the thick of things, as his source apparently believed, at least on the periphery. And she didn’t like it.

And if she didn’t get Jeremiah’s help, she at least wanted everything he had, and she wanted it now.

Which sounded pretty much like a plan to her.

She signed in with a security guard in the lobby and provided the name of a contact in arts and entertainment. Best to give herself an out in case she got cold feet before she reached Jeremiah’s desk. Since the guard didn’t give her a second glance, she assumed she didn’t look any more frazzled than the average Trib reporter. She’d worn a white linen shirt with a collar to hide her bruised neck.

She found her way to the newsroom and stood at the entrance, surveying the rows of desks, the flickering computers, the humming fax machines, the ringing telephones. A trio of men were arguing in front of a glassed-in corner office. No one seemed to be paying attention to them. Reporters went about their business, displaying an enviable ability to concentrate amidst the noise and general chaos.

“Looking for someone?” a young woman with a mug of coffee asked mid-stride.

Mollie took a breath. “Jeremiah Tabak.”

“His desk’s over on the wall.” She motioned with her cup, carefully matter-of-fact. “Doesn’t look like he’s in. Lucky for you. He’s in a bitch of a mood.”

She went on her way, and Mollie, sucking in a breath, plunged on across the room to a cubicle on the far wall. She was aware of eyes on her. Strangers in a newsroom wouldn’t go unnoticed. Someone looking for Jeremiah Tabak definitely wouldn’t go unnoticed. If she left now, she had no doubt his colleagues would be able to provide him with a detailed description of her. Blonde hair. White shirt, little tan skirt. Shaking like hell.

He wasn’t at his desk. His monitor was stuck with Post-it notes and clippings of cartoons, its screensaver of fish swimming across the screen on. The keyboard needed cleaning. His desk was cluttered with magazines, newspapers, notebooks, letters, scraps of paper, cheap pens, Star Wars pencils that might have belonged to a ten-year-old. An alligator paperweight held down one eight-inch stack of letters, many still in unopened envelopes. His ancient swivel chair looked as if he’d banged it against the wall a few too many times.

This wasn’t where Jeremiah lived, Mollie thought. The man was no more interested in his surroundings than her parents and sister were in theirs. They lived in their music. He lived in whatever story gripped him.

Her pulse drummed in her ear as she debated taking a quick cruise through his desk for anything related to a certain jewel thief plaguing the Florida Gold Coast.

“You looking for Tabak?”

Mollie jumped, startled. A small, handsome older woman approached Jeremiah’s desk, an unlit cigarette dangling from her fingers. Mollie reminded herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong, just had considered it. “Yes. Is he in?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He took off upstairs for coffee. I tried to follow, but he growled at me. Figure I’ll catch him when he’s caffeined up. Me,” she said, waving her cigarette, “I just smoke. I’d light up now but the freaking Nazis around here would have me shot. What we’re getting in for reporters today, you just wouldn’t believe.” She paused, scrutinizing Mollie with a clarity that reminded her of Jeremiah. “You’re Mollie Lavender, aren’t you?”

“I am, but how…who…”

She grinned, pleased with herself. “I’m Helen Samuel, dear. I’m paid to know these things. Leonardo Pascarelli’s goddaughter, attacked coming out of the ladies’ room at Diantha Atwood’s party Friday night. That must have been terrible. Are you all right now?” Mollie must have looked suspicious, because Helen Samuel, the legendary gossip columnist, grinned at her. “Relax, we’re off the record.”

“I’m fine,” Mollie said. “I just had business in the building and thought I’d stop and thank Jeremiah for his help.”

The old reporter’s dark eyes registered interest and a level of suspicion that, Mollie decided, was probably natural to her. Finally, she pointed her cigarette across the open newsroom. “Check the cafeteria. One floor up.” Then came a quick, compassionate smile that caught Mollie totally off guard. “I won’t tell him you were snooping.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Dear, what do you think I’m doing here?”

Mollie couldn’t resist a smile at the woman’s cheekiness. “You’re going to snoop in Tabak’s desk? What if he catches you?”

“He’ll be pissed as hell. What do I care? It’s not as if he’ll have left out a damned thing of use to me. If Tabak knows anything, he keeps it to himself. And believe me,” she added with a wink, “he doesn’t trust any of the rest of us.”

With good reason, apparently.

Before she could change her mind, Mollie found her way up to the cafeteria, a large, almost empty room that smelled of stale coffee. Jeremiah was at a table in a corner of windows, staring out on the interstate and the now glorious Miami afternoon, a mug of coffee in front of him.

If she had made her peace with the Jeremiah of the past, Mollie thought, she’d done nothing of the kind with the Jeremiah of the present. He attracted her, unnerved her, and preoccupied her in ways she never could have anticipated. It wasn’t just the jewel thief, his stubborn refusal to eliminate her as a suspect. It was his physical presence, his alertness to every nuance of his surroundings, to every nuance of her. He had an ability to make her rethink everything-her priorities, her life, herself. It was unsettling, but also irresistible.

She slid onto the chair opposite him and tried to look calm, in control, not as if she’d raced down here on impulse after receiving a nasty phone call-just in case she decided not to tell him about it. Because if he sensed she was holding back, he’d pounce. She smiled. “You look as if you’re waiting for your coffee to say something profound.”

He glanced up, squinted at her as if he had been so lost in thought he’d forgotten where he was. But the remoteness quickly vanished, and he grinned. “Nah. There’s no hope for a higher life form in there. I don’t know, either this stuff is getting worse or my tastebuds are finally improving.”

He paused, and his eyes, with all their golds and greens and grays, took her in, seemed to drink in her very soul. Mollie forced herself not to look away. No wonder he was so good at what he did. Nothing escaped him. Nothing was beneath his probing interest. Yet, she thought, it couldn’t be an easy way to live. Sometimes he had to wish he could just climb out of his own skin for a while and be as oblivious as most of the rest of the world.

“Helen send you up here?” he asked.

Mollie nodded. “She said you were in a bad mood.”

“I am. She was angling to get me away from my desk so she could rummage through it. Drives her crazy thinking I know something she doesn’t.”

“Do you?”

“Yep.”

“She won’t actually go through your desk, will she?”

“Probably not. But she had to play it out. I can just see her standing there, itching to see what I’ve got, then congratulating herself when she doesn’t go through with it.”

“She knows you wouldn’t leave anything out in the open.”

“Even if I did, she’d stop herself. I’ve known Helen since I landed at the Trib as a know-it-all eighteen-year-old. She knows what lines she can cross and what lines she can’t, not just with me. Part of the reason she’s lasted as long as she has is she knows the First Amendment protects what we say, not what we do.”

“Such as fraud, breaking and entering, harassment, trespassing.”

He shrugged. “Such as.” He eyed his coffee. “I used to pride myself on drinking swill. Times change. So, Miss Mollie,” he said, shifting his gaze to her, “what brings you to Miami looking as if you’ve had another good scare?”

“I have.” She sat on a chair at the end of the table, feeling formal, even awkward. “Had another good scare, that is.”

His eyes bored into her, darkening. “Tell me.”

“A phone call. It came on my business line, about ninety minutes ago. The voice was obviously altered, like those unnamed whistle-blowers on 60 Minutes. It suggested I go back to Boston because Miami’s dangerous.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“There’s only my word that the call happened or that the caller said what he said. I don’t want the police getting the wrong idea about me.”

“You don’t want to become a suspect.”

“Or the crazy woman looking for attention.”

Jeremiah pushed back his chair. “But the call happened.”

She nodded.

He rose, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got a friend on the Palm Beach police you can talk to. It’ll only take a minute. You can call from my desk.” He grinned at her, an obvious attempt at levity. “Helen’s had long enough to pull herself back from the precipice, wouldn’t you say?”

“Jeremiah-”

“It’ll take two minutes tops. You’ll see.”

They took the stairs back down to the newsroom, no sign of Helen Samuel at his desk. Jeremiah pulled out his chair and made Mollie sit. Then he flipped through a dog-eared Rolodex, dialed a number, got through to some guy named Frank, and handed the phone to her. She told him what had happened, the time, the altered voice, its exact words. Jeremiah made no pretense of not listening in. He sat on the corner of his desk, taking in every word. “I don’t know that this is connected to the robbery on Friday,” she said. “It could just be a nut who saw my name in the paper.”

“Could be,” Frank said. “I’ll write this up. Give me your number in case I have any questions.”

Mollie gave it to him. As she reached over to hang up the phone, her shoulder brushed Jeremiah’s arm, immediately sending warm shivers through her. To be this close to him when she was this vulnerable wasn’t too smart.

“There,” he said. “Duty done. Feel better?”

“Marginally.”

He slid off the desk. “It’s a start.”

She remained seated, blood rushing to her head as another impulsive plan took vague shape. “I have a dinner tonight in Boca Raton. Friends of Leonardo’s invited me. It’s at a private home on the water, probably about thirty guests.”

“Our thief hasn’t hit anything that small. Smallest was seventy-five.”

“I know, but if I’m…” She inhaled, hating the word. “If I’m involved in any way, perhaps we should look at my pattern of activity, too, and not just the thief’s.”

Jeremiah went still. “We?”

She got to her feet, took a breath, and felt more certain about her still-in-progress plan. “I leave Leonardo’s at six-thirty. I intend to keep my eyes open. If anything strikes me as suspicious, I will do what I have to do.”

“Nancy Drew strikes.” But there was no humor in his voice.

“Don’t patronize me, Jeremiah. I’m your ‘common denominator.’ I was attacked. I received that nasty phone call.”

“Precisely why you should skip the dinner tonight and stay home and watch TV. Throw darts. Drag out your flute and play some tunes.”

She raised her chin to him, aware of his penetrating gaze, unintimidated by his relentless intensity-or the sense he was making. “That would be giving in.”

“That would be making an intelligent decision.”

“Maybe, but you do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same. Thank you for your time,” she said, and started briskly across the newsroom.

“When you said we,” he called quietly to her, “did that mean I’m invited tonight?”

She ignored him and kept on marching, and if he was frustrated and even a little irritated with her, so be it. She had come to him in the misguided hope he could be a friend, and he’d gone dictatorial and protective on her. Call the police. Stay home and throw darts.

Damn it, she thought, she half-hoped the thief would show up tonight and she could catch him herself.

“Nancy Drew,” she muttered, and exited the newsroom, aware of every eye in the place on her.

But when she got to her car, Jeremiah was already there, slouched up against its gleaming hood as if he owned it. Mollie sputtered. “How did you get here ahead of me? How did you know where I was parked-”

“I know all the shortcuts, and you’ll notice there are no other back Jaguars in the visitors’ lot.” He eased off the hood. “You’re on my turf now, sweet pea.”

“So?”

“So I want to know why you drove all the way down here to tell me about this nasty little phone call. I want to know,” he said, moving closer, “why you told me about your dinner tonight and said we should look at your pattern of activity and not just the thief’s.”

“The we was just a slip of the tongue. As for the call-” She met his gaze, ignored the flutter in the pit of her stomach, the deep, unfathomable, undeniable yearning she had to connect with this man. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t already know about it.”

He had no visible reaction. “Why would I know about it?”

“Or the guy who tipped you off about me. Maybe he knows about it.”

“You mean maybe he’s the one who made the call,” Jeremiah said, his tone steady, neutral. “And I knew about it.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? And if you have to keep an open mind, so do I.”

“It’s not possible I knew about it. If I had, I’d be throttling him right now. Is it possible he made the call? Theoretically, I suppose so, but my gut says no.” He considered a moment. The line of his jaw seemed harder, the muscles in his arms and shoulders leaner, tougher. Ten years of digging into crime and corruption seemed to have affected him physically, not just mentally. “But it’s good you’re keeping an open mind. Now. I’ll be at your place no later than six-twenty-five.”

“What? Why-”

“That’s why you told me about your dinner tonight, isn’t it?” His voice softened. “So I’d be there.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking-”

“Think now.”

She sighed. “I can’t stand not knowing what’s going on. I can’t stand sitting around waiting for the next phone call. I guess I wanted to find a way to help you-or for you to help me-”

But he was shaking his head. “Mollie, we can’t be a team, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I don’t work that way.”

“I know. You don’t need to remind me.” She hoisted her handbag onto her shoulder, tried to ease the lingering effects of the eerie call. “I understand. Really. Thanks for putting me in touch with Frank. Maybe the police will find this guy.”

He touched the collar of her linen shirt, just a flick of the finger that nonetheless sent shock waves through her. “You’re trying to tell yourself it’s strictly business between us, Mollie, but it’s not. It can’t be.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She sounded prim and unconvincing even to herself. She imagined he could see through the facade, straight into all the parts of her that still wanted him. “Of course it can.”

“You’re remembering. Right now, you’re remembering.”

Her knees quavered. “Remembering what?”

“I was your first lover.” His voice was low, not much above a whisper, a caress. “You remember.”

“Jeremiah…” She swallowed, telling herself this was a test, a way for him to establish terms. He liked making the rules. It was why he worked alone, it was why he stayed alone. She steeled herself against the onslaught of desire, the knot of confused emotions. “Jeremiah, I assure you, I’m long over you. I put your photo on my dartboard for my amusement, nothing more. It could have been a picture of Darth Vader.”

He seemed amused. “And yesterday when I kissed you, could I have been Darth Vader then, too?”

“The Emperor,” she said, unable to stop a smile.

“And if I kissed you right here, right now, what would I be?”

“Very forward.” But her head spun, her body burned at the thought of his mouth on hers.

“I like being forward.”

And his mouth descended to hers, his hand drifting to the back of her neck, where she wasn’t injured. She threw a hand back on the hood of her car, steadying herself as his tongue slid between her lips, tasted, probed, her entire body responding.

He drew back slightly, his eyes dark, his own arousal evident. “That wasn’t too forward, was it?”

Mollie straightened, tried to ignore the strain of her breasts against her linen top, the agony of wanting him. She was shaking with it, unsteady, her mind flooded with memories of him slowly, erotically exploring her body with his hands, then his mouth, teeth, and tongue, until, finally, when she was hot and quivering, taking her with hard, deep thrusts.

His dusky gaze told her that he, too, was remembering.

She willed coherency upon her thoughts. “Look, Jeremiah-” She swallowed, adjusting her shirt so her pebbled nipples wouldn’t show. “I know what you’re doing, but you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to fall for you. It was my choice to drive down here. And I take full responsibility for the consequences of that choice.”

“Hell, it sounds as if you decided to climb Mount Everest.”

She smiled. “You just concentrate on doing your job, okay?”

He dragged one finger along the line of her jaw, sending a stream of liquid heat straight into her bloodstream. “I always do.” He winked. “See you at six-twenty-five.”

Jeremiah went back to his desk feeling grumpy, out of sorts, and way too damned much as if he should have taken Mollie back to his apartment for the rest of the afternoon. He checked his messages. Nothing. He plopped into his chair and stared at his blank computer screen. Neutrality and objectivity had gone straight to hell with the appearance of Mollie and her bottomless eyes, bruised neck, and tale of a nasty phone call.

Helen Samuel couldn’t wait to accost him. “Okay. Tell me what Mollie Lavender was doing here.”

Jeremiah swung around in his chair. Bad coffee and frustration burned in his stomach. Fatigue pounded behind his eyes. “You know why you’ve lasted as long as you have, Helen? You’re by nature a very nosy woman.”

She grinned at him, unoffended. “Yeah, yeah. You’re just in a bad mood because you wanted to write the story about Friday night and couldn’t. You’re feeling conflicted.”

“Conflicted? Jesus, Helen. A reporter has to make these kinds of calls all the time.”

“Bullshit. You’ve got a woman wearing a necklace owned by one of the most famous tenors in the world. You’ve got the necklace ripped off at a fancy private party. You’ve got a gloved hand. You’ve got a daring, clever cat burglar. And you were right there. Jesus. It has to kill you. No wonder you’re a grouch.”

He shoved back his chair and stood up. “That’s right, Helen. I was right there. I was a part of the goddamned story. No way could I write it. I did the right thing. So I’m not conflicted.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a grump. You’re still on this thing, aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Damned lot of good it’s doing me. I don’t have a clue who’s behind the robberies, or why, or how he’s getting into exclusive parties without being noticed. I don’t know if it’s a man or woman. I don’t know if it’s someone acting alone or a group. You know, even if the Trib had reported that Mollie Lavender, Palm Beach publicist, was robbed at Diantha Atwood’s party Friday night, it would only have filled two inches on page thirty-seven.”

“All right, all right.” Helen studied him with an air of superior knowledge and experience that quickly got on his nerves. “You sure you’re not in over your head, Tabak?”

“If I were,” he said irritably, “I wouldn’t tell the Trib’s goddamned gossip columnist. I’m going home and feeding my lizard. He’s better company than what I get around here.”

Helen grunted, unintimidated. “Your lizard have any say about what kind of company he has to put up with?”

Traffic on the causeway out to South Beach was miserable, the lousy weather bringing the tourists off the water and into the shops and restaurants. Although he groused and grumbled, Jeremiah supposed if he were a tourist, he’d be here, too.

He had to hunt a parking space, which didn’t improve his mood, and when he got to his building, he found Croc out front with Bennie, the ex-tailor, and Albert, the ex-mobster. Not once in two years had Croc shown up at Jeremiah’s home, always preferring to meet at public places on Ocean Drive. He looked like a street bum with his scraggly hair and clothes. Bennie pointed at him with his whittling knife. “This guy says he’s a friend of yours. We were letting him hang around for a while, see if you showed up.”

“I called the paper,” Croc said, “and some woman picked up your phone and barked into it, said you’d gone home.”

Helen. After his low blow, she might feel fewer compunctions about picking through his desk-and about telling an unknown on the phone where to find him. On the other hand, Croc could be very charming. Jeremiah figured Bennie and Albert had let him stick around because they had knives. A little adrenaline rush, wondering if Croc was legit or if they’d have to take him down. They seemed almost disappointed when he followed Jeremiah inside.

“I don’t know why those old geezers haven’t cut their hands off yet,” Croc said on his way up the stairs. “Whittling’s hard. You ever try it?”

“I grew up in the Everglades, Croc. I can whittle just fine.”

When they reached his floor, Jeremiah unlocked his door, pushed it open, and motioned for Croc to enter first, noticed he was even more jittery than usual. “You smell my animals?” Jeremiah asked, trying to be conversational, get Croc to relax.

He paused, inhaled deeply, shook his head. “No, why?”

“In case I have anyone over, I like to know the place doesn’t smell like a zoo. It’s like people with cat boxes. They get used to the smell, don’t realize the place stinks.”

“Smells okay to me.”

Not that Croc had an acute sense of smell. Jeremiah offered him a can of iced tea, all he had in the refrigerator. Croc took it, popped the top, and drank long and hard, as if he hadn’t had anything to drink in days. A strange all-or-nothing kind of guy. He checked out the cages on the table and made noises at the animals, who each ignored him in turn. “I had fish once when I was a kid. I didn’t take to them and they all went belly up. Then I had a dog, and he was all right. I guess he’s dead by now.”

“You don’t know?”

“Nope. He was still alive when I left home.”

Pushing Croc about his past was a guaranteed way to shut him down. Jeremiah nibbled on the occasional crumbs Croc dropped-dead fish, a dog-and figured one of these days he might put together the whole cookie of just who Blake Wilder was, how he’d ended up on the streets at twenty-something. He sensed he was an odd stabilizing force in Croc’s life, someone who took him on his own terms.

When he didn’t go on, Jeremiah figured Croc had said all he planned to say about his childhood pets. He popped the top on his own can of iced tea. “So, what’s up?”

“I’ve been doing a little legwork.” Still more fidgety than usual, he paced in front of the table, polishing off his iced tea in a few big, crude gulps. He crushed the can with one hand, then dropped it on the floor and squished it down to pancake size. “Some of the rich crowd have been kind of excited about the robberies, you know, sort of getting off on the thrill.”

“What’re you doing, sneaking around Palm Beach and talking to rich people?”

“Hey, I never give away my methods. From what I’m hearing, the Mollie attack changed some minds. I mean, the scream, the bloody neck. Spooked some folks.”

“Well it should.” Jeremiah took a swallow of tea, which tasted mediocre at best, nothing like the sun tea he and his father used to make. They’d leave the jug out on the dock all morning long. He pulled his mind back to the task at hand. Croc in his kitchen, pacing, angling for something. “Look, Croc, I don’t want you asking questions on my behalf. If you stick your nose in a hornet’s nest, it’s your doing. It’s not going to be on my conscience.”

“ ’Course. That goes without saying.” Croc frowned, studying Jeremiah as if he were seeing him for the first time since he’d gotten back. “You okay?”

“No. I’m in a lousy mood. What else have you heard?”

Croc didn’t answer immediately.

Jeremiah inhaled, not wanting to take his mood out on his young friend-cohort, source, whatever Croc was these days. Kissing Mollie in a damned parking garage had used up what little patience he’d gotten up with that morning. “Croc-”

“Well, if you’re crabby and I say something that pisses you off, I don’t want you feeding me to your lizard here.”

“My lizard’s a vegetarian.”

“Oh. Okay.” He glanced over at the sleeping creature. “Ugly bastard, isn’t he?”

Jeremiah set his can down on the counter with a bang that he didn’t intend. No muscle control. He needed a run, an hour in the weight room, something to burn off the tension that had gripped him the moment he’d spotted Mollie walking across the Trib cafeteria.

“Heck, you are cranky.” Croc grinned, highly entertained; but at Jeremiah’s dark look, he got serious. “Okay, I know this isn’t much, but some people in high places think Friday’s attack definitely wasn’t the work of our jewel thief. Could be a copycat, someone squeezing in on our guy’s territory, or it could be a deliberate attempt to throw the police off the trail.”

“Then you’re off Mollie? You don’t think she could have ripped the necklace from her own neck?”

“I didn’t say that. Let’s say she’s our thief. She knows she’s the only common denominator we’ve got. So to throw us off, she fakes an attack on herself. Or let’s say she’s in with whoever the thief is and wants to throw us off his trail.”

“This is getting convoluted, Croc.”

“It’s Palm Beach. You’ve got to think convoluted or you can miss the boat. These people know how to cover their tracks.”

Jeremiah tried to figure out what Croc was saying. “You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“All I’m saying is, anything’s possible when that much money and those kinds of reputations are at stake. My usual haunts, it’s usually more straightforward.” He leaned back on his chair, his feet going, one hand drumming the table; the critters didn’t seem to mind, just slept in their cages. “So how come you’re in such a foul mood? I mean, this is bad even for you.”

“Mollie came to see me,” Jeremiah told him, a quick tactical decision. “She had a threatening phone call this afternoon.”

“Whoa,” Croc said, still drumming his fingers.

“Yeah. The caller said Miami’s a dangerous town and suggested she go back to Boston.”

“Which says he knows she’s from Boston.” Croc jumped up, paced, if possible even more restless and jittery. “Wow, this is interesting. I’ve got to put this one into the old mental slow-cooker and let it simmer.”

“Croc, if you know anything you haven’t told me, you need to part with it now.” Jeremiah kept his tone calm, steady, serious. “A woman’s been hurt and threatened.”

Croc went momentarily still. “You’re either going to trust me, Tabak, or you’re not.”

“That’s a two-way street.”

“Yep. Sure is.” He grinned. “Thanks for the iced tea.”

“That’s it? You’re out of here?”

“That’s it, I’m out of here.” He started for the door. “See you around.”

Two seconds later, Croc was gone. Jeremiah felt like kicking things, but his critters were still sleeping. With a growl, he grabbed his jackknife and headed downstairs. Bennie and Albert handed him a chunk of wood, and he whittled until it was time to head north to Palm Beach and his six-twenty-five rendezvous at Pascarelli’s house. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Mollie would be expecting him.