White Hot

13

Griffen Welles and Deegan Tiernay arrived at Leonardo’s five minutes after Frank Sunderland had dropped Mollie off. She hadn’t even had a chance to scoot upstairs yet. All she wanted to do was dive into the pool and swim until she couldn’t think coherently, then sleep in the shade. But when Deegan said, “Mollie, was that the police?” she rallied.

“Come upstairs, you two,” she said. “I have a tale to tell.”

She put on coffee and boiled an egg and told them about Jeremiah, Croc, herself as common denominator. She told them about seeing Jeremiah at the Greenaway, knowing him ten years ago, having his picture on her dartboard. Her voice sounded detached and clinical, yet her insides felt frayed. Coffee and food helped.

“Jesus, Mollie,” Griffen breathed. “I had no idea.”

Deegan paced, pounding a fist into a palm. “The police think this Croc guy’s the jewel thief?”

“They’re not sure. I just identified the necklace they found on him. It’s definitely Leonardo’s cursed diamond-and-ruby necklace. But whether it was a coincidental mugging and the attacker just missed it, or it was some kind of setup-” She shrugged, feeling drained, confused, on overdrive. “I don’t know.”

“This sucks,” Deegan muttered. “Look, I need to get out of here awhile. I’ll talk to you both later.”

He shot outside, and Griffen unfolded herself from a bar stool, walked to the door, peered out, and turned back to Mollie. “I wonder what that’s all about.”

“Something I said? He hasn’t liked Jeremiah-”

“What’s to like? The guy’s a rough customer, even if you’ve fallen for him like the proverbial ton of bricks.” When Mollie started to protest, Griffen held up a hand, silencing her. “Do not argue with one who knows. Well, I suppose where one romance dies, another pops up somewhere in the universe to take its place.”

“You and Deegan?”

She flopped back onto her stool. “The last few days especially…” She frowned at Mollie’s egg. “You’re eating that dry?”

“I put pepper on it.”

“A hard-boiled egg with pepper. Mollie, that gives me the willies.”

She smiled. “Tell me about Deegan.”

“He’s been remote lately.” Her eyes shifted, and she picked at a red-polished nail. Today’s sundress was a shock of red and purple flowers. Her dark curls hung down her back. “Usually he’s so much fun, sarcastic, witty, just a great guy, you know? I never expected our relationship to last, but I’m sorrier than I thought I’d to be now that it’s falling apart.”

“I’m sorry, Griffen.”

“Yeah, yeah. What about you and Jeremiah Tabak? Any hope there?” She squinted at Mollie, then laughed. “My God, you’re blushing! We must be talking fast and furious then, huh?”

Mollie bit into her egg and toast, noticing Griffen’s involuntary shudder of disapproval, as if she couldn’t help herself. “I just came from the hospital. It doesn’t seem right to be fretting about my love life right now.”

“It’s human nature, Mollie. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Some of us know the real thing when we see it, and we find it right out of the chute. Others of us-” She sighed, obviously meaning herself. “Others of us either don’t know it or just have to keep trying. If I find the right guy before I’m forty, I’ll be happy. Heck, after I’m forty.”

“Ever the optimist, right, Griffen?”

She grinned. “You got it. So, does Tabak think his buddy Croc is the jewel thief?”

“I don’t know, we haven’t talked outside the presence of the police.”

“But you doubt it,” Griffen said.

“Maybe…I’m trying to keep an open mind.” Her egg finished, she rinsed her hands in the sink. Her mind was racing, impulsivity rearing its head. She looked around at her friend. “Griffen, why don’t I have a party?”

“A party? Mollie, what the hell-”

“Tomorrow night. Are you free? I can hire you to cater. We’ll make it spontaneous and fun, real informal. It’s supposed to be nice weather. We can have it out by the pool.”

Griffen was eyeing her dubiously. “What, are you trying to set a trap for the real jewel thief?”

“I would if I could-if he’s not already in the hospital with his jaw broken. No, I just want to assert some control over my life. A spontaneous cocktail party could be my statement about the attack on me the other night, my relationship with Leonardo, my intentions here in south Florida. I’m my own person, and I make my own decisions.”

“And you won’t be driven off by a nasty phone call and a nasty thief.”

She nodded. “Right.”

Griffen mused a moment, the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window, the curtains billowing in a pleasant breeze. “It could be a fun, gutsy thing to do. I expect it doesn’t hurt to assert your independence with a guy like Jeremiah Tabak, either.” She clapped her hands together, grinning. “I’m getting to like this nutty idea better and better.”

“Is tomorrow night too soon?”

“Of course, but that’s what makes it perfect. It won’t conflict with any of the big parties this week, and Leonardo doesn’t do parties, so people are already curious about this place. We can capitalize on that. And, of course, they’re yakking about you a mile a minute, and now we’ve got this jewel thief in the hospital and a sexy investigative reporter…” She drummed the counter with her red nails, musing. “Oh, this definitely could work!”

“People will come?”

“Everyone will come.” She slid smoothly to her feet, tucked thick curls behind her ear. “I’ll put together a menu and guest list and stop back by this afternoon. We’ll have to move on this thing if we’re going to pull it off. Deegan can help-I’ll see if I can track him down. Guess it’s a good thing we came in separate cars.”

After Griffen left, Mollie wandered aimlessly around the apartment before she came to grips with what she had to do. Take a shower, get dressed, put out any fires that needed putting out in her office, and check back in at the hospital. Maybe the police would have more information. Maybe Jeremiah would. Either way, hanging around inside Leonardo’s gates would only drive her crazy.

Jeremiah drove out to the stretch of relatively isolated beach and marsh where Croc was found, then to the police station to see the necklace and talk to the officers first on the scene, not that they had much to offer. Croc still wasn’t in any condition to give a statement, but he’d managed, apparently, to indicate that he hadn’t recognized his attacker and couldn’t provide a detailed description. The police had no reason to believe there was more than one attacker.

Mollie had already gone home. Frank had driven her himself, and he was still steamed at Jeremiah. “You’re holding back on me, aren’t you, Tabak?”

Jeremiah debated, then gave him the rest. “Mollie Lavender is what got me into this thing.” He tried to sound detached, professional. “Croc found out she’s been at every event we know the thief hit.”

“How’d he know?”

“How does he know anything? He must have been snooping around, had access to guest lists-I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.”

Frank appraised him with cop skepticism. “It’s a bitch having that kind of missing link. What about you and this Lavender woman?”

“What about us?”

“You came up from Miami in the same car.”

“That we did.”

The conversation ended there because Frank had all he needed without Jeremiah explaining the nitty-gritty of his and Mollie’s relationship. Hell, he didn’t know it himself. He’d fallen for her ten years ago, and he was falling for her again. Simple.

“Any luck on running down Croc’s real name?” Jeremiah asked.

“No, but when we find out, we’ll track you down right away, Tabak, and let you know, especially seeing how forthcoming you’ve been with us.”

“Hey, I made Mollie call you about her threatening phone call.”

Frank just scowled, and Jeremiah, who prided himself on knowing when a well was dry, headed back to the hospital. He barely noticed the crush of snowbirds out enjoying the perfect winter day, just drove the winding, pretty streets of Palm Beach with his mind focused on the task at hand. Croc, jewels, Mollie. The lies Croc had told him, the dozen different ways Mollie might fit into them. He didn’t speculate, didn’t let his thoughts get ahead of him, just articulated the questions and the facts with cold precision.

He was walking past the information desk when he heard a hoarse, familiar voice. “Tabak-thank God.” He turned, and there was Helen Samuel in a pink ladies-who-lunch suit that made her look like a wizened Loretta Young. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen her outside of the Miami Tribune building, maybe not even in the parking lot. She grinned at him. “They won’t let me smoke in here. Nazis. Two more minutes and I’m having a seizure.”

“What’re you going to do when you get sick, Helen?”

“I’m never getting sick. I’m going to fall over dead at my goddamned computer, you wait and see. If I don’t, drag my ass out of the hospital, sit me at my desk, and put a bullet in my head. Okay? You’ll do that for me?”

He frowned at her. “You have been without nicotine too long.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Look, I heard about Weasel getting beat up-”

“Croc.”

“What?”

“His nickname’s Croc, not Weasel.”

“Oh. I knew it was some disgusting animal. Well, I figured maybe there’s a connection-maybe not, either-but you could look into it-” She made a face. “Damnit, I’m not making any sense. What’s one goddamned cigarette? You think the building’d blow?”

Fatigue gnawed at Jeremiah. “Look into what, Helen?”

She straightened, focusing. “Michael and Bobbi Tiernay have two sons. This is widely known but not widely discussed. Deegan, the younger son, is at school down here, interning for your Mollie Lavender as a thumb in his old man’s eye-or maybe his mother’s, or his grandmother’s, or the whole damned family’s. It’s hard to say because they’re the stiff-upper-lip type, and because they know how to do spin control better than most. The older son is Kermit. He’s twenty-two. He flunked out of Harvard after his freshman year. He went in as a top student, but he flipped out after he got his first C, then couldn’t pull it together, and next thing, he’s back home in Palm Beach.”

“Jesus, Helen, you think-”

She silenced him with a look. “So his family tells him to sink or swim. It’s some weird, warped tough-love thing, I guess. Anyway, he takes off, disappears, there are rumors of substance abuse and general rebelliousness. They figure he’s in Colorado or someplace and go on with their lives, making it clear they do not wish to discuss their number one son.”

Jeremiah couldn’t speak. He stared at Helen, knowing she wouldn’t have dragged herself to a West Palm Beach hospital to give him rumors and innuendo. What she had was solid or she’d have kept it to herself. She certainly wouldn’t have gone without a cigarette for this long.

Croc was Michael and Bobbi Tiernay’s son?

“I’ve got his high school graduation picture somewhere.” She dug in handbag, circa 1980, and produced a black-and-white photo cut out of a high school yearbook or newspaper. “He went to private school. Apparently he was quite the egghead.”

It was Croc. Younger, cleaner, meatier, more optimistic, less world-weary. He probably hadn’t slathered his french fries in ketchup in those days, or bussed tables and detailed cars for a living.

Then Helen said, “I think he came into his Atwood trust fund when he turned twenty-one. Nothing the family could do about it.”

“That would be a lot of money?”

Helen grinned. “For an investigative reporter, you can be so naive about some things. Yeah, it’s a goddamned lot of money. I don’t know, Tabak,” she said, going philosophical on him, “where love and support and respect stop and enabling begins-well, I never had kids. Thank God, because I’d have messed it up.”

“Why?”

“The job. You know it as well as I do.” She shook off the attack of introspection. “Okay, so I’ve given you what I’ve got. I wished I’d put it together sooner, but there it is.”

“It was there for me to see, too. I just needed to do the legwork.”

“Yeah, well, the kid’s a friend, right?”

Jeremiah stared at her.

She sighed, nodding with understanding. “Happens to the best of us, Tabak. I’ve got some snooping I might as well do while I’m up here. A society columnist never sleeps. Plus, I need a freaking cigarette or I’m going to start foaming at the mouth.”

“Thanks for the tip, Helen,” Jeremiah said, his voice flat, his senses dulled.

“No problem. Get your head around this one, Tabak. That little shit’s been lying to you from the get-go. You know, this is going to leak out. The long-lost Kermit Tiernay, heir to the Atwood fortune, son of Michael and Bobbi. You’d better decide where you want to be standing when the poo-poo hits the fan.”

She strutted out, and Jeremiah made his way blindly to the elevators. If Croc could turn out to be a rich ne’er-do-well, he supposed he could end up a Helen Samuel in another thirty years. He shuddered at the thought.

Frank Sunderland caught up with him at the elevators. “We’ve got an ID on your buddy Croc,” he said, out of breath.

“Kermit Tiernay.”

Frank scowled. “One day, I’m going to scoop you. The younger brother’s up there with him now, and Miss Lavender. She called from the hospital.” The elevator dinged, and they got on. Frank smiled thinly. “I like her. She tells me stuff.”

“She’s a publicist, not a journalist.”

“Exactly.”

Two minutes later they were in Croc’s room. Frank stood back, reluctantly, and let Jeremiah approach the bed. A pale, subdued Deegan Tiernay stood over his injured older brother. Croc-Kermit Tiernay-was conscious, dazed, swollen, and beat to hell, but his blue eyes were trained on Deegan. When he saw Jeremiah and Frank, Deegan went visibly rigid, his emotions held in check.

Mollie, however, was easy to read. She glared at Jeremiah and pounced. “Damnit, you could have told me.”

“I didn’t know.”

His words didn’t register. “Your pal Croc and Deegan are brothers. You had to know.”

Jeremiah remained steady, despite the gnawing pain in his gut. “Well, I didn’t.”

Mollie still didn’t give up. “But you’ve known him for two years-”

“As Croc, a street kid, this crazy guy who brought me information and liked too much ketchup on his fries.” He shifted to Croc, felt a molten mix of emotions hurtling through him. “I could toss you and that bed out the damned window. Just as well you can’t talk. You’d probably try spinning me another tale. And I’d probably swallow it.”

Kermit Tiernay was too swollen and bruised to provide a readable expression, and he couldn’t speak with his jaw wired shut and his lips stitched.

Jeremiah bit off a sigh. “How’re you feeling?”

Croc nodded slightly, an acknowledgment that he was alive but that was about it.

“You hang in there, okay? Trust me, I’m not going anywhere.” He turned to Deegan, was aware of Mollie fidgeting to his right, ready to jump out of her skin. “When’s the last time you saw your brother?”

“Last Tuesday.” His voice was steady, straightforward. “I helped him get hold of guest lists from several parties. Between Griffen and a few other contacts, it wasn’t difficult.”

“Did you know why he wanted them?”

“Not at first.”

“When?”

“After the Greenaway robbery. I just assumed he was playing private eye.”

So had Jeremiah. Now, he wasn’t ready to make any assumptions until all the facts were in. A hard lesson learned. “How long have you two been in touch?”

“The past two weeks.”

“Not before?”

Deegan shook his head and glanced back at Frank, who stood quietly by the empty bed, taking it all in.

Jeremiah kept pushing. “He sought you out?”

“Yes. He asked me not to tell anyone, and I didn’t.”

“Then your parents don’t know, your grandmother, Griffen Welles, Mollie-”

“Obviously I didn’t know,” Mollie put in.

Jeremiah glanced at her, knowing she was scared and upset, and he pushed back the memory of her sleek body last night. He said nothing, shifting back to Deegan, who shook his head. “Nobody knew.”

Satisfied, Jeremiah turned back to Croc. He pushed back the conflicting emotions, the anger at himself and concentrated on what he had to do. “One finger up for yes, two for no. You can do it?”

One finger went up.

“Do you want me to find you a lawyer?” Jeremiah asked.

Two fingers.

“You know the police are here right now, listening in?”

One finger.

“Croc,” Jeremiah said, leaning over the hospital bed and the battered body of a young man he considered-he could no longer deny it-a friend. “Is someone setting you up?” He raised one finger, and Jeremiah asked, “Do you know who?”

This time, Croc managed a shake of the head before his eyes, already heavy, closed and he drifted off.

“I’ll tell Mother and Father.” Deegan Tiernay’s voice shook; the cockiness of the young man who’d tossed his girlfriend in the pool the other night gone. “They need to know.”

Not want to know, Jeremiah noticed. “They haven’t heard from him?”

“Not since they kicked him out. It’s been over two years.” He pushed a shaky hand through his hair. “They won’t like it that I’ve been in touch with him, but they’ll understand-I had no choice-”

“Good heavens,” Mollie said, “I would hope they understand. Of course you had no choice. He’s your brother.”

He smiled wanly at Mollie, without condescension. “I wish it were that simple.”

“Your brother’s in trouble,” Jeremiah said, “but we don’t have the full story yet. We need to reserve judgment.”

“Innocent until proven guilty? That’s not how it works in my family.” But he sucked in a breath before he said too much and turned back to Mollie. “After I talk to them, I’ll head back to Leonardo’s and clear out my stuff-”

“Why? I’m throwing a party tomorrow night. I need your help.”

“But I-”

“But you what? You didn’t tell me you were in contact with your brother?”

“Mollie, he’s a suspect in the attack on you on Friday. He might have made the threatening call on Monday-”

“First things first, Deegan.” Her voice was strong, clear, confident. “Will you tell Griffen, too, or shall I?”

“I’ll tell her,” he said, and retreated, with Frank Sunderland spinning on his toes and following him out.

Mollie touched Jeremiah’s hand. “I’m sorry I jumped on you.”

“I probably would have done the same in your place.”

“Do you want to hang in here awhile?”

He nodded, watching Croc sleep. “I can’t believe the little bastard’s a damned millionaire. Helen Samuel says his Atwood trust is worth a fortune.”

“He’s tapped into it?”

“We don’t know.” He winced at the we. “Damn, I can’t believe I’ve collaborated on a story with her.”

Mollie smiled. “You two are a lot alike.”

“Don’t you start, too. That’s what she keeps telling me. You walked into a hell of a scene, didn’t you?”

“Deegan was sobbing. The cop guarding Croc called your friend Frank.” She was silent a moment, her clear gaze on the broken body in the neat, clean bed. “What do you suppose drove him onto the streets?”

“I don’t know, but he got into Harvard. After that, things seemed to fall apart. Maybe the parents can tell us.”

“Do you think they will?” she asked.

Jeremiah took in a breath. “I’ll find out, one way or the other.”

She curved a hand around the back of his neck, slid her fingers into his hair, and kissed him lightly. “Yes, you will, and not because you’re a reporter.” She dropped her hand, smiled warmly. “You’re also his friend.”

“Mollie.” His voice quaked, but he ignored the knot of fear in his throat. “If the attack on Croc wasn’t a coincidence-if he was set up-then someone’s trying to cover their own tracks.”

She nodded, still steady, although he could see that she’d followed his thinking, perhaps had already reached the same conclusion. “I’m the common denominator, and we still don’t know what it means, if anything. And I was attacked and threatened-” She swallowed visibly, but maintained her composure. “If Croc isn’t the jewel thief, or if the police don’t accept him as the jewel thief, I could be in danger.”

“You could be in danger, period.”

“Well. I guess next time I speak to Leonardo, I’ll tell him he’s not paranoid after all for having such an elaborate security system.”

“You’ll be there?”

“Waiting for you,” she said, and left him alone with Croc, aka Blake Wilder, aka Kermit Tiernay.

Jeremiah leaned over the kid’s sleeping body. “Where the hell your folks get a name like Kermit? No wonder you went off the deep end.”

He pulled up a chair and sat, wondering if Kermit Tienay’s parents would show up.