The Collector
Page 25

“You sit for him. You be the sexy, earthy gypsy.”
“He wants you. He has a vision and he wants you.” At the sink Julie tried the pink-grapefruit-scented soap, approved. “Plus, doing this, giving him a new inspiration, a new project, will help him through the grieving process.”
In the mirror, Lila narrowed her eyes at Julie’s smug face. “Oh, that’s dirty fighting.”
“It really is.” Julie refreshed her lip gloss. “Also true. Give it a chance. You’re no coward.”
“More dirty fighting.”
“I know.”
Laughing, Julie patted Lila’s shoulder, then started out. Halfway up the steps she let out a muffled shriek.
“What? Mouse? What?”
“My shoes!”
Julie charged up the steps, skirted around the hostess station, had to dodge and weave around the group of people who’d just come in, then finally shoved her way out the door. Head swiveling left and right, she rushed up the two short steps to the sidewalk.
“Damn it!”
“Julie, what the hell?”
“The shoes, my shoes. The shoes, really great legs, some sort of ankle tat. Short red dress. I couldn’t see much more.”
“Julie, Manolo made more than one pair of those shoes.”
“They were mine. Think about it.” She whirled around, six feet of flaming female fury. “You see the murder, somebody breaks into my place, takes my shoes. Now I see a woman wearing them leaving a restaurant where we came for dinner—a restaurant just a couple blocks from the murder?”
Frowning, Lila rubbed at suddenly chilly arms in the evening heat. “Now you’re creeping me out.”
“Ash could be right. Whoever killed his brother’s keeping tabs on you. You need to talk to the police again.”
“Now you’re seriously creeping me out. I’ll tell them, fine, I will. I promise. But they’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Just tell them. And put a chair under the doorknob tonight.”
“They broke into your place, not where I’m staying.”
“I’ll put a chair under the doorknob, too.”
Jai slid into the car about the time Julie hit the top of the stairs. She didn’t like this connection between the brother of the idiot and this nosy woman who’d been watching the apartment.
She hadn’t seen enough, so it seemed, to cause any problem. But no, Jai didn’t like this connection.
Her employer wouldn’t care for all these dangling ends.
They wouldn’t be dangling if Ivan hadn’t pushed the stupid whore out the window, and if the idiot hadn’t passed out after a few drinks. She hadn’t put that many pills in the bourbon.
So she could only deduce he’d already taken some before her arrival.
Bad luck, she thought. She didn’t care for bad luck either, and this job brought a streak of it.
Maybe the brother knew something after all, had something.
He had his loft secured like a fortress, but it was time to get around that. She had a couple hours, she imagined, as he was having dinner with the nosy one.
“The brother’s place,” she told Ivan. “Take me there, then go back, sit on the brother and the others. Contact me when they leave.”
“We’re wasting time. The bitch didn’t know anything, and they didn’t have anything. If they ever did, they sold it.”
Why did she have to work with morons? “You’re paid to do what I tell you. Do what I tell you.”
And then, she thought, she’d deal with at least one of those dangling ends.
Lila didn’t argue when Ash insisted on walking her home—because Luke insisted on doing the same with Julie, in the opposite direction.
“It’s interesting you knowing both Julie and Luke, considering the history.”
“Life’s full of the strange.”
“It is. And it was strange seeing all that sparkage between them.”
“Sparkage?”
“Old flame, low smolder, a few fresh sparks.” She made a pow sound as she flicked her hands in the air.
“Old flame, short, crappy marriage. Doused.”
“Bet.”
“Bet?”
“You’re not paying a lot of attention because you keep repeating what I say, and I say I bet—let’s say ten bucks—there’s a pow and not a fizzle.”
“I’ll take that bet. He’s already half seeing somebody.”
“Half seeing’s just sex, and the somebody isn’t Julie. They look great together. All handsome and healthy and built.”
“Come by my place.”
“Wait. What?” She felt a quick buzz—fresh sparks—and thought it wise to avoid the singe. “I knew you weren’t paying attention.”
“It’s just a few blocks that way. It’s not late. You can see the work space, relax in it. I’m not going to hit on you.”
“Now my evening’s ruined. Sarcasm,” she said quickly when she saw the change in his eyes. “Julie’s going to hound me until I agree to let you at least do some sketches, and once I do, you’ll see you’re wrong about the whole thing.”
“Come see the space. You like seeing new spaces, and it should help adjust your really crappy attitude.”
“That’s so sweet. But I do like seeing new spaces, and it’s not very late. And since I know you’re not interested in hitting on me, I’m safe so why not?”
He turned at the corner, toward his building, away from hers. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in hitting on you. I said I wouldn’t. How’d you meet the cheating bastard? The one you shared with Julie.”
She was still working on not not interested. “It sounds inappropriately sexy when you say it that way. We shared a cab, in a rainstorm. It was romantic, just one of those New York things. He wasn’t wearing a ring, and definitely indicated he wasn’t married or involved. I ended up having a drink with him, then we went out to dinner a few days later, then, then, then. What could’ve been a really horrible thing turned around and gave me my best friend, so the bastard was good for something.”
She turned topics on a dime—a particular skill. “When did you know you had talent?”
“Don’t like talking about yourself, do you?”