Cuff Me Page 9

  “She’s had a couple of wealthy marriages,” Jill said, leaning forward to peer onto the property while Vincent announced them.

  The gate opened and Vincent drove forward on what seemed to be a private country club. The grass was perfectly manicured. The trees lining the driveway were evenly spaced.

  “How big is this property?” he asked. “I don’t even see a house—”

  And then they saw it.

  “That’s because it’s not a house,” Jill said, her voice just a little bit awed. “It’s like a French chateau.”

  “Yeah? You’ve been to a lot of those?” he asked as they both climbed out of the car, staring up at the enormous structure.

  She felt a little pang at his casual question. She hated reminders that she’d never left the country. Never left the continent.

  Never had anyone to travel with.

  She pushed the maudlin thought aside. She had Tom now. Maybe for their honeymoon…

  Vincent glanced up at the sky. “Henley, you did check the weather report before we left?”

  “Yeah, that’s the first thing I do when we go off to interview a murder suspect,” she said sarcastically. “Check the weather.”

  Then she too looked up at the sky and understood immediately what he meant. She may have grown up in Florida, but she’d lived in New York long enough to know what snow looked like.

  They exchanged a glance. “Let’s make this fast,” Vincent said.

  An hour later, it was clear that Holly Adams had other ideas.

  “You just can’t know how lonely it gets around here,” she said with a bright smile. “I love to entertain, so you can imagine how excited I was to hear I was having guests!”

  Jill hid a smile.

  She was pretty sure that this was the first time that homicide detectives at the NYPD had been described as guests.

  And Jill was definitely certain that it was the first time they’d been treated to a three-course meal.

  The food had been amazing, although not quite as amazing as watching Vincent carefully eat butternut squash bisque with an itty-bitty spoon.

  “So, Ms. Adams,” he said as the housekeeper set chocolate mousse in front of them. “About Lenora Birch…”

  Holly sighed from where she sat proudly at the head of the table. The woman had refused to discuss the death of a “dear friend” while eating, but Vincent was apparently out of patience. Jill was surprised he’d made it all the way to dessert.

  “Ms. Adams, can you tell us about the last time you saw Lenora?” Jill asked, leaning forward.

  “Please. Call me Holly.” She fiddled with her spoon.

  Jill studied the older woman, trying to get a read on her and failing.

  She was beautiful, even in her mid-seventies. She was short and curvy, and even with her advanced age, Jill could definitely see the outline of what must have been a rather phenomenal figure back in her day.

  She and Lenora must have made quite a pair, one tall, thin, and regal, the other short, curvy, and coquettish.

  “We used to be friends, you know,” Holly said on a sigh. “Best friends.”

  Her voice was just slightly petulant, although Jill wasn’t sure if it was from old wounds or annoyance that she was being questioned in the death of a former friend.

  But the former part was why they were here.

  “What happened? To the friendship, I mean,” Jill asked.

  Holly spooned up a tiny bit of chocolate mousse and slipped it between coral-colored lips. “Isn’t it obvious? She shoved me out of the way so that she’d be the only Hollywood darling. Took all the prime roles, stole all the men—”

  “All the men?” Vincent asked.

  Holly waved her hand. “You know what I mean, Detective. All the good ones.”

  “You’ve been married three times,” Vincent said dryly. “Were they the good ones?”

  Holly huffed and gazed at him with sharp eyes.

  Then she shifted her attention to Jill. “Your partner’s a cynic.”

  Jill smiled. “A bit, yes.”

  Holly’s hand glanced to Jill’s left hand. “I see you’re not. Married?”

  “Engaged,” Jill responded.

  Holly’s face lit up. “Oh, I do love a good engagement! They’re so much fun. I miss them.”

  “More fun than the marriages themselves?” Vincent cut in again.

  Jill’s lips twitched, but Vin brought up a good point. All signs were definitely pointing to Holly Adams being spoiled and shallow.

  But murderous? She just wasn’t sure. At all.

  “So your and Lenora’s friendship ended. What caused the final break?” Jill asked, bringing their attention back to the case.

  “Well.” Holly plucked at the skirt of her Chanel suit. “It was over a man.”

  “Naturally,” Vincent muttered into his water glass.

  Jill tried to kick him under the table, but the massive dining table was too large for her to reach.

  “He was my beau first,” Holly said. “We met at Bemelman’s. You’ve been?”

  Jill shook her head, and Holly clapped her hands together. “Oh, you simply must. It’s this lovely—”

  “So how did Lenora steal him?” Vincent asked, his patience officially frayed.

  Holly slumped again. “I invited her out to drinks with the two of us. I wanted her to meet him.”

  Or wanted to show him off, Jill thought, taking a bite of rather excellent chocolate mousse.

  “Anyway, the two of them fought like crazy,” Holly said. “I’d never seen anything like it. Hate at first sight. Or so I thought.”

  Jill saw Vincent sit up straighter and wondered if he was getting one of his premonitions. Although over what, she had no idea. Holly Adams might be a vain snot, but Jill doubted she’d have killed a former friend over a decades-old grudge over a man whom neither had gone on to marry.

  “Anyway,” Holly said moodily, “turns out all that ‘fighting’ was really something else.”

  “They had an affair?” Jill asked, keeping her voice kind.

  “They said they didn’t,” Holly said. “But Henry—that was his name—ended things with me. When I asked him why, he said he had feelings for someone else. Two weeks later, they showed up together at the premiere of Lenora’s latest film.”

  “That upset you,” Vincent said.

  Holly gave him a vaguely incredulous look. “Clearly you’ve never had another man steal someone of yours, Detective. Of course I was upset.”

  Jill should have been watching Holly then. Should have been assessing the older woman to determine whether or not by upset she actually meant homicidal.

  But instead she found herself watching her partner.

  Something on his face just then. When Holly had said he’d never had another man steal someone of his…

  Suddenly, Jill wanted to press. Wanted to know what Vincent was thinking right that very second, because it felt important—vital. As well as she knew Vincent (and she supposed she knew him as well as anyone), she had a sense that she was missing something.

  “Ms. Adams, where were you the night Lenora Birch was murdered?”

  Jill jumped to attention at that, her attention swerving back to Holly at Vincent’s direct question.

  She had to admit, it was well played. Vin had a habit of being a bit too hasty with the accusations, and he could sometimes put suspects on edge too soon, but he was right to try to throw Holly Adams off her game.

  And he’d succeeded given that the woman clutched at her necklace with white knuckles.

  “Why, I—how dare you—”

  “Oh, come now, Holly,” Jill said kindly. “You had a very public argument with Ms. Birch just days before she was murdered. Surely you knew two homicide detectives didn’t drive all the way out from New York just to share a meal.”

  Holly glared at her, and for the first time, Jill found herself on the receiving end of a suspect’s irritation. Usually she played the good cop, but Holly was st
arting to rub her the wrong way.

  The woman was lonely, true, but she was also petulant and manipulative—two flaws Jill had always found particularly irritating.

  “I was here,” Holly Adams said finally, picking up her spoon and determinedly scraping at the last of her chocolate mousse. “I was here like I always am, alone like I always am.”

  “So nobody can verify your whereabouts?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “My housekeeper, of course. And Martin. He manages security and the occasional odd job around the house.”

  Both were employees who could be easily bought, Jill thought.

  Still, it was far-fetched. Possible, yes. Possible that Holly Adams could have found her way to the city, visited an old frenemy, and then, in arguing about old times, pushed her in a fit of rage.

  But there was no proof. Not even circumstantial evidence.

  Holly was sharper than Jill originally gave her credit for, because the older woman seemed to sense Jill’s lack of conviction and played on it.

  She reached out a hand, although the table was so enormous it stopped several feet short of Jill before dropping delicately. “I didn’t kill Lenora,” she said. “I don’t even have the energy to dislike her anymore. When you’ll get to my age… you’ll see. You’ll understand. It takes a grievance far worse than a straying lover to carry on that kind of hatred for decades. We had a spat a few weeks ago, true, but it was more for old times’ sake than anything else. There was no real heat to it. I’m sure Lenora would say the same.”

  “Except she can’t. Because she’s dead.” Vincent put his napkin down after this sharp deceleration and stood, indicating that the meal was over.

  The interview was over as well. Jill knew there was nothing more to get out of Holly at the moment. She had that clammed-up look of a woman who was gearing up for a good sulk.

  “May we speak with your housekeeper and this Martin?” Jill asked, standing as well.

  Holly sniffed. “Of course. I have nothing to hide.”

  As expected, the housekeeper and security guy backed up their employer’s claims that she rarely left the home. Apparently Holly hadn’t been away from the house except to see the show in the city on the night she argued with Lenora, as well as to a friend’s house for cocktails a couple nights earlier.

  Jill didn’t see any of the classic warning signs that they were lying, but neither did she get that gut-level instinct that they were completely honest.

  Though, that sort of people-reading hunch was more Vincent’s thing. Maybe he’d picked something up.

  Vincent and Jill said a chilly good-bye to a thoroughly pissed-off Holly Adams, who had left the dining room and now sat watching reruns of I Love Lucy in a fully decked-out media room.

  “You can see yourself out, I trust?” Holly said, not looking away from the screen.

  “We’ll manage,” Vin said with a roll of his eyes at Jill.

  They barely managed. It took two wrong turns in the massive house before they found their way back to the formal foyer.

  “That chandelier is bigger than my entire apartment,” Vin muttered.

  “Probably costs as much too,” Jill said, pausing to take one last look at the opulent home. “It’s a little sad, isn’t it? All of this grandness and nobody to share it with?”

  “Doesn’t have to be sad. Some people like being alone.”

  She glanced at him knowingly. “You’re talking about you, huh?”

  Her voice was teasing, but he merely looked away. Didn’t answer as he opened the door and started to head outside.

  Vincent skidded to a halt and when Jill glanced around him, she knew why.

  The sky had made good on its threat of snow.

  Lots of it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jill and Vincent made a solid go of it, but ten minutes after leaving Holly Adams’s house, they realized that trying to make it back to Manhattan in a near blizzard was stupid and dangerous.

  “There,” Jill said, squinting through the white blur of their windshield. “I think that’s a motel up on the right.”

  “‘Motel’ is a strong word,” Vincent said as they inched closer, pulling into the near-deserted parking lot.

  Jill reached for the door handle, but Vincent gave her a skeptical look. “You do know that deserted motels like this are where people come to die, right?”

  She leaned over and patted his thigh. “You’ve got a gun, big guy.”

  The woman behind the reception desk had both the whitest skin and the blackest hair Jill had ever seen. Add to that a complete inability to smile, an obvious disdain for her job, and a disarming habit of maintaining eye contact for three beats too long, and Vincent had a pretty solid point about the whole death-in-motel theory.

  The place was seriously creepy.

  “Good thing Holly served us a big old meal so we won’t have to worry about dinner,” Jill said as they made their way to their side-by-side rooms.

  “Or not,” she muttered, watching as Vincent stopped in front of a vending machine, pulled out some cash, and began punching buttons for everything from mixed nuts to M&M’s.

  Their rooms were on the first floor. “This is me,” Jill said, pointing at 104. The “0” was missing, but as long as the bed was clean and the bathroom spider-free, she’d make do.

  Vincent nodded at 105. “I’m next door if you need anything.”

  “I’ll be good,” she said. “I have every intention of taking a hot shower and then watching some truly appalling old movie on TV.”

  “And calling Tom,” Vin said.

  She’d started to put her key in the lock but glanced over her shoulder in surprise at that.

  “Sure,” she said, a little confused by the sudden and unprompted mention of her fiancé. “And calling Tom.”

  She hadn’t thought much about it actually. But they talked most nights, so yeah… she’d check in.

  Vin nodded once before taking a couple steps toward his own room. He passed before entering, glancing at her once. “If you hear me scream… save me?”

  Jill grinned. “You got it, partner. Be brave in there.”

  Then, to her utter surprise, Vincent Moretti smiled at her. Not a big toothy grin… the man didn’t have any of those… that she knew of.

  But it was a definite smile. As rare as it was beautiful.

  She stood there for several seconds even after he’d shut his door, still feeling a little off balance.

  Jill shook it off and went into her motel room. It was about what one would expect from a roadside motel in a town whose borders took all of five minutes to drive through.

  The carpet was less than pristine. The bedspread was standard, ugly floral print. The pillows looked flat, the lighting horrible.

  But it was clean—ish. No hairballs in the bathroom, no dead bugs on the nightstand. Jill abandoned the shower idea after remembering that she’d have no clean underwear to put on after.

  Instead, she set her gun in the drawer of the nightstand, pulled off her boots and bulky sweater, and settled back on the bed in her white camisole and pants. She made herself as comfortable as possible against the two pathetic pillows and pulled out her cell phone.

  And got Tom’s voice mail.

  She settled for a text. Call me when you get a chance. Interesting day.

  Jill started to set the phone aside, then paused, and wrote another message.

  Love you.

  She stared down at her screen for several moments, wondering if maybe he’d respond right away with a “love you too” as he usually did.

  Nothing.

  Jill shrugged. Tom was still in Florida, in the last phases of that deal before he’d shift his attention to Chicago. No doubt he was out schmoozing some businessmen and -women.

  He wanted her to fly down next weekend. She hadn’t seen him since last week when he’d come up to meet the Morettis, and she tried not to let herself get freaked out by the fact that since he’d slipped a ring on her finger, they’
d been apart more than they’d been together.

  She should go down to Florida. There was no reason not to make the short trip. She wouldn’t have to miss work if she kept it short, and she could totally go for a dose of sunshine.

  And it was important—vital—somehow, that she keep Tom fresh in her memory.

  And her in his.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, tapping her fingers against her mouth. “You’re marrying the man. It’s not like he’s going to forget you.”

  Jill dropped her hand to her lap and stood staring at the wall, wondering if this is what people meant by prewedding jitters.

  Granted their wedding was still several months away, and she didn’t have jitters so much as…

  She didn’t know what. But it was something.

  Not in the mood to deal with it, and blaming it on the fact that she was in a small, gross motel without any clean clothes in the middle of a snowstorm, she reached for the TV remote.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” she said ten seconds later.

  Every single channel was doing the staticky thing.

  She pushed all the standard “fix it” buttons on the remote. Nothing. Got up and fiddled with a few things on the TV set itself.

  Still nothing.

  A call to the front desk confirmed her worst nightmare.

  “Our fix-it guy could normally be here in a half hour, but in this snow…”

  “I can take another room,” Jill said. It’s not like she had any heavy luggage that had to be moved.

  “Well… I think 219 is clean, and 201 is supposed to be…”

  Jill pulled at her ponytail in irritation. “Never mind,” she muttered. “Do you guys have any books? You know, a shelf of books left behind?”

  Maybe she could read. A nice mystery or romance would do just the trick…

  “Books?” the receptionist said.

  Jill closed her eyes. “Forget it. Thanks anyway.”

  She hung up the phone and gently banged her head against the wall behind her. She could probably just go to bed early… get caught up on some sleep.

  Jill glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It wasn’t even seven o’clock.

  Standing, Jill pulled her sweater and boots back on, grabbed her gun and purse.