Triple Threat Read online

  “Depends on your view of murder.”

  Smiling, he picked up the bags and closed the back of the car. “Now, if you had taken my suggestion of coming upstairs and taking a nap with me before, right about now you’d be having a totally different type of dream.”

  “Does it involve stabbing? Shooting? Guillotining?”

  He shook his head, moved the bags onto one arm and placed the other around her shoulder, pushing her up the walk.

  “Nothing quite so violent,” he whispered in her ear. “Think hot and sweaty…and maybe a little noisy.”

  “Hot, sweaty and noisy.” She thought for a second. “Let’s see. In this dream, I must be working in a fast-food place. Of course, I’d be firing your butt because I’m your boss.”

  His laughter was contagious. Ellie bit her lip to hide it.

  “Vic wasn’t joking, was he?” Nate said, still chuckling.

  She immediately bristled. “Joking about what?”

  He immediately put on his innocent face. “Uh…about that great collection of antique maps you have in the shop. How come I didn’t see them?”

  “That’s not what you were talking about.”

  “Really?”

  She fired a cross look at him and went ahead of him into the convent. They took the packages to the kitchen. There was no one there, and he put the bags on the counter.

  “Come on. Confess. What was it exactly that Vic told you about me?”

  “You don’t really expect me to get him in trouble now, do you?”

  “No.” She pushed him out of the way and started emptying the bags. She was trying to keep it light and joking, but in truth Ellie was frustrated with her father and with Nate, but mostly with herself for encouraging him. She knew she was sending him mixed signals, but she was being a coward about following through one way or another.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, standing right behind her.

  Ellie’s body was already in overdrive. “Say something that will make me really lose it. You know, give me a chance to take it out on you. Let me punch you or something.”

  He had a surprised look on his face when she turned around and faced him. “Go ahead. Do it.”

  “Don’t,” Sister Helen said, coming into the kitchen at that moment. Nate immediately moved away. “Never strike a federal agent, Elizabeth, unless you want to spend your youth behind bars. I speak from personal experience.”

  The nun moved to the counter and took a quick inventory of the items purchased.

  “So,” she said brightly, looking at Ellie. “Did you hear anything more?”

  There was no need to ask what the nun was referring to. “No, he hasn’t called back yet.”

  “Was Ray any help?”

  “Not yet.” Ellie started putting the groceries away. “The clock is definitely ticking.”

  “I need to get Lou to look into other possible contacts,” Nate said from a corner of the kitchen. “Real or replacement, having something flying up there behind the President is a safety net I would personally like to pursue.”

  Ellie leaned against the counter. “If that’s the way you feel about it, I can check with some people I know, too. This whole business works by word of mouth. I think I might be able come up with some names of people who could do the work, too.”

  He didn’t do a very good job of hiding his surprise. Though she had kept herself clear of items with a questionable pedigree, Ellie was irked by the idea of Nate relying on Lou for all the answers. Childish, immature, selfish—Ellie could think of a hundred names for herself that might fit right now. But what had originally started as a race against time now also felt like a race against her father. After all, she knew people who restored tapestries and antique clothing, people who were experts with both fabric and period stitching.

  Lou appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and looked only at Nate. “You wanted to talk? Now’s the time.”

  A heaviness welled up in Ellie as she watched Nate disappear with her father down the steps. A life that appeared so perfect just a few days ago now seemed incomplete and full of flaws. She had things—money, security, a house, a career—but not a single relationship in her life that was working. She was alone. As she always had been.

  And she was tired of it.

  “Are you okay?” Helen asked with concern.

  “Really tired,” she said softly, picking up her purse and going out of the house.

  Chris didn’t whine when one of the nuns called out to say they were eating dinner in half an hour. Instead, he left the baseball game despite being next to bat. He ran down the alley to the back of the convent and fetched a broom, quickly sweeping the sidewalk out front. Putting the broom back, he took his shoes off before going in. He washed his hands and face, ran into the sisters’ living room and stacked up the newspapers and the books. From there, he ran to the kitchen and, without being asked, started setting the table.

  He was happy, safe, thankful for being here, and he wanted to show it. Agent Murtaugh had said they’d still made no plans to take him back to New York. Miss Ellie and Sister Helen had both told him not to say anything to anyone about Nate being an FBI guy, and Chris had given his word on that one. It was a special thing to be trusted with secrets—especially when the people were cool like these people.

  “What a good boy!” Sister Helen said, coming into the kitchen and catching him putting the last plate on the table. She went to the oven and checked the lasagna one of the other sisters had made. “We’ve got plenty here, if you want to ask Ted to stay for dinner. Would you like to go and see if he’s still around and if he’d like to join us?”

  Christopher dashed for the front door. Most of the kids had disappeared. A group of the younger ones was playing four square on the sidewalk down the street. Three women were sitting on the steps of the house two doors down. Chris searched the line of parked cars, looking for Ted’s.

  He stopped looking when he saw the black car. It was parked at the end of the block, facing the convent. There were two men sitting inside.

  The thin bubble of security popped. They were here for him.

  Chris turned and ran inside the convent, quickly closing and locking the front door before running back into the kitchen.

  Sixteen

  Thursday, June 24

  Nate sat back on his hotel bed with the phone in the crook of his neck as Victor read off Ellie’s appointments for the day.

  “Let’s see. Mrs. Harriman of the Havertown Harriman’s at ten-thirty. The original purple-haired dowager, complete with poodle. Wait a second.” Vic’s voice became muffled. “Good afternoon, ladies. If you have any questions, I’m here for you.”

  Nate heard the potential customers return the greeting. Vic came back on the line, his voice low. “Tourists. Professional shoppers, but not buyers. Their clothes came off the clearance rack at an outlet two weeks ago. The bags are Gucci knockoffs, probably got them on the street from a vendor. The husbands are sitting in the bar at the Striped Bass, hoping to see Jennifer Aniston, but they’ll take Bruce Willis. The old goats are also praying these two don’t find anything they’ll have to come and look at.” Vic paused. “My guess, from the way their hair’s been done, is they want to look like Lower East Side Manhattanites, but they’re really from Yonkers.”

  “That’s pretty good, Vic.”

  “It’s a gift.” He paused and Nate heard the pages of the calendar rustle again. “After Mrs. Harriman, lunch with Augusta Biddle. Smart move, considering the celebrity auction is next week and Ellie’s already canceled the first two meetings with her this week.”

  Nate had seen a write-up in today’s paper about the auction. Biddle definitely seemed to get top billing with her picture pasted in at the top of the article. But even to the socially savvy reporter who did the article, Ellie was clearly the one who had done the bulk of the work putting the auction together.

  “Back massage at Pierre and Carlo’s at four,” Vic continued. “Things must not be goin
g well. She hasn’t done that for a long while. Let’s see, dinner with…oh, Christ. Not him!”

  “Who is she going out to dinner with?” Nate asked, sitting up.

  “With the jackass.”

  Nate shifted the phone from one ear to the other. “Is that a first name or a last name?”

  “Both. I just can’t believe she is going out with him again.”

  When Nate called first thing this morning about getting together, Ellie had brushed him off completely. She’d reminded him about dinner at Ray’s tomorrow night and said she didn’t need to see him until then—unless something came up. There was no need to read between the lines. She’d told him repeatedly that there was not going to be any personal involvement between them.

  “Who is this guy, Vic?”

  “The jackass. Aka Donald Shore, Philadelphia lawyer, old Main Line family, comes from money, has money, thinks he can buy anything with money. Armani suits, expensive hair weave, works with a personal trainer at the Rittenhouse Athletic Club. Likes to hear himself talk, has an opinion on everything. Met Ellie through the Biddles. Thinks our girl is very cute and has been putting the squeeze on her for a while. She keeps putting him off. He had his decorator buy a shitload of stuff from us. He wouldn’t dare say it to Ellie, but I know he’s homophobic. I hate him.”

  “Ellie hates cute,” Nate offered.

  “You’re right. That’s why I can’t figure what the hell she is doing going out with this guy. I thought things were going good with you two.”

  “They were. They are. Everything’s cool.” Nate got up from the hotel bed and limped around the room. Never in a million years would he have thought that there would come a day when his confidante would be a muscled gay antique dealer who had a crush on him.

  “Then it must be a sex thing.”

  “What sex thing?”

  “I shouldn’t talk about it. Hold on.” Vic greeted another customer and asked the two New Yorkers if they were okay. He was back on the line in a minute. “But what the hell, I might have started this whole mess yesterday afternoon.”

  “What happened yesterday afternoon?”

  “She was pretty upset. No. Wound-up, I guess, when she got back from Sister Helen’s. So, innocently, I asked her how things were and if she’d seen you…just small talk, you know?” There was the grinding sound of a chair being moved. Nate visualized Vic moving one of the stools and sitting on it. His tone dropped low. “Then, out of nowhere, she explodes on me. And I’m not talking about a PMS bad mood or a temper tantrum. I mean, she really lost it. She accuses me of meddling in her life. She reminds me that you’re only a client. Says she’s no baby-sitter, and she’s no girlfriend, either. Then she keeps going…complaining about Sister Helen and her father and the business and before I know it, she’s in tears. So I hug her and tell her everything will work out, yadda yadda.”

  Nate sat down on the bed and thought about how Ellie’s mood had turned sour yesterday. It was when she and Louis had faced each other—or hadn’t. She was fine until he arrived at the convent in his car. Whenever Ellie and Lou were in the same room, there might as well be a ten-foot-high stone wall between them, with barbed wire on the top and a moat alongside. They never talked directly. There was rarely any acknowledgement of any sort.

  “Now, when it comes to Ellie, I love her like family. Hell, I love her better than my family. And she’s not one to fall apart like that, so it broke my heart to see it. Wait a minute, I need to write up a sale. So you found something. Lovely…” Vic’s voice became muffled.

  Nate decided he should hang up. This was absolutely ridiculous. He could imagine Hawes’s reaction if he knew that Nate was spending the day like this, lying around a hotel room and having a heart-to-heart with Vic. He’d have a coronary.

  In his own defense, Nate was working. He reached for the folders on the bedside table and started taking notes. He’d been on the phone with Wilcox for more than an hour this morning, going over the package he’d received from the museum director. Now he had in his possession all the pertinent information about the weave and texture and condition of the Schuyler flag prior to the fire. Pretty quickly, he needed to locate a person who could produce a duplicate.

  “I’m back. Where was I?”

  “The sex thing.”

  “Yeah, family. Anyway, I pull her into my arms and start giving her all this advice. Now, at this point I don’t care if she’s listening or not. The important thing with women is just to hold them when they’re like this. Are you listening, Nate?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Good. So I give her this speech about the importance of having a well-rounded lifestyle. This means eating right, which she doesn’t do, sleeping enough, which she appears to be skipping lately, and having family and friends around, like me and Brian and Helen but not grouchy old Lou. And then I talk about sex, and how important it is for a thirty-year-old woman…I did tell you that she turned thirty this year, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Anyway, I give her this speech about relationships—and different facets of it, including sex. Now we’re talking, and I couldn’t remember the name of her last boyfriend. But she couldn’t, either. That tells you how long it’s been. Anyway, he was just another one of those rich Main Line boys who isn’t worth remembering. So I bad-mouth him for a minute or so, and she laughs a little, and I can see she’s coming around. But I have this lousy habit I got from my mother. I tend to end these kinds of tearful sessions with a general ‘one size fits all’ piece of advice. My mother says, ‘Find a nice girl, have some kids and help yourself to another manicotti.”’

  “What advice do you give?”

  “A hot dose of sex gives perspective to any problem.”

  “Very profound.”

  “It’s a gift. Hold on. Goodbye, ladies. Stop back again.” Vic sighed heavily. “But I think Attorney Shore can thank me for his hot date tonight.”

  “Do you know where they’re going for dinner?”

  “No…but now you’re talking.”

  Sister Lisa, the youngest nun in the convent, was tall and athletic, and the talk among the boys outside was that she was strong enough to wrestle three of them to the ground at a time. Christopher needed protection right now, so he cheerfully volunteered to help with all kinds of chores, and he had not left Sister Lisa’s side all day.

  “Hey, I hear another ball game heating up outside.” For the first time since lunch, the nun sat down with a book in her lap. “Why don’t you go out? You have enough time to play a couple of innings before dinner.”

  Chris shook his head and went back to lining up his opposing lines of Crazy Bones, those little molded statue like pieces of colorful plastic that he could use like army men or like marbles. Ellie had given them to him yesterday, and he loved them. His favorite, an inch-high blue one he’d named Ziggy, was at the center of three lines of defense.

  This morning, he’d peeked out of the upstairs window. The car was still there, though he could only see one man in it. Later, helping Sister Lisa take some bags of used clothes to Lou’s car, he’d seen them again. The car was still parked at the end of the block, and both guys were sitting in it. They weren’t coming in. They weren’t going. They were just watching. Waiting.

  Chris remembered the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The ugly Quasi-guy had wanted sanctuary in the church. Maybe convents worked that way, too. Maybe it was that sanctuary thing that was keeping him safe. Or maybe, just like in the movies, they were waiting to see if he squawked. Then they’d get him and put a bullet in him for ratting on them.

  Whatever, he wasn’t going to jinx anything.

  “Maybe you should go and check to see if Mr. Hardy is playing with the kids out there.”

  Chris was tempted, but the idea of going on the street where anyone could grab him was too scary. He really liked Ted. As far as grown-ups went, he was the coolest Chris had ever met. He was one of those dads you saw in the playground, thro
wing the ball or wrestling and having fun with their kids. Or the ones who were always waiting at school at the end of the day to pick their kids up. Or the ones who went on all the field trips. Chris just knew that Ted was the kind of dad who would always be around and never forget a birthday.

  He leaned on one elbow and rolled one of Ziggy’s soldiers at the opposing army, knocking two of them down. Ted would even be a dad who would play Crazy Bones with him.

  “Does Mr. Hardy have any kids?”

  Sister Lisa held the book against her chest and looked up at Chris. She opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it. Suddenly, she seemed sort of sad. “Mr. Hardy…well, he did have kids once. Two little girls.”

  “What do you mean? Doesn’t he have them no more?”

  She shook her head. “No, they’re both in heaven now.”

  Chris stared down at the orderly lines of little statues. Ted had a way of staring into space every now and then—especially when a couple of the younger girls on the street would squeal or laugh. “What happened to them?”

  “It was a…a while ago. They died in a fire.” Sister Lisa touched the cross that hung from a chain around her neck and opened the book in her lap.

  “Where was the fire?” Chris asked softly.

  “At the house they lived in.”

  “Was Mr. Hardy there?”

  “No.” She shook her head when Chris opened his mouth to ask his next question. “No more questions now, Christopher. And I think it would be best if you didn’t bring up any of this with Mr. Hardy, either. He had a very difficult time recovering from that loss, and it’s only been this past six months or so that he’s gotten back to being more like his old self.”

  Chris thought of his own parents. Neither of them knew or cared where he’d gone. They didn’t care if he was ever coming back. Something was messed up when a nice guy like Ted loses his children, while a kid like him can walk around with nobody caring about him at all.

  It was the kind of elegance that seemed to envelop you, shaping itself to the contours of your consciousness the way silk molds to the lines of your body. It was a sense of comfort that moved with you. It made you feel secure, welcome. It left you intellectually and sensually satisfied.