I turned around and saw that the intruder was none other than the troublemaker, Gorka. He stood there giving me a big drooling grin, and trying to give me something else, too. A red baseball cap, damp and mangled, hung from his crocodile jaws.
Gorka poked his treasure against my knees again, then laid it at my feet and barked merrily when I retrieved it. If the drinkers around us noticed all this, they didn’t seem to care.
“Friend of yours?” said B.J., and hiccuped. Danny had wandered away.
“No, but he belongs to—Gorka, be quiet. No bark!
Sit.
”
My new admirer sat, drumming his scarred tail against the floor, thoroughly pleased with himself. I rose on tiptoe to search for his owner and sure enough, Domaso Duarte was plowing toward us from the Pio’s doorway. But the owner of the baseball cap got to me first.
“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded the Tyke. Her honey-brown hair was loose around her face, strands sticking to her broad, damp cheekbones.
I realized that I was sweating myself. Between the hot night outside the building and the body heat inside, the air-conditioning didn’t stand a chance.
“Don’t yell at
me,
” I bawled. “Yell at the damn dog. Here, take your hat.”
“I don’t want it now; it’s all slimy. You should keep that mutt outside.” She turned to B.J. “And you should quit asking stupid questions about the accident. Everyone feels bad enough already. You got that?”
The Tyke’s voice gained an ugly note of menace with this last phrase. Gorka swung his muzzle toward her and lifted his lip, showing a fang or three. Not a snarl, really, just a pointed expression of disapproval. The Tyke backed up a pace, and I gave him a silent
Good dog.
Gorka must have read my mind. He unfolded his back legs and stood, his massive head higher than the Tyke’s waist. She swore, backing up farther, then turned and stamped away, her flip-flops flopping.
Good boy.
“Hey, Carrie, this guy giving you trouble?” The voice came clearly through a sudden lull in the din, as a broad, black-furred hand grabbed Gorka by his brass-studded collar. “Sorry about that.”
Domaso didn’t look all that sorry. He looked like a cat who’d been sipping cream all afternoon. Through a straw. Even in this crowd of athletic types, his broad shoulders and rock-solid stance marked him out as a powerful man. I wondered how he would do in the Talent Show—and what his talent was.
B.J. nudged me. “Earth to Carnegie?”
“Oh, right. Brenda Jervis, Domaso Duarte. He’s a friend of...he knows...”
“I work for Mrs. Kincaid in Boise,” he said comfortably. “And I know Sam and Cissy here. In fact, I think I know you. B.J., right? Flower store? I picked up a load of topsoil for Cissy a while back.”
“High Country Gardens,” she said, pleased. “I remember now, you talked with Matt about kayaks. You didn’t have the dog with you, though. What’s his name?”
“Name’s Gorka. Watch him for me for a minute, will you?”
Before B.J. could answer, Domaso scooped me into his arms. A slow, sultry number had arisen from the jukebox, and he danced me around for a few bars. And somehow I was just drunk enough to let him. He smelled like the sea, salty and dark. Then, as I began to protest, he deposited me back at B.J.’s side.
“I better get ol’ Gorka out of here,” he told her. “Be seeing you.” Then he gave me a long look. “Be seeing
lots
of you.”
I was about to make a rude retort—“In your dreams” came to mind—when I saw a new arrival standing in the open door behind him. I stared, speechless.
It wasn’t Tracy’s superstar, Oscar-night entrance that silenced me, as she paused in the doorway to shake back her long, lustrous hair. And it wasn’t the way that all the men in the Pio, and half the women, swayed toward her like strands of seaweed in a tidal surge of admiration.
What struck me dumb was the fact that Tracy Kane, the blonde Muffy, was now a flaming, flaunting, flamboyant redhead. And damn her, she looked absolutely fabulous.
Chapter Seven
“SHE DYED IT AGES AGO! IN THE EPISODE WITH THE PRIVATE eye and the poodle?”
“I must have missed that one.” I adjusted the cold washcloth draped over my face. “Please don’t talk so loud.”
B.J. dropped a decibel or two. “But her hair’s been red for
weeks.
”
“I don’t watch much television. Forget it, OK? All I said was, I’m not sure red hair suits Tracy’s complexion. No big deal.”
It was Tuesday morning, and the washcloth was meant to defend my addled brain from the bands of sunlight slashing through the loft of B.J.’s cabin. But nothing could defend me from her voice as she sat on the edge of my bed giving me a hard time. As usual. She hadn’t said another word about Brian, and I couldn’t decide what words to say, so I hadn’t, either.
“No big deal, huh?” I felt the mattress bounce as she leaned forward to lift a corner of the washcloth. “Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn’t bother you that Jack the Knack’s got himself a redhead who isn’t you.”
“The only thing bothering me is the firecracker going off behind my eyes. I cannot believe that you’re up and around. You drank more than I did!”
“Like I said, you’re a wimp. Want some coffee?”
I raised my head, an inch at a time. It didn’t fall off. “Muffy, I would love you forever.”
“Promises, promises!” she called, pounding down the broad open staircase to the kitchen. “Cream?”
“Please.”
I subsided into the pillows, beneath the gentle stir of the overhead fan, and gazed around. B.J. and Matt had designed this big cozy A-frame of peeled logs set in an aspen grove on the edge of town. The loft was Matt’s office as well as the guest room, so minimountains of folders and journals and technical-looking notebooks rose up from every horizontal surface.
Downstairs was a cheerful chaos of houseplants, Navajo rugs, and Pueblo pottery, all B.J.’s passions, along with overflowing shelves of horticultural books and magazines. The mess would have made me insane, but she seemed to thrive on it.
“Here we go.” B.J. reappeared with a tray and set it on the nightstand, newly cleared for my arrival. “This should help.”
I levered myself to a sitting position, ever so cautiously. The room was no longer whirling, as it had last night, but I wasn’t going to push my luck. At least I wasn’t nauseous anymore. The tray held two coffee mugs, steaming and fragrant, along with a plate of buttered scones and a bowl of grapes.
“I do love you, Muffy,” I said, sipping and munching. “I do, I do, I do.”
“Well, you should,” she answered around a mouthful of scone. “I had to drive you back here last night, in case you don’t remember.”
I closed my eyes. “I do now. Sorry.”
“No big deal. I wasn’t planning to work today, but we can swing by the nursery later and get my car.”
“Sure.”
As we finished the scones, an awkward silence fell. It was time to get serious.
“B.J., you said you needed help. I can’t help if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”
She took a swallow of coffee, wiped her mouth on a napkin, and looked down at her hands. Her wedding ring threw back a tiny chip of sunlight.
“I’m in trouble, Muffy,” she murmured. “You won’t—?”
“Of course not. Not a word, not to anybody.”
She heaved a sigh that came all the way up from her toes, and began.
“Matt and I have been having problems for a while now, with him traveling so much and me working so hard at the nursery, and other things. Being married is more complicated than you’d think.”
I thought about Aaron and myself and smiled wryly. “I’ll bet.”
“Then Brian turned up in town to start training at the jump base. He kept hanging around the nursery, dropping hints about picking up where we left off years ago.”
B.J. turned the ring on her finger around and around. “I shut him down, I really did. But then last week Matt and I had a fight on the phone, and that night I went out with some friends and had too much to drink. I didn’t want to drive, so I let Brian take me home and...one thing led to another. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do. I must have been out of my mind. I’ve never cheated on Matt before, never. You’ve got to believe me!”
“I do, B.J. Go on.”
“Well, I was wearing this silver necklace, and when Brian pulled my shirt off—”
I held up a hand. “I don’t need the details.”
“No, of course not. Sorry. Anyway, when I woke up Brian was gone and so was my necklace. I called him and asked for it back, but he teased me about it, the bastard.” She stood up and began to pace, her bare feet silent on the loft’s braided rugs. “Jeez, I shouldn’t talk about him like that now that he’s dead. You must think I’m horrible.”
“B.J., sit down. I don’t think you’re horrible, I think you’re upset. So what happened with the necklace?”
“He threatened to keep it.” She sank into a chair and laced her fingers together, tight. “I was afraid someone would see it, like the guy who shared his apartment, but Brian laughed and said no problem, he was keeping it close to his heart as a souvenir. I was frantic! I called him again and again, but I think he enjoyed it.”
“That
bastard.
”
“Oh, don’t say that, Carnegie. I mean, Bri shouldn’t have acted that way, but he wasn’t a bad person at heart.”
And now he’s dead.
I relented. “Sorry. Go on, what happened next?”
“I threatened to call the police, not that I really would have, and he gave in. He said I could come by the jump base and get the necklace, but before I got there he was called out for the Boot Creek fire. And now he’s gone, and I don’t know where it is.”
“I take it this necklace is really valuable?”
“That’s not the point! Matt had it made for me. Look.”
She plucked a framed photograph from Matt’s desk and held it out. It showed the two of them, arms entwined, smiling for the camera. Matt wore a jacket and tie; B.J., a low-necked dress of black velvet. The necklace was a twisted skein of silver, from which dangled a large silver charm in the shape of a four-petaled blossom.
“That’s the flower on your nursery logo,” I said. “Mock orange?”
“Yeah, the Idaho state flower and all that. Carnegie, I wear that necklace almost every day. If anybody local saw it, they’d recognize it and they’d figure out...what happened.”
“So you think it hasn’t been found yet? Or maybe it was found, but they sent it off to his family with his personal effects?”
“I don’t know!” She sat beside me on the bed, angrily scraping tears from her face. “It’s driving me crazy, trying to find out.”
“That’s what the Tyke meant about your asking questions.”
She nodded miserably. “I can’t come right out and mention the necklace, can I? So I’ve been asking about the accident in general, hoping someone would tell me what was in his PG bag—”
“His what?”
“Personal gear bag. It’s sort of a knapsack that they jump with, with some standard gear and then anything personal they want to bring. Cookies or chewing tobacco or a camera or whatever. I know that Brian’s PG bag was brought back, but I don’t know if anyone’s gone through it. I have to find out before Matt comes back. He thinks I’m going to wear the necklace to Tracy’s wedding. I even tried it on with the dress I’m wearing and showed it to him. He’ll be back Friday night and it’s already Tuesday!” Her voice wobbled like a child’s. “What am I going to
do
?”
“Calm down, Muffy.” I handed her the tissue box. “Calm down and let’s think. You could always tell Matt you lost the necklace.”
“But I never lose anything, and I certainly wouldn’t lose that. Besides, what if I told him it was lost and then it turned up later and he found out Brian had it? Matt was really jealous of Brian that summer and didn’t like it that he was back in town now. He’d know that I lied to him and he’d know why!”
“Not necessarily. The necklace could have slipped off somehow, and Brian found it and kept it...” That sounded pretty lame, even to me. “OK, the first thing is to find out for sure if anyone at the jump base has seen it. If not, then you’re going to have to say you lost it and go from there. Agreed?”
She nodded again, her eyes woeful over the wad of tissues.
“But there’s got to be a better way to go about this than interrogating people.”
“There is!” The warm purple eyes lit up in a way that used to mean trouble. Usually for someone else. “It came to me last night when you said you’d work on Tracy’s wedding.”
“I said
what
?”
“Well, didn’t you? She fussed over you about Brian, and then she launched into wedding stuff. She kept talking about it and you kept nodding.”
“Oh, hell.”
I should never drink beer. I hate beer.
“Anyway,” B.J. continued, “you’re Brian’s cousin, so
you
could ask about his personal effects. Help me out here, Muffy. Please?”
What could I say? B.J. was way past being rational about this necklace business. But if a few harmless questions on my part could protect her marriage, I didn’t have the heart to refuse. Besides, I had the sense that she needed the necklace back for a deeper reason than placating Matt. She needed to erase, if only symbolically, a deed that she fervently wished undone. I’d made enough mistakes in own my life to appreciate how she felt.
“OK, I’ll call his folks and—”
“No! God, Carnegie, don’t do that. Their son is dead. I don’t want them bothered about his trashy little one-night stand.”
“But they wouldn’t know that, they’d think he had a girl-friend...” I trailed off as I saw her point. If Brian’s parents did find the necklace, without knowing how it came into his possession, they’d assume there had been a woman in his life. Then they might try to communicate with her, and that would be disastrous.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Just ask around, but casually, and find out if Brian’s stuff is still at the base. Then we can figure out the next step.”
“All right, I’ll ask around.” I didn’t plan on taking any next step, but I didn’t say that. I just accepted her grateful embrace and sank back onto the sheets. “Now, let me close my eyes for a minute—”
But no, I was doomed to consciousness; an insistent rapping sounded at the front door. As B.J. went to answer it, I slowly got myself vertical and pulled on shorts and a tank top. The day was heating up already, in more ways than one.
“Sleeping?” pealed a well-known voice from beneath the loft. “I’ve done six miles along the river already. Carnegie, get yourself down here! You said to drop by this morning, and it’s morning.”
As I transported my aching head carefully down the stairs, I could see that Tracy had indeed been out along the river. She lounged against the kitchen counter, water bottle in hand, breathing hard and happily. Her satin running shorts, neon yellow and ever so brief, rippled against the cutest butt in the business, and her yellow halter top revealed a deep cleavage that gleamed with healthy, photogenic perspiration.
Even her navel was cute, and who has a cute navel? Her eye makeup was light but skillful, and her hair, her gorgeous red hair, hung in a thick braid between smoothly muscled shoulders. Even in youth, Sam Kane’s scarecrow physique could have been nothing like this. Tracy got her fair coloring from her mother, but where she got her long, languid beauty was a mystery.
I, on the other hand, felt like a train wreck. “I said to drop by?”
“Of course you did! Oh, it’s
marvelous
to see you,” said the sitcom star. She had acquired a trick of widening her pale blue eyes in feigned innocence as she emphasized certain words. The effect, both comic and sexy, was quite charming— or at least it would be to someone not screamingly hung over. “You don’t look very well, though. I won’t hug you; I can’t afford to catch anything.”
“I’m fine. Just feeling the effects of last night.”
“You don’t still drink
alcohol,
do you? Can’t you see what it’s doing to your complexion?” Tracy tilted her lovely chin to chug from the bottle. “I told John I’ll hold a glass of champagne at the wedding, just for the video, but I’m certainly not going to
drink
it.”
“John?”
“She means Jack,” B.J. explained helpfully. She was stuffing various items into a canvas tote bag. “I guess the notorious Knack is reinventing himself, huh, Muffy?”
“He prefers John,” she insisted. For an actress, she didn’t lie all that well. “And I prefer Tracy. Your bathroom is down this way?”
“First door on the left.” B.J. hefted the bag, which read “Gardeners Do It Dirty” in faded letters. “Well, I’m off to work. You two have fun talking weddings.”
“I thought you didn’t have to work today,” I said, following her to the front door. “You’re deserting me.”
“You bet I am. I went to the bridal shower last week, now it’s your turn to play audience.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m still fond of her, for old times’ sake, but she can be a pain in the ass. Here’s a key for you. Call me later, OK?”
“OK.” I closed the door and tried to gather my wits.
What
exactly did I agree to last night? And did I say anything dopey to
Jack?
I hadn’t gathered all that many wits when Tracy sailed back into the room. She paused fleetingly, as if for the camera to find her, then drew me onto an overstuffed couch. I flicked a glance at her left hand, where a cushion-cut diamond, three carats at least, sparkled from a platinum band.
“Alone at last!” The bride laughed an adorable laugh. “I still love B.J. to death, for old times’ sake, but she can be—”
“A pain in the ass?” I offered.
She blinked. “Well, yes. But I won’t tell her you said so.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. It is just so
sweet
of you to help me and John like this.”
“You probably don’t need much help at this point,” I ventured. “I mean, you already have Beau Paliere and his—”
“But I
don’t
have him, that’s the problem!” She twitched her head in irritation. “He brings you flowers and kisses your hand and practically makes
love
to you, and then when it’s showtime, he sends some snotty underling to take over! It’s ridiculous, like a P.A. trying to be a show runner.”