"How many days?"
"Larry said tomorrow, Wednesday tops."
"Who's Larry?" Gabe said as he picked up the phone.
"I don't know," Riley said on the other end. "Who's Larry?"
"The guy doing the furniture," Nell said. "You'd like him. He liked your stuff."
She disappeared back through the door as Riley said, "You did not send me out to find any Larry."
"Forget Larry," Gabe said. "Where are you?"
"Cincinnati," Riley said. "The pawnshops here also have no record of the diamonds in 1978. And I'm tired of this. Trevor said he buried them with Helena, and I've decided to believe him."
"Don't stop until you've hit every damn shop in the city," Gabe said.
Riley sighed his exasperation into the phone. "So who's Larry?"
"Some guy Nell has redoing the furniture in my office."
"You know, you and Nell have a lot in common," Riley said. "Neither one of you ever gives up."
"Maybe I'll send Nell after Lynnie."
"She got her the first time," Riley said. "I'd give her a shot at it."
Nell knocked on the door and came in again. "Client to see you," she said and then stood back to let Becca Johnson in.
Becca looked miserable, which was par for her; she hired the McKennas to check the background of every man who came along that she thought might be The One, but unfortunately Becca's intelligence and common sense were equaled only by her lousy taste in men. Now as she stood in front of him, her breath coming in shudders as she bit her lip, Gabe knew Becca had picked another winner.
"I'll talk to you later," Gabe said to Riley and hung up. "What's wrong?"
"I'll get a glass of water," Nell said and disappeared through the door.
"His name isn't Randy," Becca said, and then her face crumpled and she walked into Gabe's arms.
"Okay," Gabe said, patting her. "Whose name isn't Randy?"
She lifted her pretty face from his shoulder. "He's really wonderful, Gabe. I was so sure this time, I didn't even hire you because I knew. But his name isn't Randy at all. He lied to me," Becca wailed, and Gabe winced as her voice rose.
Nell came back in with the water and then stopped, raising an eyebrow. Don't start with me, he thought and crossed his eyes at her over Becca's shoulder. She crossed hers back at him, put the water on the windowsill, and left the room with a nice swing to her walk. I should annoy her more often, he thought. It puts some bounce in her step.
"I really trusted him," Becca said, reminding him he had a problem on his hands. "I was so sure."
"Did you ask him about it?" Gabe said, patting again.
"Ask him?" Becca pulled back. "Ask him?"
"Yes," Gabe said patiently. "How did you find out?"
"His suitcase," Becca said, sniffing. "In the back of his closet. I was looking for an extra blanket and found it. The initials on it are EAK."
"Maybe it's a secondhand suitcase," Gabe said. "Maybe it was his maternal grandmother's."
"It's his," Becca said. "It's almost brand-new. He doesn't buy secondhand. Everything in his place is brand-new."
"Maybe he borrowed it," Gabe said, and she stopped hyperventilating. "Becca, ask him. Then call me and tell me what he says, and we can investigate that if you want. But don't jump all over the guy because of initials on a suitcase."
Becca sniffed again. "You really think that's it?"
"I don't know," Gabe said. "But it's time you talked to him. If you're really serious about him-"
"I am so serious about him," Becca said.
"- then you're going to have to learn to talk to him."
"We talk," Becca said, and then when Gabe shook his head, she said, "Okay, I'll ask him." She swallowed once and said, "I really will. Tonight."
Gabe found his notebook on the bookshelf and took down all the particulars about Randy, his background as far as Becca knew it, and his suitcase. Then he took her elbow and steered her toward the door. "Okay, I've got all I need. Call me when you've talked to him, and if you're still not happy, we'll find out everything."
"Thank you," she said, with the tiniest catch in her voice. "I'm sorry, Gabe, but I really thought this was it, and then I saw those initials."
"Don't panic yet," he said, urging her gently through the reception room.
When she was out the door, he turned back to Nell. "Was there something you wanted to say?"
"Me? No," she said, all innocence. "You groping clients is no business of mine."
"Remember that," he said, going back to his office. "And try to send in only really built women from now on. They're more fun in a clinch."
He closed his door just as something hit it. Probably a paper wad, he thought, and went back to work smiling until he realized he didn't have a desk or a chair.
Later that evening, waiting for the last callback from California on a background check, Gabe sat on the floor in his office and ate Chinese next to Nell while he looked at her legs stretched out beside his. At least sitting beside her, he couldn't see that damn heart.
"What would you do if you went after Lynnie?" he said.
"Find some guy with money, stake him out like a goat, and wait for her to show up," Nell said. "Do you have the potstickers? Because I-" She broke off as he handed the potsticker carton to her.
"You know, I remember when I had furniture," he said, reaching for the garlic chicken carton. "It was nice in here then."
"I called and Larry's bringing it back tomorrow," Nell said. "You're going to love it. Tell me about Becca."
"What about Becca?" Gabe said, willing to fight but not really up to it. It was so much more pleasant to savor the garlic and look at the scenery.
"Riley calls her the Check-Out Girl, so I gather she checks out the men she dates?"
"Becca comes from a small town where everybody knows everybody else," Gabe said. "She now lives in a big town and works in a big university with a huge transient population. Nobody knows anybody. So she hires us to do the work that her mother and grandmother would do back home."
Nell considered it around a fork full of sweet and sour pork. "That's not dumb."
"No, but this time she didn't want us to investigate. This time it was the real thing. Stop hogging the pork."
He stretched out his hand and she passed the carton over.
"So what happened?"
"She thinks he lied about his name." Gabe took a bite of pork and let the tang of the sauce linger for a moment before he swallowed. The good things in life deserved to be savored. No point in moving fast.
"You don't sound too convinced," Nell said.
"No reason to panic yet." Gabe picked up his paper cup, and just as he realized it was empty, Nell passed him another one full of Coke. "Thank you."
"So who else is a regular besides Becca the Check-Out Girl?" Nell said, prying open the potsticker carton. "Boy, this smells good."
"Trevor Ogilvie," Gabe said, watching her ankles. "He hires us every three or four months to find out what Olivia's up to." He put down his plate to find the hot and sour soup. There were two small containers of it, so he handed one to Nell and opened the other for himself. "Riley calls her the Quarterly Report. He likes her because she goes to places with loud music and cheap beer. She's due again next month." He tasted the soup, thick and hot, and the sourness reminded him of Nell's french fries. He'd been having all of his fries with vinegar lately because the tartness woke up every taste bud he had.
"And then there's the Hot Lunch," Nell said.
"Harold Taggart and his lovely wife, Gina." Gabe pointed his spoon at her. "You get them the next time. Riley's fed up."
"What do I have to do?"
"You sit in the hotel lobby and watch to see if Gina shows up with her newest, which she will. Completely dependable, our Gina is."
"Then I point my finger and say 'I Spy'?"
"Then you point the camera and take the picture. Harold likes pictures."
Nell shook her head and jostled his shoulder a little. "That's sick."
"That's what Riley says. I try not to pass judgment."
"You're an example to us all," Nell said.
"I like to think so," Gabe said, gazing at her legs again. Nell uncrossed her ankles. "They're good, aren't they?"
Yep.
"They were the only part of my body that didn't go to hell when I lost weight," Nell said. "I think it was because I kept walking."
"You look a lot better," Gabe said, passing the sweet and sour back to her. "You were a little scary when you started here."
"I feel a lot better," Nell said, peering into the carton.
The top of her head brushed his chin, feather soft and surprisingly cool. Hair that red should be hot, he thought.
She held up the carton. "You want any more of this or can I finish it off?"
"It's yours," Gabe said. "Hard to believe we used to have to force you to eat."
"So what other regulars?"
"Nothing else colorful," Gabe said. "We do a lot of background checks for some firms in the area."
"Like OD."
"Especially OD. We got a lot of their work because my dad and Trevor were buddies." Gabe lost some of his good mood thinking about them. "And then we did such a crackerjack job nailing Jack in both his divorces that he sent us work from his department, too."
"That's open-minded of him." She frowned into space. "I'm having trouble seeing Trevor as anybody's drinking buddy."
"Trevor was not always a thousand years old," Gabe said. "He and my dad really tore up the town." He tried not to think about what else they might have done. "There's a picture of them on the wall. Over there, behind the coatrack."
Nell pushed herself up off the floor and went to look, and Gabe watched her legs as she crossed the floor. Great calves. He considered leaning over to look up her skirt and decided the light wasn't good enough to bother.
"My God," Nell said, bending to squint at the picture, which Gabe appreciated. "Trevor looks positively dashing."
"Well, back then he was. He was a tough litigator, too. He could stonewall with the best."
"Your dad looks like you."
"Actually, I look like my dad, but thanks."
Nell looked back at him and then at the picture again. "Not exactly. You look like somebody I'd trust."
"Thank you," Gabe said, surprised. "I think. Does that mean 'boring'?"
"No," Nell said. "That means your dad looks like a player."
"Good call," Gabe said.
She stepped back and took the blue pinstriped jacket from the coatrack. "Was this his? It looks like the one in the picture."
"It was his;" Gabe said. "Don't know about the picture. He liked pinstripes. Ring-a-ding-ding."
Nell shrugged the coat on, and it hung down past her hips, almost covering her skirt. Take the skirt off, Gabe thought, and then thought, Oh, no. It was one thing to idly appreciate a woman's legs; it was another thing entirely to start fantasizing about loss of clothing in conjunction with a McKenna secretary.
"This is a great jacket." Nell turned back to him as she pushed the sleeves up her arms. "Why don't you wear it?"
"Not the pinstripe type," he said, enjoying the slash of her red hair above the deep blue of the jacket. She looked more than cute, she reminded him of somebody: gamine face, almond eyes, pale skin, a smile that could melt concrete. Somebody old-fashioned but hot. Myrna Loy, he thought. She brushed her hands over the front of the jacket, and he said, "That's a good color for you."
"You think? Where's a mirror?" She left the office, probably heading for the bathroom, and Gabe thought, Don't go.
He put his fork down and shook his head, trying to get the image of her-those long, long legs and that bright, bright hair-out of his mind, but he still wanted her back.
It was the secretary thing, he decided. Decades of McKennas chasing secretaries and catching them. It was in their DNA by now. But he was an adult, a mature, careful, intelligent adult. All he had to do was concentrate, and habit wouldn't get him this time.
"You're right," she said, coming back and smiling at him, a great smile, a great mouth with a full lower lip that
"I'm always right," Gabe said, getting up. "You want any more of this stuff?"
"All of it if you don't," Nell said. "I can't get enough lately."
She put the coat back on the rack and then crouched down to gather up the cartons on the floor, and her purple sweater rode up a little so he could see a thin strip of her pale back above the skirt now pulled tight across her rear.
Stupid tradition to have, he thought. Why couldn't the McKennas have been born with a genius for making money instead of secretaries?
"What?" Nell said, looking up at him.
"Nothing," he said. "Just thinking." And then the phone rang and he went back to work.
Across the park, Suze was having problems of her own.