Sleepless in Las Vegas (24 page)

The Morgan kitchen was the opposite. So spare and tidy-clean it made Val’s teeth squeak. Against one wall along with the table were cupboards, with one of the lower cabinets shelving Grams’s martini wares. Against the opposite wall were the sink, counter, stove-oven and refrigerator. A person could traverse the kitchen in a few steps. Took Val three to reach the freezer.

She checked the glasses. “They’re frosty.”

“Wonderful. Bring them over.”

Val’s fingers stuck slightly to the metal shaker, which she brought over first. As she headed back to collect the rest, she sniffed the air. “That meat loaf smells awesome.”

“Dorothy Morgan’s world-famous meat loaf. Years ago, she won several cooking contests with that recipe. Told her she should market it to restaurants in Vegas, but she said she’d rather lie in the road and be a traffic cone than spend the rest of her days mass-producing meat loaf.”

Val had to admire Dorothy’s conviction. It was one thing to love creating something, another to be forced to recreate it over and over again, ad nauseam. One reason Val was attracted to private investigations was that no two cases were alike.

“Well, I can’t wait to taste this world-famous meat loaf,” Val said, sitting. She scanned the layout of glasses, shaker, crystal bowl. “Martinis call for cool jazz playing in the background, don’t you think?”

“Yes, that would set the mood, wouldn’t it? Drake’s father, Benny, loved jazz. There was always music playing in the house. Tony Bennett. Sarah Vaughan. Ella Fitzgerald.” She grew thoughtful for a moment. “Dorothy and Benny were good for each other. He taught her about music, she taught him about persistence. And how they loved to laugh! Even when they were arguing.” She opened the box of toothpicks. “I’d love to hear her laugh like that again,” she said softly.

Val hesitated, wondering if she should share this, but maybe her experience offered hope.

“I…didn’t laugh much, either, after I lost my grandmother.”

Although she had shared many of her experiences during and after Katrina with her cousins and best friend Cammie, she had never discussed how it felt to lose Nanny with anyone else.

“She was everything to me,” she continued. “My mother, my father, my best friend rolled into one. Guess I’m telling you this because…” She swallowed with difficulty. “I didn’t laugh for a long time after losing her. Not that I wasn’t mighty grateful to be alive, and appreciated people’s kindnesses more than I can ever express…but laughter? I mean
real
laughter. The kind that comes from deep inside, that makes the most unbearable things bearable. I didn’t laugh like that again until I moved in with my cousins, here in Vegas.”

Grams nodded. “When was that, darling?”

“Two years ago.”

“And you lost your beloved nanny in…”

“Two thousand five.”

The elderly woman studied Val’s face. “Katrina.”

Val nodded. She was consumed with emotion, but didn’t dare speak. But by Grams saying that one word,
Katrina,
Val knew she understood, knew she cared. No other words were necessary.

The elderly woman put her hand on Val’s and gave it a squeeze. “You’re a brave girl. You do your nanny proud.”

She swallowed the tightness in her throat. “I don’t know if it was courage that made me swim in those floodwaters. More like desperation and fear. All I know is I failed. And I should never have left Nanny alone on our roof.”

There. She’d said it. The heavy burden on her heart she’d carried all these years, the one thing she had never divulged to anyone, not even Jaz, because it ripped her apart, filled her with shame. She had left her grandmother to die.

Grams slowly nodded her head, as though comprehending the pain and self-recrimination Val carried with her always. Every day, every hour, every minute.

“Darling,” she said gently, “it’s all right to open your heart.”

Maybe it was looking into the older woman’s face, soft and lined like her nanny’s, or that they were sitting in a kitchen talking the way she and her grandmother used to do, but Val couldn’t push down the ache, the remorse, anymore.

“Superdome was a nightmare,” she whispered. “Rumors were rampant—names of people found dead or sick traveled person to person, day and night. Thought I heard Nanny’s name once—Alva LeRoy—but didn’t catch the rest. Wandered through the crowd, repeating her name, but nobody knew anything. All those lost people, all their stories, all that suffering…it was like looking into the face of God.” She ran her finger along the edge of the table. “After I got to Houston, I learned she had died.”

“It’s a lesson of life that all our living leads to death,” Grams said gently. “Take it from this eighty-five-year-old—our challenge is not fearing death, but fearing living. I think we need to learn not to be afraid to burn the candle for fear of its end. Feel fortunate, my sweet girl, that you had such a loving experience with your nanny.” Sadness flitted across her face. “My other grandson, Braxton, is no longer allowed to visit the house. Perhaps you know about this.”

Val nodded.

“When love is imperfect, something else can be learned. Forgiveness. Not only toward others, but to ourselves, too.” She leaned forward, her eyes earnest. “When it comes to what happened during Katrina, the only person not forgiving you is yourself, darling. Your nanny loves you, knows you did your very best.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

“The great thing about hope, once you choose it, is that anything’s possible.” She glanced at the gin. “Shall we light that candle?”

Val picked up the bottle and poured it into the shaker.

Grams picked up the vermouth. “A little? A splash?”

“Splash, definitely.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

After pouring a healthy shot into the shaker, Grams speared olives on two toothpicks while Val shook the canister, then poured the frothy liquid into their glasses.

“One should never take drinking advice from fictional characters,” Grams said, plopping olive-laden picks into each glass, “but James Bond was right. Martinis are much better shaken, not stirred.”

“James Bond,” Val murmured, thinking back to that hot near kiss on the couch.

She had definitely been shaken, not stirred. Even more shaken when she looked up and saw Drake’s mother and grandmother there, but at least they hadn’t caught them in the middle of their first real kiss. Although at this rate, she was starting to wonder if that would ever happen.

But one thing she knew, she didn’t want to be the aggressor again. Twice was enough, thank you. Three times if she threw in the honey-trap mess. Maybe it was the universe sending her a message that three times
wasn’t
a charm.

If Drake wanted this sizzle between them to go anywhere, he had to make the next move. She wanted proof that what she sensed between them was real and not some fantasy in her head.

Grams held up her glass. “To the sacred rite that affirms tribal identity.”

“You said it,” Val said, raising her glass.

After they quietly enjoyed the first few sips of their martinis, Grams set her glass on the table with a soft clink. “How long have you known Drake?”

“Told his mama I met him today,” Val said, getting a sinking feeling in her stomach. “To tell you the truth, I lied.”

With a scratchy meow, Maxine jumped onto Grams’s lap. “I thought so.”

Val blinked. “How did you know?”

“Drake has a head for numbers.”

Tell me about it.
Val took another sip.

“When he told Dorothy earlier that there was one intern, and he shows up with a
second
intern, well…” She picked up her drink, gave Val a knowing look over the rim of the glass. “Also, I don’t know too many vegetarians who can’t wait to eat meat loaf.”

Busted.
Val cringed inside. “I’m a moron.”

“No,” Grams said, “you’re just a girl in love.”

Stunned, Val opened her mouth to deny it, but all that came out was a strangled, wispy sound.

“That’s how it was for me, too,” Grams continued, a faraway look in her eyes. “I met Drake’s grandfather, Jack Lassiter, in 1944, his first night stateside after piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress named Bolt From the Blue. Falling in love was like that, too. A bolt from the blue. When we eloped ten days later, I wore a powder-blue suit.”

“Got the app downloaded, Grams.” Drake strolled into the kitchen and set her phone on the table. He took a last draw on his beer, put it on the kitchen counter. “Was waiting to talk to Mom, but she’s still on that call. I’ll go install the outdoor cameras, then I’ll sync up the feeds to your smartphone.” He stopped, looked at the two of them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Val murmured.

“From the looks on your faces, especially yours,” he said, indicating Val, “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

With a loud mew, Maxine jerked her head toward the hallway.

“You hear Dorothy leaving her bedroom, don’t you?” Grams said gently to the cat. She shifted her gaze to Drake. “As Dorothy will be joining us any moment, I suggest we all have a good, get-it-out-on-the-table truth-telling session about these bogus Heath stories, which has made your mother think this lovely girl is some kind of two-timing harlot.”

The lovely girl finished off her martini in one gulp.

* * *

D
RAKE
LOOKED
AT
his mother as she entered the kitchen. Grams was right. Time to put the truth out there. He would have preferred to talk one-on-one with his mom, but it would be silly to invite her into the other room for a private talk at this point. Plus, his apology was to Grams, too.

“Ma, I’m sorry I said the intern was a guy. There is no Heath.”

She dropped her gaze to the black-and-white tiled floor, to the far window still bright with early-evening summer light, her eyes finally returning to Drake’s.

“You lied to me.” The disappointment in her tone was worse than if she’d yelled at him.

The room was uncomfortably quiet except for a faint ticking from the clock above the stove.

“I’m sorry,” Drake said.

Dorothy notched up her chin. “Anybody can say they’re sorry after the fact,” she said, her voice growing thin. “What I want to know is…why did you lie to me?”

He watched her, hating himself for hurting her. And for letting down the old man. He was breaking his promise to take care of his mother and Grams by lying to them. It deceived them and degraded him.

Some secrets were meant to be kept. In Iraq, the year before he returned home, he had killed a man with his bare hands. Other secrets were commonly known, just not discussed. How in the course of his hotel security job, and later in the investigations business, he had made enemies, suffered bodily punishment, uncovered dirt on people who were sitting in prison at this very instant.

But some secrets turned ugly when forced into hiding, as though they were too sinister to be viewed in the light of day. The act of hiding had worse consequences than the secret, because it crippled the confidence of the person who unearthed the secret, deprived them of the dignity of being trusted.

It pained him to see the hurt in his mother’s eyes. Didn’t matter if he thought his actions to be insignificant or his deception harmless. If the end result caused his family pain, he had been dead wrong.

“After Liz walked,” he said, pacing a few steps, “you and Grams got…overprotective. That dinner with Laura…” He gave his head a shake. “I wasn’t sure what was grilled more that night—the steaks or her. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

His mother darted a questioning look at Val, who was toying with her empty glass, staring at the table.

He could guess what was going through his mom’s mind—was Val someone special in Drake’s life? After all, she was the first woman he’d brought home since Laura. No, he wanted to say, it wasn’t like that between him and Val.

And yet…seeing how Val and Grams clicked, the respect Val showed his mom, the miracle of Maxine taking a liking to her…she fit in here.

More than that, she fit into his life.

The thought jolted him. Crossing to the kitchen window, he looked outside, his back to the others. He needed a moment to digest this without staring into three sets of scrutinizing, curious eyes.

He hadn’t wanted to make room in his world for Val, yet she had somehow taken up space in his thoughts, so he spent an inordinate amount of energy wanting to see her, talk to her, be with her. Didn’t mean she
fit
into his life, though, right?

Don’t be a semantic jackass. If she’s that prevalent, she fits.

He looked toward the northwest, saw the gray clouds hovering over Mount Charleston. Hadn’t noticed them while driving over here, but he hadn’t been paying attention. Just like the truth sharpening in his consciousness. He hadn’t paid attention to it before, either, but he had no choice but to acknowledge it now. His fear wasn’t about intimacy, but about failing to achieve with someone the kind of closeness his parents, and his grandparents, had shared.

What he really feared was Val’s rejection.

“Drake?” his mother called out softly.

He turned, met her gaze. She was waiting to hear why he’d lied to her. He’d never again put her in this position.

“Before I left yesterday,” he said, turning slowly to face her, “you said how much Grams would love to talk about that trip she took to New Orleans, and you were happy that you’d be cooking with someone again…”

He looked at the stove, could almost see a ten-year-old Braxton stirring a bubbling pot, listening attentively to their mother reading directions from a cookbook.

“When you assumed the intern was a man,” he said, turning back to his mom, “I went along with it. Figured the less time you two had to ponder who Val was, the smoother the evening would go.” He gave a wry smile. “Obviously, I was wrong about that.”

All three women spoke at the same time.

“I’m sorry, too,” Val said.

“I need to say something,” Grams said.

“I want to apologize,” his mother whispered.

After a beat of silence, Val said, “Well, that was a gumbo ya-ya!” Seeing the confused looks on their faces, she explained, “Everybody talking at the same time.”