Winters & Somers (25 page)

             She was going to
strangle him. And if she was blessed with a woman judge when the case came to
court, there was no way she'd be convicted… Her hands clenched into fists at
her sides even though her cheeks burned. He thought she was on the game? A
hooker? Some words he'd said earlier in their relationship came back to her.
A working girl.
No wonder Bill had spluttered into his coffee! So what had
Winters been doing, making that bet about her being in his bed before the year
was out – or she could keep the office furniture? Her cheeks stained red as she
remembered the day, right here in this office, when she'd almost helped him win
that bet.

                        “You think
I'm a hooker? A streetwalker? That's what you mean by 'a working girl'? Here it
means a career girl. That's me. I just don't know…how could you have spent any
time at all with me and think…” she had to gulp back a sob that threatened out
of nowhere. “Do you actually think I really did have sex with those men? Is
that what's burning you up?”

             She dragged in a deep
breath. Anger fizzed all through her – and almost, but not quite, hid the hurt
that shot to the core of her. “Get out. Get out of my office. And take your
filthy mind with you!”

            “Cíara!” Looking at her
flaming face and reading the hurt truth in her eyes, Winters wanted nothing
more than just to disappear into the shabby rug. Wanted to be thrown into a pit
of live snakes. Wanted to spend the rest of his days on traffic duty in New
York. No fate could possibly be worse that being shut out of Cíara's life
because he'd made a stupid, pig-headed assumption.

He was wrong –
more wrong than he'd ever been about anything in his life. And in the process
he'd hurt the woman he loved.
Oh, crap, now where had that thought – that
truth – come from?

            “I'm sorry.” The simple
statement was the best he could do.

            “Sorry? You think
that's all it takes? Smile that boyish smile and say you're sorry – and
everything is all right? How could you! I – I liked you, Winters. And all the
while you were thinking…”

            Winters sat stubbornly
in his seat, holding on to her admission that she liked him and letting the
storm break over his head. When it abated, he said quietly, “Cíara, since the
very first day I met you, you've driven me mad. When I saw you dressed like a
tramp, cheerfully admitting you were going out to seduce other men, I was crazy
with jealousy. I saw you with that guy the other day, and when he hugged you I
nearly came over and decked him. You've had me tied in knots from the very
beginning. And you kept all these files hidden away, so I never got to read
them and find out the truth.”

            “So now you're saying
it's my fault?”

            “No, never that. Let's
just say the strength of my attraction to you fried my brains. I apologize from
the bottom of my heart, and I'm willing to walk right out of here, this moment,
crawl on my belly if you want me to – but please, let me just help you solve
this case. Then I'll be gone.”

            “Do I get to keep the
office furniture?”  Cíara asked, with a watery smile. Through her hurt and fury
she could see just how he'd jumped to all the conclusions he had. And he'd done
it because he fancied her like mad…

            “Okay, Winters. Let's
get through this. I want the slug who hurt Margaret Henley. You want the
Diamond Darling. Let's do it. And afterwards, well, who knows.” 

* * *

“So, just what
do you know about Anton Wallace?”

Winters had the
good grace to flinch when she gave him the death glare.

“Hey, he’s our
strongest suspect so far…”

She dragged in a
deep breath, satisfied that this was business again. “I was hired by the
Walters Agency – in case you don’t know, they’re the most prestigious PI firm
in Ireland. Walters wanted to use my, er, special abilities in this case, and
promised me some real PI work afterwards.

“So I only know
what Walters told me - that Wallace was engaged to a rich Dublin heiress who
didn't trust him. She wanted to see how he behaved when he was let off the
leash, and that was all I was supposed to find out. According to Walters,
though, his family money is in diamonds, South African, and his pedigree is
exemplary. That’s exactly the word the man used.”

            “You sound like you
have doubts?”

            “I think Walters talks
a good game. But I think this character reference research is probably humdrum,
routine stuff to what Walters calls his ‘experienced operatives’. I doubt they
would have given it great priority.  My instincts about Wallace, from the
start, were that something wasn't right.”

 Cíara was
pleased to see Winters offer her a little toe-tingling smile and look her in
the eye for the first time since Wallace’s name had come between them.

“So, first off,
we're going to do a proper background check on him.” She reached for her phone
book and began flicking through her contacts.

            Together they went
through all the lists again, comparing names of dinner guests, winnowing out
the ones who appeared on each list, then cross-checking each against their
alibis for the nights of the robberies. Because she knew all the guests, Cíara
was able to give a potted history of each, their apparent financial
circumstances, and other details to answer Winters’ questions. She had to
admire the skilled way he brought out issues she had not even thought of. It
was easy to see why he was such a good homicide cop!

            At his request, Cíara
chatted with a few of the Henleys’ social group on the phone, ostensibly
updating them on the attack on Margaret Henley but also discreetly fishing in
the gossip pond of the socially elite.

And at the end
of it all, one name still stood alone on their list – Anton Wallace.

            “I'm supposed to meet
him for dinner tonight,” she told Winters, ignoring his frown. “But I'm just
going to check out the business numbers he gave me.” It took a short time on
the Internet to discover that the Wallace family were, indeed, big time diamond
merchants and an old Boer family of great respectability.

            “Call their London office,
ask to speak to Wallace's secretary,” Winters urged.

             Cíara called. The
classy English voice at the other end hesitated when she asked to speak to Mr.
Anton Wallace's secretary.

            “Listen, I met Mr.
Wallace in Dublin, and he asked me to keep in touch on…on a business matter,”
she improvised. “He gave me this number so I thought he must be based in London
rather than in South Africa.”

            “Just hold on, please.”
Another English voice, middle-aged male this time, came on the line. She ran
through her spiel again. There was a silence at the other end, then the man
said “Are you the Press?”

            “No, I'm not,” she
snapped.

“I'm afraid all
inquiries about Mr. Wallace Junior must be made through our headquarters
office. Here's the number. Please feel free to call there.” The voice reeled
off a series of numbers, and hung up.

She dialed, and
muttered a nasty phrase under her breath. Winters focused on her immediately –
not that she hadn't already been the centre of his thoughts. Particularly as he
imagined her having dinner with Wallace…

“What's come
up?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“All I get when
I dial the office number on Wallace's card is an answering service. I can't
help thinking that a big company like Wallace International would have
something a little fancier. Although he told me they don’t have a Dublin office
yet.”

“Did the London
office give you another number? “

“Yeah, the one
for their South African home office. I'll see where that gets me.”

Winters leaned
over and flicked the button for the speakerphone just as the line at the other
end was answered. A woman with a strongly accented voice asked politely how she
could be of help.

“I'm trying to
contact Mr. Anton Wallace, and I thought you might be able to give me his cell
phone number.”

There was a
pregnant silence at the other end of the line. Then: “Could I ask what this is
about?”

“I'm calling
from Dublin. I met Mr. Wallace at the jewelers’ convention in Waterford a few
days ago, and we arranged to meet…er, a business meeting. Unfortunately, something
has come up and I don't want to inconvenience him by not showing up. But the
number I have for him….”

“Please wait one
moment. I'll see if someone can help you.”

Lines clicked
and snapped over the intervening miles of land and ocean, and then a masculine
voice asked crisply, “Who is this?”

“My name is
Cíara Somers. I'll give you my office number. Now, whom am I speaking to?”

“This is Peter
Wallace. Anton's – father.” Cíara shot a puzzled look at Winters. “Could you
please explain your business?”

So she explained
again, sticking to the story of meeting Anton Wallace at the jewelers’
convention and the arranged business date. “I can't get there, and I don’t like
to have him show up without knowing. The answering service seems unreliable, so
I was trying to get his personal number as I need to contact him…?”

“I am afraid
that's quite impossible.” There was no mistaking the mixture of emotions in the
voice. “I don't know who you are, Ms. Somers – if that is your real name. I
will be making inquiries about you. I will call you back.”

Cíara gave him
her number, and that of the local garda station where several people could
verify her credentials. Then they waited for what seemed an age but was
actually only a few minutes. Both of them jumped when the telephone shrilled.

“I am afraid you
– and we – may have been the victims of a cruel hoax,” Wallace senior said
without preamble. “You did not meet my son in Waterford last week. You see,
Anton has spent the last ten months in a clinic, recovering from a heroin addiction
that nearly killed him.”

There was a
pause on the other end of the line. Then with a sigh, Anton Wallace's father
continued. “We've kept this a family secret. Anton did spent much of his life
at boarding school in England and has not been active in the business, so it
was easy for us to keep this information from everyone except the immediate
family and one or two people in the company who needed to know. He's had this
problem for years, and then the inevitable happened. He got some cocaine that was
too pure, and went into cardiac arrest. He was fortunate enough to receive
immediate medical attention, but he may have long-lasting health effects.
Possibly brain damage.  We are hoping and praying that my son will have a
chance to get his life back on track. I must ask that this information remain
confidential.”

“If this is
true, Mr. Wallace, then I have to tell you that someone has been masquerading
as your son in order to get into the upper strata of wealthy society here in
Ireland. This man may well be involved in criminal activity. I am going to the
police – but you'd better do whatever you can to cover things from your end.”
She thought it only fair to give the man a warning.

“Thank you for
this information.”

The phone at the
other end was put down abruptly, but the pain in the man's voice seemed to
linger in the room with them.

 They both
stared numbly at the telephone for several moments.

            “So, it looks as if
Wallace is a fraud,” Winters said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult for Bill to
check on this information.”

            “And I'm making a
pretty fair guess at something else.” Cíara reached for the telephone and
punched in the number for Jury's Hotel. Speaking to the headwaiter, she asked
if Mr. Anton Wallace and his party had arrived yet for dinner. They had
reserved a table. Thanking the man, she put down the telephone.

            “I'm already half an
hour late for my dinner date – and Wallace hasn't shown up yet, either. You
know what I'm thinking?”

            Winters swore. “You're thinking
maybe you've been set up?”

            “That's right. I'm
thinking that maybe I'm supposed to be cooling my heels with a nice bottle of
Chablis at the restaurant, waiting for Wallace to show up and fending off the
pitying looks of the waiters, while my poor little flat is being robbed.”

Her cell phone
bleeped as they roared across town in Winters' truck.

The number that
came on her screen was Mary Margaret's, but the whispering voice at the other
end was so low it was hard to hear. “Say that again?” Cíara said, her heart
thumping. Then, to Winters: “Step on the accelerator – Mary Margaret's in the
flat to get her stuff – and someone's breaking in!”

Visions of her
pregnant friend suffering the same treatment – or worse – as Margaret Henley, if
the burglar discovered her, made Cíara sick with fear. Leaning forward in the
seat, her own foot pressed an imaginary accelerator as Winters wove in and out
of the gathering evening traffic. She tried to move them forward with sheer
force of will. Seeing the tense lines of her body, Winters leaned over and
squeezed her clasped hands. The grateful glance she gave him in reply made his
heart thump – and the moment's inattention earned him a few pithy words from a
taxi driver who was cutting in ahead of him.

They parked in a
side street leading to the green in the center of the square of Georgian
houses. She pulled off her strappy high-heeled sandals and threw them in the
back seat of the truck as she prepared to follow Winters silently down the
street.

“Where would
your bathroom be?” he asked her quietly when they reached the front of her
house.

“Winters, this
is hardly the time – oh, I see. The bathroom for my gaff would be around the
side. I did leave it open – but just a crack.” She followed him and, looking
up, they saw the small frosted glass window now stood open to its widest point.
A drainpipe passed by a convenient foot or so from the window, and they caught
the glimmer of a flashlight in the darkness inside.