her arms around his head and held him hard against her, and came in a burst of convulsive thrusts.
Already she tore at his zipper. Why did this have to be a decision? he wondered. He needed her now. They needed each other. “Not now, cher,” he murmured, holding her hand away. He had to hold on, get through this. “Not here.”
“I like it here.”
So did he, as long as she was with him.
“Spike, I’ll never, never turn away from you.”
“I’d rather not have to remind you of that promise,” he said, and stood up, moving her to his side and zipping his pants. Blood pounded in his head, and elsewhere. He willed his drive for sex to calm down. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll become what? Appropriate? I’m following you home to make sure you get safely inside.”
Chapter 9
“The only identifiable prints on the phone are yours. And that jackass Devol’s, of course. But since I figure he’d have fixed the thing if he was worried about it, I’m reckonin’ he’s probably clean, him.”
Vivian swallowed several times but her mouth remained dry. Detective Bonine had set himself up in Uncle Guy’s old office in the south wing, apparently oblivious to the dust that layered everything and swirled in a slice of sunlight through velvet-draped windows. He shifted papers on the rosewood desk, sending more murky clouds into the air, and didn’t even sneeze.
Vivian sneezed.
So did Gary Legrain, whose very tall body all but reclined in an orange velvet chair with skeins of bright beads knotted on each leg.
She met his gray eyes but he showed no emotion. However, from the moment he’d arrived before nine that morning, she’d liked him and been grateful he was at Rosebank. He’d offered, without pressure, to act as Charlotte and Vivian’s attorney if they wanted him, at least until they decided what to do about permanent representation. They assured him they wanted and needed him.
“Did you read my clients their rights last night?” Legrain asked in his rumbly voice.
Bonine slammed a bronze pineapple paperweight on top of a file. “I’ve told them they aren’t suspects.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Well, you got the answer I decided to give you,” Bo-nine said. “You still aren’t a suspect, Ms. Patin, but I’d like to read you your rights just the same. Better for both of us.” He whipped out a card and recited the Miranda in a rapid mono-tone as if he saw nothing wrong with having taken advantage the previous evening.
“You recordin’ this?” Legrain asked innocently, scanning jammed bookcases at the same time.
Bonine’s face had turned its signature shade of puce. The shaft of sun lighted a muzzy reddish halo around his grizzled head and Vivian got a fleeting vision of horns on top. Last night and early this formerly wonderful morning had not left her in the mood for sleep. Now she was exhausted and the horned mirage of Bo-nine made her giggle before wisdom clicked on.
“You’re bein’ warned, you,” Bonine said. “There’s nothin’ funny about the situation here, or your part in it, Ms. Patin. You may not find me, or what could happen to you so funny in a while.”
“Intimidating witnesses—”
“Shut your mouth, Legrain,” Bonine said and Vivian didn’t need someone else to warn her the man was melting down. “Much more out of you and I’ll have you removed.”
“On what grounds?” Legrain asked in a reasonable voice which wasn’t likely to calm Bonine. “Where’s the recorder?”
“On the grounds that you’re a pain in the ass.” Bonine got up and fussed around in boxes he’d had brought in until he produced the necessary recording equipment and switched it on. He gave his name, Vivian’s, and the time and date in bored tones then added Gary Legrain’s presence as an afterthought. “You gonna let me get on with my business now?” he asked.
Legrain levered himself out of his chair and commenced to take long, slow strides around the room. He made the mistake of pulling one of the orange velvet drapes aside to get a better view of the courtyard and stables. Vivian lost count of the number of times he sneezed amid clouds of pungent dust.
“Are you done interruptin’ this interrogation?” Bo-nine asked when the sneezing stopped. He went on without waiting for a reply, “Ms. Patin, isn’t it true that you and your mama got money troubles?”
Vivian’s temper rose. She looked at her lawyer but he continued his round of the room and didn’t seem interested in the question. “We do,” she said. Honesty paid in the end—or mostly it did—even if she was caught off balance by the question.
Gary Legrain stopped his pacing and sat on the corner of the desk—on the same side as Bonine. Vivian figured he had to be close to seven feet tall and he looked in good shape. He wore his dishwater-blond hair short and was more tanned than any other lawyer she remembered. He appeared to stare into the distance, much to the detective’s ire.
“You comfy enough, Legrain?” Bonine asked. “You through sneezin’ and tryin’ to mess with my train of thought, you?”
“You’ve got the floor,” Legrain said.
“So here you are with this place. It needs to be condemned or repaired—”
“It does not need to be condemned,” Vivian told him, even though she knew she was being baited.
“As I was sayin’,” Bonine continued, “you got a notion to do this place up and run some sort of rooming house.”
Either he was trying to make her angry or he was operating with minus gray cells. Neither possibility encouraged Vivian. She didn’t need a mean-spirited troublemaker or a mental midget with power.
“A hotel,” she told him, turning up the corners of her mouth. “My parents were in the restaurant business and I’ve been in hotel management for—”
“I didn’t ask for a life history,” Bonine said. “I know all that. You wanna open a hotel then.” A sneer didn’t improve the arrangement of his belligerent features.
“We’ll start small,” she said, as if she hadn’t picked up on his attitude. “A few rooms and a restaurant.”
Bonine pushed back in his chair and hauled his feet onto the desk. “This whole place needs work.”
“Don’t I know it?” Vivian actually enjoyed hiding behind her innocent eyes.
“You got the money?”
Legrain said, “Where are you going with this?”
“You’ll see, you,” the detective said. “You got the money, Ms. Patin?”
She shook her head and managed to find bubbles of tears.
“Yeah,” Bonine said with satisfaction. “I’d say you were in a big bind. How long have you known Devol?”
“Are
