“What about your girlfriend?”
“Mandy?” He shrugged. “She doesn’t have to know.”
So he cheated both in and out of the classroom. “I guess you have women throwing themselves at you, now that you’re a millionaire.”
A smug smile made me want to smack him. “The bitches are hot for me. Always have been.”
I desperately wanted to prick his self-satisfaction. “I guess you were angry that Corinne didn’t leave you the Warhol painting.”
Turner scowled. “It should be mine. Goldberg has no right to it. They were only married for a few months, for crap’s sake. I’ve got my lawyers on it.”
“And I suppose you’ll be spending big bucks on your dad, too.” I sipped my coffee, noticing more people leaving. Turner would be out of here as soon as Mandy finished powdering her nose.
I thought my reminder would further anger Turner, but he laughed. “Not so much. His days in that addict resort are numbered. The will said I had to support him… it didn’t specify where he got to live.”
If Randolph had murdered Corinne with an eye toward making up with his son, or sharing the spoils with him, he was in for a rude awakening. “He could move in with you,” I suggested. “There’s plenty of room.”
“When hell freezes over.” He drained the last of his beer and thunked the bottle onto the table. “I’m putting that place on the market next week.”
“If you don’t like it, why did you move in there?” I asked, pleased that the conversation had come around to where I wanted it.
“Grandmother invited me. I felt sorry for her, living all alone with no one but that housekeeper woman, so I moved in.”
“Aren’t you the model grandson?” I drawled, unable to hold back the sarcasm. “It’s terribly sad that she died so soon-mere minutes, really-after you got there. Some people might think it was a strange coincidence.”
Turner’s eyes narrowed. “That’s all it was: coincidence. I didn’t know where she kept her medicine, and I’ve never bought any of that epi-whatever stuff. Where do you get off-”
“Why did the police want to talk to you Saturday?”
Fury and a hint of fear blazed in Turner’s eyes. Shoving his chair back, he clipped a waiter with a loaded tray and the man stumbled. Dirty dishes clattered to the floor with bangs and crashes and clinks that brought all eyes our way. White lines bracketed Turner’s mouth, and he hesitated half a second before stalking out of the dining room.
Mandy shimmied up moments later, confusion clouding her pretty features. “Where’d Turner go?”
“Out.” I pointed to the door he’d used. “He seemed upset about something the police said Saturday.”
She heaved a sigh, making her boobs rise and fall in a way that caught the attention of the three waiters putting broken china in a plastic tub. “That is just so unfair. I mean, there weren’t any witnesses. It’s a case of ‘he said, she said,’ and
“Absolutely not,” I agreed, wondering whether it was possible that some woman had accused Turner Blakely of assaulting her. He’d gone to a bachelor party on Wednesday night, and Detective Lissy came looking for him at the will reading on Saturday…
“I’d better go. He might need me.” Mandy hurried away.
I was debating whether to change back into my jeans or drive home in my dress when a tap on my bare shoulder made me jump. I whirled and found myself staring into the cold gray eyes of Conrad Monk. His suit matched his eyes and crew-cut hair, and slimmed his stocky figure. A fat gold wedding band inset with tiny diamonds glittered where his hand rested on my shoulder.
“A word, Miss Graysin?”
“Uh, sure.” I looked around for Greta, but didn’t see her. Monk led me onto the dance floor so we were out of earshot of the crew cleaning up the dropped dishes.
“I trust you’ve recovered from your dip in the Potomac?”
“Good as new,” I said, trying to read his face. I couldn’t tell whether he was taunting me or genuinely concerned.
“Good. Let me get right to the point. My wife told me you have a copy of Corinne Blakely’s manuscript. I want to buy it from you.”
“It’s not- I don’t-” How did I get myself into these things?
“Corinne Blakely, although in many ways a wonderful woman, could be a bit irresponsible. Several people, my wife among them, tried to talk her out of publishing a memoir. She wouldn’t listen. Not even the knowledge that she might hurt people, innocent people, weighed with her. I hope you’re more reasonable.” Slightly lifted brows questioned me.
“I’m reasonable, but…” How to tell him I didn’t really have the manuscript? And, oh, yeah, I couldn’t sell it to him if I did, because it didn’t belong to me.
“Good.” He pulled out a checkbook. “I think ten thousand is reasonable, don’t you?”
“I don’t have it,” I burst out.
He stared at me measuringly from beneath bushy brows. “All right. Fifteen.”
“No, I really don’t have it.” What to do-lie some more by telling him I’d already given it to the publisher, or come clean? I decided to go, belatedly, for honesty. “I never-”
Tucking the checkbook back into his pocket, he said, “Remember, I gave you a chance to be reasonable.” He didn’t raise his voice, but a frigid, rigid undertone froze me. Before I could gasp another word, he turned and headed for an exit.
I was about to follow him, try to explain, when an itching between my shoulder blades gave me the eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I glanced behind me, trying to be casual, and saw Marco Ingelido mere yards away at the podium, apparently retrieving his notes. I had the sinking suspicion that he’d heard every word Monk and I exchanged. His lips curled back from white teeth in a snarl, and his glare bored a hole through me.
The phrase “if looks could kill” leaped into my mind.
Chapter 21
Dashing from the room would be undignified, so I went on the attack. Stalking over to Ingelido, my skirt billowing, I said, “You lied to me.”
“
“You said you had an affair with Corinne. Her son says otherwise.”
“Randolph has been so ‘overmedicated’ for years that Corinne and I could have gone at it beside him on the couch and he wouldn’t have noticed.” Scorn coated his words.
“If you didn’t have an affair with Corinne, what were you afraid she’d put in the manuscript?” I asked, ignoring his last statement, although it instilled a small grain of doubt.
“Where is it?”
“As far as I know, there is no manuscript.”
He snorted his disbelief. “Right.”
“Greta Monk misunderstood something I said.”
His face looked like it had been carved from stone, a light olive-colored granite. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, or why you’re determined to dredge up old history-you weren’t even born!-but I’m telling you now that it’s a very, very dangerous game. No one can win. What happened to Corinne should tell you that.”
“Is that a threat?”
He leaned into my space and I fought the urge to step back. “Take it any way you like.” A change came over his face, the muscles around his eyes relaxing, and he said almost pleadingly, “Destroy the manuscript, Stacy. For everybody’s sake. Burn it.”
“I don’t have-”
“Stacy, I am leavings.” Vitaly bounded up, offered Ingelido a nod, and gave me a hug. “We will being first
