Chapter 9
I gasped and the key fell from my nerveless hand, clinking on the floor. The man took a step forward, moving into the light, and I recognized him: Tav Acosta.
“What are you doing here?” we said simultaneously.
Tav lowered the knife so it dangled at his side. I thought it was from the knife block in Rafe’s kitchen, but I was too distracted by Tav’s bare torso, glistening with water, to care much. A sprinkling of black hairs covered strong pecs and tapered across defined abs to disappear beneath the towel. His skin was smooth and unblemished, the color of caramel. He looked so much like Rafe that my mouth went dry. My gaze flew to his face, catching the flicker of heat in his eyes before a more wary look came over his face.
Seeming suddenly conscious of his lack of apparel, Tav gripped the towel with one hand-not the one holding the knife-and told me, “Wait here. Do not leave.” He disappeared back down the hall and closed the door to Rafe’s bedroom with a
I remained by the door for a moment, trying to remember how to breathe, then eased into the living room and retrieved the key from the floor. I wasn’t about to compound my difficulties by getting caught searching the room, so I sank onto the sofa and picked up the dance magazine that had been on the floor. My fingers trembled as I tried to turn the pages and I set the magazine down, clenching my hands into fists. Who knew getting caught sneaking into one’s dead former fiance’s condo was so unnerving?
Tav was back within four minutes, wet hair combed back, wearing chino shorts and a red-striped golf shirt. His feet were still bare. His expression was stern and the hint of suspicion in his eyes gave me a pang after our enjoyable lunch and conversation. “Talk,” he said.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I said, as he sank onto the chair opposite me. “I-” Trying to come up with a reasonable excuse for being here, I bit my lower lip. I finally decided on the truth; hell, I didn’t owe Sherry Indrebo anything. I spilled out the story of Sherry’s request-demand-and watched Tav’s face. It didn’t reveal much. “So I’m here to find the thumb drive,” I finished.
“Because you think my brother might have been bribing judges?” Tav sounded skeptical.
I couldn’t much blame him; telling the story out loud made it sound pretty unlikely. I nodded unhappily. “Might,” I emphasized. “I don’t really think he was, but he did seem to be in a real financial bind lately, and maybe that drove him to…”
“How much money could he win at a ballroom dance competition?” Tav asked. The way he relaxed back into the chair made me think that he believed me and I let out my breath, unaware until then that I’d been holding it. “It’s hard to say,” I said, “because there are so many prize categories. But if we’d taken home the top studio award and a few division prizes, maybe ten to twelve thousand-not a fortune by any stretch. The money in ballroom dancing is in teaching and competing with amateur students… or getting a gig on
“Hardly seems worth bribing judges,” Tav said, almost to himself. He stood and held out a hand to pull me up. “Let us begin.”
“Begin?”
“Our search.”
It wasn’t until half an hour later, when we had gone over every inch of the living room and were pulling utensils out of kitchen drawers and checking the ice tray in the freezer for the thumb drive that I thought to ask, “Hey, what are you doing here, anyway?”
Tav looked up from where he was systematically removing spices and canned goods from the lazy Susan in a low cupboard and smiled. “When I picked up Rafael’s effects, his keys were among them. The police had no objection to my staying here. A week in a hotel in this area would eat my profits for the month.”
“Were you here yesterday morning?”
“No. My plane did not land until late last night and I did not get the key until this morning. Why?”
I told him about my visit yesterday and the intruder who had hidden in the closet and snuck out while I was in the bedroom.
“You thought it was me?” Tav said, a smile lurking in his brown eyes. “I am not much of one for hiding in closets.”
No, he was more the type to grab a knife and confront an intruder. I washed my hands after sorting through the cleaning supplies under the sink and accidentally shifting a roach motel.
“Who do you think it was?” Tav asked, brow furrowed.
We headed toward the bedroom and began rifling through the drawers and closet, and I gave him the thoughts I’d already hashed out with Danielle. It felt weird to be in Rafe’s bedroom, which still smelled like Rafe, with a man who looked so much like Rafe but wasn’t Rafe. I remembered the last time I’d woken up in here, dawn just creeping through the slatted blinds and striping the cherry chest of drawers and Rafe’s chest and arms as he snored softly. A
We gave up forty minutes later without having found my love letters-Rafe must have trashed them-or the flash drive. Either the police had taken it along with the computer, Rafe had put it somewhere else (possibly planning to return it to Sherry), or someone else had lifted it. I discounted the possibility that Sherry Indrebo was wrong about where she’d left it; she didn’t strike me as a woman who got details confused.
“I will ask the police about it,” Tav said, offering me a glass of water in the kitchen when we’d finished.
Leaning against the sink, I swallowed it in one long gulp-rifling someone’s condo was hard work-and said, “Just don’t make them suspicious.”
“Never fear.” He grinned.
“Did they give you Rafe’s car keys, too?”
Tav nodded.
“Is the Lexus in the garage?” I didn’t see how Rafe’s car could be in its slot below the condo building when he’d been shot at the studio.
“No. My rental is parked in his space. Why?”
I explained my thinking and he disappeared into the bedroom momentarily, emerging with Rafe’s key ring in his hand. He lobbed it at me and I caught it. “You’re giving me Rafe’s keys?” I felt a spark of warmth at his trust.
“It is not his car, correct? So I have nothing to lose if you turn out to be a clever car thief.”
“Oh.” His prosaic logic deflated me.
“Search the car if you come across it, or return the keys to Ms. Indrebo,” Tav said.
I pocketed the keys. “I should go.”
“Let me buy you dinner. I would offer to cook for you, but my brother did not keep the refrigerator well stocked.” Pulling the fridge door open, he gestured at the mostly bare shelves that featured only a bottle of salad dressing, a carton of take-out Chinese, and some yogurts. “You can tell me about your compulsion to chase after aging punk rockers. I hear Rod Stewart is between wives again.”
I punched him on the shoulder. “Just for that, you can pick up the check.”
Over a delicious seafood dinner at a casual restaurant two blocks from the condo complex, I confessed to my initial assault on the mysterious limo and my conviction that its occupant knew something about Rafe’s death. “Or, if not his death exactly, something about why he was so worried these past weeks, why he needed money.” I sawed a small slice of bread from the crusty loaf the waiter had brought and ate it dry, watching jealously as Tav
