“Devalera Dunne. Mrs. Devalera Dunne.”
Paunch poised his pen over his clipboard. “Spell your first name please,”
“Oh for God’s sake. I’ve been spelling that damned name my whole life. Forget about it. Just go find the body.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am. If there’s a body, we’ll find it.” From the soothing tone of Casey’s voice, I could tell he had gone into hysteria-control mode. It infuriated me.
“What’s your address, ma’am?” he asked, his voice super soft.
“What are you whispering for?” I glanced over a shoulder at the quiet house behind us. “Nobody in there can hear a bloody thing. Not unless you bang on the door.”
“Where do you live, ma’am?” he asked.
I turned back to him. “In Naples at the Surfside Condominiums. Gulf Shore Boulevard. Satisfied now?”
“Do you have any ID?”
“What’s the matter with you people? Do I look like I’m carrying ID?”
The two officers exchanged glances. “Have the guard call an ambulance,” Casey ordered.
“I don’t need an ambulance. I need you to listen to me.”
“We are listening, ma’am. You need medical attention.” He pointed to my cut and bleeding feet. “How did that happen?”
“I already told you. In the woods over there. After I ran out of the house.”
“What house?”
“The big deconstructionist one.”
He frowned so deeply his brows collided. “What house is that?”
“The white one. Down the road on the left. Ilona is probably still in there.” I gasped as a thought struck me. “Unless my car got fixed and Bears’ Plumbing dropped it off. If so, she could have swiped my keys and left in the Audi. She’s in on it, you know.”
“In on what?”
“The art theft and the murders.”
“I see.”
“No you don’t. You think I’m deranged.”
The two officers exchanged another glance. One of
“Okay, you want proof? You want some ID? Go to 1900 Bonita Bay Road. You’ll find my purse on the kitchen island. At least that’s where I left it when I ran out of the house. I was fleeing from Dr. Jones. He had already killed three people, and I was next on his list.
“Anyway, look for a lime green hobo. A Kate Spade. It was expensive as sin, but not as extravagant as you might think. I’m an autumn on the color chart, so the green goes with a lot of my outfits.” I glanced down at my soiled, torn skirt. “I probably shouldn’t have worn it with this orange skirt, but sometimes a girl has to think outside the box.”
That was when Casey’s face got all fuzzy. Determined not to pass out and bonk my head on the stone landing, I leaned against one of the planters and listened to sirens screaming in the distance. Before I knew it, a medic was bending over me.
“This chair is hard,” I told her. “It needs cushions. An indoor-outdoor fabric would be good.”
“Yes, it is hard,” she said, her voice soothing. “We’re taking you where you’ll be more comfortable.”
“The gas chamber?”
“Close your eyes,” she said. “You’re going to be all right now.”
The ambulance crew lifted me onto a stretcher. As I passed the guard, I said, “You didn’t call Rossi like I asked you to.” He looked puzzled as if he didn’t know whom I meant, but he knew all right. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “These guys are doing fine.”
“That’s a relief, lady,” he said as the medics slid my stretcher into the back of an ambulance.
The green, groomed landscaping of Bonita Bay passed by in a blur, and we were soon racing along the Tamiami Trail heading into Naples, sirens screaming, and no doubt blue roof lights whirling. What was the hurry? I wondered. Morgan was no longer a threat to anyone. What were we racing toward? My fate?
I woke up in a hospital bed, my feet wrapped in bandages. A pair of liquid brown eyes were inches from my own. I knew those eyes and the stern, stubbled face they belonged to. I even recognized the shirt-lush hula girls swayed in the breeze clear across Rossi’s chest.
“So they finally called you,” I said.
“Yes. Sorry I wasn’t there, Deva.” He took my hand. “You did well.”
Tears flooded my eyes and leaked down my chin onto the sprigged hospital jonny someone had dressed me in.
“How can you say I did well? I’m no better than Morgan was. When he came after me, Rossi, I lashed out with everything I had. I didn’t know I was capable of…of…” The word wouldn’t come out.
“We’re all capable of the same thing, Deva,” he said, yanking a fistful of tissues out of a box on the bedside table and wiping my eyes. But the tears wouldn’t stop. “Keep that up and we’ll be having a wet T-shirt contest in here.” He grinned, giving me a flash of even white teeth. “Maybe you should just let the tears roll.”
I grabbed the tissues out of his hand. “That’s not funny, Rossi. I killed a man.”
He sobered immediately. “No, that wasn’t funny,” he agreed. “But you haven’t killed anyone.”
I blinked and swiped a hand at the wetness. “No?”
“No. Morgan’s alive. Bruised and battered, but alive. Two floors down, under twenty-four-hour police guard.”
Relief like a drug flooded my soul. “Oh, thank God. To have a death on my conscience was awful.”
“I know,” he said, his voice as soothing as the paramedic’s. But this time, it sounded good to me.
“What about Ilona?” I asked.
“We found her on Alligator Alley, halfway to Miami. But not to worry. The Audi can be repaired.”
I reared up on my elbows. “What? I
Rossi pressed my shoulders back onto the pillow. “Relax. I’ll see that the repairs are made and Trevor’s given the bill.”
“Really?”
“Of course. He’s legally responsible. Ilona’s still his wife, technically anyway. The divorce hasn’t gone through, and from what Trevor said it won’t. He still wants her. He’s hiring Alan Dershowitz as her defense attorney.” Rossi shook his head. “I thought I’d heard everything, but this one tops all. Trevor said he bought her, lock, stock and barrel, for three hundred thousand dollars. And he has no intention of losing his investment.”
I nodded. “Ilona told me all about the yenta who negotiated their marriage. I’m just glad he’ll take care of the Audi.”
“Repairing your car won’t even be a blip on his radar. According to a piece in today’s paper, he’s an extremely wealthy man. Recently bought a huge parcel of land in Estero and intends to develop it. Simon Yaeger is his partner in the deal.”
Ohhhh. I blew out a pent-up breath. So that was why Trevor had made those massive withdrawals I’d stumbled across on his study desk. And that’s why when Simon called that day, he wanted no one except George to find out about the deal-not until it was consummated. Not even the Dunne woman, I sniffed.
But that was all right. Actually Simon had done me a favor. Since then I’d known without a scintilla of doubt that we would never be more than casual friends. As for Rossi standing by my hospital bed with that attractive all- night stubble on his face, who knew?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A week later, back at the Surfside condo, my bandaged feet propped up on the living room couch, I watched
