Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

The hairs on the back of Matt’s neck rose. A chill of murderous rage crawled up the back of his head. He knew the threat was deadly, and he knew who, but he didn’t know where.

Luckily, he knew just how to change that last condition. Right now.

Chapter 56

Rematch

Molina jumped when the doorbell rang. She never jumped. She’d schooled herself to never show surprise.

This wasn’t a surprise. It was something … worse. Even though she’d expected this caller, she’d never expected opening her door to this man for this purpose.

When she unlocked and cracked open the big wooden front door, he was turned away, back to her, studying the street. In the glow from the porch light above the door—a warm, old-fashioned incandescent bulb because she saw too many mean streets under harsh fluorescent lighting in her job—his hair looked Black Irish dark.

What the heck was he doing here? She had to ask herself that for the fortieth time. She liked blond men, even dirty blond like Dirty Larry, the ex-narco undercover guy. Ideally golden in all respects, like Matt Devine.

So who had she gotten involved with? Molina had never wanted to look too closely at the answer to that question. She stared, barring the doorway, until he turned to face her.

“Come in, Rafi,” she said, stepping back.

“Make sure you ask the right one in,” he said, eerily paraphrasing one of Mariah’s stupid fave bloody vampire film titles.

“You’ve been studying Mariah’s Facebook page.”

“And Google-plus too.” Rafi grinned, stepped over the threshold, paused. “You sure, Carmen? I’m your worst nightmare.”

She pulled back, grimaced. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just a teensy little bad dream.”

“Diminutives don’t thrill guys. Just a tip on something you may have forgotten after all these years.”

She fought back an embarrassed flush. She hadn’t meant to—No going back on stupid comments.

“Where’s Mariah?” he asked as he followed her into the living room, knowing the way now.

“Where she always is. In her bedroom texting, Googling, Internet-cruising, Facebooking.”

“Singing?” Rafi asked.

Molina turned to let him see the face of her frustration. “That too.”

“Sit down,” he said. “Can I get you a beer?”

She stared at him. “My house. I’m the hostess.”

Rafi pointed his left hand toward his right shoulder. “The fridge is visible right there. I know how to do twist-tops, or find a kitchen church key. Why don’t you sit down, Carmen, breathe deep, and realize I’m here to help. And bring you a cold beer.”

She cleared her throat. Actually, that would help. And her acute law-enforcement summing-up eye had noticed he’d look a lot buffer than Dirty Larry, but safely middle-aged so Mariah couldn’t crush on him, unlike Matt Devine.

God, what am I thinking?

She buried her face in one hand, both rueful and annoyed and about ready to say, No go, get outta here, Nadir, the way she’d dismiss a snitch.

A dewy-cold bottle appeared in her free hand. The sofa in need of replacing shifted as Rafi sat down beside her. “This is about Mariah,” he said. “She’s at the age when her dreams, her path, even her mistakes are forming. Let’s not mire her in ours.”

“Dreams, or mistakes?”

“Either one.”

“Why do you care?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rafi said. “Did you ever ask yourself that?”

Molina put the cold wet side of the beer bottle against her temple. “No.”

“Why didn’t I see what a crazy, judgmental witch you were?”

That roused her, wanting to defend herself, but he went on too quickly.

“Why didn’t you see what a controlling, manipulative bastard I was. You wanted to be a police detective, didn’t you?”

“We weren’t like that,” she said, finally sitting up and setting the beer bottle on the sofa table.

“No kidding.”

Her deep, frustrated exhalation stirred the hair still hanging forward over her face. “I panicked.” She eyed him through the defense of her veiling hair. “I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant.”

“Like I had?”

“I couldn’t understand. We’d always been careful. I thought. There was a pinhole in my diaphragm.”

“Oh. Evidence of tampering. You want to go to the prosecutor with that today?”

“Circumstantial,” she admitted. “But I’d been so careful—”

“Yeah, I get it. You were the ‘little mama’ to your however many stepbrothers and sisters after your mom remarried when you were a toddler. Enough already on the kids. I get that. And I didn’t want to be tied down either. You do remember that about me?”

“We were being pitted against each other at work. Would the system reward the minority guy or the pushy woman?”

“We had a lot in common. We shouldn’t have let them use it against us.”

“I panicked. Having a kid made me even more vulnerable on the job, not to mention my druthers.”

“Did you consider doing what you accused me of not wanting, ending the pregnancy?”

“None of your business.”

“Carmen, listen to yourself.”

“Yes. Okay? I couldn’t do that, anyway. I wasn’t looking for anything like that. I was probably a hormonal mess by the time I realized what was happening.”

“So you ran. Did you ever think what that might do to me?”

She shook her head. “Try being pregnant. It’s all about you and the baby. I’d decided you’d won the rookie contest and wanted me at home and pregnant, like my stepdad wanted my mom to be, even if it took my child labor to keep the family fairy tale going.”

Rafi didn’t say anything more, just pulled out his smartphone. Molina was thinking if she saw another one of those today, she would scream.

“Okay, we’re caught up on our past. What about Mariah’s future?” he asked.

“You can’t seriously be saying it’s anything more than school and good grades and some career direction in choosing a college.”

“Would that scenario excite you ?”

“No, but I had to leave home and put myself through a criminal justice degree on my own. I had no support. Nada. I can afford to provide Mariah with what she needs. If you want to informally help underwrite that and won’t be interfering, I’m okay with it.”

Rafi just laughed. “This is sounding like a two-party deal in Congress these days. You get all the authority and time with our daughter, I get to provide underwriting.”

“What do you want, outings with her at the Circus Circus Adventuredome? All you can eat brunches off the Strip? Twice a month, say.”

“Carmen, Carmen, Carmen.” He watched her flinch at every repeat of the name only her intimates dared use, like Detective Morrie Alch on a good day, smiling almost tenderly at her obvious unease. “That would have been fine a few years ago, when Mariah was a kid. Now? No. Mariah is a young adult and she’d run away screaming from those lame, useless outings, and you know it.”

She did, but didn’t admit it.

“Let me help her with her dreams, Carmen, like I did with you those many years ago.”

“Singing? I never went anywhere with that,” Molina said.

“You still could. I was pretty good as your agent-manager, and nowadays, everybody’s their own record mogul.”

She thought, desperately seeking wiggle room.

“You’d keep her away from sleazos like that Crawford Buchanan leech,” he said.

She kept silent.

“And, the real sweetness of the deal is that you don’t have to introduce me as her father, just as the guy from the teen TV reality show house. She almost won that talent show.”

“If that obnoxious Zoe Chloe Ozone hadn’t distracted everybody with such a ridiculous rap number.”