Dana Mentink - Dangerous Melody

“She’d be safer alone.” Luca’s green eyes shone with anger.

Stephanie didn’t want Tate around any more than her brother did. She also knew that every moment they wasted brought them closer to disaster. She went to Luca and hugged him. “I’ll be okay.”

He squeezed her. “Don’t let him back into your life,” he whispered in her ear. “He’s trouble.”

Trouble. Truer words were never spoken. She kissed his cheek and headed for the door, trouble following right along behind her.

THREE

Tate parked the motorcycle on the curb outside Stephanie’s Victorian. She was already headed inside, the afternoon sun casting long September shadows over the neat yard, catching the gloss in her dark hair. The idiocy of his own actions came sharply home.

At worst, Stephanie despised him—and with good reason. He was, after all, a former drug addict who pushed her away, ignored her repeated attempts to get him help, and nearly ran her down while trapped in a cloud of painkillers. As for Luca, he’d just as soon take Tate apart one piece at a time. Not surprising. The Gages were tight and, in times of crises, impenetrable in their solidarity. They’d been just that way when he had descended into addiction. Guilt flared anew, along with the pain in his leg.

The Fuego family was an altogether different bunch, he thought with bitterness. They scraped for every opportunity, earned their living through hard work. Truth was, he’d been lost in a narcotic haze when his sister needed him the most, when she moved in with Bittman, six months after Stephanie quit working for him. Tate had been too addicted to painkillers prescribed after his leg was ruined in the accident that killed his father to do anything about it. Again the guilt stirred inside, but he fought it down.

His life had turned out scarily similar to his work as a demolitions expert. All the meticulous planning, endless mental rehearsal and the best of intentions was supposed to ensure that a condemned building would fall neatly, right on its footprint, with no overspray of deadly flying debris or partial failures that left structures tilting dangerously, still primed to explode. His relationship with Stephanie had turned out to be more like the time he’d witnessed the deadly power of a shock wave, a wave of energy and sound released when Fuego Demolitions took down a building. The massive wave traveled upward as was intended, before hitting a heavy cloud cover that forced the energy outward, exploding windows in the neighboring buildings. He could still hear the sounds of that shattering glass with the same perfect clarity that he recalled the end of his life with Stephanie.

He hesitated, trying again to steady his nerves. “Time to show some Fuego solidarity and do what you have to do to find Maria,” he muttered to himself. It would be difficult because it meant sticking close to the most amazing woman he had ever known, a woman he could never have again, due to his own personal destruction.

Forget about your past with Stephanie. Find Maria. That’s all you’ve got left.

He marched resolutely to the door and let himself into a small kitchen, painted in soft yellow tones. In the next room he could see boxes stacked in neat piles. “Nice place. Just moved in?”

“Couple days ago. I haven’t made the time to unpack.” She busied herself preparing coffee and pulling a plate of cheese from the refrigerator, along with a box of crackers, before she opened a can of cat food and put it on the floor. “Tootsie never misses a meal. She’s like clockwork.”

He watched her put the cheese and crackers on the table.

“There’s bottled water in the fridge.”

“You don’t have to feed me, Steph.”

She adjusted the crackers in the bowl, removing three broken ones and tossing them in the trash. “It’s going to take hours to go through the files. You’ll be on your own.”

“Is this your way of keeping me out of your hair?”

She looked at him then, eyes like melted chocolate. Suddenly she was the sixteen-year-old girl he’d met while running the track in high school, eyes sparkling as she challenged him to a race. His stomach jumped. For a moment he thought she would say something, but her expression changed and she headed for the front room. “My files are in here.”

He sighed. Stay in the kitchen and be quiet, was the unspoken command. She ought to know that idle wasn’t his natural state. The kitchen window framed a view of the street, quiet and empty except for a few parked cars, two Prius and another one. He leaned forward. The other was parked a good block away, a streamlined black Mercedes. Something about it struck a familiar chord.

As he turned it over in his mind, another thought occurred to him. “Steph?” He poked his head into the front room. “Where’s the cat?”

“What?” she said, blinking at him, a file folder in her hands.

“The cat. You said she was like clockwork about her food.” He gestured to the kitchen. “Hasn’t been touched.”

Stephanie’s brow furrowed. “I’ll bet she’s stuck in the upstairs bedroom again. The door swings shut and she gets locked in.”

“I’ll check.” He eyeballed the front door before he left and made sure it was locked. Probably nothing but his paranoia in action, but he doubled back and locked the kitchen door, too, before he made his way quietly across the hardwood floor and up the creaking stairs, which emptied out onto the long hallway, with three doorways. Two were open, the one on the far end, which Tate surmised was the extra bedroom, was closed. He walked slowly, scanning the two open rooms: a bathroom and another small room filled with more boxes. One more door beckoned. He approached slowly, put an ear to the wood and listened. No sound.

He felt slightly ridiculous prowling the property, but if Stephanie was right, Bittman had nearly killed Victor and taken her father. He wanted something from Stephanie, and he would no doubt do anything to get it. Tate told her flat-out when she started working for him that something wasn’t right, but she’d laughed it off, accused him of being the jealous type.

Not jealous, just perceptive. Bittman was crazy, and she should have trusted Tate. He felt a flash of anger followed by another surge of guilt. Who was he to blame her for not trusting him? He’d proven later that he was not a man she could count on.

Tate put a hand on the knob and turned it, inch by inch, until the door released. Pushing it open, he scanned the inside. A small bed, neatly made. Another door leading to what must be a bathroom, and one more, a paneled closet. He started with the closet, rolling it open slowly. Empty, not so much as a forgotten coat. The stack of three boxes nearby indicated she’d not yet gotten around to the spare room. This was odd for Stephanie, who was manically organized, a woman who arranged her books on the shelves according to size and color. It was not like her to leave anything half done, even after only a few days in her new space.

A soft thump came from the bathroom. He froze, listening. Another thump and a soft scuffling noise. The cat? Maybe. Maybe not. He crept closer to the door, which was pulled mostly closed. Since he hadn’t turned on the light, the room was dim. Easing along one footstep at a time, he hoped the squeak of the worn floorboards under his feet would not give him away.

Drawing close enough to see through, he caught the flutter of movement. He did a slow count to three and threw open the door. It crashed into the wall behind as he leaped through. A pigeon with iridescent feathers around its neck fluffed in alarm from its perch on the rim of the old-fashioned bath tub. With an irritated flap of feathers, it flew back to the window and scuttled through the gap.

He watched the pigeon disappear through the open window.