Questions sparked by her incoherence tumbled in my head. She didn’t mean to have sex? To get pregnant? To tell her parents she was expecting? Rafe was nice to her and so they had sex? She told Rafe something-that she was having a baby?-and he was nice to her? The only part that made sense was her dad’s anger, and I already knew about that. Before I could probe further, a car door slammed, jerking both our heads toward the street.
Sawyer Iverson strode toward us, baggy jeans riding low on his pelvic bones, cheap black T-shirt outlining his thin frame, hair gelled and spiky. Not exactly the look he sported on the dance floor. “Whassup?” he asked as he drew nearer. His gaze was on Taryn, who had jumped to her feet at his approach. “How’re you doing?”
“Okay,” Taryn whispered. Their gazes met and something passed between them.
“Hi, Sawyer,” I said, wondering what was going on.
“Uh, hi, Miss Stacy.” He shuffled his feet, glanced at me for a second, then turned his gaze back to Taryn’s flushed face.
“She knows,” Taryn said, “about-”
“What! You told her?”
“About the pregnancy.”
Taryn’s emphasis on the last word shut Sawyer up and I again wondered what I was missing. Somehow, they were carrying on a whole conversation I wasn’t in on, despite standing practically between them.
“My dad told her.”
“When he came to beat up Rafe,” I added helpfully.
Sawyer paled. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Taryn.” He reached for her hand and held it tightly. “It’s all because-Does he have a good lawyer?”
Taryn wrinkled her brow; then understanding hit her and she pulled her hand away. “My dad didn’t kill Rafe!”
Sawyer looked from her to me. “I thought you said-”
“Mr. Hall came yesterday morning, after Rafe was already dead. He was looking for Rafe, having somehow gotten the idea that Rafe was the father of Taryn’s baby.” I looked pointedly from Sawyer to Taryn and back again, having my own thoughts about who had fathered the baby.
Neither teen met my eyes. Taryn inched closer to Sawyer, who threw a comforting arm around her shoulders. “We’ve gotta go,” he told me. “C’mon, Taryn, or we’ll be late.”
With an apologetic look at me, Taryn let Sawyer steer her toward his Honda Accord. I watched as he opened the door for her-not too many of the grown men I knew bothered with that courtesy-and clunked it shut once she had pulled her legs in. I had a vague feeling that I should stop them, but I had no right. And no real reason, either. Maybe they were meeting friends at Starbucks or going to a movie. Just because the tension between them was tighter than a piano wire didn’t mean anything ominous. I hoped.
Chapter 8
Tav Acosta was sitting in my office when I returned from Taryn’s house. I stopped on the threshold and stared at him where he sat on the love seat, tapping away on a laptop. “What are you doing here?”
He looked up, an expression of mild surprise on his face. “Waiting for you.” He closed the laptop and rose. “Mr. Goldberg told me I could wait here.”
Music sounded from the ballroom and I heard the faint shufflings that indicated a dance class was taking place. “Oh. Well-”
“Perhaps I could buy you lunch to make up for running out on our breakfast earlier?” he said with a smile.
I suddenly realized I was famished. What with meeting Vitaly, getting hauled off to the police station, and tracking down Taryn, I hadn’t eaten anything today since the yogurt and English muffin I’d had for breakfast. “Lunch would be good,” I said. “Give me just a moment.” I crossed the hall to tell Maurice I’d be out for a while, but that we needed to talk about the Capitol Festival when I got back. He nodded his understanding in time with the music, never taking his eyes off the couples circling the floor. “Absolutely, Anastasia,” he said. “I trust you sorted things out with the police?”
“For the moment,” I said, hoping it was true. Ducking into the powder room, I washed my hands, ran a brush through my hair, and rubbed some sunblock on my arms. Rejoining Tav, I led him down the stairs and east toward the Potomac River. “Have you seen much of this area?” I asked him.
“I have only traveled in the United States a couple of times,” he said. “Most of my business is in South America and Europe, although, as I told Rafael, I am thinking about expanding to the United States. He invited me for a visit, but I was involved in delicate negotiations and couldn’t get away.” Regret sounded in his voice and when I shot a sideways glance at him his face was shuttered.
“So you talked recently?”
He looked down at me assessingly. “Ten days ago. Prior to that we had not spoken in over a year. He called to tell me he was making me the beneficiary in his will and invited me to come to D.C. on vacation.”
“So you knew about the will.” I said it neutrally, but my heartbeat had quickened.
“Yes.” His eyes told me he knew exactly what I was thinking. “But you did not know he had changed it, correct? You were still under the impression you would inherit his share of the business.”
“I didn’t kill Rafe,” I said hotly, responding to the unspoken accusation and causing a suited woman walking a Westie to cross the street abruptly, nearly upending the dog, who was busy marking a tree.
“The police questioned you this morning.”
We had reached the Torpedo Factory by this time, a three-story building that housed artist studios and shops. I pulled the door open without answering his question and cut through the ground level to the back door, which opened onto a plaza fronting the Potomac River. The glare from the sun-silvered water sliced into my vision and I blinked rapidly. The familiar scent of the river, a mix of fresh water, diesel fuel, and warm mud with a whiff of decay, anchored me as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. Tav’s warmth crowded me from behind and I stepped forward, dodging a seagull intent on carrying off a large french fry.
“It is beautiful,” Tav said, quiet appreciation in his voice.
A handful of boats glided past, sails bellied by the wind. Tourists milled about with cameras and melting ice-cream treats, reddened shoulders and noses testifying to a morning spent at Mount Vernon or wandering the streets of Old Town. Two mallards swam near the pier, hoping for handouts. Being near the river always lifted my spirits and I smiled as I headed for a food cart, letting the past days’ sadness and anxiety drop away for a moment. Sandwiches and bottled waters in hand, Tav and I wandered a hundred yards up the river and settled on a river-facing bench to eat.
“Look,” Tav said, crumpling the sandwich wrapping and shoving it into his pocket. “I don’t think you killed Rafe.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said around a mouthful of turkey sandwich. Despite my sarcastic response, I was a teensy bit pleased by his words.
“The police said your gun was the murder weapon, though, so how do you explain that?”
“I don’t. I can’t. Someone stole it.”
“Who knew you had a gun?”
I’d already been thinking about that. “Dozens of people,” I said gloomily.
He looked startled. “Really? How is that?”
“Six or eight weeks ago, at one of our social dances-that’s where we invite students from all the classes, and people from the community, too, to come on a Friday night and dance for fun-one of the women mentioned how unsafe she feels going out at night. She was nervous just walking the two blocks from the parking garage to Graysin Motion. Someone said she should get a gun and carry it in her purse. Rafe went downstairs and got my gun to show her, even demonstrating how easily it would fit in her purse. So,” I said gloomily, “lots of people knew I had a gun.”
“But they wouldn’t know where you kept it,” Tav objected.
I gave him a look. “If you had to search a woman’s place for her gun, where would you look first?”