“I was invited,” he said.
She snorted. “Star reporters. Christ, what a business. In the old days-”
He couldn’t let her get started on the old days. “I’m more interested in the pre-ball private cocktail party. Our thief hasn’t hit any of the big galas. I’m not expecting anything, I’d just like to see what’s what at this kind of event.”
“A party’s a party. You’re just angling to see this Mollie Lavender.”
“Helen-”
She waved a hand. “Forget it, I’m just jerking your chain. If you can’t find your invitation, I wouldn’t worry. I expect our illustrious publisher will pull up an extra chair for his star reporter if you show up.”
Under ordinary circumstances, it would have to be a command performance before he’d sit at a Miami Tribune table at a Palm Beach charity ball, even one benefiting a children’s hospital. Even then, he’d shoot himself in the foot first.
“Be tacky to show up at the pre-ball private party and skip the main event,” Helen said.
He gave her a deadpan look. “I wouldn’t want to do anything tacky.”
“You’re so full of shit, Tabak. Keep me posted on Mollie Lavender.”
She withdrew with her green-flecked pink drink.
Jeremiah debated calling to see about putting a billboard up on 95 saying he’d slept with Mollie, just to get it over with. Or sending an e-mail around the Trib staff. Yes, it’s true. I slept with Leonardo Pascarelli’s flute-playing goddaughter ten years ago.
But, in a strange way, he trusted Helen to keep her mouth shut, at least for now.
So he focused on the task at hand, which was finding the damned invitation. He dragged his wastebasket over and dug in with both hands. Because he tended to throw things away prematurely, he didn’t deposit organic matter, or allow anyone else to deposit organic matter, in his wastebasket.
Gold lettering? Cream-colored paper?
This story was getting complicated, not from a professional standpoint-he wasn’t writing it-but from a social one. One way or the other, by the time his little jewel thief mystery was solved or he gave it up, he figured he was going to end up having to buy a suit.
He spotted the invitation six inches from the bottom. Holding back the rest of the trash with one arm, he fished it out and dropped it onto his desk. Yes, he had one hell of a memory. Cocktails at six in the Starlight Room of the Palm Beach Sands Hotel, then on to the ball.
He sat back, pleased with himself. Then he noticed the fine print.
The gig was black-tie.
There was no way out of it. He was going to have to buy that damned suit. It was two o’clock. That gave him two hours, no more, before he had to hit the interstate north.
“Hell,” he said through clenched teeth, and lurched to his feet. He rushed out in such a way that eyes widened, and he knew his compatriots at the Trib thought that Jeremiah Tabak, star investigative reporter, was following up a hot lead, not heading out in search of a suit.
The pink bedroom was where Mollie always stayed when she visited Leonardo, and she knew exactly which dress she wanted to wear. The champagne silk. She’d tried it on two years ago on a visit and already knew it fit. She brought over shoes, stockings, makeup, hairpins, and three possible pairs of earrings and necklaces and spread them out on the big, canopied bed. Dressing in Leonardo’s house was almost as good as having him with her. His gaudy, eclectic taste permeated every room, making his presence almost palpable. She knew he would try to get her to wear the fiery red dress. She’d feel like a hooker, or a doomed heroine from one of his favorite operas.
The champagne dress was perfect. Simple lines, a not-too-low neck. And she had shoes to go with it.
She admired herself in a gilt-edged three-way mirror in the huge, spotless pink bathroom. Yep. Perfect. A pity she had to do her own makeup and hair.
It took three tries with her hair, but finally she had it up and staying put. The makeup was easier. With such a pale dress, a soft touch worked fine.
But none of her earrings and necklaces worked at all.
She frowned, already knowing she was tempted. She’d been tempted the second Leonardo had made his offer.
She didn’t quite remember the story of the diamond-and-ruby necklace. It was dramatic, wrenching, and involved at least two women, both of whom still claimed to love and adore Leonardo. He had two locked, alarm-equipped closets for his valuables, but he left the necklace in a velvet box in the top drawer of the tall dresser in the pink bedroom, exactly where a cat burglar would look, as if he were setting up the fitting end to its story of woe.
“Only you, Leonardo,” Mollie muttered, and dug out the velvet box.
The necklace was even prettier than she remembered. A cluster of diamonds and rubies on a mid-length, thin gold chain. Not as ostentatious as it could have been, true, but nothing she’d ever buy for herself. She tried it on. The pendant licked the top edge of her bodice. It was irresistible.
And if Leonardo had one role in her life, it was to tell her not to resist.
She wouldn’t even bother with earrings. The necklace was enough. Feeling decadent, glamorous, a little like Cinderella off to her ball, Mollie locked up and headed out to Leonardo’s Jaguar. Chet Farnsworth, her astronaut-turned-jazz-pianist client, and his wife had invited her to sit with them at their table at the ball. Diantha Atwood, Deegan’s grandmother, had invited her to her annual pre-ball cocktail party. Actually, Mollie assumed Deegan had put her up to it.
The Palm Beach Sands Hotel was, appropriately, on the water, a sprawling resort of beach, tennis courts, pools, golf course, glittering elegance, and everything else anyone weary of a northern winter could want in a Florida vacation. Mollie left her car with a valet and found her way to the mezzanine level and the Starlight Room. As princess-like as she felt, she realized she wouldn’t have cared if she’d shown up in the reliable, classic black dress she’d worn to formals for the past five years. Her parents’ influence, she supposed.
“Well, well.” Jeremiah’s voice, low, deliberate, and close. “Tempting our jewel thief, I see.”
She spun around, almost landing on top of him. He was as dark and devastating in black-tie as he was in chinos, and it was all she could do to keep herself from gasping. “You mean this?” She fingered the teardrop-shaped cluster of diamond and rubies. “I borrowed it from Leonardo on a whim. I don’t even know if it’s real.”
“Uh-huh.” He laid on the drawl, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see guests coming up the escalators, recognizing him, raising eyebrows. Jeremiah, however, had his own gaze pinned on her. “But you knew it’d be a temptation.”
“That’s silly. It has a firm clasp, and I assure you, it’s not leaving my neck until I put it back in its little velvet box.” She tried to ignore the flicker of awareness in his eyes, the hot jolt of the memory of him removing a necklace from her neck one warm winter night. “I didn’t realize you’d be here tonight.”
“Neither did I.” He relaxed only slightly. “I’ve owned this suit for three whole hours. Bennie hemmed it for me. He’s a retired tailor in my building, claims he hemmed suits for every mayor of New York from the Depression through the opening of the new Yankee Stadium. But,” he added, “don’t let me keep you if you’re meeting someone.”
Her only someone was a retired astronaut with a crew cut and a special talent for jazz, and not until the ball. She wished, suddenly and fervently, that she’d scrounged up a date for the evening, just to throw Tabak off. Because he knew damned well there was no man in her life.
“You’re not keeping me,” she said tightly. “But perhaps we should go in and mingle before people start wondering if there’s more between us than meets the eye.”
He leaned toward her, half-whispered, “There is, darlin’. Lots more.”
“There was. There isn’t anymore. And you, Jeremiah, have more outright audacity than anyone I’ve ever known. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She started off, stopped, and turned back. “Oh, and enjoy hunting your thief tonight. I know that’s why you’re here.”