Written In Blood Page 9

  “Really? Me, too. I wish you were here and we could look at it together.”

  His voice faded on the cell phone.

  “Can you hear me? Damn signal’s breaking up. I’m losing you. When are you coming home?”

  “. . . real soon.”

  “I can’t hear you. How soon?” She turned the corner of her street.

  Her driveway came into view and there was Jovanic, standing outside the garage, his cell phone at his ear, wearing a goofy grin.

  Suddenly, the rainbow looked even brighter and more beautiful.

  Chapter 10

  The week after her first meeting with Annabelle Giordano, Claudia returned to the Sorensen Academy. She wanted to check Annabelle’s graphotherapy exercises early to correct any mistakes before they became ingrained.

  Paige wanted to see her first, so she went up to the office. Angry voices from inside froze her hand midknock.

  “. . . and when we’re through with you,” shouted a woman’s voice, “you won’t have a pot to piss in!”

  Paige’s lower-voiced response was muted by the door and the sudden barking of her dog.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you eavesdropping is a no-no?” a husky male voice said, close to Claudia’s ear. The spicy scent of cinnamon chewing gum hit her nose at the same instant.

  She swung around to face Cruz Montenegro. “I’m not eavesdropping.”

  He grinned, splitting the light scar line that ran across his lips. “Hey, come on, somebody’s gotta bust your chops.”

  She gave him a withering look. “Listen, dude, I don’t need—”

  A crash and the sound of glass breaking interrupted her retort. Cruz shoved past her and flung open the door. Over his shoulder, Claudia could see Paige and Diana Sorensen. They faced each other like snarling tigers in front of Paige’s desk. Paige’s face was leached of color. Diana’s complexion matched her cherry red suit.

  Shattered crystal and a bouquet of roses littered the carpet. Water spilled from the vase left a dark stain.

  Growling and barking, Mikki, the bichon frise, hurled his pint-size body at Diana’s legs. Diana kicked out, doing her best to stomp the dog, which was doing its best to bite her.

  “You crazy bitch,” Paige cried, grabbing up her dog and holding it close. “Get the hell out of here!”

  “This is my school! You’re just a gold-digging—”

  It happened in an instant, too fast for either Cruz or Claudia to react. A guttural sound came from Diana’s throat as she lunged, grabbing at Paige’s sweater, and shoved her with both hands.

  Paige’s arms windmilled. She staggered backward and landed on her butt in the midst of the broken glass and roses. With a cry of pain she let go of the dog. Mikki ran to his basket, yelping, and cowered there, his little body trembling.

  For a nanosecond no one moved. Then Cruz thrust Diana aside and lifted Paige to her feet as if she weighed nothing, asking her if she was okay.

  She leaned into him, whimpering, shaking her head. Bright red blood ran between her fingers, streaking the front of her white angora sweater.

  Turning to leave, Diana spotted Claudia still standing in the doorway. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “This is your fault,” she cried. “This is all your fault!”

  Claudia stared back at her, dumbfounded. Nothing she said was going to improve the situation. She backed out onto the landing, allowing the Sorensen woman a wide berth. But Diana closed in on her, backing her up against the wooden banister.

  She was a large woman, taller than Claudia and outweighing her by a good twenty pounds.

  “You helped her steal our inheritance,” Diana rasped, her hot breath blasting Claudia’s face. “You crooked fake. You’re a scammer, just like she is! What did she pay you to lie for her?”

  Then she made the mistake of jabbing Claudia with her finger.

  Without stopping to think, Claudia grabbed the finger and bent it in a direction it was not intended to go. “Are you insane? Get the hell off me.”

  Diana’s mouth opened in a big O of surprise. Her hand balled into a fist and she drew back her arm. In that instant, Claudia had just enough time to wonder whether the railing would hold her when the blow landed, or if she would go tumbling over the side, the way they did in the movies.

  But the blow never came.

  A small figure came hurtling along the landing and launched itself onto Diana’s back.

  Diana staggered backward, trying to throw her off, but Annabelle wrapped one skinny arm around her neck and clung like a demon. Her free hand seized a hank of Diana’s coarse black hair and gave it a vicious yank.

  “You little shit,” Diana Sorensen bellowed like an enraged elephant. “Get her off me!” But Annabelle just wrapped her fingers tighter and twisted.

  “Annabelle, let go!”

  Claudia’s arms encircled the girl’s waist as her mind raced to catch up with what was unfolding. Annabelle’s body was as unsubstantial as a bag of bones, but she was surprisingly strong and refused to be dislodged.

  Cruz came out Paige’s office, took in the scene, and barked an order for Claudia to step aside. He grabbed Annabelle and hoisted her off Diana’s back with ease. “You—stay here,” he said, setting her down.

  She glared at him and opened her mouth with a retort, but she shut it again and backed up against the wall, rebuffing the protective arm Claudia offered.

  Somewhere in the building, a buzzer sounded. Seconds later, classroom doors could be heard slamming open on the ground floor below. After-school voices filled the hallways. In a matter of moments, this ugly scene would be the object of dozens of curious stares.

  Diana swung around on all of them, her eyes wild with fury.

  Cruz grabbed her arms before she could attack again and held her. “Come on, Miz Sorensen, you don’t wanna do this.”

  Paige came to the doorway, a wad of facial tissues pressed to her palm. Her voice was pitched near hysteria as she addressed the woman who was legally her stepdaughter. “Get out of here now, Diana, or I’m calling the police.”

  Diana ripped out of Cruz’s grasp. “Yes, why don’t you call them?” She rubbed her neck, which bore the mark of Annabelle’s hand, and sneered at Paige over Cruz’s shoulder. “Even you aren’t that stupid.”

  Paige spun on her heel and stalked back into her office, slamming the door behind her.

  “You won’t get away with this!” Diana shrieked after her. “I’ll make sure you don’t!” She brushed at her skirt with sharp, angry strokes, straightened her jacket, trying to restore a shred of dignity.

  Elbowing her way through the posse of gaping students lining the staircase, Diana made it to the ground floor in record time. She ignored the raunchy catcalls that chased her and rushed out through the front doors.

  Claudia bent to retrieve the composition book Annabelle had dropped in her sprint across the landing and handed it to her. “Thanks, kiddo. That took a lot of guts.”

  “He should have let me jack her up,” Annabelle said, adopting an indifferent posture. But her breath came in quick pants on the residue of a waning adrenaline rush. She rubbed her arms where bits of shredded skin peeled away from the crisscrossing of scratches left from Diana’s talonlike fingernails.

  It must hurt like hell, Claudia thought. Then Cruz offered to take Annabelle to the school nurse and Claudia caught the secret smile that briefly touched her lips. Attacking Diana had certainly gotten Cruz Montenegro’s attention.

  Paige was lying on the sofa in her office, getting ready to down a couple of Vicodin that Cruz brought in. Nobody asked where he’d got them.

  “Diana was here because the judgment came in.” Paige swallowed the tablets and set down her glass of water, then wearily exchanged the bloody gauze on her palm for a new wad. “Guess who won the case?”

  “So the school is now officially yours,” Claudia said. With careful fingers she picked up a small shard of glass the maid had overlooked in cleaning up the mess and dropped it into the wastebasket.
“Congratulations. I think.”

  “There’s something wrong with her—Diana. Can’t you see they’re both crazy, the twins?”

  “I definitely wouldn’t want to meet them in a dark alley.”

  Paige stared back at her with big eyes. “I’m going to have Bert get me a gun.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

  “You saw what she’s capable of. I told you, I’m afraid of them. And now that I’ve won, God knows what they’ll do to get back at me. Diana was right. I can’t call the cops. The wrong kind of publicity would be death to the school.”

  Claudia regarded her with concern. “Losing is a big blow for them. They need some time to deal with it. A gun isn’t the answer.”

  Paige’s shoulders slumped and she looked at her injured hand. “What am I going to do about Annabelle? She was out of line, attacking Diana like that, even if the crazy bitch deserved it.”

  Claudia said, “She was just defending me.”

  “You don’t know Annabelle. She’ll use any excuse to get into a fight.”

  “Ahh, I thought it was because she liked me.” Then Claudia told Paige how pleased Annabelle had looked when Cruz offered to take her to the nurse.

  Paige looked back at her through eyes that were already starting to droop from the medication. “I hope he’s not going to be trouble.”

  Chapter 11

  Paige called around eight, sounding punchy. “Hey, Claudia, my friend.”

  Claudia covered the bowl of vegetable soup she was eating and took the phone into the living room. “How’s your hand?”

  “Hellacious when the drugs wear off. Lucky there’s more where those came from, huh?” She giggled and said something to somebody in the room. Back to Claudia. “Hey, Claudia, I got a big favor. Need your help.”

  Claudia’s bullshit antenna went up and started quivering. “What’s going on, Paige?”

  “I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m kinda out of it.”

  “Yeah, I could tell.”

  “So . . . I’m not really up to staying on top of Annabelle this weekend. She needs someone watching her and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “I was thinking, she really seems to have taken a shine to you . . .”

  Claudia laughed. “Last week she said my lecture was crap.”

  “But she changed her mind.” Paige’s voice turned wheedling. “She started doing your handwriting program.”

  “Paige, you can’t be serious. I’m not a babysitting service.”

  “But I’m gonna be spending the weekend in bed. There won’t be anyone to watch her. She’ll just get herself into more trouble.”

  “So you’d send her off with a stranger?”

  “You’re not a stranger,” Paige pressed. “You’re a friend. And anyone can see she likes you. We both like you, and look what she did for you today, with Diana.”

  Oh, great, lay on the guilt.

  “This morning you were angry with her for attacking Diana. Make up your mind, Paige. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I just thought, since you’d taken an interest in her . . .” Paige turned away from the phone again, covered the receiver, said something muffled. Claudia heard laughter, a deep male voice.

  “Where are you, Paige?”

  “Over at the cottage.” More giggles. “My buddy Cruz is nursing me back to health.”

  “So who’s minding the store?”

  Paige seemed to think that was hilarious. When she sobered up, she said, “I thought maybe . . .you could take her for the weekend.”

  “The weekend?”

  “Oh, come on, Claudia, it would be so good for her, and I’ll pay you. Your regular rate, what you get for court.”

  “You’re willing to spend a couple thousand dollars to get rid of her for the weekend?”

  “Don’t put it like that!” Paige sounded stung. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  Paige ignored the jibe. “Getting away from school for a couple of days would help Annabelle so much.”

  “I got the picture—you want to play with Cruz and you need to hand off this responsibility.”

  Truth was, Claudia’s brother had made plans for a weekend fishing trip, and his daughter, who was the same age as Annabelle, would be staying at Claudia’s house.

  Paige pushed some more. “If you have any problems, just call me on my mobile phone. I’ll send someone to pick her up right away.”

  “Don’t you have someone there to supervise the kids who board?”

  “Well, yes, but this is Annabelle—she’s kind of high maintenance. I wouldn’t leave her with just anyone.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s great,” Claudia said, not sure whether to be flattered by Paige’s vote of confidence. “Anyway, my niece is going to be here. She’s still kind of innocent and my brother is very protective. If Monica got into any kind of trouble, he would never forgive me.” Claudia heard herself weakening and Paige moved in for the kill.

  “The poor kid hasn’t made any friends here at all. She and your niece might hit it off.”

  “What about her father?”

  “He leaves this stuff up to me.”

  They batted it back and forth a few more times, but Claudia knew she had already lost.

  The way Annabelle had rushed to her defense, there was no disputing it: Whatever problems the girl might have, she had guts—hard-won guts, grown out of the too-early loss of her mother and the disappointment of a cold father who had emotionally abandoned her; a conspicuous lack of friends; a headmistress foisting her off on a relative stranger. Claudia reckoned that a weekend wouldn’t be such a big sacrifice.

  After she hung up she mused for a while on the various faces of Paige Sorensen that she’d seen. Over the weeks since they’d met she had observed the wounded widow, the wronged stepmother, the lonely woman seeking a confidant. Then at Claudia’s handwriting-analysis presentation the charming schoolmistress, and with this request, what seemed to be an unconcerned caretaker who would put her own needs before those of her charge.

  Claudia tucked away a mental note to analyze Paige’s handwriting.

  Chapter 12

  Pale morning light seeped through the blinds, probing the shadows in Claudia’s bedroom. Saturday. The sound of water running in the shower.

  She squinted at the clock: 8:20. She’d slept late, but Annabelle wasn’t due until ten, Monica at ten thirty. Plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast.

  Jovanic emerged from the bathroom, a towel draped around his lean, muscular body. Being a cop meant he had to stay fit, and he worked at it with regular sessions at the gym. A little shiver of happiness ran through her.

  He dropped the towel and crawled back into bed. He slid an arm around her and nuzzled her neck as she scooted against his body, which was cool from the shower. She felt him harden against her.

  His hand stole up over her abdomen and cupped her breast. Claudia sighed with contentment and rolled onto her back in response. His hands, then his tongue explored the familiar peaks and valleys of her body, making her gasp. She let her mind go blank and gave herself up to the sheer pleasure of being back in his arms.

  Getting onto her knees, she urged him onto his back, stroking him, teasing him with her tongue, loving the way she could make him groan. It was these times when she was tempted to give in and make the commitment he had been pressing her for.

  Lost in the moment, Claudia suddenly realized that someone was ringing the doorbell.

  “Aw, shit!” Jovanic grumbled, rolling away from her and off the bed. “Who the hell is that?” Grabbing the towel from the floor and wrapping it around his waist, he slid open the deck door and stepped out onto the balcony, leaned over to look. “There’s a kid on the porch.”

  Claudia scrambled out of bed and into a pair of leggings she’d left draped over a chair the night before. “She’s early.”

  The doorbell rang again, more in
sistently.

  Jovanic closed the balcony door with an irritated snap. “There’s a guy with her.”

  “Probably Bert Falkenberg.” With an apologetic shrug, Claudia pulled on a long T-shirt and hurried downstairs, hoping the scent of sex didn’t cling too conspicuously.

  Falkenberg was dressed in Levi’s and a Western shirt, his wiry hair slicked back.

  “I know we’re early,” he said, resting his hand on Annabelle’s shoulder. “But she couldn’t wait to get here. I hope you don’t mind. She ate breakfast before we left.”

  Annabelle wore hip-hugger jeans and a belly shirt that showed a lot of skin, including a ring-pierced navel. Her black hair was brushed to a high gloss and hung like a half-drawn curtain on either side of her face. Muttering a barely audible greeting, she slouched inside.

  The big kid-sitting experiment.

  Claudia showed them into the living room. Falkenberg’s eyes darted around the room the way they had on the day he had brought Paige to see her.

  “Can I get you some coffee, Bert?”

  He turned slowly, realizing belatedly that she had asked him a question. “Thanks, but I have to get going.”

  “Where are you off to?” Claudia didn’t care about his social life, but she was curious about Paige’s. It irked her that she didn’t know for sure whether Paige’s weekend plans included Cruz or Bert, or someone else altogether.

  “Palm Springs.” He cupped his hand to his mouth as if about to share a dirty secret. “I play a little poker at Agua Caliente when I get a chance.”

  “Win much?”

  He gave a self-deprecating shrug, but Claudia didn’t miss the pride behind it. “Let’s just say I win more than I lose,” he said. “I prefer Vegas, but I don’t have time this weekend.”

  “Going alone?” Claudia persisted, hoping for more details.

  He shook his head. “I’ve got a lady friend who likes to go along.”

  “Oh. How’s Paige doing?”

  He looked away, focusing his gaze on the framed Lena Rivkin doodle art on the bookcase. “I haven’t seen her today, but I’m sure she’ll be just fine. Diana’s lucky she doesn’t want to press charges for assault.”