He didn’t smile. Not quite. But he seemed warmly pleased when he said, “Actually, Miss Francesca Pastore came to the jail and testified as to my whereabouts that evening. I was not in the bar, as I had previously claimed, but with her.” He lifted one finger off the wheel. “Although not in any biblical sense. We were simply talking.”
“Of course.” Brooke didn’t quite smile, either.
“I am telling the truth,” Victor said.
In deference to his dignity, she banished every remnant of her amusement. “Of course,” she said again, very seriously.
“Miss Pastore is the one who sent you the hat. She said you’d like to protect your injuries from the sun.”
“She’s very thoughtful.” Although what Brooke really wanted was to hide her misery behind a pair of sunglasses. But with the bridge of her nose so swollen, that wasn’t possible. Not that it mattered who saw her.
Rafe wasn’t here.
Victor drove the car up to Bella Terra’s main entrance, and as he had predicted, the staff awaited her arrival.
Ebrillwen, looking a little less haughty since her refusal to accompany Brooke underground.
Madelyn, apparently out on bail and looking tremulously happy.
Zachary and a cadre of his gardeners, smiling broadly.
Tom Chan, leaning on his cane, frowning at Brooke’s red, puffy features.
Brooke donned the hat and stepped out of the car, feeling less like a heroine and more like a fool for love—again.
The little crowd didn’t seem to care. They broke into applause.
She waved formally, little flips of the hand like the queen of England, and as they chuckled, Victor helped her climb into the waiting golf cart beside Noah.
She relaxed against the seat, her body sore and bruised, her spirit . . . just as bruised. She wanted to get away, as Victor said, to get home. There she could hide like a wounded animal, lick her wounds, prepare herself to face the world . . . alone again.
“Stop!” Francesca called.
Brooke sighed.
Stepping close, Francesca took Brooke’s chin in gentle hands. She removed the hat, turned Brooke’s face toward the sun and examined her, then pronounced, “You’ll heal well. No permanent damage.”
Oh, yeah? Too bad I got entangled with your son again.
But all Brooke said was, “Thank you, Francesca. That’s a comfort to know.”
Francesca’s blue eyes shone with compassion.
That woman knew exactly the desolation Brooke suffered.
But Brooke couldn’t handle kindness right now; she was about one stiff upper lip from bursting into tears. With another regal wave, she told Noah, “Let’s go.”
Noah drove toward her cottage. He seemed oblivious to her distress as he filled her in on their preparations. “Chef has stocked your refrigerator. Your mother’s coming in this afternoon to check on you. You’ll be safe, of course, now that Josh is in the hospital and under guard.”
“Unless Joseph Bianchin has hired more thugs.”
Noah’s reassuring expression grew grim. “On my rather strong suggestion, Bianchin has left the area, at least temporarily. We’ll hear about it if he returns. He has also assured me the problems are over.”
Brooke didn’t quite know what to think. “What did you say to him?”
Noah cast her a glance quite unlike the genial resort host she thought she knew. “I suggested that Nonna was beloved by ninety percent of this town, and if it became common knowledge that he had hurt her, he’d be hard-pressed to buy a tank of gas or get a tooth filled.” While Brooke digested Noah’s unexpected show of muscle, Noah added, “He’s got other homes in other locations. Let him go elsewhere to live and die—preferably die, and preferably soon.”
“Yes. I wish he would die, and this stupid Italian feud with him. All this fuss about a bottle of wine . . . Did you ask him why now?”
“He said family honor, and that Massimo’s bottle was his birthright.” Noah shook his head. “Yes, you’re right. Stupid Italian feud—but we’re known for them, aren’t we?”
“All right. Thank you. I feel safe.” She didn’t think twice before adding, “At least until I leave.”
Noah pulled up in front of her cottage and turned to face her. “Until you leave? Are you going on vacation?”
“No, this is my official two weeks’ notice.” She took the plunge, cut the ties, shook the dust from her shoes. “I’m quitting and moving to Sweden.”
“Sweden? You’ve got a job in Sweden?” Noah’s astonishment was both satisfying and irritating.
“Am I really so boring that you have to act like a single act of spontaneity means I’ve lost my mind?” she snapped.
He hesitated.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that.” She took a breath. “I don’t have a job yet, but I will have.” Of that she had no doubt.
“But why . . . ?”
“Why am I leaving? Or why Sweden?”
She had seldom seen Noah floundering, but he was floundering now. “Yes. Both.”
“Except for college, I’ve lived in Bella Terra since I was eleven.” She had been safe. Secure. “It’s time I explored the world.” The safety had been an illusion. She knew that now. And it was time she lived like a single woman, free of responsibilities. “And as for Sweden—it’s different from here. I like that.”
“Very different.” Noah seemed to be picking his words. “You’ll need more than one coat.”
“I like to shop.”
Finally Noah got around to asking the question he’d clearly wanted to ask right away. “What does Rafe say about this?”
“I really don’t know; nor do I care.” Although she didn’t realize it, her eyes were flashing.
Undeterred, Noah pressed on. “Does he even know?”
“You mean, did I tell him before he left for his next job?” She flounced out of the golf cart. “No. I was unconscious. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack.” She didn’t look around as Noah drove away.
Let him go off and call Rafe and tell him good old reliable Brooke was leaving.
Rafe wouldn’t care.
No one was irreplaceable. She knew it. She knew that in two weeks she’d be gone, and in another two weeks Victor would have successfully stepped into her shoes and no one would even care or remember.
She stomped up the porch stairs.
Wrong thing to do. The painkillers weren’t quite good enough, because her muscles and joints hurt, the trip from the hospital to her cottage had wearied her, and she wanted a nap.
She fit the key card in the lock, turned the knob, and as she opened the door, Jenna ran up the path, bounded onto the porch and trilled, “Brooke! My gosh, I’m so glad you’re back in one piece!”
Brooke turned to face her former classmate and the current Bella Terra spa manager.
They were about the same height, the same weight. They were both in great shape, were both successful women.
But Jenna was blond, curvaceous, with boobs so pointy no guy in the world ever noticed her face. She used her sexuality like a weapon, and even now she made Brooke feel like a troll.
Here was yet another reason to be glad she was leaving. If she had to face another day being the dark-haired bitch boss to Jenna’s blond perkiness, she would throw up.
“What can I do for you?” Brooke was pleased to note that she sounded none too welcoming.
Jenna lifted a bottle of champagne. “I came to help you celebrate your victory over that big, bad Josh Hoffman.” She widened her blue eyes. “Who knew he was such a felon?”
“Really. Who knew,” Brooke said flatly. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m on pain meds. I can’t drink.”
“It’s okay!” Jenna pushed past Brooke and into the house. “I can!”
“Of course you can. And really, what else matters?” Brooke followed her in and let the door slam behind her. “I’m busy right now, packing.” Might as well give Jenna first shot at the gossip. After all, no one would enjoy it more. “I just gave Noah my two weeks’ notice. If you hurry, you could be the first one to apply for my job.”
That
should send Jenna rushing out the door.
Brooke headed for the bedroom.
“I don’t think I could get it.” Jenna didn’t sound nearly as animated as she had been, and the champagne gave a solid thump as she placed it on the coffee table. “You see, you’re not the only one who’s leaving.”
That stopped Brooke in her tracks. She turned on her heel. “You’re leaving Bella Terra? Why?”
“Because if I stay”—Jenna stood tall, her fists on her hips—“the police will arrest me.”
Brooke stared at that cold, angry, resentful face—and she got it. She got it, but she didn’t, couldn’t believe it.
“Don’t you want to know why they’re going to arrest me?” Jenna mocked.
Brooke sorted through the facts she knew. “For hacking into Bella Terra’s security system?” Because no one had believed Josh had the brains to do that, and in school, Jenna had always been great at logic and math—and computers. “As an accessory to murder?” Because Josh might have wielded the actual garrote, but Jenna was cunning, intelligent, and ruthless. “For trying to steal a valuable bottle of wine and for trying to kill me?”
“Josh tried to kill you.” Jenna smiled with frank gratification, pulled a tiny pistol from her pocket, and pointed it at Brooke. “I’m the one who’s actually going to do it.”
R
afe got back to Bella Valley and went right to the hospital, only to be told Brooke had checked out less than an hour before.
Good
. That meant her injuries weren’t serious enough to require further treatment. Yet he knew she’d still be bruised and shaken.
In fact, he was depending on it, since he had no doubts she’d be angry and hurt that he’d left her at the hospital without a word. This way, she couldn’t run away when he locked the two of them in her cottage so they could have a conversation about their past, their present, and their future. He’d put it off long enough, and when he’d seen her yesterday, bleeding and in the hands of a killer . . . he shuddered.
Yes, he wanted to talk to Brooke in her own cottage without the medical staff coming in and out, her mother glaring, and his grandmother hovering, prompting him to get it right at last.
He would get it right. This time he would.
As he pulled into the Bella Terra parking lot, his cell phone, his wonderful, unhacked cell phone, rang. He picked up and grinned at the youthful, worried face that popped up on the monitor. “Darren, my man, we got our perp.”
“You got the killer?” Darren’s hair looked as if he’d been pulling at it.
“Yesterday.” Rafe got out of the car. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner, but another job came through and it involved military security clearance, so I’ve been in the cone of silence for twenty-four hours. I’m now thoroughly debriefed.”
“Thank God you got that bitch.” On-screen, Darren actually did pull his hair. “I was sweating bullets here, trying to figure out how to tell you I’d screwed up.”
“I wouldn’t say you’d screwed up.” The path toward Brooke’s cottage wound through artful plantings. So Rafe cut across the lawns.
He needed to see Brooke now.
“I would. The thing was, she kept coming back into the security room, and she’d sit there in the chair with the webcam pointed right at her, and she’d fluff her tits. And it’s not like I can’t see that every day on some porn site, but this was like . . . She didn’t know I was there so it was . . . Oh, geez, this is so embarrassing.” Darren was babbling, making no sense. “It was, like, naughtier than porn and at the same time cleaner, if you know what I mean.”
Rafe had been without sleep for thirty hours. On the plane back from Washington, he had been totally focused on what he should say to Brooke. Right now, he felt fuzzy brained and stupid; he knew Darren was telling him something important, but he wasn’t catching on. “Jenna, you mean? Jenna Campbell? She came into the security room some more. To play games?”
“She was playing games, all right. She was playing me big-time. She knew I was there all along, probably saw me on the computer that first time she walked in.” Darren sounded disgusted and his face was bright red. “So she’d fiddle with her boobs, and while I was drooling, she’d substitute a whole new security program that muffled the alarms wherever she wanted.”
“How could she do that? She’d have to be an expert computer programmer.”
“An expert with a gambling habit.”
Darren wasn’t making any sense. “How is that possible?”
“I know. She’s a girl! A girl! Girls don’t hack. Most of them don’t know how to save a file.”
“You have a lot to learn,” Rafe mumbled.
“I never suspected her. God, Rafe, I apologize. I never suspected her at all. But I’ve been checking her records all night. She got kicked out of college because she was so into gaming—playing them, developing them—she cut classes. The only reason she was there for two semesters was because she went into the college computer and changed her grades in the system. She wasn’t as good then as she is now, so they caught her. She still games, still cheats, too, and when those guys finally traced the money, she was totally screwed. If she doesn’t pay them back, she’s dead.” Darren rubbed his forehead. “But you got her. Okay. As long as she didn’t kill anyone else.”
Rafe stopped walking. “What in the hell are you talking about? Jenna Campbell isn’t the one we trapped. We trapped Josh Hoffman.”
“The gardener?” Darren sounded absolutely incredulous. “He’s nobody. I mean, he’s vicious and everything, but he’s dumber than a board.”
“So you’re saying Jenna Campbell—”
“Jenna Campbell is the brains behind the whole operation.”
Rafe heard a gunshot.
He threw the phone to the ground and started running.
Wood and Sheetrock sprayed Brooke as she dived low toward Jenna. She landed on the area rug and skidded into Jenna’s legs, taking her down like a bowling pin. Brooke heard a second blast of the pistol, the crash of the table, and the explosion as a lightbulb blew, and she kept rolling. She came to her feet, saw Jenna flat on her back, and kicked the pistol out of her hand. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Brooke shouted. “Did you let Josh talk you into doing this? Hurting Sarah Di Luca? Killing Hernández? Destroying the wine wall?”
Jenna grabbed Brooke’s foot and pulled it out from under her. Fortunately the pistol was still out of her reach.