Loe raamatut: «Night After Night...»

1

MIA MALDONADO knew there was trouble the moment she heard “Blue Suede Shoes” blaring from the stereo speakers. Elvis always meant a crisis was brewing, so she proceeded warily through the front hall of the house, ready for anything.

The living room, which doubled as an office for her interior design business, was empty. Another bad sign. She’d leased the Tudor-style home a year ago, hoping the affluent Philadelphia neighborhood would bring wealthy, decorating-impaired clients to her door.

It had worked, too—until she’d started dating her design firm’s best carpenter. She had a bad habit of falling too hard and too fast for men like Ian Brock. Men who looked so good in a pair of tight jeans that she overlooked their other genes—the ones that made them lie, cheat…and steal her sanity.

When she’d lived in Chicago, her heart had been broken so many times that she’d made a donation to the new cardiac wing at one of the city’s hospitals in the name of all her mistakes. Mistakes like Bryan, Andrew, Jeff, Wyatt and Justin. Then she’d moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, ready for a fresh start.

But Ian was proof that she still hadn’t learned her lesson. He’d dumped Mia three months ago, taking her heart and most of her clients along with him. Now she was determined that he’d be the last romantic mistake she ever made. From here on, Mia was going to follow her head instead of her hormones.

At least her best friend hadn’t abandoned her yet. She’d met Carleen Wimmer a year ago, when they were the only two people at a matinee screening of Gone With The Wind. By intermission, they’d been sharing a large tub of buttered popcorn and commiserating over the fact that men like Clark Gable didn’t exist anymore. By the end of the movie, Mia had offered Carleen a job as her office assistant.

Soon after, they decided to pool their limited resources by having Carleen move into the house. Kindred spirits, they shared a love of old movies, Thai cuisine and expeditions to flea markets. Carleen’s gentle, cautious nature was the perfect complement to Mia’s leap-before-you-look approach to life.

But Mia would lose her roommate next month when Carleen married Tobias Hamilton, a Philadelphia blue blood who could trace his family back to the Mayflower. He didn’t seem to care that his fiancée had grown up in a trailer park instead of on Park Avenue.

Mia was happy for Carleen, even if Tobias was a little…bland. Maybe bland was good. Bland didn’t run off with the first teenage bimbo to come along. Bland didn’t break your heart. She was certainly in no position to criticize anyone else’s love life. Not when her own had so recently ended in disaster.

She just hoped it wasn’t contagious.

Mia turned down the sound on the stereo, then noticed the empty candy bar wrappers on the desk in the corner. Chocolate and Elvis. That meant it was serious. Carleen was on a strict diet so she could fit into the vintage wedding dress worn by all the Hamilton brides.

She shed her coat and purse, shoving her latest dating debacle to the back of her mind so she could tackle whatever awaited her. She found Carleen seated at the kitchen table, hunched over a carton of chocolate almond ice cream. Half of it was already gone.

“What’s wrong?” Mia asked without preamble.

Carleen looked up at her, black mascara smudges beneath her green eyes. “I’ve ruined everything.”

Mia grabbed a spoon from the drawer, then sat down across from her. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, yes it can.” Carleen dipped her spoon into the ice cream. “It’s all over.”

“What’s all over?”

Carleen sucked in a shaky breath. “The wedding. Your business. My life.”

Mia pulled the ice cream carton toward her, telling herself not to panic. “All right, let’s start from the beginning. What happened?”

Carleen brushed back a wisp of blond hair stuck to her tear-stained cheek. “Toby left the country today. He’s on an airplane right now, headed for Germany.”

“Why?”

“Because his mother hates me.” Her lower lip quivered. “She’s only met me once, but she hates me all the same. Beatrice Hamilton thinks I’m not good enough to marry her only son.”

“Hold on,” Mia said. “Are you telling me his mother sent him off to Germany?”

Carleen shook her head. “No, but she’s behind it. Toby has always been fascinated by show business. Recently, his mother arranged for him to meet a screenwriter at one of her fancy parties and now Toby’s going to produce his movie. They’re filming on location in Frankfurt for the next three weeks and he says he has to be there.”

“But he’ll be back in time for the wedding, won’t he?”

“I hope so.” Carleen pulled the ice cream carton back to her side of the table. “I’m telling you, Mia, that woman is determined to drive us apart. I tried to talk to Toby about it today when I took him to the airport, but we just got into a huge fight. He wouldn’t even listen to me. He’s more upset about Harlan than his mother.”

“Whoa, back up a step,” Mia said. “Who’s Harlan?”

She heaved a long sigh. “I should have mentioned him first. Harlan Longo. You know, that millionaire who likes to play scientist?”

“Yes,” Mia replied, more confused than ever, “what about him?”

“Well, I signed up for his three-week sleep study to save Mia’s Makeovers. He’s offering a three-thousand-dollar stipend to his research subjects and you mentioned just the other day that we needed to find money to advertise or the business is doomed.”

Mia blinked at her. “You signed up to help me?”

Carleen’s face softened. “It was the least I could do. I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me. Giving me a job. Taking me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Treating me like a member of your family.” A smile trembled on her lips. “You’re the sister I never had.”

Mia swallowed the huge lump in her throat, then chased it down with a spoonful of ice cream. “We’re friends, Carleen. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Then think of it as my going-away present,” Carleen replied. “Toby is talking about moving to California after we’re married. He wants to live in Hollywood. I couldn’t be happy knowing I left you behind with all those unpaid bills piling up. I had to do something.”

At that moment, Mia realized just how much she was going to miss living with Carleen. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Look, we’ve both been trying to ignore that business hasn’t been too good around here lately. I’ve been using more and more red ink when I do the books. So when I received one of Harlan Longo’s invitations to participate in his latest study, I thought it was the answer to all our problems.”

“Harlan Longo’s not even a real scientist, is he?”

“No, but he’s really rich.” Carleen licked the back of her spoon. “Rich enough that people call him eccentric instead of crazy. So if he wants to spend his money conducting sleep experiments, he can. I heard he even has some kind of fancy laboratory set up at his estate. That’s where I’m supposed to go tonight. But…”

“But,” Mia prodded.

Carleen sighed. “But Toby thinks Harlan Longo is unstable and doesn’t want me to do it. He was so upset about it. The problem is that I’ve already used the stipend Harlan’s paying to buy advertising time for Mia’s Makeovers on the radio.” She met Mia’s gaze. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Oh, Carleen,” Mia replied, realizing no one had ever done anything so unselfish for her before.

She’d grown up with parents who had taught her the value of hard work but who didn’t understand her desire to build her own business. Though they had never said it aloud, she knew her family back in Chicago expected her to fail. An expectation that now seemed alarmingly possible.

Mia did believe advertising could save her business, but not at the expense of Carleen’s relationship with Toby. “If Toby is that upset about it, then maybe you shouldn’t do it.”

“But the money…”

“I’ll find a way to fix it,” Mia told her, though she knew she’d never qualify for another loan.

“Ian Brock is the one who should fix it,” Carleen sputtered. “He stole all your clients when he went to work for that big design company.”

Mia shook her head. “I should have known better than to date a man who works for me. Especially when he happens to be one of the best carpenters in Philadelphia.”

“That man can do amazing things with his hands,” Carleen acknowledged.

“Believe me, I know.” Memories flooded her and Mia’s throat contracted. “But I have to quit dwelling on him and concentrate on finding new clients. I literally can’t afford to let my personal life interfere with my business anymore. And you can’t afford to put my business ahead of Toby.”

Tears gleamed in her eyes. “I just don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him.”

“You’re not going to lose him,” Mia assured her. Then a solution hit her that was so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “Why don’t I just take your place tonight?”

Carleen blinked. “What?”

“I’ll participate in the sleep study instead of you. It’s not like I have a life right now anyway. Besides, that only seems fair since you’re using the money to save my business.”

“But Harlan Longo is expecting me to show up tonight,” Carleen said. “I’ve already filled out a personality profile and signed a contract and everything. Who knows what he’ll do if I bail out at the last minute?”

“I doubt he’ll care,” Mia replied. “These research projects are just a form of entertainment for him. No one takes them seriously.”

“I’m not so sure,” Carleen told her. “I think he takes them very seriously. At least, that’s the impression I got when I talked to him on the telephone last week.”

“Then I’ll just pretend I’m you,” Mia improvised, determined to find a way to make it work. “He’ll never know the difference.”

Hope mingled with uncertainty in Carleen’s eyes. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking me,” Mia replied, warming to the idea. “I’m volunteering. You didn’t send him a picture of yourself, did you? I mean, I’m an Italian brunette and you’re a blonde. He’d notice the difference right away.”

“I didn’t send him my picture.” Carleen thought for a moment. “In fact, he didn’t ask for any kind of physical description. Most of the questions on the profile were about my sleeping habits. What time I usually go to bed at night and how long I usually sleep—things like that.”

“You’ll have to brief me on all your answers before I leave tonight—” Mia reached over to close the lid on the ice cream carton “—just in case he asks me something about it.”

“Do you really think we can get away with it?”

“Absolutely.” Anticipation shot through Mia. Impersonating her best friend might be the perfect distraction she needed to get her mind off of Ian. “All I have to do is sleep there, right?”

“Right,” Carleen confirmed. “From what I understand, Harlan wants to study the effects of different environments on sleep patterns. An example he gave me is sleeping in a hot room compared to a cold one, or with all the lights turned on instead of off.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

“You’re supposed to pack your favorite pajamas,” Carleen advised her, “and bring your own pillow. Harlan made it very clear that he wants his research subjects to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Is that all I need to do?”

Carleen shrugged. “As far as I know. The contract was full of a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, so I just skimmed most of it. I’m sure he’ll explain everything in more detail when you get there.”

Mia glanced at her watch. “Then I’d better go upstairs and start packing.”

Carleen rose from her chair. “I can’t wait to call Toby and make up with him. Are you sure you don’t mind standing in for me? Or rather, sleeping in for me?”

Mia smiled. “Just call me Carleen.”

“THIS CARLEEN WIMMER is trouble.” Nate Cafferty handed the file folder to his client, then leaned back in his chair.

“I knew it.” Beatrice Hamilton scanned the slim contents. She was in her midfifties and reeked of old money. Her perfectly manicured hands sorted through the papers in the file, her aquiline nose wrinkling in disdain.

“My son has always had horrendous taste in women,” she said at last, “but they were all just harmless flings. He never considered actually marrying one of them before.”

“Then the engagement is still on?”

“I’m afraid so.” She looked hopefully at him. “Unless you have something that will convince Tobias to dump her. That is why I hired you, Mr. Cafferty.”

He chafed at her haughty tone. Beatrice Hamilton fit the stereotype of interfering mother to a tee. The fact that she was rich only gave her more resources to meddle. Like hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on her son’s fiancée.

Nate usually tried to avoid this kind of family squabble, but Mrs. Hamilton was paying him enough to make it worth his while. Besides, the case intrigued him.

“Well?” Mrs. Hamilton prodded. “What exactly do you have on her?”

“Nothing substantial,” he answered. “Yet.”

Her mouth thinned. “But you just said she was trouble.”

“I think she is,” he replied. “The woman didn’t even exist until a year ago. At least, no woman by the name of Carleen Wimmer existed. Your son’s fiancée created a whole new identity for herself.”

Satisfaction gleamed in the older woman’s pale blue eyes. “So I was right about her. She is some kind of scam artist. I suspected as much when I met with her.”

“When was this?”

“A few weeks ago, when I realized that Tobias was truly serious about going through with this ridiculous marriage. I called her and asked her to meet me at the Carlisle Hotel. I’d never allow a woman like that into my home.”

Or a man like me, Nate thought to himself. No doubt she could spot his lack of breeding a mile away. He’d been born to a single mother with a drinking problem, so had grown up on the mean streets of Philadelphia fighting for survival. He’d made it, thanks to Harlan Longo, though he still carried the scars—both inside and out. Mrs. Hamilton didn’t ask about his background and probably didn’t care as long as she got what she wanted.

“And the tart had the audacity to turn down the generous offer I made to convince her to disappear from my son’s life.”

Good for her, Nate thought to himself.

Mrs. Hamilton sniffed. “That’s when I knew I needed to find something to use against her, so I hired you.”

Nate wished she’d hired him sooner. The wedding deadline was fast approaching and he would have liked more time to investigate the woman before he initiated contact. He didn’t even have a picture of Carleen Wimmer yet, though he wouldn’t need one after tonight. “Does your son know I’m investigating his fiancée?”

“Of course not. He’d be livid if he knew.” She rose to her feet, obviously too agitated to stay seated any longer. “But someone has to look out for his interests. With his father gone, that responsibility falls to me.”

Nate pulled another file folder from his desk and opened it. “According to my research, Tobias turned twenty-eight last March. Don’t you think he’s old enough to be responsible for himself?”

“What is this?” She snatched the folder out of his hands. “Who gave you permission to snoop around my son’s life, Mr. Cafferty?”

“I don’t need permission,” he replied evenly. “When I take on a case, I have to know all the facts—including facts about your son. If you don’t like it, you can hire another investigator.”

Color flooded Mrs. Hamilton’s patrician face. No doubt she wasn’t used to anyone, especially an employee, standing up to her.

“Perhaps I will.” She set the folder back on Nate’s desk. “It all depends on how you plan to get rid of this woman and how long it’s going to take. The wedding is less than a month away.”

“It’s not my job to get rid of her.” Nate wanted to make that clear. “I’m simply gathering information about her. How you choose to use that information is up to you.”

“I’ll use it to save my son,” she replied, squaring her shoulders, “any way that I can.”

Nate wondered if Tobias Hamilton chose his women on the basis of how much they’d irritate his mother. He’d never met the man, but so far he wasn’t impressed. His limited investigation had turned up a spoiled rich boy with too much time and too much money on his hands. At the moment, he was in Germany playing movie producer and leaving his fiancée behind to the wolves.

The fact that Nate was one of those wolves didn’t bother him. If Carleen Wimmer had nothing to hide, then she had nothing to fear from him. He’d do his job, but he wouldn’t try to destroy her. That was Mrs. Hamilton’s job. Or more precisely, her pleasure.

“So what happens next?” his client asked, obviously eager to begin the demolition.

“I’ve set up a way to meet her through an old friend of mine,” Nate explained. “His name is Harlan Longo and he was happy to offer his assistance.”

“The name sounds familiar.” Her brow furrowed. “Isn’t he that scientist who tried to prove that sleeping on feather pillows increased fertility rates or some such nonsense? I remember reading about it in the newspaper.”

Nate smiled. “He’s the one.”

“Quite the eccentric,” she said. “Are you certain he can be trusted?”

“Yes.” Nate didn’t elaborate. He wasn’t going to justify his actions to this woman. She either trusted him to do his job or not. “I asked him to send Carleen Wimmer an invitation to participate as a research subject in his latest sleep study—with a generous stipend, of course.”

“I assume she accepted,” Mrs. Hamilton said dryly, “since she’s certainly not averse to sleeping for money.”

“She did,” Nate acknowledged. “Harlan gave me full access to the personality profile she filled out—though I have no way of knowing how much of it is true. But I’ll be meeting her tonight in Harlan’s laboratory.”

“Won’t that make her suspicious?”

“Not if I’m just another one of his guinea pigs. I’ll find some way to introduce myself and get to know her.” Nate rose to his feet, ready to end the interview. “Then you’ll have the answers to all your questions about her.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re a very confident young man, aren’t you?”

“I know how to do my job.”

“Quite handsome, as well,” she continued, looking him up and down, “in a rough sort of way. And you have the presence and athletic physique that many young women seem to find appealing these days. Perhaps you are the right man for this job after all.”

Nate walked over to open the office door for her. “I’ll send you an update in a few days.”

“Sooner, if possible, Mr. Cafferty.” She picked up her purse. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Nate watched her walk daintily to the black Lincoln Town Car parked in front of his office. She might look the part of the refined lady, but beneath that austere exterior was a woman not afraid to get dirty.

Now it was up to him to find the dirt.