Scandal in Copper Lake

“For a seer, you seem to be unaware of a lot of things.”

If his comment annoyed her, she didn’t let it show. She was cool, serene. He liked cool and serene.

They ate in silence for a few moments, until voices became audible in the hallway that led to the room. One of them was a waitress; the other belonged to Ellie Chase. She and Tommy had had an on-again, off-again thing that started about five minutes after she’d moved to Copper Lake. They seemed pretty good together, except that Tommy wanted to get married and have kids, and Ellie didn’t. Occasionally, Robbie wondered why. Even he wanted kids someday.

Fair-skinned, blue-eyed kids with blond hair, he thought with a glance at Anamaria. He’d always been partial to blondes—icy, well-bred, blue-blood, who could fit into his life as if they’d been born to it.

Conversation finished, Ellie rounded the corner. “Hey, Calloway, who let you in here?”

He shifted in the chair to face her. “Don’t bitch, Ellie. I’m one of your best customers.”

“I’ve noticed. All that expensive schooling, and you can’t even put a sandwich together.”

“Yeah, but I work miracles in the courtroom.”

She crossed the small room, her hand extended. “Hi, I’m Ellie Chase.”

“Anamaria Duquesne.” Anamaria took her hand, a quick shake, a light touch, but more than she’d offered Robbie so far. “This is your restaurant?”

“Every table, every brick and every mortgage payment.”

“The food is great.”

“Anamaria’s in the restaurant business in Savannah,” Robbie said, pulling a chair from the next table so Ellie could join them.

“Really? Are you in the market to expand? I’m giving serious thought to selling this place and running away.”

“She threatens to do that about once a month,” Robbie said.

Anamaria smiled as if she knew the feeling. “So does Auntie Lueena. I work for her, so the headaches are hers. I just show up ready to do what she tells me.”

“I love my job. Really, I do.” Ellie sounded as if she were trying to convince herself, but Robbie knew it was so much bull. She’d worked damn hard to make the deli a success and had only recently begun the expansion into a full-service restaurant. She did love her job. “What kind of place does Auntie Lueena have?”

Anamaria smiled again, soft, affectionate. He wondered if that smile was ever spurred by anyone other than family. Friends—he was sure she had them. Boyfriends—he was sure she had them, too. Plenty of them. All that she could handle. “It’s a small family diner. Soul food. Comfort food. She’s been in the same location for thirty years and has had the same menu for twenty-five.”

“And you do a little bit of everything?”

“Wait tables, run the register, wash dishes, cook, bake.”

Robbie had trouble envisioning her in a hot, busy kitchen, hands in steaming water, prepping vegetables, stirring pots, skin dusted with fine white flour. She was too exotic, too sensual for such mundane activities. She should spend her time lounging on a beach somewhere, wearing beautiful clothes, shopping in expensive stores for diamonds and rubies and emeralds to show off against her luscious skin.

Ellie didn’t seem to notice either her exoticness or her sensuality. He supposed, her being a woman, too, that was a good thing. “You ever want a place of your own?”

“No. Not at all.” But Anamaria didn’t say what she did want. A full-time career telling fortunes? Or did “seeing” people’s futures full time require more ingenuity than she possessed? He imagined that on a regular basis it would drain the creative well pretty dry.

“Do you come from a restaurant background?” Anamaria asked.

“No, I—” Distracted, Ellie looked in the direction of the hall, where, an instant later, Tommy appeared around the corner. Right now, judging by the look he wore, if they weren’t off-again, they would be soon.

“You ought to put the boy out of his misery and marry him,” Robbie murmured.

“Worry about your own love life,” she retorted, rising easily from the chair. “Anamaria, it was nice meeting you. Come back soon. I’d love to talk more.”

She met Tommy in the narrow aisle halfway across the room. She stopped; he stepped aside. Their gazes held for a moment, their expressions equally blank, then she moved on.

Definitely off-again. Great. Robbie preferred his buddies to be happily attached or happily unattached. Anything in between was too big a pain in the butt.

Tommy watched until Ellie turned the corner out of sight, took a deep breath, then covered the last few yards to the table. “I called the dock and they said your boat was still in its slip, so I figured you’d be here.” He tossed a manila envelope on the table. “The papers we talked about.”

The case file on Glory Duquesne’s death, complete with photographs. Aiming for relaxed, Robbie slid the envelope off the table and onto his lap. “Thanks.” He gestured toward the chair Ellie had just vacated, but Tommy shook his head. “Anamaria Duquesne, Detective Tommy Maricci.”

One corner of her mouth quirked at his emphasis on Tommy’s title. “Detective Maricci,” she said with a regal nod.

He cocked his head to one side, studying her a moment before saying, “You look familiar. Have I arrested you before?”

Chapter 3

Anamaria couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled free. “Not yet. But there’s still time.” Mimicking Robbie, she waved one hand lazily at the empty chair. “Please join us, Detective.”

This time he did so, swinging the chair around to straddle it. “You can call me Tommy.”

He was about Robbie’s age, an inch or two shorter and probably twenty pounds heavier, all muscle. Black hair, dark eyes, olive-skinned, with a stubble of beard on his jaw that gave him a slightly disreputable look. He didn’t need the badge or the pistol on his belt for his air of authority; he came by it naturally.

The sorrow hovering around him, though, wasn’t natural. A new hurt having to do with Ellie Chase, an old one connected to his mother. Anamaria couldn’t tell if Mrs. Maricci was dead; she wasn’t sure Tommy knew himself. But wherever she was, in this life or the next, she wasn’t here and hadn’t been for a very long time.

“So you’re in the psychic business,” Tommy said.

“And let me guess—you’re in the skeptic business.”

“Nah. He’s skeptical enough for both of us.” He jerked his head toward Robbie. “Besides, my great-grandma Rosa was from the old country, and she was a big believer in the evil eye and spirits and all that. Are you setting up business here in town?”

“My visit here is nothing more than that. A visit. A break from Savannah.”

“And yet the first thing you do is call Lydia.”

Who’d told her husband, who’d told his lawyer, who’d told the local cop. “If you don’t believe me, Detective, feel free to keep an eye on me.”

He glanced at Robbie. “It might get kind of crowded.”

So Robbie had already made clear his intention of doing just that. She didn’t mind. She’d been viewed with suspicion and distrust before, and would be again. She shifted her gaze to Robbie. “And here I thought it was just coincidence running into you outside River’s Edge this morning,” she said sweetly.

“No, you didn’t,” Robbie replied bluntly. “You knew when I left your house yesterday that you’d be seeing me again.”

That she would see him, and have no regrets about him when she left. Whether that meant sleeping with him—or not—she didn’t yet know.

Whether it meant trusting him—or not—was still a question, as well.

She picked up her purse and reached for the ticket the waitress had brought with their food. Robbie slid it out from under her fingers and switched it to his other hand. She smiled faintly. She could insist on paying for her share of the meal, but there would be other, more important things to argue about than a salad and half a sandwich.