Faking It - Crusie Jennifer - Страница 33

“Oh, I hope she finds it.” Tilda dug in her bag again. “Wait, here it is.” She held up another hundred.

“That’s good,” Davy said. “You hold on to it and try to calm down.”

They sat down on the top step and Tilda talked about her aunt and how happy she’d be to see the painting, and Davy left his arm around her and let the sun seep into his bones and thought, Damn, I’m happy.

“This it?” Mrs. Frost said from behind them about fifteen minutes later, and Davy looked up to see a dusty eighteen-inch painting, full of the wickedest-looking butterflies he’d ever seen.

“That’s it!” Tilda sprang up. “Oh, that’s exactly the way Aunt Gwen described it. Oh, this is so wonderful. And look…” She held the second hundred out. “I found the other hundred.” She pressed it into Mrs. Frost’s hand.

“You know, we paid over a thousand dollars for this painting,” Mrs. Frost lied through her teeth.

“Oh.” Tilda looked devastated as she turned to face him. “Steve, we can’t…”

“Well, now, wait a minute, honey,” Davy said, and got out his wallet. He counted out a twenty, a ten, and four ones. “We can go up to two thirty-four,” he said, offering Mrs. Frost the bills. He looked apologetically at Tilda. “We can just eat at home instead of taking Aunt Gwen out to Bob Evans. Your cooking’s better than eating out anyway.”

“Oh, Steve,” Tilda said, putting her head down. Davy could have sworn she blushed.

“Okay,” Mrs. Frost said, taking the bills out of his hand, probably to get the two of them off her front porch before they got any ickier. “Here you go.”

“Oh, thank you!” Tilda said, grabbing the painting. “Oh, my aunt is going to be-”

Mrs. Frost shut the door in her face.

“-so happy,” Tilda finished, still sweetness and light.

“Come on, honey,” Davy said, taking her arm. “Let’s go get Aunt Gwen.”

When they were in the car, Tilda said, “She did not pay a thousand dollars for this.”

“That’s okay. Neither did you.” Davy handed the five hundreds she’d given him back to her and started the engine. “About those butterflies.”

“Boy.” Tilda angled the painting to catch some of the sunlight from the window. “I haven’t seen this for fifteen years.”

“Scarlet must have been a little annoyed when she painted them,” Davy said, pulling out into the street. “They look like they could strip a cow faster than piranha.”

“Oh.” Tilda looked at them closer. “They are sort of edgy, aren’t they? Well, Scarlet had issues.”

“You still want to try the next one right away?” Davy said.

“No,” Tilda said. “My heart should be out of my throat by tomorrow. That is possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

Davy looked over at her, surprised. “I couldn’t tell. You were really good.”

“Really?” Tilda said.

“Quite an actress.”

“That’s Gwennie,” Tilda said, looking back at the butterflies. “Eve and I could both do Lady Macbeth in kindergarten. Nadine could do it even earlier. You should hear ‘All the perfumes of Arabia ’ with a lisp. She was so cute.”

“Yeah.” Davy stole a glance at her profile as she studied the painting. “Runs in the family.”

She turned to him. “You were damn good yourself. Gwennie couldn’t do a character better. You were amazing.”

You haven’t seen anything yet, Velma, Davy thought.

“I really am grateful,” she told him.

“My pleasure,” he said and kept his eyes on the road.

TILDA HAD braced herself for another pass that night, but Davy left with Simon to do God knew what and she felt oddly bereft. They should have celebrated or something. Nadine showed up shortly after they were gone, on her way to sing with Burton ’s band, and handed over Steve, who had a bleeding gash across his nose.

“What happened?” Tilda said, appalled.

“He met Ariadne on the way up the stairs,” Nadine said, shaking her head at him.

“And she attacked you, poor baby?” Tilda cuddled Steve’s little furry body.

“No,” Nadine said. “He jumped her and tried to, uh, well, hump her.”

Tilda stopped cuddling to look into his beady, clueless eyes. “Steve, she’s a cat.”

“And he’s a guy,” Nadine said. “Which reminds me, I’m late to meet Burton. Where’s Davy?”

“He and Simon went out,” Tilda said, still not sure what to do about Steve. “They’ll be back soon.”

When Louise got home at midnight, Steve’s nose was better, and Simon and Davy were still gone, but five minutes later, they turned up, as if on cue. “That was lucky,” Tilda said as Simon and Louise faded upstairs. “Lucky, my ass,” Davy said. “He had one eye on the clock all night. She must have told him when she was getting off work.” He went upstairs then, and when she followed an hour later with Steve, he was fast asleep, looking like a fallen angel in her bed.

Right, Tilda thought. Lucifer, right here in my sheets. He did not learn to scam people in heaven. But the next morning, after she’d taken Steve out for his morning Dumpster encounter, she found out Davy might be on the side of the angels after all.

“Good morning,” she said to Gwen and Eve when she got to the office. “What’s new?” She poured a glass of pineapple-orange juice as Steve attacked his food bowl, and then she turned to find them watching her. “What?”

“Louise had a talk with Simon last night,” Gwen said.

“You talked?” Tilda said, raising her eyebrows at Eve.

“He’s with the FBI,” Eve said, and Tilda sat down hard in the desk chair, gripping her juice glass like death.

“What’s he here for?” she said.

“He’s here because he’s working with Davy,” Eve said.

Tilda swallowed. “Davy’s FBI?”

Eve nodded. “Louise found that exciting. Then I woke up this morning and realized what it meant.”

“Tell me you’re being nice to Davy,” Gwen said to Tilda. “Don’t make him mad.”

“I’m not making him mad.” Tilda bit her lip. “Well, I haven’t made him mad lately. You know, that would explain why he was so good at scamming that painting. If he’s FBI, he probably knows all there is to know about crime.”

“How is he on art fraud?” Gwen said grimly.

“He was asking a lot of questions about it,” Tilda said. “But I think it was general information. I don’t think he’s here for… me.” She swallowed. “I mean, we met burgling Clea’s closet, he couldn’t have planned that.”

“So what was he doing in Clea’s closet?” Eve said. “The FBI is investigating Clea?”

“I don’t think so,” Tilda said. “He told me she’d made his financial manager embezzle all his money and he’s here to get it back. It sounded personal, not professional.”

“If he’s FBI, why doesn’t he have her arrested?” Eve said.

“I don’t know, Eve,” Tilda said, still trying to wrap her mind around the new information. “Maybe it’s part of a plan. He’s a devious son of a bitch.”

“Don’t get angry with him,” Gwen said. “We need him to like us.”

“Well, hell, I slept with him,” Tilda said. “You’d think someplace in there he’d have mentioned something like the FB-fucking-I. Are we sure Simon wasn’t just trying to impress Louise into bed?”

“Louise was in bed,” Eve said, looking at the ceiling. “There were handcuffs. Nice ones. Louise asked him where he’d gotten them.”

“Great,” Tilda said. “Tonight have Louise ask him what he’s here for.”

“She can’t,” Eve said. “It’s Sunday. She doesn’t exist again until Wednesday.”

“She’s not supposed to exist here at all,” Tilda said. “Are you going to tell him who you are?”

“No. It turns out he has a thing about sleeping with women who are mothers. If I tell him, he’ll be furious.” She sighed. “I’m thinking maybe Louise won’t be back on Wednesday. I’ll leave her at the Double Take.”

“Well, figure out where the hell she is tonight because Simon’s going to want to know.” Tilda put her juice glass down, not thirsty anymore. “Men tend to miss women who get to the handcuff stage by the second night.”