The Secret of the Villa Mimosa by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page B

The clever, macho cop, the darling of the media, solving yet another homicide. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mahoney, but she didn’t die. She’s very much alive, and now she’s in my charge. Not yours.”
    He stood over her, his hands in his pockets. His eyes met hers as he said quietly, “And what do you think our murderer will do when he finds out Bea is still alive? That he didn’t kill her after all? You’re the clever one, Doc. You tell me. Whoever he is, he wanted her dead. How does the old saying go? ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’? Take it from me, Doc, he will.”
    Shocked into silence, she stared back at him. He thought she looked suddenly vulnerable, her face pinched and drained of color.
    He turned away, glancing around the sumptuously simple, immaculate apartment. Everything gleaming, everything carefully arranged, everything in its place. He took off his black leather jacket and flung it onto the Eames chair that looked as though no one had eversat on it, and walked through to the pristine steel and granite kitchen.
    He opened the refrigerator, checked the contents, and then began taking things out of the cupboards.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her voice shook with indignation and fatigue.
    “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cooking dinner, since you don’t look as though you have the energy.”
    “You’re cooking dinner! I didn’t ask you to dinner. I didn’t even ask you over for a drink!”
    He threw her a mocking grin. “Y’know what’s wrong with you, Forster? You sit on your butt all day. Or maybe it’s all that lying on the couch that does it. You should be working out, training, running. Getting all those endorphins working for you. Sharpening up your brain cells.”
    “Like yours, I suppose.” She flung herself from the sofa and leaned threateningly across the expanse of black granite counter that separated her from the kitchen.
    He glanced up from chopping tomatoes. “You think I’m just an ignorant backstreet boy, don’t you? A guy who made it up to detective the hard way? Y’know what? You’re right. And it was tough.” He shrugged his wide shoulders expressively. “A scholarship to Berkeley, working every job I could get so I could eat as well. Graduated magna with an honors degree in English literature. My thesis was on the effect of the European Romantic poets on the American approach to human relationships today. I was in my second year as a grad student at Stanford when I decided I wanted to be a cop instead of a professor.” His eyes met hers coolly. “Just so you know who I am, Doc.”
    She stared at him silently. His shirtsleeves were rolled up as he chopped tomatoes and softly whistled an aria from
La Traviata
whose title she couldn’t remember.She sank into a chair and put her head in her hands, ashamed.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so goddamn tired. It’s been a long day. A long week, month, year … And anyhow, you’re wrong. I’m the one up from the streets.”
    He flung the vegetables into a pan with a slug of olive oil, then folded his arms, leaning against the counter, waiting gravely for her to tell her story. But her pale face suddenly looked closed and tight with a remembered pain she was not going to reveal to him. Not yet, anyway.
    “I’m so busy taking care of everyone else’s problems there’s just no time left,” she said finally, shaking her head in bewilderment. “No time for myself. I bring my work home with me.”
    He glanced around the cool, perfect, beautiful room. “Yeah. I can see that. It looks as though you forgot to live here.”
    He took a bottle of red wine from the rack and checked the label. “Good stuff,” he said approvingly, pouring her a hefty glass. “My Italian mama used to tell me a glass of red wine brought a blush of color to a girl’s cheeks and a glow to her heart. I’ve always hoped it was true.”
    She smiled as she took a sip,