Robert Crais_Elvis Cole_06 by Sunset Express

Author:Sunset Express
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Los Angeles (Calif.), Private Investigators, Cole, Mystery & Detective, Women Detectives, Hard-Boiled, Fiction, Women Sleuths, Thrillers, General, Elvis (Fictitious Character), Joe (Fictitious Character), Pike
ISBN: 9780754016441
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1996-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

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It was just after six when I got back to the house. I let myself in through the kitchen and saw Lucy on the deck. She was standing at the rail, and she was wearing a white silk slip dress with spaghetti straps that left her shoulders and back bare. The silk was without embroidery or detail, and seemed to glow in the lowering sun.

I said, 'Simple. Elegant. Utterly devastating.'

She turned and smiled, but the smile seemed strained. 'Ben called. Peter's going to bring him home after dinner.'

'Great.'

'You were gone a long time.'

'Angela Rossi's partner was waiting for me. Have you seen the news?'

'No.'

I turned on the local station, but now they were talking about a fruit fly infestation in Orange County. I changed channels twice, but other things were happening in the world. 'They've got a woman I interviewed saying that Rossi framed her son.'

'Congratulations.' She didn't understand.

'That isn't what she told me. Rossi didn't frame anyone. I cleared her, and that's what I reported to Jonathan.'

'I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding. These things happen.' She said it, but it was as if she wasn't really there.

I turned off the television and looked at her. 'Is everything okay with Darlene?'

'Of course.' She glanced away, then made a little shrug. 'Just something at the office.'

I looked closer. 'You sure?'

Lucy stiffened ever so slightly. 'Shouldn't you get ready, or are we not going?'

'Luce, he made it sound like I uncovered this woman. He made it sound like I turned up something that implicates Angela Rossi.' I said it carefully.

'Perhaps you're just being sensitive.' Cool.

I took a step back and went upstairs and put on a jacket and tie. The cat watched me from the closet. Hiding. I said, 'Don't say a word.'

He didn't.

I folded the fax from Santa Barbara and put it into my inside jacket pocket, and then we went out to the car. I said, 'Would you like the top up or down?' Thinking of her hair.

'It doesn't matter.'

I left the top down.

I said, 'If there's a problem, I wish we could talk about it.'

She looked out the window. 'Please don't start one of those conversations.'

I nodded.

Lucy relaxed as we moved along Mulholland and down Coldwater, and by the time we gave the car to a valet she was smiling again and holding my hand. She said, 'There're so many people.'

Jonathan Green lived in an expensive home on a corner lot just north of Sunset in Coldwater Canyon. It was an older, established area of great red pines and curving drives and ranch-style estates that looked not unlike the Ponderosa. A small army of valets was trotting along the walks, and the curbs were already lined with cars and limousines and an awful lot of people who looked as if they'd just stepped out of the Academy Players Directory.

Jonathan's front entry was open, and, as we approached, we could see that his home was crowded. I said, 'Prepare to be stared at.'

She glanced at me. 'Why?'

'You'll be the most beautiful woman there.

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