He sat down next to me. "You know that"s not true. It"s just-"
"What? Bad luck?" I took another sip of wine to get rid of the acid taste in my mouth. "The murder, sure, that was bad luck. But everything else that"s happened... Gloria Winston was right. We didn"t have these kinds of problems when Helen was in charge. Her conference ran like clockwork. Mine, not so much."
"You"ve been distracted."
"Yeah, but I shouldn"t be."
"You"ve been showing up at every event you can and helping the cops at the same time, and that"s not easy. I"d like to see anybody else do it."
"Yeah, but-"
"No buts." Kaz slipped his arm around my shoulders. "You"re terrific. You know that, don"t you? You"re terrific and you"re more than capable, and it"s not your fault if some numbskull stole a bunch of b.u.t.tons."
"But how-"
"It doesn"t matter. You"ll figure it out. Just like you"ll figure out who killed Thad Wyant. And when you"re all done, you"ll get all those b.u.t.tons judged again, and you"ll announce the winners, and everyone will leave for home happy."
"Except for the people who don"t win."
"Hey, I"m not responsible for that. And neither are you." Kaz clinked his winegla.s.s against mine. "We can only worry about what we can control. Everything else is out of our hands."
It was a philosophical take on things from a man who is usually anything but, and thinking it over, I took another drink of wine and felt some of the tension inside me ease. I didn"t even realize just how much talking to Kaz had helped me unwind until I realized my head was on his shoulder.
"Don"t," he said when I made a move to sit up. "It"s OK. You need to relax."
"I"m not sure this qualifies."
"Sure it does." He leaned forward and set his winegla.s.s on the coffee table so that he could crook a finger under my chin and tip my face up to his. "You know I"m always here for you, Jo."
In an evening that was supposed to be all about telling the truth, this was one big whopper of a lie, but I didn"t point it out. I couldn"t. Not when those espresso-hot eyes were locked with mine, and the scent of Kaz"s aftershave was clouding my brain. He bent his head a little closer and waited for me to make the first move. If I allowed it, I knew he would kiss me, and if I allowed Kaz to kiss me- Maybe b.u.t.ton dealers/collectors/conference chairs have a special fairy G.o.dmother looking over their shoulders to help prevent them from doing incredibly stupid things.
That would explain why, just at that moment, there was a knock on my hotel room door.
Kaz sat back. I jumped up and made it to the door in record time. Was I trying to be polite to whoever was knocking? Or running away from my own baser instincts? I had no idea, but when I realized I was being a little too jumpy and feeling guilty about something that almost-but didn"t-happen, I sucked in a breath and threw open the door.
Nev was waiting in the hallway.
"Glad you"re here." He sailed into the room, took one look at Kaz and those two gla.s.ses of wine, and stopped cold. "I"m interrupting something," he said.
"Yeah, me trying to talk my ex down from chucking the b.u.t.ton business and this conference-chair thing and running away to join the circus." As casually as can be, Kaz got up. "I was just leaving. Maybe you can convince her she"s the best at what she does and she shouldn"t let other people make her crazy." Instead of adding that he was one of those people, he headed for the door, stopped over at the countertop that held the mini-fridge and microwave, and got another winegla.s.s. He handed it to Nev and walked out the door.
Nev watched Kaz go. "Really? He was trying to help?"
"In a Kaz sort of way."
"Which means. . ?"
I shrugged. It was impossible to explain, and besides, I was too exhausted to even try. "He has a good heart. It"s his self-control and his bad habits he just can"t restrain." I rolled my gla.s.s in my hands. "You want a gla.s.s of wine?"
"On duty." Nev set down his gla.s.s. "If it can keep until we"ve got this case wrapped up..."
The way things were going, I was afraid the wine would be long past its expiration date by then.
Rather than let my pessimism show, I set down my gla.s.s, too. "What can I do for you?" I asked Nev.
"I heard what happened. About the b.u.t.tons." He didn"t say he was sorry. He didn"t have to. Nev"s mouth was pulled into a thin line of regret. "More trouble than you need, huh?"
"That"s putting it mildly." I sat back down, instinctively avoiding the spot that was still warm from the heat of Kaz"s body. "You don"t suppose the missing trays of b.u.t.tons have anything to do with Brad"s murder, do you? And the Geronimo b.u.t.ton we found in the trash?" Just trying to make sense of it made my head ache, and I pressed my fingers to my temples. "It"s crazy."
"It is." Nev dropped into the seat next to me. "But hey, don"t give up. I"ve just been talking to the guys down in the security office, and they found something that might help us out. Well, actually, they found nothing, and that might help us out."
I hadn"t had enough wine to make me foggy, but I still didn"t follow. "And this is good news, why?" I asked.
Nev sat forward. "I was thinking about what Daryl Tucker told you, about the man Brad Wyant argued with the evening he was killed. We went over the security tapes again."
"And found nothing."
"Exactly." Why this was a good thing, I didn"t know, but Nev seemed pleased enough. "The tapes don"t show the outside of the building. Not clearly," he explained. "But if you watch the tapes from the lobby camera really carefully, you can see a sliver of the front entryway. On the night of the murder, they show Brad Wyant going through the lobby, and a little while after, Daryl Tucker walking by, his phone in his hands. He turned down the hallway over by where your vendors are set up, so after a while, I couldn"t see him, but I did see Wyant come through again. He headed in the direction of the elevator that would take him down to the laundry room."
I wasn"t sure what he was getting at, but I sensed it was important. I sat up, too. "But..."
"But Wyant never went outside."
"Which means-"
"He couldn"t have argued with a man outside."
"Which tells us-"
"Daryl Tucker is lying."
"But Daryl was at the banquet, and his phone did ring, and he did go out into the lobby."
"I"m sure of it. I saw it with my own eyes. But what happened out in the lobby-"
"Didn"t happen the way he reported it." I thought of how Daryl had been coming on to me since the conference started, and goose b.u.mps p.r.i.c.kled over my arms. "You think he"s our killer?"
"I don"t know. The tapes don"t show him going toward that service elevator, but he might have used the stairs. But even if he"s not our guy, it"s pretty obvious he"s hiding something."
"And you"re going to take him down to the station to question him, right?"
Nev stood up and sc.r.a.ped a hand through his hair. "Come on, Josie, you"ve seen the guy. If I approach him and tell him I"m taking him in to be interrogated, he won"t just clam up; he"ll fold like an origami stork. He"ll never talk."
"But you cops, you have ways of making him."
"Not as good a way as you have."
It wasn"t my imagination. My stomach was back to flip-flopping around, just like it had been down in the ballroom when I had to confess that b.u.t.ton trays had been filched from under our noses and our contest was in jeopardy. "You"re kidding me," I said and hoped against hope Nev was.
"It"s not like I"m asking you to run off to Vegas and marry the guy or anything."
I hopped to my feet. "Good thing."
Nev grinned. "Yeah."
Have I mentioned that Nev is cute?
And that if there"s one thing I hate, it"s being played for a fool?
So far, Brad Wyant had done a plenty good job of that. He"d killed his brother and a.s.sumed Thad"s ident.i.ty, and none of us had been the wiser.
Then there was Brad"s killer. He"d done a pretty good job of playing us for patsies, too.
"I want to find out what happened," I told Nev.
"That means you"ll talk to Tucker?"
I hesitated. I supposed if I talked to Daryl someplace public, like in the hotel coffee shop or right outside the ballroom... I supposed it wouldn"t look like I"d succ.u.mbed to his not-so-obvious charms.
"He was down at dinner. I saw him there." I stepped toward the door. "I"ll just wait for people to leave the ballroom and have a talk with him."
Nev grabbed my hand to stop me. "I was thinking Tucker might be more likely to talk in a more casual setting."
I"d had those couple sips of wine; my throat shouldn"t have been dry. But suddenly, it felt as if it was coated with sand. "Are you asking me to ask Daryl Tucker out on a date?"
Instead of answering, Nev reached over and retrieved my gla.s.s of wine so he could hand it to me. "Maybe you better finish this," he said and grinned. "You know, for courage."
Chapter Fourteen.
ALL RIGHT, I ADMIT IT-I WAS A MESS THE NEXT DAY. AND not just because things had gotten so out of hand at the conference and the murder investigation was going nowhere. Too much of a weenie to do it in person, I had called Daryl Turner"s room the morning after Nev talked me into this little fishing expedition and left a message, asking if Daryl would like to join me for dinner that evening. Within minutes, he phoned back. Excited? From the way Daryl"s voice quavered, I could picture him hopping around his room, eager for six o"clock to roll around, the time we set for our date.
Daryl.
Our date.
Words that, just a few days earlier, I would have sworn I would never use in the same sentence. Not in a million years.
"You remember what you"re going to say, right?" Nev didn"t look all that calm himself. I was trying to brush my hair and he hovered behind me like a nervous mom on her daughter"s wedding day. I ignored his fidgety reflection in the mirror, slapped on some lipstick, turned to leave the bathroom- And ran right into Nev, who was planted in the doorway.
"You remember, right?"
I controlled a screech. Barely. But since I cut him that much slack, I decided it was perfectly acceptable to throw my hands in the air. "You"re the one acting like I"m running off to Vegas with Daryl," I said, sidestepping around Nev and into the living room of my suite. "It"s just dinner, remember? That"s what you said to convince me to go along with this goofy plan of yours."
"It is just dinner. Yes." Nev had flattened himself against the wall when I sailed past him, and now, he pushed away and closer to me. "But there are some serious questions you need to ask Tucker."
"I know. I get it." I grabbed my purse. "What did he really see the night of the murder? More important, why did he lie about it? And what is he covering up?"
"You don"t want to ask that last one. Not outright, anyway." Nev shifted from foot to foot.
"What?" Another toss of my hands, which might have been easier (or at least a little more graceful) if I wasn"t holding my summer straw clutch. "What on earth do you have to be so nervous about?"
Nev shoved his hands in his pockets. Took them out again. He sc.r.a.ped a hand over his chin. "I"m not nervous," he said. "It"s just that-"
"Oh, I get it." I"m not usually the type who teases. At least not the type who teases a guy I think is cute when we are still trying to get our relationship on some sort of even footing. But let"s face it: Nev deserved a little figurative kick in the b.u.t.t for acting like such a mother hen.
I clasped both my hands and my summer straw clutch to my heart. "You"re afraid I"ll discover Daryl is the man of my dreams. My soul mate. The love of my life! And that I can"t live without him." I"m not the type who bats her eyelashes, but I batted for all I was worth. "Maybe we really will run off to Vegas together."
Nev frowned. "That"s not funny."
"It"s also not possible, and you know it." I was back to being my real self, matter-of-fact, not a batting eyelash in sight. "Come on." I leaned forward and pinned Nev with a look. "What"s really bugging you?"
Nev doesn"t beat around the bush, either. In his job, he doesn"t have the luxury. He stepped back. "There"s a chance he"s our murderer. You know that."
I wrinkled my nose. "I do. But... Daryl? Really? You think?"
Nev shrugged. "Not really, but-"
"But that would be perfect, wouldn"t it?" The realization sparkled through me like the bubbles climbing up the side of a champagne gla.s.s. "I mean, it would be great if he was our murderer and if I could actually find out something from him tonight that would prove it."
"And put yourself in danger? There"s not a chance I"m going to allow that."
Aha! We were getting to the meat of the problem. And the reason for Nev"s sudden case of the jitters. It was sweet. And I was touched.
Right before I realized I was also insulted.
I pulled back my shoulders. "I can take care of myself, especially in a public restaurant where-"
"I know. Believe me, I do. But a man who"s capable of murder-"
"Which we don"t know Daryl is."
"But if he is, he might also-"
"Yes, of course he could, but you know I"m not going to take any stupid chances."
"Even if you don"t, he might-"
"He won"t. This is Daryl, remember. Nerd with a capital N."
"Yeah, nerd who lied to us about what he witnessed the night of the murder."