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“Good morning, Mother. How lovely to hear your voice,” he muttered, knowing the sarcasm would go straight over her head. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you are not keeping me informed. Am I or am I not your client?”
“You’re one of them,” he agreed, glancing at the clock and groaning when he realized it was barely 6:00 a.m. He and Gina had stayed out late the night before, doing absolutely none of the things he’d wanted most to do, which was probably why his dreams had been particularly steamy.
“The most important one, I should think,” she grumbled.
“Actually you’re the only one who’s not paying me,” he pointed out. “I took on your case pro bono, if you recall.”
“I still think I should be getting an update from time to time. Have you found Bobby? Will I be getting my money back?”
“I haven’t found Bobby. As for your money, we’ll know more about that once I find out where he’s gone.”
“Well, if you don’t know anything, why on earth are you vacationing in Wyoming, of all places?”
Rafe gritted his teeth. “I am not on vacation. I’m following a lead.”
“Don’t you have investigators to do that?”
“Sure I do. They cost quite a bit. Shall I put their expenses on your bill?”
Adele O’Donnell Tinsley Warwick sucked in her breath. “There’s no need to be snide, Rafe.”
“I’m sorry,” Rafe apologized automatically. “Since I have you on the line, let me ask you again if Bobby ever said anything at all about any place he particularly liked, some country or city he might be holed up in now? Is he the kind who’d hide all his ill-gotten gains in a Swiss bank account, or would he head for the Cayman Islands?”
“Neither. When he was with me, he seemed quite content to be in New York. From my point of view, none of this makes any sense. I thought he was happy. I thought we were happy. We were together for five years. Well, most of five years. There was that period when I thought I might be in love with Mitchell Davis, but he turned out to still have a wife tucked away upstate.”
“Yes, I recall,” Rafe said wearily. Obviously, his mother made a habit of deluding herself about the importance of a relationship. He sighed, then asked, “What do you know about Rinaldi’s business partner?”
“Gina? He rarely mentioned her,” she said dismissively. “I got the sense that she was contributing very little to the business, other than a certain flair she had with the customers and preparation of some of the dishes on the menu. Bobby was the money man and the brains behind the place. I always had the feeling she was holding him back, that her thinking was far too conservative.”
“Perhaps she had good reason for being that way, since Rinaldi was so irresponsible where money was concerned,” he suggested.
“Bobby was a genius,” she said at once.
His mother’s criticism of Gina and her admiring tone when she spoke of Rinaldi, even after everything the man had done to her, made Rafe cringe. “Mother, are you anxious for me to find Rinaldi so we can put him behind bars, or are you hoping to resume your affair with him?”
“How can you even ask me such a thing?” she asked indignantly.
“Because I honestly want to know the answer,” he said. “I get this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that you want the man back, even after everything he’s done.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He cheated me out of thousands of dollars. I wouldn’t take him back if he begged me to.”
“Glad to hear it,” Rafe said, though he wasn’t entirely certain he believed her.
“Now, tell me again why you’re in Wyoming. Bobby certainly wouldn’t go there. He hated anything primitive.”
“They do have hot and cold running water here, Mother.”
“You know what I mean. He was a sophisticated man.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “But that little partner of his wasn’t. Is that it? Is Gina in Wyoming? Is she hiding out there?”
“Gina is not ‘hiding out,’ and she’s every bit as sophisticated as you or I,” Rafe said impatiently, aware the moment the words left his mouth that his mother would seize on them.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “She is there. You’re not being taken in by her, are you?”
“No more than you were by Rinaldi,” he said dryly.
“Rafe, darling, do be careful,” she said with a rare display of motherly concern.
“Believe me, Mother, in my profession, there are very few people I trust. And after growing up with your unpredictable serial marriages, there are even fewer women I trust.”
“Well, that’s okay, then,” she said, sounding pleased. Clearly she’d missed the barb directed at her role in his distrust. Rafe sighed at the realization that she was as self-absorbed as ever.
Only after he’d hung up did Rafe realize exactly how pitiful his words were and how very badly he wanted Gina Petrillo to be the person who broke the pattern.
* * *
“Gina, sweetie, the phone’s for you,” Gina’s mother called cheerfully after a tap on the bedroom door.
Gina groaned and rolled over, burying her head under the pillow. She had tossed and turned all night long, trying to escape the dream in which she was running endlessly after a shadow. Bobby’s, no doubt. Not even her subconscious would let her catch him, because apparently on some innate level she knew that killing him was a bad idea.
“Gina, are you awake?” her mother called.
“Yes,” she finally admitted. “I’ll be right there.”
For one fleeting second she allowed herself to anticipate hearing Rafe’s voice on the other end of the line. She was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her guard up around him. Nor was she having much luck with keeping her hormones in check. Dragging on her robe, she picked up her pace as she went into the hallway to grab the nearest phone.
“Hello, doll,” Bobby greeted her as if they’d parted only days before and on the very best of terms.
“Roberto Rinaldi, where the hell are you?” she demanded, shaking with indignation. “Do you have any idea what sort of a mess you’ve left behind for me to clean up? I have an attorney shadowing my every move. I believe you know his mother.”
“Not Rafe O’Donnell.”
“Bingo.”
“Sorry about that. Not to worry, though. I’ll get everything straightened out.”
“How? When?”
“Soon,” he assured her. “Gotta run, doll. I just wanted you to know to hang in there.”
“Bobby, don’t you dare hang up on me. Bobby! Dammit, Bobby!” She realized she was shouting at a dial tone and all but slammed the receiver back into the cradle. “Forget the consequences. If I ever get my hands on him, I’m going to kill him.”
She looked up and realized that her mother was studying her with a horrified expression.
“Into the kitchen,” her mother said quietly, but in a tone that had always meant business. “I think it’s about time you told me what’s going on.”
Gina sighed and reluctantly trailed along behind her. She paused only long enough to pour herself a cup of coffee, then sat at the kitchen table. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone to work, thank goodness. If he had heard you just now, it would have sent his blood pressure into the stratosphere. Whatever’s going on, we’ll keep it between us for now. I don’t want your father upset. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure listening to you talk like that hasn’t shaken me a little bit, too.”
Her mother did look pale. Gina sought to reassure her. “It was just a figure of speech, Mother. I’m not going to kill anybody.”
“It didn’t sound that way to me. What has Bobby done? And does that have anything to do with what Rafe O’Donnell is doing here in Winding River?”
Gina slowly stirred two teaspoons of sugar into her coffee as she considered just how much to tell her mother. She finally settled on the whole truth. By the time she’d finished explaining all of the sordid details about Bobby’s scam, her mother was practically quivering with outrage.
“What an awful man!” her mother declared. “And that was him on the phone? If I’d had any idea, I would have given him a piece of my mind.”
Gina couldn’t help it. She grinned. “As impressive and daunting as I’ve always found your lectures to be, Mom, I doubt they would have had any effect at all on Bobby. He’s pretty much immune to criticism, and I doubt he has much of a conscience.”
“That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t hear exactly what I think of him. Taking money from all of those people...” She shook her head. “It’s a crime, that’s what it is.”
“Which is why Rafe is after him. And me, for that matter.”
“Surely Rafe doesn’t seriously think you could be involved,” her mother said, her indignation stirring all over again. “You are nothing like Bobby.”
“Thank you, but Rafe doesn’t know me as well as you do. He says he has an open mind. At the very least he’s hoping Bobby will contact me.”
“Which he has. You have to tell Rafe,” her mother said. “That will prove to him that you want this resolved as badly as he does.”
“What am I supposed to tell him?” Gina asked. “That Bobby called but wouldn’t say where he was?”
“That’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but all it proves is that Bobby knows I’m in Wyoming and that we’re in touch,” Gina said, feeling despondent. She was not nearly as sure as her mother that Rafe wouldn’t take the news of Bobby’s call and somehow twist it to fit his own scenario, condemning her in the process.
“You have to tell Rafe,” her mother repeated. “Keeping it a secret will only make you look guilty if he finds out about the call later.” She gestured toward the phone. “Call him right now. That’s my advice.” She bent down and kissed Gina’s forehead. “I have to get going or I’ll be late. You have a good day. This will all work itself out, I promise. People like Bobby eventually get what’s coming to them.”
“I wish I shared your conviction about that,” Gina said, giving her mother a half-hearted smile. “But I will think about what you’ve said.”
If only her parents had caller ID, she thought, staring at the phone, but in this small, friendly community such high-tech equipment was viewed as both unnecessary and in many ways impolite. No one saw any need to know who was calling before picking up the phone. Heck, half the people in town, her folks included, didn’t even own answering machines. People didn’t have the same desire for being connected twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week that they did in New York. There was a lot to be said for that attitude, but right now Gina regretted it.
When the phone rang, Gina jumped, then scowled at the offending instrument before picking it up.
“Yes,” she muttered curtly.
“You didn’t by any chance wake up on the wrong side of the bed, did you?” Rafe inquired cheerfully.
“Something like that,” she said.
“I know the feeling. My mother woke me out of a sound sleep, which would have been bad enough, but she also ruined a particularly fascinating dream.”
“Oh, really?”
“Just so you know, you were the star attraction.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Gina chided, even though the news was fascinating. “I thought we had agreed that there would be no more crossing the line.”
“Did we? My subconscious must have forgotten all about that. Now then, would I be risking my life if I suggested breakfast at Stella’s in twenty minutes? That’s not crossing the line, is it?”
Gina thought of Bobby’s call and her mother’s advice that she share that information with Rafe. “Actually, breakfast might be good. I’ll see you there. Make it thirty minutes, though. I’m only half-awake, and I usually don’t do mornings. It’ll take me a while to jump-start my brain.”
“I suppose saying that it’s not your brain that interests me would be a really bad idea,” Rafe teased.
Gina laughed, her mood improving considerably. “A really, really bad one,” she agreed. “See you soon.”
As it turned out, it took her closer to an hour to shower, dress and walk to Stella’s. Admittedly, she was deliberately dragging her feet. Every time she thought of Bobby’s call and his refusal to even admit where he was, she felt more and more despondent. By the time she got to Stella’s, she was crankier than ever. Finding that Rafe had finished reading the paper and was drumming his fingers on the table immediately put her on the defensive.
“I thought maybe you’d stood me up,” he said as she slid into the booth opposite him.
“I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” she snapped before she could stop herself.
His expression turned thoughtful. “There’s that tone again. Did something happen this morning to get your day off to a rotten start?”
“You mean aside from your call?”
He winced but said gamely, “Yes, aside from that.”
Gina waited until Stella had poured her a cup of coffee and taken their orders before answering with the truth. “I heard from Bobby,” she admitted in a rush, before she could change her mind. She didn’t feel one bit better once the words were out.
Rafe nodded slowly. “I see. And what did he have to say?”
“Not much. He wouldn’t say where he was. He wouldn’t answer any of my questions. He just said everything was going to work out.”
“For whom?” Rafe asked. “I don’t imagine he was talking about the people he bilked out of their money.”
“No, I imagine not,” Gina agreed ruefully. “Anyway, I thought you should know, even though it doesn’t exactly give you any new information.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to tell me about the call.”
She studied his face intently. “You don’t think I’m holding anything back, do you?”
“Are you?”
“No, that’s the whole story. The call didn’t last more than a minute.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder why. Does he suspect your phone could be tapped?”
“I doubt it,” Gina said. “Bobby never has been big on prolonged telephone calls. Ironically, in his own way I think he just wanted to reassure me.”
“Were you reassured?” Rafe asked.
“Hardly. I was furious. I want more than a patronizing pat on the head,” she said, her fury stirring all over again. “I want answers. I want every penny of that money returned. I want to put this mess behind me.”
For the first time since he’d tried to put her life under a microscope, Rafe regarded her with what appeared to be genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“Why are you sorry?”
