Kiss of Death

OPENING THE DOOR, I saw Matt smiling at me. He was carrying a bag of Chinese takeout in one hand and a bottle of wine under his arm. I moved back so that he could enter. As he stepped into the hallway, I took the bag and bottle from him, stooped enough to set them on the floor, and straightened up. Immediately, he drew me into his arms. My heart started to thud in my chest.

We kissed until I was breathless. Just as our lips parted an inch, I felt something soft brush my bare ankle. I looked down to see Magic easing his face into the bag of Chinese food.

“No. He has his own veterinarian-approved menu, and it doesn’t include cashew chicken, beef with snow peas, and pork fried rice.”

Denied his new culinary experience, Magic scampered away from us in a huff. We took the food and the wine into the kitchen and put them down on the table. Matt touched my hand, sending little electric tingles all through my body.

He kissed me again. When we came up for air, I led Matt into my bedroom. He shut the door, hooked his fingers into the belt of my robe, and drew me to him. Gently, he untied the silk cord, opened the robe, and cupped my breasts in his hands. So full of desire I thought I might burst, I fumbled at the buttons on his dark blue shirt. In spite of my nervousness, in seconds I had the shirt open. Our arms went around each other, skin touching skin. Our lips parted, and our tongues began to explore . . .

We were so desperate for each other that it was over quickly, but a few minutes later, we began to kiss and caress again. This time our lovemaking was long and leisurely. After an hour of the most glorious sensations, we collapsed in each other’s arms, totally spent.

“It’ll be the perfect crime.” I gave him the lightest little kiss on his chest. “Now, what about some Chinese food?”

DRESSED AGAIN, HAND in hand, we ambled into the kitchen—and discovered that while Matt and I were in the bedroom with the door closed, Magic had been busy.

The bag from the Chinese restaurant was tipped over onto the table. Two of the cartons were open, with the contents scattered. A shallow lake of sauce had pooled in the middle of the tabletop, soaking the bottom of the legal pad on which I’d been working before Matt arrived. Magic crouched on one side of this jumbled buffet, chewing contentedly on a thin slice of beef. Little paw prints, coated in brown Chinese sauce, charted Magic’s course across my white pages.

Matt grabbed paper towels from the roll beside the sink. I picked Magic up and relocated him to the floor. “Naughty cat,” I said.

Holding paper towels beneath it, I moved the dripping bag over to the plastic drain board. Taking out the little packets of fortune cookies, soy sauce, and two pairs of chopsticks, I said, “There are two intact cartons.” I took them out and opened the tops. “Hmmm, cashew chicken and white rice. Plenty for dinner.”

“I’m glad that cat doesn’t like Merlot,” Matt said. “Or maybe he just couldn’t open the bottle. Where’s your corkscrew?”

I took it out of the drawer beside the stove, handed it to him, and transferred our food into ceramic dishes, to heat for a few seconds in the microwave.

Pouring the dark ruby wine for us, Matt nodded toward Magic. “If a cat can look smug, that one does. He must have forgotten he used to be homeless.”

“I don’t think anyone ever forgets that.” I looked into Magic’s green eyes and thought, We have a bond, little guy. I knew that soon I’d have to tell Matt about it. But not tonight.

WE WERE COMFORTABLY full and having coffee when the phone rang. It was the line connected to the Dakota’s front desk.

“Mrs. Tyler?” It was the gravelly voice of Frank, the night security man. “Somebody down here wants to see you. He’s pretty upset.”

“Give me that phone!” I heard a man in the background, and he sounded furious. I recognized that voice.

“Don’t try to tell me she’s not up there with you!” I heard what sounded like a fist smacked angrily onto the top of the reception desk.

Arnold mumbled something, and Frank came back on the line. “What do you want me to do, Mrs. Tyler?”

“Let him come upstairs. Mr. Rose has visited before—he knows which apartment it is.” I replaced the phone on the wall hook and turned to Matt. “You better put your shoes on. We’re about to have company.”

“I heard,” he said, getting up and heading back toward the bedroom. I followed, to grab something to wear other than this thin silk robe.

By the time Arnold started jabbing at the doorbell, I’d pulled on sweatpants and a loose shirt. Matt was wearing socks, shoes, and his sports jacket, but a glance in the bedroom mirror at the two of us told me that we still looked like we’d been doing exactly what we had been doing.

The moment I opened the front door, Arnold barged in past me, without even saying hello. He saw Matt sitting in the living room and jerked to a stop.

“Long enough to know Morgan’s not hiding your daughter.” Matt stood up. “If I were you, I’d start behaving myself.” His spoke in his strong-arm-of-the-law tone.

Suddenly, Arnold seemed to fold into himself, deflating like one of the big balloons after a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. He sank into the wing chair next to the sofa. “She’s gone,” he said.

He looked haggard, and seemed so genuinely upset that I sat on the edge of the sofa and reached out to touch his hand in sympathy. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. His features twisted in pain. Or fear. “She hasn’t made any friends in New York yet. She likes you—so I thought perhaps she’d come here.”

“No. I haven’t seen her, or heard from her.” I looked up at Matt. His arms were folded across his chest as he watched Arnold.

“I saw her at six. She said she wanted to take a nap before dinner. That was unusual, but she’s been through so much . . . When I went to wake her, she wasn’t in her room, or anywhere in the apartment.”

Matt looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. Could she have gone out to a movie, without telling you?”

Arnold shook his head. From the grim set of Matt’s lips, I could see that he didn’t believe it either.

“I’m not sure. I looked in her closet. She has a lot of clothes. I didn’t see any empty hangers. Her set of luggage was there.”

“Matt, Didi’s only twelve. Alone in this city—” I didn’t want to finish the sentence. “Isn’t there something you can do to find her?”

Arnold took his wallet out of an inside pocket of his jacket and removed a photo of Didi. Smiling, her lovely large brown eyes shining with confidence. This was Didi before her mother’s death.

“She cut her hair,” Arnold said softly. As though talking to himself, he added, “She couldn’t have been kidnapped. I was in the apartment, in my den. The housekeeper was in the kitchen. It’s a secure building. We didn’t have any visitors . . . She’s gone. She left me.”

Matt persuaded Arnold to come with him to the station house, to report Didi as a runaway. The Arnold Rose who left with Matt looked twenty years older than the man who’d rudely brushed past me at the front door a short time earlier.

After they left, I called Nancy. I didn’t think Didi would go there, but I’d hoped Nancy might have an idea. She didn’t.

“Didi doesn’t go to school—she has tutors—so she doesn’t have classmates,” Nancy said. “According to Arnold, she doesn’t like her teachers very much, so I can’t see her running off to one of them. Her entire world revolves around her riding competitions.”

Suddenly I remembered the tough-as-rawhide little woman who used yellow headbands to hold back her iron gray hair. “Mrs. Woodburn, the woman who owns the stable where Didi works out. Do you have any idea where she lives?”

“She has an apartment on the top floor of the Woodburn Academy,” Nancy said. “Arnold mentioned that a few months ago—he couldn’t fathom how she could stand the smell of horses twenty-four hours a day. Didi might go there. That stable was practically her second home. Are you going to call Arnold?”

Before I left the Dakota, I changed into slacks, a tank top, and a cotton jacket. My last act was to slip the small digital recorder I used to dictate story notes into the side pocket of the jacket.