Drayco awoke to a cascade of light pouring through the window. Hadn’t he closed the blinds before he went to bed? Then a soft, warm body slid into bed beside him, and he remembered. Darcie Squier stopped by last night. Well, he had invited her to visit him at his townhome, hadn’t he? Just not to show up on his doorstep as a “surprise.”
After finally succumbing to Darcie’s relentless seductions on his trips to the Eastern Shore over the past few months, it was almost a relief to wake up and find her there after a night of lovemaking. A relief? He didn’t have time to dwell on that thought as Darcie started nibbling on his ear before working her way farther south.
When it came to sex, she was like a reluctant nun trapped too long in a convent, doing her best to “Make up for lost time,” as she’d told him. And perhaps she’d summoned up his inner caveman as she talked of years spent in her loveless marriage crying alone in her room—although her ex-husband’s riches seemed to dull the pain.
Drayco still wasn’t sure what his feelings for her were. He knew his Cape Unity friends didn’t approve of her—their words “shrew” and “alley cat” came to mind. But after Sarg’s visit last evening, having Darcie here was better than a Cacao Espresso Stout from the Fiddler’s Green Tavern. He needed this.
But his mind just wouldn’t shut off, and his meeting with Sarg kept coming back to him. Sarg’s baffling music puzzle poked at his subconscious, demanding he pay attention. He’d even had dreams of it last night, the staves leaping off the page and forming a knife headed straight for his heart.
No more avoiding the inevitable. He headed to the shower to clear mind and body of distractions, but Darcie had other ideas. She followed him inside, helped him dry off, then made him breakfast before he dressed because “she liked watching him walk around nude.” He was going to protest for equal time, but she looked rather fetching in the kitchen wearing only lacy red panties.
She was disappointed when he told her he couldn’t take her sightseeing because he was meeting Sarg. Her pout lasted only as long as it took for a friend of hers on the phone to mention Saks Fifth Avenue and something about Saint Laurent croc-embossed leather booties. When she squealed to him they were on sale for “only” nine hundred dollars, he spit out some of his coffee and grabbed for a paper towel.
The last shoes he’d bought were black garden-variety loafers. If Darcie didn’t have her ex’s money to play with, Drayco had a feeling she wouldn’t be hanging around him long on his crime-consultant salary. She needed a senator or lobbyist and a mansion in Georgetown or McLean. Humble Cape Unity and its coastal small-town life must feel like a death sentence to her.
As Darcie babbled on the phone with her friend, Drayco grabbed his copy of Sarg’s music puzzle and played it in his mind again. What could it mean? But the tuneless line kept morphing into Prokofiev and then to Bach. Soon his thoughts were in Cape Unity on the Eastern Shore inside the Opera House he’d inherited. His life, as always, seemed to be surrounded by musical puzzles.
Darcie finished her conversation, grabbed one of the egg sandwiches she’d made and plopped onto the couch beside him. “What’s that?” She peeked at the puzzle.
“Part of that case I mentioned. And why I’m meeting Sarg later.”
“So that’s the reason you can’t take me to see the First Ladies’ dresses.” She peered over at the paper. “Doesn’t look terribly interesting. Is it important?”
He held up the paper to the light. “Possibly. It was sent to a college student before she was murdered.”
Darcie put her plate on the coffee table and slid closer to him. “What was she like?”
“What?” He turned to face her.
“The girl who got killed. Tell me about her.”
She had a way of surprising him like that. Showing a deeper side of herself to him than she did to others.
Last night, Drayco searched the Web for traces of Cailan Jaffray’s social media footprint. She’d appeared like a fairly normal college-age girl at first. Then he noticed a more pensive, darker turn to her online posts in the weeks leading up to her death. Premonitions? Or hidden secrets?
He replied, “Well, music was a passion of hers. So much so she didn’t have a lot of time left over for her friends.”
“Kind of like you were at her age?”
He nodded. “Being a classical soloist is like having a lover who demands all your time. And you gladly give it. Once it gets a grip on your soul, it won’t let go.”
“I’d love to have you think of me that way.” She reached up to stroke his hair. “But you make it sound like I’d always be playing second fiddle. Or whatever the piano equivalent is.”
“I can’t perform anymore, remember?”
She winked at him. “Only the piano, Darling. But you can still play, can’t you?”
“For short periods. Until my arm cramps.”
Darcie moved her stroking to his right arm. “Was the murdered girl a pianist?”
“A singer. Opera.”
“Oooh, now there’s more my thing. All those lovely dresses and jewelry and gorgeous sets. Was she any good?”
“Quite good, by all accounts.”
“Then why would anyone want to kill her? Unless it’s a rival.”
He blinked at her. “She did have a rival, for love more than music.”
“Then where does that puzzle come in? A form of musical death threat?”
And there she was again—much sharper than she let on. “That’s what we aim to find out.”
“How was she killed?”
“Stabbed.”
“Ah, now see, that screams a crime of passion.”
Drayco didn’t think Sarg or the MPD would want some of the details of the murder made public, like the wound cauterizing, so he didn’t mention that. Yes, a crime of passion might involve a stabbing. But to take the time to heat the knife first? That screamed premeditation, not spur-of-the-moment passion.
It wasn’t often his thoughts were so vivid they translated into sensory links, but he could swear he smelled something burning. Darcie sniffed the air and jumped up, running over to the kitchen. As he got up to join her, she met him at the archway holding a blackened blob speared with a fork.
He tilted his head. “That doesn’t look like an egg sandwich. In fact, I’m not sure what the hell that looks like.”
“It was supposed to be a cinnamon roll. If you like them well done, there are five more in the oven just like it.”
He started laughing. She was a worse cook than he was, and that was saying a lot. He grabbed the fork and tossed the blob into the sink. Then he wrapped his arms around her and captured her lips in a deep, slow kiss. She tasted like egg and coffee and cream, and right now, it was like a little taste of heaven.