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Alec figured Cleo couldn’t have gone too far. Not in her nightgown. And ay, caramba! What a nightgown. On a hanger, it would hang straight from the spaghetti straps to the hem, but on her, the subtle things the satin did between her shoulders and ankles made it impossible to keep his eyes to himself. The flash of long legs as the side slit opened and closed when she walked, the way it rode the slope of her breasts then fell from the crest, the way it clung to the bump of her butt.
He hummed as he made coffee, his mind still in the bedroom. What crankiness he hadn’t lost in the shower disappeared when he poked around in the fridge and found most of a loaf of French bread. When he shut the fridge, Cleo was standing in the doorway.
“Morning,” he said. Too bad she’d already changed into jeans and T-shirt. She even had on a pair of heeled sandals.
“You made coffee.”
“Somebody had to.” He grinned at her as he pulled two cups from the cupboard to set beside the pot. “Sit down.” He pointed to a seat at the crescent-shaped breakfast bar. She gave him a closed-lip smile as she sat. What was he going to have to do for one of those world-killer smiles?
He went back to humming as he plugged in the George Foreman grill on the counter. While it heated, he cut the bread lengthwise and buttered it. Annaliese used real butter, he noted with approval.
“Okay, here’s the game plan for today,” he said. “We go down to El Dorado and get their press release. Then we talk to people. Get the pulse of the casino, what everyone thinks is going on. We could cover more ground if we split up, but I think we should stay together. You can get them to talk, and I can watch their reactions.”
“You do know some of the things they say will be colored by whether or not they like Annaliese.”
“I’m counting on it.”
She glared at him. “That’s just what you’re looking for, isn’t it? Something sensational, regardless of whether there’s any truth behind it.”
“Of course, I want truth behind it, but just because someone has an ax to grind doesn’t mean they can’t also be telling the truth. You’ve been in the business long enough to know that there’s never just one truth.” The bread was lightly browned, so he pulled it from the grill. “We’ll decide what’s useful later when we compare notes.”
“And then what?” she asked as he put a plate with a piece of grilled French bread in front of her. “When we’ve gathered all the useless speculation, then do we get to go home?”
“After the coroner’s report comes back.” He filled the cups half full with the strong, dark coffee he’d brewed. The smell wafted up with the steam, filling his nostrils with the rich, warm scent he associated with his mother’s kitchen. He reached for the milk he’d heated in the microwave.
“I take it black,” Cleo said when he’d topped his coffee and started to do the same to hers.
“This morning you’re having a Cuban breakfast. That means toastas and café con leche.”
She made a face, like a little kid facing a plateful of broccoli, as he set her coffee in front of her on the bar.
“Come on now. Be a good girl and try it.”
She nibbled on the bread, then picked up the cup as if she expected to find a scorpion inside it.
After she took a sip, he asked, “See? It’s not that bad.”
“Yeah. It’s drinkable. As long as I don’t expect it to taste like coffee.” She took another sip. “But I need my caffeine buzz.”
He laughed. It may have been half the coffee she was used to, but he’d made it twice as strong. The Cuban way. “You’ll get it. I promise.” He slid his plate and cup across to her side of the breakfast bar and sat down beside her. “This is how you’re supposed to eat it.” He dipped the corner of the bread in his coffee, then took a bite.
She hiked a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him.
“Here. Let me show you again.” He dipped the bread, then held it to her lips. “Come on. Or do I have to make choo-choo noises?”
Her lips thinned for a moment, but then she opened her mouth and leaned in slightly.
She had a great mouth, he thought as her teeth bit down. When her tongue swiped over her lower lip, catching a drop of moisture from the dunked bread, a half a dozen fantasies flashed through his mind. He had to keep himself from leaning forward to capture her mouth with his.
He dunked his toasta again and watched her eat. For all her griping, she attacked her food like a longshoreman. He liked women with healthy appetites.
When she was nearly done, he said, “You never finished telling me about Annaliese.”
“Yeah, I did. She’s a retired showgirl who choreographs at El Dorado, and she’s involved with Jada.”
“You’re obviously close to her. How are you related?”
Even as he asked the question, she shoved the butt end of the bread—at least three reasonable bites’ worth—into her mouth as though she anticipated questions she didn’t want to answer. Her mouth was so full, she could barely chew and her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel trying to hide an entire winter’s supply of nuts in her mouth. He allowed himself a small smile. “What is she? A cousin? An aunt?”
On his last word, she pointed, indicating he’d hit on their relationship, her jaw working overtime.
“Is she your mom’s sister?”
She gave a nod he took as affirmation. Her eyes were a little buggy. He fought the urge to laugh, but he also watched closely in case she started choking. A nice guy would wait until she swallowed to ask more questions, but he wasn’t a nice guy. He was a reporter.
“So where’s your dad?”
She angled her hand over her mouth, probably to ensure she wouldn’t spit soggy crumbs at him as she garbled out something that sounded like, “Dunno.”
At least that’s what he thought she said.
He leaned forward. “What was that?”
She walked her fingers quickly over the counter.
“He ran out on you?”
A shrug accompanied a head bob as though she wanted him to believe it didn’t matter. He wasn’t buying it. Kids grew up without dads every day, but it always mattered.
“How old were you?”
She chewed determinedly before visibly swallowing.
“I wasn’t born yet.” Her mouth wasn’t quite empty, but he understood her this time.
“Tell me about your mother.”
She frowned at him as she swallowed again. “What? Are you writing a book?”
“Just trying to get a picture of your family.”
“You don’t need a picture of my family.”
“Okay, then. How about―”
Music, faint and distant, drifted into the kitchen, breaking the moment. It took him a moment to identify it as “Amen” by Kid Rock.
“Annaliese is up,” Cleo said.
A minute later, he heard Annaliese say, “I smell coffee.”
Before he could get up to pour her a cup, Cleo clapped a hand across his eyes. He froze.
Cleo hissed, “Annaliese!”
“Oh, all right. I’ll be back in a second.”
Alec knew he was missing something good. He shook Cleo’s hand away and turned, but it was too late. He went around to the kitchen side of the bar to pour Annaliese’s coffee, taking the opportunity en route to peek through the archway, but Annaliese had disappeared up the stairs.
“You’re a real spoilsport, you know that?”
Cleo shrugged.
A minute later, Annaliese returned, dressed in skin-tight jeans and a black tank top. Behind her was a tall, curly-haired blonde of about thirty with a Barbie-doll figure wearing a dance leotard and leg warmers.
When Cleo introduced them, Jada smiled shyly, then ignored him to sit on the other side of Cleo. He discovered that, even with Cleo’s warning, letting go of the idea that Jada wasn’t a child hadn’t prepared him for the woman he saw.
Curved as the bar was, he had a view of all three women.
Atop the stool, Jada crossed her legs in an unconscious mannerism that said I’m all woman. If Annaliese was Helen of Troy, Jada was Marilyn Monroe.
So this is what it feels like to judge a beauty pageant.
Together, these three women were Amazons. If he had been a shorter man, he might have felt intimidated.
He turned his gaze to Cleo. She held her own beside Annaliese and Jada, but she had something they didn’t. As much as he appreciated looking at the other two women, he couldn’t imagine wanting either one around on a daily basis. Annaliese was definitely high maintenance. And Jada? Already, he knew she was too timid and passive to interest him.
Cleo, on the other hand . . . She was smart as well as beautiful, and for the last week, he’d looked forward to walking into work, knowing she’d be there. Off work, he thought of ways to needle her, to get past the cool exterior. Sparring with her added a zing to his day he hadn’t known was missing.
Sebastian Koblect’s death had brought him to Las Vegas, and they needed to spend time at El Dorado, but the story he wanted was here, with these women. It was the story no other reporter could get, and he wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers.
Annaliese picked up her cup and, with a furrowed brow, looked inside. “What’s this?”
“Cafe con leche,” Cleo said. “It’s a Cuban thing. If you don’t drink it, he’ll sulk.”
“Just what we need. An international touch. Well, I’m game.” Annaliese took a sip and frowned. “You call this coffee?” She slid the cup toward Jada and poured herself a fresh one from the coffee maker. Undiluted, the coffee was double strength, but she only paused after taking the first sip to say, “Now that’ll put hair on your chest.”
Alec just shook his head and pointed. “There’s toastas as well.”
“And he cooks, too?” Annaliese said. “You might want to keep this one around a while.”
“It’s just grilled French bread,” Cleo said.
Annaliese smiled as if amused by Cleo’s refusal to give Alec any points. She turned her smile on him. “Did you sleep well, Alec?”
“Slept great. In spite of Cleo being a bed hog.”
Cleo’s mouth gaped open. “I am not a bed hog.”
Annaliese smile widened. “She never was good at sharing.”
“Well, we’ve got a big day ahead of us.” Cleo suddenly sounded chipper and energetic. “Got places to go, people to see . . . gossip to gather.”
“I guess we’re in a hurry,” Alec said. Clearly, she was trying to limit his time with Annaliese. “I’ll get my gear.”
Cleo turned innocent eyes at him. “Would you grab my bag too? It’s on the bed.”
He gave her a wry smile to let her know he got that she wanted to have a few moments to talk to Annaliese without him listening. Sitting with three knockout women so early in the morning must have made his brain cells go all soft and mushy because he was going to let her have what she wanted. “Anything for you, buttercup.”
Annaliese gifted him one of her dulcimer laughs as he headed for the bedroom.
~***~
Cleo took a sip of coffee to kill a few seconds. She wanted Alec out of earshot before she talked to her mother.
Annaliese shuffled through the contents of the cupboard by the stove. “Jada, honey, have you seen my muscle relaxers?”
“No,” Jada answered tentatively, almost as if she was supposed to know and feared being in trouble because she didn’t.
“Well, hell.” Annaliese shut the cupboard. “The refill is upstairs.”
“I’ll get it,” Jada offered eagerly before Annaliese could step around the breakfast bar. She slid off her stool and disappeared into the living room so fast she looked like she was escaping.
Slick, Cleo thought. Annaliese had bought them a few minutes alone. She wasn’t going to get a better opportunity, but she’d have to be quick. “You know you can’t say just anything in front of Alec, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He’s here for the story, but you won’t even recognize what you’ve said when he’s done with it, so you can’t give him anything.”
Annaliese’s mouth skewed to one side, her expression more sad than angry. “Sweetie, I’ve got nothing to hide.” She arched her back again but froze at the pinnacle. “You haven’t told him I’m your mother, have you?”
“God, no!” Hearing how bad that sounded, Cleo rushed to extricate herself from her gaff. “He’d exploit that and―”
Annaliese flipped her hand as though knocking Cleo’s explanation aside. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret.”
For all her openness, Annaliese had moments where she was impossible to read. Did she really not care her daughter didn’t want to acknowledge their relationship? “I told him you were my aunt,” Cleo offered, hoping Annaliese would accept that as a peace offering.
Annaliese picked up her coffee cup, propped her elbows on the breakfast bar across from Cleo. “Maternal aunt, I presume.” She took a sip of coffee.
Cleo nodded. She didn’t have time to worry about finesse. She took a deep breath and barreled ahead. “Did you sign a marker for the money you owe Sebastian?”
The look Annaliese shot her was laced with sadness and disappointment. Cleo wondered if she had a neon sign on her forehead flashing her thoughts. Annaliese had always been able to read her as though there were.
“Yes. Sebastian was an old friend, but he didn’t let that get in the way of business, and anything involving money was business.”
Cleo tried to swallow her disappointment. “So everyone knows you owed him money.”
Annaliese shrugged. “I have no idea who knows. I didn’t take out an ad in the paper or anything, so it depends on whether Sebastian told anyone. He probably didn’t, though. It wasn’t anyone else’s business, and he wouldn’t have wanted to encourage people asking him for loans.”
Cleo sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. If the cops know―”
Annaliese made a disparaging noise. “Like I’d tell them.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“Hell, no. If I’d told them, I’d still be there drinking their lousy coffee.”
Cleo stared at her in disbelief. Her honest-to-a-fault mother, the woman who couldn’t be bothered to lie about anything, had withheld information from the police? What if they decided Sebastian’s death wasn’t an accident? What if they found the marker? Her mother would be at the top of the suspect list because she’d told a lie of omission.
She took a sharp breath. It wasn’t going to be an issue because Sebastian’s death was an accident. Just because everything else in her life felt like Murphy’s Law on steroids was no reason to expect the worst in every situation, was it?
Jada entered the kitchen with one hand shoved deep in Annaliese’s purse. A moment later, she pulled out a prescription bottle and handed it to Annaliese.
Cleo’s mother shook two pills into her hand, then pulled a pint bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey from the cupboard. She chased the pills with a swallow of the amber liquid straight from the bottle.
“What are you doing?” Cleo asked, her voice shrill with shock. “That’s dangerous.”
“Oh, hush. It’s only dangerous if you overdo.”
Of course. Why would Annaliese ever listen to her? “What happened to ‘your body’s a temple’?”
“It’s still a temple,” Annaliese said. “There are just a few cracks in the structure. That happens as you get older.” Annaliese poured a liberal splash into her coffee. “My new philosophy is moderation in all things.”
Annaliese had always been a woman of extremes. Work hard. Play hard. Nourish your body, so you could keep doing the first two. Her new “philosophy” was a radical departure, and one Cleo suspected wasn’t quite as moderate as Annaliese thought it was. Not that it would make a difference if Cleo pointed that out. A stranger would have better luck.
Which made Cleo realize Alec was taking far too long.
She found him in the living room staring at the five-foot-tall fichus Jada had grown from a two-inch pot. As she drew closer, Cleo realized it wasn’t actually the plant he was staring at, but something on the wall.
Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when she realized she’d missed a picture in her reconnaissance the night before.
“Who’s this?” His eyebrows beetled. “Is this you?”
Dammit. How had she missed this one? “No,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice even as her heart picked up a couple of extra beats, proving he was right about one more thing: she really didn’t like lying. Looking over his shoulder, she saw the picture fresh.
In it, Annaliese was dressed in showgirl regalia, complete with false eyelashes that looked as if they were made from a nest of daddy longlegs, and a headpiece that, in spite of being made mostly of feathers, weighed at least fifteen pounds. She stood in what the showgirls called a bevel stance, her hands on her hips, her right leg cocked in front of her left with her right foot at half-point forming the bottom of a T to her back foot. She’d been thirty-one when the picture was taken, but with all the stage makeup, it was impossible to tell her age. She could have been anywhere between twenty and thirty-five—the age at which she’d retired.
Beside her, twelve-year-old Cleo, who had been on the tail end of her gawky, ugly-duckling stage but dressed in a spangled mini-dress, mimicked the stance. In spite of the frown that made her look mad and had been her defense against showing the braces she’d hated so badly, she still looked like her mother’s mini-me.
Alec took a half step back, putting him beside her instead of in front of her. “That is you, isn’t it?”
He was half a second away from seeing through her lies. “No, no, of course not.” Her voice sounded strained. She kept her eyes on the photo. “That’s . . .” Who else could it be but her? The panic bubbled up and boiled over into another lie. “That’s Annaliese’s daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“Patty.” It was almost true. Patty was a legitimate nickname for Cleopatra. In junior high, she’d tried to get people to adopt it, but it hadn’t taken. “Don’t mention her, though. It upsets Annaliese.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Alec turn his head toward her. “Why?”
She wanted to thump him. Reporters. They had to have something genetically wrong with them, always asking one more “why” than was polite.
“She’s dead.” She kept her voice flat, her face expressionless. He was right; she didn’t like lying. But apparently, she had a talent for it.
“Oh,” he said in a subdued voice. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Heaven help her, she had to get him out of Vegas before someone told him the truth.
“She looks a lot like you.”
“People used to confuse us a lot.”
He fell silent, looking thoughtfully at the picture. She tried to see it through his eyes, but she couldn’t. Instead, she saw how much she’d wanted to be like her mother. At twelve, she’d still thought Annaliese was the best mother ever. Way more fun than the other mothers. And then puberty hit, and overnight, Annaliese morphed from fun mom to embarrassing mom.
Cleo remembered the moment it had changed with pinpoint accuracy. She’d been so sick with worry about a science presentation that she’d thrown up. The school nurse had called her mother to come get her. Annaliese arrived between periods when all the kids were in the halls, and a group of boys had whistled and catcalled as she walked past them. Without missing a beat, she’d turned and thrown them a kiss. Cleo had been mortified.
And suddenly, she’d seen that her mom’s clothes were too tight and too flashy, that she walked with a provocative swing in her hips and laughed too easily at crude jokes.
Cleo had wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out. But looking at that picture of the two of them . . . She missed her “fun mom.” Why couldn’t they have kept that?
“That’s why she tries to mother you, isn’t it?” Alec said.
She pulled herself back to the present. “What?”
“She transferred her maternal instincts to you after her daughter died. You became her surrogate daughter.”
Cleo drew in a deep breath. He was buying it. “I suppose so.”
Maybe it was a blessing he’d found this picture. It would keep him from wondering too much about their relationship.
“Were you close?” Alec asked.
“Like sisters.” Cleo held up crossed fingers to reinforce the image. How handy that it was also a free pass for lying.