Ta,
Franco
THE WAITING ROOM of Lorenzo’s salon offered a view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Corie might have enjoyed it even more if it hadn’t been for the tight knot of nerves in her stomach.
She’d never experienced anything like the salon, from the red-and-gold brocade drapes and Persian rugs to the exotic scents wafting into the room at regular intervals. But Corie had a hunch that the real cause of the nerves was the fact that Jack Kincaid had taken his leave of them and headed to the Chronicle office. She pressed a hand to her stomach. Silly to feel so alone just because a man she’d met only a few hours ago had left her.
At Franco’s request, Nadia, a pencil-thin girl who had at least seven earrings in each ear, had brought her a glass of white wine. Noting that her knuckles had turned white from gripping the stem, Corie concentrated on relaxing her fingers. She had to get a grip.
At Jack’s request, Rollo, the doorman at the salon, had agreed to watch out for her and, if the need arose, ward off any blind gunmen, until Jack could return. A huge barrel of a man with a shiny bald head, Rollo had stood blocking the doorway ever since Jack had left. But it wasn’t the threat of blind gunmen with dogs that had her stomach doing flips.
“Drink up,” Franco said, clinking his glass to hers. “There’s no need to be nervous. Lorenzo had incredible talent even when I first knew him back in the Big Apple. He took a couple of acting classes with me at New York University. Lorenzo and I were theater majors. Jack was taking writing and journalism classes, so I’m not sure he would even remember Lorenzo.”
“You’ve known Jack for a long time then?” Corie asked.
“Since our first year in college.”
“Were you and Jack…” She hesitated. It really wasn’t any of her business. “Were you involved even then?”
“Involved?”
Whatever else Franco might have said was cut off as a tall, golden god swept into the room. For a moment all Corie could think of was Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger. The man—Lorenzo, she assumed—looked as if he’d been literally dipped in a rich shade of coppery gold—from the tone of his skin to the flow of hair that he wore swept back from his wide forehead. Even his eyes were a deep shade of amber.
“Lorenzo!” Franco rose and within seconds he all but disappeared into the folds of the large man’s flowing caftan.
“And you.” Lorenzo released Franco and swept down on her, grasping her hand and drawing her to her feet in one smooth motion. Then, tipping her chin up, he studied her. “You must be the little librarian.”
Corie would have nodded, but his grip on her chin was firm.
“Nadia?” He snapped the fingers of his free hand, and the pencil-thin woman whipped out a notebook. “The bones are good.” He paused to trace a finger down Corie’s cheek. “The skin is flawless. But the hair.” He lifted a strand and shuddered, sending a rippling wave through his caftan. “It will have to go.”
Corie felt the arrow of panic shoot right through her. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“How much time do I have, Franco?”
“I’ve pushed back the appointment at Macy’s until five.”
“I have only three hours?” Lorenzo drew in a deep breath. Out of the corner of her eye, Corie saw Franco and Nadia both take a quick step back. She might have herself, but Lorenzo had never released her chin.
“Well! It’s a good thing I’m a genius. Prep her, Nadia.” Dropping his hand, Lorenzo whirled and sailed from the room.
“If you’ll follow me, Ms. Benjamin?”
Corie raised a hand to her hair. She didn’t think she could move.
Franco grabbed her arm and urged her toward the door that Lorenzo had disappeared through. “He likes you.”
“He likes me?” Corie asked. “He wants to scalp me.”
“No, no, no,” Franco patted her arm as he pulled her past a long row of curtained booths. “He’s talking about a color and styling, and he’s the best.”
“Franco, I don’t think—”
He pushed her into a chair. “And you shouldn’t think. Just relax and put yourself in the hands of a master. Nadia, we need more wine.” The moment the girl disappeared, he continued, “You have that party Friday night. You do want to look your best when you meet your family.”
Corie faced herself in the mirror and barely kept herself from wincing. Even scalped, she had to look better than the way she looked now. The boring librarian look had to go. But even as Nadia reentered and pressed another glass of wine into her hand, her mother’s words echoed in her ears.
Be careful what you wish for.
4
JACK PUSHED THROUGH the doors and strode into the large room that housed San Francisco’s homicide detective division. Past the collection of desks in the bullpen area and down the corridor to his left, he found the door with D. C. Parker’s name on it. He knocked once before he entered, then trained his best smile on the small but stout dragon who guarded the entrance to Captain Parker’s lair.
“Ms. Abernathy.” He whipped out the bunch of daffodils he held behind his back. “I saw these and thought of you.”
Lydia Abernathy sniffed audibly, but she took the flowers. “Softening me up will get you nowhere, Mr. Kincaid. Captain Parker won’t see you unless he wants to.”
“I don’t want to,” growled a voice from the adjacent room. “Protect me, Ms. Abernathy. Throw the man out.”
Lydia rolled her eyes, and Jack winked at her as he moved smoothly around her desk and through the half-open door. “He’s a little grumpy because I won fifty bucks from him at poker last night,” Jack told her. “It’s a good thing for you he’s better at police work than he is at cards.”
“You were just lucky,” D.C. complained.
“Yeah.” Jack grinned at him as he turned a straight-backed chair around and straddled it. “I was.”
“I hear you were lucky again at the airport,” D.C. said.
“Yeah.”
D.C.’s office was small and ruthlessly organized. File drawers were closed, and not even a stray pencil lay out of place on the gleaming mahogany desk. He’d known D.C. since their days in high school and he hadn’t changed one bit. Jack thought briefly of his own office, cluttered with files and old notebooks filled with interview notes, and decided he hadn’t changed much either.
“If you came to pump me for information about the blind shooter, everything I know is either in the papers or on CNN, thanks to you damn reporters.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t think we’ve got everything. I’ll bet what you lost at poker last night that you know the breed of the dog by now.”
“Shit.”
Jack grinned at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
D.C. sighed in disgust. “This is not for publication.”
“Agreed.”
“We just identified the breed from a sketch one of our artists made. It’s a shih tzu, and we’re trying to trace local owners through breeders. We’d like to keep it out of the press coverage for now.”
“No problem. You got anything else?”
“Shih tzus are not bred as Seeing Eye