True Detectives

Aaron stared.

Her smile was crooked, oddly girlish. “We didn't exchange greetings an hour ago. When I was agonizing over bikinis and you were watching me struggle.”

Aaron didn't answer.

Gemma Dement clasped her hands prayerfully and leaned closer. “Please don't tell me I imagined you watching. You brightened my day.”

“I did?” said Aaron, amazed at how he'd morphed into an aw-shucks geek. Gee, Mrs. Robinson.

“You certainly did. Mr… Reader.” Reaching across the table, she touched his book. Short nails, no polish. Clean hands. Had Aaron imagined the tremor that passed through them quickly?

He said, “Light reading.” Felt a welcome rise of internal warmth as her fingers quivered again. Her weakness fed his strength. Time to work the woman.

She said, “Doesn't look light to me.”

“It is compared with what I usually have to deal with.”

Another skewed smile, this one hard to characterize. Aaron thought he spotted a dark splotch of skin peeking above the hem of her T-shirt, frosted by a granular patch of cover-up. Texture was the giveaway, the color was perfect, blended expertly with her golden skin.

Long years of practice hiding bruises?

She said, “Now I'm supposed to ask what you usually have to deal with.”

“Not unless you care.”

She laughed. “Has to be something boring-are you a professor?”

Aaron said, “Attorney. Legal briefs.”

“Ah,” she said, sitting back. “One of those.”

Aaron spread his arms. “Here come the lawyer jokes.”

“Don't know any lawyer jokes. I'm not much for jokes period.” She turned serious, as if illustrating. “So tell me, Mr. Lawyer Who's Also a Recreational Reader, why have you been watching me for the last hour?”

At least he'd gotten away with half the surveillance.

“Because you're gorgeous,” he said.

Her face went blank. That same glazed expression as when she stopped midstride and spaced out.

Aaron said, “You stood out.”

Did her eyes just get wet? She'd swiped them too quickly for Aaron to be sure.

“Please forgive me if I freaked you out. I thought of approaching you, then I saw your ring.” Eyeing her four-carat diamond.

She said, “Oh, that,” twisted the gem out of sight. Her other hand rose. She smoothed down hair.

Pulling out his little alligator card case, Aaron slid out the topmost rectangle, pre-positioned like a magician's trick deck.

High-quality paper, pale blue, embossed navy lettering proclaiming the credentials of Arthur A. Volpe, Attorney at Law. The Kansas City address terminated at a mail-drop, the phone fed to the sad bachelor pad of Arthur A. Wimmer, a distant cousin of Mom's. Arthur was a problem drinker who claimed to be a chemist but couldn't hold down a steady job. Aaron's yearly retainer went toward answering the line in a business-like voice and saying the right things. Decent dough for maybe an hour all year.

Gemma Dement sca

“Long-overdue vacation.”

She pouted. “All by your lonesome?”

“Aptly put,” he said. “L.A.'s a tough place when you don't know anyone.”

“Volpe,” she said. “You're Italian?”

Aaron searched her face for irony. Saw dead-serious curiosity.

“Mom's side is from Milan.” Picking the city, the way he usually did when questioned, because it was the hub of fashion.

“Like that character on that show-Homicide.”

“Lieutenant Giardello,” said Aaron. “He was half Sicilian, that's the south. Milan is up north.”

“Well,” she said, “sorry for not knowing Italian geography. I like that show. Lots of guilt and atonement. Don't you think that makes for a good story?”

“Absolutely,” said Aaron. “Nothing like guilt as a motivator.”

Spi

“It's Italian for ‘fox.’”

“Do you go there regularly? The Old Country, I mean.”

“Never been there. My Italian cousins keep telling me I need to go. Eventually, I'll get around to it.”

“Too much lawyer work.”

“Way too much. I do real estate litigation and there's never a shortage.”

“Meanwhile, you come to Malibu and watch much older women agonize over bikinis.”

“Slightly older women.”

“Liar,” she said, cheerfully.

“May I ask your name?”

Eyeblink. “Gloria. Like in the song… well, Mr. Volpe the lonely, busy attorney. You did make my day. By noticing.”

“Gloria,” said Aaron, “you are extremely easy to notice.”

Pulling the line off with utter sincerity because he meant it. Up close, the tight and lean was even more impressive, the total package enhanced by generous breasts too soft and bouncy not to be real. Those lovely little bumps of unfettered nipple. He imagined her dressing quickly but expertly in a mansion ranch house, green acres vivid through a crystalline window. Nothing to do today but try on bikinis.

Eyes the color of the ocean as the sun kissed it.

The dark patch right beneath the hem of her shirt, oddly appealing. Aaron wanted to help her. Knew he couldn't, she was nothing more than… a potential data bank.

Rich, good-looking woman who paid for her humongous diamond and the rest of her lifestyle with pain.

Guilt and atonement.

She'd given him something to work with.

He said, “Going back to the whole guilt thing, I guess the difference between good people and bad is the level of atonement.”

She said, “Speaking of which.”

“Pardon?”

“You could atone for your sin.”

“What sin is that?”

“Standing there watching while I went through those bikinis. What if I was the type to get freaked out?”

“I really am sorry. It was just…”

“Just what?”

“What I said before. You're an extremely-”

She silenced him with a finger over his lips. Her skin was warm, slightly dank, maybe even a little greasy. As if she'd used lotion recently. Or was secreting something.

Aaron could feel little bubbles of his own sweat popping in his hair.

Gemma Dement shifted closer. Her hand lowered to his. She rubbed the space between his thumb and forefinger. Pretty blatant, out in public like this.

People walked by, no one seemed to notice.

No one recognizing her. A woman ignored.

Aaron's lips were dry. He restrained himself from licking.

Gemma Dement's eyelids lowered. Big, curling lashes. Another flash of Pacific. Twelve cylinders of perfume.

“Your sin,” she said, “was watching me but not following through.”

He followed in the Porsche as her X5 drove out of the Cross Creek lot, turned right at the light, continued north on PCH.

She drove faster and better than she had on the ride from home. No absentminded sways, no cell phone distraction.

Aaron kept to the speed limit, he couldn't afford to do otherwise.

As if sensing it, Gemma Dement slowed down so he could stay with her.

Like a dance.

Like a woman fixing herself to your rhythm. Putting you back inside when you popped out.

Where was she taking him? Back to the ranch? Lem out of town on some shoot, the kids in school, whatever staff was around that discreet?

A woman that blatant, he could see why she got beat up.

No, scratch that, there was never an excuse.

Still…

What was he getting himself into?

Just south of Point Dume-well before Solar Canyon-she stuck an arm out of the driver's window, jabbed three times to the left.

Aaron pulled into the center island behind her, hoping no Chippie would happen by. The X5 waited for traffic to pass then swooped up a steep blacktop driveway.

At the top was a series of white, clapboard bungalows. A sign on a post read Surf 'n Sea Beach Hotel.

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