About That Kiss:A Heartbreaker Bay Novel(7)

He smiled. "Where's the fun in that?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Say it, Joe."

He let out a low laugh. "Fine. My help for the mirror. You know, you  might just be the most stubborn woman I've ever met, and that's saying  something."

"Do me a favor and don't compare me to the women you date," she said.  "Or whatever you do with them. We all know the only reason you even  remember their names is that you take them to the coffee shop in the  morning and then read what gets written on their cup."

Okay, there'd most definitely been a time in his life when that had been  true, but he was slowing down in his old age. Having just turned  thirty, he was discovering that he wasn't nearly as entertained by  hooking up as he used to be. Not that he planned on admitting that. "If  I'm going to do this," he said, "I need details. All of them, Kylie."

"Sure," she said so quickly that he knew she was full of shit.

But it took someone else just as full of shit to recognize it. "Then come back and sit down," he said. "Fill in some blanks."

She headed past him, shoulder-checking him as she did, which made him want to laugh.

Even up against the wall, she came out fighting.

She moved past his visitor chairs to his window, looking down at the  courtyard below. "The penguin is a wood carving that has no value to  anyone but me," she said. "It was my grandpa's." She paused. "It's all I  have of him."

"Your grandpa . . . Michael Masters, right?"

"Yes."

"He was an artist," he said. "A woodworker like you. Is his stuff valuable?"

"It wasn't," she said to the glass. "At least not until he died. Almost ten years ago now."

There was something in her carefully emotionally blank voice that gave  her away. His second inkling that nothing about this was a joke to her.  "How many of these carvings exist?"

"All I know about for sure is this one," she said. "My grandpa made it  for me as a toy. He said penguins stick with their families for life.  Like him and me." She paused. "I think I remember him mentioning once  that there might be another, but I never saw it."

"Who knew this one existed?" Joe asked.

"No one," she said. "The penguin was a toy to amuse me when I was little. As far as I know, he never made any for sale."

But clearly someone else had known it existed. He watched as she turned  from the window and looked at him, and he saw a depth of hidden pain and  vulnerability that nearly took his breath. Shit. He was really going to  do this. He was actually going on the hunt for a toy, a chunk of wood.  He never made decisions from a place of emotion. At least not anymore,  not since that long-ago time when what he'd had to find was his sister.  Then he'd run on pure emotion and it'd nearly gotten her killed. "Tell  me more about your grandpa."

She turned away from him again and took a moment to speak. "He died after a fire in his shop."

"Were you close?" he asked.

"Yes." There was another long pause. "I lived with him at the time."

Hell. He gave her a moment to get herself together and took a deep  breath himself. So much for the emotional distance. "Were you hurt?" he  asked quietly.

"I wasn't there that night."

Joe wasn't completely heartless, and his chest got tight at the guilt in her voice. "Damn, Kylie. I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago."

Yeah, but as he knew, time didn't heal shit. Just as he knew-at least in  his experience-that crime didn't discriminate. Bad shit happened to  good people. "What about your parents?"

"What about them?" she asked.

"Why were you living with your grandpa and not them?"

She shrugged. "They weren't really parent material." She met his  questioning gaze. "They were kids when the stick turned blue. They  weren't a couple or anything. My dad didn't stay around, and my mom  wasn't . . . equipped to deal back then."         

     



 

"Do you see them now?" he asked, curious about her. He knew that she was  quiet, thoughtful, creative. He'd always wondered what made her tick.  Now that he knew she'd been raised by her grandfather, things made more  sense, like the way she seemed like such an old soul, or could walk into  a room and turned heads but never even realized it.

"My dad works on the oil rigs in the Gulf," she said. "He blows through  San Francisco every few years. My mom's living la vida loca in the  Mission District with her current boyfriend, but we do best with a  little distance between calls and visits."

Joe and his mom had been incredibly close before she'd died when he'd  been ten. And though he never knew how to describe his relationship with  his father, they were in each other's lives, forever bound by the ties  of blood and family. Same with Molly. The three of them had many faults,  but not caring wasn't one of them. They were in a love/hate and  undoubtedly dysfunctional relationship, but he had no doubt they'd stand  at his back in any situation, no questions asked.

Well, okay, there'd be questions. And yelling, lots of yelling, but they'd still be at his back.

It seemed the person Kylie had ever had at her back was gone, and though  he knew she wouldn't want him to feel bad for her, he did. It sucked.  It also made her life and her success in the artistic world all the more  amazing for the fact that she was accomplishing it on her own. "Tell me  more about the fire," he said, not daring to risk her wrath by offering  sympathy. "His entire shop burned? And what about any inventory in it?"

"Everything was destroyed," she said.

"Which would've have made any work of his that had already sold instantly more valuable," he said. "Right?"

She turned to face him, her brow furrowed. "Yes. I guess I hadn't thought of it that way."

"That's why you're paying me the big bucks." He smiled, hoping she knew he was teasing. "Okay, we'll start with some paperwork."

She looked startled. And annoyed. "You mean like forms?"

"No, a list," he said. "How many people knew the both of you? Anyone  have anything against either of you, a grudge, a vendetta? Anything?"

She stared at him like he was crazy. "No one had anything against my  grandpa. He was the sweetest, kindest, most generous man on the planet."

Uh-huh. Call him jaded, but everyone had secrets. And everyone had a bad side.

She took in his expression and shook her head. "No one was mad at him." She paused. "Or me."

He went brows up.

"Hey," she said. "I'm a delight."

He laughed and she rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine, I'm a pain in the ass, whatever. Just find my penguin."

The way she said that, "my penguin," like it'd been her most treasured  possession, dried up his good humor. He knew what it was like to love  family so deeply it hurt and he also knew what it was like to lose them.  His dad was still kicking, but Joe had lost him just the same. "So  you're saying no one was pissed off at him or you."

"That's what I'm saying."

"Then let's try another angle," he said. "Greed instead of revenge."

"Okay," she said slowly. Doubtfully. And Joe got it. Most people didn't  give a lot of thought to motives behind a crime. Most people's minds  didn't go there.

He wasn't most people.

"It's someone who knew the both of you," he said. "Or someone who might  have heard something from someone who knew the both of you, or they  wouldn't have had any idea that this wood thing even existed."

"Penguin wood carving," she corrected him. "It's a penguin wood carving, not a ‘wood thing.'"

"Right," he said. "Penguin wood carving."

"My grandpa was simple," she said. "And quiet. He didn't go out, didn't  have friends he hung out with. He liked to stay home and be with me."

Joe was really glad that she'd had him when it seemed as if she'd not  been able to count on her parents, but he could only imagine how lonely  and sheltered she'd been. "How about employees?"         

     



 

"He didn't have any."

"No one? Not an office helper or apprentice? No one at all?" he asked, finding that hard to believe.

"I handled his phones and the books," she said, "although he did have apprentices here and there. I didn't think about them."

He nodded, not liking the vision he was getting of how her younger years  had gone. She'd lived lean and isolated. "Can you list all the  apprentices?"

"I think so. But-"

He pulled out his desk chair, gestured for her to sit, and pushed a pad of paper and a pen in front of her.

"Okay." She bent over the pad in concentration, her long, wavy, light  brown hair falling into her face. With a sound of annoyance, she coiled  it up on top of her head with an elastic ribbon she'd had on her wrist.  She went back to the list and wrote in silence for a few minutes before  handing him the pad.