Faking It Read online

  Right, Tilda thought. Lucifer, right here in my sheets. He did not learn to scam people in heaven. But the next morning, after she’d taken Steve out for his morning Dumpster encounter, she found out Davy might be on the side of the angels after all.

  “Good morning,” she said to Gwen and Eve when she got to the office. “What’s new?” She poured a glass of pineapple-orange juice as Steve attacked his food bowl, and then she turned to find them watching her. “What?”

  “Louise had a talk with Simon last night,” Gwen said.

  “You talked?” Tilda said, raising her eyebrows at Eve.

  “He’s with the FBI,” Eve said, and Tilda sat down hard in the desk chair, gripping her juice glass like death.

  “What’s he here for?” she said.

  “He’s here because he’s working with Davy,” Eve said.

  Tilda swallowed. “Davy’s FBI?”

  Eve nodded. “Louise found that exciting. Then I woke up this morning and realized what it meant.”

  “Tell me you’re being nice to Davy,” Gwen said to Tilda. “Don’t make him mad.”

  “I’m not making him mad.” Tilda bit her lip. “Well, I haven’t made him mad lately. You know, that would explain why he was so good at scamming that painting. If he’s FBI, he probably knows all there is to know about crime.”

  “How is he on art fraud?” Gwen said grimly.

  “He was asking a lot of questions about it,” Tilda said. “But I think it was general information. I don’t think he’s here for ... me.” She swallowed. “I mean, we met burgling Clea’s closet, he couldn’t have planned that.”

  “So what was he doing in Clea’s closet?” Eve said. “The FBI is investigating Clea?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tilda said. “He told me she’d made his financial manager embezzle all his money and he’s here to get it back. It sounded personal, not professional.”

  “If he’s FBI, why doesn’t he have her arrested?” Eve said.

  “I don’t know, Eve,” Tilda said, still trying to wrap her mind around the new information. “Maybe it’s part of a plan. He’s a devious son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t get angry with him,” Gwen said. “We need him to like us.”

  “Well, hell, I slept with him,” Tilda said. “You’d think someplace in there he’d have mentioned something like the FB-fucking-I. Are we sure Simon wasn’t just trying to impress Louise into bed?”

  “Louise was in bed,” Eve said, looking at the ceiling. “There were handcuffs. Nice ones. Louise asked him where he’d gotten them.”

  “Great,” Tilda said. “Tonight have Louise ask him what he’s here for.”

  “She can’t,” Eve said. “It’s Sunday. She doesn’t exist again until Wednesday.”

  “She’s not supposed to exist here at all,” Tilda said. “Are you going to tell him who you are?”

  “No. It turns out he has a thing about sleeping with women who are mothers. If I tell him, he’ll be furious.” She sighed. “I’m thinking maybe Louise won’t be back on Wednesday. I’ll leave her at the Double Take.”

  “Well, figure out where the hell she is tonight because Simon’s going to want to know.” Tilda put her juice glass down, not thirsty anymore. “Men tend to miss women who get to the handcuff stage by the second night.”

  “I’m going to miss him, too,” Eve said miserably, and Tilda thought, You’re going to? Not Louise?

  “Miss who?” Nadine said, coming in from the hall. “Steve, baby, poochie, how’s the nose?”

  Steve lifted his head from his food bowl, barked once, and went back to eating.

  “Doesn’t he have a beautiful voice?” Nadine picked up the orange juice carton. “So who’s leaving?”

  “Nobody’s leaving, baby,” Eve said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “How was singing with Burton last night?”

  “The singing part was good,” Nadine said, pouring her juice. “The Burton part, not so. He wants to see me today, though, so maybe he’s sorry.”

  “What did he do?” Eve said, moving into dangerous mother mode.

  “Well,” Nadine said, sitting down at the table. “He acts like he’s this big rebel, walks on the wild side, but it turns out he’s pretty conservative after all. He didn’t like the Lucy dress at all.”

  “What a fool,” Eve said. “You look great in the Lucy dress.”

  “I know.” Nadine sounded perplexed. “I think I may have misjudged him. Men are so seldom what they seem to be.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tilda said, thinking of Davy upstairs, asleep in the security of federal employment. She picked up her orange juice glass, “I have to go work. I start that Monet in New Albany tomorrow.”

  She went down to the basement, Steve with her in case Ariadne decided to come down to the gallery. She really didn’t think Davy was going to arrest her, she wasn’t even sure he was really FBI, but he was still a danger. She locked herself in her dad’s studio, cut a piece of foam core board to dimensions in ratio with the wall in New Albany, and began to lay in the colors for the bathroom lilies while she obsessed on the question. “You’d think he would have told me,” she said to Steve, who lay with his chin on his paws, gazing patiently up at her. “I told him I painted murals. But is he honest with me? No, he says he’s in sales. He consults. What the hell is that, consults!” She was still obsessing when somebody knocked on the door two hours later.

  “What?” she said when she opened the door, and was only marginally relieved to see it was Andrew. “Oh. Hi.”

  “Can I talk to you?” he said, coming in and pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Sure.” Tilda went back to the drawing board.

  “It’s about Simon. And Louise.”

  “Get a life, Andrew.”

  “I can’t really blame him.” Andrew pulled up a stool and sat down beside Tilda. “He seems like a nice guy and Louise probably made the first move.”

  “She jumped him at the door.” Tilda picked up her brush. “Real bundle of lust, our Louise.”

  “But she’s sleeping with him here” Andrew said. “Suppose Nadine finds out?”

  “Finds out what? Nadine knows about Louise.”

  “She doesn’t know Louise is a ...”

  “Yes, Andrew?” Tilda said, laying in another ultramarine wash.

  “She thinks Louise just sings,” Andrew finished.

  “Andrew, you’re a good man, but you’re an idiot. Nadine knows exactly what Louise is. Nadine is smarter than the rest of us put together.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t be seeing it.” Andrew shifted on the stool. “I wish Eve would give up Louise.”

  Tilda sighed. “Right. Then who headlines the Double Take?”

  Andrew blinked at her. “Well, she’d be Louise there. Just on stage.”

  “You know,” Tilda put down her brush. “There are times when you talk like a straight guy.”

  “What?” Andrew said, appalled. “What did I say?”

  “You only want Eve to be sexual in service to you,” Tilda said. “That sucks, Andrew. You dealt her a lousy hand, and now you want her to play by your rules.”

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t know I was gay. I meant it when I said I loved her. I do love her.”

  “Yeah,” Tilda said. “Well, if you love her, respect her for what she is.”

  “I would,” Andrew said, frowning, “if I knew what that was. I don’t think she does.”

  “Well, she’s the one who gets to figure that out, not you.” Tilda picked up her brush again.

  “So it didn’t go well with Davy, I hear,” Andrew said.

  Tilda set her jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Eve said you had lousy sex on the couch.”

  Tilda looked at the ceiling. “Are there families that don’t discuss each other’s sex lives? Because if there are, I’m going to go live with them.”

  “Why didn’t you marry Scott?” Andrew shook his head. “The sex was good. He was perfec