What the Lady Wants Read online

  For a moment, she felt so sorry for herself, she almost cried.

  Mitch moved to stand behind her, looking out over her shoulder, and she felt vaguely comforted by his nearness. "When the will is probated, we're going to move to a place on the river," she said to him. "It's going to have big open windows and clean hardwood floors and white gauze curtains, and when the breeze blows in off the river, it will fill the whole house."

  "Sounds nice." Mitch's voice was hesitant, and she knew he didn't have the slightest idea what she was talking about, but at least he sounded sympathetic. And he was listening.

  She turned to him. "And we're going to have about twelve dogs."

  "So much for the clean hardwood floors."

  She met his eyes. "It's what I've always wanted. I hate all that velvet and brocade and money at Armand's. All the furniture is too valuable to sit on, and all the books are too valuable to read, and we can't let the sun in because it will fade all the damn velvet." She stopped, aware that her voice was rising. "All we want is a home, June and Harold and I. And that's what this place makes me think of. A home." She gazed at all the comfort in the sunny little room. "Armand wouldn't know how to make a room this nice. Stormy must have chosen this stuff."

  A small voice startled them. "I did."

  Mitch turned around, and Mae saw past him to the childlike woman standing just inside the archway to the room.

  She'd forgotten just how amazingly beautiful Stormy was. Her red-gold ringlets and huge blue eyes were dazzling, but mostly it was Stormy's skin, opal-like in its translucence, that took people's breath away. At twenty-five, Stormy Klosterman was the closest thing to perfect beauty Mae had ever seen.

  Mae shot a glance at Mitch and sighed. He had that stunned look that men usually got when they saw Stormy. It wasn't his fault. Even women tended to stare openmouthed at Stormy. But it still hurt, which was dumb because she didn't care who Mitch stared at.

  "I'm sorry." Mae moved past Mitch to meet her. "We didn't know you were here, or we'd never have barged in on you. Are you all right?"

  Stormy sniffed. There were beautiful bluish shadows under her eyes, and her mouth turned down at the corners. "Yes. It's all right that you're here. I don't live here anymore. Nobody lives here anymore." Her face crumpled and she began to cry, and Mae put her arms around her and led her to the couch.

  "I'm sorry, honey." She looked back over her shoulder at Mitch, who was evidently frozen by the combination of beauty and tears. "Get her a drink of water, will you?"

  "Sure." Mitch blundered past them, trying a closet door before he found the door to the kitchen, only to return with a glass of water. He looked at the weeping Stormy with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

  "Go away," Mae told him.

  "Right," he said, and she heard him climbing the stairs a moment later.

  "I'm sorry," Stormy said when she was all cried out. She straightened her head from Mae's shoulder, and Mae watched with envy as all the pinkness from her crying jag faded into rose-blushed cheeks.

  "Have you been alone all this time?"

  "Yes." Stormy sniffed. "I've been mostly at my new place, but I come by everyday, just to say goodbye." Her face crumpled again.

  Mae patted her on the back as Stormy's head hit her shoulder again. "I'm sorry, Stormy. I should have called you. I just didn't think."

  "That's okay." Stormy's voice was muffled in Mae's shoulder.

  "Is there anything I can do to help?"

  Stormy pulled back a little and looked at her wistfully. "Maybe we could have lunch sometime. Like we were friends, sort of."

  "Lunch?'' Mae nodded, a little confused but grateful to have found something that cheered her up. "Sure. This weekend, maybe?" Friday was the memorial. There was no way she was taking Stormy to lunch before the memorial.

  "Saturday." Stormy beamed at her, and Mae blinked again at how beautiful she was and how volatile. In anyone else, the mood change would have been a sign of mental instability. In Stormy, it was childlike and enchanting. And Armand had planned to leave her to go to Barbara Ross? "I'd like that," Stormy finished. "Lunch. Saturday would be good. At the Levee. I like the Levee."

  "Oh, me, too." Mae did a quick calculation to see if she had enough money to cover lunch at the Levee. Paying Mitch had tapped her out. Maybe if she sold the Mercedes.

  "Why are you here?"

  Mae started, but Stormy's voice was still friendly. "Uh, I..." Telling Stormy that she'd hired a detective to find Armand's murderer was probably not going to be a good move at this point. "I'm looking for something."

  "Who's the guy?"

  Mae blinked at her again.

  "The guy you came with. He's cute." Stormy wrinkled her nose in pixie appreciation.

  "Cute?" Mae stared at her. "Mitch?"

  Stormy nodded. "Like a teddy bear. Is he yours?"

  "Uh, no. I hired him."

  "For what?"

  Mae spoke slowly, taken aback by Stormy's sudden focus. "To find Armand's diary. We thought it might be here."

  Mitch's voice broke in from the doorway. "Well, it isn't."

  Stormy turned to him and smiled. "I know. All his things are packed up. Harold came and took some of them."

  "The diary isn't in the box that Harold brought home," Mae told her. "Is there someplace here he might have hidden it?"

  Stormy shook her head, her ringlets dancing in the sunlight. "No. There's no place like that here." She held out her hand to Mitch. "I'm Stormy."

  He came forward and took it. "Hi, I'm Mitch. Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to kill Armand?"

  "Kill him?" Stormy's voice sounded stunned, and Mae mentally kicked Mitch around Greater Riverbend.

  "He died of a heart attack. I was there. We were making love and he died. In my arms." She started to cry again on the last words, and then she collapsed back onto Mae's shoulder.

  Mae glared up at Mitch, but he just stood there, staring at Stormy with a frown on his face.

  "I loved him." Stormy sobbed. "Nobody believed that. They all thought it was for the money. But I loved him."

  Mae patted her again. "I believe you."

  Stormy stopped crying and sat up, blinking at her. "You do?" She sniffed. "I always liked you."

  "Oh. Thank you." Mae stood up before things got any weirder or, worse, before Stormy started to cry again. "If you're all right, we really have to be going." Mae backed away from her and bumped into Mitch. "We'll see you at the memorial tomorrow."

  "Oh, will Mitch be there, too?" Stormy stood and drifted after them.

  Mitch took Mae's elbow. "Wouldn't miss it." He pulled her through the archway, and Mae waved once to Stormy and then went gratefully, eager to be gone from all the beauty and loneliness and strangeness in the town house.

  Chapter Four

  Mae was so deep in thought that she handed over the keys to Mitch without argument when he asked for them.

  "What's wrong with you?" he asked her when they were in the car.

  "Stormy."

  "No kidding." Mitch put the key in the ignition. "That woman is strange. What's her IQ, twelve?"

  "I think she was upset," Mae said nobly, trying to defend Stormy without feeling cheered that Mitch wasn't impressed with her.

  "That whole setup is strange," Mitch went on. "Why would he buy her another place when they had that one?"

  Mae frowned in agreement. "That's not the only thing that's strange. Could you explain to me why a man would cheat on a mistress as beautiful as Stormy?"

  "Sure." Mitch started the car and pulled out onto the road. "He's a guy."

  Mae felt the anger that she'd been nursing for Armand's insensitivity veer toward Mitch. "There are a lot of men who don't cheat on their lovers."

  "No, there aren't."

  Mae glared at him. "Is this based on personal or professional experience?''

  Mitch looked over at her condescendingly. "Don't get huffy because you don't like the facts. I'll admit I see a lot of it because I get hire