Someone to Love Read online

  When the cab stopped, Nigh was frowning. None of it made sense. They got out in front of a very modern building, all glass framed in steel, as cold as steel could be.

  “Charming,” Nigh said, but Jace didn’t answer her. His face was set in a rigid mask that she couldn’t read.

  A man wearing a loose suit—to hide his gun? Nigh wondered—met them in the lobby and took them up in an elevator that had only two buttons on the panel: lobby and penthouse.

  They said nothing as they rode up. The apartment was exactly as Nigh would have imagined it: all white marble with a few touches of color obviously put there by some overpriced designer who didn’t care about the people living there, just that the place would photograph well.

  They passed two more unsmiling men before entering a small, round room that seemed to jut out over London. A table was set for tea. The men left the room and for a moment Nigh and Jace stood in there alone.

  “Pretty dishes,” Nigh whispered, but Jace didn’t speak. His eyes were on the door on the other side of the room. Within a minute, it opened and in walked a man who was only forty, but he looked fifty. His face was haggard, as though everything he’d ever done in his life was etched there. There were huge bags under his eyes. His clothes were as Carol had described them: shiny. They were expensive and made for his heavy-set body, but there was something about them that looked cheap. The man maketh the clothes, Nigh thought.

  Graciously, he motioned to the chairs and told them to sit down. His voice was gruff but polite.

  “Shall I pour?” Nigh asked. Jace had sat down, but his spine was rigid.

  “So you’re the bloke Stacy was plannin’ to marry,” Tony Vine said, looking Jace up and down. “And now you want to talk about her.”

  “I want to hear what you have to say,” Jace said, and there was so much anger and hostility in his voice that Nigh wanted to kick him under the table.

  “Tea, Mr. Vine?” she asked loudly.

  “Tony, please,” he said, smiling as he took the tea, and for a moment she could see the charm that this man had once exuded. He wasn’t handsome, but there was something interesting about him. But then, power was an aphrodisiac, wasn’t it?

  “All right,” Tony said, “I’ll tell you about that night. I owe that to Stacy. But I’ll tell you right away that it wasn’t my fault that she killed herself. I had nothing to do with it.” He glanced at Jace’s expressionless face, then back at Nigh. “The last time I saw her, it was the worst time in my life.”

  She smiled at him and handed him a plateful of little sandwiches.

  Tony looked at Jace. “I know you were engaged to her and you look like the kind of man she should’ve married, but I can tell you now that I don’t have time to sugarcoat the story for you. Can you handle that?”

  “I can handle anything you can dish out,” Jace said, his eyes flashing.

  “How about a cake, Tony?” Nigh said to cover Jace’s open hostility.

  “You’re a real lady, aren’t you?”

  “Heavens no,” Nigh said. “I’m a reporter.”

  That made Tony laugh so hard he nearly choked. “I like you,” he said. “Would you like to go out with me sometime?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m taken.” She didn’t say by whom, but he glanced at Jace, then away again.

  “Okay, that’s enough chitchat. Let’s get on with it. I met Stacy Evans when we were equals. Yeah, I know I was a man and she was a kid in school, but she was a lot older than her years, and, well, I didn’t grow up until I had to. Whatever, we were well matched. And, besides, she was rebellin’ against her rich father who’d dumped her for his floozy of a wife, and I was crazy with anger against the toffs in the big house.”

  “Priory House,” Jace said.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Stace and I met in Margate. She was sneaking into the pub and acting like she was old enough to drink. She fooled the barman, but not me. Let’s say that our attraction was instant. She was insatiable!” Tony said, smiling in memory.

  Nigh reached across the table and put her hand on Jace’s.

  “The house was empty then, as it usually was, and we made love in every room.”

  “And no one knew about this?” Jace said, his tone implying that Tony was a liar.

  Tony didn’t take offense. “I didn’t say that. Nana knew, but then she wanted me to marry Stace.”

  “Nana?” Nigh asked.

  “Everybody knows her as Mrs. Browne, but she’ll always be Nana to me.”

  Nigh could feel some of the tension leave Jace. He was interested in this new twist to the story.

  “Your grandmother wanted you to marry Stacy?” Nigh asked.

  “She never said so in so many words, but I knew she did. Stacy was a strong-willed girl and her family was rich. I was already involved in a lot of things that Nana didn’t like even back then. I think she thought that a good woman could straighten me out.”

  Tony’s features took on a dreamy appearance. “I want to say that Stacy was the love of my life. I’ve never felt about anybody like I did her. I adored her, the way she looked and smelled. The way she talked. She was everything I’d seen in the rich people that used to live in Priory House, but that I could never have. I never got over that she was in love with me, with common-as-dirt Tony Vine.”

  “Was she in love with you?” Nigh asked.

  “Oh yeah. She really was.” He looked down at his teacup. “I don’t know what would have happened if her dad hadn’t come to his senses and let her go home.” Tony gave a sigh. “She wanted to stay with me. She wanted to drop out of school and live with me, but I talked her into going back. I said I’d write her, but I never did.”

  “But why did you send her away?” Nigh couldn’t help asking.

  “Pride. She didn’t think so, but I knew that her rich dad would take one look at me and…” Tony shrugged.

  “Did you see her again after she left?” Nigh asked softly.

  “Not for years. As I said, May of 2002 was a real low point in my life. The lowest. I was in some serious trouble with some goons from Liverpool.” He shrugged. “I played the horses and lost everything. They were after me.

  “I went to the only place where I knew I’d be safe: Priory House. Nana fed me and mothered me, and I hid in the rooms, sleeping in one bed after another. But I was bored. Bored to being crazy. I had a computer and an Internet hookup and on impulse I typed in Stacy’s name. I saw that she was about to marry some rich guy and I wondered what it would be like to see her again.

  “The house was for sale and Nana used to make me hide in the old tunnel when the agent brought buyers to look at the place. I used to go up into the tower room and make haunting noises and scare them away.

  “Anyway, I cut up a sale brochure and sent her a note.”

  “Ours again. Together forever. See you there on 11 May 2002,” Jace said quietly.

  “I see you found the note,” Tony said, smiling. “I didn’t expect her to show up, but she did.” Turning in his chair, he looked out the window at London. “But it wasn’t the same. We weren’t equals anymore. She was a lady and I was…”

  “A thug,” Jace said.

  Tony’s eyes flashed anger, then he smiled. “Compared to her, you are a thug.”

  Jace nodded once, as though to say touché.

  “She was…” Tony paused, as though trying to find the right words. “She was repulsed by me.” He grinned. “She tried to hide it, but it was there in that one quick flash across her eyes. I saw it, she knew I saw it, and that was the end of it. All those years I’d thought about what might have been, and I guess she had too because she’d left her wedding plans to come to me.”

  “What did you do?” Nigh asked.

  “We stayed up all night and talked,” Tony said, smiling in memory. “We shared a bottle of wine and talked, as friends, not lovers. You know, I think she was relieved that she didn’t love me anymore.”

  “But you weren’t relieved, were you?” Nigh