Tightrope (Burning Cove #3)(41)

“Why not?” she said.

“He lied.”

“You could hear that in his voice?”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”





Chapter 24


Was Matthias paranoid, possibly even delusional? The only thing she knew for certain was that he was convinced of his ability to detect lies.

Amalie was still trying to decide how she felt about that when the two of them walked into the lobby of the Hidden Beach Inn some forty minutes later. Willa was lounging on the sofa reading a copy of Hollywood Whispers. She tossed the paper aside and got to her feet, yawning. She gave Matthias a head-to-toe survey, taking in the jacket slung over one arm, the rolled-up shirtsleeves, and the shoulder pistol. Then she winked at Amalie.

“How was the action at the Carousel?” she asked. “Did you two have a good time?”

“Blew a tire on the way back here,” Amalie said.

“Too bad. Well, you didn’t miss much around here. Mr. Hyde is still out partying. I gave him a key so that he could let himself in when he decides to come back. Now that you two are home, I’m going upstairs to bed.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on things,” Amalie said.

“Sure.” Stifling another yawn, Willa headed for the stairs. “See you in the morning.”

Matthias waited until she reached the landing on the third floor and vanished down a hallway before he turned to Amalie.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I want to clean up and then have a nightcap.”

His expression was hard to read. He had said very little after changing the tire. She had not been in a chatty mood, either. She had been too preoccupied with the possibility that his suspicions about the driver of the car that had stopped to offer assistance were correct.

“A nightcap sounds like a very good idea,” she said.

When he came back downstairs, she had two glasses of brandy poured. She handed one to him and led the way into the conservatory.

From dawn until dusk, the plants that crowded the two-story, glass-walled room created a lush, green retreat. After dark, the glow of the moon and the low lighting along the tiled path transformed the space into a seductive garden of intimate, inviting shadows.

“It was this room that made the villa irresistible to me,” Amalie confided. “I fell in love with it at first sight. I never had a garden when I was growing up. My mother kept some herbs in pots in our train car but we were never in one place long enough to plant flowers or vegetables. My parents used to talk about how they would have a garden when they retired.”

Matthias looked around. “I understand.”

Amalie stopped at one of the cushioned wrought iron benches, put her glass on the small table, and sat down.

Matthias put his glass beside hers and sat down next to her. His thigh was very close to hers but he did not quite touch her.

“You’re wondering if I’m delusional, aren’t you?” he said.

He spoke in a neutral tone, as if making a simple observation. As if he was accustomed to people thinking that he was mentally unbalanced.

“It did cross my mind that you might have been wrong about the driver of that car that stopped,” she said. “But under the circumstances you were right to be cautious.”

“In other words, maybe I’m just paranoid? Not delusional?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She picked up her glass. “I don’t really care.”

For the first time, he seemed surprised. He paused the brandy glass halfway to his mouth and turned his head to look at her.

“You don’t care if I’m paranoid or delusional?”

“Maybe once upon a time I might have worried about it. But what happened in Abbotsville changed me in some ways. I’ve developed a fear of heights. I know I’ll probably never have the nerve to fly again, even if I could get other artists to trust me. These days I sleep with a gun in my bedside drawer. Sometimes I wake up with nightmares. So, no, I don’t have a problem with you being very, very cautious.”

“Because deep down you wonder if there really was someone watching the night Harding tried to murder you. You wonder if he’s still out there.”

“Yes. And that, in turn, makes me wonder if I’m paranoid or even delusional. Nope, I don’t care if you have similar problems.”

“You shouldn’t doubt your memories of that night,” Matthias said.

“I can’t trust them. I was blinded by fear. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.”

“No, you would have been thinking very clearly. But you were focused on survival. You would have tuned out everything else that was going on around you except the source of the threat. If you heard laughter, then it was because your intuition was telling you that it was part of the threat.”

“You sound as if you know how it feels.”

“I told you that I almost always know when someone is lying. The problem is usually determining the intent of the lie. But there’s another factor. Strong emotion can effectively blind my senses.”

“Are you talking about your own emotions or the emotions of other people?”

“My own. If I let my personal feelings get control, they skew the analysis. That’s what happened with Margaret Dover.”