“Yeah.” Eli was nearly laughing. “She really hated it! It was just one night, but I got her to take that black stuff off her eyes, and she pulled her hair back. She looked great. Like a real person. And she talked to me. I thought things were going well, but then the next morning she started complaining again, then we overheard this man and . . .” He trailed off.
“You’re afraid for her to get involved,” Frank said.
“Yes.”
“Good. I think you should leave this to me. I’ll have my people look into it. If he’s pulling a scam like this in his business, I doubt if he’s honest with the IRS. You and Chelsea should go back to Edilean and spend some time together. Take her shopping. Women love it when you go shopping with them.”
“Is that why Mom buys all your clothes for you? Why she oversees the tailor when you have suits made? Why she—”
“I get your point,” Frank said. “Maybe shopping is too much to deal with. You don’t want Chelsea involved with this lying scumbag, but I don’t want you around him either. Two times I’ve had the authorities at my door saying you’d been injured. That’s my lifetime limit.”
“Both times it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have—”
“Stuck your nose where it didn’t belong!” Frank said. “I’ve heard all that. I want you to promise me to get out of there. Both of you! Got it?”
“Yeah, I do.” Eli hesitated. “Dad, do you have any hints on how to make a woman love you? I mean,
really and truly love you?”
“Lord no!” Frank said with feeling. “If it hadn’t been for two interfering kids, today I’d be—” He let out his breath. “I don’t even want to think where I’d be. But it sounds like you’re doing well. You and Chelsea used to be master sleuths. Too bad you can’t find something less dangerous to fix than a crooked businessman.”
“You know, Dad, I think you might have come up with a good idea. I wonder what girls today wear to a prom?”
“From what I’ve seen, they dress like thirty-year-old hookers. But I think Chelsea would be able to answer that better than me.”
“I agree. I have to go. Tell Mom and the kids I love them. And you,” Eli added.
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Love doesn’t cover it. I owe you and Chelsea my life. Good night.”
When Eli got back into the room, Chelsea was sitting on a bed, her face clean and shiny, wrapped up in a bathrobe, her long legs bare and a computer open on her lap.
He knew he’d never seen anything more delicious-looking in his life.
“Was that a call to Frank, your mom, Pilar, or Jeff?” she asked without looking up. “Or was it the prez?”
“Dad. Jeff seems to have a girlfriend and the president is busy. Pilar is—”
“Is sick of you.”
“Is she?” Eli asked. “Is that why you weren’t jealous of her? By the way, Jeff fixed all that up,
not me.”
“Of course he did. You have the hot body but a lack of interest in the mating ritual, while Jeff is the opposite.”
What she’d said was so ridiculous that Eli laughed. “You and Jeff would get along well. He wants to do a soul exchange and put himself in my body. But of course my body would deteriorate without consistent exercise—which he hates. Move over.”
He sat down on the bed beside her and leaned over to look at the screen.
“You should take a shower,” she said. “You smell like smoke.”
“What artificial scent does your polo player use?”
“I’m not telling. Look what I found.” She turned the screen around. There was a newspaper article about the suicide of Gilbert Ridgeway, one of the partners of Longacre Furniture.
“Suicide?” Eli was frowning. He took the computer from her and began typing. In minutes he’d brought up an official coroner’s report on Gil Ridgeway.