Buried Secrets

2. Romi

2

ROMI

The last time I’d seen the building formerly known as Deals on Wheels, I’d been eighteen, and I’d run out of there screaming with Hannah Haines—or Hannah Willmer as she’d been called back then—at roughly three a.m. after we got dared to spend the night there. We’d taken sleeping bags and flashlights and huddled behind the dusty remains of an old desk until we heard footsteps in the early hours. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Hannah tried to convince me it was just one of the boys playing a prank, but as my heart threatened to hammer its way through my ribcage, I’d made an executive decision—we were getting the hell out of Dodge. Fast.

Of course it had been the boys, but thankfully, their photos of our not-so-elegant escape had turned out too blurry to identify our faces. Otherwise, those would have come back to haunt me as well.

As things stood, Deals on Wheels was still the stuff of nightmares, but for a very different reason.

“Not too late to back out,” Davis murmured as we approached the door.

But it was. I couldn’t hurt my brother like that. And besides, I needed answers.

Two days had passed since I’d gotten the call from Luca telling me a body had been found in a deserted old cabin in the forest. A skeleton. He’d been the one to find it—find her—and when he called with the news, I’d heard the hitch in his voice. My brother, my tower of strength, former Army Ranger and current Sheriff’s Deputy, had been on the verge of tears. I’d been on a break in the middle of a shoot, and when he told me how he’d recognised the dress she was wearing, the one with the hibiscus flowers that she’d made herself, I’d ruined my make-up. I’d loved that dress. Mom had sewn most of her own clothes—partly because she’d been talented, but mostly because we were dirt poor—and she’d made me a matching outfit.

The first time I put it on, she’d done my hair and painted my nails, and I twirled in front of the age-spotted mirror in her bedroom.

“I love it! But I don’t understand—why are the flowers called ‘his biscuits’?”

She’d laughed that tinkly laugh of hers. “Not ‘his biscuits,’ chiquita. Hibiscus. My mom used to grow them in our yard when I was little.”

“Can I see them?”

“Nana’s in heaven now, but maybe we can grow the flowers ourselves?” Mom had twirled alongside me. “Now we’re twins.”

It was one of the few memories I had of her. And after she left, I’d never worn the hibiscus dress again.

The day Luca called, I’d messed up the shoot. Intergalactic space maidens weren’t meant to cry. I’d tried to pout my way through it, but after half an hour, Ishmael, the designer, had taken me aside and said we’d reschedule. Okay, what he’d actually done was wave his arms around and inform everyone that the vibe was wrong, all wrong, and then skateboarded out of the studio, but that was just his way. He acted like a lunatic, but I’d known him for years, and underneath the endless drama, he had a good heart. The best.

My agent had grudgingly cancelled a couple of appearances and pulled me out of a runway show, Davis had rescheduled his meetings, and now here we were. Ready to sit down and discuss my mom’s murder over dinner with my oldest friends, a bona fide princess, and the man who’d stomped all over my heart.

Luca opened the door and pulled me into a hug.

“Hey, you only saw me an hour ago.”

“Can’t I give my little sister two hugs in one day?”

“Less of the ‘little.’ I’m as tall as you are.”

“Yeah, well, I’m wider.”

Perhaps not for much longer if the smells wafting in my direction were anything to go by. Garlic, tomato sauce, bread… I’d barely eaten since I got the news about Mom, but now my stomach grumbled. Brooke appeared behind Luca, casual in jeans and a pale pink sweater with two cherries printed on the front. My brother hadn’t gussied up either, but after Davis and I had unpacked at the hotel, I’d changed into a plum pencil dress with an asymmetric neckline and studded belt, teamed with high-heeled pumps and full make-up. Perhaps I should have worn pants? I’d considered it, but I’d figured a power dress would send a better “f**k you” message to Aaron. And Davis had worn a suit, so I wasn’t totally overdressed.

“Okay, fine, you can hug me.”

“I wasn’t asking for permission.”

Davis got another cool handshake. I could tell Luca wasn’t his biggest fan, although he’d never said as much in words. I suspected it had something to do with our age difference—seventeen years—or the fact that every news article ever written about us referred to me as a trophy girlfriend. But the journalists didn’t understand our relationship. Davis was the best thing that had happened to me since my modelling career took off. He supported me, grounded me, kept me sane. It was Davis who’d helped me to pick up the pieces after Aaron tore me apart, and I’d forever be grateful.

Luca finally let me go, and I followed him into Deals on Wheels. An open door to the left led to Aaron’s apartment, and the giant ramp cars had once driven up to reach the second floor stretched ahead.

“I’ll give you the tour while Brooke finishes dinner. Start upstairs?”

“Sure.”

Anything to put off the inevitable.

We trailed Luca up the ramp to the apartment he and Brooke called home. It was smaller than Aaron’s—although still expansive—thanks to the roof terrace that took up a third of the top floor. Luca turned on the outside lighting as I peered through French doors securely bolted from the inside.

“We haven’t finished the terrace yet. Brooke wanted palm trees, so I got her palm trees, but it’s still a work in progress.”

“It’s a good space,” Davis commented. “Got a view of the ocean from here?”

“Not the best view, but we can see the water from the far side.”

“You could put a grill over there. Or a hot tub.”

“Aaron’s got a hot tub on his wish list, but that’ll have to wait for a few years. We don’t have the budget for luxuries at the moment.”

If Luca and Brooke had wanted a hot tub, I’d have bought them a hot tub, but Aaron could go f**k himself. Or drown himself—either worked for me. I managed a non-committal shrug.

“It’ll look great when it’s finished.”

“You given any more thought to buying an apartment?”

Translation: how serious were things with Davis?

“I travel so much that I’d barely use it. When I’m in New York, I can just stay in Davis’s penthouse.”

Judging by his, “Hmm,” Luca didn’t much like that answer, but I ignored his disapproval and made the right noises while he showed me around his new home. And it was a great place. Light, airy, generously sized rooms. Brooke’s artwork decorated the walls, and she’d made the place homey with cushions and candles. She always did have an eye for colour.

When Luca showed me the guest bedroom, I felt a pang of regret that I wasn’t staying there. The suite at the Peninsula was comfortable and opulent, the same as in every other five-star hotel I’d stayed in, but no matter how many personal touches they added—the slippers, the selection of herbal teas, the fashion magazines—it wasn’t home.

Sometimes, I missed having a home.

“Dinner’s ready,” Brooke yelled from downstairs, and I stiffened on instinct. Bracing for what was to come.

“You okay?” Luca asked.

Dammit. He always had been observant, but he also only saw what he wanted to see. He’d remained mercifully oblivious to my crush on Aaron all through high school, and that was the way it needed to stay.

“Absolutely fine.”

“Don’t worry about meeting Brie. She’s surprisingly down to earth.”

Oh, thank goodness, he’d misinterpreted. “I’m sure we’ll get along.”

“Fashion royalty versus blue blood,” Davis murmured.

“What does that make you? The King of Wall Street?”

He flashed me a grin. “More of a duke.”

Aaron wasn’t seated at the dining table, but there was a place set for him. Waiting for him to appear was like slow torture when all I wanted to do was rip off the Band-Aid.

Colt rose to greet me with a kiss on the cheek, and he had a genuine smile for Davis too. He’d been my brother’s other partner in crime growing up, a regular guy until he’d taken his duties as a sheriff’s deputy to the nth degree and saved a princess—twice—as well as falling in love with her. My brother, a freshly minted deputy himself, had given me a blow-by-blow account of the gorier elements of the drama, and I’d followed the rest in the papers.

At least the press was being a little kinder to Gabrielle now that she’d starred in her own fairy tale. The paparazzi could make a girl’s life a misery. They’d done several hatchet jobs on me over the years, but in the early days, I hadn’t known how to handle the attention. Back then, I’d been a slave to the old adage of “no publicity is bad publicity,” but in recent years, I’d followed Davis’s advice and kept a much lower profile. No drunken parties, no wild vacations, no running my mouth at people who provoked me. New Romi went to bed early, ate healthily, and embraced teetotalism.

Fuck, it was hard.

“Good to see you. Both of you,” Colt added, but his focus was on me. “How’ve you been keeping?”

“Busy, always busy.”

Not entirely true—Davis made sure I scheduled downtime—but easier to fib than to explain why I’d barely been home for eight whole years.

“I’d like you to meet Brie, and do you remember Kiki?”

“I do, but she was just a baby when…before.” When I’d flown in to attend her mom’s funeral and then flown straight out again. “Hi, Brie.”

What was the proper etiquette for greeting a princess? Should I have used her title? I’d asked Davis during the flight to Portland, but he’d been clueless, and Google had been no help either, not for a private setting. At the fashion show, we’d been briefed not to say “pleased to meet you” because that was meant to be a given, and she’d offered a bland smile and a few pleasantries as I curtsied. No touching. Dammit, I should have asked Luca, but my mind had been on other things. So I bobbed in a sort of curtsy, and Brooke burst out laughing.

“Don’t curtsy,” Kiki whispered, and my cheeks burned. “You’re really tall. Are you a princess too?”

“No, I’m just Luca’s sister, but thanks for the tip.”

Brie’s smile seemed genuine. “Honestly, I wish the curtsying would go the way of codpieces and court jesters, but my mother’s big on tradition. The whole greeting thing is a minefield. Do I hug people? Give them a high five? Deon from the grocery store does this weird thing with fist bumps, and I get it wrong every time.”

This wasn’t how I’d expected Gabrielle to be at all. She seemed so…down to earth.

“I’ve never loved the hugging thing. When you get poked and prodded by strangers daily, the last thing you want is more strangers squeezing the breath out of you.”

“No curtsies, no hugs from strangers. We’re set. Although we have met once before, I believe. You probably don’t remember.”

She remembered? “No, I do.”

Luca looked surprised too. “You’ve met Brie already?”

“Very briefly.”

“At a fashion show in Denmark,” Brie explained. “Sorry if I didn’t seem thrilled to be there. As I recall, my sister was meant to go, but she felt unwell, so I had to step in. And fashion really isn’t my thing. Although it’s an admirable pursuit,” she added hastily. “It’s just that I like to sail, and there isn’t much call for haute couture on a boat. Anyhow, it’s lovely to see you again, and I’m so sorry to hear about your mother.”

When I first heard that Colt had hooked up with Princess Gabrielle, I’d checked the calendar to see if it was April first, but now that I saw her away from the spotlight, I understood why they’d ended up together. Colt was a good man, the best, and Brie was easy to like.

“The identification isn’t official yet,” Colt reminded us.

“We all know what happened.” Luca’s voice sounded hollow. That he should be affected more than me wasn’t a surprise—I’d barely been six when Mom disappeared, and the fleeting memories I’d stored away had faded with time. Luca had been eight, and although he’d confided that it hurt to think of what we’d lost, he’d kept those pictures of her in his mind.

“Yes, we do know what happened. Have you arrested Dad yet?”

“That’s not the way things work.”

“But you’re a deputy. It’s your job to arrest people.”

“I am, and it is, but I’m not working this case.”

What? Why the hell wasn’t Luca investigating Mom’s murder? Didn’t he want her killer to pay?

“But there are only two deputies in Baldwin’s Shore. Colt’s working the case on his own?”

“Neither of us is working it. It’s a conflict of interest. We just had a meeting with the state police this afternoon, and a detective from the Roseburg office is gonna take over.”

“Roseburg? But that’s crazy. You know the town. You know the people.”

“The sheriff didn’t give me a choice in the matter. I’m not allowed to be involved.”

We’d see about that. Who had more passion to investigate, to see the case through to the end than Luca?

“Who’s the sheriff nowadays?”

“Mort Newman.”

“What, still? He had one foot in the grave when I was in high school.”

“Yeah, well, people keep electing him.”

“Maybe he’s gone senile? I’ll speak to him tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I’ll be diplomatic, I promise.”

Luca just groaned. Okay, so I’d lacked tact as a teenager, but that was ages ago. And during the intervening years, I’d mastered the art of pretending to be nice to people I didn’t like. Only two weeks ago at a movie premiere, I’d told Emiliana Sardo that her outfit looked fantastic when in reality, she’d reminded me of an anorexic cassowary.

“This is the way it has to be,” Colt told me. “We don’t like it either, but if this investigation leads to an arrest—which everyone hopes it does—the investigator will end up on the stand testifying. A defence attorney’s gonna search for any signs of bias or favouritism and use that to sink the case, and the fact that Luca and his father aren’t on good terms counts as a major bias.”

“So he just gets sidelined?”

“He’ll be a witness. You’ll both be witnesses. I’m sure the detective from Roseburg will want to sit down and ask you a few questions before you leave.”

“Are you sure there’s no way…?”

“We ran it past Aaron, and he agrees with the sheriff.”

“Oh, and Aaron’s so fantastic at everything. Try asking someone else.”

Luca gave me an odd look. s**t.

“Well, he is a lawyer. Romi, did Aaron do something to upset you?”

Yes. Aaron had done everything to upset me. But I couldn’t tell my brother that, so I forced what I hoped was an innocent expression.

“No, no, everything’s fine. I’m just a little upset in general at the moment.”

“Hell, we all are. Where is Aaron, anyway?”

Nobody answered because Brooke walked in with a platter of hors d’oeuvres. Brie managed to grab a breadstick before Luca and Colt fell on the snacks like a pair of starving seagulls.

“I made appetisers,” Brooke said, stating the obvious. “Marinated mozzarella balls, prosciutto bruschetta, and spiedinis, which are breaded beef and onion kebabs.”

I knew what spiedinis were. After all, I’d spent a lot of time in Milan. Which led us to a bigger problem. Not quite Aaron-sized, but it sure had the potential to be awkward.

“Luca didn’t tell you I’m a vegan?”

The colour slowly drained out of Brooke’s face. “What? But you used to love cheeseburgers?”

“I thought it was just a phase,” my brother mumbled.

To be fair, so had I, initially. Going vegan had been all the rage in the fashion world several years ago, and as so often happened in those days, the peer pressure had gotten to me and I’d jumped onto the bandwagon. But after a photo shoot with a bunch of baby goats, I’d picked up one of the pamphlets lying around, and now I’d never eat animal products again. Plus I steered clear of leather. Sure, that closed off some opportunities, but it also opened the doors to others, with the added bonus that eating a bunch of veggies helped me to keep my weight down. Appearances were everything in my world.

“I haven’t eaten animal products in six years. When we met up in Casablanca for my birthday last March, we ate at a vegan restaurant, remember? The waitress asked how your food was, and you made a crack about it needing a good steak to go with it, but she didn’t see the funny side?”

“Oh, yeah. Shit.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you forgot to tell me. Uh, we’ve got olives. And salad.”

“You put parmesan in the salad,” Brie reminded her.

“Dammit, and there’s beef in the lasagne. And cheese, and milk, and eggs.”

Yes, definitely awkward. “I can eat the breadsticks.”

“Why didn’t you tell Brooke you’d turned vegan?” Luca asked.

“Because I’m hopeless at keeping in touch with people, okay?”

Luca used to say my memory was like a sieve, but it was more of a colander. Sometimes, even important stuff slipped away. I’d gotten slightly better in the last couple of years since Davis’s assistant got involved—she organised birthday and Christmas gifts, sent flowers whenever a friend was feeling down, and commented on my social media posts—but I still tended to block Baldwin’s Shore from my mind. Especially after the Aaron debacle.

Although he’d always remembered my dietary preferences, at least. The last time we’d been out for dinner, he’d picked out a vegan burger joint in the East Village, then insisted on splitting the check even though I earned twenty times more than he did. Aaron was one person I had kept in touch with, and although I never wanted to speak to him again, a twisted part of me still missed our weekly chats.

Chats I was almost certain Luca knew nothing about.

“Let’s not argue,” Brooke said, ever the diplomat. “I’ll call Aaron and then whip up something vegan for Romi. You can eat pasta, right?”

Now wasn’t the time to complain about carbs. “As long as it’s not the kind with egg in it.”

Brooke patted her pockets until she found her phone. She’d lost weight since I’d last seen her. Not a huge amount, but enough to nip her waist in an inch or two.

“Oh, wait, Aaron sent a message.” Her face fell. “He says he’s been delayed at work and not to wait for him.”

“Guess he’s got an important case to deal with,” Colt said.

Either that or he was avoiding me. And if it was the latter, I could only be grateful.