Deadly Décor (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) Read online

  “I’m okay,” he assured her in response to the glare. Before she could scold him, he continued, “We’re ready to move furniture from the second floor to the storage unit. I’m meeting the movers out front.” Caprice was about to remind him to be careful again, but he was out the front door and into the July heat before she could. He could move faster on that boot than most people could without one.

  Not slowing down herself, Eliza passed by her and Bella and returned to the living room. Caprice knew Bob would shortly be moving his tarps and gear to another room—another glaringly purple room that was soon to be muted to cream.

  “I feel like I’m in the middle of a cyclone,” Bella muttered.

  “You’re in the middle of a house makeover. I guess you’ve never been on site while I’m working before.”

  “I guess not. Did Roz tell you I’m going to help get her store up and running?”

  Caprice had helped keep her friend, Roz Winslow, from being charged in her husband’s murder back in May. Afterward, wanting to change her life and needing a purpose, Roz had decided to open a fashion boutique in Kismet.

  “Is Mom going to babysit Megan and Timmy?”

  “Yes, she is. And when she can’t, Nellie can. Roz said it will take a few months to get the store up and running, so most of my help will be behind the scenes. But she feels with my degree in fashion, I was the logical choice.”

  “You have told Joe about this, right?”

  “Yes. And he growled something about not wanting favors from your friends. I got really mad and told him I married him instead of pursuing a career in fashion, so I’m well qualified to help Roz. He kept quiet after that.”

  Bella and Joe seemed to be digging their marriage into a deeper and deeper hole. If they didn’t get help soon, there wouldn’t be anything left to salvage.

  The huge front door of the mansion burst open. Juan and two burly men bustled in. In their tank tops and jeans, and with their bulging muscles, they looked totally out of place in the marble-floored foyer with its two-story ceiling reaching into the second-floor gallery at the front of the house.

  “I’d better go,” Bella said, as Juan directed the men up the stairs. “I feel like I’m in the way.”

  Caprice wasn’t going to admit that Bella was in the way. She would never do that. Family was everything to the De Lucas, even when they disagreed, even when they squabbled, even when they saw each other taking the wrong road.

  “I don’t know what to do to help you, Bella, but you can come to me anytime. You know that.”

  Bella gave Caprice an odd look, as if maybe she didn’t know that, as if maybe Caprice’s opinion mattered more than Caprice had ever imagined.

  She gave Bella a hug and held on tight, the way sisters should. When she leaned away, she saw tears in her sister’s eyes. Bella didn’t cry easily, and Caprice suspected pregnancy hormones were at work.

  “Are you and Joe coming to dinner at Mom’s on Sunday?” No one missed dinner at their parents’, not unless blood and a sudden accident were involved.

  “Joe doesn’t want to come.”

  “Then you and the kids come.”

  “He’s never missed a dinner with Mom and Dad, not since before we were married,” Bella said sadly.

  “Try to convince him to come, Bella. Try to put everything aside for one day at least. Give yourself a break.”

  “I don’t want everybody to gang up on him.”

  “We won’t. I promise. Tell him that. Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “Oh, no. I think he’s still embarrassed about blowing up at you at Mom’s birthday party.”

  She doubted that. Joe had just said what he was thinking—that he wanted to come first with Bella rather than her family always coming first. What a mess.

  “Come on Sunday,” Caprice said again. “Seth will be there.” She knew her sisters were still curious about the handsome doctor, and dinner with their parents would give them the opportunity to get to know him better.

  “Are you serious about him?” Bella asked.

  “Trying not to be.”

  Bella shook her head. “I sure don’t have any advice to give you about your love life right now.”

  That one statement proved Bella wasn’t really herself. She was always ready to give Caprice advice, and anyone else who would listen, too.

  After she walked Bella to the door, watched her go down the steps and climb into her car, which was parked in the circular drive, Caprice returned inside. She heard men’s voices upstairs and lots of noise. Movers at work.

  She headed back to the living room, needing to set up a schedule with Eliza. The real estate agent had mentioned wanting to shoot video and still pictures by the beginning of next week. Everything had to be painted, redesigned, and in place by then.

  In the doorway to the living room, Caprice stopped cold because she heard Eliza say, “You have no right to ask Bella out on a date.”

  How awkward was this? But Eliza and Bob obviously didn’t know she was there.

  “What I do now is none of your damn business,” Bob retorted with what sounded like menace.

  Eliza must have heard menace too, because she took a step back and looked as if she might burst into tears. Was that an act? Or did this multimillionaire entrepreneur really have feelings for this painter? Or . . .

  Was she afraid of him?

  Chapter Two

  On the drive home that evening, Caprice made the turns to her neighborhood by rote, as Bella’s problems tripped through her mind. She turned her sister’s situation over again and again, but she didn’t know what she could do to help. That frustrated her. Was Bella really going to have a coffee date with Bob?

  As she turned onto her street, which was lined with decades-old elms and sycamores that shaded the sidewalk and front yards, she considered the interchange between Bob and Eliza. Were they dating? She was curious about that. Her family often told her she was curious about too many things. With forced conviction, she warned herself their conversation was none of her business. The last time she’d asked too many questions, she’d solved a murder and almost gotten herself killed!

  As she neared her driveway, she breathed out a coming-home sigh because her house was a haven. Built in the early fifties, it was a Cape Cod style with a flagstone path leading to the front porch. Nestled between a crimson maple and a white birch, it was mostly built of brick. However, stone enriched the unusual arched door, and the copper roof above the porch was a distinct feature. Her home had a sturdy, warm, homey air that had attracted Caprice to it from the moment she’d seen it. The azaleas under the dining room’s bay window had finished blooming long ago, but yellow and pink zinnias lined the gardens on either side of the porch, along with white begonias.

  The tall privacy fence that stretched on both sides and surrounded the backyard was perfect for the peace and quiet she sometimes craved after a day of dealing with the suppliers, clients, and professionals she consulted. One of her guilty secrets was that she liked to garden in her bathing suit. At thirty-two, she was a bit shy about her body, which was about ten pounds overweight, and enjoyed the privacy of the fence as well as the tall poplars that practically hid it. She missed Dylan, the cute little dog that had found a home with her for a couple of months. They had played out here almost every day he’d been with her. But Roz had given him a home, and he was happy with her in her new town house.

  Caprice pulled her restored yellow Camaro into her driveway, and the garage door slid up with creaks and groans. The paint had started to peel again. She really had to get a new one, or paint it once more before winter set in. From the garage, she stepped up onto a covered back porch and let herself in her back door. She had barely had time to set her purse on the counter and turn around when she heard a thud. Her cat had jumped from a perch on the turquoise-carpeted, floor-to-ceiling cat tree in the living room. Seconds later, Sophia, a strikingly colored calico with long hair and a huge fluffy tail, strolled through the dining room into
Caprice’s retro-style kitchen. The appliances, all in a warm buttercup color, harkened back to the fifties, as did the antique maple table and the chairs with yellow-braided seat pads.

  After a long, soulful meow, Sophia hopped up onto one of those pads and stared up at Caprice, her golden eyes accusing her mistress of being gone too long.

  “I’m not late,” Caprice protested, crossing to Sophia and stroking the white ruff around her neck.

  Sophia lifted her chin for an underside rub.

  Caprice laughed. “You’re not spoiled. Not much.”

  Sophia had been a stray when Caprice found her shortly after she’d moved in. She’d considered the cat a welcome-to-the-neighborhood present, and they’d been best buddies ever since. Caprice had named her for her Nana’s favorite actress, Sophia Loren. “I know you miss Dylan, but he’s happy with Roz.”

  For a few weeks in May, Caprice had also taken in two kittens, but her brother Vince’s law partner had found them a home. She hadn’t seen Grant for a few weeks. She quickly reminded herself there was no reason to see Grant. Really.

  After dishing out some of Sophia’s favorite canned cat food, she bent down to place it on the mat on the floor. She was straightening up when the cell phone in her purse began playing the Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night.” She opened the black-patent-leather vintage handbag and fished out her phone. She smiled when she glimpsed the caller ID. It was Seth.

  “Home yet?” he asked.

  His voice, which held just a hint of his Virginia roots, fired up hopes and dreams she’d thought she’d put permanently on hold after her last serious relationship.

  “Just got in.”

  “I know this is last minute,” he said, “but our coffee date seems like years ago.”

  “It was Monday,” she teased.

  “Yeah, seems like years ago,” he repeated. “I’m almost finished here. The doc for the evening shift arrived, so how about ice cream at Cherry on the Top?”

  “Ice cream for supper. Now that’s an idea.”

  “I’ll buy you a banana split with plenty of walnuts—protein, fruit, and dairy. What more could you ask for?”

  She could ask for a lot more, but maybe she was afraid to. In the past, she’d been hurt by wearing her heart on her sleeve. Her high school sweetheart had broken off their relationship through e-mail. He’d had bigger ambitions than what Kismet offered. And then there had been Travis and his adorable daughter. After Caprice had fallen in love with them both, Travis had reunited with his ex-wife. She thought about the banana split Seth had suggested but, more important, the time with him. “Could be just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Rough day?”

  “I’m sure not any rougher than yours.”

  “Meet you there in fifteen minutes?”

  “Fifteen it is.”

  In fifteen minutes, she’d stare again into Seth’s blue eyes and wonder if a thirty-two-year-old’s dreams could actually come true.

  “You’re smiling,” Seth said on Sunday as he wound his arm around Caprice’s waist and led her up the porch steps to her parents’ home.

  Whenever Caprice walked into her childhood home, memories came rushing back. She had so many good reminiscences of delicious smells, of chasing Bella up the stairs, sneaking out onto her parents’ balcony with Nikki, snitching Vince’s favorite baseball so he had to track her down and then take her along to his game. Although they lived in Pennsylvania, the house was a California-style stucco with a red barrel-tiled roof that always needed repair. The house had been a fixer-upper. That’s how her parents had been able to afford the property when they were building a family.

  They’d fixed up the house little by little over the years, although they had kept basic features that were still high maintenance, like casement windows, the stucco exterior, and the roof. When Nana had moved in with them, they’d added on a suite for her. Caprice had good memories about that, too. She and Nana had enjoyed tea together since she was a kid. Every few weeks, she took an afternoon off and joined Nana in her parlor.

  Caprice opened the screen door, and they stepped up to the foyer inside. “I’m smiling because, in a way, this will always be home.”

  To the left was a long living room, with a sunroom off that, and a library behind the living room with its own little balcony. Ahead of them was the dining room, which led to the kitchen.

  A cuckoo clock struck five as they heard chatter coming from the kitchen.

  Seth looked around and said, “This house feels like a home. I like that fireplace in the living room.” He peeked through the archway. “What’s the room beyond?”

  “We’ve always used it as a library. Mom’s an English teacher, and she’s always kept it filled with books. She never forced us to read anything, but we saw her and Dad doing it a lot, and I guess we followed their example. Although most of his life Dad was a bricklayer and considered a blue-collar worker, he always liked reading about architecture, building things, and faraway places.”

  “You said your dad has his own company now?”

  “For about the past fifteen years. And now that he’s getting older, Mom doesn’t like him going out with the crew as much, so he handles most of the paperwork.”

  Wonderful aromas wafted through the house. Impulsively, Caprice suggested to Seth, “Close your eyes.”

  “Uh oh. What are you going to surprise me with?”

  “No surprise. Just a test. Close your eyes and tell me what you smell.”

  Seth did as she suggested and took a sniff. “Let’s see—onion, garlic, tomato sauce.” He took another sniff. “And something sweet and doughy.”

  “You’re pretty good. Mom made her special recipe—her version of pasta fagioli. Nikki made a tomato and mozzarella side dish, and Bella prepared an artichoke salad. Vince is bringing wine.”

  Seth lifted the bag in his hand. “And you made bread.”

  “I did. We always coordinate. The sweet smells are from Nana’s peach pies. This time of year, we can’t get enough of them. Wait until you see Mom’s tomato garden. She raises heirloom plants from seeds. I only have a few out back at my house, but she has about twenty-five of them planted. Nikki used her tomatoes in her contribution.”

  “Twenty-five plants? That’s a lot.”

  “It is. Mom and Dad give some away. But the rest Mom and Nana freeze for the winter.”

  Seth studied Caprice curiously. “I didn’t think families like yours existed anymore.”

  “Your family isn’t close?”

  “As a family doc, my dad was gone a lot. He missed most of my baseball games and other events.”

  “Did you miss not having brothers or sisters?”

  Seth had told her a little about his background, that his dad had a GP practice in a small town in Virginia. His mom, a nurse, had worked with his dad. She suspected Seth had been alone a lot as a kid.

  “I didn’t miss having sisters,” he said with a grin. “But, yeah, I guess I would have liked a brother to hang with. I had good friends, though. In fact, my best high school buddy had a family very much like yours—two brothers and two sisters, a mom who stayed home and baked cookies. The only difference was, he was Polish.”

  Caprice laughed. “And my mom didn’t stay home. Once Bella started school, she went back to teaching and has been at it ever since. Come on, let’s announce that we’re here. Are you ready for this?”

  “I handled your mom’s birthday party just fine. I can handle this.”

  As she gazed up into Seth’s blue eyes and studied his classically handsome face, she still didn’t quite believe he was dating her. Could he handle her family and her life? Could she handle his erratic schedule and their interrupted dates?

  He gestured to the dining-room table, beautifully set with silverware and crystal goblets, wineglasses, and cloth napkins, and gave a low whistle. “Someone went to a lot of trouble.”

  “Family dinners are important to Mom and Nana.”

  “Your Nana Celia’s your dad
’s mom, right?”

  “Yep. Mom lost her parents, so she appreciates Nana Celia even more. We all do.”

  Seth looked thoughtful as he followed her into the kitchen. The atmosphere there was absolute bedlam. Nikki was pulling the tomato, mozzarella, and oregano side dish out of the oven as Nana put finishing touches on a fruit salad. Bella was trying to keep eight-year-old Timmy and his little sister from poking their fingers into the peach pies cooling on the counter.

  Her mom saw them first. She stopped what she was doing and enclosed Caprice in a huge hug. “Your timing is just right.” She gave Seth a hug, too. “It’s good to see you again. That spa day you gave me for my birthday was fabulous. That was a wonderful and thoughtful present.”

  “I heard Green Tea Haven was the best.” He lifted the bag of bread Caprice had baked. “Where would you like this?”

  “Right here,” Nana said, pointing to a basket lined with a linen napkin. She said to both of them, “Vince, Joe, and your dad are all outside. Your father wanted to show them the outdoor fireplace he finally got around to building.”

  “But it’s time to eat now,” Bella said. “Nikki, can you round up everyone?”

  Nikki and Caprice exchanged a look. Bella liked to give orders. As the baby in the family, she pretty much always got her own way. She’d started out as cute as the proverbial button and had grown beautiful later to boot. Right now, since she was pregnant and going through troubles with Joe, they were all giving her some slack instead of arguing or rebelling.

  Nikki went to the back door, opened it, put two fingers in her mouth, and gave a loud whistle. “Come and get it,” she yelled.

  Seth whispered into Caprice’s ear, “This is going to be entertaining.”

  Caprice joked back, “Just be glad we don’t charge admission.”

  His low chuckle urged her to think about what might happen later when they would be alone. Seth’s kiss after their date at the ice cream shop had been everything she’d expected his kisses to be. But she wasn’t sure she was ready for whatever came next.