BLACK MONEY LOVE

chapter 2

Roma let herself into the house. While the door slammed behind her, she flicked switches, sending two ceiling fans whirling. The sound, for the moment, was company enough. The headache she'd lived with for over twenty-four hours was a dull, nagging thud just under her right temple. Going into the bathroom, she washed down two aspirin before turning on the shower.
She'd taken the glass bottom out again. Though it was off season, she'd had to turn a dozen people away. It wasn't everyday a body was found off the coast, and the curious had come in force. Morbid, she thought, the stripped and stepped under the cold spray of the shower. How long would it take, she wondered, before she stopped seeing Jerry on the sand beneath the water?
True,she'd barely known him, but he'd been fun and interesting and good company. He'd slept in her daughter's bed and eaten in her kitchen. Closing her eyes, she'd let the water sluice over her, willing the headache away. She'd be better, she thought, when the police finished the investigation. It had been hard, when they'd come to her house and searched through Jerry's things. And the questions.
How much had she know about Jerry Alpha? He'd been American, an operator,a womanizer. She'd been able to use all three to her benefits when he'd given diving lessons or acted as mate on one of her boats. She'd thought him harmless-- sexy, attractive and basically lazy. He'd boasted of making it big,of Wheeling a deal that would set him up in style.Roma had considered it so much hot air. As far as she was considered, nothing set you up in style but years of hard work or inherited wealth.
But Jerry's eyes had lit up when he'd talked of it, and his grin had been appealing. If she'd been a woman who allowed herself dreams, she would have believed him. But dreams were for the young and follish.  With a little tug of regret, she realized Jerry Alpha had been both.
Now he was gone, and what he had left was still scattered in her daughter's room. She'd have to box it up,Roma decided as she turned off the taps. It was something,at least.  She'd box up Jerry's things and ask that captain Morales what to do about them.  Certainly his family would want whatever he'd left behind. Jerry had spoken of a brother,whom he'd left behind. Jerry had spoken of a brother, whom he'd affectionately referred to as " the stuffed Shirt." Jerry Alpha had been anything but stuffy.
As she walked to the bedroom,Roma wrapped her hair in the towel. She remembered the way Jerry had tried to talk his way between her sheets a few days after he'd moved in. Smooth talks, smooth hands. Though he'd had her backed into the doorway, kissing her before she'd evaded it,Roma had easily brushed him off. He'd taken her refusal good-naturedly,she recalled, and they had remained on comfortable terms. Roma pulled on an oversized shirt that skimmed her thighs.
The truth was, Jerry Alpha had been a good-natured, comfortable man with big dreams. She wondered, not for the first time,if  his dreams had had something to do with with his death. She couldn't go on thinking about it. The best thing to do was pack what had belonged to Jerry back into his suitcase and take it to the police.
Without warning,Roma felt the first tears flow. He'd been so young, so full of that cocky sense of confidence. She'd hardly had time to consider him a friend, but he'd slept in her daughter's bed and left clothes in her closet.
She wished now she'd listened to him more, been friendlier, more approachable. He'd asked her to have drinks with him and she'd brushed him off because she'd had paper work to do. It seemed petty now, cold. If she'd given him an hour of her life, she might have learned who  he was, where he'd come from,why he'd died.

When the knock sounded at the door, she pressed her hands against her cheeks. Silly to cry, she told herself, when tears never solved anything. Jerry Alpha was gone, and it had nothing to do with her. She brushed away the tears as she walked to the door. The headache was easing. Roma decided it would be better if she called Morales right away and arranged to have the clothes picked up. She was telling herself she really wasn't involved at all when she opened the door.
For a moment she could only stare. The t-shirt she hadn't been aware of still holding spilled from her fingers. She took one Stumbling step back as she felt a rushing to clear it. The man in the doorway stared back at her accusingly.
" Je- Jerry." She managed and nearly screamed when he took a step forward.
" Roma Altergracie?"
She shook her head,numb and terrified. She believed in action and reaction on a purely practical level. When someone died,they couldn't come back. And yet she stood in her living room with her fans whirling and watched Jerry Alpha step over her threshold. She heard him speak to her again.
" Are you Roma Altergracie?"
" I saw you." She heard her own voice rise with nerves but couldn't take her eyes from his face. The cocky good looks, the cleft chin, the Smoky eyes under thick dark brows. It was a face that appealed to a woman's need to risk,or to her dreams of risking." Who are you?"
" Zack Alpha. Jerry was my brother. My twin brother."
When she discovered her knees were shaking, she sat down quickly.No, not Jerry, she told herself as her heartbeat leveled. The hair was just as dark, just as full, but it lacked Jerry's unkempt shagginess. The face was just as attractive, but she'd never seen Jerry's eyes so hard, so cold. And this man wore a suit as though he'd been born in one. His stance was one of restrained passion and impatience. It took her a moment, only a moment, before anger struck.
" You did that on purpose." Because her palms were damp she rubbed them against her knees. " You knew what I'd think when I opened the door,"
" I needed a reaction."
She sat back and took a deep breath." You are a bastard mr.Alpha."
" May I sit down?"
She gestured to a chair. "What do you want?"
As he sat, Zack took a long look around. His was not the polite, casual glance a stranger indulges himself in when he walks into someone's else's home, but a sharp-eyed, intense study of what belonged to Roma Altergracie. It was a living room hardly bigger than his office.While he preferred muted colors and clean lines,Roma chose bright, contrasting shades and odd knick knacks. Several Mayan masks hung on the walls, and rugs of different sizes and hues were scattered over the floor.
The shock that had had her stomach muscles jumping had eased. She said nothing as she looked around the room because she was looking at him. A mirror image of Jerry, she thought. And weren't mirror images something like negatives? She didn't think he'd be fun to have around. She had a frantic need to order him out, to pitch out quickly and finally. Ridiculous, she told herself. He was just a man, and nothing more to her. And he had lost his brother.
" I'm sorry,Mr. Alpha. This is a very difficult time for you."
His gaze locked on hers, so quickly that she tensed again. She'd barely been aware of his inch-by-inch study of her room, but she couldn't remain unmoved by his study of her.
She wasn't what he'd expected. Her face was all angles--- wide cheekbones,a long narrow nose and a chin that came to a suggestion of a point. She wasn't beautiful, but stunning in an almost uncomfortable way. It might have been the eyes, the deep haunted brown,that rose a bit exotically at the outer edge. It might have been the mouth, full and vulnerable. The shirt overwhelmed her body with its yards of material, leaving only long, tanned legs bare. Her hands, resting on the arms of her hair, were small, narrow and ring less. Zack had thought he knew his brother's taste as well as his own. Roma didn't suit Jerry's penchant for the loud and flamboyant,or his own for the discreet sophisticated.
Still Jerry lived with her. Zack thought grimly that she was taking the murder of her lover very well.
His long study had left her shaken. It had gone beyond natural curiosity and made her feel like a specimen, filled and labeled for further research. She tried to remember that grief took different forms in different people." Jerry was a nice man. It isn't easy to---"
" How did you meet him."
Word of sympathy cutting off,Roma straightened in her chair. She never expected friendliness where it wasn't likely to be accepted. If he wanted facts only, she'd give him facts. "He came by shop a few weeks ago. He was interested in diving."
Zack's brow lifted as in polite interest but his eyes remained cold." In diving."
" I own a dive shop on the beach---rent equipment, boat rides, lessons, day trips. Jerry was looking for work. Since he knew what he was doing,I gave him to him.
Showing tourists how to use a regulator didn't fit with Zack's last conversation with his brother. Jerry had talked about cooking up a big deal. Big money, big time. "He didn't buy in as your Partner?"
Something came into her eyes--- pride, disdain, amusement. Zack couldn't be sure. " I don't take partners,Mr. Alpha. Jerry worked for me, that's all.
" All?" The brow came again." He was living here."
She caught the meaning, had dealt with it from the police. Roma decided she'd answered all the questions she cared to and that she'd given Zack Alpha more than enough of her time.
" Jerry's things are in here.' Rising, she walked out of the room until Zack joined her." I was just beginning to pack his clothes. You'd probably prefer to do that yourself. Take as much time as you need."
Suddenly weary, she pulled pulled the towel from her head. Dark blonde hair, still damp , tumbled over her face and shoulders. Somehow her face seemed more vulnerable." I don't know anything about Jerry's personal life, his personal belongings. This is my daughter's room." She turned her head until their eyes met. She's away at school. This is where he slept." She left him alone.
Twenty minutes was all he needed. His brother had travelled light. Living the suitcase in the living room, Zack walked through the house. It wasn't large. It smelled lightly of spice and talcum powder. Turning away,he walked towards the back and found the kitchen.And Roma.
It was when he smelled the coffee that Zack Remembered he hadn't eaten since morning. Without turning around,Roma poured a second cup. She didn't need him to speak to know he was there. She doubted he was a man who ever announced his presence.
" You look so much like him."
" Does that bother you?"
" It unnerves me."
He sipped the coffee, finding it cleared some mists of unreality." You weren't in love with him?"
Roma sent him a look of mild surprise. She realized he'd thought she'd been his brothers lover, but she hadn't thought he'd have taken the next step." I only knew him for a few weeks." Then she laughed, remembering another time, another life." No,I wasn't in love with him. We had a business relationship, but I liked him. He was cocky and well aware of his own charms. Jerry was quite an operator," she murmured,then looked up, horrified." I'm sorry."
" No." Interested Zack stepped closer. She was a tall woman, so their eyes stayed level easily. She smelled of the talcum powder and wore no cosmetics. Not Jerry's type,he thought again. But something about the eyes." That's what he was, only a few people never caught on."
" Mr. Alpha. I hope whoever...I hope they're found."she watched the gray eyes ice over. The little tremor in her stomach reminded her that cold was often more dangerous than heat.
" They will be. I may need to talk to you again."
It was a simple request, but she backed away from it. She didn't want to talk to him again. She didn't want want to be involved in any way." There's nothing else I can tell you."
" Jerry was living in your house, working for you."
" I don't know anything." Her voice rose as she spun away to stare out of the window. She was tired of the questions, tired of people pointing her out on the beach as the woman who'd found the body. She was tired of having her life turned upside down by the death of a man she had hardly know. And she was nervous, she admitted, because Zack Alpha struck her as a man who could keep her life turned upside down as long as it suited him. " I've talked to the police again and again. He worked for me. I saw him a few out of the day. I don't know where he went at night,who he saw, what he did. It wasn't my business as long as he paid for the room and showed up at work."  When she looked back, her face was set. I'm sorry for your brother, I'm sorry for you. But it's not my business."
He was the nerves as her unclenched but interpreted them in his own way. " We disagree,Mrs Altergracie."
" miss.altergracie," she said deliberately, and watched his slow, acknowledging nod. " I can't help you."
" You don't know that until we talk."
"All right. I won't help you."
He inclined his head and reached for his wallet." Did Jerry owe anything on the room?"
She felt the insult like a slap. Her eyes, usually soft, usually sad, blazed. " He owed me nothing and neither do you. If you have finished your coffee..."
Zack set the cup on the table. "I've finished. For now." He gave her a final study. Not Jerry's type,he thought again,or his. But she had to know something. If he had to use her to find out,he would. " Good night."
Roma stayed where she was until the sound of the front door closing echoed back at her. Then she shut her eyes. None of her business, she reminded herself. But she could still see Jerry under her boat. And now she could see Zack Alpha with grief hard in his eyes.