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“Well, I spoke with his protégé, Matteo Frenzi, the housekeeper Roberta, and Arlo, the captain of the plane . . . and it seems that Mr. Tate might have gotten into a little bit of trouble of a financial nature?”
She snorted. “You mean, he cheated someone? Ms. Fortune, my husband was a chump. Not a particularly bright person, if you know what I mean. Nice, almost too nice. He probably wouldn’t have even known if he’d cheated someone. He was always happy-go-lucky. I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face. If he cheated anyone, it was entirely by accident.”
“No . . . I didn’t mean to imply that he’d swindled anyone. Did you know that he might have been having financial trouble?”
“I’m sorry. What?” For the first time, Goldie sounded as though she didn’t have all the answers.
“It seems he was selling off parts of his fortune on the island. His planes, the airstrip. And he’d gotten into a fight with Kiki about money, apparently, the night before he left on the trip. A few people had said that.”
“Hmm . . .” She let out a sigh. “All the more fingers pointing to that no-good wife of his.”
“He also had a large life insurance policy taken out, with her as the beneficiary.”
“I’m sure. I hope you can track her down before she weasels away again.”
“I’m planning to, right now. Do you know the Nice villa?”
“Know it? Of course, everyone around knows that place. It looks like a gleaming boil on the backside of Nice’s landscape. I told him it was an eyesore but he loved it. No wonder the city’s council has been trying for years to tear it down.”
“It’s bad?”
“Oh, horrific. Just wait until you see it.”
“You have an address?”
“Yes. Twenty-Two Boulevard de Cimiez. It’s the big white one with the belltower. You won’t miss it. Apparently, Kiki likes it just as much as Frankie did, because she’s there all the time. I hated the place.”
“Thank you, I’m on my way to check it out.”
“Call me as soon as you speak to the little gold-digger,” Goldie said. “And be careful. I’m wise to her, so she can’t fool me. She may play a deer in headlights, but she has fangs and claws.”
Daisy didn’t buy too much into that assessment, since it sounded like the typical thoughts of an ex-wife. “Thanks for the warning,” she said as she walked to the street to hail a cab. “And I will call you as soon as I speak with her. Talk to you soon.”
CHAPTER TEN
She may play a deer in headlights, but she has fangs and claws.
Though she hadn’t paid much attention to those words when she first heard them, the more Daisy played Goldie’s words over in her head, the more she wondered just what this Kiki Tate would be like.
She’d had plenty of fodder to put a solid mental picture in her head—a young twenty-something woman so indescribably beautiful, she made men of all ages sigh with desire. Someone vain and self-obsessed, someone well-kept and high-maintenance, who liked the best of everything, and expected to get it.
Basically, your average trophy wife.
It was still hot, despite the sun dropping in the sky, so on the ride to Nice, Daisy rolled down the window and let the sea breeze toss her hair about. Meanwhile, she thought about how to approach the interview with this trophy wife.
IfKiki would even let her into her villa.
Daisy saw the belltower, long before the cab approached the winding street that cut off the main seaside highway. The tower was as huge as a beacon, standing head and shoulders among the other villas carved into the hillside. The golden bell inside gleamed like the sun, declaring,Here I am!to everyone around.
Flashy,Daisy thought.Just like Franklin Tate. All shine, no substance.
Apparently, after all she’d heard from people that day, that description was one he shared with his young wife. She liked to be noticed, too.
Which did make it rather odd that she’d traveled to Nice so soon after his death. What was she hiding?
Though the tower was obnoxiously large, the villa itself was small, a shoebox-shaped building sandwiched between two bigger villas. It was far more opulent than anything Daisy had ever lived in, but it didn’t even come close to the grandeur of the Venice estate. Yet another red flag—why would Kiki come here when she had that whole palace near Venice, unless she was trying to escape?
The cab dropped her off at a wrought iron gate which was, surprisingly, open and unguarded. Daisy walked up the steep stone staircase to the front door and rang a bell. When there was no answer, she knocked. Getting desperate, she crept through the overgrown flower beds and peered in a window. Inside, it was easy to tell this was Franklin Tate’s place. There was no one inside, but she saw another wall-sized painting of a gorgeous woman in a bikini, and a grinning older man, probably by the same artist who’d done the one in Venice. This time, riding horses along the beach, hand in hand.
