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“WHY ISN’T SHE still in the hospital?” Dom asked.
“Because she wanted to come home.” Sophie gestured at our surroundings, at my huge, richly appointed master bedroom, designed and furnished by its previous owner, Irene McAuliffe. “You telling me this doesn’t beat some crappy hospital room?”
His worried gaze settled on yours truly, propped up in the middle of my king-size bed, tucked beneath Irene’s exquisite silk-and-linen bedspread, hand woven in shades of coral, pale green, and ivory. Well, of course I’d kept it, since the alternative would have been to replace it with whatever cheap thing I could afford. Sexy Beast lay curled against my side, his dark little gaze darting between my ex and the town’s irascible mayor as they stood there bickering.
He said, “She needs professional medical attention. She could take a turn for the worse at any moment.”
“From a grazing wound?” Sophie crossed her arms and stared Dom down. “It’s been stitched. She’s got her antibiotics. She’s got her painkillers. She’s got me. And I’m not leaving till she jumps up from that bed and chases me out of this house with a stick.”
“She almost drowned!” he said.
I spoke up. “May I say something?”
“She didn’t drown,” Sophie said. “Her lungs are clear. Hospitals suck. They have germs. You’re being an ass, Dom.”
“Why, because I’m concerned?” he said. “Because I want the best possible care for my— for Janey? When the EMTs reached her, she was already in hypothermia.”
“Yeah, and she got treated at the hospital and now she’s not.”
Sexy Beast emitted a long-suffering sigh.
“Um, guys?” I said.
Dom pulled out his cell phone and started tapping the screen. “I’m going to hire round-the-clock nurses to stay with her. Why take a chance?”
Sophie tossed her hands up. “She’s fine! You’re overreact—”
“Guys!” I shouted. They both turned to me. “She is capable of making her own decisions.”
Sophie smacked Dom’s shoulder. “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you?”
He raised his palms placatingly. “Of course you are, Janey, I know that. It’s just that the hypothermia affected you more than you might realize. In terms of your judgment. Your decision making. You were pretty confused in the hospital, didn’t even know where you were.”
“Only until they got me warmed up and everything,” I said. “That was hours ago. I’m a hundred percent now.” Okay, maybe seventy-nine percent. Getting a full charge might take a while.
Dom had been there in the hospital with me the whole time. So had Sophie. And before you ask, no, Martin had not made an appearance there. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Oh, who am I kidding? I knew precisely how I felt about it.
It was close to six p.m., more than ten hours since the first responders had descended on that frozen lake. By that time, I’d been pretty out of it. I remembered little of the rescue itself, a blur of people and activity. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if my cell phone hadn’t worked. Turns out those gadgets are more resilient than I’d assumed.
He said, “Janey—”
“If you’re going to keep this up, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” I said. “But I’m keeping the soup.”
Dom had brought me a gallon of homemade chicken noodle soup, conveniently divided into serving-size Janey’s Place takeout containers, currently crowding my fridge. Well, except for the bowlful I’d wolfed down as soon as he’d arrived, despite the filling dinner Sophie had made me, plus the guacamole and chips her housekeeper, Maria, had sent along. SB turned out to be a big fan of the soup too. I drew the line at sharing the guac with him. Suffice it to say, I was grateful for the forgiving drawstring waist of my jammie bottoms.
What’s that? You recall my informing you my ex is a vegetarian? Right you are. Apparently he still cared enough about me to set aside his personal dietary convictions and make me a batch of chicken noodle soup with his own two hands. His Janey needed some of the proverbial Jewish penicillin, and he was going to make sure she got it, using the very same recipe she herself had used during their brief, ill-fated marriage. It was an involved recipe and I hadn’t made it once during the intervening years. Even the mouthwatering smell of that soup brought back bittersweet memories of our time together.
And yeah, I’m pretty sure he was counting on that. The man was devious and endearing in equal measure.
Sophie gave a brisk nod. “Okay, that’s settled. No more hospital talk. Long as you’re here,” she said to Dom, “I’ll leave the patient in your capable care and get a little work done. Just have a couple of calls to make, then I’m finished for the day.”
She’d installed herself in the guest room at the end of the hall, which Irene had turned into a beautifully appointed home office. I never could concentrate in that room, distracted as I was by Irene’s ghostly, hovering presence. And no, I don’t believe in ghosts, but just for the sake of argument, if Irene was now a ghost, her old home office was where she hung out.
No, it does not have to make sense. My house, my rules. Anyway, I felt more comfortable working in the little maid’s room near the kitchen.
As Sophie was leaving the room, I heard a phone vibrate. “Is that mine?” I asked. She’d commandeered it so she could run interference. So far she’d fielded dozens of phone calls, many from the press, and about a million texts. I’d let her put a few concerned friends through, including Jim Manning.
In addition, she’d turned away a bunch of well-meaning visitors who assumed I’d be thrilled to have them waltz in unannounced and set a spell. The only people I’d allowed inside were Sophie and Dom.
The advantage to having her deal with my would-be callers and visitors is that, whereas I would have felt obligated to humor each one, she was no slave to diplomacy. With few exceptions, her side of these conversations went something like this: You won’t be getting past me, it’s nonnegotiable, sayonara.
An exception had been Leonora Romano, who’d started leaving voice mails the instant the story broke that morning. Once I’d been able to form a coherent thought, I’d told a surprised Sophie to hand me the phone next time she called.
She looked at my phone’s screen now, and grimaced. “Nina Wallace again. I’m not answering it.”
“I’d question your sanity if you did,” I said.
She stabbed a finger at the screen, dumping the call. “She just wants to pump you for all the juicy details. See you in a few,” she added as she started down the hall.
Dom sat on the bed next to me. He stroked Sexy Beast, who sniffed him avidly, no doubt detecting traces of Bonnie’s prizewinning standard poodle, the urbane and charismatic Frederick. SB snorted in disdain.
I started to scoot over a little to give Dom more room, only to wince in pain at the sudden movement.
He was instantly alert. “Is it bad?”
“It’s... just a little sore.” A lie, but if he started in again about the hospital, I’d seriously have to get Sophie to kick him out. And she could do it.
“When’s the last time you took something for it?” he asked.
“About an hour ago.”
“Where’s the prescription? Let me see.” He looked at the floating nightstands, crafted from the same rich mahogany as the sleigh bed. The bed’s headboard and footboard were upholstered in ivory leather. He picked up the bottle of ibuprofen. “What, just this over-the-counter stuff? Didn’t they offer you something stronger?”
“I don’t need something stronger.” Okay, maybe I did, but I had no desire to drift on back to la-la land. I’d spent enough of the day there already. I snatched the bottle out of his hand and placed it on the nightstand. “The bullet grazed me, Dom, it didn’t penetrate. It just kind of...” I made a skating motion with my hand.
The wound was about three inches long and located on the outside of my left buttock. I couldn’t help thinking that if I hadn’t taken a cue from Allison and zigzagged just as Brenda pulled the trigger, the bullet might very well have severed my spinal cord.
“I talked to the doctor,” he said. “You lost a chunk of flesh. You needed stitches.”
“Yeah, like I can’t stand to lose a little back there. Wait.” I frowned. “The doctor talked to you about my medical stuff? What about privacy?”
He nibbled his lower lip, a sure sign he had something to hide. “He might have, uh, thought I was your husband.”
I stared at him. “Really. And where would he have gotten an idea like that, Dom?”
“Well, I was your husband.” He gave me the charming little smile he knew I couldn’t resist.
I resisted it. “Doesn’t your fiancée mind that you’re spending the whole day with me?”
Sexy Beast chose that moment to yawn, and I could swear it sounded like, Oh, snap!
His mouth tightened. “It’s not up to Bonnie how I spend my time. And anyway, why would she have a problem with it? It’s not like I’m slipping around behind her back.”
“She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?” I asked. “She thinks you’re at work.”
He sighed in frustration. “Why are we talking about her?”
“You told that doctor we’re married.”
“Okay, I admit I crossed a line,” he said, “but I was worried about you, Janey. You’d have done the same thing in my place. Admit it.”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t have.”
“You’re saying that if it were me lying in some hospital bed, wounded, disoriented, you wouldn’t have pulled out the stops to find out my condition? Even if it meant stretching the truth a little?”
“That’s a pretty big stretch,” I said, “considering our marriage ended nearly two decades ago.”
“You’re exaggerating,” he said.
“Not by much. It’ll be eighteen years next month, Dom. Do the math.”
He did. “Wow,” he said softly. “It doesn’t seem that long.”
“Not to you,” I said. “You’ve been busy.” We both knew what I meant. Busy with two subsequent wives and a fiancée. Busy raising three children. For my part, I’d keenly felt every day of those eighteen years we’d spent apart.
After a moment he said, “Bonnie’s getting antsy. She’s been trying to pin me down. About a wedding date.”
“Can you blame her?”
“I’m just not ready to commit to a date.”
“Okay, for the record, you committed the day you proposed to her,” I said. “The rest is detail.”
“But this time it feels so final somehow,” he said.
“This isn’t like you, Dom. You’re the Marriage Guy. When you don’t have a significant other, you get hives. Are you telling me it doesn’t feel right with Bonnie?”
“It feels fine.” He shrugged.
“Try to restrain your enthusiasm,” I said dryly. “Listen, if you don’t love her—”
“I love her,” he said quickly. Too quickly.
A few months earlier I’d spied Bonnie in the Rose Bookshop perusing wedding-planning books. She might not be my favorite person, but no woman deserved to start married life—in her case, for the first time—with a spouse whose commitment was lukewarm at best. I said, “It sounds like you have to ask yourself some tough questions.”
“I told you, I love her,” he snapped, then took a deep breath and shoved his fingers through his dark, curly hair. “I shouldn’t be laying this on you after what you’ve been through today.”
“After what I’ve been through today?” I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. “Try what I’ve been through the past eighteen years.”
Dom studied my face, his expression uncharacteristically sober. This was the thing we never spoke about, never acknowledged, although, to my shame, I knew he was well aware of it: my continued emotional attachment to him, my pain watching him fall in love with a series of other women, settle down with them, make children with them.
A year ago I would have shied away from his searching gaze. Now I met it unflinchingly, baring it all. The longing, the loneliness. The emptiness I’d been so certain only he could fill.
He squeezed my hand, held on to it. I let him. Neither of us spoke for a long minute. When at last he broke the silence, his voice was raw. “When I heard what happened to you today, how it almost ended...” He shook his head, at a loss for words.
“It was your spike that saved me,” I said.
“My what?” One dark eyebrow rose. “That sounds vaguely dirty. Okay, not so vaguely.”
“You know, that self-defense thingy you gave me for my key chain. I used it to stab the ice and haul myself out of the water. If I hadn’t had it on me...” I let the rest go unsaid.
“It’s a sign,” he said. “About you and me.”
“Since when do you believe in signs?”
“Since I almost lost you,” he said.
I made myself say, “You can’t lose what you don’t have, Dom.”
Slowly he nodded. “I blew it last summer, asking you to marry me again and then not giving you enough time to think it over.”
“I hope you’re not angling for a do-over,” I said.
“I know I don’t deserve one.”
“You got that right.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear, I could tell. After a few moments he said, “What if I were a free man?”
“Then you’d be miserable,” I said. “It’s in your nature to be in a relationship, like I said.”
“You know what I mean. Would you give me a second chance? If Bonnie and I weren’t together?”
“I think we’re on third chances at this point,” I said. “Maybe fourth.”
“Why are you being so difficult, Janey?” he said. “I’m opening myself up to you here.”
“What you’re doing,” I said, as I reclaimed my hand, “is hedging your bets. Asking for a commitment from me before you break things off with her.”
He opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. With a sigh of resignation he said, “I can see how it might look that way.”
“It looks that way because it is that way.”
It probably hadn’t occurred to him that while he’d just professed his love for his fiancée, albeit unconvincingly, he had yet to tell me he loved me. I lifted Sexy Beast and cuddled him close to my chest, needing something, someone, to hold on to. Pushing Dom away felt so wrong, after all those years needing him—or thinking I did.
“You’re not yourself,” he said. “It’s still messing with your head, the hypothermia.”
“I’m not—”
“The aftereffects,” he said. “You know what I mean.”
“Let me be clear, Dom.” I locked my gaze with his. “And this is me speaking, not the hypothermia or exhaustion or any of that. If breaking up with Bonnie is right for you, then that’s what you should do. But don’t assume I’ll be waiting to take her place.”
He took that in. I could tell he wanted to press me, to extract some kind of quasi-promise. Finally he muttered, “Fair enough.”
Sexy Beast abruptly sprang off the bed and raced across the room, barking in welcome. Martin stood in the open doorway, a pair of cut-crystal snifters dangling from the fingers of one hand, a brand-new bottle of my favorite añejo tequila in the other.
How long had he been standing out there in the hallway? Had he overheard any of our conversation? Certainly the padre would have removed himself from earshot once he realized Dom and I were having a private conversation.
That’s a joke.
He said, “Bad timing?”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Come in.”
“How did you get in the house?” Dom demanded. The doorbell hadn’t rung, and Sophie hadn’t gone downstairs to open the front door.
The look I gave Dom said, How do you think? Before he could work up a head of steam on the subject of dangerous men and their lock picks, I turned to Martin and said, “You better not have swiped that from the pub.”
“Would I do such a thing?” He sauntered to the night table and set the bottle and glasses next to the ibuprofen.
“If you could get away with it?” I said.
He didn’t challenge me on that point. “It just so happens I came by this bottle legitimately, as in I spent my own hard-earned cash. Maxine only buys one at a time for the pub, and only for the single patron who drinks it.”
Meaning me. “But I never order it,” I said. “It’s too expensive.”
“Yet the level in the bottle keeps dropping,” he said. “It’s an enigma.”
I gaped at him. “Are you telling me Max knows you’ve been sneaking me high-end booze and charging me for the cheap stuff?”
Martin shrugged. “She likes you. And it’s not like you’re in there every night guzzling it.” He knelt to give Sexy Beast some love. My dog was doing his I-am-unworthy thing, bowing and crawling toward the padre, begging for a scrap of attention from the alpha male. I’m always a little embarrassed by SB’s self-abasement, but I suppose it’s better than him thinking he’s in charge. Martin gave the little poodle a final pat before rising and uncorking the bottle.
Dom edged a little closer to me. He placed a hand on my thigh over the comforter. “Janey can’t have any of that. She’s on medication.”
The padre poured two fingers of tequila into both snifters, and told my ex, “I would’ve brought another glass if I’d known you were here. You can run and get a bathroom cup.”
“Did you hear me?” Dom said. “She shouldn’t—”
“I’m not on any narcotics,” I said, perhaps a bit too testily. “Chill, Dom.”
“To happy endings.” Martin clinked his glass against mine and we sipped.
Sophie ambled into the room, her sharp gaze zeroing in on the newcomer. “Thought I heard you in here. Afraid I wouldn’t let you through the front door?”
“I didn’t want to make you run the stairs, Mayor,” he said. “I’m too much of a gentleman for that.”
Her snort of derision told him what she thought of that claim. She eyed the drink in his hand. “Where’s mine?”
Martin smoothly topped off his own glass and handed it to her. I’d seen him do this before, play the gentleman when the occasion called for it, and suspected it came more naturally than he was willing to admit. Those touches of civilization could be traced back to his grandmother Anne McAuliffe, whose efforts to civilize her bastard grandson had met with mixed success.
Anne had had this very house built to her specifications decades earlier. She and her husband, Arthur, had lived in it for twenty years until Irene had broken up their marriage. Eventually Irene had inherited the house along with the bulk of Arthur’s other substantial assets. I knew Martin was still sensitive on the subject—the manipulative Other Woman ending up with his beloved grandma’s dream house and then leaving it to her poodle!—although he hadn’t brought it up in months.
Sophie carried her drink to one of a pair of overstuffed armchairs set before the large windows overlooking the back of my property, their ivory silk drapes drawn against the darkening sky. The chairs were upholstered in pale green and separated by a round, padded coffee table covered in ivory leather. Not the most practical choice, perhaps, but again, it was Irene’s taste, not mine. I did approve of the muted coral walls. It’s not a shade I would have chosen myself, but I have to admit that Irene, or her decorator, had known what she was doing there.
“Here.” I held my snifter out to Martin. “I can’t finish all this. You gave me too much.”
“We’ll share.” He took a sip and handed it back.
Dom made a show of ignoring this cozy little exchange. Turning to Sophie, he asked, “What’s the latest?”
Nothing happened in Crystal Harbor that the she didn’t know about, and not just because she was the mayor. Sophie Halperin absorbed local news as if by osmosis. It was spooky.
“Brenda was arraigned this afternoon,” Sophie said. “Bail set at a million bucks. Last I heard, she was still in jail.”
“What did she plead?” I asked, as if I couldn’t guess.
“Not guilty,” she said, “even with the evidence stacked against her.”
Dom said, “What evidence do they have? I mean, besides Janey’s testimony.”
“There’s the ballistics, for one thing.” She sipped her tequila.
“I didn’t think of that,” I said. “The cops probably found spent bullets on the ice and, what, matched them to her gun?”
Sophie nodded. “Dug a few slugs out of the trees, too, from when she was shooting at Allison. Gun was still in her car. They figure she was planning to ditch it somewhere after dark, maybe take it apart and put the pieces in dumpsters or something.”
Dom said, “But why would she bother doing that now and not after Allison died?”
Martin answered that one. “Because Allison hadn’t been shot. Brenda had known her death would be considered a drowning accident. No reason for ballistics testing.”
“But I was shot,” I said. “She’d have figured that once my body was found, sporting a gunshot wound, the cops would be scouring the crime scene for bullets.”
“And trying to identify the weapon they came from,” Sophie said.
Martin said, “But the picture is what’s really going to sink her.”
I jerked upright, and regretted it. “Ow. Picture? You don’t mean... The only picture I know of is the one Allison took right before she died, and that’s history. The camera got soaked.”
“Yeah, so?” he said. “The memory card survived. The cops have a beautifully framed, time-stamped photo of Brenda standing in the woods, pointing a gun.”
“Really? I just assumed...” I was grinning now. “I mean, Brenda was so certain the lake water would destroy the camera and every image on it. I just took her word for it.” Turned out she knew even less about this technical stuff than I did.
“Can she afford to post bail, do you think?” Dom asked.
“Yes and no,” Sophie said. “She has the money because, get this, Allison left a million-dollar life-insurance policy naming Brenda as beneficiary.”
Again, I wasn’t surprised Sophie had the inside scoop. Years ago she’d worked as a paralegal for Sten Jakobsen, and the two of them were still tight. If anyone could get the closemouthed attorney to spill, it was her.
“And she gets to keep it?” Dom said. “That doesn’t sound right.”
I said, “I don’t think she will get to keep it, because of something called the slayer rule. You can’t profit from murdering someone.”
“That’d be pretty sick,” the padre said, “if they let her post bail for Allison’s murder with the proceeds of Allison’s life-insurance policy.”
“So then who gets that money?” Dom asked.
Sophie said, “Allison named three contingent beneficiaries—Brenda’s kids. Plus I know she left gobs of cash in trust for them. Doubt any of that’ll be affected. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
My phone vibrated again. Sophie checked the screen, grinned, and heaved herself out of the chair to bring it to me. “You’ll want to answer this one.”
I looked at the phone’s display and felt my own face relax into a smile. I pushed the green Answer icon. “Victor!” It was my French hottie, calling all the way from Paris. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dom doing his imitation of someone who couldn’t be less interested. The padre crossed the room to pour more tequila into Sophie’s glass. She did not object.
I mentally debated whether to request privacy or let Dom and Martin stay and hear my side of the conversation. Hmm... which would make them suffer more? Staying and listening, I decided. Plus it would let me sneak peeks at them to gauge their reactions.
Oh, like you wouldn’t have done the same thing. We’re talking about Mr. Hedge My Bets and Mr. Won’t Make a Move While She’s Still Hung Up on the Ex. These guys do not deserve your sympathy. I deserve your sympathy for putting up with them for so long.
“What a sweetie you are for calling,” I cooed into the phone.
“Jane, mon Dieu,” he said. “I’m so relieved to hear your voice. Sophie called this morning. She said you’d been shot.”
Ah. So that’s how he’d found out about my little adventure. “It’s just a grazing wound,” I said, “in my rear end of all places. I’ll never race horses again.”
“You race horses?”
“Forget it,” I said. “Stupid American humor.”
“I’m astonished you can joke about it,” he said. “You also nearly drowned, yes?”
“I’m afraid so.” He sounded so concerned that I added, “But I’m okay now, Victor, totally on the mend. I have my dog and my friends and some amazing tequila. Oh, plus about a gazillion chocolate croissants.”
“Four dozen,” he said. “I know it’s your favorite. They freeze.”
Victor had phoned Patisserie Susanne that morning and ordered the pastries to be delivered to the house, in gut-busting quantities.
I said, “This is a conspiracy between you and all the other people who are feeding me. I know what you’re thinking. If you get me fat enough, I won’t be able to fit through a hole in the ice. Or I’ll float like a beach ball until help comes.”
“I wanted to fly out as soon as I heard,” he said, “but Sophie insisted it wasn’t necessary.”
“You were going to fly all the way here to be with me?” I said, for the benefit of the gentlemen in the room. Sophie smirked. “Well, I can’t tell you how much that means to me, but Sophie’s right. I’m being well taken care of.”
Sophie called out, “He’s in India.”
“What are you doing in India?” I asked him.
“My firm is opening a branch in Mumbai,” he said, “and I’m helping to set it up.” Victor was an architect. His firm was headquartered on the Champs-Élysées but handled many international projects, including a bunch in the U.S. When he’d been in Crystal Harbor last fall to look into his brother Pierre’s murder, he’d worked for a while out of his firm’s SoHo office.
“You’re on an important business trip,” I said. “You’re needed there. You can’t be running off to Long Island to change the dressing on my derriere.”
Dom, who up until now had done a creditable job of acting nonchalant, looked up sharply. Martin, now occupying the chair next to Sophie’s, appeared not to have heard the comment. Which I didn’t buy for an instant.
“Well...” Victor’s accented voice was smooth as silk. “I don’t have much experience dressing derrieres, but I have some experience undressing them, if that counts. Not to mention boundless energy and a willingness to learn. I’ll simply keep trying until I get it right.”
I giggled like an adolescent, feeling my face heat. And no, I wasn’t putting it on for the guys’ benefit. Victor was seriously hot. Have I mentioned that?
“Jane.” His tone became more serious. “I can’t stop thinking about you. And about that kiss, too, if I’m being honest.”
“Me too,” I breathed. I wasn’t lying. This flirtatious conversation notwithstanding, that one perfect, heart-stopping kiss we’d shared in my car when I’d dropped him off at the airport was the extent of our physical relationship. So far. Reliving that kiss was my go-to happy place whenever I was tempted to wring the neck of one of the clueless dudes closer to home.
“I still want you to visit me in Paris,” he said, “and my family’s B and B in Uzès. You promised, and I intend to hold you to it.”
You can hold me to anything you want, I thought, remembering how this man had looked wearing nothing but a pair of snug black boxer briefs.
Oh, stop, it was perfectly innocent! I’d happened upon him in the kitchen when he’d thought he was alone in the house. Which didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to relive that moment, too, whenever I felt like it.
My house, my rules, remember? Sheesh.
“I’m not sure how long they’ll need me here in Mumbai,” Victor said. “Looks like it could be a while. But when I get back to Paris, let’s make plans for you to come over. I miss you, Jane.”
“I miss you, too,” I said, not caring who heard.
Sophie glanced at the bedside clock and shot to her feet, tapping her bare wrist in the universal sign for It’s later than you think. I nodded at her as Victor said, “We’ll speak soon. I know Sophie will take good care of you. And don’t get shot again.”
“I’ll try,” I said, “but no promises.”
“Irritating woman.”
While we were saying our au revoirs, Sophie was adjusting the position of the television, which was located in the corner to the right of the windows, attached to one of those articulating wall mounts.
She tossed me the remote. “Show’s already started.”
“What show?” Dom asked.
“The Romano Files.” I turned on the TV and switched channels. To Sophie I added, “Don’t worry, I DVR’d it. If we missed anything, we can catch it later.”
Martin got up and moved closer to the bed for a better view as Leonora Romano’s brittle, nip-and-tucked features filled the screen. She was yammering on about Crystal Harbor’s deadly Ice Queen (that would be Brenda), who’d caused the gruesome death of a beautiful, talented, vibrant young woman and come close to doing the same to the weirdo who bills herself as—get this!—the Death Diva!
Okay, she didn’t say “weirdo,” though considering our history, I’m sure she was tempted.
Sexy Beast, once again nestled against me, lifted his head and snarled at the television.
“That’s strange,” I said. “He only growls at creatures with four legs.”
“Must be the horns and forked tail,” Sophie said.
Dom said, “Please tell me she didn’t talk you into an interview.”
“No, no interview,” I said. “As if I’d let that woman into my home with a TV camera.” Plus, hello, with me lying here all puffy-eyed and straggle-haired? Yeah, that’d happen. “And I refused a phone-in too. We struck a deal, Lee and I.”
Dom’s “Hmm...” sounded just like SB’s growl. We all had good reason to distrust Lee Romano, whose sensationalist on-air hijinks knew no bounds as she strove to entice viewers away from Miranda Daniels’s Ramrod News, which aired in the same time slot.
Onscreen, Lee’s face was replaced with jerky video footage from the crime scene—which is to say, the frozen lake where I came close to dying the same way Allison had. I saw myself at a distance lying on a stretcher, pale and bedraggled, surrounded by emergency personnel—cops, EMTs, firefighters—and covered with a reflective emergency blanket. Someone was holding an IV bag over me. I was grateful the video didn’t show the part where they stripped off my wet clothing and bundled me in warm, dry blankets.
“Who took this footage?” Sophie asked. “Doesn’t look like an official police video. Cops would never release that to the press anyway.”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I was so out of it by then, there could have been a whole darn film crew and I wouldn’t have noticed.”
Lee’s voice-over provided a running commentary. “Death Diva Jane Delaney spoke to me from the hospital where she’d been resuscitated after having been shot and left for dead in an ice-covered lake.”
“‘Resuscitated.’ Listen to the woman.” I lowered the volume and hollered at the TV, “Try ‘warmed up,’ Lee. They warmed me up and bandaged my booboo.”
Martin said, “So does this mean you’re no longer frigid?”
I gave him a wry look. “You’ve been waiting all day to use that stupid gag, haven’t you?”
“What gag?” he said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Children, try to focus,” Sophie said. “Jane, I want to know about this deal you struck with Lee. On second thought, maybe I don’t.”
“It’s no biggie,” I said. “I agreed to supply her with a few insider details not available to the public, that’s all.” Lee had finally gotten what she’d asked for that day at the Rose Bookshop.
“And in return?” Sophie asked.
I know she was thinking about the “generous honorarium” Lee had promised me in exchange for “juicy tidbits” about Allison’s death. My friend’s dubious expression said she knew me too well to think I’d jump at an offer like that. She was right. No filthy lucre changed hands.
“In return,” I said, “Lee leaves Allison’s parents alone. She doesn’t harass them for quotes or background info, doesn’t even contact them.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but you can bet they’ve heard from Miranda Daniels.”
“I can’t do anything about that aside from warning them not to talk to her, which I did,” I said. “Look, I’m no fan of Lee Romano, but Miranda is Beelzebub incarnate. If I have to pick sides, I’m sticking with Lee.”
Dom said, “So Lee gets to scoop her nemesis Miranda.”
“And I get to retain a little control over the info she puts out,” I said.
“Plus,” Sophie said, “you’re making this whole thing a little less horrible for Allison’s folks. As close to a win-win as you’re likely to get.”
Even with the volume lowered, Lee’s exclamations about the Ice Queen’s shocking—shocking!—crime spree were intrusive. I pressed the Mute button.
“Wait.” Sophie squinted at the TV. “Martin, is that you?”
I sat up straight, and cursed. I really had to stop doing that. Not cursing, which I reserve for deserving occasions, thank you very much, but bolting upright with a freshly stitched butt wound.
Peering at the TV screen, I saw Martin sprint across the frozen lake toward the stretcher. My mouth dropped open. I turned to look at the man himself, who now stood leaning against the wall with his arms folded, his face a blank mask. Clearly he wasn’t pleased to have been caught on camera.
“I had no idea you were there,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Instead of addressing my question, he answered an earlier one. “This footage was shot surreptitiously by one of the EMTs, on his phone—obviously to peddle to the highest bidder. I don’t think anyone noticed what he was up to but me.”
None of us asked him how he’d known what had transpired at the preserve. We all knew Martin had buddies on the police force, as well as his own police scanner. It wasn’t hard to imagine him jumping on his motorcycle and racing to the preserve at insane speeds on back roads made treacherous by snow and ice.
Staring at the television screen, I saw Martin try to get to me where I lay on the stretcher, only to be thwarted by the people working on me. Meanwhile my addled, hypothermic self struggled weakly with my rescuers as they strapped me down. I might have been watching a Hollywood movie. I didn’t recall any of it.
Sophie scowled at Martin. “So why the hell didn’t you come to the hospital?”
“I did,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me in to see her because you guys were already there. Two people max, they said.”
I repressed a satisfied little smile, which waned as a difficult question presented itself. If I’d been in a position to choose, which man would I have wanted with me in the hospital, Dom or Martin?
I hope you’re not waiting for an answer, because I don’t have one.
Onscreen, Martin pushed his way past the emergency responders, more forcefully this time, resulting in a brief shoving match. I’d never seen him as he was in this video, beyond agitated, almost frantic. I have no way of knowing what words were exchanged as he raised his hands in a placating gesture. He must have said the right thing, because eventually they relented and let him approach me.
I stared at the television, transfixed, as Martin bent over the stretcher and tenderly brushed strands of damp hair off my face. My eyes appeared to be closed. He brought his mouth close to my ear and whispered something. Of course, I remembered none of this.
Finally a pair of burly firefighters succeeded in hauling him away from the stretcher, but not before he managed to do one last thing. I stopped breathing as I watched the padre, on the television screen, slowly lower his lips to mine and kiss me. As he did so, I saw myself struggle to open my eyes, to focus on him.
The bedroom was utterly silent. Martin hadn’t moved a muscle. I wondered if I was the only one who detected the tension radiating from him. Dom’s sullen expression left little doubt as to the direction of his thoughts. For her part, Sophie looked unsurprised by what she’d just witnessed. The deepening crinkles at the corners of her eyes gave her away, and I just knew she was going to be insufferable once she got me alone.
So now I had yet another kiss to relive in my imagination. It would have been nice if I actually remembered it and didn’t have to rely on jerky video footage that had been shared with millions of fans of The Romano Files. On the plus side, I’d recorded the show, so I could watch it again, should the desire arise.
On second thought, that wasn’t necessarily a plus. I flashed on an image of myself lounging in front of the huge TV in the family room, shoveling Cherry Garcia straight from the carton and pressing Rewind on the remote, over and over.
Oh, come on! I didn’t say I was going to do that, only that it had, you know, crossed my mind as a possibility.
Sexy Beast picked up on the strange vibes zinging around the room, staring pointedly at each of us in turn. His whine said, Guys! Someone want to let me in on it?
I could no longer bear the loaded silence. Someone had to say something. It might as well be Leonora Romano, whose refined, store-bought features once more filled the television screen. I turned the volume back up.
“...I’d give anything,” she was saying, “to know what that sexy Prince Charming whispered to the Death Diva right before he woke her with a kiss, wouldn’t you?”
Indeed I would, I thought, but I wasn’t going to waste my breath asking Prince Charming to elaborate. I already knew him well enough to know he’d deny having whispered anything in my ear, particularly of the sweet-nothings variety.
“Okay, fellas.” Sophie made shooing motions, herding Dom and Martin out of the room. “You’ve brought your offerings, you’ve done your little courtship displays, now scoot so she can get some rest. Go mark your territories or something.”
“I’m staying,” Dom said. “Janey needs—”
“Git!” She propelled him through the doorway. “How are we supposed to gossip about you if you won’t go away? And you!” She stabbed a finger in the padre’s sternum. “Aren’t you supposed to be mixing up girlie drinks for your adoring fans?”
“Max is covering for me,” he said.
“Then go buy this one a beer.” She jerked her head toward Dom, moping in the hallway. “Tell him you didn’t mean to kiss her. It was an accident. Your lips slipped.”
“What kiss?” Martin was all innocence as he and Dom started down the curved staircase. “Did someone get kissed?”
###
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