Chapter 7

I was headed to Hendersonville, which was more exquisite than a fresh box of chocolates on a lonely Valentine’s Day.

Only about twenty minutes from downtown, each sprawling house was more stunning than the last. I snaked through the curves of the exclusive neighborhood, craning and dipping my head to take in the view of each rural palace as I rolled by. I was overwhelmed by the mansions, the giant trees, and the smaller ornamental flowering cherries, trident maples, and redbuds. There were also fountains, dogs running loose in unfenced yards, driveways as long as runways, ponds, lakes, and four-car garages. No wonder country music stars chose to live in this lofty yet reclusive enclave.

As did the Nashville National’s Robert Reid.

When I rolled up to the Dale Avenue estate—I’d gotten the address from the work order for Sunday’s bash—I started to wish I’d called ahead. There were a number of cars in the driveway. His or guests’?

What the hell, I thought. If I didn’t get any alone time to apologize for snapping at him the day before, I could always say I was here to check the venue before the event.

Robert’s house was a three-story, Tudor-looking mansion, the kind where you could see the timbering-wood beams from the outside and every part of the residence had a giant thatched triangle roof feel to it. Overhanging floors, pillared porches, and a spiraling brick chimney sticking out of every wing. Lush foliage clung to the exterior, and flower gardens lined the stone path leading up to the brick-embossed, stained-glass entrance, which was big enough to comfortably accommodate a giant.

I didn’t dare pull in the driveway. That would leave me no quick exit, as if the driveway were the tongue of this massive beast that would never let me escape should I lose my nerve. I parked my car along the street and started the long walk to his front door. The sun filtered through the surrounding trees, bright, dark, bright, dark, like an old nickelodeon slowly turning. The whole thing was like a dream. The killing, my being here, my being divorced, my dad and uncle gone, me being alone.

Stop that! I yelled inside.

A few stone steps away from where I was, the real house steps began, winding up like the grand staircase of Tara. It was all light now, no shade, no darkness.

“Gwen!”

I froze.

“Gwen?”

I looked around—left, right, behind. Of course, the speaker was standing in front of me, at the open door of the mansion. It was Robert Reid.

“Hi!” I said.

“Hi. Security camera saw you. Did I forget that you were coming?”

“Nope,” I replied. “I, uh . . . I just thought I’d check the place out before tomorrow. Get the lay of the land.”

“Aha.” Robert was still a little bewildered but congenial. He was wearing a baby blue, lightweight V-neck sweater, his sleeves partially pushed up, and khakis, with no shoes or socks on. His moderately tan skin accented his short, slick golden brown hair.

“Actually, that isn’t entirely true,” I said.

“Oh?”

“No.” I was still standing at the foot of the steps, talking loud enough for the gardener across the street to hear. I started forward. “No. I really felt I should apologize face-to-face for slamming the door on you. So here I am!”

He stepped onto his front landing, crossed his arms, and leaned his back on the door frame as I struggled to make my way to the top. His golden smile allowed a sweet, forgiving chuckle. He was kind of handsome and pretty well built, now that I took time to notice.

“Here you are,” he said. “Can I tell you something?”

“It’s your house.” I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I wanted him to say something fast to wash it from my ears.

“I thought it was kind of funny,” he said.

“What was?”

“The look on your face when you tried to close the door on the cinder block.”

I felt myself flush.

“I was half betting myself that you would actually succeed in pulling the door through it.”

“Hulk smash,” I said. “I wasn’t myself.”

“Are you now?”

“Much more so,” I lied. This was not the time and place to tell him that I was having an identity crisis. I reached the landing. “I’ve never really been to this side of town. You’ve got quite a home.”

“Thanks. I inherited it from my grandmother.”

“Gay,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“She was the one who founded the newspaper chain,” I said.

“Right again. After my grandfather died. The family owned a lot of property down here. She started selling it during the boom, bought a bunch of small papers and built them up.”

“Quite a woman,” I said.

“Most women are,” he said.

“How do you mean?” I hoped he wasn’t being patronizing. I could use some “sincere” right now.

“Men just have to deal with their own egos. You gals have to deal with men and your own identities and ambitions. That’s a lot of work.”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

He was looking at me funny. I couldn’t decide whether it was kindness or pity or whether he was mentally replaying my attack on a concrete mass.

“Well, I’m glad you were home. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“No,” he said. “I was just on the phone with the office.”

“So . . . what’s your job there?”

“Apart from being on the board and running things day to day as publisher of the National?”

“Yeah, apart from that.”

“Nothing.”

“Right. I guess those things would keep you kind of busy.”

“They do,” he said. “Which is why it was also a little amusing that you thought I was interviewing your employee. I haven’t done that for years, since my dad brought me on to learn the ropes.”

“Like I said, my brain was in lockdown.”

“Understandable,” he said. “For the record, the National decided not to play the story big again until the police have a better idea of what actually happened.”

“That’s . . . journalistic of you.”

“It’s a little more self-serving than a case of integrity,” he said. “We don’t feel sensationalism is good for our city. We are about quality of life and the arts. Murders aren’t a good fit.”

Well, he was honest, I had to admit.

“So, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I really should get going—”

“I thought you wanted to check the room where the gathering will be held?”

“Right,” I said. But I hesitated.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You’re afraid that will be an imposition? Am I hot or cold?”

“You’re hot,” I said. “Definitely hot.”

“Well, it’s not a bit,” he replied. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

Ushered in by his extended arm, I took a walk through the place with him. It was like touring a museum, a small one, devoted to the Reid family. I don’t say that in a bad way. There was nothing narcissistic about it. He came from a proud family, and they were rightfully on display here. He wasn’t arrogant about it, either. He seemed truly, refreshingly humble to be a part of it.

I shuffled beside him on my sore calves as we crossed the cavernous foyer. It was decorated with massive works of art and ancient-looking tapestries and weapons. I looked up.

“Nice chandelier.”

“Thanks. My grandfather had it imported from Paris after his honeymoon stay with my grandmother at the Hotel Regina. He arranged for it to be removed from their wedding night suite. He wanted every night to be their wedding night.”

“I guess anything’s possible when you’re in love.”

“For the right price.” He grinned. “Come this way.”

Robert guided me from the foyer through a small series of hallways that led to the kitchen. My nose tickled, probably from the good dusting this place must get every day. I ignored it as I took in the afternoon sun, which filled the room with calming white warmth that reflected off the gray granite countertops.

“It’s a lovely space. I can imagine throwing quite a party in here.”

“Yes. I prefer the natural lighting in this room. I rarely turn the lights on during the day.”

Keep those electric bills low, I thought. That was a little bitchy, I admit. I used to feel that way when I was handling Godzilla-size accounts on Wall Street, that it would be nice not to have to watch every dollar you spent.

“You live alone?” I asked. The girl-brain part of me was anxious about his reply.

“It’s just me and Nancy,” he said.

“And that would be Mrs. Reid?”

He smiled. “My Nancy is a rottweiler.”

I assumed he meant that as a noun and not an adjective.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Out back. Naturally, she’s high energy, so I fenced in the backyard for her to run around in. If I let her run free, she’d do nothing but birth puppies.”

“That’d be a strange life,” I said.

“Very.”

“Oh,” I replied. That would explain the tickling. I had a flash—a horrible gut burn of a moment—that took me back to the delivery truck, back to Robert being out there the next morning, back to my office and hearing Grant tell me about a canine, then back here. It was like a trip through the Stargate. I told myself the dog situation was unrelated.

Robert moved to the stovetop, where a fresh batch of pastries was cooling.

“Chocolate chip meringues,” he said.

“You have an on-premise dessert chef?”

He replied with a half smile that said, “I made them myself.”

I was impressed—after feeling stupid, yet again, for assuming that he was just a helpless, spoiled rich kid.

“Yum,” I said dumbly.

Robert used the spatula to dislodge the off-white egg-white cookies from the pan and placed them on a nearby serving dish before presenting them to me.

“These look great!” I gushed. “And they smell wonderful. I should hire you to supply the shop on a regular basis. Business would boom.”

“Try them first.”

And he was modest. He was too good to be true. That was also girl brain. Beware of men. They lie to get in your jeans. Don’t imagine that he’s any different.

I bit into the lightweight dessert and a warm chocolate chip melted onto the cradle of my lip as the thin cookie exterior crunched, then softened as it touched my tongue.

“Robert.”

“Yes?”

I just looked at him as I chewed, my closed mouth forming an involuntary smile, my pinkie lightly swiping the chocolate from my lip as I laughed self-consciously. My other arm and my lower back rested against the glistening counter, my right foot and calf flexed backward like during a first kiss.

“Nothing,” I said.

“A lot of nothing adds up to something,” he replied.

That made a kind of crooked sense. There was that wrong geometry again. That was how everything had been these past few days—everything real but off.

Robert set the serving dish down and closed the distance between us, staring into my eyes as if looking into my confused brain, searching for something without artifice or deflection. He found it—I could tell from his eyes—in the slightly open set of my lips. He gripped me around my waist, tilted his head forward, and pressed his mouth against my left cheek. I held on to the counter for fear that I would float away, even though he had me pinned there. I felt the meringue begin to soften and melt in my hand. My thumb went through it with a crumbling sound. I let the cookie pieces fall rather than interrupt the kiss.

He finally pulled away.

My brain said, Wow. So did his eyes. And that was just a cheek kiss.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but is it okay if I put the cookie on the counter?”

He laughed. Which made me laugh.

“You can do whatever you want with it,” he said.

“Really?” I smiled and shoved it in my mouth, chomping noisily.

He laughed at my antics. And that was what they were: me being nervous. My fighting a little bit of guilt about Grant. Me not caring, then, about anything but the moment. Another circle through the past to get to the present.

I chuckled at my own predictable behavior.

“What?” he asked with a smile.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Newspaperman, remember?” he said. “I’m good at reading people.”

“Profiler!” I said accusingly as I swallowed meringue.

“Guilty,” he replied.

“I really am enjoying all this. Really.”

“I know. I’m reading that, too.”

“Surprising, though.”

“Which part?” He laughed.

“The cookies, yeah, but mostly this,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You looked like you could use some grounding. I hope this worked. Even if it was a surprise.”

“Big-time. But not finding-a-dead-body surprising,” I said stupidly. Mood killingly. But in my defense, the homicide was kind of a big thing, and it was still lodged firmly in my frontal lobes.

Robert pursed his lips knowingly. He removed my arm from around his neck—how did that get there?—and followed the length of my arm with his hand, down to my wrist. He clutched my hand with his thumb nestled in my palm, his fingers wrapped around the back of my hand.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he said.

“I guess everyone gets a turn at bat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Big things. Traumas. I’m sure you’ve had some.”

“Not many,” he said, knocking the granite behind me. “When, if, I do, though, I hope I’ll know where to find you.”

That was sudden, also unexpected, somehow more forward than the kiss, and definitely weird.

Robert flashed that ten-million-dollar-house smile, squeezed the hand he still held, broke free from our rapture, grabbed one of his small homemade meringues, and popped the whole thing in his mouth.

“Not bad.” He grinned, chomping as I had.

I took a deep breath and suddenly became aware of my legs again. We started toward our original destination, the dining room. It was down a short hallway from the kitchen and was larger than my home. There was a little too much Louis XVI, silver, and Matisse on the walls for my taste. Well, not the Matisse. There were also deer heads. I made a mental note to limit Dani to kitchen duty.

I looked around, nodding, trying to focus on the room and not the guy in the V-neck.

“Great,” I said.

“You approve?”

“You could have a committee meeting or sign a treaty in here,” I said. “Yeah, it works.”

“Perfect,” he said. “You know there’s Shakespeare in the Park next Thursday night right outside the Parthenon. Maybe I’ll ask you to go to that.”

“I’ve been to the Parthenon only once, but as I recall, it’s as close to seeing the real thing in Nashville as I’ll get.”

“I think that was a compliment to our fair city.”

“Probably,” I said vaguely.

Robert laughed and kissed me one more time before leading me back through the short maze of hallways and into the foyer. I thanked him again for everything and swayed my way down his footpath, all giddy and self-conscious.

I paused at the car, saw he was still at the door, and waved good-bye before getting in. Robert waved back, his forearms looking manlier than before, then turned and closed his door.

I closed my door. I just sat there.

Oh. My. Good. God.

I sat in my silent car, hunched over and staring fuzzily at the dashboard. I saw my fortune-teller hair poking ugly and raw from my disheveled scarf. He saw that and kissed me, anyway. What a prince.

Start the car and drive away before he looks out and sees you’re still sitting here.

I started the car and drove away.

Thinking, unfortunately, not about Robert or about Grant.

What came into my head as I left Hendersonville was that goddamn rottweiler.

As I drove back along the busy highway, I managed to get the dog and the canine traces from the crime scene out of my head by thinking about Grant. I was angry at him, but I wasn’t sure why. Probably because he wanted to be around me more than I wanted to be around him. What had just happened with Robert proved that—not just that I was receptive to the kiss but that I really enjoyed it.

I’d made up my mind to sever things with Grant instead of going for the slow-death route. As I got off the highway, I pulled over and felt my jacket pockets for my cell phone.

What the hell?

It wasn’t there or in my purse or on the passenger seat or on the floor. Did I leave it at Robert’s place? I didn’t think so. I hadn’t used it since before that. When? I couldn’t remember. Most people who wanted to reach me called at the deli. Had I taken it out at the bakery when I went to pay, left it on the counter? After all, I’d forgotten the bagel.

Maybe I’d left it in the office. I had to. Where else could it be?

As my mother used to say, “If your head wasn’t screwed on . . .”

Business was busier than usual as I entered the deli. Many eyes were on me, the homicide hag freak with the burned-out hair.

Raylene and A.J. Two were glaring at me from behind their otherwise customer-attentive eyes. I guess they could’ve used me instead of Dani today.

Dani got to me first on her way back to the kitchen. She looked perplexed, which was not unusual. “Nash, I think you should know—”

“Not now, Dani,” I said as I squirmed my way to the safety of my office.

“But, but,” she sputtered.

I kept walking. Now, you’re probably thinking, You should listen to her. She may have something important to say. The truth is, she had done that to me a lot in the past couple of days. This was no different. It was about the quantum jump in our Facebook “likes” or “friends,” or whatever the hell they were. We were up to 873. She had said that was “manly,” though she pronounced it mainly, so I wasn’t sure if she meant it was strong or if mainly was a new social networking term that I’d not yet heard, as in mainline-y. It didn’t matter. I found it ghoulish.

I put my purse on my desk, slammed the door shut, sat back in my dad’s chair, and pulled my scarf from my head. I’d fixed it in the car. My scalp had started to feel cramped.

I looked around my desk, shuffled papers and junk mail here and there, and I didn’t see my phone. I even looked under the desk and under my tuckus, in case I was sitting on it.

Anxious to get it over with, I picked up the office phone and began dialing Grant’s number. But something made me stop. I decided to check my cell voice mail first. Maybe Robert had called and left a message that would spur on the renewed confidence I might need to carry me through the breakup process.

“You have two new voice messages,” it said. “First message.”

“Hello, Ms. Katz,” the stranger’s voice said. “This is Dave Clifton calling with the Nashville Haunted Tour Experience. I was hoping to discuss the possibility of formally adding your back loading area to the experience, as patrons are beginning to request it. We’re big fans and would be grateful if you’d call—”

I tapped a button. Part of my brain thought, That will bring in new clientele, more tourists. The sensible part of my brain slapped that part down.

“Message deleted. Next message.”

“Hi, Gwen.”

It was Grant.

“I just want you to know how much I care about you,” he said in a monotone, which I didn’t think he intended to be ironic. “I really do. You know that. But this just isn’t working out. Something’s different between us, something has changed, and I just don’t think you’re interested in finding out what so we can work on it. I tried calling you a couple of times this afternoon to talk it over, but you just aren’t calling me back, so I’m guessing it’s too late. I even went to get my stuff from your place, but I see the key is already gone. So, yeah. Here it is, my sad good-bye. I’ll just collect my stuff when it’s convenient, and I’ll try not to be too intrusive if I have to talk to you about the case. Be good. And good luck.”

He jostled the phone for a second before hanging up.

“End of new messages.”