Too early. Too early. Jake plastered a pillow over his face, trying to drown out the sound of Jane’s alarm clock by pretending he was still asleep. He failed. Threw the pillow to the floor. Six o’clock.
Jane turned away from him, the flowered sheet falling from her bare back as she stretched out to slam the “snooze” button. She always hit “snooze.” He was more of a “turn it off, hop out of bed” kind of guy. Though somehow, not when he was with her.
“Nine lovely snooze minutes,” Jane announced. She rolled onto her back, propped one ankle on her knee, and linked her hands behind her head, reclining on her three pillows. Talked to the ceiling. “What shall we ever do?’
Jake tossed the sheet back over her, watched it settle into curves and hollows.
She yanked it from her face, leaving it pulled neck-high as she turned to him. “Chicken.”
“I have to work,” he explained. “You’re too tempting, lying there like that.”
“You might as well be on your way to California already,” Jane said. “Such a Boy Scout. But fine. I can face reality. I’ll take you to the airport—how about that for true love? When’s your plane?”
“Beyond the call of duty,” Jake said. “I’ll get D to drop me off.”
He pulled her closer, curling her into the curve of his shoulder. “If I have to go, and that’s still an if, I’ll only be gone maybe two days. I’ve got to track down Avery Morgan’s family out there, if I can, her landlord, her employers. Can you keep yourself out of trouble until I get back?”
“No,” Jane said. “And it’ll be on your head.”
She extricated herself, turned to face him, up on one elbow, head propped on her palm. A lock of hair dropped over one eye and she brushed it back. She had on Gramma’s ring, he saw.
“You don’t think someone from around here killed her?” Jane asked. “That’s pretty interesting, copper. I mean, if not a, I don’t know, maniac serial killer, then boyfriend, girlfriend, lover? Crazed grade-hungry student? Why would you go all the way to California?”
“You sound like D,” Jake said. It was possible they were right, and this was a goose chase. And the supe was not happy about the airfare. But even with only the bare bones the US Attorney’s Office had told him, clearly something was going on. How much could he tell Jane? Did it matter? When in doubt, say nothing. Always a good plan. “She has connections out there. From where she used to work.”
“Like what?” Jane asked.
“‘Like what?’” Jake mimicked. Like she might have been in witness protection, he didn’t say. “We’re not sure. But it’s always best to check it out in person. You see things, hear things. Get impressions. Stuff you can’t get on the phone, or the Net.”
“Ha!” Jane sat up and pointed at him as the sheet fell away again. She yanked it back up. “Which is exactly why going undercover to the party is the only way to get the scoop on what happens at Adams Bay. Like I said. Ha.”
Before he could protest, the snooze alarm went off, an insistent three-note ping. Then another sound: Jake’s cell phone, set to vibrate, buzzing across the nightstand. And then another sound: Jane’s phone, buzzing across the nightstand on her side. Coda leaped up, pounced onto Jake’s stomach.
“And the gang’s all here,” he said. Both phones continued to buzz. “Guess we’re getting up.”
“Jane Ryland,” she said into her phone.
“Brogan,” he said into his. Coda, displeased, jumped down and bolted away.
“You’re kidding me,” Jane said.
“He’s what?” Jake said.
JANE RYLAND
Fine. If Jake didn’t want to tell her what “He’s what?” meant? Fine. Jane had enough on her mind as she scrambled down the stairway, in bare feet and terry-cloth bathrobe, to retrieve the morning Register. Not on her front stoop? Again? No, wait. She’d canceled it a few months ago, in protest, after she’d proved some of the stories in it were not exactly true.
She paused, assessing whether she could dart next door, steal one of her neighbors’ and peek at the Metro section, but it looked like everyone had gotten up earlier than she had. Or maybe they’d canceled their subscriptions, too. Serve the paper right. She ran back up the three flights, hoping Jake was still in the shower. That’d give her enough time to check the Register’s online edition, hope it had the same photo.
She slammed into her desk chair, clicked onto the Internet. Scrolled through as fast as she could. It’d be interesting, beyond interesting, to see if what Fiola had just called about was true. Fee had only glimpsed the driver of the hit-and-run car on O’Brien Highway, not seen him clearly as Jane had, but Jane had sure described him to her enough times. The Register’s website appeared on the screen.
Nothing. The story was there, sure, but no photo like the one Fee described. She needed the real paper-paper.
“Hey, honey.” Jake appeared at the door of her office, fully dressed, drying his hair on a white towel, spattering wet spots on the shoulders of his black T-shirt. “I gotta go. I’ll call you, soon as I know anything, okay?”
Should she tell him what Fiola said?
Instead she asked, “Are you working on the Violet Sholto, um, possible homicide?”
He stopped drying his hair, held the towel beside his ear. “Huh? Why?”
“You’re such fun to talk to.” She shrugged. “Just wondering,” she lied.
But then, come to think about it, why not? She went at it another way. “Two affluent-ish women, dead in their affluent-ish homes, all I’m thinking. It’s kind of suspicious. Don’t you think? Or is Violet Sholto not suspicious? The darn online paper doesn’t really have much info.”
“Neither do we.” Jake went back to drying his hair.
“Was it the husband?” Jane asked. “It’s always the husband.”
“Not this time,” Jake said. “And now I have officially said too much. You’re not covering that story, are you? Why do you care?”
“Nope. I mean, I don’t. Care,” Jane said. He’d never believe that. “I mean, I do care. Two women murdered? If they were murdered. I mean, what if what’s-his-name, Clooney Sholto, killed his wife? And Avery Morgan, too? What can I tell you, I can’t turn off my reporter brain.”
“I never want you to turn off,” Jake said. “Maybe you should close that bathrobe.”
“Why, is it distracting you?” Jane stood, grabbed his towel, dangled it in front of herself, teasing.
She saw the look on his face. Well, truth be told, she wanted to go to work, too. See the photo Fiola was talking about. She was only teasing him about the distraction thing, but she did hate it when he went out of town. It didn’t happen much, but his long-distance absence felt different from his merely being at his house across town.
“Okay, duty calls,” she said, relinquishing the towel. “I get it. Your mind’s elsewhere. I have failed, miserably, as a woman.”
“You have never failed,” Jake said. “At anything. But you’re right. I have to go. I’ll let you know whenever.”
She stood, tucked her arm through the crook of his as they walked to her front door. Jake turned her toward him. She felt the weight and the pressure of his hands on her shoulders. That citrus fragrance, and toothpaste. She thought about last night, and the nights to come.
“You sure you don’t want to do some more ‘peanut butter’?” she asked. “Ha. PB and Jane. Get it? That’s my last bit of ammo.”
“I love you,” he told her. “And you have to be careful.”
An hour later, his words echoed in her brain as she saw the photo in the newspaper Fiola was holding. Jane had showered and made it to her office at Channel 2 in record time, feeding Coda, forgoing makeup, and yanking her hair into a scrabbly ponytail. She would come home later to change for tonight’s party.
“I’m an idiot,” she said, eyes on the newspaper. “I could have had you take a cell photo of this and send it to me.”
“Yeah,” Fiola said. “Neither of us was thinking straight, I guess. But now you’re here, and there it is, and it’s easier to see in real life. Am I right, or am I right?”
The entire Metro front had been the Red Sox and their blowout win over the Yankees. A misguided headline writer had come up with “Sox Rox.” Inside, a short paragraph in Newsbriefs mentioned Avery Morgan, how the police were still searching for suspects, how school administrators were not yet making a statement, how they’d assured summer students there was no campus threat. No classes had been canceled. A memorial was in the works.
Then, page three, the headline. “Wife of Local Figure Found Dead.” And the subhead: “Sources Say Victim Found in Bathtub.”
“In water, like Avery Morgan,” Fiola was saying.
Jane was mesmerized by the black-and-white wedding photograph of Violet O’Baron. “File photo,” the caption said. Dated ten years ago, an obviously posed and more obviously airbrushed portrait. The bride in puffy white sleeves and elaborate veil. The groom wearing a dark suit and grim expression.
“See?” Fiola pointed at the photo. “I mean, how would you describe that guy?”
Only one way, Jane knew. “Middle-aged, Caucasian, widow’s peak, grayish hair, pointy cheekbones, thin lips, clean-shaven.”
“Thought so,” Fiola said. “Sit-chu-ay-shun. I mean, I could be wrong but—”
She took the paper from Jane, rattling the page, folding it so only the photo showed. “Who the hell is Clooney Sholto? The article is totally weasel-worded. ‘Local figure.’ ‘Plumbing company.’ That’s shorthand for ‘bad guy’ if I ever heard it. But if he’s so ‘local figure,’ why didn’t you recognize him?”
“I only got to Boston three years ago.” Jane stared at the photograph and lowered herself into her office chair. Could she be wrong? The photo was ten years old and retouched.
“I mean, I’ve heard of Clooney Sholto,” Jane went on. “He’s somewhat of a gangster. Funny word, but yeah. Old-school. Never in public. Never leaves Boston, apparently. And I don’t think he’s ever been arrested. So I’ve heard of him, sure. But I never saw him. I mean, why would I?”
“So you agree? You think this is him?” Fiola handed her the paper, then faced her, hands on hips.
“I have to say…” Jane paused. This was only Fee. She could always change her mind. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“I knew it,” Fiola said. “So now what?” She brandished the paper at Jane, like a prosecutor presenting indisputable evidence to an indecisive witness. “You gonna tell McCusker you found the hit-and-run driver?”