Chapter Eighteen

 

You know in movies where something embarrassing happens and the sound falls off and everyone in the scene stares at the hapless focus of the camera’s zoom? Well, that was me walking into the dining room at the Blue Heron Lodge that evening.

The noise level, which had been subdued compared to the previous evening, dropped off to nothing, and every head in the place seemed to turn my way. I tried to tell myself they were really looking at J.X., but there was no admiration in the faces directed toward us.

The one that hurt most was Rachel, who looked right at me, and then dropped her gaze to her plate.

“We’ll sit over here,” J.X. said, nodding to a table for two wedged by the window. I nodded, moving blindly, and he rested his hand on my lower back. I’d have taken it as a gesture of support if he hadn’t spent the last few minutes demonstrating the numerous ways he’d like to kill me.

We took our seats, and the people at the surrounding tables made ostentatious effort not to look our way. Debbie appeared with menus, handing me mine without looking my way. I began to understand why that shunning thing was such an effective punishment—even on someone as generally antisocial as me.

I ordered a G&T, ignoring J.X.’s look of disapproval. He ordered coffee. Debbie retreated, and J.X. said, “It’s an awkward situation. Don’t take it to heart.”

“Moi?” I bit out. “Far from minding, I’m delighted. You’ve solved my career problems for me. I’m going to sue your ass when I get out of here and take you for every dime you have.” I stared out the window and got a nice reflected snapshot of my white, furious face and every other head in the dining room turned my way under the impression I couldn’t see them.

My eyes blurred. I blinked hard, aware that J.X. was staring at my profile.

“Kit,” he began gruffly.

I turned to face him. “You know, it’s bad enough to have to sit here like I’m the main exhibit in a zoo. I don’t feel like making polite conversation with the keeper.”

He flushed, and his jaw tightened. “Suit yourself,” he clipped out. “I was trying to be nice.”

“I can see that. And it’s hard to think of anything nicer than being locked up in the stockade all day and then having someone threaten to kill you.”

“I didn’t threaten to kill you.”

Now that got some interested looks—quickly concealed.

J.X. lowered his voice. “Jesus, you’re a baby. I’ve done all the apologizing and explaining to you that I’m going to do. You got yourself into this. If you want to sit there and sulk, be my guest.”

Debbie reappeared with our drinks, saving me from having to answer, even if I could have. Maybe I wasn’t being very reasonable about the situation, but…it wasn’t an easy situation to be reasonable about.

J.X. ordered the salmon. I said I wasn’t hungry.

I said it politely, by the way, but J.X. muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake. He’ll have the salmon too.”

Debbie departed, I sipped my drink, and J.X. stirred sugar into his coffee. I watched the room mirrored in the dark window. The other diners seemed to be losing interest in us.

“Are you really going to write a series about a Regency P.I. demon?”

J.X. was smiling a little, his eyes teasing, and I realized that he was one of these unbearably irrepressible types who got over their anger quickly, forgiving and forgetting—occasional death threats aside.

“No,” I said repressively. I couldn’t help adding, “Anyway, the P.I. is not a demon, her boyfriend is.”

“Ah.” He sipped his coffee. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Could anything on earth stop you?”

“No.”

“Be my guest.”

“Why don’t you write about something you know?”

“Because I write mysteries—and we can’t all be cops.”

“We can’t all be elderly spinsters with cats either.”

“So what do you suggest? I join the police force? I kill someone—oh, wait. You think I did.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m not saying you have to live it to write it. That’s biography, not fiction. I’m saying there are some young guys who could write believably about a repressed English spinster and her horny tomcat—you’re not one of them.”

“Wh-wh-what?”

He met my aghast stare calmly. “You heard me. Oh, you write one hell of an amusing mystery, but there’s not one shred of anything real or meaningful in it. Those books are just witty, academic puzzles.”

“How very dare you!”

To my mounting outrage he continued to smile at me, his expression quizzical. “Come on, you know exactly what I mean. You’ve been cranking those things out in your sleep for years now. I’m not saying they’re not clever. I can never figure out where you’re going with them. But there’s nothing real in them. There’s nothing of you in them.”

“How the fuck would you know whether there’s anything of me in them or not? You don’t know me.”

“I thought I did once.”

I opened my mouth to deliver the obvious and crushing truth, but somehow I couldn’t. Somehow, remembering how…sweet he had been all those years ago. Not in a sappy way. He had been a tough, savvy young cop sort of awed to find himself with a book contract and rubbing shoulders—and other things—with the mystery elite. And every time his eyes met mine that long-ago weekend there had been a look that said he thought I was wonderful. And when we had made—fucked—there had been something alarmingly close to tenderness—

But why think of that now? What was the point? It was painful remembering.

So I swallowed the cruel words, and I stared out the window at the black rain washing away the world beyond this dining room.

“Why don’t you write about something that matters to you?” J.X. asked.

“You think Regency period demons don’t matter to me? You really don’t know me.” I raised my brows mockingly and sipped my drink.

Debbie brought our salads then, and the conversation was limited to passing the salt and pepper and me ordering another drink.

We had worked our way to dessert and the dining room was largely emptied when Espie stopped by our table, pulling up a chair.

“Please don’t talk to the prisoner, ma’am,” I drawled.

She guffawed. “Yo, esse, if you offed that pair, you’ll be getting a commendation from the writing community.”

“I’ll look for it with my next royalty check.”

J.X. gave another of those long-suffering sighs. I said to Espie, “For the record, I didn’t kill either of them.”

“I believe you,” she said easily. She nodded at J.X. “He believes you. He told us all he’d lock you up if that would make everyone feel better, but it didn’t look to him like you could have done it.”

I threw J.X. an uncertain look. I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you, although I was grateful for this unexpected show of support.

“Did he tell you they found a rain slicker covered with blood in the Dumpster behind the patio?”

“No, he didn’t,” I said, my gratitude fading as quickly as it had flared. J.X. was looking at Espie with resignation.

“It was from the closet in the lobby. That means anyone could have taken it.”

“Anyone in the lodge,” I said.

“Right.”

I said tightly to J.X., “But not me because I wasn’t in the lodge, and you know damn well I wasn’t wearing it or carrying it when I went back to my cabin last night.”

He said evenly, “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t think you killed anyone?”

“He thinks I did it,” Espie told me.

“Did you?”

“Nah. I’ve had the prison experience. Been there, done that, and I have no intention of ever going back.”

“What were you in prison for?”

“I killed my boyfriend.” She chuckled at my expression. “It was an accident. Sort of. He was cheating on me, and I chased him with my car. I hit him accidentally on purpose, if you know what I mean.” She tapped the side of her head as though to indicate non compos mentis. “I was seventeen. You know what that’s like. Anyway, I did my time. And I am a very safe driver these days.”

J.X. looked unamused. Once a cop, always a cop. I said, “What would your motive be this long after the fact?”

“Revenge. We Latinas are known to be very hot-blooded.”

“That’s very hard to make fly in fiction, let alone real-life crime.”

“Doesn’t mean it couldn’t be true.”

The dining room lights flickered and went out.