Red Blooded Murder

2

When we left the Park Hyatt, Jane told the waiter where to meet us, and three hours later, when he walked in the club, Jane and I were surrounded by five other guys.

I was talking to one in particular, a tattooed twenty-one-year-old with shiny, light brown hair that fell halfway to his shoulders. He knew Jane—they’d met at a party a year ago—and he strolled up to us within moments of arriving. But it was me he was talking to, and although he was way too young for me, he was so pretty in such a big, strong kind of way, I couldn’t tell him to beat it.

“Theo Jameson,” he said, when we first met. He reached for my hand, shook it, squeezed it, then held it … and held it. He smiled at me as if he had been waiting to see me for a long, long time. “Great hair.” His chin—strong and tanned—jutted toward the top of my head. But his eyes didn’t move from mine.

“Thanks.” I pulled my hand away, patted my head idiotically. My hair had a life of its own. When the gods smiled, which was infrequent, it corkscrewed into perfect spirals. Most of the time, like now, it twisted prettily in some places and frizzed about in others, and the result was a long tangle of orange-red curls.

The club was on Damen—lounge-ish and made to look like a French salon. Apparently Jane went there frequently and knew the manager, and even though we’d had too many celebratory glasses of wine earlier, she’d convinced me to stop in with her and “say hello.” She needed to cut loose, she said. She’d been working for a month straight, and she’d be in rehearsals all weekend. In days of yore, I would have declined, and then I would have skidded over to Sam’s place and crawled in bed with him. I would have woken him up with a few select kisses up his thighs—I loved those thighs, dusted with gold-blond hair. Back when I was with Sam, I would never have known such lounge-ish salons existed. But now was a different time, and there was something about Jane that made it very, very hard to say no.

Theo and I started talking. When he told me his favorite meal was champagne and mussels, I was mildly interested. When he told me he ran a company that made Web design software, and that his clients included a bunch of Fortune 500 companies, I was intrigued, but not sure I bought it.

Two of his friends were standing nearby at the time. From the very few words they spoke, they seemed younger than Theo. One wore a T-shirt that read Objects Are SMALLER Than They Appear. I stared at that shirt. Being a decade older than him, was I somehow missing the joke? Or was the slogan what I thought it was—an odd, thinly veiled reference to the kid’s small penis?

“Come sit,” Jane said, herding Theo and me to a large, round powder-blue booth. Two guys were already sitting there. Jane gestured at them. “Writers,” she said. “They write books.” She mentioned their names, but with the jazzy, club music pumping loud, I couldn’t make them out.

We all shook hands. One of the writers was an attractive guy with thick, prematurely gray hair that contrasted with his youthful, tanned face.

“How are you?” he asked me, after all the hand shaking. He had the kind of eyes that looked right into yours, not necessarily in a romantic way, just a way that was truly interested, that was keen to other people.

“I’m great. Jane just offered me a job at Trial TV.”

“Really?” His eyebrows rose. “Congrats.”

“Yeah, congrats,” the other writer said. He had blond hair and a shy smile.

Theo slid into the booth and began talking to the writers, but Jane held me back. “Theo is the real deal,” she said. “Started this software company while he was in high school. Went to Stanford on a full-ride scholarship but he dropped out after a year. Making millions upon millions now.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “He’s so young.”

“Who cares?”

I changed the topic. “How do you know the writers?”

Jane shrugged. “I’ve met the one with the tan once before. Something about him intrigues me.” She playfully shoved me into the booth. “Someone needs to buy me a drink,” she said loudly to the group.

Ten minutes after we sat down, Theo’s buddies joined us, and ten minutes after that, the waiter walked in, looking unsure in his black jeans, his hair newly wet and combed back. He saw Jane and me packed into that leather banquette with five men and shook his head as if to say, Nooooooo.

“Jane!” I called toward the end of the banquette, gesturing at the waiter as he began to walk away, but she was engrossed in a conversation with the two writers.

I tried to move around Theo, but he glanced from me to the waiter and then put his arms on the table, blocking me. “If you think I’m letting you get up to talk to some other guy, you’re wrong.” He leaned closer, his sleek hair brushing my cheek. “Sorry. I don’t want to be pushy, but I’m into you.” His last few words hushed themselves into my ear. And just like that, I forgot about the waiter.

Vodka bottles came and left the table, wine bottles disappeared even faster. I went to check my watch at one point. I thought I caught a glimpse of well past midnight, but Theo covered the watch with his hand. “It’s Friday, remember? There’s all sorts of time on Friday night.”

“You’re right. I have lots of time,” I said, quite tipsy by then and thinking I might be philosophical. “And I used to have no time. I mean, I used to be inundated. Work and billable hours and an assistant and clients and a wedding and—” I thought of Sam “—and people. But now, I have all sorts of time. My time is empty, my time is …” I died away, trying to come up with something profound and falling short. I closed my mouth. If there was one thing I’d learned as a lawyer it was when to shut up.

But then I remembered my time wasn’t empty anymore. Monday morning, I’d start as an analyst for Jane. Even sooner, tomorrow afternoon, I’d meet with John Mayburn to consider working another case with him.

Mayburn was a private investigator who had helped me out when Sam disappeared. In return for the huge fee I couldn’t pay, I’d worked for him on a case where he needed a North Side Chicago female type to blend in and conduct surveillance. He’d practically gotten me killed, and I vowed never to take another job with him, but I needed the cash in a fierce way. With luck, he could get me something that could minimally bridge the cavernous salary gap between my profitable days of yesteryear and my intriguing, but nonetheless impoverished, future in TV.

I tried to catch Jane’s eye to thank her for that opportunity. Despite the miserable salary she’d told me I’d be making, I was thrilled in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. There was nothing like a wedge of opportunity to make the whole sky open up.

But Jane was leaning in close to the writer. His gray hair looked whiter than it really was because of the smooth tan of his skin. His brown eyes were decorated with lashes longer than normally seen on a man. He had one of those overly handsome indents in the center of his chin, but that, combined with the gray hair, somehow gave him the look of an intellectual. The other guy had disappeared. Neither Jane nor the writer seemed to care. They were completely intent on their conversation. And clearly flirting.

Right then, Jane unbuttoned her suit coat and slipped it off. It seemed that all the men in the bar paused to look at her at that moment. The black blouse she wore underneath was held by only a thin velvet band around her neck. The fabric was gauzy and fell in soft folds around her breasts. Jane seemed too entranced by her conversation with the writer to notice the attention, but then she glanced up and swept the room with her eyes, drinking in all those gazes. She looked at me, and she winked.

I laughed, tossing my head back. It was as if I could feel the laughter burbling up inside me, and by releasing it I was letting go of all the tension of the last six months—all the deep, troubled talks with Sam about why he hadn’t trusted me to tell me what he’d done, why he’d taken off from the city, leaving me blinking like a newborn, unattached and unsure.

When I looked back at Jane, she and the writer were talking low, staring at each other’s mouths.

As I watched them, Theo bent toward me and kissed my neck. Just like that.

Instead of pulling back and saying, Hey, excuse me, what are you doing? I tilted my head to let him do it again. His tongue flicked gently against my skin. I let my head fall back farther. It didn’t occur to me to care that a strange man (a child, really) was kissing me in public. Nothing mattered but that moment. I turned my head to him and met his mouth with mine. I expected rough; I expected insistent; I expected demanding. But Theo was nothing like that. He kissed patiently, like someone with lots of time to get where he wants, and very sure he’s going to get there.

My cell phone vibrated in my purse, but I ignored it. I shifted my body in the booth, touched Theo’s silky hair. It fell on my cheeks as he leaned over me.

A minute later, the phone vibrated again. Our bodies were so close by that time, the sensation traveled from me to him.

“Want to get that?” he said into my mouth.

“No.”

His tongue flicked against my lips and he put his arms around me, scooping me, as if I were a small and tiny creature, even closer into him.

Once again, that phone.

“Hold on,” I mumbled. I extricated myself and opened my bag. Sam, cell, the display read. I clicked Ignore, then looked at the caller ID list. He’d called three times.

Despite the fact that Sam and I were just dating now and it was legal for me to be kissing a total stranger, a little guilt sparked inside me. Then paranoia hit. Was Sam here? Had he seen me somehow? Was that why he was calling?

I swiveled my head around.

“What’s up?” Theo asked.

The place was packed now—lots of guys with gelled hair, lots of women in dresses and stiltlike sandals. No Sam. “Nothing,” I said.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” I stuck the phone in my purse, annoyed that everything in my world had been focused on Sam lately. I wanted tonight to be about fun, about celebrating a new job (and maybe another one tomorrow when I met with Mayburn). I looked at Theo’s mouth—deeply curved at the top, sloped low at the bottom, wide and yet masculine. I licked my lips, glanced up into his eyes. They were on my mouth. I leaned forward and bit his bottom lip. He pulled me back into him, and soon we were making out once more.

The phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

I groaned, pulled away and yanked the phone from my purse. Sam, cell. I felt a pang of panic. What if it was an emergency? “Hello?”

“Hey, Red Hot.” Sam said, his nickname for me. The sound of it softened me, made everything disappear—the bar, Theo, the bottles, the people. They all vanished as if pulled into a hole, deep and black.

“Hey,” I said.

“Where are you?”

It all filled back in then—the booth, the crowd. Suddenly the music’s bass seemed to pump louder, harder. “Some place on Damen.”

“Who are you with?”

“Jane. You know, Jane Augustine?”

I looked over to the end of the booth, but Jane was gone. Probably in the bathroom.

From behind, I felt my hair being lifted up, then replaced with a mouth, wet and questioning on my nape. I almost moaned.

“Come over,” Sam said.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s late.”

“Exactly, so come over.” A pause. “I miss you.”

Theo was suckling the skin on the back of my neck now. I thought to warn him that I was a redhead, and redheads acquired hickeys very, very easily, but I couldn’t exactly say anything while I was on the phone with Sam, and the fact was I didn’t want Theo to stop. Not even a little bit.

For a moment, I was suspended there, hearing Sam say sweet things—how he missed me, how he loved me. And at the same time, I was feeling those persistent lips on my neck, sucking something of me into the room, some part of me that had been veiled until now—a part that enjoyed a dark lounge in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, a part whose whole body responded to the boy with long hair and tattoos, a part that reveled in the off-kilter and the fresh and the surreal.

“Iz?” Sam said. He’d stopped talking, I realized, and I hadn’t said anything.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m here.”

“Come over.”

I was torn in two then. One part leaned toward my old life, toward Sam, the other pushed back into Theo, thrilled with the new. The truth was, the new was a stronger pull, if only because I’d been living in the past for so long and I was tiring of it. Sam and I spent hours and hours trying to piece together what had happened between us. Once a week, we talked to a therapist about our “communication patterns.” Now I wanted, just for a moment, levity and life, fun and frolic.

“Sam, I told you earlier that we couldn’t get together. I told you I had plans.”

Theo’s arms slid around my waist. He whispered in my free ear, “Get off the phone.”

“Sam, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m sick of this, Iz.”

“So am I!” Exasperation crept in, messing with my levity.

“I know I caused you a lot of pain. But it’s in the past, and at this point, it’s your hang-up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been talking, and I’ve been explaining, and I’ve been telling you how much I adore you, but you just won’t let it go.”

“Are you kidding? It’s kind of a big thing to just let go—”

“Have fun, Izzy.” And he hung up.

I stared at the phone in dismay. Sam had never hung up on me. At first, I was scared—scared I’d lose him, scared I’d already lost him, scared that if I didn’t patch things up, and right now, he’d be gone forever. Then anger swept in. How dare he blame this on me?

And then at last, calm entered my mind. It said, Leave it alone. Just for now. You want frolic? Then frolic.

Theo was kissing my ear. I stared at my phone. One finger itched to call Sam back, but that voice spoke again. Leave it alone. For now.

In that instant, I wanted so badly to forget everything, to forget even myself.

I put the phone back in my purse, turned around and placed my arms around Theo.

3

Jane Augustine opened her eyes and let her gaze sweep over the strange bedroom. A small skylight, drawing in the morning sun, illuminated the otherwise dark room. She could make out an antique shelf packed with books in a meticulous way—the taller books at the beginning of each shelf. Next to it was a dresser, which also looked antique. Above that hung an oil painting, which showed a single green apple on a table. The brush stroke was heavy, the painting textured contemporarily. The place looked as if it had some cash behind it.

And then there was the address—Goethe Street, right off State. Impressive, Jane thought. Writers usually made so little money. Not that she cared. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a husband; it was simply that she’d woken up in more than one strange bedroom, and they weren’t all this nice.

She turned her head, trying not to shift the bed, and glanced at the writer in question. Last night, he had seemed worldly, but now, as she listened to his light snore, he looked like a little boy despite his gray hair.

But he was a little boy who knew how to fuck. She could tell that even before she went home with him. She could tell that with any man. She had gotten exactly what she wanted from the writer—Mick was his name. She’d needed her fix last night, and he had been her black tar heroin.

That was how she thought of what she did—like an addiction—but in all honesty, it was inaccurate to say that she was addicted to sex. She’d once visited a sex addict Web site, and what she found there wasn’t her. She didn’t search the net for porn. She hadn’t been arrested for voyeurism, exhibitionism, prostitution, sex with minors or indecent phone calls.

What she was addicted to, though, was the rush of someone new, the smell of a body so unlike her husband’s, the feeling of instant intimacy with a stranger. She was addicted to the way an evening with someone like the writer would walk her right into a world so dissimilar from hers. She had always been able to see, even as a child, that there were so many different lives to be had. Sex with someone other than her husband gave her a key to those other lives, let her crawl right into them and look around with awed eyes.

She and Zac loved each other with a ferocious loyalty and an ever-present tenderness, but she and Zac were different when it came to sex. She liked it more than he did, required it more than he did. And so her dalliances—she liked calling them that, thought there was something Virginia Woolf-ish about that word—had been a constant in their life. She knew it sounded like a cop-out, but she was happier with Zac because of what she had outside of him. She was better to him, more devoted to their life together. He always understood that.

But like any addiction, the morning after was never pretty. As she stared around the new bedroom, guilt crept in like smoke. It inhabited the room. It filled her lungs until she found it hard to breathe. Always this guilt, this judgment of herself. She was a bad person, she knew. Anyone who cheated on their spouse was bad, wasn’t that right? But she didn’t believe in her bones that she was a terrible person.

She stood from the bed and stretched her long limbs. The writer groaned, rolled over. With that groan, flashes of last night flooded in. She could still feel his mouth, his teeth on her breasts. She looked at her body, searching for bruises, any marks that would give her away when Zac got home. But even without a telltale sign, Zac would know. He always did.

There was something wonderful about that knowing. Zac saw everything about her—all her flaws—and he still loved her. It was amazing to have a love like that. And so these dalliances, in their own way, brought her that deep part of their relationship, too.

She went into the bathroom and closed the door, then flipped on the light and sat on the toilet. The bathroom was rather large, with a small, round table across from the toilet. On top was an oval, silver dish. She lifted it and poked her finger at the contents—matches from Cog Hill, a local country club, a small pair of silver scissors, a few Euro coins depicting Mozart.

She finished using the toilet and opened the cabinet under the sink. Typical male collection of crap—shaving cream, gel, a box of condoms.

When she came out of the bathroom, he was still asleep. She cleared her throat to see if he would roll over again. Nothing. She padded softly on the Oriental rug and left the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

The hallway was dark. She stood still a moment, letting her eyes fine-tune to the dimness. When she stayed with someone, this was her favorite part, this nosing around, because she got to walk around in a life that wasn’t her own.

The first room on the right was bigger than Mick’s bedroom. It was, she realized, the master, but he used it as his office.

A large teak desk dominated the room, nearly covering the window that was set into the wall behind it. The blinds were half-closed, and through them, a gray, early-morning light striped the room. She went to the desk, looked at the four stacks of paper there. Two were made of typed sheets of paper; another was made up of tiny, handwritten notes. The last was a stack of cut-out magazine pages. She flinched. On top of that pile was a photo of a woman in a black suit with tan piping and gold buttons. Her suit. It was a picture of her.

She blinked a few times, confusion clouding her brain. She leaned close, her hands behind her back. The photo had run with an article which had appeared just last week in Chicago Magazine, discussing the soon-to-be launch of Trial TV and her position as anchor. In the photo, she also wore her signature red scarf. It had become a thing, that scarf, something that signaled to loyal viewers that there was a big story or that it was a momentous news day.

On the picture, a black arrow had been drawn toward the scarf with a marker. A note in the margin read, How did scarf get started? Intentional PR schlock or the real deal?

She recoiled. What was going on here?

Her eyes shot to the other stacks. She tried to read the notes, but they were mostly illegible. One of the other piles had typewritten pages about a CNN news reporter who’d recently been caught sleeping with a Southern governor whom the newscaster had been covering for years.

The final stack … She leaned closer. She froze.

Jane Augustine, was typed on the top of the sheet. Below that was a list:

Gym—East Bank

Grocery store—Whole Foods on Huron or Fox & Obel.

Hair salon—Roberto Puig on Rush

Sports—Bulls occasionally, but only courtside. Bears but only club level.

Her breath caught in her lungs. She literally felt unable to breathe. What the hell was all this? Was he covering her for a story? If so, why wouldn’t her publicist or the station know about it? They told her of every tiny story they landed about her. And if he was covering her, why the notes about what gym she went to, where she got her hair cut? She looked closer at the list, scanning it. She cringed when she saw one of the last items there.

Gynecologist—Dr. C. Wiseman on Wabash

She raised the paper and read the item under it.

Guys, it said. Two names were listed below—Nathan Vatalli, Ben Houston. Both men she’d slept with.

Right then, she got a whoosh of air into her lungs. She turned and stormed from the room into his bedroom. She pushed open the door. It banged against the wall.

He started, raising himself up on his elbows. “Mornin’, gorgeous,” he said when he saw her standing there, naked.

She walked to the bed. She put her hand on his chest and shoved him.

He smiled. “Yeah. Get back in here.” He threw off the covers.

She glared. She pulled the blanket back over his body. “Just so you can get your information straight, that scarf was given to me by Barbara Brewer, the famous journalist and my first mentor. It was not some ‘PR schlock—’” She made air quotes with her hands “—and if you don’t stop following me, I’ll have you arrested.”

She turned and began searching for her clothes, suddenly teary and fluttery instead of angry. The threat was a lame one. If she called the cops and accused this guy of stalking her, he might tell them about her affairs, her dalliances, which he clearly had learned about. And she knew the Chicago cops well enough to know that such information would hit the streets—accidentally of course, but fast. She couldn’t risk that kind of bad press, certainly not with Trial TV about to launch.

She retrieved an earring from the floor. Her hands trembled as she tried to get the post through her lobe. She found her skirt, then her jacket, and put them on, trying to steady the shake that was not only in her hands but quivering through her organs, crawling on her skin. She glanced back, expecting to see him with a guilty expression, maybe a scared one now that she’d busted him, but he was just stroking that cleft in his chin that she’d found so sexy last night. And it was he who was studying her.