Red Blooded Murder
“What exactly is that?” She gestured toward the hall.
“What are you talking about?”
“Those notes on your desk. The article. The lists.”
“So you’re a snooper, huh? Wouldn’t have pegged you for a snooper.”
She finished dressing and put a hand on her hip, willing herself not to show her nerves. She wanted to say something smart in return, she wanted to ask him so many questions, but his cold, assessing stare frightened her, draining away the shock and the anger, leaving only a hyperawareness that screamed that she was alone with this man. Anything could happen. Why had she thought for so long that she was immune to danger? That she could screw around with strangers without consequence? She had to get out of there.
She grabbed her purse from a brown velvet chair in the corner and tucked it under her arm. She wished he would say something normal, something that would explain all this—maybe even something that would make her laugh, because she wanted very much to cry.
But all he said was, “You were even better than I thought.”
4
When I woke up, I reached for Sam, feeling for that blond fuzz on his thighs. Instead, the legs I touched were smooth, longer than Sam’s, so muscled they felt like bone.
I opened my eyes, and there was that child. His brown hair spun out from his head like a Chinese fan. His face was white, his lips a pillowy pink. He was sleeping soundly. He looked like one of those people who could sleep anywhere—a plane, a crowded bus, the bed of a strange woman he’d only met the night before.
My first one-night stand. I’d never thought I’d have one. I was supposed to be a married woman by now.
A twisted sheet had fallen to the floor. I picked it up and wrapped it around me. Then I sat against the headboard and drew my knees up, staring at him. The tattoos on his arms—a gold-and-black serpent on one, twisting ribbons of red on the other—fascinated me. The people I knew with tattoos had tiny ones. My best friend, Maggie, had a shamrock on her ankle, for example. But Theo’s covered his entire forearms, his round biceps. High on his left pectoral was an Asian-looking symbol.
A buzzing sound split the silence. Startled, I dashed out of bed and grabbed my cell phone from the dresser. Sam, cell.
I hit the off button for the ringer and glanced over my shoulder. Theo moaned, happily it seemed, and curled into a ball.
I took the phone in the hall and shut the bedroom door. Sam, cell, the phone kept flashing. I felt an irrational guilt about the boy in my bed. I reminded myself that there was nothing to feel guilty about. I was an adult, Theo was an adult—legally anyway—and Sam was decidedly an adult. It was Sam who’d made our lives so crazy months ago; it was Sam who had hung up on me.
But still he was hard to resist. I answered. “Hello?”
“Sorry about last night, Red Hot.”
I leaned my back against the wall. I twisted a strand of my hair around my fingers. “How are you?”
“Feeling like a jerk. I’m sorry. This whole thing just gets me crazy, this being apart. I really miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“So what are we doing? Let’s just get back together.”
“I don’t know, Sam. It’s not that easy.” I grabbed a larger strand of hair, my hand twirling, twirling as I twisted it tighter onto my finger. If Sam were here, he’d gently take my hand; he would untwist my hair and kiss me on the head, just the way he’d always done.
“Yes, it is that easy,” he said. “You’re the one making it hard.”
“I’m the one?”
“Well, yeah, now you are. We’ve gone over and over everything. I had to do what I’d promised to do.”
“You promised you’d marry me.”
“And I still want to do that!” His voice was raised, and the tenderness was gone.
We were back to where we’d been many times since Sam had returned to town.
Suddenly, a tall band of light moved into the hallway, and there was Theo.
His nude body took up nearly the whole doorway. He crossed his arms, the red ribbons stretching tighter across his biceps, and gave me a lazy grin that was so sexy I felt my mouth hanging open. What was this kid doing in my hallway? How did I get him back to my bed?
“You got any eggs?” Theo asked.
I put my finger to my lips and pointed toward the kitchen.
He walked toward me, slow and steady until he towered over me. Last night I was wearing heels and he hadn’t seemed so big. Now, he was a large, strange man. Seeing him like this, naked and in daylight, made everything surreal, as if my world had been shaken like a snow globe.
“What’s going on over there?” Sam said.
“Nothing.” Just that there’s a molten-hot boy in my condo.
Theo leaned over me, that silky hair brushing my cheeks again. “I’m gonna make you breakfast,” he whispered in my ear. Mundane words, but the way he’d said them made my stomach flip.
“Iz?” It was Sam.
“Can we talk later?”
A pause. “Let’s get it out now.” But his voice was flat. We were both weary of talking.
I watched Theo’s ass as he walked toward my kitchen. I’d never seen such a perfect ass—two smooth orbs at the top of those long legs.
The other line rang. The display showed a number I didn’t recognize. Maybe Mayburn? “Sam, hold on a sec.”
I switched to the other line and heard an unfamiliar man’s voice say my name.
“Yes?” I said.
“It’s Zac Ellis.”
“Who?”
“Jane Augustine’s husband.”
“Oh, hi, Zac.” Jane had told me that her husband, a photographer, was in New York for an exhibit.
“I got your number from Jane’s book. Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah, sure. Hold on please.” I clicked to the other line. “I have to call you back, Sam. I’m sorry, okay?”
A beat, then, “All right.” I could hear the patience Sam was trying very hard to foster. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” That was one thing that was still certain in our lives.
I switched over to Zac. “Hi, I’m back.”
“Thanks. Look, Izzy, I have to ask you something—did you go out with Jane last night?”
“Yes.”
A pause. “Oh. I guess I thought …” His words fell away. Then, “Were there any guys there last night?”
Theo stepped into the hallway and held up a box of green tea in a silent question. How had he known that green tea was what I drank every morning, what I needed right at this very moment?
I smiled and nodded at him.
“What do you mean?” I said to Zac.
“I mean, was it just you and Jane or did you talk to any guys?”
“Uh … um …” It was a loaded question if I’d ever heard one. I had no idea what the right answer was. “We talked to a few people.” And one of those people is naked in my kitchen.
He said nothing.
“Is something wrong, Zac?”
“I got an early flight home last night. I waited up for Jane.”
“That’s nice,” I said, still unsure how he wanted me to respond.
“Yeah. It was. Except she never came home.”
5
I was still on the phone with Zac a few minutes later, spinning out possible hypotheses for where Jane had spent the night. I didn’t really believe any of them.
What I was really doing was taking up time, trying to let myself piece together the end of the evening. After Sam had hung up on me last night, I’d continued making out with Theo, partly out of spite and partly out of booze and partly out of the fact that he was so unbelievably hot. Before I knew it, he and I were in a cab on our way to my house. Before I knew it … Those were the words of someone who had done something wrong. Someone who should feel ashamed. That wasn’t me, I reminded myself.
As for Jane, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed quite possible that she’d gone home with the writer. She believed her husband was out of town, and she and Mick had been flirting madly. I hadn’t given it much thought last night. I’d assumed that flirting was all it was, but maybe it had gone further than that.
Shortly before I left, Jane had been there, slipping off her jacket, drinking in the visual praise of the men in the room, and then later when I looked up from my conversation with Sam, she was gone. I left ten minutes after Sam hung up on me, so I assumed Jane was just in the bathroom or at the back of the crowded lounge, somewhere I couldn’t see her. I’d searched around, and when I couldn’t find her, I’d texted her saying I was leaving and I’d talk to her tomorrow. And then, before I knew it, I was in the cab.
To Zac, I dished out more lame-sounding excuses—maybe she’d gone to a friend’s house, maybe she’d gotten a lead on a story and she was following that—while I tried to figure out what to do. Should I tell my friend’s husband that she’d been flirting with someone else?
“Was Jane talking to any guy in particular?” Zac asked.
“Uh …”
“Look, Izzy,” he said. “I shouldn’t have called you.” Silence. Then, “It’s not the first time this has happened, okay?”
“What do you mean?” I was in a robe by then. I went into my living room and sat on my favorite piece of furniture—a wingback chair Sam and I found at an antique store on Lincoln and reupholstered in a whimsical yellow-and-white fabric. The chair was unbelievably comfortable, and sitting there usually made me feel better. It wasn’t working today. Behind me in the kitchen, Theo was oblivious, whistling while he cooked.
“How close are you and Jane?” Zac asked.
“We’re friends from work. I used to be the lawyer for the company that owns Jane’s old station.”
“Yeah, I know, and she wants you to work for Trial TV.”
“Right. I accepted. But what did you mean that this has happened before?”
He exhaled, said nothing.
“Do you think you should call the cops?” This was all way too familiar. I could remember with crystal clarity the night Sam disappeared and that next morning when he still wasn’t around. “Or have you called the TV station?”
“I checked.”
“Have you talked to her family?”
“They live in Michigan. Plus, I think I know exactly what happened.”
“What?”
“I asked you before if you talked to any guys last night. Tell me the truth.”
I wrapped my robe tighter around me. “I did tell you. We spoke to a few people.”
“Who were they?” Zac asked.
“Um … let’s see.” I glanced over my shoulder, stalling for time. Over the breakfast bar, I could see Theo as he shook a small frying pan and flipped a perfect yellow omelet into the air, catching it again.
“You don’t remember who you spoke to?” Zac said. Something cold had crept into his voice.
“No, I do. I just …”
“What time did you leave?”
“One o’clock, I guess. Maybe two.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Well, this one guy.” A guy who was in my kitchen right now.
“What’s his name?”
“Um …” I knew it was Theo, but I had to think about his last name, which mortified me. Jameson! That was it.
Before I could answer, Zac jumped in. “Did Jane leave with him?”
“No.” I did.
“Look, Izzy, seriously. Don’t try to cover up for her.”
“I’m not. I know she didn’t go home with the person I was talking to.”
“Then who? Who was she talking to?”
I tried to think of the writer’s name. “I’m not sure.” I was relieved to be telling the truth. If I had thought it awkward to wake up with my first one-night stand, it was even worse to have a morning-after conversation with a friend’s husband.
Then he laughed. A caustic, short laugh. “Look, don’t worry about it. She just walked in.”
Zac hung up on me, the second man in twenty-four hours to do so.
Theo walked into the room, still naked, still so sizzling hot. He was holding out a white plate, on which was a yellow omelet with two red pepper slices crisscrossed on top. “Hungry?” he said.
I nodded. But I wasn’t exactly looking at the omelet. I took the plate. My thoughts crisscrossed too, calling out different directions. Call Sam back and make nice. Call Jane and find out where she was last night. Save the omelet for later and take Theo back to bed.
I opted for the last one.
6
Minutes after Theo said goodbye—a goodbye that involved a fair amount of groping—Jane called.
“I’m sorry Zac phoned you,” she said.
“Don’t be. Are you all right?”
“Can you meet me for coffee in an hour? I want to prep you on some Trial TV stuff, and I want to talk to you about something else.”
“Sure.” I had to meet Mayburn an hour after that, but I could fit it in.
Jane gave me the address of a coffee shop near her house in River North.
Before I got in the shower, I called my old assistant, Q, short for Quentin.
“How was girls’ night?” he said, answering.
“I slept with someone.”
Q and I used to be the busiest lawyer-assistant duo at the law firm of Baltimore & Brown, and we never had time for the usual Hi, Hello, How are you this morning? kind of stuff. Even though we had both been out of work for six months now—me because the firm had all but ousted me, and Q because he never really wanted to be a legal assistant anyway—we still continued to eschew common pleasantries when we talked and got right to the point.
“Thank, God. Who was it? Sam?”
“No.”
“Grady.”
“No.”
“Someone new?”
“Yes.”
“How many dates have you had with this person?”
I paused. “None.”
“A one-night stand?” His voice rose a few decibels.
“Yep.”
“Your first one-night stand?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Although Q had been in a relationship with a man named Max for most of the years I’d known him, at the end of our tenure at Baltimore & Brown, he’d gotten involved in an illicit affair. I call it illicit because not only was Q living with Max at the time, but he’d fallen for someone who wasn’t even out of the closet. But now he was official with the new boyfriend and living up the street from me at North and Dearborn.
True to his word, Q was banging on my door in less than ten minutes, which gave me just enough time to shower and toss on a dress that had been itching to get out of the closet since last fall.
Q sat on my bed, the overhead lights gleaming on his bald, black head, while I dashed around my bedroom putting on makeup and jewelry. When we worked at the law firm, Q’s uniform was crisp khakis and a stylish blazer. Now that he wasn’t working, he’d kept the blazer, but switched to jeans.
“Cute,” I said, pointing to the jacket, which was black.
“It’s too tight.” He tugged at the sleeves. “Everything is too tight. I thought being in love would give me the motivation to lose ten pounds, but it’s been the opposite.” Q worked out religiously and attempted every diet he heard about, but so far the flawless gay-man physique evaded him.
“You look great.” This was true. Happiness, even if it hadn’t translated into weight loss, made Q’s gray eyes sparkle and his skin gleam.
“Thanks. Is this new?” He fingered my waffle-cotton duvet cover.
“It’s old, actually.” I had been using a beautiful ivory spread that Sam and I had registered for and gotten as an early wedding gift. But once everything with Sam blew up, I tucked it in the closet for the time being.
“Is this where the magic happened?” Q patted the bed.
“Here and in the kitchen.”
“Tell me.”
“His name is Theo.”
“Nice. What’s he do?”
“Owns a Web design software company.”
“Like a real company? Or is he one of those guys who says he has a company, but it’s really him in his pajamas in his studio apartment?”
“From what I hear, it’s a real company, with some big profits.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Jane.”
“How is she?”
I almost said, In deep shit with her husband. But I held my tongue, since I’d been on a stop-swearing campaign for a while now. The other reason I didn’t say it was because I didn’t believe in telling one friend another’s business. “She’s great. She’s the new anchor at Trial TV, that start-up legal network that launches Monday.”
“It’s perfect for her.”
“I know. And she’s taking me with her.”
“What?”
“She asked me to be a legal analyst, kind of a reporter. What do you think? Ridiculous?”
He sat back and crossed his arms. “I think it’s brilliant. You’re TV pretty. You’ve got that great red hair and that crazy big smile. And you could talk your way out of a Turkish prison.”
“But I’m a lawyer, not a journalist.”
Q held up a palm in protest. “Are you kidding? Hardly anyone is a journalist anymore. Trust me, the business news stations are always on at our house, and they’ve got these sweet little children broadcasting from the trading floors. Don’t tell me any of those kidlets are journalists. Besides, you’re a lawyer, which means you know how to talk and to think on your feet. That’s what they want.”
“I guess.” Now that I was away from the drinks Jane was buying and the enthusiasm she projected, I was a little unsure. “God knows I need the money. Unlike you.”
Q smiled. “Yes, I am a kept man, and I love it.”
“So everything is sunshine and roses with you two?”
“I have to wear sunscreen all the time, and there are no thorns.”
“Wow. It sounds different than it was with Max.”
“It is different.”
“But you were in love with Max.”
“I was. At one point. In the only way I knew how to be at that time. And then somewhere it turned into me loving Max like a family member. I still love him, even though he won’t return my phone calls. But what I have now is that I’m intensely, absolutely in love, Iz. It’s like … It’s like …”
He trailed off, and I glanced over at him. He was staring into the distance, at the back wall of my bedroom, but it was as if he was watching a sunset fall over the Aegean Sea; he looked that ecstatically happy.
I felt a shiver of envy run through me. Because that’s how I used to look when I thought about Sam.
“Anyway,” Q said, coming out of his dreamy fog, “enough shoptalk, enough about me. Tell me about this Theo guy. How old? With a name like Theodore and his own company, I’d say forties, but since it’s software, I’m going with thirty-six.”
I purposely didn’t meet Q’s eyes in the mirror as I fastened my silver hoop earrings. “Bit younger than that.”
“Thirty?”
“Little younger.”
“Twenty-five?” Q said, surprised.
“Not exactly.”
“Twenty-three?” His voice was incredulous now.
“Um … Twenty-one?”
He whistled and clapped. “Damn, girl. That’s illegal in some states.”
I turned and leaned against my dresser, facing Q now. “You would not believe how sexy this kid is.”
“Oh, this is going to be trouble.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not going to be anything. It was just a … a thing.”
Q laughed, his gray eyes glinting. “Believe me, I think it’s about time you unleashed your inner slut. I applaud you for it. But this thing is going to be a train wreck.”
“No, it’s not. I might not even see him again.”
He laughed harder, throwing his head back. “Who are you kidding? You’re hooked.”
“No, I’m not.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And why would it be a train wreck?”
“The young ones always are.”
“But he’s older than his years. He’s been working since he was in high school. He went to college for a year. Stanford, I think. He has his own company.”
“Train wreck. In the best way. Believe me, I think you need this kid. He’s going to get you all hot and bothered and loosen you up. It’s exactly what you require after all this seriousness with Sam.”
We grinned at each other, and I had to admit, I kind of agreed with him. And despite the wisecracks, it was nice to have Q back the way we used to be.
“And I want to thank you,” Q continued. “I have been so bored lately, and now I’ve got a front-row seat for this show.”
“Why have you been bored?”
He sighed. “You know how it is. I was miserable when I was working, but …”
“Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “You were miserable when you were working with me?”
“No, no. You know I loved working with you. I just didn’t love the work I was doing. I wasn’t meant to be a legal secretary.”
“But you’ve been taking acting classes again since we left the firm.”
“I quit. I’m too old for it now.”
“You’re in your early thirties!”
“And you should see everyone in these acting classes—they’re in their early twenties. Like your boyfriend.”
“Shut up.”
“I am so going to love this show.”
I moved away from the dresser. “There’s no show, and there’s no train wreck.”
Q swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood. “Yes, there is, and, honey, I’m going to be here until the last curtain call and the last crash.”
7
I looked at Jane across the table. “Jane, I’m … Well, I’m kind of shocked.”
She blew on her half-full mug of coffee, clearly annoyed, then pushed it away.
We were at a coffee shop on Chicago Avenue. And after Jane gave me a bunch of details about Trial TV—the mission of the network, what I’d be doing there, instruction on landing news stories and writing them—she just announced that yes, she’d gone home with that writer last night, and no, as Zac had said, it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.
“Why are you shocked?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” I stirred a few Splendas into my second green tea. “I guess because I thought you were on top of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get mad at me. I’ve seen you get dragged around by your agent on occasion, but generally you seem like someone who’s got it together.”
“Izzy, nobody has everything together.” She shook her head and glanced away from me. When she turned back, she looked suddenly exhausted. “Nobody’s perfect. Didn’t you find that out when Sam disappeared?”
“Yeah, but I know why Sam did what he did.”
“And if you’re so fine with that, then why aren’t you back together?”
A good question. One Sam had been asking me, one I’d been asking myself for months.
A few years ago, when Sam and I discussed getting married, I had journaled about it, I had visualized it and debated the pros and cons. I talked to Sam about it, and I talked to my friends about it. And the conclusion I came to in my heart was … Yes. I wanted to be married, and I wanted to be married to Sam. But the big wedding Sam desired and my mother supported entirely had completely overwhelmed me. I was just about to talk to Sam about scaling it back, maybe even cancelling it, when he disappeared. So much had happened since then, and now something felt stuck in our wheel, dragging Sam and me slower and slower.
“I guess we’re not back together,” I said to Jane, “because it would have to be a hundred percent. I wouldn’t be dating anyone else. I wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else.”
“Don’t judge me because I had sex with that writer last night.”
“Actually, I’m not judging you at all. When Sam was gone and I had no idea where he was, I kissed someone else. My friend Grady.”
“See? And a lot of times I don’t sleep with these people, by the way.” She picked up the mug and took a sip. “A lot of times it’s just a make-out thing.”
“Does it matter, though? I’m really not judging you, I swear. God knows I’m spinning around, trying to figure out my life, so I’m the last person to judge anyone. I just think that cheating is cheating.”
“Oh God, are you one of those people who think that even kissing someone else is cheating?”
“Yeah.”