Last Scene Alive Part 12

She would be an angel, she agreed. And within the hour.

I ran out to my house and changed, searching out my only other turtleneck. Luckily, it was cream colored and I could wear it with anything. Anything, today, turned out to be forest green pants. I pitched the soiled clothes into the washer. This was no time to abandon my ultraclean habits, considering my mother had left a message on my answering machine to tell me she'd be showing my house at three in the afternoon.

Quick work, even for Mother.

My face was bruised, as I discovered when I went to the mirror to brush my hair. Apparently I hadn't quite been able to stop myself from banging the pavement. Well, my hands had been full, and I hadn't thrown them up in time. It could have been much worse. What if my attacker had had a knife?

A thought skittered across my mind, and returned to take a deeper look out of my eyes.

Robin's last girlfriend was lying on a slab in Atlanta.

Robin's current girlfriend-and I guess that would be me-had just been shoved down in a public parking lot in broad daylight.

The two incidents weren't exactly comparable, were they? Still . . . food for thought.

Robin called the library before I got off work to ask if he could come out to the house. I appreciated him not a.s.suming he could show up, and I said I'd be glad to see him. Which was true. But I would've been more glad if I could've seen him somewhere else.

I was still uneasy at having another man out to the house I'd shared with Martin. Surely that was natural? And I could tell my mother was debating whether I was moving because of Robin's reappearance in Lawrenceton. That would be nuts, I knew. Robin said he wasn't leaving town when the movie shoot was finished, but men said a lot of things under the sway of l.u.s.t. My experience with Arthur had taught me nothing, if not that.

I wasn't moving because of Robin, I a.s.sured myself. I was moving because I was ready to rejoin life. And if that life included Robin right now, so much the better.

I was carrying the arrangement when I got out of my car, and he came over to me to help.

"They're beautiful," I said. "Thank you so much."

A little awkward, he bent to kiss me, his hands full with the bowl of flowers. The minute his lips met mine, I felt a sort of solar flare. It was unexpected and violent, and I thought the d.a.m.n flowers would end up on the ground again.

When we broke for air, I took a deep breath.

"This seems, I don't know, a little precipitous," I said.

Robin's eyes were shut behind his gla.s.ses. He was breathing raggedly.

"Feels good, though," he said.

"You're coming off a relations.h.i.+p and a loss, I'm coming off a relations.h.i.+p and a loss," I pointed out. My relations.h.i.+p, and my loss, had been far greater, but he knew that already. We walked over to the house.

"What happened to your face?" Robin said. It was dark already, and I'd just disarmed the security and flicked on the kitchen lights.

"Does it look very bad? I've been dodging mirrors since noon," I said. My fingers anxiously patted the darkened area. I trotted to the downstairs bathroom, Robin at my heels. I leaned across the sink, my gla.s.ses folded on the counter, and peered at my right cheek. Not too bad-a dark center and a lighter ring of bruising. It would be gone in a week.

"You want to tell me what happened?" Robin asked.

It crossed my mind that Robin had not expected me to call him about this. He was waiting for me to tell him- not angry at not knowing already. This was a different reaction from the one to which I'd grown accustomed. Robin definitely approached life differently from Martin, and his expectations were different, too. I shook my head at myself. I should not compare.

"You don't want to tell me?" His voice sounded mildly teasing, nothing more. But I could tell from the way he stood that he was more serious, now.

"Someone ran up behind me in the library parking lot and pushed me down. The flowers were in my hands, and I couldn't drop them fast enough-I didn't want want to drop them-so I kind of hit the pavement hard." to drop them-so I kind of hit the pavement hard."

"Someone attacked you?" Robin was quite rightly astonished. "In the library parking lot?"

"Yeah. Strange, huh? Right out in daylight."

"The police didn't catch him?"

"Or her. No, the police didn't."

"Why 'her'?" Robin's face was involved in thought, suddenly. I could practically see the lightbulb over his head.

"I thought I smelled perfume." I eyed him. "Does this ring some kind of bell with you?"

Robin looked profoundly embarra.s.sed. "Ah, maybe." He did everything but look up at the ceiling and whistle. "But I ... maybe if I went and talked to her. ... I hate to say anything unless I'm sure."

"That's what people in mysteries say right before they get killed. 'Yes, I think I know the killer, but I have to check a few things before I talk to the police.' Next scene, they're toast."

Robin was struck by this observation, which as a mystery writer should have occurred to him first. "That's true," he murmured. We'd drifted from the bathroom into the kitchen, and I'd gotten out a pitcher of tea. He nodded when I lifted it, a question on my face.

"Okay, well. This is really. . . there's this girl. She . . ." Robin turned a dark red. He took a big swallow of tea. "She has this big thing about me. Like a superfan. She took this job to be . . ." Robin was overwhelmed with chagrin, shook his head speechlessly. Hollywood had not made him completely egocentric, I thought, smiling at him.

"She's nuts about you?" I suggested.

He nodded morosely. "You know how I found out about Celia and Barrett spending the night together? I knew already when I came to the trailer. I got an anonymous note. I'm about ninety percent sure it was from her."

I began to put two and two together, myself. "Tracy," I said. "Tracy, from the Molly's Moveable Feasts catering company."

"Yep." Robin finished his tea in one long gulp.

I thought this over. "Did you tell the police about Tracy?" I asked.

"No," he said, horror written all over his face. "This isn't exactly something I want to talk about, Roe."

"Robin, didn't you consider the fact that the woman murdered was your girlfriend?"

"Former," he corrected. He looked at me almost angrily. "Of course, Roe. What are you . . . ?" His face cleared. "Oh."

I saw the tide of realization pour over him. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no."

"I hope not," I told him. "But you have to say something."

He fumed and fussed, but he was just postponing the inevitable. "You think she may have attacked you today, too?" he asked, as he pulled his coat back on to drive to the police station.

I shrugged. I remembered Tracy's face, after (I now realized) she had seen Robin and me together in the library, obviously close, obviously in l.u.s.t. I wondered what would have happened if I hadn't pulled out of the parking lot, if I'd waited to talk to her as she'd wanted.

I was really glad I hadn't stopped to find out.

Chapter Eleven.

I met my mother in front of a house on Oak Street. How perfect could that be? Every town has an Oak Street. Hearts of oak, the Old Oaken Bucket, Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.

The street name would have been perfect. The house wasn't. The living room was an awkward rectangle, the bathrooms tiny and inconvenient.

As I might have antic.i.p.ated, my mother was less than patient with my quibbles. If she'd been more of a stranger, she'd have had to listen quietly. As it was, she argued- until I commented that I could easily switch realtors. "In fact," I said, "I could go to Russell & Dietrich. They'd laugh all the way to the closing." After that, Mother seemed to understand that if I said I just didn't like the house, it wouldn't do to quarrel with that feeling.

So our first evening out, we came up with zip. Mother had lined up four houses to see; and I had objections to all of them.

"The couple I showed your house to this afternoon seemed to like it," she said, before climbing into her new Cadillac. But by that time all I could think of was getting back to that house.

As I let myself in, I was s.h.i.+vering. The evening had cooled down very quickly, and I knew our warm weather was about to end for the season. As I tickled Madeleine behind the ears, I admitted to myself that our failure was actually a relief to me. If the house-hunting process had been too easy, I would have mistrusted it. It would take forever to sell this place, anyway.

I was sure of that until about eight o'clock the next morning, when Mother phoned to tell me that the people who'd seen my house the afternoon before had called her with an offer.

"What?" I gaped at the telephone.

"What can I say? They saw it, they liked it, they made an offer. It isn't even an insulting offer." It wasn't. It was actually a little more than I had been willing to settle for.

Suddenly, I felt as if the ground were falling out beneath my feet. I was terrified. I was losing my life.

"Roe?"

"Sorry. Just. . . having misgivings."

"You don't want to withdraw the house?" Mother was trying not to sound outraged.

"No. No," I said, trying to stiffen my spine. "No, I need to move. I just. . . when do we let them know?"

"You mean, you accept the offer?"

"I guess I do," I said, surprised to hear my voice saying the words. "I can't think of how not to. I just thought it would take months to sell this house. Months."

"Me, too," my mother said. "But this couple wants to live in the country. The house looks beautiful now. They have a son who loves to hunt. The man's father is coming to live with them, and he needs the apartment above the garage."

"Well. Counteroffer for two thousand more dollars," I said, hearing my voice as if it were coming out of someone else's mouth. "If they'll come up with that, I guess we've got a deal."

"There is one snag."

My heart gave a lurch of hope. "Oh?"

"They need it now."

"What?"

"They need the house as soon as you can get out of it. If that's before we can arrange a closing, they'll pay rent. It's a domino situation. They've sold their house, the grandfather has just retired and is driving down in a van full of his stuff, and they have nowhere to put him when he gets here."

"He can't just drive up and settle here in the yard."

"No, Roe, what I meant was that he can sleep on their couch, but that's going to be pretty unsatisfactory for more than a week or two."

"So, I need to find an empty house. And buy it."

"Or we need to work something else out. Of course, you can stay with me and John for as long as you need to, but I know you don't want to put your things into storage if you can help it."

We discussed the situation for a few more minutes, and Mother agreed to get together another lineup of houses to see that afternoon. I thought I'd calmed down, but I was still shaky when I hung up.

I thought of calling Robin.

No, I would not lean.

To my disgust, I began crying. I'd done fine on my own, just fine, until I'd met Martin and decided to marry him. Now, here I was, aching to have a man to talk to, used to having someone around to consult with, used to having a companion to share every little thing. I had missed that acutely over the past year.

The phone rang again. I was almost scared to answer it. But I did, since I am an optimist.

"Hey, this is Carolina," said her accentless California voice.

"How are you?"

"Busy as h.e.l.l. I just wanted to let you know I did talk to Sarah, and she says she just opened the door, said, 'Thirty minutes till you're due on the set, Miss Shaw,' and shut the door again."

"No reply?"

"No, she didn't hear Celia say anything, and the light wasn't on in the trailer."

No, it wasn't until Barrett had opened the door wide enough to let in sunlight that he'd seen the body. I thanked Carolina and hung up.

The clock was telling me I'd be late for work. I finished yanking my clothes on, determined to go in to work as usual. I brushed my hair carefully, hoping its length and volume would obscure my bruised face and my hickeyed neck. As I hurried out to my car, unlocking it with a click of my keypad, it did cross my mind to wonder if I had had managed so splendidly before I got married. Hadn't I always been looking? Hadn't I always longed to have someone to share my life with? Hadn't I always a.s.sumed I would find that person, sooner or later? managed so splendidly before I got married. Hadn't I always been looking? Hadn't I always longed to have someone to share my life with? Hadn't I always a.s.sumed I would find that person, sooner or later?

I had. And he'd violated the dream by dying on me.

I was back on a more or less even keel after I'd been at work for an hour.

Probably it was inevitable that I'd have emotional spasms of grief for some time to come, right? For the first time, I wondered if it would ever be over. Surely I'd grieved and raged enough. I'd waited almost a year to even look at another man. Granted, when I'd looked it had been more like an immersion, but I had not even thought about men until Robin reentered my life.

I was broody and worried about the house situation, but not tearful, when Robin called.

I seldom get calls at work, of course, and I was a little surprised to hear Robin's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Roe, hey, I'm back at the motel. Listen, are you free for lunch? I need to talk to you."

"Um, I guess so. Beef 'N More?"

"No." I could practically hear him shudder. "There's a pizza place on Kenneth Road. It used to be okay."

"Yeah, Trixie's. That would be all right. I get off work at twelve-thirty. Is that convenient?" It wasn't Robin's fault I'd spent the morning castigating myself for my longing to throw myself into his life.