“Just saving you from the brink of disaster again.”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “That man was no crazed fan, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I wasn’t worried for your safety.” He stared down at her, a deep vertical crease appearing at the bridge of his nose. “I was worried about your reputation.”
“My reputation?” She laughed. “That’s rich.”
Charlie glanced in the direction of Mack’s retreat. “That guy is a hack.”
Vivian crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the detective.
“Let me guess,” Charlie continued, unfazed. “He offered you a two-page spread if you just answered a few little questions about Mrs. Fox’s murder.”
Vivian looked quickly. “So what if he did?”
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
She shook her head.
“Thank God for small favors,” he said. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Where is Yarborough?”
Vivian shrugged. “He said he had to make a phone call.”
“And he left you with some stranger? That weasel.” The band struck up again, this time with a Cole Porter tune that had Vivian’s toes tapping despite her annoyance. Charlie held out his hand to Vivian and raised his eyebrows in invitation. When Vivian didn’t respond, he said in a lighter, cajoling tone, “Well, we can’t just stand here in everyone’s way.” Just then, a man bumped sideways into Vivian, knocking her off balance. She grabbed Charlie’s hand, and he pulled her in close. He was surprisingly light on his feet and steered her confidently around the floor in a quick fox-trot as the singers began, “And that’s why birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it…”
“I said it was okay that Graham make his call, you know. I agreed to dance with that man,” she said, her hand clasped tightly in Charlie’s.
“That doesn’t make it all right for him to leave you alone with a perfect stranger,” he answered.
Vivian recalled the brief moment of terror she’d felt when she’d thought the reporter really was the Walter of the threatening letters. If Mack had been out to get her, she could have been in real trouble. She looked up at Charlie, towering above her.
“Well, what about you? Where were you while I was fox-trotting with oh-so-dangerous reporter types?” She thought about how helpless she’d felt without Charlie around, and she gripped his hand a little tighter.
“Following Morty Nickerson,” he said, his face serious.
Vivian glanced sharply up at him. “Morty? Why?”
“He was acting strangely.”
“Strangely how?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“He was watching you and Graham a little…” Charlie paused, searching for the right word. “Intensely,” he finished.
“Watching us…” Vivian repeated quietly. She could feel the panic rising within her again.
“Yes, and after a few minutes he jumped up from his chair and hurried off. I had a bad feeling about it, so I followed him.” He paused before adding, “You were rather close with Yarborough at the time, mind you. I assumed you were reasonably safe for a few minutes.”
“Well?” she asked, impatient to hear the rest of the story.
Charlie frowned. “Well, nothing,” he said. “Morty’d forgotten a wire or something for the remote broadcast. He just ran off to get it.”
“That’s it?” Vivian managed somehow to be both relieved and annoyed by the news at the same time.
“That’s it,” he answered. A wry smile came to his lips. “I think he’s just lovesick, poor guy. Can’t say I blame him.”
Vivian met Charlie’s eyes for an instant. Then she looked back down at their feet, still moving elegantly in synch over the parquet dance floor.
“But I tried to help him out,” Charlie continued. “Take his mind off you.” When Vivian glanced up at Charlie this time, he was smiling. Vivian followed Charlie’s look over to the control table, confused that he could find anything funny in the situation.
Vivian couldn’t help but smile herself when she caught sight of Morty, although it was difficult to recognize him since he was nearly obscured by the long, yellow and green feathers atop the enormous headpiece of one of Chez Paree Adorables, what the club called their showgirls. The lovely, limber brunette was perched on Morty’s lap, her long legs curled effortlessly around him.
As Vivian watched, the showgirl ran one slim finger flirtatiously down Morty’s cheek, then touched the tip of his nose. She laughed at his baffled response of wide-eyed shock. Morty looked simultaneously mortified and excited by this unexpected turn of events, his hands raised as if in surrender, seemingly terrified of touching the girl’s bare flesh—of which there was plenty.
Vivian smiled in spite of herself. “Poor Morty,” she said in all sincerity. “He has no idea what to do with her.”
Her eyes flicked up to meet Charlie’s. One corner of his mouth curled up in mild amusement, just barely cracking his tough-as-nails facade. Vivian had an intense flash of memory of what it had been like to be stuck in Marjorie’s closet with him, his thigh pressed against hers. They were nearly that close now. She could feel the heat of his body through the thin satin of her gown, and her eyes were drawn to his mouth like a magnet.
He was no longer smiling, and his face once again held an expression of slight disapproval as he looked down on her. What about her made him scowl at her like that? She fought the insistent urge to rise on her toes and kiss that frown right off his face. With some effort she focused her gaze back up to meet his. She heard the elegant female singer coo the chorus for the last time, “Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”
“I hate to interrupt such a cozy scene.”
Vivian started, pulling away from Charlie. She turned to find Graham, arms crossed over his immaculate white dinner jacket, irritation marking his handsome features. “You two seem to be having a wonderful time,” he said.
“Oh, Graham!” She dropped Charlie’s hand.
“Your phone call go through all right?” Charlie asked, any remaining trace of good humor wiped from his face.
Graham furrowed his brow. “Yes,” he said. Then he held his bent arm out to Vivian and simply said, “Shall we?”
Vivian glanced at Charlie before taking Graham’s arm. He met her eyes only briefly before looking away again. If there had been any disappointment in his stony expression at being interrupted, she hadn’t seen it.
• • •
The cab ride home was silent. Both Vivian and Graham were reluctant to say much of anything in front of the driver besides, “Nice night.” When they arrived at her house, Graham helped Vivian out of the cab and then frowned at her as they stood facing each other on the sidewalk just below the front steps.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so cross this evening,” Graham said. “I guess it was all the talk of Marjorie. It put me in a foul mood.”
Vivian said nothing. “Cross” wasn’t the half of it. His mood had turned on a dime when discussing Marjorie, and it had frightened her a bit in the moment, but even more so now that she’d had time to mull everything over. He’d dropped the Marjorie relationship on Vivian like a bomb and then vehemently denied killing the woman—before the thought had even entered Vivian’s mind. And then there was the blackmail.
She suspected Graham hadn’t told her the half of what had gone on between him and Marjorie. In fact, his whole explanation seemed like a carefully orchestrated story to establish his innocence—to get Vivian on his side before something slipped out in the course of the investigation. Maybe this whole evening had been a setup—and not just for the publicity. Maybe this confession was the only reason he’d asked her out at all. Graham Yarborough had more secrets. She was sure of it.
“We’ll have to do this again,” Graham said. “When all of this has
blown over.”
Vivian forced a smile. “Of course.”
She shivered in the frosty fall air, and Graham reached over to pull her mother’s borrowed fur more tightly around her shoulders. His hands lingered, fingers brushing the side of her neck. She resisted the urge to flinch at his touch. His dark eyes met hers and held them.
“I guess this is good night,” she said.
Vivian watched icy tendrils of breath form at his lips, then disappear into the darkness.
“I guess it is.”
Graham looked at her, the smile slipping from his face. Then his hands moved from her shoulders up to her cheeks. He cupped her face in his hands for a moment before leaning in slowly, impossibly slowly, to touch his lips to hers. It was a brief kiss, over almost before it began. Vivian hadn’t even time to properly close her eyes before he pulled away and they were illuminated by the headlights of the car pulling up to the house.
Graham stepped away from her. She glanced quickly at the car and wondered if Charlie had seen the kiss.
“I’ll see you on Monday?” Graham asked, clasping her hands in his.
She nodded.
He squeezed them once and turned away. She held her smile for a minute as she watched him climb back into the waiting cab in case Graham turned again to look at her. He didn’t, but she could hear him whistling very faintly before he closed the taxi door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Vivian removed the ermine from her shoulders and held it up to the light of the foyer, admiring its perfect whiteness as she considered Graham’s kiss. It had been nothing like the passionate, wild fumbling with Charlie in the closet. In fact, what Graham had done had barely registered as a kiss in the grand scheme of things. Now that Graham had finally kissed her, an event Vivian had been fantasizing about for weeks, she found herself trying to work up some enthusiasm for it. Frankly, it had left her flat, and not entirely because of all the horrible truths—or half-truths—Graham had let slip this evening.
Now that she knew more about the real Graham, his handsome face and charming manner no longer held much appeal. There was some relief in that. It would make it easier to work with him, for one thing. No more sweaty palms and missed lines. She shrugged before draping the fur carefully over one forearm, brushing it absently with her fingers. She’d have to sneak it back into her mother’s closet before she noticed it was missing.
“Have a nice time tonight?” Charlie asked, banging into the foyer.
“Yes,” she said.
“It certainly looked like it.”
“Oh. Well, I…” she began, fumbling for a defense and not finding one.
He shook his head. “No need to make excuses. Yarborough’s a charming guy.” His tone was flat, and he stared into her eyes for one long moment before breaking her gaze to toss his hat onto one of the arms of the coat-tree. “Care for a nightcap?”
Without waiting for her answer, Charlie swaggered into the den and opened the liquor cabinet. He pulled out the almost-empty decanter of scotch and filled two glasses to the brim. He took a swig from his own glass before holding the other out to Vivian. She took it after a slight hesitation. The last time they’d shared a drink like this, Charlie had been about to tell her that someone wanted to kill her. She shivered at the memory.
Charlie slumped into one of the chairs in front of the fireplace and sighed. After a long moment he said, “Look, Viv, there’s something you don’t know about Yarborough. Something I think you’re entitled to know.”
Vivian held her hand up to stop him. “I know about Graham and Marjorie,” she announced firmly. “He told me tonight.”
Charlie’s brow wrinkled. He opened his mouth to speak, but Vivian cut him off.
“He said it was a long time ago—before they came to WCHI and before she really started drinking.” Vivian spoke rapidly. She was embarrassed at having to repeat Graham’s flimsy excuse—embarrassed that it had been at all plausible to her when he’d told her. Graham had used Marjorie to improve his career, and it was very likely that’s how he was using Vivian now. And what was worse, she was positive that Charlie already knew. He’d known it all along.
“He didn’t mention any of that to the police.”
“No,” Vivian said. “He said he had never mentioned it to anybody…except me.”
Charlie squinted at her. “Why not?”
“I asked him that,” she said. She realized she was talking too fast. “I think it’s embarrassing to him. It was long time ago. He didn’t kill her, he said, so he didn’t know why he should make a suspect of himself.”
Charlie shook his head slowly, considering. “Good point, because I’d say that’s exactly what that makes him.”
Vivian swallowed hard. “And I think Marjorie was blackmailing Graham,” she said.
Her stomach contracted tightly at the idea. She recalled Graham’s reaction at Chez Paree at the hint of blackmail. There had to be something behind that. Why would he jump to that conclusion if it hadn’t been true? “But that’s ridiculous,” she whispered almost to herself, part of her still not wanting to believe it.
Charlie shrugged. “Is it? Who better to blackmail than a former lover who’s an up-and-coming star? It sounds like there’s something in Yarborough’s past he’d prefer to keep in the past.” He looked meaningfully at her.
Just yesterday, Vivian would have responded that Graham was an open book, but now she understood she knew very little about the man beyond his current career ambitions and that the direct gaze of his dark eyes had once turned her to jelly. Charlie opened his mouth to say something else, seemed to reconsider, and took another long gulp of scotch instead.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. Vivian watched the liquor swirl in her glass and tried not to think about all of the holes in Graham’s story, about the suspicions his behavior tonight had raised in her. The thought of Graham hiding something so huge made her uneasy. Even just sitting in the den again made her uneasy. She’d avoided it since the other night when Charlie’d let her know in no uncertain terms that she was mixed up in Marjorie’s murder, whether she wanted to be or not. And now the person who wanted her dead might be Graham? She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Charlie was studying her from across the room, his brow furrowed, his blue-green gaze level. He sat staring at her, unspeaking, long enough to make her uncomfortable.
“You know, I’m not sorry about what happened earlier today,” he finally said.
An involuntary thrill traveled up Vivian’s spine like a mild electric shock. “Which part?”
The corner of his mouth curled into a smirk. “You know which part,” he said. “And I didn’t like seeing you with Yarborough tonight,” he added in a low voice. He stood and walked slowly toward her. “In fact, I hated it.”
“Is that so?” Vivian’s breath sped up.
“I didn’t want you to go out with him at all,” he said. He stopped in front of her and looked directly down at her. “And it didn’t really have much to do with your life being in danger, truth be told. But I didn’t think there was any way I could stop you. You’re so goddamned determined.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes at the detective. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s how I meant it,” he said, brushing his fingertips along her jaw. “And if could stop you from ever wanting to see Yarborough again, I would.”
Vivian felt herself go weak under the intensity of Charlie’s gaze. “And just how would you do that, Detective?”
He leaned slowly down toward her, excruciatingly slowly, and kissed her. This was nothing like his chaste first kiss, or even the frantic scrabbling in Marjorie’s closet. This time the kiss was slow, thorough, teasing… Vivian responded immediately but kept her hands at her sides, valiantly resisting the urge to wrap herself around him. He broke away after a few long
, immensely satisfying minutes and straightened to his full height, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s surely not all you would do…” she challenged, her voice husky.
He shook his head slightly in response and then bent and lifted Vivian off her feet, sweeping her up into his arms so quickly that she didn’t have time to protest. One of her satin slippers fell to the floor with a clatter, and she managed a surprised squeak before struggling halfheartedly against his grip. She felt she ought to at least feign putting up a fight, for the sake of her dignity, though fighting was the last thing on her mind right now.
“Just what kind of a girl do you think I am?” she asked. She hit him in the chest with one ineffectual fist.
“The kind I like,” he answered, grabbing her fist. Then he kissed her again, hard, before wordlessly starting off in the direction of the staircase.
Vivian relaxed into his embrace for a moment and let her head loll against his shoulder, relishing the feel of his strong arms around her. Then she stiffened as the reality of the situation struck her. “No!” she cried.
Charlie stopped walking and looked down at her, the disappointment on his handsome face almost comical. “No?”
Vivian smiled and ran a hand up his chest to his neck. She brushed her fingers teasingly along one of his earlobes and looked him directly in the eyes. “I mean, no…” she said, her voice nearly a growl. “Take me up the back stairs, Detective.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The next morning, Vivian found Charlie sitting in a chair in the den, intently reading the newspaper with a cup of steaming coffee near his elbow.
“Good morning,” she said brightly. “You’ve eaten?”
“Hours ago,” he said, his eyes just visible for an instant over the front page of the Tribune.
She glanced at the grandfather clock and did a double take to confirm the time, almost not believing her eyes. It was nearly eleven.
“You needed to regain your strength, Detective?” she teased, coming up behind him and running her open palms down his chest as she leaned down to give him a quick peck on the cheek. She rubbed her face across his freshly shaven cheek and resisted the strong urge to nip him in that delicious spot where neck met earlobe. She smirked at the tiny mark in that precise spot already turning a bright purple. She’d done enough nipping last night. She kissed the bruise lightly instead, and Charlie made a noise low in his throat, tilting his head slightly toward her. “Anything new?” she asked, standing again.
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