by Nancy Martin
"With his sitter."
Clover said, "I told you, all you had to do was offer more money and you'd get a thousand babysitters camping out at your apartment like it's a Star Wars opening or something."
"I stood in line for Star Wars," Rawlins said.
"Of course you did," Clover snapped.
I asked, "What about the ransom note in the kitchen at your apartment?"
"That? Oh, a publicist lady told me about a Mafia kid who got kidnapped and all the media attention he was getting. I mean, why should some kid from Jersey get famous and not me? So I thought I'd try it myself. You know, for the publicity." Clover frowned at the notepad. "Can't we make these lines shorter? There's way too much stuff to say."
"We already shortened it," Jane said.
"And what the hell is this word?" Clover jammed one finger down on the notepad and shoved it under Jane's nose.
"Tsunami."
"Why can't you spell it right? Jeez! It's got a t in front of it!"
I said, "Did Zell know Jackson was his baby?"
Both girls looked at me again. I saw a flicker cross Jane's face.
"Of course he did," said Clover.
"And he paid child support? And for your apartments?"
"Well, yeah," Clover said testily. "He wanted us to share a place, but come on. Who wants to listen to a baby crying all the time?"
Jane reached for the video camera and began adjusting it. She avoided my gaze and spoke softly. "We really should start filming. The flashlight battery is going to die if we don't hurry up."
All the things I knew about Zell suddenly came together in my head.
I said to Jane, "When you slept with Zell, you did it for her, didn't you?"
Jane didn't answer.
Clover gave an allover shiver of exaggerated revulsion. "I certainly wasn't going to do it. I mean, yuck!"
"So you sent Jane instead. And in exchange, Zell gave you everything you wanted. Money. Clothes. A car. Even a job at Cupcakes."
"My mother told him not to give me stuff. But I knew how to get around her." Clover smirked. "I knew what he wanted."
"Did he ever? When you were a child, did he touch you?"
"Hell, no. My mom kept me far away from that dirty old man."
"And after you had Jackson," I said to Jane, "he didn't want you anymore, did he?"
Jane took a step back, her eyes fixed like a spooked cat.
"He didn't," Clover said.
"And he stopped giving you money. Then ChaCha fired you, so you realized you were broke."
I could see how Clover tried to maintain her income. She had pushed Jane at Zell, hoping the cash stream would continue.
"But you figured a way to get all of Zell's money, didn't you, Clover? If he were dead, you thought you'd inherit."
"No," said Clover, but she was a very bad actress. "Look, my mom has an old will he wrote a lot of years ago that gives everything to her and me. All she has to do is make sure it's the only will anybody else sees, and I'll get all the money I need to get famous. So that's what I'm doing. Are we ready to do this?" Clover appealed to Jane. "Can't somebody else say the words while you just show me on camera?"
The only question that remained was which one of them had killed Zell.
But there was Rawlins to think about first.
"Kids," I said. "I respect your artistic choices, I really do. But the rustic look is passe."
"What does that mean?" Clover frowned.
I mustered an air of authority. "The latest style in television is definitely retro. A modern look would be much more effective on camera. More MTV. You want to be completely cutting-edge, right?"
Clover snorted. "What do you know about it? You always dress like you're going to church. Except what's with those jeans?" She glanced down my lower body as if mold had sprouted on the denim.
I said, "I have a friend with a beautiful apartment, very retro. She'd let you use it, I'm sure. For—uh—screen credit."
Clover's brow furrowed more deeply. "I don't know. I want this to be totally me. That's the point. Making me look good."
"Of course. So the background of your movie should enhance you. Make you look your best. Why don't we go take a look at some other locations?"
"But I'm all dressed! I had my makeup done!" Clover began to pout.
"All the more reason to find a suitably attractive place to do the filming."
Jane, who hadn't said a word, suddenly handed me a small key. I took it and unlocked the handcuff as quickly as I could manage. Swiftly, Rawlins slipped his wrist out of the cuff and sidestepped Clover.
"Hey!" She smacked him across the shoulder with her notepad. "Where do you think you're going? I need you!"
Quietly, Jane said, "I think he should go."
"You do, huh? And what makes your opinion count?"
"Rawlins," I said. "Go outside."
He hesitated.
"It's okay." Jane sounded resigned. "You won't tell, right?"
"Go," I said to Rawlins, and gave him a shove.
He stumbled through the straw, rousing the sheep again.
Clover said, "What's happening? Will somebody explain why we're not doing what I want to do?"
"Let's go outside," I said. "Do you have some clothes, Clover? Something a little warmer? It's raining. Let's get out of here and find somewhere to talk about this."
Cold-blooded as a reptile, Clover said, "Bite me."
I reached for her arm. Jane dropped the green flashlight. Rawlins slid the barn door open and let in a huge gust of cold air. Clover drew back to avoid my grasp.
Her elbow struck the lantern.
It skittered off the railing and dropped into the straw. We heard the glass break, and suddenly the small corner of the barn brightened. The confused sheep bolted around the Mustang.
"Now look what you've done," Clover said. "Jeez, let me out of this place!"
Jane blocked her path. "We did a bad thing, Clove. We're going to get into big trouble now."
"Shut up!"
"What are we going to do? Everybody's going to find out."
"No, they're not."
"She knows." Jane pointed at me. "Your mom knows, too."
"She doesn't!"
I said, "Yes, she does, Clover. Your mother knows you killed your grandfather. She went to the police and confessed to the murder to save you."
"Then I'm in the clear, right? So get out of my way."
The straw on the other side of the partition ignited with an audible whoosh, casting our huge shadows on the barn walls. The panicked sheep couldn't find the door.
"I don't want anybody to know what I did," Jane said. "You have to help me, Clover."
"Let's all get out of here," I said to Jane. "We need to talk calmly about this—"
Clover hauled off and punched Jane so hard that the smaller girl fell backward into the straw. The flame from the lantern flickered more brightly, greedily consuming the fresh air and tinder. The sheep came dashing around the car and ran directly over Jane. She screamed, and the sheep wheeled away from her in tight formation. They saw the open door at last and leaped for it.
Clover stumbled away, shouting curses. I bent over Jane, reaching for her hands.
The flame reached the straw around her legs and she cried out, flinging her arms up over her face to avoid the heat. I grabbed her wrist and began to drag her away from the fire.
I saw Clover disappear into the darkness outside. I pulled Jane across the barn floor, heading for the door. Behind us, a wall of flame roared up as more loose straw caught fire.
Suddenly I couldn't see. I coughed on a breath of smoke and lost my footing. Jane felt like deadweight.
Then Rawlins was with me, calling my name and grabbing my arm. I shook him off, and he seized Jane's other wrist. Together, we pulled her outside. The rain felt like ice on my face, and the air was so sharp my lungs hurt.
I fell to my knees beside Jane. She coughed and began to cry. Rawlins had his arm around me, and
he spoke, but I didn't understand him. He pulled us both up the hill away from the burning barn. Emma arrived, and suddenly everything was very bright. A fire truck's red light spun around us. Then a tremendous explosion rocked the world, and Rawlins knocked me down. I landed in the soft, cold grass.
"We're all safe," said Rawlins close by. "Everybody's going to be all right. Are you okay? Aunt Nora?"
Chapter Nineteen
When I swam up from the depths of a dreamless sleep at last, a nurse was bending over me. "Hi, there," she said. "Let me go catch Dr. Stengler."
I closed my eyes again and felt my body go dark. I surrendered to the murk, but knew I was in a bed, tightly wrapped in warmth and strangely floating. I heard no voices, felt no human presence with me. I felt alone. And empty.
It might have been a minute or an hour later when Rachel Stengler touched my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Nora," I heard her say. "It wasn't meant to be."
Later, in a private room with a television hanging from the ceiling, Libby said, "You'll have more chances. You'll have lots of babies, Nora. We all do, eventually. It's a Blackbird thing. But this one wasn't meant to be."
When another nurse came in to take my blood pressure in the dark, I heard her soothing voice murmur, but I did not hear her words until she sighed and said, "It just wasn't meant to be."
Much later, I woke up sharply when I felt someone's gentle hand in my hair.
"Michael," I said.
"Shh." He leaned closer so I could see his face in the sliver of light that knifed across the bed from the hallway. "There's a very scary nurse who tried to kick me out once already."
Someone had hit him. A purple bruise had begun to swell around his cheekbone, but he didn't seem to care. His hair was wet and smelled like thunderstorms. I found his other hand and held on fast. "Don't let me fall asleep again."
"I won't." He squeezed my hand in return and then bent his head to kiss my fingers.
I whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Shh," he said again.
"It's my fault. I should have done something different—"
"It is not your fault."
"Don't say it wasn't meant to be, okay?"
"No," he said. "Because it was."
I touched his face and we bumped foreheads, and then we both wept a while, alone together in the dark. The soft sounds of the hospital—the quiet beeps and sighs and murmurs of life and death—pulsed around us. We held each other and wished for things that would not be.
At last I propped myself up on one elbow. "Are you okay?"
"Yes and no." His voice sounded thick.
"Did Daria get what she wanted? The cop killer?"
Michael ran his hand down his face—wincing only when he touched the bruise—as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. He said, "My uncle. Lou Pescara. He's dead."
"Dead!"
"Maybe it's right—I don't know. One of Daria's guys shot him tonight. The thing went bad. It turned into a stupid confrontation, and I couldn't stop it. Now it's over, and maybe that's okay, but it feels—I don't know. I should have done something, but I don't know what."
"Your uncle Lou killed the police officer?"
"Yeah."
The whole mess finally made sense to me. Michael had pretended to go back to his family to help discover who among them had killed the cop last winter. He'd taken matters into his own hands again. He hadn't trusted the police to arrest the right man. I said, "You tried to do the right thing."
"I don't know. You can't go around killing people, no matter who you are. And a cop—that's more wrong than wrong. But now there's family stuff, too. The Pescaras thought they could get away with it. They were mad at me for not helping cover it up back when it happened, but now that Lou's dead . . ."
"I'm sorry, Michael."
"I know. Me, too. It's—I didn't expect anybody else to die. I don't like people dying, Nora."
"I don't like Daria."
He allowed a grudging smile. "Me, neither. She was assigned to make sure I played by their rules. You know that now, right?"
I kissed him again. "I think I always knew it. What about Little Carmine?"
"He had nothing to do with anything. He deserves something different."
"Is he safe now?"
"He will be." Michael hesitated, unwilling to give me more bad news just yet. "What about Rawlins? I hear he survived his brush with the Cupcake?"
"Clover tricked him, tried to use him to make a videotape. And she heard about the attention Little Carmine was getting, so she faked her own kidnapping."
"And she killed her grandfather?"
"Yes. She used her friend to get money from him. And when that ended, she thought she'd inherit his estate if he were dead. She wanted to use it to become famous."
"If there's a worse thing than being famous," said Michael, whose life had become the stuff of headlines, "I don't know what it is."
He found my right hand in the bedclothes and touched it gently. The IV was taped to the back of my hand. Above me, the machinery ticked. Michael glanced up at the IV.
"Please," I said, already aware that he had somewhere else to go. "Tell me what you still have to do tonight. Is it dangerous?"
"Not much. But after, I have to go away, Nora."
"No—"
"Things have to cool down," he went on. "Daria and her cowboys are pissed, which is bad enough, but my father and my Pescara cousins—they need time to get used to what happened. If I stick around, it'll get explosive. Tomorrow's newspapers are going to be bad. I need to go away for a while."
"No," I said again, my voice strangled.
"If I stay, it will be harder for you, too."
"For me?"
"Nora." He took my hand in both of his, elbows on the bed beside me. "In my whole life I've never been as scared as I was today."
"Losing this baby had nothing to do with you, I promise. It was—"
"I don't mean that, although it's part of what you need to understand. I'm never going to be Richard D'eath, Nora. He can keep you safe. Just being with me is too dangerous for you."
"I don't want to talk about Richard."
"I can't put you in jeopardy again. And if we're together, it's going to keep on happening."
"But you're out of that life now. I know you went back to your family to expose the killer, but now that's over. You can—"
"I can't change who I am, Nora. I'm always going to be Big Frankie Abruzzo's son. And that makes me dangerous to be around."
"I need you now."
"I need you, too," he said. "But I can't be with you."
"Don't say that," I whispered.
"Richard's the right guy for you."
"He's terrible in bed."
Michael smiled, but didn't make a wisecrack. He said, "You'll help him."
"Don't go."
"I'll stay until you fall asleep."
"I won't," I vowed.
He kissed me good-bye and murmured, "Have a nice life, Nora Blackbird."
I don't remember when I slept. The anesthetic put me under again, and once I was in that dark place I didn't want to leave it. I tried to catch him, to slide myself into his slipstream and follow, but I couldn't do it.
In the morning, Lexie Paine arrived lugging a huge spray of pink lupine and roses in a Steuben vase probably worth more than my monthly paycheck. I was sitting in the chair by the window, looking at the toast and eggs on my breakfast tray and wondering if I was ever going to choke down food again.
"Sweetie," she said, hugging me with concern. "I'm so sorry. What can I do?"
"Keep my spirits up?" I mustered a smile.
"I'll bring gallons of chocolate ice cream this afternoon, I promise."
"Actually," I said with complete truth, "that sounds really good. But they're sending me home at noon. Nobody gets to stay in a hospital for long anymore."
"Are you sure it's wise to leave so fast? Sweetie, you're so pale." My friend cupped my cheek
. "Maybe I should speak to someone—"
1 caught her hand before she stormed off to do a Shirley MacLaine at the nurses' station. I was grateful to have someone so willing to jump to my defense. "No, I'm ready. I'm tired of feeling sick. I want to go home and dig in my garden and eat ice cream around the clock."
"Sound medical advice, if you ask me." Lexie shoved the other flower arrangements aside to make space for her more spectacular offering. She plucked a card from a vase of particularly funereal lilies and read the message. "Who in the world is Daria DeAngelo?"
"Someone I'd like to forget, as a matter of fact. And you know how I hate lilies. Will you find those another home?"
"Of course." Lexie perched on the edge of my bed, her ankles crossed, her legs swinging cheerfully, which did not conceal her compassion. "You're going to miss the museum party tonight, you know."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not. I'll tell you all about it, though, so you'll have something to put into print when you feel up to it. Delilah's already on-site, working like a demon. She has little Keesa with her. What an adorable kid. And I've already heard from scads of people who are coming tonight. It's going to be a smash, just you wait."
I tried to smile. "I hope so."
Lexie stopped swinging her legs. "You want to talk now, sweetie? Cry? Throw some dishes or something?"
"All of the above."
"I'm truly sorry, Nora."
"Thanks, Lex."
"You've had a hell of a couple of months."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. About the baby, I mean. I wasn't sure—I was afraid I might lose it, and I couldn't face . . ."
"I understand completely."
"Tell me about Boy," I said. "Did Emma hurt him?"
"If she did, he's not pressing charges. But even Kirby can't save his political career now. Boy helped Verbena cover up a murder. They knew Clover did it, and they tried to throw blame on Delilah. Boy planted the earring and Verbena made the anonymous phone call. They're both in custody now, charges pending."
"And Verbena confessed to the murder to save Clover?"
"Looks that way. She tried to shut up ChaCha temporarily by making her sick while Verbena tried to get rid of Zell's new will that gave much of his property to ChaCha. Her plan fell apart when Libby took the cupcakes instead."