Crystal Clear

by Jane Heller

  “I am,” I said tenderly.

  “I’m disappointed,” he said. “I thought we’d get married, you’d move into my apartment, and we’d redecorate.”

  I patted his arm. “Your paisley’s safe now,” I soothed.

  He was about to cry, I think, but he was distracted, as I was, by the yelling that was coming from the cottage directly behind us. Its windows were open and we couldn’t miss a word if we’d tried.

  “You said you loved me,” a woman’s voice wailed. “You said we would be together forever. You said you were naming the heroine of your next book after me.”

  Jennifer Sibley? Harrison Reid? A lovers’ tiff?

  Steven made an attempt to speak. I shushed him.

  “Don’t be a ninny,” boomed a voice that was unmistakably Harrison’s. “You didn’t actually think I would leave Amanda, did you?”

  “No!” Jennifer sobbed. “No! I knew you’d never leave her. You’re too loyal, too caring, to abandon your wife. I had to take charge of the situation. I had to eliminate her. She was coming between us, Harrison darling. Always coming between us.”

  Steven tried again to say something. This time, I clamped my hand over his mouth.

  “But you didn’t eliminate her,” Harrison ho-ho-hoed. “Someone apparently got to her first. That’s the irony of this melodrama. You all had plans to murder my wife and you all failed. Tina and Billy had their pathetic little kidnapping scheme. Poor Marie had notions of poisoning Amanda. And you, Jennifer. You were actually going to shoot her and make it look like a suicide. ‘Mrs. Reid was distraught over her inability to launch her own clothing line,’ you were going to tell the media.” Harrison ho-de-hoed some more. Clearly, he was not distraught. “To all of your surprise and, very likely, dismay, this local man—this Indian fellow who took Amanda on some sort of jaunt—ended up murdering her and doing away with her body. It’s too much, really. If I put it in a novel, my editor would never buy it. ‘Unbelievable,’ he’d say. ‘Doesn’t ring true.’”

  So Jennifer didn’t kill Amanda either, I thought, wondering what would have happened if the millionaire heiress hadn’t disappeared when she did. Which of her faithless flock would have beaten out the others and bumped her off? It might have been a fight to the finish.

  “You’re not going to tell the police, are you?” Jennifer was asking Harrison. “I didn’t commit murder. There’s no proof that I was even contemplating it. It’s only my word against yours.”

  Harrison really guffawed at that one. “Your word against mine? My dear Jennifer, words are my profession. If I decide to tell the police what you’ve just confided to me, they will believe me, no matter how passionately you protest. But no. I’m not going to tell anybody. If I told Detective Whitehead that you were plotting to murder my wife because you and I were having a brief dalliance, news of the affair would be leaked to the media, and I’m afraid my readers would find out and think me rather lecherous. I’ve got a new book due to arrive in stores shortly, as you well know. Now is certainly not the time for me to tarnish my image.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said Jennifer, the image consultant.

  “Besides,” Harrison went on, “what would be the point of telling the police anything? Once they find Amanda’s body, we’ll all go back to New York and begin anew. You’ll find another grasping socialite to publicize and I’ll find another young woman with whom to amuse myself.”

  “Jesus. He’s one cool customer, huh?” I whispered to Steven, removing my hand from his mouth.

  The moment I let go, he emitted a loud expulsion of air, as if he were a tire going flat.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Now I am. I couldn’t breathe with your hand on my mouth.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Because your hand was on my mouth.”

  “Oh. Then why didn’t you breathe through your nose?”

  “I must be allergic to all the sage out here,” he said. “My sinus passages are completely clogged.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hugging Steven. I was going to miss him, I realized. It had been nice having someone to commiserate with when it came to allergies and sinus problems.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “It was worth it. It’s not every day you get to eavesdrop on a murdered woman’s husband and his girlfriend.”

  Just then, I heard a noise, a rustling in the trees behind me. I turned and there was Michael Mandell, scribbling fast and furiously in his notebook. And he wasn’t alone. He was with another man—a man lugging a camera with one of those lenses that can zoom in on people and take their picture from a quarter of a mile away. Michael waved at me. “Guess we got more than enough for tomorrow’s front pages,” he said cheerfully, then raced off with his pal. So much for Harrison and his image. So much for Michael and his journalistic integrity.

  “Want to go back to the cottage now?” Steven asked. “Relax? Talk? Whatever? Then have dinner at the restaurant here? I remember that when you left New York, you were having problems with the other partners at Duboff Spector. I could help you with that. I could go over your legal options with you. I could structure a negotiating strategy that would allow you to walk away with a very sweet ‘Screw them’ package.” He paused, waiting for my response. “We probably won’t be seeing each other after today, Crystal,” he pointed out. “So if I were you, I’d take advantage of my offer, you know?”

  I smiled and linked my arm through Steven’s.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was close to eleven o’clock when I pulled up to Terry’s house. He had left the outside light on for me, I noticed. A beacon in the darkness. I hoped he was still awake. I had a lot to tell him.

  I opened the front door and entered the house. I was tiptoeing through the dimly lit living room, on my way into the kitchen, when I tripped over a body.

  I gasped as I went down, my feet instantly becoming entangled with the feet belonging to the body, the rest of me falling in a heap across a mound of flesh I could feel but not see.

  “Ouch!” came a voice. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it isn’t nice to kick a guy when he’s down?”

  The voice, I was relieved to discover, was that of the man of the house.

  “Yes, but no one ever told me that guys stretch out on their living room floor even when there’s a perfectly good sofa available,” I retorted.

  Terry rubbed his eyes. “I am on the living room floor, aren’t I?”

  “You are. The question is, why?”

  “Why,” he mused. “Well, the last thing I remember was sitting on the floor, playing cards with Annie—she was beating the heck out of me at gin rummy. I guess I fell asleep. When she couldn’t wake me up, she must have turned the light out and gone to bed. And here I am.”

  “Here we both are.” I didn’t believe the bit about his falling asleep in the middle of the card game. I had a hunch he’d decided to wait up for me after the card game and nodded off in the process.

  We disentangled ourselves.

  “So how’d it go with Steven?” Terry asked as we remained on the floor, two lumps in the dark.

  “We had a good time together,” I replied. “And then we said goodbye.”

  “I assume you’ll be seeing him tomorrow?”

  “No, I told you. We said goodbye, farewell, hasta la vista. It’s over between Steven and me, Terry. We broke up.”

  “You broke up?” He sat up very straight. He was wide awake now. “But you said you had a good time.”

  “We did, once the decision was made and the pressure was off. We had a lovely dinner in the restaurant at L’Auberge. We ate beautifully prepared food, drank expensive French wine. Steven gave me legal advice about dealing with the partners at Duboff Spector. I gave him tax advice to pass along to his mother, a client of mine who will probably take her business elsewhere.”

  “Sounds very civilized,” said Terry. “Not like when you and I split up.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that at
all. For the most part, this breakup was surprisingly painless. I don’t think Steven wanted to marry me any more than I wanted to marry him. It was just that we’d been together for three years. We had an investment in each other. A minor investment, as it turns out, but an investment nevertheless. I finally persuaded him that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere, that we weren’t the same people we were when we met, and that I, for one, had to make a change.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Crystal. The other day you were convinced that you weren’t ready to make changes, but you sure made them today.”

  “I made one, Terry. That’s all.”

  “Gotta start somewhere, right?” Even in the dark I could see the huge grin on his face. Clearly, the fact that I had ended things with Steven did not upset him. “I’m glad the old boy took it so well.”

  “There were a few teary moments, but he did take it well. He’s a gentleman. Most of all, he’s practical. He told me he’s got a client in Phoenix. He said he’s going to write off his brief visit to Sedona as a business trip. No muss, no fuss.”

  “From the way you describe your relationship, it was a business trip.”

  “Funny. Now, moving off the subject of Steven for a minute, I have interesting news about Amanda. About her husband and his mistress, to be precise.”

  I reported word for word the conversation I had overheard between Harrison and Jennifer. “We’ll be reading about it tomorrow, courtesy of Michael.”

  “Amazing,” Terry said. “So the publicist was standing in line to kill Amanda, too.” He shook his head. “Murdering Mrs. Reid is like going to a deli counter—you’ve gotta take a number.”

  “They’re all a bunch of ghouls. Especially that husband of hers. He’s a louse if ever there was one.”

  “Look, the real bad news here is that none of these confessions gets Will off the hook,” Terry pointed out. “The police are still hung up on the idea that he was the last one to see Amanda alive.”

  “It’s awful. Everyone’s taking his guilt for granted. Even Steven said he thought Will did it, just from what he read in the New York papers.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up on my pal. He and I are hiking up to Cathedral Rock tomorrow morning. We’re going straight to the spot where he deposited Amanda and we’re not leaving until we find something, some clue, some piece of evidence that will tell us what really happened.”

  “Some piece of evidence that the police haven’t found? Come on, Terry. They’ve already searched the area.”

  “Cathedral Rock’s a big place, and Will Singleton knows it better than any cop.”

  “So you’re hoping you’ll stumble across something the cops missed?”

  “That’s what we’re hoping.”

  “I’d like to help. How would you feel about my tagging along?”

  “About as good as I’d feel if you kissed me.”

  “You want me to kiss you? Right here on this living room floor?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Isn’t Annie upstairs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if she walks in on us?”

  “Then she’ll see you kiss me.”

  “Terry.”

  “She’s sleeping, Crystal. And even if she weren’t, the sight of you kissing me isn’t going to scar her for life.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it will.”

  I reached out with my hands, into the darkness of the room, and made contact with Terry’s face, running my fingers along his nose, his cheeks, his chin. When I found his mouth, I drew myself closer, drew my mouth closer.

  “Is this what you have in mind?” I asked before pressing my lips to his.

  “Yeah. Give it a whirl,” he said, and so I did.

  It was a kiss that began as a playful extension of our conversation but quickly took on a life of its own—a kiss that kept growing in intensity, forcing us to adjust our positions several times as our excitement heightened.

  The kiss went on and on until we realized, to our great amusement, that we were now sprawled on top of each other on the floor of Terry’s living room, “making out” like a couple of horny teenagers.

  I sat up, straightening my hair and clothes. “We can’t do this. Not with Annie right upstairs,” I maintained. “Kissing is one thing. What we’re doing is—”

  “Then we’ll move the party somewhere else,” Terry cut me off. “To a room with a door that locks.”

  “To a room with a bed,” I suggested. “This floor is hard and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  He helped me up. “Your glass of water, madame, before we go up?” he said, motioning toward the kitchen.

  “I think I’ll skip it tonight,” I said, my mouth thirsting for more than water.

  Terry smiled and took my hand as we mounted the stairs, treading carefully so as not to wake Annie. When we came to her room, en route to the guest room, we stopped in her doorway for a minute or two and watched her. She was tucked under the covers, completely still, the picture of serenity.

  “She’s sleeping so soundly,” I whispered as we peered at her.

  “All that bouncing on the trampoline and swimming in the Creek must have tired her out,” Terry whispered back.

  “What about me?” I said. “I did all that bouncing and swimming, too, and I’ve managed to stay awake.”

  “You’re motivated to stay awake,” he said, running his hand along the inside of my right thigh. “At least, I hope you are.”

  The first night I’d slept with Terry after our twenty-year hiatus, I’d been almost too nervous to get the most out of the experience. Don’t misunderstand me—I’d enjoyed myself tremendously—but part of me had been detached, overthinking the situation, painfully aware that I wasn’t a nubile young thing anymore. I’d expended entirely too much energy sucking in my stomach and willing my cellulite to disappear and wondering how I compared to the women Terry had been with since he’d been with me.

  But the second night—ah, that second night—as Annie slept, as the coyotes howled, as the cool breeze blew, I didn’t overthink any of it. I didn’t think at all. I surrendered completely to the moment, to the sensations, to the pleasures I gave as well as received. I made love with my ex-husband with a spontaneity I hadn’t accessed in years, not since I had all but buried that part of myself in my work. As I’ve said before, people are quick to stereotype accountants as plodding, robotic, even asexual, and such stereotyping has always infuriated me. But it seemed to me, that second night I made love with Terry, that perhaps, without realizing it, I had become the very stereotype I’d been so defensive about.

  No more, I thought as I nuzzled Terry. I’ve got my juice back.

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” he said as we lay together. It was dawn and the sunrise was beginning to poke through the guest room window.

  “Ask away,” I said.

  “Will you stay here, Crystal? Will you stay in Sedona and give us another chance?”

  The question threw me. It was Terry who’d said, “Our sleeping together doesn’t have to mean anything”; Terry who’d promised we could be intimate with each other and still go on with our lives.

  “I’ve just ended a relationship,” I said finally. “I’m not ready to jump into another one. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t blame me for asking,” he said, curling his legs around mine. “Can’t blame me for wishing.”

  I hugged him. “That’s the wonderful part of our new friendship,” I said. “I don’t blame you for anything. All that’s behind me now.”

  Terry said he was glad that my anger and resentment toward him had evaporated, but he urged me to explore the feelings that had replaced them.

  “You might love me, Crystal,” he said. “Not still. Not more. But differently. The way I love you.”

  “I might,” I conceded, not being coy, just careful. “But I’m not impulsive in my choices, Terry. You know that about me. I don’t love often or easily.�
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  “What makes you think I do?” he asked, then covered my lips with his own.

  Terry snuck down the hall, into his bedroom, at about six a.m., ten seconds before Annie woke up. She was an early riser, he’d explained, used to getting herself ready for school during the week.

  By the time I was out of bed, washed, and dressed that Sunday morning, she and Terry were in the kitchen eating cereal. They had placed an extra bowl on the table for me.

  “Well. Good morning, you two,” I said, as if I hadn’t spent the night in Terry’s arms. “How’d everybody sleep?”

  “Great. How about you?” he asked, winking as he pulled a chair out for me.

  “Like a baby,” I said and sat down. “What about you, Annie? Did you sleep well?”

  Annie rolled her eyes. “As well as I could with that racket you guys were making. The next time you want to party all night, do it downstairs in the living room, okay?”

  Terry nearly choked on his cereal. I nearly choked, period.

  During breakfast, Annie asked me if I was still planning to marry Steven and go back to New York. I said I wasn’t planning to marry Steven but I was going back to New York. She reminded me that there was a lot of pollution in New York.

  “The air’s cleaner here,” she said. “You’d live longer if you stayed.”

  I gave her a hug, flattered that, unlike a certain member of my own family, she cared how long I lived.

  Of course, Sedona’s clean air hadn’t done much for Amanda Reid, who was either dead or as good as dead by this time. It had been three days since Will had taken her up to Cathedral Rock, three days since anyone had seen or heard from her. How likely was it that she was still alive somewhere? Still in one piece? Still barking orders at people?

  Terry told Annie that he and Will and I were hiking to Cathedral Rock. “I know it’s a Sunday, honey, and we usually spend Sundays together, but Will’s in trouble and we’ve got to do what we can to help him, right?”

  “Sure,” she said. “How long will you be gone, Dad?”

  “The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon, I guess. I’ll call Cynthia, if you want, and see if you can spend some time with Laura.”