Felicia’s jaw loosened, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Horror rolled over her.
“Felicia,” Tamara said, standing and reaching out. “I’m so sorry. I know that you and Jerry used to…date.”
“Yes,” Felicia murmured. “A long…time ago.”
“This must be a terrible shock for you.”
Felicia nodded and staggered into her office, where she dropped into the nearest chair and covered her mouth with her hand.
Tamara hovered near the door. “I’ll get you some water.”
Felicia nodded and swallowed, tentatively. She was numb. White noise buzzed in her ears. Jerry couldn’t be dead…he simply couldn’t be. The phone rang, piercing the air and causing her nearly to jump out of her skin. She exhaled and pushed to her feet, realizing when she reached for the phone that she was still wearing her coat. “Yeah,” she croaked, business protocol going by the wayside.
“It’s Tallie,” a barely recognizable voice said on the other line. “H-have you heard…about Jerry?”
Bile rose in Felicia’s throat, but she choked it down. “Y-yes…I just walked in, and Tamara told me.” The anguish in her own voice terrified her. “She…she said that he was st-stabbed?”
“That’s what I heard, too,” Tallie said.
Felicia closed her eyes briefly, striving to keep her voice calm. “Everyone here has the photo pulled up on their computer.”
“I haven’t seen it, but Norah said she’d forward it to me.”
“They’re saying…” Felicia swallowed. “They’re saying that the murderer took a picture of him and sent it out before killing him.”
Silence sounded on the other end.
“Tallie?”
“Oh, my God,” Tallie said tearfully. “We have to go to the police, Felicia.”
At the sound of Tamara returning, Felicia lifted her head. Her assistant set a plastic cup of water on her desk and gave her a tentative smile.
Felicia covered the mouthpiece on the phone. “Thank you.”
“There’s a Jané Glass on the phone,” Tamara said. “I asked her to leave a message, but she said you’d want to talk to her.”
Felicia schooled her face into mild surprise. “Yes, I’ll take it.” She waited until Tamara left and closed the door before she spoke to Tallie. “Hold on—Jané is on my other line. I’ll conference her in.”
“Okay,” Tallie said in a broken whisper.
Felicia pressed her second line button. “Jané?”
“Holy shit, Felicia…have you heard what happened to Jerry?”
Felicia pinched the bridge of her nose and struggled for composure. “Um, yeah. Listen, Jané, Tallie’s on the other line. I’m going to conference us all in.” She fumbled with the buttons, finally managing to push the right ones. “Tallie? Jané?”
They chimed in, and Felicia expelled a shaky sigh. “Jané, what have you heard?”
“Holy shit…the word around the office is that Jerry was stabbed in his hotel room!”
“Same here,” Felicia said.
“I’m at home,” Tallie said, “but my assistant just told me the same thing when I called in.”
“Holy shit!” Jané said. “What the hell happened after we left? Holy shit!”
Tallie moaned.
“Let’s calm down,” Felicia said, mostly to soothe her own nerves. “Someone was obviously there after we left.”
“He could have stabbed himself,” Jané said. “Maybe he logged onto his laptop, saw the picture had been sent, and couldn’t take the humiliation.”
Tears gathered in Felicia’s throat at the suggestion, but her mind violently rejected that idea. “No,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t have.”
“Everyone says he was murdered,” Tallie said. “If he’d committed suicide, wouldn’t that information have been released?”
Felicia inhaled painfully…this conversation was surreal. Her mind raced…facts. They needed facts. “Tallie, can you call your cop friend and find out what happened?”
Tallie made a rueful noise. “I think we should go to the police right now and tell them what we did.”
“Are you insane?” Jané practically shouted. “We’re not involved in this.”
“We set him up.” Tallie retorted, her voice breaking. “We took a picture and sent it to everyone in his address book. We’re involved, Jané!”
“If we go to the police,” Jané said, “they’ll haul us in for murder.”
“But we didn’t kill him,” Tallie insisted.
“And you think the police are going to believe that? This isn’t Pleasantville, Ohio, Tallie. This is New York fucking City. They will arrest us first and ask questions later.”
“Okay,” Felicia said, trying to regain control. “For all we know, the police could have someone in custody, right?”
“Right,” they chorused, contrite.
“So,” she continued, “Tallie, can you call your cop friend and find out what happened?”
After a few seconds of silence, Tallie sighed. “Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. But…”
“But what?” Felicia asked.
“There…might be a complication. I got home last night and didn’t have my manuscript bag. My first thought was that I left it in the cab, but now I’m afraid—”
“You left it in the hotel room?” Jané roared.
“I don’t know,” Tallie murmured.
“It wouldn’t be unusual for Jerry to have manuscripts,” Felicia said, realizing suddenly that she was siding with Jané about not going to the police. “Is there anything in the bag to lead back to you?”
“No…unless you count the sole copy of Gaylord Cooper’s latest book,” Tallie said, her voice ending on a sob.
Felicia touched her temple—if possible, things were getting worse.
“But doesn’t Jerry represent Gaylord Cooper?” Jané asked.
“Yes,” Tallie got out.
“Then it would make sense that Jerry would have the manuscript,” Jané said. “Look—we planned this down to the last detail, and we’re still okay if everyone just chills out and keeps their mouth shut. Okay?”
Felicia’s mind reeled, unable to absorb the enormity of the situation. She could feel the pull of her subconscious, the temptation to shut down…to cover her head…to run. But one end image kept her functioning—the image of the three of them in prison (or worse) for something they didn’t do. Her career, gone. Her life, ruined.
“Okay?” Jané repeated, then she knocked on the receiver.
Felicia sighed. “I think Jané is right, Tallie. See what you can find out from your cop friend, and let’s sit tight while things settle. We could be overreacting.”
“Okay,” Tallie said finally, although it was clear in her tone that she didn’t completely agree. “I’ll see what I can find out from my cop…friend.”
The weight of guilt settled on Felicia’s shoulders like a thick mantle. She knew that Tallie was following her lead…she just hoped she wasn’t leading her best friend into even deeper trouble than they were in already.
Chapter 19
Tallie disconnected the call and stared at her silent computer monitor, feeling sick. She didn’t want to see the picture that Felicia had taken of Jerry, but the pull was irresistible, and she had to face it sooner or later. Like a snake striking, she tapped the power button, then started the coffeemaker while the machine booted up. She rubbed her arms, trying to keep the burgeoning panic at bay. A few minutes ago, she’d been worried the manuscript could link her to having sent the digital picture; now she was dealing with the possibility of being tied to a murder.
Murder. She closed her eyes, trying to soak in the awfulness of the word. Who would murder Jerry Key?
A lot of people, she acknowledged a split second later. Angry authors, irritated editors, pissed-off peers—not to mention a long line of cuckolded men and scorned women.
Like Felicia.
Who had been astonishingly calm last night while they’d executed
their plan. At the time, Tallie had attributed her irreverent demeanor to the alcohol Felicia had consumed, but now…
Tallie shook her head to halt her train of thought. Felicia had wanted Jerry to get his comeuppance, but she wouldn’t have killed the man. Besides, she had heard her best friend’s voice on the phone. Felicia was on the verge of coming apart.
The computer chimed, then the screen vibed to life, displaying her cluttered electronic desktop. She frowned wryly—more cleaning to do. Since her apartment building was light-years away from installing a digital subscriber line and she hadn’t coughed up the money for a cable modem, she was stuck with plain old dial-up. After much nervous leg-jumping and finger-drumming, she successfully connected to the server at Parkbench and pulled up her e-mail. The note with the subject line “Jerry, Jerry quite contrary” was on the top line of her inbox.
By the multiple “forwarding” notations, the original e-mail had made the rounds. With her heart tripping overtime, she double-clicked on the note. The first half of the note was addresses of people who had forwarded it and the addresses of people it was being forwarded to, along with individual commentary like “Look at this!” and “I know this guy!” At the bottom of the note was the imbedded digital image of Jerry, which loaded very slowly, one horizontal slice at a time. His yellow hair…the black blindfold…the gag…his naked torso, crisscrossed with painful-looking chains…his wrists enclosed with leather cuffs…his long legs stretched out on the bed spread-eagle…his ankles bound. When the three of them had made their escape, they had laughed their asses off about how ridiculous he had looked.
They’d left him trussed up to be found by a maid. Instead he had been found by a killer and had been helpless to do anything about it.
Tallie started shaking uncontrollably and covered her mouth with her hand. They were responsible. She was responsible. This was not the kind of headline she’d been hoping to give her mother this year:
OUR SPINSTER DAUGHTER IS SPENDING CHRISTMAS IN ATTICA!
She gulped air, and her mind spun wildly. Desperation welled in her chest, and she stood abruptly, sending the chair crashing to the floor. She backed away from the computer and hugged herself, choking back tears. What had they done? What had they done?
The ring of her doorbell jolted her out of her panic. The cleaners returning for some reason? She sniffed mightily and walked over to look through the peephole.
Keith Wages—in uniform—stared back.
She jumped back from the door and glanced around the apartment in panic. The police already knew…he was here to take her away. Ridiculously, she looked for an escape route but finally acknowledged that she’d rather be hauled off in handcuffs than picked off a fire escape with a tranquilizer gun, or whatever the police did to subdue fugitives. She breathed into her hand, ending on a sob.
The doorbell rang again, and she realized she had to get a grip. She hadn’t killed Jerry—they couldn’t lock her up for embarrassing a man to death.
She inhaled deeply a few times, then unfastened the chain and sundry dead bolts and swung open the door.
Keith looked up and smiled…not exactly the reception she’d expected. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she responded tentatively.
He pointed to the hallway vent with the hat he held in his hands. “I thought I’d stop by to see if everything was okay this morning. Did the super turn the heat back on?”
Tallie hung on to the doorknob, weak with relief. “Um, yes…a few minutes ago.”
“Good. Did the cab company call?”
“I called them, but they said it could be a day or two before I heard about my bag.”
He winced. “Sorry to hear that.”
Her mind swirled, trying to figure out how she could bring up the subject of Jerry without it sounding contrived.
“Is that coffee I smell?” he asked, craning his neck toward the inside of her apartment.
“Yes,” she said, pouncing on the opening. “Do you have time for a cup?”
“Just one,” he said with a smile. “It’s really cold out there.”
She opened the door, conscious of her rumpled (but clean) jeans and wrinkled (but clean) sweatshirt, both of which could have spent a little less time in the dryer. Her hair, on the other hand, could have used a little more time under the dryer—it was still damp and no doubt suctioned to her head. But Keith was so surprised by the state of the apartment that he didn’t even notice her.
“Wow, that was some spring cleaning,” he said.
Tallie squashed the urge to accept a compliment on cleaning—the man was already getting coffee. She closed the door just shy of a slam.
“I didn’t think I’d catch you at home,” he said, staring at the leaning bookshelf, as if he longed to repair it. Then he looked back to her and flashed a smile. “I figured you editor types went in to the office early and stayed late.”
“I wanted to check with the cab company this morning,” she said. “And make sure the heat came back on.”
He nodded, then suddenly turned his attention on something behind her.
The computer. Panic ballooned in her chest.
“That picture is all over the Internet,” he said. “Did you know the guy is dead?”
“Um, yes…he worked in publishing,” Tallie said, rushing to explain why she’d have something so graphic on her computer. It shouldn’t matter what he thought since they weren’t going to…get involved, but she wouldn’t want something like that getting back to her mother via his mother.
“You knew this guy Key?” he asked, walking over to the computer. He leaned down to casually right the chair she’d overturned, then scrutinized the screen.
She stared at his large hand wrapped around the back of the chair. The symbolism of him making things right again wasn’t lost on her. Was it a sign that she should collapse into him, regurgitate her lurid tale, and beg for his help?
But to do so would mean involving Felicia and Jané…not to mention that every cell in her body railed against the thought of falling into the habit of Keith Wages coming to her rescue.
In her silence, he looked back. “Did you know him?” he repeated.
She paused to select the best words to represent their relationship. “Jerry Key. He’s Gaylord Cooper’s literary agent.”
He arched a dark brow. “So you worked with him?”
“Briefly.” She walked to an overhead cabinet and removed two matching and squeaky clean coffee cups, glad to have her back to him. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“His body was found this morning in a room at the Hills Hotel. Apparently, it was a kinky scene and things went too far.”
She wet her lips, torn about using their…acquaintance to glean information while keeping her involvement in the situation from Keith. It made her feel smarmy. “My assistant—she’s the one who sent me the picture—told me that he was, um, stabbed.” She poured coffee into both cups.
“Yeah. And whoever killed this guy had a sick sense of humor. I’m just glad he sent a ‘before’ photo instead of an ‘after.’ ”
Her hand jerked, and she spilled coffee on the pristine counter.
“Need some help over there?”
“No,” she said, using one of her clean dish towels to mop up the mess, scalding her hand in the process. “Ow!”
He strode over and inspected the red welt on her hand.
“It’s okay,” she said, pulling back.
But he resisted her movement, then turned on the cold water faucet and held her hand underneath the cool water. “I’ve had first-aid training,” he said, his dark eyes teasing. “You have to bring down the temperature of the skin.”
While the temperature of her fingers went down, the temperature around her pulse points ratcheted higher. She squirmed at his closeness—if Keith Wages knew what she’d done, he’d be slapping cuffs on her hands instead of making them all better.
“That’s good,” she said with a little smile, retracting her han
d and shutting off the faucet. “Cream and sugar in your coffee?”
“No, thanks,” he said, helping himself to the cup closest to him.
She blew on the top of the dark liquid in her cup, then took a sip. “You said ‘he’ sent the picture—has someone been arrested for Jerry Key’s, um, murder?”
“Figure of speech,” Keith said. “No one’s been arrested, but I’m working with the detectives on the case so I really can’t say much more than that.”
“But it wasn’t a suicide?”
“No.” He sipped the coffee, then swallowed hard and knocked on his chest with his fist. “Wow. Maybe I’ll have some cream after all.”
Despite the tension wound tight in her chest, she angled her head. “I said I had coffee…I didn’t say it was good.”
He laughed and dumped in two of the fast-food brand creamers she pulled from the back of a drawer. While he stirred his coffee, she tried to reopen the subject as casually as possible, considering her desire to scream. “Well…do you at least have a suspect?”
He looked up. “No.” He lifted his chin slightly. “Tallie, do you know something about this case?”
“No,” she said…too quickly? “You mean about Jerry Key? No, of course not.” She busied herself drinking from her coffee cup. Tallie grimaced—the stuff was pretty vile.
Keith was silent for a few agonizing seconds, then took a drink of his diluted coffee, his face unreadable. “The crime scene is still being processed.”
Tallie averted her glance—would they find her manuscript bag? Keith knew she’d lost it. If it turned up, he’d be the one to make the connection. Her hairline grew moist.
“And detectives will start conducting interviews today,” he continued. “Can you give me names to add to the list?”
“Um, not really,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t know him that well…just by reputation.”
“He had a bad reputation?”
“I didn’t say that.” She swallowed hard. “I…truly don’t—er, didn’t know him that well.”
“Just through your author?”
She hesitated, loath to mention Jerry’s connection to Felicia and her connection to Felicia. “I only met Jerry Key once, and it was with Gaylord Cooper.” Not counting last night when she’d been in his hotel room.
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