Never Sleep With Strangers

by Heather Graham

  “I told her to go fuck herself, and V.J. and I walked out and—” He broke off.

  “And what?” Dianne pressed.

  “And—and we went our separate ways,” Tom said firmly.

  But he was lying. Sabrina was convinced that he was lying.

  “Wow, Tom! What happened to your hand?” Anna Lee asked suddenly, rising and walking over to him.

  “My hand?” Tom said, and then he glanced at his palm and saw the long cut, suddenly oozing new blood, to which Anna was referring. “Oh…that. Looks much worse than it is.”

  “Paper cut?” Reggie drawled skeptically.

  Tom gazed at her, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “I broke one of those old kerosene lamps of yours, Jon. Sorry, I’m sure they’re real antiques.”

  Jon waved a hand dismissively. “I have more lamps. But that does look like a nasty gash.”

  “Tom, where did you say V.J. was?” Sabrina demanded.

  “She didn’t answer her door last night,” Brett said.

  “What the hell were you doing knocking at her door?” Tom demanded angrily.

  “Trying to find someone adventurous—and hungry—with whom to roam down to the great hall,” Brett said indignantly.

  “Is that all?” Anna Lee asked teasingly. Then she smiled at the group. “After all, we’re on to a new game here, right? Kind of like kiss and tell. We confess our sins, and we figure out who killed Cassie—if she was killed, of course, since the official ruling was accidental death.”

  “I don’t have anything to confess regarding V.J.,” Brett said with an edge of anger.

  “Not concerning V.J., maybe,” Anna Lee said sweetly.

  Joe leaned back. “Now wait, if we’re looking for motive, V.J. hated Cassie. They never got along. Cassie was mean and crude to her, and V.J. never hesitated to say what was on her mind, either.”

  “V.J. didn’t kill Cassie!” Tom scoffed.

  “Ah, Tom, dear,” Anna Lee said. “You might have wanted to kill dear Cassandra. She wrote ugly things about you, implying you were having affairs all over the place. Let’s see, you are separated now, but not divorced yet. Cassie could have cost you a big—capital B-I-G—settlement, right?” she queried.

  “Anna Lee, we’re confessing things regarding ourselves, remember?” Jon said firmly.

  Tom lifted a hand to Jon. “It’s all right, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t kill Cassie. I know the law, and my obligations, and I don’t hate my almost ex-wife, nor do I begrudge her half the income I made, because we both took a chance on my writing. I already give Lavinia all but blood, yet I give it with an open heart.”

  “Oh, is that the perfect man, or what?” Anna Lee said. “I still say you had motive.”

  “Since motive can be almost anything, I think we’ve all got something that could qualify as motive,” Jon said dryly.

  “Not me,” Dianne said softly.

  “No?” Anna Lee queried. “Oh, Dianne, darling, no, I’m afraid you’re not out of this at all. Let’s see, Cassie was your mother, but she spurned you. She wouldn’t acknowledge you to the world, you were a problem, a bother, someone who made her old. Perhaps you freaked out yourself, and she happened to be at the balcony and—”

  “What a wretched pile of bull!” Dianne cried angrily. She circled the table, hands on her hips, glaring furiously at Anna Lee. “For you to say such an awful thing, when all you ever wanted was to cause trouble. You have the morals of an alley cat. You couldn’t have Jon, so went for my mother. And God knows who else. You like to cause chaos wherever you go. You’re desperate for attention, so you have to be outrageous. You have to intrigue the public with your exploits because you can’t write your way out of a paper bag!”

  “Ouch,” Anna Lee murmured. “How did I ever miss the fact that you were Cassie’s daughter?” She didn’t, however, seem particularly concerned. “Well, now we all know where I was sleeping, but there’s more to the story, boys and girls. Shouldn’t we all fess up?” She swung around and stared at Joe. “Have you anything to say?” she asked him.

  He lifted his hands, shrugged sheepishly. “I—I was caught between them,” he said unhappily.

  Jon rose slowly and leaned against the mantel. The sound of a pin dropping would have been like thunder, everyone had gone so silent. Yet Jon seemed calm, as if he weren’t learning anything new at all.

  Joe cleared his throat. “I was really mad at Cassie,” he explained. “Yet no matter how mad I was at her—and I lost a chance at an important anthology because of her—I was still fascinated by her. She was married to Jon, so I kept my distance. But Anna Lee was having a good time knowing that I had my own little fantasy love-hate relationship going with Cassie. Anna Lee must have been in a rustic mood at the time, for she decided to forgo her caviar tastes and seduce me. And then…”

  “And then what?” Jon asked, looking at Anna Lee.

  Anna Lee shrugged, then a strange flash of pain went through her eyes. “Jon, you wouldn’t see the truth. You wouldn’t divorce her. I was only trying to show you what kind of a woman she was.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “You were trying to show me what kind of a woman my wife was?”

  Anna Lee ran her fingers through her beautiful hair. “You wouldn’t listen when I told you she was well enough to be sleeping around.”

  “Anna Lee, I knew Cassie, and I knew what she was doing, and I was at the end of the line with her, but in my saner moments, I knew she was running as fast as she could because she was trying to outrun cancer. I didn’t always care what she was doing, except when she tried to hurt other people—something it seems she had a lot of help doing.” He spun on Joe suddenly. “So finish your story.”

  Joe was so red he was almost purple.

  “I—I—only once—we—I—”

  “Oh, Joe, spit it out!” Anna Lee demanded, amused. “We had a ménage à trois!”

  Joe put his head down. “I’m so sorry, Jon. I was so…It’s just that…” He looked up at Jon. “You’re a wealthy, respected, powerful, good-looking man. I’ve always looked like a bear with a hangover. They were suddenly both teasing me, and wanting me…and then,” he added softly, staring accusingly at Anna Lee, “and then laughing at me.”

  Anna Lee shrugged, evidently not terribly penitent about her sexual exploits. “We were all adults, Joe. And we weren’t laughing at you. You must have just felt that way.”

  “Inadequate?” Dianne queried softly. “Put upon? Maybe even used?”

  “Oh, no,” Joe protested, “I’m not taking that kind of a rap! No, I didn’t feel abused, no, I never felt murderous because women had humiliated me, or anything of the kind!” He stared at Anna Lee. “Besides I couldn’t have been that bad in bed. Anna Lee comes back now and then when she’s in the mood.”

  Brett was suddenly standing, hands on his hips, staring at them both. “I don’t believe either of you!” he cried out. “Cassie wasn’t like that!”

  Jon stood behind him, setting a hand on his shoulder. “Brett, she was.”

  “No. You’re both making this up, and why, I sure as hell don’t know! What, for a great story? Something to make you both look so sick and miserable that you couldn’t possibly be guilty? You’re making this up, I swear. I knew Cassie—”

  “Brett!” Jon said more firmly. “You didn’t know Cassie. You just thought you did. You knew what she wanted you to know, you thought what she wanted you to think. You fell into her trap, you cared too deeply.”

  “No!” Brett said. Suddenly he sank back into his chair, his fingers against his temples. “No, I…” Then he looked up again. At Jon, then over at Sabrina, in a way that made her heart seem to bleed. He looked at Jon again. “I was so jealous of you. I had been married to Sabrina. And she never admitted to even knowing you, let alone sleeping with you. And yet whenever your name came up, she would look a little sad…and I just knew that you two had had an affair and that—and that no matter what a good, loyal wife she was determined to be, I
was being compared to you. And I came up short. And right after the divorce, I couldn’t believe that my own behavior had caused her to leave, and so…so I wanted to get even with you. I blamed you for my divorce—it was as if you had seduced my wife. So…I set out to seduce Cassie. And she cared about me in her way. I know she did, because, because…”

  “Brett,” Jon said with a soft sigh, “you cared about her because it was easy to care about Cassie. Even after she stopped being alluring to me, I cared about her. She was in pain, she was desperately running. She wanted so badly to be beautiful and young forever. She needed to be loved, she was afraid to be alone and afraid to die. She was a smart woman, well-educated, her insights were often good, and she could be charming and at times even gentle and caring.”

  He hesitated, looking at Dianne. “She did know what she had done to her own daughter, and she donated huge sums to societies for orphans and sick children. She wasn’t a horrible person. I did know her—I knew what she was doing. It just didn’t matter. That I had married her to begin with was what was really wrong. We’d known each other for years. She’d gotten me my first agent, shown me a lot of the ropes. She was a beautiful woman, and we had lots of fun. We were on again, off again. Then she got sick. And she didn’t want to be alone. And we decided to give it a try. Marriage between us was probably doomed from the start. But she was a friend. And I did care about her.”

  Jon paused, then lifted his hands suddenly, a wry smile curling his lips. “Okay, so who here didn’t sleep with my wife?”

  “Well, dear boy, I most certainly didn’t!” Reggie exclaimed indignantly.

  Jon smiled. “Should we have a show of hands? The yeas and the nays?”

  “I’m a nay,” Tom asserted.

  “Me, too,” Camy declared.

  “Nope,” Thayer said.

  “Not me, either.” Joshua, silent up until now, leaned forward in his chair.

  “I wasn’t here,” Sabrina murmured.

  “Well, we’re missing Susan and V.J., so we’ll have to ask them later,” Jon murmured dryly.

  “Do you think we’ve all bled enough today?” Anna Lee asked abruptly. Her voice was so changed that Sabrina stared at her, wondering if her casual bluntness regarding her sexual exploits wasn’t partially show. Was she bothered by the things she had done?

  Motives could be so strange. Brett had set out to hurt Jon, because Jon had inadvertently hurt him. Anna Lee had loved Jon, so she had seduced Jon’s wife. Joe had fallen in love with Cassie and been swept into Anna Lee’s intrigue. And as to the others…

  Cassandra had held things over all their heads. Evidently she’d liked to threaten people. She’d believed she could ruin Tom Heart, destroying his career and his marriage. She’d fought openly with V.J. What about Thayer, Reggie, Joshua and Camy? And would Dianne have been so hurt by what her mother had done that she might have committed murder?

  “Jon?” Anna Lee continued, pressing the issue.

  He lifted his hands. “We’re no closer to any answers, are we?” he said softly.

  “Not true,” Brett said. “We know who was—and wasn’t—sleeping with Cassie.”

  Jon smiled ruefully. “That doesn’t tell us who killed her.”

  “If she was killed,” Anna Lee said. She leaned forward. “Jon, maybe we should just leave it be.”

  “But what about all these crazy, misleading game instructions going out to people? Who’s the one playing tricks to scare us?”

  “Dianne!” Anna Lee announced.

  “Once!” Dianne cried. “Only once, when I wrote the notes for you to come to the crypt.”

  “So what about Susan’s note?” Jon demanded.

  “Dianne, if you did it, please, for the love of God—” Anna Lee began.

  “I didn’t write Susan’s note!” Dianne said irritably. “I’m not going to confess here to what I didn’t do.”

  “Susan is simply crazy,” Brett said irritably. “Let’s go by process of elimination. I wasn’t here, so I’m innocent. Sabrina wasn’t here. She wasn’t even here when the tragedy happened. Joshua wasn’t here, Jon wasn’t here—”

  “Any one of us could have written a note before leaving,” Jon said firmly.

  “But if we weren’t here, how could we have tormented Susan in the chamber of horrors?” Brett asked.

  “Accomplice!” Thayer said softly.

  “If Susan was really tormented at all,” Tom said. “She’s such a dramatist, and she thrives on attention.”

  “Please, Jon,” Anna Lee said, “I’ve a pounding headache. Could I go back to sleep for a while?”

  Jon lifted his hands. “Of course,” he murmured. He looked around the room. “We’ll meet for supper-cocktails in the library. We can keep playing the game, but the case we solve may be about ourselves.”

  “But, Jon, what if there’s nothing to solve?” Camy asked. “What if Cassie’s death was just a tragic accident?”

  “Well, if that’s what we discover—and hopefully it will be so—we’ll still have solved the case,” he said.

  “Well! If we’ve gotten past the mudslinging and the fess up, I’m for cards in the library,” Reggie said hopefully.

  “Bridge?” Tom asked.

  “Poker, dear boy! Poker!” Reggie said.

  Joe laughed. “I’m in.”

  “Me, too,” Thayer agreed.

  They all rose. Anna Lee left the room quickly, ignoring the rest of them. Reggie, Joe and Thayer started toward the library. Sabrina began heading toward Jon, but she saw that Camy was talking with him, apparently upset. Brett hovered near, as if he, too, were anxious to get in a word with their host.

  Sabrina started to leave the room. Tom Heart blocked her way, his injured hand wrapped in a napkin. “Cards?” he said.

  She shook her head, suddenly uneasy. “No, Tom, thanks. I didn’t get much sleep. I’m going up for a nap. Maybe I’ll join in if you’re still playing later.”

  “Sure.”

  She slipped by him. Anna Lee had already disappeared up the stairs. Sabrina headed quickly up behind her, started for her own room and then paused.

  She walked across the hall to V.J.’s door.

  “V.J.?” she queried softly. No response. She tapped lightly on the door. “V.J.?”

  Still there was no answer, and she knocked harder. “Damn it, V.J., you’re making me nervous here!”

  There was still no response, so she hesitantly set her hand on the doorknob and twisted.

  The knob turned. V.J.’s door wasn’t locked.

  Sabrina inched the door open. “V.J.?”

  Nothing.

  She pushed the door fully open and stepped into her friend’s room.

  And saw V.J.

  She was stretched out on her bed, dressed in a simple, elegant dress. No frills or lace for V.J. Her head was upon her pillow; her hands were folded upon her chest. She was laid out as neatly as a corpse in a coffin for a viewing. A thin red line encircled her neck.

  “V.J.!” Sabrina shrieked, and flew across the room to her friend.

  16

  Jon began to wonder just what kind of can of worms he had opened.

  “I don’t understand any of this, Jon, and if I had managed things better—” Camy began.

  “Camy, anyone could have written notes—”

  Joshua had come up behind her, his aesthetic eyes dark and disturbed. “Camy, I’m supposed to be helping you keep an eye on things—”

  “Joshua, you’re an artist and a friend. I’m the one who works for Jon.”

  “Camy, Josh, you’ve both done great work for me. There’s nothing more you could have done. Please—”

  “Jon, we need to talk, really talk,” Brett said, barging past the two.

  Jon lifted his hands, palms up. “Camy, you didn’t do anything wrong. Quit worrying. The game was great, clever, you and Joshua were doing wonderfully, but with the storm, the darkness and everything going on, maybe we just can’t play it anymore.”

  “
Jon, I need to speak with you,” Brett insisted.

  Jon turned to McGraff. “Brett, I’m not angry. Honest. I understand what you did, and why. It’s all right.”

  “Damn it, Jon, it’s not all right. Friends don’t screw friends.”

  “Well, Brett, literally, it wasn’t me you screwed.”

  “Oh, God, Jon.”

  “Sorry, Brett. Couldn’t resist that. But I’m dead serious—it just didn’t matter anymore.”

  “Jon, she was still your wife.”

  “Brett, it’s over. I don’t feel anything—no anger, no pain, nothing. Try to understand that there was just too much pain going on at the time with everyone. And try to see that it’s all right because I’ve said it’s all right. And I need to get by you and get outside.”

  “Outside?” Camy protested. “But the cold and the snow—”

  “Won’t hurt me now,” Jon interrupted. “It will feel great. Excuse me,” he said. Then he hesitated, turning back to Brett. “How’s the head?”

  “The head?”

  “Your injury.”

  “Oh!” He felt his temple and shrugged. “Just a little sore, I guess. It’s all right.”

  “Good.”

  Jon started toward the door, eager to feel the cold, clear air outside. The sun wasn’t exactly pouring through the clouds yet, but at least the light outside was natural and the air would be fresh.

  He didn’t make it to the door. Joe stopped him. “Jesus, Jon, you’ve been a good friend, and I’m sorry, honest to God. It was only once, you know, and there wasn’t really even any…you know, not with me and Cassie. But what I did was wrong, I admit it, and I’m sorry. You’ve been a stand-up kind of friend, and I was a fool.”

  “Joe, I need you to try and understand this. I knew what Cass was doing. I didn’t always know with whom, but I didn’t care anymore. She used people because she hated these Mystery Weeks of mine—she was even trying to get me to leave when she died. So quit worrying. But if it makes you feel any better, if I ever marry again and you so much as look at my wife, I promise to beat you to a pulp.”

  Joe half smiled.

  “Joe, honest. It was over between the two of us, okay?”