“Easy does it, Nelly,” Norma teased. “He’s not going anywhere without his lunch.”
Nell gave her a withering look and carried out the guy’s soup, head high.
When she served the rest of his lunch, the only place to put the plate was the extreme edge of the table. It looked so precarious. He hadn’t touched the soup yet. His long, graceful hands tapped ceaselessly on the keyboard.
“That’ll be all,” he muttered, staring fixedly at the screen.
Nell headed back to the kitchen, mentally ticking off issues to cover in her discussion section on Emily Dickinson’s poetry tonight. The sad plight of women in nineteenth-century America. Poverty. Powerlessness. Arid celibacy. Secret love. Constraint. Corsets. The life of the imagination. Ooh, ouch. It was the story of her life. Except for the corsets.
“Everything go smoothly?” Norma asked in a sly voice.
“No problems.” Nell loaded ice water on a tray, marched past Norma with her chin up, and proceeded to trip on the plastic mat.
Crash. Glass broke, heads turned, water pooled, ice cubes rolled.
Nell got the dustpan and started picking up shards, mouth tight.
“You’re too tense, Nelly.” Norma put her hands on her substantial hips and scowled in concern. “You need to get out more.”
“Norma, get real! My life is nuts right now!” she flared. “My sister was stalked and attacked by a slobbering maniac, I’m short my rent because of all that lost work after the Fiend jumped Nancy, my thesis adviser is on my case night and day, I can’t seem to sleep anymore, and Lucia…oh, God. Never mind. Please, just leave me alone, okay?”
Her voice choked off. Tears slipped down her face. She was mortified, but Norma just tugged her up to her feet and enveloped her in a big hug. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry about Lucia. I didn’t mean to stress you. I know you’re grieving, and what happened to Nancy is terrifying, but things have worked out, right? Things are calming down, and Lucia would have wanted you to get out, have fun! You know that.”
Nell polished her tear-splattered glasses. “I appreciate that you worry about me, but I am not in the mood for fun, and I can’t take this lecture right now,” she quavered. “I need to get dessert for table six, table eight needs their check, and Monica is taking a cigarette break—”
“Forget I said anything. I must say, though, I’m glad to see you taking a healthy interest in a good-looking guy. It’s a good sign.”
Nell stomped out to dump broken glass into the trash. Her eyes were red and puffy, but who cared? The black-haired man would never notice. When she refilled his coffee, she asked, “Care for dessert?”
“The usual,” he said coolly.
Nell hesitated for a moment, then took her courage in both hands. “Sure you don’t want to try something new? We have strawberry shortcake today, and the pecan fudge brownies are wonderful.”
His hands froze over the keyboard as he processed this. “I’m sure they’re all good.” His voice had a dismissive edge. “Give me the usual.”
Nell sighed and went to get a slice of apple crumb pie with vanilla ice cream. As always, when he finished, he closed his laptop, dropped a bill on the table that covered the check as well as a moderate-to-generous tip, and left. The guy had the imagination of a large rock. And the manners of a hibernating snake. To hell with him, anyway.
The rest of the shift was a tired blur. She helped Norma prep for dinner and went to the bathroom to freshen up before her discussion section. She took off her glasses, leaned close to the mirror, and peered.
Norma was right. The round glasses were nerdish. And the long, unstyled mop of dark curly hair was juvenile and nondescript.
She twisted her hair into a knot, letting curly wisps fall down around her ears and jaw. Marginally better. Her eyes were her best feature. Dark, with long lashes and eyebrows that she had to pluck or else they did a coup d’etat and took over her face. A nice mouth, she conceded, if a little large for her jaw. Maybe she should try contacts.
But why was she stressing over her looks, anyway? Who was noticing them? She had bigger things to worry about. She splashed water on her face, hefted her bag onto her shoulder, and sprinted for the bus.
Her discussion group went as expected. A healthy two-thirds of the group actually attended, and out of that number, only three appeared to be sleeping, which wasn’t bad, statistically speaking. They had quite a spirited discussion about Emily Dickinson’s love poetry. One serious young man with stringy hair said earnestly, “Like, how do you know Emily Dickinson never had, you know, sex? Maybe she, like, had secret lovers! Some of those poems are totally scorching! I can’t believe that she could feel like that if she never, you know, got any!”
“Believe it,” Nell said without thinking. Fifteen faces gave her speculative looks. She noticed that the young blond man and she had the same type of glasses, and felt a sudden, desperate urge to change her style. “Let’s wrap it up for tonight,” she said. “I expect a five-to-ten page paper from everyone by Wednesday.”
“But I have a physics midterm to study for!” one student whined.
“And I have to write a philosophy paper by Monday!” another lamented. “Can’t we have till Friday?”
“Wednesday,” she said firmly to a chorus of groans.
Nell trudged through the bustling, congested city campus to the English department offices. The office door opened as she approached, and Maria, a fellow grad student, came out holding a fax. “Hey, Nell. Take a look. I was about to post it. It might be just up your alley.”
Nell looked it over.
WANTED
Writer-Editor-Proofreader for interactive fantasy game project
EXPERT IN POETRY
Good Pay Flexible Hours
Call 555–439-8218 Ask for Duncan
“Weird, huh?” Maria commented.
Nell looked up at her. “Interesting.”
“Thought you might think so. Good night, Nell.”
Nell said good night absently. What on earth would a software outfit want with poetry? She scribbled the number, wondering exactly what “good pay” meant to this Duncan. She often picked up temp legal secretary jobs at night, when she was broke. They paid well but exhausted her. She was always alert for a job that would pay enough so she could quit working at the Sunset and live a life that resembled normal, if such a thing existed. Though she’d begun to doubt it, with the bizarre things that had been happening since Lucia’s death.
And she wasn’t going to think about Lucia, or she’d cry again. She fingered the pendant Lucia had given her. The golden rectangle with its halo of swirling, white gold lacework was warm from her body’s heat. A talisman of love, but a shadow of fear clung to it. Her fingers tightened around the thing in a possessive spasm. The Fiend had taken Nancy’s pendant. It was stupid for Nell to wear hers around. A blatant provocation, even. But she felt naked and defenseless without it.
She’d compromised by lengthening the chain and tucking the pendant inside her dress, where it usually got wedged between her boobs. She had pepper spray in her bag. And she was going to sign up for self-defense. Maybe she’d even learn to use a gun.
She shivered. Then again, maybe not. Just knowing how to use a gun meant nothing. She had to be willing to point it at someone and pull the trigger. And that tasty, cheerful reflection propelled her straight to her broom closet–sized office, to call Vivi’s cell phone. For comfort.
Since Nancy’s adventures, she’d secretly begun to consider getting a cell phone, but she was still hesitating, after having made such a big fat deal of how much she hated them to her sisters all these years. After all her pompous tirades on the risk of brain tumors, how sinister it was that a person couldn’t have privacy, how aggravating it was that one was constantly on call, etc., etc. She’d feel like a fool with her tail between her legs if she caved now.
But pride and privacy had so lost their charm lately. When evil stalkers with unknown agendas lurked in the shadows, looking foolish d
idn’t seem so bad. It was comforting, when things got weird, to be an electromagnetic frequency away from the people you cared about.
Vivi picked up promptly. “Hey, baby. All’s well?”
“Nobody’s abducted me lately,” Nell said. “How about yourself?”
“Still working. Busy day. I’ll wrap it up in about an hour. Then my breakdown, and I take off tonight straight for Wilmington after I grab a bite. I feel weird staying in one place for too long. I want to be a moving target. Sound stupid?”
“Hell no. Drive carefully. Did you talk to Nancy?”
“Yeah, she’s with Liam. Still in Denver, with his dad. They’re coming back tomorrow, I think. Thank God we don’t have to worry about her, at least. That guy of hers is like a Doberman lunging at the chain. Got a customer, darling. Gotta go.”
“Okay, later.” Nell hung up, stared at the flyer again, and dialed.
“Burke Solutions, Inc., can I help you?”
“Yes. May I speak to, um”—she consulted the tag—“Duncan?”
“May I ask what it’s regarding?”
“It’s regarding the writing job.”
“Oh. Just a sec. Hold on.”
Nell drummed her fingers and fretted until a deep, resonant, oddly familiar voice came on the line. “This is Duncan.”
“Hello. My name is Nell D’Onofrio, and I’m a grad student at NYU. I’m interested in the writing job.”
“Do you have writing and editing experience? Do you know anything about poetry?”
She was taken aback by his brusque tone. “Of course. I’m writing my thesis on nineteenth-century women poets. I lead a discussion section for a summer poetry lecture course, and my graduate seminar focused on Christina Rossetti.”
“Ah.” There was a thoughtful pause. “I’m supervising the creation of a computer game,” he went on. “A mystery quest, with clues encoded in maps, books, poems, etc. I need a writer for the texts.”
“Sounds good,” Nell said. “The flyer says flexible hours. How flexible?”
“I don’t know yet.” He sounded irritated. “I’ve never done this before. It’s actually my brother’s project. I have meetings all afternoon, so come to the office tomorrow at six, and I’ll interview you.”
His master-and-commander tone pissed her off. “I’m free at seven-thirty,” she said crisply, although she could have probably done six, with a little switching and trading of shift hours. But phooey on him.
“That’ll work. Tomorrow, then. My receptionist will give you directions.”
Nell wrote down the directions. Strange, but interesting, even if Duncan seemed bossy and arrogant. And tomorrow was Friday. She had nothing better to do after her shift than to go home and jump at the shadows. She shoved a pile of midterm essays into her bag. That’d keep her too busy to work herself into a paranoid frenzy over every sound. Or climb the walls with futile lust, which was almost as bad. No, worse.
Nell armed the infrared alarm as soon as she went into her apartment. Any breach of the door or window would be instantly reported to the police. It made her feel safer as she heated and ate a dinner of leftovers. She cooked when Vivi was there, but didn’t bother when she was alone.
She was nibbling a stale Oreo that she’d found in the cookie stash when the ringing phone made her practically bounce off the ceiling. She had to concentrate hard to slow her breathing and control the shake in her voice as she picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s just me,” said her sister Nancy.
Nell sank onto the futon couch, knees trembling. “Oh. Great. How are things? Viv told me you guys were still in Denver.”
“We are, with Liam’s dad, and his dad’s lady friend. I have news. Remember when Liam’s friend Charlie Witt told me about that eighty-year-old guy with the designer clothes? The one they found in Jamaica, with his throat snapped?”
“The one they called the clotheshorse? That was just after Lucia died, right?”
“Right. The time of death they determined was roughly the same time that Lucia died.”
Nell doubled over, pressing her hand against the nervous twisting in her stomach. “So? What about him?”
“Well, after what happened to me in Boston, Detective Lanaghan decided to take this a little more seriously.” Nancy’s voice had an edge. “She had his prints compared to the ones found on the coffee cup in Lucia’s apartment. As I suggested they do weeks ago.”
“And they match?” Nell asked.
“They match,” Nancy echoed quietly. “She just called me.”
The sisters were silent. Nell forced out a shaky sigh. “It’s Marco,” she said, with absolute conviction. “Lucia’s long-lost husband.”
“Yeah,” Nancy said. “It must be. He came to find her and got murdered that same night. By the same person who killed Lucia.”
Nell squeezed her eyes shut, and pressed her hand against her forehead. It felt clammy. “That poor old guy. How awful.”
“At least they’re together now,” Nancy pointed out, her voice soft. “I think, probably…that she loved him. To the very end.”
“You could look at it that way,” Nell agreed. “If you believed in love and eternity and all that good stuff that’s dusted with sparkly haze.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not right now,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “You’re madly in love, Nance. You’ve got sparkly haze happening by the bucketful. But in the real world, it’s actually a pretty rare commodity.”
Nancy paused for a long, painful moment. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was just trying to cheer you up.”
Nell felt guilty. Scrooging on her poor sister, whose only crime was in getting lucky in love. “Don’t be,” she said. “I’m glad for you. Really. So did you tell Detective Lanaghan about the letter in the picture frame?”
“Yes, and she said it’s a great lead, but since all we have is the guy’s first name and the name of his town, it’s going to take a while. She has to contact the local police in Italy, find an interpreter, et cetera. So I started to think, in the meantime…since you speak Italian…”
“You want me to call the cops there?”
“Would you?” Nancy asked eagerly. “Just to facilitate things?”
Nancy looked up at the clock, calculating time zones. “I can do it tomorrow morning, before I leave for work,” she said.
The sisters went through their now obsessive routine of admonishing each other to be careful. When they finally hung up, Nell stared at the wall for a long time, her hand pressed against her mouth.
She was grateful for a job to do. Something that might help, a move that might actually yield some answers. But whatever answers she might find were not going to be comforting. This thing kept getting scarier and scarier. But dwelling on that fact would not help matters.
Nothing to do now but get her ass busy.
A thick sheaf of essays later, she rubbed her eyes, stretched, and flopped onto her bed with a groan. The surface of her bed was covered with books. There was just a narrow strip the size of her body to sleep in. It made her smile, grimly. What a perfect metaphor for her life. She could never take a lover. Where would she put him? Between her complete Riverside Shakespeare and her twenty-pound annotated Dante’s Divine Comedy?
The black-haired man popped into her mind, predictably enough. He was her default mode, whenever she wanted to avoid an uncomfortable thought. She pondered him, wondering why she was so pathetically obsessed with the man. It was weird. She wasn’t the type.
Probably because he was so clueless. Emotionally inaccessible to the point of being practically autistic. What could be safer for a coward like herself? She knew nothing about the guy, except that he had a stunning capacity for concentration, and he really, really liked strip steak. And thinking about him was more fun than thinking about that poor old guy, still lying in the morgue in Jamaica. Nameless, unclaimed, unmourned. The cold, stark loneliness of it made her roll over onto her belly and shove her hot face against t
he pillow.
Maybe tomorrow, she could put a name to the old man who may or may not have been Lucia’s husband. Recognition, the dignity of a name. The best she could hope for.
Her eyes started to close, and sometime later, she woke from a dream of the black-haired man. In her dream, weirdly enough, he was smiling at her. A really beautiful smile. His face practically shone.
She’d never seen the guy smile in real life. As she drifted to sleep again, she wondered if he even knew how.
“What is she doing now?”
The sharp tone, loaded with tension and implied criticism, made John Esposito flex his fingers until his knuckles popped. Bloody, murderous fantasies flashed through his mind, red tinged and wet.
He carefully did not turn his head from the monitor, and kept his voice very flat. “She appears to be reading papers,” he said.
“Reading? Reading what papers?” Ulf Haupt came hobbling over, his cane tap-tap-tapping against the floor. He leaned down to peer over John’s shoulder. John had a fantasy of jabbing an elbow into the decrepit asshole’s gut. Hard enough to cause internal hemorrhaging.
“Students’ essays,” he said, with grim patience. “She’s a teacher.”
“Essays?” Haupt leaned lower, his head bobbing far too close to John’s face, and he leaned away to keep his space.
“Keep watching,” Haupt snapped. “She might get another phone call. You must let nothing slip through the cracks. Nothing. Tomorrow, she will make that call to Italy, and identify Barbieri’s corpse. This is already a disaster, John. A disgrace.”
The old man’s shrill, accusing tone put John’s teeth violently on edge. “Why?” he demanded. “It’ll tell them nothing. I need to take a piss. The stupid bitch hasn’t moved in four hours. Watching her is about as relevant as watching water evaporate.”
“I’m not paying you to be entertained,” Haupt shot back. “Keep your eyes on this one. Since you lost the other two.”
“I did not ‘lose’ the others!” John said, stung. “I know exactly where they are at all times. The youngest one is in Pennsylvania, working at a crafts fair, and the older one is with her fiancé in Denver. If you want me to take the young one, I could drive down to—”
Tasting Fear Page 20