I tried to clear my throat.
“You need water?”
I nodded, then sipped from a straw he put in front of me. “How did we get out?”
Cliff made a muscle. “I got there just before the fire department, just as Sam was marching back in like a damn fool. Although he had found a mask somewhere in the factory. We found you in a pile of bodies. Typical Lena, right? Like the freaking Trojan War in there.”
“How—?”
“I carried you out, and Sam got Doug, then some firefighters met me at the door and I led them to the Plasti-Source guys.”
Memory rushed in. “Phil! Oh God, is he dead?”
“Not just now. He had surgery. Took a bullet in the upper chest, prognosis uncertain.”
“Is Doug okay?”
“Yeah. Complaining as always. He wants to go sit by Belinda, but she had surgery, too, and she needs to sleep. That’s what Allison said. Doug’s been making the rounds, trying to interrogate people while he’s wearing a stupid hospital gown and talking in a voice as scratchy as yours.”
“Belinda will be okay?”
“Yeah. I already got to talk to her a little.”
I let out a long exhalation, then coughed. “You need to take it easy,” Cliff said.
“What happened to Grange?”
Cliff’s lips tightened. “He’s dead. I hear that you pulled a Nancy Drew in there and figured out he killed his wife. We’ll be looking into just how that went down, but I already found out from the station that he had a million-dollar life insurance policy on her. And that they didn’t bother to do an autopsy on her, since Grange made it clear she had a heart problem. It also turns out he was pals with the coroner; he had suggested to his old friend that an autopsy would upset him.”
“I’ll bet it would,” I croaked.
I looked down and saw that Cliff was holding my hands in his: a gesture of comfort. Panic tore through me. “Where’s Sam?”
Cliff squeezed my hands. “He’s fine, spaz. He’ll be here in a minute. He wanted to buy you a present. Like you aren’t spoiled enough.”
“Don’t make me laugh; it hurts. Where’s Camilla? Adam?”
“They went home last night, but I think they’ll be back soon. Allison said they should name a wing of the hospital after you guys, since you always seem to be here.”
“You were here, too. For a gunshot wound,” I reminded him.
Cliff pursed his lips. “Yeah. That’s another thing we tend to do a lot—get shot by people.”
I sighed and studied his handsome face. “How was your date?”
He couldn’t prevent a smug grin. “It was pretty awesome.”
“Are you in love?”
“She is,” he said, preening.
I laughed. “Are you?”
He shrugged. “I could see myself going down that road.”
“She’s too good for you,” I joked.
He nodded. “I think maybe she is, but I plan to pursue her anyway.”
“Good. That makes four couples—five, actually, if you count Camilla and Adam. Perfect for board games and dinner parties.”
Cliff put his hand over my mouth. “Stop gabbing. You’re supposed to rest and drink your water.”
Sam strolled in, holding a stuffed tiger. The last time I’d been in a hospital bed he’d brought me a giraffe; I hoped this was the last jungle animal I’d receive as a convalescent. “Hey,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“Okay. Glad to be alive, and glad you’re all alive, too.”
Cliff and Sam nodded, processing this.
Cliff touched the tip of my nose and clapped Sam on the back. “I have to go check in. I’m in contact with Rusty, and the information is coming fast and furious. I’ll catch up later.” He strode out of the room, and Sam sat on the edge of my bed.
“Why aren’t you in a hospital gown?” I said.
“I never put one on. I stayed under the radar,” he said with a little smile. “But I got oxygen, and some medicine.”
“Good. I should be able to leave now, too. I didn’t need to be admitted.”
“They’re just observing you, I think. I heard someone say another hour or so.” His blue eyes met mine with an earnest expression. “When I heard the gunshot, I was afraid. I didn’t know what I’d find behind all that smoke, Lena, and I was terrified. Thank God Cliff showed up and helped me plow through.”
“It must have been quite a sight, four of us lying there.”
“He carried you out, and I had a terrible moment. I’ve had enough terrible moments to last into my old age.” He handed me the tiger, which was still in his left hand.
“Thank you. This is cute.” I sighed. “The pendulum again, huh?” I lay back against my pillow, trying not to ponder some of the more horrifying images of the previous day.
Sam adjusted himself on the bed and stroked my hair, telling me what I had missed. He had a hoarse cough; carrying Belinda, the doctor had told him, had caused him to breathe more strenuously and therefore take in more smoke.
Adam and Camilla had been treated, and Adam had insisted on taking her home, Sam told me. They had both watched over me in my sleep, he said. “Going home sounds good,” I said. “I’d like to text Camilla, but as you know, I have no phone. I don’t suppose—”
“They were all destroyed. I’ll buy you a new one.”
We sat together in the quiet room. I touched Sam’s face, still slightly gray with soot. “I never thought, when we walked into that hulking Gothic monstrosity of a building, that we would be in danger of not coming out.”
“None of us did.”
“What was wrong with that man?”
“Desperation,” Sam said. “He thought he got away with the first crime. Then we all showed an interest in Plasti-Source, and he needed to find out why—was it about the environment, or was it about his wife? He used poor Enderby like a pawn.”
I thought about this. “I think Phil has something to hide, too. He seemed—remorseful.”
Sam sighed. He stopped petting my hair and lifted my hand to study my engagement ring. It was white gold, with an “infinity twist” design around the center diamond, which was—because Sam was incurably romantic—shaped like a heart. I gazed at it often, watching it glint in the light, and sometimes I took it off to read the inscription inside: Lena and Sam, Always.
“Sam?”
“Hmm.”
“You told me, when you were sick, that you were afraid of being alone. You know you don’t have to fear that, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’s more of an instinct than a fear. Just ground in by experience. I know, on a conscious level, that the people who love me don’t intend to leave.”
“They really don’t,” I said.
“And yet here we are again—in a hospital.”
“But about to go home.” I coughed, too, and then I laughed, because Doug Heller appeared in the doorway, wearing a hospital gown and posing seductively.
“Looks great,” I said. He came in and sat on the side of the bed that Sam wasn’t occupying.
“I feel great. They’re done with Belinda and she came through like a champ. They let me talk to her for a few minutes.”
“Oh good,” I said. “God, I’m so relieved.”
“Me, too,” Doug said. He punched Sam on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. You got her out of there when I couldn’t. I was still stalking Grange, who had the instincts of a predator. Or maybe just a desperate man. I managed to graze him once, but he was elusive. Thank God I found him before he took a shot at Lena.”
I sat up straight. “I can’t believe it. Any of it. It’s bad enough that he killed someone and was ready to kill more, but how desperate did he have to be to try to burn down his own company? To destroy the livelihood of all his employees!”
Doug’
s expression grew darker. “Cliff’s been looking into this with Rusty. The company wasn’t doing as well as Grange and others let on, and it seems the Blue Lake site was stretching his resources thin. He had taken out large insurance policies on both his wife and the company. So it looks like Camilla was right, and he was planning to burn it all down anyway.”
Sam’s look brightened. “So—there will be no Blue Lake Plasti-Source?”
“Doesn’t look that way,” Doug said. “By the way, I just had a heart-to-heart with Phil Enderby.”
“Oh—he’s okay?”
“Weak, but alive. Maybe it was the drugs prompting it, but he apologized. Better than that, he told me the location of an old industrial pipeline, something from a long-gone factory outside Blue Lake. Crandall has been updating it for easy but inconspicuous dumping. Our suspicions were well-founded. Enderby says he’ll testify to that effect. He’ll probably get a slap on the hand, since no dumping has actually occurred.”
“Thank God,” I said. For now, in this one place, the purity of the lake would be preserved.
Sam’s grip on my hand tightened, and his eyes grew wide. “I don’t suppose that location is right around Lake Road and Route 22?”
Doug looked surprised. “Pretty close to there, yeah. Why?”
Sam shook his head, smiling. “Lena and I saw two men going down a lake path with some tools on the morning Belinda disappeared.”
“No kidding?” Doug said.
“They looked villainous,” I recalled, returning to Camilla’s word.
Doug nodded. “They probably were.”
“Hey!” I said. “Has anyone filled in Luis and Carl?”
Doug shook his head. “Too much going on. We need to talk to Elena, too. I think she’s about ready to go back to her old life.”
“Aren’t we all,” Sam said. “Now I can harass you with tuxedo fittings.”
“I’m cool with that,” Doug said, grinning at us.
* * *
* * *
CAMILLA GRAHAM SAT in a throne-like chair and adjusted her rhinestone tiara, something we had to command her to wear, but which had looked so charming on her gray-white hair that even she seemed pleased to have it there. She had spent the first part of the day greeting guests, several from England, including her mother. Priscilla Easton, at ninety-two, was the most adorable human being I had ever known. I had met her once, briefly, on our London book tour, and now she was staying in Camilla’s house, letting me lead her on tours and saying, “Oh, lovely,” about everything, and calling me “pet” with continuous, comforting pats on my arm. At one point, soon after her arrival, I had whispered to Camilla, “Can we keep her?”
This had made Camilla laugh; it was clear that her mother’s presence had made her very happy, and she looked more like the girl she had once been, back when she lived in her mother’s house. Now, post-dinner at our Wheat Grass party, Camilla finished opening presents. She had made a short speech in which she said that seventy felt like a gracious gift and that her life had unfurled in beautiful ways over the last year.
“Most notably,” she said, “I first found a collaborator who became my dear friend, and I reconnected with an old friend who became my husband.” She held up her glass, toasting first me and then Adam.
“And while I have certainly written enough books—”
“Never!” someone cried, and we laughed.
“—I intend to keep writing them for as long as I possibly can.” Those assembled in the large dining room clapped their appreciation. Camilla pointed at the book covers that Adam and I had staged carefully throughout the room. “And since my dear Adam and Lena have so kindly reminded me of my entire literary history, I feel more connected to my writing than ever before.”
The crowd said, “Ahhh,” and clapped some more, and then Camilla sat down and Allison moved in with her microphone, her husband John accompanying her as she crooned to Camilla (at Camilla’s request). First, she sang “In My Life,” by the Beatles—a slow, beautiful, and contemplative version made truly moving by Allison’s velvety voice. Camilla, not normally a teary person, dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. Then Allison brightened things up with “Paperback Writer,” which had the audience clapping along, not particularly on the beat. Finally, she sang “For Good,” from Wicked, and then every other person in the room was wiping at their eyes.
I leaned away from Sam momentarily, toward Belinda, who looked pale but pretty in a gold and green dress. Her arm was in an elaborate sling. “How are you?” I murmured in her ear. “Do you need anything?”
She shook her head. “Doug is waiting on me hand and foot.” She frowned slightly, perhaps at the idea of needing help. “I’m having fun. Camilla looks beautiful.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Her green eyes met mine, curious as always. I recalled the day I met her, when she said she would start some research for me and call it “The London File.” “What?”
“Doug told me he’s never seen you look more beautiful. He said you look like a mermaid in this dress.”
Her mouth curved into a pleased smile. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“He loves you a lot, Belinda.”
“I know. I love him, too. A lot.”
“And—does he know that?”
She nodded. “I told him. He was happy.”
“What color do you want to wear as a bridesmaid? I don’t really care. Although I think Allison is pushing for pale yellow.”
“That sounds nice. A super pale one, like lemon ice.”
“Great! You two gorgeous blondes are going to make me look dark and severe.”
“You could never look anything but pretty. And also noble and good,” Belinda said. “I’m glad you’re my friend.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose in a now-familiar gesture.
“Back at you.” I touched her sling. “We seem to have reversed roles.”
She sighed. “Yeah. What are the odds? Same arm, too!” She looked around the room. “You know who’s a knockout? Your friend Isabelle.”
She was indeed. She had entered the room on Cliff’s arm, looking like a million dollars in a red dress with a daring neckline. Cliff looked a bit dazed when they walked in, and the expression hadn’t really left him. Belinda saw it, too. She said, “Cliff always looks so smart, but his face gets kind of stupid around her.” We both giggled.
As if she sensed our discussion, Isabelle floated over to us; her dark hair had been swept up on top of her head, with selected strands artfully hanging down, leaving a clear view of her ruby-look earrings. “Hi, Lena, hi, Belinda. I’m so sorry to hear about your arm, but you look wonderful.” She rested a graceful hand on Belinda’s forearm.
“So do you,” I said. “I understand you had a fun date the other night.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes blissfully, as if appreciating the memory of a delicious piece of chocolate. “Who knew, after he blew me off for two months, that he would be so romantic? Oh my gosh, he’s amazing!” She pointed at me. “You don’t have to look so smug, matchmaker. I know you predicted we would hit it off. Well, you’re right.”
“He can’t stop looking at you tonight,” Belinda said.
Isabelle grinned. “I guess that justifies the two-hour preparation period.” She shook her head, smiling, then said, “Belinda, Doug tells me the two of you might be looking to adopt an animal. Is that true?”
Belinda smiled shyly. “We’re talking about it. Do you have some at the vet’s office right now?”
“We do! Some really wonderful little guys, dogs and cats and even a turtle. Come on by, and I’ll show them all to you.”
“Okay.” Belinda beamed. “I might have to wait until my arm is better. I’m going to want to cuddle.”
“Fair enough. Oh, I see Elena and Luis Castellan! That was nice of Camilla to invite them!” I followed her gaze. Elena
and Luis had joined some other guests on the dance floor; John had switched to a playlist of big band music so that he and Allison could circulate among the crowd. Elena smiled up into Luis’s face, and Luis, as Carl had told us all along, looked utterly devoted to his wife. She wore the charm bracelet Luis had given her, the one he apparently had made after I told him about mine.
“It’s great. I’m so glad to see them together; what a trauma it must all have been.” I opened my mouth to say something else, but Sam returned from his spot against the wall, where he had been chatting with Doug and Cliff.
“Looks like dessert’s here,” he said.
A Wheat Grass waiter wheeled in a cart with various dessert trays and a large, beautiful cake shaped like a stack of books. Each book was a different color and bore one of Camilla’s titles on the spine. The top of the cake looked like the first page of a novel; it read, “Happy Birthday, Camilla Easton Graham Rayburn, Queen of Mysteries and Queen of My Heart.”
“Oh, Adam,” Camilla sighed after reading it.
Adam held up a hand and the room grew quiet. “I’d like to tell you all that one of our guests tonight was responsible for making this cake and several of the desserts. His name is Carl Frailey, and he is a new Wheat Grass chef.”
We turned to look at Carl, who loitered in the kitchen doorway, looking slightly uncomfortable. His eyes darted around as he realized that people were waiting for his response.
“I hope you like it,” he said. “I just like to cook. I watch a lot of cooking shows.”
Belinda beamed at him, and Camilla cut the cake. Moments later, we heard the appreciative sounds of people who were enjoying Carl Frailey’s food for the first time. I groaned my appreciation as well. My piece had the word “Camilla” on it, and I didn’t even want to cut into it, but once I took one bite of the light, delicate, orange-flavored cake with cream cheese frosting, I couldn’t stop eating it.
The music started again. Sam put his mouth against my ear and said, “They’re playing our song.” He pulled me onto the dance floor and I finally recognized the music: “Unforgettable.”
“I never realized what a good dancer you are,” I said.
Death with a Dark Red Rose Page 24