bit her lower lip, trying to ward off sympathetic tears. 'I know it’s very short notice, but I think he would have liked it. Most of the other speakers are older, and I think he would have liked a colleague from your generation to say something.'
Margrit pressed her fingers over her lips as tears stung her eyes sharply enough to hurt. Cameron put a hand on her shoulder, and Margrit tried to twist her crumpled features into a smile. 'Of course I will.' Her own voice sounded as strained as Joyce’s. 'I’m honored to be asked. Would you like me to come early and help with anything?'
Joyce sighed. 'That would be wonderful. The children and some friends have been helping, but we’re all exhausted. Keeping busy is better than doing nothing, but…'
'I’ll be there at six,' Margrit promised quietly. 'Take care of yourself, Joyce.' She hung up. Cameron stepped forward to wrap her in a hug.
'You doing okay?' her friend asked.
'I don’t know what okay is anymore, to tell the truth.'
Cam gave her a cautiously sly smile. 'You sure about that?' She gestured to the tuxedo jacket and long shirt Margrit wore. 'He’s not here. What’s the story with that? Don’t tell me he’s one of those guys who bails the second the alarm goes off.'
'No, he dropped me off last night.'
'In that?' Cameron squealed with delight. 'Damn, sister! What happened to your dress?'
'Uh…' To Margrit’s dismay, a blush erupted over her cheeks. 'It got lost.'
'Lost? Oh my God.' Cameron seized her hands and pulled her toward the bed. Margrit stumbled along after her, laughing despite herself, and sat down as Cameron plunked onto the mattress. 'I want all the details, and I want them now.'
For a moment the impulse to blurt out all the details overrode everything else. Margrit bit the tip of her tongue to keep herself from speaking, and instead frowned uncertainly at her blue-eyed friend. 'Do you remember the stained-glass windows in the speakeasy?'
Cameron’s smile faltered with confusion. 'Yeah…? They made a picture when you put them together. Dragons and mermaids and stuff. So? Oh my God.' Her smile brightened again, her eyes widening. 'Did he take you down there? That’s so cool! Did you lose your dress because security chased you out? Man, I never get to have any crazy sexual hijinks !'
Reality trumped the desire to confess. Cameron wouldn’t believe her without seeing what Cole had seen, and that had gone as badly as it possibly could have. Better to let it pass, and try to talk to Cole again later. Margrit dredged up humor, trying to keep a smile in place. 'Something like that. I don’t know, Cam. You could talk to Cole about the sexual hijinks thing, but really, sneaking home through New York City when you’ve lost your dress and your underwear isn’t something I’d recommend.'
'You only say that because you’ve had a chance to do it. I think it sounds like exactly the sort of thing everybody should experience once.' Cameron squeezed Margrit’s hands, her expression growing a little more serious. 'You like him, huh?'
'Yeah.' Her voice dropped. 'Yeah, and Cole and I had a fight about him this morning, and this…it’s not going to be easy to make it work.'
'It wasn’t easy with Tony, either.'
'And look how that turned out.'
Cameron nudged her reassuringly. 'Maybe it didn’t work with Tony because it wasn’t supposed to, Grit. What’d you and Cole fight about?'
This time Margrit didn’t have to quell the impulse to tell the truth. She only shook her head. 'Alban in general, my new job, everything. He doesn’t like me dating the guy Tony suspected of murder a couple months ago. And he and Tony are friends, and…' And Alban was a gargoyle.
'We’re all friends. Unless you’re going to make us start choosing sides.' Cameron eyed her. 'This isn’t going to be one of those breakups, is it?'
'I don’t think so. Although Cole’s angry enough to choose sides himself, maybe.'
'I’ll talk to him,' Cameron promised.
Margrit winced. 'Let me try again first, okay? He’s got reason, I guess, and I don’t want to put you between us.'
'If you’re sure.'
'I am.' Margrit leaned over on the bed, snaking a hand beneath the pillow. 'Besides, I’ve got protection if I need it.' She pulled out the small water gun Cameron’d had a few days earlier, and squirted her friend twice. Cam shrieked in dismay and jumped off the bed, hands making a useless shield.
'You’re sleeping with water guns? That’s a whole new kind of kink. Isn’t it leaking all over your mattress?'
Margrit waggled the gun threateningly, then tilted it, looking for leaks. 'It hasn’t been, actually. This is not your standard-fare ninety-nine cent plastic water gun here. This is a top-of-the-line polyurethane-sealed .38 Special with a fitted cork plug that swells to keep the ammunition in place.'
Cameron squinted. 'It is?'
'I have no idea, but it sounded good, didn’t it?' Margrit put the gun on her nightstand and got up, smiling. 'It’s got a cork plug, anyway, and it doesn’t leak. I thought I’d start carrying it instead of my pepper spray.'
'It’s neon-green, Grit. Nobody’s going to believe it’s real.'
'Well, maybe I can fill it with pepper spray or mint oil.'
'Minty fresh bad guys. I like it. Carry the pepper spray.' Cameron glowered, good nature only half masking her seriousness.
'I’ll become the most dangerous gun in Central Park. Mint oil in one hand, pepper spray in the other. Raar.' Margrit felt as if she was forcing levity, trying to ward off memories of the fight she’d had with Cole and the funeral service she had to face in a few hours.
Cameron’s scowl gentled, as if she suddenly understood what Margrit was trying to do. 'Well, all right. But I expect you to show me both gun and spray before you leave the house today, young lady.' She hesitated, then added, 'You want me and Cole to go with you to the service? You know we’d be glad to.'
'Cole’s pretty pissed at me. I don’t know if he would be.'
'He has his moments of being a jerk, but I don’t think he’d be that much of one.' Cam tilted her head toward Margrit’s bathroom. 'Go take a shower and get ready to face the day. And when you come out again, I want you armed and dangerous.'
CHAPTER 30
'I’m going to tell her if you don’t, Grit.'
'She won’t believe you.' The water gun, its nozzle plugged with another cork, was actually tucked into Margrit’s trousers at the small of her back, beneath her suit jacket. Cameron had laughed out loud when Margrit had shown it off, just before Cole drew her aside to speak with her through clenched teeth. The whim to drench him caught her, and Margrit folded her arms over her chest to stop herself. 'You wouldn’t have believed me if you hadn’t literally seen him with your own eyes. And it’s not my secret, or yours, to tell.'
'I don’t give a damn. I’m not keeping it from her-'
'You shouldn’t have to.' Margrit shook her head. 'You shouldn’t have to. It’s too big and too weird to keep to yourself and you shouldn’t have to exclude her. But will you please at least give me a chance to talk to Alban first? He’s going to have to show himself to her to make her believe it.'
Even through Cole’s anger and dismay, Margrit could see the logic of her request hit home. He clenched his fists and fell back a step. 'Will he?'
'Yes. He’d risk it because I trust you. I trust her. He trusts me. Cole…' She held her breath a moment, searching for the right thing to say. 'Look, I’m sorry for some of the things I said this morning. I was-scared.' The degree of understatement seemed ludicrous. 'I did pretty much the same thing the first time I saw him. I threw a…a bowl, I think, at his head. And then I ran away. The night the car hit me. That was the night the car hit me.
