she said, and a tear oozed down her cheek. “She was worth ten Tonia Lees, and she had children. She’d done so much for herself since her husband left her. I’d gotten pretty fond of her without ever getting really close to her.” Mother looked back at me. Our eyes met. “She must have been so frightened.” Then she shook herself. “I’ll have Eileen call Emily Kaye to find out if Idella’d actually gotten over there with your counteroffer, honey. The police should let us have the papers in her car, soon. We can get on with the house sale, with Eileen or me taking Idella’s part. I’ll let you know.”

I hadn’t been worried about it at all. “Thanks,” I said, trying to look relieved. “I think I’ll go home now.” But I turned at her office door to say, “You know, I’ll bet money that Donnie doesn’t really know anything at all. If he does get killed, it’ll be over absolutely nothing.”

I was really glad I hadn’t agreed to meet Martin tonight. I needed a little time to get over this horror. Driving home, I felt the impulse to call him nonetheless. But I shook my head. No telling what he was doing. Still trying to inspire Pan-Am Agra executives, eating supper with a client, working in his motel room on important papers. I hated him to find out how lonely I was, so soon.

I kept thinking about Idella, her children, her death from love.

Chapter Nine

The NEXT MORNING my best friend, Amina Day-now Amina Day Price-called me. I’d just pulled on my blue jeans, and I lay across the bed on my stomach to grab the phone.

“Hi, it’s me!”

“Amina,” I said happily, feeling my mouth break into a smile, “how are you?”

“Honey, I’m pregnant!”

“Ohmigod!”

“Yes! Really, really. The ring in the tube turned the right color this morning, and I lost my breakfast, too. So I’m home lying down.”

“Amina, I can’t believe it. What does Hugh say?”

“He’s just thrilled. He’s ready to go out now and buy a car seat and a crib. I told him he better wait a while, my mother always told me it was bad luck to start getting ready too soon.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“No, I have an appointment for next week with the obstetrician all the wives of Hugh’s partners go to.”

Hugh is an up-and-coming lawyer in Houston.

“I’m so glad for you,” I told her honestly.

We talked for a while. Or, rather, I listened while Amina talked to me about the baby and what she wanted and didn’t want for this exceptional infant.

“So what’s new with you?” she asked finally.

“Well… I’m seeing someone.”

“Not the minister?”

“No, not anymore. This man-Martin-he’s the new plant manager at Pan-Am Agra.”

“Wo-wo. How old is he?”

“Older.”

“Rich?”

“Well-to-do.”

“Of course, that doesn’t make any difference anymore, since you inherited all that loot.”

“No, but it’s nice anyway. He likes having money.”

“Tell me all!”

“Well, his name is Martin Bartell, he’s forty-five, he has white hair but his eyebrows are black…”

“Sexy!”

“Yes, very… he’s tough, strong, intelligent, and… ruthless. You wouldn’t want to try to bullshit him.”

“These are not Boy Scout attributes.”

“You know, you’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “He’s definitely not a Boy Scout type. More of a street fighter.”

“I hope he’s not too tough for you.”

“No matter what he is,” I confessed, “this is the worst I’ve ever had it. I’m scared to death. I couldn’t stay away from him if he were on fire.”

“Oh, wow. You do have it bad. I hope he’s worthy of this. This sounds like a ‘love at first sight’ thing.”

“Yes, the first time I’ve ever experienced it. And, I hope, the last. It’s awful.”

“I’ve never had it like that,” Amina said. “So what else is happening?” It wasn’t like Amina to change the subject. Could she be a bit envious?

But I filled her in on Tonia Lee’s murder and the resultant confusion. Then I told her about Susu Hunter’s husband and his strange secret persona as the House Hunter.

“Oh, I’m like that to a lesser extent,” Amina said instantly. “It’s not so weird.”

“You just like to look at houses?”

“Sure, don’t you? I get a tingle at the base of my spine when I walk into a house that’s not mine, that I can look at all I want. It’s like stepping into someone else’s life for a while. You can open the closets, and find out what they pay for electricity, and how many clothes they have, and how clean their furniture is… I have had the best time since Hugh and I started looking for a house. I wish I could look at houses all the time. In fact, I thought about becoming a realtor instead of a legal secretary until I realized I’d have to get out in all kinds of weather and deal with jerks who didn’t know what they wanted… you know.”

“That’s interesting, Amina,” I said, and meant it.

“Of course, now we’re looking at bigger houses,” she added, and we were back on her favorite topic of the moment.

By the time we hung up, I’d agreed to be the baby’s godmother and Amina had urged me to hurry and marry Martin if we were going to anyway, so she could be a matron of honor before her stomach got too big.

I just laughed and said good-bye. It made me nervous to think of marriage and Martin in the same sentence, as if it were a jinx. I finished dressing, trying not to feel sorry for myself, only glad for Amina and Hugh.

I found myself wondering if Jimmy Hunter had been Idella’s lover. It would make perfect sense, given his househunting aberration, for him to pick a realtor as a lover. But how would that tie in with the things missing from houses listed with local realtors? Surely Jimmy hadn’t been lifting them while he toured the houses? He just couldn’t have, not without a realtor noticing. And it wasn’t always Idella who’d shown him around. Hadn’t someone at the meeting at Select Realty said the Greenhouses had always made sure Tonia Lee escorted him? Had something in Tonia Lee’s sharp nature punctured the balloon of Jimmy’s fantasy life as a house hunter, something so upsetting he’d killed her for it?

Jimmy Hunter drove a blue Ford Escort, and so had Idella. Maybe it had been Jimmy’s car Donnie Greenhouse had seen Wednesday night. Come to think of it, what had Donnie been doing out himself? It must have been after the presumed time of Tonia Lee’s death, which must have taken place before the neighbors to the rear of the Anderton place had noticed her car had gone. About the time of Tonia Lee’s death, Jimmy had been parked outside the Tae Kwon Doe studio waiting for his son.

I shook my head at myself while I peered in the mirror applying my makeup. I was just getting confused. I wasn’t going to speculate about depressing things anymore. I was going shopping to buy a dress to wear tonight. I was going to find out if Emily Kaye had accepted my counteroffer on the house on Honor. It would be nice and tidy to have that little chapter of my life closed, Jane’s house settled and all my things ready to put into a home I owned. And I thought of the Julius house again: the sun through the windows, the warm kitchen, the porch.

“You’d like it,” I told Madeleine, who was squinting at me doubtfully in the one pool of sunshine in my bedroom. She rolled on her back to invite me to tickle her stomach, and I obliged. We went downstairs together to change her water and fill her food bowl.

I called Mother’s office before I set out for my petite dress shop in Atlanta. Eileen said that the police had given her the contract for my house, signed by Emily Kaye. It had been in Idella’s car. The changes I had stipulated had

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