I couldn’t speak, for once in my life. I was terrified of seeing him again; and I would rather have shaved my head than not see him again.
“How old
“I’m thirty,” I said, and finally looked up at him.
He said after a moment, “I’ll call you.”
I nodded, and walked quickly over to my car and got in. I had to sit for a moment so I could stop shivering. Somehow I had his handkerchief clutched in my hand. Oh, that was just great! Maybe he had an old high school letter jacket I could wear? I was mad at my hormones, upset about the awful death of Tonia Lee Greenhouse, and horrified at my own perfidy toward Aubrey Scott.
There was knock on my window that made me jump.
My mother was bending, gesturing for me to roll the window down. “I’ve never met Jack Burns in his professional capacity before,” she was saying furiously, “and I pray I never do again. You told me he was like that, Aurora, but I couldn’t quite credit it! Why, when I sold him and his wife that house, he was just so polite and nice!”
“Mom, I’m going to go to my place.”
“Why, sure, Aurora. Are you okay? And poor Donnie Greenhouse… I wonder if they’ve called him yet.”
“Mother, what you have to worry about, right now, is how that key got back on your key board. Someone at Select Realty put it there. The police are going to be all over your office asking questions just as quick as quick can be.”
“You definitely have a mind for crime,” Mother said disapprovingly, but she was thinking fast. “It’s that club you were in, I expect.”
“No. I was in Real Murders because I think that way, I don’t think that way because I was in the club,” I said mildly. But she wasn’t listening.
“Before I go back,” said Mother suddenly, “I was thinking I should ask Martin Bartell and his sister-I can’t believe a woman that age is answering to ‘Barby’-” This from a woman with a name like Aida. “-I should get them over to the house for dinner tomorrow night. Why don’t you and Aubrey come?”
“Oh,” I said limply, horrified at the prospect. How was I going to excuse myself-“Mom, this guy I just met, well, if we see each other again, we just may have at it on the floor”?
My mother, usually so sharp, did not pick up on my turmoil. Of course, she had a few more things on her mind.
“I know you have to ask Aubrey first, so just give me a call. I really think I should make some gesture to try to make up to them-”
“For showing them a house with a dead realtor in it?”
“Exactly.”
Suddenly my mother realized that the Anderton house was going to be impossible to move, at least for a while, and she closed her eyes. I could see it in her face, I could read her mind.
“It’ll sell sooner or later,” I said. “It was too big for Mr. Bartell anyway.”
“True,” she said faintly. “The house on Ivy Avenue would be more appropriate. But if the sister is going to live with him, the separate bedroom suites would have been great.”
“See you later,” I said, starting my car.
“I’ll call you,” she told me.
And I had no doubt she would.
Chapter Two
An hour after I’d gotten home I began to feel like myself again. I’d huddled wrapped in an afghan, with Madeleine the cat purring in my lap (an effective tranquilizer), while I watched CNN to feed my mind on impersonal things for a while. I was in my favorite brown suede-y chair with a diet drink beside me, comfortable and nearly calm. Of course, Madeleine was getting cat hairs all over the afghan and my lovely new dress; I’d had to resist the impulse to change into blue jeans when I got home. I still felt my new clothes were costumes I was wearing, costumes I should doff when I was really being myself.
I’d had Madeleine neutered after I’d given away the last kitten, and the scar still showed through her shorter tummy hair. She had quickly adjusted to the switch from Jane’s house to the townhouse, though she was still angry at not being let outside.
“A litter box will just have to do until I find a house with a yard,” I told her, and she glared at me balefully.
I’d calmed down enough to think. I pushed the OFF button on the remote control.
I was horrified at what had happened to Tonia Lee, and I was trying very hard not to picture her as I’d last seen her. It was far more typical of Tonia Lee to remember her as she’d been at the beauty shop during our last conversation-her hair emerging glossy dark from the beautician’s curling iron, her long oval nails perfectly polished by the manicurist, her brain trying to frame an impolite query politely, her dissatisfied face momentarily intent on extracting information from me. I was sorry she’d had such a dreadful end, but I’d never liked the little I knew of Tonia Lee Greenhouse.
Over and above being tangentially connected to her nasty death, I had a personal situation on my hands, no doubt about it. What had happened-and what was going to happen-between me and Martin Bartell?
I should call Amina, my best friend. Though she lived in Houston now, it would be worth the long-distance daytime call. I peered at the calendar across the room by the telephone in the kitchen area. Today was Thursday. The wedding had been five weeks ago… Yes, they should have gotten back from the cruise and the resort at least two weeks ago, and Amina wouldn’t go back to work until Monday.
But if I called Amina, that would be validating my feeling.
So what was this feeling? Love at first sight? This didn’t seem to be centered around my heart, but somewhere considerably lower.
And amazingly, he felt it, too.
That was what was so shocking-that it was mutual. After a lifetime of considering and dissecting, I was seriously in danger of being swept away by something I couldn’t control.
Oh-sure I could! I slapped myself lightly on one cheek. All I had to do was
That would be the honorable thing. I was dating Aubrey Scott, a fine man and a handsome one, and I should count myself lucky.
Which introduced a drearily familiar train of thought.
Where was my relationship with Aubrey going? We’d been dating for several months now, and I was sure his congregation (including my mother and her husband) expected great things. Of course, someone had told Aubrey about my involvement in the Real Murders deaths-due to my membership in a club devoted to discussing old murder cases, my half-brother Phillip and I had almost gotten killed-and we’d talked about it a little. But on the whole, other people seemed to consider our relationship suitable and unsurprising.
We found each other attractive, we were both Christians (though I was certainly not a very good one), neither of us drank more than the occasional glass of wine, and we both liked reading and popcorn and going to the movies. He enjoyed kissing me; I liked being kissed by him. We were fond of each other and respected each other.
But I would be a terrible minister’s wife, inwardly if not outwardly. He must know that by now. And he wouldn’t be right for me even if he was a-well, a librarian.
But I hated to do anything fast and drastic. Aubrey deserved better than that. My het-up feelings for Martin Bartell might disappear as suddenly as they’d appeared. And at least half of me fervently hoped those feelings would vanish. There was something degrading about this.
Also something terribly exciting, the other half admitted.
The phone rang just as I was about to go through my whole thought cycle again.
“Roe, are you all right?” Aubrey was so concerned it hurt me.
“Yes, Aubrey, I’m fine. I guess my mother called you.”
“She did, yes. She was very upset about poor Mrs. Greenhouse, and worried about you.”
