She shrugged. “I’m just so busy.”
“That’s no excuse for not taking care of yourself.”
“Yes, Mother,” she said in a dry tone. She focused on the food, picked up one of the little egg roll things, and took a bite. “What makes it taste so different?”
“The sesame oil.”
She quickly ate up the food on her plate. Not until the last couple bites did she realize just how full she really was. She managed to get down those final bites, but, when she pushed away her plate, she said, “Now I’m stuffed.”
“So you should be. It’s a lot of vegetables and a little bit of protein,” he said. “You should sleep well on that.”
She picked up her glass of wine and wandered to the couch, where she’d been napping earlier, and sat back down, but this time she didn’t collapse quite so badly. She looked at him, looked at the wine, and said, “Pour yourself a glass, if you can.”
“I have a long night, so I’ll hold off,” he said. “Do you mind if I put on the teakettle?”
“You drink tea?”
He shot her a look. “I drink coffee, tea, herbal teas. I drink a lot of things,” he said, “and, yes, red wine is one of them, although I do like a whiskey at night.”
She laughed at that. “Sure, put on the teakettle. I’ll take a cup of tea up to the shower when I go.”
“Is that a hint that I’m not to stay?”
“It’s a hint that I can’t keep my eyes open much longer,” she stated. “And you had a reason for coming by. What is it?”
“Can’t I just come to check on you? Make sure you’re okay?”
“Well, you can,” she said. “But, chances are, that wasn’t the reason.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “Just more questions.”
“Of course. Such as?”
“Fenster and Gruber.”
“Both men I fired,” she said. “I presume Anita told you?”
“Yes,” he said, “she did, and that’s the information we need to know.”
“Have you gotten anywhere following up on them?”
“No,” he said. “I was hoping you could give me some contact information.”
“I have no clue,” she said with a shrug. “They came from the same company that Frankie works for, so maybe ask him?”
“I can do that,” he said. “Was there any ugliness over the firing?”
“I wouldn’t say so. When people are caught dead to rights in doing the wrong thing, it’s hard to walk back from that.”
“Okay. Anybody else but more along a relationship angle?”
“Not really,” she answered. “There have been people over the years but nobody recent.”
“Did you ever see that strange man who said those weird things to you again?”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
“Nothing else has happened these last few days?”
“Except for the fact that I really struggled to work today. Then I couldn’t focus, and Naomi was bitchier than usual, but maybe that was because I was more tired than usual.” She shook her head.
“I wanted to ask about the new models that you’re trying out. Have you contacted them?”
“I believe an email went out, yes,” she said. “Why?”
“And did it go out to just the four?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. You’d have ask Anita. What has this got to do with anything?”
“I just don’t want them to become targets.”
She stared at him. As his thoughts slowly filtered in, her heart constricted. “Is that what you think will happen?” She put her wine down, hopped up to her feet, and paced. “Am I supposed to stop working?”
“No, because I don’t think that’s the answer.”
She spun on her heels and glared at him. “Answer to what? Some psycho is out there skinning torsos off people who he’s murdered. What’s to understand about any of this other than he’s just plain crazy?”
“No doubt he’ll probably claim insanity as a defense when he goes to court,” Richard said quietly. “However, he is doing this because of his own logical-to-him sequence of ideas and beliefs. And we need to figure that one out so that we can stop him from doing it again.”
She took a deep calming breath and said, “As far as I know, Anita contacted the four models, but I can’t be sure that she didn’t contact a few others. I gave her four names and two other possibilities, so she may have contacted them as well.”
“And have you heard from Fenster or Gruber at all in the last couple years since you fired them?”
She shook her head. “No, but you’ve got to understand there’s a line of defense to keep that world away from me so I can work. So again, you’d have to ask Anita.”
“Any association with Frankie?”
At the quick spin in conversation, she stared at him. “What about Frankie?”
“How long has he worked for you?”
She shrugged. “A couple years maybe. I don’t know. Ask Anita.”
He gave a warm chuckle. “When you go into your art, you really don’t see anything else, do you?”
“Possibilities,” she said. “Endless possibilities. But that’s all.”
There was silence for a moment as the two stared at each other, and abruptly he said, “I’ll go now. I want you to get that shower and go to bed.”
“Yes, after you leave.” She tried to keep her tone less sarcastic than normal, since really he had come in and taken care of her with actions that left her reeling from the compassion she’d seen in his gaze. And had felt in his arms. “But I’ll take a shower and go to bed because I want to, not because you told me to.”
He flashed her a grin. “Good. As long as you do it, I’m fine with that.” Just then his phone rang. He looked down, saw it was somebody that he needed to get answers from, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
She could tell from the odd look in his expression.
He lifted the phone and said, “Richard here. What’s up?” He nodded, his gaze zinging toward her. “Yeah, I’ll tell her. I’ll be right there.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked, when he hung up.
“Naomi was attacked in an alleyway tonight.”
