PHIL COLLINS. AND FAITH HILL.
Not that there’s anything wrong them. They’re actually very talented artists. I totally loved that “Circle of Life” song the first fifty times I heard it…
“Actually, Rachel,” I say carefully, “I’m kinda tired.”
“Me, too,” Jordan chimes in quickly. “It’s been a really long day.”
“Oh,” Rachel says, looking distinctly disappointed. “Maybe another time, then.”
“Sure,” I say, not looking at Jordan—because really, this whole thing is all his fault. Rachel would never have invited me up for drinks if it hadn’t been for Jordan. She had pretended not to recognize him, but I’d overheard one of the RAs tipping her off. Tomorrow she’ll probably be all over me with questions about his eligibility.
Because he’s worth WAY more than a hundred grand.
“Well,” I say. “See you in the morning.”
“Right. Good night!” Rachel smiles. To Jordan, she says, “Nice meeting you, Jordan!”
“Likewise,” says Jordan, almost as if he means it.
Then, taking Jordan’s arm, I steer him back toward Waverly Place, before the conversation can get any more awkward, and he can embarrass me any more in front of the people I work with.
“Oh my God,” I say to him, as we walk. “What do you think I should do? About Amber, I mean? What if she turns out to be his next victim? I’ll never forgive myself… al though I totally busted him in front of her, with the whole ‘Dave’ thing. Don’t you think I busted him? Don’t you think she’ll be a little wary of him now? Oh God. Do you think I should go to the police? I don’t have any proof it’s him, though. Except… except Cooper probably still has the condom! I could use it as some kind of leverage—like, ‘Confess or I’ll take it to the cops.’ Or something.”
Jordan, beside me, sounds horrified.
“Condom?Heather, what are you—”
“I told you,” I say, stomping a foot. “I’m trying to catch a killer. Or at least I think he’s a killer. I can’t be sure. Your brother thinks I’ve got an overactive imagination. But you think it’s weird, don’t you, Jordan? Two girls dead in as many weeks, neither of them with a reputation for elevator surfing, and both of them just having a boyfriend for the first time? I mean, doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?”
We turn the corner onto Waverly Place, and one of the Rastafarians approaches, hoping, I guess, that I’d change my mind at last and would take him up on his offer of “Smoke? Smoke?”
Instead of ignoring him and answering my question, Jordan snarls, “Back off!” at the drug dealer, who really isn’t a very threatening presence. I mean, I’m way taller and probably twenty pounds heavier than he is. No wonder the poor guy looks so surprised at Jordan’s outburst.
Which is when I realize who’s really standing in front of me. Not a friend. Not even an acquaintance. But my ex-boyfriend.
“Oh, just forget it,” I say, and drop his arm before heading home.
The only problem is, Jordan follows me.
“What’d I do?” he wants to know. “Heather, just tell me. I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t know how you expect me to react. Dead girls and condoms and drug dealers. And you smoke now. What kind of life is this, Heather? What kind of life?”
I start up the steps to Cooper’s brownstone, fumbling for my keys in the light from the street lamp.
“Look,” I say. I’m working the locks as fast as I can, conscious that Jordan has come up the stairs behind me, and is blocking all the light from the street lamp with his big, puffy shirt. “It’s my life, okay? Sorry it’s such a mess. But you know, Jordan, you had a hand in making it that way—”
“I know,” Jordan cries. “But you wouldn’t go to counseling with me, remember? I begged you—”
Both of his heavy hands land on my shoulders, this time not to shake me, but to turn me around to face him. I blink up at him, unable to see his features because the street lamp behind him has made a halo around his head, casting everything within it into dark shadows.
“Heather,” Jordan goes on, “every couple has problems. But if they don’t work through them together, they won’t last.”
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “Like we did.”
“Right,” Jordan says, looking down at me. I can’t see his eyes, but I can still feel his gaze burning into me. Why’s he looking at me like that, anyway? Like he… like he…
“Oh no,” I say, taking a hasty step backward—right into the door. The knob presses hard against my back. “Jordan… what are you doing here? I mean, what are you really doing here?”
“My parents are throwing an engagement party for me,” he says, in a voice that suddenly sounds hoarse. “For Tania and me, I mean. Back home. At the penthouse. Right now.”
Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright hadn’t thrown an engagement party when Jordan and I had gotten engaged. Instead, Mrs. Cartwright had asked if I was pregnant.
I guess she couldn’t think of any other reason her son would bother to get himself engaged to a girl whose career was on the wane and waistline on the rise.
“Well, shouldn’t you be there, then?” I ask him.
“I should,” Jordan says. And suddenly I realize he doesn’t just sound hoarse. He sounds miserable. “I know I should. Only… only all I’ve been able to think of all day is you.”
I swallow hard and try to think rationally. After all, I’m a girl detective. That is what girl detectives do. We think rationally.
But there’s something about Jordan’s proximity—not to mention the misery… and raw need… in his voice— that’s making this really difficult.
And the weight of his hands on my shoulders is very pleasant. And suddenly, I don’t even mind the smell of Drakkar Noir so much.
And in the dark, of course, I can see neither the gold necklace nor the ID bracelet he’s wearing.
I know! ID bracelet!
“I just,” I babble, trying to keep down this wave of hysteria that’s threatening to engulf me. “I just think maybe the excitement of it all—the announcement, the reporters—is getting to you. Maybe if you just go home and have an Advil—”
“I don’t want an Advil,” Jordan murmurs, drawing me close. “All I want is you.”
“No,” I say, feeling panicky at the touch of puffy shirt to my cheek. “No, you don’t. Remember? You keep telling me I’ve changed. Well, I have changed, Jordan. We both have. We’ve got to move on, and start living our own—separate—lives. That’s what you’re doing with Tania, and that’s what I’m doing with… with… ” With who? I don’t have anybody! It isn’t fair that he has somebody, and I don’t.
“Well, with Lucy,” I finish—quite bravely, in my opinion.
“Is that what you want?” Jordan asks me, his lips alarmingly close to mine all of a sudden. “For me to be with Tania?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Now you’re asking?”
And the next thing I know, he’s stooped down low and is pressing his mouth over mine.
Ordinarily I’m pretty clear-headed in situations like this. I mean, usually when a guy starts kissing me—not that this happens very often—I have the presence of mind to either tell him to stop if I don’t like it, or kiss him back if I do.
But in this particular case, I’m so surprised, I just sort of freeze. I mean, I’m still conscious of the doorknob pressing into my back, and the fact that all the lights in the house are out, which means Cooper isn’t home yet— thank God!
But beyond that, and some mild embarrassment that the drug dealers, out on the street, are whooping encouragingly, “Go for it, mon!” I don’t feel… anything.
Anything but good, I mean.
I know as well as the drug dealers that it’s been a while since I’d gotten any.
It must have been a while for Jordan, too (either that, or Tania isn’t quite pulling her weight in bed… which isn’t surprising, given that she can only weigh like one-ten, tops), because all I do is slide my arms up around his neck—force of habit, Iswear — and the next thing I know, he’s slammed my body back against the door, the front of his leather pants molded to me so closely that I can feel the individual rivets on his fly…
… not to mention the thickening, er, muscle beneath those rivets.
