'Til Death Do Us Part (34 page)

“Jack, I care so much for you,” I said, turning my gaze back to him. “And I think I may be in love with you, too. The last few months have been so wonderful. But what you say is true. I don’t think I
can
make that kind of commitment to you.”

“I know you—”

“But I just want to clarify something. I think what bothered me the other night so much was being characterized as someone who
can’t
make a commitment—either because of my past or because I’m still being rocked by my stink bomb of a marriage. I admit my divorce really did knock me off my feet. And not just the breaking-up part. Finding out that the person I was married to had this secret life was horrible. But it’s not like I’ve got this big bruise that’s preventing me from falling in love again. Like I said, I think I might very well be in love with
you
—but I just feel I’m not yet ready to make a commitment. It’s too soon for me.”

He stared at me with his deep blue eyes, and I felt the most enormous wave of sadness. It was going to be over with Jack and me. Right now. Right this very second. On some deep level, I’d known it all week.

“There’s no way, right, that we could just go back to dating the way we had been?” I asked plaintively.

He used both hands to push himself up from the couch.

“As much as it pains me to say it, no,” he said. “Based on how I feel about you, it wouldn’t be a happy situation for me. And you wouldn’t like it, either. You’d feel constantly pressured.”

A sob began to form, making my chest heave.

“Jack, I just can’t believe this,” I choked. “It’s just all happening so fast. I can hardly bear it.”

He came toward me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “I know. Like I said, I don’t think I knew the extent of how I felt until last weekend.”

He walked into the foyer and yanked his leather jacket from the hanger in the closet.

“But you don’t have to leave right now, do you?” I asked anxiously. “Don’t you at least want to have dinner or go out for a drink?”

“What would the point be? This is going to be really hard for me, and I’d rather just rip the Band-Aid right off than slowly tug at it. But listen, Bailey, promise me you’ll be careful until this case is solved. I’m going to call you in a few days and see how everything is going, okay?”

Before I could say another word, he leaned toward me and kissed me softly on the mouth, just a hint longer than he had before. Then he opened the door and was gone.

CHAPTER 17

I
WAS ON
the road to Greenwich by six o’clock, with a headache that throbbed so much I could actually feel the skin on my forehead pulse. And my stomach was churning like the ocean before a storm. I opened my window a crack in order to get some air. According to the road signs, littering was punishable by a three-hundred-dollar fine. I wondered how big a fine they would slap on me for engaging in projectile vomiting.

I stuck in my Callas CD, but this time it was like the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard, and I immediately turned it off. After using one hand to scrounge around for my earpiece, I called Landon, figuring he’d just be getting in. He answered on the fourth ring, breathless.

“Where are you?” he asked. “I just rapped on your door thirty seconds ago.”

“I’m in my car, heading back to the land of the rich and superrich. Have you got five minutes to talk? I know you just walked in the door.”

“Of course. What’s up?”

“Jack broke up with me.”

“What?”

“Well, to put his spin on it, I forced him to break up with me.”

“Was it because of the swimming cat thing?”

“Huh?”

“You said he thought it was as easy for you to make a commitment as it was for a cat to learn to swim.”

“Oh, right. Yes, that’s the alleged reason. He admitted last night that he had really fallen for me lately—I mean, he even used the L-word. And a minute later he used the
M
-word. But then he told me that he sensed I wasn’t going to make the leap and that he couldn’t bear to wait and wonder. The next thing you know, he’s out like trout.”

“What a crybaby,” he said loyally. “If he doesn’t think you’re worth waiting for, he’s definitely not worth being with.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I see it from his point of view, too. Ever since he mentioned the notion of living together, I’ve felt completely skittish, and things would never have been good between us with him at such a different place from me.”

“Are you bummed?”

“Completely. I can see now that I’m simply not ready for a big commitment, but at the same time I liked what I had with Jack. I feel miserable—you know, that totally limp feeling you get when you can barely summon the energy to look sideways.”

“I wish I could think of something to say to make you feel better,” Landon said. “Usually when people break up I try to console them with the fact that they’ll lose weight, but you don’t need to.”

“Just tell me you’re around this weekend. I can’t bear the thought of being alone.”

“The most exciting thing I’d planned to do was marinate a pork tenderloin, so, darling, I’m all yours.”

We agreed to talk tomorrow, after I determined just how long I needed to be in Greenwich. I was relieved to have someone to hang with, but it did little to ease my misery. Part of the problem was that the split had more or less come out of the blue. Our conversation on Sunday had thrown me a curveball, but I hadn’t seen then that it was the beginning of the end.

With my marriage there had been plenty of warning—more, in fact, than anyone in their right mind could ever want. With the benefit of hindsight, I could remember the exact moment it had all begun to unravel, though at the time it had been such a simple thing, like a tiny hole in the sleeve of a sweater. He’d seemed jumpy one night, preoccupied, and I’d assumed it must be work.

“You okay?” I asked. “Are you worried about a case?”

“Yeah, but I’ll figure it out,” he answered. When I looked at him across the room, however, I saw that his eyes were wide in alarm, as if someone had just told him that the devil really
did
exist. I pressed a little, but he shook his head and went to bed. I decided to take him at his word.

It got worse then, over the next weeks—the jumpiness, that is. He paced rooms, rarely sat still, never wanted sex, and ran us around to all those restaurants downtown. I started to think it might be drugs, maybe even crack, because he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself enough to be screwing someone else. I started the desperate searching of pockets but turned up nothing. His secretary began to call, looking for him during the day. Then some of my jewelry disappeared, and soon after I learned it was gambling—thanks to a tip, so to speak, from a buddy of his. Only after we separated did I realize how much of a disaster it was. A good deal of our money was gone. The only reason he didn’t get the apartment was that it was in my name, purchased with the help of a small trust fund from my father.

By the time it was finally over, I’d pretty much gotten used to being without him—physically and emotionally. That’s not to say it wasn’t awful, especially learning that for so many months my life wasn’t what I’d thought it was. But I never missed him after he was gone.

I’d had no such time to even envision life without Jack. I would never again lie beside him watching an old movie as the city slowly fell to sleep. Never walk through the Village on a Sunday morning with him, never anything. If a little voice had told me on Saturday night that I was having sex with Jack for the last time, I would have been incredulous.

It was in my power, of course, to change everything. But I just couldn’t. I simply didn’t feel ready to live with someone again.

I called Peyton’s house as I was nearing Greenwich, and Clara informed me that Peyton had checked in just a short while ago. She’d said it was fine for me to stay again and that I should come anytime, but it now looked as if she wouldn’t be returning until nine or ten. That was only a few hours away, yet it seemed interminable. At a red light I considered my options. I could go out to the house and hope to talk to David privately before Peyton returned. Though he might still be at the office. With one eye on the light, I called his number. A secretary answered, despite how late it was.

“Mr. Slavin is out at the moment,” she said after I’d explained I was a friend of both his and Peyton’s. “But he’s actually coming back to the office later. You might try again in a little while.”

Another possibility jumped to mind: Mandy Slavin. She was familiar with David’s business, and she might easily be able to identify the mystery man in the photo with Trip. I decided to pay her another surprise visit.

When I arrived in Greenwich, I pulled my car over and double-parked along a side street, just making certain no one was behind me. The only way someone could have been following me was if they’d just happened to see me roar into town, and that was highly unlikely—but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Coast clear, I headed toward Mandy’s. At one point, I thought I was lost, and just being out on the back roads again began to scare me. I was about to turn around when I realized that I hadn’t yet entered her neighborhood.

A few minutes later I spotted her white house from the road, and it glowed glacierlike, ablaze with lights. As I pulled into the driveway, I was greeted by the sight of a dozen or so cars—Beemers, Jags, Mercedes, a few Lexus sedans, all gleaming from the reflected light of the house. A guy in a tux answered the door, and behind him I could hear the sounds of a cocktail party in full swing. He ushered me in, clearly assuming I was an invited guest.

From the shadow behind the door, a woman in black stepped forward and asked for my coat. After surveying the crowd that had spilled from the living room into the hallway and not seeing Mandy, I headed in search of my hostess. Last week she had seemed mildly entertained by my visit, but she hadn’t had thirty people in her home, and I doubted she’d view my drop-in today with the same equanimity. Yet I couldn’t turn back. I was too anxious for answers.

Waiters slid silently among guests with trays of hors d’oeuvres, and I helped myself to some kind of fancy cheese tart that was nestled in a mound of what appeared to be shaved Parmesan. As I popped it in my mouth, I saw several people stare at me. Did I look that much like an outsider?

I zigzagged through the crowd, and after determining Mandy was in neither the living room nor the dining room across from it, I made my way in the direction of a cluster of people at the end of the hallway. They were standing at the entrance of a study or library, which like the rest of the house was ultramodern in design. The far wall was mostly window, and it looked out at a row of fir trees that had been lit from below, creating a startling mural. Mandy stood with two men right in front of it, tossing her head back in laughter. She was dressed in a low-cut emerald green cocktail dress that hugged every curve. The hair around the crown of her head was pulled back taut, giving her cat’s eyes and showing off her hubcap earrings, which sparkled from the light of the fireplace.

A waiter passed her, and after snagging him with her hand, she whispered in his ear. He bowed his head slightly, as if he’d been given an order by the queen. As she returned her attention to her fan club, she caught sight of me. The expression on her face transformed instantly into the kind of welcoming countenance she’d probably offer a Jehovah’s Witness who’d decided to pop in and pass out some flyers. I crossed the room to her anyway.

“Well, what a surprise,” she exclaimed. She introduced me to the two men, and before I could get a word out, she quickly announced, “Gentlemen, will you please excuse us for a moment?” They shot a glance at each other, murmured quick farewells, and slunk off.

“Mandy, please excuse me for—”

“What exactly are you doing here tonight?” she demanded. It was said with a smile for the benefit of the guests nearby, but her eyes were as friendly as a fox’s.

“I apologize for barging in on you like this, but things have been heating up, and I need your help on just one small matter.”

“Please make it quick, then. As you can see, I’m entertaining a houseful of people.” Clearly she wasn’t going to bestow any of the “I’m an L.A. girl born and bred” charm I’d been given a taste of last week. I pulled the photo of Trip out of my purse and slipped it discreetly into her hand.

“I need to know about the man Trip is talking to. Do you recognize him?”

Her lips curled, somewhere between amused and sardonic. I felt goose bumps along my arm as I realized that the photo had touched a nerve.

“What is it?” I pressed.