“Kit, what happened?”
“It can’t be a coincidence,” I told him earnestly.
“Honey—”
“Jerry has to be behind this.”
“I think he hit his head,” David said helpfully from somewhere behind me.
“And you are—?” J.X. inquired.
“David Gordon,” David said promptly. “Christopher’s ex. No need to ask who you are. I’m a big fan of your work.”
“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” J.X. said coldly.
“Did you not see the clown?” I interrupted. “You must have. He must have got in the elevator as you were getting out.”
“No one got in the elevator.”
“He took the stairs,” a woman in an oversize blue-striped men’s pajama shirt volunteered. “He ran past the elevator and took the stairs.”
“Who took the stairs?” J.X. asked bewilderedly, looking from one to the other of us.
“The clown,” I cried.
He didn’t exactly flinch, but I think maybe he lost color. His lips parted, but he had no ready reply. And who would?
“Everybody, this is J.X. Moriarity,” David informed the crowd. “You’ve probably read his books. Oh, and also Christopher Holmes. He writes the Miss Butterwith mysteries. Christopher and I used to be married.”
“J.X. Moriarity, I’ve heard of him! Oh, they were married! That’s so sweet. They’re making a movie of his latest book, you know.”
“I’ve read those,” the woman in the pajama shirt said to me. “She’s a retired art teacher.”
“That’s Miss Seeton,” I said irritably. “Miss Butterwith is a botanist. Never mind about that right now. We need the police—”
But it was too late. Pretty much everyone in the hall had read—and loved, OF COURSE—J.X.’s latest book, and they crowded round, asking for his autograph, and assuring him they couldn’t wait to see his movie when it came out, and wanting to know who would play Ace Andrews, his protagonist, and was the next Dirk Van de Meer book already written because they had a great idea for it.
Eventually a small Hispanic man in khaki work clothes showed up, wanting to know who had called for maintenance. And still more eventually the cops showed up, and we all took turns giving our statements.
A couple of hours later I thanked the police, bade good night to David—who departed reluctantly and with unwanted promises to stay in touch—and closed the door of my battered hotel room.
J.X. stood by the window, gazing out at the twinkling city lights, but he turned at the sound of the lock.
“I don’t know how you’re here or why you’re here,” I said to him, “but thank you.”
He opened his arms again, and I walked into them and wrapped my own around him. We held each other, not speaking for a moment or two.
“Kit, do you really not know why I’m here?” he asked softly, at last, his breath stirring my hair.
“It can’t be jealousy because you have to know you’re the only guy for me.”
I felt his smile. “Yeah. Well.”
I looked up and read the wryness in his eyes. “You can’t be serious,” I said.
He shrugged. “Nah.”
Nah. Except he’d jumped on the first available flight after we’d argued that afternoon.
I said, “I’m sorry I was a jerk earlier. I’m not even sure why I got so mad. It was stupid. The last thing I ever want to do is fight with you.”
“I’m sorry too. You have a right to have dinner with whoever you want. The last thing I ever want to be is…” He swallowed. “A nag.”
That raw little gulp crushed my heart to powder. “You’re not. Honey. I know you’re just trying to look out for me. Honest to God, I’m not used to anyone caring so much.”
“I do care,” he said roughly. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never felt like this for anyone. I can’t help it. If I lost you, if something happened to you…” He stopped, too shaken by the very idea to continue.
It was fascinating. I mean, that he could say emotional things like that without sounding corny or overwrought. Whereas I…no. I did not have that gift. Not that I didn’t feel it, because the idea of anything happening to J.X. stopped my heart.
I said, “What could happen? I mean, aside from the police wanting to pin a murder rap on me. And homicidal stalkers. Oh, and evil clowns—although the last two are probably the same person.”
He smiled faintly, but then shuddered. “Was he really dressed like a clown?”
“You heard me describe him to the police.”
“And you believe it—he—was sent by Jerry Knight?”
I hesitated and then just came out with it. “I believe he was Jerry Knight.”
J.X.’s eyebrows hit the widow’s peak of his hairline. “You think Knight—”
“Yes. I do. Absolutely. It’s too big a coincidence otherwise.”
One minute he was professing love without end and the next he was giving me that skeptical look that made me think he wanted to write me a ticket for jaywalking.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “We see Jerry talking to a bunch of clowns, and two days later I’m attacked by a vicious clown?”
J.X. cleared his throat.
“It’s not funny. He was probably going to kill me.”
“I don’t think it was remotely funny,” J.X. said, and his stern tone went a long way to smoothing my ruffled feelings.
He just had to add, “But.”
“But what?”
“It could be coincidence. It could be some weird random attack. I know the odds are against it—”
“Boy, I’ll say!”
“But it’s not impossible. You yourself told the officers you couldn’t identify your assailant. He never spoke. He wore gloves. He wore a disguise. Average height, average build. You admitted you weren’t even sure about the color of his eyes.”
True. All true. Even after viewing the hotel security footage, I couldn’t say for sure I recognized my attacker.
“It doesn’t matter. He could have worn contacts.”
“Yes, okay, I’ll give you that. And maybe it was Jerry, but you have to keep an open mind.”
“No, I don’t.”
J.X. sighed.
“Your mind is open enough for both of us,” I said. “I know what happened here tonight was not a coincidence. Jerry is the only person with a motive to get rid of me. Or at least the only person who’s currently out on bail.”
“Okay, think about that for a minute.” J.X.’s ebony gaze held mine. “Jerry wants you out of the way before he goes to trial. Correct? No you to testify, and the charges get dropped. That’s your theory?”
“Correct.”
J.X. said grimly, “Then why didn’t he kill you tonight? He had plenty of opportunity. He could have stabbed you when you opened the door to your room. He could have shot you any number of times, including through the bathroom door.”
I opened my mouth but had to swallow the words. Because J.X. was right.
Brutal, but absolutely right. It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment.
If Jerry really had come after me, why wasn’t I dead?
Chapter Nine
“How did you and David meet?” J.X. asked as we were climbing into the Radisson’s king-size bed sometime after midnight.
He had packed light for this flying—literally—trip, and I couldn’t help admiring how nice he looked in his pale-blue boxers and crisp, white T-shirt. He smelled nice too. Always. Like summer on the Mediterranean. And that wasn’t his cologne; that was him.
“Funny thing,” I said. “Pretty much the same way you and I did. At a mystery convention.” I flopped back into the nest of pillows and tried not to groan my relief.
Already the alarming events of the evening were starting to feel far away and long ago. The whole incident had been so incredible, had there not been witnesses—and plenty of them—I’d have been tempted to think I dreamed it.
J.X. frowned. “No way
is that dude a writer. What is it he does?”
It occurred to me that he’d never bothered to ask before. Never asked a single question about David. Almost as if he preferred to pretend David had never existed.
“He’s the regional sales manager of a dental supply company. At the time we met he was a sales agent. I was attending Left Coast Crime in Vegas, and he happened to be using the hotel lobby’s free Wi-Fi.”
J.X. made a sound of disapproval. Was that for stealing bandwidth or the Fates working their matchmaking skills on David and me? After a moment, he said sourly, “He does have nice teeth.”
“He does.”
“You both do.”
“Thank you. Anyway, when he discovered there was a mystery convention going on, he wandered up to the convention bar, ran into me, and the rest is history. Right there with the Great Chinese Famine, forced extinction, and the sinking of the Titanic.”
J.X. made another of those spluttery snort sounds as he stretched out beside me. “He really is a mystery fan?”
“He really is. He’s your biggest fan.”
He winced. “I think I prefer Jerry.”
“Not me. I’ll trade you David over Jerry any day.”
“Yeah, well. I just can’t see you two together. He’s so…corporate.”
“Hey, no need to get nasty.” I was amused. “David is corporate, but that doesn’t make him a bad guy. In fact, he can be a great guy. In his own way. We had some very good times together.” I shrugged. “And some very bad times.”
J.X.’s expression was troubled as he met my eyes.
“Why did I stay with him?” I guessed.
“You deserved so much better than that, Kit.”
I sighed. “Maybe. The first time I caught him cheating on me, I was devastated. I really did love him. I wasn’t ready to give up on our relationship. Even after meeting you, connecting with you, I couldn’t face the fact that it was over with David. I wasn’t ready.”
Still J.X. said nothing.
I made a face. “The problem is, I don’t think I was able to ever really forgive him. I never trusted him again. I never again felt about him the way I’d felt before.”
“I’m sorry.”
I smiled at him because he really was sorry. J.X. was a genuinely nice guy. He was also a truly kind and decent man.
I said, “When I suspected he was cheating again—this was about a year after we’d signed the commitment papers—”
J.X. acknowledged that with a faint sound of amusement.
“Instead of confronting him, I ignored it. I was struggling to hit a deadline, and I told myself that work was more important, that work was the only important thing. That became our pattern. My pattern. My career was my life.”
J.X. shook his head. “When I think of the time we wasted.”
“Please let’s not think of that,” I said. “Let’s just focus on where we are now. Here. Together. In this very comfortable bed.”
He bent to kiss me, and I looped my arm around his neck and drew him down. His eyelashes flicked against my face, his breath was warm, his skin soft where it was smooth and softer still where he was bearded. His lips brushed mine with a touch as light as, well, light.
The light in his eyes when he was laughing. The light in his eyes when he first woke in the morning. The light in his eyes when we made love.
He said softly, “Are you okay, Kit?”
He was not asking for sex. He really was simply making sure I was okay after all I’d been through.
I nodded, whispering, “I am now.” It was funny how just that…tenderness could make my eyes sting. David and I had not been tender with each other. We had loved each other, we had been affectionate and passionate and often good to each other, but we had not been tender.
I’m not sure I even knew what tenderness was before J.X.
He kissed me again, and I opened my mouth to him. His tongue probed mine with almost courtly finesse, and I pushed back with a murmur of approval. There had been a time I had not liked this, but that was a lifetime ago. The life that had belonged to a sad, snarky, solitary man old before his time.
It had been a tiring and stressful day and a dramatic and terrifying night. Our lovemaking was quiet and gentle. We held each other tightly and moved with pleasurable efficiency.
“I love you,” he whispered. I’m not sure we ever made love that he didn’t say it, but it wasn’t something I got tired of hearing.
Nipple to nipple, groin to groin. The intimacy of shared breath and mingled fluids. The fireworks were small and bright, the afterglow warming to heart and soul as well as body.
Afterward, we continued to hold each other while our breathing slowed and the wet on our bodies dried. His heart thumped with solid, steady certainty against mine, and now and again he dropped a tiny, afterthought of a kiss on my temple or ear or corner of my eye.
I was just starting to drift off when he said suddenly into the darkness, “How was dinner with David?”
“Hm?” I blinked that over. “Okay, I guess.”
David? Again? Really?
“How did he happen to be up here when the clown attacked?”
I smiled sleepily. When Clowns Attack! It sounded like one of those cheesy FOX television specials. Then his words sank in. Sleep fled.
I lifted my head, the better to try to read his face. I said slowly, incredulously, “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”
After a fraction of a pause, he said stiffly, “Of course not.”
“But?”
“It’s a legitimate question.”
“Which is the legitimate question? The question you’re asking or the question you’re not asking?”
“What? Kit…”
“Yeah, but what is it you really want to know? Why was David outside my room? Or did I ask David up to my room?”
I could feel my heart banging against my collarbone as I waited for his reply.
He said, “You didn’t want me to come with you on this trip.”
“It wasn’t because I hoped to hook up with David. I had no idea he’d be lurking around like the Ghost of Infidelities Past. I didn’t want you to come with me because you’ve got less than a week to finish the new book before you leave on your tour for the last book. I remember how crunch time works. I was trying to be considerate.”
Another of those freaky pauses followed before he bumped his face against mine. He didn’t kiss me. He whispered in a pained, husky voice, “I know you wouldn’t ask him. I do know that. But did you…”
It seemed he couldn’t finish it.
“No,” I said. “J.X., you can’t seriously believe there’s any contest.”
He seemed to think that over before saying without emotion, “You chose him over me once before.”
“And it was a huge fucking mistake that I paid for a hundred times over. Okay? If I had it all to do over…well, I’d do things differently. That’s all. We wouldn’t have wasted ten years.”
“Okay,” he said at last. “What was he doing up here?”
I groaned. “I think he was going to ask if I wanted to have goodbye-forever sex.”
J.X. swore. Proof of his distress, it may even have been in Spanish.
“To which I would have said no—even if I hadn’t been in the middle of being attacked by a killer clown.”
He gave a muffled laugh and hooked his arm around my neck, pulled me closer still. He kissed me. “I love you, Kit. I just do.”
I muttered, “Well, you don’t have to sound like it’s against your will.”
He gave another huff of amusement.
“Or against your better judgement. Or like it’s a guilty secret. Or a fatal health condition.”
His kiss was sweet and coaxing. I liked the taste of his apologies. “Sorry. I’m sorry, honey…”
“I can guarantee it’s not contagious!”
J.X. laughed again.
We left early Tuesday morning and had a surprisingly enjoyable trip back to
San Francisco. One of the useful things about long drives is the opportunity to just talk. And that’s what we did. We talked, almost without interruption, for hours.
Some of it was mundane stuff: Should we bother with buying candy for Halloween? Would there be trick-or-treaters on Cherry Lane? How to best arrange so I—standing in for J.X., who would be leaving Saturday for his book tour—could attend the Halloween party Nina was throwing for Gage. Should I go ahead and get estimates on resurfacing the pool while J.X. was away? Were we still having dinner with my dad on Thursday? How was J.X.’s book coming along?
Some of it was less mundane: Were the Kaynors really going to sue me? Did they have a chance in hell of winning in court? Where could Dicky be if he wasn’t dead? If Jerry hadn’t come after me, who had—and why? Would the news media pick up the story of the clown attack?
We talked about the last time we had made this trip together, and exchanged wry smiles. J.X. reached out his right hand, we linked fingers, and the next miles rolled by in companionable silence broken only by Jack Johnson’s “I Got You.”
When we arrived back in town, the first thing we did was head to the Civic Center Courthouse to file a Civil Harassment restraining order against Jerry Knight.
I dutifully filled out all the forms in my packet, and then we left to make the required copies, after which we stapled the copies to the originals and then brought the request for the restraining order, the copies, the Confidential Information form, the Notice of the Court Hearing, and the temporary restraining order back to the courthouse for filing.
Because we were filing after ten a.m., we would have to wait until the following day to pick up our temporary restraining order and the Notice of Court Hearing so that Jerry could be served.
“I didn’t realize the process was quite so complicated,” I told J.X. as we left the courthouse. “Thank you for not saying I told you so.”
“I told you so,” said J.X.
By four o’clock I was knee-deep in boxes I hadn’t bothered to look at since I’d shipped them from Los Angeles. I found a lot of cheery notes and smiley Post-it stickies from Dicky attached to old manuscripts and book notes, mini snapshots of my day-to-day work life back then.
In Other Words...Murder Page 8
