Mary, Mary
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While the older two washed up, she put the dishes into the sink for later; gave Adam’s face a quick once-over with a wet paper towel; took the kids’ lunches, packed the night before, out of the fridge; and dropped each one into the appropriate knapsack.
“I’m going to put Adam into his car seat,” she called out. “Last one outside is a googly worm.”
Mary hated the rotten-egg thing, but she knew the value of a little innocent competition for keeping the kids in gear. She could hear them squealing in their rooms, half laughing, half scared they’d be the last one out the door and into her old jalopy. Gawd, who said jalopy anymore? Only Mary, Mary. And who said Gawd?
As she strapped Adam in, she tried to remember what it was that had kept her up so late the night before. The days—and now the nights as well—seemed to blur all together in a jumble of cooking, cleaning, driving, list-making, nose-wiping, and more driving. L.A. definitely had its major-league disadvantages. It seemed as if they spent half their lives in the car, stalled in traffic.
She should really get something more fuel efficient than the big old Suburban she had brought west.
She looked at her watch. Somehow, ten minutes had gone by. Ten precious minutes. How did that always happen? How did she seem to lose time?
She ran back to the front door and ushered Brendan and Ashley outside. “What is taking you two so long? We’re going to be late again. Jeezum crow, just look at the time,” said Mary Smith.
Chapter 5
HERE WE WERE, smack in the middle of an age of angry and cynical myth-busting, and suddenly I was being called “America’s Sherlock Holmes” in one of the country’s more influential, or at least best-read, magazines. What a complete crock that was, and it was still bugging me that morning. An investigative journalist named James Truscott had decided to follow me around and report on the murder cases I was working on. I’d fooled him, though. I’d gone on vacation with the family.
“I’m going to Disneyland!” I told Truscott and laughed the last time I’d seen him in D.C. The writer had only smirked in response.
For anyone else, maybe a vacation was an ordinary thing. Happened all the time, twice a year sometimes. For the Cross family, it was a major event, a new beginning.
Appropriately, “A Whole New World” was playing in the hotel lobby as we passed through.
“Come on, you pokes!” Jannie urged us as she ran ahead. Damon, newly minted teenager, was somewhat more reserved. He stuck close and held the door for Nana as we passed from air-conditioned comfort out into bright Southern California sunshine.
Actually, it was a full-out attack on the senses from the moment we left the hotel. Scents of cinnamon, fried dough, and some kind of zingy Mexican food reached our noses all at the same time. I could also hear the distant roar of a freight train, or so it seemed, along with screams of terror—the good kind, the “don’t stop” kind. I’d heard enough of the other kind to appreciate the difference.
Against all odds, I had put in for vacation, been approved, and actually gotten out of town before FBI Director Burns or his people came up with a half-dozen reasons why I couldn’t go away at this time. The kids’ first choice had been Disney World and Epcot Village in Florida. For my own reasons, and also since it was hurricane season down South, I steered us to Disneyland and their newest park, Disney’s California Adventure.
“California, indeed.” Nana Mama shaded her eyes from the sun glare. “I haven’t seen a naturally occurring thing since we arrived here, Alex. Have you?”
She pursed her lips and pulled down the corners of her mouth, but then she couldn’t help laughing, putting herself in stitches. That’s Nana. She almost never laughs at other people—she laughs with them.
“You can’t fool me, old woman. You just love to see us all together. Anywhere, anyhow, anytime. We could be in Siberia for all you’d care.”
She brightened. “Now, Siberia. That’s somewhere I would like to see. A trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Sayany Mountains, Lake Baikal. You know, it wouldn’t kill American children to take a vacation once in a while where they actually learned something about another culture.”
I rolled my eyes in Damon and Jannie’s direction. “Once a teacher . . .”
“Always a teacher,” Jannie said.
“Always a tee-cha,” repeated Little Alex. He was three years old, and our own little myna bird. We got to see him too infrequently, and I was partially amazed by everything he did. His mother had taken him back to Seattle more than a year ago. The painful custody struggles between Christine and me were still dragging on.
Nana’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Where do we go fir—”
“Soarin’ Over California!” Jannie had it out before Nana was even finished asking the question.
Damon chimed in. “Okay, but then we’re hitting California Screamin’.”
Jannie stuck her tongue out convivially at her brother, and he gently hip-checked her in return. It was like Christmas morning for these two—even the disagreements were mostly in fun.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And then we’ll hit It’s Tough to Be a Bug! for your little brother.”
I scooped up Alex Junior in my arms and held him close, kissed both of his cheeks. He looked back at me with his peaceable little smile.
Life was good again.
Chapter 6
THAT WAS WHEN I SAW James Truscott approaching, all six foot five of him, with waves of red hair hanging down over the shoulders of a black leather jacket.
Somehow, some way, Truscott had gotten his editors in New York to agree to do a continuing series on me, based on my track record for getting involved with high-profile murder cases on a fairly regular basis. Maybe it was because the last one, involving the Russian Mafiya, had been the worst case of my career and also very high-profile. I had taken the liberty of doing some research on Truscott. He was only thirty, educated at Boston University. His specialty was true crime, and he’d published two nonfiction books on the mafia. A phrase I’d heard about him stuck in my head: He plays dirty.
“Alex,” he said, smiling and extending his hand as if we were old friends meeting by chance. Reluctantly, I shook hands with Truscott. It wasn’t that I disliked him, or objected to his right to write whatever stories he wanted to, but he had already intruded into my life in ways that I felt were inappropriate—like writing daily e-mails and arriving at crime scenes, and even at our house in D.C. Now, here he was, showing up on our family vacation.
“Mr. Truscott,” I said in a quiet voice, “you know I’ve declined to cooperate with these articles.”
“No problem.” He grinned. “I’m cool with that.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m officially off the clock. This is family time. Can you give us some space? We’re at Disneyland.”
Truscott nodded as though he understood completely, but then he said, “Your vacation will be interesting to our readers. The calm-before-the-storm kind of thing. This is great! Disneyland is perfect. You have to understand that, right?”
“I don’t!” Nana said, and stepped toward Truscott. “Your right to stick out your arm ends at the other person’s nose. You ever hear that wise bit of advice, young man? Well, you should have. You know, you have some kind of nerve being here.”
Just then, though, I caught something even more disturbing out of the corner of my eye—a movement that didn’t fit the circumstances: a woman in black, slowly circling to our left.
She had a digital camera and was already taking pictures of us—of my family. Of Nana confronting Truscott.
I shielded the kids as best I could, and then I really lit into James Truscott. “Don’t you dare photograph my kids!” I said. “Now you and your girlfriend get out of here. Please, go.”
Truscott raised his hands over his head, smiled cockily, and then backed away. “I have rights, just like you, Dr. Cross. And she’s not my fucking girlfriend. She’s a colleague. This is all business. It’s a story.”
Chapter 7
WE ALL TRIED TO FORGET about James Truscott and his photographer for a while after that. Did pretty good, too. After umpteen different rides, a live show starring Mickey Mouse, two snacks, and countless carnival games, I dared to suggest that we head back to the hotel.
“For the pool?” Damon asked, grinning. We had glimpsed the five-thousand-square-foot Never Land Pool on our way to breakfast early that morning.
When I got to the front desk, there was a message waiting, one that I was expecting. Inspector Jamilla Hughes of the San Francisco Police Department was in town and needed a meeting with me. ASAP, if not sooner, said the note. That means move it, buster.
I gave my smiling regrets to the pool sharks and took my leave of them. After all, I was on vacation, too.
“Go get ’em, Daddy,” Jannie ribbed me. “It’s Jamilla, right?” Damon gave a thumbs-up and a smile from behind the fogged lens of a snorkel mask.
I crossed the grounds from the Disneyland Hotel to the Grand Californian, where I had booked another room. This place was an entirely American Arts and Crafts affair, much more sedate than our own hotel.
I passed through stained-glass doors into a soaring lobby. Redwood beams rose six floors overhead, and Tiffany lamps dotted the lower level, which centered on an enormous fieldstone fireplace.
I barely noticed any of it, though. I was already thinking about Inspector Hughes up in room 456.
Amazing—I was on vacation.
Chapter 8
JAMILLA GREETED ME at the door, lips first, a delicious kiss that warmed me from head to toe. I didn’t get to see much of her wraparound baby-blue blouse and black pencil skirt until we pulled apart. Black sling-back heels put her at just about the right height for me. She sure didn’t look like a homicide cop today.
“I just got in,” she said.
“Just in time,” I murmured, reaching for her again. Jamilla’s kisses were always like coming home. I started to wonder where all this was going, but then I stopped myself. Just let it be, Alex.
“Thanks for the flowers,” she whispered against my ear. “All of the flowers. They’re absolutely beautiful. I know, I know, not as beautiful as me.”
I laughed out loud. “That’s true.”
I could see over her shoulder that the hotel’s concierge, Harold Larsen, had done a good job for me. Rose petals were scattered in a swath of red, peach, and white. I knew there were a dozen long-stems on the bedside table, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the minifridge, and a couple of carefully chosen CDs in the stereo—best of Al Green, Luther Ingram, Tuck and Patti’s Tears of Joy, some early Alberta Hunter.
“I guess you really did miss me,” Jamilla said.
Suddenly, the two of us were like one body, my mouth exploring hers, my hands holding her up from the rear. She already had my shirt half unbuttoned, and then I was reaching down her side for the zipper on her skirt. We kissed again, and her mouth was so fresh and sweet, like it always was.
“‘If lovin’ you is wrong, I don’t want to be right,’” I sang in a half-whisper.
“Loving me isn’t wrong.” Jamilla smiled.
I danced her backward toward the bedroom.
“How do you do this in heels?” I asked along the way.
“You’re right,” she said, and kicked off her shoes even as her skirt slid to the floor.
“We should light these candles,” I said. “You want me to light them?”
“Shhh, Alex. It’s already warm enough in here.”
“Yeah, it is.”
There wasn’t a whole lot of talking for a while after that. Jamilla and I always seemed to know what the other was thinking anyway—no conversation required at certain times. And I had missed her, even more than I thought I would.
We pressed hard against each other, chest to chest, breathing in a nice rhythm. I rose and hardened against her leg, and I could feel moistness on my thigh. Then I reached up and held Jam’s lovely face in both of my hands.
I felt as though she could hear my thoughts. She smiled, drinking in what I hadn’t even said. “Is that so?” she finally whispered, then winked. We had shared the mind-reading joke before.
We kissed some more, and Jamilla breathed deeply as I slowly worked my lips over her neck, her breasts, and her stomach. Everywhere I stopped, I wanted to stay, but just as badly, I couldn’t wait to move on. She wrapped her arms around my back and rolled us both over on the bed.
“How can you be so hard and so soft?” I asked.
“It’s a woman thing. Just enjoy it. But I could say the same about you. Hard and soft?”
A moment later, I was inside Jamilla. She sat bolt upright, her head thrown back, her lower lip clenched tightly between her teeth. Sunlight reached through the bedroom window and slowly crossed her face. Absolutely gorgeous, all of it.
We climaxed together—one of those ideals that everyone says is just an ideal, but it’s not, not always, anyway.
She lay lightly down on top of me, the air slowly escaping from her lungs, our bodies melding as they always did.
“You’re going to be too tired for the rides tomorrow,” she finally said and smiled.
“Speaking of rides . . . ,” I said.
She started to laugh. “Promises, promises.”
“But I always keep mine.”
Chapter 9
I DON’T REMEMBER when Jamilla and I eventually drifted off to sleep that afternoon, but I was woken up by my pager. My brand-new pager. The one I got especially for this trip so only a few people would have the number—John Sampson, Director Burns’s assistant, Tony Woods, that’s about it. Two people too many? So what now?
I groaned. “Sorry, sorry, Jam. I didn’t expect this. I don’t have to answer it.” The last part I said halfheartedly. We both knew better.
Jamilla shook her head. “I’ll tell you a little secret: I’ve got mine here in the nightstand. Go ahead, Alex, answer the call.” Yeah, answer the call.
Sure enough, it was the director’s office reaching out from D.C. I picked up the bedside phone and dialed the number while lying there flat on my back. I finally looked at my watch—4:00 P.M. The day had flown, which was a good thing, sort of. Until now, anyway.
“Ron Burns,” I mouthed to Jamilla while I was on hold. “This can’t be good.” This has to be bad.
She nodded. A call from the top of the pyramid had to mean some kind of serious business that couldn’t wait. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear about it right now.
Ron Burns himself came on the line. This was getting worse by the second. “Alex? Is that you?”
“Yes, sir.” I sighed. Just Jamilla, and me, and you.
“I appreciate your taking this call. I’m sorry to be bothering you. I know it’s been a while since your last real vacation.”
He didn’t know the half of it, but I kept quiet and listened to what the director had to say.
“Alex, there’s kind of a sticky case in L.A. I probably would have wanted to send you out on this one anyway. The fact that you’re in California is a lucky coincidence. Lucky, of course, being a relative concept.”
I shook my head back and forth. This was sounding really bad.
“What’s the case? This lucky coincidence that I’m out here?”
“You ever heard of Antonia Schifman?”
That got my attention a little. “The actress? Sure.”
“She was murdered this morning, along with her limo driver. It happened outside her home. Her family was inside sleeping.”
“The rest of the family—they’re okay?” I asked.
“No one else was hurt, Alex. Just the actress and her driver.”
I was a little confused. “Why is the Bureau on this? LAPD request a consult?”
“Not exactly.” Burns paused. “If you wouldn’t mind keeping this bet
ween the two of us, Antonia Schifman was friends with the president. And a close friend of his wife. The president has asked for our help on the murder investigation.”
“Oh.” I saw that Ron Burns wasn’t quite as immune to Washington pressure as I had thought. Even so, he was the best thing that had happened to the FBI in a long time. And he’d already done me more than one favor in my short tenure. Of course, I had done him a few good turns, too.
“Alex, just do a quick in-and-out on this one. I’d really appreciate it. We’ll have you back with your family for dinner. A late dinner, anyway. Just check out the murder scene for me. I want to hear your take on what happened. I took the liberty—they’re waiting for you to get there.”
I finished the call and cast a look at Jamilla. “Well, the good news is, I don’t have to fly anywhere. It’s something in L.A. The actress Antonia Schifman was murdered today.”
She pushed up next to me in bed. “Oh, that’s terrible, Alex. I liked her movies. She always seemed nice. That’s really a shame. Well, at least I’ll get to dish with Nana and the kids while you’re out of earshot.”
“I’ll meet you all back here for dinner. Might be a little late.”
“My flight’s not until eleven, Alex. But I have to be on the late flight out.”
I kissed her, just a little sheepishly, ashamed that I’d given in to Burns. But what choice did I have?
“Go make California safe—safer,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on Mickey and Donald to make sure they don’t go postal.”
What a thought.
Chapter 10
THE STORYTELLER drove right by the Schifman murder scene, right by the crime scene. He knew he shouldn’t have come out here again, but he couldn’t help himself. In a way, he thought this might even be a good idea. So he stopped his car and got out to look around.
What an incredible rush it turned out to be. He knew the house, knew the ritzy neighborhood in Beverly Hills really well—Miller Place. Suddenly, he almost couldn’t catch his breath, and he loved the feeling of danger, of “anything can happen now!” And it definitely could. He was the Storyteller, after all.