All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas

by Suzanne Brockmann

  God only knew what Jules was thinking.

  His phone rang again, with Jules’s familiar ring tone, from out in the bedroom.

  “Shit,” Robin shouted. “Shit! Shit!”

  That was kind of stupid, because when he stopped shouting, nothing had changed. He was still locked in his bathroom.

  The hinges of the door were inside the room with him, but the pins probably hadn’t been removed since 1865. Still, he looked at them more closely. Yeah, those weren’t coming out—not without a screwdriver and a hammer.

  And the door was solid mahogany—no way would he be able to kick his way through it.

  Robin looked at the window again, opened the screen, stuck his head out and looked down. It was a straight drop to the ground below, with no toe-or handholds to help him climb either down or up to the roof. And since the house had eleven-foot ceilings, the drop to the ground was daunting. The bonus was the cast-iron fence that was almost directly beneath the window, providing an alternative to death by broken neck—death by impalement.

  If he’d had his new bath sheets, he could have cut them into strips and tied them together to make a rope. After anchoring it around the toilet, he could have climbed out the window.

  Which Robin now closed and locked. He was a little afraid he would be tempted to try getting out that way even without the bath sheet rope. He went back to the cabinets beneath the sink, taking inventory again. He opened the medicine cabinets, too, and all the drawers.

  Along with all that toilet paper, he had a blow dryer, a pack of extra toothbrushes, cotton balls, razor blades, makeup remover, shaving cream, hair care products and skin moisturizers of an embarrassing quantity and variety, alcohol-free cold medicine, antiseptic hand gel, deodorant—mmm, that smelled like Jules—sunblock, Band-Aids, a nose-hair clipper, scissors…

  If he were an astronaut aboard Apollo Thirteen, he could no doubt use these items to build a booster rocket and fly down to the ground. He’d wanted to go to Space Camp when he was a kid, but his father had told him that nobody who got only a B in science would ever be welcome at NASA.

  So he was stuck with finding a more traditional route out of here.

  Robin looked at the scissors. They were long and sharp—of the haircutting variety.

  Maybe…

  He looked at the scissors and the razor blades and then at the pristine perfectness of the recently patched and painted wall between the door and the toilet.

  Robin took off his tux jacket. On second thought, he took off his pants and shirt, too. And he got to work.

  It was possible Jules was on to something.

  As they raced back to the house, Sam had Alyssa on the phone. “She spoke to all the drivers,” he told Jules. “Guy named Pete reports that yeah, he drove you and Robin to the church, and yeah, he took Robin back to the house to pick up something—he didn’t know what.”

  Jules just nodded. As they pulled up to a red light, it was clear that he was restraining himself from jumping out and running the rest of the way.

  Sam put Alyssa on speaker so Jules could hear her himself.

  “Pete told me Robin went inside the house, but then, a few minutes later, your mother and Lois Richter came out,” she said. “They insisted Robin was already at the church. Pete says he assumed Robin went out the back door, caught another ride…Apparently, Lois and your mom were worried they’d be late and Pete bowed to the pressure and took the path of least resistance. Meanwhile, the limo that was assigned to pick them up—the moms—still hasn’t returned.”

  Sure enough, as they approached the house, the limo was there, idling out front.

  “We’re here, I’ll call you back,” Sam told his wife.

  Jules was out of the car before it stopped, running to the front door. The alarm beeped as they went inside, and Jules disabled it. “Robin!” he shouted into the silence of the empty house.

  But it wasn’t empty, because Robin shouted back.

  “Jules!” His voice was distant, but definitely coming from the second floor.

  Jules took the stairs two at a time, Sam on his heels.

  “Oh, my God,” Jules said as he went into the bedroom.

  Sam stopped short. That wasn’t an oh, my God there on the floor in front of them. It was a full scale holy fuck.

  Robin had apparently gotten locked in the bathroom. He’d somehow managed to cut a hole in the wall—both the drywall in the bathroom and the plaster on the bedroom side. He was in the process of emerging from it, seemingly naked—at least from the waist up. But he hadn’t quite made it large enough and he’d gotten stuck.

  And yet his first words to Jules were an apology. “God, babe, I’m so sorry,” Robin said as Sam took out his phone and dialed Alyssa.

  “Got him,” he reported. “Keep stalling, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “Are you all right?” Jules asked Robin, his relief making him laugh as he…started to take his clothes off…?

  “These fucking doors.” Robin laughed, too, but then he started to cry, which, to Sam’s surprise, seemed to mortify him. “Oh, Jules, I was so afraid you’d think—”

  “Shh,” Jules said, as he quickly took off his pants and went over to Robin. He knelt on the floor and kissed him, and Robin clung to him. “Sweetie, no. I was worried that something bad had happened, yeah, but I never thought…” He kissed him again, longer this time. Deeper.

  Yikes. “Uh, guys?” Sam said. “I’m kind of here in the room?”

  “The President’s already at the church, Starrett,” Jules told him, heavy on the sarcasm. “And Robin’s doing a Winnie-the-Pooh-in-the-honey-tree in the wall. So yeah, we thought we’d have sex. Jesus. If you’re going to help, you better get your own tux off.”

  And Sam realized that Robin was coated with fine, white plaster dust. It was everywhere—in his hair, on his arms and shoulders. It was also all over the floor.

  “Can you push yourself back into the bathroom?” Jules asked Robin.

  “I think so,” he said, wiping his eyes, smearing his face with dirt as well as the plaster dust.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” Jules warned him, but then caught sight of Robin’s hands. He’d torn them up pretty good making that hole. “Oh, sweetie…”

  “Yeah,” Robin said, “I kind of fucked up my manicure. If you could…maybe push my shoulder…”

  “Here.” Sam came over, stripped down to his boxers. “Hunch forward and put your head down.”

  Robin looked at him. “My safe word is monkey.”

  “Ha ha,” Sam said. “You’re a fucking comedian. You want me to help or not?” He didn’t wait for Robin to respond. “Hunch forward and put your head down.”

  Robin did, inching his way as Jules and Sam helped push him back into the bathroom.

  “At first I made a hole just big enough to reach through,” Robin told them, because he could not remain silent for more than a few seconds at a time. Sam had always considered Jules to be talkative, but Robin could make him seem taciturn.

  “I thought if I could grab the other doorknob and the, you know, rod-thingy that works the mechanism,” Robin continued to narrate, “I’d be able to open the door. But it didn’t work. Ow!”

  It was like birth in reverse, and Robin was finally back in the bathroom.

  He stuck a battered hand out of the hole, presenting them with the knob and rod. Jules took it and put it into the door. From the bathroom, Robin attached the other end of the knob and…

  The latch clicked and the door swung open.

  Jules just looked at Robin, who looked as if he might start to cry again.

  “Thank you,” Robin said, and he wasn’t just talking about being rescued.

  Jules hugged him, plaster dust and all. “I love you,” he said. “Come on, let’s go get married.”

  Robin turned to where his tux was hanging from a towel rack, but Jules grabbed him by the waistband of his boxers, and pantsed him, in a move that was clearly practiced. It made Sam hyper-aware o
f the fact that he was wearing only his boxers in the bedroom of his two gay friends—one of whom was now buck-naked.

  “Shower,” Jules ordered Robin. He turned to Sam. “Vacuum’s in the front hall closet. Will you grab it and—”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. He dashed down the stairs and was back in record time. It was five minutes to eleven, but if Jules wanted him to vacuum, vacuum he would. Although this was definitely turning out to be the weirdest best-man gig in the history of the world.

  Robin got out of the shower as Jules took his tux into the bedroom, shaking off any dust that might’ve gotten onto it. He grabbed Robin a clean pair of shorts and some socks from a dresser drawer, laying it all out on the bed.

  Jules himself didn’t shower—he just used a towel to dust himself off.

  “Did you do this to the room?” he asked Robin, and Sam, too, realized that there were flowers and unlit candles everywhere. The place reeked of romance—no doubt about it, someone was getting laid tonight.

  “It was your mom,” Robin told him as he quickly fixed his hair. “My contribution was putting a hole in the wall.” He started to laugh. “Two months of construction, it’s finally done and—”

  Jules shut him up with a kiss. “Ask me if I care.”

  He’d already gotten dressed, and he helped Robin on with his tuxedo, buttoning his shirt and fastening his pants for him, since Robin’s fingers were obviously hurting him.

  And then, finally, they were ready. It was eleven hundred hours on the dot, and they were hurrying down the stairs.

  But then “Crap,” Robin said, and he dashed back up to get his bag.

  The wedding was beautiful, even if it started a few minutes late.

  The flower children started the procession. They danced down the aisle, spreading rose petals. There were five of them: Hope Jones, Emma Bhagat, Billy Richter and Charlie Paoletti were led by six-year-old Haley Starrett—Sam’s daughter from his first marriage. As the oldest, she was clearly in charge—and no doubt about it, she was her father’s daughter.

  She kept everyone moving, and when they got to the altar, she reminded them first to greet the President and shake his and Mrs. Bryant’s hand, and then to run and sit with their parents.

  Cosmo and Jane went down the aisle next, followed by Sam and Alyssa.

  And then came a last minute change in their plans. Robin and Jules had originally intended to walk Jules’s mom down the aisle together, one on either side of her.

  But Robin had called Dolphina as he and Jules and Sam were rushing to the church, and he’d asked to see if Cosmo’s mom wouldn’t meet him for a moment, over by the front doors.

  Dolphina hadn’t heard what he’d said to her when they’d met there, but Lois Richter had hugged him and nodded.

  And now he was escorting her down the aisle amidst a flurry of flashbulbs, stopping to seat her in a place of honor in front of the President—a place usually reserved for the mother of the groom. She kissed him and hugged him again. And Yashi’s dad, who was already seated there, stood up and, with a big smile, he hugged Robin, too.

  Robin laughed his surprise, but then hugged Yashi’s dad back.

  Jules, who was watching Robin from the back with his mother, had an expression on his face that was beautiful—happiness and love mixed with something bittersweet. And Dolphina knew that he was thinking about Robin’s father—who had chosen not to be here today.

  Jules looked at his mother and smiled. “God, I’m lucky.”

  “Back at you, kiddo,” Linda Cassidy said. “Shall we do this thing?”

  “I’m ready.” He offered her his arm and they went down the aisle.

  Again, flashbulbs went off. Jules seated his mother next to Cosmo’s mom, then joined Robin at the altar with a smile—holding out his hand.

  Robin took it and they stood there for a moment, just gazing into each other’s eyes.

  The guests in the church sat down, and Dolphina sat, too, right there in the second to last row—just in case there were any last minute problems to deal with.

  More last minute, that is, than Robin getting locked in the bathroom.

  Jules had been right to have faith.

  Although Dolphina knew that had Robin been found in the bar at the Ritz, Jules would still be standing beside him.

  For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse.

  They’d purposely chosen to use fairly traditional vows, adjusting the words only slightly.

  “Do you, Jules, take Robin, to be your partner for life? Do you promise to love and comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, for better or for worse, to be faithful and true to him, as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do.”

  They both spoke loudly—their voices ringing clearly in the beautiful church.

  “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  “I now pronounce you partners for life. What God has joined together let no man put asunder. May the love in your hearts give you joy. May the greatness of life bring you peace. And may your days be good and your lives be long upon the earth. You may greet each other now with a kiss.”

  Back at the bachelor party, Jules had told Robin that he was intending to kiss the shit out of him at their wedding, but apparently he’d lied.

  As Dolphina and the other guests watched, Jules and Robin shared the sweetest, most tender kiss she’d ever witnessed—a true greeting and celebration of this wonderful new phase of their life together. And then they stood there again, just smiling into each other’s eyes, a picture of pure happiness, joy and love.

  Married.

  The organ began to play, and everyone stood up and applauded, and Dolphina wiped her eyes and put on her coat—to make sure the limos were ready and waiting outside. And of course Robin and Jules had to officially greet the President and Mrs. Bryant and…

  Whoa.

  Will and Maggie were directly behind her.

  Maggie was standing, applauding, but Will was just sitting there, looking at Dolphina. He managed a smile. “Hey.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, sliding into the pew so that she was next to him.

  “I didn’t want to miss it,” he told her. He was so pale he was practically gray and it was obvious he was in pain. Clearly he should not have gotten out of bed. “It was…lovely.”

  Dolphina looked at Maggie. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to leave the hospital.”

  The girl shrugged. “He wasn’t. In fact, the first thing he did when he got out of bed was fall on his face.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Will protested.

  It was that bad, Maggie mouthed to Dolphina.

  “I had to talk to you,” Will admitted. “Look, I know you’re busy.”

  “Very,” Dolphina said. There were photos to be taken, then she had to get over to the restaurant where the reception was being held, to make sure everything was ready. They were holding the receiving line there—a slight change in plans—because it was so cold outside today.

  “I just wanted to say,” he started.

  She cut him off. “I was going to come to the hospital tonight, after the reception.”

  Hope flared in his eyes. “Really?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not anymore, because it’s one thing to have a boyfriend who makes a mistake and apologizes, but it’s another thing entirely to date a Darwin Award recipient, who’s too intellectually underdeveloped to know when to stay in the hospital.”

  Will nodded, trying to hide his smile. “And if I apologize for this mistake, too…?”

  “It’ll probably work,” she admitted.

  He touched her face, pushing her hair back behind her ear. “Problem is, I’d be lying if I said I was sorry. And I told you I’d never lie to you again.”

  “Please go back to the hospital,” she said.

  “I love you,” Will told her. “That’s what I came here to say. And that I am sorry. And if leaving the hospital early means I get a Darwin Award, so be
it. I didn’t think you were going to come back. And truth is, I don’t want to propagate the species with anyone but you.”

  She laughed at that. “Dear God, I’m an idiot, but I think I might love you, too.”

  “Think,” he repeated.

  “I…love you,” she said, “but I’m still too afraid to, um, admit it, so I’m saying think right now. Is that a problem for you?”

  Her voice came out sounding a tad too sharp, but Will just smiled. “No, it’s not.” The hope in his eyes had turned into something else. Something warm and soft and tender. He was looking at her now with such love, she almost started to cry again.

  Instead, she leaned over and kissed him. She’d surprised him by doing that, right here in the church, but it didn’t take him long to wrap his arms around her.

  “Oh, God,” he said. “Dolphina.”

  He kissed her again, and it was way not the kind of kiss for a church—even the back of a church during a wedding. But this was a fact that Dolphina didn’t consider until she heard Maggie say, admiration in her voice, “Go, Uncle Will.”

  She pulled back, and it was entirely possible that he had tears in his eyes, too, as she touched his face. “Go back to the hospital,” she told him again. “I’ll see you later. I’ve got to go make sure Robin and Jules have a perfect day.”

  Will smiled at her, taking her hand and kissing her palm. “It can’t be more perfect than mine.”

  “Said the man with the bullet wound in his leg,” Maggie pointed out, in case the thought hadn’t occurred to Dolphina.

  Dolphina smiled at them both, because the thought definitely had.

  The President wasn’t staying for the reception—but not because he didn’t want to. He made that more than clear as he shook both Jules and Robin’s hands. It was obvious, too, that he wasn’t here simply as a good PR move. He was genuinely fond of Jules.

  Sam stood off to the side, watching as the photographer snapped a few pictures, and then President and Mrs. Bryant were led out to their waiting motorcade.

  And everyone inside the church sighed with relief. Including Davis Jones, who no longer had to restrict his movements.