I looked up, however. “Even I’ve heard it before, Cleo. And I don’t own that soundtrack.”
Cleo placed a hand on her hip and waved the movie. “They play this on those oldies stations you listen to?”
I inserted Forrest Gump into the DVD player, a sure hit, and escorted Cleo to the door. Walking her outside, I said, “I promise you that I have heard it. And Liam was in my car when he was hit, so one of those stations must have played it.”
“There is no way they played this song on any of your stations. No offense.”
Once outside, I closed the door so Liam wouldn’t hear us. “Are you saying Liam is making it up? That he didn’t like the movie and didn’t want to hurt my feelings?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s crazy.”
“He’s lied before when he was trying not to hurt your feelings.”
“This is different! You saw him—it was a physical reaction. He wasn’t faking that.”
“I’m just sure this was not on any radio station you’d have programmed into your car stereo or that he’d have switched to.”
“You make it sound like he’s more likely to lie than he is to listen to classical music. Give me a break.”
“We both know—”
“Yes, that he can lie. We all know that, Cleo. He’s lied in the past when he was trying to protect me. Protect someone, I mean. Not to avoid paying me back for my car or something like that.”
“Sorry, I really didn’t mean to bring up the past. I promise I didn’t. I just think that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about on this.” Cleo set a hand on my shoulder to calm me. But the subject to her was music, and she knew she was right. “He probably heard it on a CD. And you obviously don’t have the CD in your car or you’d know it. Did you borrow it from anyone?”
“No, but that music did sound familiar. Maybe someone was playing it at work? Yeah, like background music.” Was it at work though? I closed my eyes and tried to picture where I was when that music was in the background. “Probably at work. But Liam doesn’t know anyone from my office.”
Cleo looked at the DVD case in her hand, the morning sunlight reflecting off the glossy cover. “Right. So that’s how you heard it. Could Liam have borrowed it from someone at your work? I mean, it otherwise doesn’t explain why he’d have heard the song in your car.”
“No, I don’t think he borrowed it. And remember, he said he heard it during the accident. Not necessarily in my car.”
“Well, he wasn’t thrown from the car. So it had to be in your car.”
“Maybe he heard it coming from the car that hit him.”
“All the way from the other car?” Cleo rolled her eyes.
“Maybe the driver had it playing really loudly. Lots of people here have great sound systems, you know, teenagers and even people our age.”
“But are those really the kind of people who play new age-y music?”
“No, I guess not,” I conceded.
“Oh! He could’ve heard it in the ambulance.”
“He was out by then, surely.”
She bit her lip and looked off to the side in the way she always did when she was just about out of ideas. “You’re sure he was unconscious by the time he was in the ambulance? Couldn’t he have been maybe in and out of consciousness?”
“I don’t think so, Cleo. But what if the driver had his windows down and he was listening to this.”
“I’m not trying to be a music snob, Liz, but I just don’t think some young guy cruising around with loud music pounding would have picked Sting.”
She handed me back the movie, and headed over to her car.
“You may want to hold on to that. See if you can figure out who at the office has the CD.”
I trembled, and that was enough to get my feelings across to my sister. I wasn’t ready to rule out an author as the murderer. An author could have easily been drunk when he was going after me. But at the same time, if someone from my office was at fault, that was even scarier. Who should I blame? Who could I trust?
I watched Cleo pull out of the driveway in her boring rental car and wondered if she was going to see Jorge tonight. If he would be all sweaty and dirty from working on her car. If she would get lucky while I was at home with my invalid ex-boyfriend stewing over a real-life mystery.
I don’t write mysteries. I don’t think like this. I just decide what’s a good mystery and how to market it. Of course, that’s what got me into this spot in the first place.
I waved goodbye to Cleo, even though she was already at the end of the street. The jealousy I felt for her was much deeper than my usual sort. Usually it was something along the lines of, “Why does she have cooler cars and clothes than I do? How can we be sisters when she gets this great hair and I can’t even tame mine?” Right now these things seemed inconsequential. Tonight, my jealously was something more to the effect of, “Her night will be fit for a bodice-ripper and mine for a horror novel.”
It wasn’t fair.
But what had Mom told us when we would cry about it not being fair that we lost our dad? Life’s not fair? Yeah. That was sure turning out to be true.
Thanks, Mom.
CHAPTER 13
Liam’s new friend, James, agreed to stay with him when I went to work on Monday. I met him briefly when he first arrived and I was pulling out a granola bar and bottled water to take on the bus for breakfast.
When I thanked him for hanging out with Liam, James had replied, “Oh, no problem. I guess I feel a little guilty about the whole thing. He was on his way to pick me up. Hell, if I had just insisted that he take the bus, he wouldn’t have had to borrow your car and he would be okay.”
You too? I thought. Who doesn’t feel guilty about this accident?
* * *
I was glad to get out of the house and back to my usual distractions. However, after riding the morning commuter bus, I gave some thought as to how I could hit up Liam to go in halves with me on a rental car. The accident, if it were an accident, wasn’t his fault but the fact was that I’d had a car and I had let him borrow it and now I had no car. And now I was paying eight dollars a day to take a commuter bus. It couldn’t be that much more to rent a cheap little car.
My grumpy mood was most likely inflamed by the pinkish older man sitting next to me in the bus, who kept trying to look down my shirt while I tried to concentrate on the manuscripts on my lap. The dirtbag in a business suit was old enough to know better, and I felt violated. Instead of clearing my throat, confronting and embarrassing him, I just stuck to complaining in my mind about being forced to take the bus while I was still making car payments.
My mood followed me down the bus steps and across the street to my building. It followed me into the super crowded elevator, which made the ride even more ghastly that it would have been otherwise. The elevator stopped on every floor on the way up, but never seemed to get less crowded.
Once I exited on my floor, my eyes locked with Jane’s across the room. I moved with precision, determined not to even look in the direction of the interns, determined to do my most immediate tasks before answering mundane questions. I stopped at Jane’s desk to say hello and to get a list of those who needed to be called back. She spoke before I could even get out my salutation.
“You wanted this job so badly and you worked so hard to get it, and then you don’t even show up?”
That stung. I sputtered a little and couldn’t find a reply right away. At least not a reply that didn’t involving taking out all my anger on her with fists and fury.
“I’ve been taking care of my roommate!” I choked out.
“But this is your job. You didn’t even call to tell me you were going to play hooky.”
“I called HR. That’s what we do when we have an emergency. No need to call everyone on the floor to announce it.”
“Ms. Orwell used to call HR and me.”
I lowered my voice to something just above a growl, and leaned in. “You hated Ms. Orwell. I would have though
t you’d be glad to see her and her rules gone.”
Jane looked around the office. “Hmm,” she muttered, and I followed her gaze. No heads were turned, but one could sense in the unusual silence that every ear was tuned in to our little confrontation. This could get ugly, and I motioned for her to follow me into my office.
Jane passed me and moved toward my desk. The door was still closing when I began. “Okay, what was that all about?”
She shrugged, tossed her blonde curls over her shoulder and raised her eyebrows, making me want to slap her. “Some people are saying you had a pretty strong motive to kill Ms. Orwell.”
My breath caught and I needed a moment before responding. “What people?”
“Just some people around here.”
“By ‘some people’ do you mean you?” I flashed back to the police department and my meeting with Detective Wilson. “When you talked to the detective, you made it sound like I was the murderer.”
Jane shrugged again.
“How dare you, Jane? You had as much motive as I did. Everyone has as much motive. Everyone hated her!”
“She was a bitch, but I know her job inside and out. I deserved the opportunity to fill her shoes. I deserved this office. The authors liked me more than they liked her, and damn more than they like you. Believe me, they tell me!”
“There’s more to this job than getting a few people to say they like you.”
“Don’t you get it? I was supposed to get Rain’s job when she was gone!”
I grasped the door handle, ready to get the hell out if I needed to.
I should have a tape recorder. I should be wearing a wire. No one will believe me.
“You…you killed Rain?”
Jane’s pale eyes narrowed, and she hoisted herself to a sitting position on my desk, right on top of the pile of manuscripts. She folded her arms.
My eyes searched the room for a weapon as I stalled. “You wanted this job. You thought you’d worked here long enough and should get this job. I always thought you were just looking for a good recommendation so you could move on. But you wanted to take Rain’s position. She would never leave, though. And she made your life a living hell. So you killed her, thinking you’d get rid of your devil and you’d get the job, all in one swoop.”
There was a pair of scissors on the desk that suddenly caught my eye. Jane followed my gaze and reached for the scissors first, hopping off my desk. I turned the door handle and readied myself to flee into the public space.
“Oh, yeah, good job, Sherlock Holmes!” Jane shouted, and then lowered her voice again. “Rain was leaving in a year. She confided that to me. She wanted to get out of this city and get away from that loser ex-husband of hers. Headhunters from the New York publishers have been after her for years, and she was training me to succeed her. I assumed she’d told someone else, that someone else knew about it. But she hadn’t, obviously. And HR wouldn’t believe me when I tried to explain it to them.”
My hand tightened on the doorknob. Jane pointed the scissors at me from across the office.
“I hated Rain, but would have coped with the situation for another year to get this job. This job that you barely do and bitch about when you actually do it. It’s a good job, Eliza. But then Rain had to go and die, and HR, in their infinite wisdom, had to promote by rank. Which meant you moved up and the person with the capabilities to do the job has to be your personal assistant.”
I turned the door knob slowly.
Jane took a step toward, leading with the scissor point. “So, who has the motive here? Rain lives and in another year I get a job I’ve been working towards for a long time. Rain dies and you get a job you know nothing about, but that will pay you more and give you more power. Who has the motive?”
With that, she inched forward, keeping me at an arm’s length at all times. We circled one another for a few steps, and I saw Jane’s eyes about to spill tears. When she’d reached the door, and I had moved back into the office, she grabbed the door handle and waved the tip of the scissors in my direction threateningly. “I know it was you. I know you killed Ms. Orwell. I’m not a violent person, but if you so much as lay a finger on me, I’ll fight back with all I have, I swear!” She waved the scissors awkwardly. “I have friends watching to keep me safe.”
With that she pushed the door wide open and rushed out. Through the open door, I saw her drop the scissors on her desk. She turned back to me with the slightest hint of doubt before heading toward the restrooms, her head down as though she were waiting to cry until out of sight.
I breathed deeply, closing the door again.
Okay, fine, I told myself. Jane didn’t do it.
* * *
Though my first call was far from business-related, it was my highest priority. At best it might calm me and turn my day around. At the least I’d know where I stood in one part of my life.
“Adam?” I queried, though I knew it was his voice that answered after the first ring.
“Hi, Eliza.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“I recognized your voice.”
“Oh. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Busy at work, but what’s new, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you called me. I was going to call you tonight after work, but hadn’t figured out what to say. And I didn’t know if you’d ever want to hear from me.”
My eyes welled up with tears and I wondered if he could hear it in my voice. “I didn’t want to leave it how we did. Today has been…the last few days have been…”
“Wait, Eliza. I’m really close to your building. Can I stop by for just a few minutes? I don’t want to do this over the phone.”
“Do what? You can’t really break up with me if we’re not officially a couple.”
Adam laughed, his warm breath traveling through to my soul. “That’s not what I meant. I can hear in your voice that a lot is going on. I don’t think a phone call is enough for me to be there for you. And I wasn’t there for you the other day, and that isn’t the person I want to be.”
My throat caught. “Come over. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
* * *
In no time, the receptionist called to announce Adam’s arrival. I met him downstairs in the lobby, where he gathered me in a tight hug. Then he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Where can we talk?”
Once we were back upstairs and in my office, door closed, Adam moved to the window and looked out pensively over San Diego bay. “This is an amazing view. The conference room where we met for the interview didn’t have this view.”
“It’s on the north side of the building. Only the west side overlooks the bay.”
“It seems like a long time ago,” Adam noted, still looking out the window, “that we had that interview. When we first met, I thought you were cute, but I didn’t know our relationship would go as far as it’s gone.”
Adam turned suddenly, and I leaned against the desk. “Eliza, we have to talk about the other day.”
“Yeah, that’s why I called. I mean, after spending all day at the hospital, my nerves were on end and I have a feeling I reacted differently than I would have on a normal day.”
“Me, too,” he replied gently. “The thing is, you called me in the morning and left a message to say you were in the hospital. I was worried all day, thinking you might be in trouble, and you hadn’t called back so I couldn’t help. I tried calling the major hospitals, Kaiser on Zion, Scripps, Sharp, the ones I could think of, but no one had your name as someone who had been admitted.”
“I should have been clearer on the phone. It must have been terrible not to know the facts.”
“You were upset, too, and I know you didn’t mean to worry me. So when you called and I found out after all that anxiety that you were with this guy who you’d said was just a friend, and he’s actually someone you live with…”
“We share the condo, but he is just a friend.”
Adam moved to where I s
tood and put his hands on my shoulders, but he was looking down at our feet, as though he didn’t want to see a lie in my eyes. “Remember at dinner I told you that I’m making an effort to avoid the whole ‘game’ of dating? That I wanted an authentic relationship?”
“Yes.”
He looked up, his midnight eyes looking deeply into my own, intent. “It’s because I’ve had the other kind of relationship, where everything is sugar-coated, just the right words for the right moments. Then those words didn’t later match up with her actions. She wasn’t who she pretended to be. I just want to know that I can trust your words to be true.”
“Liam is a friend. In fact, he’s gay. More interested in you than me. And that’s the truth.”
Adam’s hands slipped lightly from my shoulders, down my arms and to my hands, which he held. “Eliza, I’m sorry for how I acted, for how I jumped to conclusions based on my—damn it, I guess you could call it baggage—instead of listening to you. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. And that’s the truth.”
I slid my hand out of his, and wrapped my arm instantly around his neck, pulling him close. There was a pause as our eyes locked, lips centimeters apart, and then I saw the corners of his mouth turn up slightly before he pressed his soft lips to mine.
* * *
Adam didn’t have long before he had to get back to work, but we decided to head down to the first floor for a quick cup of coffee. He found us a small table in the corner of Starbucks, and I was glad to see few of my colleagues in the café.
“Are you feeling better? Overall, I mean?” Adam asked, holding my hand with one of his, and holding his coffee with the other.
“About us, yes. Life is just crazy, and while knowing we’re okay doesn’t fix everything else, it does make me feel like I’m regaining some control.”
“Everyone’s life can get a little crazy. I totally understand.”
I tilted my head. Did he understand? “It seems like things are piling up, you know?”
“It always hits all at once. So, what’s piling up with you?”
“My roommate was run down, my assistant thinks I killed my boss, and I have to start contacting authors as if life is as normal as can be. I just need to get my mind off the complications for a while.”
Best of Luck Elsewhere Page 15
