If She Should Die

by Carlene Thompson

  The wave of tenderness Michael felt for Christine was so strong, he was hardly aware of leaning toward her and gently caressing her cheek. A warm tear rolled down over his finger as his gaze held hers. Slowly their faces neared, then touched. Their lips met.

  They didn’t sink into a rapturous embrace as the music from the movie soared. The kiss remained soft, tenuous, almost what Michael’s grandmother used to call a butterfly kiss, when lashes brushed cheeks like vibrating butterfly wings with just enough force to set each being tingling from the fragile contact.

  Michael felt as if time stopped, or at least slowed considerably. The television music softened and Michael could hear the ringing of the wind chimes in front of an open window facing the street—perfectly tuned, resonant chimes, tinkling hauntingly.

  They pulled back and looked at each other. Michael knew he should feel embarrassed, but he didn’t. And Christine did not look uncomfortable or regretful. The kiss had felt natural, inevitable. And calming, he realized. For the first time in years, his world seemed to regain color and to slowly ease from pain into a tranquil peace where none of the devastating things that had happened to him in Los Angeles jabbed constantly at his psyche.

  Michael looked at Christine solemnly. “I should have asked—”

  She put her fingertip to his lips. “No. You knew it’s what I wanted.”

  “It’s what I wanted. Maybe what I’ve wanted since I first walked into Prince Jewelry. Behind the counter, you seemed so strong, so sure of yourself. But when you served me coffee and sat at the table talking with me about Dara, I could see the vulnerability in your eyes. Strength and vulnerability in one gorgeous package. You don’t give a guy a chance, Christine Ireland.”

  Christine smiled, ducking her head a bit. “You must see me in a different light than most men do.” She smiled. “I believe I usually come off as big and bossy.”

  “Maybe you do, to people who are intimidated by you.” He put his arm around her shoulder without asking himself if it was proper. He thought Rhiannon would leap away for safety, but she only shifted position and burrowed further into Christine’s lap. Christine sighed and leaned against him. “I hadn’t realized how tired I was.”

  “Mental turmoil can exhaust you faster than physical activity.”

  “I guess.” Her head rested against his shoulder, her blond hair gleaming and soft. Her gaze was fixed on the television.

  “I’m sorry for the spectacle I’ve made of myself, Michael. I’m not usually so whiny. And I’m not usually drunk at two in the afternoon.”

  “You haven’t been in the least bit whiny. If you had, I would have given you a sharp rap across the knuckles to bring you back to your senses.”

  “You’re a hard taskmaster.”

  “And as for the drinking . . .” She drew back, looking at him intently. “You’re extremely cute when your guard is down.”

  “Oh, it’s down,” she said with a rueful smile. “In spite of the wine, I feel like someone kicked me.”

  “Ames was a bastard to you. You certainly don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

  “I’d like to think that, but I know how much I’ve hurt him by giving you the diary.”

  “You didn’t give it to me to hurt him. This isn’t about him. That’s what he has to get through his head. This is about Dara. You are trying to help figure out who killed her.”

  She nodded silently, with a trace of guilt. She wanted to know who had murdered Dara. But mostly she wanted to clear her brother of any suspicion. “Michael, I didn’t mention this before, but if you read the whole diary, you know she was pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  “They must have done an autopsy on the corpse by now. Was there a fetus?”

  Michael hesitated. “I’m afraid that’s one of those things I’m not allowed to discuss with civilians.”

  “You’re dodging the questions, which means they did find a fetus,” Christine said dully. “Poor Dara. I wonder what she planned to do about it? She says she was afraid of abortion and I remember her telling me about a friend of hers who’d hemorrhaged to death after having one done by some amateur, then not going to the hospital when the bleeding started. Dara usually wasn’t the most empathetic or compassionate person in the world, but both Dara and the other girl were only fourteen when it happened. Her death seemed to have made a really lasting, horrifying impression on Dara. I know she feared abortion. So did she think she’d marry the father and have the baby? Or have it even if she didn’t marry the father?”

  “That would probably have depended on who the father was. She doesn’t give any clues in the diary. We also don’t know how her lovers would have felt about it. One might have wanted it if it was his; another would have wanted her to get rid of it.

  “Maybe that’s what got her killed,” Michael said. “Maybe the lover insisted she have an abortion, she wouldn’t cooperate, and he had too much to lose if the truth came out.”

  “And maybe she told a man who loved her she was pregnant with another man’s child.”

  “We can speculate for hours, but at this point, we don’t know anything.” Michael stroked her hair. “I want you to put all of this out of your head for now. I want you to relax, to think pleasant thoughts if you can, and to give yourself up to the movie. It’s a beautiful and tragic love story. The kind all you girls like.”

  Christine looked into Rhiannon’s face. “Hear that? Mr. Stone Age thinks only women like beautiful and tragic love stories.”

  “Well, not only women—” Michael began.

  “Too late and no harm done.” She turned her head and gave him a quick, shy kiss on the cheek. “Go catch some bad guys.”

  Michael paused at the door and looked back. Christine was watching the movie closely as Count Almásy carefully wrapped the body of his love, Katharine Clifton, in a parachute and carried her down from the Cave of Fishes to a small open plane long buried in the sand. He placed her in the back of the half-rotten plane and began the doomed flight meant to begin Katharine’s journey to England for her final rest.

  Michael saw Christine’s eyes fill with tears as the tiny plane took off and soared over an endless, rippling sea of camel-colored desert while Katharine’s golden hair, slender arm, and canvas shroud fluttered gracefully against the tranquility of an exotic turquoise sky.

  2

  An hour later someone knocked at Christine’s door. She’d dried her eyes after her movie, drunk two cups of coffee, and tried to concentrate on a book she’d been reading for the past two weeks but couldn’t get past the third chapter. When the knocking started, she gratefully tossed the book aside, deciding to give up on it for good, and opened her door to find Rey Cimino.

  “Hey there,” he said, smiling. “Decide to quit answering your phone?”

  “What? No.”

  “Jeremy has called. I’ve called.”

  “Is something wrong with Jeremy?” she asked anxiously. “He’s at the store.”

  “I know he’s at the store. He called me. He wants both of us to come there.”

  Christine rushed to her phone and picked it up. No dial tone. She checked the cord and found it disconnected from the wall. She whirled on Rhiannon. “Rhi, have you been playing with this again?” The cat fled from the room. “Guilty, obviously. And I had the television on too loud to hear the upstairs phone. Why didn’t you call my cell phone?”

  “I did. But when I got here, I saw it lying in your car.”

  Christine closed her eyes. She’d been so upset when she left Ames’s house after he’d fired her, she hadn’t closed her purse after removing her car keys. The cell phone had fallen out and she hadn’t even noticed it.

  “God, anything could have happened to Jeremy and I wouldn’t have noticed!”

  “Relax, Chris; he’s fine. But excited. He said he wants both of us to come to the store because he has a surprise. It’s something he’s been working on for a while.”

  Christine raised her eyebrows. “The mysterious
something that’s been compelling him to go in early, when he can work without you watching him?”

  “I guess so. Get your things. We’re on a mission!”

  Christine was still chastising herself for her carelessness with the cell phone, as well as thinking up ways to keep Rhiannon away from the house phone’s wall connection, when they reached the store.

  Ginger waited with Jeremy inside. “I just happened to be down here looking at the flood damage and I saw this character in here,” she said, nudging Jeremy, who smiled. “I hope you don’t care that I invaded the place!”

  “It doesn’t look like you’ve done too much damage,” Christine said in a weak attempt at a joke. She was no longer the manager of this store. What happened here really wasn’t her business, but she couldn’t force herself to tell everyone. Certainly she couldn’t tell Rey and Ginger before she told Jeremy. “So, little brother, what’s the big deal?”

  “I wanted to show everybody what I’ve been working on,” Jeremy said excitedly. “Only I hoped Tess would be here, too.”

  “She was supposed to stop by Chris’s earlier,” Rey said. “I guess she changed her mind, though. But let’s not wait for her. What is it, Jeremy?”

  “Well, before I’ve designed jewelry, but I never made any,” Jeremy told everyone. “Rey did the making. But I came in the store at times when Rey wouldn’t be here so I could make something all by myself. Only I wanted him to see it to make sure it was okay before I showed it to Ames. And you, too, Christy.”

  Jeremy held out a little black jewelry box in which nestled a beautiful pin. At the center was a perfect rosebud carved from coral. Surrounding the rose were intricately etched silver leaves.

  “I’m calling it the Dara Pin,” Jeremy explained slowly. “Everything in it means something to her. Like, she thought maybe these really old Indians called the Incas lived on the land across from Crescent Creek and built the mounds. Rey told me the Incas called silver ‘tears of the moon.’ Dara would like that. And I read in one of my jewelry books that there’s this real old belief that coral keeps evil away. She would like that, too. And I carved the coral into the shape of a rose like the ones that grow in her mother’s garden in the summer.” Jeremy paused and looked at Christine hopefully. “Do you like it?”

  Christine’s throat had been tightening the whole time Jeremy talked. What a Herculean effort he had put into thinking out the design of this pin, dredging up what Dara and Rey had told him, plowing in his slow way through jewelry books to find a stone that would be meaningful to Dara, deciding on the design of a rose that would charm her because she associated it with her mother. And he wanted Christine’s approval before he showed it to Ames, whom he hoped to please. But most of all, he wanted to please Dara—Dara, who Christine was certain was dead, but who Jeremy so desperately wanted to believe would someday come home.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Christine said softly, hearing the quaver in her voice. Please don’t let me cry in front of everyone, she thought. Reynaldo and Ginger would know she wasn’t just crying over the beauty of the pin Jeremy had designed and crafted. They would know something else was wrong, and she couldn’t discuss her dismissal from the store now. Not until she had told Jeremy. “You put so much work into this!”

  “It was fun,” Jeremy said proudly. “And I didn’t use expensive stuff, in case I messed up. You know, like eighteen-karat gold and a ruby or something.”

  “I think this is lovelier,” Christine answered. “There’s a bush in Eve’s garden that bears a rose exactly the color of this coral. That makes it extra-special.”

  “That rosebush was Dara’s favorite!” Jeremy exclaimed.

  He beamed as Rey and Ginger stepped closer to look at the pin. Ginger immediately gushed. Rey studied the pin, then gave Jeremy a slow smile. “You did a wonderful job, Jeremy,” he said at last. “I don’t think I could have done as well. Dara would love this. So will Ames.”

  Oh God, Christine thought. Should she risk letting Jeremy present the pin to Ames? The man was behaving so erratically he could throw down the ring and stomp on it for all she knew. She wasn’t about to let Ames’s anger with her crush Jeremy’s ego. She would have to think this out, maybe talk over a solution with Streak and Wilma.

  Rey draped an arm over her shoulder and looked into her face. “What’s wrong, Chris? You look like you’re going to cry.”

  “I’m just so touched by what Jeremy has done. I didn’t even know he’d come this far in his craftsmanship.”

  “Frankly, neither did I,” Rey said. “Jeremy, you’ve been holding out on me. Were you afraid I’d get jealous, afraid you were going to steal my job?”

  “Oh, I could never take over for you,” Jeremy assured him sincerely. “This is just one piece and it took me forever.”

  “Oh, but it was worth it!” Ginger enthused. “I wish I had a pin like that!”

  “I think it’s one of a kind,” Rey told her. “Isn’t it, Jeremy?”

  “Yeah. Just for Dara. But maybe I could make you something else for Christmas, Ginger.”

  “That would be so cool, Jeremy!” Ginger’s pixie face was all freckles and animation. “A Jeremy Ireland original!”

  “Well, don’t we look cozy!”

  Everyone looked up to see Tess standing in the doorway. Her gaze was leveled at Rey and Christine. Rey quickly lowered his arm from Christine’s shoulder, but accusation burned in Tess’s eyes. “Am I interrupting a private party?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Christine said. “Come look what Jeremy made.”

  Tess looked at the pin. Christine could see her drawing herself together for Jeremy’s sake in order to force a smile. “Jeremy, that is beautiful,” she said. “And you made it all by yourself?”

  “Yes,” he said, eyes still glowing. “For Dara. She can wear it when she comes home.” He paused before saying sadly, “I guess I mean if she comes home.”

  Christine broke in. “Isn’t the carving exquisite, Tess? I had no idea Jeremy’s skills had developed to this extent.”

  “Yes, exquisite,” Tess repeated. She looked at Rey. “Sure you didn’t help?”

  “No, I did not,” Rey said firmly. “I didn’t know anything about it. This was a surprise to all of us. A wonderful surprise, Jeremy!”

  “Can we go show it to Ames now, Christy?” Jeremy asked.

  “Oh, it’s getting pretty late and I think he’s busy with arrangements for Patricia’s funeral. I don’t believe this would be the best time.”

  “Oh. Patricia. Gosh, I forgot. That was really bad of me.”

  “Not bad. You were just excited over the pin. You can show it to him in a few days.” Christine glanced at her watch. “I think we should go home now, Jeremy. Only I didn’t drive down here. Rey brought me.”

  “Rey brought you?” Tess asked sharply.

  “Yes. Rhiannon had unplugged my phone and my cell was in the car. Jeremy couldn’t reach me, but he got Rey, so he stopped by for me. Rey, would you mind taking Jeremy and me home?”

  “I’ll take you home,” Tess said adamantly. “Rey, I’ll see you at our house later.”

  And that was the first inkling Christine had that along with all other halfway attractive women, Tess saw her as a rival for her husband’s affections. Christine felt slightly sick inside, both for the damage Tess’s doubts would do to their relationship, but also because she realized her friend’s jealousy where Rey was concerned had reached the stage of destructive paranoia.

  Or had it always been that way?

  3

  Rey stared at the television. Prosecutor Jack McCoy jumped to his feet and in his resonant voice tossed a violent objection into the arena of the courtroom. The judge overruled him and he sat down, frustration etched all over his craggy, handsome face.

  Tess walked into the room swathed in her old flannel robe, an even older discolored towel thrown over her shoulders and her hair slicked flat with a smelly dark concoction. Rey wrinkled his nose. “What is on your hair?”
>
  “Honeyed Almond Number Thirty-five,” she said, touching her hair with a plastic-gloved hand. “You said you hated the blond streaks.”

  “They didn’t look like any shade of blond I’ve seen in nature,” he returned, craning his neck to look past her at the television. Jack McCoy was objecting again.

  “You mean my hair didn’t look like Christine’s.”

  “I meant your hair looked better its natural color.”

  Tess sighed. “How many times have you seen this rerun of Law and Order?”

  “Fifty-two. Fifty-two and three-fourths counting tonight. Please move. You’re blocking the screen.”

  “You could recite the dialogue from memory.”

  “Yes, but McCoy’s delivery is better than mine. No accent.”

  “I love your accent.”

  “Thanks. Move.”

  Tess sighed again and moved to the couch, sitting down near Rey’s chair. She looked at the television. A weeping woman told of her heartbreak over having her son slain by a vicious killer. “Why are you so hung up on all this murder stuff?” Tess asked. “It’s not natural.”

  “I like the mystery. And judging by the popularity of the show, I must not be too unnatural.”

  “I think it’s unnatural to watch the same show over and over.”

  “You’re in a bad mood, Tess. You’ve been in a bad mood ever since you walked into Prince Jewelry today.”

  “And found you holding Christine in your arms.”

  Rey looked at her incredulously. “I had my arm around her shoulder. She looked upset. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something is. It seems to me you’d be concerned about her, too, after all she’s been through.”