The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala

by Laura Disilverio

  She positively glowed in the way all the books say expectant mothers glow. Huh. I’d always assumed that was a hormonal thing, but apparently not.

  “This calls for a celebration,” I said. “Let’s go get a bottle of champagne. The best part about adopting is that you can drink like a sailor throughout the pregnancy.”

  She looked uncertainly back at the office. “What about—? I’m supposed to—?”

  “Lock it up and leave it,” I said. “People can bring strays in tomorrow. This afternoon, we celebrate my bestie’s impending motherhood.”

  * * *

  As a result of our celebrating, I had a slight headache as I got ready to go to Hart’s place for dinner. Even one glass of champagne does that to me. I took a couple of aspirin before showering and pulling on my jeans. As I shrugged into my clingy yellow top, my gaze fell on my pink toothbrush in its cup and I remembered Hart’s suggestion. He had been to my house for dinner, but I had never been to his place and I was curious. A guy’s place said a lot about him. I’d dumped one guy on the spot, an accountant who seemed nice and was kind of cute, when he invited me over to admire his plushy collection. He’d tried to introduce me to nearly a thousand stuffed animals, all of which he’d named, but I’d bolted after the third one, a chipmunk he called Absalom. A guy I’d dated briefly in college, during one of Doug’s and my “off” phases, had had a place so obsessively neat that I knew we were doomed. I’m no slob, but I don’t use a ruler to align the books on my bookshelves, or have labels on my fridge shelves to show where each condiment goes. I was mentally crossing my fingers that Hart wouldn’t have a display of Farrah Fawcett posters, or piles of dirty laundry on every surface (as two other guys I’d dated had).

  Hart had mentioned that his condo was a rental, and I’d been past the place numerous times, so I knew right where to go. He lived in a small complex, four buildings done up with timbers and stone to look like hunting lodges. They were built around a central courtyard with one unit per floor for a total of twelve units. Hart had the top-floor condo in the south-facing building. Looking up at it as I turned into the parking lot, I figured he’d have a great mountain view. The parking lot had recently been resurfaced with slots marked for visitors. I pulled into one and turned off the van.

  Gathering my purse and the bottle of Varaison Merlot I’d brought, I climbed the stairs and knocked.

  “It’s open,” Hart called.

  I walked in to find myself facing a wall of windows and sliding glass doors that did, indeed, frame a spectacular view of the snowcapped mountains. Not a Farrah Fawcett poster in sight—a definite plus. I noted a sofa covered in sand-colored chenille and a matching chair arranged to face the sliding glass doors and a flat-screen television mounted over a gas fireplace. There were bookshelves filled with books—another plus—skis leaning against the wall by what I assumed was a coat closet, and a chess set on a table. The walls and the carpet were a neutral taupe, but a thick area rug that reached from the hearth’s edge to the sofa added color with a geometric print in navy, reds, and tan. My gaze returned to the view. Smoke rose from a grill on the deck. I walked toward it, past the small dining room table, already set, and looked down at the barbered grass below, which merged with a meadow where four deer were feeding. The evening’s chill seeped through the glass.

  “I don’t know what you’re paying for this place,” I said, “but it’s worth every penny.” Reluctantly turning away from the view, I angled to the right where Hart was working over the kitchen sink. He was vigorously massaging a delicious-smelling rub into two steaks that rested in a pan at the bottom of the stainless steel sink.

  As I set the wine on the counter, he held up his crusty hands as an explanation. “Sorry I couldn’t get the door.” He leaned over to kiss me. He wore jeans with a hole at the knee and frayed hems, and a Rascal Flatts concert T-shirt, and smelled of soap and damp hair from a shower. His lips lingered on mine, and I began to feel light-headed. He broke away when a clump of oily spices fell from his spread hands to the floor. “Almost done here,” he said, lifting the pan out of the sink and washing his hands.

  I ripped off a paper towel and wiped up the marinade splotch. “Anything I can do?”

  “Why don’t you open the wine while I slap these on the grill?” He headed out to the deck and I searched three drawers before finding a corkscrew. Pulling the cork, I found wineglasses in a glass-fronted cabinet and poured just as Hart came through the sliding doors again, letting in a mouthwatering whiff of seared meat.

  “If I get you a jacket, can we take these out on the deck?” he asked, indicating the wineglasses. “I don’t want to overcook the steak. If it weren’t so chilly, we could eat out there. That’s what I’ve been doing all summer, but I’m afraid that’s done for the year.”

  “Sure.” I let him drape a red fleece jacket around my shoulders and followed him onto the deck. The air was bracing, but it felt good. My headache slipped away and I wrapped the fleece’s sleeves around me, liking the faint scent of Hart that rose from the jacket. Leaning over the deck rail, I watched the mule deer with their outsized ears amble across the field and into the tree line that bounded it. I tasted the wine and let its rich berry and leather flavors fill my mouth. My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t realized how stressed I was until that moment.

  “Peaceful, isn’t it?” Hart said, watching me. “When I think about buying a house, I come out here and decide that until I can find a place with the same kind of quiet and view, I’ll just stay here.”

  I turned to face him. “Have you been house-hunting?” That would mean he planned to stay. Happiness bloomed inside me at the thought.

  Picking up the long-handled fork to turn the meat, he said, “Not formally. Not with a Realtor. I’ve been looking at listings online and driving around, scoping out the areas I like.”

  “I’m sure Kerry would be happy to work with you when—if—you decide to really do it.” And she’d tell me the moment he contacted her, too, I thought. “She helped me find my house and get a really good deal on it.”

  “How do you like your steak?”

  We moved inside when the steaks were done to medium-rare perfection, and settled at the small table. Night fell outside, turning the windows to black, as our conversation ranged from real estate values in the area to discussions of our favorite TV shows. Mine—Scandal; his—The Walking Dead.

  “I’d have thought you’d like a detective show, with all the mysteries you read,” he said. “Law & Order, Blue Bloods, Elementary.”

  “Funny, I’d have guessed the same for you.”

  “Too much like real work, or so ridiculous they make me cringe,” he said, refilling our glasses.

  “What’s the worst?”

  “Castle,” he said without hesitation, spearing a round of grilled zucchini like he was stabbing the show’s creators.

  “Aw, I love Nathan Fillion,” I protested. “He’s so likable, and he and Stana Katic have such great chemistry, even though they’re married now—I mean, their characters are married.”

  He looked at me over the rim of his wineglass. “You think marriage kills romance?”

  “Only on TV,” I said. I thought about his question a bit more and added, “I do think relationships change over time, though. The romance, the heat, waxes and wanes. Friendship is as important as chemistry.”

  “Don’t you think friends have to have chemistry, too?”

  I’d never thought about it. “I guess so,” I said. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I guess there’s a friend version of love at first sight, where you just know someone is going to be a good friend from the moment you meet them. Brooke and I were like that. Oh, did I tell you she and Troy are going to adopt a baby?”

  We talked and laughed until the wine was nothing but dregs and the steak fat had congealed on our plates. Then, I cleared while he loaded dishes into the washer. When he wouldn
’t let me help with that, I wandered into the living room and inspected the titles on his bookshelves. There was a lot of history and biography, which didn’t surprise me, and an entire shelf of poetry, which did. I angled my head to read the spines: Wordsworth, Frost, Oliver, Soto, Cisneros, Angelou, Kinnell. Some I knew; some I’d never heard of.

  The scent of lemon danced around me and I heard his footstep behind me. I turned to see him holding two plates with what looked like iced lemon bread and forks. As I took one from him, our fingertips brushed and a spark arced between us. Drawing in a calming breath, I nodded toward the books. “Are you like Adam Dalgliesh?”

  He wrinkled his brow. “Who?”

  “P. D. James’s Scotland Yard inspector—a cop who writes poetry.”

  He laughed. “I read poetry, but I don’t write it. My poetic efforts run to ‘Roses are red, violets are blue. Your breath is real stinky and your armpits are, too.’ I think I wrote that in second grade. My mom still drags it out, along with all the family photos, whenever I come home for a visit.”

  “Wow, and you gave up such a promising poetic career to become a cop.” I shook my head in mock amazement. “The world’s loss.” I forked up a bit of the silky lemon cake and almost moaned as the bright citrus exploded on my tongue. “Now, this”—I pointed with my fork—“is divine. If you made this, I demand you hand in your badge immediately and open a bakery.”

  He led me over to the sofa, grinning. We sat. “I made it, but it’s my nana’s recipe. I’m not the creative type, but I can follow a recipe with the best of them.”

  “Yes, you can,” I agreed fervently, pressing my fork into the crumbs and licking them off.

  “Seconds?” he asked, amused.

  I held out my plate. “Please.”

  While he was gone, I swung my feet onto the couch, digging them under a throw pillow, and leaned back against the arm. My ghostly reflection swam on the dark glass doors. When Hart handed me my plate, he set two glasses of water on the coffee table, then sat and lifted my legs to lay them across his lap. The naturalness and intimacy of it made me catch my breath. I choked on a cake crumb. Grabbing for the water, I gulped.

  “Okay?” Hart quirked a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Fine,” I managed. To distract both of us from my flustered state, I asked, “Any luck finding that station wagon?”

  “No,” Hart admitted. He picked up one of my feet and began to massage it through my nubby sock. “But I just put the alert out this afternoon, so that’s not too surprising. Any more contact from Sharla?”

  I shook my head, the feel of his thumb digging into the ball of my foot leaving me dumb. My sock was off now and both his hands were massaging my foot, kneading and stroking, thumbs digging hard into the arch and then stroking toward the ball. I spread my toes with pleasure. It was the single most sensuous thing I’d ever experienced. We talked about our favorite authors, but I couldn’t concentrate; I was too distracted by what he was doing to my foot. He massaged each toe individually between thumb and forefinger, before sliding his fingers between the toes and then pressing them up. The stretch felt divine. He did the same thing with my whole foot, arching it down and then flexing it up. I swallowed hard. Heat rose from my core and flushed through my veins. I was totally incapable of speaking and wondered if he knew what kind of effect he was having on me. Then, his eyes, heavy-lidded and smoldering, met mine, and I knew that he did.

  His fingers entwined with mine and he pulled me toward him. I went willingly, until I was sitting across his lap, his arm around my shoulders, his lips inches from mine. I moistened my lips with the tip of my tongue.

  “I happen to have a never-used toothbrush or two,” he offered conversationally, watching for my response.

  I locked eyes with him and reached a hand up to draw his head down so I could kiss him. His hair was crisp under my fingers, not quite long enough for me to wrap my fingers around. When we broke the kiss, I smiled into his eyes. “That’s okay. I brought mine.”

  Chapter 15

  I hummed and sang my way through Thursday’s corporate off-site, eliciting first Al’s puzzlement, and then, by late afternoon, when the off-site broke up, a knowing grin.

  “Don’t go there,” I warned him when it looked like he was going to comment. I had just responded to a text from Hart saying how much he was looking forward to seeing me this weekend. Al and I were working together in my office to figure out a seating chart for a wedding reception in two weeks. It was greatly complicated by the fact that both bride’s and groom’s parents had divorced and remarried. That in itself wasn’t so bad—I dealt with that all the time—but the bride’s father had married the groom’s sister, a woman thirty years his junior, and the mother’s family, Sicilians from the old country, had all sworn they’d get revenge on him. The groom’s parents weren’t too happy with him, or their daughter, either. I was seriously thinking about suggesting that the young couple elope.

  “Go where, boss?” Al asked innocently. “I’ll tell you the one place I’m definitely not going is to this wedding.” He stabbed a finger at one of the crumpled seating charts we’d discarded. “I think we ought to have a metal detector at the church door.”

  “Know where we can get one?” I asked, only half-joking.

  When we had done the best we could with the seating chart, Al left to set up for this evening’s event, and I turned my attention toward my research assignment for tonight. As busy as I’d been yesterday—and last night, I thought, grinning to myself—I hadn’t had time to look into Cosmo Zeller. I started with a basic search and netted more than twenty thousand hits. Whoa. I skipped through several pages of entries and realized that every time one of his movies was reviewed, his name got mentioned. Great. Slogging through all of this to find the kernels would take days. Weeks.

  I waded in. Two hours later, my eyes were blurred and I had only a couple of paragraphs of information about Cosmo, starting with the fact that his birth name wasn’t Cosmo; it was Phineas. He’d been born in a small town in Illinois and skipped town immediately after high school in search of fame and fortune as a Hollywood actor. There was a gap of several years in his bio, where I suspected he’d spent more time waiting tables or parking cars than in front of the cameras. He reemerged as Cosmo Zeller, with a nose job and capped teeth, in his late twenties, with an assistant producer credit on a forgettable romantic comedy. Two years later, he produced a blockbuster thriller and his fortune was finally made. He acquired a wife, divorced, and remarried, all before hitting thirty-five. He had three children with wife number two, and she had taken him to the cleaners in a recent divorce, if the tabloid reports were accurate. I whistled when I saw how much the courts seemed to think she and the kids needed on a monthly basis. I could pay off my mortgage for less than one month’s alimony and child support.

  Cosmo had produced a string of hits in the nineties and the early part of the next decade, earning comparisons with Bruckheimer and that ilk. Lately, though, it seemed to me, he had lost the magic touch. His last three films had been flops, one of them of such epic (and expensive) proportions as to earn it a place on the list of Top Ten Hollywood Box Office Bombs of all time, snuggled up between Heaven’s Gate and the Johnny Depp Lone Ranger. His multimillion-dollar Hollywood Hills home, with its tennis court, indoor and outdoor pools, movie-viewing room, humidor room, and ocean view, was on the market. I wasted half an hour doing the video tour of the house and wondering about how someone cleaned the crystals on the chandelier hung twenty feet above the foyer floor, and how long it had taken to paint the elaborate trompe l’oeil murals of Roman ruins in the pool house.

  Bringing my mind back to the task, I jotted a summary of Phineas “Cosmo” Zeller on a three-by-five card.

  self-made millionaire; one of Hollywood’s top producers; two Oscars

  divorced, father of three, huge child support/alimony payments—financial difficulties?

&
nbsp; industry sources say he needs a big hit; Barbary Close his ticket back to big time?

  As six o’clock approached, I tucked the card into my purse and headed for home. In the back of my mind, I knew we were running out of time. Once the week was up, the three authors and their families and Cosmo Zeller would scatter, leaving Heaven for their normal lives. Once that happened, I didn’t think we had a prayer of figuring out who had killed Trent Van Allen.

  * * *

  Just before seven o’clock, I surveyed my sunroom with satisfaction. It was a small rectangular space furnished with wicker chairs upholstered in bright floral cotton. Celadon-colored ceramic tile covered the floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out to the front, side, and rear yards. I had the wooden blinds closed now that it was night, which made the room feel a bit smaller, but also cozier. Plants, hand-selected by Lola as her housewarming gift to me, dangled from baskets and sprouted from ceramic pots. It was my favorite room in the bungalow that was 99.9 percent the bank’s and 0.1 percent mine. Feeling a little chilly, I dashed to the den to grab the afghan off the chair in there and bring it into the sunroom.

  The doorbell rang, and I let in Brooke, still glowing with the joy of impending motherhood. Her glossy hair bobbed from a high ponytail and she seemed to dance as she walked. We went into the galley kitchen, where she helped herself to some Pinot Grigio from the box I’d bought on my way home. She was babbling about a conversation with Kay, her baby’s birth mother, when she stopped midsentence and eyed me narrowly.

  “Something’s different about you,” she said.