It was hard to tell if this was a ritual male scuffle—elk clashing their antlers—or a serious fight. Either way, I can’t say it bothered me to see the supercilious Jason getting knocked around a little.
The third figure was less ambiguous: Frank Sanjek, the bridegroom, was kneeling on the grass and being hideously sick. Another male ritual. I sighed and shook my head. Time for me to go.
But once I went downstairs and finished some genuine work, a nagging question kept me from actually walking out the door. I had assured Lily that her brother was fine, and now he was apparently in the middle of a fistfight. Shouldn’t I check on the outcome?
For that matter, shouldn’t I make sure that the amiable, sensible bridegroom wasn’t unconscious and abandoned by his drunken friends, out in the freezing night? Eddie tells me I fuss too much about our clients, and maybe it’s true, but I couldn’t wait to see Sally Tyler walk down the aisle and out of my life. And to that end, I needed Frank Sanjek safe and sound.
So I rode the elevator up to the storeroom one last time, and pulled out my illicit spyglasses. I had forgotten to turn the radio off, so as I scanned the scene across the canal the talk station provided an incongruous sound track: several snooty-sounding people debating the situation in Northern Ireland.
There was even less to see this time. The café’s windows had gone dark, which made it hard to get a clear view into the shrubbery. But Frank was definitely gone. In fact, I couldn’t see anyone at all except for Santa Claus. She was striding briskly down the street away from the café in her padded red suit, head up and shoulders back after a job well done.
All’s well that ends well, I thought idly. I’m just glad we didn’t have a damage deposit—
“Bird watching?”
I gasped and whirled around. Eddie’s binoculars slipped from my nerveless fingers and landed in the silver punch bowl with a enormous and resounding gonnng.
I was shocked, and not just because a man was now lounging in the storeroom doorway. I was shocked by who it was.
Aaron Gold. The man I’d been dating, the man I’d been falling for. The man who had a wife back in Boston.
I hadn’t spoken to him since I found out.
The air in the storeroom was clean and neutral; now that I was paying attention, I could smell a blend of cigars and retsina from where I stood.
So he was shooting pool in the other room. And then watching Santa…
Unlike the younger party guys, Aaron wore a tie, but it hung loose from his collar, and his crow-black hair was mussed. The deep-set brown eyes gleamed even more than usual, and when he smiled, his swift white grin came out lopsided.
“S’ Christmas,” he said, nodding his head sagely. A lock of hair flopped down into his eyes. “You’re gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”
I stood with my back to the reverberating punch bowl, and took a deep breath. I didn’t know how long he had watched me watching, or whether he could guess that I’d been spying on the striptease. I also didn’t know how I felt about him, after the last few weeks of angry silence and unwilling tears.
And what neither of us knew, and wouldn’t learn until the next day, was this: of the three young men I had observed on the grass behind the Hot Spot Café, only two were still alive.
Also by Deborah Donnelly
Veiled Threats
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 2002 by Deborah Wessell Cover art copyright © 2002 by Deborah Campbell
All rights reserved.
Dell(r)is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-48381-2
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
It was dead calm until…
Lavish praise for Veiled Threats.
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty-Four
About the Author
Copyright
Died to Match Page 29
