by Amy Vansant
Jogging back to her apartment, Catriona grabbed her keys and returned to unlock his door.
She poked her head inside.
“Broch?”
The room appeared to be filled with smoke.
Oh no. She’d been meaning to show him how to use modern appliances before he burned down the building, and now it was too late.
“Broch!”
She plunged into the room.
“Broch!”
The Highlander remained missing, but she could see nothing was on his stove. Most of the smoke gathered at the entrance to the bedroom.
With Broch and his eighteenth century proclivities, it was impossible to guess what she might find. Her first thought was that he’d been chilly and built a fire in his room to keep warm.
She strode to the bedroom, where it proved even harder to see. Only then did it occur to her that the smoke had no smell.
Not only that, it felt wet.
It wasn’t smoke at all.
It was steam.
She heard the hiss of the shower. The mist was so thick, it looked as though Broch had spent the last hour filming Hounds of the Baskervilles in his bedroom.
“Broch!”
“Eh?” came a call from inside the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah’m bathin’. This water gits sae het. Tis lik heaven.”
She raised her arms in agitation, though she knew the chances that he could see her were slim. “No wonder I can’t get any hot water. You’ve used it all. It looks like the moors at midnight out here.”
“It runs oot?”
“Yes, it runs oot.”
“I wis just thinkin’ t’wasn’t as warm as t’was, but now it feels more lik’ whit ah’m used tae, which is nice, tae.”
She threw back her head and let out a grunt of frustration. “Get out and get dressed for dinner, you big goof. I’m going to go suffer through a lukewarm shower.”
“Aye. Ah will. Ah’m coolin’ myself.”
She stormed back to her apartment and prepared for their meeting with Sean. After the fastest shower ever taken, she was still muttering under her breath as she slipped into a dress she hadn’t worn for nearly a year. Sean had said to wear something nice.
As a rule, her work called for stain-proof more often than nice, so it felt good to get gussied-up.
By the time she put on her makeup, her ire over Broch’s water use had faded. She was too excited to stay mad any longer.
She was nervous to hear what Sean would share with them. She took heart that the fancy evening had all the earmarks of a celebratory dinner.
That has to bode well, doesn’t it?
Make-upped and heeled, she returned to the hallway to knock on Broch’s door. This time, the door flung open and Broch stood before her in a t-shirt and a kilt.
Not again.
He grinned. “Keek at ye. How come yer sae tall?”
She crossed her right leg in front of her left shin so he could see her heels.
His expression said he was impressed. “Och. ‘Tis quite a shank ye hae there.”
She scowled and dropped her leg.
“That’s a bonnie dress yer wearin’. And yer locks are sae—” He reached out and fluffed her hair.
“Hey!” Scowling, she stepped back, arranging her locks back into place. She pointed at his shirt. On it, a penguin wearing a top hat rested a flipper on a fancy walking cane.
“Where do you even find these shirts?” she asked.
He pulled the tee out from his body and peered down at it. “It’s a bird in a bunnet,” he said, chuckling.
“I see that. Sean said to wear something nice.”
“Aye. He’s wearing a bow on his neck. See?” He pointed to the penguin’s bow tie.
“So that makes it your formal tee shirt?”
“Aye. He has a walkin’ cane as well.”
“I think Sean was thinking something a little more formal for you, not the bird.”
Broch thought for a moment and then nodded. “Oh. Aye.” He flipped up the gathering of fabric at the back of his kilt and crossed it across his chest, securing it with a simple round brooch he’d had pinned to the waistband. “There. Ready?”
She made a mental note to ask costuming for an intervention with him.
“Perfect.” She walked past him to the elevator, pushed the call button and stood waiting for him to join her. As he did, she mumbled. “I hope you’re at least wearing the underwear I bought you.”
His eyes lit. “Aye. Ah love thaim.” He lifted his kilt and she saw he wore the boxer briefs she’d bought for him upon their return to Hollywood, his muscular thighs bulging from the bottom of them. She caught the outline of what else the briefs packaged and looked away, her cheeks feeling flush.
He grinned. “They’re lik’ a wee hug, doon below.”
She took a deep breath as the doors opened. “Baby steps.”
He followed, still beaming as he dropped his kilt.
She caught him looking at her sidelong, a smirk on his face.
She turned to him. “You’re doing all this on purpose to drive me crazy, aren’t you?”
“Whit?”
“You know exactly what you’re doing. You like to watch me squirm.”
He shook his head. “Ah dinnae ken whit ye mean.”
Turning forward, he pressed his lips together as if to keep from laughing. After a moment he tilted sideways toward her, without looking at her.
“Ye keek beautiful,” he mumbled.
She turned away to hide her smile.
Chapter Six
1995 – Los Angeles, California
Joe Wake paused, his hand resting on the knob of his back door.
Something felt off, as if a furry little spider leg was scratching at the back of his neck. Tapping.
SOS. SOS.
Something was wrong. He could feel it.
He turned and walked back through his living room, the only illumination provided by the tiny spotlight forever trained on his Emmy award. It wasn’t vanity that kept the light on. The switch that controlled that beam ran independently from the room’s other switches and was a pain to turn off, so it remained on, serving as a makeshift nightlight for midnight snacking.
Joe re-entered his bedroom, closed the en suite bathroom door but for a crack, and turned on the bathroom’s light.
His wife Theresa’s face was turned away from the light. His wife slept hard. She drank. Still, she’d awoken before, nearly catching him sneaking out to visit his girlfriend.
He’d shared the story of his near-capture with his girlfriend, Cathy. Cathy’s friend was with them at the time, and the girl told him that she used to crush a sleeping pill in her ex-boyfriend’s drink each night. She said he had a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night, half drunk and half hungover, mad at the world. So she made sure he didn’t wake up and slept better herself.
He’d tried the trick on Theresa and it worked better than he could have imagined. He could dress, leave the house to spend a few hours with Cathy, come back, undress, and Theresa would barely move a muscle throughout. In the morning, she’d wake up refreshed and none the wiser.
But now…
Something isn’t right.
He moved toward the bed and lowered his hand to Theresa’s ribs.
He felt no movement.
Reluctant to wake her for fear he’d miss his date, he retracted his hand and stared at his wife for a minute.
She’s breathing, right?
No one died from one sleeping pill. Did they?
That’s when he smelled it. A pungent citrus scent. It was a little like his wife’s breath after she had grapefruit and vodkas.
Bending at the waist, he sniffed his wife. Near her face the smell was the strongest, but her head blocked the light leaking from the bathroom and he couldn’t see much.
Placing a single finger on her shoulder, he pulled her onto her back, his teeth locked in a grimace of expectati
on. She was going to wake up and scream.
She didn’t.
Theresa’s mouth gaped, her skin pale in the glow of the bathroom light. Chunks of tan mush clung to her lips and cheek. Her eyes were open. Unmoving. Unblinking.
He swallowed as he processed this new data. Then, something in his mind snapped free and he sprang into action.
“Theresa!” He shook her, her body bouncing on the bed without resistance. He touched her face and found it cold.
He gasped and stepped back.
Dead.
Already, the tabloid headlines swirled in his skull.
He’d never work again.
Hell, he’d never see the light of day again.
He’d be thrown into jail to rot.
He stared down at his wife and felt a pang of remorse. There was the loss of Theresa to contend with as well. She was lazy, demanding, a bit of a nightmare but, he did love her in his way. She was like a pair of old shoes that caused blisters, but at one time, they’d been his favorite pair of shoes—
He flopped into a stuffed chair.
What am I thinking? I just killed my wife and I’m standing here comparing her to a pair of loafers.
He stared at the arm of the chair, tracing the flowers on it with a fingertip.
I hate this pattern.
He could get rid of the chair now. Claim the rest of the closet. Get rid of the pink wallpaper in the spare bathroom—
Stop it.
This wasn’t a chance to redecorate. It was a nightmare. These days, DNA and other crime testing was so sophisticated they’d certainly find the sleeping medicine in her body.
Fingerprints.
He turned to the bathroom where the light still glowed, as if nothing had happened. As if it hadn’t shown him his dead wife.
The pill bottle.
He stood and flung open his closet, retrieving the bottle of sleeping pills he kept hidden in an old loafer.
He chuckled, recalling his earlier thoughts.
I hid the pills in an old loafer. How ironic.
Grabbing a sock, he rubbed down the bottle to remove any fingerprints.
No.
That would be weird if they found a bottle with no finger prints. He left the walk-in and approached the body of his wife, her frozen stare still gawking at the ceiling, her face speckled with chicken piccata. Gingerly lifting her hand, he pressed her fingers against the bottle and then, with his hand in the sock like a puppet, he carried the bottle to the bathroom and put it in the medicine cabinet.
What now? Crawl in bed and pretend to find her in the morning?
He shivered at the thought of it.
Reaching for his phone he dialed his girlfriend.
Cathy will know what to do. She was a nurse—
He stopped one digit short of completion.
No. It’s too late for CPR.
He looked at his wife. Was it too late? Had he missed an opportunity?
Leaning in with the idea of attempting mouth-to-mouth, he spotted a speck of the evening’s spinach salad hanging from his wife’s lip and gagged.
No. Too late for CPR. Definitely.
He took a second to allow his roiling stomach to settle and tried dialing again. Cathy couldn’t raise the dead; but, he had to at least warn her. She had to know it was more important than ever that their affair remain a secret. And, he had to ensure that her friend, if questioned, wouldn’t tell the cops that Theresa died the same way she’d told him she’d knocked out her boyfriend.
That would be bad.
He dialed six numbers and then stopped.
Phone records. He couldn’t call Cathy. He needed to see her in person.
Joe grabbed his keys, bolted to his car and sped to Cathy’s house in West Hollywood. In his head, he ran through all the possible ways he could explain to her what had happened. He had to spin every sentence to ensure she pictured Theresa’s death as a terrible accident. That his wife overdosed.
Yes. She overdosed on sleeping pills.
He knew Theresa as such a sound sleeper that the obvious answer to his problems hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d tell Cathy that Theresa had been having trouble sleeping.
Thank god I never told her I’d been using the sleeping pills to safely sneak in and out of the house.
He’d been too ashamed to tell his girlfriend the great lengths to which he’d gone to cheat on Theresa. If Cathy knew how terrified he was of his wife, she’d be disgusted. Plus, he’d found it best to never hand girlfriends extra ammunition. Break-ups happened—some ran more smoothly than others.
Arriving at Cathy’s apartment, he leapt out of the Ferrari and immediately heard another car door slam. He flinched and turned toward the noise. A block away, a man stood next to a car. His head was turned in Joe’s direction.
Crap.
He spun away and pretended to walk down the street, glancing over his shoulder until he saw the man drive away.
Whew.
He boomeranged back to Cathy’s apartment.
Joe found Cathy’s front door cracked open. Though it was possible she’d left it open for their evening rendezvous, it seemed odd. As a single woman with a small child, Cathy always erred on the side of safety.
For the second time that evening, he knew something was not right. His mouth went dry as he pushed open the door.
His first step into the house made a crunching sound. He felt something grind beneath his shoe. By the dull glow of the outside street light, he saw glass glittering on the ground inside the door.
That’s when he noticed the broken pane.
His blood ran cold.
I left the scene of one crime to enter the scene of another.
“Cathy?” he called, the word sticking in his throat.
He coughed and tried again.
“Cathy?”
Tip-toeing toward the back of the house, he paused to peer into the child’s room.
Empty.
He chewed his tongue in an attempt to work up some saliva.
“Cathy?” he called again.
No response.
He flicked a switch on the wall and the hall light buzzed to life. The soft glow made him feel a little better. In the movies, intruders always cut the lines. If the lights worked, that was a good sign.
He closed his eyes and daydreamed about a time he and Cathy would laugh about this evening.
Something had broken the window and the frightened girl went to sleep in her mother’s bed. That’s all. Nothing sinister.
Continuing down the hall, he entered his girlfriend’s bedroom.
Cathy’s body lay on the ground beside her bed, her eyes open, glistening in the light from the hall. He saw no blood or wounds, but her neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
Joe collapsed to his knees.
His wife and girlfriend both dead on the same evening.
There was a square of paper beside Cathy.
He picked it up and turned it over.
In the dim light he could see it was a photo of Cathy and him.
Together.
He blanched, and his mind cleared but for a single, urgent thought.
I have to get back home.
If there was a possibility that people would suspect that he had something to do with Cathy’s death, he’d never convince anyone he was guilt-free of Theresa’s.
He stuffed the photo in his pocket. Removing his sock, he wiped everything he’d touched and bolted back to his Ferrari.
Trembling, he found it impossible to insert his key in the ignition. He took a deep breath and used his opposite hand to steady the first. The key entered the hole. With a twist, the engine roared to life. He made a mental note to sell the old sports car and get something more likely to inspire sympathy.
Widowers in sports cars were always guilty of something.
He gasped at the sound of the word in his head.
Widower.
I’m a widower.
He perked, mood lightening. Girls love widower
s.
Ashamed, he shook his head like a wet dog in an attempt to rid himself of evil thoughts.
Stop it. Drive.
Not far from home, it occurred to him that anyone could have seen him driving. Any story of sleeping all night beside his dead wife would be blown.
He stopped at a gas station and found a payphone. He called Parasol Picture’s emergency line, the line he was never to call except in situations of life and death.
This counted. Twice.
When he finished conveying his vague need for help, he walked into the gas station and searched for an item that a person might run out in the middle of the night to buy. He settled on toothpaste.
At home he hid the toothpaste already in his bathroom and pushed Theresa back on her side. She’d begun to stiffen and he had to force her arm back into a more natural position.
When he felt she looked most natural, he stood, fists clenched, willing himself to stay calm until the studio’s fixers arrived.
He made it forty-five seconds before the phone rang. Startled, he yipped.
Grabbing his chest with one hand he braced himself for the next ring, praying it never came.
It did.
He took a deep breath and answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Did you kill your girlfriend?”
Joe’s breathing stopped. “What?”
“Did you kill Cathy Foster?”
At the sound of Cathy’s name, he slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. He moved a finger to answer. “Who is this?”
“I know who killed her. But it looks like you did.”
“Oh god...”
“56 Grapevine Drive. Now.”
The phone clicked.
Joe remained with the receiver at his ear, unable to move for several minutes. Finally, he set it down and, heading back into his closet, retrieved a small vial of cocaine.
He snorted all that remained and, feeling stronger, once again ran to find his car keys.
Half-way to the Ferrari he turned and ran back into the house to get his gun.
Chapter Seven
1995 – Los Angeles, California
Sean’s gaze swept across the darkened Parasol Pictures studio lot. He preferred the lot at night, without the bustle of movie production thrumming at every turn.
