by Nora Roberts
murder?
She shook her head. Tomorrow, she thought again, and reached in her bag for her lipstick.
The explosion of sound had her hand jerking. The slim gold tube clattered onto the counter. Her eyes, locked on their twins in the mirror, went wide with shock.
Gunshots? Impossible.
Even as the denial raced through her, she heard the high, horrified sound of a woman’s scream.
She rushed to the door, knocking her bag off the counter and scattering its contents behind her.
Outside people were shouting, some were running. She shoved through, using hands and elbows. She broke free and ran for the steps just as Ryan rounded the lower landing.
“It— From upstairs. It came from upstairs.”
“Stay here.”
He might have saved his breath. She hiked up her skirt and was pounding up behind him. He knocked aside the velvet rope that blocked the third-floor office level from the party area.
“You check that way,” she began. “I’ll look down—”
“The hell you will. If you won’t stay put, then you’ll come with me.” He took a firm hold of her hand, doing his best to block her body with his as he started down the hall.
More footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. Andrew leaped the last three. “That was a gun. Miranda, go downstairs. Annie, go down with her.”
“No.”
Since neither woman was going to listen, Ryan gestured to the left. “You check that way. We’ll go down here. Whoever fired the gun is probably long gone,” he said as he cautiously nudged open a door. “But you stay behind me.”
“What are you? Bulletproof?” She reached in under his arm and flicked on the light. He simply shoved her back and stepped into the room himself to do a quick sweep. Satisfied it was empty, he pulled her in.
“Use this office. Lock the door and call the police.”
“I’ll call them when I know what to tell them.” She elbowed him aside and strode down the hall to the next room.
He all but wrenched her arm out of its socket. “Try to be a little less of a target, Dr. Jones.”
They worked their way down until he spotted a faint light pooling under the door leading to her office. “You changed for the party here. Did you leave your light on?”
“No. And the door should be locked. It’s not quite closed.”
“Take off your shoes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take off your shoes,” he repeated. “I want you to be able to run if you have to, not break an ankle in those heels.”
Saying nothing, she leaned against him long enough to remove them. It should have been funny, she thought, the way he took one, holding it spike out like a weapon as they approached the door.
But her hand was going damp in his, and she couldn’t find the humor.
He eased to the side of the door, nudged it. It opened another two inches, then bumped into an obstruction. Once again, Miranda reached under his arm to turn on the overheads.
“Oh my God.”
She recognized the lower half of the filmy white gown, the soft glitter of silver shoes. Dropping to her knees, she pushed at the door with her shoulder until she could squeeze inside.
Elise lay crumpled, facedown. Blood trickled from a wound at the back of her head and slipped over her pale cheek. “She’s alive,” Miranda said quickly, when she pressed her fingers to Elise’s throat and found a fluttery pulse. “She’s alive. Call an ambulance. Hurry.”
“Here.” He shoved a handkerchief into her hand. “Press that against it. See if you can stop the bleeding.”
“Just hurry.” She folded it into a pad, wanting the thickness, and applied pressure. Her gaze skimmed over, rested on the bronze Venus she kept in her office. A copy of the Donatello Ryan coveted.
Another bronze, she thought dully. Another copy. Another victim.
“Miranda, what—” Andrew pushed in the door, then jerked to a stop. “Jesus. Oh Jesus, Elise.” He was on his knees, fumbling at the wound, at her face. “Is she dead? Oh sweet God.”
“No, she’s alive. Ryan’s calling for an ambulance. Give me your handkerchief. I don’t think it’s deep, but I need to stop the bleeding.”
“She needs to be covered. Do you have a blanket, some towels?” Annie demanded. “You need to keep her warm in case she’s in shock.”
“In my office. There’s a throw. Just through there.”
Annie stepped quickly over Andrew.
“I think we need to turn her over.” Miranda pressed the fresh cloth firmly. “To make sure there’s no other injury. Can you do it, Andrew?”
“Yeah.” His mind had gone stone cold. He reached out carefully, supporting Elise’s neck as he rolled her. Her eyelids fluttered. “I think she’s coming around. I don’t see any blood except for the head wound.” He touched a finger gently to a bruise forming on her temple. “She must have hit her head there when she fell.”
“Miranda.” Annie stepped back into the room. Her eyes were dark, her voice dull. “Ryan wants you. Andrew and I will take care of her.”
“All right. Try to keep her calm if she comes around.” She got to her feet, stopping only when Annie squeezed her arm.
“Brace yourself,” she murmured, then moved over to cover Elise with the throw. “She’ll be all right, Andrew. The ambulance is on its way.”
Miranda stepped into her office. One ambulance wasn’t going to be enough, she thought dizzily. A couple of handkerchiefs weren’t going to mop up all this blood.
It was pooling on her desk, dripping down to soak into her carpet. Splatters of it were on the window behind her desk like sticky red rain.
On her desk, flung onto his back with red spreading over his frilled white shirt, was Richard Hawthorne.
Security kept the press and the curious away from the third floor. By the time the homicide team arrived, the scene had been secured, and Elise was on her way to the hospital.
Miranda gave her statement again and again, going back over every step. And lying. Lying, she thought dully, was becoming second nature.
No, she had no idea why either Richard or Elise would have been in her office. No, she didn’t know why anyone would have killed him. When they finally told her she was free to leave, she walked downstairs on legs that felt as fragile as glass.
Annie sat on the bottom step, hugging her elbows.
“Won’t they let you leave, Annie?”
“Yeah, they said they were finished with me for now.”
Miranda glanced toward the guards flanking the archways, the scatter of police roaming the hall. And sat beside Annie. “I don’t know what to do with myself either. I think they’re still talking to Ryan. I didn’t see Andrew.”
“They let him go with Elise, to the hospital.”
“Oh. He would have thought that was the right thing to do.”
“He still loves her.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s still hung up on her, Miranda. Why wouldn’t he be?” Then she pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “And I’m insane, ashamed, pitiful to be worrying about that when a man’s been shot, and Elise is hurt.”
“You can’t always control your feelings. I didn’t used to believe that, but now I know.”
“And I used to have a good handle on mine. Well.” She sniffled, rubbed her hands over her face, then rose. “I’d better go home.”
“Wait for Ryan, Annie. We’ll drive you.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got my heap out there. I’ll be fine. You tell Andrew I hope Elise is okay, and. . . I’ll see him around.”
“Annie, I meant what I said earlier. He needs you.”
Annie dragged off her party earrings, rubbed the blood back into her earlobes. “He needs to count on himself. He needs to know who he is and what he wants. I can’t help him with that, Miranda, and neither can you.”
She couldn’t seem to help anyone, Miranda thought when she was alone and staring down at her hands.
Nothing she’d touched, nothing she’d done over the last months had resulted in anything other than disaster.
She looked over her shoulder as she heard footsteps on the stairs. Ryan came down, skirted around her, then saying nothing, brought her to her feet and into his arms.
“Oh God, oh God, Ryan. How many more?”
“Ssh.” He stroked her back. “It was his own gun,” he murmured in her ear. “The same one I found in his room. Someone shot the poor bastard with his own gun. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Nothing I could have done.” She said it wearily, but pulled back to stand on her own. “I want to go to the hospital, check on Elise. Andrew’s there. He shouldn’t be alone.”
He wasn’t. It surprised Miranda to see her mother in the waiting lounge, staring out the window, a paper cup of coffee in her hand.
Andrew stopped pacing when she came in, then shook his head and began again.
“Is there any word?” Miranda asked him.
“They stabilized her down in emergency. X rays, tests—they haven’t come in to tell us the results. The resident on duty downstairs thought concussion, but they want to do a CAT scan to rule out any brain damage. She was out a long time. She lost a lot of blood.”
And some of it, he noted, stained the hem of Miranda’s dress.
“You should go home,” Andrew said. “Ryan, take her home.”
“I’m going to stay with you, just the way you’d stay with me.”
“Okay. Okay.” He rested his brow against hers. They stood linked while Elizabeth turned from the window and studied them. When she caught Ryan watching her, her cheeks pinkened slightly.
“There’s coffee. It’s neither fresh nor palatable, but it’s very strong and hot.”
“No.” Miranda moved away from Andrew, stepped forward. “Where’s Father?”
“I—don’t know. I believe he was going back to the hotel. There was nothing for him to do here.”
“But you’re here. We need to talk.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Jones.”
All three of them turned, made Cook’s mouth twitch. “Guess that’s pretty confusing.”
“Detective Cook.” Miranda’s stomach was quickly sheathed in ice. “I hope you’re not ill.”
“Ill? Oh, oh, hospital, sick. No. I came down to talk to Dr. Warfield once the doctors clear it.”
“To Elise?” Baffled, Andrew shook his head. “I thought you were with robbery. Nobody was robbed.”
“Sometimes these things are connected. The homicide boys will talk to her. Going to be a long night. Maybe you can tell me what you know, give me a clearer picture before I talk to Dr. Warfield.”
“Detective . . . Cook, is it?” Elizabeth moved forward. “Is it really necessary to hold an interrogation in a hospital waiting room while we’re waiting with some degree of distress for test results?”
“I’m sorry for your distress, ma’am. Dr. Jones.”
“Standford-Jones.”
“Yes, Elizabeth Standford-Jones. You’re the victims’ employer.”
“That’s correct. Both Richard and Elise work for me in Florence. Worked for me,” she amended with a faint change in color. “Richard worked for me.”
“What did he do for you?”
“Research, primarily. Richard was a brilliant art historian. He was a fount of facts and data, but more, he understood the spirit of the work he researched. He was invaluable.”
“And Dr. Warfield?”
“She is my lab director in Florence. She’s a capable, efficient, and trustworthy scientist.”
“She used to be your daughter-in-law.”
Elizabeth’s gaze didn’t waver, nor did it flick toward her son. “Yes. We’ve retained a good relationship.”
“That’s good. Most times ex-mothers-in-law tend to blame their sons’ wives for the trouble. You don’t see many who can work together and . . . retain a good relationship.”
“We’re both professional women, Detective. And I don’t allow family difficulties to interfere with work, or with my opinion of an individual. I’m quite fond of Elise.”
“Anything going on between her and Hawthorne?”
“Going on?” It was said with such frigid disgust the temperature seemed to plummet. “What you’re suggesting is insulting, demeaning, and inappropriate.”
“My information is that they were both single adults. I don’t mean any insult by asking if they were involved. They were in a third-floor office together. The party was downstairs.”
“I have no idea why either of them was in Miranda’s office, but obviously they weren’t alone.” She moved past him when a doctor in green scrubs came to the doorway. “Elise?”
“She’s doing well,” he told them. “She has a fairly serious concussion, some disorientation, but the CAT scan was clear and she’s in stable condition.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, and the breath she released was shaky. “I’d like to see her.”
“I cleared the police in. They wanted to question her as soon as possible, and she agreed. She became agitated when I suggested she wait until tomorrow. It seemed to ease her mind to talk to them tonight.”
“I’m going to want some time with her.” Cook took out his badge, then nodded toward Elizabeth and Andrew. “I’ll wait. I’ve got plenty of time.”
He waited over an hour, and wouldn’t have gotten in to see her then if once again she hadn’t insisted on making her statement.
Cook saw a fragile woman with a livid bruise on her right temple that spread purple toward her eyes. The eyes themselves were exhausted and rimmed with red.
But the flaws only added to her beauty. Her dark hair was swathed in white bandages. He knew the blow had been to the back of her head, and had bled profusely. He imagined they’d shaved some of that glossy hair to sew her up. Seemed a shame.
“You’re Detective . . . I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name they gave me.”
“Cook, ma’am. I appreciate you talking to me.”
“I want to help.” She winced as she shifted and the pain radiated through her head. “They’re going to give me drugs in a little while. I won’t be able to think clearly once they do.”
“I’ll try to make this fast. Mind if I sit here?”
“No, please.” She looked up at the ceiling as if focusing on moving beyond the pain. “Every time I begin, I think it’s a bad dream. It didn’t really happen.”
“Can you tell me what did happen? Everything you remember.”
“Richard. He shot Richard.”
“He?”
“I don’t even know that, not for sure. I didn’t see. I saw Richard.” Her eyes filled, spilled over, trailed tears down her cheeks. “He’s dead. They told me he was dead. I thought maybe . . . I don’t know—but they said he’s dead. Poor Richard.”
“What were you doing upstairs with him?”
“I wasn’t with him—I was looking for him.” She lifted her free hand to brush at the tears. “He said he’d go back to the hotel whenever I wanted to leave. Richard’s not much on parties. We were going to share a cab. I wanted to leave.”
“Dull party?”
“No.” She smiled a little. “It was a wonderful exhibit, beautifully presented. But I. . . I’m sure you know the background by now. Andrew and I used to be married, and it was awkward. He had a date there.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Warfield, but my information was that you divorced him.”
