Untitled (17 page)

   "It was fixed—"

   "Just a day or so after it happened." Damien nodded, sure of himself. "Bad going home one night. Coming in the next day, too. Then the next day, it was gone." He snapped his fingers. "Like that."

   "Which means . . ."

   I looked at Eve.

   Eve looked at me.

   Neither of us was willing to say what we were thinking. Not in front of Damien and Marc, anyway. But it went pretty much like this:

   
Aha!

   Because just when I least expected it, something spectacular had happened. All thanks to a broken water main.

   I grabbed on to Eve's arm and tugged her into a corner of the kitchen where we could talk without being overheard.

   "The main was fixed the night we went to Sarah's," I reminded her. "Remember. It broke the day before."

   "Exactly." She nodded. Her blue eyes glistened with excitement. "And now the main is fixed."

   "Which means that Dylan's commercial was taped long before he said he was back in the country."

   "Which means he was in town the night Sarah died."

   "And not in Afghanistan like he said."

       about Dylan. The next day, as we sat around Bellywasher's and wondered if he'd show up in response to the invitation we'd left on his voice mail, Eve and I made a list.

   "Number one, he said he was in Afghanistan the night Sarah was killed." Eve tapped the tip of her pen against the legal pad in front of us where, like real detectives, we'd noted our ideas in neat, logical order. "But he couldn't have been out of the country, because we saw the commercial, and the commercial proves Dylan was in town that night."

   "Number two . . ." I eyed the list warily. Eve's handwriting was full of loops and curliques. No big surprise there. It was always hard to read, but that morning, the job of deciphering was even tougher. Before we left my office to grab coffee and sit in the empty restaurant, she'd slipped a yellow legal pad off the pile on my desk. The pink Sharpie, needless to say, was her own. I squinted. "Number two, we figure Sarah wouldn't have hesitated to let Dylan into her apartment."

   "Especially if she was desperate to get back together with him." Eve put a star next to that item on the list. "This is important. Remember, he dumped her. If he called, say, and said he'd made a mistake and he wanted her back, she would have been vulnerable. She wouldn't have suspected Dylan. She would have been at ease with him."

   "And . . ." I slid the pad out from under her hand, grabbed the Sharpie, and added an idea that had just occurred to me. "He probably knew she took Valium. You said they'd been dating for a while, right? There's no reason he wouldn't have known what kinds of medications she was taking. Tyler told us that Sarah had Valium in her system the night she died. My guess is that Dylan waited until she took it. That would have made her groggy so that she couldn't fight back. That's when he attacked her. He probably dumped her in the bathtub, put the knife in her hand, held his own hand over it and—"

   Both Eve and I shivered. The scenario was too awful to consider. Rather than thinking about it, we went right on.

   "Or Dylan might not have wanted to take any chances," she said. "He could have slipped her a little extra Valium."

   "Like in the wine."

   When Eve raised her eyebrows, I explained. "There were two wineglasses," I said, thinking back to the night we found Sarah's body. "They were drying in the rack on the kitchen sink. They'd been washed, but they hadn't been put away. You saw what I saw in that apartment, Eve. Sarah was compulsive about everything, her clothes, her food, even the books on her bookshelf. I don't think she's the type who would have washed wineglasses and not put them where they belonged. But if someone else washed the glasses, that someone else might not have thought of putting them away."

   Eve sat up straight and grinned. "Which means there might be fingerprints on them!"

   "Except they were washed."

   Her smile faded. "He wouldn't be that dumb, anyway, would he?" she asked, and I didn't bother to answer. We both knew Dylan Monroe was way too smart to make stupid mistakes.

   How smart, though, remained to be seen, and lucky for us, we didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, Dylan sauntered into the restaurant. It was Sunday, and he was dressed more casually than we'd seen at either the funeral luncheon or in the commercial that aired the night before. In butt-hugging jeans and a deep green sweater that brought out the flecks of emerald in his sapphire eyes, Dylan Monroe looked yummier than ever.

   Call me crazy, suspicious, and maybe a little paranoid, but I thought he looked a little wary, too.

   "Ladies." Dylan nodded a greeting and just as he got close to the table, I realized the legal pad was still in plain sight. I flipped it over so he couldn't see what we'd written. He flicked a look from the pad to me and dropped down in the chair across from Eve's. "Hope you don't mind that I didn't return your call. I'm a little busy today. My report airs tonight."

   "We know." I was the one who answered him. That was because Eve, being Eve, was busy looking Dylan over. Since I'd already seen the way his eyes brightened with appreciation when he caught sight of her in her champagne-colored cashmere sweater and the too-short brown suede skirt he could see because her chair was pushed back and her legs were crossed, I wondered how long it would be before he asked her out.

   I also wondered if I should try to encourage it. With Eve on the inside (so to speak), we might learn some valuable information.

   And if we learned Dylan was a murderer?

   The very thought sent a bolt of fear straight through me. No way I was going to let Eve get close to this guy. Rather than even consider the idea of Eve as a spy, I got myself back on track.

   "Your report," I said to Dylan. "That's kind of what we wanted to talk to you about."

   "Funny, that's not what you said in your phone message."

   Thinking it was more likely he'd respond to Eve's sultry tones than my unremarkable voice, I had Eve call and leave the message for Dylan, telling him that because he was so upset at the funeral luncheon, we were concerned about him. We wondered how he was doing. At least that's what Eve was supposed to say. Now, watching the way he was looking at her, I wondered exactly what she'd said instead and jumped right in. Just in case damage control was necessary.

   "What we meant—"

   "I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you meant." Dylan sat back. "The trailer aired last night, and my guess is that you saw it. So now you know the truth. You know I left Afghanistan earlier than I said I did. Yes, I was in town the night Sarah died. You don't think I had anything to do with her death, do you?"

   "Did you?"

   Do I have to say that it was Eve who blurted out the question, not me? I was, remember, the one who looked (two or three times) before I so much as even thought about leaping. Eve, on the other hand, was always rarin' to go.

   Dylan didn't hold it against her. In fact, he gave her, then me, the same smile that looked out at millions of people each night on the national news. It was calming and reassuring. Touched with empathy. Not too cheerful.

   I wasn't fooled.

   Dylan might be gorgeous, but he wasn't dumb. And he was a reporter through and through. Something told me that he was as curious as we were.

   Why, remained to be seen.

   "What makes you think the police are wrong?" he asked. "The medical examiner's ruling is official, remember. Sarah committed suicide."

   "We don't agree." I took over before Eve could say anything else even slightly out of line. I didn't want Dylan to walk out on us before we learned anything useful. "We think there's enough evidence to prove that Sarah wouldn't have done that."

   He propped his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. "Like?"

   "Like Doc, for one thing," Eve chimed in. "She waited a long time for him. And she paid a fortune for him, too."

   Luckily, Eve didn't mention the diamond collar. That was a good thing. I didn't want to give away the farm. Not this early in our questioning.

   "Sarah had a lot to live for," I said. "We don't think she would have killed herself."

   "So you're investigating?" I had to hand it to Dylan, he could have made the question sound even more skeptical. "And you've come to the conclusion that I had something to do with Sarah's death." He pursed his lips and cocked his head. "It's an original theory. There's only one flaw in it. Well, actually two or three. And they're big ones."

   He didn't wait for me to ask.

   Dylan leaned forward. "If I did kill Sarah, you don't think I'd admit it to you two, do you?"

   "Then why did you lie?" This time, I was the one who asked the question. "Why did you tell us you were in Afghanistan the night Sarah died?"

   "Why do you care?"

   "Because we cared about Sarah."

   "And you're way off base." Dylan waved a dismissive hand in our direction. "In case you haven't noticed, I didn't have any reason to kill her."

   Eve's eyes flashed in defense of Sarah. "You broke up with her."

   "Exactly." He waited for the message to sink in. "
I
broke up with
her
. That's how civilized people end a relationship. They might get angry, and someone's bound to get hurt. But they don't kill. Look . . ." He let go a long sigh. "I know your hearts are in the right place, but let me give you girls a piece of advice. Mind your own business."

   I took offense to the fact that Dylan wasn't taking us seriously. Not to mention the bit about calling us
girls
. But I knew Eve's feelings ran deeper. Sarah was a friend, and Eve was as loyal as they came. She was so incensed, she clutched the edge of the table to hang on to her temper.

   She shot Dylan a look. "This is our business. Sarah is our business. And no one will listen to us when we try to tell them what we think really happened."

   "That's because you're talking nonsense."

   "It's because the authorities don't want to hear what we have to say." Eve thumped her fist against the table. "Once we show the cops our evidence—"

   "Provided you have any that isn't so full of holes that—"

   "That won't make any difference. Once the police know you lied—"

   "And you can prove that, how?"

   "Because we saw your commercial, of course."

   "And you think that proves anything?" Dylan laughed. But not like it was funny. "You don't know much about slander, do you? You think I had something to do with Sarah's death? Think again. You want to suspect somebody, how about the person she was going on that cruise with?"

   Was it my imagination? Maybe, but I had the distinct feeling that Dylan wasn't happy he'd let this slip. He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted in his seat.

   Eve, of course, was not about to ignore it. She looked Dylan in the eye. "Oh yeah? And how do we know the guy she was going on the cruise with wasn't you?"

   "How do you know the person she was going on the cruise with was a guy? As a matter of fact, how do you know anything? You two are acting like this is some sort of game. Colonel Mustard. In the conservatory. With a candlestick. There isn't any evidence to support what you think, and even if there was—"

   "Hold on! Hold on!" I knew I had to jump in before things got even more out of hand. I stood. I didn't expect my not-so-commanding height to intimidate anyone, but I figured it would get their attention.

   My strategy worked. Eve gulped down whatever she was going to say. Dylan, his face red, slumped back in his chair and glared at me.

   "No one meant for this to turn into a shouting match," I told Dylan and reminded Eve. "All we wanted to do was get some information."

   "Information, huh?" Dylan scraped his chair back and rose. "If that's what you're looking for, then you weren't paying attention. I already gave you the most important piece of advice you're ever going to get. I told you to mind your own business. This isn't a game. It isn't for amateurs." He marched to the door.

   "If you're smart," he said, "you'll back off before somebody else gets hurt."

Or a not-so-friendly threat?

   I spent the rest of the day wondering, and all of the next morning working through the problem in my mind. Good guy or bad guy, Dylan was right about a couple things. If he had a motive to want Sarah dead, we sure didn't know what it was. That didn't mean it didn't exist, just that we didn't know enough to figure out what made Dylan tick.

   He was right about another thing, too. The cruise. Like I said, I might be crazy, suspicious, and maybe a little paranoid, but something told me that he wasn't happy he'd spilled the beans about the cruise, figuratively speaking.

   It was a clue that had been in front of us the whole time, and we'd failed to follow it up.

   What was that I said about being a real detective? Maybe
real detective in training w
as more like it.

   With that in mind, I approached this new avenue of investigation as analytically as I could. Logic told me the place to start was the cruise line. Of course, if they were anything like hospitals, airlines, and the hundreds of other businesses that were more cautious than ever lately about giving out personal information about their clientele, I wouldn't get very far.

   But remember, we had an ace in the hole: Eve had power of attorney.

   First thing Monday morning, she'd be placing a call.

* * *