This is nothing compared to that.”
“Are you holding up okay?” Nick asked.
I stayed silent because I wasn’t sure exactly what traumatic event he was talking about. There had already been so many.
“About finding your principal dead in a parking lot,” he clarified.
“As well as can be expected. The funeral’s tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there with a few other undercover officers.” He squeezed the back of my neck between his thumb and forefinger and I felt like purring. I was a little tense for some reason.
“Have you found out anything about Mr. Butler’s murder?”
“We looked at the video tape from the parking lot, but the location of the stabbing was just out of range of the camera. We’re in the process of identifying everyone we see on the tapes from inside the club as well as the license plate numbers from the parking lot.”
“Stabbing?” For some reason not knowing how Mr. Butler had died made it seem less real. I hiccupped into a couch pillow and squenched my eyes closed. “What the hell was he doing in that place?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “What the hell was I doing there? If he hadn’t seen me on stage he never would have left so soon.”
“This isn’t your fault, Addison. You were both just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens to everyone.”
Surely he didn’t expect me to believe that things like that happen to everyone. I was a freak of nature, probably cursed at birth by Rumpelstiltskin or some other crazy shit. If Nick Dem psey had any indication of self-preservation, he would run like hell in the opposite direction and never speak to me again.
“Is there anything you need me to get you before I leave?”
“There’s some aspirin in the kitchen cabinet above the coffee pot, and there’s a half pint of hazelnut ice cream in the freezer.”
“It seems to me you ha ve an obsession with ice cream. Maybe you need to get a man to help control these urges.”
“I had a man. He left me for the home economics teacher. I’ll pass, thanks.”
I heard him rummaging through the freezer and sat up a little. Nick wasn’t such a bad guy.
“Looks like Dr. Crumb is guilty,” he said, pausing by the table with all my stakeout paraphernalia on it. “Nice photos.”
“Thanks. I’m sure it’ll give Mrs. Crumb a surprise, but it’s better to know for sure than to always wonder.”
I took the aspirin and knocked it back with a spoonful of hazelnut ice cream.
“Sounds like you know from experience.”
“Nah. I was pretty much blindsided.”
“Then he obviously wasn’t the right man for you. I think I’d notice if someone that mattered seemed like they were drifting. Why’d you want to marry a guy like that, anyway?
I kept my eyes closed and decided I had a better chance of getting him out of my apartment if I just answered the question. “It’s not like he started out as lying, cheating scum,” I said. “He was charming and smart, and I was almost thirty.”
“Ohhhh,” he said laughing. “Old maid status.”
“Shut up. In the city being thirty and single is no big deal, but in Whiskey Bayou everyone is expected to marry and reproduce shortly after graduation. You have no idea what it’s like to walk down the street and have people look at you like your ovaries are no better than dried prunes.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“Greg was exactly what I was looking for in a man. He had a respectable job and he would have been a good father.”
“And he was cheating scum.”
“Yeah,” I said depressed. “That, too.”
“You never mentioned passion. Where was the spark? You can’t spend fifty years of your life admiring his charisma and intelligence.”
“Spark doesn’t last,” I said, getting irritated because I knew he was at least partially right. “It’s never a good idea to let hormones make the important decisions in life.” I opened my eyes and finally looked him in the eye. His cocky grin was not
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain