Once More With Feeling (27 page)

"What about now?" She sat back and toyed
with her glass as she watched him. She wasn't sure what to think
about Grant's feelings for Elisabeth.

"I thought I might like teaching. I had no
idea how much. I can't tell you what it's like, knowing that
something you've said or done, even something that seems
insignificant, can change a life."

"From what I hear you do more than your
share. Is it true you moved into the neighborhood so you could be
available to kids who needed you?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Can't reveal my sources." She smiled.

"Partly true. Part of it was a need to get
away from everything I was familiar with. I was an exchange student
in high school. I lived in Sydney, with another wealthy family.
Learned the accent and how to eat a meat pie, but I didn't learn
anything like the things I'm learning now."

"Don't you feel helpless sometimes?
Overwhelmed?"

"Sure. Nine hours out of ten. Then something
happens, usually something so small it's nearly hidden, and I
realize that I'm doing what I'm supposed to. And that's really what
I was looking for, because that's what I learned at home. Both my
parents were always sure they were doing what they were supposed
to. They never had any questions at all." He favored her with his
charismatic "Owen" smile again. "You're easy to talk to. But I
suppose that comes with the territory."

She couldn't believe Elisabeth had allowed
her own son to believe she was so perfect, so satisfied. "I
suppose."

"Did you always know what you wanted to
do?"

"I guess I always wanted to be rich and
famous." She hadn't discovered much more about Gypsy Dugan's
motivations than that. She had dug and dug and found a hopelessly
shallow life.

"So what do you do next? Get richer? More
famous?"

"Right now I just plan to enjoy what I have
and what I do."

"Are you enjoying it with someone,
Gypsy?"

"A man?"

The grin didn't diminish. "That's what I had
in mind."

She was stunned at her own son's charm. She
had never seen him this way. As a mother she'd known he was good
looking, intelligent, sensitive. But as a woman nearly his age, the
effect was completely different. He had his father's way of gazing
at a woman, his brown eyes laughing and searching at the same time.
He conveyed more with that devil-may-care grin than most men
probably conveyed in a full night in the bedroom.

"There were dozens," she said. "And when I
came to in the hospital after the accident, I couldn't imagine why.
Some of them were real losers."

"There must have been something that
attracted you."

The conversation seemed headed for dangerous
waters. "I believe it must have been their astonishing intellects."
She chugged back the rest of her whiskey and stood, holding out her
hand to him. "I'm going to be seeing a lot of you in the next
weeks. I'm glad. I need high-minded friends."

"My mind can sink just as low as anyone's."
He took her hand and held it. "Let me know if you need me. I'll be
happy to do whatever I can for you. Anything at all."

She was too keyed up to go home. Now that
Perry had moved out, the apartment seemed empty and sterile. She
had an appointment with an interior decorator for the following
week, but until then she had little desire to relax among a herd of
dead animals.

She grabbed a corned beef sandwich and a
Diet Coke at the closest deli and went back to the studio. There
were no quiet moments here, no chances to dissect what she had
gained and lost. There was always some detail that needed to be
taken care of, some late-breaking news story that needed attention.
She could spend the entire evening returning telephone calls and
only make a dent in her message pile.

She said hello to the people who were still
hanging around. Kendra was there, already beginning to pull
together threads for the story on Grant's school. Kendra waved with
her free hand as she shuffled papers with the other. The telephone
receiver was tightly tucked in the crook of her neck.

Gypsy chatted with one of the assistants and
asked him to locate some files for her. One of the field producers
wandered by and she asked for his suggestions on a crew for the
shoot at the school. By the time she arrived at her desk, she had
made considerable progress on her story.

She sank into her chair, rested her head
against the back and closed her eyes. Being with Grant was heaven
and hell. She had wanted more children, and she had been devastated
when no more were conceived. Now she was glad she hadn't had more.
Losing Owen and Grant was bad enough.

Being with Grant had another effect, too. He
was a painful reminder of Owen. But she didn't really need a
reminder. She couldn't make herself stop thinking about the man who
was Elisabeth's husband. She was still angry with him, still
desperately hurt that he had turned to another woman, still
confused about how their life together had all fallen apart at the
end. And there was another part of her that she couldn't exorcise,
the part that clung to the good times when Owen was nearly as young
as Grant and she had fallen so completely in love with him that
none of her other dreams had mattered.

"Gypsy?"

She opened her eyes. Kendra was staring at
her strangely. She pulled herself back into the present, back into
this new, odd life. "Got a problem?" she asked.

"No, but I thought you might."

Gypsy sat up straight. "What?"

Kendra looked down at Gypsy's desktop.
Gypsy's gaze followed hers. She hadn't paid any attention to the
clutter there when she'd sat down. Now she wondered how she had
missed the object of Kendra's fascination.

She leaned over and stared at the magazine,
opened wide to a two-page spread about the Whitfield family
tragedy. Owen stared back at her, an Owen in formal wear and a
brooding expression. His wide Slavic cheekbones and hooded eyes
were strikingly photogenic. On the glossy page he was a tragic
figure, a sensually powerful man to whom any woman reading the
article would want to offer comfort--and anything else she was free
to give.

The photo beside him showed Elisabeth in
better days, so poised and patrician she would have been an
advantageous match for Prince Charles. There were photos of the two
of them together at social functions, a photo of Grant and last,
but certainly not least impressive, a photo taken at the accident
scene. Someone had adorned that photo with what looked like blood.
Beneath it was scrawled in red ink: See what you've done?

"Where in the hell did this come from?"
Kendra asked.

"I don't know." Gypsy closed her eyes,
blinking back tears.

She felt an arm around her shoulders. She
choked back sobs.

"Whoever did this is a real slimeball!"
Kendra said. "Talk about hitting below the belt. The accident
wasn't your fault. Everyone knows that."

Gypsy couldn't tell her the truth, that the
sobs were for Owen and Grant and everything she'd lost. "I'm
okay."

"No, you're not. Here, open your eyes."
Kendra held out a tissue. Gypsy took it. The magazine was closed
now and off to one side, courtesy of Kendra's fast maneuvers. "You
didn't notice it when you came in?"

"No. But I didn't even look at my desk."

"How about right before you left?"

Gypsy tried to recall if she'd paid enough
attention to her desk to notice the magazine at that point. "No,
I'm pretty sure it wasn't there. I went through that pile last
thing before I left the building." She gestured to the center of
the desk where the magazine had been.

"Well, I've been here since noon. I don't
think I've even left the newsroom to hit the john."

"Did you notice anybody coming in my
office?"

Kendra shook her head. "I was superbusy. I'm
sorry." She perched on the edge of the desk. Gypsy had noticed that
in the last week people had begun to make themselves at home in her
office. And even the most reticent were more inclined to be
chatty.

"Get some paper. We'll make a list," Kendra
said.

"Of what?"

"People who were around here in the last
hour."

"Okay." Gypsy opened her drawer and got out
paper and a souvenir pen with
The Whole Truth
crystal globe
at the end.

"Kevin. Me. Harry. Tracy." Kendra ticked off
about six other names.

"That's it?"

"No." Kendra shut her eyes, as if she were
concentrating. "Des streaked through. But he's the last person to
want you upset. I think Nan was here. I remember getting a whiff of
concentrated rose essence. Casey."

"Casey?"

Kendra opened her eyes. "Yeah. He got back
from Seattle about an hour ago. Come to think of it, he asked where
you were. I told him off with another man. Keep him on his
toes."

"Thanks," Gypsy said wryly.

"I can't think of anyone else."

"Where did Casey go?"

"I wasn't paying attention. Sorry."

"And you didn't notice any of them going
into my office?"

"No, but I can ask around."

"Would you?" Gypsy stood. "I'm going to see
if I can find Casey. I'd rather we kept this between us for right
now. Okay?"

"Sure. No problem." Kendra slid off the
desk.

"Thanks for your help."

Kendra was almost to the door. She turned
and made a funny face. "You know, you really ought to stop doing
that."

"What?"

"Thanking people."

"Really? Why?"

"Before the accident you'd probably never
said thank you to anybody in your whole life. There's a rumor going
around that they transplanted some nicer person into that gorgeous
bod of yours while you were in the hospital. You keep thanking
people, you're just adding fuel to the flames."

Gypsy searched all of Casey's usual haunts
in the building, but he wasn't anywhere she looked. She was still
shaken by the photo spread, and she didn't want to go back to her
office right away, where she'd probably be forced to make
conversation. Instead she started toward her dressing room, where
she could be alone to consider who, among the sizable list of Gypsy
Dugan's enemies, might have left the bloodstained magazine on her
desk.

When she unlocked the door she was surprised
to find that she'd left a lamp burning. Maybe once upon a time an
unenlightened Gypsy Dugan had left lights on without a thought--she
didn't know. But she certainly tried not to leave them on now.
Elisabeth had been a rabid environmentalist, a relentless recycler.
Comments had been made since Gypsy's return to the studio about the
tactful way she lectured newsroom staff who turned the thermostat
too low or tossed their soft drink cans in with the paper
trash.

Nothing in the room looked as if it had been
disturbed, and she relaxed. She sank to the sofa and closed her
eyes. In the darkness of her own mind the photograph of Owen stared
accusingly at her.

Resigned, she opened her eyes and searched
for a scrap of paper to make another list of the names Kendra had
given her. Most of them were people she'd had little interaction
with since her return. They were assistants, research staff,
gofers. She tried to be pleasant to all of them, and she'd sensed
no hostility. Casey and Des had no reason to rub her face in the
accident. The only person on the list who might want to upset her
was Nan.

It was possible that she had made enemies
she didn't know about. Any one of the people on the list might
dislike her for some past encounter. She might have stolen a
boyfriend, fired a colleague's mother, broadcast evidence that
someone's beloved uncle was a drag queen. But wouldn't she have
felt their animosity? Elisabeth had always been sensitive to those
around her, too sensitive most of the time. And since the accident
Gypsy had been forced to rely on subtle clues in order to make it
through each day. She had struggled to read and interpret people
the way the young Elisabeth had read and interpreted
The Scarlet
Letter
and
Moby Dick
.

Nan continued to stand out as the most
likely saboteur. But would she be so obvious? She was not a subtle
woman or even a bright one, but would she risk a stunt like this?
The chances were good that she might have been seen near or in
Gypsy's office. On the other hand, perhaps she'd had an alibi all
prepared, just in case.

Gypsy was considering how to confront Nan
when her dressing room door swung open. "I wondered if I'd find you
here."

"Casey." She got to her feet. "You look like
hell." He was wearing jeans that looked like they had permanently
molded themselves to his body and a shapeless gray T-shirt with a
darker outline where the pocket had been ripped away.

"I caught a ride from Delhi on a cargo
plane. We went by way of Singapore. At one point they threatened to
put me off in some remote island near Fiji to make room for a tank
of tropical fish."

"Kendra said you'd flown in from
Seattle."

"That's where I switched to a commercial
airliner. The only way I got that seat was to hold some kid with an
ear infection in my lap the entire trip to Chicago. He got off, but
not before he threw up on my shirt. I thought my luck was changing
when one of the flight crew found this one for me." He pulled the
shirt away from his chest. "Then a deaf nun took the seat next to
me and shouted the Lord's Prayer all the way to Kennedy."

"You poor baby."

He didn't look like anyone's baby. He looked
dark and dangerous, a man with all barriers lowered. A hungry
man.

"Got anything to drink?"

"Come here and sit down. I'll fix you
something."

They should have passed, he on the way to
the sofa, she on the way to the refrigerator in the corner. They
didn't pass. They stood and eyed each other. Calculating changes,
multiplying all the things that were still unsettled between
them.