Stabbing Stephanie (18 page)

Shortly before noon, the door through which Mel had come opened and an elderly woman appeared. Dressed in the light blue uniform of a cleaning lady, she walked with a stoop and carried a spray can and a dusting rag. She stopped to wipe off the computer table, then moved on, paying no attention to either Jane or Sam. As she passed, Jane noticed that her face was extremely wrinkled; this could be an extremely old woman, Jane thought. The woman's hair, however, was a glossy chestnut, teased into a neat bouffant.

When she reached Sam's desk, he growled lustily at her.

Jane observed this with horror, but the woman who was the subject of Sam's disrespect seemed to take no notice, continuing down the corridor, stopping to dust the edge of a bookcase.

Jane couldn't keep silent any longer. She regarded him with repugnance. “You are truly the most obnoxious person I've met in a very long time. Do you work at it?”

He laughed, as if she were joking. “Talk like that really turns me on, you animal. Besides,” he said, indicating the old woman now at the opposite end of the corridor, “Norma's nearly deaf and doesn't speak a word of English. Only Hungarian.”

“I'm sure she knows you're making fun of her.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “She's lucky I take any notice of her at all.”

Jane had to get out of here. She checked her watch. It was a little after noon. “Lunchtime!” she said brightly, setting down her filing on her desk.

“Care to join me?” he asked suggestively.

“Thanks, but no. I've got some errands to run.”

“Tomorrow, then. This is only Tuesday. I've got all week to make you mine.”

Jane grabbed her coat from a closet not far from their desks and hurried through a doorway between Faith's and Stephanie's offices to a small reception area with no receptionist. She passed from this room into the second-floor corridor and took the elevator down to the lobby.

The building's entrance was at its back, opening onto a long, narrow parking lot. This was fortuitous, allowing Jane to avoid being seen by anyone who knew her true identity. She had parked her car not here but in the parking lot behind her own building around the corner, also to avoid any risk of being identified, but also because each morning she would be stopping in at her own office to touch base with Daniel before hurrying over here.

She walked along the lot, then down a drive that ran alongside the building toward Packer Road and provided access to and from the parking lot. There was a dark green Dumpster at the edge of this drive, pushed as far to the side as possible. Jane peeked in and saw only a few scraps of plasterboard and an old wooden desk chair. Someone in the building must have started a remodeling project, she thought.

She walked around the corner to the village green. When she entered her own office, Daniel looked up and laughed in disbelief. “You're actually doing this! You actually worked at Carson & Hart all morning as Lana Pitt?”

“Yes,” she said, falling into his visitor's chair, “and I ought to have my head examined.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Definitely weird—on that score Stephanie was right. My desk neighbor is Faith's son, Sam, the most repulsive young man I've ever met, hands down.”

“Really? Repulsive how?”

“Lazy, arrogant, thinks he's God's gift to women. Ugh!” She shuddered.

“And how's the mission going? Notice anything amiss?”

“Not yet, too soon. I think I've met everybody, though.” She told him about Faith, Gavin, Kate, Mel, and Norma.

“What is Faith like?”

“Very refined, all business. As beautiful as her pictures, maybe a little heavier than I expected. She's got no patience for Sam; I can tell you that. Who would!”

Daniel shook his head. “You deserve some kind of medal for this.”

She shrugged it away. “I told you why I'm doing it—for Kenneth.” She pondered for a moment. “And for Florence. If her friend Una was telling the truth about what she saw, then this Faith Carson
needs
investigating. Now,” she said briskly, “how's today's mail?”

He handed her a blessedly small pile. On top was the latest issue of
Romantic Times,
the leading magazine for readers and writers of romance fiction. As an agent who represented a large number of romance writers, Jane felt it vital to read this magazine carefully each month. Casually she flipped back the cover and drew in her breath. At the bottom right-hand corner of the first page was a photograph of Jane posing with her clients Bertha Stumpf and Elaine Lawler at the annual convention of Romance Authors Together in New York City in May. Beneath the photo was a caption that read:
Literary agent Jane Stuart took a moment to pose with two of her leading ladies of romance, Rhonda Redmond and Elaine Lawler
.

“How did the magazine get this?”

“You told me to send it to them.”

“Oh.” She considered, then laughed. “What am I worried about? I sincerely doubt that anyone at Carson & Hart reads
Romantic Times.”

“I'm sure you're right. Your secret is safe.”

She flipped through the rest of the mail. There were two rejections from editors, a small check due one of Jane's clients on acceptance of a manuscript, and the rest were query letters from writers seeking an agent. Nothing urgent here; she handed it all back to Daniel to handle.

“Any calls?”

He nodded eagerly. “Ham Kiels called about
The Blue Palindrome
. He loves it, wants to talk to you about it, see what your plans are.”

“What my plans are! I told him, I've set a closing for December fifth. What else is there to tell him?”

Daniel shook his head.

“Playing games,” Jane muttered. “I should have left him out. Can't stand that company, anyway.”

“I said you'd get back to him,” Daniel said.

“I will when I can.”

“Okay. I'll call him back and say you're out of the office for the rest of the day.”

She checked her watch. “Ooh—almost one already. Better get back. My lunch hour's almost up!”

Daniel shook his head and laughed as she hurried out. She realized she was hungry. She considered crossing the green to Whipped Cream for a muffin or something, which would also give her an opportunity to see Ginny; but then she rejected this idea. It would take too long. Besides, she'd realized that morning that she'd virtually abandoned her Stillkin diet, and that there wasn't much time left to shed those extra pounds for her vacation. She stopped in at the deli a few doors down from her office and bought two apples—highly recommended by Dr. Stillkin—which she would eat at her desk.

When she arrived at Carson & Hart, Stephanie was not in her office. Both Faith's and Gavin's doors were closed, so Jane couldn't tell if they were in or not. Sam was in. He had his back to Jane, busily applying something to the wall beside his desk. He heard her sit down and turned to her with a devilish grin.

“Couldn't stay away. I knew it.”

She rolled her eyes. “My lunch hour was over.” She plunked the two apples down on her desk. Then something on Sam's wall—presumably what he'd been putting up—caught her eye, and she looked at it more closely. She realized, to her horror and amazement, that it was a photograph of a human head on what appeared to be a refrigerator rack. At the bottom of the photo, someone had written in crude capital letters,
SERVING SUGGESTION
.

“What on earth is that?” she breathed.

His eyes gleamed. “Isn't it funny?”

“I said, what is it?”

“It's Jeffrey Dahmer's fridge.”

She made a sound of shocked disgust. “But where did you get it? Why do you have it?”

“I know someone who knows one of the cops who was on that case. In Milwaukee.”

“I know where. But why,” she asked, “have you put it on your wall?”

“I find it . . . interesting.”

“Who wrote that at the bottom?”

“I did.” He laughed.

She could only turn away. This was one sick puppy. She'd ignore him to the fullest extent possible. She grabbed another stack of papers and returned to the file cabinet. As she filed, she thought about how she might go about finding out if, as Stephanie believed, there was more to Carson & Hart than met the eye.

“Sam!”

She jumped, turned.

Gavin stood at Sam's desk, staring with a look of revulsion at the grisly photograph on the wall.

Sam sat up straight in his chair in mock attention. “Yes, Mr. Hart, sir!”

“Stop that. Take that down immediately.” Gavin glanced at Jane with a look of embarrassment, then returned his attention to Sam. “You seem to think this is some kind of... playland! This is a
business
. If you aren't interested or don't feel you want to—”

“Blah blah blah,” Sam said, and Jane glanced over furtively to see him wave Gavin away dismissively and go back to whatever he had been doing.

Gavin's jaw dropped. He shot another look at Jane. Then he shook his head in resignation and walked away toward his office.

“What a supreme asshole,” Sam said, and not at all softly. He looked up at Jane. “He's right. I really oughta quit this dump.”

Jane made no response, just raised her brows inquiringly.

Sam went on, “Look at me! My mother
owns
the company, and I'm a—flunky!”

“Like me,” Jane quipped.

“Right! But you're not a crown prince. I am. I shouldn't have to work at all.”

“Then why do you? Why
don't
you quit?”

“Why?” he said searchingly. “Because Mommy Dearest would never let me hear the end of it. Because, as she has reminded me so many times, we're not in Ananda anymore—those days are long over. We're in America, just regular people, and we have to earn our livings.” He shook his head in disgust. “If she'd played her cards right, we'd be so rich we wouldn't have to work.”

She narrowed her gaze, interested. “What do you mean, if she'd played her cards right?”

“She should have handled things differently with my father. She should have—”

Jane's phone rang. She frowned. The only “outsiders” who knew she was here were Florence, Stephanie, Greenberg, and Daniel.

It was Daniel.

“Jane, I'm sorry to call you there.”

“No, it's not really a good time,” she said, irritated. She'd told him never to call her there.

“It's okay, Jane, I asked for Lana. I won't keep you. I just wanted you to know that Hamilton Kiels called again about the Nat Barre book.”

“Again? Did you tell him you gave me his message?”

“Yes, but he says now he wants to make you a preemptive offer for the book. You really have to talk to him, Jane.”

“All right. Thanks. I'll call him as soon as I can.”

When she hung up, Sam was looking at her. “Not bad news, I hope.”

“No.” She gave a little laugh. “It's my mother. She lives with me. Sometimes she's so helpless.”

“Where do you live?”

Why was he asking her this? “Here in town,” she said vaguely. She wanted to get back to what he was saying about his mother. But first she had to find a way to call back Ham Kiels.

“I've got to go to the ladies' room,” she said, picking up her bag.

He looked at her strangely. “Permission granted.”

She laughed. “Thanks.”

The rest rooms were located at the end of the corridor nearest Jane's and Sam's desks. There was no one in the ladies' room. She locked herself into a stall, took out her cell phone, and called Ham Kiels.

“Jane, hello!” Ham Kiels was always pleasant, but he spoke now in the tone he used when he was interested in a project. “Hard person to get hold of.”

“Yes, sorry about that.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Am I? I think I'm coming down with a cold or something. Sore throat.”

“Oh. Well, take care of that. Anyway, this
Blue Palindrome
is truly magnificent, Jane. I gave copies to Jack Layton and Ellen McIntyre,” he said, referring to the company's editor in chief and director of publicity and promotion, respectively. “They flipped. I was thinking of taking a floor,” he said, referring to a starting bid in a book auction, “but Jack wants me to preempt.”

A preemptive bid was one designed, by virtue of its size, to induce an agent to make a deal and withdraw the project from all other potential bidders.

“I'll listen, Ham, but it had better be big.”

“A hundred thousand.”

“What!” she screamed, then remembered to lower her voice. “What?” she whispered.

“Jane, it's a first novel. That's excellent money for a first novel.”

“Not for this one. I haven't seen something like this in years, and neither have you. If you want to preempt, you're going to have to quadruple that.”

“No way.”

“Fine. I'll consider that floor bid you mentioned.”

“I'll have to speak to Jack,” he said peevishly. “You'll be around?”

“Actually, no. I'm not even at my office now. You'll have to leave a message with Daniel.”

“You have a cell phone, don't you? I'll call you on that.”

Of course that made perfect sense. But she couldn't have her cell phone ringing at her desk; she'd had it turned off until she'd made this call.

“No . . . there's something wrong with it. I'm having it fixed.”