Praise for the Sophie Katz novels of
KYRA DAVIS

Sex, Murder and a Double Latte

“Packs a bigger jolt than a Venti latte at Starbucks.”

—Cosmopolitan

“A terrific mystery. Kyra Davis comes up with the right mix of snappy and spine-tingling.”

—Detroit Free Press

“A thoroughly readable romp.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Blending elements of steamy romance and hard-boiled mystery, this delightfully witty amalgam of chick lit and amateur sleuth mystery (featuring lovable, caffeine-addicted protagonist Sophie Katz)…[is] one of the most impressive genre debuts to come along in years!”

—Barnes & Noble

Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights

An Ebony magazine Noted Book

“[A] high-octane hookup.”

—Cosmopolitan [a Red Hot Read]

“Lively writing, action-packed plot and keen character development.”

—Santa Cruz Sentinel

“The perfect summer read…Davis constructs some broad sweeping social commentary in this book…bundled up amongst—what else—murder, fashion and frappuccinos.”

—The GoodTimes

Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate

“Wry sociopolitical commentary, the playful romantic negotiations between Anatoly and Sophie and plenty of Starbucks coffee keep this steamy series chugging along.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Pulls readers in at the beginning…[and] Davis’ inclusion of the crazy sexual fetish ‘furries’ is an interesting twist.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Just the right amount of snazzy dialogue and intriguing imagery, making the reader think they are right there looking over Sophie’s shoulder. Once you start reading this entertaining tale, you won’t want to stop until you find out the ‘whodunit’ and the ‘why did they’ of the murder.”

—Romance Reviews Today

Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss

“A fresh approach to sleuthing.”

—Library Journal

“Humor, romance and an appealing, spirited protagonist…an entertaining read.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A cast of quirky, wonderful characters, a well-crafted plot and a generous helping of snarky humor make this one a winner. Sophie’s sassy first-person narration is a bonus—she’s one of a kind.”

—RT Book Reviews

Vows, Vendettas & a Little Black Dress
Kyra Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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I dedicate this book to my loyal readers. I am always amazed by the tremendous and consistent support that you express both in person at my book-signing events or through your Internet posts and e-mails. You are my motivation, and Sophie belongs every bit as much to you as she does to me. Thank you.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

Sunday, May 6th, 10:00 p.m.

Like most people I have two families. The family I was born into and the family of friends that I’ve chosen for myself. That’s normal. It also shouldn’t surprise you to learn that my family is sort of crazy because that’s exactly what everybody else says about their own family. I mean really, telling people that your family is on the wacky side is right up there with confessing to being moody right before your period. It’s so commonplace it’s barely worth mentioning.

So if your family’s like mine and you don’t want to spend your life surrounded by head cases there is only one clear course of action: choose sane friends.

I didn’t take that route. All my friends are completely mad. You wouldn’t be able to get them institutionalized or anything, but suggesting that they are in any way normal would be, well, hyperbolic. I don’t mind though. They’re my family of choice, and although they do occasionally make me crazy, I really do love them, eccentricities and all.

Jason Beck is the perfect example of this. Right now he’s standing across the room from me. I can see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the water trapped in his hair, evidence of the swim he hurriedly abandoned earlier in the evening. His goatee is pointing toward the ugly gray carpet like an arrow and his white skin is even paler than normal. I didn’t exactly choose Jason. He’s one of my friend Dena’s two boyfriends. (Yes, I know. We’ll get to that later.) That sort of makes Jason a stepbrother. A wannabe-anarchist/wannabe-vampire/wannabe-philosopher stepbrother. He never manages to achieve more than wannabe status because he isn’t brave enough to openly defy authority when doing so is risky, he has never found a way to make the transition from human being to bloodsucker despite his insistence that Anne Rice’s early novels are really nonfiction, and his musings are only philosophical if you’re drunk or stoned. Still, he is…interesting. One of these days the psychiatric community might be able to come up with a more succinct and scientific definition for whatever Jason is. But the reason he’s become part of my extended family is because he is by far the most endearing lunatic I have ever met in my life. It’s his good heart that has brought him into this room tonight.

Then there’s my hairstylist, Marcus. God, do I love me some Marcus. Of all my friends he’s probably the least crazy one. He’s intelligent, talented, funny as hell and drop-dead gorgeous. With his brilliantly white teeth, smooth mocha skin, perfectly groomed locks…I swear if he wasn’t gay I would have jumped him years ago. But he is gay. Years ago he jumped out of the closet and right onto the first float of San Francisco’s Pride Parade. So instead of sensual rubdowns I have to settle for marginally frisky conditioning treatments. Lately he’s been calling me J-Lodad because he thinks that (thanks to my Black and Eastern European-Jewish ancestry) I look like a cross between Soledad O’Brien and J-Lo. That’s one of the main reasons why I’m willing to settle for the platonic scalp massages: when I’m stressed or sad Marcus makes me laugh.

But not tonight. Tonight he’s facing away from me, a five-month-old People magazine in his hands, just one of the many outdated periodicals lying around the waiting room. He’s not reading it of course. He just needs something to hold on to while he waits for relief from his darkest fears…or the confirmation of them.

On the other hand Anatoly’s current focus is completely on me. Anatoly is…well, he’s my tall, dark Russian lover, my boyfriend, my nemesis, maybe even my soul mate. He lives with me and we are completely dedicated to one another…until we have one of our knock-down-drag-out fights. Then he storms out (or I kick him out) and at that moment we both know that it is totally and completely over.

Except it’s never totally and completely over because he’s Anatoly and I’m Sophie. We can’t stay apart because, to use his words, neither of us can claim ownership of the other and yet in some odd, paradoxical way I belong to him and he to me. You can’t stay away from something that belongs to you for any real length of time. Someone else might try to steal it.

But no one would dare try to steal him away tonight. Tonight he holds my hand firmly, his body’s leaning toward mine, letting the world know that he’s ready to catch me if I collapse into sobs, ready to hold me back if I lash out at the wrong person. He seems not to have noticed the hum of the fluorescent lights above although it’s exactly the kind of noise that usually annoys him. He hasn’t glanced at the television mounted in the corner that’s tuned to ESPN. Tonight his attentiveness and responsiveness can only be equaled by my need.

And to my left, sitting rigidly in what has to be the most worn chair in the hospital waiting room, is Mary Ann. Mary Ann is totally pretty, sweet, honest, loyal and totally, totally ditzy. She’s sort of an idiot savant. Her genius lies in her ability to make even the homeliest face look Vogue-worthy. She spent years being the favored cosmetician at the Neiman Marcus Lancôme counter and now she makes quite a good living free-lancing. So what if she thinks euthanasia is a creative way of referring to the young people in China? The woman can make the biggest zit disappear with the sweep of a powder brush. She’s like the David Copperfield of blemishes.

And now she has a ring that is as impressive as her talent. A heart-shaped ruby on a platinum band given to her by the man who currently has his arm draped over her stiff shoulders. If my relationship with Anatoly is tempestuous, Mary Ann’s romance with Monty checks in at a continual seventy-five degrees with a gentle breeze and only the lightest precipitation. I don’t often envy her because I do like stormy weather, but every once in a while I catch myself wondering if it might be better to live in a calmer emotional climate.

Of course she hasn’t been calm tonight. Only a few hours ago she was screaming.

Monty tried to soothe her but the only one who has the power to truly put her at ease is Dena. Dena is Mary Ann’s cousin and, as I mentioned earlier, my friend. My best friend. She’s a little Sicilian spitfire with a fierce intellect and a fondness for bondage wear. It would be hard to find a cute, available, straight guy in San Francisco who hasn’t worn Dena’s handcuffs at least once. Of course it’s hard to find a cute, available straight guy in San Francisco period, so perhaps that’s not saying much.

Dena understands me like no one else. She has fought for me in both the figurative and literal sense of the word. When I’m tempted to wallow in self-pity Dena’s always there to give me a swift kick in the ass. When I fly off the handle Dena helps me see logic…and that’s no easy feat. My feelings about logic are tepid at best. In turn I understand, and never judge, her proud promiscuity. I know her strength and I am deeply familiar with her fears. I know everything about Dena.

As of tonight I even know the color of her blood. It’s the exact same shade as the ruby on Mary Ann’s finger.

CHAPTER 1

I don’t want to look for a man. I want to shop for one. And if I can find one that comes with a lifetime warranty or at the very least an exchange policy I’ll buy him.

–Fatally Yours

Sunday, May 6th, 7:00 p.m.

“You’ll never believe what wonderful thing he’s done now!” Mary Ann exclaimed as she flung open the door of her San Francisco Lake Street apartment to greet Dena and me. Her deep brown eyes glittered with excitement.

Neither Dena nor I had to be told that he was Monty Sanchez, the very successful entrepreneur she had been dating for the past eleven months. He made robotic toys and stuffed animals that nobody needed but every gadget-collecting geek wanted. Like the lifelike seal pup that could recognize faces and dance the samba. That one was a huge hit.

Dena’s eyes slowly narrowed as they made their way down to Mary Ann’s hands. “What the hell? Why are you wearing long gloves?”

“Because tonight I feel like a princess!” Quickly she hustled us inside.

Dena and I exchanged glances. “She never drinks by herself…so she’s probably not drunk,” Dena mused.

“Maybe she’s sleepwalking?’” I suggested. “We shouldn’t wake her. You know what they say—sleepwalkers can get violent when awakened, especially if they’re already acting deranged.”

Mary Ann stuck her tongue out at us before breaking into a light laugh. “Come in, take your jackets off and I’ll tell you all about it.”

We followed Mary Ann into her living room, at which point Dena let out a yelp of alarm.

Sitting by the window was a giant orca. A plush orca to be precise, but, based on size alone, it could have given any living juvenile orca a run for its money. It gazed up at us with black oval pupils as if pleading for understanding.

“Don’t you get it? A day after I met Monty on the beach in San Diego he took me to Sea World for our first real date! He bought me a Shamu to show me how much that day meant to him! Isn’t it perfect?”

“Shamu?” Dena repeated, clearly baffled. “God, Mary Ann, he’s as big as my love seat!”

“A love seat,” Mary Ann repeated, clasping her gloved hands together as she emphasized the second word. “That’s perfect. And look! He can act like a love seat, too! See? You can sit on him!”

She plopped down on top of her new pet. Shamu barely budged under her weight, but then again Mary Ann couldn’t be over a hundred and ten pounds. It was doubtful that she had the power to crush a baby Chihuahua.

“Is he comfortable?” I asked doubtfully.

“Well, no,” Mary Ann admitted. “But I bet the real Shamu isn’t all that comfortable either, and the trainers ride him all the time!”

“So now you want to straddle an orca?” Dena laughed.

“Don’t be crude! This orca is one of the most romantic gifts Monty has ever given me! Not that you would understand. Your idea of romance is a pink dildo with a vibrating dove flopping around at the end of it!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Dena waved her hand in the air dismissively. “They don’t make them with doves. You’re thinking of the rabbit with the twitching nose…or maybe my rubber ducky vibrator but he’s not attached to anything, the vibrator is the duck. You just hold it—”

Mary Ann sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. “You’re missing the point!”

Dena shot me a pleading look but I refused to intervene. I have published ten murder mysteries including Fatally Yours, which was currently on the New York Times bestseller list, and I have managed to solve more than one true-crime case before the police could, but debating the emotional significance of a giant plush sea mammal was well beyond my mental capacity.

Mary Ann recognized our silence as a victory and smiled. “There’s more.”

“Oh?” I asked, trying not to sound apprehensive.

“Yes. Yesterday was our eleven-month anniversary and to celebrate the day Monty put together a whole gift pack with something to remind me of each of the wonderful places he took me to during the first week we were together.”

“Wait a minute.” Dena adjusted the low cowl neckline of her army-green tank top before dropping down on the flowered couch. “You guys celebrated your eleven-month anniversary? Shouldn’t you have waited another month before exchanging gifts?”

“Monty says that would be too continental,” Mary Ann explained.

Dena and I were quiet for a moment as we tried to work that one out. “You mean conventional?” I ventured.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

Both Dena and I tactfully chose not to answer the question.

Mary Ann shrugged and got back up to her feet. “You want to see what else he got me?”

“Can I have a second to think about that?” Dena teased.

Mary Ann rolled her eyes and went to the mantel of her mock fireplace. Carefully she picked up a snow globe that I hadn’t seen before.

“Check it out, it’s two flamingos like the ones we saw at Wild Animal Park! Isn’t it cute the way their heads are pressed together so their necks form a heart? And he had it engraved and everything! Look!” She pointed to the little plaque on the front of the snow globe. “M & M! For Monty and Mary Ann! He says that life with me is just as sweet as the candy. Isn’t that cute?”

Neither of us said anything for a moment and then Dena turned to me. “Do you have any Tylenol?”

“Oh, come on.” Mary Ann smacked Dena on the arm with a tad too much force to be considered playful. “It’s sweet! You think it’s sweet, don’t you, Sophie?”

“Well,” I hedged, “it’s certainly unconventional. I mean, well, they put flamingos in a snow globe. I’m not judging or anything but…wouldn’t penguins be somewhat more appropriate?”

“Penguins can’t make their necks look like a heart!”

“Actually they sort of can—”

“No, they can’t!”

“Oh. Okay.” I sank back as Dena muttered swearwords under her breath.

“And I’m sure that flamingos would love the snow if they ever had the chance to play in it!” Mary Ann continued. “Humans aren’t the only ones who like to mix things up, you know!”

I nodded quickly to show that I was willing to concede the point. Of course it wasn’t the flamingos that I had difficulty with despite their peculiar climatic versatility, it was the inscription. Comparing a relationship to the sweetness of M & Ms? If Anatoly ever said something like that to me I’d whack him over the head with a toothbrush.

Dena lifted her fingers to the bridge of her nose as Mary Ann replaced the globe and crossed to the other side of the room. But this time what she pointed to was a rather interesting and well-rendered piece of modern art that she had hung high above her low bookcase. The blue backdrop perfectly offset the bold black and white strokes that graced the canvas.

Dena immediately perked up. “Monty gave you that?” she asked. “It’s actually pretty cool!”

“Isn’t it?” Mary Ann looked up at the painting lovingly. “It was painted by an orangutan at the San Diego Zoo!”

Dena opened her mouth, then closed it, then started rocking slowly back and forth like a mental patient trying to comfort herself. “Maybe I should pour us all something to drink,” I suggested hopefully. “Something strong.”

“In a minute,” Mary Ann promised. “First I have to show you this.”

She crossed to the side table by the couch and lifted up a delicate little treasure box. It was made of porcelain and was as smooth and beautiful as Mary Ann’s complexion. On its lid stood a small figurine of Tinker Bell. Her delicate but spirited face was upturned and her little wand was arched high above her head as if she was trying to command the stars to dance.

“It’s pretty,” Dena begrudgingly admitted.

Mary Ann nodded solemnly. “It’s Lennox. It was at Disneyland that I knew I was truly in love with him. Tinker Bell flew over Sleeping Beauty’s castle and the sky lit up with fireworks….” Her voice trailed off and she took a deep, shaky breath. “He kissed me then and the way I felt when I was in his arms…the entire experience just opened my eyes to a whole new world!”

Dena grabbed my wrist and gave it an urgent squeeze. “She’s going to burst into song!” she hissed. “It’s like some kind of nightmarish scene from Mamma Mia!”

Mary Ann shot her a quick dirty look. “I’m not going to sing. But it was magic. Disney magic. And whatever you may think of it, that magic woke me up to what an amazing guy I had standing next to me…holding my hand. And now just look at us! We’re living the fairy tale!”

“The Disney version or the Brothers Grimm?” Dena asked.

“Why do you always have to be like this?” Mary Ann snapped. “You and I both know that Disney never made a movie about any brothers named Grimm and if you’re talking about Brother Bear, well, that movie wasn’t romantic at all!”

As they continued to argue I picked up the Lennox box. There was room in it for something small…and possibly very valuable.

“Mary Ann,” I asked carefully, “was there anything in here when he gave this to you?’”

Mary Ann, who had been yelling at Dena, abruptly stopped…and blushed.

“Is that the reason you’re wearing the gloves?” I persisted.

Her blush deepened and she pulled off her right glove and then her left. None of us moved a muscle as we collectively stared down at the large heart-shaped ruby on a simple platinum band.

“Oh. My. God.” They were the only words I could manage.

Dena’s eyes widened slowly and the fine lines of surprise popped up on her forehead one by one. “Mary Ann,” Dena breathed, “is that what I think it is?”

Mary Ann only nodded, her eyes still on her ring.

“But you’ve only known him for—”

“We’ve known each other for almost a year.” She looked up at Dena, her anger replaced with a gut-wrenching vulnerability. “I am totally and absolutely in love with him.”

Dena pressed her lips together and I found myself holding my breath as we all waited for further reaction. Dena was the sole proprietor of an upscale sex shop and she was currently involved in a polyamorous relationship with two guys and a hippie chick named Amelia. The very idea that she was going to be able to embrace her cousin’s acceptance of a heart-shaped gemstone presented in a Tinker Bell box seemed preposterous. But it was also necessary. For Mary Ann, Dena was more than a cousin, she was the older sister she never had, and despite all their differences she would want her blessing.

Dena took Mary Ann’s hand and lifted the ruby to the light. “It’s a good quality rock,” Dena said as she tilted the gem this way and that. “It’s almost like glass and the red is fantastic. It’s Burmese?”

Again Mary Ann nodded. “It’s over a full carat. He got it from Goldberry’s on Sacramento Street…you know Bob Dylan’s former longtime girlfriend designed it. I thought you’d like that. I thought maybe…maybe you could be happy for me?”

Dena took in another deep breath and then looked straight into Mary Ann’s eyes.

“You tell him that if he ever hurts you I will get a rock five times this size and shove it up his ass. Got it?”

And that was Dena-speak for “I’ll support you in this.” Mary Ann threw her arms around Dena’s neck and burst into tears. “I love you so much,” she sobbed.

“Hey,” I said, gently nudging Mary Ann as she loosened her grip on Dena. “I’d shove a rock up a guy’s ass if he hurt you, too, you know.”

“Like Monty could ever hurt anyone.” Mary Ann laughed and gave me a swift, hard hug. “He’s not like the other guys I’ve dated. He is always so kind and gentle and he would never cheat on me. Not in a million years.”

“Ah.” Dena stood up and crossed her arms across her chest. “So what you’re saying is he’s not like Rick. Is that asshole still calling you?”

Mary Ann pressed her ringed hand against her chest and looked away. It had been almost exactly one year since Mary Ann had found her now-ex-boyfriend Rick Wilkes in the arms of Fawn, the rather lively and ironically named female taxidermist. It had been a particularly tragic discovery since it had not only ruined Mary Ann’s relationship but also her love of natural history museums.

“Rick calls occasionally. He even happened to call the night Monty proposed. Can you believe that? He actually thinks we can be friends or something.” She shook her head in disgust. “Monty’s nothing like Rick and not just because he’s faithful. Monty sees the world differently. He’s so…hopeful and enthusiastic about everything. He makes life more fun and…Dena, he makes me so happy! And now you’re both happy for me like I knew you would be…or I thought you would be…or…I hoped. I guess I didn’t really know what to expect. Neither of you believe in marriage.”

“That’s not true,” I protested, perhaps a bit louder than was necessary. “I just don’t believe in marriage for me…not a second time.”

“But that was with Scott,” Mary Ann reminded me. “If you married Anatoly—”

“Okay, seriously?” I asked. “The man hasn’t even given up his apartment! Did you know that? He won’t even sublet it to someone who plans on staying for more than six months!”

“But you’ve said that Anatoly never actually sleeps there,” Mary Ann pointed out. “He always stays with you—”

“And according to him that’s what really matters,” I practically yelled. “As far as I’m concerned what matters is that he resorts to bullshit justifications in order to explain himself.”

Dena raised her eyebrows. “So what you’re saying is you had another argument earlier today.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was getting off course. “Anatoly and I love each other and we’ll work it all out. But as for marriage…it just isn’t our thing. You’re different, Mary Ann. You were meant to be a bride with a killer dress and all the rest of it. Don’t you think, Dena?”

Dena took Tinker Bell into her hand and ran her finger over each of her curves and angles as if searching for some clue to her magic. “It took me thirty-three years to find the willpower to limit myself to two men,” Dena said slowly. “And there are days and nights…lots of nights, when I wonder if I’m going to be able to keep it up without throwing some new guy into the mix. So marriage…” She sighed and cast a dubious glance at Shamu. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully wrap my mind around why so many people think it’s so friggin’ fantastic. But if it’s what you really want—”

“More than anything,” whispered Mary Ann.

“Well, that’s something I can celebrate, a woman getting what she wants. Particularly if that woman is you.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best?”

Dena smiled. “Not even once. Can we drink now?”

Mary Ann bounced up and down on her toes as if she was preparing to jump off a diving board. “I have a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge.”

“I’m on it.” I went into the kitchen and quickly found the bottle and within minutes we were standing around Shamu with our champagne flutes raised high.

“Cheers to Mary Ann,” Dena said. “May your marriage be…highly sexual in nature. I’m serious, Mary Ann. Don’t turn into one of those weirdos who would rather watch American Idol than play ride the orca with your husband.”

“I’ll try not to,” Mary Ann said solemnly.

We drank and then I raised my glass again. “My turn. This is to all of us. Three strong women who know how to make our very different dreams come true.”

Both Dena and Mary Ann broke into huge grins and our glasses came together in one clear clink.

We spent the next hour listening to exactly how Monty had popped the question. We marveled that he had taken the trouble of flying to Palm Springs in order to get her father’s blessing. We laughed at how Mary Ann’s blue-collar, pragmatic father must have reacted to Monty, who had undoubtedly described his love for Mary Ann with all the flourish of a sommelier describing the floral notes of a wine. A few days later, when Mary Ann had been at a hotel dusting color on the pale face of a bride, Monty used the key she’d given him to slip inside her apartment and place a gift in almost every room. When she got home he acted as her guide, leading her to one whimsical treasure after another. The last present had been placed in her bedroom. Mary Ann recalled sitting on the edge of her bed, unwrapping the Tinker Bell figurine, her shoulders hunched over as she carefully peeled the tape away from the metallic silver paper. She had been totally mindless of Monty, who had knelt on the floor beside her…until she found the ruby of course. It was then that she realized that Monty wasn’t just kneeling; he was on bended knee.

Eventually I excused myself to the bathroom and Mary Ann went to her room where she was going to retrieve the bridal magazines she had already begun to collect. Dena stayed in the living room hoping that another glass of champagne would help make the pages of flouncy white gowns and ruffled bridesmaid dresses more tolerable.

I was washing my hands when I heard…something. A high-pitched pinging sound followed by something falling. It was heavier than the thud of a dropped book and much more substantial than the sound of a broken glass. I couldn’t even begin to think of what it was that had hit the floor, but for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain the sound of its fall had frightened me…and not just a little bit.

I opened the bathroom door at the same time Mary Ann stepped into the hall, balancing what looked to be twenty or so magazines in her arms. She looked at me questioningly. “Did you hear that?”

I nodded and looked toward the living room. “Dena?” I called out. “Everything okay?”

Mary Ann and I both waited for a response. The only sound was the rush of the heater coming on.

And all of a sudden something shifted. It wasn’t tangible and I couldn’t put a name to it but somehow the consistency of the air changed. It took on weight and it rushed down my throat and pressed anxiety into my lungs. Something was wrong.

Mary Ann dropped the magazines and I was at her heels as we raced out into the living room.

Dena was on the floor. One hand was grasping the corner of Mary Ann’s basket weave rug.

Both of us lunged to Dena’s side.

“Dena?” Mary Ann cried. “Dena, what happened to your back?”

My eyes immediately zeroed in on the small but growing circle of blood underneath her shoulder blade.

“What?” Dena managed, her eyes moving back and forth between us. “What?”

I had seen that kind of wound before. Not there, not in the back…but I had seen the wound. I had seen it in the chest of an attacker…right after I shot him. My eyes jerked up toward the front door. It was open.

“Don’t move!” I demanded in a hoarse whisper as I carefully scanned the room. There were no heavy curtains to hide behind. But the kitchen…could he still be in the kitchen?

“I can’t,” Dena whispered back. “I can’t move…my legs are cold! Sophie, why can’t I move my legs!”

And with those words the air grew even heavier. I heard myself make some kind of strangled cry but that was all I could manage. It hurt to breathe. I choked back my rising panic as my eyes darted around the room in search of something that would work as a weapon. There was a heavy vase, a letter opener, perhaps the poker by the fireplace…

But what good would any of those things be against a gun?

Our best bet was a quick response from 9-1-1. Mary Ann didn’t have a landline, only a cell.

“Dena, where’s your BlackBerry?” I forced myself to ask.

“In…my bag.”

“And yours?” I said, glancing at Mary Ann.

Her eyes went over to her own purse. All of our cell phones were in our handbags and our handbags were on the chair nearest the kitchen.

From my place on the floor I raised myself to a low crouch and went for the poker.

“Dena, please tell me what happened!” I heard Mary Ann say.

“Apply pressure to the wound,” I said urgently as I moved toward the kitchen. “And stay down.”

Mary Ann asked a question…or maybe she just whimpered, I couldn’t tell. My ears were clogged with the ringing sound of my own fear.

In one move I grabbed my handbag, threw it in Mary Ann’s direction and jumped around the corner swinging the poker wildly in hopes of knocking someone over before they had a chance to pull a trigger.

But the room was empty. We were alone after all.

And the shooter had gotten away.

I turned to see Mary Ann pressing buttons on my cell. Her fair skin was even whiter than normal.

And the circle of blood continued to grow.

CHAPTER 2

Too frequently grief is nothing more than a pathway to anger.

–Fatally Yours

Sunday, May 6th, 9:00 p.m.

I have never hated the police as much as I did that night. Yes, there were questions to answer but they should have been asked in the ambulance. They shouldn’t have kept me away from my best friend. And Mary Ann…her screams had started less than a minute after she had gotten through to 9-1-1. And they kept coming. Mary Ann’s screams became a continuous soundtrack to the horror movie I was living in.

But what really scared me was Dena’s silence. She had to feel pain. The blood coming from under her shoulder blade was proof of that. But after her first few panicked whispers she had become deadly quiet, only opening her mouth long enough to answer the urgent questions of the paramedics.

And then they took her away and I was left with police questions that I had no answer to and Mary Ann’s ceaseless screams.

I needed to get to Dena. But it was Anatoly who got to her first. When he called to smooth over our latest quarrel I told him what had happened. He wanted to come to Mary Ann’s apartment and stand by my side while I answered the impossible questions, but I didn’t let him. I told him to go to the hospital and to tell the doctors that they had to fix her.

That they had to make her talk again.

That they had to bring the warmth back to her legs.

When Anatoly told me that he didn’t have any control over those things, I started screaming, too. He stopped protesting after that and went to the hospital. The next to call was Monty. I didn’t hear his part of the conversation but he somehow managed to quiet Mary Ann’s cries to gulping sobs.

And the police kept asking questions. When exactly did we hear the pinging noise? Did we hear footsteps? Was the door locked before the intruder came in or had we forgotten to lock it? Did we know of anyone who wanted to hurt Dena or anyone else in the room? I didn’t have answers. I didn’t even really have thoughts. I just had a need to get to my friend.

The clock told me that the police kept us for just over an hour but I was sure that God had somehow squeezed a year into that hour, and when I finally got Mary Ann into my car it was everything I could do to keep myself from running every red light as we zoomed toward USF Medical Center.

And when we arrived everyone was there. Anatoly had called each member of my nonbiological family…Dena’s family. Her boyfriend, Jason, had just finished doing three laps in the JCC pool when he heard his phone ringing by his towel. Dena’s other boyfriend, Kim, was backpacking across Nicaragua with Amelia. They couldn’t be reached. But Marcus was easy to find. He had been on his way to Napa for a short spa getaway. He had been singing along to Madonna when Anatoly brought him into the chaos.

No one spoke when Mary Ann and I entered that waiting room. Anatoly just looked at me and slowly pulled his hands out of the pockets of his motorcycle jacket and I fell against him. Nothing could make me feel better, but at least I knew he would hold me up.

“She’s in surgery,” he said, his voice low, his slight Russian accent much more soothing than his words. From the corner of my eye I could see Marcus turning away. “They said the bullet hit her spinal vertebral casing, the bony spinal column, and pushed a fragment of bone into her spinal cord.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. The fluorescent lights were too bright and bringing unwanted attention to the ugly pattern on the gray carpet and the cheaply upholstered red chairs. Mary Ann was now sitting by Monty’s side. He was just kissing her hair as she cried.

“It means,” Anatoly explained, “that she’s going to live. They have the head of neurology working on her and we’re in one of the top hospitals in the country.”

“So she’s going to be okay? Her legs are going to work and everything?” I asked.

Anatoly pulled away slightly, his brown eyes held me as if trying to steady me for the impact of a shot of bitter realism. “It means,” he said slowly, “that she has the best chance possible. It means we have the right to be optimistic.”

“But not certain,” I said angrily.

“Sophie, there is no such thing as certainty. It’s as fictional as human perfection.”

Marcus put a hand to his stomach and dropped his People magazine onto one of the dusty brown side tables. “I do believe I’ll be throwing up now.” And with that he quickly exited the room.

Jason burst into laughter. It had a dark, hysterical quality to it and I saw Mary Ann instinctively pull closer to Monty.

“All this time I thought I was jaded and fucking cynical,” he gasped. “I thought I saw through all the phony middle-class idealism. I thought I understood brutality!”

I studied him quietly from my place in Anatoly’s arms. Jason’s jeans were torn and his T-shirt depicted a pre-World War II campy B-movie poster with the words Assassin of Youth printed in bold white letters. The slightly smaller print and pictures made it clear that the phrase was a reference to the dangers of marijuana (which Jason wore sardonically) but still the words made me cringe.

“But now I know I was as delusional as any of the fucking suburbanites I condescend to.” He wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked frightened. Maybe even terrified. “I thought…I thought…”

“What did you think?” Mary Ann asked, her voice hoarse.

“I thought this couldn’t happen. I thought some things just didn’t happen. I’m not cynical at all. I’m fucking naive. Even now I can’t accept this. I don’t understand brutality at all!”

Mary Ann pulled away from Monty and offered Jason a shaky hand. “We have to pray.”

“I don’t believe in God,” Jason choked out.

There was a moment of quiet as we all paused to take inventory of our own personal beliefs.

“I believe in God,” Anatoly said slowly, “but not divine intervention. I’ve seen too many good people suffer to believe in that.”

“So what do we do?” The note of desperation in Jason’s voice was harsh and unsettling. “Shit, I always thought my atheism was so fucking liberating but now…who do I pray to? Who can I rail against? What am I supposed to do?”

“What you do,” Anatoly said thoughtfully, “is believe in Dena.”

“Yes,” Monty said, finally joining in the conversation. “Like Tinker Bell.”

Jason did a quick double take. “What?”

Monty drew himself to his full height. He had the black hair and coloring of his Mexican father, the delicate, almost aristocratic features of his French Canadian mother and the blindingly bright, optimistic energy that could only be cultivated in America. “We all remember Peter Pan, don’t we?” he asked. “Tinker Bell came back to life because those who loved her believed in her.”

“Dena,” Jason said between clenched teeth, “is not some kind of insipid, weak-ass little fairy! Dena is…”

“A fighter,” Monty finished. “Tinker Bell drank poison to protect Peter Pan and then right before collapsing she called him an ass for not taking care of himself. That’s not Dena?”

Jason hesitated a moment before looking away. “I didn’t realize that Tink was so cool.”

“Well, she is,” Monty said determinedly. “And Dena’s cooler and I do believe in her so…” He raised his hands in the air and clapped.

Anatoly’s grip tightened around my waist as he saw my hands clench into fists. “You are not seriously clapping because you believe in fairies!” I hissed. “Not while a team of people are working on my best friend’s spine in the next friggin’ room!”

“I believe that the magic of positive thinking can help,” he said as his open palms continued to slam into each other. “At least it can’t hurt.”

Jason shook his head like a wet dog and walked to the other side of the room. “This is insane.”

“Exactly!” I said, finally pulling away from Anatoly.

“If only I was a vampire,” Jason moaned. “Then I could give her the gift of eternal life.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Dena didn’t like normal guys. She liked kindhearted freaks like Jason. For her sake I had to suppress the urge to whack him upside the head.

“Monty,” Mary Ann said softly, quieting his hands by taking them into hers. “I love Tinker Bell, too, but right now I need someone to pray with me.”

Monty sighed in what sounded like mild disappointment and kissed Mary Ann on the forehead. “Of course I’ll pray with you, sweetie. It’s just that Tink is so much less complicated than God. I thought it would be easier to appeal to her spirit than that of the Holy Ghost.”

I sat down on one of the unsightly chairs. “I’ll pray with you, Mary Ann.”

Mary Ann whispered her words of entreaty to God, each one coming out with more force and urgency. And then, when she could think of nothing else to say she whispered, “Amen,” and leaned her full weight against Monty. “I have to call her parents.”

I looked up at the ceiling and tried to imagine how this call was going to go. Dena’s parents had retired to Arizona almost ten years ago. They were both very active in their church. Dena’s mother, Isa, was once a nurse practitioner but now toured the high schools and various junior colleges in her personal mission to preach abstinence for unmarried people. And Dena owned a sex shop. It was unclear if Dena’s need to make a career out of the oddities of human sexuality was an act of rebellion or if Dena’s parents’ escalating crusade against immorality was a reaction to their daughter’s eccentricities. Either way it made for a contentious relationship.

But still, Dena was their daughter. They had the right to a phone call.

Mary Ann took her cell phone out of her purse and stared at it for a beat. “I think I’m going to take this outside. I’m going to need the fresh air.”

“I’ll come with you,” Monty said, wrapping his coat over her shoulders and leading her out of the room.

Anatoly sat down beside me. “Sophie, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

I shook my head. “God, I wish I could but I don’t really know. Everything was fine. We were all fine and then Mary Ann went in her room for a few minutes to get something and I went to the bathroom. There was a sort of a high pinging noise I think…I can’t even be sure of that, it happened so fast and it wasn’t very loud…then there was the sound of Dena falling….” I shook my head fiercely. I couldn’t repeat it again. The words were like small fish bones scratching against my throat.

“Yes, you told me that much over the phone,” Anatoly said. “Whoever shot her must have used a silencer. Do you need a key to get into the building or just the apartment?”

“Both the building and the apartment…but I guess it’s possible that we didn’t lock the apartment door. Mary Ann was kind of distracted…. Did I tell you that she just got engaged to Monty?” It seemed like such a stupid thing to say, so totally out of place with what was going on at that moment.

Anatoly only gave a nod of acknowledgment and pressed his hand against my knee. “Dena was shot in the back so I’m assuming she was facing away from the door, right?”

I shrugged. It was one of the million things I didn’t know.

“Is there any chance that it came through a window?”

“I would have heard the glass shatter.”

Anatoly shook his head. “One bullet wouldn’t break a window, just make a hole in it, and you probably wouldn’t have heard it.”

I tried to think. Had the police looked at the windows? The windows facing the street couldn’t be opened so the shot would have gone through the glass. Plus we had been on the third floor, so the shooter would have been in the building across the street.

But most importantly, the door had been open when I found Dena. Someone had opened the door, stepped into Mary Ann’s living room and with one tiny move of their finger shattered my world.

“It came from the doorway,” I said definitively. “I’m sure of it.”

Jason scanned the beige windowless walls. “Whoever did this isn’t going to get away with it. The police are going to catch this fucker and put him away.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Jason had considerably more faith in the police than I did, which was surprising since he was the one who claimed to be an anarchist.

But if Jason saw the irony of his statement he made no indication of it. I watched him as he ran his hands through his hair and then used his jeans to dry them. “I’m going to get some water. Anyone else want water?”

Both Anatoly and I shook our heads so Jason just left the room, leaving us alone.

I shifted in my seat so I could look Anatoly in the eyes. “You know,” I said slowly, “I can’t just sit on my ass and pray that the police make this case a priority.”

“Sophie, I’m going to look into this and find out what I can, but Jason’s right. The police are likely to catch this guy and make an arrest.”

“We don’t know that. And besides I want to find him first. I want him to try to hurt me. I want him to give me an excuse to give him what he really deserves.”

“You do understand that you can’t hunt down and kill the person who did this?” Anatoly asked.

I didn’t answer right away. I turned away from him and took a fresh look at the room. Why were we the only ones in the waiting room? Was Dena really the only person with loved ones to get hurt tonight?

Then again, the room wasn’t really empty. My anger was making good use of the space. It was seeping out of every pore, crawling up the walls, its vengeful energy mingled with the hum of the florescent lights. My anger owned that room.

In fact, it was taking up way too much space to make room for Anatoly’s logic. “Prison,” I said stiffly, “isn’t enough. This SOB shot Dena in the back! He could have killed her! Or ruined her life!”

“Sophie, have you ever visited a maximum security prison? That ruins people’s lives. And considering the crime the shooter isn’t going to get away with a couple of years. Even if this is his first offence he’s still looking at ten years minimum.”

“Ten years?” I whispered. And then, as if propelled by an outside force I shot out of my seat, my feet pounding into the thin gray carpet. “You think ten years are going to make up for this? Ten years can go by like that!” I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hell, I was graduating high school ten years ago and it feels like yesterday!”

“Sophie, you graduated high school over ten years—”

“Shut up! My alternative-reality high school will always be ten years ago. Don’t think you’re going to trick me into acknowledging my age just because I’m flipped out over what happened to my friend!”

“I see,” Anatoly said slowly. “Then, by your reasoning, ten years is an eternity.”

I hesitated and felt my lips coming close to what could have been considered a smile. “She’s my best friend, Anatoly,” I said, a slight quiver returning to my voice.

“I know.” He stood up and took my face in his hands. Anatoly had wonderful hands, big, strong, and a little rough. I wanted those hands to hold me. I wanted them to rub up and down my back over and over again until my shivers finally went away.

And then I wanted those hands to crush the shooter’s skull.

“You want me to help you find this guy, am I right?”

I nodded.

“Fine. We’ll find him together. And when we do I will investigate every moment of his life. I’ll make sure the police not only have evidence enough to convict him of this crime but any other crime he’s even thought of doing since he reached adulthood. I’ll give the D.A. what they need to put this guy away for as long as possible, but that’s it, Sophie. There isn’t going to be any vigilante justice.”

“But you will help me find out who did this and catch him, right?” I pressed. “We’re not just going to leave this up to the police?”

“Yes, but I want to hear you say it, Sophie.”

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

“Nope,” I said, casually looking down at my gladiator sandals. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No vigilante justice, Sophie.”

“You know, Robin Hood was a vigilante and everybody loves him.”

“Robin Hood was a communist.”

“Not in the Disney version of the story. Ask Monty, he’ll tell you.”

Anatoly tightened his grip on my hands. “Sophie. Will you just promise not to kill anyone?”

“I promise not to kill anyone…unless they try to kill me first.”

“Everybody tries to kill you.”

“Well, that’s not my fault, is it?”

Anatoly groaned and turned away from me.

I hesitated a moment and then sighed and rested my head against the back of his neck. “I’m not going to do anything illegal…at least not anything that’s likely to get me thrown in jail for more than a couple weeks.”

Anatoly groaned again but I remained undeterred. “I know my being put away won’t do anyone any good, least of all Dena. If you promise to help me find out who did this then I promise to…well, to behave as well as I normally do.”

Anatoly turned back to me. “That’s not saying a lot.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Sophie,” he said sharply. “You have to control your anger.”

I opened my mouth to respond but as I did a middle-aged couple came into the room. They glanced in our direction and then found a place for themselves in the far corner of the room. We weren’t alone anymore.

Anatoly and I sat down again. I squeezed my eyes closed and wrapped my arms around my chest. He was right of course. I did need to control my anger. But not get rid of it. I needed a controlled rage to get me through to the next day. And I needed it to drown out the screaming memory of Dena’s silence.

CHAPTER 3

Men are like rose stems in that rose stems of considerable length are nice but, ultimately, their size is not their most important attribute. What’s important is that the stem stays stiff long enough for your flower to hit full bloom.

–Fatally Yours

That night I dreamed of monsters. Before we had left the hospital the doctor had come out and told us that it appeared Dena’s surgery had been successful. That she should be able to walk again and that perhaps she eventually wouldn’t need a walker or braces in order to do it. He gave us a lot more details, but I didn’t hear them. All I heard were the lack of assurances. Their absence became a tangible thing that twisted itself into a multitude of awful images. Those images curled up in my mind only to uncoil in my sleep and attack my dreams. I hadn’t been able to see Dena either. Only blood relatives had been allowed admittance into her room. The rest of us had to wait for daylight hours.

Anatoly had held me all night but for once his embrace didn’t lead to sex. Having sex while Dena was unable to felt wrong. Like starting a rock band on the eve of Elvis’s death.

And now morning was here. My kitty, Mr. Katz, was rolled up in a ball by my feet and Anatoly still slept, understandable since it was only a little after 8:00 a.m. Last night we hadn’t even gotten home until almost 3:00 a.m. It was too early to go to the hospital; I certainly didn’t want to risk waking Dena. So where should I go? I couldn’t go back to sleep. There would be more monsters there.

As if he sensed the question, Anatoly’s eyes flickered open and glided over to me. “What time is it?” he muttered.

“Too early,” I answered.

Anatoly turned to check the clock and then paused as he tried to figure out the significance of my being conscious at such an obscene hour.

“I’m getting up,” I said.

“I’ll cook you breakfast,” Anatoly offered. He pushed the covers off himself, revealing his state of undress. Nothing but his fitted Calvin Klein boxers. Normally that would be enough to get my endorphins moving, but not this morning.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re always hungry, particularly if I’m cooking.”

“Today’s different.”

We lay there in silence for a few moments as Mr. Katz stretched his legs and abandoned us in search of a more peaceful resting spot, neither of us wanting to be the first to name the tragedy that had taken away my appetite for sex and food.

He sighed and pulled me into the crook of his arm. “Let’s stay here. We didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

I smiled and kissed his chin. “Sleep then,” I whispered before freeing myself and getting to my feet.

“Sophie—”

“No, I mean it. Stay here. I need to…think. To drive and think.”

“You’re sure you can’t think here in bed?” The red veins of exhaustion drew ragged lines across his eyes, making him look stoned and uncharacteristically vulnerable.

I leaned down and gave him another kiss, this time on the mouth. I let my tongue dance across his lower lip as I savored the taste of him. “Sleep,” I said when I finally pulled away. “We’ll talk later.”

Anatoly didn’t say anything as I pulled on my jeans and a T-shirt and brushed a thin golden layer of Bare Escentuals mineral powder across my face. I could feel him watching me as I left the room.

Outside the rising sun cast an eerie pale pink light across the sky. The fog that usually owned the mornings of San Francisco wasn’t there today. Without its insulation, the air had a harsh quality that felt out of place for May.

Of course, driving without coffee is almost as irresponsible as driving drunk, so my first stop was Starbucks. The barista recognized me and prepared my usual light mint mocha chip Frappuccino with a floating shot and extra whipped cream before I had the chance to order it. When tormented, always turn to your comfort foods.

I drove for over an hour and eventually I found myself in the South of Market district, only blocks away from O’Keefe’s, the nursery and flower boutique where Amelia worked. Of course she wouldn’t be there today. She and Kim were probably sleeping off a marijuana-induced high in some small corner of Nicaragua, blissfully unaware that here, in the highly developed city of San Francisco, the sky was falling.

But Dena liked the bouquets they made here…what was her favorite…did they call it the Aphrodisiac? Or maybe it was O’Keefe’s Pleasure? Whoever was working would know what I was talking about. I found a parking spot right in front and checked to make sure I had some cash on me before stepping inside.

South of Market was incredibly industrial but when you walked into O’Keefe’s it was as if you were entering a manicured jungle. Ivy and ferns dangled from the ceiling, forcing anyone above the height of five foot six to zigzag their way through the shop in order to avoid being smacked in the face by a leaf. Then there were the buckets of roses, the small potted plants, the ficus trees and the musty smell of damp soil. It was such a tangle of sensory delights that it took me a moment to identify what was wrong with the picture.

What was wrong was the employee on duty. Amelia stood frozen, partially hidden by a towering areca palm with leaves almost as wild and unruly as the mass of light brown curls that fell over her naturally tanned shoulders. “Sophie,” she said quietly.

“Amelia, what are you doing here?” I quickly closed the distance between us.

“I—I—I’m working,” she stammered and then held up a small watering can as if to prove her point.

“But you’re supposed to be in Nicaragua!”

“Yes, well, I didn’t…um…make it.”

“You and Kim canceled the trip?”

“Oh, Kim’s there. We just thought…or he decided…I decided…sometimes we all need to find ourselves, you know?”

“Wait, I’m confused. Is someone lost?”

“Kim is…sort of,” Amelia hedged. “Traveling alone can open your mind to what’s important,” she added. “It can help you see things differently and…and appreciate what you have a little more.”

“Okay, I get that.” I glanced around the shop. There was a bucket full of lilies that were such a deep red they were almost black. I wanted to ask Amelia a little bit more about Kim’s sudden decision to fly solo, though not because I was really all that interested. I just wanted to avoid telling Amelia the news.

“Did you come here for flowers?” Amelia asked. She shifted the watering can from hand to hand. Her eyes were even more red than Anatoly’s had been that morning.

“Amelia,” I said slowly, “something awful has happened.”

Amelia looked up suddenly, frightened. “Awful?” she breathed. “Have things gotten worse?”

“Worse? Worse than what?”

A small crease formed itself across Amelia’s forehead. “I…I don’t think I understand.”

“Well, that makes two of us. I have no idea what you’re referring to but what I’m talking about is Dena.” I took a deep breath for courage. “Amelia, Dena was shot last night.”

Amelia looked at me blankly for a moment, apparently absorbing nothing.

“I know it’s hard to take in but she is going to be okay.” Even as I said the words I knew how unconvincing they sounded. What was the definition of “okay,” anyway? Did you just have to live to be okay?

“You don’t know…” Amelia hesitated midsentence and stared down at the watering can as if it could give her some kind of clue as to what she should say next.

“No,” I said gently. “I don’t really know anything. But you know Dena. She’s going to want a full recovery and she always gets what she wants in the long run, right?”

Amelia kept her eyes down but I thought I saw her flinch. “Dena’s never had to wait for the long run.”

“Well, there you go!” I offered her a shaky smile. “She’ll be up and dancing in the clubs before the next major holiday.”

A large truck drove by, making the ground beneath our feet vibrate ever so slightly. Amelia looked up and I could see the tears forming. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked. “I should be at the hospital! What’s wrong with me?”

“Amelia, you didn’t know. No one expects you to be psychic.”

She shook her head fiercely as if not knowing was no excuse at all. “I’ll be there. I’ll get someone to come in and cover for me. Please tell Dena I’m coming, okay?”

“Yeah, sure…um…I actually came in because I wanted to bring her a bouquet. I know she likes the one that has these lilies in it.”

Amelia wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry for being like this,” she whispered as she stared at the dark red lilies.

“Come on, Amelia, you just found out that a friend of yours has been shot. There’s no way to handle that well.”

“I guess you’re right.” She took a deep steadying breath. “The bouquet you’re thinking of is the one we call Sense and Sensuality. I just finished putting one together for delivery. You can take it to her.”

“You were making one for someone else?” I asked.

Amelia didn’t seem to hear me. She wiped her eyes again and gestured for me to follow her to the counter at the back of the store. Next to the register was the bouquet, already prepared. “So I guess it’s a popular arrangement?” I asked.

“Not as much as you would think. It’s been months since I’ve put together one of these for anyone other than Dena…I mean, I did today, but before today months and months.”

“Really?” I asked. The bouquet was beautiful and the sinewy curves of the chosen flowers and leaves justified the name. “Who ordered the flowers today?” I asked as I fished out my wallet.

“What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?” Amelia snapped.

I stepped back and did a quick mental inventory of every word I had said in the past few minutes in hopes of finding the one that could have offended.

Amelia pressed her hand against her stomach, perhaps in an attempt to push the demon who had just spoken back inside her. “I think I’m a little on edge,” she offered. “I just didn’t expect this. How could any of us have expected this?”

I swallowed and glanced down at my watch. “It’s already eight. I should get to the hospital…find out what’s going on.”

Amelia handed me the bouquet. “On me. You will tell Dena I’m coming, right?”

“Yeah, of course. You know she really is going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” I laid the flowers against my right arm, like the first runner-up in a beauty pageant after she’s accepted her lesser tiara. And like a runner-up, the smile I offered Amelia was forced.

CHAPTER 4

My ex-boyfriend is kind of like a cold sore. He’s always popping up at the most inconvenient times, he’s hideously embarrassing, and it takes forever to get rid of him.

–Fatally Yours

The person in the hospital bed was totally unfamiliar to me. I had expected to see a wounded Dena but this was a…a…girl. Not a woman. Without styling products, her thick, dark hair flopped carelessly around her face. There was no burgundy lipstick or meticulously applied eyeliner. Without the help of her powder foundation you could make out the beginnings of a pimple right on the bridge of her nose. The only things that hadn’t changed were her eyelashes. Naturally dark, curvy and thick, Dena had never seen a reason to coat them in mascara. Now, without the competition of all the other expensive cosmetics, those lashes seemed to dominate her features. The sexy dark lashes of a seductress mistakenly placed around the eyes of an uneasy child.

“You brought me flowers,” Dena said, but there was no appreciation in her voice. Just the quiet notation of fact.

“They’re kind of from Amelia,” I said as I placed them on the bedside table beside her.

“I thought she was in Nicaragua.”

“No, Kim went, she stayed behind.” I had forgotten to ask for a vase…but shouldn’t Amelia have thought of that? This couldn’t be the first arrangement she’d ever made for a hospital room.

“My parents are in town.”

I pulled a wooden chair up to the side of the bed. “So they’ve already been here this morning?”

Dena shook her head. “I guess they were here last night but I was out of it. Monty’s putting them up. Mary Ann’s going to be staying with him, too, for a little while.”

“She doesn’t want to stay in her apartment,” I said slowly. “God, of course she doesn’t. I should have asked her if she wanted to stay with me.”

Dena looked away, choosing not to comment.

I gently fingered the petals of a downy orchid. I had a lot of questions but I wasn’t at all sure I wanted the answers.

Dena stroked the blanket that covered her legs. Her nails were painted with OPI’s “I’m Not Really a Waitress” red. “I can feel them,” she whispered.

For a second I didn’t understand. It wasn’t until I noted the way she was staring at her legs that I got it. “Oh! That’s wonderful!”

“Wonderful?” she repeated. “Wonderful that I can feel a part of my body? We’re supposed to be able to feel our legs! We’re supposed to be able to USE them! But I can’t do that, can I? Maybe, someday if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to walk a block in less than ten minutes!”

I drew away from the orchid. “It’s not going to be like that.”

“NO?” She spat. “This morning I talked to my doctor about walkers and braces. WALKERS and FUCKING BRACES, Sophie!”

Outside the room we could hear the high-pitched sound of nurses laughing as they walked down the hall. Dena winced as if their merriment was a personal insult. “He did say that with intensive physical therapy I might get to the point where I can walk with only a cane,” she continued, “but I shouldn’t get my hopes too high. I shouldn’t expect to be able to walk as well as my fucking grandmother, right? I mean who do I think I am? A healthy thirty-two-year-old woman? A woman who hasn’t had everything taken away from her in five fucking seconds? Is that who I think I am?”

“You don’t need to get your hopes up,” I said. Every muscle in my body was tensing and I pushed myself to the edge of the chair. “This isn’t about hope.”

“You know, Mary Ann spent the night here and Jason was here a little less than an hour ago. They were both trying to fucking coddle me,” Dena went on, apparently not hearing me. “Hugging me all fucking morning. I don’t need sympathy and cuddles. I need to be okay again but that’s never going to happen!”

“Shut up,” I whispered. The muted pastel tones in the room were blurring together as I stared hard at my friend.

“What did you just say?”

“SHUT UP!” I was louder this time and my heeled boots pounded against the linoleum floor as I jumped to my feet. “You’re pissed off? Fine, great, I am, too. But don’t just roll over! You don’t roll over for anyone! You’re a friggin’ dominatrix for God’s sake!”

Dena recoiled slightly, her head making wrinkled patterns in her paper pillow case. “Sophie—”

“I’m not done talking. See, this is how it’s going to go. You and I are going to take all this anger and we’re going to channel it. We’re going to find this guy who shot you and we’re going to fuck him up big-time. And then you’re going to take the rest of your anger and you’re going to use it to fuel your recovery. You’re going to walk again without ANY help—just to spite your attacker. This isn’t about keeping hopes high. This is about kicking ass and making the asshole who did this cower and beg for mercy and YOU know how to do that!”

Dena stared at me for a moment as I tried to steady my breathing. “Was that a pep talk?”

“God, I don’t know. Aren’t pep talks supposed to be more…peppy?”

Dena’s lips curved into the tiniest of smiles.

“You’re right,” she said, softer this time. “I do want to stay angry.”

I sat back in my chair. “It’s an awesome emotion.” I blinked my eyes until the room came back into focus. “Where would you and I be if Susan B. Anthony hadn’t gotten pissed off? Hell, our whole country owes its existence to the temper tantrum a bunch of moody Bostonians had over some tea.”

“You have a point.”

“Don’t I always?”

“No, not always.” A small flock of birds could be seen from the window and Dena followed their path with her eyes. “There’s more, Sophie. My doctor told me…he told me that sex is going to be…different. He said that after an injury like mine some women have reported that they are no longer able to have orgasms. He said that some of the women started experiencing pain when they had sex.”

I felt my heart go into free fall. This was worse than losing the use of her legs. This was like blinding an astronomer or cutting off the hands of a pianist.

Dena grabbed my wrist. “Promise me that it was more than just a pep talk, Sophie. Promise you’ll help me make the guy who did this pay.”

And at that very moment Mary Ann’s ex-boyfriend, Rick Wilkes, stepped into the room.

It took us both a split second to recognize him. His hair was shorter than the last time I had seen him and he was wearing a suit that seemed way too formal, not just for the hospital but for the city as a whole. But what really threw me off was the fact that the bottom half of his face was hidden behind a bunch of tulips. He must have brought two dozen of them and they were all carelessly crammed together in a small vase.

“What,” Dena said in a tone of utter disdain and impatience, “are you doing here?”

“I heard what happened.” He lowered the tulips slightly and gave me a small nod of acknowledgment. “I thought I’d come by and…” His voice trailed off and he thrust the flowers forward to demonstrate the point of his mission.

“You’re not family,” Dena said evenly. “And we’re not friends. What made you think you owed me flowers?”

“I didn’t think I owed them to you.” Rick put his bouquet next to mine. My black orchids seemed all the more dark and moody now that they glared up at Holland’s national flower. “Besides, we are friends. We were practically family for a while there.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dena tried to raise herself up on her forearms, and when the pain from her wound stopped her she settled for making her automated bed lift her into a sitting position. “You’re here to score points with my cousin?”

“That’s not what I said!”

“You might as well have! We were practically family,” she mimicked. “We were never anything close to family, snot-face!”

Rick gingerly put his hand to his nose as if he thought the insult might be literal.

“But here you are,” Dena continued, “hoping that if you show up with some ugly ass flowers Mary Ann’s going to see how sensitive and considerate you are and fall into your arms!”

“That’s not true! And these flowers aren’t ugly!” He picked his bouquet back up and shoved them in her face. “They’re tulips! You love tulips!”

“I hate tulips!” She smacked the flowers aside and glared as a dislodged petal floated down onto her sheets. “Mary Ann is the one who gets all Holly-Hobby-giddy over them—but that was the point, right?”

“Listen, we were watching the news,” Rick said in a rush. “I heard what happened and I thought, well, I should be here. I should be here to support Mary Ann’s cousin.”

“We?” Dena repeated.

“Right…er…” He put the flowers on the side table again and became very involved in fluffing them back up.

“Rick, baby, don’t leave me hanging,” Dena jeered. “Who’s we?”

Rick’s hands fell to his sides. “Well, if you must know, Fawn was with me, but don’t take that to mean… We were just watching television after all.”

“So you’re not with her anymore?” Dena asked, although she didn’t sound as if she cared all that much.

“No…we are… I had to get on with my life after all. Mary Ann told me she’s getting married and, well… I mean if I had reason to think she was having second thoughts… She’s not, right?”

“Get. Out!” Dena hissed just as the door opened again.

This time it was a nurse. “Miss Lopiano, I’m supposed to run some tests…”

Dena raised her hand bidding the nurse to wait and turned to Rick. “Why are you still here?”

“I could just wait in the corner,” he said hopefully. “Wait until she…um, your family shows up.”

Dena gave me a meaningful look. I got to my feet and took Rick by the arm. “We’re leaving.” I pulled him through the door and down the hallway.

“I’ll wait here then,” he suggested once we had reached a vending machine.

“For Mary Ann?” I asked. “Really? What do you think is going to happen?”

Rick pulled away from me and looked up at the ceiling. “I know you and Dena hate me. You have the right to but—”

“Rick, someone shot Dena. Right now all my hate is reserved for the guy who pulled the trigger. I don’t have room in my mind to hate you. I don’t have room for you period. And neither does Dena and neither does Mary Ann.”

“I just want to talk to her.”

“Not today. She’s got enough to deal with.”

Rick reached out and grabbed my arm but his grip was much tighter than mine had been on his. “I am not something that Mary Ann has to deal with. I’m here to comfort her. I understand her, she can talk to me.”

“No,” I said, peeling his fingers away. “She can’t. You severed whatever special connection you had with Mary Ann when you decided to stuff your weasel inside Bambi slutty taxidermist.”

“Her name is Fawn.”

“Whatever. You’re being a burden, Rick. Accept it and move on.”

Rick’s eyes flashed in what could be either anger or pain. He leaned forward and for the first time I became aware of his height. Rick wasn’t very muscular but he had to be at least six foot three.

“Rick? Is everything all right?”

We both turned to see a woman in a bright orange belted sheath dress coming out of the elevator. The vividness of her clothes seemed to clash with her reddish-brown hair which was gathered up in a cheap plastic clip.

Rick immediately pulled away. “Everything’s fine,” he said. I have never seen a man look more guilty. “I didn’t expect—”

But the woman cut him off by turning to me. “You must be a friend of Dena’s. I’m Fawn.”

She extended her hand to me but I just stared at it. Fawn read my reticence correctly and quickly pulled her hand back. “I guess you’re also a friend of Mary Ann’s,” she said quietly. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble. It’s just that after seeing it on the news Rick thought we should come…he did know Dena after all and he’s had nothing but nice things to say about her.”

“Dena doesn’t want to see Rick,” I said coolly. “And you…well, she doesn’t even know you.”

“Right, I’m sorry.” Fawn shifted from foot to foot. “We’ll go…or I’ll go wait in the car if you want to stay a little longer, Rick.” She looked up to Rick in a silent request for instructions.

“Rick doesn’t need to stay,” I said shortly. “You can both leave.”

Rick crossed his arms across his chest and for a moment it looked as if he was going to stomp his foot in protest, but instead he nodded to Fawn, who quickly fell behind him as he strode toward the elevator. Fawn turned to me and mouthed “sorry” as Rick jammed his finger against the call button. She didn’t protest when he pulled her inside as the doors parted.

It hadn’t been that way when Rick had been with Mary Ann. He had doted on her. Once, after consuming one too many glasses of scotch Rick had told her that she owned his soul. But men were always making wildly romantic declarations to Mary Ann. Just last month Monty had thrown rose petals at her feet and pronounced her to be queen of his heart. Anatoly didn’t do stuff like that. Thank God.

In what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds later, the bell of the elevator rang again and this time it was my sister, Leah, who walked out holding what might have been the biggest gift basket I have ever seen. She had to strain her neck to see over the large purple-and-white ribbon. She raised her eyebrows up and down in what could only be described as a facial wave when she saw me.

“I think I just saw Rick Wilkes getting out of the elevator while I was getting on,” she said once she had made it to my side.

“Yep, you did.” I sighed. “He’s such a jerk.”

“We were at his house last year for Mary Ann’s surprise party. You appeared to like him well enough then.”

“That was before I knew he was a cheater.”

“That’s right, I forgot about that,” Leah said in a voice that implied she wasn’t all that interested in remembering. “Anatoly told me I’d find you here. What did you bring Dena? It wasn’t spa products, was it?”

“I brought flowers,” I said as I tried to count the myriad number of spa products in the leather basket. “But I forgot to bring a vase.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Typical. You know what else is typical? It’s typical that I had to find out about this through Anatoly. Of course I was listening to Mornings on Two while making breakfast this morning and they reported that someone in the Lake Street area was shot last night, but they weren’t releasing names and it never occurred to me that I might know the victim! Why didn’t you call me, Sophie?”

“You don’t even like Dena.”

“I disapprove of her,” she corrected. “There’s a big difference.”

“Is there?”

“Absolutely. I can honestly say that Dena is the only brazen hussy I have ever genuinely liked.”

It was a joke meant to lighten the mood but the worry in her eyes undermined it. Even her most recent Botox injections couldn’t hide her distress.

“Look, Dena’s getting examined or something right now. Why don’t we grab a cup of coffee down in the cafeteria?”

“I don’t eat in hospital cafeterias,” Leah said distractedly. “Is there a waiting room around here? We could talk there.”

A little shudder went up my spine as I remembered last night, sitting in that awful room waiting for news on Dena. “There’s a Starbucks a few blocks away.”

Leah sighed. “You can’t expect me to lug this all the way to Starbucks. Which one is her room?”

“That one but—”

Leah marched over and used her foot to knock on the door. I watched as the nurse opened the door and then after a moment let Leah in. I hesitated before approaching the door myself, but Leah walked out before I got there.

“The nurse is about to help her to the bathroom,” Leah said, her voice slightly less assured than it had been a minute ago. “And after that she’s going to be meeting with a physical therapist.” She looked down at her hands. “Why don’t we go for a walk? We need to talk.”

When we got outside I noticed that a slight wind had picked up and I had to work to keep my hair out of my face as we walked down the sidewalks of Parnassus. Leah’s hair, which was plastered with God-only-knows-what hair products, stayed stubbornly in place.

“Where’s my favorite nephew?” I asked. Four-year-old Jack was my favorite as he was my only nephew. I’d love him more if he would just stop trying to kill my cat.

“He’s at a morning playdate right now. I’ll pick him up in an hour.”

“Nice that you get a break.”

Leah stopped and turned to me. “Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t the one who was shot.”

“You could have been.” She reached over and plucked out a small leaf that had secretly blown into my hair. “You were so close, Sophie. Only a room away!”

“I might as well have been in another city. I didn’t even see who did the shooting.”

Leah hesitated and then seemed to decide this was an acceptable enough answer and started walking again. A passing truck driver called out something suggestive but neither of us bothered to turn our heads.

“We could walk to your house from here,” she noted.

“We could. But I’d rather not, seeing that both our cars are in the hospital parking lot.”

Leah nodded and picked up her pace, forcing me to do the same. It was a few more minutes before she spoke again. “What if I told you that I might know who did this?”

“What?” Now it was my turn to stop.

“I don’t know for sure,” Leah said quickly. “It’s just a possibility. An unlikely possibility at that.”

“Leah, what are you talking about?”

Leah hesitated and then pointed to the Starbucks across the street. “Maybe we should get coffee after all.”

CHAPTER 5

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Of course I don’t have to worry, since my intentions are usually pretty messed up.

–Fatally Yours

Leah refused to talk any more about it until we were both seated across from one another at a corner table. I allowed her this because I had my doubts about how useful her information was going to be.

There was no one at the neighboring tables but she still took the time to look over both her shoulders before leaning forward to reveal her secret.

“Remember when that horrible little group of protestors stood outside Dena’s store a few years ago? They called themselves Moral Americans Against Pornography?”

“Are you talking about MAAP?” I asked. “They’ve protested twice. I think it might even become an annual event. Dena loves it. Each time they’ve shown up she’s called all her customers and offered them what she calls the Wrath-of-God discount. That’s fifteen percent off any item in the store that’s provocative enough to piss off an antiporn picketer.”

“In other words, everything in her store.”

“Exactly. It’s her busiest day of the year.”

Leah smiled. “It’s just impossible not to admire her ingenuity. Anyway, the woman who founded MAAP is Chrissie Powell. She serves on the San Francisco symphony fundraising board with me. She’s nice to the people she needs to impress but no one else. Wretched woman. Would you believe that she wouldn’t even hire me to plan her wedding? She actually told me that she wasn’t sure if I was qualified to handle such a big event! I have organized corporate parties for five hundred people. I’ve planned the bar mitzvahs for the children of some of the most respected families in this city! Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins are still talking about the twenty-fifth anniversary party I threw them—”

“Leah,” I said irritably and motioned for her to get on with it.

“Right,” she said, only slightly chastened. “Chrissie founded MAAP on the pretense that the group’s purpose is to fight against all pornography.”

“It’s not?”

“Hardly. Perhaps that’s what some of the members believe, but Chrissie formed the group for one reason. She wanted to torment Dena.”

One of the baristas behind the counter turned on the blender and the grinding whine of the appliance played devil’s advocate to the mellow notes of Paul Simon coming through the speakers. “Why would anyone form an entire group just to torment one person?” I asked. “It’s not like Dena’s a politician or even a real pornographer. She just sells sexy lingerie, toys, a few naughty books and a couple of adult videos. Is that really so offensive?”

Leah cocked her head to the side. “You do realize that literary erotica and adult videos are the very definition of pornography, don’t you?”

“Yeah, okay, but she’s not making the videos. She’s just selling them.”

“I see. So if you’re just selling the cocaine but not actually growing the coca plants, are you really a drug pusher?”

“Can we not get nitpicky about this?”

Leah rolled her eyes. “It’s not really about what she sells in her store anyway. Chrissie’s trying to get back at Dena because approximately two years ago Dena slept with Chrissie’s husband, Tim.”

I nearly dropped my plastic cup. “What? Did Dena know the guy was married?’

“He wasn’t. Not at the time. They were just engaged. Whether or not Dena knew he was engaged is anyone’s guess, although I don’t see how she would have. Engaged men don’t wear rings, and it’s not as if Dena asks a man a lot of questions before inviting him into her bed.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s completely fair. But if it makes you feel better, let’s say she did ask him if he was involved with anyone else. What are the chances he would have told her the truth?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But…you just said this was before they got married?” A couple took the table next to us and I scooted my chair closer to Leah so we could continue our conversation in quieter tones. “If she knew her fiancé was messing around, why did she go through with it?”

“Apparently Chrissie didn’t find out about what Tim did until after the wedding. God only knows how it all came to her attention. Of course if she had hired me to plan her wedding, I would have been able to alert her to the problem. I can always spot a cheater.”

“Leah, you were married to a cheater and you didn’t have a clue until he announced he was leaving you for a twenty-two-year-old.”

“Well, I learned from that,” Leah snapped. “Now I can spot a cheater from a mile away. Of course, I didn’t get within a mile of Tim. I’ve never even met the man. But if I had been allowed to plan the wedding I would have seen right through him and then—”

“And then there wouldn’t have been a wedding to plan,” I said irritably. Listening to Leah chastise another woman for marrying a cheater was like listening to Lindsay Lohan complain about reckless drivers.

“Perhaps there wouldn’t have been,” Leah said with a shrug. “On the other hand, perhaps they would have worked it out. It’s not as if she’s left him now that she knows.”

“And yet she’s still after Dena?”

“Yes.” Leah fingered the stiffly starched collar of her pale blue linen shirt. “That part’s understandable.”

“How? Dena’s not the one who cheated. Tim is!”

“Yes, but Chrissie’s not married to Dena,” Leah pointed out. “If Chrissie puts all the blame on Dena’s shoulders she doesn’t have to worry about finding a good marriage therapist or divorce attorney. Focusing all her bad feelings on Dena helps her salvage the good feelings she has for Tim. Really, Sophie, it’s Psychology 101.”

“Leah, I took Psych 101. There isn’t a textbook in the world that names scapegoating and the displacement of blame as good coping strategies.”

“All right, fine. But are you honestly going to tell me that you’ve never done it? You’ve never blamed your ex-husband for all of your problems?”

“That’s different!” I shot back.

“Why?”

“Because…because he’s fair game. Ex-husbands were put on this earth to be blamed for things. That’s just the way it is.”

“Really?” Leah asked, raising her eyebrows. “Did they teach you that in psych class?”

“Oh, shut up,” I responded without any real vehemence. “How do you know all this anyway?” I asked as I took a sip of my drink.

“Two years ago, only about a month before she put MAAP together, Chrissie cornered me after one of our board meetings. She said she had been researching Dena Lopiano and apparently she found a picture of me standing next to her on a Google image search. She wanted to know if I was aware that the woman she presumed to be my friend was really a home-wrecker.”

“And what did you say?”

Leah shrugged. “I told her that Dena wasn’t anything of the sort. She’s just a tad slutty, that’s all.”

“Leah!”

“Are you honesty going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“You can be extremely promiscuous without being a slut.”

“According to what dictionary?”

I gripped the edge of the table and then quickly drew my hand away as I discovered the hardened lump of someone’s old gum. “Oh, that’s great. Do you have one of those antibacterial wipes?” I asked as I examined my fingers with disgust. Leah wordlessly pulled out the requested item. That’s the thing about moms: they’re always prepared for the yucky stuff.

“I’ll wait while you throw that away,” Leah said, pointedly staring at the used wipe.

I wrinkled my nose at her before dutifully getting up to find a trash can for the wipe. When I got back Leah had her iPhone out on the table.

“Tell me more.”

Leah brightened, clearly happy that she would be allowed to continue to dish. “After confronting me about the whole picture thing, Chrissie told me that she had recently learned about the little tryst Tim had with Dena. I assured her that the affair couldn’t have been long-lived since, until her recent arrangement, Dena has never stayed with a man for longer than one full moon cycle. But Chrissie went ahead and put together MAAP anyway.”

“Okay, but Dena’s been faithful to her polyamorous relationship for…well… about a year and a half now, so whatever was going on between Dena and Tim is over. Shouldn’t Chrissie be getting over it, too?”

“One would think,” Leah agreed. “But it would appear that time hasn’t healed this wound. At. All. In fact it appears that Chrissie’s wound is ulcerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chrissie’s been upping the stakes of the battle.” Leah picked up her iPhone and started punching things into it. “Last week she posted an article on a conservative online Web site called The Virtuous Journal. Now, you know I have nothing against conservative magazines. I’ve voted Republican all my life. But this particular site is…to the right of Rush Limbaugh.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“And yet it is.” Leah was still madly pecking and stroking her iPhone. “And can you believe that Chrissie actually sent me a link to the article she wrote for them? Ah, here it is. Take a look.”

She handed the phone over and on the screen was the article. I started to skim it but the pure acidity of the words slowed me down. “Oh. My. God.”

“I told you she was wretched.”

But I wasn’t really listening to Leah anymore.

Miss Lopiano and her fellow pornography peddlers have made it their life ambition to make smut a major part of the American way of life. She has purposely chosen to be a social liability; a disease we should try to cure ourselves of.

I stopped reading and stared at Leah. “She’s flat-out telling her readers that the world would be a better place without Dena!”

“That does appear to be the point.”

“And she only wrote this a week ago?”

“And yesterday Dena was shot.”

“Oh. My. God!”

“To be honest, I had a hard time picturing Chrissie killing someone. She prefers emotional brutality to its physical counterpart, so she probably didn’t do it. Still, you have to bring this to the attention of the police just in case,” Leah said, taking another sip of her tea. “I’d do it, but I thought you might want the honor.”

“Bull. You just don’t want anyone to think you would report a fellow board member to the cops.”

“That’s unfair,” Leah protested, but the faint sound of guilt echoed around her voice.

“I want to talk to this woman.”

Leah choked on her tea. “What? Why? Just go to the police! It’s their job to question her, not yours.”

“The police will mess it up.”

“What are you talking about? This is what the police do! When they go to the academy they are specifically trained to do two things—question people and shoot them.”

“And arrest them and search a crime scene and…”

“Yes, yes,” Leah said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “but I’m sure that all takes a backseat to the time they spend in the interrogation room and the shooting range. Leave this to them. All you need to do is sit by your friend’s bedside and bring her the occasional flower arrangement…with a vase of course. How you could have forgotten that—”

“Leah, I can’t leave this to someone else. Dena is more than a friend and this bitch may have tried to kill her. And if she didn’t kill her she probably incited someone else to do it!”

Leah narrowed her eyes. “Look, we don’t even know if she’s really guilty. I’d say there’s at least a ninety percent chance that she has nothing to do with what happened to Dena.”

“Ninety percent?”

Leah thought about this for a moment. “All right, maybe more like an eighty-five…or eighty-two…yes, I think there’s an eighty-two percent chance that Chrissie didn’t try to kill anyone this week.”

“But if she did,” I persisted, “I’m going to find the evidence to hang her with and then…”

“And then?”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t know what would happen then. The truth was that I wanted to…no, not wanted, needed to see this Chrissie person. I needed to look into her eyes and see if I could detect the evil that had seeped out into that article. It wasn’t logical, but that didn’t matter.

“I just need to talk to her. You have to help me set it up.”

Leah folded her hands in her lap. “Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

“Because…” I searched my mind for a way to finish that sentence. What could I promise her that would be appealing enough to make her abandon both common sense and caution? I could promise to babysit her son! No, I couldn’t do that. I was desperate, not masochistic. Besides, Leah hadn’t even wanted me to babysit my nephew since that time that I let him paint his face with her lipstick. I glanced out the window and spotted a woman with a ruby-red tote bag hurrying down the sidewalk. Ruby like Mary Ann’s ring. “Because,” I said with a smile, “if you do I’ll convince Mary Ann to hire you as her wedding planner.”

Leah’s lips parted slightly and then her mouth gradually opened into an O as what I had said sank in. “Mary Ann is getting married?”

“She is.”

“But I thought her boyfriend was gay!”

“Why would you think that?”

Leah raised her eyebrows. “We’re talking about Monty, right? The man who invented the samba-dancing seal cub?”

I hesitated. “Okay, I can see why you might have gotten a gay vibe, but he really is straight.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“And they’re really getting married?”

“It’s going to be a huge event.”

“Well, then of course I’ll plan the wedding!” Leah brought her hands to the table with a thump. “You won’t have to convince her of anything. It’s a given.”

“Nothing’s a given. Trust me when I tell you that Mary Ann is going to want the full fairy tale wedding. She’s going to want everything to be perfect and she’s not going to want to leave it all in the hands of an amateur.”

“A what! Sophie, did you not just hear me tell you about the bar mitzvahs? Leon Panetta was there for God’s sake and he said the whole thing was fabulous. Fabulous, Sophie! How many times do you think Leon Panetta has used that word?”

“Look, I know you’re qualified but you’ve never been hired for a wedding before. It’s not on your resume and Mary Ann doesn’t know you that well, so…”

“But she knows you. If you tell her I’ll do a good job she’ll believe you!”

“Yes, she will,” I said with an overly sweet smile. “If I tell her.”

Leah’s eyes widened with horror. “You’re evil.”

“No, just mildly devious.”

Leah tapped her nails against the faux-wood table. “You’ll tell her to hire me if I set up a meeting between you and Chrissie?”

“I can’t tell her to hire you. It’s her wedding and ultimately her decision. But I’ll suggest it…strongly. And as you pointed out, with Mary Ann my opinion has weight.”

Leah did some more tapping. “Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll call Chrissie. Perhaps I can even get her to see you within the next day or so. That way we can get this horrid business over with. I’m sure Mama will take Jack for the time it takes to deal with this mess.”

I smiled to myself as Leah dialed. There were lots of things that bugged me about my sister, but I did love her efficiency.

CHAPTER 6

I like to hang out with secretive and dishonorable people. Their flaws are the perfect complement to my superiority complex.

–Fatally Yours

It took Leah a total of five minutes to call Chrissie and get her to agree to see me. She told her I wanted to join the fundraising board for the symphony and was hoping that after meeting me Chrissie would be willing to help Leah persuade the other board members to accept me. It seemed like a weak cover, but Chrissie accepted it immediately. We were to come to her apartment at four o’clock the next day to talk about my suitability.

In other words it was too good to be true. I mentally analyzed all the new information as we walked back to the hospital. Why would Chrissie write that article two years after Dena’s supposed offense? It’s not as if Tim had walked out on Chrissie. He did marry her after the fling with Dena. Maybe Leah was wrong. Maybe MAAP really was formed to fight pornography in general. The article Chrissie had written had included disparaging mentions of several of San Francisco’s strip clubs as well as a few nationally published adult magazines.

But Dena was the only individual she had actually named, and what she had said about her…

“I’m not going to have time to visit with Dena this morning,” Leah grumbled, interrupting my thoughts. “I have to get Jack.”

“You’re sure Mama will take him tomorrow?” I asked. As much as I wanted Leah to introduce me to Chrissie, I really didn’t want to bring my nephew to the home of a potential psychotic. I was pretty sure that was something most of the parenting books would frown on.

“Actually she already offered to watch him but I’ve been leaving him with the nanny a lot while I work and I was worried we were having too much apart time.” She glanced at her watch. “It’ll be fine. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three-thirty at your house. Be ready.”

“I’m always ready.”

Leah gave me her give-me-a-break look. “Tell Dena I’ll try to be back tomorrow, and, for God’s sake, go to the gift shop and buy her a magazine or something. The woman can’t be expected to spend the entire day watching game shows and soap operas.”

I smiled to myself as Leah turned on her heel and headed toward the parking lot. The thing about my sister was that she was totally self-absorbed and totally considerate at the same time. I realize that isn’t possible, but it was an impossibility that Leah seemed to manage well.

I went back in the hospital. I had a lot to do but today I would spend at the hospital. I just wanted to be by Dena’s side and remind myself that she was alive.

The day crept by at a snail’s pace. Marcus stopped by for a while but seemed somewhat unnerved by the hospital setting. Mary Ann and Jason were a constant presence and Monty brought Dena’s parents to see her. Her parents didn’t say much. Her father stood a few paces behind her mother as she asked Dena a few clipped questions about how she was doing. It would have been nice if she had shown a little warmth, but Dena’s mother didn’t do warmth, and her father didn’t do anything but stand in her mother’s shadow. In an odd way her parents modeled the master and servant relationship that Dena occasionally played with in the bedroom. That was a rather disturbing thought and I quickly decided not to dwell on it.

When they left Mary Ann walked out with them, promising to be back in less than half an hour. That just left Jason and me sitting in Dena’s room as she stared moodily at the ceiling. Jason’s eyes were on the brown swinging door that Isa, Dena’s mother, had just gone through.

“What the fuck’s up her ass?” he asked.

“She’s pissed,” Dena said with a shrug.

“Why?” I asked incredulously. “She mad at you for getting shot?”

“Not really.” Dena picked up the remote control to the television and turned it over in her hands. “For my mother being pissed isn’t so much a mood as it is a permanent state of being.”

“Oh, got it.” Jason let out a long sigh of relief. “I thought maybe she didn’t like me or something.”

“You’re not the one she doesn’t like,” Dena said shortly.

I smiled and settled myself into the chair by Dena’s bedside. I knew Isa didn’t like me. For one thing she thought I was going to hell because I was a Jew. It’s always hard to have a positive relationship with someone who thinks you’re going to hell. I also suspected that she was clinging to not just a few racist sentiments…not that she ever came out and said so. It was just the way she always seemed surprised that I spoke grammatically correct English and didn’t have any friends in prison that tipped me off.

Dena gave me a sharp look. “I wasn’t talking about you either,” she said. “The only person in this room that she has any real antipathy for is me.”

I swallowed. How did I respond to that? Of course the best answer was probably not to respond at all. “Does she still go to church three times a week?” I asked.

“Yeah, but in her last letter she told me she switched congregations again. It’s hard for her to find a religious community that’s intolerant enough for her.” Dena turned on the television and started flipping through the channels so quickly it was impossible to tell what was on what station.

“All religions are institutions of intolerance,” Jason sneered as he walked over to the window. “They’ll never embrace the beauty of the alternative lifestyle. They’re always spouting shit about heaven and hell. They fail to grasp that it’s about the now, man. It’s about the fucking now.”

“The fucking now,” Dena repeated, finally settling on CNN. “Maybe that’s my mom’s problem, she doesn’t like fucking anything. She doesn’t even like fucking in the literal sense.”

“Dena,” I said with a laugh, “we don’t have to get that graphic about your mom.”

“No, I’m serious. I think the reason she is so into her religion is that it gives her a good reason to be against casual sex or any sex that isn’t for the explicit purpose of procreation. But the truth is my mom doesn’t like sex because it’s hard to be completely in control of yourself during the throes of ecstasy, and Mom doesn’t like to ever be out of control.”

“Are you serious?” Jason turned away from the window, so that his figure was framed by the blue-gray backdrop of the San Franciscan sky. “She doesn’t dig ecstasy?”

“Nope.” She looked up at the face of Wolf Blitzer, wrinkled her nose in distaste and changed the station to Headline News. “All my life she’s been telling me that I must always be in complete control of myself. She can’t understand why I ditched that lesson in favor of the ‘wild life.’”

“But you didn’t—” I started but then quickly stopped myself. The truth was that no one maintained control during sex as well as Dena did. Sex was always on her terms. She chose the positions, she decided if there would be role-playing or if her partner was going to be tied to the bed or not. She may not have realized it, but Dena had totally internalized her mother’s life lessons. But I sensed that pointing that out to her now wasn’t going to go over all that well.

But Dena wasn’t paying attention to me anyway. She was staring down at her legs. “A wild life,” she repeated. “I wonder how wild it’ll be now.”

Jason laughed. “Trust me, baby, it’ll be wild. You don’t have it in you to be tame.”

But Dena didn’t even break a smile. She was still staring at her legs and the look in her eyes… God, I had never before seen her look so sad. It made me want to hold her and then throw things and then wave my fists in the air and rail at God for the unfairness of it all.

Dena looked up at me, and behind the sadness I saw the flash of anger. “The guy who did this…he has to be found. I don’t think I’ll be able to live if the person who did this to me gets away with it.”

“The shooter won’t get away with it,” I said softly. “On that you have my word.”

She looked at me for a long moment before nodding. And then she turned her eyes back up to the news.

By the time I pulled my car into my own driveway the sky was darkening and the air was damp and cool. I liked the feel of it. It gave me a sense of place.

I found Anatoly in the kitchen unloading a bag of groceries as Mr. Katz sat on the floor watching him with hungry eyes. Anatoly stopped when he spotted me, a baguette in his hand. “How is she?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I had given up on trying to answer that question. “I thought you might stop by the hospital,” I said.

“I considered it, but I knew she would be inundated with visitors. I’ll go when she doesn’t feel like she’s playing hostess from a hospital bed.”

“Ah, good call.”

He was quiet for a moment before placing the baguette on the island in the middle of the kitchen with a definitive thump. “I’ll make you a sandwich.” His tone implied that an I’m-not-hungry response would not be accepted. I hopped up on the marble countertop as he pulled out ingredients that he had just put away: Brie, garlic cloves and a bowl from the refrigerator filled with what looked like slices of tomato marinating in oil and spices.

“Wait,” I said as I watched him place the tomatoes next to me. “When did you do this?”

“I had a little spare time in the middle of the day so I gave myself a project.” He came over and gave me a slow lingering kiss before going back to the middle of the kitchen where he had placed all the other ingredients. “It’ll take a half hour to bake the garlic,” he said casually as he threw some cloves in a pan.

This is why I’m okay with overcast skies. I had a boyfriend who marinated tomatoes when he was bored. Life doesn’t get sunnier than that.

“They’re reporting the story on the news,” Anatoly said, interrupting my silent reverie. “It’s sensational enough to get a lot of play.”

And now the dark clouds were coming indoors. I sighed and adjusted my position. “What’s the angle? Woman shot by unknown assailant in the Lake Street district while celebrating her cousin’s engagement?”

“Yep,” Anatoly said. “They finally released Dena’s name a couple of hours ago. I take it that means Mary Ann was successful in contacting Dena’s parents?”

“Yeah, they’re here.” Mr. Katz was circling Anatoly’s legs. He knew food was being prepared. Still, it seemed unnatural that a cat would have a craving for Brie. “I can’t imagine that Dena wants to be San Francisco’s celebrity victim,” I mused.

Anatoly nodded. He pulled a bottle of sparkling water out of the fridge and poured me a glass. “I talked to the other tenants in Mary Ann’s building today.”

“Oh?”

“They all insist that they didn’t buzz anyone into the building last night.”

“Okay.” I sipped my drink and let the bubbles play on my tongue. “So whoever did this had a key to the building or had access to one.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the tenants are lying to me out of embarrassment,” he said as he dribbled extra-virgin olive oil over a small pan of garlic. “There’s no security camera to prove anything. Also, a lot of the people who live in that building are older and many of them are beginning to lose their hearing. They wouldn’t necessarily have heard someone running up or down the stairs.”

“So you spent the day questioning tenants and you learned exactly nothing.”

“I learned that they all like Mary Ann.” He put the pan in the oven and slammed the door. “I think she’s the youngest person living there. More than one of the other residents said she brightens the place up. I seriously doubt that this was an inside job.”

“Okay, not nothing then. You learned that grandma didn’t shoot Dena with a silencer. Well, I suppose that’s progress.”

“We have to start somewhere, Sophie, and it’s usually a good idea to start with the immediate area around the scene of the crime.”

“I know but…God, I just want someone to pay. I mean, not just someone. The right someone. I was talking to Leah today and she said—”

Anatoly’s phone started ringing. It was by the tomatoes and I picked it up to see the number.

“It’s a 212 area code. Who’s calling you from New York?”

Swiftly Anatoly crossed the kitchen and took the phone from me. He glanced at the number once and then dismissed the call.

“Who was that?”

“Just an old client.”

“An old client?” Mr. Katz was staring at the oven. It would be horrible if he ended up being the first kitty to die jumping into an oven in an attempt to attack an oiled clove of garlic.

“Yes, old. I’m not taking on any more of her cases.”

“Her?” He had my attention now. “Her who? It’s not that Mandy bimbo is it?”

“It wasn’t Mandy, not that it would be a problem if it was.”

“She was coming between us.”

“She was a client, Sophie.”

“She was Playboy’s Miss August, Anatoly,” I snapped. “And did she have to call you at two in the morning? Was that part of your client-detective contract? Did you have to hold your meetings on her boat where she could model bikini tops that could double as friggin’ sails! Size-four-triple-D bimbo. Those things were nothing more than a couple of man-made buoys.”

“That case ended six months ago. I never touched her.”

“But you wanted to touch her. I bet you even looked at her Playboy pictures.”

“I was curious. I’m a guy, Sophie.”

“If by ‘guy’ you mean total jerk, I’m in complete agreement.”

“I am making you a tomato and Brie sandwich. Jerks don’t do that.”

“Okay, fine. A lot of the time you’re great. But there are also times when you’re a little bit of an asshole.”

“A little bit?”

I held up my hand revealing a little bit of space between my thumb and finger to show how much a little bit is…then I widened the space by about half an inch.

He smiled. “Let’s not argue about things that don’t matter. She really didn’t interest me. Not only did she look like a plastic doll but she had the intellect of one, too.” He came over to me, making space for himself between my thighs. “I prefer women who are less…manufactured.”

I laughed despite myself and trailed the tips of my fingers along his bicep. “You’re really going to help me find Dena’s shooter?”

“I will.” He tucked my hair behind my ears and kissed me on the nose before returning to his cooking work. “I have a connection at the police department who might get me a little more information than what’s being released to the press. Tomorrow morning I have to do some work for the lawyer who hired me to investigate that workman’s comp claim, but I should be free by the late afternoon. I’ve arranged to meet with my police contact for an early dinner tomorrow after his shift. In the meantime don’t do anything stupid.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said vaguely.

“Yes, you do. If you find something out, tell me. If you think you’ve identified a suspect, don’t go running over to confront them. Leave that stuff to me and the police.”

“Oh, right. That is a more logical way of doing things.” I chewed on my lower lip. I had been pestering Anatoly about opening up to me more about his childhood lately but maybe full disclosure wasn’t all it was cracked up to be after all. I had recently read an article that suggested the happiest married couples consisted of individuals who were skilled in the art of denial. Maybe not telling him about my plans to talk to Chrissie was just another way I could help Anatoly maintain some useful delusions about his life with me.

He pulled out a long knife with a serrated edge and started slicing the baguette. “We need to make a list of possible suspects.”

I winced. I had to tell him. How could I ask him to help me find Dena’s attacker and not tell him everything I knew? I would just make him understand that meeting with Chrissie was a good idea…and when I wasn’t able to do that, I’d let him think he had convinced me of the error of my ways and then I’d meet with her anyway. At least that way I could say I tried to be up-front. It’s the thought that counts, right?

“Anatoly? Okay, um…as I was saying before, I was talking to Leah and—”

His phone rang again. This time it was in his pocket and he took it out only long enough to dismiss the call for a second time.

“Okay, seriously, who was that?”

“I told you.” He yanked open the refrigerator and took out some mayonnaise.

“You worked as a P.I. for an insurance company when you lived in New York,” I reminded him. It was one of the few things about Anatoly’s pre-Sophie years that I could remind him of. It was like he had given me an outline of his early life but only included all the parts one would number with roman numerals and left out everything that might be labeled with 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c.

“I didn’t work for her in New York. That number is just her cell phone.” He scooped out a few tablespoons of mayonnaise and dumped it in a small bowl before going back to the refrigerator and taking out some fresh basil leaves. This was becoming a very complicated sandwich.

“So you worked for her in San Francisco?”

“Sophie, if a client doesn’t give me express permission to discuss their case with other people, I can’t. It’s confidential even if I don’t work for them anymore.”

“You can’t even tell me if you worked for her in San Francisco?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Huh.”

Mr. Katz finally abandoned the oven and hopped up on the counter next to me. I gently ushered him away from the marinating tomatoes.

“We need to stay focused. Think about who might have it in for Dena. I’ll pick the brain of my contact and then we’ll compare notes,” he said. “Are you going to be spending tomorrow in the hospital again? Or do you have other plans?”

“I’ll be seeing Leah but other than that no plans at all.”

Fuck him. My plans were confidential.

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