Kasey Michaels: Bowled Over

Not that Maggie felt much like lingering in Ocean City, attempting to find answers for all these questions.

No, she wanted to get back to the city, longed to get back to the city.

She said her good-byes to Lisa Butts, who was almost giddy now that she could go to the grocery store without her husband as escort, not to mention ecstatic that she'd finally mustered the courage to strike back at the man (the police were terming the shallow but bloody knife wound an act of self-defense and weren't going to prosecute). In fact, Lisa now believed the whole world was opening up to her and her delayed dreams, and was only disappointed that she was now too old to be eligible to audition for American Idol.

When the full story had come out, Maggie learned that Barry Butts had been the one who had phoned Walter Bodkin about the free Christmas Eve bowling, and told Bodkin to call the rest of the team members. It had been Barry who had scratched the lock on Evan Kelly's car door before he'd realized that Evan hadn't locked the car at all, and then, removed the bowling ball. It had been Barry who had twisted his wife's arm (literally) until she'd phoned Bodkin and asked him to meet her on the beach at midnight.

Barry Butts, who was going to go away for a long, long time, "to be somebody's bitch," as Alicia Kelly kept saying with depressing regularity as well as considerable glee.

And then there was Henry. Henry Novack, the larger-than-life hero (again, literally), interviewed by nearly every media person in New Jersey, and chauffeured to Manhattan for five full minutes of airtime with Holly Spivak.

Now, though, Henry was starving in the fat farm Doctor Bob had recommended to Maggie, at Maggie's expense (but she wasn't adopting the man, damn it, no matter how much Alex teased her). Henry had bought a computer with his "earnings," and now e-mailed Sterling once a day to tell him of his progress. Henry had a goal: To lose two hundred pounds, say good-bye to his go-cart, and set himself up as a private detective.

Maggie worried about that. Mostly she worried that Henry would show up at her new house and Alex would take him on as an associate. Because Alex still felt a tad guilty about his mini-collapse at the sight of his bent sword cane.

There was so much a woman could read into the idea of a supposedly unflappable man coming apart over a bent sword ...

They were back in Manhattan now, and had just completed their "final walk-through" of the new house, with closing on the property scheduled for the next day.

Maggie had chosen the room she would make her office, the first time she would ever have a dedicated office, and Alex had paced off the footage in what was to become his Samaritan headquarters even as Socks and Jay-Jayne had been locked in discussion as to where to place the pizza ovens on their side of the ground floor.

Yes, the New Year promised to be interesting, at the least. Along with writing her next Saint Just mystery, Maggie had already decided to try her hand at researching the history of her new home. Maybe just to prove J.P. wrong when the lawyer had said that performing more than was necessary in a title search often dragged out skeletons best left buried.

Sterling appeared flustered, anxious about packing up his and Alex's belongings, but Maggie was more relaxed. As she'd told Sterling, packing to go somewhere was hard. You had to figure out what to take. But packing to leave was easy. You just took everything.

So while Sterling was wrapping his favorite pans and worrying that his pet mouse might be traumatized by the move, Maggie was more than comfortable in her bed, Alex as her cushion.

"There's going to be an echo in the house for a while, Alex, until we buy a lot more furniture," she told him, at last pushing herself up against the pillows, so that he could use her as a pillow for a while, as she stroked his thick black hair. "I never thought I'd say so, but that ought to be a lot of fun."

"You've become domestic, sweetings," Alex told her. "It may be the female in you, desiring a nest."

"Yeah, right. I'm living with my own imaginary hero, and I'm looking for a nest? I don't think so. I mean, I try, I really do, but you weren't here one day, Alex, and then the next you were. How can any of us know where you'll be tomorrow?"

"I, Sterling and I, are doing our best to evolve, you'll remember. Become more our own persons, rather than your ... well, your characters."

"So you can stay. I know, I remember. But what if it doesn't work, Alex? What if I wake up one morning in that big house and you and Sterling are—Alex?"

"Hmm?"

Maggie pushed him off her and reached for the bedside lamp. "No, don't sit up. Stay there," she ordered, and then pulled his head onto her lap as she ruffled his hair with both hands. "I think I ... I really think I—I did! Alex, you have a gray hair! I didn't write you with gray hair! You're ... you're evolving!"

The Viscount Saint Just, ruffled hair and all, sat up, took a shaking Maggie in his arms, breathed against her ear: "Yes, sweetings, I know. And as you always say, don't you love it when a plan comes together ... ?