Catherine Coulter - The Edge

Sherlock had a rainbow of colors in her banana clips.

"Mac," she said, rising. "I'm just fine. How's Jilly?"

"The same. No change."

"I'm sorry. How are you feeling?"

"Fine, no problem."

"You're looking a lot better, not quite so ready for the grave as yesterday. Come sit down, Mac. I just need to go over a few more things with Paul."

Paul hadn't stirred. He was seated forward in a black tufted leather chair, his hands clasped between his knees.

He appeared to be studying a white paver at his feet. "There's a small scratch," he said.

"Scratch? What scratch?" Maggie asked.

"There," Paul said. "Right there, in the top right corner. I wonder how that could have happened."

"Tell you what, Paul," I said, not joking at all, "I'll get a load of newspapers and we can pile them up over the scratch."

"Yeah, Mac, sure. You're a philistine. You've got a messy, unsophisticated soul. Come join the fun. Let's get this over with. I've got to get back to work."

"Jilly told me that was why you left Philadelphia and VioTech-you wanted to continue work on this project and they wanted you to stop."

"That's right."

"What's the project?" I asked, walking over a black-and-white geometrical carpet to stand by one of the large glass windows that looked out at the ocean.

"It's all about the fountain of youth. I'm developing a pill that will reverse the aging process."

"My God, Paul," Maggie said, nearly falling off the sofa, "that's just incredible! Why wouldn't they want you to continue on that? That would be worth not just a fortune, it would be worth the world."

Paul laughed at her. "Everyone bites big time on that one. Everyone wants youth back." He touched his receding hairline. "I'd rather come up with a pill to regrow hair myself."

"If Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek is any indication, we still won't have a pill to grow hair even in the twenty-fourth century. You're out of luck, Paul."

"What are you really working on then, Paul?" I asked.

"Look, it's privileged information and it's really none of your business, either of you. It's got nothing to do with Jilly. Now please get off my back."

Maggie sat back down on the sofa and clicked her ballpoint pen. "I want to know what you and Jilly did last Tuesday night. Think back. It's dinnertime. Did you eat in or go out?"

"For God's sake, Maggie, why do you want to know what we did for dinner?"

"Did you eat in, Paul?" I asked, still standing in front of the window, my arms crossed over my chest.

"Yes, we did. We broiled halibut, squeezed on lemon. Jilly made garlic toast. I tossed a spinach salad.

We ate. I had work to do after dinner. Jilly said she was going to drive around, nothing unusual in that.

She loved driving the Porsche. She left here about nine o'clock."

"Rob Morrison said she went over the cliff at about midnight. That's three hours, Paul. That's an awfully long time to drive around."

"I went to work. I fell asleep at my desk, even left my computer on. If Jilly came back and left again, I wouldn't know. If she stayed out the full three hours, I wouldn't know that either. All I know is she left at nine." "What was her mood at dinner?" "Maggie, you know Jilly. She's never serious, always joking around. She told me a Viagra joke, I remember that."

"So what is it you're working on, Paul?" Maggie said. "You want to clone little Paul Bartletts?"

"No, Maggie, I wouldn't want to clone myself until I figure out how to regrow hair." He looked over at me. "Now you're a possibility. You've got good genes, Mac. The Germans would have approved of you, or the FBI. You interested?"

"So you put the FBI right in there with the Nazis, do you?" Why was he stonewalling? But how could a drug he was developing have anything to do with Jilly driving over a cliff?

Paul just shrugged. "Lots of parallels, as I see it."

I let it go, just shrugged. "Well, maybe I'll consider it three lifetimes from now if I turn real weird, but probably not. So you're saying that during dinner Jilly seemed perfectly normal?"

"Yes. She ate lightly. She wanted to lose five pounds."

Maggie said, "Was she taking any weight-loss pills?"

"Not that I know of. I'll check in the medicine cabinet and see what's there."

"Okay."

"Is it true you made love to Jilly every day, Paul?"

I'd swear that Paul turned red to his receding hairline. "What the hell kind of question is that, Mac? Why is that your business?"

"In February, Jilly told me about her love life. She'd never spoken so frankly about sex with you before that. Thinking back on it, something was off. She spoke about a number of things, going from one subject to the next, without pause, without emphasis on anything."

"What did she say, Mac?"

I looked at Maggie. In that moment, I would have sworn she had more than just a professional interest in what was going on here. Well, why not give her details? I said, "She spoke about her new dress, how Paul made love to her all the time, how she loved her Porsche, and she spoke about a brother and sister, Cal and Cotter Tarcher. Everything she said was in the same tone of voice, almost without emotion.

Now, in hindsight, it wasn't quite right."

The doorbell rang.

Paul jumped to his feet. "Oh, God, what if something's happened to Jilly?"

He ran out of the living room. Maggie said to me, "I realize you don't want to hear this, Mac, but there was talk. Just maybe it wasn't Paul she was having all that sex with."

I wanted to punch her. Jilly screwing around? I'd never believe that. Not Jilly. I didn't have time to question Maggie about it before Paul returned to the living room. Standing beside him in the doorway was a small girl- no, a woman-perhaps twenty-five. She had dark brown hair, thick and curly, pulled back with two plastic clips. Her skin was whiter than a pair of my boxer shorts fresh out of the drier. No freckles. She wore glasses with rounded gold frames. She was wearing jeans that were too loose on her and a white shirt, probably a man's, that hung halfway down her legs and was rolled up to her forearms.

"Hello, Cal," Maggie said, rising slowly. "What brings you here?"

Good grief. Cal Tarcher, in the flesh. The girl who was going to be jealous of Jilly's new dress. Sister of Cotter, the vicious bully.

I watched Cal raise her head, look furtively toward Paul, and say, "My father sent me. I'm glad you're here, Maggie. All of you ate invited to our house tomorrow night." She looked toward me. "Are you Jilly's brother?"

"Yes. I'm Ford MacDougal."

"I'm Cat Tarcher. Is Jilly all right?"

"She's still the same. In a coma."

"I'm so sorry. I went to see her yesterday afternoon. The nurse told me to talk to Jilly, just talk about anything- the weather, the latest Denzel Washington movie-whatever. Anyway, the party. Will all of you come?"

"Of course we'll come," Paul said, a hint of impatience in his voice. "Your father commands and we struggle to be first in line."

"It's not like that, Paul," Cal said, without looking at any of us.

Cal looked over Paul's right shoulder, toward a painting with two long diagonal slashes of stark black paint slapped on dead-white canvas. "We're all very worried about Jilly, Paul. Dad hopes you'll be able to make time and come to our house for at least a little while tomorrow night. He really wants to meet Jilly's brother. Maggie, do you know if Rob is working tomorrow night?"

"That's a loaded question. What makes you think I know his schedule?"

Cal Tarcher shrugged. "You're both law officers." "Yeah, right."

Cal Tarcher was very uncomfortable with this, probably embarrassed. What was going on here? I felt as though I'd been dumped in the middle of a play and I didn't have a clue what the plot was. "I'll call him,"