Laura Caldwell - Red Blooded Murder

I bolted outside, looking both ways. I ran back toward the hotel. I stood in front of the entrance spinning around, hunting for Mick. He was nowhere to be seen.

Just then Q came outside. “Okay, what happened back there?”

I kept looking around. Where had Mick gone? “I don’t know. Zac seems to think I had a thing with Jane.”

“Did you?”

I turned to face him. “Are you joking? You’re questioning me, too?”

He gave an innocent shrug. “Hey, you’re in a free-to-be-you-and-me mood these days. Maybe you tried out some girl-on-girl action, too. Ooh! If you turn gay, you have to give me credit for it. We keep track of that stuff. There’s a point system.”

I smacked him on the arm then spun around, still half hunting for Mick, although he was clearly gone.

Q stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Let me drive you home. I think you’ve had enough for a few days.”

I looked at my friend, at his gray eyes the color of ash. Neither of us said anything for a moment. We didn’t have to. In that look, I saw the sympathy. Sometimes it isn’t what you see in yourself, but what you see reflected in the eyes of a good friend. That gaze Q was giving me-one of concern, of compassion, even a little pity-stopped me cold and took all the fire out of me.

“Let me take you home,” he said. “Do you have a coat?”

I realized that I was standing with my arms crossed over my chest, shivering a little. I shook my head. I had stopped off at home and accidentally left it there.

Q flagged a cab and tucked me into the back then climbed in beside me. He directed the driver down Chicago, turning onto State Street. The quiet in the back of that musty cab allowed my grief and exhaustion to return. But I couldn’t go home and sleep. For one thing, I had to work tonight at the Fig Leaf. I thought of calling Mayburn and canceling, but when Sam was missing, Mayburn went above and beyond to help me. I wouldn’t let him down.

I looked at my watch. I had time before I had to punch the clock, and there was someone I suddenly very much wanted to see. As we passed Division, I turned to Q. “I need to see my mom.”

Victoria McNeil and I didn’t have the symbiotic relationship that some mothers and daughters did. She was beautiful in a willowy, reserved, strawberry-blond kind of way, a way that radiated both melancholy and mystery, while I was simply brassy and flashy. She spoke quietly, gracefully, and only when her words were necessary, so we weren’t exactly kindred spirits.

I’d found out a lot about my mom in the recent year, skeletons she never thought another living soul would see. Those secrets had initially separated us, but oddly, over the last few months as we tentatively dipped our toes back in the waters of our relationship, the secrets had bonded us. We never spoke of them, but the fact that I knew, and that I wasn’t judging her for them, brought us closer.

That recent bond was one of the reasons I wanted to see her. The other was that no matter how old you are, sometimes you just need your mom.

The cab pulled up in front of her house on State Street, the one she shared with Spencer, her real estate developer husband. Their turn-of-the-century graystone near the corner of Goethe Street was tall and graceful with a large arched front door. Lights were on inside.

“If it’s okay, I’m coming with you,” Q said.

I smiled at him. “Absolutely. I miss seeing you every day.”

We hadn’t even rung the bell before the door opened. There was my mom, beautiful in cream slacks and a silver raw-silk blouse. “Hi, Boo,” she said.

It was a nickname given to me by my father. After he died, my mother started using it, as if it kept him a little bit alive.

“How was the memorial?” she asked.

I had called her a few hours ago and told her the whole story-finding Jane yesterday, anchoring Trial TV and the fact that the memorial was this afternoon.

“Sad,” I answered. “Awful.”

“Oh, baby.” She looked over my head. “Hi, Q.”

“Hi, Victoria.”

My mother stepped back, and the sound of jazz from inside her house trickled out and enveloped me, relaxing me. I moved inside, and she pulled me into her arms, stroked my hair.

Their front living room was wide with ivory couches and subdued oriental rugs over big-planked, glossy wood floors. It was a beautiful room, but my mother, who suffered bouts of depression, didn’t like how it grew dark in the late afternoon. And so when the living room fell into shadow, like now, everyone headed for the back of the house. By the time my mother and I pulled apart, I could hear Q already in the kitchen, talking with Spence and someone else.

My mother led me to the kitchen. “Sheets!” I said, seeing my brother.

“Hey, Iz.” He hugged me.

Spence, my sweet stepfather, did the same. He was a pleasant-looking man with brown hair streaked with gray. At least that’s how I always thought of him, but I looked closer now and noticed that his hair was mostly white. Funny how people close to you can grow older without you ever noticing.

“C’mere, darling girl.” Spence wore khaki pants and a white shirt over his barrel chest. He guided me toward the round breakfast nook built into a paneled bay window.

On the table was a plate of prosciutto, dried fruit and a parmesan-type cheese next to a half-full bottle of red. Spence and my mom were old school-the cocktails and snacks always came out at five sharp, especially now that Spence was mostly retired. But the red wine, I was sure, was courtesy of my brother, who thought that life should be spent sipping a glass of Barolo or Bordeaux or Merlot.

Charlie poured a glass for Q, then started to pour one for me.

I held out my hand. “I can’t. I already had one today at the memorial, and I have to work tonight at the lingerie store.”

My mom gave me a disapproving glance. “You’re going to run yourself into the ground, Izzy.”

“I took this job, and I promised to be there.” My promise, and my loyalty, were to Mayburn, not the store, but I left that unsaid.

“But you don’t need this job at the store now,” my mom said. “You’ve got Trial TV. You’re an anchor.”

“I’m just the fill-in anchor.” The truth was, once the flop sweating had stopped, and despite the way I’d gotten the job, I loved it. Somewhere over the course of the day, a tiny, furtive hope had grown that they might keep me on in that position.

We tucked ourselves into the breakfast nook, the others sipping their wine.

Charlie studied me. “Not doing so good, huh?”

“Nope.”

I told them about Zac being so weird around me at the memorial, so suspicious.

“I don’t know what to do or what to think,” I admitted. “He even said he thought Jane and I were together, like a couple, last weekend. He told the police that.”

“Whoa.” Charlie made a face.

Spence waved a hand. “Hey, this is the Chicago PD. They’re not going to be swayed by the outlandish statements of a grief-stricken husband.”

“But what if they are? The detective, this guy named Vaughn, already seems to dislike me and be suspicious of me for some reason.”

Spence shook his head. “You know I’m friends with the police chief, right? Went to school with him. I’ve got his cell. I’ll call him right now and find out the story. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t have to do that.” But my protest was weak. The situation with Jane’s death was starting to feel as if it was twisting out of control and just beyond my grasp.

“Call him, Spence,” my mother said in her smooth voice.

Spence rubbed his hands together, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Spence was the kind of guy who loved a good task. He’d started his own company-real estate developing-when he was young. He’d grown it into a successful business that now provided consulting for developments around the country. The company had been bought by a larger one, and then another company, and slowly Spence had stepped out, becoming mostly a figure-head. He was happy being retired, being wealthy, but if you gave him a good task that had immediacy to it, especially one for Charlie or me, he was giddy.