Kasey Michaels - Dial M for Mischief

“Sorry, no. I was out of the country until late last night and only saw the newspaper clippings my secretary put on my desk when I got to the office this morning. And since I haven’t said it yet, I’m really sorry about Teddy. He was a hell of a guy.”

“He always liked you,” Jolie said, blinking back tears again.

“Not always.”

She turned to look at him. “Excuse me? It was always Sam this and Sam that and ‘Sam is a helluva guy, Jolie.’”

“That probably was before he warned me to stay away from you or he’d rearrange my face.”

“He—oh, he did not. Did he? Omigod, he did! When did he do that?”

Sam looked at her, doing that head-dip thing again so he could hit her with those green eyes of his above the sunglasses. “Do we really want to go into ancient history right now, when we’re getting along so well?”

“No, I suppose not,” she said as she slid down onto the base of her spine and watched the scenery that consisted mostly of enormous cement sound barriers erected to protect the mansions on the other side from the sights and sounds of the highway.

Ten uncomfortably silent minutes later Sam eased onto the Valley Forge exit, and she knew they were now only minutes away from his home in Villanova. Too soon, he turned onto the familiar long, winding lane leading toward his house. His mansion. His humungo—ridiculously humungo for one person, in any case—house that stood at the rear of a cul-de-sac, behind high stone walls, huge wrought-iron gates. And a gatehouse, for crying out loud. Sam’s house made ninety-nine percent of the mansions in Beverly Hills look both insubstantial and faintly tacky.

That was one of the differences, Jolie had decided, between old money and new money. New money shouted. Old money whispered.

“Again, I’m sorry I got to the cemetery so late, although it turned out I got to park close enough to do my Underdog-to-the-rescue bit. I’d expected more of a crowd.”

Jolie was grateful for the change of subject. “There was a crowd, lookie-lous outside of the church. But only the press followed us to the cemetery. And,” she added, sighing, “I guess you really know who your friends are when you’re accused of murder. I can think of at least two dozen faces I should have seen there today and didn’t. They’ll not be welcome once Jade and Jess and I figure out who killed Teddy and that woman, let me tell you.”

He stopped in front of the closed gates. “You’re kidding, right?”

She looked at him levelly, which wasn’t easy to do as she’d raised her chin a good three inches higher into the air. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“No. I remember that determined look. I think I still get nightmares, as a matter of fact. But we’re not going to talk about any of that now, right?”

Jolie knew what he was saying without really saying it, and since the last thing she had energy for was a five-year-old fight, she sat up straight as the gates swung open. Sam eased the Mercedes through the opening and stopped.

“Isn’t that—”

“Carroll Yablonski, yes. Although the last person who called him Carroll is probably still in traction,” Sam said as the human fireplug lumbered toward the window Sam was lowering. “Bear Man? No visitors, okay? I’m not home to anybody. Oh, and if any reporters show up and try to give you a hard time, you have my permission to eat them.”

“That’d be fun. Got the choppers for it now, thanks to you.” Carroll grinned, showing off a too-large set of obvious dentures. Then he leaned his head in low and looked across the interior of the car at Jolie. “Hullo, Miz Sunshine. Love your movies. Seen ’em all. Tough break about your daddy.”

“Thank you Car—Bear Man. I appreciate that.”

Bear Man stepped back a pace, banged the flat of his hand on the roof of the car to give the all-clear, and Sam continued up the curved driveway.

“Well, I’m waiting,” Jolie said quietly.

“He needed a job.”

“I thought he was a professional wrestler in one of those W-W-W-W thingies. And a star, too.”

“He was—until he had his head run into the turnbuckle a few too many times. They may fake that stuff, but people still do get hurt. Bear Man needed a job that didn’t tax his scrambled brains too much. He needed somewhere to live. I just happened to be able to help him out, that’s all.”

“The quarterback taking care of his offensive linemen,” Jolie said, smiling at him. “Did Carroll—Bear Man—ever graduate? I don’t remember.”

Sam stopped the car at the top of the circular brick driveway, just in front of the arched wooden door that, Jolie knew, was so thick it could probably withstand a battering ram…or a bazooka. “No. He just couldn’t keep up his grades. Probation for one semester, and then he lost his eligibility and dropped out. But we kept in touch.”

“More than can be said for you and some other fellow grads of good old Temple U. Not that we attended the same years. All I got to hear about back then, though, was Sam Becket, the scholar, the quarterback, the legend.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning nothing,” Jolie said, unbuckling her seat belt. “I’m saying all the wrong things. I just buried my father, for God’s sake. Forget I said anything.”

He put his hand on her forearm to keep her in her seat. “I’ve missed you, Jolie.”

She looked down at his hand, willing him to remove it, wishing he had put his arms around her. “Not enough, Sam.”

He moved his hand. “Let’s go inside and find you something to drink. Find us both something to drink.”

She didn’t wait for him to come around and open the door for her but stepped out into the now warm June sun to stand looking at the house she’d visited a hundred times. They’d made love in most of those rooms. Twenty-three of them. Including one memorable interlude in the barrel-vaulted formal dining room that had involved the genuine Tudor-era table, a pair of sturdy, low-hanging wrought-iron chandeliers and the cream puffs that were supposed to be their dessert.

Which they were. Sort of…

Her cheeks had been flushed with embarrassment the entire next evening as she’d sat at the bottom of the table, playing hostess, while Sam had entertained the mayor and his wife to help launch the man’s reelection campaign. Especially when dessert had been served. Cream puffs. Sam had winked at her as one was set in front of her on a Rosenthal dessert plate. He’d then told the mayor how the chandeliers in the room were rumored to have been an acquisition of his notorious ancestor Ainsley Becket in the late 1700s, back when privateering was an acceptable way of life.

And why did she have to think about all of that now?

Her cell phone rang, shaking her out of her uncomfortable thoughts, and she rummaged in her bag, glad for the interruption.

“Hello?” She looked at Sam, mouthed Jade. “You and Jessica want to what? I know nobody knows about him, but what does that have to do with—I don’t know, I’ll have to ask him. But won’t you be followed?” She listened a moment and then rolled her eyes. “Mea culpa. How could I ever even think the great Jade Sunshine couldn’t elude a—hey, Secret Squirrel, I said I’ll ask him. Give me a minute, all right? Munch on a walnut or something.”

She pressed the open phone to her chest and looked at Sam, who was smiling at her in a way that told her he still enjoyed listening to the Sunshine sisters bicker like little children. “Jade and Jess want to come here, talk, maybe spend the night until the last of the press takes a hike from our front yard. I’ll tell them no.”

“No, don’t do that. If the press is still bothering you at the house, it seems logical to bunk here, at least overnight. I’ve got plenty of room.”