Queen of the Night

After Sue left the room, Brandon took a seat on the newly cleared couch. Geet was snoring quietly. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Sue appeared to be the one who needed some rest.

G. T. Farrell had always been a big man, a hearty man. Now he was a shadow of that former self. The hands that lay on top of his covers looked bony and frail. His hair had gone sparse and stark- white. The gray pallor of his sagging skin told Brandon that the man wouldn’t last long. For Sue’s sake, Brandon found himself hoping the battle wouldn’t last much longer.

Brandon remembered too well his own recovery from bypass surgery several years earlier. He had hated it. He had hated being weak and needy, and he had hated the trouble he had put Diana through. No doubt Geet felt the same way, and Diana would, too, if it came to that.

When it comes to that, Brandon thought.

When Sue emerged from the bedroom, she had changed into a turquoise-colored pair of shorts with a matching shirt. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had dabbed on some makeup. She wasn’t one hundred percent, but she was decidedly better than she had been when she first answered the door. She was also carrying a banker’s box.

“This is the case Geet wants to turn over to you,” she said, setting the box down next to him on the couch. “While you’re just sitting here you might want to go through it.”

“Sure,” Brandon said easily, but he didn’t mean it.

This was Geet Farrell’s case to pass along, not his wife’s. Brandon Walker had no intention of opening the box and looking inside it until Geet himself had given the go-ahead. The poor man might be dying, but Geet deserved that much respect, that much self-determination.

Sue gathered her purse and car keys and then stood uncertainly by her husband’s bed, as if reluctant to leave.

“Give me your cell number,” Brandon said gently. “I’ll call if anything happens, but you need a break.”

Sue nodded gratefully and gave him the number. She also gave him some instructions about Geet’s pain meds. Then she rushed out the back door before she had a chance to change her mind.

In the silence her departure left behind, Brandon sat there watching the silent race cars speed around and around an oval track, but he didn’t really pay attention. He was far too preoccupied with real life-his own real life.

For months now there had been little warning signals that things weren’t quite right. Brandon ’s history with his father should have set the alarm bells ringing, but denial is an interesting thing. He hadn’t discussed his concerns with Diana. By mutual agreement, it was off the table. He also hadn’t mentioned it to the kids, Davy and Lani. But now the jig was up, and Brandon would have to deal with it and discuss it.

Earlier that week, he’d come back to the house from a meeting and found Diana in despair.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I just talked to Pam,” Diana said. “They hate the book.”

Pam Fender was Diana’s longtime agent.

“Who hates the book?” Brandon asked. “And what book are we talking about?”

“Everyone hates the book,” Diana said bleakly. “ Do Not Go Softly, the manuscript I just turned in. Cameron hates it and so does Edward. They’re turning it down.”

Cameron Crowell was Diana’s longtime editor in New York. Edward Renthal was her publisher and Cameron’s boss.

“They can’t turn it down,” Brandon objected. “They bought it. They paid for it.”

“They paid an advance on delivery and acceptance,” Diana corrected. “If they don’t accept the book, they may want their money back.”

Brandon had been thunderstruck. “How could that be?” he had asked. “And why?”

“They say it’s not up to my usual standard.”

Over the years, Brandon and Diana had developed a system that called for Brandon to read the manuscripts only when they were finished. That way, Diana had a pair of fresh eyes looking for typos in the material before sending it off to her agent and to her editor. Brandon had read Do Not Go Softly. He hadn’t liked it much, but he figured that was just one man’s opinion.

“Can’t you fix it, rewrite it or something? What does Pam say about all this?”

“She’s asking them to hire someone else to do the rewrite.”

“You mean like a ghostwriter?”

“That way they’ll still be able to use my name on the book, and we’ll be able to keep part of the advance. She’s hoping to get them to take the remaining advance from upcoming royalty checks.”

Shadow of Death, the book Diana had written about her experience with a serial killer named Andrew Carlisle, had won her her first Pulitzer. Considered a classic now, right up there with In Cold Blood, the book was still in print and still earning royalties.

“How do you feel about that?” he had asked.

Diana shrugged. “It means I’m over,” she said. “Washed up. Finished. I’m going to go down to Pima College and sign up for a pottery class.”

Brandon got it. He and Diana had lived their married lives in a world that was half Anglo and half Indian. Rita Antone, Diana’s housekeeper and na

For the past several days, while Brandon had been grappling with the financial fallout from all this, Diana had gone into Tucson and signed up for a pottery-making class at Pima Community College.

The idea that she would simply turn her back on the problem had jolted him. It wasn’t like her just to give up like that. That was a wake-up call for him, that things had progressed further than he’d been willing to admit.

Financially they’d be fine. Their house was fully paid for. Thank God, their kids were both through school. Yes, the economic downturn had hurt them, but much of the money they had set aside over the years was still there. Pam was still hoping to find an acceptable ghostwriter who might allow them to finagle the deal to keep a portion of the advance and of the royalties. That idea, however, was contingent on Diana’s being willing to go out on the road to promote the book as though it were her own.

At first hearing that idea had sounded like a good deal, but Brandon wondered if it would work. By the time the pub date rolled around, would Diana be in any condition to deal with the rigors of a national tour or go out and do signings and interviews? Especially interviews.

Geet’s eyes blinked open. He looked around in dismay for a moment, then focused on Brandon.

“Hey there,” he said. “I must have dozed off. How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” Brandon replied. “Just a couple of minutes.”

In actual fact, it had been over an hour. One silent set of auto-racing laps had morphed into another, but Brandon had been too preoccupied to pay any attention to the muted a

“Where’s Sue?” Geet’s voice was whispery and hoarse, as though he needed to clear his throat but couldn’t. His breath came in short, tortured gasps.

“She went out to run some errands.”

“Good. She hardly ever gets out these days,” Geet said. “This is real hard on her.”

It’s hard on you, too, Brandon thought. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Water? A soda?”

Geet shook his head. “Did Sue give you the box?”

Brandon patted it. “It’s right here.” He made as if to take the cover off, but Geet stopped him.

“Don’t look at the contents now,” Geet said. “You can do that later.” He spoke in short sentences, as though anything longer was too much effort. “Right now we need to talk.”

He punched a button that raised the head of the bed. Then he opened a drawer in the bedside table and took out a stack of envelopes. From the looks of them, most appeared to be greeting card envelopes. One was not. That was the one Geet handed to Brandon. There was no return address in the upper left-hand corner.