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“I have an idea. How about we call it a night, and we go over it tomorrow?” I said, grabbing her clutch purse from the bar and gently taking her elbow.
Outside the bar, in the lobby, the grim, middle-aged woman behind the hotel’s desk gave me a frosty glare as I escorted Tara unsteadily into a brass elevator.
No fair. I’m the good guy, I felt like saying to the clerk. Can’t you see my shining armor?
When the door binged closed, Tara turned and touched my face.
“Mike, ever since the wake, I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” she said quickly. “Did you know that I practically killed about six people to get put on this case? I thought it was for Hughie, but it wasn’t. It was so I could spend time with you.”
“That’s … that’s … ” I said, flabbergasted. “I’m flattered.”
Tara put her head on my shoulder.
“My husband died in a plane crash, you know. He was a weekend pilot, and he screwed up somehow over Long Island Sound and crashed. We were best friends. We did everything together. When he died, I felt like dying, too.”
She pulled away from me and shook her head as she stared up into my eyes.
“I read how your wife died, too, Mike. I know what it’s like to lose someone that close. You understand. You’re the first man I’ve met in five years with whom I felt that click. I’ve just been so lonely. I went on an Internet date a few months ago. Have you ever gone on an Internet date, Mike? My God, the horror.”
The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor, and we stepped out into a white, furniture-lined hallway.
“You think I’m a stalker now, don’t you?” she said, pouting, when we arrived at her door. “I’m not a stalker, Mike. No, wait—that’s what a stalker would say.”
I got her room door open with her passkey. Inside, she immediately ran down a short hallway and then through another doorway. Then she ran back out.
“Don’t leave, Michael Be
I stepped in and closed the door.
“Not me. I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
She went back into what I assumed was the bedroom. The room was a suite, with a living room window that looked north up Fifth Avenue, toward Central Park. How much money did she have, exactly? I thought. And exactly how drunk was she?
After a minute, I heard water ru
She stopped at the love seat, sat, and tucked her long legs up underneath her.
“There. Okay. Much better. My head isn’t spi
I started laughing at that.
“I think the bar’s closed, Tara.”
“I like how you laugh, Mike,” she said, sounding a little more sober. “I’m so glad you came. Down at the bar, some Eurotrash creep tried to pick me up. When I blew him off, he said some nasty things to me before he left. I got afraid. That’s when I called you. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re in trouble, right? Call a cop?”
I laughed again.
“And here I am.”
“Exactly. Here you are,” she said, and stood and undid the spill of her hair.
As I watched it fall, I thought of a fragment of an Irish song from my childhood for some reason.
Her eyes, they shone like diamonds
I thought her the queen of the land
And her hair, it hung over her shoulder
Tied up with a black velvet band
.
It was actually her robe that slipped down over her shoulders a moment later, revealing pale tan lines at the nape of her neck. I swallowed. It was a really nice nape.
CHAPTER 32
BUT AT THE last second, as Tara rose up to kiss me, for some unknown reason I suddenly gave her my cheek and turned her embrace into a quick hug.
She stiffened in my arms. Then her head sank.
“Too much?” she said.
She turned, stomping away, and collapsed back onto the love seat.
“I always push it. Always,” she mumbled into the arm of it. After a minute or two, she started to sob as if I’d just broken her heart.
I stood there, speechless, in the middle of the luxury suite. What was I doing here? First hugs and kisses, and now tears?
Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Michael Be
But as I scrambled for a clue, I finally caught a break. I thanked my lucky stars as the muffled sobbing turned into soft snoring.
After another minute, I lifted Tara up and carried her back into her bedroom, where I laid her under the seven-hundred-thread-count ivory sheets, carefully keeping her robe properly placed at all times.
I stood for a moment and smiled down at her as she slept. I didn’t think goofballs came this attractive. Would she even remember all this tomorrow? I wondered. I thought about deleting her text messages to me, but then decided not to. It was what it was. She’d gotten a little drunk and gone a little crazy. I knew how that felt. I was the last one to judge.
“See you at the trial, Tara,” I said as I closed the door behind me.
The same stern desk clerk frowned at me downstairs as I stepped back into the lobby. I suddenly remembered who she reminded me of—my fierce seventh grade teacher, Sister Dominick.
“Do you have the time, ma’am?” I said, winking as I passed her.
“Actually, no,” the reincarnated Sister D. said, as if she were aching to put a ruler to my knuckles one last time. “Fresh out.”
The cop cruiser on the corner hit me with his brights as I got out of the taxi in front of my building back on West End Avenue. Great. It was bad enough that my doorman knew all my dirty rotten nocturnal activities; now my coworkers did as well. There goes the department’s Father of the Year award.
When I got upstairs, the house was dark, everyone snug as a bug in a rug. Even Mary Catherine wasn’t waiting up for me, which was probably a good thing, considering I smelled like Tara’s perfume.
Though when I finally completed the last steps into my bedroom, I did see something. On my bed were lumps. Highly suspicious lumps.
“We miss you, Daddy,” one of the lumps mumbled as I took off my shoes.
“Miss you so much,” the other cute lump said as I searched for a hanger, gave up, and just tossed my jacket in the corner.
“It’s okay. I’m here now, girls. You can go to your own beds,” I said to Chrissy and Shawna as I lay down. I felt a whole bunch of smaller lumps flatten underneath me. Oh, criminy, I thought, pulling an itchy fur ball out from under the back of my neck. It looked like the girls had invited their entire Beanie Baby collection to the Daddy’s-room sleepover.
“Nugglance?” Chrissy said, pulling on the sheet beside me.
I shook my head. Nugglance in Chrissyese, if I remembered correctly, was a cross between nestling and snuggling.
“Yes, Daddy. We need nugglance,” Shawna said, pulling on the sheet from the other side.
“Fine, fine. Have your nugglance,” I said scooting over as I let them burrow in behind me. Giggles started as one of them started to pet the back of my head. With her foot.
I closed my eyes, too tired to protest. More women. I was completely surrounded. Resistance was futile. There was no escape.
CHAPTER 33