"But, Dr. Novak-"
She got into her car and started the engine. "You've been great, Thomas!" she called through the car window. "Don't let Miss Calderwood push you around." As she drove off, she could see him in her rearview mirror, still staring after her in puzzlement.
The stone pillars lay ahead. She was in such a hurry to get away, she almost careened into Adam's Volvo, driving in through the gate. He skidded to a stop at the side of the road.
"M. J.?" he yelled. "Where are you going?"
"I'll call you!" she yelled back, and kept on driving.
A half mile later, she glanced in her mirror and saw, through a film of tears, that the road behind her was empty. He hadn't followed her. She blinked the tears away and gripped the steering wheel more tightly.
She drove on, toward the city.
Away from Adam.
I'll call you . What the hell did that mean?
Adam watched M. J.'s taillights disappear into the dusk and wondered when she'd be back. Had there been a call from the morgue? Some urgent reason for her to rush to work? An emergency autopsy? he thought with a laugh. Right.
He pulled in front of the house and parked. Even before he'd climbed the front steps, Thomas had appeared in the doorway.
"Mr. Q.!"
"Evening, Thomas. What's up?"
"I was about to ask you. Dr. Novak just left."
"Yes, I passed her at the gate."
"No, I mean she's left. Taken her things with her."
"What?" Adam turned and stared up the driveway. By now, she would be a good mile or more away, perhaps already turning onto the freeway. He'd never be able to catch up with her in time.
He looked back at Thomas. "Did she say why was leaving?"
Thomas shrugged. "Not a word."
"Did she say anything?"
"I never had the opportunity to speak with her. She and Miss Calderwood were taking tea, and-"
"Isabel was here?"
"Why, yes. She left a short time before Dr. Novak did."
At once, Adam turned and headed to his car.
"Mr. Q.! Where are you going?"
"Isabel's house!" he snapped.
"Will you be there for the evening?"
"Just a few minutes!" Adam gunned the engine and roared out of the driveway. "Just long enough," he added under his breath, "to wring her neck."
Isabel was home. He saw her Mercedes parked in the garage, the groundsman busy polishing the flanks to a gleaming finish. Adam took the front steps two at a time. He didn't bother to knock; he just walked in the door and yelled: "Isabel!"
She appeared, smiling, at the top of the stairs. "Why, Adam. How unexpected-"
"What did you say to her?"
Isabel shook her head innocently. "To whom?"
"M. J."
"Ah." With new comprehension in her gaze, Isabel glided down the stairs. "We spoke," she admitted. "But nothing of earth-shattering significance."
"What did you say?"
She came to a stop on the bottom step. The crystal chandelier above spilled its pool of sparkling light onto her hair. "I only told her that I understood the difficulties she must be having. The transition to a large house. A new circle of friends. She's not having an easy time of it, Adam."
"Not with friends like you."
Her chin jutted up. "I was only offering her my advice. And sympathy."
"Isabel." He sighed. "I've known you a long time. We've shared some… reasonably enjoyable moments together. But I've never known you to be, in any way, shape, or form, sympathetic to anyone. Except maybe yourself."
She reacted with a wounded look. "What's gotten into you, Adam? I hardly know you anymore. It scares me, the way you've changed."
"Does it?" He turned and reached for the door. "Then I guess the truth is frightening."
"Adam! Look at who she is, where she comes from! I'm telling you this as a friend. I don't want to see you make a mistake."
"The only mistake I ever made," he said, walking out of the house, "was calling you a friend." He slammed the door shut behind him, got back in his car, and drove home.
He spent all evening trying to locate M. J. He called the city morgue. He called Lou Beamis. He even called Ed Novak. No one knew where she'd gone, where she was spending the night. Or, if they knew, they weren't telling him.
At well past midnight, he went up to bed in frustration. There, lying in the darkness, Isabel's words came back to assail him. Look at who she is, where she comes from. He asked himself over and over if it made a difference to him.
And the honest answer was: Hell, no.
He'd already had a "proper" marriage, to a proper woman. Georgina was everything the social register required: blue-blooded, wealthy, well-glossed by finishing school. Together they were, by the standards of their social set, the perfect couple.
They had been miserable.
So much for proper partners.
M. J. Novak's origins, her hardscrabble youth, were, if anything, an asset. She was a survivor, a woman who'd wrestled the challenges life had thrown at her and come out the stronger for it. Could any of his friends, with their money and their platinum exteriors, have done the same? he wondered.
And then, even more troubling, was the next thought: Could he have?
It was something he'd never know, could never know.
Not until he was put to the test.
The phone was ringing when M. J. walked into her office the next morning. She ignored it. After all, it was only seven-thirty; let someone else pick up the line. Calmly she hung up her coat, slid her purse in the desk drawer, revved up Mr. Coffee for a six-cup pot. An IV infusion of caffeine was what she really needed this morning. It had been a sleepless night on a lumpy motel bed, and she was feeling as alert as a grizzly bear in January and just about as cheerful.
She found her desk littered with pink message slips, taped in a haphazard collage. Calls from her overwhelmed insurance agent, from the DA's, from defense attorneys, from a mortuary. And from Adam, of course-five calls, judging by the number of slips. On the last slip, the night tech had scrawled in frustration: "Call this guy, will ya?" M. J. crumpled up all the message slips from Adam and tossed them in the trash can.
The phone rang. She frowned at it, watched it ring once, twice, three times. Wearily she picked it up. "M. J. Novak."
"M. J.! I've been trying to reach you-"
"Morning, Adam. How're things?"
There was a long pause. "Obviously," he said, "we have to talk."
"About what?"
"About why you left."
"Simple." She leaned back and propped her feet up on a chair. "It was time to leave. You've been great to me, Adam. You really have. But I didn't want to wear out the welcome. And I had to find my own place eventually, so I-"
"So you ran."
"No. I walked."
"You turned tail and ran."
Her spine stiffened. "And what, exactly, am I supposed to be running from?"
"From me. From the chance it might not work."
"Look, I have things to do right now-"
"Is it so hard for you, M. J., to stick your neck out? It's not easy for me, either. I take a step toward you, you take a step back. I say the wrong thing, look at you the wrong way, and you're off like a shot. I don't know how to deal with it."
"Then don't."
"Is that what you really want?"
She sighed. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't know what I want."
"I think you do. But you're too scared to follow your heart."
"How the hell do you know what's in my heart?"
"Wild guess?"
"It's not like Cinderella, okay?" she snapped. "Girls from the Projects don't have fairy godmothers to spiff them up. And they don't find happily-ever-afters in Surry Heights. Isabel gave me the straight scoop and I appreciate that. I'd be out to sea with your country club set. Too many damn forks on the table. Too many cute French words. Face it, I can't ski, I can't ride a horse, and I can't tell the difference between Burgundy and Beaujolais. It's all red wine to me. I don't see any way of getting past that. No matter how much you may lust after my body, you'll find after a while that it isn't enough. You'll want a fancier package. And I'll just want to be me."