“Duane said some things to me when I told him it was over,” she murmured.
“What things?”
“He accused me of being in love with you,” Tabby said. “He said I was breaking up with him because of you.”
“Duane was upset. I’m sure he said things he didn’t mean.”
“Oh, he meant what he said,” Tabby replied. “I wanted to deny it. The thing is, the other night — with you and me—”
“The other night we were very, very drunk.”
“We were going to kiss,” she murmured. “Weren’t we?”
“Tabby, it didn’t mean anything.”
Her eyes widened. “It didn’t mean anything? Really? Because it meant something to me. It made me realize I couldn’t marry Duane when I felt the way I did being with you.”
“Tabby, don’t do this.”
“Duane says you’re in love with me, too,” she murmured. “Is he right?”
“Maybe you should go,” he said.
“Do you want me to go?”
Frost shook his head. “No, but you should.”
“He told me it was never just him and me in our relationship. You were always there between us.”
“And what did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. Just like you’re not saying anything. It seems like we’re both afraid of something, Frost. What are we afraid of?”
She undid the cocoon of the blanket around herself. Her clothes were still wet. She nudged closer to him on the sofa until their thighs brushed together. Behind the dampness, he could smell her perfume. Her lips parted, ready to be kissed. Her eyes were full of wonder about what would happen next.
“Do you want to take me upstairs?” she asked quietly.
“I can’t do that.”
“But you want to. I know you want to. Right? It’s not just me.”
“Don’t ask me that, Tabby.”
“I’m putting myself out there for you, Frost. I’m tired of lying about what I feel. I’m tired of both of us lying. Last fall, I came to your door and asked if we had a big problem. You knew exactly what I meant, but you said no. Ever since then, I’ve assumed it was just me, that I was the only one feeling something. But that’s not true, is it?”
Frost stood up from the sofa. He ran his hand back through his wet hair and stared at the ceiling. “Tabby, stop. Just stop. It can’t be like this between us. What I feel or don’t feel doesn’t matter. Duane is my brother. There couldn’t be anything between you and me before, and there can’t be anything between us now.”
She stared at him in horror. “Oh, hell, what have I done?”
“You haven’t done anything.”
Tabby put down her glass and got up and pushed past him. She marched across the carpet to the foyer and began shoving her feet back into her heels. “No, you’re right, I should go. It was wrong of me to put you in this position. I’m sorry for coming here, Frost. What the hell was I thinking? Please forgive me. I can’t do this to you, I can’t, I can’t, I won’t.”
“Tabby, wait.”
But she was gone. She rushed out through the front door and left him alone. Frost followed her onto the porch, where the rain blew in across his body and soaked him all over again. He saw the taillights of her car as she drove away. He was in love with her, and she was leaving him behind, just as he’d asked her to do. He was mad at her for making him choose. He was mad at Duane for giving him only one choice. Most of all, he was mad at himself for walking into a disaster he’d seen coming a mile away.
His silent grief was broken by the ringing of his phone.
He almost didn’t answer it, because he assumed that Tabby was calling from her car. But he checked, and it wasn’t her.
Instead, he recognized the number he’d been calling all week.
“Inspector Easton,” an intoxicating Indian voice said when he answered. “This is Fawn. We need to meet.”
42
The giant lobby of the Hyatt Regency across from the Ferry Building was mostly empty. It was nearly midnight. A few businessmen lingered over cocktails in the bar, but their loud voices sounded far away. The white floors of the hotel rose over Frost’s head on all sides like the ivory keys of a piano, and ribbons of green foliage dripped from the railings. A three-story sculpted metal globe called Eclipse loomed over the lobby floor and gave the space a purple glow.
He walked the entire length of the atrium, which was the equivalent of walking a full city block. A glass elevator took him to the fifteenth floor near the top of the building. He emerged to a deserted hallway and a tomb-like quiet. He walked along the corridor beside the closed hotel room doors, looking down at the lobby far below him. He found Fawn’s room near the end of the hallway, and he knocked.
She answered the door with a gun pointed at his face.
“Identification,” she snapped.
Frost shook his head. “Trent tried that with me, too. I’m not part of Lombard. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
Fawn breathed slowly, but she didn’t lower the gun. “Move back,” she told him.
Frost raised his arms and backed up until he stood against the railing. “This is as far as I can go.”
She looked both ways down the corridor to confirm that Frost hadn’t brought anyone with him. Then she opened the door wider, but she kept the gun pointed at his chest. “Okay, come in.”
He did. It was an elegant hotel suite. The television was on, with the sound muted. The bed was perfectly made. He saw the balcony beyond a set of glass doors, and the nighttime view overlooked the Ferry Building and the bay. The room smelled of perfume drifting from her skin, and he’d smelled that aroma twice before. Once in her bedroom in Pacific Heights. Once in Trent Gorham’s house.
“Do you prefer Fawn or Zara?” he asked her.
“For now, let’s stick with Fawn. I can’t exactly go back to my life as Zara now, can I? And I guess soon I may need a third identity.”
“Well, Fawn, why don’t you put the gun down, and let’s talk.”
She hesitated and then pointed the small revolver at the floor. With her defenses down, her emotions welled to the surface. She wasn’t a rock. Her dark eyes filled with tears. “Is it really true about Trent?” she asked.
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry.”
Her foot tapped the carpet in a nervous tic as she dealt with the reality of losing him. “I thought — I hoped — maybe it was another trick. I’m supposed to be dead, too.”
“It isn’t a trick,” Frost said.
Her breath caught in her chest. She couldn’t speak for a while. He waited, giving her time, and he felt the aura of her presence. She looked a lot like her sister, with sweeping black hair, a honey-colored angular face, and hooked, wicked eyebrows. She was a small woman but lithe and athletic. She wore tight-fitting blue jeans, an off-the-shoulders black knit sweater, and high-top red sneakers. Like Prisha, she was attractive, but she also had something undefinable that lifted her into a rarefied world. If she looked right at you, you remembered the experience.
“I loved Trent,” Fawn murmured. “I suppose that must strike you as funny.”
“Not at all.”
“It’s not like we could tell anyone. I never even told Prisha.”
“How long were you two together?” Frost asked.
“Three years. Practically from the day we met. There was an instant chemistry between us. Most men look at me like fine china, like something fragile that you need to keep behind glass. Even the ones that buy me sometimes can’t even talk to me. But Trent was different. He saw me as a person. He didn’t care what I did. Most guys would never be able to handle it. The jealousy would eat them up. Trent never gave me grief, never told me to quit. It was my job, that was all. I was able to be normal with him, and trust me, that’s a rare thing in my life.”