Chasing Venus (13 page)

Which carried over into
his wardrobe as well.
 
Today, as
most days, Michael wore a sport jacket over a dress shirt, open at the crisply
pressed collar.
 
His buckskin shoes
were scuff-free and his gray trousers sported a military-straight crease.

Annie had paid
attention to her own appearance that morning, ironing the black capris she
usually wore straight out of the dryer, carefully applying makeup to her
sleep-deprived face.
 
It was in
marked contrast to the day before, when she hadn’t even showered.
 
Nor had she left the house.
 
Too upset to write, too distraught even
to run, she’d done little more than pace.
 
Deciding to visit Michael was the only sensible move she’d made, and she
didn’t give a hoot what Lionel Simpson would think if he knew.
 
And now, displaying her difficulties in
open air, analyzing them with someone as cool-headed as Michael, was helping
her get back on an even keel.

“Annie, we mustn’t jump
to any conclusions.”
 
Michael
lowered his voice.
 
“For example, we
don’t know for certain that those frogs were poisoned by curare.”

“True, we don’t.”
 
The foaming machine switched on, nearly
drowning out all conversation.
 
She
leaned across the table.
 
“But we do
know they were buried recently in my backyard.
 
And not by me.
 
And we also know that someone tipped off
Crimewatch
to look for them.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“Michael, I don’t want to be more scared
than I have to be.
 
But I will bet
you anything that later this week I get a call from the FBI asking me why
curare-doped frogs were found behind my house.
 
With everything else they think they
have, it might be enough to arrest me.”

For murder.
 
She could scarcely fathom it.
 
It was as if a plot from one of her
novels had come to life, with her cast in the role of hapless victim buffeted
by events beyond her control.

Annie forced herself to
speak out loud the words that had been screaming in her head for the last two
days.
 
“Michael, this is a
set-up.
 
Clear as day.
 
Somebody is framing me.”

Her body trembled as
the declaration she hadn’t wanted to make hung in the air.
 
Michael did not attempt to refute her,
probably because there was no point.
 
Deep in her soul, she knew there was no argument.
 
She knew what was going on.
 
The killer had targeted her,
her
, to take the fall for his
crimes.
 
Why he’d picked her, she
had no idea.
 
But he had.
 
And then, systematically, he’d figured
out where she lived.
 
He’d spied on
her comings and goings.
 
And at some
point, when he knew she was out of the house, he’d entered her backyard, dug a
few holes, and buried some dead frogs, which he had killed by varying doses of
curare.
 
And then he’d tipped off
Crimewatch
.

In the coffeehouse,
amazingly, life went on.
 
A woman
wheeling a stroller smacked her carryall into Annie and called a half-baked
apology over her shoulder.
 
Two male
teenagers bent over a laptop, jabbering in techno-geek.
 
A young woman distractedly sipped an
iced-coffee concoction without shifting her eyes from the pages of a chick-lit
novel.

Finally Michael
spoke.
 
“I’m having trouble
believing that somebody went to such elaborate lengths to set you up.
 
It’s so farfetched.
 
But I agree with you that I can’t think
of another explanation.
 
Unless the
frogs turn out to be nothing.”

“They won’t.”
 
Annie was as certain of that as she was
of her own name.
 
The truth of it
nearly brought her to tears.

Michael reached over
and grasped her hand.

“I don’t know what I’d
do without you, Michael.”

“You don’t have to
worry about that.
 
You have to worry
about a lot of other things, but not that.”
 
He patted her hand, then let it go.
 
“And now I’ve had an idea.
 
You should retain the services of a
criminal defense attorney.
 
I know
just the man.”

That had occurred to
her as well.
 
“You don’t think it’s
too soon?”

“The man I’m thinking
of works in tandem with a private detective.
 
They can start looking into this, try to
find out who’s behind it.
 
It’s none
too soon for that.”

It sounded
wonderful.
 
Smart, wily people on
her side.
 
There was only one
problem.
 
“Michael, I can’t afford
such a thing.
 
Do you think they’d
do it pro bono?
 
Because of the high-profile
nature of the case?”

“They don’t need to do
it pro bono.
 
I’ll pay for it.”

“Michael, no, I couldn’t—”

He raised his hands to
forestall any objections.
 
“Annie,
listen to me.
 
I want to do this and
I can afford it.
 
Remember, I want
this killer caught, too.
 
I have an
important stake in this.
 
In fact,
even before this I was considering hiring the P.I. to try to break this thing
open.
 
The investigation isn’t
moving fast enough for me.
 
You
think about it,” he added, probably guessing that the longer she did, the more
appeal the idea would assume.
 
He
rolled his chair back from the table.
 
“Shall we head home?”

*

A few hours after Annie
and Michael got back to his home, she had unpacked and freshened up and was
lying—fully clothed except for shoes—atop the bed in the
guesthouse.
 
The bed was a
super-luxurious, multi-pillowed, fluffy kind of affair—the sort that
required a footstool to mount.
 
Like
everything around her, it was designed to please the eye and the soul.

Annie saw Renee
Ellsworth’s hand in every detail.
 
The pale peach walls and whitewashed hardwood floors, with a few
hand-loomed throw rugs.
 
The expert
mix of flowered and striped fabrics for draperies, upholstery and bed
linens.
 
The whimsical bric-a-brac
husband and wife had collected in their travels, like the small bottle of PISA
nut liqueur on the mantel that leaned at the same angle as Italy’s famed tower.

The main house was
equally delightful.
 
It was a
two-story gray clapboard home on a double lot, with numerous windows and French
doors, most thrown open to the ocean air.
 
On all four sides were well-groomed lawns and the usual Corona del Mar
profusion of flowers.
 
A stone path
curved between the patio and the guesthouse.

The phone on Annie’s
bedside table rang.
 
It was Michael,
calling from up front.
 
“The
charcoal is getting hot, the potatoes are mashed, and the salad is tossed.
 
Are you ready for some bubbly?”

“Michael, you are
spoiling me rotten.”

“You deserve far more
than this for hitting the list, my dear.
 
Come up when you’re ready.”

She straightened the
bed, then made her way to the kitchen, where Michael had set a bottle in a
silver ice bucket.
 
Annie twisted it
to read the label.
 
Krug Grande Cuvee
.
 
She didn’t know much about champagne but
she knew this was the good stuff.
 
“Wow.”

He smiled as he ground
black pepper over two New York steaks.
 
“I’ve had it for a few years.
 
Tonight’s the night to crack it open.”

“You’re sure you don’t
want to save it for a more special occasion?”

He set down the
grinder.
 
He, too, wore the same
clothes as before, except that an apron had replaced the sport jacket.
 
“Annie, this is a special occasion.
 
You are very much to be congratulated
for a rare achievement.
 
And I’m
only too happy to be able to share it with you.”

There would be no
dissuading him, she knew.
 
Nor was
she sure she wanted to.
 
“Thank
you,” she said, and he smiled as if satisfied.
 
She leaned against the granite
countertop.
 
“This morning Frankie
sent me roses.
 
I’m so freaked these
days that it took me a while to figure out why.
 
Then I remembered, oh, that’s
right!”
 
She slapped her
forehead.
 
“I hit the
New York Times
bestsellers list for the
first time.
 
No wonder my agent’s
sending me flowers.”

Michael laughed.
 
He uncorked and poured the champagne,
then handed her a glass and raised his own in toast.
 
“To my dear friend and all the joy and
success I know awaits her in life.”

They touched their
flutes together.
 
The champagne
sparkled deliciously on Annie’s tongue; it truly was exquisite.
 
Michael winked.
 
His cheeks were pink from the exertion
of preparing the meal; she knew that before the bottle was drained, they would
be even rosier.
 
He set down his
flute and picked up the plate of steaks, rolling his chair toward the patio
barbecue.
 
“Will you set the table
in here?” he called over his shoulder.
 
“It’s too chilly to eat outside.”

The sun had set, and
with it the breeze off the Pacific had freshened.
 
Annie made for the front of the
house.
 
“I’ll close some of the
windows,” she offered.

*

Perhaps because the champagne
had loosened her tongue, Annie found herself telling Michael about Reid
Gardner.
 
While they sliced into
their steaks, she relayed the story: how he had appeared at her house Saturday.
 
How he had said he wanted to make sure
she understood her constitutional rights.
 
How he had told her that, despite what the FBI seemed to think, he
didn’t believe she was guilty of murder.

Part of her wanted to
believe that Reid Gardner was the paragon that he appeared to be.
 
But even before her divorce, she had stopped
believing in fairy tales.
 
And so
was trying on a more cynical theory for size.

“The more I think about
it,” she told Michael, “the more I wonder if he’s in cahoots with Simpson.”

“Why would you say
that?”

“Well, the writer
murders are an extremely high-profile story.
 
It would be a huge get for Reid Gardner
if he could help nab the killer.
 
We
know
Crimewatch
works hand in glove
with the FBI.
 
Maybe he and Simpson
have a plan where Gardner tries to seduce me in the hope that I confess.
 
I saw them having a
tete
-a-
tete
in the backyard after the frogs
were found.
 
They looked thick as
thieves.”

“But didn’t you tell me
there was a lot of tension between them when Reid Gardner first showed up?”

“There appeared to be
but it could have been all for show.
 
To convince me that Reid was on my side.”

Michael’s gaze grew
more penetrating.
 
He sat back in
his chair and
steepled
his hands.
 
“Trying to seduce you, you say?”
 
He smiled an all-knowing smile that
caused heat to rise on Annie’s cheeks.
 
“Was that strategy proving effective?”

“Let’s just say it
wasn’t proving ineffective.”
 
She
met Michael’s eyes.
 
“Especially
when he fed me this story about how his fiancée was killed and that for a while
he was a suspect.
 
And so he knew
how I felt, he told me.”
 
She remembered
how shocked she’d been by that statement; how it had seemed such an intimate
admission.
 
She had felt close to
him then, amazed that he would tell her such a thing.
 
But later she’d thought better of
it.
 
“I wonder if he hyped that up.”

Michael shook his
head.
 
“He didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“As a told you, I watch
his show, and every once in a while he does a profile on his
fiancee’s
murderer.
 
He did one recently.
 
The man
was never caught.
 
And Annie …”
 
Michael leaned closer, his tone newly
serious and the teasing glint in his eye gone.
 
“Don’t think every man who shows an
interest in you is pretending or has an ulterior motive.
 
You do yourself a disservice.
 
Remember—”
 
He raised a silencing finger when she
tried to interrupt.
 
“Not every man
is Philip.
 
Don’t paint us all with
the same brush.”