Last to Know (3 page)

The experience strengthened her resolve to become somebody. She’d started at the bottom as a “minor” assistant at the local TV station, gradually moved on and slightly up, gaining an understanding of how it all worked sitting in the director’s booth, pressing all the right buttons, marveling at the poise and confidence of the people in front of the cameras.

She spent every penny she earned, after rent and ramen noodles, on improving herself, learning how to use makeup by watching the women applying it to others and asking the right questions. She’d trained herself to stand up to her tall height without slouching, forced herself to leave her past and inferiorities behind.

In classic fashion there had been an emergency at the studio; a presenter had not shown for an interview, and Mal was called in as the only one who looked camera ready. She’d done so well she was offered a tiny fifteen-minute segment of her own, talking about local matters. Things had gone on from there.

Ten years later, she ended up in New York with her own important show, a luxurious penthouse apartment, and a life, apart from work and the social events that she was invited to, of complete loneliness which she refused to acknowledge. Until, under strange circumstances, she had met Harry Jordan. Nothing had been the same since.

Harry had truly “saved” Mal. Of course she was already a success, but inside she was still that same scared Mary Mallory Malone waiting for the ax to fall and everything to go back to “normal,” meaning the way it was when she started out, alone at eighteen.

Harry Jordan was so straight, so sane, such a regular guy under his macho cop persona it was impossible for her not to fall for him. Harry made love to her like she was the only woman in the world, he made her feel beautiful in a way no camera angle ever could; Harry made Mal feel loved. When he showed up, that is. And there was their problem.

So, there it was. She had left him. Flown on impulse to Paris, found herself more alone than she had ever been on any of those long nights waiting for Homicide Detective Harry Jordan to show up and tell her how much he loved her, but he was sorry, something had come up and he had to leave immediately. A woman can take only so much of that sort of thing.

And then Paris let her down. She found that hard to believe. The City of Light had never let anyone down before. Was it only she who felt alone, rejected by its busy citizens, its sightseers in groups, its lovers kissing over tiny sidewalk café tables, its patronizing waiters at the smart restaurant where she had ventured. “A woman alone” their eyes had said when they asked if she was expecting “monsieur.” There was no monsieur, her glare had told them back.

Negotiating the surging traffic around the Arc de Triomphe almost undid her; she must have circulated half a dozen times before managing to exit onto something she hoped pointed south. Three hours later, she stopped at one of the immaculately clean roadway cafés, where, hands still shaking from the nerve-shattering drive, she downed two espressos and ate a bread roll without butter, because that was all they sold at that hour. The provincial French, Mal was soon to find out, ate between twelve and two and not one moment after. They reopened at six for “dinner” and closed early, like around eight. God help you if you found yourself starving, as she did, in the in-between times. A vending machine produced a snack of potato chips and a fizzy Fanta orange soda which she saved for later, “just in case.” She could, after all, end up somewhere for the night where nobody served dinner, let alone a drop of red wine to nourish a girl through the long lonely hours, in bed, alone. And very probably crying.

Now, a couple of hours after she had left Paris, numb from being stuffed into a car seat too small and narrow for her long-legged five-ten frame, she had ended up here. In France. In the middle of nowhere.

Despite her vow not to think of him, she wondered what Harry was doing. Catching killers, she supposed. Oh where was Harry Jordan? Why had he not come after her? “Oh fuck,” she said out loud, then remembered she was a lady. She should not even be thinking that word, except under special circumstances. Or about Harry Jordan.

But she was. So she called him.

4

Evening Lake

The 3
A.M.
silence at the lake was broken by a muffled ringtone. Walking by the lake Harry shuffled in his pocket, found the phone, and stared stunned at the name of the caller. There was a joyous upward lilt to his voice as he said, “Mal, thank God, you’re back.” Then he saw the incoming call was from France. His phone was global but even so it was pretty good reception, somewhere in France to Evening Lake.

“You’re not back,” he said, flatly.

“I’m in France.”

“I can see that.”

“I ran away.”

“Why did you do that, Mal?”

The dog tugged at the lead, staring intently into the trees. In the distance a boat slid silently across the lake. Preoccupied as he was, Harry still had time to notice it was an odd hour for someone to be out and about. He thought it might be the boat belonging to the local oddball, Len Doutzer, though from where he was standing, on the sandy path just where it curved, he couldn’t be sure. It made sense though, because Len had lived here forever, and if anyone was out catching something at night, it would be him. Anyway, what did he care? He was on the phone with the love of his life.

“I’m in France because I needed some good coffee,” Mal said. “And a bottle of good red.”

Harry sighed into the phone. She sounded a million miles away, though in truth she was only hours by plane. He said, “You could catch a flight home first thing tomorrow.”

“It’s already first thing tomorrow here. Remember there’s a time difference. So what are you doing up in the middle of the night anyway? Do you have a woman with you?”

Harry’s sigh was exasperated now. “Mal, for God’s sake.”

“Oh no, of course you don’t, how foolish of me even to think that, all you have time for is finding criminals, no time for love and kisses and forever and ever…”

“Mal, I promise you, it is forever.”

“Then come to France. I’m lonely here without you, Harry. We can be together. I miss you, I miss your body next to mine in bed, naked the way we like to sleep, my leg over yours, your arm under my neck … I want to smell you, kiss you, taste you … dammit I want to lick every bit of you, you detective you…”

Harry no longer hesitated. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I came to Evening Lake to try to sort out my life and now you’ve just sorted it. I’m coming to France to get you. Where are you in France, anyway?”

“I really don’t know,” Mal said, laughing, surprised at her ignorance.

“Text me,” Harry said. “And trust me, I’ll be on a flight to Paris tomorrow.”

“I trust you,” she said. “Let me know the flight information, I’ll meet you at the airport. Don’t bring much luggage, my car is pretty small. Oh … and please, for God’s sake, Harry, don’t bring the dog.”

“Not this time, babe, I promise,” he said.

She rang off and Harry and the dog stood for a minute sniffing the fresh clean air, savoring the silence, the aloneness. He slipped the chain round the dog’s neck because he wanted to keep tabs on him and then they were off, leaves crackling underfoot on the sandy path that led around the lake.

Harry’s annoyance at being woken had disappeared. He was going to see Mal. He found he was enjoying this deepest, blackest part of the night, liking the rarity of being completely alone. At least he thought he was alone until he heard the squeak of oars on rowlocks; the faint splash of water.

He stood listening, the dog alert in front of him. Perhaps this sound was what had disturbed the dog. He wondered who else besides Len could be out on the lake at this time of night. Teenagers, he decided, looking for trouble and hopefully not finding it. Drugs didn’t seem to be a problem here at the lake, but you never knew. What Harry did know, though, was that if you wanted trouble enough you would find it.

A small boat slid into view, being rowed from the opposite shore. The rower pulled up to the Osbornes’ wooden jetty. A man got out, quickly stowed the oars, then slid the craft into the boathouse. Moments later, keeping to the shadows, he walked silently toward the house. Harry recognized Wally Osborne. And then, emerging from the woods, came his son, Roman, also keeping out of sight of his father, who he followed back to the house. Harry gave a soft surprised whistle. He wondered what Wally had been up to. And young Roman, though he guessed the teenager had been partying.

Suddenly, a pink glow spread across the night sky. Surprised, Harry glanced at the house across the lake and saw the young blond girl standing at the open door. Her face was distorted in a scream. Her hair was a ring of fire. And then she was running, plunging into the lake, just as the house behind her burst into an inferno. And Harry was thrown to the ground with the force of the ensuing explosion.

5

EVENING LAKE, 3
A.M.
, Rose Osborne

Rose Osborne woke at the same time as Harry Jordan. Startled out of a bad dream, she reached nervously across the bed for her husband but Wally was not there. The covers were thrown back and Wally’s side of the bed was cold, which meant he’d been gone for some time. It wasn’t unusual these days. Her husband had not been sleeping well; Rose thought he’d probably gone down to the kitchen to get a cup of the chamomile tea she recommended, though she suspected it was more likely to be a shot or two of vodka.

They had come to the family vacation house on the lake, as they had every summer since their first child was born eighteen years ago, when Rose was a mere girl of twenty-one. Married too young, as she realized ruefully later, but so hotly in love nothing else mattered but being with Wally who wanted her “forever.” So what else could she do but marry him.

Wally called Rose his “lavish” woman. She was round and soft, always hoping to be a size twelve but mostly sticking at fourteen. She loved that Wally enjoyed the way she looked, the way she felt under his hands. She was still the same size now, still round and soft with a mass of curly, coppery-brown hair worn shaggy to her shoulders because it was easier that way, and big brown eyes that Wally had once told her were definitely not “spaniel-like.” More of a Labrador, he said. Rose had not been sure if that was a compliment but decided it was better if she took it that way. Her long legs and racehorse-slender ankles were her best features, that and her smiley mouth and pleasing expression.

Wally didn’t tell her he loved her “Labrador” eyes until after she agreed to marry him and he’d actually put the ring on her finger “just to make sure,” he said with that smile that twisted up her heart and melted her bones and made her tremble with desire for him. He wanted her! Rose Gothorpe, born to an American father and English mother who Rose thought must have been a direct descendent of Queen Victoria, whose mores and moral code her mother followed perfectly, imposing them on her own daughter, making Rose feel wicked for her desire.

Being an only child wasn’t all bad though, Rose remembered now. She was thinking of her own brood and their sibling squabbles and the times she’d had to separate them like sparring wrestlers fighting over which twin had taken whose ballet slippers and which one had deleted whose homework and who had eaten the last of the ice cream and put the empty carton back in the freezer. Guilty on all counts, she thought with a fond smile. Kids were kids and that’s just the way life was.

She was living in Greenwich Village when she met Wally, sharing the smallest apartment possible with two other girls, yet even so, paying the rent was a continual worry.

If there was one thing Rose could be thankful for though, it was the year’s cooking lessons she’d taken, and the joy she got from them. And the weight she gained because of them.

Her curves certainly hadn’t kept the guys away; Rose could have taken her pick; she could, as her mother told her after she’d accepted Wally and brought him home to meet the family, have done better for herself than a penniless would-be writer who picked up the occasional script job on a TV series that almost paid his way, with about enough left over for them to share a pizza and a beer and a cozy night, for which no money was needed, spooned together in his single bed after they had made earth-shattering love, unable to let go of each other because if they did it was so narrow one or the other of them would fall out.

With money earned from the sale of his first story Wally bought her a ring, the flattest, thinnest diamond ever seen but at least it looked big. Rose recalled their celebration, at a proper restaurant. Was it the Sign of the Dove? Something like that, somewhere in Manhattan on a rainy night clasping hands across the table, her with her left hand pointedly up flashing her new status, wearing the tight black cashmere sweater her mother had given her last birthday and a white pencil skirt that clung sexily to her rounded rear, with beige suede heels soaked from the walk in the rain because financially a taxi was out of the question, her hair a-frizz from the damp, curling all over the place, her brown eyes golden with love for him. Wally, her all-American boy. They were all of twenty-one years old, both of them. Old enough to vote, old enough to drink liquor, and old enough to marry. Certainly old enough—or young enough—to have so much sex Rose would hurt from the love-bruises on her inner thighs as she walked to NYU the following morning, worried about her degree in English Lit and Anthropology though what she would do with either of them was debatable.

Those were the good times, Rose thought now, when their only problems were how to be together and how to make enough to pay the rent and to eat, with a little left over for a bottle of Italian red. Inevitably, she had gotten pregnant. Marriage followed. Not the small “family-only” ceremony Wally had pictured, but an outrageous blowout, a Christmas garlanded church packed with family, some of whom Rose hadn’t seen in years; her friends in fancy getups and staggeringly high heels; huge football player buddies of Wally’s; their college professors; even Wally’s great-grandma made it from Seattle, Washington. Looking at her, serene and smooth-skinned, cheekbones still holding everything up, Rose glimpsed her future children in that face.