Last to Know (30 page)

“A therapist?”

Harry nodded. “One of the best. I told her about Diz and she’s made her services available, immediately, if you wish. Personally, I think the sooner the better. Diz is a good kid, Rose, we don’t want him harmed by this, long term.”

“Of course not.” She looked searchingly at him. “Are you sure, though, he’ll be all right?”

Harry took her hand in his. “I’d bet the farm on it,” he said.

*   *   *

Diz didn’t need the binoculars to watch what was going on between his mom and Harry Jordan. They liked each other, even he could see that. And boy, was he glad. He’d never been so glad in his life to see anybody as he had been with Harry. “Detective Jordan,” his mom said he should call him, but Harry said just call him Harry. So he did.

“Harry,” he called across the table.

Harry turned his gaze from Rose. “Yeah, Diz?”

“My mom taught me always to say thank you and I’ve forgotten whether I did or not.”

“You already did.”

“Did I thank you too, Detective Rossetti?”

“You did, son.” Rossetti felt Rose’s gaze on him and he slicked back his hair, and gave her a warm, white smile.

“Detective Rossetti, is my mom’s cooking as good as your mom’s?” Diz liked to mix things up a bit and was happy when he saw that the detective appeared confused.

Then, “Listen, kid,” Rossetti said sternly. “Everybody’s own mom’s cooking is the best. Keep that in mind and you’ll never go wrong.”

Everybody laughed and Diz sat back, satisfied. Even the dog came to sit next to him, like he really belonged. Everything was okay again, here at Evening Lake. Home.

EPILOGUE

It was dusk and Evening Lake was peaceful. Lights were coming on at the pretty homes and the water rustled like a sheet of gray moiré silk, dipped at the western edge with the last remnants of pale sunlight. There was not a cloud left in the sky. “Like an omen of good fortune,” Mal said to Harry.

They were sitting together on the porch in the uncomfortable Adirondack chairs now padded by Mal, with memories of how painful it had been for her behind, with Harry’s sofa cushions, which, looking at them critically, she decided he needed new ones anyway. Stars that somehow looked bigger and brighter at the lake were already beginning their glitter, and every bug seemed to have disappeared with the oncoming of night.

Mal stole a look at Harry, next to her in his Adirondack chair. His head was thrown back, his eyes were closed. An ice-cold mojito, made by her, was clutched in one hand. With his other, he slowly smoothed Squeeze’s ears. The dog’s big head rested on Harry’s knee. They looked, Mal thought, the epitome of contentment. She did think, though, she should mention it was time Harry got some better outdoor furniture. Come to think of it, indoor as well. But perhaps now was not the time. This was a moment of quiet perfection, which, after all that had gone down the past few weeks, was to be relished and enjoyed with the long-awaited peace of mind.

She sat, swinging her legs, looking at the fading sky, thinking about how fleeting happiness might be, how rare these brief moments of pure contentment, how fortunate she was to have found this, to have found Harry. Or had Harry found her? She smiled as she looked at him again. He was half-asleep now, mouth slightly open. She reached over and took the glass from his hand before it fell, spilling a little onto the new slippers she had bought him. Black velvet loafers, with his monogram, HJ, embroidered in gold.

Without opening his eyes, Harry said, “Why did you get me these fucken rich old playboy slippers?”

Mal waved her own feet at him, also in the black velvet slippers. Monogrammed. In gold. MM. “I thought it was good for our image,” she said, taking a sip of the mojito, which tasted deliciously of mint, hand-picked by her from the jungle in back of the cottage that was Harry’s “garden” and that she believed must have been planted by his grandfather because Harry was certainly not into gardening.

“Velvet slippers make me feel old,” Harry said, sitting up and looking at her.

“Me too, I guess,” she said with the smile that lit up her face. “But anyway, you are older than me. I’ll bet when you first came to Evening Lake you hung at the soda fountain with your hair in a quiff and the girls in poodle skirts and ponytails, playing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ on the jukebox.”

“Jesus!” Harry laughed. “I’m not that old. Anyway, what’s for supper?”

Mal heaved a dramatic sigh. She got up and walked, in her brand-new monogrammed black-velvet-loafer-slippers and her short white shorts and floaty flowered top, to lean on the wooden rail, looking out at the gently fading familiar view. “Now I feel like an old married couple. What’s for supper, little wifey?”

“I know what’s for supper.” Harry got up and came to stand next to her. “Times like this, though, I miss Ruby’s.”

“You also miss your job.” Mal glanced sideways at him. “So I guess you’re not going to quit?” She asked a question to which she already had the answer.

“After what happened here, at my own special place, with all the people who came together to help, those who needed the police, their protectors, their keepers of the proper peace, I cannot think of any other profession that would hold my interest and my feeling for my fellow men as well as the job I do now.”

Mal understood. It would make a difference to her sweet simple plan for their lives, their growing-old-together-by-the-fire dream, but there was always another dream. A new dream, that anyhow turned out to be pretty much like reality, the way she’d always known it would.

“So, how do you know what’s for supper?” she asked, changing the subject back.

“I saw. It’s takeout pizza from Tweedies.”

“And a green salad,” Mal added virtuously.

“By the way, Rossetti’s coming for lunch tomorrow. Bringing his mother.”

Mal’s eyes widened. She knew the story of Rossetti’s mother. “Wow, better hold off on the spaghetti Bolognese, then. I couldn’t take the competition.”

“It’ll be steak on the brand-new Weber.” Harry smiled proudly at his new grill that was pretty much the same model as his old one, but as yet without the layer of burned-on grease. “And baked potatoes.”

“Diz’s favorite,” Mal suddenly remembered. “We could invite the Osbornes,” she added, hopefully, daunted by the idea of entertaining Rossetti’s mom alone.

“Let’s do that.” Harry leaned companionably on the rail next to her. The lake was its usual nightly ink by now, still rippling like silk though, under a sliver of a new moon. “Look, the lights just went on at their house.”

Mal looked over at the Osbornes’ house, so festive with its twinkling porch lights, filled as always with family and friends. Remembering, she thanked God. And Len Doutzer. And Harry and Rossetti. And even, in a small way, herself. She had played a tiny part in the unmasking of the evil that was Bea Havnel. Now gone, and please God, able to be forgotten by them all.

Squeeze brushed against her bare legs and she knelt over him, snuggling her face into his soft fur. His blue eyes looked steadily into hers. It was, Mal knew, a look that meant “love.”

She got up and went and put her arms around Harry’s neck. “I love Squeeze,” she said. “He can have the front seat in the Jag anytime.”

Harry turned from the lake, away from his memories of the horrors that happened, and looked at her.

“That’s true love,” he said, enfolding her in his arms. Next to his heart.

Also by Elizabeth Adler

Please Don’t Tell

A Place in the Country

From Barcelona, with Love

It All Began in Monte Carlo

There’s Something About St. Tropez

One of Those Malibu Nights

Meet Me in Venice

Sailing to Capri

The House in Amalfi

Invitation to Provence

The Hotel Riviera

Summer in Tuscany

The Last Time I Saw Paris

In a Heartbeat

Sooner or Later

All or Nothing

Now or Never

Fleeting Images

Indiscretions

The Heiress

The Secret of Villa Mimosa

Legacy of Secrets

Fortune Is a Woman

The Property of a Lady

The Rich Shall Inherit

Peach

Léonie

About the Author

ELIZABETH ADLER is the internationally acclaimed author of twenty-nine novels. She lives in Palm Springs, California. Visit her at
www.elizabethadler.net
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

LAST TO KNOW.
Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Adler. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Cover photographs: lake and deck by Pam Perkins; cabin reflected in water by Christopher Martin Photography

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-01992-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01994-3 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781250019943

First Edition: July 2014