LITMIR.BIZ

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little bit?”

      I held up my hand revealing a little bit of space between my thumb and finger to show how much a little bit is…then I widened the space by about half an inch.

      He smiled. “Let’s not argue about things that don’t matter. She really didn’t interest me. Not only did she look like a plastic doll but she had the intellect of one, too.” He came over to me, making space for himself between my thighs. “I prefer women who are less…manufactured.”

      I laughed despite myself and trailed the tips of my fingers along his bicep. “You’re really going to help me find Dena’s shooter?”

      “I will.” He tucked my hair behind my ears and kissed me on the nose before returning to his cooking work. “I have a connection at the police department who might get me a little more information than what’s being released to the press. Tomorrow morning I have to do some work for the lawyer who hired me to investigate that workman’s comp claim, but I should be free by the late afternoon. I’ve arranged to meet with my police contact for an early dinner tomorrow after his shift. In the meantime don’t do anything stupid.”

      “I don’t know what you mean,” I said vaguely.

      “Yes, you do. If you find something out, tell me. If you think you’ve identified a suspect, don’t go running over to confront them. Leave that stuff to me and the police.”

      “Oh, right. That is a more logical way of doing things.” I chewed on my lower lip. I had been pestering Anatoly about opening up to me more about his childhood lately but maybe full disclosure wasn’t all it was cracked up to be after all. I had recently read an article that suggested the happiest married couples consisted of individuals who were skilled in the art of denial. Maybe not telling him about my plans to talk to Chrissie was just another way I could help Anatoly maintain some useful delusions about his life with me.

      He pulled out a long knife with a serrated edge and started slicing the baguette. “We need to make a list of possible suspects.”

      I winced. I had to tell him. How could I ask him to help me find Dena’s attacker and not tell him everything I knew? I would just make him understand that meeting with Chrissie was a good idea…and when I wasn’t able to do that, I’d let him think he had convinced me of the error of my ways and then I’d meet with her anyway. At least that way I could say I tried to be up-front. It’s the thought that counts, right?

      “Anatoly? Okay, um…as I was saying before, I was talking to Leah and—”

      His phone rang again. This time it was in his pocket and he took it out only long enough to dismiss the call for a second time.

      “Okay, seriously, who was that?”

      “I told you.” He yanked open the refrigerator and took out some mayonnaise.

      “You worked as a P.I. for an insurance company when you lived in New York,” I reminded him. It was one of the few things about Anatoly’s pre-Sophie years that I could remind him of. It was like he had given me an outline of his early life but only included all the parts one would number with roman numerals and left out everything that might be labeled with 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c.

      “I didn’t work for her in New York. That number is just her cell phone.” He scooped out a few tablespoons of mayonnaise and dumped it in a small bowl before going back to the refrigerator and taking out some fresh basil leaves. This was becoming a very complicated sandwich.

      “So you worked for her in San Francisco?”

      “Sophie, if a client doesn’t give me express permission to discuss their case with other people, I can’t. It’s confidential even if I don’t work for them anymore.”

      “You can’t even tell me if you worked for her in San Francisco?”

      “No, I can’t.”

      “Huh.”

      Mr. Katz finally abandoned the oven and hopped up on the counter next to me. I gently ushered him away from the marinating tomatoes.

      “We need to stay focused. Think about who might have it in for Dena. I’ll pick the brain of my contact and then we’ll compare notes,” he said. “Are you going to be spending tomorrow in the hospital again? Or do you have other plans?”

      “I’ll be seeing Leah but other than that no plans at all.”

      Fuck him. My plans were confidential.

      CHAPTER 7

      I never get jealous…unless some bitch steals my spotlight.

      –Fatally Yours

      I made up for the sleep I hadn’t gotten the night before by going to bed at a reasonable time and sleeping in. When I got to the hospital the next day it was well into the afternoon. I went straight for the gift shop. The clerk had told me the new issue of Rolling Stone was going to be in, and I had heard their cover story was on Johnny Depp, one of the very few mainstream actors Dena actually liked.

      But I never actually got inside the gift shop because standing about ten paces in front of it were Amelia and Jason. For the first time, I realized that Amelia hadn’t actually come to see Dena the day before as she had originally promised. Now she was clutching a small tin of roasted almonds to her chest as she stared up at one of the two men she shared with Dena.

      “It was too much,” she cried, neither of them seeing me as I approached. “I was hurt and jealous and—”

      “Jealous?” Jason thundered. Inside the gift shop I could see the cashier with his hand on the phone, ready to call someone if the argument got out of hand. “Dena is in a wheelchair and you let petty jealousy keep you away?”

      “For less than forty-eight hours!” Amelia protested. “Not even two days!”

      “But for at least six of those forty-eight hours we didn’t even know if she was going to live! She could have died in surgery and you couldn’t even pull it together enough to answer your cell phone!”

      Amelia shook her head wildly, causing her mass of long curls to whip across her back. “I had to process it,” Amelia said, her voice now coming out in a whimper. “I was already messed up when I got your e-mail—”

      “Petty!” Jason said again. “What happened to free love? What happened to going with the flow and all that hippie, pseudo-Buddhist shit you’re always spewing? I don’t think I know who you are right now and I’m not fucking sure that I want to.”

      A cry escaped Amelia’s lips and she shoved the almonds into Jason’s hands before running past him. She brushed past me but I wasn’t at all sure that she had recognized me as anything more than a blur.

      I watched her retreat and then caught Jason’s eye. “Jason, what the hell?”

      Jason’s hair was plastered back with some kind of gel and his pointed goatee was neatly trimmed, giving him the look of a hornless devil. “She was here all along,” he said, his voice strangled with emotion.

      “Where? The gift shop?”

      Jason blinked and then looked to the gift shop as if he had forgotten it was there. “I can’t believe she never went to Nicaragua,” he seethed. “I can’t fucking believe she was here the whole time! Right here in San Francisco the night Dena was shot!”

      “Yeah, I know. I stopped by O’Keefe’s yesterday morning and she was there. I’m the one who told her what happened to Dena.”

      “She told you that?” Jason stepped back, bumping his heel against the pale gray wall.

      “Told me what? Jason, seriously, what’s going on?”

      He reached into his torn army jacket, pulled out a BlackBerry and waved it in the air like it was the American flag. “I sent her e-mails that night! And texts and I left a voice mail, all on the off chance that she might check one

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