LITMIR.BIZ

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      Guilt struck her. She should be with her mother, not lying out by the pool under the leafy shade of the towering pecan trees, consumed with fear for herself.

      How could all this be happening at once? Pierce calling her? Going over there and stupidly quarreling with him when she should have just walked out? His getting himself stabbed? Michael being involved? Not to mention Hazel’s having another breakdown?

      Oh, God! This meant Michael would be back in her life big time. What if he found out about Carmen, too?

      Rosie’s nerves began to jump. Her inner thermostat went haywire. Suddenly she felt as if she was freezing.

      “So, tell me, why do I need to see Joe?”

      “For advice, sweetie. Just for advice.”

      “Which will cost a bundle.”

      “You’d rather have free room and board in prison?”

      Rosie’s chest went tight. “I really should go check on Hazel.”

      “Forget Hazel. She’s got round-the-clock doctors and nurses.”

      “They are not her daughter. She wants me. Only me.”

       “You were the last person to see your murdered exboyfriend alive!”

      “Except for whoever really killed him.”

      “What exactly happened at Pierce’s?”

      Rosie hissed in a deep breath. “Okay, like I told you, he called about eleven.”

      “And you just had to run over there.”

      “When I saw his name in the Caller ID window of my cell, I popped the rubber band on my wrist three times. I swear I tried not to answer. But Ticia Morgan had already told me Anita had left Pierce, and maybe I wanted to gloat a little.”

      Yolie nodded almost wearily. “Ticia? John’s child bride?”

      John Morgan was Pierce’s new plastic surgery partner.

      “Yes. So, Ticia called yesterday to tell me that Anita had phoned her. Apparently, Anita was telling anybody who would listen that Pierce was an obsessive-compulsive, alcoholic monster.”

      “Tell me something I don’t know.”

      “Anita kept screaming that he’d threatened to send her daughters back to Guatemala because they wouldn’t follow all his nit-picky rules.”

      “What did they do—wear their shoes in the house?”

      “Yes, and they wanted credit cards, cell phones, driver’s ed lessons, television sets, and cars, too.”

      “Hello? Why did he think they married him? Still, you should never have talked to Ticia. Or Pierce.”

      “I know.”

      “So, what did he want?”

      “He wished me a happy birthday. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He said Anita was a mistake and that he wanted me back.”

      “He wanted you back? After you sent him that painting where you made his Mr. Willie look like a shriveled peanut, and his entire staff laughed when he opened it? He wanted you back? And you bought it?”

      “Well, not at first, but he was totally sober.”

      “You could tell that over the phone?”

      “He said he wanted a new warehouse key. And I said he’d have to pay the rent. He said he would pay it.”

      “This from the man who won’t pay for his wife’s kids? And you went over there?”

      Rosie nodded miserably.

      “And?”

      “We drank some champagne.”

      “Not good. How much?”

      “He kept my flute full while he gave me a tour of the house, so I didn’t really count.”

      “Did he touch you? Did anybody take anything off?”

      Rosie flushed as she remembered their first kiss on the stairway beneath the chandelier. They’d still been dressed then. Even though their mouths and bodies had fit just like always, something had felt wrong to her. She’d kissed him harder, searching for what she’d once thought she’d had with him, but the soul-deep wrongness had persisted.

      So why had she ended up naked in his upstairs guest bedroom? If it hadn’t been for her hearing that noise in the master bedroom and getting spooked, no telling what might have happened.

      “Pierce refused to pay the rent, so I left.”

      “That’s it? You were there an hour. No funny stuff?”

      Rosie remembered quarreling with Pierce when she’d heard that sound in the next bedroom. She’d accused him of inviting her over to make Anita jealous. He’d sworn they were alone. Then she’d heard another sound and had grabbed her clothes and had made him go check the rest of the house. Rosie had left too fast to locate her underwear.

      Rosie rubbed the back of her neck where the muscles had begun to tighten. Then she drew a deep breath.

      “Okay. I get it. There was some funny stuff.”

      “I didn’t go to bed with him!”

      “Since he’s dead, I think you’d better get your story straight before you say something really stupid to Nash. Make an appointment with Joe. Besides being my next-door neighbor, he’s an old, old friend of mine.”

       Translation: a favorite lover.

      “You remember, he came to the Christmas block party.”

       And got soused on the bourbon-laced eggnog and left a bruise the size of an apple on my left butt cheek when he pinched me.

      “Just don’t talk to the police without him being there. He knows his stuff.”

      “The police?” Rosie squeaked. “You really think they’ll…that Michael will think…that I…”

      “I think it’s wise to consider worst-case scenario.”

      Rosie swallowed. No sooner had Yolie said that than the image of her own slender neck on a chopping block sprang up in her mind.

      “A high-profile murder like this? The cops have got to pin this on somebody, sweetie-pie. Who better than the girl who tried to mow him down with her Beamer? Don’t you think it’s odd that he died on the night you say he wanted you back?”

      “Okay, he got me naked.” A shiver of remorse traced through Rose Marie. “I got cold feet, though. We had a fight. When I left, I…I couldn’t find my bra and panties.”

      “So, they’re at Pierce’s?”

      They stared at each other. Or the police have them was the thought that ran through their minds.

      Rosie lay back down on the chaise longue and stared up at bright spots of blue through the trees. “I never thought people we actually know—respectable people—got themselves murdered. Handsome, wealthy plastic surgeons, not even jerks like Pierce, don’t get hacked to death by some knife-wielding maniac.”

      “Too bad for Pierce the murderer didn’t read your little rule book.”

      “This whole thing is making me sick.” Rosie shivered. At the same time, the more stories she read about his glamorous ex-wives, including Yolie, the more she began to feel ignored, invisible. It was a feeling she’d experienced growing up poor in East Austin. She hated it.

      “I was his fiancée. But do I merit so much as a footnote?”

      “Be careful what you wish for, sweetie-pie.” Yolie flipped a newspaper page and then

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