Talk (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 4) Page 8

  "An alcoholic?"

  He nodded.

  "Well, it depends," Jessica told him. "For someone who chooses to live with an active alcoholic, I should think definitely yes. And I think someone who's having problems with a sober alcoholic might want to, too. Need to. I mean, Al-Anon never hurts, and it really helps if a situation's out of whack."

  "So what if you're with a recovering alcoholic and things are good?"

  "I'm not sure I know anyone who's gone for that reason," she admitted. "But you shouldn't have to wait for a crisis in the relationship to find out what it's about."

  He came over to stand before her. "I swore, since I was a little kid, that I'd never have anything to do with an alcoholic ever again."

  She smiled slightly. "Makes for a mighty small world to live in, doesn't it?"

  "In TV news?" He laughed. "Tell me about it!" After a moment, he reached to take her hands into his own. "I couldn't believe it when you first came to West End. How attracted I was to you, how terrific I thought you were—even though you were—um, you know."

  "An alcoholic."

  "Yeah. And then you stopped drinking." He paused. "And I've watched you, Jessica. And it's been incredible." The last was said somewhat breathlessly. "You've changed so much, and you're so much stronger, and yet, you're also much softer." He seemed a little embarrassed and looked to the ground for a moment before continuing. "I guess I just want to say that I would be more than happy to do anything, or go to any meetings, if you thought it was the right thing. For us."

  She was moved beyond words.

  He hesitated and then said, "What do you want, Jessica?"

  She smiled slightly. "To find out what love really is. Romantic love, I mean."

  He nodded slowly. "Me, too." He squeezed her hands. "That's why I chose you."

  She closed her eyes and moved forward into his arms.

  "Hey, guys!" Georgiana's voice called from outside.

  They separated, reluctant to let go of each other, and moved to the door. Georgiana was outside on horseback, looking ridiculously glamorous though she had no makeup on. She wore faded jeans and riding boots, and her long blond hair was blowing free.

  "Good afternoon, Lady Hamilton-Ayres," Jessica called. "It's about time you got up."

  Georgiana reined in her horse as it tried to shy away. "It's all right, boy," she murmured, patting it. "You wouldn't believe the schedule they had us on this week. I only got away because I shoved my contract in the producer's face." She smiled. "Hello, Will, congratulations on your new summer digs."

  "Thank you," he said with a sweeping bow.

  "You're looking very well, Jessica."

  "Thank you, Lady Georgiana," she said, curtsying. Georgiana really did hold the title of Lady. Although her mother was a very famous—if not notorious—American screen siren of the 1950s and 1960s, her father was a genuine Scottish peer. There was even a family castle into which Georgiana had been pouring money on behalf of her aging, if not downright batty, father, for years.

  "I came by to warn you that Alexandra's organizing a bridge game for tonight."

  "Oh no," Jessica said, slapping a hand over her eyes.

  "I've already recruited a replacement for me," the actress said. "And if I were you, Jessica, I'd do the same."

  "Wendy!" Jessica called.

  After a moment, a deeply masculine voice said, "Wendy's not on. It's me." Sheepishly, Slim, the massive bodyguard, came around the side of the cabin. "Hey," Jessica said, "you don't happen to play bridge, do you?"

  "What good are bodyguards if they can't protect me from the likes of you?" Jessica asked Alexandra and Will at the bridge table after dinner.

  Alexandra and Will were horribly competitive bridge players, due in large part to years of being out on assignment together, killing time by playing guys from other news organizations until something either happened or it was time to beam a report back home. They hadn't been out of the studio for a while, and thus on their last long trip—to Hong Kong—they had been beaten badly by a pair from CBS and the duo hadn't been the same since.

  Georgiana had recruited a neighbor from down the road to take her place as Jessica's partner. "Will plays bridge like a contact sport and Alexandra's smugness makes me simply want to smack her," Georgiana had said. Jacques, a transplanted Frenchman and weekender from New York whose wife was away, was eager to prove himself to Jessica. "I am a superb player of cards," he told her.

  "One club," Jessica announced to the superb player of cards, keeping her eyes purposely fixed on her hand. She had a fantastic hand and thought she'd throw Will and Alexandra off by bidding the lowest bid on the lowest suit. Unfortunately, old Alexandra Eyes seemed to catch on to this trick, for she was smiling sweetly at Jessica. "Going to sock you, Waring, if you don't cut it out," Jessica growled.

  Across the table Jacques had come to attention, raising one eyebrow in response to Jessica's bid. Jessica had met the antique dealer before in Manhattan. She had purchased a buffet table from him. She didn't know how, frankly, his very American wife—an investment banker—could stand being married to him. He was so laid-back, Jessica imagined the wife would have to burn down the house before getting a reaction out of Jacques. But maybe all French guys were like Jacques, she didn't know. They still took long lunches over there, didn't they? Naps in the afternoon and the summers off?

  She herself preferred a man who ate quickly, rarely slept, worked hard and adored the ground she walked on. She smiled, sneaking a look at Will. Could it get any better than this? The closeness, the knowledge of how he felt about her, the anticipation of what was to come?

  "Refreshments, ladies and gentlemen," Georgiana announced, swinging into the living room with a tray of drinks: a glass of wine for Jacques, Perrier for Alexandra, a Coors' Light for Will, iced tea for Jessica.

  "Jessica,” Will said, passing her iced tea to her.

  "Thank you." She put the glass down and glanced up. Will was openly looking at her, deliberately enticing her to do the same. It made her feel a little weak.

  She caught her breath and tried to focus on the game—the game in which she realized she had already badly misbid.

  Jessica looked across the table to Jacques and arched her eyebrows, hoping that he would take the hint that he was to bid up, and bid big.

  "One diamond," Will said, leaning forward as he did so, as if, as Georgiana claimed, bridge was a game requiring physical prowess.

  "One heart," Jacques bid.

  Hearts. Jacques had hearts. Jessica had none. Uh-oh.

  "Two hearts," Alexandra bid.

  Okay, so that's where the rest of the hearts were.

  "Three clubs," Jessica insisted, letting Jacques know she had clubs and no diamonds, and opening the way for him to tell her what else he had.

  Will slumped violently back in his chair. "Pass."

  "Three diamonds," Jacques said.

  Three diamonds! What the heck was that about? Okay, think—she had clubs, Jacques had hearts and diamonds. Alexandra had hearts and Will had a little of everything.

  "Pass," Alexandra said, smirking.

  Jessica had two diamonds, but was still trying to figure out her partner's hand. She had made an obvious play for the clubs and indicated she had no hearts, so he had to be pretty confident of the diamonds in his hand. She should let him have it. "Pass," Jessica said.

  So he played it for three diamonds and they actually ended up getting a little slam. "Ha!" Jessica cried triumphantly to Alexandra as they finished the hand.

  Alexandra looked coolly across the table at Will. "Sounds like one of those guys from CBS, doesn't she?"

  "Oh, shove off, Waring. You were positively gloating when you thought 1'd messed up."

  "True," Alexandra said, smiling slightly. To Will, "Okay, Raff, now we play."

  "Come on, Jacques! Vive la France!" Jessica cheered.

  Jessica and Jacques did not win another hand and went down by over one thousand points.

  "I'm real
ly sorry, Jacques," Jessica said to her bridge partner, walking him to the front door when they were finished. "I don't know what happened to my concentration."

  "These things happen," he sighed, "even to the most excellent player of cards."

  "Hey, is that the new Jag?" Jessica asked, looking past him to the circular driveway.

  "Last week, right off the line."

  "Nice car," Jessica said admiringly, following him outside. She went down the porch stairs with him to look at it. It was a black convertible. "Where do you get to drive it around here? Doesn't it wreck the engine to never open it up?"

  "Oh, I find places," he assured her.

  As Jessica peered around at the back of the car, Jacques moved in behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and pressing his lower body into her derriere. "You are a marvelous woman," he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

  Shocked, Jessica straightened up and tried to turn around while simultaneously easing him off her. "Thank you, Jacques, but—"

  He was kissing her.

  Jessica broke it off. "Jacques, stop it."

  "Come to my house," he urged. She could see his confident smile in the moonlight. “You are a very sexual, sensual woman. I know. I felt it. And I want to make love with you, too."

  Evidently Jacques had picked up the signals Jessica had been exchanging with Will. "No, Jacques," she said firmly, pushing him away—trying to push him away, but he wasn't yet convinced of her refusal.

  No matter, though, because Slim came crashing through the bushes a moment later to grab Jacques and slam him backward to the ground, while Wendy jumped out from somewhere and stood over the Frenchman with a small pistol pointed in his face.

  "They've got this thing about married men cheating on their wives," Jessica explained.

  After they sorted out the misunderstanding, Jacques was dusted off and escorted to his Jaguar by Slim, Jessica went up the porch stairs to find Alexandra standing in the doorway. "I guess we'll have to find a new fourth for bridge," sighed her hostess.

  They went back into the den where Alexandra, yawning, said she was going to turn in. Georgiana echoed the same. Jessica said she would be up soon. "Anybody know where Steed and Mrs. Peel are?"

  "Wendy's around here somewhere," Will said.

  "I think Slim's going to the barn," Alexandra said, leaving the room.

  "Sleep well, everybody," Georgiana said, waving goodnight.

  "Oh, Will," Alexandra said, backtracking around the corner. "Remember to take the flashlight in the kitchen. The trail to the cabin isn't the greatest."

  "Okay, thanks. Good night."

  Jessica and Will sat in quiet a while as the sounds of the women faded upstairs. Then Will reached to put his arm around Jessica's shoulder, settling in closer. He whispered, "I feel like we're being watched."

  "We are," she whispered back, giggling, luxuriating in his warmth, the coolness of the night, the farm smells that were wafting in through the window. They sat like that for several minutes until a telltale snore let Jessica know that while she had been plotting romance and sexual intrigue for them this night, Will had fallen asleep.

  She smiled. Well, that decided that.

  "Will," she whispered.

  He awakened with a start, at first not knowing where he was. "0h, sorry. I fell asleep, didn't I?"

  "You're tired."

  "Mmm, yeah, I guess." He turned to her, regripping her shoulder. "Sleeping, frankly, is not what I had in mind." Before she could respond, he added, "But I think, under the circumstances, it's best if I go to the cabin."

  "It's hard to let you go."

  He smiled, sleepy.

  He went into the kitchen to get the flashlight while Jessica went out on the front porch. "Psst! Wendy! Wendy!"

  "What?" came a voice from behind her, scaring the heck out of Jessica. "Sorry," Wendy said, appearing out of the shadows on the porch. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

  "Listen, Mrs. Peel, Will's going to his cabin, so don't shoot him or anything, okay?"

  "Okay."

  Jessica whispered, "But shoo, will you? Just beat it for a minute or two?"

  "Sure." As Wendy went skipping down the steps and off into the night, Will came out onto the porch and almost immediately took Jessica into his arms. She slid her hands around his waist and they kissed. But not for long, because they wouldn't be able to stay in control for long. The kind of sexual desire she felt for Will was new to Jessica in sobriety. It wasn't a tide; it felt more like a tidal wave of sensation.

  "After they catch this stalker of yours," Will murmured, kissing her forehead, her eyes and then her neck. "You and I, Jessica Wright," he continued, kissing her ear, her cheek and then bringing his head back up to look at her, "are going to spend days and days and days getting to know each other."

  She knew exactly what he had in mind, for their lower bodies were already working their way toward the unstated goal.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," he said after kissing her briefly once more and breaking away.

  "Sleep tight," she called softly.

  At the bottom of the stairs he stopped. "You do know that I'm falling in love with you, don't you? And that it started a long, long time ago? Like maybe seven years ago, the very first moment I saw you?"

  After a moment, she said, "I know." She didn't know what else to say because she didn't know what it was, exactly, that she felt. Other than physically, that was. Not yet. "Good night."

  She went back inside and locked the front door. She stood in the front foyer, feeling very wide-awake. Now what?

  Hot chocolate and something to read for bed. She went into the kitchen and heated some skim milk, stirring some Nestle's Quik into it. Then she went into Alexandra's library and looked around on the shelves. Ah, Vanity Fair. Surely Thackeray had been dead long enough that no publicist would be trying to book him on her show.

  Jessica poured her hot chocolate in a mug, set the saucepan in the sink with some water in it, picked up her book, turned out the lights and went upstairs to her room.

  She turned on the bedside lamp, put down the mug of hot chocolate and went back to the door to turn off the overhead light. She closed the drapes, went into the bathroom and washed up, slipped into her nightie and came back to slide under the sheets. As she was puffing up the pillows, her hand felt something underneath. She closed her fingers around it and pulled. It was a foil packet of hot chocolate and a note.

  Dear Jessica,

  Sleep well, my precious. I hold the vision of you in my heart, of your body against mine.

  Love, Leopold

  Jessica cried out, clawing her way out of the bedcovers and flying out of the bedroom, nearly falling over Wendy in the hall. "How the hell did he get in here?" she asked as Wendy rushed into her room.

  Alexandra came running down the hall, hastily tying a silk robe around her.

  Wendy came back out of Jessica's bedroom, barking into a walkie-talkie.

  Georgiana appeared next, knotting her robe securely around her waist. "What's happened?" she asked, taking Jessica's elbow in hand.

  "That freak's been in my room!" Jessica said. "God damn it!" she cried, slapping her hand against the wall. "The son of a bitch has been in my bed!" A stalker was one thing, but a creep actually touching her things, her private places. Her bed! Here!

  The front door opened and Slim came barreling up the stairs. "Are you all right?"

  "Find him!" Jessica yelled, crossing her arms over her chest. "Shoot the son of a bitch, I don't care, just get this guy out of my life and out of my stuff!"

  Slim went into the bedroom with Wendy. Alexandra went in, too. When she came back out she handed Jessica's robe to her. "Come on, come downstairs to the kitchen. They're going to be a while."

  "I'm not going back in that bedroom, Alexandra. I'm sorry, but there's no way until you fumigate it!"

  "No, no, of course not," the anchorwoman said, leading her friend downstairs. "We'll go back to New York. We'll have some hot chocolate—" />
  "That's what he left me under my pillow!" Jessica shrieked. "I'm never having hot chocolate again!"

  "Come downstairs, Jessica," Alexandra urged, pulling her along.

  "I'm telling you, I'm getting a gun," Jessica declared. "And if that guy comes near me, I swear I'm blowing his head off. How dare he trespass on my private life!"

  Alexandra left Jessica under Georgiana's care in the kitchen and returned to Jessica's room.

  "How is she?" Wendy asked her.

  "Furious. She says she's going to get a gun and blow his head off."

  "Scared to death, then," Wendy said. "It gets real when it gets personal." She turned to Slim, who was bagging the note. "So what do you trunk?"

  "I think we better bring her back to New York"

  "That's what I think, too," Alexandra said. She drew her robe closer around her, giving a slight shiver, and looked to Wendy. "You know how this house is wired. How did he do it? How did he get in here?" She noticed something funny in Wendy's expression and asked, "What? What's wrong?"

  "It's just that Slim got some news," Wendy said. "He was on the phone when he heard Jessica scream."

  Alexandra turned. "What news?"

  "It's about Jessica's secretary," he said solemnly.

  "Bea? What about her?"

  "They just found her body," he said. "At West End. She's been murdered."

  Part II

  Death

  8

  Jessica, Alexandra, Will and Jessica's bodyguards were back at West End on Sunday morning to meet with police. "I'm fine, just numb," Jessica said to Cassy on her way into the network president's office. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

  "If you're up to it," Cassy said gently, "the police would like to ask you some questions."

  "Sure." Jessica looked to Alexandra.

  "I'll stay with you," Alexandra told her.

  "Mr. Rafferty?" a man said. "I was wondering if you could come with me into the next office?"

  "Sure." Then to Jessica, "I'll be right next door if you need me." Jessica nodded and, head slightly bowed, walked over to take a seat on the couch.

  "Jessica," Cassy said as the rest seated themselves around Jessica, "this is Detective Jefferson Hepplewhite from the New York Police Department."