An Unforgettable Lady

She didn't like the silence or the lack of movement. With no distractions, her mind spiraled into something close to hysteria. Not only because Cuppie was dead but because she herself was now in danger.

Grace curled her fingers around the steering wheel and squeezed. Her conscious mind told her she hadn't been followed. A sliver of fear told her she might have been. She looked out into the night, searching for shadows. In the moonlight, she found them twisting and turning, thrown off by tree limbs waving in the wind.

Just a day before she wouldn't have gone looking for dark corners or wondered what they concealed.

But twenty-four hours ago, someone she knew hadn't been brutally murdered.

She lowered her forehead to the steering wheel.

The whole thing was inconceivable, like some bad movie. Cuppie found dead. In the foyer of the Alstons' lavish Central Park West penthouse. Next to the body, a recent article on the six most prominent women in the city. Cuppie had been the first one featured and her picture had been ripped out.

The piece had culminated by praising Grace.

Which was why she'd spent the afternoon at a police station. No one but the murderer knew for sure whether the other five women were next, but Grace could tell what the police believed. The lieutenant had treated her with kid gloves when she'd come in for questioning, even though he had a harsh, smoker's voice and the tired eyes of a man who wasn't impressed by much. He was, she realized, treating her like a victim.

When she'd walked into his cramped office, he'd done his best to cover up the crime scene photos but he hadn't been fast enough. She'd caught a glimpse of them and nearly retched. Cuppie's neck had been ripped apart, a gaping hole where her voice box should have been.

Grace didn't need a medical degree to see the violence in it all. Someone had stabbed Cuppie over and over and over again. Not just to kill her, but to defile her.

Nausea swelled and Grace pushed open the door, leaning out in spite of the seat belt. Because she'd left the keys in the ignition, the car chimed cheerfully, and she counted the passing moments by the electronic sounds. Looking at the gravel on the drive, she wondered what she'd clean up the mess with if her stomach followed through on its threat.

It'd be nice to have something pleasant to say when her oldest friend opened the door. I just threw up in your side yard was not the kind of greeting Grace wanted to offer. Much better to lead with Congratulations on your marriage, Carter. Or, How does it feel to be Mrs. Nick Farrell?

Grace looked up at the house. Someone walked past a window and she thought about how much she'd hated missing Carter and Nick's wedding. Her father had been buried the day they'd wed and the two life events, a beginning and an ending, had meant neither could be there to support the other in person. There had been plenty of phone calls, however.

And now there was another reason to reach out to her friend. Just when Grace thought she couldn't handle another awful surprise, when the loss of her father seemed an impossible weight in her chest and the failure of her marriage an embarrassing anchor to drag behind her life had thrown another punch.

All things considered, it had been a horrible year. The highpoint had been her wedding in January and things had been on a downhill spiral ever since.

At least it was September and there wasn't much left, she thought.

The noise of the car got on her nerves so she pulled the key free. It was hard to marshal the energy to go inside even though the cold night air was working its way through her clothes. She didn't want to be less, than perfectly happy for her friend but the effort of pretending seemed more than she could manage.

In a flash of memory, her father's voice, stern and commanding, came to her. Buck up, Starfish. Let's see that smile.

The refrain from childhood made her see him as he had been then, bending down, looking at her with love and determination. On command, she straightened and released the seat belt.

There'd be time enough to wallow in things she couldn't change on the trip back home. No amount of feeling sorry for herself was going to bring her father back and it wasn't going to change the implications of that article or the fact that Cuppie was being buried on Monday.

Grace flipped down the vanity mirror to check her makeup. The dark circles under her eyes were still hidden, but her lipstick had worn off. She fished through her purse, found a tube, and began to put some on.

The contact made hex pause and she let her fingertips drift across her lips.

She could still feel his kiss. That soul-shattering meeting of mouths and tongues and bodies was as vivid to her as it had been just after they'd parted. She couldn't forget what it had felt like to be drawn in hard against that stranger's body, the way he'd touched her, the thundering in her blood.

She'd had, in that stark hallway, her first taste of passion.