I, Michael Bennett (Michael Bennett 5)

She blinked at me, a wide, fixed smile on her face. By the glaze in her eyes, I could tell the drink in front of her wasn’t her first.

We chitchatted for a while about the weather and the latest Yankees loss before I realized something. I looked around on the floor beside her bar stool.

“Tara?”

“Yes, Detective?” she said, batting her eyes at me. “May I call you Detective, Detective?”

“Tara, where’s your briefcase? You know, your work? All the paper you wanted me to see?”

She smiled mischievously.

“Upstairs in my room. I was just taking a drink. I mean, a break.”

“How many breaks—I mean, drinks—have you had?”

“Just the one, Detective, I swear. Please don’t arrest me,” she said, smiling, as she raised her palms.

“I have an idea. How about we call it a night, and we go over it tomorrow?” I said, grabbing her clutch purse from the bar and gently taking her elbow.

Outside the bar, in the lobby, the grim, middle-aged woman behind the hotel’s desk gave me a frosty glare as I escorted Tara unsteadily into a brass elevator.

No f

air. I’m the good guy, I felt like saying to the clerk. Can’t you see my shining armor?

When the door binged closed, Tara turned and touched my face.

“Mike, ever since the wake, I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” she said quickly. “Did you know that I practically killed about six people to get put on this case? I thought it was for Hughie, but it wasn’t. It was so I could spend time with you.”

“That’s … that’s … ” I said, flabbergasted. “I’m flattered.”

Tara put her head on my shoulder.

“My husband died in a plane crash, you know. He was a weekend pilot, and he screwed up somehow over Long Island Sound and crashed. We were best friends. We did everything together. When he died, I felt like dying, too.”

She pulled away from me and shook her head as she stared up into my eyes.

“I read how your wife died, too, Mike. I know what it’s like to lose someone that close. You understand. You’re the first man I’ve met in five years with whom I felt that click. I’ve just been so lonely. I went on an Internet date a few months ago. Have you ever gone on an Internet date, Mike? My God, the horror.”

The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor, and we stepped out into a white, furniture-lined hallway.

“You think I’m a stalker now, don’t you?” she said, pouting, when we arrived at her door. “I’m not a stalker, Mike. No, wait—that’s what a stalker would say.”

I got her room door open with her passkey. Inside, she immediately ran down a short hallway and then through another doorway. Then she ran back out.

“Don’t leave, Michael Bennett,” she said. “If you leave, I’ll come looking for you. You wouldn’t want a drunk woman running around the streets of New York on your conscience, would you?”

I stepped in and closed the door.

“Not me. I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

She went back into what I assumed was the bedroom. The room was a suite, with a living room window that looked north up Fifth Avenue, toward Central Park. How much money did she have, exactly? I thought. And exactly how drunk was she?

After a minute, I heard water running in the next room. When she came back out a minute or so later, my jaw dropped. Uh-oh. She was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe—quite a short fluffy white bathrobe.

She stopped at the love seat, sat, and tucked her long legs up underneath her.

“There. Okay. Much better. My head isn’t spinning so much,” she said. “Hey, c’mon. Sit down. Do you want a drink?”