"Oh, umm, yes, I have her cell number, and I could call, but, uh--" Nervous laugh. "Well, if she's out with Clayton, it can wait. Or it had better wait. Not that he's--well, you know--"
A pause, and a high-pitched laugh. Jaime closed her eyes and mouthed an obscenity. The only thing worse than acting like a fool is hearing yourself do it and not being able to stop.
"So I'd better not disturb them if I want to stay on his good side--well, assuming I am on his good side, which, of course, I can never tell, but I figure as long as he's not paying much attention to me one way or the other, that's probably not a bad thing." She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, wincing. "Anyway, I'll let you go and I'll call Elena later. I just wanted her to check the newswire for me--"
Pause.
"No, past stuff. Well, recent past. Murders. Not the kind of thing you'd read, of course--"
Another pause. Another spine-grating laugh.
"Oh, right. That's exactly the kind of thing you read. Gotta keep your eye out for those brutal wolfy slayings--er, not that all werewolves are brutal or, uh, well--" Deep breath. "Let me run it by you."
Within ten minutes, she had a page filled with cases, a few complete with names, but most with just locations or details that would make further searching a snap.
"Wow," she said. "You're amazing--I mean, your memory is amazing. Not that you aren't--Oh, someone's at the door. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Really appreciate--"
She winced and I could see her literally chomp down on her tongue. She signed off quickly, then slumped forward, muttering under her breath.
"You should ask him out," I said.
She shook her head sharply. "No way."
"Please don't tell me you think guys should make the first move. That is so--"
"Trust me, I have no problem taking the initiative. It's jus
t--he--Jeremy--is not the kind of guy you walk up to and say, 'Hey, let's go grab a beer.'"
"You could try."
She must have considered it, judging by the look of terror that passed behind her eyes. She reached up, tugged out her hair clip, and wound her hair around her hand, walking to the mirror as she did. Nothing more painful than a crush. I remember my last one. Greg Madison. Deep dimples and a laugh that made my heart flutter. Damn, that had been painful. Of course, I'd been fourteen at the time, not forty. But I suppose infatuation is infatuation at any age, and maybe even worse when you're old enough to recognize the symptoms, be mortified by your reaction, and still not be able to do anything about it.
13
JAIME'S DRIVER WAS DOWNSTAIRS WAITING TO PICK HER up. My first thought was "Wow, she has a chauffeur," but once we were behind the soundproof tinted glass in the backseat, she assured me that the driver was a rental, hired for the trip by her production company. Jaime didn't own a car--she was rarely home, so a car would have sat in the parking garage. Milwaukee was less than a two-hour drive from Chicago, so there was no sense flying. The driver was just a bonus, the kind of luxury that comes with being semifamous.
We spent the afternoon in the hotel business lounge. Other people came and went, popping in just long enough to check their e-mail or send a fax. One stuck around, a guy in his early thirties, still young enough to be impressed by the posh hotel his company had put him up in, and to expect others to be equally impressed. When that and his pricey suit didn't win him coy glances from Jaime, he switched to that modern-day equivalent of dragging in a freshly killed hunk of meat--attempting to wow her with his computer skills.
She assured him that she could handle it, but he still hovered at the next terminal, pretending to work, stopping every few minutes to make sure Jaime was "still doing okay," hoping she'd become hopelessly snarled in the Web, and he would swoop to her rescue, maybe win an invitation back to her room and hours of acrobatic sex with a gorgeous flame-haired stranger. Hey, it happens in the Penthouse letters column all the time, and they don't put stuff in there that isn't true.
When Jaime finished, she escaped with the old "just running to the ladies' room" line. Now, if it'd been me...but it wasn't me, so I kept my mouth shut.
Once back in the hotel room, Jaime grabbed a roll of hotel-supplied Scotch tape from the desk, and plastered the walls with the printouts so I could read them. There were over a hundred pages, detailing twenty-three cases, some obvious suspects, some your garden-variety domestic murders but with something extra that had warranted national attention. When she ran out of wall space, she laid pages on the bed and sofa. Then she checked her watch.
"I'm supposed to be in makeup in twenty minutes."
"Go on." I looked around. "This is fine."
"So long as housekeeping doesn't decide to slip in and turn down the sheets." She glanced around the room and shuddered. "Even the showbiz spiritualist gig wouldn't explain this."
"I'll cast a lock spell on the door."
My spell wouldn't work on a door in the living world, but there was no harm in trying, if it made her feel better.
"Good luck," I said. "Or is it 'break a leg'?"
She gave a wan smile. "Sometimes I think a preshow broken limb wouldn't be such a bad thing." Her eyes clouded, but the look evaporated with a blink. "I should be wishing you luck, too. If you need anything, just pop by the theater." She hesitated. "But if you do pop in--"