Someone to Watch Over Me

  “You called DMV on your cell phone?” Shrader mocked. “The phone that doesn’t work up here in the mountains?”

  “The very same one,” Sam admitted with a smile as the elevator doors opened. “Mrs. Manning needed some sort of explanation for her husband’s absence, and that was the most reassuring one I could think of at the moment.”

  The lobby of Good Samaritan Hospital was deserted except for two maintenance men who were polishing the terrazzo floor. Shrader raised his voice to be heard above the noisy machines. “If you’re going to get all soft and gooey every time you talk to a victim’s family, you won’t last two months in Homicide, Littleton.”

  “I’ve made it two weeks already,” she replied brightly.

  “If you hadn’t transferred to Homicide, I’d be back at the Eighteen, doing my job instead of sitting on my ass up here.”

  “Maybe, but if I hadn’t transferred, I would never have had the chance to work with someone like you.”

  Shrader shot her a suspicious glance, searching for signs of sarcasm, but her smile was perfectly pleasant. “Logan Manning doesn’t even qualify as a missing-person case. He’s a misplaced person.”

  “And you think it’s my fault that Captain Holland sent us up here?”

  “You’re damned right.” He pushed his shoulder against the exit door, and the blast of arctic wind nearly blew both of them back a step. “The Mannings are VIPs. The mayor and Commissioner Trumanti are both personal friends of theirs, so Holland decided he’d better send someone ‘with social polish’ to deal with Mrs. Manning.”

  Sam treated that like a joke. “And he thinks I have it?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “So, why did he send you along?”

  “Just in case there was any actual work that needed to be done.” Shrader waited for her to return his insult, and when she didn’t, he began to feel like a bad-tempered jerk. To even out the score, he poked fun at himself. “And also because he thinks I have a great ass.”

  “Did he say that, too?”

  “No, but I saw him checking me out.”

  Sam couldn’t help laughing. Shrader knew his appearance was anything but attractive; in fact, it was downright daunting to strangers. Although he was only five feet six, he had massive shoulders that were disproportionately large for his short body and that complemented his thick neck, square head with wide jowls, and piercing deep-set brown-black eyes. When he scowled, he reminded Sam of an angry rottweiler. When he wasn’t scowling, he still reminded Sam of a rottweiler. Privately, she’d nicknamed him “Shredder.”

  Back upstairs, on the third floor of the hospital, a young doctor was standing at the foot of Leigh’s bed, reading her chart. He left quietly, closing the door behind him. The additional morphine he’d ordered was already seeping through Leigh’s veins, dulling the physical ache that suffused her body. She sought refuge from the torment in her mind by thinking about the last night she’d spent with Logan, when everything had seemed so perfect and the future had seemed so bright. Saturday night. Her birthday. And the opening night of Jason Solomon’s new play.

  Logan had given a huge party afterward to celebrate both occasions. . . .

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  Bravo! Bravo!” Six curtain calls and the applause was still at a deafening roar. The cast was lined up onstage, taking their bows one at a time, but when Leigh stepped forward, the cheers rose to a wild crescendo. The houselights were up, and Leigh could see Logan in the front row, on his feet, clapping and cheering with enthusiastic pride. She smiled at him, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

  When the curtains closed, she walked to the wings where Jason was standing, his face beaming with triumph. “We’re a smash hit, Jason!” she said, giving him a hug.

  “Let’s take another bow, just you and me this time,” he said.

  Jason would have taken curtain calls all night until the last theatergoer left his seat. “Nope,” Leigh said with a grin. “We’ve both taken enough bows.”

  He tugged on her hand, a happy thirty-five-year-old child—brilliant, insecure, sensitive, selfish, loyal, temperamental, kind. “C’mon, Leigh,” he cajoled. “Just one more little bow. We deserve it.” The crowd began chanting, “Author! Author!” and his grin widened. “They really want to see me again.”

  He was in an ecstatic mood, and Leigh looked at him with a mixture of maternal understanding and awe. Jason Solomon could dazzle her at times with his intellect, hurt her with his insensitivity, and warm her with his gentleness. Those who didn’t know him thought of him as a glamorous eccentric. Those who knew him better generally regarded Jason as a brilliant, irritating egocentric. To Leigh, who knew him, and loved him, he was a complete dichotomy.

  “Listen to that applause,” he said, tugging on her hand. “Let’s go out there . . .”

  Helpless to resist him in this mood, Leigh relented, but stepped back. “Go for it,” she said. “I’ll stay here.”

  Instead of releasing her hand, he tightened his grip and dragged her with him. She was off balance when they emerged from the wings, and her surprised resistance was plain to see. The moment of unplanned confusion struck the crowd as wonderful. It made the two biggest names on Broadway seem endearingly human, and the riotous applause was joined with shouts of laughter.

  Jason would have tried to coax her into taking yet another bow after that one, but Leigh freed her hand this time and turned away, laughing. “Don’t forget the old adage—” she reminded him over her shoulder, “Always leave them wanting more.”

  “That’s a cliché,” he retorted indignantly.

  “But true, nonetheless.”

  He hesitated a moment, then followed her backstage, down a hallway crowded with elated cast and busy crew members, who were all trying to congratulate and thank each other. Jason and Leigh stopped several times to participate in the congratulatory hugging.

  “I told you the twenty-eighth was always my lucky day.”

  “You were right,” Leigh agreed. Jason insisted on opening all his plays on the twenty-eighth including Blind Spot, even though as a general rule, Broadway plays did not open on Saturdays.

  “I feel like champagne,” Jason announced as they finally neared Leigh’s dressing room.

  “So do I, but I need to change clothes and get this makeup off right away. We have a party to attend, and I’d like to get there before midnight.”

  A theater critic was congratulating the play’s director, and Jason watched him closely for a moment. “No one will mind if we’re late.”

  “Jason,” Leigh reminded him with amused patience, “I’m the guest of honor. I should make an effort to get there before the party is over.”

  “I suppose so,” he agreed, dragging his gaze from the critic. He followed her into her flower-filled dressing room, where the dresser was waiting to help Leigh out of the cheap cotton skirt and blouse she’d been wearing in the last act.

  “Who are these from?” Jason asked, strolling over to a gigantic basket of huge white orchids. “They must have cost a fortune.”

  Leigh glanced at the immense bouquet. “I don’t know.”

  “There’s a card attached,” Jason said, already reaching for the florist’s envelope. “Shall I read it?”

  “Could I stop you?” Leigh joked. Jason’s nosiness was legendary. Behind the folding screen, Leigh stepped out of her clothes and into a robe; then she hurried over to her dressing table and sat down in front of the big lighted mirror.

  With the open envelope in his hand, Jason caught her gaze in the mirror and gave her a sly smile. “You’ve evidently acquired a serious suitor with big bucks. Come clean, darling, who is he? You know you can trust me with your sordid secrets.”

  His last sentence made Leigh laugh. “You’ve never kept a secret in your life, sordid or otherwise,” she told his reflection in the mirror.

  “True, but tell me who he is, anyway.”

  “What does the card say?”

  Inst
ead of telling her, Jason handed it to her so she could read it herself. “LOVE ME,” it said. Leigh’s brief frown of confusion gave way to a smile as she put down the card and began removing her stage makeup. “It’s from Logan,” she told him.

  “Why would your husband send you one thousand dollars’ worth of orchids with a card asking you to love him?”

  Before replying, Leigh finished spreading cream over her face and began wiping off her makeup with tissues. “When Logan told the florist what to write on the card, the florist obviously misunderstood and forgot to put a comma after the word ‘love.’ It should have read, ‘Love comma Me.’ ”

  A bottle of Dom Pérignon was chilling in a bucket, and Jason spotted it. “Why would Logan call himself ‘me’ instead of calling himself ‘Logan’?” he asked as he lifted the bottle from its icy nest and began unpeeling the black foil from the bottle’s neck.

  “That’s probably my fault,” she admitted with a quick, rueful glance at him. “The Crescent Plaza project has been consuming Logan for months, and I asked him to relax a little. He’s trying to be more playful and spontaneous for my sake.”

  Jason gaped at her in laughing derision. “Logan? Spontaneous and playful? You can’t be serious.” He poured champagne into two flutes and put one on the dressing table for her; then he settled himself onto the little sofa at her left, propped his legs on the coffee table, and crossed his feet at the ankles. “In case you haven’t noticed, your husband thinks a five-star restaurant is just a badly lit conference room with forks. He thinks a briefcase is an indispensable fashion accessory, and he depreciates his golf clubs.”

  “Stop picking on Logan,” she told him. “He’s a brilliant businessman.”

  “He’s a brilliant bore,” Jason retorted, clearly enjoying the rare opportunity to joke about someone he actually admired and even envied. “If you wanted playfulness and spontaneity in a man, you should have had an affair with me instead of turning to this orchid guy for those traits.”

  She flashed him an amused, affectionate look and ignored his reference to the orchids. “You’re gay, Jason.”

  “Well, yes,” he agreed with a grin. “I suppose that could have been an impediment to our affair.”

  “How’s Eric?” Leigh asked, deliberately changing the subject. Eric had been Jason’s “significant other” for over six months—which almost set a longevity record where Jason was concerned. “I didn’t see him out front tonight.”

  “He was there,” Jason said indifferently. He shifted his foot from side to side, studying his shiny black tuxedo loafers. “Eric is becoming a bit of a bore, too, to tell you the truth.”

  “You are very easily bored,” Leigh said with a knowing look.

  “You’re right.”

  “If you want my opinion—”

  “Which, of course, I don’t,” Jason interrupted.

  “And which, of course, I’m going to give anyway—If you want my opinion, maybe you should try to find someone who isn’t so much like you that he seems predictable and boring. Try going with someone who depreciates his golf clubs for a change.”

  “Someone who is so gorgeous that I could overlook his boring traits? As a matter of fact, I do know someone like that!”

  He was being so agreeable that Leigh shot him a suspicious look before she tossed a tissue into the wastebasket and began putting on her regular makeup. “You do?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Jason said with a wicked grin. “He has thick light brown hair streaked blond from the summer sun, beautiful eyes, and a great physique. He’s a little too preppy-looking for my tastes, but he’s thirty-five, and that’s a good age for me. He’s from an old aristocratic New York family that ran out of money long before he was born, so it was up to him to restore the family fortune, which he’s managed to do single-handedly . . .”

  Leigh finally realized he was describing Logan, and her shoulders began to shake with laughter. “You’re a lunatic.”

  Jason’s short attention span led him from romance to business without a pause between. “What a night!” he sighed, leaning his head back against the sofa. “I was right to change your lines in the last scene of the second act. Did you notice how strongly the audience reacted? One minute everyone was laughing; then they realized what you were actually going to do and they ended up crying. In the space of a few lines, they went from mirth to tears. Now that, my darling, is brilliant writing—and brilliant acting, of course.” He paused for a sip of champagne and, after a moment of thoughtful silence, added, “After I see the matinee tomorrow, I may want to change a little of the dialogue between you and Jane in the third act. I haven’t decided.”

  Leigh said nothing as she quickly applied the rest of her makeup, brushed her hair, and then disappeared behind the screen to change into the dress she’d brought to the theater. Outside the dressing room, the noise level had risen dramatically as actors, crew members, and people with enough influence to obtain backstage passes all began leaving the theater by the rear door, laughing and talking as they headed off to celebrate the night’s triumph with friends and families. Ordinarily, Jason and she would be doing the same thing, but today was Leigh’s thirty-fifth birthday, and Logan was determined that it not take second place to the play’s opening night.

  She emerged from behind the screen wearing a deceptively simple red silk sheath with tiny beaded straps at the shoulders, matching high heels, and a jeweled Judith Leiber evening bag that dangled from her fingers by a narrow chain.

  “Red?” Jason said, grinning as he slowly stood up. “I’ve never seen you wear red before.”

  “Logan specifically asked me to wear something red to the party tonight.”

  “Really, why?”

  “Probably because he’s being playful,” Leigh said smugly; then uncertainty replaced her jaunty expression. “Do I look all right in this?”

  Jason passed a slow, appraising glance over her gleaming, shoulder-length auburn hair, large aquamarine eyes, and high cheekbones; then he let it drop to her narrow waist, and down her long legs. She was pretty, but certainly not gorgeous, and not even beautiful, he observed. And yet in a roomful of women who were, Leigh Kendall would have drawn notice and attracted attention the moment she moved or spoke. In an attempt to define her powerful presence onstage, critics likened her to a young Katharine Hepburn or a young Ethel Barrymore, but Jason knew they were wrong. Onstage, she had Hepburn’s incomparable glow and she had Barrymore’s legendary depth, but she had something else, too, something infinitely more appealing and uniquely her own—a mesmerizing charisma that was as potent when she was standing in her dressing room, waiting for his opinion about her attire, as when she was onstage. She was the most eventempered, cooperative actress he’d ever known; and yet there was a mystery about her, a barrier, that no one was allowed to cross. She took her work seriously, but she did not take herself seriously, and at times her humility and sense of humor made him feel like a towering, temperamental egotist.

  “I’m starting to wish I had a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt on,” she joked, reminding him that she was waiting for an opinion.

  “Okay,” he said, “here it is—the unvarnished truth: Although you aren’t nearly as gorgeous as your husband, you are remarkably attractive for a woman.”

  “In the unlikely event that that was meant to be a big compliment,” Leigh said, laughing as she opened the closet door and removed her coat, “thanks a lot.”

  Jason was truly stunned by her lack of perspective. “Of course it was a compliment, Leigh, but why would you care how you look right now? What matters is that an hour ago, you convinced four hundred people that you are actually a thirty-year-old blind woman who unknowingly holds the key to solving an unspeakable murder. You had every member of that audience squirming in his seat with terror!” Jason threw up his hands in bewildered disgust. “My God, why would a woman who can do all that give a damn how she looks in a cocktail dress?”

  Leigh opened her mouth to reply; then she smiled and
shook her head. “It’s a girl thing,” she said dryly, glancing at her watch.

  “I see.” He swept the dressing room door open and stepped aside in an exaggerated gesture of gallantry. “After you,” he said; then he offered her his arm and she took it, but as they started down the back hall, he sobered. “When we get to the party, I’m going to ask Logan if he sent you those orchids.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t worry yourself or Logan about that tonight,” Leigh said, keeping her tone light. “Even if Logan didn’t send them, it doesn’t really matter. We’ve taken precautions—I have a chauffeur-bodyguard now. Matt and Meredith Farrell lent him to me for six months while they’re away. He’s like a member of their family when they’re home in Chicago. I’m very well protected.”

  Despite Leigh’s reassuring words, she couldn’t completely suppress a tremor of anxiety about the orchids. Recently, she’d received some anonymous gifts, all of them expensive and several with blatant sexual overtones, like a black lace garter belt and bra from Neiman Marcus and a sheer, extremely seductive nightgown from Bergdorf Goodman. The small, white cards that accompanied the gifts bore short, cryptic messages like, “Wear this for me” and “I want to see you in this.”

  She’d received a phone call at home the day after the first gift was delivered to the theater. “Are you wearing your present, Leigh?” a man’s soft, cajoling voice had asked on the answering machine.

  Last week, Leigh had visited Saks, where she’d purchased a robe for Logan and a little enamel pin for herself, which she’d tucked into her coat pocket. She had been about to step off the curb at Fifth and Fifty-first Street with a crowd of other pedestrians when a man’s hand reached forward from behind her, holding a small Saks bag. “You dropped this,” he said politely. Startled, Leigh automatically took the bag and dropped it into the larger one containing Logan’s robe, but when she looked around to thank him, either he’d retreated farther back into the crowd of pedestrians or he was the man she saw walking swiftly down the street, his overcoat turned up to his ears, head bent against the wind.