“Right,” I said, looking down at my lap, suddenly feeling ashamed of my brash behavior. “I’m sorry I made such a fuss.”

“Don’t be. You had a right to be angry and hurt. Pomeroy treated you very unfairly. He thought he was helping me, of course, but still… that’s no excuse.”

“How was hurting me supposed to help you?”

Harrington gave me a sad look. “I’m not proud of that part of the story, Mrs. Turner, but here’s what happened. Pomeroy came to my home last Wednesday morning to ask me for a loan, but found me drunk and sobbing in my study. I had learned about Melody’s murder on Tuesday-the day before the news hit the papers-so I was in the depths of depression. Pomeroy asked me what was wrong, and-too weak and stupid and inebriated to know what I was doing-I blubbered out a full confession.

“And that,” he went on, “is why Pomeroy gave the Virginia Pratt assignment to Mike Davidson instead of you. He knew that you would conduct a thorough, relentless search for the truth, and he was afraid that you’d uncover my infidelities in the process. He had you fired for the same reason. He wanted to derail any thoughts you might have about investigating the story on your own in order to save me and my family-and, by extension, his family-from the ruination of a raging sex scandal. I didn’t know about any of this at the time, of course. I was too busy wallowing in pain and self-pity and booze. As soon as I found out about it, though, I told Crockett to give you your job back.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

If Harrington noticed my sarcastic tone, he didn’t let on. He just pushed his glasses higher on his nose, raised his bushy eyebrows, and said, “Now about that contract, Mrs. Turner. May I have my lawyers draw up a draft for your approval?”

I sat quietly for a few seconds, giving the matter further thought, coming to the realization that I was already in accord with Harrington’s terms. He had had nothing to do with the murders of Virginia and Jocelyn, so I saw no earthly reason to expose his private affairs to the public. And as for his brotherly resolve to protect Sabrina… well, given the fact that I was determined to protect her myself, I certainly couldn’t find fault with that.

“Okay,” I finally agreed. “Give me a buzz when it’s ready.”

ABBY THREW A SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT PARTY for Dan and me that night. Well, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, since she called us both at work to tell us to be at her place at seven, and it wasn’t exactly a party, since Jimmy, Otto, Lenny, Dan, and I were her only guests. What it was, actually, was an engagement dinner-with an enormous turkey cooked by Abby, and about a thousand potato pancakes cooked by Lenny’s mother. (Lenny carried them across town in a suitcase.)

Oh, yeah, there was some champagne, too. Quite a few bottles, as I recall.

Abby had strung colorful Christmas lights all around her studio and decorated her kitchen table with a dark blue madras bedspread and a small vase of yellow mums. We dined by candlelight, listening to the hi-fi sounds of Thelonious Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Everything was swell. With Otto curled up on my lap, and Dan’s arm resting on the back of my chair, and my best friends gathered so closely around me, I would have been content to sit at that table forever.

Abby cleared the dishes and served the dessert and coffee (she wouldn’t let me lift a finger!). Then, motioning for us to quiet down, she stood up and said, “It’s time for another sweet treat, you dig? While I spent the day basting the bird, our soulful hero, Jimmy ‘The Bard’ Birmingham, was writing a poem for this engaging occasion. And he’s going to read it for you now, kids, so listen up!”

Abby sat down and Jimmy stood up. Fingering his beard and looking slightly embarrassed, he took a crumpled piece of paper out of his hip pocket and began to read.

Umm… well, what can I say? There seemed to be a message in there somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. But who cared what the words meant, anyway? They were written by Jimmy Birmingham! The grooviest poet in Greenwich Village! The original slam pan man! The man who, along with his cool hot dog, had snatched me from the jaws of death! It was the best poem I ever heard in my whole darn life, and if I live to be a hundred (which is beginning to seem like a distinct possibility), I will never hear another one like it. (Unless Jimmy writes a sequel tomorrow-which is also a distinct possibility.)

After the poem, the chocolate cake, the coffee, and several additional rounds of champagne, Abby put a stack of 45s on the record player and tried to get everybody up to dance. Lenny, Jimmy, and Otto joined her on the floor-cavorting to the beat of Chuck Berry’s hot new single about a car named Maybellene- but Dan and I remained seated at the table, smooching, nuzzling, sighing, and making plans for the future.

We decided to get married in two weeks on the coast of Maine, in the small fishing village where Dan’s parents lived. We would take Katy with us, of course, but after the brief ceremony in the office of the local justice of the peace, she would spend the rest of the weekend with her grandparents in their cozy cottage on the bay. The weather would be cold and wet this time of year, but Dan and I would be warm and happy- making love by the fire in the Marrytime Suite at the Moby Dick Inn.

We wouldn’t be able to go on our honeymoon right away (I had a big story to write and Dan had two complex murder cases to wrap up, don’t ya know), but we were looking forward to the spring, when we would squander the advance from my Harrington House contract on a fabulous two-week holiday in-where else?-Hawaii. (I wanted to see how my dream would come out.)

As we sat cuddling at the table, sipping champagne and watching our goofy friends rock around the clock with Bill Haley and The Comets, I finally screwed up the courage to tell Dan that I had decided to keep my job at Daring Detective. I thought he was going to flip out and start yelling at me-maybe even (gasp!) threaten to break off our engagement-but I was wrong. He just gave me a sexy wink and said, “Look, I’ll be moving in with you soon, Paige, and I intend to keep a very close eye on you and keep you out of trouble. So if you want to hold on to your job, it’s fine with me. Just promise me one thing. No more unsolved murder stories, okay? No more dangerous investigations. No more chasing killers and meddling in police business. No more telling lies and keeping secrets.”

That sounded like six things to me, but I was in no mood to argue. “Don’t worry, babe,” I said. “I learned my lesson this time. I really like my life-especially now that I’ll be spending it with you-and I won’t risk it again. I promise you my sidewalk sleuthing days are over. For good.”

I meant it then, and I still mean it now. I’m going to stay in the office and stay out of danger-even if it kills me. I’m going to make coffee and clip newspapers and write in-house stories only. And no matter what happens-no matter how curious or fixated on a breaking murder story I become-I am never, ever, ever going to play detective again.