“You set the heat way too high!” Carmela screamed, struggling to sit up. She was angry and didn’t care who heard her. “I was heading for a meltdown. The darn mud and electric blanket were as hot as Chernobyl!”

“No, ma’am, you must have changed the setting.” Greta pointed triumphantly to the master control panel. “Almost a hundred degrees.” She glowered suspiciously at Carmela. “Too high,” she pronounced, as though Carmela were clearly at fault.

Carmela hoisted herself off the treatment table, flung one arm out as much as one could fling a mud-encrusted arm, and pointed toward the door. “Get out!” she thundered.

Knowing a convenient exit when she saw one, Greta scuttled for the door and disappeared.

Angry, hot, feeling like an Egyptian mummy who’d just been released from her sarcophagus after a long slumber, Carmela dragged herself stiff-legged across the room to the shower. She turned the water on full throttle and positioned her mud-encased body under the spray. Then, the cooling water pelting her about the head, shoulders, and back, Carmela waited as the dried mud finally reconstituted itself and changed back to slithery goo. Then the goo finally slid off.

As she stared at the faintly musty green mineral mud swirling about her bare feet toward the drain, Carmela wondered just what the hell had happened. Had there really been a malfunction just now? Or had it been mischief?

Chapter 19

“WHEN were you going to tell me?” Shamus’s voice, filled with hurt, dripping with anger, blasted at Carmela from the telephone.

Carmela grimaced as she stared at the four fat orange pumpkins that squatted on her kitchen counter. And her heart sank.

Does he know about the show? Is that what this call is about?

“Tell you what?” she asked.

“About the show.” Shamus’s voice cut like a knife.

He knows.

“Oh, that,” said Carmela, fighting to keep her voice even. “There’s been a mistake.”

“Really,” said Shamus.

Carmela knew she had to carefully explain what had happened, make Shamus understand that she hadn’t gone out and lobbied for this show herself. Hadn’t tried to cut out his knees from under him.

“I was fooling around, taking photos a couple weeks ago,” she explained as patiently as she could, “at the same time Jade Ella Hayward had this photo shoot going on. So I took a few black-and-white shots of her models. She saw them at my shop and, for some bizarre reason, decided to use one on the front cover of her brochure.”

“You’re a bad liar, Carmela. You always have been.”

“And you’re a bad listener, Shamus, because I’m telling you the truth!”

“You just happened to score a commercial project and you just happened to worm your way into having your own show. At Click! Gallery yet.” Shamus sighed. “You knew all about this last night and didn’t have the decency to tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Shamus. I don’t even want the show. I’m not going to have a show.”

Shamus’s voice was like ice. “You know what was nothing, Carmela? Last night was nothing.”

His cold callousness sliced at her heart. “Don’t say that, Shamus. Don’t do this, please,” Carmela begged him.

“And another thing,” Shamus spat. “You presence is no longer required at our table tonight.”

“What about Glory’s big award?” cried Carmela. First she’d been strong-armed into participating, now she was being cut out. Very confusing.

“Forget about it,” snapped Shamus. “There’s no room for traitors and turncoats. Not in the Meechum family anyway.”

Carmela flinched as Shamus slammed the phone down. And thought about their miserable timing. Always that rotten timing.

Why the hell was that, anyway? Crossed wires? Bad luck? Planetary unrest?

She picked up her carving knife and stared at one of the pumpkins she’d just finished carving. It bore the image of a sorrowful angel clutching a cross.

Was this a metaphor for her life with Shamus? Sadness, sorrow, star-crossed lovers?

Carmela sighed. She supposed the night before hadn’t meant anything to him. She, on the other hand, had woken up this morning feeling lighthearted, ebullient, and a trifle dreamy. She and Shamus had shared a bed, kind words, and a few laughs. Even though they’d hadn’t physically made love, she had sensed that their emotional bond was still there, still intact. Yes, she had felt it wash over her in a warm, comforting wave. A hell of a lot of love still existed between the two of them. And she was sure Shamus had felt it, too.

Now… Now Shamus’s fragile ego had sustained a life-threatening blow. And when Shamus’s ego was knocked off-kilter, his psyche seemed to follow. Which meant they were probably back to square one. Completely estranged, on the brink of divorce.

Furious and frustrated, Carmela drove her carving knife into the front of one of the pumpkins, piercing its soft flesh.

It could just as easily have been her heart.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, EMERGING FROM THE shower, still trying to get rid of the feel of that morning’s mineral mud treatment, Carmela’s phone jingled again.

Slipping into a terry cloth bathrobe, Carmela padded across the slick floor and wondered tiredly if it was Shamus again. Calling to crab at her some more.

But this time it was her cell phone ringing from the depths of her handbag. And the caller turned out to be… surprise, surprise… Billy Cobb!

“Carmela,” he said.

“Yes, Billy,” she said breathlessly. She sat down on the edge of her bed, stared down at her well-scrubbed pink toes.

“You’ve always been friendly and nice to me, Carmela.” He paused. “Would you give my family a message?”

“Of course,” she told him, even as she warned herself to proceed with extreme caution. “Listen, Billy…” She hesitated, wondering how best to phrase this. “Did you by any chance slip something under my door last night?”

“Huh?” said Billy. “No. Why?” When Carmela didn’t answer, he said, “I only called ’cause I’m for sure leaving town tonight. If you could tell Aunt Tandy…”

“Billy… no.” Carmela tried to harness her jumbled thoughts. “Listen, Billy, I need to talk to you. In person. Can you meet me at the Art Institute tonight?”

“Why?” asked Billy, suspicion creeping into his voice.

“Because… uh…” Carmela struggled to come up with a plausible excuse, hated herself for concocting an outright lie. “Because your aunt has something for you.”

“Money?”

“I’m not sure… I think so.” Oh, she thought to herself, this is awful.

“I guess I could stop by then.”

“You know where the Art Institute is?”

“I know where it is,” said Billy. “I’ve been there.”

“Okay then,” said Carmela. “Nine o’clock. Come to the side door. The one on Perrier Street that leads to the administration offices.”

“I’ll find it.”

With a sigh of relief, Carmela hung up the phone. Now she wondered if it was going to be possible to negotiate something with Lieutenant Babcock. It would be a long shot, but she felt she had to give it a try.

Carmela dug in her purse, found the business card Lieutenant Babcock had given her a few days earlier. Then she phoned the number, was put on hold by a disinterested-sounding officer, and had to wait a good five minutes before the officer told her she was being patched through. Probably to his home number, Carmela decided. It was, after all, Saturday afternoon.

There was a click and a whir and then Lieutenant Babcock was on the line. “Babcock here.” He sounded busy and distracted.

Uh-oh, bad timing? Again?

“Lieutenant Babcock? Hello. This is Carmela Bertrand.”

“The scrapbook lady,” Lieutenant Babcock responded. Now there was a little more warmth to his voice. “Hello, yourself.”