“Come here,” Nick said softly. “I want to share another one of my theories with you…”

* * * * *

The other event of note that day was Miss Dembecki nearly getting killed when a deputy sheriff, exploring the back passages, opened a wall panel that unexpectedly led onto the grand stairway and nearly knocked her down the steps. Fortunately, Miss Dembecki was nimble enough to escape unscathed.

She scurried back downstairs, locked herself in her rooms, and refused to answer all inquiries through the door as to her health.

“What the hell was she doing climbing up here anyway?” Nick asked.

“I think she was trying to get in my rooms again,” Perry said unhappily. “I’m telling you, she thinks the jewels are in this house somewhere.”

“I think you’re giving her too much credit,” Nick said. “I think she’s batty.”

That seemed to be the consensus of the house. But the only person with a suggestion on what to do about it was Mr. Stein, who voiced the opinion that Mrs. Mac should phone the loony bin posthaste.

By dinnertime the cops had cleared out again, and the rest of the household seemed comfortably locked up behind their doors for the night. Nick made pot roast and commented that he would need to go grocery shopping soon -- and then fell awkwardly silent.

Nick would not need to replenish his cupboards. He was going to be leaving very soon and was supposed to be packing even now. Of course, he could always stock up on groceries in the hope that Perry might occasionally remember to eat something.

Perry was not eating much even now, but he was chatting animatedly about an art exhibition he wanted to see in Burlington, and to his astonishment Nick heard himself say, “If I’m still here, I’ll go with you.”

Perry checked, and then gave Nick one of those dazzling smiles. “It’s next month. But yeah, it would have been fun.”

Neither of them spoke for a time, and the kitchen was silent but for the scrape of forks on china. Nick said suddenly, roughly, “Why don’t you call your parents?”

Perry blinked. “Why?”

“Because you can’t --” Nick stopped himself. What was he doing? But he couldn’t help himself. “Because it’s a good time to call. It’s almost Christmas. They probably want to hear from you.”

They’d have to be pretty fucking cold to shut Perry out of their hearts for good -- and Perry was not the product of fucking cold. He’d been sheltered, protected, adored all his life. Mom and Pop Foster were probably sick with worry about him. And lonely. He grew on you, that was for sure.

But Perry said coolly, “They know where to find me. If they wanted to talk to me, they’d get in touch. It’s for them to make the first move. I’m not going to apologize for being gay.”

You can’t make it on your own.

For one horrified second, Nick thought he’d said the traitorous words aloud. It wasn’t even true. Perry was surviving. He was relatively healthy, he had a job, a place to stay. He was painting; he was going to make it. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would knock a lot of the sweetness and innocence and optimism out of him, but he wasn’t a coward.

Nick was the one who was afraid. And what the hell sense did that make? He gritted his jaw against a lot of things he knew he would regret saying, settling for a curt nod and finishing his meal while Perry -- not unexpectedly sensitive to his mood -- chatted lightly about art and painting and a local artist named Anna Vreman. Anything but murder and sapphires and crazy people.

* * * * *

In wordless accord they turned in early that night, and it was just as good as it had been every time so far -- only now it was becoming dangerously, seductively familiar.

And it was safe in the dark to be tender -- to be gentle with each other in the dulcet silence. To ask nothing but give everything, caress and kiss, touch and taste until the wanting, longing, needing overswept them again, and they moved in frantic union, breath harsh, the tiny grunts and sighs, the whisper of skin until it rose to a crescendo -- the catch in Perry’s throat turning to a sob, Nick shouting out once in the keenest of knife-edged pleasure.

“I never really got a chance to see California,” Perry said when they were lying quietly, comfortably. “What’s it like?”

Nick shrugged. “Warm. Sunny.” He almost opened his mouth and made the fatal mistake of saying, “It would be good for you.” He caught himself in time, but the thought remained. Instead he said, “Expensive.”

Perry nodded. “Do you think you’ll ever come back here?”

“To this house?” He was stalling and surprised to find himself doing so. Since when did he pull his punches? He wasn’t coming back. Not ever. He couldn’t wait to put this place behind him. At least…that had been true until a few days ago. Now…

Now it was harder.

Harder than it should have been.

Perry said dispassionately, “To Vermont, I mean. Some place I could see you again.”

He opened his mouth, and Perry said still very calmly, “I mean casually, of course. Just friends. I know how it is.”

And that steady acceptance made Nick’s chest ache as though he’d fallen wrong on ice. It was hard to get his breath, and he felt cold all the way to his heart.

He said huskily, “I don’t know.”

A few minutes later he could tell by Perry’s breathing that he was asleep. Nick kissed his forehead, and Perry murmured pleasurably. Nick kissed his eyes and his ears and found his mouth, and before long, Perry was awake again, and they were moving against each other.

He yanked down the pajama bottoms with the uncomfortable feeling of robbing the cradle, but Perry wasn’t a baby, and he wanted this as much as Nick did -- and sooner or later he had to realize that happy endings were for movies. Real life didn’t end that tidily. There was a price for everything, and the price for this was that it would be harder for both of them when Nick left -- but at the moment, the price seemed worth it.

* * * * *

Perry woke to find himself alone. The sheets were cool where Nick had lain.

This was how it would feel every day after Nick left.

He got up, pulled on jeans, and went into the front room. There was no sign of Nick. No note. He sighed. No use expecting Nick to change.

Deciding to go across the hall to his place and get a change of clothes, he jotted a note for Nick in case he came in while Perry was out.

The house was still. It had a strange, empty feel. He peered over the banister. Not a creature was stirring. Not even Miss Dembecki.

On impulse, he headed downstairs to the basement to grab some boxes. Nick had suggested he start moving his things into Nick’s apartment because Nick would be packing for California.

The feeling of being the only person alive in the house persisted. It had never felt like this before. Abandoned.

Wondering if the deputy sheriffs were still parked on the other side of the bridge, he opened the front door. There was no sign of the sheriff’s car. No sign of the news van, either.

A gust of wind tasting of approaching snow whipped the lace drapery on the door and sent the chandelier overhead jangling; it sounded like falling icicles. He contemplated the old-fashioned globes and the dangling colored prisms.

An idea slowly dawned.

Looking around, he spotted, still leaning against the staircase, the ladder Tiny had used to fix the leaking windows in the main hall.

He set the ladder up and climbed it. The chandelier was from the 1920s. It was a complicated affair of upturned amber glass shades and individual crystal prisms of blue and gold and red crystal all around an exquisitely painted down-facing glass centerpiece.

Perry studied the centerpiece. Beneath the grime of decades and hand-painted designs of art nouveau flowers appeared to be more colored bits of glass and crystal. His heart began to pound hard with excitement.