“No. Should I?”

He shrugged. “The police are very close to making an arrest, you know. The evidence is stacking up against Ally.”

His main concern had not been justice for Porter -- it had been that Alonzo viewed him as a suspect. Not that I could fault him for that, since my concern had been that I was a suspect. I said, “Did you know Porter had cancer?”

“Yes.” He looked momentarily grave. “I was one of the few people he confided in.”

“I assume Ally knew?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but turned his head at the sound of footsteps coming down the winding stairs that led into this lounge.

Boots. Jeans encasing long legs and lean hips. Wide shoulders in a black leather jacket. Jake.

“There you are,” Paul said lazily.

Jake stared at me. In some alternate universe that dumbstruck expression would have been funny. Not so much in this one.

“Oh, don’t run off,” Paul said as I rose. “We could make a threesome of it.” He chuckled. “Dinner, that is.”

“Another time,” I said. “Dinner, that is.”

I had to step past Jake to get to the doorway. He had recovered from his shock and watched me without expression.

“Adrien,” he said quietly.

I nodded at him. “Good night,” I told Paul. “Thanks for the boat ride.”

I heard Paul laughing as I climbed topside.

The air was chill and smelled of brine and something dank. Overhead, the palm trees rustled eerily, black against the blaze of sunset. The hollow thud of my footsteps followed me down the pier as I walked toward the parking lot.

It wasn’t a shock…exactly. It was more the realization that Paul Kane had deliberately kept me onboard so that I would see Jake arrive.

Or so that Jake would see me?

Either way it was puzzling. Maybe I wasn’t exactly clear for whose benefit that little performance had been staged, but I was dead sure it hadn’t been an accident. That meeting had been directed as any scene in a play.

Why?

Chapter Fifteen

I knew the minute I was ushered into Dr. Cardigan’s office on Monday morning that the news was not good.

Dr. Cardigan was seated at his desk frowning over a file that I had a suspicion was mine. He rose, shook hands, invited me to sit. I sat and glanced at the many smiling photos of his children and grandchildren on the bookshelves lined with medical tomes.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, sitting down again.

His black cherry gaze rested seriously on my face, and I figured this was not a rhetorical question. “Good,” I said determinedly.

He nodded like everybody said that and we all knew it wasn’t true. “Fatigue? Some difficulty catching your breath?”

“Fatigue -- but nothing unusual.”

“Are you finding your arrhythmia a little worse?”

I think he could see by my expression that struck home. “Well, we’ve got your test results back and there are some things we need to talk about.”

I nodded automatically.

“I don’t think this is going to come as a surprise.” He was studying my charts again. “You’ve been largely asymptomatic for the past fifteen years, but your last ECG indicates changes in ejection fraction and enlargement of the left ventricle.” He looked up inquiringly. Apparently I was supposed to ask an intelligent question around about then.

I said, “Okay. In layman’s terms?”

“The pneumonia has aggravated your heart disease. Your heart is working harder with fewer results.”

I nodded, trying to process.

He looked up, scanned my face. “We’ve discussed surgery in the past. It’s now a matter of when, not if. I’m going to refer you to a cardiac surgeon --”

I missed a bit of the next part. Open heart surgery. Not my favorite thing.

I asked, “How soon would he have to operate?”

“Your surgeon will make the determination once he’s examined you. Once symptoms present, it’s best not to delay.”

I sighed. Rubbed my jaw. I felt broadsided. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I really didn’t feel that ill. Tired from the pneumonia, naturally. Stressed.

Dr. Cardigan said, “We want to perform surgery before the left ventricle is irreversibly weakened. Repairing the valve is preferable to replacing it, but that’s often not possible when the damage has been caused by rheumatic fever.”

I nodded. I’d done a fair bit of reading on valve replacement the first time the subject came up. Repairing the valve not only increased my odds of both short- and long-term survival but lessened the risk of stroke and worsening my heart failure.

Studying my face, Dr. Cardigan said, “I know this isn’t the news you wanted, but it is not, by any means, a grim prognosis. It’s not a routine procedure, I’ll grant you, but there are over a hundred thousand heart valve surgeries performed annually in the United States alone. Most patients experience marked improvement in health and spirits.”

“Great,” I said.

“The recuperation process is a slow one, but there’s every likelihood that you’ll make a complete recovery. Your overall health is good. In fact, with surgery you may discover you no longer suffer from the arrhythmia at all.”

So, really, everything was fucking terrific! Why did I have the ridiculous desire to cry?

* * * * *

“See! He likes you,” Natalie said triumphantly.

I stared down at the scrawny scrap of fur cautiously sniffing my hand.

“He doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m going to feed him.”

“Now who’s being a cynic? Anyway, every bookstore should have a cat.”

The cat -- assuming it was a cat and not some beige bug-eyed refugee from outer space -- slunk uneasily down the counter, and flinched at the flutter of Mystery Scene pages as a gust of warm air blew in from the street.

It was Monday afternoon, and I was not in a great mood after my trip to Huntington Hospital. After leaving the med center, I’d stopped off for some lunch I wasn’t able to eat, then spent an hour or two wandering around the Paseo. I’d stopped in at Apostrophe Books and bought a copy of Paul Kane’s unauthorized biography, and then finally steeled myself to go home.

The sight of a flea-bitten alley cat -- okay, alley kitten -- on the antique mahogany desk that served as my sales counter did not improve my precarious mood.

“Nat,” I said, “I don’t want a cat.”

“But he’d be good for you, Adrien. There are all kinds of studies about how pets help people live longer -- just petting a cat can lower your blood pressure. And he would be company for you.”

“My blood pressure is okay,” I snapped. “At least it was five minutes ago. And I don’t want a cat for company.”

The cat cringed at my raised voice, and slither-ran down the counter, sending papers flying before he leaped to the back of a nearby chair and balanced there, sinking his little claws into the leather.

“Now you’ve scared him!” she exclaimed, scurrying to retrieve the scattered flyers and receipts. “He’s just a baby!”

“A baby what? He looks like a cross between a lemur and Gollum.”

“He’s starving.”

“Then feed him and put him back in the alley where you found him.”

“I didn’t find him,” she said indignantly. “He came in on his own.” She gave me an expectant look. Like, what? This was supposed to be the universal sign that I and this feral cat were Meant To Be?

“He’s filthy,” I said, and to prove my point, the little beast balanced on three legs and proceeded to scratch itself briskly behind its torn ear with the fourth. “He’s got fleas. He’s probably disease-ridden.”