CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

M ary knocked gently, guessing Trish would think it was the mystery man coming back. The door swung wide open, and Trish’s expression morphed from delicious anticipation to abject shock. She had on a tight black sweater with sequins around its deep V-neck, and her makeup looked fresh as a tattoo. She’d expected a lover but got a lawyer, and it hardly seemed fair.

“Mare?” Trish asked, her mouth a perfect circle.

“What’s going on?” Mary pushed past her into the motel room, which reeked of burning cigarettes, rather than burning hair.

“I can’t believe you’re here. How did you find me?” Trish closed the door behind them, and Mary turned on her, not bothering to keep anger or hurt from her tone.

“Never mind that, Trish. You think I’m playing a game here? I’ve been worried sick about you. I thought Bobby killed you. So did the girls and your mom.”

“Mare, calm down. I know what I’m doing.”

“What? What’s going on? Do you know Bobby’s dead? Murdered?”

“Yeah, I do.” Trish edged backward. “I found out.”

“How? How did you find out? Did your boyfriend tell you?” Mary could see the question strike a chord, because Trish stiffened, defiant.

“It’s not your business.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” Mary almost spat. “Was that Cadillac from the diary? Or the stockbroker from the salon?”

“My diary? You read my diary?” Trish’s eyes flew open in outrage.

“Sue me,” Mary shot back. “Now what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call and tell everybody you’re alive?”

“What are you, stupid? I couldn’t. I was afraid for them, if they knew. Somebody whacked Bobby. They could be after me, next. Do you know what that’s like for me?”

“For you?” Mary shouted. “What about everybody else? Your selfishness is breathtaking! The cops are looking for you. My friend Reg is looking for you. Giulia and the girls have been out there looking for you, for days, and your mom’s a holy mess. What the hell are you doing here? What happened on your birthday, at the house?”

“Who do you think you are, yelling at me? I’m not a little girl.” Trish’s tone echoed the old Mean Girl years, which only made Mary madder.

“Tell me what happened or I’ll call the police right this minute.”

“Fine.” Trish reached for a cigarette from a pack on the night table. “If you shut up and let me talk.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Good.”

Trish lit her cigarette and Mary took a seat in the chair opposite the bed, neither woman speaking for a moment, as if they were two prizefighters, returned to their corners. Trish sat on the olive green bed, sucked on the cigarette one last time, then stubbed it out in the ashtray in the light from a cheap brown lamp.

“The night of my birthday,” she began, “Bobby came home and said he had a surprise and we had to drive to it, so we came up here and he showed me this crappy little house in the woods.” Trish snorted. “He said he owned it and he was gonna get outta the Mob, and we were gonna move up here, have a slew a kids. He said I was gonna marry him. He didn’t even ask me, he told me, like I was some dog, and he had this ugly ring and I freaked and threw it at him.”

Trish’s tone rang true, though Mary couldn’t help but doubt her. Finding her with Mystery Man was too weird, and she couldn’t wrap her mind around it yet.

“So when I did that, he freaked. Crazy mad, madder than I ever saw him before. He’d been drinkin’ the whole way up, so I knew I was in trouble.” Trish wet her lips, her cadence slower. “He tried to hit me but I ran around the dinin’ room, and he hollered at me was I cheatin’ on him and I told him I was because I wanted him to let me go, that I couldn’t marry him ever, and I wanted out.” Trish’s voice caught with fear, and Mary studied her face to see if the emotion was real, but couldn’t tell. She didn’t trust Trish any longer, and worse, she didn’t trust her own instincts.

“Okay, so then what?”

“Then I realized that nobody knows where I am, I’m in the effin’ mountains and he could get away with killin’ me, so when he grabbed me, I picked up the lamp and hit him on the head.”

The lamp. The blood. It was Bobby’s, not hers.

“He dropped like he got shot, unconscious. I’m no dummy. I took his car keys and drove away.”

“In the BMW?”

“Right. He had another car there, a black pickup truck. I didn’t even know he had a second car.” Trish shook her head, disgusted. “I didn’t know he had any of this goin’ on. I don’t even know how he found out about this hellhole.”

I do. “Okay, go on.”

“So I called my boyfriend and we found this place to hide out in.”

“Is your boyfriend Cadillac?”

“No. Cadillac’s a wiseguy that hates Bobby.”

“How did you know Bobby was dead?”

“He told me.”

“Who?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy. A married guy. I met him at the shop, a businessman who doesn’t need any of this crap.”

“The stockbroker?”

“Yes.”

Mary thought a minute. “So he’s Miss Tuesday Thursday?”

Trish’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”

“Why didn’t you write about him in your diary?”

“I was too scared to, in case Bobby ever found it in the car.” Trish eyed her directly. “Mare, I kept up that diary to make a record of what he was doin,’ in case they found me dead. Gimme a break.”

“Why didn’t you tell Giulia and them about the boyfriend?”

“Are you for real?” Trish chuckled. “The mouths on them? Why don’t I just put it on MySpace?”

“I thought you guys were so close.”

“They’re close to me, but I’m not close to them.” Trish’s tone was matter-of-fact, and so frank that Mary knew it was true. Nobody ever got close to the Queen Bee, which made her the loneliest girl of all.

“Okay.” Mary let it go. “Get back to the story. You called your boyfriend.”

“Right, and he drove up, and he told me to sit tight until we can figure out what to do.”

“Great advice.” Then Mary remembered. “Wait. When did you call your mom?”

“When we first came up to the house. Bobby went outta the room, and I saw what was gonna happen and I started to get scared. So I called my mom, but the connection was bad and I left a message. Then he came in and took the cell phone from me, and I could tell by that look in his eyes, that animal look, that he was gonna lose it. I was gonna be dead on my birthday.” Trish’s mouth twitched with something like pain, but Mary couldn’t stop doubting her story.

“Trish, be honest with me.”

“I am being honest with you.”

“What happened to Bobby that night, after you ran out of the house.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think? Spin it out for me. You know him.”

Trish sighed. “I think he went back home in the pickup, to the city, lookin’ for me, to kill me. And then he musta got a call to do some business, and somebody set him up and whacked him. Maybe Cadillac or maybe another guy did him. They’re cutthroat, like any other business. They all want what the other one has.”

Mary mulled it over, but something nagged at her. “I don’t get why you didn’t call anybody. The girls, your mom, somebody.”

“Like I said, I knew Bobby would ask them where I was. He mighta killed them if they knew. That’s why I didn’t go back to the city right away. If he’s lookin’ for me, they’re all lookin’ for me. Any one of them coulda taken me out. I couldn’t even go home.”

Mary wasn’t buying it. “But you called your boyfriend. You told him. Why?”

“Dummy, because nobody knows about him, not even the girls, so I couldn’t get him killed. He lives in the burbs, he’s legit. He was the only one I could call.”

“You could’ve called me.”

“You’re not my friend.”

“Thanks.” Mary burst into laughter.

“Sorry.”

Then she had a darker thought. “I didn’t find your gun. Where is it?”

“I got it with me.” Trish gestured at her purse on the bed, a black leather clutch. “I took it with me when we went out. I told you, I was afraid of what was gonna happen.”