“Mick, it’s me,” she said. But he could immediately hear the distress in her voice. And when she said, “I’ve been arrested,” his already intense eyes opened wider. Mick was a very muscular man, and every one of those muscles tightened when she said those words.
But his heart nearly dropped when she added: “They say I killed Barry Acker. They said I . . . They said I was responsible for his death. I’m in trouble, Mick. I’m in trouble.”
Mick’s heart nearly stopped. He’d been in more harrowing situations than most men could dream about. But this news, about Barry, about Rosalind, cut him to the core. There had to be some mistake! But Rosalind needed him. That was all he could think about. Rosalind. He got up quickly, dressed, and ordered his pilot to get his plane ready.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Roz felt as if she had lived her entire life in a night. As she sat in the filthy cell and listened to others in other cells complain about the jail conditions, rather than their own condition, she felt as if she was living in the Twilight Zone. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since her arrest. Twenty-four long hours since that actor pronounced Barry Acker dead and looked up at Roz. Twenty-four hours since she left a message on Mick’s voice mail, and hadn’t heard a word back from him.
She lifted her legs onto the filthy cot and leaned her head back. In the jumpsuit they made her wear, in that stank cell they made her sit in, she felt like the common criminal they made her out to be. But she knew it was an accident. She knew she never pushed Barry down any stairs, as they were alleging, or did anything to assist his fall. He fell on his own. He tried to harm her, but harmed himself instead. How was that her fault?
But Mick didn’t know her side of the story. All he knew was what the cops were probably telling him or Barry’s wife Agnes, who arrived at the theater as they were taking Roz away. Agnes tried to snatch Roz’s hair out, and would have if those cops hadn’t provided the buffer. Murderer, Agnes had called her. You killed Barry!
Tears tried to return to Roz’s big, bright eyes as she thought about Barry. They’d always had a very warm and cordial relationship, she thought. He was the one who helped her out when she needed to find Mick. He hired her for a few of his off-Broadway shows once upon a time. How did they go from that kind of relationship to him hitting on her in such a vile manner that it said more about his attraction to Mick than any attraction he held for her? Why did he call her to the theater for that? Why did he put her in that perilous situation? And where, she thought for the hundredth time, was Mick???
She knew, of course, that Mick could be with Agnes at this very moment, comforting her, and wasn’t interested in hearing her side of the story. Barry had been his friend for years. They were closer than brothers, let Barry tell it. Now he was dead and the cops were saying it was because of her. Maybe Mick believed them, and didn’t want to believe anything else.
But Roz couldn’t believe that. She and Mick had been together for nearly six months now and had the kind of relationship she used to dream of having. He treated her better than any other guy ever had. He laughed at her jokes, and told stale jokes himself, and they were so comfortable around each other. He never said that he loved her, or was even falling in love with her, and that did concern her. Especially since she was already falling and just might even be already there.
She loved Mick Sinatra. She couldn’t deny it. She loved Mick. But he hadn’t sent high-powered attorneys to bail her out. He hadn’t come himself. Besides everything else, he was the man who owned the Carson-Benning Hotel, one of the finest hotels in the city. Surely he would have enough clout to at least get a word to her. She would rather believe that he never got her message, than believe that he got it, but didn’t care.
“Rosalind Graham!”
The jailer was unlocking her cell as he said her name, and Roz was already on her feet.
“Come with me,” he said.
But when she walked out of the cell, hoping that she was about to go home, another jailer shackled her in hand irons and foot irons. Her next hope was that they were taking her to her bail hearing and Mick was waiting there to bail her out. But that wasn’t it either.
They took her down a long, dark hall, around a series of additional corridors, and then into an office. When they opened the office door, the light inside was so bright that she had to squint. Everything in that jailhouse so far had been dark and dreary. Her eyes had grown unaccustomed to light.