“Whose idea was it to wind up the evening at your place?” he asked.
“Mine.” Robin paused. “Well, wait. Let me think about that. We were talking about San Francisco neighborhoods. He lives in the Richmond District and I mentioned living in Noe Valley. He said he’d heard about this fabulous new restaurant in Noe Valley. I laughed and said, ‘That’s like two blocks from my place,’ and he was like, ‘You’re kidding. We have to go to this place.’ Then he sort of changed the subject, told me he was having the best time ever, or words to that effect. I thought the same thing. I was having a wonderful time.”
She took a slow sip of coffee before going on. “So then we were eating and talking, and a while later, he brought it up again. Said he wanted to take me to this new place, Serafina. It’s Italian. On Castro. And somewhere in there, he said he’d heard a lot of great things about the Noe Valley neighborhood and wanted to check it out sometime. And by then we’d finished a bottle of wine, and so I said, ‘How about checking out my neighborhood right now?’ ” She shook her head. “I thought I was being so alluring. What an idiot.”
“You weren’t an idiot,” I said fiercely. “He used you.”
“I guess,” she said. “Anyway, essentially, I invited him over.”
Derek’s eyes were cold as steel as he qualified her statement. “The invitation was from you, but Alex manipulated you into extending it to him.”
“Which means he’d already planned out the whole thing,” she reflected.
“Probably so,” Derek conceded.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, her lips tightening in anger. “That bastard set me up.”
Chapter 6
Derek went off to get ready for work while Robin washed the breakfast dishes and I dried and put them away.
I kept an eye on her as she drained the soapy water and wiped off the counter. While we’d talked, Robin’s eyes had sparkled with righteous anger, and I was happy to see it. I’d hated seeing her feeling so miserably guilty about Alex’s death, as though she were somehow responsible for it.
No, it was much better for her to get pissed off and take action.
But now her shoulders drooped and she looked pale and worried.
“How are you feeling?” I asked carefully.
“I’m fine,” she muttered.
“Yeah, right.” I noticed she was staring at her fingers, avoiding my gaze. That couldn’t be a good sign, either. “That must be why you look so perky.”
“Perky. Good one.” She wrung out the sponge more vigorously than necessary, then tossed it into its holder. Clutching the edge of the counter until her knuckles went white, she finally looked at me. “I’m afraid, Brooklyn.”
“Of course you are,” I said, clutching her arm. “You’ve been pushed through the wringer. But you’re also mad as hell, remember? You’re going to bounce back and be ready to kick some ass, right?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a real ass kicker,” she said sarcastically, and grabbed the dish cloth from me. She dried her hands off, then leaned against the sink. “The truth is, I’m totally freaked out. I don’t want to see or talk to anyone. I just want to hide in my room and sleep.”
“You can stay here as long as you want.”
“What about my apartment?”
I thought about the glimpse I’d gotten of Robin’s place and just managed to control a shudder. “You’ll go back when you’re ready.”
“I’m not sure I want to live there anymore.”
“Not right now you don’t, and I totally get that. But it’s your home. Eventually . . .”
She shook her head as she stared at the floor. “I’m too afraid to go back.”
“So you’ll stay here. But I guarantee, after a few days you’ll be itching to get back there.”
Robin didn’t look convinced. If anything, she seemed to be shrinking into herself. “What if the killer returns? What if I can’t get the blood out of the floorboards or the carpet? I close my eyes and all I see is the blood. I don’t want to live there with all those bad vibes and memories.”
“Okay, first of all, the killer won’t be back, because we’re going to hunt him down and make him wish he’d never been born.” I’d never been more serious in my life. Robin had escaped the killer, thank God, but whoever had murdered Alex had killed something inside my friend, too. And that I couldn’t stomach. Seeing Robin shaken, afraid, was tearing at my heart. “Your apartment can be cleaned. There are companies that come in and take care of that stuff. We can paint every room. We’ll go shopping, buy new carpets, sheets, towels, pillows, new clothes, whatever you need to purge the place of any trace that something bad ever happened there.”