“I’ve got to key in the alarm,” Joe said.
They left the pantry, and Leslie followed them. Joe looked at her after he’d closed the door. “That was a lie, you know. I don’t know the alarm code.”
She smiled, walked over to him and set the alarm. Then she reached into her pocket for a pen, pushed up his sleeve and wrote down the numbers. “Now you do.”
He was silent for a minute. “I wonder who else has these numbers?”
“Any of the big muckety-mucks in the Historical Society, I imagine, plus Melissa, Jeff and Tandy,” she said.
“That’s a lot of people.”
“Yes, but—”
“A friend tells a friend, who tells a friend…”
“Joe, stop. I’m not leaving this house.”
He caught her shoulders and looked earnestly into her eyes. “Come and stay with me in Brooklyn. I won’t touch you—not unless you want me to. You know that.”
“Joe, you are…” She broke off, laughing. “You’re walking testosterone. You’re also courteous, compassionate…cute as the devil. And I’m so grateful to have you on my side. But…there’s something here. Something that has to be solved.”
“Right. So that explains why I tell you not to leave a hospital and you leave it anyway. You don’t call me. I come looking for you—and you’re in a dark basement with an asshole who should never be trusted.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t invite him down.”
“My point exactly.”
“I need a shower. And, um, I didn’t mean to presume or anything, but would you mind having dinner with Brad and Laymon?”
“No, at the moment I only mind when I don’t know exactly where you are.”
“Joe, you don’t have to be so responsible for me just because…because of Matt.”
“Matt is in my mind constantly,” he told her quietly. “But, honestly, I’m feeling responsible for you because you’re scaring me to death. You’re an accident waiting to happen.”
“Either that,” she murmured, “or…”
“Or,” he said bluntly, “someone did murder Matt. And that someone may feel you’re too close to figuring out the truth.”
She was startled by the wickedly stabbing trickle of pure ice that snaked down her spine. She prayed she wouldn’t betray herself.
She hesitated. “Joe, are you really seeing a connection between Hastings House, Matt, the prostitutes…and Genevieve O’Brien?”
“Well, I did learn today that Genevieve wanted an invitation to the gala. Does that mean anything? Maybe not. Half the city probably wanted an invitation, if not for the history, for the media exposure and the all-star attendance. Matt was writing about the prostitutes. Genevieve was trying to help the prostitutes. That’s what I know. So…is a connection a long shot? Probably. But I haven’t got a hell of a lot more to go on, other than a black sedan. And,” he added very softly, his gaze probing as he met her eyes, “your belief that Genevieve is still alive.”
She was tempted to go to him. To feel the real, live, flesh-and-blood assurance of his arms around her, breathe in his scent. He was a good man. True, he wasn’t Matt, but if she’d met him on the street, at lunch, at a friend’s house…she would have been attracted to him. If…
If there had never been Matt.
She nodded. “I’m going to shower. I’ll be right down.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in the dead room.”
“What?”
“Sorry. The servants’ pantry.”
Leslie hurried on up the stairs. In her room, she leaned against the door, closing her eyes. “Matt,” she whispered. “I know you’re here. I know…I know you’re looking after me. If only…oh, Matt…”
She hadn’t cried in so long, but tears welled up in her eyes now.
And then…
She felt something brush against her face. The slightest caress. Just a touch…that wiped away her tears. She opened her eyes.
But she was alone.
Dinner was…boring.
Professor Laymon spent all of two seconds assuring himself that Leslie was really okay. There was only one love in that man’s life, and that was his work.
Then he spent a good half hour talking about the work done in “Leslie’s crypt,” as he called it. Then he started on the find in the basement, and that turned into an argument, because Leslie was absolutely insistent. Those particular bones were not going to become a spectacle. She was going to contact a friend of Matt’s from the paper to see that the story was written up properly, and then she was going to find an Episcopal priest who would see to it that the woman was given a decent burial.
She was a tigress when she wanted to be. Joe watched with admiration as, in the end, she bested Laymon, who finally agreed to her plans.
But in return she swore that she would be back to work in the crypt the following day.