2 Death Makes the Cut (33 page)

Authors: Janice Hamrick

BOOK: 2 Death Makes the Cut

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I stepped away from him, putting the chair between us, my fingers clutching the upholstery hard enough to leave impressions.

“More tea?” I asked brightly and too loudly and because I couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

The hurt in Colin’s eyes was harder to bear than the desire had been.

The sound of the sliding door made us both turn our heads. Alan returned, looking warily from me to Colin, taking note of the chair and of my white face.

“Sorry about that,” he said to me, although his eyes were again on Colin. “Riots have broken out in Cairo again, and I’ve got a tour group there. I don’t think they’re in danger at the Mena House, but, understandably, they’re panicking and demanding to come home. If things don’t calm down in the next few hours, I’ll need to arrange an evacuation.”

“Easier to do that from your office, don’t you think?” asked Colin. “Dallas, right?”

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to the station or wherever it is that you hang out?”

They glared at each other, Colin stepping past me away from the furniture and Alan turning to face him. To my disbelief, they looked like they were actually squaring off for a fight.

“Enough!” I said sharply.

They turned to me in surprise. I swear they’d both forgotten I was there.

“I mean it. Enough. I can’t do this.”

They still stared at me blankly. I collected my thoughts and made a lightning decision.

“Both of you need to go,” I told them.

“What?” asked Alan in disbelief.

“No!” protested Colin at the same time.

“Yes. Both of you. I need some time. We all need some time. As of right now, I’m not dating either one of you. There, I’ve said it.”

Alan looked stunned, Colin hopeful. At least they were now looking at me and not each other, which was a small improvement.

“But…” Alan started.

I cut him off. “Dating is supposed to be a fun way to get to know another person. You and I haven’t been doing so well with the fun or the knowing. “I’ve been expecting the Dear Jocelyn call for the past six weeks—way before I met Colin.”

Alan flinched, but I could tell my words came as no surprise. He was smart. He’d known as well as I that we were in trouble.

I continued, “Right now, I’m so confused I don’t know what I want. Everything in my life is teetering on the edge. My friends are dead, my job is on the line, and I don’t want to make any decisions. I can’t. It’s possible that I’d like to spend more time with each of you and get to know you better. If you’re not okay with that, and I honestly don’t know why you would be, I completely understand. But that’s all I can do. And either way, you both should leave now. And … I don’t want to hear from you for two weeks. Let’s give ourselves some time to think things over. Then, if you still want to, you can call me.”

They didn’t like it, they protested, but they were both good men, and finally they left. Grudgingly, it’s true, and with a number of daggerlike glares for each other, but go they did. I watched until both cars rolled away in opposite directions, then I quietly closed my front door and carried the glasses back to the kitchen. Without the two men, my little house seemed big and empty and hollow, much like the aching hole that had somehow materialized in the center of my chest. I couldn’t decide whether to cry or break things, so I stood motionless until at last I was able to hear the carton of Blue Bell cookie dough ice cream softly call my name.

* * *

A week and a half later, Kyla arrived at my house to pick me up. We were going to Stubb’s Bar-B-Que for dinner and then on to the Alamo Drafthouse theater for a Monty Python quote-along. She’d been trying to get me out of the house for days, and this suggestion finally worked. I’d actually found myself looking forward to it. Besides, I’d reached the stage of rearranging furniture and thought it was high time I found another distraction.

Kyla stood in my living room, hands on hips, purse slung over her shoulder, looking around at the new layout. The insurance check had finally arrived, and I’d been able to repay her for the things she had purchased for me, which I felt good about. Now though, I found myself eyeing her purse with great suspicion.

“New purse?” I asked, eyes narrowed.

She gave a wide grin. “Yup. They would have honored my guaranty but I would have needed to send them the old purse, and I decided I’d rather keep it as a souvenir. This one is a different model. Cute, huh?”

“It’s a very nice purse,” I said stiffly. “What’s in it?”

She assumed the innocent expression of a Botticelli angel. “Makeup, wallet, keys. You know, the usual.”

I did indeed know, but once again decided not to pursue it. After all, in the end it had saved my neck.

I told her, “Hey, it’s finally official. I’m being reinstated. I start back in the classroom on Monday.”

“Finally! They took their sweet time about it.”

“Yeah, well, I was still on the payroll, so I can’t complain too much. But I’ll definitely be glad to get back.” I picked up my keys from the little hook by the door. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah. So did you really tell those boys not to call you for two weeks?”

“I did.”

She shook her head doubtfully. “You might have lost them both, and then I know you’d be sorry. Although I’m still not sure about which one.” She gave me a searching look.

I shrugged, trying to look mysterious. She didn’t need to know that I wasn’t sure either.

Kyla counted on her fingers. “Wednesday, Thursday … so what, they’ve got about three more days? I wonder if they’ll call.”

We looked around at the dozen vases and bowls of every shape and size filling my counters, each overflowing with flowers in a brilliant mix of scents and colors and each bearing a florist’s tag signed with one of two names. Kyla grinned at me, and I couldn’t help smiling back.

“I wonder.” I said.

Also by Janice Hamrick

Death on Tour

About the Author

Janice Hamrick is the author of two titles in her Jocelyn Shore mystery series. The first,
Death on Tour,
was the winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition, a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and a nominee for the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards Best First Mystery. She lives in Austin, Texas.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

DEATH MAKES THE CUT.
Copyright © 2012 by Janice Hamrick. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Hamrick, Janice.

Death makes the cut / Janice Hamrick. — 1st ed.