Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (7 page)

“Impudent, too.”

“Door’s open, though, ain’t it?”

“Not for lon
g.
G
o
away.
Tell Papa to leave me the hell alone, too.
”

Josh jumped to his feet and thrust his arm through the
open
door.

“No,” he said. “Enough.”

“Move your arm.”

“No.”

“I’ll break it!”

“Go ahead,
I’m real worried about it,
” said Josh
.

“Stubborn bastard,” Paul repeated.

“So you said. You need a bath. C
’
mon,” Josh said, and pulled Paul’s arm.

“Where?”

“Upstairs.”

“I won’t go back in that room. Not ever.”

“Don’t have to. We got plenty of rooms.”

They disappeared.
Ria resumed
her weary trudge up the stairs, still mindboggled at Joshua’s change of speech pattern, at the entire tone of the encounter. Unheard of
in
1888.
What was going on in this house?

* * *

Three days later, Ria returned to the office,
another
appointed
criminal case finished. The client wasn’t
thrilled with the plea bargain she’d negotiated. The client’s victim hadn’t been
thrilled
by the twenty-two stitches
closing the
gash on his face inflicted by the broken liquor bottle either, so she wasn’t sympathetic.
Johnny knocked perfunctorily on her door and came in to sit on her sofa.

“Took a message for you while you were out,” he said. “You won’t much like it.”

“I won’t?”

“Ted Dorry called from the DA’s office. When you weren’t in, he asked for me. Told him you were at the Courthouse, he musta’ missed you.”

“I guess so. What is it?”

“Justin Dinardo
’s
skipped bail. He’s gone.”

Ria sat down heavily in her chair.

“Shit!”

“He’s just a kid, Ria, he can’t stay out of sight all that long.”

“Did he take his truck?”

“Nope. Didn’t take anything. They’ll pick him up.”

“Don’t bet on it. I figure he’s got a good bit of cash stashed.”

“Yeah, but he’s not going to stick around, Ria. Too risky. And for sure, too risky for him to try anything on Dennis. And
you and I both know,
he’s a kid from a good family, first t
ime he’s ever been in trouble—”

“Yeah, but it’s big trouble.”

“I know, but the Judge wouldn’t have thrown the book at him, Ria. He’d
have
let him off as light as possible.
Fact of life
.
” Johnny shrugged. “
Now that he’s skipped bail, if he ever slips up
,
that sort of alleviates the sympathy factor. You know?”

“Yeah,” Ria sighed. “I guess.”

“Well, nothing we can do about Justin. Had lunch?”

“Not hungry.”

“I am.”

“So go eat.”

“
I’m ‘bout to go grab some
thing
and bring it back. What do you want? ‘Cause I don’t need a partner who’s anorexic
,
” Johnny said
.

“
Very funny
.
”
Ria’s metabolism had been a running joke since childhood.
She could
eat any two men of her acquaintance under the table and never gain an ounce.

“I’ll split a sub with you.
The foot-long one.
With everything.
”

“Hell, no!
I’ve never in my life
eaten
half a sub!
Get me a whole one!”

* * *

Just when
Ria b
egan to think
her private movie, having moved past Chloe’s death, had played itself out
, she woke to
the sound of someone crying.
No, that wasn’t right, exactly. A ma
n was crying. The sobs were rusty, as
they so often were when men cried, as thoug
h the tears were wrenched from deep within,
released under great protest.

She moved softly to her door
. The bedroom she’d viewed the night of their housewarming was t
here, not her living room.
Paul
stood in front of
Chloe’s dresser, one of
h
er negligees lifted to his face, muffling the sounds.

She
walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers passed right through the
seemingly solid shoulder and he disappeared entirely.

Chapter
Nine

Enough was enough.
She didn’t want to sit home and watch long-ago grief two nights in a row. Ria took herself to the
m
all.
She needed crowds, lights, action. And besides, one of her favorite books had finally succumbed to years of thumbing and turned-down pages and totally disintegrated the other night when she’d picked it up, whole sections of pages parting company with the spine. For convenience, you couldn’t beat an e-reader, but some books you just had to hold in your hands.
She’d get a replacement and look over the new crop of novels.

T
hen maybe she’d hit the clothes racks at
the fun stores and
get a new outfit or two, something bright and fun
that didn’t look a bit like a lawyer. Grab dinner in the
F
ood
C
ourt. A milkshake on the way out. Exactly what she wanted tonight.
Crowds without interaction.

She stood near the back of the
m
all’s one remaining bookstore
—
that e-pub revolution was taking a toll on conventional booksellers
—
and glared up at one the higher shelves. It would be up there, of course.
Hardly a current bestseller. She stood on tiptoe and stretched, but even at five foot eight she couldn’t quite make it. And customers weren’t supposed to climb the ladders and there wasn’t a clerk in sight. She stretched again and succeeded in knocking a book off, but not the one she wanted.

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath, bending to retrieve it.

The resonant voice sounded beside her.

“Here, let me help,” it said
. S
he started. That voice. Impossible. No way. Her eyes traveled slowly upward, taking in the well-cut tan Dockers, the long-sleeved denim shirt rolled casually up to reveal the lightly tanned forearms. They moved higher and settled on the face of the man beside her. No way.

“The one you want is always out of reach,” the voice continued. Ria was staring, she knew she was
. But
the man she thought was there wasn’t
really
there.
In just a minute, her mind would clear itself out and replace the image she thought she was seeing with reality.
But
it was sure taking a hell of a long time for her mind to cooperate.

“Which one are you after? I’ll be glad to get it for you.”

“The—uh—”
Ria stammered and stuttered, infuriated with herself.
“I’m sorry, I’m
not
usually so muddled, but—have
we met?” Oh, God. She sounded like a pickup in reverse.

He smiled. “No, I don’t think so.
I’m certain I’d remember.”

“I—uh—”
she stammered again and furiously told herself to get a grip.
She pointed.
“
That hardback edition of the collected Shakespeare plays.
”

“Really?” he asked, surprise in his voice. “You read
Shakespeare? For pleasure?
Excuse me, that d
idn’t come out right. It’s just—he’s not casual reading these days.”
He
stretched his six-foot frame upward and pulled the volume down.

“No,” she said,
accepting
the book. “I
know he’s not, it’s just that he’s
soothing
sometimes, when I’m
real tired or irritated,
the flow and rhythm and beauty of the words
calm me down
.”

“
Lots of humor in with the dark there, too.
Always thought he’d get a real kick out of it if he could see how seriously the English professors take him.
Personally, I think he just intended to tell a good story.”

Ria laughed. She’d always thought the same.

The man wearing the impossible face held out his hand.
“
I’m Paul.
P
aul Everett
.
”
Ria’s eyes
widened
.
She froze in position, her mind repeating a name over and over again. Paul Everett Devlin, III.
Then s
he shook her head slightly and held out her hand.

“Ria Knight,” she said. “Are you from Macon, Mr. Everett?”

“Paul
.
No,
I’m not from Macon. I’m—listen
, did you want to look for anythi
ng else? I haven’t eaten yet, and I was just about to grab something
if you’d like to join me
. I’m
safe, I promise
. ‘Course, Jack the Ripper’d say the same thing.”

Ria tried to
make some sense of the
kaleidoscopic jumble of thoughts
and focused on the obvious
. She’d lost her mind.
Very simple.
She was standing in a bookstore talking to empty space
.

“I, uh—no! I mean yes! No,
I wasn’t going to look for anything else and
yes, I’d like to join you.”

H
e strode easily beside her
back up to the cashier
and slipped the volume of
Shakespeare
out of her hand, adding it to the two books he carried
.

“Oh, no, that’s so not—”

“
It’s not every day you run into somebody reads Shakespeare for
pleasure
. Consider it my support for the arts, why don’t you?”

She stood aside and waited and as they walked out into the
m
all, she stopped suddenly.

“Oh, that was stupid of me!”

“Pardon?”

“I ordered an out-of-stock book the other week and I meant to check on it tonight. I won’t be a minute,” she said, and dashed back to the counter.

“Excuse me,” she said, homing in on the
cashier who’d rung up
Paul Everett’s purchases
. “T
hat last man you checked out. What did he look like?”

The clerk
stared.
Customers.
They were crazy and here was proof.

“Aren’t you with him?”

“Well, yes, but what does he look like to you?”

“Real fine, honey, I’d say you’re lucky.”

“Yes, but what—”

“Blond hair, blue eyes. Tall, lean, grea
t voice. Looks sort of like—no,
that’s not it. Re
minds me of Matthew McConaughey when he first got big.
You got good taste, I’ll say that. He’s a looker.”

“He didn’t pay with a card, did he?”

“Nope, used cash.”

Shit. No way to confirm he’d really said his name was Paul Everett. Oh, well. At least she wasn’t talking to thin air.

“Thank you,” she said, and went back out. The clerk shrugged and returned to her duties. Customers.
Crazy.

“Your book’s not in?”

“No. Oh, well. Where do we eat?”

“You pick,” he said, and spread his hand out towards the fast-food kiosks standing cheek by jowl in the
F
ood
C
ourt. Ria didn’t hesitate.

“Atlanta Bread Company, please. Roast beef on French,” she said, “but if you’d rather have something else, please feel free.”

“That’s great. Why don’t you claim a table and I’ll be right back.”

“Can’t I buy dinner? You already bought my book.”