Page 60 of Over Her Dead Body

Margot looks toward the stairs, and for a second the anger leaves her face.

“I know,” she says. “It’s awful.”

Then she turns back to me.

“But you are not using this to get past me. You are going to tell me where you were and why you ditched me in Vienna.”

“Technically, I ditched you in Austin.” I glance toward the stairs. “Either way, this feels like a strange time.”

“It feels like the only time you can’t run.”

I turn to her. She looks beautiful and furious and suddenly tired in a way Vienna did not fix.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I know you’re sorry. But I also want to know why I was in Vienna alone.”

Her expression tells me I’m not getting out of this conversation without giving her an answer.

“I met someone at the airport.”

Margot waits.

“A possible lead. Private collection. Lisbon. Old family money, messy estate, no inventory.”

“You skipped Vienna for a stranger with a rumor?”

“I skipped Vienna for the possibility of a collection no one else had touched yet.”

“That sounds better.”

“That’s why I said it second.”

She does not smile, which is fine. I do not deserve it.

Margot glances toward the stairs and then back at me. “You could have just told me the truth.”

“I know.”

“I would have understood.”

“I know.”

“You could have done literally any normal thing.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Her mouth tightens. “So was there a collection?”

I look past her, through the doorway, toward the place Reid had been standing, as if the answer might still be there waiting for me.

He is gone.

My attention moves through the room before I can stop it. Genevieve. Celeste. Philip. The terrace doors. No Reid.

Typical.

Dead husbands, like private collections, apparently require more tracking than one would prefer.