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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“For God’s sake,” Paige said, vaulting toward the front door of their condo, “it’s almost two o’clock in the morning. Where have you been?”
“My goodness,” Joan said, closing the door behind her. “What are you still doing up?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing up? I got home from Chloe’s at just after eleven and looked in your room, expecting you to be sound asleep. Instead, you weren’t even here. I called your cell half a dozen times. You didn’t answer. I’ve been worried sick.”
“Oh, darling. You shouldn’t have worried. I left the phone in my other purse. HowisChloe?”
“She’s hanging in there,” Paige replied, not quite ready to relinquish her anxiety. “I called Antonio’s. They said you left there around ten.”
“Yes. I had thespigola—”
“I called the hospital…” Paige interrupted.
“You called the hospital! Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Why? Because that’s where you ended up the last time you went out with a man to get something to eat.”
“I can’t believe you called the hospital.”
“And the police,” Paige went on, anger replacing her earlier panic.
“You called the police? Oh, my God. What did you say to them?”
“That I was worried. That you had a date with some guy you didn’t know, that you’d left the restaurant with him hours ago but you hadn’t come home, and I was worried because there was a possible serial killer on the loose…”
“A serial killer. Oh, my God, Paige. You don’t think you overreacted just a tad? What did the police say?”
“That I was overreacting,” Paige admitted, feeling beyond stupid. “That you’d probably just gone back to his place. I told them that was ridiculous, that you weren’t like that, that you’re seventy years old, for God’s sake…Oh, shit. That’s what happened, isn’t it? You went back to his place.”
“Yes, darling,” her mother said, walking into the living room and collapsing on the sofa. “He has this lovely apartment in Beacon Hill. Come sit, sweetheart. Try to calm down.”
Paige gathered her silk robe around her and sank into the cushion beside her mother, tucking her bare legs underneath her.
“Do you need some tea?” her mother asked.
Paige shook her head, trying to decide exactly how much she wanted to know about her mother’s evening. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“The turquoise suits you.”
“Harry said it really makes my eyes pop.”
Shit.“So, I take it the dinner went well.”
“It did,” her mother said. “He’s a lovely man. Educated, attractive, a good conversationalist, a good listener…”
“You liked him.”
“Very much.”
“That’s nice.”
“Then we finished dinner,” her mother continued, unprompted, “and there seemed to be so much more to talk about. Neither one of us was ready to call it a night, so we decided to continue the conversation back in his apartment.”
“You talked till almost two o’clock in the morning?”
