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“Look, I’m thrilled that you got laid. Buthim? Are the two of you a good idea?”
Elle went back to her stool at the drawing table and sagged down onto it. “No.”
“The circumstances are—”
“Unorthodox.”
“To say the least. They make it kind of… I don’t know… murky?”
“Very.” Then, in her defense, Elle added, “It’s not like we planned it. It just sort of… happened.”
“Oh, dear. Spontaneity.” Glenda sighed as she sat down on the desk chair again. “It must have been bloody good.” Elle looked over at her, and Glenda smiled wryly. “If it had been god-awful, you would have said so by now. You would look relieved. Like, curiosity slaked, but never, ever again. You wouldn’t look as miserable as you obviously are.”
Elle could think of nothing to say to all that except to elaborate on just how bloody good it had been, which she wasn’t about to do.
Glenda’s brow was furrowed. “Beyond what relates to the shooting, what else do you know about this guy?”
“Very little. He’s intelligent, mannerly, well spoken. He dresses tastefully and expensively, lives in a high-rise, and drives a Jaguar.”
“That describes my gynecologist. What does Calder Hudson do?”
“Consulting of some sort, but he doesn’t talk about his work.”
“I wonder why. He’s obviously successful, but when I googled him, nothing much came up. Nothing recent except mention of him in coverage of the shooting.”
Elle looked at her with dismay. “You googled him?”
“Early on. When he was being hailed a hero. Just like you, he ducked the press. No picture, not even a quote. He’s a ghost on social. Unless he’s a double agent for the CIA, I find that odd, especially considering who he lives with. Speaking of, what abouther?”
“I asked.”
“Before or after the spontaneity?”
“Sort of in the middle.”
“Hmm. And?”
“He told me they had split.”
Unable to bear Glenda’s worldly-wise and pitying look, Elle lowered her head and pressed her fingers against her forehead. “I know, I know. Stupid me. But he was…” She took a shaky breath. “He brought his book here to be signed. We talked. We’d said our goodbyes. He was leaving. In fact, he was already out the door, and then he came back, and we just…”
She stopped there. If she couldn’t explain the immediate combustion to herself, how could she possibly explain it to anyone else, even her best friend?
She certainly didn’t want to describe Calder’s departure, which he’d taken with supersonic speed. While she was still tingling all over and trying to catch her breath, he’d left the bed as if the bedspread had caught fire—the bedspread on which they’d been in sexual congress only moments before. They hadn’t taken the time to turn back the covers.
Humiliated nearly to the point of choking, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore except to say that it won’t be happening again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“And you’re okay with that?” Glenda was looking at her like she already knew the answer.
Elle’s cell phone rang, sparing her from having to reply.
“You’re in no condition to talk to anyone,” Glenda said. “Let it go.”
Elle glanced at the readout. “I can’t. It’s Detective Compton.”
