Red Blooded Murder. Laura Caldwell

have happened before our breakup.

      Sam blinked slowly a few times, his brown lashes hitting his cheeks, already tan from playing rugby outside. “Yeah. Exactly. I could tell he wasn’t going to be around for long, and even though I knew he was a jerk, I was terrified of having to take care of my sisters and my mom, even though no one ever said I had to. So I drank a lot and smoked pot and just kind of pretended I was like him. And then one day … man, I can remember it exactly … I came home from school early because I wasn’t feeling good or something. And he had this girl in the house. I knew her. She was a waitress at one of the pancake houses he owned, and she was the one I’d always had a crush on.” Sam shook his head. “They didn’t hear me come in. She was on the counter and they were …”

      “Going at it,” I finished for him, feeling the bewilderment and shock Sam must have experienced.

      “Yeah.” He laughed, a brittle sound. “Like, right there on my mom’s countertop. I just turned around and left. I went down the street to this park and I sat there for four hours. The next night, I went to a party and picked a fight with Carrie, and as soon as she left, I walked up to this girl by the pool. We ended up making out behind the pool house for an hour.”

      “And you think that’s cheating?”

      “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Don’t you?”

      “Yes,” I said, relieved to be on the same page with Sam about this, about anything.

      Sam moved his chair even closer. He put his arm around my back and nuzzled my neck.

      “Red Hot.” Sam whispered my nickname in my ear. “I miss you.”

      I turned my head to nestle into him. But then I remembered Theo. Guilt ripped through me. I hadn’t cheated, I reminded myself. I hadn’t, I hadn’t.

      But I felt as if I had. Sam kissed me, and the room seemed to disappear. In the distance, I heard the band play a slow, hard version of “Tempted” by Squeeze. Tempted by the fruit of another … Alarmed by the seduction … I wish that it would stop.

      Except that I had no interest in stopping Sam now, or whatever would happen with us later that night. Suddenly, I didn’t care about the technicalities of dating two men, of whether that made me a bad girl, a temptress or a slut, when before I’d always been the pillar of fidelity, the poster child of monogamy.

      “Hey, what am I interrupting?”

      Sam and I pulled apart. I blinked at the figure that stood in front of our table, backlit by the stage lights. It took me a moment to make out my brother, Charlie, who wore a bemused expression on his face.

      “Hey, man!” Sam jumped up to give Charlie a hug. The two of them loved each other.

      Charlie returned the hug, thumping Sam on the back. Charlie had chestnut-brown hair but in the stage lights, you could see a tinge of red. He had spiral curls like mine, which he let grow a little longer than most men’s hair. He was one of the sweetest guys I knew. Also one of the laziest. Charlie had been living off a worker’s comp settlement for a few years now, and all his friends called him “Sheets” because he spent so much time in bed.

      I stood, and Charlie made his way around the table. He hugged me tight, lifting me off the floor. “How are you doing, sister?” He set me down, and we smiled at each other, saying nothing. “Good,” he said, reading in my eyes that I was just fine. At least at that moment.

      Sam found another chair for Charlie, and as he sat, my phone lit up. A new text message. I picked it up. Somehow I’d gotten three texts in the time Sam and I were kissing. All of them from Jane Augustine.

      Are you doing anything tonight? the first said. Would you be able to come over to my house?

      Hi, Izzy, the next said, I’m so sorry to bother you but not sure who to call. I’m kind of freaking out here, and I wondered if you were out and could stop by.

      Izzy, the last said. I need some help.

      I looked at the call log and saw she’d called twice but hadn’t left a message.

      I went into the front room of the bar, where it was quieter, and called Jane.

      “Thank God,” she said, answering. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your night, but can you come over?”

      “What’s going on?”

      “Someone has been in my house.”

      “What? Is Zac there?”

      “No, he took off today for our weekend place.” She exhaled hard. “I came home, and I found some … well, some stuff in my house.” She was talking fast, her voice distressed. “Someone has been in here.”

      “Have you called the cops?”

      “No!” Her voice was alarmed now, anxious. She sounded as if she were bordering on tears. “Izzy, you know how it is. If I call the cops, then this is all over the news. The network is launching Monday. A legal network. This is not the kind of PR we need.”

      “But are you safe?”

      “I’ve been through the whole house. There’s no one here now.” She sighed. “I didn’t know who to call, and you were always the one we went to when there was any problem with work. I don’t know … Is there any way you could come over?”

      “What’s your address?” I asked.

      She told me.

      “I’ll be right there.”

      12

      Jane’s place in River North was one of eight town houses, all clearly built at the same time, probably by the same developer, but hers was the nicest—an elegant graystone, nearly white. It was new construction but built to appear old with iron streetlamps with electrical flame that flickered like real fire and a black iron fence with twisted posts. French balconies surrounded the tall upstairs windows.

      The house was lit up—all the lights must have been on—but the shades on the first floor, tasseled at the edges, were drawn, hiding whatever was happening there. I hurried up the front steps, trailed by Sam and Charlie.

      The brass knocker was shaped like a lion’s head. I used it to pound on the door.

      Jane answered right away, as if she’d been standing behind the door, waiting for us.

      She wore workout clothes—black pants that hugged her long legs and a tight pink T-shirt that proclaimed the name of a local jewelry store and said, Simply the Best for 20 Years. Her hair was in a high, swinging ponytail. She seemed younger somehow, almost like a girl barely into her teens who looks like an adult from far away but seems so vulnerable and coltish up close.

      Or maybe it was the scared look on Jane’s face.

      “Izzy!” She launched herself into my arms with a fierce, tight hug. We’d never really embraced before, but I could tell she needed it, and I squeezed her back just as tight. “Thanks so much for coming.” She drew back. “You look cute,” she said, distractedly.

      “Thanks.” I was wearing a red, patterned skirt and tall black heels for my date with Sam. “Jane, this is Sam, my …” I still didn’t know what to call him. My ex-fiancé wasn’t right, and boyfriend wasn’t, either. I decided to just skip it. “And my brother, Charlie.”

      She shook their hands. “Hi, guys, c’mon in.” Jane looked nervously up and down the street before leading us into her house.

      Inside was a wide living room with polished wood floors. The walls were a soothing fawn color; the moldings along the high ceilings were painted a creamy ivory. Jane, or her very talented decorator, had filled the place with plump, coconut-brown couches and overstuffed chairs on either side of the five-foot marble fireplace. There were colorful touches everywhere—still-life oil paintings that hung side by side, an Aztec vase which