The Arrangement. Suzanne Forster

      She tapped her long sparkly fingernails to the theme from the movie Flashdance. “What’s Vern doing with himself these days? Probably married with a pack of grandkids. How about you? You married?”

      She cocked an eyebrow, and her sexual boldness made Tony feel sick to his stomach. But she was clearly a long-term local, and might know something. No harm letting her think she was seducing him while he pumped her for information.

      “Dad moved away a few months ago,” he said, “after my brother, Butch, died.”

      “Butch Bogart? That kid who got himself stuck with a pitchfork was your brother? The whole town was talking about that. Happened last winter, right? Hotter than hell that day, Santa Ana winds, electrical storms?”

      “Stuck seventeen times,” Tony corrected. “Not very likely he did it to himself.”

      “Oh, right, sorry.” She wrinkled her nose. “How awful for Vern—and you, too.”

      “Yeah, well, life goes on. You do the best you can.” And sometimes you make a mess of it, like Vernon Bogart had, but Tony didn’t feel like telling this woman that his father had failed miserably with his children. He’d been too hard on Tony, probably because of the grief he couldn’t express, and too soft on Butch. He’d coddled and overindulged the latter to the point that Butch didn’t think anyone else’s rules applied to him.

      “Did they find out who did it?” the clerk asked. “The last I remember they thought it was that local girl, Marnie something. She vanished, right? Did they ever find her?”

      “Not yet.” Marnie Hazelton had been everyone’s prime suspect back in February, but Tony wasn’t so sure now. He had another lead, but he still had every intention of hunting down Marnie. Last February, he’d paid a visit to Josephine Hazelton, the crazy old lady who’d raised Marnie. She sold vegetables and odds and ends at the flea market, and people seemed to like her, but Tony’s gut had told him she was holding back. So he and Gramma Jo would go another round as soon as he was settled in.

      After that, he had a social call to make on a cheating ex-girlfriend. That should be interesting. What Tony didn’t have was a solid motive for any of his suspects, except that his brother had been a classic bully who enjoyed harassing anyone weaker than he was, women as well as men.

      “You tell your dad I asked about him,” the clerk chirped. “You never said whether he was married or single.”

      “Single since my mother died over twenty years ago. He’s not the marrying kind.”

      “Well now, that don’t matter. Don’t need to be married to have a cup of coffee, as far as I know.”

      Tony nodded, trying to be polite, which was more than his dad would have been. Vernon had never cared about anything except riding hard on his two boys and fly-fishing on a river, any river. He wouldn’t have given this toothless floozie a second look, but then, he probably wouldn’t have given Pamela Anderson a second look. He wasn’t a big fan of the fairer sex. He thought women talked too much and did too little. “Whiny, conniving liars, all of them,” he was fond of saying.

      The clerk shut off the CD player. “I wonder if I knew your mother. She probably went to school with Vern and me.”

      “Mind your own fucking business.” Tony’s voice dropped to a whisper. He brought his fist down on the counter with enough force to knock over her empty coffee cup. “There is nothing you know or need to know about my mother.”

      The clerk’s eyes widened. She stepped back from the counter, eyeing the phone that she’d just distanced herself from. “I didn’t mean nothing. I was just being nice.”

      Tony flashed his agent’s badge. “You and I are going to be fine,” he told her. “Just make sure I get fresh sheets once a day. Fresh, not flipped—and don’t ever mention my mother again.”

      5

      Alison was swishing with peppermint-flavored mouthwash when she heard a tap on the bathroom door.

      “Can you help me with this tie pin?” Andrew called to her.

      She gurgled for him to wait as she spat out the stream of blue, then blotted her mouth on a towel. With nothing on but panties, she grabbed her dress off the hanger on the door. A bra wasn’t possible because of the halter-top cut of the gown, but at least it should be quick and easy to slip into.

      “Did you say something?” He knocked again.

      Before she could answer, the door opened, and there he was, forcing her to turn away and quickly shimmy into her dress. She pulled the material up and tied the jeweled halter strings. No time to do up the back.

      “What do you need?” she asked, tugging various things into place as she turned around.

      He seemed amused at the speed with which she was moving, twisting and tying. “Can I help?” he asked.

      “It would help if you’d respect my privacy.”

      “I thought you said to come in.”

      She heaved a sigh. “Just tell me what you want. I need to finish getting ready.”

      “This.” He pointed to the onyx tie bar that hung lopsided on the diagonal pinstripes of his tan-and-white tie. “I’m going cross-eyed trying to get it straight.”

      “You don’t look cross-eyed.” She gave herself a moment to look into his eyes and wonder about the soul that resided in those dark windows.

      “Did I buy this tie for you?” she asked him.

      “No, it was a gift, but not from you.”

      “Good,” she murmured, “otherwise, I would have been questioning my taste.”

      “What’s wrong with my tie?”

      She stepped back, ignoring his mock indignation. “The tie bar is straight. Now, let me see the whole look.”

      She twirled her finger, and he turned around, his smile sardonic. “Do I look fat?”

      His sand-colored blazer and slacks looked fabulous, as always. He was a meticulous dresser no matter what he wore, but the dark shimmer of intrigue that resided in his eyes, and his windblown hair, banished any notion of fussiness. He could have been a blood-and-guts hooligan on a soccer field, except that his sport was sailing. Instead of scars, he had a year-round tan and a certain unkempt elegance.

      She straightened her bare shoulders, trying to hold the dress in place. The halter ties had loosened, and the back of the dress was gaping open.

      “Let me help you with that.”

      “No, I’m fine.”

      “Don’t be silly,” he said, a stern note to his voice. “Turn around.”

      She did, and felt his fingers purling down her spine as he fastened the buttons. She steeled herself against any desire she might have to shiver—and prayed the splotches wouldn’t return. But the featherlight contact was wildly stimulating, and no amount of control could stop her pulse from becoming fast and thready.

      Was this why he’d chosen the dress? So he could help her with it? If so, it must be part of the happily married couple act—and he was damn convincing. No one watching them would have known that before this trip he couldn’t stand to look at her, much less touch her.

      The buttons went down to the small of her back. When he’d done them all, she turned and saw that he’d taken the gold mesh belt off the hanger.

      She was still vibrating as she reached for it.

      He didn’t release it. “You didn’t buy the tie, but I did buy this dress,” he said. “And I insist.”

      “You bought the dress?” She knew nothing about that. He must be talking about before the accident. “I really am able to dress myself,” she said.