Last to Know: A Novel(37)

What!

Jemima went quickly to another search engine and came up with the same result. Oh my God. If Lacey Havnel was dead and had no children, then who was the Bea Havnel who claimed to be her daughter? In fact, who was the dead woman, burned up in the fire, who claimed to be Lacey Havnel?

Her cell phone was lying on the coffee table. Detective Jordan had put his number in there the other night. “Just in case you need to call about Divon,” he’d said. They had looked at each other for a few seconds. Jemima had been embarrassed because she’d half hoped he would ask to see her again, if only for supper at Ruby’s, but he had not, so she’d said a quick goodnight and turned and hurried away.

“Wait,” he had called after her. She’d spun on her heel, smiling hopefully. But “I’ll get a squad car to drop you off,” was all he had said.

She had forgotten that was the way she had arrived, in the back of a squad car. “My mother would have a fit if she saw me in a police car,” she’d told him. “I’ll call a cab.” And that had been that. But now … she pushed Harry’s number. “Jordan.”

He answered on the first ring, taking Jemima by surprise; in her bravado at making the call she’d hardly given herself time to think what she was going to say, and now she stumbled over her words. “Er, er, it’s something important.”

“You just can’t remember what. Is that it? Fact is, Jemima Puddleduck, I was just about to call you.” Harry wanted to ask her a few questions.

She sank down onto the hated mousey shag rug. “Was it … I mean I guess it was something important, about the Havnel woman and the daughter.”

“Actually,” Harry said, “I was going to ask you if you felt like meeting for a drink. I thought at least if I asked you out you wouldn’t think I was about to arrest you as an accessory to a murder,” he added. But Jemima did not laugh.

“Lacey Havnel might not be who you think she is,” she said quickly, without stopping to think.

Silence hung for seconds between them. Then Harry said, “I’ll pick you up in ten. Okay?”

Jemima ran a hand over the old cashmere sweater she was wearing, the one she’d had since she was seventeen and would never, ever throw away, and the baggy black pants she wore when she was alone because they were comfortable.

“Okay?” Harry said again.

“I’ll be downstairs waiting,” she promised, already grabbing her newest skinny jeans from the floor where she had stepped out of them earlier, a clean white tee, the black leather jacket—it was what she always wore … he’d seen her in it before, the only other time he had seen her, she remembered. Two minutes later she was in the jeans though how she ever got her legs into them, they were so narrow, she couldn’t imagine; the white tee; jacket slung casually over her shoulders, high suede ankle boots, a quick spray of Gaultier Femme; the Dior ruby lipstick that had somehow become her trademark. She took a step back from the mirror, eyeing herself critically, combing her long red bangs with her fingers where they fell into her pale blue eyes causing foggy vision but it looked good. Jewelry? Keep it simple, she told herself, fastening pearl studs in her ears. A pearl necklace, one strand, medium sized … where on earth had she gotten them? They struck just the right note between the ruby-lipped black leather hedonist and a lady. A deep breath. Oh my God she had a date with Harry Jordan. Well—almost a date.

She was downstairs waiting when he drove up in his classic dark green Jag with the goddamn dog with its head sticking out the window. She waited while Harry got out. He went and opened the door for the dog then sent it to sit in the back. He turned to smile at Jemima.

“You’ll have to hope Squeeze forgives you for that,” he said. “The front seat is his place.”

“Old dog, new tricks,” she said, inserting herself into the low car.

Harry closed her door then went round and got behind the wheel. “Any objection to Blake’s?” he asked.

“You can take me anywhere you like,” Jemima replied. And she meant it.





25


I did not hear about Detective Jordan’s intriguing little encounter at Blake’s with the Jemima he calls Puddleduck until later and then I thought it might—only might—as they say, “put a spanner in the works.” I do not need this woman snooping around—doing her amateur “investigative reporting.” My stage is getting a little crowded. I need no one. Of course I could shrug this girl off. (I call any woman under the age of thirty a girl and I know she’s twenty-eight—in fact I know everything about her, I made it my business to find out because of her acquaintance with Harry Jordan.)

Anyhow, the detective might as well forget her sexual appeal, after all he already has a couple of female interests, to say nothing of the fiancée, the famous Mal Malone, TV star incarnate, who absconded to Paris ne’er to be seen again. Or will she?

Still, I’ll take care of Miss Nosey Parker, my potential “spanner in the works.” Curiosity can lead to confrontation and to my being exposed. You cannot allow that. It’s time to get closer to my objective, the sweet sympathetic Rose and her family, who I’d hate with all my heart if I had one. Yes, I know, I confessed earlier to having a real heart, but you see it’s not like yours.

Mine is a killer’s heart, it guides me differently, sends me on devious paths. If you met me you would never know it, but my whole being is concentrated on killing. With the Osbornes it’s a kind of revenge. I want the whole family to suffer as they make me suffer, admittedly indirectly, but suffering is suffering. If others have to fall by the wayside in pursuit of my goal of destroying the Osbornes, then so be it. What did they do to make me feel this vengeful? You might well ask.