The Jinx

Thirty-One

J onathan put his head down on the steering wheel and burst into tears. I looked up and realized, shocked, that we’d emerged from the tangle of side streets and were parked directly in front of the hotel.

“Um. Uh, Jonathan. Don’t cry,” I said lamely.

“I love her,” he sobbed. “And she barely notices me. She just thinks of me as her boring old professor. But I love her.”

“Um, I’m beginning to see that. But don’t cry.”

“I pour my heart out, and she could care less. She even gave me the letters back. As if they meant nothing to her.” He picked his head up from the steering wheel and looked at me, as if I shared his anguish and his outrage. “How could she do that to me?”

Thankfully, there was a tap on the driver-side window. It was O’Connell. I turned to peer out the back. There were a couple of cars behind us: Jane and Sean’s Volvo and what was probably O’Connell’s unmarked police car. I was impressed that they’d managed to keep up with Jonathan’s wild race through the snow-covered back streets of residential Cambridge.

O’Connell tapped on the window again and Jonathan slowly rolled it down. “Professor Beasley. I think you should come with me.” The detective was holding Jane’s cell phone in his hand, and it was on speaker, echoing his words back to us. I decided I could safely end the call I’d placed and pressed the off button on my own phone.

It was well after eleven, but a unanimous decision was reached that we could all use a nightcap. We retired to the lounge at Rialto, on the second floor of the hotel, once we’d ascertained that there was no longer any threat of live jazz.

“That was a nice after-dinner activity,” said Hilary, tucking her long legs under her on the velvet-covered sofa.

“But it was scary hearing you trying to tease out a confession from him,” Jane told me. “I mean, I knew we were right behind you and everything, but he sounded like he was really out of control.”

“You know,” said Emma thoughtfully, “I really believed him when he said he loved Sara.”

“He does love her,” I responded. “Just in a bizarre and twisted way. And it all fits. Sara went to him with the letters on Wednesday, thinking that she was going to get help from a wise and caring authority figure. Meanwhile, he must have interpreted it as her rejecting him and wasted no time lashing out. She was attacked on Thursday morning.”

“What a freak,” said Hilary. “And the crying! Ick. Rach, I’m glad we nipped this one in the bud before you started anything. I don’t think I could handle you dating a guy who goes around weeping all the time.”

When it looked like our one drink was going to extend to another round, I excused myself for a moment. I’d been wearing high heels for fifteen hours, which would have been bad enough, but my right foot was particularly sore from where it had connected with Grant Crocker’s groin. I’d taken my shoes off at Jane’s, but I had a feeling that the Rialto would prefer that its patrons kept their shoes on. I ran upstairs to change into a more comfortable pair.

I was all too aware that there hadn’t been any messages from Peter on my Blackberry, so the blinking message light on the phone in my room took me by surprise. I listened to the message as I kicked off my heels and eased my throbbing feet into flats. It was Peter, speaking quickly and in a harried tone.

Hey. Rach. It’s me. I seem to be having a hard time tracking you down, so I thought I’d leave a message here. Anyhow, I’ve got some great news. The client’s made a decision-they’ve turned down Hamilton Tech’s off-I mean, their pitch, and they’re definitely going with us. We don’t want to lose the momentum, so we agreed to stay here until we hammer out every detail. The final negotiations will probably take a while. It looks unlikely that I’ll make it to Jane’s. In fact, there’s a chance I might not make it back tonight at all. Anyhow, I’ll explain it all when I see you, okay?

Oh. And I hope you’re having a good time at the reunion. Say hello to everyone for me, and tell them I wish I could be there. Miss you.

Humph. With a message like that, why even bother leaving one at all? Flimsy excuses, lame apologies-left in the last place I’d look for them and in the one place where he’d be relatively sure not to have to talk to me in person. Who needed it? I tried to work myself up into a healthy rage as the elevator took me back down to the second floor. Surely rage was more productive than giving way to the acrid taste of rejection and its favorite dance partner, loneliness.

A fresh drink was waiting for me when I returned to my friends, and it was a welcome sight. I was already well along the path to mild inebriation, and I’d made an executive decision in the elevator that I was going to take the path to its logical end. Anything would be better than to feel the way I was feeling. Hilary was enumerating O’Connell’s many merits to a less than rapt audience, and Sean and Matthew were deep in conversation in their corner, probably talking about woodworking or something similarly manly. “Anything?” asked Emma in a low voice as I picked up my glass.

“A stupid message,” I told her, more loudly than I’d intended.

“What?” asked Hilary, her monologue interrupted.

“Stupid Peter. He left a stupid message. Saying he’d be locked in stupid negotiations potentially all night.” I held up two fingers of each hand, indicating quotation marks around the word negotiations.

“Maybe he is locked in negotiations,” said Jane, ever the optimist.

“With Abigail?” I said, bitterness getting the best of me. “All night?”

“It’s possible,” she said.

“Even after what we saw?”

“Rach, there could be an explanation that actually does explain it all,” Jane persisted. “You haven’t even had the chance to talk to him about it.”

“Like that would help.” I sighed and took a large gulp of my drink.

“I’m going to kill this Abigail person,” said Hilary.

“You’re just looking for ways to spend more time with O’Connell,” joked Luisa. “You want him to haul you up on murder charges.”

“It could be fun,” she replied.

“Let’s talk about something else,” suggested Emma.

“Yes, Rach. Why don’t you tell us again about kicking Grant Crocker in the balls?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“I know, but it has all the makings of a classic.”

“If you insist,” I said, draining the last of my drink and signaling the waiter for another round.