wrong again. Of course they were wrong again, I told myself fiercely. The thefts. They’d begun long before Martin had moved here.
But the murders, of course, had begun after.
I remembered my mother wondering what on earth Martin was doing looking at such a large house. Logically, a bachelor would be looking at a smaller place, not a virtual mansion like the Anderton house. The police might think he’d made an appointment to see the Anderton house because he wanted his handiwork found. Martin had been in town some weeks before I met him, long enough to meet Tonia Lee and Idella. Tonia Lee, who would go to bed with almost anyone, would undoubtedly have licked her chops when she met Martin. Idella, wispy, palely pretty, and lonely, would have been thrilled to meet someone who could pay such close and flattering attention to her.
Of course, that was what the police might think.
I shut my eyes.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Benita was asking with concern.
“I’m fine,” I lied automatically. “Are we about finished?”
“Just about. Do you like it?”
“It’s different,” I said, startled enough to peek out from under my personal black cloud. “Gosh, I don’t look like me.”
“I know,” said Benita proudly. “You look very sleek and sophisticated. Just beautiful.”
“Gee,” I said slowly. “I do.”
“All you need to do is go home and put on your dress and some lipstick, and you’ll be ready to step out.”
I did need lipstick. And I needed some spine, too, I decided grimly. I wasn’t going to let these black thoughts overwhelm me. I knew Martin, on some level, knew him thoroughly.
I thought.
I paid Benita handsomely, and went home to slide into my green flouncy dress and put on some lipstick. I’m going to go and have a good time, I told myself. I’m going with a handsome, sexy man who considers me absolutely necessary. He might have wanted to kill nasty Sam Ulrich last night, but he wouldn’t have killed Tonia Lee and Idella. Absolutely not.
At least my inner turmoil wasn’t showing on the outside. When I looked in my bathroom mirror to put on my bronzy lipstick, I looked just as good as I had in the beauty shop.
I almost wished I’d polished my nails, but that would have been absolutely out of character; and with my hair put up, I hardly knew myself, as it was.
Instead of bustling around thinking of something to do, I sat on the ottoman in front of my favorite chair, my current book lying neglected on the table beside it. I decided to pop the dress on at the last second. It hung on the bathroom door, looking festive and fancy, mocking me. I stared into space and thought about Martin gone, Martin in jail, Martin on trial.
He was as necessary to me as he said I was to him.
When the doorbell rang, it actually surprised me. I pulled off my robe, pulled the dress over my head, and zipped it up in record time. I slid my feet into my high-heeled pumps and pulled myself together to answer the door, wondering vaguely why everything looked so funny.
Martin took in a deep breath when I opened the door. He looked down at me with some unreadable emotion.
“Do I look all right?” I asked, suddenly anxious.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes.”
“Do you like the hair?” I asked nervously when he still stared.
“Yes . .. very much.” He finally stepped in so I could close the door against the cold. He was wearing a black overcoat, and his white hair was strikingly attractive.
Once again I had the unsettling feeling that he was grown up and I wasn’t.
“Where are your glasses?”
“Oh,” I exclaimed, “that’s why everything looked so funny.” In some relief, I found them on the little table beside my chair and popped them on. “I tried contact lenses,” I told him defensively, “but I’m one of those people who can’t wear them. They just drove me crazy.”
“I’m glad you wear glasses.”
“Why?”
“So no one else can see you with them off,” he said, and bent to give me a kiss on the cheek. His finger traced the line of my neck. I shivered. My fears abated now that I was with him. When I was close to him, I felt that Martin would not let himself be arrested.
“Come look in the bathroom mirror,” he suggested.
“What?”
“Just for a minute; come with me.”
“Is my hair coming down?” My hands flew up.
“No, no,” Martin said, and smiled.
So into the bathroom we went, and