to talk to the young boy ever since Emily died. If he knew the killer, he could very well be in danger. She had to reach him before someone else did.
Grabbing her pocketbook, she rushed out the door at top speed, plowing into a returning Father Stebbins in her haste. His face was cleared of worry and he looked more at peace—at least until Auntie Lil crashed into him and sent him tripping over the trash cans in the foyer. The priest stared after her, shaking his head as he watched Auntie Lil scurry away down the sidewalk.
Adelle and her followers also stared after Auntie Lil's retreating figure and whispers passed among them. They looked to Adelle for guidance. Should they follow? She shook her head slightly and they fell back into the line to wait. One thing they all had plenty of was free time.
T.S. woke again just before three o'clock. The terrible pounding in his head had subsided to a faint buzz, but he still could not recall any details of the night before. The wet towel had soaked through his sheets, but he was too tired to care. His tongue felt like it had been coated with syrup and dipped in fuzz. What in the world had he gone through and where was Lilah? God, what if he had done something to offend her? He reassured himself that the note she'd left had been friendly.
He did not have long to worry. The buzzer rang just as he had managed to pull together a respectable outfit. He was missing his shoes and socks, but bare feet seemed superfluous in light of last night. He padded happily to the buzzer and pushed the okay button without bothering to speak to Mahmoud first. He was not in the mood for any of his doorman's sly comments. At least not until he knew what he was being kidded about. If he hurried, he'd have just enough time to put on a pot of coffee before Lilah found her way to his door.
A brisk, confident knock signaled her arrival. It was one of the things he liked about her. She was a no-nonsense woman. There would be no tentative tap-tapping for Lilah Cheswick.
T.S. flung open the door grandly and gave a courtly bow, a gesture that he immediately regretted. Blood rushed to his head and he grew dizzy. It was a chore to straighten up smoothly, but he did manage a small joke. "Enter my kingdom," he said grandly and beamed a bright smile on his visitor—a smile that froze into a grimace of paralyzed embarrassment.
Lance Worthington and Sally St. Claire stood before him, staring at his bare feet.
"Now this is what I call a real Eastside welcome," Worthington admitted, draping his cashmere coat over T.S.'s outstretched arm. "You must have really enjoyed yourself at the party." He walked to the center of the living room and immediately began to expertly calculate the worth of its furnishings.
"Sorry about your getting sick, sweetie," Sally told him, wiggling in after Worthington with the ease of one experienced at slipping past vigilant doormen. She was wearing a heavy fur wrap, which seemed a bit excessive for the middle of the day in late September in New York City.
"Sick?" T.S. inquired faintly. What had she said about him being sick? He had a vague suspicion that things were turning against him, that his optimistic hopes about the night before were about to evaporate. The trick would be to play it cool, to act as if he knew what he had done.
Sally giggled and covered her mouth with a hand that featured hot pink fingernails as deadly looking as switchblades. T.S. could not take his eyes off them. Surely they were fake. But if they were fake, why in the world would she choose to glue them to her fingers?
"Let's just say that you looked a little green to me when you left," she teased T.S., sitting primly on the edge of his sofa. She lit up a cigarette and coyly blew smoke at him. T.S.'s determined smile wavered as the smoke met his stomach, especially when he heard the distinct sounds of casual rummaging behind him.
"This real ivory?" Worthington asked. He was holding up the king from T.S.'s beloved hand-carved chess set and was scratching the bottom with the sharp corner of his heavy gold ring.
"Yes. Do you mind?" T.S. reclaimed his carving and set it gingerly back in place.