casts a look around. “You’ve got a great view, I’ll say that. But if I were you, I’d be nervous alone here at night.”
“Nervous? Why?”
“You don’t know? You haven’t heard it?” She clamps her lips down as if wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“Heard what, Frannie?” I am only half smiling. “For heaven’s sake, you’re not buying into that old ghost story, are you?”
“Hell, no. I’m talking about something much more earthly than that. Last week, when I was up in the attic—”
She breaks off, turning away.
“What about the attic? Did you hear something?”
Her green eyes flick my way. “Why? Did you?”
“Frannie, stop it! Just tell me. What did you hear?”
“A noise,” she says. “Just a noise, that’s all. It took me a while to get up the courage to go up there. And when I did, there wasn’t anyone there.”
“That’s odd,” I say. “I heard a noise, too. It scared me half to death.”
Her eyes meet mine, widening. “What do you think it was?”
“Now that it’s daytime and the sun’s out? I’m inclined to believe it was a squirrel.”
“And last night?”
“Last night, I was certain it was that guy in the movies with the hockey mask, lurking in the shadows to grab me.”
She wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “I kind of thought that, too. Abby, you should get out of here. Cliff says—”
Cliff, I think, is angling real hard for a sale and a commission.
I change the subject. “Frannie, did you take the second bulb out of the light fixture? There’s only one in there.”
“No. I thought you did that. I could hardly see my way around, and I meant to go back up with another bulb, then I forgot. Sorry.”
“Never mind, I can do it. But if you didn’t take it out, who did?”
“Jeffrey?” Frannie asks, shrugging.
“He hates going up in the attic. Says it’s—”
“Stuffed with a lot of worthless junk that makes him sneeze,” she finishes for me, grinning. “That’s why I put some of his favorite things up there every time I clean.”
“You don’t!”
“I do,” she says complacently. “It wasn’t very nice, what he did to you with that floozy.”
Ben calls around six. “I need to see you. Can you meet me in town?”
“I could, but why don’t you come out here?”
“Town,” otherwise known as “the Village,” is only a few blocks away, but I’m already in my comfortable sweats and don’t feel like dressing again.
“You know I don’t like coming there,” he says.
“Jeffrey’s hobnobbing with the president. He won’t be home till the weekend.”
“Even so.”
Ben is hoping for a promotion to chief of police when the current chief retires. But for all its artists and writers, Carmel is basically a conservative town, and Ben worries about gossip. An adulterous affair in his personnel folder wouldn’t impress the town council or those on the board who might appoint him.
“I don’t know why you don’t divorce him and get it over with,” he says, not for the first time. “Throw the prick out.”
“I already did throw the prick out. It’s the rest of him I can’t get rid of.”
He laughs. “No, seriously—just do it.”
“You know I promised I’d stay till after the election in November. My freedom will be my Christmas present.”
“I still don’t get it. My gut feeling tells me Jeffrey is up to something, and it doesn’t have anything to do with his position as primary mover and shaker in the reigning party. Any idea what it might be?”
“In politics? Who knows? He says he’s worried that any scandal in his life could rub off on the president, and he doesn’t want to take any chances, given the moral climate of the country these days—the backlash that’s carried over from previous presidential capers.”
“Abby, just how close is he to President Chase?”
“They’re thick as thieves from what I can see. Jeffrey’s one of the few men in the country who’s on the phone with him several times a week. And he’s virtually running his campaign for reelection. From behind the scenes, of course.”
“What about Jeffrey himself? Does he have aspirations to run for office?”
“Not at all. He looks upon politicians as drones, or rather chess pieces he can move from here to there at his whim.”
“Abby, divorce isn’t all that scandalous these days. And he only works for the president. What makes you think Jeffrey isn’t making you stay with him till after the election just so he can live in the house?”
“Yeah, like he has such a good time here now.”
“Then it’s something else. Maybe he wants you back.”
“People in hell—”
“Want ice water,” he finishes for me. “I know. So meet me for dinner, okay? At the Red Lion?”
“You mean the Britannia, or whatever they’re calling it now?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to have dinner with me in public? Good Lord, man, are you on drugs?”
“Nobody there will care. It’s not like the Mission Ranch, for God’s sake.”
I sigh. “Okay, but—”
“But you’re already in your sweats and you don’t feel like dressing. One more reason for the Red Lion—the Britannia, whatever. I’ll meet you in the pub.”
“Why not the Bully III?”
“I’m already at the Red Lion.”
“But the Bully III has the best French dip in town.”
“You won’t eat much, anyway.”
I sigh. “You know me too damned well.”
“How’s the Murph?” Ben says once we’re settled at a table
