to learn from the dates on the coffin that she was closer to forty than my own thirty. She looked pretty damn good for her age, I thought, watching as Tom merrily greeted a tall blonde. But maybe not good enough, I thought next, as Tom leaned to kiss the blonde, his hands roaming over her back as he hugged her.
“Hey, whatever happened to Tom’s first wife?” I asked.
Sage practically glared at me. “She’s alive and well and living in Boca Raton.”
“I’m just asking.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so worked up about this. The woman drank too much and went for a swim.”
My eyes widened, but I kept my mouth shut. Sage was my best friend, but sometimes she was a total mystery to me. She could be the most generous person in the world—witness that whopping cluster of lilies up at the front of the room that she’d purchased on our behalf. But when it came to things like Maggie’s death, she just closed right up. After a harrowing night of recounting the night’s activities for everyone from the Marine Bureau cop who answered the call, to a detective from the homicide squad at the Suffolk County Police Department, we had ridden the train back to Manhattan the next morning in near silence, Sage lost in her own thoughts and Nick dozing off, only waking periodically to clutch his cell phone in his lap with a look of alarm, as if he’d just missed an important call. Tom had stayed behind, of course, and though at first I assumed he was under arrest, I later learned he had gone back to the house to secure it before leaving the beach. And to pick up Janis Joplin, who likely had to be sedated if the state I’d seen her in last was any indication.
“Where’s Nick?” I asked now.
“He had some sort of a business meeting,” Sage said, finally looking me in the eye again. I knew that look. She was wondering, like I often did, how a man who barely earned a living managed to have so many “business meetings.” “He’s supposed to be here by now,” she continued, her gaze moving to the door. “Holy shit.”
I swung my head around, fully expecting to find Tom in a new tryst with some willing female—for a married man, he sure knew a lot of hot, young things judging by the crowd that had showed up—and I was surprised to see him enveloped in a hug with a man.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Good question. He’s fucking hot,” Sage said. Then, running a hand over her tousled, blond-streaked hair, which she’d just barely tamed into a French twist, she said, “C’mon. Let’s go see how Tom is doing.”
If I had wondered about my best friend before, I was positively dumbstruck when I found myself standing next to her as she smiled up at Tom, who immediately wrapped one arm around her slender shoulders, pulling her close. “Sage, sweetie, how are you doing? You know Vince Trifelli, right? Our VP of manufacturing?”
I saw Sage’s eyes widen. “The Vince Trifelli? I think we must have spoken on the phone a few times, but I don’t think we’ve ever actually met.”
“It was Vince here who convinced me to get into leather goods in the first place,” Tom told us all with a smile. “And then leather outerwear. But I can’t give him all the credit for being the brains behind Edge, because Sage here deserves some, too.” Tom waggled his brows at Sage. “Funny you guys haven’t met,” he said with a frown. “But I guess Vince has been on the road a lot. Poor guy has been suffering over in Italy for the past few weeks—all for the sake of Edge.”
“I spend most of my time in China, Tom,” Vince said. “Let’s not forget that. And you know China is no picnic.”
“Hey, if I could give you Italy all year round, buddy, you know I would,” Tom said. He turned to Sage. “Sage has been making her own kind of magic for Edge. She’s my best sales rep.” Tom gazed fondly down at her, pulling her in tighter. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Ah, Sage,” Vince said, his dark eyes roaming over her appreciatively. “Yes, I do believe we have spoken a few times. A pleasure to finally meet you.”
I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me more—the way Tom was practically groping Sage, the way Sage was letting him or the way Vince was gazing speculatively at Sage. I’d already pegged Tom as a wacko, but Sage? Hello? I mean, yeah, Vince was hot—dark-eyed, dark-haired, with rough-hewn yet exotic Italian looks, but this wasn’t some pickup spot in the meat-packing district. This was a fucking wake.
People grieve in different ways. If this was grieving, then maybe I should start attending more funerals. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do with my Saturday nights these days.
I felt relieved at the sight of Nick loping through the door, but whether it was because this happy little threesome had forgotten I was there, or because I didn’t exactly want to be remembered by them, I wasn’t sure. I slipped away—not that any of them noticed—and intercepted Nick at the door.
“Hey,” I said, looking up at him and noticing his dark brown hair looked a little more unkempt than usual, his eyes tired.
“Hey, Zoe. Did I miss anything?”
Oh brother. “Not much. I think there might be some supermodels left for you to hit on.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” I studied his dark eyes. “So how are you doing?” I knew at least Nick had experienced some of the shock I had, judging by the way he kept replaying his final conversation with Maggie about the ill-fated dinner plan. I understood what he was going through. I had played Maggie’s last voice mails back at least six times, listening to her cheerfully rattle off the ingredients she needed and trying to grasp how a woman could go from a clawing need for coriander to floating in the tide in the space of one evening. I wasn’t sure if it was guilt that drove me to it, or my own need to somehow grasp how she could be there one moment and gone the next.
“Not good,” he said, blowing out a breath.
I reached out, taking his hand. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, I just had a meeting with Lance—you know, my Web site developer? Anyway, it looks like he’s going to bail on me due to lack of funding.”
I dropped his hand, biting back a sigh. I guess life was made for the living. Clearly Nick had let go of whatever angst he had felt over Maggie’s sudden death.
“I thought you said you’d found a big investor.”
Nick dropped his eyes and nearly blushed. Actually, the tips of his ears turned red, which is what typically happened whenever he was embarrassed. Or angry. “Uh, she dropped out at the last minute.”
“She?” I asked, remembering that Nick’s forte was landing women, not investors. Like Bernadine, whom he still kept dangling on a thread. I wondered if maybe he’d pulled a little too hard on that thread and hit her up for a little funding. After all, she was reportedly a big shot out at a software firm in San Francisco now. “Anyone I know?”
His eyes widened, then he shook his head. “Uh, not really.” He glanced around, “Where’s Sage?”
“Over there applying for the role of wife number three,” I said, waving one hand blandly at the intimate grouping of Sage, Tom and Vince. I saw her lean in to whisper something in Tom’s ear, her gaze fastened on Vince as she did. Nah, not wife number three. If there was one thing
