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  She kept digging, her arms weakening, hurting from the effort of keeping them up. She’d been scratching and pounding on the same spot on the crack, concentrating all her force on three square inches. She could hear the animal working on the same spot, they had the same idea at the same time, only one idea completely occupying their animal brains, which was to get through, to finally reach the other side.

  One animal wanting life and the other wanting death.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Alice buried herself in Grady’s embrace, on the sidewalk. She loved the feel of a man’s arms around her and she brushed her cheek against his strong chin, which had just the right amount of blondish stubble. He smelled like hard soap and hard work, and she was feeling his good-provider vibe. She got so turned on that she had to stop herself from grinding her hips into him. Bennie wouldn’t know how to steam up this boy’s glasses, and Alice had to stay in character. He was a test she hadn’t expected, and she didn’t need a monkey wrench thrown into her plans, not when she was this close to getting away.

  “Well,” Grady said, smiling down at her. “Quite a greeting.”

  Buckle up, professor. “I’m happy to see you.”

  “I tried to call you, but that number was disconnected. I assume you got a new one.”

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “I know it’s impromptu, my arriving unannounced, but my flight got diverted from Pittsburgh and I came straight here from the airport. Call it an irresistible impulse. I thought maybe I could take you to dinner.” Grady put an arm around her shoulder. “By the way, this would be a good time for you to tell me you’re not married.”

  Alice smiled. “What a coincidence. I was just about to say that, and I’m not even seeing anyone, either.”

  “Nor am I. Great minds, huh?”

  “Right. Come on in.” Alice could see she’d have to get her witty banter up to speed because the felons she dated didn’t require conversation. She dug in Bennie’s messenger bag for the house key, climbed the steps, and slid it into the lock on the front door. “So, you want to go out to dinner or stay in?”

  “You, cook?”

  Oops. “No, you.”

  “Touché.” Grady stood behind her on the stoop, and Alice hoped he was looking at her ass, if he could find it in the elephant shorts. The front door swung open, and she went inside, but Grady hesitated, frowning. “Oh no. Don’t tell me that Bear died.”

  “Bear?” Alice blurted out, then caught herself as they went inside. Bear evidently wasn’t dead yet, because whimpering sounds came from the basement. “No, that’s him, but he sounds funny.”

  “Something must be the matter.”

  “Bear, Bear?” Alice called out, fake-looking around the living room, but Grady hurried toward the kitchen.

  “I think it’s coming from the basement.”

  “Really?” Alice hustled after him for show. “Bear, where are you, pal?”

  “Bennie, hurry!” Grady ran down the basement stairs. “He’s down here! He’s hurt!”

  “In the basement?”

  “I think he’s injured.” Grady climbed the stairs, holding the limp dog, whose eyes stayed closed, his head hanging down. “Poor guy, he was just lying there, crying at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “Oh my God.” Alice forced a shocked expression. “What happened? You think he fell?”

  “Must have. We need to get him to a vet. We can be at Penn emergency in no time. Where’s your car?”

  “Right down the street. I’ll go.” Alice bounded out of the kitchen, ran out the door, and hustled down the pavement. She didn’t need the dumb dog to screw up her plans, and he’d better die on the way to the hospital. She reached Bennie’s car, jumped inside, started the engine, and double-parked in front of her house just as Grady appeared on the sidewalk with the dog. She got out and opened the back door so he could set the dog on the backseat.

  “How’s that, old boy?” Grady gave the dog a soft pat, and Alice suppressed an eye-roll.

  “Great, let’s go,” she said, and Grady jumped in the passenger seat. She hit the gas and shot to the end of the street, where she realized she had no idea how to get to Penn Vet. It sounded like they’d been there before, and it was something the real Bennie would have known. She stopped the car and faked a beginner sob. “Can you drive? I’m too upset.”

  “Sure, sorry, I should have thought of that.” Grady jumped out and ran around to the driver side, and Alice switched places with him, turning her face away to hide her not-tears.

  “This is so horrible.” Alice tried to cry.

  “I always knew this day would come. But not yet, not tonight.” Grady hit the gas and steered around the corner, sped across the Parkway, and headed for Eakins Oval, then took a right over the bridge.

  “I walked him before I went to work, and he seemed fine.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. He’s old, he probably lost his footing and fell.” Grady hit the gas, running the light. “The door to the basement was closed. You must’ve closed it, not realizing he was down there.”

  “I guess he didn’t make any noise. He never makes a fuss.”

  “Such a good dog.”

  “The best dog in the world.” Alice felt trapped in a greeting card or maybe a fuzzy puppy calendar.

  “Don’t worry.” Grady steered past Victorian row houses with Greek frat signs. “You know how good they are at Penn. Remember when he ate the tennis ball?”

  No. “Yes.”

  “They got him through that, they’ll get him through this.” Grady tore through Powellton, running two red lights, then twisted the car onto Spruce Street and hit the gas. There wasn’t much traffic, the University area was empty for summer, and nobody was on the street.

  “We lucked out on the traffic.”

  “I’ll say. Hang on!” Grady zoomed up the street and at the top, steered into an empty parking lot in front of a modern building. The sign read UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA VETERINARY HOSPITAL, and he cut the gas and put on the emergency brake. “You get the door, I’ll get Bear.”

  “Okay.” Alice jumped out of the car, ran around to the backseat, and opened it while Grady scooped up the dog in a fireman’s carry. They hurried to the building, hustled through the lobby, and made a beeline for the emergency room. The registration desk was on the right, and a young female vet student behind the glass rose, concerned.

  “Car accident?”

  Alice shook her head. “No, he fell down the steps.”

  “Has he been here before?”

  “Yes. It’s Bear, my dog. I’m Bennie Rosato.”

  “Stay right there.” The vet student hurried out of sight, and Alice wondered if vets could tell if a dog had been kicked, like doctors could with abused kids. Quickly a vet appeared with a large assistant, who took Bear from Grady and carried him away, back through the swinging EMPLOYEES ONLY doors.

  “Thank you so much.” Alice watched them go with pretend emotion, and the student vet smiled in a sympathetic way.

  “We need your permission to do an X-ray to see if he has any broken bones and to make sure he didn’t ingest a foreign object. We’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything. We’ll pull his records, and I’ll bring you the intake form later.”

  “Thanks, take good care of him,” Grady said, as the vet student hurried off. He turned to Alice, and in the light, she could see how handsome he was, even with glasses. His eyes were large and light gray, his crow’s feet gave him a relaxed, almost intellectual look, and his hair was thick blond curls, like a halo. Plus he had a small nose, a strong jaw, and the most kissable mouth she had ever seen on a lawyer.

  “I’m so worried.” Alice bit her lip. Tears magically filled her eyes. “I don’t want to lose him.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Grady whispered, taking her in his arms. “I’m so glad I’m here.”

  “Me, too,” Alice said, holding him tight.

  The only thing better than reunion sex is comfort se
x.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Mary sat across from Judy on the floor, her back propped against the wall and her bare legs stretched out in front of her, on the worn hardwood floor. Her feet were bare, and she forgot where she left her shoes. She was comfortable, if only because of the third margarita. On the floor between them sat fragrant containers of lo mein, a red foil bag of spare rib bones, two dirty paper dishes with undersized plastic forks, and a hot laptop.

  Judy picked up the tequila bottle, squinting at the label. “Mare, what does reposado mean? It’s Spanish.”

  “Obviously, it means delicious.”

  Judy smiled. “Good one.”

  “My humor improves with drink.”

  “So does your brief writing.”

  “To us.” Mary raised her tumbler. “We did an excellent job.”

  “We always do. The lo mein helps.”

  “Every brief we’ve ever done together, we order lo mein.”

  “It’s our secret weapon.”

  Mary felt a warm rush. She loved hanging out with Judy. Her paintings leaned against the wall in vivid stacks, and the shelves held old coffee cans of washed paintbrushes and wooden boxes of oil paints. Somehow it looked right, even coordinated, with a big white four-poster with a funky gauze canopy. Judy was so talented in so many ways, and Mary would always be a little in awe of her.

  Judy smiled. “You’re getting all melty again. What’s going on with you? You’re even more emotional than usual lately.”

  “I know, right?” Mary’s throat went thick. “I’m not sure why.”

  “Is it partnership? You worried about making it?”

  “Yes, but it’s not only that. It’s Anthony, and the house thing. It’s hard, all of it together.”

  Judy frowned. “I thought you were excited about the house. He was telling me about one you saw on Bainbridge, the trinity.”

  Mary felt that twinge again. “It needs tons of work, and it’s so dark inside.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Looking at houses with him, and moving in together, that’s great, but there’s questions to deal with. Can we look at houses out of our price range? What if I can afford a nicer house than he can? Do I put him on the deed? Is it weird if I don’t?” Mary thought a minute. “And what do we do, after we move in? Am I his landlord? Do I ask him for half the mortgage each month?”

  “Lots of hard questions.” Judy looked serious. “You tell me. What do you want to do?”

  “If I make partner, the difference in our income, the disparity, it’s just ridiculous.” The more Mary thought about it, the more uncomfortable she felt. Even telling Judy made her feel like she was ratting out Anthony. “He’s living on his savings, writing his book.”

  “You guys talked about this, right?”

  “A little.”

  Judy shrugged, and melting ice tinkled in her tumbler. “So maybe you need to talk about it more.”

  “That will embarrass him.”

  “How?”

  “Because it makes him feel bad that I make more money than he does.”

  Judy half-smiled. “I think he’s aware of that.”

  “So why rub it in?”

  “How do you know he feels bad?”

  “I can tell.” Mary’s chest tightened. “If we go out to dinner, he’ll try to pay, so that means we can’t go anyplace nice. He’ll let me split it sometimes, but that’s always uncomfortable. I give the waiter my credit card, and Anthony gives me the cash, and the waiter always brings the credit card back to him.”

  “Always a wonderful moment.” Judy wrinkled her nose.

  “Yeah, great, huh? So now we’re getting a house together, and he’s going to live with me, and it’s going to get weirder if I make partner. I don’t know what to do. You would think after dating all this time we’d have figured this out, but we haven’t.”

  Judy took a sip of her drink. “I’m lucky, with Frank. He loves being a contractor and his business is doing terrific.”

  “Everything’s good when the boy makes more than the girl.”

  “Hey.” Judy winced. “You know money isn’t a big deal with me.”

  “I know, sorry, I didn’t mean that about you. It isn’t with me either. But it is with men, at least with Anthony. They still measure their self-worth by their salaries.”

  “Unlike women, who measure it by their hair, faces, and bodies.” Judy smiled. “He’s writing a book, and when he gets published, he’ll have money.”

  “If it gets published. It’s hard, especially a biography in an academic press. And what if it doesn’t, or if the advance is super low? It will make him feel terrible.”

  “He’ll go back to teaching.”

  “He could. He says he’d like to talk to Penn.”

  “Okay, so there you have it.”

  Mary knew it wasn’t that easy. Anthony had been a professor at Fordham when she met him, on his sabbatical in Philadelphia, but he’d left to stay with her. She couldn’t help but feel as if she owed him.

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but, the other night, you know . . .” Mary rubbed her forehead. She wished she hadn’t had any tequila. As a drunk, she was a downer.

  “Mare, it’s okay to love Anthony. It’s okay to go on.” Judy smiled, sadly. “So be happy. Okay?”

  “Okay, right. Will do.” Mary checked her watch. “Well, I guess it’s time to go.”

  Judy cocked her head, sympathetic. “You can stay here if you want. I’ll give you the bed and I’ll take the sleeping bag.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’m supposed to decide whether to look at houses tomorrow and call Anthony to let him know.”

  “So decide, and call him.”

  Mary could easily go house-hunting. The brief was done, and her only other option was church. “I can’t decide.”

  “So talk to him about that, then. Call him, right now.”

  “You want me to drunk dial my boyfriend?”

  “Maybe that’s what reposado means,” Judy said, with a crooked smile.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Bennie had no strength left. Her arms lay useless at her sides. She could barely stay conscious. The animal kept growling and clawing his spot, but her body was admitting defeat. She lay there, gasping for breath, hiccupping for oxygen, reduced to an organism trying to survive.

  Her chest barely moved in and out, and she was beyond pain and fear. Her will was slipping away. A calm washed over her, and an acceptance. Her thoughts turned to Bear, then the office and the girls, Mary, Judy, Anne. She hated to leave them, and she regretted not telling them how much she really loved them, but it was too late now. She was suffocating to death, and she couldn’t pound, claw, or scream anymore. It hadn’t worked. At least she went down fighting.

  Her heart started beating harder and faster, pounding in her chest, and she started writhing in the box. She tried to stay still, to conserve whatever oxygen she still had, but she couldn’t stop twisting and turning. The only sound she heard was her own gasping, her chest buckling but never expanding, her lungs never filling, there was nothing to fill them with, nothing left at all.

  She started coughing, and her head felt like someone had taken an axe straight down the center of her brain, and she couldn’t think a single thought, her heart thumping too many beats a minute, and she realized that this would be how she died, in darkness, filth, and urine. She had always thought she was better than this, but in the end, she wasn’t, at all.

  The coughing stopped, or she stopped hearing it, and she drifted back in the darkness, in a vacuum that was her lungs, and maybe her very body would turn itself inside out or pop, then she was thinking of her mother again, and finally she found herself remembering the one who got away, the man she loved truly. He was the love of her life, she knew it now, with absolute certainty, and every beat of her heart.

  And it made it worse to know it only now, when her heart was, at last, stopping.

  Chapte
r Thirty

  Alice rested her head on Grady’s shoulder on the car ride home, her eyes closed, playing her part. The stupid dog hadn’t died yet, although the vet had told them that they’d know more in the morning, after they’d run all their tests. She hoped for good news, when she would have to imagine something sad enough to make her cry, like not getting laid for another week.

  “Here we are,” Grady said softly, parking in front of Bennie’s house and twisting off the ignition. “I know you’re upset because you didn’t yell at me for not using my blinkers.”

  Oops, again. “You got a bye, this time.”

  “Hang in.” Grady patted her bare knee, and Alice felt a rush of warmth. She got out of the car, and he materialized at her side, put an arm around her shoulder, and helped her to the front door. She’d always gone for bad boys, but she could see the appeal in a Boy Scout, especially Bennie’s Boy Scout.

  Alice reached into the bag for the keys, opened the door, and they went inside, where he closed the door, and she dropped the bag on the couch, faking a sad face. “It’s so quiet, with Bear not coming to the door. I should’ve known something was wrong when he didn’t meet me.”

  “You were distracted by my surprise visit.” Grady smiled tenderly at her, and she faked a simpy smile back.

  “I know, I was so shocked to see you.”

  “I’d love to stay tonight, but if you want to be alone, I understand.”

  “I’d love you to stay. Actually, I need you to stay.” Alice flashed him another simpy smile, which must have worked because he wrapped his arms around her again.

  “Good, because I need you, too,” he whispered into her ear, and Alice nestled her cheek against his white shirt, soft from a day’s wearing. Underneath she could feel the hard muscles of his arms, which got her juices flowing. He seemed a few years younger, and who knew Bennie was a cougar?