Page 53 of Hard to Kill

She disappears behind it.

Not for long.

When she straightens up, Jimmy sees the gun in her hand.

He is throwing himself across the front seat as the bullet hits the windshield.

FORTY-THREE

A REPORTER COVERING ONE of my old trials once wrote in theTimesthat I could talk the way Gaga can sing.

But right now I have no urge to do either, because for once in my life I’m speechless.

I stare at my ex-husband. He stares at me. I assume Ben is staring at both of us.

No one moves, as if we’ve all suddenly calcified.

My ex-husband smiles finally, as if the scene is the most natural thing in the world, and why doesn’t someone mix up a pitcher of martinis?

“Hello, Jane.”

“Are you lost, Martin?”

How long has it been since we were in the same room together? How long since I’ve actuallyseenhim, if I don’t count the nights when I tried to get a glimpse of him through his restaurant window?

Then I remember.

Of course.

It was the day we signed the divorce papers at the lawyer’s office.

Before Martin can respond, Ben says, “I should probably leave.”

“Please don’t,” I say, the words sounding to me as if I’m pleading with him.

“I guess you could say I was in the neighborhood,” Martin says.

He still looks like a movie star. Still has the French accent, which I know he can make much thicker when he wants to. There was a time, and a good long time ago it was, when the combination of looks and accent and his goddamn Gallic charm made me feel as if the world had started to spin.

Not anymore.

I motion for him to take the sofa closest to him. Ben and I sit on the one facing the television set. Rip takes his usual seat at our feet. He isn’t growling at my ex-husband. Maybe when he gets to know Martin better.

“You were in theneighborhood?”

“Allen Reese and his wife, Paige, had a dinner party tonight,” Martin says. “Allen has the biggest real estate business out here, I’m told. Even bigger than your client’s.”

I’ve heard Rob Jacobson mention Allen Reese more than once. Never without the words “lying” and “thieving” or “scumbag” finding their way into the conversation at least once, and that’s when he was trying to be kind. Rob’s companyhadbeen prosperous before his trial. Not nearly as prosperous as Allen Reese’s. Nobody’s out here was.

“Well aware,” I say.

“Allen and Paige have an amazing home over on Further Lane,” Martin says.

“Happy for them.”

“Anyway,” Martin continues, “they occasionally come into my restaurant, and asked if they could auction off a dinner cookedby me for God’s Love We Deliver. It’s such a good cause, and so I agreed. Tonight was the night for me to come out. And, as I said, since I was in the neighborhood…”

He made this fluttery gesture with his hands, as if that somehow explained everything.

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