Page 62 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“And apologize.”

I nodded again.

“Damn, I hate apologizing! It isn’t just this. We’ve said things since this happened that we shouldn’t have said…”

“So get over it.” I could barely even whisper by then. It’s amazing how whispering can strain your throat.

“The heck of it is, I didn’t intend to hit him at all. We’d been arguing and we were both mad, but I had an appointment and had to leave. He followed me out, still arguing. You know Jazz, know how stubborn he is. He had a point he wanted to make, and intended to drive it into the ground. I started backing up and he was still standing there, waving his arms and yelling, and I was so mad I shoved the gear shift into Park so I could get out and yell in his face, except I didn’t shove it all the way up, and my foot was on the gas, and, well, right then I wouldn’t have minded if I had hit him, but it wasn’t deliberate. The next thing I knew the air bag was in my lap, my glasses were broken, and my nose was bleeding.” Ruefully she rubbed the tiny bump on her nose. “A broken nose at my age. And now I’ll have to live with that dreck.”

Smiling, I shook my head. “I talked to Monica. She’ll take the furniture back and work with you to redo your bedroom the way you like. She does other styles, too, you know. I think you’ll even like her. Plus I told her Mom would spread the word to her real estate clients that Monica isn’t a one-note Joanie, that she can do things other than steel and glass.”

“If she does, I’ve never seen it,” said Sally doubtfully.

“That’s because most of her clients are people who like her signature style. She wants to branch out more, attract other clients. Redoing your bedroom will be good business for her.”

“I’m not willing to pay one more cent to her. Twenty thousand dollars!”

“She isn’t asking for more money. She isn’t the bad guy here. There isn’t a bad guy.”

“Well, crap.”

If I could have laughed, I would have. We looked at each other in perfect understanding.

“I’ll call him tonight,” she said, and sighed. “I’ll apologize. I’m an eagle and he’s a penguin. He can’t fly. Got it.”

“I took him to see a piece Mr. Potts was refinishing, a big armoire. Mr. Potts told him he’d already put in around sixty hours on it. Jazz will never know furniture, but now he has a better appreciation of how much work you put into your bedroom.”

“Oh, God, Blair, thank you,” she said, grabbing me and hugging me again. “I hope we would have worked it out on our own, eventually, but you’ve speeded up the process.”

“It just needed an outside view,” I said modestly.

Chapter

Twenty-seven

All that talking had done a number on my whisper, so I stopped at a pharmacy for a jar of Vicks ointment, intending to give it a try. I would smell like a cough drop, but if this stuff would help my throat I didn’t care how I smelled. I intended to have the Big Talk with Wyatt that night, so it would help if I could, well,talk.

I was on my way to a third fabric store when Wyatt called my cell and told me to come back to the police department. He was in lieutenant mode; his tone of voice made it an order, not a request.

Frustrated, I changed directions. I remembered to watch and see if any of the cars behind me changed direction, too. None did.

I wasn’t going to be able to put this wedding together on time. The Fates were against me. I accepted that, now. I wouldn’t be able to find the material for a gown, the wedding cake maker wouldn’t come through, the caterer would bail out, and all the silk flowers that were supposed to be woven through the arbor would get some mysterious silk rot and fall to pieces. Wyatt hadn’t evenstartedsanding and repainting the arbor. I might as well save myself the wear and tear on my nerves and give up.

In a pig’s eye, I would. The stakes were too high. It was either do it, or find myself in some drive-up wedding chapel in Las Vegas.Ifwe got married.

This was driving me nuts.

When I got to the police department, Detective Forester met me in the parking lot. He must have been waiting for me, because he said, “You’re going to the hospital with me. We have permission to look at photographs and review film, if it still exists. The hospital chief of security is checking that out as we speak.”

The front passenger seat of his car was piled high with notebooks, files, reports, a clipboard, a can of Lysol, and some other official stuff. I wondered why he needed the Lysol, but didn’t ask. I picked up the stuff out of his seat, slid in, and held everything on my lap while I buckled up. The files looked interesting, but I didn’t have time to read them. Maybe he’d have to stop and get gas or something; I could give them a quick look-see then.

At the hospital he asked for the chief of security by name, and in a few minutes we were met by a short, slender man in his forties, with close-cropped hair and the erect posture of someone who hasn’t been out of the military very long.

“I’m Doug Lawless, chief of security,” he said, shaking hands with a brisk, firm up-and-down when Forester introduced both himself and me. “Let’s go to my office, Ms. Mallory, to review the photographs in question first, then the security tape if necessary.”

We followed Lawless to an office that was nicely middle-of-the-road—not so big that it would inspire jealousy, but not so small that he’d get the idea he wasn’t appreciated. I’ve heard hospital politics can be cutthroat.

“I pulled up the files myself,” he said, “and pasted the only photographs into a separate file, so no privacy concerns will be compromised. Sit here, please.” He indicated his chair in front of an LCD monitor and I sat down. “This is everyone with whom you came in contact the night of your accident,” he said. “This includes radiology and nuclear medicine, as well as laboratory personnel. And admitting, of course.”

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