In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [24]
Her stomach rumbled loudly. She hadn’t eaten since the plane last night. “Come to think of it, I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning. . . .”
Ed held out his hand and pulled her gently to her feet. She was as tall as he, and for a second they looked into each other’s eyes.
Mel took a deep breath. Whoa, she warned herself, this guy is really something. Better watch your step, honey. . . .
The assistants and the secretaries were lined up outside the door but she didn’t give them a second glance. “ ’Bye, hon,” she called airily to the glossy receptionist as she sailed out on Ed Vincent’s arm. Sometimes even petty revenge was sweet.
“Do you mind if we walk to the restaurant? It’s such a nice day.” Ed took her arm, guiding her through the throng of pedestrians as they walked south on Madison.
Thank God he hadn’t suggested a limo, she thought. That would really have put her off the big shot. It was a nice day, though, bright and sunny and crisp.
“You’re seeing New York at its best,” Ed Vincent said, thinking, amused, that she looked like a lofty Valkyrie loose on Madison Avenue, with its elegant women dressed for fall in coats and scarves. She strode along, a golden California alien, bare-legged, head up, oblivious of how she looked. She was certainly different, and that’s why he was intrigued, even if she was zany. Besides, she had certainly been to the beach house—only a woman would have described it that way, “the Psycho palace. . . .” He grinned again, thinking about it.
Her battered black leather jacket and bare legs got her a few sideways looks at the Four Seasons, though. She glanced uncomfortably at the Bill Blass–suited women who were lunching there. “I feel out of place here.”
“You needn’t,” he said easily. “Besides, you’re probably half their age.”
“I wish,” she said with a perky grin. “You are looking at a thirty-two-year-old woman, the single mother of a seven-year-old daughter, who is the love of my life.”
“That’s an admirable thing to be. I remember being the light of my own mother’s life, and how good it felt.”
“Is your mother still with us?”
He smiled at the euphemistic way she phrased it; it was so very LA. “Sadly, honey, she is not.”
“I’m sorry.” She lowered her eyes, twisting a piece of bread in her fingers. “And I’m sorry I asked that. I didn’t mean to pry.” Then she grinned at him. “That ‘honey’ thing is catching, isn’t it?”
Ed Vincent was different from what she had expected. There was something in the eyes, a wariness, a memory of deprivation imprinted on his craggy face. Despite his wealth and success, he was certainly no fat cat. She wondered about his past.
Over lunch and a bottle of wine, she told him her story, and about the conversation she had overheard where the killer named him as the intended victim. “And he said he wouldn’t miss next time,” she finished breathlessly.
“You must believe me.” She clutched his hand urgently across the table. “I was there. This happened.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did. They didn’t believe me either. Even my friend Harriet didn’t believe me, so how could I expect the cops to? Nor did the doctor. He said it was the concussion and that I was confused and I’d been dreaming.” She shrugged. “So I went back to the beach house with Harriet. I had to see for myself.
“The door was locked and we couldn’t get in, but we looked through the windows. There was no dead body in the library. ‘See,’ Harriet said to me. ‘I told you you were dreaming.’
“But, Mr. Vincent, I swear it’s true,” she said urgently. “I saw what I saw. The killer tried to make me drive him across that flooded bridge at gunpoint. I know what he looks like, I know his voice, his accent. . . . I couldn’t have dreamed all this.”
She took a deep breath, then glanced at her watch. “So there,” she concluded briskly. “I’ve told you. And now I’m catching the six o’clock back to LA.”
She gathered up her bag, spilling its contents in the process. Ed