“Baklava, Vince,” I corrected, pained.
“Yeah. I see you’re making out your guest list.”
“You’re on it.”
“Good. Mind if I bring a guest?”
“Bring whoever you want. You’re not gonna tell me how you found out about Connor, are you?”
He just grinned and turned to Wills. “I’ll see you in the morning, Matheson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And plan on working next weekend. I can’t keep giving you time off.” Vince glanced at the tape.
“I know what to do with this, Mr. Vincent.”
“I want it gone. Please, Wills.” I didn’t care that my voice cracked, that I was on the verge of falling apart. “I don’t want any reminders of that time.”
“We’ll get rid of it however you say, babe.” In spite of the fact that his boss was standing only a couple of feet away, Wills put his arms around me, ran a palm up and down my back, and whispered in my ear, “We’ll light a fire in the fireplace and burn the goddamned thing, if that’s what you want.”
“Not to interrupt, but I’ve got things to do, and I’m sure you do too.”
We followed him to the foyer. “Good night, sir.”
“‘Night, Vince.”
“‘Night.”
“Mrrow.”
He stooped and ran a knuckle under her chin. “Good night to you too, cat.” And he left.
Wills shut and locked the door.
“Jesus. What a fucking mess.” I dug my thumbs into my temples. “You knew about my past, Wills, but if he’d threatened to tell your family…” To keep him from doing that, I would have gone to his hotel suite, but not to let him have sex with me in exchange for his silence. I would have killed him as I hadn’t managed to kill Franky, and it wouldn’t have kept me up a single night.
“It’s no longer an issue.” There was that flat, cold look on his face, and I knew it would have been a toss-up as to which of us killed him first. “I’ll tell you one thing, babe.” The cold look vanished, and I was back in his arms. He rubbed his cheek against my hair. “This Connor character isn’t getting invited to the wedding.”
“No.” I leaned into him, soaking up the warmth of his embrace.
“I’ve gotta put my gun away.”
“I’ll get the table cleaned off.” In the dining room, Miss Su was licking the last of the honey off Vince’s dessert plate. “Naughty puss! You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
I stood there, staring at the table, at the half-filled coffee cups, the remains of the baklava…
At the goddamned tape.
“It’s okay, babe.” Wills had come in without me realizing it. He wasn’t talking about Miss Su getting sick or the condition of the table.
“How can you say that? You know how easy it is to make copies of VHS tapes.”
“Didn’t Mr. Vincent say this was the only one?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s okay.” He picked up the tape and went into his office.
“What are we going to do with it?” I wasn’t going to feel at ease unless I knew it was really gone. “Burning it sounds like a good idea, but we’d never get rid of the smell.”
“Trust me.” He turned on a gadget I hadn’t seen before and snapped off the plastic guard on the cassette, ripped out the tape, and began feeding it into the machine. It hummed and ratcheted and shredded the tape into tiny bits of black. “I’ll take this with me tomorrow. The WBIS has a very reliable incinerator.”
“You could have done that without shredding it.”
“Yeah, but I knew you’d want to see it destroyed.” He dusted off his hands. “Now let’s finish cleaning the dining room. I want to go to bed.”
“It’s too early to go to sleep.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?” That half grin. “And if you’re good, maybe you can persuade me to tell you what I’m having engraved in your ring.”
I was very good, and as I’d suspected, it was something from our song.
* * * *
The next day, while Wills was at work, I found the address of Carnations and Roses and Orchids, Oh My and went to have a little chat with the owner.
A middle-aged, casually-dressed man stood behind the counter. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”
“Yes. A friend of mine ordered some flowers from you.” I gave him the order number.
“Oh, yes. A dozen roses in a sterling silver vase. It’s quite a popular item.” He smiled politely. “I trust he was satisfied?”
I made a noncommittal sound. “He asked that a card be included. This is the card.” I placed the wrinkled, crushed piece of card stock on the counter.
“Someone seems to have been annoyed.” He picked it up and read it, and his smile faded. “Well, I…Many men send flowers by way of apology.”
“Believe me, I’m aware of that. However, according to my friend, that wasn’t what he asked to have written on the card.”