"Richard Stone."
"Don't worry about this jerk. We've got people who dispose of men like him for a living."
Julia didn't want to think what "dispose of" might mean to the woman who'd edited an international bestseller on the top secrets of the Mob.
"Oh, Abby, that sounds great. But I'm afraid the blood's already in the water. I've got photographers camped outside my house. They're not going to give up just because Richard Stone goes away."
"Sure they are," Abby said. "I have it on good authority there's a supermodel with a bun in the oven even though her billionaire sugar daddy had a vasectomy six years ago. You're ,about to be old news."
Julia breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, Abby, that's wonderful."
"Great! Jules, I get the feeling there's something here you're not telling me."
Actually, there were a lot of things Julia hadn't told her simply because Abby hadn't allowed her time to speak. She thought about Crazy Myrtle, the fact that Lance was living with her, and the missing Veronica, and she also remembered what her mother always said about lasting relationships being rooted in truth. She adjusted her grip on the phone and aimed tor "completely reliable business associate."
"No," Julia said. "Nothing else."
Chapter Eighteen
WAY #18: Value persistence.
The single people who cope best with life are those who are persistent and surround themselves with people who don't settle for second best. People who are truly happy set their sights on their goals and then keep plugging away until they reach them.
—from 707 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
randpa calls him Twirp," Cassie was saying. "That means small, contemptible person," she explained to Lance as Julia eased down the hall toward the nursery. She could see Nick sleeping peacefully in his crib and Lance standing beside him with Cassie mounted firmly on his back. "At first, I didn't want a little brother," Cassie went on. "But I know women have longer life expectancies, so it's okay that I'm older."
"Five going on forty, huh?" Lance said softly as Julia appeared in the doorway.
"Oh, yeah," she whispered back. She took Cassie from Lance and felt the little girl's arms and legs wrap around her. "Whatcha doing, girlie?" she asked her niece.
"I'm explaining how to be a sister, because Lance doesn't have one."
"Oh?" Julia asked, eyebrows raised. "That's very nice of you."
Julia carried Cassie toward the door. She felt Lance place his hand on the small of her back and guide her around the array of toys that Cassie had left, like a trail of breadcrumbs, to follow. Don't we look like a little family, Julia thought, but she didn't protest as they eased down the long hall.
"Lance knows Shrek!" Cassie squealed.
Julia cut him an inquiring look.
"Well," he fudged, "I know a guy who works as Mike Myers's stand-in."
For Cassie, and by extension Julia, that was close enough.
"There you are!" Caroline shouted as she suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. She leaned over and fought to catch her breath. "I ought to be a size two, as many times a day as I go up and down these things," she said to no one but herself. Then she straightened, looked at Lance and Julia, and exclaimed, "His agent is here!"
Instinctively, Julia tightened her grip on Cassie, as if she were going to have to get the children to safety before the shots started to fly.
"You didn't let him in, did you?" Lance asked.
"No," Nina said, appearing behind Caroline. "He's at Myrtle's."
Caroline hadn't been exaggerating when she said she could stand in the upstairs playroom and keep an eye on Crazy Myrtle. As Julia peered through the telescope, she could see straight into what must be Myrtle's formal living room, where Richard Stone sat with the older woman, enjoying a cup of tea. At least Julia thought it was tea. It could just as easily have been human blood.
"Oh, she's enjoying this," Caroline said, sounding bitter. When a buzzer sounded from deep within the house, she bolted for the stairs. "Whites are done."
"Caroline," Julia said, "can't that wait"
Caroline wheeled. "Julia, the sun is going to come up tomorrow, whether my family has clean underwear or not." She took a step down the stairs. "I'll be right back."
With Caroline gone, Lance was next in turn for the telescope. "How's Harvey?" he asked, and Julia had to remind herself that Lance had never even met Harvey; she fought to remember that only a few days before, she had never met Lance.
"He's better," Julia said, reflecting on the quick call she'd shared with Francesca after she'd said good-bye to Abby. "He'll be in rehab for a while, but things look good."
"Great," Caroline said over the heaping pile of sheets and towels she had dropped in the center of the playroom floor.
"Mom will be glad to hear African violets haven't lost their healing power."
Caroline plopped down on the floor and started folding like a pro. Lance joined her, and Nina shifted into place for telescope duty. Julia watched Lance with the laundry. As he neatly tucked the corners of a fitted sheet into one another, she thought, He actually knows what he's doing. "You really didn't have a sister?" she asked.
He grinned. "I bake, too."
"So what did your new editor say when you told her about the lost Veronica?" Caroline asked as she segued from sheets to hand towels.
"Well ..." Julia started.
"You didn't tell her," Caroline said, sounding completely unsurprised. "Julia, you're going into business with her. She's taking a chance on you. You can't let—"
"She doesn't need to know. Abby Warner is used to dealing with the nonfiction big boys—corporate CEOs, prime ministers, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trust me, she's not going to give someone with Veronica White's sales history the time of day."
"If you say so," Caroline chimed.
"Maybe we're reading too much into this," Lance said. "Richard Stone's not going to care what type of books you used to write."
"Are you kidding?" Julia asked. "This is fresh wood for the fire. This keeps the headlines on the front page a few days longer." She looked out the window at Myrtle's house and the decaying subdivision and fought not to say, This is how my career might end.