A red-nose pit bull and a black Scottish terrier appeared alongside her, Loosey Goosey and Blue. They peeked in the doorway, smiling their dog smiles, wagging their tails, waiting for an invitation.

  “Hi, girls,” Gwen called, inviting them in.

  Loosey Goosey, fondly known as the Goose, was Isabel’s constant companion of five years, a happy-go-lucky dog who carried around stuffed animals the way children carry teddy bears. She loved everyone and everything, especially if it included hiking, swimming, or going to the office with Isabel every day.

  And then there was Blue, who had been hit by a car on the bitter cold night of a blue moon. With broken teeth and a concussion, she’d been left for dead until a Good Samaritan called animal control. But the Scottie had been vicious—pain-aggressive, as Isabel called it—and when her owners never claimed her, Isabel received a call from a friend at the shelter who knew too well that aggressive dogs could not be put up for adoption. It had taken two weeks before Gwen or Isabel could touch her, but she was now an affectionate and loyal dog with an over-inflated image of herself and a highly evolved sense of humor to match. A poker-face comedian she was, sometimes to the point of silliness. But Blue was as discerning as she was silly; her sensory perceptions were extraordinary. As Rosa the housekeeper put it, Blue had the sight, and that was cause for an immediate bond between Gwen and the dog, a bond that extended beyond intelligence and into the realm of spiritualism.

  Isabel looked around and sighed. “Remember when I broke the other rook playing Frisbee with Alley in the living room?”

  Gwen frowned halfheartedly as she straightened up and adjusted her sweater. “How could I forget?”

  “I almost ran away from home that day.”

  “I know…I caught you and Alley leaving the grounds with your pajamas and dog biscuits in a paper bag.”

  Isabel smiled wistfully. “What was I—eleven at the time? And when you discovered the broken rook you didn’t even yell.”

  Gwen sighed and looked around the gallery…the art…the memories. “My beloved niece and beloved dog. How could I have stayed mad at either one of you? It was an accident, after all.” She gazed around the room. “Every piece of pottery in here is exquisite, but…in the end it’s only clay.”

  “Half a million dollars’ worth of clay.”

  “Mmm…” Gwen smiled dreamily, but then her smile dissipated and her thoughts went astray. “Have you heard of her?”

  “Who?”

  “Ms. Weller. She’s a writer.”

  “Weller?” Isabel mused. “Samantha Weller, the mystery writer?”

  “Yes, Samantha. She writes mysteries.”

  “That was Samantha Weller on the phone?”

  “You’ve heard of her?”

  “Don’t you read The New York Times book reviews? She’s gained considerable popularity with fans of the mystery genre. She writes the Detective Crowley series. I think I saw an ad for a new book coming out.”

  “Have you read anything of hers?” Gwen asked.

  “Only the first book. She’s a good writer, but you know me…I’m not big on paranormal themes and all that dark fantasy. I thought I recommended it to you when I was done, though.”

  “I don’t recall…” Arms still folded beneath her sweater, Gwen brought her fingers to her chin and nodded to herself. “I’d like to read some of her work before I meet her. How many books does she have out?”

  “Several, I’m sure. I might still have that first one in my library.”

  “If not, I’ll get them on my Kindle.” Gwen bent down, rubbing Blue’s back. “She’s coming for lunch Thursday and bringing her sister-in-law, Liz…an antique dealer. I’d like it if you could arrange to join us.”

  “Sure. I’d love to meet them.” Isabel wrapped her hair behind her ear and smiled at her. “Can I get you anything before bed?”

  “No, darling.”

  “Are you going to bed now?”

  “No. I think I’ll stay up a while with a cup of tea.”

  “I’ll make it for you.”

  “Thank you, darling, but I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Gwen fought the urge to clench her teeth. “You know what? On second thought, I think I’ll have a drink.”

  “A drink?” A perplexed crease appeared between Isabel’s eyes. “Since when do you drink before bed?”

  “Never. But I might tonight…if it’s okay with you.”

  Isabel just stared at her.

  “Is there something else?” Gwen asked. It was hard to get snippy with someone who meant well, but right now Gwen wanted to be alone, to think about her conversation with Samantha Weller.

  “No…I guess I’ll say good night, then.”

  “Good night, darling.”

  Isabel stared oddly at her for a moment, but finally took the hint and patted her thigh. “Come on, girls—let’s go to sleep.”

  Goose nudged Gwen, and Gwen bent to kiss her on her heavily muscled head. And then Blue, who would not be left out, punched Gwen’s leg with her nose, and Gwen kissed her, too. “Good night, girls,” she said as they both raced ahead to follow Isabel. In the doorway, Blue stopped to glance back at Gwen with a twinkle in her eyes, then trotted off to catch up with the others.

  Gwen was glad to be alone again, but here came Isabel again, handing her a book. “Sorry to disturb you,” she apologized with a hint of sarcasm, “but if you’re hoping to read one of Weller’s books before Thursday, you better get started.”

  “Oh! Why thank you, sweetheart.” Gwen looked at the cover and then turned the book over, smoothing her hand over the photo of Samantha Weller and her crow. “She looks like Rachel Maddow,” she remarked.

  Isabel leaned in to have a look. “Maybe a little bit…I don’t know. It might just be her dark eyes and the haircut. She’s attractive, though.”

  “Hmm…she is.” After Isabel left again, Gwen laid the book on the library table in the center of the room, the back cover faceup, then removed the rook from its showcase and placed it beside the book. Walking slowly around the table, admiring the rook from different angles, she smiled to herself as she recalled the mystery writer’s description of the bird’s countenance. She had never thought of the bird as a sentinel.

  But now, upon closer inspection, it did appear to be guarding something…in an affable sort of way, of course. Ms. Weller’s oh-so-serious description made her smile broaden, but as she thoughtfully circled the rook, her smile faded, and she began wondering just what the rook might be protecting. She wished the bookend were real, wished she could shoo the bird from its esoteric treasure, brush away the tangles of Persian-rose flowers, and possess the secrets inscribed on those imaginary pages made from clay.

  The more she gazed at the rook, the more it seemed to gaze back at her, and it occurred to Gwen that Ms. Weller had been right; the rook knew something they didn’t. Gwen left the rook on the table, tucked the book under her arm, and shut off the lights. She made her way down the hallway, into the formal dining room and over to sliding doors that opened to her ballroom. Everyone in the Laraway family knew how to dance. Gwen loved ballroom dancing, Isabel loved to salsa, and both enjoyed house music when DJs were hired for their seasonal parties. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and aside from a bar at one end and sound equipment at the other, there was nothing but polished floors. From a small refrigerator behind the bar she took out a jar of olives and a bottle of brine, and made herself a dirty gin martini.

  Carrying her cocktail and book into the living room, she slid out of her sandals and settled into a comfortable chair, crossing her ankles on the ottoman in front of her. She smiled at the back cover again. What a lovely photograph. What an interesting woman. And what an unexpected evening it had turned out to be.

  Chapter Six

  Samantha had offered to drive into the city, but with rush-hour traffic, Liz insisted on saving her the aggravation. She hopped a cab to Grand Central Station and from there took Metro-North to the Goldens Bridge station. Driving a black Range Rover, Samantha pulled up at ten o’clock and was waiting when the train pulled in.

  They swung by Samantha’s rented Tudor for bagels and coffee, and a proper introduction to Bertha, and by eleven were finally on the road.

  “Is that the Laraway address in your GPS?” Liz asked.

  “It is.”

  “Let it recalculate. Ed gave me better directions,” she said, taking out a folded paper from her bag. “Instead of taking 684 to 84 west to the Taconic, we’ll take 84 east to Route 8 and cut through Connecticut. It’ll save us ten miles.”

  “Good. That shortens the trip.” Samantha turned onto 684, and before long they were resuming their conversation from dinner the other night.

  Samantha was amazed to learn about collectibles from the sixties and seventies—everything from toys to cereal boxes—and she wondered, nostalgically, about all the old toys and comic books she’d discarded over the years.

  “I recently sold a huge Barbie collection,” Liz said.

  “Your personal Barbie collection?”

  “Yeah, why? Does that surprise you?”

  Samantha shrugged as she glanced in her mirror and switched lanes. “It just strikes me as unusual that you played with Barbie dolls.”

  “You mean because I’m a lesbian?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I’ll have you know that Barbie, Ken, Midge, Skipper, and all the rest had a tremendous impact on my interpersonal skills and social development.”

  “Barbie and Ken? The epitome of heterosexuality?” Samantha looked over at her and snickered. “What the heck went wrong?”

  Liz pursed her lips. “Well, everything was fine in the straight world until, one day, while Ken was away on a business trip and Skipper was at camp, Midge came over for a swim and found Barbie by the pool. Midge made margaritas, Barbie put on music, one thing led to another and—what can I say?—the whole Mattel household went to hell.”

  Samantha shook her head and laughed. “I will confess that I had a G.I. Joe doll that I sort of permanently borrowed from the boy next door. And I did have a Barbie doll, just the one, but she was more like my imaginary friend. We camped out in the backyard together a lot. My dad even built her a spaceship out of Styrofoam so we could go on great space adventures. I remember making her a space suit out of aluminum foil and Saran Wrap, and a space pack out of a matchbox covered in foil that was attached to her suit with rubber bands.”

  “Wow, how clever…and what fun. We would have played well together. But just so you know, my Barbie would have seduced your Barbie in outer space.”

  Samantha chuckled. “You mean something like, let me help you with your suit?”

  “More like, let me help you out of your suit. And hopefully you’d have had some wine and cheese in that space pack of yours.”

  “Plenty of wine and cheese. NASA believes in redundant backup systems.”

  Samantha glanced at Liz as they laughed together. She was wearing a flirty floral skirt that popped her auburn hair, a green blouse to match her eyes, and silver jewelry that complemented and gave her outfit a casual, summery feel. She looked as if she should have been traveling into the city, not away from it. “You look very pretty,” she said.

  “Thanks. You look very nice, too, Sam, but why are you so dressed up?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “I’m no more dressed up than you. We’re going there on business, really…so I figured I should look presentable…worthy of her rook!”

  But that was a lie. Samantha had spent the whole morning agonizing over what to wear, trying on so many different slacks and blouses that by the time she finished there were more clothes on the bed than in the closet. In the end she wore white pants, a red gingham shirt, navy blazer, and low red pumps.

  “You look like you belong on a yacht, Sam…if not the Minnow.”

  “The Minnow?”

  “Yeah, remember Gilligan’s Island? When I first saw you at the train station, I thought Thurston Howell the Third had come to pick me up.”

  “You’re bad,” Samantha said. “You’re so bad that I’m going to make a U-turn now and go home to change my outfit.”

  “Oh, stop.” Liz smacked Samantha’s arm. “I’m just teasing. You’re too young and pretty to be Thurston.”

  “Really, though, do I look too…nautical?”

  “What’s going on with you? Why are you so self-conscious?”

  “Gwen is gay.”

  “How can you know that? You were supposed to call her about a bookend. What kind of conversation did you have with the woman?”

  “A very interesting one…flirtatious at times, in a reserved sort of way.” Samantha told her all about their conversation.

  “And now you’re crushing on her? Geez, Sam, not for nothing, but…I think the woman might be in her late seventies.”

  “Impossible. She didn’t sound that old.”

  “I’m not saying she’s old-old. People stay young these days. Seventy is the new sixty, right? I’ve met plenty of very attractive women in their seventies, let me tell you. I tried to sleep with one or two of them, but neither had any interest in me.” Liz sighed. “But in terms of having a long-term relationship? I’m just saying…”

  “I think you’re wrong about her age.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Don’t start,” Samantha warned her, forcing a frown to hide her smile. Liz was funny, fun to be with, she had to admit, and she liked their inexplicable closeness, despite the fact that they were really just getting acquainted. “And just so you know, I do have a white captain’s hat to match my outfit, and I did bring it with me. I just can’t wear it while I’m driving because it sits too high,” she said, putting her hand between the top of her head and the roof of the car.

  Liz snorted at her. “I so hope you’re kidding.”

  Samantha laughed. “Yeah. I’m kidding.”

  “Good, because if you showed up to claim your Rookwood bookend wearing a captain’s hat, I think it would be a deal breaker.” She looked over, her smile fading. “So what about you, Sam? What’s your story?” she asked as they turned onto 84.

  “My story?”

  “Yeah. The other night you asked me about my love life. What about yours? How come you’re not in a relationship?”

  “I was for almost ten years. I ended it several years ago and let her buy me out of our house. That’s why I’m renting one right now. I feel like, now that I’m writing full-time and not tied to a job location, I can live anywhere, really. I’m just too busy writing to figure out where I want to live.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “With the relationship? Whatever usually goes wrong…people change, grow apart, fall out of love…I don’t know. My ex was very controlling. Even when we were first dating, our mutual friends used to jokingly refer to her as ‘the boss’ and a ‘complainer,’ but I was so crazy about her those first few years I didn’t see it. Sometimes things just slowly chip away at you, and then, one day, your eyes open and you see things you should have seen in the beginning. My advice to myself at this point in life is to pay close attention to the red flags.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that the things you end up hating about a person are all right there on the first date—the red flags—but we choose to ignore them.”

  “Yeah, well, we overlook a lot of things when we’re getting pussy.”

  Samantha laughed. “I suppose.”

  “So you’re not getting any now?”

  “What, pussy?” Samantha blushed.

  “Am I embarrassing you?”

  “You are,” Samantha said, shaking her head. “I’m not in the habit of discussing my sex life in those terms.”

  “Well, you should be. Even lesbians need besties, you know, someone to confide in and—quick, Sam, get over. Route 8 is coming up on your left.”

  Samantha moved to the left as the road split. “Okay, if you must know, I’m not ‘getting any’ at the moment.”

  “At the moment meaning…since you left your ex?”

  “There was one after that. We were together—not living together, although exclusive—for about a year, but then she wanted to take it further, and my heart wasn’t in it. After that I dated several women…just dated. It’s hard to find a woman who likes big, black birds.”

  “Poor Bertha. And poor you. That’s a long time to go without sex. How do you do it?”

  “It hasn’t been that long,” Samantha defended herself.

  “Yeah, it has. Don’t you ever like to just…you know…hook up, fuck around?”

  “Sure. I’d love to fuck around. With a girlfriend or a partner.”

  Liz looked surprised. “I didn’t realize ‘the captain’ was so conservative.”

  “Sorry, but I have little interest in sex with someone I don’t know and don’t care about. Sex for the sake of sex doesn’t appeal to me the way it does to you.”

  “Hey, don’t judge,” Liz said.

  “I’m not judging. But I do have almost fifteen years on you. Perspectives change. You’ll see when you meet the right one.” Samantha glanced at her. “Unless, of course, your intimacy issues go unresolved.”

  Liz raised her brow as though insulted. “I don’t have intimacy issues. I really don’t. There’s nothing in my childhood that would have caused them. I had loving parents and grandparents, all of them happily married, and aside from having to share a bedroom with an egocentric, pain-in-the-ass sister from hell, my childhood was good. I don’t know what it is, Sam. I just haven’t met a woman I can tolerate being in the same room with for more than twenty-four—” Suddenly her mouth dropped open, and she looked over at Samantha as though she’d just had an epiphany. “Shit, Sam, maybe my sister did cause me intimacy issues. Maybe she’s the reason I can’t stand the idea of having to share a bedroom with someone. Damn,” she said and stared out the window.

  “You can make that check out to cash,” Samantha teased her, “and we’ll schedule another therapy session for next week.”

  “I’m surprised your brother doesn’t need one. I don’t know how he lives with her. She never shuts up.”

 

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