Chapter Five

Dr. Cardigan draped the stethoscope around his neck. “Your lungs appear to be clearing nicely. How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” I said.

I know it isn’t logical, but I don’t trust a doctor who is younger than I am. Dr. Cardigan was a comfortable sixty-something with shrewd, black cherry eyes and a brisk but attentive manner. I liked him about as well as I was ever going to like a doctor, and I trusted him. Which didn’t mean I looked forward to seeing him, and if my stepsister wasn’t apparently in the employ of my mother and faithfully reporting back to HQ on my every movement, I might have blown off my appointment at Huntington Hospital.

Especially after lunching with Paul Kane. About three minutes after I agreed to ask a few informal questions on Kane’s behalf, I was having second thoughts. Anything liable to put me in Jake’s path was a bad idea. And the very thought of poking around in Porter Jones’s death was…wearying.

The black gaze met mine. “How tired?”

I shrugged. “Still short of breath, still coughing a lot.”

“That’s to be expected. Are you using oxygen at night?”

I shook my head.

“Adrien…”

“I’m not that short of breath. It’s okay with a couple of pillows.”

He gave me a disapproving look. “It’s very important that you get plenty of rest and that you do not push yourself.”

I nodded.

He studied me, and I tried not to shift uncomfortably. I hated this part. Actually, I hated all the parts of being a young guy with a funky heart. He said, “Because of your history it’s probably a good idea if we run a couple of tests, do another ECG.”

I kept myself from sighing again. He was liable to think I needed on-the-spot oxygenating. “Okay,” I said.

He raised his brows at my tone and started scribbling out prescriptions. “Meantime get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and continue taking your antibiotics.”

“Okeydokey.”

He glanced up. “And cheer up, Adrien.”

* * * * *

It had taken some doing, but I had finally persuaded Lisa to agree to riding lessons for my youngest stepsis, Emma. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I drove Em down to Griffith Park and the Paddock Riding Club to watch her go through her paces. The kid was a natural -- even more of a horse nut than I’d been at her age -- which was why I had been determined to win that particular battle with Lisa. Next, I planned on getting Em her own horse, but I knew I’d have to wait for the right psychological opportunity to spring that one. I figured I could start small and suggest a hamster.

Usually Em and I would ride together after the lessons -- Griffith Park has something like fifty riding trails -- but a little less than one week out of hospital I still didn’t feel up to it. Instead I watched her sailing over her jumps in one of the six sandy arenas -- cute as a button in her riding apparel -- and tried to think about how best to approach Porter Jones’s widow. Significant others are always the first suspects in a murder investigation -- which doesn’t say much for the course of true love.

Anyway, thinking about how to approach the widow Jones was a lot better than thinking -- brooding -- about the fact that all the things I had believed about Jake Riordan were pretty much a lie. And now that I thought back, I wasn’t sure why I’d believed he’d given up his S/M activities while he’d been seeing me. He had never specifically said so; I guess I had just assumed it. Because I wanted it to be so.

If I was honest, Jake continuing his S/M activities wasn’t even the part that gnawed my guts. It was the idea that he’d been seeing Paul Kane steadily during that time -- because I really had flattered myself that I was his first genuine relationship with another man. He’d said so. But whatever he called his encounters with old English Leather, five years was a relationship to my mind.

So, yes, it bothered me. And it bothered me that it bothered me because…Jesus Christ, it was over. It was two years over. I was involved with someone else myself, so why the hell was I standing there with the smell of manure and horse in my nostrils and my stomach in knots over something that didn’t matter anymore?

It made murder seem like a cheerful change of subject.

According to Paul Kane, the only person at the party with motive to kill Porter Jones was his much younger and soon to be ex-wife, actress Ally Beaton-Jones. If Paul’s intelligence was correct, Porter had been planning to divorce Ally, and he’d had a PI following her.

“Let me guess,” I’d said. “There’s a prenup?”

“Common sense in this day and age,” Paul had replied.

And maybe it was. I’d never reached the stage of negotiations in my affaires de coeur, as my old friend Claude would have put it.

“Adrien, watch me!”

I looked up out of my thoughts, catching Emma’s grin as she cantered toward the next jump. I gave her a thumbs-up and wondered if Lisa and Bill Dauten had drawn up a prenup, and what the odds were of my getting Em in any possible settlement.

Not that my mother’s second marriage looked shaky. Far from it. Which just went to prove how little I understood about these things. I thought of Guy and my thoughts shied as though faced with their own unexpected triple bar.

As fond of Guy as I was, I wasn’t ready to make any commitments -- and hearing from Paul Kane that he and Jake had been carrying on the whole time I’d been seeing Jake didn’t do much to improve my attitude. Why was it such a shock? After all, I’d known Jake was seeing Kate Keegan during that time -- engaging in unprotected sex that resulted in a pregnancy -- and I’d been able to deal with it. I’d even accepted it on one level. It was a little late to be angry now. Posttraumatic Sex Syndrome?

And why the hell was I once again thinking about this? Once more -- with feeling -- I redirected my thoughts.

My own impression of Ally and Porter was vague at best. If I’d realized he was going to get himself bumped off, I’d have paid closer attention. He had seemed too old for her -- and way too obsessed with deep-sea fishing. She had seemed very…blonde.

Blonde or not, I couldn’t see why she’d have to resort to murder. Granted, I was no judge, but she seemed like a girl who wouldn’t have a lot of trouble landing another meal ticket -- assuming her acting skills weren’t breadwinner caliber.

Maybe Porter had told her one too many deep-sea fishing stories. In that case, she had my sympathy. There had been a moment or two at luncheon when I wouldn’t have regretted seeing Porter impaled on a swordfish’s bill and disappearing into the sunset à la Captain Ahab in the last act of Moby Dick.

Anyway, it wasn’t like I had any theories, so Ally Beaton-Jones was as good a place to start as any. I just couldn’t imagine her willingly opening up to me -- even if she hadn’t knocked her old man off -- regardless of how sensitive and tactful Paul thought I was.

“Look, Adrien!” cried Emma.

I looked and smiled. Her cheeks were pink, her blue eyes sparkled, the dark ponytail bobbed perkily beneath her safety helmet as she cantered past, the gelding’s hooves thudding rhythmically on the sand. I never saw myself as the paternal type, but even I had to admit I was pretty damned fond of Emma.

“Heels down,” I ordered.

She giggled.

Paul had promised to phone Ally and set up my visit. That was fine as far as it went. I wondered if there was some way of my finding out the name of the PI that Jones had hired.

Jake probably knew. Jake was a methodical and relentless investigator. By now he’d be deeply immersed in Porter Jones’s public and private lives, sifting and sorting through the kinds of things most of us would prefer to have buried with us. But cops can’t afford to be tactful -- not in the ordinary course of things. In a homicide investigation every minute counts; most murders are solved within forty-eight hours. Of course, that’s because most murders are committed by morons.

Yeah, if Porter Jones had really hired a PI, Jake probably knew all about it. But there was no way I could ask him. I wasn’t going anywhere near Jake. Of course, I could always ask Paul Kane to talk to Jake, but -- funny thing -- I didn’t like that idea any better than the idea of me talking to Jake.

In fact, I liked it less.