Chapter Six

December 18, 2003

 

He should have been working but he was trolling message boards for A-Rod gossip and watching the deadline clock tick down on ESPN. How could a man be expected to work when the Red Sox could be in the midst of pulling off the greatest positive trade in the team’s exalted history? Because of course the greatest trade was the poisonous Babe Ruth trade that had cursed the team for the rest of time. Red Sox Nation was undecided about whether or not there was an actual curse, but there were more believers every year, every year that the Red Sox put out a good team-maybe even, some years, arguably, the best team-and still managed to lose in inexplicable fashion. If you didn’t start believing there was a curse, you’d go mad.

            “I can’t believe we’re watching a countdown clock to a trading deadline.” Danny shook his head at ESPN. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

            “This is it, Danny,” announced Gray, expansively. “This is the trade. If Theo can get this done-and in Theo I trust, my friend-then we have a truly fighting chance. I mean, A-Rod in that lineup would be a match even for the most stubborn curse, don’t you think?”

            “Gray, not being a Red Sox fan, I will leave the philosophizing to you.”

            “What are you two doing in here?” asked Lucy, curiously, entering Gray’s office just as he sat on the couch next to Danny.

            “We’re watching ESPN,” Gray answered.

            “That sounds like exactly what the two of you should be doing.”

            “Danny, go see if you’re needed downstairs,” said Gray.

            “You’re not budging?” Lucy guessed.

            “Not until they flash across the screen how the Red Sox got A-Rod. And then I am going to, possibly, dance a jig.”

            “Well, that’s something I’d like to see.”

            “Stick around.”

            “I’d love to, but I have actual work to do. Halcourt showed up, and he wants to be personally welcomed to the Bienvenue.”

            “He wants to be bienvenued to the Bienvenue,” said Danny, which earned him a sigh of disgust from Gray.

            “I’ll be down to see him once I hear what’s going on with A-Rod.”

            “He’s not going to be happy to hear he’s taking a back seat to the Red Sox.”

            “Well, too bad. Everything in life takes a back seat to the Red Sox.”

            “My, this looks like a party,” said his mother, breezing into the office.

            “It is, but not really my type,” Lucy informed her, as she departed.

            “What are the two of you doing?”

            “The A-Rod trade,” said Gray. “What are you doing?”

            “I’ve come to see if you want to meet my editor.” His mother fairly beamed at him.

            Oh, God. Gray barely suppressed the eyeroll. His mother had been going on and on about her editor, on and on about how she was writing her memoirs. Gray was sick to death of hearing about it. “No, thanks,” he said.

            “She thinks the story of my life sounds just fascinating.”

            “Uh-huh,” said Gray, as the countdown clock hit ten seconds, the SportsCenter anchors talking a mile a minute to get in everything they wanted to say before the news hit.

            “You’re not paying attention at all.”

            The clock hit zero, and Gray frowned, waiting for something to happen. The SportsCenter anchors kept going over the same statistics they had been going over for days now, showing the same footage.

            “Well,” remarked Danny. “This is very exciting.”

            “It’ll break. The news will break. It just hasn’t come through yet.”

            “I’m going to go meet my editor now,” his mother announced, to no one in particular. “You know, if she weren’t married, she would make a wonderful girl for you.”

            “Mom, I don’t need help finding a wonderful girl.”

            “I was talking to Danny,” his mother said, severely, as she swept out of the room.

 

Kaye Neufeld was not exactly feeling intimidated. That wasn’t the word she would use. Although clearly she was supposed to be. Oh, yes, very clearly that was the reason she had been stuck in this huge room with this huge window high up over the valley of Las Vegas and left to brood. To be shown her place in the scheme of things. Kept waiting by her client. It happened often, especially when the client was somebody with money, some sort of place in the random celebrity history of the country. Real authors tended to treat their editors with a lot more respect.

            Except that when Moira Scott Lowenby finally swept through the doorway, she apologized so profusely that Kaye had a hard time staying offended. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. No one told me you were up here. And you’re early.”

            “I am?” Kaye repeated, and looked at her watch. “Wasn’t our meeting for two?”

            “I thought it was two-thirty. I’m so dreadful with appointments. I’m sorry. I’m Moira.” She held out her hand.

            Kaye shook it. “Kaye.”

            “My secretary usually makes sure I stay on time. Difficult, I assure you. But she just had a baby and she’s not-Coffee?”

            “Uh, please.”

            Moira poured it from a silver pot sitting on marble-topped side table. “You must be terribly jetlagged. We should have put the meeting off. Won’t you have a seat?”

            Kaye sat gratefully on the room’s suede couch. She was jetlagged, truth be told, but she wanted to get back to New York. It was the first time she had ever left the baby. She wasn’t sure it should have been such a drastic leap instead of a baby step.

            “Cream and sugar?”

            “Nothing, please,” Kaye answered, pulling a legal pad and her glasses out of her briefcase.

            Moira set the coffee down on the low mahogany coffee table in front of Kaye.

            “Thank you.”

            “It’s lovely to meet you in person finally,” Moira said, with a truly welcoming smile, as she sat. The force of this woman’s charm, Kaye thought, was really a little overpowering, especially in her weakened state of advanced exhaustion. “How is the baby?”

            “He’s fine. He’s beautiful. Thank you for the gift.”

            “It was the least I could do. You should have taken more time off.”

            Yes, well, not all women had that luxury, did they? Kaye bit her tongue and said, “I wanted to meet with you in person just to get a feel for your voice, your lifestyle, so that when I edit I’m not-”

            The door to the suite flew open, admitting a giggling girl in her late teens with flyaway blonde hair, dressed in the very latest Vegas chic, Kaye assumed, because she was hardly dressed at all. Her hand was curled into the hand of a boy who had had every spare inch of cartilege-and a good deal of skin-pierced.

            “Mom,” the girl began, immediately, and then smiled at Kaye. “I didn’t know we had company.”

            “This is Kaye Neufeld,” said Moira. “She’s my editor.”

            “Oh.” The girl grinned. “The editor. Mom is so excited to be writing a book. She thinks she’s Hemingway. Dirk and I are going to go to L.A. for the weekend.”

            Moira’s eyebrows lifted. “I don’t think you are.”

            “Why not? I’m nineteen years old, Mom, and I’m-”

            “Out of money. Weren’t you complaining about it just the other night?”

            “Right. I was hoping you would-”

            “No.” Moira sipped her coffee. “Now Kaye and I have to continue our meeting.”

            The blonde pouted petulantly but turned with Dirk in tow and exited the suite.

            Moira sighed. “Sophie. My daughter. And I can now say with certainty that sons are much easier to raise than daughters. Gray and Doug never gave me half as much trouble.”

            “Yes, that was a fact I wanted to check with you. Gray. You say that you had Gray when you were seventeen.”

            “Yes.”

            If Moira felt the slightest bit self-conscious over the fact that she had gotten pregnant so young, she didn’t show it. Kaye filed that away. “You say you were married.”

            “I was. My mother would have died had I given birth to an illegitimate child. I was already going to hell. It would have been unfair for me to condemn Gray as well. That first marriage was almost as stupid as my third marriage. Except that it gave me Gray. Just like the third marriage gave me Doug and Sophie. So, you see, good comes out of everything.”

            Kaye began to feel more and more relieved. The pages Moira had sent her came across as biography more than autobiography. She had been worried that, meeting the woman in person, she would realize she’d given no thought to any of the choices she’d made in her life. But clearly she had thought on it. “It’s obvious that you have opinions. I mean, on having a baby while you were a teenager. Getting married, staying married, for the benefit of children.”

            “Of course I have opinions.”

            “The book could use a few more opinions.”

            Moira immediately looked anxious, her pretty features twisted with it. Good God, the woman was fifty-four years old, and she’d lived a full, varied, spectacular life. Why couldn’t she look a little more, well, worn? “The book is awful, isn’t it?”

            Kaye was used to soothing nervous authors. “No, it’s not awful. The fact is, Moira, your life is fascinating. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have asked you to write your memoirs. But just giving us the bare facts…It could use a little more of you. Your personality. What did you feel when you found out you were pregnant with Gray? What did you feel when your mother made you get married? What did you feel when you held him the first time? Those things would be useful.”

            “Gray would be embarrassed,” she said. “Gray doesn’t really approve of this. Gray’s really a private person.”

            Damn. One of those. “Moira, it’s difficult for you to write your memoirs while writing around anything that might upset anyone you know.”

            “I’m more thick-skinned than I look,” sniffed Moira, sounding offended.

            Kaye thought that was good, since Moira had skin so creamy pale that Kaye felt she could smudge it just by breathing on it.

            “I started out this way because I was uncertain how much…I mean, how much people would care…or want to know…how I felt. Clearly people want to know what Hugh Scott and Robert Redford were like in bed. I wasn’t sure people would want to know how much I fell in love the first time I held my baby.”

            “People don’t just want to know what Hugh Scott and Robert Redford were like in bed. They also want to know what sort of woman got them there in the first place. And that means, that if you’re writing a first person memoir, we need to have a little more first person in it.”

            “That,” Moira Scott Lowenby decided, “can be done.”

 

Sophie Lowenby tapped her foot impatiently on the parquet floor outside her mother’s suite. Beside her, Dirk said, “Babe. We don’t have to go to L.A.-”

            “Of course we have to go to L.A. We can’t have sex here, can we?”
            Dirk’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course we can, babe. Your brother owns a hotel.”

            “My brother does not own the hotel,” Sophie told him, hotly, because she was sick of this idiot. If she wasn’t also sick of being a virgin, she’d never have talked to him. And if she could just find a little time to get rid of being a virgin, then she could get rid of him. “We all own the hotel. And he knows everything that goes on. Everything. Not just here. In all of Vegas.”

            “Cool,” said Dirk, looking impressed. “He’s got spies?”

            “No, he doesn’t have spies.” Sophie rolled her eyes in disgust. “He’s powerful. He’s a powerful man. He’ll know, and I-” She cut herself off. She didn’t want Gray to know, which was just stupid, because Gray probably already thought the worst about her and Dirk. Gray automatically thought the worst about everyone. But would Gray tell Mom? He wasn’t much of a tattletale. He thought, naturally, that he was better at handling things. Maybe he wouldn’t tell Mom. She definitely didn’t want to get the “Even though he’s a blessing now, it’s terrifying to have a baby when you’re so young” speech.

            Dammit, they were just going to get it over with, Sophie decided, and grabbed Dirk’s hand again. “Come on.”

 

Gray was as gracious to Dennis Halcourt as he could be. He didn’t know if Halcourt considered it gracious enough. He didn’t much care. He was hoping Halcourt lost tons of money. Then, possibly, he would never return.

            He was telling Lucy exactly how far he wanted her to go in keeping Halcourt happy-not very-when someone blew in his ear. Gray jumped, startled, turned his head, and found himself looking at Rosie Sheffield. Oh, damn.

            She smiled widely at him. “Long time, no see, sexy.”

            “Sad, isn’t it?” Gray lied, blithely. “I’m right in the middle of-”

            “Oh, I think I’ve got it covered,” Lucy grinned at him. “I’ll be in touch if I need you.” Then she went scampering away, looking so gleeful at his predicament that he decided it was time to fire her.

            “You look good,” said Rosie, straightening his tie with that familiarity that had always irritated him.

            “I’m busy,” he replied.

            “Well, aren’t you always?”

            “What are you doing here?”

            “I had some time. And I-”She drew her fingertip suggestively down the front of his shirt-”miss you.”

            Rosie Sheffield was a redhead. That’s what had gotten him into this whole mess to begin with. A buxom redhead with breasts that begged to be palmed and legs that had lost him his train of thought the first time he’d laid eyes on her. The sex, yes, had been fun. And then she had started talking weddings and babies and he had shied away as he usually did. Except that she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

            “Don’t you miss me?” she asked, draping herself over him, which gave him a thoroughly indecent and previously enjoyable view down her shirt.

            “Not enough to have sex with you in the lobby,” he told her, drily.

            She laughed as if he had just told the most hilarious joke. “Oh, Gray, you’re just too funny.”

            “Mmm,” said Gray, and stepped away from her. She didn’t let him go that easily. He felt her hand clench in his shirt, saw her brown eyes narrow with annoyance before she recovered and simpered up at him, pushing out her lower lip as far as it could go.

            “You’re still mad, aren’t you?”

            Gray eyed her lip. “Collagen?” he inquired, mildly.

            She pushed him away from her with all her might, which threw her off-balance on her sky-high heels. She fell directly backward, mini-skirt pushed up over her waist. Every man in the lobby stopped and stared and got shoves from their wives. Gray, sighing, offered his hand.

            She slapped it away. “You are being an absolute bastard.”

            Gray shrugged lightly, stuck his hands in his pockets. “I try.”

            Rosie scrambled inelegantly back into a standing position, tugging her skirt down. Then she smiled blindingly at the people who were still staring. “Can we go to your suite?” she asked, without sacrificing any of her smile.

            “I really don’t think that’s necessary, Rosie. You’ve already determined that I’m a bastard. I’ve already determined that I’m not interested. We really have nothing to discuss.”

            “I won’t even make you beg,” she promised, sweetly.

            Gray blinked. “Make me beg?”

            “Look, it’s obvious you made a mistake when you ended everything, and now you’re scared I’ll say I told you so if you admit it.”

            “That is absolutely not-”

            “But it’s okay.” She laid her hands solemnly on his chest. “Men make mistakes. They get over them.”

            “Rosie, we broke up months ago. I don’t even-” He cut himself off abruptly. Maybe it was a little too cruel to say he hadn’t thought about her in months.

            “Women make mistakes, too,” she informed her, obviously ignoring everything he was trying to say. “I was thinking what a mistake I’d made during my last shoot. I’m here for a few days. Let’s have a little fun.”

            “I’m busy,” said Gray.

            “Busy with what?”

            Just about anything that wasn’t her. He spotted Danny out of the corner of his eye, flagging him down. Thank God. “Danny. I have to go talk to Danny.” He pushed her hands off his chest, began moving in Danny’s direction.

            “You think this is the end of it, Gray?” she demanded.

            Gray glanced back at her. Despite her jaw-dropping beauty, she looked foreboding there in the middle of the lobby. Obviously furious as hell with him. He sent her a cheerful wave, and muttered, “I don’t for a minute think that it is.”

            “I thought you broke up with her,” Danny said, as Gray came up to him.

            “I tried. It didn’t seem to take.”

            Danny studied Gray warily. Rosie didn’t usually leave Gray in the best of moods. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to tell you this.”

            “Tell me what?”

            “Sophie booked a room.”

            “Booked a room? Here?”

            “Charged it to your expense account.”

            “Sophie booked a room here and charged it to my expense account?”

            “That is exactly what I just said, yes.”

            Gray narrowed his eyes. “A room for her and Dirk.”

            “I’m assuming.”

            “I’m not playing this game with her. She wants to pretend she’s all grown up, let her do it. I’m not bursting into rooms dragging her out of bed by her hair. I’m tired of her trying to get attention at every turn. She gets plenty of attention. She’s spoiled. And I’m going to drive myself crazy trying to keep her out of trouble.” Sighing, Gray pushed his hands through his hair. Rosie was still glaring at him from the floor of the lobby. His sister was currently having sex with some sort of ex-con she’d managed to bring home with her, and thumbing her nose at him by having him pay for it. His brother had gone panting off after some cheap stripper and was currently enjoying some sort of sex holiday in Reno. Sex, Gray thought, was making everything damn complicated in his life. And what sex wasn’t ruining, the Red Sox were taking care of.

And, suddenly, just like that, he thought of Aubrey. She did things like that, snuck up on him at the most unexpected times. He sighed again. All he needed now was to develop a fixation on some girl he was never going to see again. “I’m done for the day,” he decided.

            “What?” Danny blinked.

            “Done. I’m done for the day. I’m…going for a drive or something. Something away from here.”

 

The drive did him good, and when he came back from the drive, he went to his suite and found Sophie in it, wrapped in an afghan on his couch watching one of those movies she loved about the tragic lives of women. She turned and looked at him when he walked in, one quick bright smile. Sophie had always had a smile like pure sunshine. Even if she was spoiled and headstrong and always doing the most ridiculous things. Dirk. Really.

            “Hey,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”

            “Driving. Today was a bad day.” He sat next to her on the couch.

            “I saw that Rosie showed up. You must be really good.”

            “I think she saw my bank account balance.”

            “Mom’s editor was here. She seems nice. Do you think Mom’s going to talk about us in this book?”

            “Mom’s excited about this book. Surely you’ve noticed. We’re going to be very supportive.”

            Sophie swallowed and tried to sound full of bravura. “I rented a room with Dirk.”

            Gray sent her a wry smile. “I heard.”

            “I thought you’d be upset.”

            “I decided not to be. You’re always saying I treat you like a baby, and then you try to manipulate me into doing it and get all upset when I don’t play along. I’m done playing games with you, Sophie.” Sophie startled him by cuddling against his chest. “You okay?” he asked, in surprise, and then demanded, “Dirk didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

            Nothing she hadn’t been asking for, she had to admit. And it wasn’t-really-Dirk’s fault that sex had been awful. Or that Gray hadn’t shown up when Gray had been supposed to show up and save her before she had to go through with it. So now she was finally relieved of the burden of her virginity and she felt younger than she had in years. Like a little child in need of comfort. And Gray was the same as she always remembered him. There. “I’m fine.” Only, why hadn’t he come? Why hadn’t he been there when she had needed him to be there? Almost the story of her life. Oh, well. He was here now. And that was almost as good.

 

December 20, 2003

 

Aubrey was having possibly the worst night of her life. And, considering the awful nights she’d had, that was saying something. The Monet show was a triumph, was reaching the end of its first week and poised for a brilliant holiday season. Louis congratulated her. She should have been on top of the world.

            Instead, she was miserable. She hated to think it was connected to Paul and his airhead model girlfriend but she thought it probably was. She sat alone at a table in the restaurant the museum had rented for the employee holiday party and sulked into her cosmo. The cosmo was a definite splurge. Probably not a wise one. But she was thinking of getting herself a one-night stand. Hell, the failure of the A-Rod trade was almost as devastating as Game Seven had been. Okay, not nearly, but still pretty disheartening, especially now, as the buzz faded. She wondered what Gray was thinking. She wondered if he’d realized where he’d left his stepfather’s cap. She wondered if she would ever have sex again in her life. Probably not. Gray would be her last. So much more memorable than her first. And a hundred thousand times more memorable than the idiot who had come in between.

            To punctuate her thought, Aubrey sent another baleful glare across at Paul and decided that she’d had more than enough of this particular holiday party. She stood up, shrugging into her coat, and took a hesitant step. The cosmo had hit her harder than she would have supposed. She glanced around the restaurant, thinking she should at least say good-bye to Karla. But she didn’t see Karla, and she didn’t think she could stand another minute of the damn party.

            So she stepped out into the winter night and thought, I have to get a new job.

 

December 22, 2003

 

We have a pretty easy assignment for you,” was how the conversation started. “Just the thing, we think, since you’ve asked to be transferred to desk service.”

            Mark eyed Don Jankewicz and Stanley Cooper suspiciously. He glanced again at the stranger who had also appeared. He did not think it was going to be a particularly easy assignment. It did not seem to have that hallmark. Monica was going to kill him. But all he said was, “Really?”

            “This is Agent Markham. From the FBI,” said Jankewicz.

            “The what?” Mark asked, in startled surprised.

            “FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Cooper explained.

            “Mark and Markham,” said Agent Markham, shaking Mark’s hand. “We’ll make quite a team.”

            “Team?” Mark echoed.

            “Yes.” Agent Markham sent him a smile that reminded Mark of a shark. Had Mark been standing, he would have taken a step back. Since he was sitting, he shifted uncomfortably. “We think you’re just the break we’ve been waiting for in this case.”

            “What case?” Mark wished he could come up with something better to say.

            “Do you know this man?”

            Mark took the photo and knew instantly he was in way over his head. Because the photo was of Gray. Taken at some sort of formal function, because he was wearing a bowtie. Mark decided it would be useless to deny it. “Yes,” he said, cautiously.

            Markham looked pleased. “We thought you did. That’s good.”

            “Why is that good?”

            “Because this man is our key to nailing this man.” Agent Markham handed across another picture.

            Mark recognized this picture immediately as well. “Dennis Halcourt?” Now he was nothing but confused. “You think Gray is your key to nailing Dennis Halcourt?”

            “Halcourt plays at the Bienvenue. Did you know that?”

            Mark now knew why even innocent people chafed under interrogation. It was damn uncomfortable. “No, I didn’t know that. But the Bienvenue is a casino. Lots of people play there.”

            “Gray Delamont-ay didn’t mention his Dennis Halcourt connection to you?”

            Yes, this was why suspects were always so defensive, thought Mark. “Delamonte,” he corrected. “It’s Gray Delamonte. The ‘e’ is silent. I doubt he has a Dennis Halcourt connection, so this is probably why he never mentioned it to me.”

            “He’s laundering the money for him, Detective Dailey.” Markham looked thrilled to death to be sharing that little tidbit of information.

            “Gray’s laundering Dennis Halcourt’s money?” The idea was so absurd Mark wanted to laugh. Except that Agent Markham looked very serious. Gray, Mark decided, was in very deep trouble.

            “How close to the Bienvenue’s operations can you get?”
            “What?” Mark asked, stupidly, because of course he knew what was coming next but they couldn’t possibly mean for him to-

            “We don’t want your friend, Mr. Delamont-ay-”

            “Delamonte.”

            “-but in order to catch Dennis Halcourt at this, we need one of our own inside. You use your Gray Delamonte, did you say? Connection to get to Dennis Halcourt.”

            “No,” said Mark, flatly.

            This wasn’t the right answer. Annoyance flickered on Agent Markham’s face. “I beg your pardon?”

            “I cannot spy on Gray Delamonte. Perhaps they didn’t tell you how I know Gray Delamonte. He was best man at my wedding, for God’s sake. He isn’t money laundering.”

            “If he isn’t money laundering, then there’s no harm in your getting close to him, is there?” Markham inquired, innocently.

            “The harm would be in my even giving it a try. My friendship with Gray Delamonte isn’t going to get you anything on Dennis Halcourt.”

            “Because you’re refusing to do your duty–?”
            “Because there isn’t anything there to get.”

            “It’s a nice, safe assignment, Mark,” piped up Cooper. “You’ve been looking for one.”

            “A nice, safe assignment? Bringing down Dennis Halcourt?”

            “There’s a promotion in it for you,” said Jankewicz. “Not only desk duty, but supervisory desk duty.”

            “I appreciate,” snapped Mark, as he stood, “the bribery package you’ve set up for me here, but the answer remains no.”

            “Maybe you should take the holiday to think about it,” suggested Cooper, smiling.

            “Wouldn’t be the best thing for your career, Dailey,” stated Markham, matter-of-factly.

            Mark decided he’d like to tell them all to go to hell. Instead, he consoled himself with slamming the door.

 

You can’t do it. That’s fairly obvious,” said Monica.

            “Of course I can’t do it. I can’t believe they would expect me to. They must have lost their minds.” Mark failed miserably in curling the ribbon on the present and shrugged. Like Madison was going to appreciate it anyway. He placed it with the pile of Santa presents in the closet in the master bedroom and, feeling Monica watching him steadily, looked at her. “What?”

            She was sprawled on their bed, one hand on her stomach, and she asked, stilling him, “Do you think it’s true?”

            “I don’t for a second think it’s true.” He wished he could be so damn confident. The fact was that Gray never talked business with him. He had always assumed that was because there were so many other, better things to talk about. But maybe it was because Gray couldn’t talk business with a law enforcement officer. Casinos were shady, and Gray’s was successful. But really. Money laundering with Dennis Halcourt?

            “Oh, God,” groaned Monica. “You’re going to have to do it.”

            “What?” Mark looked at her in alarm. “Why?”

            “Because you’re worried it’s true. And the only way you’re going to make sure it’s not true is to get in there and disprove it.”

            “I could just ask him point blank.”

            “And you’ll never be totally convinced he isn’t lying when he gives you the answer.”

            Dammit to hell, thought Mark, and collapsed on the bed next to his wife.

 

December 31, 2003

 

The casino, three hours early, was exploding into Happy New Years, and Gray stood, in his fashionably casual formalwear and watched the ball drop in Times Square and thought, inexplicably as always, of Aubrey. Did she go to Times Square? Probably not. Did he even cross her mind? Probably not, he thought. She probably remembered very little of the night. And she probably was in New York, kissing somebody happily. He was drinking champagne, by himself, hoping to avoid Rosie, who was still doing a damn good job of stalking him.

            “You’re not looking like it’s a happy new year,” said Mark.

            “Oh.” Gray managed a smile, looking away from the huge Jumbotron. “2003 wasn’t exactly stellar. You and Monica enjoying yourselves?”

            “She’s tired. We’re going home.”

            “So soon?”

            “We saw the ball drop. It’s pretty much enough.” Mark glanced out over the raucous crowd of twenty-somethings. “Not really my crowd.”

            “I know what you mean.”

            “There was a cute redhead who wasn’t Rosie that way.” Mark nodded vaguely.

            Gray chuckled. “I’ll check it out.”

            “Gray, about the security job,” he blurted out, quickly.

            Gray looked up from his champagne in surprise. “The security job?”

            “Is it still open? The security job?”

            Gray tipped his head a little, studied Mark’s face. “Well…yes, but…I thought you didn’t want it.”

            “I didn’t…I don’t…” Mark sighed extravagantly. “I kind of promised Monica. Christmas gift thing.”

            “As a Christmas gift, you’re quitting the force-”

            “And joining the Bienvenue. If the offer still stands.”

            “Yes, the offer stands. And it isn’t that I’m not delighted to have you. I’m just a little…well, surprised, that’s all.”

            “Love,” said Mark, “will make you do the craziest things.”

            “I’ll take your word for it,” said Gray, and touched his flute to Mark’s. “Happy New Year. I promise to be a good boss.”

 

January 1, 2004

 

When the ball dropped in Times Square, she kissed the man she’d been dancing with all night. A nice man. A little dull, but a nice man, and someone to kiss at midnight, so all the better. Then she and Anna, home for the holidays, abandoned their respective men on the dance floors and found a corner and drank lots of champagne and got giddy and stumbled out in the wee hours of the morning. And Aubrey thought, smiling, Thank God. 2004. She could finally, finally, leave 2003 behind and start over.