Genuine Lies

combustible and more consuming. She gauged them all in his eyes.
    “I’d say this is a little more direct,” she began. “All the others were warnings. This … I guess we’ll call it a statement.”
    “Is that what you’d call it?” He saw more than the words. She’d crushed the paper in a palm that had been damp with a fear and had smeared the type. “I’d call it murder.”
    She moistened her lips. “I’m not dead.”
    “Fine then.” When he rose, his anger spilled over and lapped at her. “Attempted murder. Whoever wrote this sabotaged the plane. They meant for you to die.”
    “Maybe.” She held up a hand before he could explode. “It seems more likely they wanted me to be scared. If they’d wanted me to die in a crash, why the note?”
    Fury burned in his eyes. “I’m not going to stand here and try to reason out the criminal mind.”
    “But isn’t that what you do? When you write about murder, aren’t you always dipping into the criminal mind?”
    The sound he made was somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. “This isn’t fiction.”
    “But the same rules apply. Your plots are logical because there’s always a pattern to the murderer’s psyche. Whether it’s passion or greed or revenge. Whatever. There’s always motive, opportunity, and reasoning, however twisted. We have to use logic to figure this out.”
    “Fuck logic, Jules.” His fingers closed over the hand she’d laid lightly on his chest. “I want you on the next flight to Connecticut.”
    She was silent for a moment, reminding herself he was being difficult only because he was frightened for her. “I thought about that. At least I tried to think about it. I could go back—”
    “You damn well will go back.”
    She only shook her head. “What difference would it make? It’s already started, Paul. I can’t erase what Eve’s told me— More, I can’t erase my obligation to her.”
    “Your obligation ended.” He lifted the paper. “With this.”
    She didn’t look at it. Maybe it was a form of cowardice, but she wasn’t going to test herself yet. “Even if that were true—and it isn’t—going back east wouldn’t stop it. I already know too much about too many people. Secrets, lies, embarrassments. Maybe this would stop if I kept quiet. I’m not willing to spend the rest of my life, the rest of Brandon’s, on that kind of a maybe.”
    He hated the fact that part of him, the logical part, saw the sense of what she was saying. The emotional part simply wanted her safe. “You can announce, publicly, that you’re abandoning the project.”
    “I’m not going to do that. Not only because it goes against my conscience, but because I don’t think it would matter. I could take out an ad in
Variety
, In
Publishers Weekly
, in the
LA.
and
The New York Times.
I could go back and pick up another project. After a few weeks, a few months, I mightstart to relax. Then there’d be an accident, and my son would end up an orphan.” Her hand dropped away from his to curl at her side. “No, I’m going to see this through, and I’m going to see it through here, where I feel I have some leverage.”
    He wanted to argue, to demand, to drag her and Brandon both onto a plane and take them as far away as possible. But her reasoning made too much sense. “We go to the police with the notes, and with what we suspect.”
    She nodded. The relief that he was with her was almost as weakening as the fear. “But I think we’d have more plausibility after Eve gets the report on the plane. If they find proof of sabotage, it would go a long way to our being believed.”
    “I don’t want you out of my sight.”
    Grateful, she held out both hands. “Me either.”
    “Then you’ll go along with my staying here tonight?”
    “Not only will I go along with it, but I’ll personally turn down the bed in the guest room.”
    “The guest room.”
    She offered an apologetic smile. “Brandon.”
    “Brandon,” Paul repeated, and drew her back in his arms again. Suddenly, she felt so small, so slight. So his. “Here’s the deal. Until he gets used to it, I’ll
pretend
to sleep in the guest room.”
    She thought it over, running her hands over his bare back. “I’m usually willing to compromise.” Confused, she pulled away. “Where’s your shirt?”
    “You must have been nearly comatose not to’ve noticed my exceptional naked chest. The kid and I were playing ball, remember? It gets hot.”
    “Oh, right. Basketball. The