Genuine Lies

son.”
    “And Travers believes I killed her.”
    He stood to get them both something to drink. Chablis was the first that came to hand, and he figured it would go just fine with peanut butter. “At this point she needs to blame someone. She wants that someone to be you. The thing about Travers is that very little could go on in that house without her being aware. The fact that Eve could have kept her illness from everyone, including Travers, is only a testament to Eve’s skill and determination. Someone else was on the estate that day. Someone else was in the guest house. Travers is our best bet for finding out who.”
    “I only wish … I wish she could understand that I didn’t mean the things I said that night.” Her voice thickened as she picked up her glass, set it down again without drinking.
    “That I never wanted that to be Eve’s last memory of me. Or mine of her. I’ll regret that for the rest of my life, Paul.”
    “That would be a mistake.” He put a hand over hers, squeezed it lightly. “She brought you out here so that each of you could get to know the whole person. Not by one incident, a few hot words. Julia, I went to see her doctor.”
    “Paul.” She linked her fingers with his. At the moment every touch, every point of contact seemed so precious. “You shouldn’t have done that alone.”
    “It was something I wanted to do alone. She was diagnosed right after Thanksgiving last year. At the time, she had told us she wasn’t in the mood for turkey or pumpkin pie and was going off for a week or two to the Golden Door to be pampered and revitalized.” He paused here to battle his own emotions. “She checked into the hospital for the tests. Apparently, she’d been having headaches, blurred vision, mood swings. The tumor was … well, to put it simply, it was too late. They could give her medication to take the edge off the pain. She could go on normally. But they couldn’t cure it.”
    His eyes flicked up to hers. In them she could see the dark, depthless well of grief.
    “They couldn’t stop it. She was told she had a year at best. She went directly from there to a specialist in Hamburg. More tests, the same result. She must have made her mind up about what she was going to do right away. It was early December when she told Maggie and me about the book. About you. She wanted to finish out her life, and keep those she loved from knowing how little time she had.
    Julia looked toward the little jade plant, thriving in its patch of sun. “She didn’t deserve to be robbed of what was left.”
    “No.” He drank, a silent toast. Another good-bye. “And she’d be bloody pissed if whoever killed her got away. I’m not going to let that happen.” He touched his glass to Julia’s in a show of partnership that made her throat sting. “Drink your wine,” he told her. “It’s good for the soul. And it’ll relax you so it’s easier for me to seduce you.”
    She blinked back the tears. “Peanut butter and jelly, and sex, in one afternoon. I don’t know if I can take it.”
    “Let’s check it out,” he said, and pulled her to her feet.
    He hoped she would sleep for an hour or two, and left her in the bedroom with the shades drawn against the sun, the ceiling fan spinning away the heat.
    Like most storytellers, Paul could formulate a plot anywhere—in the car, waiting in the dentist’s office, at a cocktail party. But he had found over the years that his best structuring was done in his office.
    He’d set up the room as he’d set up his home. To suit himself. The airy space on the second floor was where he spent most of his time. One wall was all glass, all sky and sea. Those who didn’t understand the process didn’t believe he could be working when he simply sat, staring out, watching the change in light and shadow, the swoop of laughing gulls.
    To compensate for the discomfort of tearing a story out of his head and heart, Paul had made his working space a celebration of comfort. The side walls were lined with books. Some for research, some for pleasure. Twin ficus trees thrived in heavy stone pots. One year Eve had invaded his inner sanctum and had hung tiny red and green balls on their slim branches to remind him that deadline or not, Christmas would come.
    He’d embraced the computer age, and worked on a clever little PC. And still scribbled notes on odd scraps of paper he often lost. He’d had a top of the line stereo hooked up, certain he would enjoy composing