Love Can Be Murder

head inside, pleased to see the bed passably made. Clothes were stacked on a straight-backed chair, but they appeared to be laundered. She picked up a couple of towels in the bathroom and rehung the sagging shower curtain. On her way out of the bedroom, though, she stopped, her heart in her throat.

Chapter Seven

    A COLORIZED PHOTO OF HER MOTHER sat in a silver frame at her father's bedside. Roxann remembered the photo because she'd thought her mother looked so glamorous with her flip 'do and her off-the-shoulder dress. The photo had once sat on the fireplace mantel, but had disappeared, along with other photos of her mother, after the divorce.
    "Where are all the pictures of Mommy?" she'd asked.
    "Gone," he'd said, and not nicely.
    "I want to live with her."
    "Well, you can't. Go get me a beer."
    When her mother had been killed in a car accident four years later, she'd longed for a photo, but had to settle for the pictures in her head. Soon, though, the impressions of her mother's scant visits had been overridden by the image of her mother lying in a casket. For the past few years, she'd been unable to conjure up her mother's face at all. Seeing the photo now was a bittersweet gift. Her mother had been so beautiful, with full lips and expressive eyes. Roxann bit back tears, grappling, as always, with her father's inexplicable behavior. When had he forgiven her mother enough to remove the picture from his hiding place?
    "Roxann?" Angora called.
    She replaced the picture, wiped her eyes, and returned to the bathroom. Angora was still in the bathtub. "Would you help me rinse my hair?"
    Roxann had taken plenty of baths in that tub with no help rinsing her hair, but granted, Angora wasn't used to making do, and she had about a hundred times as much hair as a normal person.
    "Sure." She used the cup that once held her toothbrush to capture warm water from the faucet and pour it over Angora's bent head until the soap was gone. "Feeling better?"
    Angora sat back, immersed to her shoulders. She looked younger and more delicate without makeup. "A little."
    "So this guy was the love of your life?"
    Angora studied a clump of dissolving bubbles. "I thought so."
    She had that wild-eyed look again that made Roxann shiver. "Do you want me to call someone—your mother?"
    "What time is it?"
    "Around five-thirty."
    "Maybe later."
    Make them suffer a little longer. She couldn't blame her. "Do you want to spend the night here? Dad's at a fishing tournament, so we'll have the place to ourselves."
    "I don't have anyplace else to go." She had regressed to a little-girl voice.
    Roxann sat back on her heels. "You'll have to face them sometime. Besides, this situation wasn't your fault."
    "Yes, it was—I should've stood up to Mother when she wanted to invite that woman to my wedding."
    Blame everyone but the guilty. "And what would've happened two months from now when Trenton ran into his old girlfriend at the airport?"
    "He wouldn't have," she said miserably. "We were moving to Chicago."
    "Really?"
    "I was going to be an art agent for a big important firm." She knuckled away a tear. "Now that's all down the drain."
    Roxann frowned. "Why?"
    "Well, because now I'm not moving."
    "Why not? Go without the goon."
    Her laugh was rueful. "Mother and Father would never allow me to move there alone."
    "So don't ask them."
    Roxann knew that look—Angora had always struggled with her desire for independence versus the burden of being cut off from the goodies. Suddenly she brightened. "Maybe I can live with you."
    "Uh...I don't think that's such a good idea. You'd better get out of the water before you wither away. Besides, it's my turn."
    Angora nodded and sat up. "I could really use that tea."
    Roxann shook her head as she rummaged for the least threadbare towel under the tiny vanity. "Sorry, I couldn't find any tea. But help yourself to anything in the fridge that isn't rancid. If you're hungry, we could go out and get some dinner. Or I could order a pizza."
    Angora's eyes lit up for just a second, then she patted her stomach. "I'd better not—I'm on a diet."
    "What kind of diet?" she asked suspiciously, remembering the harebrained gimmicks Angora had used to lose weight when they roomed together.
    "It's a food-combination plan."
    "What foods?"
    "Um...popcorn and carrots."
    "Popcorn and carrots? Is that why your skin is the color of a pumpkin?"
    "I think it looks nice."
    "Christ, Angora, you're orange ."
    She snatched the towel. "Could I please