Rough Trade

now?” he asked me in a much more businesslike tone.
    “You mean with the team?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s up to Chrissy. She’s the new owner.”
    “So what’s she gonna do?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “But I have to say that if I were in her situation, I’d move it.” I looked around the room where we stood. “There are a lot of painful memories for her here. You really couldn’t blame her if she decided that what she wanted was a fresh start.”
     

CHAPTER 24
     
     
    I knew that Elliott couldn’t stay. He had other cases to attend to, not to mention a business to run, but that didn’t make it any easier to see him go. But once he’d made sure that Chrissy and I were okay and there was no one lurking in the bushes there was no real reason for him to remain. For the time being at least, the press seemed willing to keep their distance. I’m sure it helped that Harald Feiss had been doing nothing but giving back-to-back interviews since the news of Jeff’s death first broke. I confess I felt safer knowing where Feiss was.
    I grabbed a sweater of Chrissy’s off the hook near the back door and wrapped it around my shoulders as I walked Elliott back out to his car.
    “What happened to the Volvo?” he asked as we passed the crushed carapace of what had once been my car. “It looks like you parked it in a Tyrannosaurus rex crossing.”
    “Something like that,” I replied, explaining how my attempt to foil the Jester had netted me not just an assortment of nasty bruises, but a new Jaguar.
    “And you say this guy’s back out on the street?”
    “Yeah. But, hey, if he’d actually raped and abducted either of us, I’m sure they would have kept him in for another five or six hours.”
    “Just promise me you’ll keep the doors locked and won’t let anyone in you don’t know.”
    “I promise,” I said as we stopped beside his car.
    “You know, I’m wondering why the whole thing went down at Beau’s house,” mused Elliott. “I mean, if it was a setup, why not here?”
    “Because whoever set it up didn’t know that Chrissy wouldn’t be here. The whole thing with the Jester just came up out of the blue. No one could have known that Chrissy would feel so unsafe in her own home that she’d leave town.”
    “You know what else I’m wondering?”
    “What?”
    “What about the gun? I mean, I assume that Darius showed up packing, but what about Jeff? How did he end up doing some of the shooting?”
    “There was a gun at Beau’s house,” I said, feeling a wave of remorse and wondering if things would have turned out differently if I hadn’t left the gun where I’d found it in Beau’s bottom drawer. “It was in the study. A 9mm Glock in the bottom drawer of his desk. Jeff probably knew it was there, and when he saw Fredericks, he went for it.”
    “Now you’re making it sound like an interrupted burglary again. Would you please make up your mind?” Elliott fixed me with a long, appraising look, and I suddenly realized I must look like hell. As if reading my mind he reached out and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
    “I broke up with Stephen,” I said, without meaning to. It just sort of slipped out.
    “Did you?” he asked quietly, unable to completely suppress his slowly spreading grin. I knew he was going to kiss me and I did not move away.
    “We have a crummy sense of timing,” he said, finally pulling away.
    I pressed my lips together. “I know,” I sighed. “Funerals keep getting in the way.”
    “When will you be back in Chicago?”
    “Not until after Jeff’s funeral. Besides, I have a meeting with the bank and another one with the city.”
    “And then?”
    “And then I’m going to go back home and see if I can’t make sense out of my life.”
    “That sounds like an awfully big job. Maybe you’d like some help.”
    “We’ll see,” I replied shyly.
    “In the meantime I brought you a present.”
    “What is it?”
    Elliott opened up his trunk and pulled out a thick file. “This is a copy of the police file on the Beau Rendell murder investigation. If anyone finds out you have it, you have to promise to take your cyanide pill before you tell them where you got it.”
    “Scout’s honor,” I said. “So what’s happening with the cops?”
    “They think that Jeff killed his father, and now Jeff is dead. They know that it was Fredericks who shot Jeff— whether it was a setup or in self-defense, who cares? If Fredericks lives, he’s