"You know I quit, Bernie, and I'm carrying the extra ten pounds to prove it. What do you think kills more-cigarettes or obesity? Never mind. But I've got a spare nicotine inhaler around somewhere, if you want it."

"Yeah, right," Bernie said, kicking off her shoes before sitting on one of the couches, pulling her long legs up under her. "That's like a scotch on the rocks minus the scotch. No thanks. Besides, you look stupid with that thing in your mouth, no offense."

"None taken," Maggie said, collapsing onto the facing couch. "I love being told I look stupid. What's wrong with the ma.n.u.script?"

Bernie dug in the bag, pulled out the sandwiches. "Here you go. Let's eat."

"Let's eat and talk," Maggie said, taking the foil-wrapped sandwich, then grabbing a snack-size bag of potato chips, leaving the tortilla chips for Bernie. She ripped open the bag, carefully positioned five potato chips directly on her liverwurst, then replaced the top piece of seeded rye bread and squished the sandwich between her hands. Gourmet all the way. "What's wrong with the ma.n.u.script?"

Bernie held up a sienna-tipped finger as she nodded her head and chewed, finally swallowed. "You're a great writer, Maggie. The best. The Saint Just Mysteries are top drawer. I always knew you could write. Never a problem there. Really. Sales? Sales are terrific. You're carrying us on your back, Mags, so I can say as both your editor and your publisher, Toland Books is d.a.m.n grateful."

"But? Come on, Bernie. We both know there's a big but coming."

Bernie took a sip of lemonade, winced. "But...how do I say this nicely? Okay, I've got it. But this book stinks on ice. One hundred thousand words that demonstrate why editors drink. Sorry, honey."

"It...it...oh, it does not!"

"Not the writing. The writing's great. Really. But who wants to read The Case of the Lamenting Lordship?"

"The Case of the Lonely Lordship," Maggie corrected. She'd never really been nuts over the t.i.tle, which probably should have told her something. She hated working without a t.i.tle. "It's a little dark, I admit it."

Bernie pushed her hair back, used its length to tie it in a knot. "Saint Just spends two thirds of the book contemplating his navel and the last third going around making amends for being a bad, bad man, like he's doing some kind of wacko Regency twelve-step program. I had to prop my eyelids up with toothpicks to read it for more than ten minutes at a time. Where's the joy? Where's the humor? Where's the murder in this murder mystery, for crying out loud? And we're not even going to talk about the s.e.x, because there wasn't any."

Maggie looked down at her sandwich, her appet.i.te gone. "He killed a man, Bernie. He had to come to terms with what he'd done."

"Oh, yeah, right. He killed a man. Big deal. The guy was no good anyway. Saint Just's a hero-our hero. If I wanted someone wringing his hands and beating his breast for four hundred pages, I'd buy-h.e.l.l, I wouldn't buy that cheap, lazy, manipulative pap. I hate that drivel. Everybody cry? Spare me."

"Saint Just can't have a crisis of conscience?"

Bernie ripped open the bag of tortilla chips, spilling them out on her lap. "Again, spare me. It's the Saint Just mysteries, Mags, not the confessions of a tarnished hero. Heroes don't have crises of conscience. They bed the ladies and solve murders, both brilliantly, then go for drinks at Boodles or White's or somewhere. End of story, watch for the next Saint Just Mystery, available soon."

"I...I think his character needs to...to grow a little." Maggie winced, then said the hated word. "Evolve."

"Oh, no. Not that. Please, not that. Are you planning on writing for the critics now, Maggie, instead of your loyal readers? You want a list of all the good popular fiction writers who bought into that c.r.a.p about not writing real books? I know where I can't look to find that list-the New York Times, that's where. Your readers want Saint Just. Edgy, confident, brilliant, a bit of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but with heart. They don't want Hugh Grant."

Maggie tried to swallow, choked, and reached for her gla.s.s. "So...so you want a rewrite?"

"Honey, I want a bonfire, a big one. Except for Sterling's subplot. Poor guy, that's the first time in a half-dozen books he finally got laid. I wouldn't want to lose that-but giving Sterling that nice, tame little love scene instead of Saint Just, not in addition to Saint Just's rolls in the hay? Nope, that's a cop-out. It doesn't work. It's cheating."

Maggie wasn't going to cry. She refused to cry. She was a professional, d.a.m.n it, and she was not going to-"I put everything I had into that book, Bernie. It all just poured out of me. I know it sounds dumb, but that was...that was a book of the heart for me, something I just had to do."

The editor put down her sandwich. "Aw, honey, I know that. What I want to know now is why? Are you going through some blue period or something? What did I miss while I was drying out at the happy farm?"

Maggie was on thin ice now, and she knew it. "Well...you know. Buddy's murder and everything. You being accused. And then Sterling? I was so worried about Sterling...and then Saint Just-I mean Alex..."

"Oh, brother." Bernie looked toward the sideboard and the bottles she'd insisted Maggie not hide just because her best friend was a boozer, recently retired. "I guess it was bound to happen. I mean, Alex is a G.o.d, we both know that, and you did base Saint Just on him. But one is fiction, Mags, and one is Alex. I know you don't like that Alex is always...well, always in the thick of things whenever there's trouble. But now you're mixing them up, kiddo, the real and the fictional. You can't control Alex, so now you're trying to give twenty-first-century morals and all that c.r.a.p to a guy from eighteen-sixteen. You've got to keep them separated in your mind, Maggie."

"That...that's sometimes difficult," Maggie said, wishing for a cigarette with all her being. Should she tell Bernie the truth? Could she? Bernie was her best friend...but Bernie was sober now, and what Maggie told her today, the woman would remember tomorrow. Forever. Forever might be a long time to go around regretting opening her big mouth.

Bernie nodded. "I guess it is. But just because you could never see Alex killing anyone doesn't mean Saint Just has to morph into frigging Alan Alda. And don't say who, because I'm not that old."

"My G.o.d." Maggie looked at her liverwurst sandwich again, beginning to think it looked pretty good. Like she'd had a liverwurst-and-potato-chip-on-rye epiphany. "You're right, Bernie. Saint Just is Saint Just. The whole time I was writing, I felt like I was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. It was...I guess it was just something I had to do. As...as a writer, hokey as that sounds."

"Okay, that's fair. But, now that you've done it, do us both a favor and don't do it again. Books of the heart are almost always just for the writer, not for public consumption. G.o.d knows I've read and rejected enough of them. Just forget about the book for a while. Go do your penance in New Jersey with your folks, go to England, leave your laptop here in New York. Find a nice Englishman to flirt with or something."

"Yeah, that's what I need, all right. Another Englishman," Maggie said, wincing. And yet, she felt better. She really did. Maybe the book had been an exorcism of sorts, and now it was out of her system. Saint Just was Saint Just. Hadn't Alex told her that? "I yams what I yams," she said, and grinned.

"What?"

"Popeye, Bernie. I yams what I yams. Doesn't anybody watch the old cartoons anymore?"

"No, some of us have a life," Bernie said, and Maggie threw her sandwich wrapper at her friend, just as the door opened and Sterling raced into the room.

"Turn it on, turn it on! Miss Spivak is talking to Saint Just."

"No! Oh, cripes, now what? I let him out of my sight for two minutes and-" Maggie nearly toppled off the couch, reaching for the remote control, then hit the Power b.u.t.ton. Moments later, she saw Saint Just on the screen, Holly Spivak beside him, the Fox News van behind them.

"...truly, Miss Spivak," Alex was saying, "the kudos all go to Mrs. Halliday, who so cleverly warned me that something nefarious was afoot. I, for my small part in the affair, merely reacted."

Holly Spivak pulled the mike back to her own face. "And there we have it, Kevin-Mr. Blakely's modest explanation of what can only be called an act of heroism caught somewhere between Zorro and the Keystone Kops, as two of New York's Finest nearly arrested our hero, mistaking him for one of the bad guys, when he had actually just single-handedly foiled a daring daylight bank robbery. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Yasimoto, again, here's all the action, caught on tape by Mr. Yasimoto, who happened to be videotaping his wife as she posed in front of the bank."

Videotape. Of course. You couldn't walk more than five steps in any direction in Manhattan without b.u.mping into some tourist with a videocam.

Maggie forgot to breathe as the tape rolled and she saw a woman who had to be Mrs. Yasimoto, smiling and pointing to the art deco facade of the bank. Suddenly the woman screamed, and the picture blurred, then refocused, to show Alex-with a rousing, theatrical flourish-placing the tip of his cane against the neck of one of two men sprawled on the pavement.

Maggie closed her eyes. "Ah, jeez, doesn't he ever give it a rest?"

"Look, Maggie, look!" Sterling shouted. "The constables! They're arresting Saint Just."

Okay, it was time to open her eyes again...and there was Alex, being pushed against the wall and frisked. And his pant leg was purple. Why was his pant leg purple? And did she really want an answer to that question?

"You know," Bernie said, munching on a tortilla chip, "at times like this, Mags, I can see why you sometimes get confused between Alex and Saint Just. He does make a pretty good hero."

"Yeah," Maggie said, and decided to take another bite of her sandwich. It was safer than talking to Bernie.

Saint Just was Saint Just. Sometimes, if you just sort of squinted, life was simple. Okay, she had to learn to live with it. She could live with it. Really. She could. Hoo-boy...

Chapter Three.

"You have everything? I could run back upstairs and get the kitchen sink? Maybe the drapes?"

Saint Just ignored the sarcasm and tapped his quizzing gla.s.s against his lips as he counted the mult.i.tude of luggage on the sidewalk. The viscount did not travel without all the amenities. After all, he had his reputation as a gentleman of fashion to consider. "I believe so. Thank you, Socks."

"Hey, I'm the doorman. I do this stuff," Argyle Jackson said, grinning. Then he held out his hand. "And you're the tenant. You tip me. It's a quaint American custom."

"Of course, how remiss of me," Saint Just said, removing a twenty from his money clip and pa.s.sing it to Socks. "Now all we need are Maggie and our transport. You did say ten o'clock, didn't you, Socks?"

"Relax, Alex, I got it. And here it comes, one bad-a.s.s SUV."

"And here's Maggie," Sterling said, pointing down the street. "Oh, dear, I don't think she and Doctor Bob had a productive session. She's scowling, Saint Just."

"Maggie, my dear," Saint Just said, manfully withholding a smile as she came to a stomping halt in front of him. "How go the wars?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You informed Doctor Bob that, now that you're no longer smoking, you have no further need of his services? That was the plan as you presented it to me so optimistically this morning, was it not?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Maggie told him through gritted teeth. Then she sort of slumped in place. "We talked about this trip."

"About your mother, you mean? So. How much longer will you be seeing the good doctor?"

"Christmas. I know I'm going to get roped into going home for Christmas, too. After that. I'm a big girl now. I don't need a shrink to hold my hand just because I'm going to see my-oh, h.e.l.l, I should have asked the man if he has an unlimited-visit lifetime plan. You know, like dance lessons and gym memberships. Once you pay out the bucks for one of those things, you never go again. It could be my way out."

"I cannot tell you how anxious I am to make your mother's acquaintance, Maggie. Sterling is of the opinion she must breathe real fire."

"Venom. She secretes real venom, and it gets more lethal every year. I mean, she was never a happy woman, but lately? I don't want to think about it. This the rental?" she asked, pointing to the huge black SUV. "Do I need a trucker's license to drive this thing?"

"I could-"

"In your dreams, Alex. As far as I know, you're licensed to drive only high-perch phaetons in Hyde Park. In the eighteen hundreds. Oh, here comes Steve. He said he might be able to see us off."

Saint Just looked down the street to see Steve Wendell making his way toward them with his slow, lazy shuffle of a walk, his too-long sandy-colored hair hanging in his eyes, his clothes, although well tailored, looking as if he'd slept in them. "Ah, yes, here's our impeccably groomed Beau Brummell now. To bid us a fond farewell? How very touching. But about the good left-tenant, my dear. I believe you had planned a luncheon with him, and yet when I had reason to speak with him the other day, he mentioned that he hadn't spoken with you for-"

"Bite me."

"I look forward to it, yes." Oh, he was a bad man. A bad, bad man. And enjoying himself immensely, as he had begun to feel a thaw in Maggie's att.i.tude toward him these past few days. And now she'd allowed herself to be angry with him. Much more usual, and much more pleasing than her previous disappointment, disillusionment. His Maggie was a d.a.m.ned obstinate woman...and he adored her for it.

"Maggie," Steve Wendell said, bending to kiss her. A polite kiss. Circ.u.mspect. Really, the man was a total loss when it came to romance. Not that Saint Just was displeased by the man's inept.i.tude. "Alex, Sterling. I guess you two are looking forward to getting back to jolly old England?"

Saint Just removed his quizzing gla.s.s, stuck it in his pocket. "Don't look so sad, Left-tenant. We are not pa.s.sing out of your life forever. It is a visit only."

Sterling, who had been helping Socks load luggage into the SUV, said, "I'm so looking forward to flight. Another new adventure."

Saint Just counted to three before Wendell picked up on Sterling's verbal slip and asked, "New? But you flew over here, right?"

Maggie quickly stepped in front of Sterling. "Boat. They came by boat." She spread her arms. "Big boat."

"Oh, I don't think so, Maggie," Sterling, always truthful, if not always astute, said, poking his head out from behind her. "I don't think I like boats. Socks took me on a boat tour around Manhattan, and I was quite queasy by the time we were done."

"But, then, how did you-?"

"I believe that's obvious. We walked," Saint Just slipped in quickly. "Steve, dear friend, would you be so kind as to move away from the car door, so that Sterling may settle himself. You do wish to settle yourself, don't you, Sterling?"

"Um...I might want to go upstairs one last time. Maggie tells me that with all the increased traffic that is prevalent around American holidays, and all of that, it could be several hours before we reach her parents' home, and I..."

"Yes, thank you, Sterling. I believe we understand," Saint Just said. Socks told him he could use the restroom in the lobby, and Sterling ran back into the building. "How lovely," Saint Just went on, "now you two can prolong your farewells. Will you kiss her again, Wendell? It's very affecting to observe."

"Alex, knock it off," Maggie said in a near-growl, then took hold of Wendell's arm at the elbow and steered him a good twenty paces down the sidewalk.

"You're really cruising for a bruising, you know that?" Socks said, shaking his head. "That guy carries a gold shield and a gun."

"Yes, I tremble in my boots just thinking about that. Truthfully, Socks, have you ever seen such an ineffectual lover?"

"And that p.i.s.ses you off?"

"On the contrary. It pleases me to the top of my bent-that's the highest branch of a tree, Socks, figuratively. And it never hurts to remind Maggie of that fact-of both of those facts. Ah, here's Sterling again, and all zipped and b.u.t.toned, which can only be considered fortunate for the ladies, as well as for the rest of us. Socks, good friend, take care, and feel free to mount a raid on the kitchen pantry when you sneak in to watch movies on my plasma television machine."

"I wasn't going to...I wouldn't do that. Ah, d.a.m.n, Alex-how did you know?"

"He knows everything," Sterling said as he opened the back door and climbed onto the high seat. "Don't you, Saint Just?"

"I do my possible, yes, thank you. Socks, you'll a.s.sist Maggie into the vehicle, if you please?" Saint Just then climbed into the front pa.s.senger seat, carefully belting himself in without wrinkling his sport coat. He did not much care for handing the reins to Maggie, and had already made a mental note to pursue a license to drive vehicles. "I may not know everything, but I know Maggie is dreading this visit with her family more than an appointment with a tooth drawer. It is our duty, Sterling, to keep her in good spirits and, most probably, away from sharp, pointed objects. Are you up to the task?"

"You know I'll offer myself as a supporting prop, and all of that. But do you really think-?"

The driver-side door opened, then slammed. "Let's get this dog and pony show on the road, okay?" Maggie said, holding the key to the right too long, so that the ignition screamed. "Oh, yeah, this is going to be a real fun trip."

"As long as you're happy, my dear." Saint Just smiled as Sterling whimpered in the backseat.

It wasn't, Maggie knew, that you physically couldn't go home again. It was that sometimes you just didn't want to, at least not to the Kelly Family home. The closer the SUV got to Ocean City, the tighter the knot in Maggie's stomach became and the more her head pounded.

Not that her pa.s.sengers noticed. Sterling was happily watching Shrek on the pull-down screen for the backseat, and Saint Just had, probably only to spite her, put on earphones and was listening to the soundtrack from the musical Jekyll and Hyde, saying he might as well have his melodrama with violin accompaniment.

Which had been a crack at her lousy mood.

"Okay, heads up," she said, giving Saint Just a poke in the ribs. "I've got to get around this circle, so you look right and I'll look left. Sterling-cross your fingers."

Ignoring the honking horn behind her, Maggie nervously eased her way into one of New Jersey's infamous traffic circles, one foot poised over the brake, then gunned it when Saint Just gave her the all clear.

"Very neatly executed, my dear, even if that truck driver did seem to have taken exception," Saint Just said, removing the headphones. "By that pinched white line around your lovely mouth, may I a.s.sume we're very nearly at our destination?"

The Ninth Street bridge was just ahead of them now, the bridge that would take them onto the island and to her doom. Hey, if Saint Just wanted melodramatic, she'd give him melodramatic. "Okay, now listen up. We're late-"

"Yes. I keep wondering, as you've made the journey from Manhattan to Ocean City in the past, how you could possibly have taken three incorrect turns."

"Don't push, Alex. I've got a lot on my mind. We're late, so that means everyone else is already there. That means Erin, along with her husband, Gavin the Neurosurgeon, all praise Gavin. Maureen lives here, so we know she's already at the house, probably kissing Mom's backside and scoring Brownie points, as usual. Tate? G.o.d knows. If there's still a red carpet on the front walk, he hasn't shown up yet."

"Sibling affection is so moving, isn't it, Sterling?" Saint Just drawled, extracting his quizzing gla.s.s from his pocket and draping the black grosgrain ribbon around his neck. "But to recap? Erin is the oldest, Tate is the only son, and Maureen is the baby of the family. Leaving you...?"

"Can we all say middle-child syndrome?" Maggie said, turning right onto Wesley Avenue. "Doctor Bob says that's what made me an overachiever, so I really shouldn't complain. Now, I'll introduce my parents as Alicia and Evan, but don't call them that, not unless they ask you to. Call them Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. And maybe bow."