But it wasn’t from Cali, it was from Plum. It said: “COME TO MY PLACE. BOSUN BUILDING, PENTHOUSE A. TELL THE DOORMAN YOUR NAME IS ROMEO. DON’T KEEP ME WAITING.”
Just what the doctor ordered, Sadie heard Ford think.
Only if it was Dr. Frankenstein, she said. Or Dr. Bad Idea. After everything that’s happened tonight, do you really think—
“ON MY WAY,” he texted.
CHAPTER 18
I still think this is a very bad idea, Sadie whispered to Ford an hour later as he watched Plum slide down next to him on the brown wool sofa.
Plum wore a white linen caftan that was see-through when the light hit it directly, as it was doing now. “You were incredibly dull the last time I saw you,” she said, shifting in a way that made it clear she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “What makes you think you won’t bore me this time?”
“I’ll try my best,” Ford told her, pitching his voice low. During the ride over Ford’s numbness had taken on a hard, sardonic edge, lack of feeling turning to reckless boldness.
Plum laughed and leaned toward him, giving him a glimpse down the front of her caftan. No need to trouble yourself, Sadie assured her. We could already see just fine. “Say ‘hardest’ and you might have a shot.”
“My absolute hardest,” Ford pledged.
They were sitting in her wide-open living room. The furniture was clean and modern, a low sofa, leather shag rug, a massive television. In front of them, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows showed a terrace that seemed to wrap around the whole apartment, with the city twinkling sixty-three floors below it.
Plum’s penthouse in the Bosun Building was less than an hour’s bike ride from where Ford lived, but as he’d chained his bike, Sadie had heard him thinking it might as well have been another planet. He was struck by how quiet it was, with no foot traffic, just the low purr of well-maintained car engines and the regular whirring of helicopters landing and taking off from the tops of the sleek towers.
It was quieter inside the cocoon of her apartment, and she was amused to hear Ford think that even the silence was nicer in this part of town. Plum handed him a glass and a cocktail napkin monogrammed with a double P, and said, “Your text said you couldn’t get me off your mind. What, exactly, were you imagining?” She took a sip.
Ford’s new recklessness seemed to eliminate nerves. It was like he was a different person, a shallower, more confident—
“The reality is much better than the fantasy,” he told Plum.
—more cheesy one.
Plum laughed. They were both barefoot, and her toes skimmed his as she shifted, somehow making her caftan even less opaque. “You can’t fool me. You came here to ask about your brother.”
Watching the light dim in Ford’s range of vision, Sadie realized he thought Plum was testing him. If he agreed that he’d come to talk about James, he’d be thrown out. If he denied it, said that he’d come because Plum fascinated him, he’d be allowed to stay. It was a devious but clever way of engineering the outcome Plum wanted, essentially telling Ford how to behave.
“I could have done that on the phone,” Ford said, skirting the trap. “Or I could have suggested we meet somewhere in public.” He looked at her, and Sadie felt him setting a trap of his own. “I’m sure we could think of more interesting things to talk about than James. God knows he wasn’t that interesting when he was alive.”
Plum took the bait. “That’s not a very nice thing to say about your brother.”
“Didn’t you say he bored you? Never wanted to have any fun?”
“No.” She leaned forward and straightened the cocktail napkin beneath her glass. “We had fun.”
“I’m having trouble picturing James up here.” That was a lie, Sadie knew. During the ride up to the penthouse in the Bosun Building’s glass-and-chrome elevator, Ford had thought of how perfect it was for James, no wonder he’d stopped coming home. “Did James give the doorman his own name, or did he call himself Romeo too?”
“He had all different aliases. He’d come to the door and do a different voice for each one: Professor Barmy, Officer Lockup, Mr. Mopeson.” She shook her head. “He was such a ham.”
A crack appeared in the frozen surface of Ford’s mind at her words. He hadn’t expected anything genuine, Sadie thought, and the realness of it, this glimpse into a whole life James had lived without him, was a shock.
“He was,” Ford said quietly. “He used to be able to make Lulu and me laugh for hours.”
“Lulu?” Plum asked.
“Our sister.” When Plum still looked puzzled Ford added, “Didn’t James tell you about her?”
Plum shook her head. “He didn’t really talk about his family much. It didn’t come up.”
A flare of anger shot out, threatening Ford’s entire cool demeanor. He swallowed hard and said, “What did you talk about then?” His chest was tight, his voice was strained, but Plum didn’t seem to notice. Sadie wondered if she had any idea of the pain she was causing.
“My club. What we were going to do that night. What to have for dinner.”
“Your patron?” Ford tossed out.
Plum ignored it. “My movies.”
Ford frowned. “You make movies? I thought you were going to be a child psychologist.”
“I can do both,” Plum said, but her tone was a little snappish, as though, Sadie thought, the question bothered her.
Pieces of ideas floated through Ford’s mind, and he grabbed at them haphazardly. “Did you and James make any movies together?”
“Of course,” Plum said, eyes gleaming with amusement. “James was a very good”—she paused to lick her lips—“performer.”
Ford’s thoughts skittered from her suggestion. He shifted to put a little more distance between them, and Sadie sensed him groping for a safe question. “How did you two meet?”
Plum leaned toward the coffee table and slid open a drawer beneath it. “At a party.” She pulled a tablet computer from the drawer and started flipping through it as she spoke. “The handsome one with the dangerous eyes… Linc?” She glanced up at Ford, who nodded. “He introduced us.”
Ford’s mind filled with a grainy gray, blue, and black image of Linc’s silence when he’d asked about James’s girlfriend, the dots getting darker and darker until they fizzled into black. “How do you know Linc?” he asked Plum.
She shrugged and said, “Friend of a friend.” She was distracted, tapping through the screen in front of her like she was looking for something specific. “Can you explain how you know all your friends?”
Ford’s mind was running through a pointillist slideshow of Willy swearing he didn’t know Plum, which expanded to all his brother’s friends. “Yep.” All liars, Sadie heard him think.
“You’re not very popular then,” Plum told him, finally looking up. She smiled and held the tablet toward him. “This is some video of James I shot the day before he—you know.”
“That’s okay,” Ford said, making no move to take it.
Plum laughed. “It’s not that kind of video, at least not the first four minutes and twenty-two seconds. He’s fully clothed that whole time. I promise it won’t offend your sensibilities.”
Ford left every other thought behind as he took the tablet. “Thanks,” he said, a tiny breeze of loneliness caressing his cheek. Sadie felt his hands trembling and his heartbeat pushing against his ribs. He sat back, nestling into the couch cushions to keep his arms steady, and pushed PLAY.