“Monsieur,” said the waiter, bowing as he laid a napkin over Jesse’s lap.
“Gracias.”
Jesse didn’t look at all bothered by the fact that he’d invited himself to dinner—and forced the waitstaff to add a third chair and place setting to what was obviously a table for two—even though everyone else in the restaurant was staring at us.
Things like that don’t faze Jesse at all.
In fact, I think he was enjoying himself, especially when the sommelier brought over the bottle of Dom Pérignon that came paired with the first course on the tasting menu, chilled oysters on the half shell, topped with Beluga caviar.
“I brought my own bottle,” Paul grumbled, and filled his champagne flute with the whiskey he’d brought from Delgado’s studio.
The sommelier looked disapproving, but since Paul was a paying guest, there was nothing he could do.
“As you wish, sir,” the sommelier murmured, and walked away.
Mariner’s was the Carmel Inn’s four-star restaurant, voted the top destination in the Bay Area by Forbes Magazine, and Paul had gone all out, reserving its best, most romantic table—known locally as “the Window Table” because it was tucked into a dark corner of the restaurant that happened to be paned on both sides by floor-to-ceiling glass, and jutted out a dozen yards above the crashing surf of the southern most edge of Carmel Bay, so that diners had the giddy sensation that they were eating on a cliff, a private aerie above the sea.
Only the aerie was not so private or romantic tonight, since the restaurant had been more than happy to add a third place setting and chair at the Window Table, per my fiancé’s request.
“So,” Jesse said. “What are we celebrating?” He lifted his champagne glass. “The fact that I’m a demon?”
Paul raised his own glass. “I’ll drink to that if it means you’ll finally go to hell, de Silva.”
“Stop it,” I snapped. “Both of you. Jesse, how did you—?”
“Your stepbrother David was trying to reach you,” Jesse said with a shrug. “But you wouldn’t pick up—as usual. So he called me to see if I knew where you were. He seemed to have something particularly urgent to tell you, so naturally I asked what it was. David being David, he was reluctant to betray your confidence, Susannah, but eventually I convinced him it was in his best interest. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was the reason he was calling. Or rather, the fact that I seem to be under some sort of curse.”
I felt as if someone had poured ice-cold champagne down my back instead of into my glass. “Jesse,” I said. I was going to kill David. “Look. I can explain . . .”
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Jesse said, enjoying his food with a gusto I found surprising for someone who’d just discovered he was destined to lose his soul and become a mass murderer. “I look forward to hearing all about it. Yes, I will try the wine, thank you.” He smiled up at the hovering waiter.
“But how did you know we’d be here?” I hadn’t told David—or anyone—about my evening plans.
“Where else would Paul Slater stay when visiting Carmel?” Jesse set aside his fork to take a sip. “Only the best. Now, where shall we begin? With the bargain I heard the two of you mention, or whatever happened between you on graduation night?”
“Jesse,” I said after I’d taken several gulps from my water glass. My mouth felt as if it were filled with sand. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right, querida.” There was a dangerous glint in his dark eyes. “If a man is doomed to murder everyone he’s ever loved, it’s nice to know he has reason to do so.”
“Jesse.” I choked. “Stop it. You know that isn’t true.”
“Which part, precisely, Susannah?” Jesse drained his wineglass. “I told you that we may no longer have a mediator-ghost connection, but I can still tell when you’re lying to me, and you’ve been lying to me all week. Those flowers on your desk at work? They weren’t from a grateful parent. They were from him.” He glared at Paul.
“Guilty as charged.” Paul winked at him. “But isn’t she worth it?”
I felt a spurt of rage at both of them.
“Oh, yes, that’s right, Jesse,” I said, before he could react to Paul’s jab. “Ever since high school, Paul and I have been having a torrid affair behind your back. That’s why I took him and not you to the murder tonight. Paul’s much better at murder than you are.”
Paul looked confused. “Wait. Are you being sarcastic?”
“Yes, you idiot,” I said to him. “We almost got shot tonight because you don’t even know how to fasten a pair of handcuffs.”
“Then why did you take me?”
“Because I couldn’t let Jesse do it. He’s got too much to lose.”
Paul sank back into his chair, looking stunned. “Shit. She used me.”
“Oh, grow up, Paul. Jesse, listen, I—”
“I thought we’d talked about this.” Jesse had folded his arms across his chest in such a manner that his biceps were bulging beneath the suit jacket he wore (jackets and ties were mandatory for male diners at Mariner’s). Jesse’s wasn’t as expensive as Paul’s, but he still looked very, very good in it. “I had to promise to work a half dozen shifts to get another resident to cover my shift in the ER tonight, and then, after waiting here for you for over an hour, I learn that you’re late because you killed Delgado? How could you even think of doing something like that after what you and I discussed this afternoon, Susannah?”
“First of all, I never said I killed Delgado. He took his own life. Second of all, I’m sorry I lied. But I told you, I didn’t want you risking your reputation for a sleazebag like—”
“And I told you I didn’t want you risking your life.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I’d never seen him so angry. “But I said I wasn’t going to sit around decorating bonnets. You should know by now I’m not that type of girl. And it turned out to be worth it. I have Delgado’s client list. Not the clients who bought his regular photographs—he had a separate thumb drive of private clients who bought what he called his ‘specialty photos’ . . . photos you definitely don’t want to see. Father Francisco’s name is on that list.”
Jesse made a face as if he’d tasted something bitter, but all he’d done was take another, slower sip from his champagne glass, which the waiter had come by to superciliously refill. “Ah. The good news never ends, does it?”
“It is good news, Jesse,” I said urgently, gazing into his eyes, which were still dark with suppressed anger, and something else I couldn’t entirely identify. “There was enough on that thumb drive to put Father Francisco—and a lot of other people—away, maybe even forever. I’m going to turn everything over to CeeCee tomorrow.”
Jesse’s lips twisted. “So the world is supposed to believe that Delgado had a crisis of conscience before he killed himself, and sent his list of private clients to the local press?”
“I think that’s best. CeeCee will make sure Becca Walters’s name stays out of it.”
Jesse nodded thoughtfully. “And perhaps this will allow the spirit of Lucia to rest.”
“Not to interrupt this touching moment, but can I just say one thing?” Paul held up one hand.
“No.” Jesse stabbed an index finger in Paul’s direction. “You should shut up, unless you want to end up like Delgado. And you”—his furious gaze snapped back toward me—“can hardly blame me for thinking the worst, especially after what David told me tonight. What bargain were you two arguing about when you pulled up? And what could possibly have happened graduation night? I was with you almost the entire time.”
“Jesse,” I said. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But I was afraid of how you’d react—like now, for instance.”
He looked indignant. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Everything! I had this situation completely under control until you came in here—”
“Oh, please.” Paul groaned. “Much as I’m enjoying watching you squirm, Simon, I need to go shower, because I smell like a Venezuelan flight attendant. So I’m calling it quits for the night. I can assure you, de Silva, nothing happened on graduation night except one little moment of indiscretion on my part, for which your girlfriend kneed me in the balls. And then tonight, as the coup de grace, she forced me to watch a degenerate blow his brains out. There. Are you happy now? Seriously, I give up. She’s all yours.”
Jesse made a lunge at Paul as he rose to leave the table, catching him by the lapels of his suit jacket and causing all of the dishware to rattle noisily, and some of the silver to slide to the floor.
“She was never yours to give, Slater,” Jesse hissed, his face only inches from Paul’s. “Nor is she mine. Women aren’t horses, they don’t belong to one man or another, though maybe you think they do, since you’ve evidently been working so hard to steal her away.”
“I wouldn’t call it work.” Paul did not sound particularly troubled by the fact that there was six feet or so of fuming former ghost looming over him. “Not when you’ve made it so easy by failing to properly tend to her needs.”
Fortunately the sommelier hurried over at that exact moment, and he and I both managed to pry Jesse away from Paul in time to keep him from physically assaulting him . . . but not in time to keep every head in the restaurant from swiveling toward us.
I felt all of Jesse’s muscles tense beneath my fingers. He was itching to heave a punch in Paul’s face, and truthfully, Paul deserved one.
But neither the sommelier nor I wanted a scene in Mariner’s, especially at the Window Table. With our combined weight and a combination of pushing and pulling, we managed to get Jesse back into his seat before he did any damage.
“Jesse, please,” I begged him as the sommelier fussed over him like a mother hen, folding his napkin back over his lap, since it had fallen to the floor, and brushing off his suit. “Paul’s drunk. And, even if he completely messed it up, he did do you a favor tonight. You know you can’t afford to be anywhere near people like Delgado.”
Jesse turned his glare on me. I felt like one of the tiny cakes inside my stepnieces’ vintage Easy-Bake Oven, burning under the bright white lightbulb.
“Did me a favor?” He looked incredulous. “Susannah, I don’t need those kind of favors, from him or anyone, especially when they involve you. And,” he added with a dark glance in Paul’s direction, “he’s a little too drunk, don’t you think?”
“What? No.” I hurried back to my own seat just as the second course, a gold-rimmed plate of Monterey Bay wild salmon with Meyer lemon, was being laid there by a team of servers so professional they gave the appearance of not having noticed there’d been a near knockout in their restaurant. “He seems fine to me. Wait, what are you—”
I broke off as Jesse reached down beneath my chair.
“Really, please, carry on, you two,” Paul slurred drunkenly from the chair he’d sunk back into. To my amazement, he still hadn’t left the restaurant. “Pretend like I’m not even here. I’m used to it.”
Jesse pulled my bag from beneath the table and began to rifle through it. Suddenly I knew exactly what he was doing . . . and what he was looking for. My heart flew into my throat.
“Jesse, no,” I cried, reaching for the leather straps to snatch the bag away. “I—”
But I heard the distinctive rattle, and knew his fingers had closed over the prescription pill bottle before I could stop him. He pulled it from the depths of the bag and squinted at the label in the dim candlelight on the restaurant table.
“What are those?” Paul asked interestedly. “Suze, did you bring party favors? My kind of girl.”
“They’re not the kind you’d like, Slater,” Jesse said, quickly opening the bottle and dumping the contents into his hand. Counting swiftly, he asked, “How many have you given him?”
“Just a few. I put them in the whiskey bottle when he wasn’t looking. I didn’t want him to taste them.”
Jesse swore. “You gave him sleeping pills in alcohol?”
At Jesse’s appalled expression, I shrugged. “It is a big bottle. He’ll be fine, just a little out of it for a while.”
“Thank you for your medical diagnosis, Dr. Simon.” Jesse had already pulled out his cell phone, ready to dial 911. “Why would you do such a thing?”
I bit my lip. I was going to have to tell him eventually. Look at everything that had happened because I hadn’t told—because Becca hadn’t told. Oh, wait. We were talking about me now.
But in the end, Paul was the one who spilled the beans.
“Sleeping pills? That’s a new low, even for you, Simon.” He reached into his jacket pocket for his own cell phone. “I should have known you never had any intention of holding up your end of the bargain. I’m texting Blumenthal to go ahead with the demo on Monday.”
This caused Jesse to pause while making his call. “There that word is again. Bargain. What bargain?”
“Um,” I said, my panic rising to new heights. “Nothing. Just—”
“Oh, ho.” Paul grinned as he continued to tap into his phone. “Awkward. Sorry, Simon. But a deal is a deal. And by attempting to drug me into a stupor, you just voided ours.”
Jesse’s dark gaze burned into me. “Susannah. What is he talking about?”
Before I could say a word, Paul went on, “Oh, don’t be too hard on her, de Silva. You should be impressed, as a matter of fact. It’s hard to find women as loyal as this one these days—at least ones who aren’t interested only in your money, which wouldn’t be a problem for you, I know, but for me, I—”
“Okay, that is enough.”
I stood up, throwing my balled up napkin to the side of my newly delivered bowl of black truffle risotto with Parmigiano-Reggiano, which at this point I had no interest even in trying.
“Come on, Jesse,” I said. “We don’t have to sit here and listen to this. Let’s go.”
But Jesse stayed where he was.
“No,” he said. His eyes were as dark as Paul’s were light—but even darker than usual, since I saw the now-familiar shadows creeping in. “I’m interested to hear about this bargain.”
I began to feel afraid, despite the string quartet playing lightly in the background.
“Jesse, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s . . . he’s on drugs, remember?”
Paul took a deliberate swig from the whiskey bottle. “Sweetheart, I’ve got news for you. I pop pills like candy. How do you think I maintain my extremely unhealthy lifestyle while looking so good? A few sleeping pills mixed into my hooch aren’t going to bother me in the least because I took four dexies before we left the bar. Anyway, what the two of you have together is really sweet, and I’m envious, especially since you both have to know by now it’s going to end.”
“And how is that?” Jesse asked.
“Well, there are no documented cases that I know of human and reanimated corpse copulation, but I think it’s likely such a thing would fly in the face of all physical and natural law. If you ask me, that’s what’s probably going to unleash whatever demonic entities reside within the good doctor here. But what do I know? I’m no expert. I guess we’ll find out Monday, won’t we? Oh, that’s the bargain we had, de Silva. Your girlfriend was going to let me bang her if I didn’t tear down her old house. But now that deal is off. So good luck not slaughtering the bride.”