Mary, Mary Read Free Page B

said. “I’m officially off the clock. This is family time. Can you give us some space? We’re at Disneyland.”
    Truscott nodded as though he understood completely, but then he said, “Your vacation will be interesting to our readers. The calm-before-the-storm kind of thing. This is great! Disneyland is perfect. You have to understand that, right?”
    “I don’t!” Nana said, and stepped toward Truscott. “Your right to stick out your arm ends at the other person’s nose. You ever hear that wise bit of advice, young man? Well, you should have. You know, you have some kind of nerve being here.”
    Just then, though, I caught something even more disturbing out of the corner of my eye—a movement that didn’t fit the circumstances: a woman in black, slowly circling to our left.
    She had a digital camera and was already taking pictures of us—of my family. Of Nana confronting Truscott.
    I shielded the kids as best I could, and then I really lit into James Truscott. “Don’t you dare photograph my kids!” I said. “Now you and your girlfriend get out of here. Please, go.”
    Truscott raised his hands over his head, smiled cockily, and then backed away. “I have rights, just like you, Dr. Cross. And she’s not my fucking girlfriend. She’s a colleague. This is all business. It’s a story.”
    “Right,” I said. “Well, just get out of here. This little boy is three years old. I don’t want my family’s story in a magazine. Not now, not ever.”

Chapter 7
    WE ALL TRIED TO FORGET about James Truscott and his photographer for a while after that. Did pretty good, too. After umpteen different rides, a live show starring Mickey Mouse, two snacks, and countless carnival games, I dared to suggest that we head back to the hotel.
    “For the pool?” Damon asked, grinning. We had glimpsed the five-thousand-square-foot Never Land Pool on our way to breakfast early that morning.
    When I got to the front desk, there was a message waiting, one that I was expecting. Inspector Jamilla Hughes of the San Francisco Police Department was in town and needed a meeting with me.
ASAP, if not sooner,
said the note.
That means move it, buster
.
    I gave my smiling regrets to the pool sharks and took my leave of them. After all, I was on vacation, too.
    “Go get ’em, Daddy,” Jannie ribbed me. “It’s Jamilla, right?” Damon gave a thumbs-up and a smile from behind the fogged lens of a snorkel mask.
    I crossed the grounds from the Disneyland Hotel to the Grand Californian, where I had booked another room. This place was an entirely American Arts and Crafts affair, much more sedate than our own hotel.
    I passed through stained-glass doors into a soaring lobby. Redwood beams rose six floors overhead, and Tiffany lamps dotted the lower level, which centered on an enormous fieldstone fireplace.
    I barely noticed any of it, though. I was already thinking about Inspector Hughes up in room 456.
    Amazing—I was on vacation.

Chapter 8
    JAMILLA GREETED ME at the door, lips first, a delicious kiss that warmed me from head to toe. I didn’t get to see much of her wraparound baby-blue blouse and black pencil skirt until we pulled apart. Black sling-back heels put her at just about the right height for me. She sure didn’t look like a homicide cop today.
    “I just got in,” she said.
    “Just in time,” I murmured, reaching for her again. Jamilla’s kisses were always like coming home. I started to wonder where all this was going, but then I stopped myself.
Just let it be, Alex.
    “Thanks for the flowers,” she whispered against my ear. “
All
of the flowers. They’re absolutely beautiful. I know, I know, not as beautiful as me.”
    I laughed out loud. “That’s true.”
    I could see over her shoulder that the hotel’s concierge, Harold Larsen, had done a good job for me. Rose petals were scattered in a swath of red, peach, and white. I knew there were a dozen long-stems on the bedside table, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in