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  "Five and a half what, my dear?" Saint Just asked, following her up and into the main kitchen.

  "Million dollars," Maggie whispered, although they were alone in the kitchen, Kiki and Sterling obviously having moved on to another part of the house. "I could go to six, but I want to start lower."

  "So you'll pitch her a low ball and hope she swings at it? Yes, I begin to understand the concept, perhaps. We'll think of this in terms of baseball. What flaws, in particular, do you suggest I point out to the woman?"

  "Hell, Alex, I don't know. I love every inch of this house. Just make it work, okay? It's vacant, it's ready to go. We could probably move here right after the first of the year. If ... if you want to, of course. Things are moving so fast, aren't they? Maybe you'd rather stay where you are?"

  "I thought we were settled on that point. I am where I want to be, Maggie. I'm with you."

  She rolled her eyes. "The Case of the Pilfered Pearls. Chapter Six, I think. You're feeding me the come-on line I fed you to feed to whatever-the-hell the woman's name was that I put you to bed with in that book. That's disgusting."

  "Ah, but a good line is a good line, yes?" Saint Just teased as Maggie turned on her heels and headed out of the kitchen.

  Saint Just tarried for a few moments at the immense, granite-topped island, considering all that had happened since Maggie had summoned him to her condo shortly before luncheon and shown him the Internet listing of this house.

  He'd admired the way she'd convinced Miss Rodgers to meet with them that same afternoon although, of course, that was before Maggie had seen the confident young woman's imposing bosom. He admired her taste in having chosen a building such as this in the first place. The tall, white-stuccoed structure would look quite at home in Brighton.

  And he was amazed to think that Maggie was finally coming out of her shell enough to realize that there was more to life than sitting at her computer tucked into a corner of her living room, creating a fantasy world that in no way resembled her own rather circumspect lifestyle.

  He'd like to think that he had played a part, a rather large part, in this metamorphosis, this digging Maggie out of the figurative cave she'd resided in much too long. Alone, not realizing she was lonely. Needing some life in her life ... needing him in her life.

  After all, she'd created him; her perfect hero. And now he would go out and slay a dragon for her. It was what he did.

  He swung his sword cane up and onto his shoulder as he prepared to follow Maggie at his leisure. "I am, by and large, quite a remarkable fellow," he congratulated himself, smiling at his own smugness ... and then quickly broke into a run when he heard a crash some distance away, followed by a pithy, feminine curse.

  Chapter Three

  Maggie sat on the litter of the Emergency Department of Lenox Hill Hospital—Saint Just's hospital of choice—her left leg straight out in front of her, glaring at the spot just below her ankle bone. The spot, area, whatever, on the outside of her foot that was turning a deep, suspicious blue, as opposed to the rest of her foot, which had puffed up like an angry blowfish.

  "It's broken, right?"

  "Fractured is the medical term we prefer. But, oh yeah, it's most certainly broken. You want to see? Most people want to see for themselves. It's the curse of too many medical reality shows on TV. Everyone's an expert," the young doctor said as he slammed two X-ray films up into the front of a light box.

  "Cute," Maggie said, not feeling at all cute as she glared at the films. "Two left feet. Scratch any chance of appearing on Dancing with the Stars."

  The doctor obviously didn't get the joke, but that was okay. It was, as jokes go, pretty lame. Then again, Maggie was feeling pretty lame. Whoops, that made two bad jokes. It was a good thing she had her mystery series; she wasn't about to knock 'em dead as a writer on Saturday Night Live, either.

  And, obviously, she was a little hyper, her mind racing along, barely under her control. She took a slow, deep breath, trying to pull herself together.

  It wasn't working.

  "You can see, Margaret, right here, where you pulled off the tip of the bone. This little one, here, fifth meta—well, let's not be all technical, okay? You want to know what's next?"

  Maggie was still squinting at the backlit X-rays. "Actually, I want pain meds. Heavy duty pain meds. Idiot that I am, I insisted it wasn't broken, and walked in here on that thing. I'm not proud, anymore. I'm even open to begging."

  "I think we can arrange pain medication once we get the cast on. Now, about this fracture. It's a tricky one."

  "I thought you said it was a little one," Maggie said, turning to look at the doctor, who probably got his medical degree at fourteen. It was scary, getting to an age where the doctors are younger than you.

  She'd always liked Doctor Helsing, who'd taken care of her while she was growing up in Ocean City. Gray, a little paunch, smelled of peppermints. You could trust a man like Doctor Helsing.

  Of course, the guy was probably either dead or drooling in some retirement villa in Boca—but when he said you were going to be all right, you believed him. This guy looked like he still lived with his mom—and she still cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  "Yes, Margaret, it is a small bone. But it's an important bone."

  "Aren't they all important?"

  "True. But some more than others. You rolled your foot over something, didn't you?"

  Maggie was impressed. "Yes, I did. I was touring a house I plan to buy. An older house, and there was a metal doorstop nailed into the floor. A sort of round, metal thing. I didn't see it, stepped on it—just with the outside edge of my foot—and my foot sort of rolled over it as I tried to keep my balance. I didn't fall, either, which I thought was pretty spectacular. But the bone just hit the doorstop and broke, right? Well, the doorstop hit the bone. One of those two."

  The doctor shook his head. "I don't think so. It was the torque, the rolling over, the attempt to regain your balance, actually, which did the damage. You see, you pulled the ligament away from the bone—the ligament taking part of the bone with it. I'm telling you this because I'm going to have to confine you to a non-weight-bearing cast, at least until you see me again. Let's say ten days, all right?"

  "No," Maggie told him, her heart pounding, "let's not say. We're ... I'm leaving for Ocean City, New Jersey, sooner than that. For Christmas."

  "But you'll come back to the city to see me," the doctor said confidently. "If you've been good, if you stay completely off that foot, I might be able to promote you to a walking cast—not full weight-bearing, but at least you'll be able to get around better. But if you don't behave?"

  She waited, but he didn't say anything else.

  "You could probably drag this out more, Doctor, if you really tried, turn it into a miniseries. Maybe if I faked a drumroll, we could get on with it?" Maggie said, her nerves fraying badly. She was always her snarkiest when she was scared; snarkiness was her single weapon of self-defense.

  "I'm making a point, Margaret. I was pausing for effect. But I can sense that it isn't working for you."

  "Maggie. Don't call me Margaret, please. I already feel like I'm back in second grade."

  The doctor laughed. "That's it, keep your sense of humor. You're going to need it. Now, as I was saying? If you're good, if you listen, we'll X-ray again and possibly put you in that walking cast. And if you're not—well, I operate on Tuesdays and Fridays."

  Maggie finally decided it was time to pay attention and stop wishing for Doctor Helsing—who would have given her a nice cherry-flavored lollipop by now. "Operate?"

  The word came out as more of a bleat.

  "Ah, the magic word. Works every time," the doctor said to a nurse who'd entered the cubicle. "Swing your legs over the side, please, and we can finish up. Is there any special color cast you'd like, Maggie? We've got pink, white, red, lime green, blue, black—"

  "Black," Maggie said. "I'm not feeling particularly festive at the moment. And if I can't
walk on the cast, how will I get around?"

  "Crutches," the doctor said, snapping on latex gloves. "Although, looking at you, I'd think a walker would be safer. You fall often, Maggie?"

  She looked at him in confusion. "No. Why? Do I look clumsy?"

  He shook his head. "Never mind. Just some private research for my own benefit. You're holding onto the litter with both hands, as if you might otherwise fall off. I've noticed that sort of reaction from people who fall often."

  Maggie wet her lips as he bent her ankle so that her toes were pointing slightly upward, and went for humor. "I'm afraid of heights, of falling. I get dizzy on a deep rug. I fell down the stairs, when I was a kid. Top to bottom. I can still remember that feeling of pitching straight into the air ... rolling head over heels ... lying at the bottom of the stairs with my mother looking down at me, yelling that I'd broken my neck."

  "And had you?"

  "No," Maggie said, thinking back to that day, and the expression on her mother's face. As if breaking her ten-year-old neck would inconvenience the hell out of the woman. "Are my friends out there?"

  The doctor asked the nurse to check the waiting room and bring Saint Just and Sterling back to see her. "So I can give them the same sermon I'm going to give you again about keeping that foot off the floor. No weight-bearing, absolutely none. I'll know if you cheat, too, because the bottom of the cast will be flattened. And, like I said—Tuesdays and Fridays."

  "Bet you aced your Bedside Manner course, huh?" Maggie grumbled, watching as he did his magic with white padding and the black wrap he wound around her from the base of her toes to just below her knee, her foot bent up at about a forty-five degree angle, so that if she did try to put her foot down, all that would touch would be the heel. "Ten days?"

  "Or eight weeks. It all depends on you and that little bone," he said, putting both hands around her calf and squeezing the still-soft cast, molding it to her leg. "Now, something else. You're going to itch under here, partly because that happens, partly because you know you can't scratch the itch. Do not stick anything down the cast. No chopsticks, no rulers, no knitting needles, no nothing. Believe me, I've seen them all. I've found pennies when I've cut off a cast. Gummi-bears. Toothpicks, crochet hooks. I could write a book about things people stick down their casts."

  "Couldn't everyone? Write a book, I mean," Maggie said, pretty sure the arch of her foot had begun to itch. "So what do I do if I get an itch?"

  "Think good thoughts, offer the itch up to the poor souls in purgatory? Seriously, just don't think about the itch, and it usually goes away. If it gets really bad, turn the hair dryer on the spot. Ah, and who's this?"

  Maggie looked toward the door to see her friend and editor, Bernice Toland-James, sweeping into the room on a cloud of scent and Armani. "Bernie, what are you doing here?"

  "Are you kidding?" Bernie gave a quick shake of her head, serving only to fluff out the cloud of bright red hair that was her trademark. "My bestselling author takes a header, where else would I be? Will she live, Doctor?"

  "Probably another sixty or seventy years, if she doesn't smoke and she eats all her green veggies." He looked up at Maggie, still holding onto her leg, still pressing on the cast, which was beginning to feel warm and uncomfortably tight. "An author, huh? What do you write?"

  "A mystery series," Maggie said, not eager to tell him her pen name, just to have him say he'd never heard of her. She was depressed enough, without that.

  "She's Cleo Dooley," Bernie supplied unhelpfully. "You're working on a very famous person, Doctor."

  "Lucky me," he said, grinning. "I'd ask for your autograph, but I'll need your real name on the check when I send you my bill. There, all done. My nurse will be in with the walker. She'll give you the prescription for pain that I won't forget to write, a few lessons on how to navigate, bathe, and you're good to go. Ladies, a pleasure," he said, and then he was gone.

  "Never do that, Bernie," Maggie said, glaring down at the cast that felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. "Nobody ever knows me. I don't know who's buying my books, I swear I don't, because I never meet any of them out here in the real world. Oh, and how did you get here? Did Alex call you?"

  "I'm to take you home," Bernie said, opening and closing drawers and doors in the large metal cabinet on the far wall of the cubicle. "You want a bedpan? There's a nifty one in here. How about some peroxide?"

  "Would you stop!" Maggie said, laughing. "That's probably a five-hundred-dollar bedpan. I'm so upset. I can't put weight on this thing, Bernie. I'm going home for Christmas. How the hell am I going to be any use to—oh. Wait a minute, I'm having a flash here. Yes, a definite flash, followed by a warm, fuzzy feeling. I'm not going to be any use to anybody, am I?"

  "And? You're smiling, Maggie, and it's an evil smile. Since it 'tis the Season, I'd have to say you're looking a little like the Grinch as he leered down at Whoville. What are you thinking?"

  "I can't help trim the tree at my parents' house. I can't set the table. I can't wash the dishes. Nobody can tell me I'm doing everything wrong, because I won't be doing anything." She was chanting now, and fighting the urge to rub her palms together like the Wicked Witch of the West. "I can't run errands, I can't shop for groceries, I can't wrap presents—well, Mom never lets me wrap presents because I can't make hospital corners on the boxes. I can't do anything but sit on the couch, watch TV with my dad, and eat what everyone else cooks. I'm going to be totally useless, and Maureen and Erin will be doing all the work and taking all the flak for not doing any of it the way my mother wants it done. There is a God!"

  "There's a bright side to everything, I suppose," Bernie said. "Not to your mother, granted, but good for you, making lemonade out of lemons. Me? I'm going to Vail tomorrow morning, where I'm going to do absolutely nothing, too, except without the cast. That would be a huge impediment to my favorite indoor sport."

  Knowing what Bernie's favorite indoor sport was—and it didn't waiver, whether she was in Manhattan or Vail or anywhere else—Maggie had a sudden, fairly depressing thought. "Where's Alex?"

  "I'm not sure. He said something about a house. About buying a house, or having dinner over a house—something like that. Alex is buying a house?"

  "No, I'm—well, we're buying a house, right here in Manhattan."

  "We? As in you and Alex?" Bernie put a hand to her ear. "Hark! Are those wedding bells I hear? Or are you going to live in sin? I highly recommend the latter, unless you two fall out and he dies, leaving you with a million-dollar life, taxes-paid-up-front, insurance policy. May both my deceased husbands continue to rest in peace between shifts in the Devil's coal mines."

  "No, Bernie, we're not getting married. We're not even living together. The house is huge, and we'll share it, all of us, Sterling included. The condo is just too small for me, that's all."

  "Sweetie, that condo is too small for your cats. And you can use the deduction."

  "That's what my accountant said. Where's that nurse? I want to go home, find out how Alex did with Kiki the Wonderbra."

  Bernie raised her carefully plucked eyebrows. "A female Realtor? Ah, no wonder you sicced Alex on her. Good thinking, Mags. Although you could probably threaten to sue, breaking your ankle and everything, and get her down on price that way."

  "It's my foot, and why didn't I think of that?" Maggie groused as the nurse drew back the curtain and came in, carrying an ugly metal walker. "Omigod, I can't use that. That's for old people."

  Bernie patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll take it to our art department and have someone paint it, or wrap ribbon around it, or something. Maybe something red and green? You know—for Christmas?"

  "Bah, humbug," Maggie muttered as the nurse opened the sides of the walker and began demonstrating how Maggie was to hop, hop, hop for the next ten days ...

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... er, sorry.

  Meanwhile, back at the brain trust

  plotting the perfect crime ...

  Severed brake lines!
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  The city's flat as a ruler. Severed brake lines were for the high, twisty hills of San Francisco. Here? The car would roll half a block, maybe, and then stop.

  Oou! Oou! Poison!

  Drain cleaner? Mercury? Poison mushrooms? Nah, I read about poison mushrooms somewhere. Somebody's already done that.

  A push off a bridge? A roof?

  Okay, okay. That seems workable.

  Except he's bigger than me.

  Surprise. That's what's needed. The element of surprise.

  Like, hey—surprise, you're dead!

  Chapter Four

  "Would you peel a grape for me, Alex?"

  "Sadly, no."

  "My hero. Jeez."

  Saint Just looked up from the mortgage application he was currently perusing to smile at Maggie, who was ensconced on one of the overstuffed couches in her living room, clad in sky blue flannel pajamas with small white sheep on them, and looking delightfully slothful.

  Although he might soon politely suggest she find a way to take a shower.

  "I wasn't aware you ate grapes, my dear."

  "I don't. But if I'm forced to just lie here like a lump, the least you could do is wait on me."

  "Thank you. But, again, no. Sterling is doing an exemplary job of dancing to your beck-and-call these past days. I wouldn't wish to depress his enthusiasm by intruding on his joy. Now, I'm afraid I will need your attention for a few minutes. You haven't taken any more of those pills today, have you? Not that I'm even mildly averse to listening once more to all one hundred verses of that ditty you called Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on a Wall."

  She shook her head. "I'm still in pain. Agony, even. But I really liked those pain pills, which is why I'm not taking them anymore. I'm being a good little soldier. Stiff upper lip, and all of that. Don't you feel sorry for me?"