“I like to think of the place where she….” He drew in a shuddering breath. “It’s simply the place shelivedwith me. Where we were happy. I thought it might be hard to be there, but her things, her scent, our memories—they’re a comfort.”
“I understand.”
Despite the weather, Jasper looked to the west, where he could see a black SUV making its way through the snow. “I think your ride’s almost here.”
Robert handed his phone to Jasper. “Put your number in, okay?”
Jasper experienced a little frisson of joy at being asked, was more than a little flattered. After removing his gloves, he did as Robert asked. He handed the phone back. “I’d like to see you again, Robert.”
Robert looked a little sad as his car drew up to the curb. “I fly back to California tomorrow. But who knows?”
Jasper had second thoughts then about asking him back to the apartment, but his heart told him it was too soon. He knew what would happen.
If something was meant to play out between him and Lacy’s uncle, it would.
Robert started toward the car. “I’ll call you before I head to the airport in the morning.” The driver had gotten out and opened the back door. Robert pulled out his wallet and removed something. He hurried back to Jasper and handed it to him.
Jasper glanced down at the business card.
“This has my email, just in case you want to get in touch that way.” Robert grinned. “If you want to make the first move.”
Jasper tucked the card into his pocket.
Robert returned to the car and started to get inside. “That’s my pen name, by the way,” he called out before the driver closed the door. “Don’t think I gave you the wrong card.”
Jasper started walking north up Greenview, toward home. He didn’t think much about the card or the pen-name remark until he got to Fargo, his street. He pulled the card out and glanced down at it.
Michael Blake
“Oh my God,” Jasper whispered to himself, and then a burst of almost hysterical laughter escaped him as he started walking again. “NottheMichael Blake.”
Chapter 5
AT HOME,the first thing Jasper did was pull out his phone and bring up Google. In the search bar he typed “Michael Blake author.”
Almost a million hits immediately came up. Lest Jasper had any doubts about whom he’d just shared drinks with, the images of the author washed them away. There he was, in all his salt-and-pepper and pale-eyed glory, looking sexy as hell—on the backs of books, at a premiere of a film version of one of his dark suspense titles (with, Jasper noted, the young Olympian swimmer turned actor Cole Barrett on his arm), at what Jasper guessed was his home, sitting under an arch of bougainvillea with a squat glass of scotch in his hand. There were dozens of images, too, of the books he’d written—their noirish stories given faces of red and black, with grunge lettering and moody photography, full of shadows and staring eyes.
The first hit, naturally, was for the Official Michael Blake Website. Jasper clicked on the link. At the top of the landing page was a gorgeous photo of Robert, or Michael as the world knew him, dressed casually in a white oxford-cloth shirt, navy sports coat, and faded jeans, leaning forward and staring into the camera with those damn soulful and mesmerizing eyes. Beside him were cover images of his two latest books:DreadandMisdemeanor.
Jasper had read them both when they first came out, on the very phone he held in his now-sweating hand. Even though he was usually strapped, whenever Amazon sent him a notice that a new Michael Blake book was available for preorder, he would always buy it.
He’d been reading Michael Blake since he was a freshman in high school, starting at one of his earliest books, a thriller/ghost story about a rehab facility where a kindly seeming orderly was orchestrating the overdosing of patients he didn’t approve of calledThe Wisdom to Know the Difference. Jasper had been hooked from that very first book, especially since Blake had made the daring move of writing the protagonist as a gay teenage crystal-meth addict, struggling to escape his demons and get clean.
Jasper looked up from his phone and cried out, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” as though Lacy were only in the other room. Now it wasn’t so much a question of not telling your gay roommate that you had a gay uncle, but telling your compulsive-reader roommate that, in fact, your uncle was one of the most famous writers on the planet, not to mention being one of Jasper’s literary heroes.
He listened for a response, but all he got in return was the rumble of the L outside his window. A mechanical voice intoned that Howard would be the next and last stop and that riders could change for the yellow or purple line.
“Didn’t you think I’d want to know? Didn’t you think I’d go fanboy crazy?”
Jasper glanced down again at the Michael Blake Official Website, taking in the sections for personal appearances, upcoming film and television adaptations, a way to sign up for his newsletter, and, of course, the obligatory links to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
He set the phone down on the coffee table and wandered into Lacy’s room, continuing to talk to her. “I just don’t get it, Lace. Why wouldn’t you tell me your uncle was a bigshot author? One of my favorites? It doesn’t make sense.”
He plopped down on her bed. He’d made it up after the paramedics had left, and its deep purple comforter with its almost invisible black roses offered up no reply to his queries. He lay back and considered the ceiling.
He supposed she must have had her reasons for not sharing such a vital piece of her family history. Maybe there was bad blood. That made sense, especially since Robert had told him he hadn’t seen Lacy in so many years. He put it down to being in California, being busy, but maybe something had happened.
What?
