“Funny thing to hide under a bed up here.”

Jessica’s eyes lit up. “Nancy’s message! Jesus Christ, she said my dad told her all about Kathy’s yellow sweater.”

“Whoa, slow down a second. What did Nancy say exactly?”

“She said—and I quote verbatim—‘He told me all about that favorite yellow sweater he gave Kathy. Such a sweet story.’ Those were her exact words. My father never wore it. Kathy did. Like a nightshirt or kick-around-the-house shirt.”

“Did your dad give it to her?”

“Yes.”

“So how did he get it back?”

“I don’t know. I imagine it was in her personal belongings at school.”

“Which doesn’t explain why he asked Nancy Serat about it. Or why it’s hidden under his bed.”

They stood in silence.

“We’re missing something here,” she said.

“Maybe your father saw something in these clothes we can’t see yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Myron admitted. “But these clothes were clearly significant to him. Maybe he found them somewhere unusual. Or maybe the police found them.”

“But Kathy was wearing blue the night she left. That’s been established.”

Myron remembered the testimony of the sorority sisters and the photograph. But then again …

“One way to check on that.”

“How?”

He ran out to the car. Darkness had finally laid claim on the long summer day. He turned on the phone, hoping they weren’t too far out of a calling area. Three of those little bars lit up. Enough for the phone to work. He tried Dean Gordon’s office. It rang twenty times. No answer. He tried the dean’s house. It was picked up on the third ring.

Dean Gordon said, “Hello?”

“What was Kathy wearing when she came to your house?” No need for identification or pleasantries.

“Wearing? A blouse and skirt of some kind.”

“What color?”

“Blue. I think the blouse was ripped a bit.”

Myron hung up.

Jessica said, “Back to square one.”

Maybe, Myron thought. But the flash of an image seared across his mind. He couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t even make out what it was exactly. But it had been there, and it would come back.

“Let’s go,” she said softly, taking his hand. The car light provided enough illumination to see the look in her eyes. They were beautiful eyes, so light colored they were almost yellow. “I want to get away from here.”

He closed the car door, feeling suddenly choked up. The car light went out, basking them in darkness. He couldn’t see her face anymore. “Where do you want to go?”

From the darkness he heard her voice. “Someplace,” she said, “where we can be alone.”

Chapter 37

They found a high-rise Hilton in Mahwah.

Myron checked them in to the best available suite. Jessica stood next to him. The hotel concierge swung his line of vision from Myron to Jessica, eyeing her lustily and Myron jealously. A formal affair was in full swing in the lobby. Men in tuxes, women in long gowns. But every man stared agog at Jessica, who was dressed in jeans and a button-down red blouse.

Myron was used to it. When they were first together, he had taken an almost perverse pleasure in seeing men stare, the familiar you-look-but-I-touch-ha-ha school of macho sneering. But then he started seeing things in the looks that weren’t there, and the even more familiar male insecurity burrowed through his rationality.

Jessica was practiced at this. She knew how to ignore the looks without looking cold, bothered, or interested.

Their room was on the sixth floor. They had barely closed the door when they kissed. Jessica’s tongue circled and gently darted, making his whole body spasm helplessly. He began to unbutton her blouse. His mouth went dry. He actually gasped when he saw her again. Breathlessness made him heady. He cupped a warm breast, feeling the delicious weight in his hand. She moaned into his mouth.

They moved to the bed.

Their lovemaking had always been intense, all-consuming, but this was somehow more animalistic, needier, and yet more tender.

Later, much later, Jessica sat up, kissed him gently on the cheek. “That,” she said, “was awesome.”

Myron shrugged. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?”

“For me. For you it was awesome.”

She swung her legs out of bed and slipped into a hotel robe. “I did enjoy myself,” she said.

“Sounded like it.”

“I was a tad noisy, huh?”

“The Who in concert is a tad noisy. You were loud.”

She stood above the bed, smiling. The robe was tied loosely, showing plenty of cleavage and legs that were so long, they were almost intimidating. “I didn’t hear you complain.”

“How could you,” Myron said, “over all your screaming?”

“What time is it?”

“Midnight.” He reached for the phone. “Hungry?”

She gave him a look he felt in his toes. Well, not exactly his toes. “Famished,” she said.

“For food, Jess. Food.”

“Oh.”

“Ever learn about the male’s ‘time for recovery’ in health class?”

“Must have been absent that day.”

“The three R’s. Replenishment, restoration, recuperation.” He looked at the menu. “Damn.”

“What?”

“No oysters.”

“Myron?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a hot tub in the bathroom.”

“Jess …”

She looked at him with who-me innocence. “We can soak until the food comes. Recuperate. One of the three R’s.”

“Just soak?”

“Just soak.”

She had said soak. He was sure of it. Soak. Not soap. But that was how it started. She soaped him back to life. Myron tried to fight it, almost afraid of how good it felt. But he couldn’t. Jess toyed with him, pushed him to the edge, let him teeter, then pulled him back. Myron was helpless. Words like heaven, ecstasy, paradise, ambrosia floated through his mind.

Total surrender.

With a whispered “Now,” she let him go. His nerve endings surged and sang. The white-hot explosion was so powerful, his ears popped. The bright light hurt his eyes.

“Awesome,” he managed.

She lay back, smiling. “Not bad.”

There was a knock on the door. Probably room service. Neither one of them moved.