Lethally Blond by Kate White Page A

Tom had been headed? To hang with his old professor. To ask his advice on what the hell to do with his life.
    I tried Professor Carr’s office phone but once again ended up with voice mail. Next I tried the college switchboard, asking for the theater department and not Carr. A motherly-sounding woman answered.
    “Is Professor Carr there?” I asked.
    “No, dear, he left about twenty minutes ago. Would you like his voice mail?”
    “I left a message earlier. Do you know if he picked up his messages?”
    “I believe so. I’m sure he’ll be in touch.”
    I’d indicated in both my voice mail and e-mail messages that people were concerned about Tom and asked for a reply right away. Carr hadn’t obliged. Could that mean that Tom was there and Carr was protecting him? It seemed that the only way I would be able to learn if Tom Fain was now in residence in Saratoga was to get my little butt in my Jeep and head up there. I calculated the driving time—about three, three and a half hours each way. It meant investing a whole day and would also mean that I’d be a lot more invested than “making a few calls” for Chris’s sake. But I didn’t have a ton on my plate reportingwise this week, and besides, I felt a growing compulsion to find Tom, even if he had no regard for his friends. I called the garage and ordered my Jeep for nine the next day.
    For the rest of the afternoon, I camped out on my terrace, reading through clippings for a freelance article I needed to start sooner or later. Often my thoughts flew back to Tom.
    At seven that night, I tapped on Landon’s door. When I’d first moved into my apartment, not long after my wedding, I’d exchanged only neighborly pleasantries with Landon, but after my marriage had crashed and burned and my ex had fled his law firm job and the city, Landon had invited me in for a drink, and our friendship took off.
    “Your cheeks are pink,” he said as he ushered me into his apartment. Landon did not believe in gas grills, and from the open terrace door wafted the intoxicating aroma of burning charcoal briquettes.
    “I caught a little sunshine late in the day. Here, some Pellegrino. I hear it’s an excellent year.”
    The dinner was to die for: the aforementioned delectable lamb chops, haricots verts, roasted new potatoes sopping in olive oil and mint. Over dinner I shared the whole saga about Tom, beginning with Chris’s phone call and ending with my decision to head to Saratoga tomorrow.
    “Now that you’ve heard all the details, give me an objective opinion,” I demanded. “Do you think something’s terribly wrong?”
    “Well, he may have just taken off, but there’s something about it that doesn’t feel right. You know what intrigues me even more? All this interest on
your
part.”
    “I’ve been wondering about the same thing, actually. Believe it or not, I’ve developed a soft spot for Tom. From everything I’ve heard, he seems like a really nice guy—and I feel bad that he’s sort of alone in the world.”
    “What’s up with you and Chris? Are sparks starting to fly again?”
    “He’s as hot as I remember him being, but I think he came to see me just as a friend.”
    “What about
you
?” he asked, his eyes twinkling in the amber light from the citronella candle.
    “Well, things never got airborne the last time, so I suspect it’s probably not meant to be. Plus, for all I know he’s got a girlfriend now. But there’s a part of me that thinks it would at least be a distraction from stewing about Beau Regan.”
    “Oh dear. Can’t kick him out of your head?”
    “It’s getting better. Like today I’ve only thought about him forty or fifty times so far. He’s due back soon, and it’s torturing me. I keep wondering if he’ll call as soon as he’s home, and then realize that if he was interested in pursuing things romantically, he would have stayed in touch while he was away.”
    “You have the kind of problem that calls for more claret,” he