Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions by Rosemarie A D'Amico Page B

beside the car, and Cleve conveniently ignored my question and opened the back door for me.
    “Do you realize, I know nothing about how Tommy died. Except that he was shot in the back of the head. Now, if you have some more information, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with me.”
    Cleve gave a visible sigh and a fatherly look came over his face.
    “The investigation is continuing. Obviously. I have no hint of what’s going on.”
    “You’re patronizing me Cleve. Don’t do that.”
    “Fine. You’ll find out soon enough. I understand they’re investigating Tommy’s death as a homicide, as you know, and that they suspect it was someone who knew him. They have definitely told me it wasn’t a random mugging.”
    “Thank you. What was so hard about sharing that information?”
    Cleve stared at me hard, for a few moments.
    “Because it seems you’re the obvious suspect.”
    chapter nine
    Sleep finally came to me but I woke up restlessly several times in the night. I dragged myself out of bed around seven and immediately made myself a pot of coffee. While I waited for it to brew I brushed my teeth and dunked my face into a sink of cold water to try and revive myself. I wondered if this is how drug addicts felt in the morning.
    The red light on my phone was blinking and I checked for the messages I had ignored last night. There was only one and it was from Jay.
    I called his studio apartment and woke him up. Told him I needed to see him before he went to work and asked him to come to the hotel and have breakfast with me. When he arrived forty minutes later I gave him a long, hard hug.
    “Nice digs,” he said as he looked around the suite. “Certainly coming up in the world,” he joked.
    “Comes with the territory. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
    We sat at the small dining room table where room service had laid out muffins, croissants, jam in little jars, fresh fruit, juice and coffee. I poured myself another coffee and explained to Jay what had happened over the last day. He didn’t speak throughout my whole explanation and when I finished, he had an amused grin on his face.
    “I don’t know what to say,” he said.
    “Yeah, well neither do I.” I lit my third cigarette of the day and blew the smoke at the ceiling, away from Jay. He hadn’t said anything when I first lit up in front of him and I was grateful. One doesn’t need to be reminded of one’s weaknesses.
    “What’re you going to do, Kate?”
    I shrugged my shoulders.
    “Are you up for this?”
    “What do you mean? The challenge? The new job?”
    “No, that’s not what I mean,” Jay said. “I know you. I’ve known you all my life and I’ve never known you to back away from a challenge. You’re incredibly bright and you’ll have no problem catching up with the business. I meant the wealth that comes with the challenge. Are you up for handling it?”
    “I have no idea. You know me. I live from paycheck to paycheck. I barely have anything in my RRSPs. Last night I told Cleve I didn’t want it. I’m still thinking that way. Do you happen to know if sudden, new-found wealth changes people?”
    “No idea. We were dirt poor as kids and I’m just glad to have a job and have enough money left over each week to send my mom. I’d have no idea how to handle what you’ve got now. I read somewhere recently that they’ve done a study on people who’ve won large sums of money in lotteries and they all say they aren’t any happier. But you’re a well-adjusted person now. Are you looking to be happier? Why would all this money change you?”
    “The responsibility. It’s making me miserable already.”
    “Scared of a little responsibility?” he challenged me.
    I shook my head.
    “Then dive in. Have fun with it. How many years have you been telling me you could do a better job than the monkeys at the top?”
    “That was fantasyland. This is reality. And reality sucks.”
    “Well, welcome to reality.”
    As much as I felt