Some Like It Lethal by Nancy Martin

table, careful not to look at any of the other spa patrons as they lingered in their pink robes. "Phone call."
    I thanked him and accepted his cell phone with shaking hands.
    From across the Atlantic Ocean, Michael said, "Do you want me to come home?"
    Yes, yes, yes!
    But I said, "I'm coping reasonably well on my own at the moment, thank you. How did you hear?"
    "I'm traveling with Josh, remember? My lawyer. He got a call from his partner, who's at Emma's bedside right now. Are you all right?"
    "Just the usual stupid fainting spell, but somebody caught me when I fell."
    "Anybody I ought to be jealous of?"
    "I think it was Libby. But Detective Bloom was just here."
    Michael laughed. "That chickenshit. He waited until I was a couple thousand miles away to make his move on you, didn't he?"
    Michael had gone off on a fishing trip to broaden his horizons. Cheerfully admitting he was ignorant of the world beyond New Jersey, unless you counted the auction yards where he bought and sold muscle cars, he decided out of the blue he'd explore rural Scotland, of all places, with a handful of unlikely buddies. In addition to his lawyer, who may well have been billing the time, for all I knew, Michael traveled with a mysteriously wealthy cousin who baked bread, and a young man who wrote poetic articles for fishing magazines.
    While listening to their plans, I thought they made their expedition sound like a grand adventure to an exotic land.
    Michael said, "Bloom has stars in his eyes every time he looks at you. Come to think of it, so do I."
    I smiled shakily and was glad he couldn't see how frightened I was. "Michael, Emma's in big trouble."
    "Tell me the whole story."
    I did so in a low voice, gathering my composure as he listened to the details.
    When I was finished, he said, "So who killed the dog food king?"
    "He wasn't the king. A prince, maybe. I don't know who killed him. I just know it wasn't Em."
    "Think Detective Gloom and his pals are going to bother looking for anyone else?"
    "I think they're going to try to prove Emma's guilt first, and when that doesn't work, they'll get around to looking for another suspect."
    "When the evidence is cold."
    "Yes."
    "You've got to get involved again," he guessed. "In another murder investigation."
    I knew he didn't like me snooping around in dangerous affairs. I didn't like it, either, but I had been forced to help friends and family before. This time, however, Michael wasn't available to watch my back.
    Before he could object to my plan, I said, "I'll be careful this time."
    "Who are you going to talk to?"
    "I'm not sure yet. Rush Strawcutter was very easygoing. I'm having a hard time imagining who could have been angry enough to kill him."
    "Maybe it wasn't anger."
    Now and then I was uncomfortably reminded that Michael looked at crime from a different point of view than I did. "What do you think it could be?"
    "The usual. Money. Sex. Revenge. Maybe a family thing. Or if he was such a prince, maybe self-defense, but that's rarely it. In my experience, a dead guy usually deserves getting smoked."
    I closed my eyes and forced myself not to speculate about how many dead guys Michael had encountered in his life.
    "Sorry," he said, guessing what my silence meant. "You can send a Jersey boy to Scotland, but he's not going to wear a kilt."
    I laughed unsteadily. "Maybe it's a good thing you're there."
    "Why?"
    "I hear you're number one on the police hit parade again."
    "Oh, that."
    I wanted to ask more. Half the time I wanted to know everything about him because I knew firsthand what devastation too many secrets could wreak upon a relationship. I wanted to understand his efforts to remain estranged from his father and assorted ne'er-do-well half-brothers who were heavily involved in the Abruzzo crime family and seemed to take turns serving prison terms. But I counseled myself to trust Michael's judgement when it came to not sharing the parts of his life he believed might shock me. We were still