The Last Night Out Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Catherine O’Connell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Present Day

  Chapter One: 14 Days Until the Wedding

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three: Kelly

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five: Suzanne

  Chapter Six: Kelly

  Chapter Seven: Suzanne

  Chapter Eight: Angie

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven: Angie

  Chapter Twelve: Carol Anne

  Chapter Thirteen: 13 Days Until

  Chapter Fourteen: Suzanne

  Chapter Fifteen: 10 Days Until

  Chapter Sixteen: Vince

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen: Kelly

  Chapter Twenty: 8 Days Until

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Vince

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Ron

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Kelly

  Chapter Twenty-Five: 7 Days Until

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Ron

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Suzanne

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Carol Anne

  Chapter Thirty: Vince

  Chapter Thirty-One: Ron

  Chapter Thirty-Two: 5 Days Until

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Carol Anne

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Ron

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Kelly

  Chapter Thirty-Six: 3 Days Until

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ron

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Suzanne

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: 2 Days Until

  Chapter Forty: Kelly

  Chapter Forty-One: One Day Until

  Chapter Forty-Two: Vince

  Chapter Forty-Three: Wedding Eve

  Chapter Forty-Four: Suzanne

  Chapter Forty-Five: Vince

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Suzanne

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  My Epilogue

  Postscript to Readers from Kelly O’Reilly

  Acknowledgements:

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Catherine O’Connell

  Novels

  THE LAST NIGHT OUT *

  The High Society Mysteries

  WELL BRED AND DEAD

  WELL READ AND DEAD

  * available from Severn House

  THE LAST NIGHT OUT

  Catherine O’Connell

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Catherine O’Connell.

  The right of Catherine O’Connell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8800-6 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-926-9 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-982-4 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  For my three siblings, Tom, Jane and Barney.

  The best gift an author can have is a loving and eccentric family, and I have been blessed with both.

  Present Day

  I sit alone in the music tent, in the back, away from any others. Rain pellets the pavilion’s roof, dulling the atonal chords of the Schoenberg piano concerto. The dissonant music brings to mind how imperfection can be beautiful. A young cellist rushes in late and squirms into his seat in the orchestra. The change in the conductor’s demeanor is barely perceptible, but it is clear he has taken note of the musician’s tardiness. Is this a career-changing mistake on the cellist’s part? It could well be. Music is a competitive field.

  I wonder how many outcomes have hinged on such cringeworthy moments: how many lives have been indelibly changed as a result of one misstep? Whether by choice or by deflection, the consequences of the alternate path can be dire. I ponder how my life might have turned out if not for my great misstep. Quite differently, I am certain.

  There is comfort in knowing I was not directly responsible for Angela’s death. Though over a quarter-century has passed since that night, it still creeps into my thoughts with undue frequency. And when I think of how my life turned out in the aftermath, there is always a twinge of guilt.

  The rain ceases pounding just as the music comes to a rousing finish. The orchestra stands to thunderous applause, the tardy cellist rising alongside the others. Something about his lateness has appealed to me, and the realization comes in a flash. It is not too late to tell the story. It is never too late to out the truth. I slip from the tent ahead of the crowd and hurry across the parking lot to my car. As I drive home, with the peaks of the majestic Rockies rising to either side of me, I am already composing the words. By the time I arrive home, they are ready to fall into place.

  So, if you will, travel back with me to a warm humid Chicago night in June of 1988. Changes were in play, but no one had any idea how profound they were. Disco was gasping its last breath, both men and women wore their hair long on the sides and short on top, jeans were stonewashed and high-waisted. Cher and people who lived in trailers were the only ones with tattoos. Gays were just coming out of the closet, while AIDS was already an epidemic. Computers were a novelty to anyone outside business, email barely existed, texting was science fiction, and if anyone had a cell phone, it was nearly the size of a shoe. The hottest phone technology was redial. As women, we were the first full generation of career seekers, monetarily and sexually liberated at last. But with our roles still being challenged in a man’s world, we often settled for a lot less.

  That’s a snapshot of Chicago when this story begins. While I can bear witness to my role, you, the reader, must allow for the liberties I will take in assuming voice for the others. Though there may be some inaccuracies in my interpretation of what took place, I suspect in the end my story will ring true.

  Margaret Mary Trueheart

  July 10, 2013

  ONE

  14 Days Until the Wedding

  Saturday, June 11, 1988

  I awoke to the sound of the phone ringing and with a sick, sinking feeling that I wasn’t alone. As I lay on my side staring at the wall, there was no denying the heat of another body radiating beneath my designer sheet
s. I remembered that Flynn was out of town. A frantic replay of the night before brought up nothing more than scattered images. I was definitely still drunk.

  The phone rang six times before the call went to the answering machine in the living room, and the sound of my voice echoed down the hall. Hi, this is Maggie. You know what to do and when to do it. The line went to a dial tone. The phone started ringing again. Once again the sound of my voice was followed by a hang-up. When it happened a third time, I realized the caller wasn’t giving up. I rolled reluctantly onto my back to reach for the phone and my hand froze midair. It was the carpenter. The blue work shirt sans work shirt. He was grinning at me, his grin carving dimpled parentheses into his tanned cheeks. Nausea surged from my head to the toes of my all-too-naked body.

  ‘Looks like someone sure wants to talk to you,’ he said. Tapping a conspiratorial finger against his lips in a pledge of silence, he plucked the phone from its cradle and held it out to me, the cord cutting a swirling path through his matted chest hair. Horrified, I snatched the phone from him and cupped the mouthpiece next to my face, fearful my visitor might do something to make his presence known such as cough or speak or, God forbid, let loose the noisy emission so common to the male species in the morning hours.

  ‘Hello,’ croaked a voice hardly recognizable as my own.

  ‘Maggie, oh Maggie, it’s me, Suzanne.’ Her words oozed with relief. ‘Thank God you made it home OK.’

  That, I thought, is a matter of opinion. My eyes settled back on my guest. He had made himself quite at home on his side of my bed, his curly head cradled in his hands, his elbows open like wings. He was still wearing a shit-eating grin, not quite the shy New Hampshire carpenter of the night before.

  ‘Of course I made it home OK,’ I lied. My eyes flashed to the clock. The digital readout told me it was seven forty-eight. Not super early, but still an uncivilized time for a phone call on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night, even from an early riser like Suzanne. In a lame attempt to sound flip, I asked, ‘So what’s up with calling at the break of dawn?’

  There was a brief hesitation and then, ‘I don’t know how else to say this, Maggie. It’s Angie. She’s dead.’

  The words cracked through my addled brain like a tamer’s whip, causing me to bolt upright in the bed, my bare breasts exposed as the sheets fell away. I tugged the sheets back to my chin with delinquent modesty. That horse had already left the barn. ‘This is a joke, right?’ But even as the question fell from my lips, I knew its futility. Suzanne Lundgren was the least likely person on the planet to pull a prank of any kind, much less one so dark.

  ‘I wish it were a joke.’ The distress in her voice was evident. ‘Kelly just called from the police station. Angie’s been murdered. They found her body in Lincoln Park earlier this morning.’

  ‘Kelly?’ This didn’t make sense. Scores of questions were forming in my head, but in my compromised state, the logical ones weren’t surfacing. Instead of asking about Angie, I said, ‘What does Kelly have to do with this?’

  ‘Evidently, she was out for her morning run and she came across the crime scene,’ Suzanne replied. ‘She’s at Area Three headquarters. They took her there to ask her questions about Angie, I guess.’

  ‘But this is impossible. We were just together …’ I glanced back at the clock. ‘… what, five, six hours ago? Didn’t you take her home?’

  This time Suzanne lost it, her words coming in breathy gasps. ‘Maggie. Of course I took her home. After we left you, I poured her into a cab and took her straight to her house. I made the driver sit and wait until she went inside. I watched her close the door.’

  Fragments of the night started coming back in a jigsaw-like jumble: Angie on the dance floor in black pants and a low-cut red top, her thick black hair sheeting her face in a dark curtain, her ample hips swaying teasingly over a pair of red stilettos. Angie propped against the neon bar, her tongue in an empty shot glass. Angie trying to stand up straight on Jello legs.

  ‘Listen, I can’t really talk anymore. I’ve told you all I know,’ Suzanne said, her voice constricted in pain. ‘Kelly promised to call as soon as she gets home with the rest of the details. In the meantime, will you call Carol Anne? I just can’t do it.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I whispered. The line went dead.

  Staring at the phone in my hand as if it was a foreign object, I fought to come to terms what had just happened. Surely I wasn’t facing the finality of a friend’s death. This had to be some kind of weird nightmare. Just like this stranger staring at me. He was part of the nightmare too. I would close my eyes and the world would go back to yesterday’s normal. Angie would be alive, and I would be alone in my bed, and the worst thing anyone would suffer was the mother of all hangovers.

  I pressed my eyes shut.

  But when I reopened them he was still there, his presence nearly as disturbing as Angie’s murder. His smile had disappeared, and his face was filled with genuine concern. He reached up and gently brushed my cheek. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘There was an accident,’ I said, too dazed for tears, unwilling to share my personal grief with this stranger. ‘You have to go now.’

  Choosing to ignore my request, he reached out and stroked my face, brushing the back of his hand the length of my jawline. I fought back an involuntary shiver. There was a certain power in his hands, and I remembered being obsessed with them last night. They were large and strong with well-defined joints and hard-earned calluses that testified to hours of honest, physical labor. Hands so unlike Flynn’s. Flynn’s hands were silky and smooth with long tapered fingers and cuticle-free nails, hands that might carry a golf club or tennis racket, hands from an entirely different social strata.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he was saying, his caress migrating to the sensitive skin of my neck. ‘So beautiful.’

  Missing pieces began to emerge from the vodka cloud. Dancing to Cyndi Lauper at The Overhang, climbing into a white truck, the two of us bathed in yellow beneath the streetlamp outside my building. Still much of the jigsaw remained empty. With the dreamlike trance of the alcohol fading, and the protective cover of night gone, I was naked in the naked morning light. Eve staring at the apple. I thought of Flynn and my heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach. Then I thought about Angie, and my heart fell further still.

  Apparently oblivious to my conflict, the carpenter brought his face to mine and kissed me lightly on the lips. ‘No,’ I protested, pulling away. Paying no attention to my attempted virtue, he slipped a hand to the small of my back and pulled me closer. So close I could feel the heat rising off the flat surface of his torso. He pressed his lips to my chin, to my nose, to my mouth. ‘No,’ I repeated, trying to summon some conviction as his lips continued their pilgrimage to behind my ear.

  In a perfect world, the good me would have been repulsed by his very presence. In a perfect world, the good me would have slapped him hard and leapt from the bed. In a really perfect world, this man wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

  It’s an imperfect world.

  This was wrong, all wrong. How could I betray my fiancé like this? How could I even think of sex when I should be mourning the death of a friend? But something primal had sparked deep within me, overwhelming grief and guilt and sadness, taking my rational self as prisoner. My body was willing itself in his direction. I didn’t even want to pretend to put up a fight. I wanted to be held by him, to bury my face in his chest, to allow him to bury himself in me.

  I kissed him back hesitantly at first, and then in earnest, opening my mouth to accept his. He pushed me to the mattress and in no time we were rolling on my bed, our bodies pressed together. The movements grew more intense, and we were just shy of the inevitable when an unwelcome glimmer flickered in the recesses of my brain. I grabbed him by the hips and stopped him short of entering me. His breath came in desperate gasps as his coffee-colored eyes met mine.

  ‘I don’t suppose I used my diaphragm last night?’ I
panted.

  His empty look answered the question. I sighed and pushed him from me. If there was any time to stop this insanity, the moment had presented itself. But sanity was not to prevail. I was a woman possessed.

  I reached into the nightstand and pulled out my diaphragm, quickly slipping the trusted dome where it needed to be at the given moment, exorcising thoughts of where it should have been the night before. And then, as if there had been no break in activity, he was alongside me again. There was no sense of time, no awareness of the past, no fear of the future. The present was the only thing to consider, a very compelling present. I surrendered to him, leaving this consciousness for that arena where there is nothing else save you, and another body, and millions upon millions of greedy nerve endings vying for attention.

  TWO

  When I awoke an hour later the carpenter was sleeping soundly beside me, one arm draped across my shoulder. I had sobered up somewhat, though the residual alcohol in my system would still have qualified me for a DUI. The raging hormones that had rendered me certifiable earlier had retreated, and the morning’s events hit home squarely. I stared at my ceiling and tried to digest the new reality. I was a whore and Angie was dead.

  Careful not to wake my guest, I extricated myself from under his arm and went into the bathroom. One look in the mirror served to confirm my self-assessment. My hair was matted tufts of auburn poking in all directions like a clown’s wig, my green eyes were ringed in the ghoulish black of yesterday’s mascara, and my face was raw with whisker burn. I painfully peeled off the contact lenses I had neglected to take out the night before and threw them in the trash. Then I sat down on the toilet and buried my head in my hands, trying to deal with the monster headache pulsing in my right temple. An image of Angie lying on a slab caused me to whimper aloud, filling my bloodshot eyes with tears. I thought about her parents and brothers, people I had known the better part of my life. If the loss of Angie was painful for me, it would be insufferable for them. I sat like that for a while before my thoughts jumped back to the stranger sleeping in my bed. What in hell had I been thinking? What if Flynn came back to town early? I had to get him out of my house. Right away. I grabbed my terrycloth bathrobe from the hook and drew it around me, cinching it tightly at the waist.