Where to buy it: Sharks, Jellyfish and Other Deadly Things is out of print, but copies are available from the author; just e-mail Nanmys@aol.com.

EXCERPT

CHRISTMAS USED TO BE my favorite time of the year. Technically, it's not even my holiday, but I've always been a sucker for all that fa-la-la-ing and tinsel and good-will-toward-men stuff. That is, until two years ago, when my ex, Rich-Sonofabitch-Burnham, chose Christmas Eve to fly the family coop. For the usual--a younger woman. Originality isn't one of Rich's strong suits. Neither is timing. Or cherishing unto death. Considering, though, that a couple of his cherished girlfriends ended up underwater and subsequently underground, I guess I'm lucky to have fallen out of favor.

Anyway, since then I've had a tough time staving off a sense of impending doom as the holidays approach. So I shouldn't have been surprised when on this Christmas Eve the malevolent winds of Christmas Past swept across my horizon.

The day had started out normally, innocuously. No ominous dreams had shattered my sleep the previous night; no ghostly apparitions hovered on the periphery of my consciousness. I'd roused Allie and Matt at nine and over breakfast shared in their excited chatter about the upcoming ski trip with their father. Then I'd seen them off on the bus for the annual middle-school sightseeing trip into New York City, which this year included the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. I was in my office by ten-thirty. I was feeling upbeat about having made a tough-love decision to cut my favorite patient loose, despite my certainty that her initial reaction would be mild to severe panic. She outdid my expectations.

"I'll have a relapse!" she wailed. "I'll blow up like one of those Macy's parade balloons."

I refused to back down. "Ruth-Ann," I said unsympathetically, "the whole point of what we've been doing is so you can apply the techniques you've learned here to your life."

The limpid eyes filled. "But I have so much further to go."

"Oh, honey, look in the mirror."

"Vanity's against my religion," she said quite seriously, then giggled through her tears at my rolled eyes. Her midcalf-length skirt and high-collared navy blue blouse, required attire in her Orthodox Jewish circles, could only partially camouflage the voluptuous form they draped.

When Ruth-Ann first came to my office, she weighed a hundred and sixty-five pounds. At least fifty of them had settled in one amorphous blob above her waist, resulting in the almost total disappearance of any distinguishable features such as eyes, nose, and a mouth. Over the past several months, I'd watched in awe and delight as a soulful-eyed butterfly emerged from the cocoon. The shedding of all that blubber was accomplished through biofeedback brain-wave training, which allowed me to pinpoint the source of her eating disorder. To Ruth-Ann I'm a miracle worker, a female Moses. It's a flattering comparison, but I can't take that much credit.

As a biofeedback clinician, mostly what I do is relax stressed-out people. Give me a half hour, let me hook you up to my computer, and I can demonstrate all the destructive things stress does to your body, then teach you how to keep it from killing you. With another software program I brain-wave-train Attention Deficit Disorder kids and addictive personalities like Ruth-Ann.

I spent the rest of the session bringing her to a relaxed alpha state and filling her head with positive "self talk," stressing how proud she should be feeling at what she'd accomplished rather than the fact (vanity being a no-no) that she was undoubtedly going to be turning more than a few yarmulked heads. Hanukkah, I knew, would be the supreme test for her, so I threw in a little weight-control stuff, comparing matzoh balls (my grandmother should forgive me) to things shot out of a cannon and potato latkes to hockey pucks. My grand finale was a stern admonition. "You no longer allow anyone to influence your eating habits. You have learned to say no to 'Eat, bubbela'."

I'm terrific at mental tune-ups. Ruth-Ann left my office all smiles, her face lit up like one of those Christmas trees on the mall outside my building.

I hadn't scheduled anyone after Ruth-Ann because I was anxious to get home before Rich picked up the kids. He'd insisted they be ready at six-thirty to make a nine-ten flight out of Newark. I'd determined to let them go without even one crack to my ex about his predilection for cradle-robbing. Progress indeed. My New Year's resolutions were all about keeping my big mouth shut, the better to ward off the slings and arrows of outrageous ex-husbands.

Married for eighteen years, Rich and I were living a fairy-tale existence in a beautiful home in Alpine, New Jersey. The fairy tale ended abruptly when the prince ran off with the wicked witch. So when the witch was found floating facedown in his (formerly our) swimming pool, I didn't exactly don sackcloth and ashes. Nor did I rend my garments when girlfriend/witch number two was found floating in her bathtub in the same condition. The "death by water" thing did shake me up, but panic didn't set in until fingers started pointing in my direction. Cop fingers. Fingers that had a detective by the name of Ted Brodsky attached to them.

Obviously, Lieutenant Brodsky's and my relationship didn't get off to a galloping start, what with his pointing fingers and my resentment (make that hysteria) at his considering me the prime suspect. But chemistry and the fact that the killer was caught in record time won out in the end. When you've been dumped and an attractive man comes on to you, every hormone in your body starts shrieking "Go for it." And Ted's a very attractive man. The monumental lust he inspires in me borders on the embarrassing. But for a variety of reasons we've decided to cool it.

It had been eleven days and four hours since we came to that decision, so I was surprised that evening, when I pulled into the driveway of the small brick house in Norwood, New Jersey, where my children and I now live, to see his shiny white Miata parked by the curb.

When I opened the front door, he was sitting in our combination family room-kitchen talking to the kids while alternately petting our monster dog, Horton, and Luciano, the dominant cat of our Siamese trio. Horty, who loves me more than anyone in the world, barely managed a tail-wag in greeting.

"Well hi there," I said as I concentrated on pulling off my boots. "It must be Christmas. Santa's brought us a hot new car."

"In your dreams," he chuckled. "Just thought I'd drop by and wish the kids bon voyage."

"Oh. Nice."

Horty finally roused himself, meandered over to me, and planted a slurpy kiss on my hand.

Allie bounced to her feet. "D'ja remember the film?"

I extracted three rolls from my briefcase, for which I got a quick peck on the cheek.

"Gotta finish packing." And she flew out of the room.

I turned to my son. "Mattie, are you packed?"

"Pretty much."

"Won't cut it. Go finish."

He looked at me, troubled. "You're gonna be all alone on Christmas. One of us should stay home."

I felt a tug at the back of my eyes. Every so often one or the other of my children really gets me.

"We talked about that, sweetheart. How often do you and Allie get a chance to ski out west? I'll be okay."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." I wasn't, but that was between me and my box of tissues. "I may decide to drive up to Worcester and see Grandpa and Eve."

"Maybe Ted'll go with you," he said, eyeing the man hopefully.

Ted smiled. "Better hurry, kiddo. You've only got fifteen minutes."

"Sorry about that," I said when we were alone. "He's a little confused about us."

"He's not the only one."

I wasn't going to touch that, not now anyway, so made a big thing of greeting José and Placido, who were having a wonderful time depositing Siamese cat fur all over my pant legs.

Ted let me go through the routine, waiting till I was ensconsed on the couch with a cat on each leg and one in my lap, and Horty weighing down my feet; then he leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Mattie's right. Animals or no animals, it sucks to be alone on Christmas."

"You have something else in mind?" I asked, concentrating on scratching behind the cats' ears.

"I'm hell-bent on seeing the tree in Rockefeller Center. Want to go with me?"

"On Christmas Day to Rockefeller Center?"

"Yeah."

I looked out the window and noticed how crispy clear the night had become, how bright and sparkling the stars. "It'll be a mob scene."

"Then maybe we'll just make a fire in my apartment and watch it on TV."

Was that the cats purring or was it me?

RICH PULLED UP PROMPTLY at six-thirty. Cheerfully, I told the kids to have a wonderful holiday and to be careful not to fall off the mountain. I blew them kisses till the car was out of sight.

Ted was on the phone ordering Chinese food when I came back into the house. In light of our recent pact, I was a little taken aback when after dinner, while we were listening to some angelic boy sopranos singing about the little town of Bethlehem, he pulled me close and kissed me.

"Very nice," I said, trying to ignore my elevating heart rate. "But I'm not quite sure I know how we got here."

"It's our first Christmas together," he replied. "Peace-on-earth time. It struck me it's stupid to be making war."

"We just made plans for tomorrow. We aren't making war."

He grinned, nibbled my earlobe. "We aren't making love either. Though I'm open to changing that."

The kids were gone, we had the house to ourselves, and the offer was infinitely more attractive than anything I'd had planned for the evening. But I have this lousy problem with foot-in-mouth disease. "I thought we were taking time off to reassess."

"I've reassessed."

I twisted around to look at him. "Oh?"

"I came to the conclusion that if you're lucky enough to find someone you care about in this crazy world, and that person feels the same about you, why fuck it up analyzing it to death?"

By now he was caressing my thigh and working upward. I had to concentrate on hanging on to my train of thought.

"Because," I said, "there're things we need to work out."

He stopped doing all those nice things to my body. "Christ, Carrie, I'm not Rich. If you're going to let that rule your life--"

"That's not it," I said defensively.

"Fine. Then let's talk about what it is."

A sensitive subject that, knowing his history, I had never put into words. I fudged. "You know. We're both coming off failed relationships. Our emotions can't be trusted."

The scowl on his face told me I'd flunked the lie detector test.

"Psychobabble crap."

I started to protest, but he held up his hand.

"It's about my being a cop."

I flushed, tried the "best defense" defense. "That's ridiculous. I've never--"

"I know you've never." He got to his feet. "Carrie, sweetheart, I'm forty-five years old. I want a personal life. I'd like it to be with you, but I'm damned if I'm going to wait around for you to get your act together." He reached for his jacket.

Talk about not knowing how the hell we'd gotten here. "God, I only asked for a little time. We've only known each other seven months. Why all of a sudden are you--"

His voice was frost. "Because I haven't got time to waste."

Hell, I'm forty. Father Time wasn't exactly taking a nap for me either, but I had a problem. How could I tell him what I knew he'd heard once before -- that I was scared to death that one day he'd walk out the door and never come home? How could I tell him I couldn't face another loss?

I couldn't. You don't tell a cop you're afraid to commit because you're terrified he's going to get his brains splattered all over the street. So I walked over to where he stood by the door and executed a female brushing-up-against-him kind of maneuver. "Come on. Peace-on-earth time. Why don't we just pretend this conversation never happened and pick up with the ear thing?"

He wasn't buying. "What's the point?"

"The point is we made a deal. All I'm asking is that we don't do anything precipitous." I stood on tiptoe and nuzzled his neck.

"God forbid we should do anything like that," he muttered, but I could feel his body relent. "Why am I absolutely sure I'm being manipulated?"

"I can't imagine," I whispered, manipulatively snaking my arms around his neck and kissing the corner of his mouth. "Would you consider you were being manipulated if I told you right now I'd much rather make love than war?"

"I certainly would. You only want me for my body."

I pulled him down on the couch. "I cannot tell a lie. I'm crazy for your body."

"You're all talk."

I ran my tongue over his lips, my hands down his chest, over his rock-hard gut.

He didn't move. "Not bad, but you can do better."

A few minutes later our clothes were scattered on the floor and I was doing much better, when the phone rang.

"Shit," he said.

"Let it ring," I said.

The answering machine picked up. "This is Carrie Carlin," the machine said. "I'm not available to take your call right now." I sure as hell wasn't. "Please leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you. Beep."

Meg's voice, hoarse, cracking. "Carrie, there's been a terrible accident." A long pause, then in a whisper, "Pete's dead, and Kev's... they can't find Kev. Call me."

I was on my feet dashing for the phone, leaving my frustrated lover in a state of suspended animation.

Megan Reilly and I are connected by a bond much stronger than blood. Maybe once or twice in your life, if you're lucky, you meet someone who actually defines the word friend. I met Meg shortly after Rich left, at a time in my life when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse. Then they got really rough. Meg took me and my troubles on when most people, except for the press, were avoiding me as though I were a leper with poison ivy.

Two weeks earlier she'd flown to Key West to be with her husband, Kevin, and his brother, Pete, who were there for the World Cup, the international offshore powerboat race. The boat had been designed by Kev and built at their new facility. A win at the World Cup would have put their fledgling company, Stargazer, on the powerboat map.

Meg's words resounded in my head like an echo in a canyon. When I got through to her, she spoke haltingly, almost as though she were translating in her head from another language. "Kev was... he and Pete were off Fury Dock testing it before the race. They had new engines... very powerful... supercharged. Something happened..."

I pushed the word out fast before the lump I felt forming closed my throat. "How?--"

A whisper. "Pete lost control. They're saying it was a heart attack. They recovered his body, but not Kev's--" Her voice broke. "Not Kev's." She took a breath that was more a sob, tried to steady her voice. "I'd gone along to get some photos, but I didn't stay. I went back to the hotel. I didn't stay! If I had, maybe..."

Thoughtlessly, cruelly, I bombarded her with futile questions. "Could Kev have been thrown clear? Didn't they always wear life jackets? Pete was only thirty-three. How could he have had a heart attack? Was the Coast Guard still searching or were they assuming Kev had..." I couldn't finish the thought, much less give it credibility by uttering the words. My knees gave way. "I'm coming," I said, and let the phone fall to the floor beside me.

When I could gather my thoughts, I called the airport and was lucky to find they'd had a cancellation for the following morning.

"Who's in charge of the investigation?" Ted asked, handing me my robe. "She give you a name?"

"I didn't ask. I wasn't thinking--"

"Never mind. I'll find out. What time's your flight?"

"Eleven forty-five."

"I'll drop you. What're you going to do about the menagerie?"

"I...I guess I'll call Ruth-Ann. She's off from school. I'm sure she'll stop by to feed the cats. I'll run Horty over to Dr. Stoner's kennel."

"He hates being caged. I'll keep him at my place."

I jumped at the offer. It's not easy finding a volunteer willing to feed a dog the size of a small elephant. "I'll reimburse you for his food."

"Don't worry about it."

"Meg said they haven't found any trace of Kev's... body."

"What do you mean? I thought you said the boat flipped. Wouldn't he've been..."

"I said stuffed."

"What's the difference?"

"It went in bow first. Pete'd had a heart attack. I don't know if it was before or after. Kev must've been thrown clear or gotten out somehow, but they haven't found him."

There was a pause. Then he said softly, "People disappear for all kinds of reasons, Carrie. Don't bury him yet."

The stone that was pressing on my heart shifted slightly. "What're you saying? You think there's a chance he's alive?"

"In my experience, bodies don't vanish."

"But it doesn't make any sense. Where would--"

"How much do you really know about Kevin Reilly, Carrie? I mean, aside from the fact that he just got out of jail."

The stone sank back. "I know what Meg told me. Kev wasn't involved in that fraud."

"He was chairman of the board."

"Pete falsified the data. Kev took the fall for him. Meg said he's always run interference for Pete."

Another pause. "Maybe he got tired of it."

I thought I'd heard him wrong. "What?"

Thunderous silence.

"What're you suggesting?"

"Nothing. Forget it. You want me to stay tonight?" I let the inference drop, nodded.

He took my hand. "Come to bed. I'll rub your back." He did, and then held me, stroking my hair till nearly dawn when I finally drifted off.

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