Читать книгу Deadly Gamble - Linda Lael Miller - Страница 8

I slept in the living room, on the couch, figuring I’d be less likely to wake up and find Nick lying beside me, since he wouldn’t fit. I guess it worked, because he wasn’t there when I opened my eyes, but Chester was.

He sat on the coffee table next to Lillian’s three Tarot cards, which were standing in an ominous little row, propped against the big Mexican fruit bowl I’d bought at the flea market a couple of years before.

I swung my feet over the side of the couch, sat upright and rubbed my face with both hands. When I looked again, Chester was still there.

“Meow,” he said.

Okay, this was a major sign of my mental instability, but I was glad to see him just the same—sans the arrow from Geoff’s bow. I had mostly visceral memories of the cat, nothing very specific, but his bloody end was vivid in my mind. I knew I’d found him in the backyard of our place in Cactus Bend, behind the storage shed where my dad kept all the stuff he was constantly swapping. He’d called it “horse-trading.” I recalled that, too, all of a sudden, but there were never any horses.

That was Dad for you. All dreams and wishes, no substance.

“Hey, Buddy,” I said to the cat. After the briefest hesitation, I reached out to pat his head. Silky soft, solid and warm. No glow, either.

I was heartened. Glad I’d taken the risk of touching him.

He meowed again, and knocked down all three Tarot cards with one swipe of his tail.

I left the Queen, the Page and Death where they lay. I’d studied them half the night, along with their corresponding chapters in The Damn Fool’s Guide to the Tarot, with a sensation of dread in the pit of my stomach the whole time. I was still in the dark. I didn’t know much about the symbology, but I did know that Lillian always read them intuitively, without recourse to books. She’d told me once that Tarot cards were like little windows into the psyche; you just had to learn the language of the subconscious mind.

Since the day was already underway, whether I wanted to go along for the ride or not, I decided I’d better jump aboard. Do something constructive, like eat and make coffee.

The phone rang as I entered the kitchen, Chester prancing twitchy-tailed behind me, and I picked up the cordless receiver and opened the refrigerator door simultaneously. It’s a mobile age, all about multitasking.

“Yo,” I said.

“Yo,” Greer mocked, with a peaky smile in her voice. “That’s a fine way to answer the telephone. What if I’d been one of your doctor clients? You certainly would have made a businesslike impression.”

Greer cared a lot about impressions. Interesting, since Lillian and I had found her in a bus station in Boise, Idaho, when I was nine and Greer was barely thirteen, working the waiting room in an effort to cadge enough money to buy a meal at the seedy lunch counter. She’d been wearing tight hip-hugger jeans that cold winter day, I recalled, along with a fitted black leather jacket, a blue Mohawk, a fat lip and an attitude.

Now, she was married to a famous plastic surgeon; she’d become the classic Snottsdale wife, with a tasteful blond pageboy, winsomely brushing her gym-fit shoulders, an Escalade and enough jewelry to add ten pounds to her weight on any given day.

“Thanks for the timely vocational pointer,” I said, reaching for the milk carton standing lonely on the top shelf of the fridge and taking a cautious sniff. I flinched, dumped the stuff in giant curds into the sink and tossed the carton. The water made a decisive whooshing sound as I washed the works down the drain. “If Alex told you to call about his Medicare billings, you can tell him I already e-mailed them to the office. And I’m not altering the codes.”

Alexander Pennington, M.D., was Greer’s husband. He was twenty years older than she was, with a very bitter ex-wife and a creative bent for diagnosis. As in, if the medical facts didn’t jibe with Medicare’s payment schedules, he whittled them to fit.

A chill wafted into my sphere, coming from Greer’s direction. “Alex didn’t ask me to call,” she said stiffly. “Nor did he say anything about the billings. We’re trying to help you, Mojo. Throw a little business your way, since you seem determined never to get a real job.”

I could have pointed out that at least I worked for my money, instead of drawing an allowance from a rich husband, but I didn’t. Greer really pissed me off sometimes, but I considered her my sister, and I loved her. That day in the bus station, Lillian had bought her a meal and a seat next to us on the Greyhound to Las Vegas. Our latest car had just died alongside the highway, but not to worry. When we got to Vegas, Lillian put twenty dollars into a slot machine and won a spiffy subcompact. Greer was as much a part of our strange little family as if she’d been born into it.

I’d been too young to get the big picture, back then. Greer was a runaway and, thus, pimp bait. She’d already done some hooking by the time Lillian took her in, but afterward, she’d been a straight-A student and an all-around good kid.

“Are you still seeing that cop?” Greer asked, when I went too long without saying anything. Greer was uncomfortable with silence. If I didn’t chatter like a magpie, she thought I was mad at her.

“No,” I said, examining the fridge again. There was nothing for it. I was going to have to tap my bank account and spring for a few provisions.

“Good,” she answered. “He might as well still be married.”

No way was I walking into that one. Alex Pennington, M.D., had been married when Greer met him at a country club mixer, where she’d gone to network, hoping to line up some jobs for her interior design firm. Yes, Pennington’s wife had been a raging drunk, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he and Greer had started an affair the same night. Systematically, they’d eased the first Mrs. Pennington right out of the picture, and within a year, Greer took over the title.

“Tucker,” I said, “is not married. He’s divorced.”

“Emotionally, he’s married,” Greer insisted. She sounded so damn self-righteous that I had to bite my lip and remind myself that she’d taken to the big sister role like a pro from the moment we cruised away from that bus station in Idaho. She was devoted to Lillian, too. It was Greer’s signature on the checks covering the nursing home.

Yes, I had a problem with people who cheat on their spouses, obviously because of Nick, but it was my problem, not Greer’s.

“Okay, whatever,” I said, shutting the fridge with a little slam. I hate grocery shopping. Nothing ever looks good, and when I get it home, I have to cook it. “Is there a point to this call, Greer, or did you just want to needle me about my unconventional lifestyle?”

“‘Unconventional lifestyle,’” Greer repeated. “Now why would I suggest anything like that—just because you live over a bar with a nasty name, do only enough work to survive and play the slot machines every chance you get?”

“Greer,” I said patiently, “don’t make me fight back. It isn’t as if the arsenal’s empty, you know.”

She sighed. “I didn’t call to fight,” she said wistfully, and I wondered if she was really talking to me or to herself. “Alex is out of town for a medical convention. I would have gone along, but it’s always so boring, with him in meetings the whole time. Besides, I haven’t been feeling my best—if there’s a God, I’m pregnant—so I decided to stay home. I was hoping you might come over tonight, keep me company for a while. We could have dinner by the pool.”

I looked down at Chester. I liked him, and I was glad he was around, but, hey, he was a ghost, likely to fade away at any moment. Tucker and I were on the outs, so I couldn’t expect any companionship from that quarter. And maybe if Greer and I spent a little time together, we might get back some tiny part of the old sisterly camaraderie we’d lost since she moved uptown, metaphorically speaking.

“Sure,” I said. “I’d like that. What time, and what can I bring?”

We agreed on six o’clock, she pleaded with me not to attempt anything culinary and we hung up.

Chester made the leap to the countertop and sat next to the coffeemaker. I elbowed him gently aside to get a pot brewing.

“So,” I said, “do dead cats need litter boxes?”

JUST MY LUCK to run into Psycho Bitch in the supermarket.

I was minding my own business, making the Lean Cuisine selections for the week in the freezer aisle, when all of a sudden, she rams my cart with hers and practically sends me headfirst into the stacked boxes of Sesame Chicken, New England Pot Roast and French Bread Pizza.

I whirled on her. “God damn it, Heather,” I cried, “I’m about one inch off filing a restraining order against your crazy ass!”

Heather Dillard, ex-wife of a guy I dated precisely twice, three years ago, gripped the handle of her cart and prepared for another assault. I didn’t see her for long periods of time—then, with no warning, she’d pop up out of nowhere, bent on avenging a whole slew of imagined wrongs. I’d caught her letting the air out of my tires once, and another time she’d waltzed into the bar and told Bert she was an old friend of mine, planning a surprise birthday party, and would he please, pretty-please, give her the key to my apartment?

Fortunately, he’d refused, but here’s the creepy part. It was my birthday, so she’d taken the trouble to find that out, along with God knew what other personal details.

And she’d sent me a present, too.

Three dead birds in a shoebox, tied up with a bow.

“You’re seeing Brian again,” she accused, knuckles whitening on the cart handle. Her nostrils flared, and her spiky hair—blond that week—stuck out all over her head, as if she’d gotten drunk and cut it herself, with a dull razor blade. Her pupils had white all around, like that bride in the news a couple of years ago, the one who skipped out on her wedding, stirred up a media frenzy and had a conglomeration of local, state and federal agencies frantically searching for her.

I sighed. “I’m not seeing Brian,” I said. My dead ex-husband and my murdered cat, yes. Brian, no.

“Of course you’d deny it,” Heather challenged, but she looked uncertain, and that gave me a moment’s hope that she might actually be reasonable. Which begged the question—who was crazy here, her or me?

“When something isn’t true, I deny it. Go figure.” I threw a couple of Yankee Pot Roast dinners into my cart, just to let her know I wasn’t scared.

“We have four children,” she said.

Two old ladies shopping for Stouffer’s backed off, and a manager appeared at the far end of the aisle, looking worried. I might have been reassured, if he hadn’t been about sixteen and roughly the same weight as Chester.

“I’m happy for you,” I replied, “and sorry for them. You need help, Heather. And you need to get away from me—and stay away from me—before I have you arrested.”

Her lower lip wobbled. It looked cracked and dry, as though she’d bitten it a lot. I felt a twinge of pity, but it passed quickly when her cart clanged against mine and one of the wheels ran over my toe.

“Bitch!” she screeched. “Homewrecker! Tramp!”

That did it.

I went after her. Right for her throat. I probably would have strangled her if two box boys and one of the old ladies hadn’t intervened. She must have been up on her Fosomax, that ancient shopper, because she dived straight into the fray, with no evident concern for broken bones.

“Somebody get security!” one of the box boys yelled.

A rent-a-cop appeared, overweight, his uniform shirt speckled with white powder, most likely doughnut residue.

“Did anybody see what happened?” he huffed.

“I did,” said the old lady, stepping between Heather and me.

I shook free of box boy #1.

Heather struggled in the grasp of #2.

“What?” asked the security guard—Marvin, according to his name tag—dusting off his shirt with one hand.

“This one,” answered the geriatric she-hero, pointing to Heather, “was harassing that one.” The arthritic finger moved to me.

“You’ve got that right,” I said huffily, tugging at the hem of my Be a Bad-Ass at Bert’s T-shirt. “It’s a fine thing when a person can’t even shop for frozen dinners without being attacked by some maniac. I’ve got a good mind to take my business elsewhere after this.”

Marvin and the box boys looked hopeful.

Heather started to cry. “She stole my husband,” she said, with more lip wobbling.

Marvin, the box boys and the old lady studied me thoughtfully.

“She’s nuts,” I said. “Certifiable. Over the edge. And furthermore, her husband is a jerk.”

“One of these days,” Heather said, “I am going to kill you.”

Public opinion swung in my direction.

“I rest my case,” I said.

“Did you steal her husband?” the old lady wanted to know.

“No,” I replied, ready to wheel into the sunset with my frozen dinners and what was left of my dignity. “And if I had, I’d have given him back.”

With that, I pushed my shopping cart between them and headed for the checkout stand. I didn’t start shaking until I was safe in my secondhand Volvo, with the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

Back at Bad-Ass Bert’s, I carried my groceries inside. Eight frozen dinners, a litter box and a bag of absorbent pellets.

“I wasn’t sure,” I told Chester, who was waiting for me when I lugged the stuff through the door. “About the litter, I mean.”

Chester sniffed the bag curiously.

“Of course,” I reasoned, because I needed to hear a voice, even if it was my own, “if you don’t eat, it follows that you don’t poop, either.”

“Meow,” Chester said.

“Thanks for hanging out,” I answered.

“I wish you felt that way about me,” Nick said.

I swung around to see him standing next to my bookshelf, which was beside the computer, where I kept my sizeable collection of Damn Fool’s Guides. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one dealing with dead people—trust me, I’d looked the day before, when I stopped to get the Tarot tome, but Near Death Experiences was the closest thing—or crazy female stalkers, either.

“Now what?” I demanded, letting the kitty litter and the plastic box topple to the floor. I clutched the bag full of Lean Cuisines to my chest, like a shield.

Nick was perusing titles. “The Damn Fool’s Guide to Dating,” he mused, running a finger along the spines. “Tantric Sex. Raising Ferrets.” He paused, looked me over closely, and with compassionate concern. “Ferrets?”

“It was a passing fancy,” I said, and started for the kitchen.

He followed, of course, and so did the cat.

“Tantric Sex?” Nick pressed.

“I’m single and over twenty-one,” I reminded him, jerking open the freezer section of the refrigerator and tossing in the week’s meals, bag and all. “And what are you doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Just a friendly visit,” he said. Then he opened the cupboard, took out the Oreos and sniffed them. A look of pathetic longing crossed his face.

“Here’s an idea,” I said, whacking the freezer door shut with the flat of one hand. “Go ‘visit’ your mother.”

“Your attitude is very unbecoming, you know,” Nick said. With a sigh, he put the Oreos back in the cupboard. “What did my mother ever do to deserve this…rancor?”

“Well, first of all,” I replied, ticking number one off on my finger, “she gave birth to you. Second, she stuck her nose into our business every chance she got. And third, she saw to it that I got bupkis in the divorce.” I paused. “Oh, and then there’s the way her head sprouts snakes at the most unexpected moments.”

“You don’t like her,” Nick said, sad and surprised.

“Don’t take it too hard, but I don’t like you very much, either.”

“If you knew the trouble I have to go to, to keep a charge,” he replied, quietly stricken, “you wouldn’t be so rude.”

I grabbed the coffee carafe, poured out the stale stuff I’d never gotten around to drinking earlier and cranked on the faucet. The pipes rattled. “If that little illusion gives you consolation, Nick,” I said, “you just go with it. And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what the hell you want? As long as it isn’t sex, I’ll give it to you, and you can move on to the next plane of existence, or whatever it is you dead people do.”

Any self-respecting spook would have been insulted enough to vanish, but not Nick. He grinned, pulled back a chair at the table and sat down. “No sex, huh?”

“Not on your—life,” I said.

“Bummer,” he sighed.

“Don’t you have something to do? In the train station or whatever it is?”

Another sigh. “I’m stuck in the depot until I deal with you,” Nick said, and he looked just earnest enough to be telling the truth.

A clear indication that he was lying through his perfect teeth.

“Are you sleeping with that biker?” he asked.

“That comes under the heading of None of Your Damn Business.” I sloshed the water into the top of the coffeemaker, spooned some Starbucks into the basket and jammed the carafe onto the burner.

“A biker, for Christ’s sake?”

“Tucker’s not a biker. He’s a cop. Narcotics division.”

“At least his name rhymes with my opinion of him.”

“Gee, and your opinion matters so much.”

“You didn’t used to be so hard.”

“Well, you haven’t changed at all.” I leaned against the counter, folding my arms. Chester wound his silky way around my ankles. “You’re still an arrogant, self-centered ass.”

“I have changed, Mojo.”

“Right,” I agreed tartly. “You’re dead.”

“That was a low blow.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“How? By scaring me out of my wits? By undermining my sanity?”

“I brought back your cat.”

I looked down at Chester and, on impulse, scooped him up. He felt so real, and pretty chunky. Whatever they were feeding him on the other side, it was sticking to his ribs.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. I knew I’d loved Chester once, and I was dangerously close to loving him again.

“You never got to say goodbye to him,” Nick said.

I buried my face in white, warm fur. “He can’t stay,” I mourned.

“No,” Nick agreed gently. “It’s a frequency thing. These appearances are pretty tough to sustain. But he’s not dead, Mojo. He’s alive, but in a whole different way. That’s the point.”

Chester’s fur was damp, where I’d cried on him. “It’s the same with you.” Statement, but it had the tone of a question.

Nick nodded. “The difference is, when he goes back, he’ll be able to get onto a train and go on to whatever his idea of heaven happens to be. I’ll still be stuck at the station.”

I was grudgingly intrigued, if not necessarily sympathetic. I’d loved Nick completely, and he might as well have torn my heart out of my body and backed over it with a UPS truck. “Why?”

“Unresolved issues,” he said, with yet another sigh.

I studied him, still holding Chester as close as I could without squashing him. “What kind of unresolved issues?” I asked suspiciously.

“You trusted me. You loved me. And I betrayed you. I have to earn your forgiveness.”

“Is that all?” I sniffed, reluctantly set Chester down on the floor, straightened again. “Okay. That’s easy. You’re forgiven. Now, kindly hop on the Starlight Express and stop showing up in my apartment.”

If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn Nick was being sincere. He actually looked remorseful. “Sorry,” he said. “It isn’t that easy. You can’t just toss off a platitude. You have to really mean it.”

“Shit,” I said.

He looked like a kicked puppy. “Was it that bad? I remember some really good times together.”

“Do you?” I grabbed a mug down off the shelf. No sense getting two; if Nick couldn’t eat Oreos, he probably couldn’t drink coffee, either. “Maybe you’re confusing me with your secretary—excuse me, executive assistant. I caught you boinking her in a construction trailer once, remember? Or maybe it’s that sweet young thing in the condo down the hall from ours. The one who always wanted you to fix something. Or—”

Nick put up a hand, rose wearily to his feet. “I’m sorry, Mojo. What else can I say? I can’t change the past.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Get out, Nick.”

He was gone in a blink.

And Chester went with him.

“YOU’VE BEEN CRYING,” Greer accused, when I showed up at her mansion outside of Scottsdale at five to six that night, bringing along a bottle of Chardonnay donated by Bert. A glorious Arizona sunset blazed crimson and pink and apricot on the western horizon.

“No, I haven’t,” I said. It was a partial truth, anyway. I’d spent the afternoon at my computer, coding and billing, and the May rent was a sure thing. I’d also gone through a whole box of tissues.

Greer looked rich—and skeptical—in her floaty flowered skirt and pink matching top. Her blond hair was in a French braid, and I wondered how she stood so straight, with Dr. Pennington’s diamond weighing down her left hand. I figure the jewelry alone keeps Scottsdale chiropractors operating in the black.

“Your eyes are red,” she said.

Once, I would have spilled it all. Told Greer about Nick and Chester. But Greer was different now that she was married. The change was subtle, but I wasn’t imagining it.

I had to tell her something, so I went with Lillian, the three Tarot cards, and my chat with Uncle Clive. Maybe, I thought, after a glass of wine I might even get as far as Crazy Heather and the supermarket caper.

Listening intently, Greer led the way across the brick-paved portico and through the open doors at the top of the steps. The house alone covered more than ten thousand square feet of prime desert, and the art inside was museum quality stuff. The furniture was tastefully expensive, and I could see the back patio in the distance, through a set of glass doors. Nothing but the best for Greer Pennington, world-class trophy wife.

Okay, so maybe I sound a little mean-spirited. I loved Greer, but she could have been a lot more than some old fart’s pampered wife, and that bugged the hell out of me. Before Alex, she’d put herself through art school, worked for other people for a while to learn the ropes, then gone on to start and run her own design firm. She’d been successful, too, after a rocky start.

When Alex snapped his fingers, though, she’d sold the company without even a mild protest. In fact, she’d seemed relieved. And that was what bothered me. Not that Greer was set for life, at least financially. I was happy for her. No, it was the way she’d given up on her own dreams. Put on a costume, learned the lines and played the second wife as if she’d never done all that hard work to make something of herself.

We settled ourselves in cushioned patio chairs, under a sloping tiled roof, near the sparkling pool. Greer checked out the wine label, smiled charitably and carried the bottle into the kitchen by way of yet another door.

When she returned with two crystal glasses, I figured she’d pulled a switcheroo, probably dumping Bert’s Chardonnay down the sink and filling the goblets with something French or Napa and ridiculously expensive.

“Should you be drinking if there’s a chance you might be pregnant?” I inquired.

Greer looked away for a moment, then looked back. “Not to worry,” she said, reaching for her glass. “I am definitely not pregnant.”

I knew she wanted a baby, to make her happy home with Dr. Pennington complete, and I felt a pinching sorrow behind my heart. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

Greer downed a couple of sips—more like gulps—of her wine, and gave a gurgling, disjointed little laugh. Nothing was funny, and we both knew it, but Greer liked to pretend. Maybe it was a survival mechanism.

“You told me on the phone this morning that you didn’t feel well,” I said. “Have you been to a doctor?”

“I’m married to a doctor.”

Didn’t I know it? “You have shadows under your eyes, and I think you’ve lost weight. What’s going on, Greer?”

She sucked up some more wine before answering, and when she did, she ignored my question entirely and presented one of her own. “Do you think it’s because of—well—things I did when I was young?”

I scrambled to catch up. “You mean your not being pregnant?”

Greer looked around nervously, as though the editor of the country club newsletter might be crouching behind the cabana, taking notes, or lurking on the other side of the towering stucco wall enclosing at least an acre of backyard. The windows of the guesthouse, opposite the pool, caught the colors of the sunset and turned opaque. “Yes,” she said, and it seemed to me that she’d gone to a lot of trouble, scoping out the landscape, just to say one word.

“Lillian had you checked out at a free clinic in Vegas, remember? You were fine. No STD’s, no residual effects whatsoever. It wasn’t the hooking, Greer.”

She tensed, and what little color she’d had drained from her cheeks. “Keep your voice down!”

“Sorry,” I said, chagrined. I always felt out of place at Greer’s, and I tended to put my foot in my mouth. “You’re alone here, aren’t you? Carmen is gone for the day?”

Carmen was her housekeeper—a very nice woman, but not much for overtime.

Greer nodded miserably. “I didn’t mean to snap,” she said.

I patted her hand. “It’s okay.”

She fortified herself with more wine. I decided it was probably cramps that made her look so woebegone and beaten. “Nothing in my life,” she said, “is ‘okay.’”