A Teeny Bit of Trouble (39 page)

“This wing is closed.” She stepped closer. “Are you new? Where’s your ID tag?”

I looked past her, at a U-shaped nurse’s station. “Is there a phone over there?”

“Honey, your feet are bloody. And your leg. My Lord. What in the world happened? You shouldn’t be on your feet.” While she talked, she steered me to a wheelchair. “I need to see how badly you’re cut. I’m just going to roll up your scrub pants.”

I put my hand over my leg. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“Let’s get you to the emergency room.”

Behind me, I felt a whoosh of air, and I smelled Shalimar.

“Glinda, call OR 6 and tell them I’m bringing the appendectomy,” a familiar voice said.

Dot stepped in front of me. She’d changed into scrubs, but her Cockatoo hair was damp and spiked.

I screamed. She clamped her hand against my mouth. “It’s all right, Glinda. This little gal is a tad paranoid. All her people are that way.”

Glinda looked at Dot’s hand over my mouth, then she looked at Dot.

“You want me to write you up?” Dot cried.

I yelled as hard as I could into Dot’s hand. Murderer. Chop Shop. Killer. Then I tried to bite the fleshy part of her palm.

The nurse scurried off.

“Surrender, Teeny,” Dot said. Her free arm circled around me. Then she aimed the Taser against my chest. A string flew out. Something sharp and hard slammed into my chest.

Dot pushed my wheelchair into an alcove. The abrupt movement nearly threw my limp body to the floor. She hoisted me back into the chair. Then she reloaded the Taser and aimed the red dot. I saw another flurry of white string. The blow knocked the breath out of me.

“This part of the hospital is closed for repairs. I wouldn’t have found you, but you left a bloody trail.” She removed two probes from my scrub top and dropped them in her pocket.

“You know what this is, Teeny?” She pulled out a syringe. It was filled with a milky substance. A white drop quivered at the end of the steel bevel.

My hands and feet throbbed, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

“Propofol. Better known as Mother’s milk. A real peaceful way to die. Your heart will stop. And you’ll go to sleep. I wanted to use this on Kendall from the get-go, but Josh wanted to have a little fun. He was a little sweet on her. When she showed up at the funeral home with that printout, he laced her Countrytime lemonade with pure grain alcohol. It went straight to Kendall’s pea-brain. Then she told everything. She kept talking about you. She said
you
needed more evidence. Josh went to call me. He left her alone for two minutes, but Kendall must have gotten paranoid. She ran off. We didn’t know where she’d gone. Then
you
called and told me exactly where to find the little slut. Honestly, Teeny. You’re more efficient than GPS.”

Oh, no. Kendall, I’m sorry. So sorry.

I felt a tug inside my chest, right where those Taser probes had gone in. All those people dead and dismembered. All dead and gone because I was a truth junkie and Dot wanted more chairs.

She pushed up my sleeve. With her other hand, she aimed a needle at my arm. “Oh, by the way,” she said. “Guess who’s in jail? Lester Philpot. I put Kendall’s fingers in the trunk of his car. Then I made an anonymous call to the police.”

“Why did you kill so many people?” I whispered.

“I wanted to be rich,” she said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

Glinda walked down the hall, arms swinging, then she abruptly stopped. “Everything all right?” she asked.

Dot put the syringe into her pocket. Then she reloaded the Taser.

“Run,” I cried. “Tell everybody that Dot Agnew is selling black market organs.”

Dot’s hand moved in a blur. She pointed the Taser at Glinda. A snap echoed in the empty hall. The nurse let out a whoop. Her eyelids fluttered and she dropped to the floor.

Dot pulled out another cartridge and reloaded. I vaulted out of the chair and slammed into her. The Taser fell on top of Glinda. She didn’t try to grab it. Her muscles were still locked.

“Bitch,” I said, and shoved my hand into Dot’s pocket. I groped for the syringe. She made a fist and punched the back of my head. Each blow felt as light as a lemon poppy seed muffin.

“Dwarf,” she cried. She grabbed my arm and shook it. The tip of the needle jammed into my finger. Now
that
hurt. I dragged the syringe out of her pocket and threw it down the hall.

“Propofol,” I yelled. “She’s killed patients with Propofol.”

Dot raced after the syringe. I got behind the wheelchair and started running. I crashed the chair into the backs of her thighs. She tottered forward and sprawled on the tile floor.

Get the Taser,
Aunt Bluette said.

I snatched it up. But Dot was ready for me. We rolled on the floor, grappling for the Taser. My booties scraped across the tile, leaving a bloody comma. Bitch wouldn’t get away with it. Bitch wouldn’t murder my bulldog. Bitch was going down.

She snatched the Taser. I butted her arm with my head. The Taser fell out of her hand and clattered.

I grabbed her earlobes and tore out those gold hoops. She howled. Her hands flew up to her ears. Blood ran down both sides of her neck. I scooted on my belly toward the gun. I grabbed it and rolled over. My hands were steady as I aimed the red dot between her eyebrows.

The string wiggled. A prong slammed into Dot’s forehead. She screeched. Her legs folded and she hit the floor.

Glinda sat up, grappling with a cell phone, tears rolling down her cheeks.

I was sobbing, too. I wiped my nose. A swirl of dizziness rushed around me. How much Propofol had gotten into my finger? How could a tiny puncture wound hurt more than the gash in my leg?

I sat down hard. Yet I seemed to be moving toward the ceiling. Up, up, up. So high. Right into the clouds.

Life is nothing but a peach layer cake,
Aunt Bluette said.
You can’t eat it in one sitting, but one day you’ll cut that last slice.

I strained to hear more, but couldn’t keep my eyes open. My aunt’s voice echoed, as if she were crouched inside a tin can. I tumbled in after her.

thirty-six

I dreamed that I was cooking a meal at the Spencer-Jackson House. The dining table was covered with platters of ham and chicken and steamy bowls of green beans and corn and gravy. On the walnut sideboard, a red velvet cake sat on a glass pedestal, four layers of cream cheese icing, the peaks and swirls hiding a scarlet center.

As I laid out blue-sprigged china plates, I breathed in the tang of cole slaw and baked beans. I smelled peaches, too. Turnovers, cobblers, deep-dish pies.

The smells of home.

Nature might hate vacuums, but I knew how to fill them. Home wasn’t a place. Home was inside me. And I finally knew how to find it.

I heard a clinking noise, as if people were tapping champagne glasses and making toasts. Or maybe my lie tally had reset to zero. Each precise click seemed to say,
Teeny Templeton, lies are not black and white, they’re pure gray. You don’t need to keep a tally.

The sound got louder. I opened my eyes. I was in a dark room. Rain ticked against a window. A nurse with gray hair moved next to the bed, adjusting knobs on a machine. She turned her head. “Do you want something for pain, sugar?” she asked.

“I want Coop.”

“I’m here, sweetheart,” a deep voice said.

I turned toward the voice I’d loved my whole life. Coop stepped out of the shadows and took my hand. He felt warm and alive, and he smelled faintly of pine needles. I had so much to tell him, but I couldn’t shape the words. I felt like a voiceless three-year-old.

The nurse set the call button beside my elbow and left the room.

With his free hand, Coop lifted a glass and fit the straw between my lips. Water splashed over my parched tongue. I drank and drank, until my thoughts ran clear. His gaze moved up to my hair then down to the bandage on my leg.

“You look like hell, Templeton.”

I spit out the straw. “Is Sir all right?”

“He’s fine. He and Red are at the farm.”

“What about Son?”

“The docs removed his spleen. They gave him some medicine to stop the bleeding.” He glanced up at the transfusion bag, type B positive. “Don’t you want to know how you’re doing?”

“I’m breathing.”

“You got eight stitches. It wasn’t a deep cut. But the Coumadin stopped your blood from clotting.”

I squeezed his fingers. “Where were you? I called your office. They said you’d be gone the whole week.”

“I had a bleeding ulcer. Ended up at Charleston Medical Center.”

I tried to sit up, but the pain dragged me down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He turned away. I grabbed his chin and made him look at me. “Just tell me. It can’t be that bad.”

“Red and I talked about it. We were scared you’d drive to Charleston.”

“I would have.”

“I didn’t want you on the road. I was afraid you’d end up like Kendall.” A tear ran down the side of Coop’s nose. “But I had another reason. A bad reason.”

“What?”

“I thought you needed time to sort your feelings about Son.”

“They’re sorted, O’Malley.” I licked my lips. They felt rough and parched. “Where’s Dot?”

“Jail. She’s claiming the whole Philpot family was involved in the chop shop.”

“No. She set them up. She told me.” I let out a harsh breath. “Is that hearsay? Fruit of the poisoned nurse?”

“She can’t hurt you now, sweetheart. She can’t hurt anyone.”

I told him about Emerson’s hedgehog, the money, the key, the margaritas, the tarantula, and the Cayman Island bank account.

He slipped his arms around me. I pressed my face against the curve of his neck. His pulse ticked against my cheek. We stayed like that a long time, just holding each other. Finally I lifted my face. “Where’s Son’s Jaguar? In the junkyard?”

“I suppose so.” Coop leaned back, his brow wrinkled. “Why?”

“Because I want to find that tarantula. It saved two lives and broke up a chop shop. I don’t want to lose it.”

“You lost something else.” Coop pulled Minnie’s diamond out of his shirt pocket. “When the police arrested Dot, she was wearing this.”

“She stole it.”

“It’s yours, sweetheart. I want you to keep it. Even if I’m not the one you want spend your life with.”

“You
are
the one, Coop.” I put my hand on his cheek. “You always were the one.”

Behind him, lightning brightened the window. He put the ring on my thumb. Then he climbed into the bed and pressed his nose against my cheek. Something wet trickled onto my neck.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes, what?” he asked in a wavery voice.

“I’ll marry you.”

His face moved directly over mine. “I’ll make you so happy. I’ll break laws for you. But I’ll never lie again.”

“And no sins of omission.” I pushed my fist against his jaw.

“Nothing but the whole truth,” he said, and drew an X over his heart. “So help me God.”

Whatever the nurse had put into my IV was making me chatty, and a little bossy. “Another thing, don’t call me baby. Call me sweetheart. That’s your especial name for me.”

“Sure, sweetheart,” he said in a Bogart-esque voice.

“Much better, O’Malley.”

He kissed my hand. “You’re a rare woman, Teeny Templeton. You showed unconditional love to Emerson. You were willing to change your life to raise her.”

“I still want to.” Everything went blurry as if I were under water. “She’s not yours, Coop. She’s not Lester’s. Her father is someone named A.M. If that’s his name. I read it in Barb’s diary. But I know one thing for sure: Lester doesn’t want her. And I do. I want to raise that little girl.”

“I’ll help you. We’ll raise her together.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “First thing in the morning, I’ll talk to Lester.”

I drew his hand to my lips. “Tell him I love Emerson Philpot. And I want to be her mother.”

*   *   *

The next morning, the nurse wheeled me out of the hospital. The sunlight felt good against my shoulders. Coop’s red truck waited by the curb. He got out and rushed over. He wore cutoff jeans, and a blue shirt that brought out the color in his eyes. I got up from the wheelchair and he slid his arms around my waist.

“Lean on me, sweetheart.”

The nurse’s mouth puckered as if she’d sucked a persimmon. “This is against the rules,” she said.

“Sue me,” Coop said.

I leaned into him the way a peach tree leans in the wind. We might have missed his birthday dinner, but it wasn’t too late for a cake. He liked chocolate better than red velvet, so I would bake the Templeton sheet cake, which called for bittersweet chocolate.

Coop put his hand under my elbow. “I talked to Lester.”

My stomach muscles tensed. “And?”

“He’s letting Emerson decide who she wants to live with.”

A wide streak of joy ran through me. The truck’s side window rolled down and Sir’s head appeared, bobbing like volleyball. Emerson pushed in beside him, her mouth wide open.

“I told you I’d be back,” she said.

I waved at her with both hands.
A truck door closes, a window opens
.

Coop and the nurse helped me into the front seat. The stitches in my leg pulled taut, but I ignored the pain. It just felt good to be alive. Sir scooted close to me, licking my hands. Emerson pressed her face against my neck. A tear ran down my chin and dribbled onto her hair.

“We’ve brought you a present,” Coop said. He reached toward the floorboard and lifted a square box, no bigger than a toaster, wrapped in shiny blue paper.

Emerson pressed her ear against it. “It’s not ticking,” she said. “No need to call the bomb squad.”

“Is it edible?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Coop said.

I pulled off a wedge of paper and saw a clear plastic box. Gourmet sea salt? A Tupperware container? I peeled off the rest of the gift wrap and blinked down at a Plexiglas cage. Inside, a tarantula sat motionless on aquarium gravel.

I grinned. “Where’d you find him?”

“Emerson and I went to the junkyard.” Coop bent closer to the box. “I didn’t think we’d be successful. I know how to call a dog. But a spider?”