Almost Perfect (34 page)

Katy from the B&B had declared the skeleton a victim of pirates, of course, and had demanded excavation. Cleo supposed rumors of buried treasure were already whispering through town, and the beach would be inundated with curiosity-seekers.

No manner of diversion could hide the fact that she'd failed Kismet. She'd enjoyed her weekend with Matty and family and hadn't looked hard enough to find her. She'd assumed the sheriff had arrested Lonnie and everything would be all right. She'd assumed too damned much. Just like Jared.

So, that's where optimism took you. To hell and back.

Or not. If Kismet had heard the sheriff's theory about the skeleton, what were the chances her active imagination
had led her to plant those items on the beach so no one would look for her?

Jared returned with the address book and a pad of rough sketches. “What are these? I found them on your desk. It doesn't look like Kismet's stuff.”

Sitting on the bed's edge, Cleo looked around for her jeans without glancing at what he held. “I tried to show Axell how gears work together to make motion. I've been studying the courthouse clock with Ed, and I had some stupid idea I could fix that cog. Now I know how Da Vinci must have felt when he tried to explain flying machines. Except he could draw and I can't.”

“You need to learn computer drafting. It's easier.” He threw the sketchpad on the bed. “I'm taking your address book with me. It's easier than copying everything down.”

She nodded and pulled a cotton shirt over her tank top. She needed to shower anyway. If he didn't mention Kismet, neither would she. Talking couldn't help. Maybe time would.

She still felt the stark horror of her mother's untimely death from a ruptured appendix. But she'd been a kid then. Maybe these things got easier with age. Or maybe she didn't really believe Kismet was dead.

“Whatever,” she said dismissively. He had to feel helpful, so she'd let him. She knew better than to believe a lawyer could help, but people from Jared's world evidently felt better talking to leeches, and that was fine with her. She had better things to do, and she needed to concentrate on them.
Before it was too late
rang in her mind, but she was denying the inevitable in favor of
one step at a time
.

Before Cleo realized he'd entered the room instead of leaving it, Jared jerked her from the bed, caught her face between his hands, and kissed her until her head spun.
She had to grab his arms for support or her knees would have buckled.

Only then did he release her to meet her eyes with that fiercely determined gaze she'd seen once or twice before.

“You're not going to jail, Cleo. Believe me. I'm taking care of this. You just hang on until I get back. I have things I want to do with you that I haven't dared dream of yet. Think about it.”

She collapsed back on the bed, her heart thumping like a wound-up toy drum as she watched his formfitting polo shirt and khakis stride purposefully from the room. A man like that could almost make her believe in miracles.

Hope had never been part of her nature, so she wasn't certain if she could recognize it now, but something fluttered in her chest besides her pounding heart. Maybe she had gas.

Marta looked surprised as Cleo stalked in, jaw set and chin tilted in an attempt to maintain her battered pride.

She'd gone down to the beach to see if anyone needed coffee or if she could help in the search, but no one would talk to her. They simply set about their organized plans and left her to stand alone, dying inside. She'd be
damned
if she'd be treated like that before she was even convicted of anything. Let them search the ocean. She needed to search elsewhere. Kismet had brains. If she wanted to elude her mother and whatever danger she presented, she would find a way besides suicide. Maybe she was fooling herself, but it was better than waiting uselessly.

“I don't push drugs,” Cleo said flat out to her startled clerk. “I stole a teddy bear, for pity's sake. If you're going to look at me as if I'm a two-headed dragon, you can get out now. I don't need you or anyone else.” She stalked to
the coffeemaker and poured some of the strong stuff Marta favored.

“I believe you wouldn't hurt those kids,” Marta agreed. “Why don't you return the favor and trust me with the story?”

Cleo didn't like talking about herself. She didn't like her past. She didn't much like herself some days. But Jared had taught her talking could ease the pain, and she was carrying a bagload of grief right now.

She talked.

Despite the hurricane, business remained slow. Maybe they were all going to Charleston and the big warehouse stores to cut costs. Or already boycotting a drug pusher before she was found guilty. At the sound of the front door opening, Cleo caught herself from jumping up from her computer. Marta could handle a single customer. She didn't need to go out there.

Hand on the phone, ready to call Linda's house again, she couldn't resist listening to the conversation in the front of the store. She'd intended to spend the rest of her life in this town, to raise Matty to be happy and healthy with friends all around him. She'd wanted to be a pillar of the community, sort of. Yesterday had dashed all that. She knew it. She simply couldn't help hoping for a reprieve.

She ought to smack Jared for that stupid thread of optimism.

“I'm here to see Cleo Alyssum,” a commanding voice announced at the counter.

She knew that voice. It had the power to strike fear in her heart. Not yet, she pleaded with unseen forces, returning the phone to the cradle and clutching her desk edge. She had to find Kismet first. And get Gene out of jail to safety. Who the hell had called the damned
feds? Her supervisor ignored her as long as she attended counseling.

“She's busy,” Marta said curtly. “If you'll give me your name and business …”

Marta could smell the law from half a mile away. With Cleo's story fresh on her mind, she'd know the visitor wouldn't be good news. Frantically, Cleo tried to think of all the things she needed to do before they carted her off to jail. She hadn't said good-bye to Matty, or called Maya with instructions about what to say to him. And she was the only one Kismet would trust. If she was alive, Cleo had to be there for her.

Jared would be frantic if she wasn't here when he returned.

That was a new and scary thought. She'd only had Matty to worry about in the past. Worrying about Jared in the same way caused her heart to stutter, but it felt right to worry about him. Jared had showered her with more love and concern than any human being on earth. Even Maya thought her a pigheaded fool. Despite their differences, Jared still managed to see through all her defenses, touch her in ways she hadn't known she could be touched. And he cared. He believed in her. He'd actually left his rich world to come back here to help her. She couldn't let him down, even if he was insane enough to believe she could be saved.

She hit frantic overload as the deep voice boomed angrily.

“She's violated the terms of her parole. The judge will hear her story when the time comes. For now, I have to take her in.”

“She's done absolutely nothing wrong,” Marta shouted back. “You can't believe a lying no-good druggie over a decent hardworking store owner, you pig! The whole town will rise up in arms.”

Nice thought. Cleo was up and moving before she knew what she intended to do. She had no illusions of the town rising to her defense, but she didn't want to go anywhere until Jared returned, and that was final. She had to know that Gene would be all right, that Kismet lived, that Jared understood, and she didn't cause him pain.

Besides, she was damned sick and tired of being treated like a piece of garbage by the government meant to protect her. She was a human being, and she'd damned well proved she could live as decently as anyone else. She'd earned some respect here. Jared was right—it was time she learned to stand up for herself. She deserved it.

Driven by the pure fires of righteous anger instead of the chaos of panic, Cleo stalked into her storage room, grabbed the tools she needed from the shelf where she'd left them a few weeks ago, and stormed out the back door. To hell with the feds. To hell with this damned bloody town. She was making a statement here.

His cell phone rang as Jared navigated a narrow picturesque street in search of yet another Charleston lawyer. He'd learned to park in New York City. He could park anywhere. He swung the Jeep into a miniscule space between a Rolls and a Jag and only ran one tire onto the crumbled—probably historic—sidewalk.

He snatched the phone from its socket and barked his name into it. He'd left messages with half the lawyers in town, and if they were all like the one he'd just seen, he might as well handle the case on his own. Cleo had been dealing with some pretty smarmy characters.

“Jared?” Marta's voice sounded uncertain and a little scared.

All right, he'd scared her to death yesterday. Maybe she had some right. He just had the ominous feeling that
it wasn't him scaring her this time. “I'm here. What's wrong?”

“It's Cleo.”

Hell, he'd known that. He was getting a handle on this panic mode, though. If he bit his tongue hard enough, he didn't yell as loudly. “What's happened?” Okay, he didn't yell, but he sounded terrified.

“She's on the courthouse roof,” Marta whispered.

Jared closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “The courthouse roof?” he asked carefully. He didn't even want to imagine where this was leading.

“She said she knows how to repair the clock up there. She took her tools and climbed up and moved the ladder on the steeple so no one could follow her. And she's chained herself to it so they have to take down the clock to get at her.”

He damned well could see where this was leading now. Well, he'd told her to fight. He just hadn't told her how, and Cleo didn't know “appropriate” from a hole in the wall. “Why?” he asked, in brave hope that his theory was wrong.

“Because the feds came to pick her up,” Marta whispered, as if fearful the officer could haul her away for just mentioning it. “The clock weighs two tons,” she added, as if that helped.

He almost chuckled. If it weren't so serious and so painful, he could almost see the humor in this. He'd already drawn the entire scene in his mind. He'd have his audience rolling in the aisles. Damn, he loved her wicked mind.

“Is she safe up there?” he demanded.

Marta hesitated. “I suppose so. She's been up there before with Ed. She can't
stay
up there.”

“Knowing Cleo, she'll stay up there until the gulls pick her bones clean if we don't do something. That's one
stubborn woman. I'll make a few phone calls and see what I can do. I've got an idea.”

He hung up, threw aside Cleo's list of sleazy lawyers, and dialed Axell. “Give me the name of the best, the most charismatic, the loudest, most publicity-hungry lawyer you know,” he shouted into the phone.

Axell did.

“Hey, gull, I want you to know …” Cleo tried singing to the bird cocking his head and eyeing her as if she might be a dead fish. At the sound of her voice, the gull flapped its wings and sailed off. Figures. She couldn't even entertain scavengers.

Setting her wrench on the clock sill, she gulped the bottle of water she'd brought up here and waited to see who was rattling the fire engine ladder this time. As far as fits went, this was probably the finest one she'd ever thrown. Not her smartest, maybe, but a truly fine fit. She suspected half the town had wandered by the square patch of courthouse lawn sometime during the day.

She didn't think she was being purposelessly selfdestructive this time, though. The pig would have locked her up, after all, and then they'd take away Matty again. So she'd just chosen her own poison in hopes of benefiting Gene and Kismet. Not that anyone down there quite got the connection yet. Would Kismet hear about
this and contact Jared? If she knew Jared had the kids in hand, she might deal with prison better.

She couldn't see anything near the courthouse wall from this angle, but she'd been watching some guy with a full head of gleaming silver hair haranguing the crowd in the square for the past hour. She'd taken him for a preacher, except he wore his hair to his shoulders and tied in a ponytail. He'd so enraptured the crowd, they'd just about forgotten her. She hoped he was converting them to a good cause.

Maybe, if she really wanted to go out in a ball of flame, she should have brought something stronger than water up here. She gulped another swig of Evian as Marta's brother, the fireman, stuck his head over the edge of the roof below her.

“Hey, Jack,” she called, “Who's the Boy Scout providing the entertainment down there?”

Jack knotted a plastic sack to the rope ladder she lowered for him.

“Marta sent supper.” He glanced down at the preacher in the square. “That's your lawyer. He's good.”

Cleo pulled the rope up to retrieve the sack. Had it been anyone but Jack and Marta offering food, she'd be suspicious of their motives. Actually, before Jared came along, she'd have been suspicious even of them. She was learning to trust. Scary. Probably self-destructive, too, but she might as well go all out.