Cattitude (23 page)

“Exactly how is God doing this?” Max managed
to speak normally when he wanted to shout.

“He took her home.”

Ted made another strangled sound. Max sat
still, his head buzzing. “Are you saying you think she’s dead?”

She smiled without parting her lips, her head
nodding politely. “God gave life, and God took it away.”

Max’s breakfast orange juice rose in his
throat. He stopped talking and swallowed. His hands clenched on his
thighs.

“You think she’s in heaven now?” Ted
asked.

“Oh no.” The mother shook her head firmly.
“She’ll have to stay on another level until she repents for
sins.”

“You’ve mentioned that before,” Ted went on.
“What sins?”

Max let Ted take over. If he opened his
mouth, he might tell Jim and Judy to go straight to hell and not
collect two hundred dollars. Even Mr. and Mrs. Self-Righteous might
kick him out after that.

The mother’s smile didn’t dip. “Why, she
housed Satan.”

Ted turned a laugh into a cough. “How’d she
do that?”

“She had visions no godly woman ever had.”
Judy sat with her hands clasped on her lap, her ankles together,
her mouth pursed. “We tried everything we could to cleanse her, but
nothing worked.”

Jim nodded. “The devil’s seed was in
her.”

Max’s fists curled tighter, a muscle jumping
in his bicep. “How did you try to cleanse her? What was your
method?”

“Prayer,” Judy said.

His mouth a thin line, Jim nodded. “Every man
and woman in the Church of the True and Only God prayed in turn
over her for days and nights.”

“How many days and nights?”

“Seven days and seven nights.” A light burned
in Jim’s eyes as he looked above Ted at the bleeding Jesus. “The
same amount of time God created our world.”

“Seven days and nights? Did she eat during
this time?”

“The Bible nourished her,” Judy said.

“No food, no drink?”

Jim’s manic eyes veered to Max, as if he
finally sensed the sarcasm. “We gave her water. She wasn’t
starving.”

“She didn’t eat for seven days.” Despite his
desire to be calm, Max’s voice hardened. “I’d damn well call that
child abuse.”

Judy gasped, her hand over her mouth. Jim
jumped to his feet.

“Detective or not, I allow no cursing in this
house.”

Max stood and stepped forward, bringing his
fists up. “You allow no compassion or love. Your daughter is well
rid of you.”

Jim lifted his arm. A shaking finger pointed
to the front door. “Out. Get out of my house.”

Max took a step toward Jim. Ted grabbed Max’s
upper arm, holding him back. Max swiveled toward Ted, but the
worried frown on Ted’s normally smooth forehead stopped the growl
from leaving his throat.

“Let’s go,” Ted said. “We’re not going to
find out anything from them.”

Max gave the glowering couple a scathing
glance of contempt before jerking away from Ted and stalking to the
front door. Outside, Max inhaled deeply. After the oppressive
atmosphere of the Anders’ living room, the air smelled of
freedom.

“I don’t want you coming back to my house,”
Jim called after them.

Ted gave him a gesture that wasn’t in the
Detectives’ Handbook. The door slammed shut.

Two minutes later, they drove along the
southside Milwaukee block, past dozens of houses crowded together,
barely room for a sidewalk between them. Ted spoke first. “Those
two make Mom look like a saint.”

“Yeah,” Max said through gritted teeth. He
clutched the steering wheel, his arms tense. He kept thinking about
Jim and Judy Anders praying over Sorcha, refusing to give her food.
He imagined them shaking her awake whenever she drifted off to
sleep, although he didn’t know where that image came from.

He wasn’t a violent man, but he wished to
hell he’d socked Jim Anders in the jaw.

“They didn’t have one picture of her,” Ted
said.

“They don’t deserve a picture of her.”

“I’m surprised Sorcha has as much backbone as
she does.” Ted slouched in the passenger seat. “It’s like finding
Van Gogh’s Sunflower painting in a cold and dark basement. With
parents like that, I’d expect her to be timid, uncertain, eager to
please.”

Max’s hands unclenched on the steering wheel.
Sorcha was a pain in the butt sometimes, but never timid, never
uncertain, never eager to please. From the proud tilt of her head
to the fire burning in her clear green eyes, her unbending spine
and get-out-of-my-way walk, she was pure spunk. If there were such
a thing as being too self-confident, that was Sorcha.

Even when she didn’t remember who she
was.

Even when a murderer was after her.

A chill sliced through him. “I haven’t paid
attention to the Milwaukee news lately. We need to look up recent
murders in the area.”

“I’ll do that,” Ted said. “I’ll start with
the day we found her. It must’ve been the trauma of her fiancé’s
death that made her lose her memory. Though Phil doesn’t look too
bad for a dead guy.”

“If he’s the murderer,” Max said slowly while
he examined possibilities in his mind, “letting us see his face was
a stupid step.”

“Maybe he’s a stupid murderer. Are you
calling the sheriff?”

Max remembered Sorcha fighting to keep from
being taken to the hospital. The way she’d planted herself in his
home as if she belonged there. If he called the sheriff, they would
insist on taking her to a medical facility, maybe to the Milwaukee
Police Department for questioning, then to a shelter.

He should welcome that solution, but
something inside him revolted. “Not yet. I’ll see what she has to
say. Phil too. He better have a damn good story.” The prospect of
questioning Sorcha’s supposed fiancé made him smile grimly.

“She might be safer with the cops.”

“Or she might be in bigger danger.” Max set
his jaw and his mind. “If we call them, her location’s got a better
chance of leaking. We can keep her safer than they can.”

“There’s one problem with that.”

Max shot him a look. “What?”

“In eight days you’re leaving.”

Scowling, Max steered onto the expressway
on-ramp.

“Aren’t you?” Ted said.

“I’m leaving on schedule. Nothing is changing
that.”

“Not even Sorcha?”

“If I have to, I’ll take her with me.”

Ted snorted a half laugh. “She won’t even go
to Milwaukee with you. What makes you think she’ll travel around
the world?”

Max gritted his teeth. For the last twenty
years, he’d been in charge of his world and the people in it. The
only resisting force was one small cat. He’d lost Belle, but Sorcha
stood fast against his control as strongly as his cat ever did.

An image of Sorcha flashed in his mind, her
hair curling over her shoulders, her eyes sparkling, her slender
waist, softly flaring hips, and breasts like ripe peaches.

She was irresistible in more ways than one.
If she traveled with him, he knew what would happen.

A sharp gladness filled him. He pushed his
foot harder on the gas pedal, eager to reach home and see her.

The pounding inside Caroline’s head was made
worse by the brownish yellow walls of her mother’s doll-sized
kitchen, making her feel as if she was stuck inside a giant mustard
bottle. But eating take-out shrimp with lobster sauce here was
better than being at Max’s. Everything there was “Sorcha, Sorcha,
Sorcha” when it should have been “Caroline, Caroline,
Caroline.”

She’d gotten rid of the cat, but the woman
would be harder to get rid of.

And none of it mattered. Max was leaving.

She picked at her shrimp while Brenda ate her
pork with garlic sauce. Elvis crooned “Love Me Tender” on the
stereo, but Caroline wasn’t feeling the love. Brenda’s shabby
apartment reminded Caroline of her failures. The expensive dinette
set she’d bought for Brenda before Emery lost his money looked out
of place, like a jewel in a mud pie. She’d offered to take Brenda
to dinner, but after working all day in the telemarketing center,
Brenda wanted to flop around her apartment in sweats and
slippers.

Brenda slurped up the last of the garlic pork
and rice on her plate. Though Caroline was still chewing on her
shrimp, Brenda rose and put the half-filled cartons in the
refrigerator. Emery used to say the world would explode into flames
if Caroline or her mother finished an entire meal. Then he’d
guffaw, not caring that Caroline glared at him. If she had weighed
ten pounds more when they met, he would never have looked at her.
The hypocrite.

It was a relief not to share a bedroom with a
man like that. Though his biggest offense hadn’t been insensitivity
but poverty, it didn’t matter. The result was the same. His ashes
were in a city dump and she was trying everything she could think
of to seduce his cousin.

She reached for her purse on the counter and
pulled out her pill box.

“Prozac?” Brenda asked. “I hope you’re
careful with those.”

Caroline gulped down the pill with a glass of
water. “I’m fine,” she said, and patted droplets of water from her
lip with a paper napkin. Though she knew the pill’s effect was
cumulative, reaching a level in her bloodstream and staying there
as long as she kept taking the prescribed dosage, her breathing
slowed and deepened.

Good. She didn’t have the luxury to give into
panic. She had a multi-millionaire to catch and only a week to do
it in.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have wasted the last
two days being cosseted and admired and spoiled. But she’d needed
it. Every second. Drinking it in like an alcoholic drank cheap
wine.

But that was play and this was work.

“I have to do something to stop Max from
leaving,” she said. “He wasn’t in his office today when I got
there. Yesterday he was outside most of the day, looking for the
stupid cat.”

Her mother’s raised eyebrows fueled
Caroline’s anger. Things like this always happened to her. It
wasn’t fair.

She tossed her hair back. Never mind the cat.
Or Sorcha, the tuna-eating poseur. Caroline wasn’t giving up or
giving in. Brenda hadn’t raised a quitter.

“I’m running out of time to entice Max. I
need a new plan.” She gestured at Brenda. “You always have the best
ideas. Can you think of anything?”

“Not off the top of my head.” Brenda cleared
away the dishes. Her forehead wrinkling in deep thought, she rinsed
off the plates. “But don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”

Caroline tapped her long fingernails on the
table, then picked up her glass of Riesling. Five minutes later,
she and Brenda relaxed on the gold velvet couch in the living room
while the dishwasher rumbled in the kitchen and Elvis sang “Don’t
Be Cruel.” Brenda put her feet up on the hassock and wiggled her
toes.

“There has to be a way you can seduce Max,”
she said. “He’s the kind of guy with a conscience. Look how long he
took care of his family. And he’s helping you. He’s got to feel
something for you.”

“I thought I was making headway.” Caroline’s
headache throbbed again and she put her hand against her forehead.
“But now he’s leaving. I don’t think seduction would work.”

“He’s not gay,” Brenda said. “And you’re a
beautiful woman. How can he not want you?”

Caroline set her glass on the coffee table
and stood. “I’ve asked myself the same question, over and
over.”

As if pulled, she stood and walked to the
mirrored wall. No lines on her face, no sagging skin, no hippo
hips. Her snug blue slacks and lacy top showed off her curves
without shouting, ‘I’m a ho’, take me.’

She lifted a hand to her cheek. Was her skin
loosening just a bit? She leaned in closer to the mirror, and her
skin went cold and then hot. She pressed her palms against her
stomach. Yes, it was there. Something on her nearly perfect face
that whispered “I’m not twenty anymore.”

The aging had begun.

And she was only thirty.

Unable to look at her image again, she faced
Brenda.

“I’ve been touching him, a hand on his
shoulder or a quick massage on his back. Letting him know I’m
reaching out to him.”

“And he’s still not coming on to you?” Brenda
looked indignant. “What is he made of? Steel?”

“Muscle and skin.” Caroline shrugged,
remembering the firmness under her fingers. “Sex with him won’t be
a chore.”

“Emery wasn’t bad.” Brenda sipped her
wine.

“Mom, forget Emery.” Caroline decided not to
tell her mother she’d eaten hot dogs firmer than Emery. “We need to
focus on hooking Max and reeling him in. You’re much better at this
than I am.”

Brenda giggled. “I am good. Remember the time
I put itching powder in Gina Fairchild’s loose face powder?”

Caroline smiled and sat on her end of the
couch. Brenda used to tell Caroline she’d always be there for her,
and she had. But she wouldn’t be there forever. No one would.
That’s why she needed money.

“And the time I put the laxative in Teresa
Able’s hot chocolate.” Brenda sighed, her lips curving. “Teresa did
like her hot chocolate. Too bad it didn’t kick in until after she
was crowned.”

Caroline remembered Teresa’s dash to the
bathroom, an expression of distress twisting her mouth, the crown
on her head. She liked Teresa, who once loaned her a pearl necklace
when hers broke. The difference between the two was that hers was
fake and Teresa’s real.

“Laxative, four dollars. Satisfaction,
priceless.” Brenda laughed, not seeming to notice Caroline’s
silence. “Remember when I put a knockout drug in Alisha Brock’s
diet soda?” Her smile turned to a scowl and she set down her glass
of wine. “Then her mother ruined everything, drinking it herself.
She deserved to have her stomach pumped.”

Caroline frowned. Didn’t Brenda remember how
frightened Caroline had been? The police had been asking questions.
She’d been so afraid the police would find out Brenda had bought
the drug from the creepy guy who hung around pageants, handing out
diet pills for either money or—