Deadly Gamble (22 page)

I nodded.

“If you remember anything else about the chow mein delivery, or if you happen to see the kid again someplace, be sure and let me know. Same thing if you hear from the mystery caller again.”

I'd told Crowley earlier that I suspected my half brother, Geoff, aka Steve Roberts, R.N. and health guru, might have been the perp. Ditto Heather, the stalker queen. I reminded him.

“I'd change the locks if I were you,” he said, “and don't accept anything edible from strangers.”

Was he kidding? From then on, I wouldn't take so much as a morsel from one of those sample ladies in the grocery store.

Crowley left, and Tucker and I went back to bed.

I woke to a dark apartment, an expanse of empty sheets and somebody hammering on the door.

I got up, fumbled my way through the dimly lit rooms and down the hallway. I didn't have a peephole, so I had to hope mimicry didn't number among my enemy's many skills.

“Who's there?”

“Jolie,” my sister answered. “Let me in. I need to pee like a racehorse.”

I opened the door. An attacker might have been able to do Jolie's voice, but the urination metaphor was a throw-back to when we were kids, and I doubted that my almost-Ph.D. sister used it in a public context.

Fortunately, I was right.

Jolie and I hugged on the threshold, and she came in, carrying a name-brand suitcase.

“The place is dark as a tomb, I don't smell food and you look like you've been rolling around in the sack with a man all afternoon,” she observed.

“Good to see you, too,” I replied.

Jolie made for the bathroom, while I set her bag in my room. I was smoothing the covers when she appeared in the doorway.

“Lillian looks bad,” she said. “She didn't even recognize me.”

I'd forgotten, with all that was going on, that Jolie had planned to stop off at Sunset Villa on her way to my place. I'd also forgotten, I realized with a start, that she and I were expected at Greer's for supper.

I nodded sadly. “It kills me, seeing Lillian like this. She was always so—
Lillian
.”

Tears stood in Jolie's eyes. “I think she's dying, Moje.”

My throat constricted. “Probably,” I managed to say. The word came out sounding like a croak.

“I called Greer from the car,” Jolie said, deftly turning the conversation in a direction both of us could deal with. “She's under the weather, and wants to get together tomorrow night.”

I frowned. “Is it serious?”

“It sounded like a bad case of too much vodka to me,” Jolie said. “Greer's really unhappy, isn't she?”

“Miserably,” I agreed. I was hungry, and I knew Jolie was, too. No way I was having anything delivered after the chow mein experience, so I suggested we head for the nearest IHOP.

On the way there, in Jolie's Pathfinder, I told her about the attack on Bert, Russell's near-miss with the chow mein and the recorded phone message from Distorto-voice.

She took it all in, in her thoughtful way, then asked, “So what about the sex?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don't go into your tap-dance routine, Moje. I saw the tangled covers on your bed, and you've got a certain glow about you. With all that's been going on, there can only be one explanation, and that's multiple orgasms in the very recent past.”

I blushed. “Did you learn that in your forensics classes?” I dodged.

Jolie chuckled. “No. I learned it having good times with bad men. Was it the cop?”

“Yes,” I admitted. Jolie had a nose for the truth, and she was as persistent as a bloodhound.

“So it's back on with you two?”

“I don't know,” I said. “He has kids, an ex-wife. And he's thinking of changing jobs. There's a pretty good chance Tucker's rebounding, and I'm the trampoline.”

Jolie winced. “Not good,” she said.

“Not good at all,” I agreed.

“And then there's the sex.”

I sighed again. “And then there's the sex.”

“Good?”

“Beyond good. Beyond excellent.”

“Aaak,” Jolie said.

That about summed it up.

At the IHOP, over breakfast suppers swimming in syrup, we switched subjects.

“You still thinking of becoming a crime scene tech?” I asked.

“I've got an interview with Phoenix PD,” she said. “Tomorrow afternoon, one o'clock.” She smiled softly, holding a crisp slice of bacon between two fingers. “Remember how we used to love it when Lillian served breakfast food for supper?”

I felt a pang. Nodded. “It was always a treat,” I said. “Looking back, I figure it really meant she and Ham had run out of money before they ran out of month.”

Jolie grinned. “Probably.”

“Did you get Sweetie all squared away with the friends in the country?”

“Yes,” Jolie said. “And it's okay to say you're relieved I didn't bring him with me. He gave you a pretty hard time the other day.”

I shuddered slightly at the reminder of being trapped on top of Jolie's refrigerator for several hours with nothing to do but memorize the instruction book for the microwave. If I ever ran into a French person with thawing problems, though, I'd be ready.

“I don't think Sweetie likes me,” I said.

“He likes you fine,” Jolie replied, chomping into her bacon.

“Maybe with salt and pepper and a side of fries.”

Jolie laughed. “He wouldn't have eaten you.”

“It wasn't the eating part I was worried about,” I told her. “It was the gnawing.”

She smiled.

“It would be great to have you living in Phoenix,” I said. “I miss you, big-time.”

“If you miss me so much,” Jolie reasoned, “why did you boogie like that the other night? Why didn't you stay and talk it through?”

“I don't know.” It seemed I'd been saying that a lot lately.

“I'm on
your
side, Moje. You were rattled because some of your memories were coming back, and you panicked. I could have listened, maybe helped you sort things out, if you'd given me a chance.”

“A part of me doesn't want to remember,” I confessed.

“Ya think?” Jolie chimed. She sounded smart-ass, but I saw the concern in her eyes.

“Maybe it's better not to start digging things up,” I mused. “After all, it's been twenty-three years. It's old news.”

Jolie put down her fork, pushed her plate to one side for the waitress to remove. “Lillian must have thought you were in danger, to kidnap you like that,” she said. “She'd have gone to prison, maybe for life, if they'd caught her. She blew off her whole life—her home, her friends, everything, to get you out of Dodge. Has she ever told you why?”

I shook my head. “I've asked, but she always said it was better to leave the past alone. She was a great mom. She was also a master at stonewalling. The more questions I put to her, the less she was willing to say.”

“I've often wondered how much she told my dad,” Jolie reflected.

“Me, too.”

Jolie signaled for the check.

I'd left my ATM card at home, and I didn't have any cash. I hadn't deposited Greer's check, either, since I'd been a little busy. I snatched the bill, just the same, since Jolie had paid the time before, at the Italian place in Tucson, and handed the waitress my credit card. I offered a silent prayer and hoped for the best.

The waitress returned, and the apologetic look on her face was a clear indication that my prayer was stuck in some heavenly cyber-queue.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “but the credit card company declined payment.”

Jolie was ready with a twenty-dollar bill.

The waitress took it and hurried away gratefully.

“It bites, being poor,” I said, my face hot with embarrassment.

“You really got burned in that divorce,” Jolie said. “I thought you'd paid all that stuff off.”

“That's the last one,” I said. “I cut up the other cards a long time ago.” I thought of Nick, and his mother, and seethed. I'd rarely used plastic, but Nick had flashed them everywhere he went. Most likely, I'd taken the fall for a lot of hotel rooms, romantic dinners and sexy lingerie. Nick DeLuca was going to be a while getting out of the train station up yonder if he needed
my
forgiveness to buy a ticket.

“Better take the whackers to that one, too,” Jolie suggested.

“You can bet on it,” I said.

On the way back to my place, Jolie pulled into a supermarket parking lot and loaded up on groceries. Maybe she'd looked in my fridge between going to the bathroom and catching me at smoothing the bed. Maybe—and this was worse—she just felt sorry for me because I was a schmuck with a piecework job and bad credit.

We carried the bags up to my apartment, and Jolie went off to take a shower and put on her pajamas while I put the stuff away.

Nick popped in just as I was turning away from the refrigerator.

“Creep,” I said, in a whisper, because I didn't want Jolie to hear and demand an explanation. It was enough that I'd had to tell Tucker I saw ghosts, and if it hadn't been for the Jessica story, I would have been up against it in the credibility department.

Nick looked offended. He was holding Chester, or I'd have smacked him with something.

I grabbed my purse, dug out the credit card, and shoved it in his face. “This
bounced
tonight, thanks to you and Mommy Dearest, and I was humiliated. Again.”

Nick frowned, put the cat down on the floor. “There was life insurance,” he said. “A lot of it.”

“Fat lot of good it did me,” I said. I yanked open the junk drawer, got out the scissors and snipped the card into pieces. Okay, I should have checked the available credit before I tried to use the thing, but I'd been making minimum payments for about a hundred years, and I figured there was room for two pancake specials at IHOP.

Nick backpedaled. Maybe because I still had the scissors in my hand. I couldn't kill him, but ectoplasmic puncture could conceivably be a problem. In that moment, I
really
wanted to test the theory.

“Where's the dog?” he asked.

I choked on a sob I hadn't known was coming. “Russell was almost murdered,” I answered, still keeping my voice down. I could hear Jolie rattling around in the other end of the apartment, though, so I figured I was safe. “I had to leave him with the vet.”

“Murdered?” Nick repeated.

“Yeah,” I snapped.
“Murdered.”
I took a deep breath, but it didn't help. So much for
The Damn Fool's Guide to Self-Control
. I'd have demanded my $14.95 back if I hadn't highlighted so many pages. “I don't think this forgiveness thing is going to fly,” I added. “You may need to take another approach to boarding your train.”

“There
isn't
another approach,” Nick said quietly.

“Maybe your mother could work something out for you. Stick it to whoever's in charge up there, the way she stuck it to me.”

Nick closed his eyes. Opened them again.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“You know,” I whispered back, “you look like you mean that. You even sound like you mean it. But since you probably never told me the truth in your selfish life, I'm having a hard time believing you.”

“Mojo—”

Jolie stepped into the doorway, wearing cotton pajamas that made her look about eleven years old. Her gaze glided right past Nick without catching. “I thought you were on the phone,” she said.

I smiled. “I was,” I told her. “It was just a telemarketer.”

“Liar,” Nick said, close to my ear.

My smile turned to a grimace.

“They're hiring people in India and places like that,” Jolie said. “To make sales calls, I mean. That's how they get past the no-call list.” She grinned. “Next time, just tell them you'd love to buy everything they're selling, but a waitress at IHOP chopped up your last credit card.”

“Ouch,” Nick said.

My face was beginning to hurt. I wanted to tell him to shut up, and a few other choice things, too, but I didn't dare.

I'd forgotten how perceptive my sister could be.

“Is that ghost here?” she asked. “Is that why you look as if rigor mortis set in while you were watching Comedy Central?”

“Yes!” I said, relieved, gesturing toward Nick. “He's right here.”

“She can't see me, Mojo,” Nick said.