Deadly Gamble (33 page)

“You were little. And you were holding a gun.”

For the next few moments, all I heard was the sound of my own blood, pounding in my ears, a steady, relentless,
thud-thud-thud
. Then I
saw
blood, smelled it, felt it, slippery and warm. Suddenly, I was five, and so scared that I'd wet my pants. I was going to get in trouble, I thought, for wetting my pants.

I struggled to keep my grasp on the heavy gun, but it slithered out of my small hands, struck the floor and went off with a roar that made me shriek with renewed terror.

I was still screaming when I morphed back to the grown-up me.

Nick was gripping my shoulders.

“It's true,” I whispered, in agony. “It's true—I
killed
them. I killed my mom and dad—”

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “That was all I saw, Mojo. Just you, with the gun in your hands. You dropped it, and it went off. Maybe you only picked the thing up after someone else threw it down—”

“And maybe,” I said, sick to the center of my soul, “I found a pistol lying around somewhere, and I—and I—”

“I shouldn't have told you,” Nick lamented. His hands suddenly felt stone-cold where they rested on my shoulders. I knew, even in the frenzy of remembering the weight of that gun, and the blood, that he was about to do another fade-out.

“Don't leave—”

He was gone.

“Me,” I finished forlornly.

Alone again.

Naturally.

I know I should have stayed put.

I should have called Jolie or even Andy Crowley.

But I didn't.

I found my purse, banged out of the house, jumped into the Volvo, drove to the 101, followed it south to the 10 East.

I didn't know I was headed for Cactus Bend until I took the exit, after an hour and a half on autopilot. A glance at the dashboard clock told me it was after 10:00 p.m. That jolted me, because up until then, I couldn't have said whether it was night or day.

The big gates were shut tight at Casa Larimer.

I leaned on the horn.

Lights came on in the big house.

I honked again.

A figure sprinted down the sloping driveway, and I recognized Joseph.

He looked annoyed, when I caught a flash of his face in the headlights, but he opened the gates. I rolled down the window.

“I need to see the senator,” I said. I don't know exactly what I intended to do at that point. Turn myself in, maybe. Or just ask for advice.

Joseph's annoyance gave way to concern. “My God, Mojo—what's the matter with you? You look—”

“I want to see my uncle.”

“He's not here,” Joseph said quietly. He opened the car door. “Move over,” he said. “I'm driving.”

I was clearly not myself. If I had been, I would have told him he wasn't doing anything of the kind. Instead, I moved to release my seat belt, discovered I'd never fastened it in the first place and scrambled inelegantly over the console into the passenger seat. It was only then that I realized I was still wearing my nightshirt and bathrobe. I was barefoot, too—I must have walked over the gravel in the parking lot at Bert's without even feeling it. Not good, since there were usually broken beer bottles mixed in with the tiny, sharp rocks.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. I could have had a career playing the dumb victim in B horror movies.

“I
should
take you to the nearest hospital,” Joseph said. “What the hell are you on, anyway?”

“I'm not ‘on' anything,” I protested.

“You couldn't prove it by me, lady.” Joseph shoved the Volvo back in gear and streaked up the driveway and around to the guesthouse, behind the manor.

“I'll scream if you touch me,” I warned.

“Go ahead and scream,” Joseph said. “The senator's away and Mrs. Larimer is upstairs, blitzed out on pills.”

He stopped the car, shut off the engine, got out and stalked around to my side. Pulled open my door.

I tried to hold on to the seat, but he grabbed me by the knees and cranked me around sideways. I was just about to make good on my decision to let out a real howler when he crouched and took hold of one of my ankles.

“Your feet are bleeding,” he said. “What the—?”

I started to cry.

“I killed my parents,” I said.

He lifted his head, looked full into my face. “You are certifiably nuts,” he told me, but there was a new gentleness in the way he spoke. “Come on, Ms. Sheepshanks.” He got to his feet, leaned in and lifted me off the seat and into his arms. “Let's get you inside before you bring shame and degradation on the family name.”

I laid my head on his shoulder.

Like I said, I was not myself.

“I killed my own parents,” I said.

“Crazy as you are,” Joseph answered, “I seriously doubt it.”

“I remembered—”

“Joseph! What in the world is going on out there?”

Joseph stopped cold. We both looked up and saw Barbara Larimer staring down on us from what was probably the balcony of the master suite.

So much for the blitzed-on-pills theory.

“Mojo's hurt herself,” Joseph said. “She's upset. I was just taking her into the guesthouse.”

“Bring her in here instead,” Barbara ordered. “If she's hurt, we ought to call a doctor.”

“It's pretty minor,” Joseph told her.

“I might get blood on the carpets,” I added, trying to be helpful.

“Shut up,” Joseph rasped.

“I'm coming down there,” Barbara decided. “I'll need my chair.”

Joseph swore softly. Then he said, “Right away, Mrs. Larimer!”

“Suck-up,” I said.

“Are you drunk?”

“I really, really wish I were.”

Joseph opened the front door of the guesthouse, carried me through it and set me on the swanky leather couch. That done, he flipped on a couple of lamps, took a better look at the bottoms of my feet and swore again.

“Stay here,” he said. “
Right
here.” He pulled my car keys from his pants pocket and jingled them for emphasis. “Read my lips. You do not have transportation.”

“Gotya,” I replied.

When he returned, Barbara was with him, motorized and very, very concerned.

Unfortunately, between the time of Joseph's departure and their return, I'd dropped onto my side and fallen into a drooling sleep. I sat bolt upright when the sound of their entering jolted me awake, and wiped ineffectually at the spit stain on the leather couch.

“It looks like a nervous breakdown to me,” Joseph told his employer, who whizzed around the end of the coffee table to give me the once-over, up close and personal. “She's been muttering some nonsense about killing her parents.”

“Go and call Dr. Henderson,” Barbara said to Joseph.

“Please, don't,” I said. I'd driven for an hour and a half in my nightgown and bathrobe. I'd confessed to murdering my mother and father. Talk about a blight on the family name. I wasn't up to the questions a doctor would ask.

“You're not well, dear,” Barbara assured me. For a moment, I thought she was going to pat me on the head. “You need medical attention.”

I had planned—insofar as I'd done any planning at all—to tell my uncle what I'd remembered, leaving out the part Nick played in the revelation, of course, and ask him what to do next. In my confused mental state, I'd never figured Barbara into the equation at all. And I was not anxious to be alone with her.

“I'm really—just—drunk,” I said.

Joseph left the room. I heard the low murmur of his voice and knew he was summoning the medicos. If they brought a net, I'd make a run for it, sore feet or none.

“Drunk?” Barbara asked, sniffing delicately. “I don't smell alcohol.”

I started to cry. Why hadn't I called Jolie? Now I'd painted myself into a corner, and I might never get out. I would probably go to jail, even if I had been only five when I committed the crime. Uncle Clive would advise me to turn myself in, I was sure. And plead insanity.

Joseph came back. He carried a first aid kit in one hand.

“What did the doctor say?” Barbara wanted to know.

“He's out of town,” Joseph answered, pushing back the coffee table, forcing Barbara to wheel back out of the way. “It's a judgment call. We can look after her ourselves, or take her to the emergency room.”

“I'm not going to any hospital,” I said.

Prison, maybe. But no more hospitals.

“Well, I'd like to keep this out of the news if possible,” Barbara said practically. She tilted a lamp shade so Joseph could get a better view of my feet, which were now in his lap. He sloshed them with alcohol, and I winced and tried to pull away.

“Good luck,” Joseph said.

I wasn't sure whether he was talking to me or Barbara.

“Everything will look better in the morning,” she said.

I heard the words like an odd, muffled echo, coming from the long ago and far away.

Everything will look better in the morning.

Scented hands, tucking me into a strange bed. I was small and scared. Earlier, a maid had scrubbed me clean in a bathtub big enough to swim in, and before that, men in uniforms had asked me a lot of questions I couldn't answer.

I wanted my mother, and the hopelessness of the longing was a giant, pulsing bruise inside me.

Everything will look better in the morning.

Back in the present moment, I covered my face with both hands.

“Are you all right?” Joseph asked.

I felt a peculiar tension in the air, looked up. It was coming from Barbara.

I knew what she was thinking.

Her husband was a state senator. A cinch for governor.

And now this crazy relative had turned up, just in time to ruin everything.

“I want to go home,” I said. “I can drive, really.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Joseph replied flatly.

Where, I wondered, had he put my car keys?

He disappeared into the bedroom where I'd slept on my previous visit.

Barbara studied me intently. “I saw you on the evening news,” she said. “The interview in your sister's driveway.”

“Sorry about that,” I answered. I'd mentioned that the senator was my uncle, I remembered that much. Chances were, I wouldn't be invited along on any vote-gathering junkets.

Joseph came back. Lifted me off the couch and carried me out of the room.

“She hates me,” I confided, in a whisper. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since I'd arrived, but I felt rummy, as though I'd been drugged.

We reached the bedroom. The covers had been turned back, and Joseph laid me on the cool sheets.

“I'll get you some water,” he said.

“I don't want to ruin these sheets,” I told him, remembering my cut feet and swinging them over the side of the bed.

Joseph put me right back where I'd been before, and covered me up. “Forget the damn sheets,” he said. “You've got much bigger problems.”

“Are you going to call the police?”

“No,” Joseph said. “That's for the senator to decide.”

“Do you think I could have some aspirin?”

“You probably shouldn't take anything.” There was an “else” hanging on the end of that sentence, though Joseph didn't actually say it.

I closed my eyes.

Opened them.

Barbara was sitting beside the bed.

Wheelchairs should make more noise. I was so startled that my heart shinnied into my throat, clawing like a kitten trying to get out of a sack.

“Good night, dear,” she said.

I managed a smile. “Good night,” I replied.

Barbara went out.

Joseph brought the water. Left again.

I heard the front door close in the distance.

I tried to sleep.

I couldn't.

Where were my car keys? In Joseph's pocket?

Or had he hung them on a hook inside the main house, possibly in the kitchen? If I went after them, I'd probably set off an alarm.

I couldn't face that.

Desperate for something to do, I fiddled with the built-in remote on the bedside stand and switched on the plasma TV.

The news was on.

“A fugitive was laid to rest today in Cactus Bend,” a woman said, as the camera panned across the gathering at Lillian's graveside. I saw Greer and Jolie and myself. The senator and Barbara, and a lot of strangers.