Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) (21 page)

“But he didn’t do any of that stuff to you. And he saved you from the explosion. Didn’t he?”

“Yes. He did.” I shook my head. “He’s a great guy, Jasmine. He really is. I just can’t see a relationship with him working out.”

“Sounds to me like that would be because of you, and not him.”

I took another drink, then held out my glass for a refill. “Probably.”

“So why wouldn’t it work?” She poured me another drink. “What big secret do you have? He already knows about the crazy ex-boyfriend. What else do you have hidden away that you’re not telling him?”

“Nothing.” I sipped and grimaced. I was drinking too fast. “Well, not much. Everybody’s got stuff they’d rather not talk about. Don’t they?”

“Not me,” Jasmine replied. “My life’s an open book. You want to hear about my past relationships—no problem. I can talk about them for hours.”

I grinned. She was right. She could.

“My kids?” she continued. “I’ll talk about them for hours more. My scrapes with the law?”

“You’ve had scrapes with the law?” This was news to me. “What happened?”

She thought for a long moment, then took another sip. “You’re right. Everybody’s got something in their past they’d rather not talk about,” she finally replied.

“Oh, come on! You can’t leave me hanging like this! What did you do?”

She looked around the kitchen, as though checking to make certain her children hadn’t materialized around us. I didn’t blame her. I’d seen them pull that trick before. We’d be right in the middle of some juicy bit of gossip, and suddenly the room would be full of children all asking for details. I glanced down the hallway, but it appeared all bedroom doors were still securely shut.

“It’s safe,” I whispered. “What did you do?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.” She giggled. “You’ll laugh at me.”

So it wasn’t murder, then. A person didn’t laugh at confessions of murder. Or drugs either. Drugs weren’t funny. I sipped a bit more scotch, thinking that perhaps I’d had just about enough.

“So what did you do?”

“I—I was involved with a group. That group got in a bit of trouble.” She shook her head. “Man, that was a long time ago.”

“So spill,” I said. “I’m dying here.”

“All right, but you have to promise you won’t laugh.”

“I promise.”

“You have to say it like you actually mean it.”

I held my hand over what I hoped was my heart. “I promise.”

“Heart’s on the other side.”

Oops. Changed position and tried again, hoping I looked sincere. “So what did you do?”

“Broke into a lab and stole rabbits.”

“What?” I decided I had had more than enough to drink. It sounded like my friend had said—

“I broke into a lab on the south side of town and freed all the rabbits they were using for testing.”

“Rabbits?”

“Yes. Rabbits.”

I felt the smirk begin to form and tried valiantly to make it go away. I could tell by the look on Jasmine’s face that I was completely unsuccessful.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh,” she said.

“Rabbits?”

“Yes.” Her jaw set. “They were doing unspeakable things to them—”

I took another big drink, just to compose myself. I looked at Jasmine over the rim of my glass and laughed out loud at the thunderous look on her face.

Laughing with my face buried in a glass of scotch was a mistake. I managed to breath in, not out, and sucked some scotch, which caused me to choke. That led to me blowing alcohol all over the table. Some of it came out through my nose, which was both extremely painful and in terrible form.

Jasmine stared at me as I choked and slobbered all over the place, then burst out laughing herself.

“Serves you right, you wretch,” she said, reaching behind her for a dishcloth and handing it to me. “I told you not to laugh.”

I grabbed the cloth and wiped my face and my streaming eyes, as I tried to stop choking. It took a minute, and brought Ella from her room.

“Is everything all right?” she called from the safety of her doorway.

“Absolutely,” Jasmine said. “Don’t worry about a thing, girl. Marie just had a karma attack is all. She’ll be fine as soon as she apologizes to me.”

“Good grief,” Ella said, disdain dripping from her fifteen-year-old voice. “Well, keep it down, please. I’m trying to get my homework done here.”

Jasmine and I both burst into gales of laughter as her door clicked shut. “Good thing there’s someone mature in this house,” Jasmine said. “Otherwise, it would all fall to ruin, I’m sure.”

“Probably. Oh, and Jasmine?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry about laughing.” If there was such a thing as karma, I didn’t need to get on its wrong side.

“That’s all right,” Jasmine replied. “Are you ready to share your big secret?”

“What? What secret?”

“Well, when we were talking about James, you said something about everybody having secrets. So, what secret do you have?”

I stared at her.

“Do you want another drink?”

“God, no,” I gasped. “That was more than enough.”

“Good,” she replied. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“No.” I stared down into my glass. “I just can’t.”

“Some day you’ll have to,” Jasmine said. “You know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer, but all she did was smile. “You’re lucky. No more interrogation. It’s time for my show. Come on, I’ll catch you up.”

I wiped up the last of the scotch off the table, then followed her to the front room, to watch her favorite nighttime medical drama. And for that hour, I was able to forget my own drama.

I wished it had lasted longer. Drama on TV is—dramatic. Drama in real life is messy. And painful, usually.

Just like nostril scotch.

I STEPPED OUT
of the drunk—yeah, picked a drunk—and just felt, well, drunk. That was definitely not what I was going for, but it did take the edge off, a bit. I decided to go find Crank and hang out with him. Even though he couldn’t see me.

Hell, it would almost be like old times. Crank wasn’t exactly my friend. He was more of a business acquaintance. He supplied me with drugs, and I supplied him with money. It was a pretty good system, all things considered. Unless I didn’t have enough money. Then he turned mean. Hey, but that’s business, right?

He worked for Ambrose Welch. Barely above street level, so he didn’t get all the news right from the horse’s mouth. But he knew the guys that knew—and that was almost as good. When he was in a giving mood, he’d tell a guy some of what was going on. He wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to keep his mouth absolutely shut around us addicts. But he liked to talk, and I was always ready to listen. Sometimes what fell out of his mouth was pure gold.

True, the son of a bitch hadn’t warned me that by going to the churchyard, I was stepping on somebody else’s toes, but I guess that was my own fault as much as his.

I got lazy, believed what he said, and went on my merry way. That way led to the tree.

So, this time, I was going to listen to what he said, and then get it checked out. By that Marie chick. She could do the leg work, since she was the one who thought this all meant something.

Yeah, look at me being lazy again. Screw it. I got a real good excuse. I’m dead.

CRANK WAS AT
his usual table, with his buddy. I didn’t recognize him, but it didn’t surprise me. Crank’s buddies were transient and unremarkable. I sat down beside him and laughed when he shuddered and rubbed his arm, like he’d suddenly felt a chill.

Yeah man, the dead are haunting you . . .

“So, what’s your problem?” Crank asked. “You’ll scare the freaks away, acting like that.”

I laughed out loud. Nothing would scare the freaks away but the cops, or Crank being out of product. Looked to me like he had lots, and I didn’t see the cops anywhere for the moment, so—no problem, Crank. You fuck.

“Nothin’,” his buddy answered. He stood and walked a couple of feet away from the table. Could have been to get away from me, or from Crank. Didn’t blame him, for either of the choices.

I watched them do business—and a brisk business it was, too—for a little while, and was just about ready to go find Noreen just for a change of pace, when Buddy decided to come back and huddle up with Crank.

“I got news,” he whispered. “About Ambrose.”

Rumours—that’s what Buddy called “news”—especially about the top dogs, were always interesting, so I eased closer to Crank.

“What about him?” Crank asked. Although he wasn’t acting too interested, I knew he was. Because he always had been.

“He’s getting a hunting party together.”

Crank frowned. “Who’s he after?”

Buddy shook his head. “Jerry didn’t say. But he thinks it has to do with the shakedown here the other night. Jerry says that Mike said that Joey thought that Ambrose knew who brought that bit of shit down on us.”

“Really?” Crank pointed at a girl, couldn’t have been over fourteen, who looked like she was hurting real bad. Buddy ran off, did business, and when the girl scurried away, came back.

“So who?” Crank asked.

“Apparently Mike thought it probably had to do with that do-gooder who showed up just before the raid.”

My ears pricked up at that. Do-gooder—had to be Marie.

“Didn’t she get picked up too?” Crank asked.

“Yeah, but she was out fast. Ambrose sent a couple of guys over to her office, to find out why she’d been to the park. Who she was connected to. You know. And then, after, that guy showed up here. In R’s face about wrecking his office and scaring his bitch. Even if he didn’t have anything to do with the raid, he disrespected R. And that disrespected Ambrose, on his own turf.”

“That’s enough for a hunting party, right there.” Crank looked around, to see if anyone was listening. It was disconcerting when he looked right at me. Right through me. I almost flinched away, then remembered I was dead. “So, they’re gonna get gacked?”

“Sounds like Ambrose wants to know what they know first. Joey said that the do-gooder talked to Noreen, just before the raid. Noreen told Joey—to his face— that the girl was asking if Brown Eddie knew somebody named Honoria. Honoria Lowe, I think that’s her name, anyhow. She lives around here, somewhere. That’s what Noreen said that the do-gooder said, anyhow. So, Ambrose wants to know who the chick is, and why the little do-gooder was trying to connect her to Brown Eddie.” Buddy shrugged. “Then, I guess they all get gacked.”

“You didn’t say anything to Joey about joining the hunting party, did you?”

“It was Jerry I was talking to, and no.” Buddy shook his head vigorously. “Wouldn’t say anything like that, unless you were interested.” He frowned. “You want to?”

“No,” Crank mumbled. “I got a business to run here. I don’t need that kind of trouble, unless I have to go. Jerry didn’t ask for me, did he?”

“No. I guess it’s Sonny, R, and a couple other guys.”

“Good.” Crank leaned back and relaxed. “We’re businessmen. Don’t need to be involved.”

Crank might be all right with what Buddy said to him, but I wasn’t. This wasn’t good. Marie was in trouble. She needed to be warned.

I BLASTED BACK
to the office, but it was dark and quiet. Well, not completely quiet. There was that James guy, sitting in a chair close to the front door with a baseball bat over his lap and his head thrown back, snoring. But no Marie. I didn’t know where she’d gone, but felt scared for her. She didn’t know what she had stepped into, going to that park. And she wouldn’t, if I couldn’t find her.

So, I tried focusing on her. You know, picking up her vibes, or something. I got nothing, though. Absolutely nothing.

What was the point being a ghost if you got no special powers with the whole deal?

So I did the only thing I could think to do. I sat down, listened to the idiot snoring for all he was worth, and waited for Marie to come back so I could save her life.

I STROLLED INTO
the office at just after eight in the morning.

All right, I didn’t stroll, I dragged my carcass through the door, hoping against hope that James had coffee on. My mouth felt moon-dust dry, and my head spun every time I closed my eyes.

The office was quiet, thank goodness. I carefully walked over to the coffee machine, to see if the coffee in the pot was drinkable. I couldn’t remember shutting it off the night before, and my stomach didn’t feel strong enough to deal with coffee over ten hours old.

I took a shallow, cautious sniff and was rewarded with a freshly brewed scent. Thanking whatever Gods there were looking after foolish women who drink too much on a work night, I poured myself a cup and carefully carried it over to my desk, but almost dropped it when I heard groaning. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from—sounded like everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I slopped coffee as I slammed the cup down and threw the door to the other office open.