Killer Cousins (32 page)

He smiled. His mouth nuzzled down my chest. “Uh-hm.”

I breathed hard, enjoying every minute. “I really wanted a hot tub.”

Gil scooped me in his arms and tried to carry me. He limped a few steps, gave me a painful smile, and let me slide down to my feet. We walked out to the porch that wound halfway around his cottage. The door to the screened section of the porch slammed behind us. He stripped me. We slid into the steamy water in the hot tub.

Gil and I twisted together.

Yum.

Chapter 32

“Sorry to wake you.” Gil stood beside his massive bed. His breath was warm when he leaned down to kiss me. I lay on his rumpled sheets. The scent of strong coffee wafted from the tray he held. His tray also held a coral rose in a vase. “I need to go.”

I thrust cobwebs off my brain. “Go. Why?”

He handed me coffee. “I have to be at the restaurant. You know I wouldn’t normally, but there are so many questions needing answers right now.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I hope we’ll get together again today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.”

And a lifetime,
I knew he wanted. I needed more time for discovering myself, for knowing without a doubt what I wanted from the rest of my life.

I kissed Gil. Gave him no promises. Thanked him for the coffee as he went out.

Stretching in bed, I luxuriated in the comfort of sex. We’d made love twice during the night. I felt completely satisfied.

I listened to his truck roaring to life and heard it drive off. My head sank deep into the pillow. I slept until it was almost time for lunch.

Sated, I scrounged through the refrigerator. Bottled water. Slices of cantaloupe. Nothing in the pantry. I drank water and ate half the fruit, then dressed and decided I couldn’t hide out here, as much as I wanted to. Stevie might have annoyed me yesterday, but she’d been scared. She feared the young woman and child she loved might be taken from her. April had become like a daughter to my childless cousin. And I had accused April of being a killer. I needed to learn if that was the truth.

Before I left, I went out to the porch deck, wanting to drink in the sight. I viewed mountains and valleys while a warm breeze washed over me.

My soul at peace, I drove back to Stevie’s house.

I parked and sat in my car, scanning the street, especially looking for signs of life from April’s house. I saw no one.

I let myself in the front door and walked around. Stevie was gone, surely teaching. Her altar room was locked. I’d thought she might unlock it if I wasn’t here. Maybe she’d guessed I’d return.

Nothing looked amiss. My bedroom was exactly as I’d left it. The window locked. In her kitchen I found sweet rolls on a tray on the new stove and ate two.

On the back porch, I stood. Pondered. Looked around. Yes, a person could definitely see here from the opposite side of the road. I shivered in the heat of the noonday sun, knowing a person had been back there, watching when I’d put my clothes in to wash. Maybe later when I’d put them in to dry.

Why, I had no idea.

A dog barked. A man whistled. Down the street came the guy with the bull neck and jogging clothes. He glanced at Stevie’s gate. Looked up at me.

Our gazes met, and he spun away. Hurried off down the street.

No, it had not been him watching me. At least, I didn’t think so.

Coughing came from the right. April’s yard. Her child. What should I call her now?

“Hey, Cherish, are you sick?” I yelled, figuring her mom would respond.

I was right. “She just choked on a piece of ice. She’s okay.”

“April,” I said, “can you come over?”

I thought I heard a smack of disgust. “Okay. Not for long.”

A couple of minutes later she swept through Stevie’s gate with the child, who cast mean eyes at me. “What is it?” April asked, not nicely.

“How did he find out? I understand Mr. Trottier might have done your taxes back in Alabama, but how could he have known you were here?”

“I don’t know. The first note said he knew my angry husband was looking for us. I’d need to pay him every month to make sure he wouldn’t leak our whereabouts.”

“You never went to his office?”

“No, just my husband went. But Mr. Trottier could have seen us together in town back there.” She released a sigh. “I don’t know. Please don’t tell anybody about this.”

I bit my tongue, hoping she wasn’t a killer that I’d have to tell on. I would tell if I determined she’d murdered him.

They returned home, and I made phone calls. I checked on a couple of my offices and family members. Nobody seemed to need me right now. Hiring good managers had made my life much easier and my life was usually peaceful. But I missed having Betty Allen run my San Francisco office. She was a major part of my business family. I was going to reinstate her, no matter what.

I realized I’d been so tied up with deaths, I hadn’t even called Frank Karney, the CEO of Sterling Bryst.

I got him on the line and apologized.

He was laughing. “Don’t worry about it. Everything turned out fine.”

“It did?”

“People started e-mailing us, saying our ad was so funny. They thought it was cute that we’d come up with the idea of saying our sunscreen protected people from fun. All except a handful of people who wrote seemed to think we’d done a clever job.”

A
whoosh
of relief left my throat. “I am so glad customers liked it.”

“Yes. But we might change the ad next time.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Mr. Karney. That’s what my company’s here for.”

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up.

I called my San Francisco office and got Liz, who was taking Betty’s place as manager. “Everything’s fine here,” she said.

“Liz, you’re a terrific employee, and I really appreciate the job you’re doing there. But I feel the need to have Betty running that office.”

“Great. I mean that would be fine, whatever you want. Being manager is a lot tougher than I imagined.”

We agreed that she’d resume her previous position. I also gave her a raise since she’d been so willing to take the managerial position.

I got Betty Allen on her cell phone. “Betty, I need help at the office out there. Would you mind going back and taking over?”

She gasped. Didn’t answer me.

“Betty,” I said, “everything worked out fine with Sterling Bryst.”

She sobbed, “Cealie, I’d love to get back to work for you.”

“Wonderful. And I’ll come out and visit y’all one day.”

I hung up, happy. Made another call. I stood in the den, laughing with Bud Denton, manager of my Cape Cod office, and didn’t notice the sound of the garage door opening and a car pulling in. Stevie stomped inside with a stuffed school bag. We locked gazes. Her empty hand clenched in a fist.

I got off the phone. “You’re back early.”

“It’s the last week of school. We have half days. We can take papers home to grade.” Her words stayed level, along with her hardened stare.

“That’s a good thing.”

“You aren’t supposed to be here anymore.”

I breathed. Thought of what came to mind while I was gazing at the mountains. “Our children are but God’s precious toys. He loans them to us for a while.”

Stevie’s face softened. “What did you say?”

“You know those words. Your mother wrote them long ago. They’re beautiful and so true.”

“You remember them.”

“Yes. And April’s
situation may be that way. She and Cherish are in your life for a while. Who knows how long?”

Looking like she might stumble, Stevie sat. I sat beside her on the sofa. She put down her bag. Gazed at me. “And if I lend you my child, will you love her forever? Keep her safe and always free from pain?”

Tears popped to my eyes. I nodded. My mother, her mom’s sister, had written that.

We traded quotes we recalled from each other’s mothers and our own. Some short poems, some longer verses. Each lovely. Each one calling more of our tears to come forth.

Stevie sighed. I clasped her hand. “I couldn’t leave you alone. I’m afraid for you.” I squeezed her hand. “I hope April’s okay and nothing will change for you and her, but I don’t know. We need to know the truth.”

She appeared to stop breathing. After a long moment, she nodded.

“So I’ll stay,” I said, “and we’ll figure things out. And at least I’ll feel like you’re a little safer with your cousin around, taking care of you.”

We both grinned. To lighten her mind even more, I leaned forward. “Go ahead, for old time’s sake, give my hair a tug.”

She considered a moment and then lightly tugged. Stevie bent her head toward me. “Now you do mine. Come on, get even.”

I pulled a pinch of her hair. The temptation came to grab two big handfuls and pull like crazy. That childish mood only lasted a second, then washed away. “I’m done. Thanks.”

Stevie smiled. She lifted her sack of papers. “Want to help me with these?”

We spent much of the afternoon working on averages for her first-grade students, most of them
S
for
Satisfactory
. We recorded notes in her roll book. We laughed often, especially when she spoke of her students, mentioning special things about each one. We shared glances with each other. She might have been thinking the same thing I was—that this was one of the best times we’d ever spent together.

We ate snacks, wonderful homemade brownies with pecans and fudge topping, and tall glasses of milk. I put soapy water in the sink. “Don’t you ever leave a few things in here?” I asked, laughing. My phone rang. I answered it.

“You sound happy. That’s good,” Gil said. “Are you coming back with me tonight?”

“I think I need to be here with my cousin.”

“I’ll miss you.” He quieted. And he said, “Cealie, I love you.”

My throat jammed. “I, uh, miss you, too.”

We hung up. I stared out the kitchen window. Why couldn’t I tell Gil I loved him? Did I?

I tightened my emotions, trying to stop feeling. I did not want to love a man now, did not want to be so in love with him that I felt I needed him to exist. I’d been in that situation too long.

Later in the afternoon, I suggested to Stevie that we go someplace different for dinner.

She took me to a Japanese restaurant. The chefs chopped and sizzled our meal in front of us, steaming greens and noodles on a huge grill. Our chef put on a show, flipping a raw egg off his spatula and into his hat. We chuckled and ate and met nice people sitting around our grill.

Back at Stevie’s, we went to bed early since we’d promised each other tonight was the night.

She woke me at two a.m.

I moaned and groaned, and we laughed together, changing into loose clothes we could wear to work out. She drove through the dark to a gym.

“I cannot believe anyone actually does this,” I said as we walked into the place. It was small and well lit. Lots of equipment. A sterile smell. None of sweat. “But nobody’s here. Maybe we should leave.”

A hulk of a balding man stepped out from a rear room. He looked at us. Swerved his head away. He went to work on a machine, adding weights to it, and then sitting, pulling the ropes down and letting them up again. I recognized the jogging suit.

“Stevie,” I whispered to her in a far corner, “that’s the guy who walks by your house all the time.” She glanced at me with no change in expression. “And he has a dog,” I said.

She said nothing. I couldn’t stay in a place with a large man who might jump us, pretending he wasn’t there with us. Stevie stepped up on a treadmill, obviously not ready to leave. I went to the man with the bulldog neck and looked him full in the face. “Hello. I’m Cealie Gunther, and that’s my cousin, Stevie Midnight.”

He nodded, and I swear, it seemed he blushed. “Mac,” he said, yanking the weights down harder. They struck the machine and clinked.

I stepped onto a treadmill beside Stevie. We both started a slow walk. In fact, we only sped up our pace for a couple of minutes and then laughed. “No use breaking into a sweat this first time out, right?” I said, and she agreed. We pulled and pushed on a few other machines. Mac stayed on the same one. We didn’t get close to him.

“That was fun, but it was time to call it a night,” I told Stevie later, when she used her remote to open her garage door and then drove inside.

“Right, and you promised you’ll come back there with me.”

“Only until you get in the habit again, and I can leave town.” My shoulders ached a little. I noticed my legs. No aches in my shins lately. Did that mean they were healing? Or the killer had been caught?

Grateful for either, I shoved into the kitchen door right behind Stevie.

I bumped against her. “Oh, no,” she said, sinking backward.

I looked inside.

The back door’s window was shattered.

Chapter 33

The police came and checked Stevie’s house. Nobody was inside. Someone had gotten in the back door and escaped.

“The perpetrator didn’t get anything that you’ve noticed?” Detective Renwick asked Stevie after she and I went through the house with him and a deputy.

I slumped against the kitchen sink. “He got Minnie.”

Renwick came and looked at me, holding the broken Minnie as I’d found her. “Sorry about your plant,” he said. “Maybe the perp got in here and then got scared. Could’ve been a dog barking or some other noise.” He faced Stevie. “Let us know if anything happens or you get frightened. Are you sure you’re okay with your door like that for now?”

Some men had boarded up the part of the door where the glass had been. The screen door outside it was ripped open. Whoever came here had used a hammer or some other strong object to break the window. The police took prints but figured the guilty party wore gloves or held a thick rag or both. Dawn brightened the sky by the time they left.

I held Minnie’s broken parts. Soil from her dumped pot trailed across the countertop to the sink. Someone’s hand probably bumped against her pot. Possibly accidental. Maybe turning in the dark made that person’s hand slide over the countertop. No malice intended toward Minnie, my plant. My plant I’d chosen to come with me during my recent travels. She was a cactus, an adorable two-inch cactus with a pink grafted head of poufs like old sponge rollers on a green stem shaved of thorns.