Scaredy Cat (5 page)

Chapter 8

“Blake Taylor…the author…is living in the Meyers house. You’re full of shit,” Jacob said as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Dawn would’ve told me because she knows that I love Blake’s movies. Tonya and I both read her books.”

“That’s why she didn’t tell you. She knew you’d go over there and gush like a teenage girl over some boy band.”

“Men don’t gush, Quinn,” Jacob jerked a thumb at his chest, “especially not this one.” He took a seat in front of Quinn’s desk while she waited for her computer to boot up. “Why are you messing with me?”

“I’m not, and don’t tell anyone else, not even Tonya. No one is supposed to know who she really is.”

Jacob stared at her for a moment. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then don’t,” Quinn said with a shrug.

Of the three siblings, Dawn looked the most like their father, but Jacob had his mannerisms, and their voices sounded the same. Perhaps it was the visit to the cemetery that had Quinn missing her dad when she awoke that morning. Being with Jacob filled some of the void. She stared at his hand as he raised his coffee cup to his lips. It was Malcolm Scott’s hand.

“You remind me of Dad,” she said with a smile.

“Quinny,” Jacob began in imitation of their father, “you can’t fix everything with a hammer.” He laughed. “He used to get such a kick out of you losing your temper. He never let you see him laughing, but he’d walk out of sight, then double over.”

Quinn continued to smile as Jacob’s voice washed over her and brought back sweeter memories of the three of them working together. Jacob, tall and skinny, would always be elected to crawl into the tight spaces that Quinn and Malcolm didn’t want to. There had been times that it took the two of them pulling on his boots and legs to get him back out.

She loved her sister dearly, but Jacob was both brother and best friend. Of the Scott children, they favored the most, both with a head full of reddish-brown hair, their eyes were green, Dawn’s blue. They were all fair-skinned, but Jacob and Quinn got the freckles, unlike their sister, whose skin was creamy and clear. Jacob had grown a beard and mustache to cover full lips that he claimed made him look feminine.

Jacob Scott was heterosexual and married to Tonya, his high school sweetheart, but he had an effeminate way about him that drew harassment from his peers, especially when he was in high school. So Jacob often went overboard to look and sound masculine. In the privacy of his home, he cooked with his wife, and they enjoyed crafts. Jacob’s latest achievement was a fall wreath on his front door that he refused to take credit for. In public, he wore baseball jerseys in the summer, though he knew little about the sport, and in the cooler months, flannel because he said it made him look like a lumberjack.

Quinn tore her gaze away from him and stared at the screen on her computer. “You were busy this weekend.”

“When we discover oil in one of our backyards and become rich, let’s hire someone to take weekend call. That is the one thing I truly hate about our job.”

“Little brother, if we strike it rich, neither of us will be plumbing anything.” Quinn licked her lips. “Let’s see what we have on tap for today. A kitchen faucet replacement at the Crawfords’, a drain clear at Dole’s, and a leak beneath the Sutter house. Oh, and Grant asked me if one of us could look at the faucet in his bathroom today.”

“I can grab that when I go home. His house is on the way.”

Quinn nodded. “I say we tackle the—” Quinn grabbed her cellphone from her desk when it began to ring. The number on her ID was not one she recognized. “Scott’s Plumbing. Hey, Blake… Coyotes? Where? Well, I’ve never seen… Honey, if it’s wearing a collar, it’s a dog. That’s probably the Comeaux’s shepherd Chuck… No, I’m sure he’s not rabid. Breathe.” Quinn pointed at the phone and grinned when Jacob’s brow shot skyward, and she mouthed,
It’s her
. “Are you outside? Okay, Chuck won’t try to get into the house, I promise. Did you write last night?” Quinn pursed her lips. “I’m sorry. Sleep is a good idea. Chuck has never killed anyone, I promise. He’s a sweet dog, and he’s probably just hunting squirrels. Oh…okay. Good night or good morning rather.” Quinn ended the call and set the phone on her desk.

Jacob’s jaw sagged before he said, “Quinn, is Blake Taylor really at the Meyers house?”

She threw up both hands. “I swear.”

Jacob jumped up and nearly spilled his coffee. “Oh, my God,” he said in a pitch that Quinn could never hit. “Tonya and I have seen all her movies, and Tonya has read every book she’s ever written—twice. I have to tell her, she’ll keep it quiet, you know that.”

“Y’all can’t go over there. Blake’s…kind of…well, she just doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here. She’s trying to write her next book, and she can’t have a lot of interruptions. I promise that one day I’ll introduce you.”

Jacob fanned his hand like a teenage girl. “What’s your connection to her? How’d you meet?”

“Dawn rented her the house, and Blake’s agent asked her to hire someone to show Blake around. Since she’s a lesbian, Dawn thought she might be more comfortable with me.”

Jacob raced back to his spot in front of Quinn’s desk and sat down, heedless of the coffee that sloshed out on the papers covering the surface. “What’s she like?”

That was a question that Quinn was slow to answer. “She’s…eccentric.”

“She’s hot in a dark sort of way. I’ve seen her picture on the book jackets, almost menacing.”

Quinn laughed. “That’s not how I’d describe her. She’s like five-three and tiny.” Quinn left out that Blake was also a scaredy cat.

Jacob grabbed the keyboard and turned the monitor slightly. “I’m sure she has a website,” he said as he typed. Blake suddenly appeared, staring up at the camera where she lay on what looked like a blood-red chaise lounge. Her hair was splayed out around her, one hand tucked behind her head, the other across her midsection. Her smile was sultry, almost cocky, and exuded more confidence than Quinn knew she possessed. The white shirt beneath a black coat was unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cleavage. The image was sexy and so unlike the woman Quinn was getting to know.

“You must drool like a dog the whole time you’re with her,” Jacob said as he stared transfixed at the screen.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s just a persona created by her agent, I’m sure.”

Jacob turned to her. “This isn’t her?”

“It is…but it’s not. I mean, that’s her.” Quinn pointed to the picture. She cocked her head to the side as she stared at it. “This just makes her look like something she’s not, I suppose. You’d have to meet her to understand.”

“When?” Jacob asked excitedly.

“Hold on, bud, I’ll have to talk to her about that first.”

*******

Blake tossed fitfully. She was exhausted but failed to fall into a deep restful sleep. The coyote she’d seen sniffing around the back porch earlier had her unnerved. She flopped onto her back and wondered how long it would take for such an animal to chew through the screen and wooden doors. Quinn said it was just a dog. She reminded herself of that as she lay there and tried to keep her eyes closed.

She missed her apartment. At least there she knew the noises around her. Blake doubted the woman across the street who came out in the cool of the mornings to tend her flower gardens would be much help against a rabid dog, and the police chief never seemed to be home. She missed her mother, who always took her side, but Blake knew that was part of her problem. Her brow furrowed as she recalled the family meeting they’d had. That, in conjunction with the writer’s block and Cassidy’s persistence, had been the catalyst for the move. It was an intervention of sorts and had made more of an impact on Blake than she was willing to admit to anyone.

“You are a large part of her problem, Mom,” Dani said as she sat with her arms folded. “I hate to hurt your feelings, but it’s the truth. You coddle Blake too much, you always have. You make excuses for her crazy behavior.”

“Not crazy,” Mike, their father, corrected and smiled kindly at Blake. “Sweetheart, some of your behaviors are a detriment to your mental health, and that’s why we’re here today. It has to stop.”

“She has special needs. She—”

“Rhonda,” Mike said firmly, “no, she doesn’t. Blake is perfectly capable of living a full life, and we have to let her.”

Blake’s mother reached over and took Blake’s hand. “I won’t let them turn you loose in the city.”

Blake’s chest tightened. “Is that what this is about?” she said behind a gasp. “You’re just going to throw me out there to find my way home?”

Dani rolled her eyes. “People do it all the time. They take a cab, train, or drive. How do you think I got here? Mom didn’t pick me up. Blake, don’t you want to live like a normal person?”

“She is normal,” Rhonda countered angrily, “with special needs.”

“Mom, stop saying that!” Dani sat on the edge of her seat. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve told her that for years and look what she’s become. She’s a virtual shut-in. She has a hundred locks on her door. The last time I visited her, it took twenty minutes for her to unlock it.” Dani took a deep breath when Mike put a hand on her shoulder. She was calmer when she spoke again. “Blake, I love you. I’d like to have a relationship with you. You’re my only sibling, but we can’t go to the movies, we can’t shop together, we can’t go have a drink. If I want to see you, I have to go to your place and be locked down like there’s a horde of zombies waiting outside your door to eat us.”

“Zombies,” Rhonda said with a smile as she turned to Blake. “That’s something you haven’t written about. Maybe you should consider them for your next book. They’re hot right now.”

“Mother! Focus!” Dani yelled.

“What do you want me to do?” Blake asked with exasperation.

“I want you to stop listening to Mom. I want you to realize that you’re an intelligent woman and start acting like it. You’ve been in therapy for years, and it’s done nothing for you. The only way you’re going to get better is to stand on your own two feet!”

Blake flopped over on her side. Above all, loneliness had propelled her to leave New York. And when the temptation to run home became great, that was what kept her in Cypress Glade. Well, that and the fact that she couldn’t drive, and she’d have to have help to escape. The bigger truth was that Blake wanted to live like everyone else. She wanted a life, a partner.

She’d had three significant relationships, the longest had lasted a year. Beth Pace, Cassidy’s assistant, had been patient, had known before they got together that being with Blake would be difficult. That was why Blake trusted that what they had would last, but even Beth grew tired of what she termed “being held hostage by fear.” The morning Beth left, Blake had followed her as far as the sidewalk outside of her apartment building but could not make her feet move as she watched Beth round the corner and walk out of her life. Blake wondered—hoped—that with some time, she could gain the fortitude to walk into Cassidy’s office and win Beth back.

“It’s a damn dog!” Blake said aloud. “Go to sleep, chicken shit!”

Chapter 9

Quinn swallowed hard as she watched water wash away the dirt piled up next to the base of the Sutters’ home. It was a pier and beam house and sat a few feet above ground, but the space between the ground and floor had been bricked just like Blake had written. Quinn knew the irrational fear was foolish, but she was having a hard time with the thought of crawling into that enclosed space.

Jacob spat on the ground near the rivulets of water coming from beneath the brick. “It’s either a crack in the pipe or a bad coupling. My bet’s on the coupling.”

“Why do you spit? You don’t chew tobacco or dip.”

Jacob narrowed his eyes as he glanced at Quinn. “Spitting is what a man does when he disapproves of something or if he just wants to.”

Quinn spat into the dirt next to his boots.

“That’s so not you. Don’t do it again, you looked stupid.”

Quinn spat on his boots. “So do you. I’ll get a hammer and start breaking this wall.”

“What?” Jacob grabbed her arm. “We’re not breaking anything. Do you know how much that’ll cost to replace?”

“That opening on the backside isn’t big enough for even you to shimmy through,” Quinn argued. “We’re gonna have to break something. We might as well do it near the leak.”

“You’re forgetting they have a trap in the washroom that’s close to the leak. We’ll go in through there.”

Quinn swallowed hard. “Do you really think it’s gonna take both of us?”

“No, if you want, you can go down there alone, but it’d be a lot easier with the both of us so someone could hold the light and hand tools. What’s wrong with you?”

“Blake used me as a character and described something just like this, and I found a dead body under the house, then the owner stabbed me and locked me down there.”

Jacob stared at her for a moment and grinned. “I don’t think she likes you very much, which is sad because I wanted to be able to say my sister is dating Blake Taylor.”

“I was just a character, a secondary one.” Quinn sneered. “It doesn’t mean anything. That’s what she said. You may worship her, but I don’t.”

“Quinn, get the tool bag and the couplings. Let’s get this done before dark.”

*******

The musty air that came out of the trapdoor was as cool as the air-conditioned house. Quinn watched as Jacob’s feet disappeared. In her mind, she saw so vividly what Blake had written and hoped Blake wasn’t psychic and had predicted her end.

“Would you like something to drink before you go down there?” Mrs. Sutter asked kindly as she stood nearby.

“No, thank you…and you should stay back from the trap…way back.” Quinn gazed up at the silver-haired woman. “If you were to step off in this, you could break a hip. That would be debilitating, maybe even deadly. You should stay way back, maybe in the other room, and don’t carry anything sharp. You could—”

“Dr. Quinn, shut up and get down here,” Jacob yelled.

Mrs. Sutter was gone when Quinn lowered herself into the hole. Quinn knew she’d probably scared the old woman half to death, but she didn’t want to see her wielding a blade when it was time to come back up. She focused on the light slowly inching across the dirt floor and crawled after Jacob.

“This is what Blake feels,” she muttered softly. “She feels this terror all the time. How does she function? How does she—”

“Are you talking to yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank God,” Jacob said with obvious relief. “I thought I was hearing voices. I was about to make that hole in the brick you wanted. Mrs. Sutter ain’t gonna stab you, she can barely hold anything with those tremors she has. Coupling, I was right. Get over here with the bag and that light so we can get this done.”

“I do this for you, you know,” Quinn said with a grunt as she dragged herself and the gear. “I wanted to be a PE teacher. I could be teaching girls to play softball right now, but I’m belly hugging mud for you.”

“You don’t have the patience to be a teacher. The first kid that smarted off at you would get an earful, probably all profane, then you’d be fired and be right back in the mud with me. Hand over the saw, will you?”

“They probably wouldn’t hire me because I’m gay anyway. I’d have to leave Cypress if I had any hopes of employment. Glenda Percy, I’m sure, would launch an all-out campaign to keep me from corrupting the youth. Maybe I should be more like Dawn, kiss a little ass and try to fit in,” Quinn said as she handed him the saw. “If I bowed to Glenda Percy, she’d convince people to pretend that they liked me.”

Quinn closed her eyes when Jacob shined his light her way. “Don’t even joke,” he said seriously and turned the flashlight back toward the pipe. I love Dawn with all my heart, but she gets on my nerves with the hobnobbing. We’re good people, we shouldn’t have to try to fit in anywhere. If the people of this town don’t like us, then screw them. Your ‘kiss my ass’ attitude is one of the things I respect and admire about you. You had that long before anyone found out you were gay. When I was shunned for being a sissy, I just emulated you when what I wanted to do was cry like a girl.”

He put the saw to the pipe, then stopped. “You know, there’s too much trying to be like everyone else going on in this town. Look at Dawn. She has to work because she had to have that Escalade because Debbie Martin got one to shuttle her kids around. Dawn only has two children. She didn’t need that gas hog. Someone builds a house and soon five or six more spring up around it because everybody else thinks they have to do it, too. Now half of them have been repossessed by the bank. Growing up here was hard, living here as an adult hasn’t been easy. Even still, I love this town. It holds all the memories of Dad and Grandma. I just wish people would stop worrying about what everyone else does. It’d be a much happier place.”

“You’re not a sissy. There aren’t many men that would crawl beneath this house. I love you just the way you are. I won’t change if you don’t.”

“Deal. Did you go see Mom yesterday?”

“No,” Quinn said as she shined her light on where Jacob was working. “I was busy with Blake. I’ll have Dawn take her laundry when she goes tomorrow.”

“You know that ain’t gonna happen. I’ll do it.” Jacob stopped sawing and stared at the pipe for a moment. “I’m mad at her for the way she treats you, but I know she won’t be here long, and it makes me feel guilty. I try to talk to her about it, but she just shuts me down.”

“I appreciate that, but don’t go to the trouble. Enjoy your time with her.”

“That’s hard to do.” He began sawing again. “I don’t think she’s going to be like Dad. She’ll go to her grave with her jaw set where you’re concerned.” Jacob grunted and rolled when the bit of water they could not purge spilled from the pipe. The front of his coveralls were saturated with mud.

Quinn was glad his focus was on the job, and he couldn’t see her clearly because she’d teared up. She’d never been as close to her mother as Dawn was, but they’d always gotten along, and Quinn loved her. The few conversations they did have about her sexuality were brief. Nelda cut her off every time Quinn explained that she had not chosen to be who she was. Nelda Scott didn’t want to hear anything from her daughter unless it was “I made a mistake, I’m straight,” and that simply wasn’t going to happen.

She bobbled the light as she groped the front of her coveralls when her phone began to ring. “Scott’s— Hey, Blake. Yes, I do like pork chops.”

Jacob groaned. “I’m so jealous.”

“Well, I’ll have to go home and shower first. I’m under a house right now. Do you need me to pick up anything? No, we carry a tool bag, it’s easier to drag around on jobs like this… It’s dark and smelly. Let’s not talk about spiders. Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

*******

“Stare all you want. You try to peck me, and I’ll tear your beak off. I’m not fooled by your pretty red plumage, you’re a killer. No, I won’t pay you off in seeds. You just go away,” Blake talked smack to the bird on the limb outside. “You’re just a bird, I’m a woman…who sounds like an idiot.”

Disgusted with herself, Blake leaned her head against the glass. She’d watched the woman across the street sit out on her porch that afternoon. In her apartment, she’d never really gotten to see anyone sitting outside just for the sake of doing it. Blake wanted the experience, to breathe in fresh air, to feel the breeze that gently moved the branches outside her window. For the last half hour, her hand had been on the door handle, but she could not give it a turn.

“I’m just gonna go out there and pick up the stuff I dropped. The bird won’t even notice. Slowly, she opened the door and pushed the screened one just enough to be able to reach the box of nails. The retrieval was a success and emboldened her to go for the pillow. Soon the items were all gone, and Blake felt brave enough to stand behind the screen door. The bird had left.

“I can sit on that swing,” she said haughtily, “if I wanted to, and I kinda do.” Quinn would be proud to see me out there, she thought as she edged the door open again.

Blake felt daring. She gave the door a push and walked slowly across the porch, hands stretched out in front of her in case she needed to defend herself. And then she sat. The afternoon breeze lifted her hair and cooled her neck. In the distance, she could hear the burr of a lawn mower. She scanned the tree limbs for birds and didn’t find any, though she could hear an occasional chirp.

“Okay, this was nice, and now I’m done,” she said as she raced back inside the house.