Wishbones (37 page)

"Yeah, right. She was so worried she gave me away at birth."

The last and final piece clicked. Tinkie had been right. The parents on Jovan's Web site had adopted her. Her mother, the lovely Ivana, had not wanted to raise the daughter that was a product of . . . her marriage or an affair? Was Federico Marquez her father?

I moved steadily closer to the sound of Tinkie pounding on the door. "I can help you, Jovan. You have a career and fans and Federico cares for you. You don't want to hurt him."

Don't go there, Tinkie, I wanted to shout at her. Federico might be her father. And her lover. Shades of
Chinatown.
Don't go there. But it was too late.

I saw a flood of daylight as the door opened and Jovan reached out and snatched Tinkie inside just as several slugs whammed into the side of the building.

"You were trying to set me up to be shot."

I crept forward. Jovan gripped Tinkie's shirt.

"It's not too late for you to give up," Tinkie said. "I'll try to help you."

Jovan pushed her back so hard that Tinkie fell. She stayed on the floor.

"You can help me," Jovan said. "You can watch as I gut the man who destroyed my family and my life." She stepped around Tinkie and went to a set designed as a bedroom. Federico was sitting in a chair, tied so tightly that he couldn't move.

Jovan stepped behind him and picked up a knife on a small table. Quick as a flash, she grabbed Federico's hair and pulled his head back, revealing his throat. She passed the blade in front of him, and for a moment I thought she'd slit his jugular.

"Federico Marquez slept with my mother to get even with my father." Jovan kept repositioning the knife. At any moment she could easily kill him.

"So Vincent Day is your father," Tinkie said. She walked closer. She was calm and poised. Tinkie had courage.

"That bitch Carlita seduced my father. She used him to try to manipulate Federico. And then Federico turned on his best friend and tried to ruin him. My father's last two films ended in bankruptcy because Federico convinced the backers to pull out."

The man tied in the chair began to struggle and fight against his bonds and the gag.

"Why don't you let Federico speak?" Tinkie asked. "Have you given him a chance to tell you his side?"

"I don't need his side. His pathetic daughter told me how he'd killed Carlita and wouldn't allow the children to see her. He's a vile man and he deserves to die. I'm going to make sure it happens."

"Carlita died of anorexia," Tinkie said. "No one killed her. She killed herself."

Tinkie was getting to Jovan. I inched around to the flank position. If Tinkie could just distract her, I could knock her down and douse her with pepper spray.

"Federico loved his children and his wife. Carlita was ill. She needed validation of her beauty, and she did some bad things to people, especially to Federico and his children. And to you and your parents. Federico is as much a victim as you are."

"That's not true!" Her rage was instantaneous. "How dare you!" She started to lunge at Tinkie and I hurled myself out
of the shadows and at her legs. I took her down at the knees like an Ole Miss tackle. She hit hard and before she could recover, I pressed the button on the pepper spray and sent a thin jet of it directly into her eyes.

"I'll kill you," she raged, thrashing and choking. "I'll kill all of you."

Tinkie found an extension cord and together we bound the model's hands behind her back. "I think you're killing days are over, Jovan. And just so you know, Estelle is going to be fine."

We left Jovan on the floor and untied Federico. He looked like he might keel over, but he assured us he hadn't been harmed. While Tinkie went to signal the deputies inside, I knelt beside Jovan.

"Where's Graf?" I demanded.

"Screw you," she said. "He's as good as dead."

I grasped a fistful of hair. "I swear to you, if you don't tell me where Graf is, I will snatch you bald-headed."

Something in my tone must have convinced her. "In the trunk on set eight."

As King and the deputies entered the building, I was rushing to set eight. It was built to be an attic, and I saw the trunk instantly. It opened with a creak, and I found Graf bound and gagged.

For a moment I thought he was dead, but he opened his eyes when I removed the bandanna she'd wadded into his mouth.

"Sarah Booth," he said. "I knew you'd come."

Tinkie had walked up behind me. In the background, Sheriff King was reading Jovan her rights. Tinkie helped me loosen the bonds that held Graf, and he climbed out of the trunk bruised, but none the worse for wear.

I can't say for sure who embraced whom, but we were holding each other like we intended to graft.

"Oh, no." Tinkie spoke so softly that I thought something had happened to her. But when we followed the finger she was pointing, we saw it.

What looked like miles and miles of film had been pulled from canisters and burned. Cameras were bashed and destroyed.

We ran toward the devastation, but I knew what it was. Jovan had achieved her goal of destroying the movie. Every scene Federico had shot was ruined. In one vengeful, insane act, she'd changed all of our lives.

Graf, Sweetie Pie, and I stood on the tarmac of the private airport and waved good-bye to Tinkie and Chablis. On the flight to Los Angeles from Costa Rica, Tinkie had formed a strong friendship; Charlize was loaning Tinkie her private jet for a quick trip home.

My heart ached as she waved out the door and then disappeared into the plane. She reappeared at a window, waving Chablis's little paw.

"What's Federico going to do?" I asked Graf.

He'd spent the morning with the director. Not a single frame of the movie was salvageable.

Jovan was in jail, charged with Suzy Dutton's murder, kidnapping, and a dozen other offenses. Estelle was recuperating in Petaluma. She was scheduled to fly to L.A. to stay with her father.

"Federico doesn't know. He can't afford to reshoot the film. His backers have abandoned him. They don't care that none of this was his fault."

"I'm not so certain I want to do it again." I couldn't believe I was speaking those words. "I mean, it's fun and all, but I--"

"You were far more involved in solving the case than you were in acting."

Graf said it so well.

"I don't know. Can't I do both?"

He smiled. "I don't see why not. You can be biprofessional."

My cell phone rang and I saw with surprise the number from the Sunflower County Sheriff's Office. I answered cautiously.

"Sarah Booth, I'm trying to find Tinkie. It's important." Coleman's voice was strained.

"She just boarded a plane to head home," I said. "What's wrong?"

He hesitated, and I felt a sharp blade to the gut. Whatever had transpired between us, I'd never given him reason to doubt me.

"It's Oscar," he said. "He's deathly ill."

He could have slugged me and I wouldn't have been more shocked. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Coleman took a breath. "We're not certain, but it's bad. Remember the old Graystone Estate? The bank has held the mortgage on it for years, and Oscar had a buyer, so he went out to check the property. When he got back, he wasn't feeling well. Two hours later, his secretary found him in his office, unconscious."

Before I could even think, I was signaling frantically at Tinkie to stop the plane. She quit waving Chablis's paw and made a face at me.

"Stop the plane," I told Graf. "You have to stop it. I've got to get on."

"What's wrong?"

"Just stop that plane."

While Graf went to find someone in authority, I ran to the plane with Sweetie right at my heels. Tinkie's face reflected horror, but in a moment the door of the plane reopened. She came out.

"What?" she yelled above the roar of the airport.

Before I told her, I had to know the extent of it. I spoke into the telephone. "Coleman, how bad is Oscar?"

"Sarah Booth, it could be fatal."

I made my decision. "We're both headed home." I couldn't abandon Tinkie with Oscar so sick. What I was really worried about was telling Tinkie about Oscar.

"I'll call you when I land," I said to Coleman before I hung up.

As I stood on the steps of the plane, I saw Graf. I ran toward him and explained briefly, that Tinkie's husband was seriously ill.

"You're a good friend, Sarah Booth. Do you want me to come?"

I shook my head. Tinkie was going to require my undivided attention. And Graf's career was hanging in tatters. He needed to be where he could address a million issues.

"Stay here. As soon as Oscar stabilizes, I'll be back."

He kissed me. "Go. Call me when you get there. And be careful."

I kissed him with my heart tearing in two. But then Sweetie and I were on the plane, and in less than fifteen minutes, I'd ripped my friend's world apart and sat holding her as she cried.

We were headed back to Zinnia, but not as victors. Oscar's sudden illness could change our worlds forever. He was a fit and strong man, and it would take a serious illness to bring him down. But Coleman's tone of voice had frightened me. This wasn't just a case of the flu.

The truth was, I didn't know what we might find in Sunflower County. But one thing was for sure, I wasn't about to let Tinkie face it alone.

I sat on the steps of Dahlia House in the warm spring sun, my cell phone at my side, waiting for word. Tinkie was at the
hospital. She wasn't allowed to see Oscar, except through a glass window, but she refused to leave her spot in the hall.

I'd spent most of the night beside my friend, but I'd come home to check on Sweetie Pie. She was fine, and the cotton planted around Dahlia House was a tender green, extending to the horizon in long rows.

I heard the squeak of rubber wheels, and I looked up to see who had a baby stroller at Dahlia House. But it wasn't a stroller. It was a wheelchair, and in it sat a chocolate rendition of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Jitty pushed up the small glasses that perched on her nose.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "Look, you can play Marilyn or Lana or Halle or just about anyone. But I don't think you can pull off FDR."

"I'm only going for the HBO movie, not a major feature release. Kenneth Branagh is hard to imitate. That man's got some moves."

I put my head in my hands. As glad as I was to see Jitty right back here on the front porch of Dahlia House, I was too worried about Tinkie and Oscar to enjoy her games.

The wheelchair creaked up to my side. "Did you know that polio victims were treated as if they had the plague? People were terrified of them. Sometimes no one would help them at all, and the high fevers killed them. Strange that it was a virus that could be controlled by a simple vaccine."

She was spoon-feeding me hope, and I mustered a smile for her. "Welcome home," I said.

"Right back at you." She pushed up the glasses that weren't meant for her smooth nose.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Same as always, Sarah Booth. Fight. It's in your blood and in your bones. You fight for what you love and hold dear."

"Tinkie will die if Oscar doesn't make it."

"No, she won't. She may wish she died, but she won't keel over."

I swallowed back a lump. She was right. Loss made a person want to die, but it just wasn't that easy to lie down and quit.

"What am I going to do about Hollywood?"

"You know better than to ask me that question. Besides, you got to make the choice. Listen to your heart, Sarah Booth."

"I got my wish." I felt like crying. "For a few weeks, I was a movie star."

"Indeed you were. No doubt about that part."

I didn't even have the energy to make a drink. I just sat on the steps and watched the electric green leaves of the sycamore trees that lined the driveway dance in the spring breeze. This was the perfect time of year in Mississippi. This was the time of new birth and growth and high hopes and expectations.

But I was torn between two careers, two places, two men, and two times--the past and the future. But for this moment, I could pass the decision on all of them. I had only to stay and help my friend through the toughest time of her life. After that--well, I would worry about that tomorrow.

"Good decision," Jitty said. She was tired of the wheelchair, so she stood. "I think you need a drink."

"I thought you were worried I'd end up like Great-uncle Lyle Crabtree."

"It's in the blood, that cravin' for the drink. But somethin' tells me you gone need a whole lot of liquor before this is over."

"I hope you're wrong, Jitty." But as I closed the door of Dahlia House on the most perfect of spring days, my gut told me that she was right.

Here is an excerpt from

The next mystery in the Sarah Booth Delaney series,
coming soon in hardcover from Minotaur Books!