5 Highball Exit (11 page)

CHAPTER 24

Violence leaves a residue that adheres like grease. Having friends and family say “It’s over,” doesn’t help at all. It will never be over because death and brutality can’t be put behind you like a bad dream.

Some days I hardly think about what happened to me in the past, about Jimmy’s murder and being kidnapped by a psychopath, but every day I take precautions, habits that comfort me even if I don’t acknowledge the need for them.

Even during the daylight hours I keep all the doors and windows locked and only the people closest to me know where I live. I always park directly under the light nearest the side door of the Sunset and I always make sure I don’t stay at the restaurant after everyone else had gone. Anything left undone has to wait until morning.

Nights are my bad time. Taking martial arts, going to the shooting range and keeping pepper spray with me at all times hadn’t added a thing to my sense of safety. Instead, they only made me feel more anxious, like I was preparing for the next time it happened, confirming a reason for my panic. For me no place feels safe anymore except when I’m behind the bar with a room full of people in front of me. Being alone, that’s the worst and something I could never explain to Clay.

After the encounter with Ryan I went into my hunker-downand-take-care mode, aware of every shadow and every possible hiding place as I left the Sunset. Once again, I had Miguel walk me to my pickup. The good thing about Miguel was that he never asked if it was necessary. If I asked him to stay with me or even follow me all the way home, that was good enough for Miguel. Tonight I asked him to follow me just as far as the south bridge.

The Sunset is on a barrier island, we call them keys in Florida, and it has a bridge to the mainland at the north end and another at the south. The only other access to Cypress Island is by boat. It should be the safest place in the world, but tonight it didn’t feel like it. I locked the truck door as soon as it closed behind me and scanned the empty parking lot again, looking for Ryan’s red Mustang.

As we headed south, a vehicle turned out of a public lot on the beach and pulled in behind Miguel. The roads were empty so Miguel had to be as aware of it as I was. Three vehicles now headed for the south bridge.

I reached for my cell to tell him to stay with me until I was safely home. The third set of lights disappeared. I dropped the phone back into my lap. Miguel’s day had been just as long as mine.

There was just Miguel and me on the road now. At the bridge, Miguel hit his horn and made the left to go off the island. I tooted back and kept going south, down to the isolated beach house at the tip of the island. South Beach would never be my choice of a place to live. There was no street lighting on this stretch of the beach, and most of the houses were unoccupied in the off season. It was too remote and too unpopulated for me and I only stayed because I could live there for free.

Suddenly there were lights behind me again. They stayed well back, and didn’t threaten me in any way, but I didn’t like it. In the six months that I’d been traveling these roads at night I could count on one hand the number of times I’d met another vehicle.

I turned into the shell drive of the beach house and the
SUV
went on by. Someone going home? I sat in the truck with the engine running and the lights off to see if they’d turn around and come back.

The drive was overgrown with thick underbrush on both sides, which kept any lights passing on the road from shining in towards the house. I’d only see the lights of another vehicle as they went by the end of the driveway. Nothing happened.

I checked out the house. It was well lit up. I don’t go into dark houses anymore. I drove up as close as I could get to the house and waited some more.

The night was quiet. Even nature held her breath. I told myself that there was nothing to worry about, that the fear was all in my head, but I watched the rearview and stayed locked in the confines of the cab. Even though there was only glass to protect me, it felt safer there than running for the house and being exposed.

After ten minutes no lights had appeared at the end of the drive. No one had followed me home.

I turned off the engine and ran for the kitchen door with my keys in my hand. But even inside with the door locked I didn’t feel safe.

I drew the drapes and left on all the lights, in the living room, the halls, second bedroom and bath. The only room with no light on was the kitchen because there were no window coverings there. A lit room without curtains makes me feel like a target.

But I was alone. Sleep was a long way off so I opened the bottle of Chardonnay I’d brought from the restaurant and settled down in front of the
TV
. The late movie was
The Sound and the Fury
, with Joanne Woodward and Yul Brynner, a story about another dysfunctional Southern family. “See, it could be worse” is sort of a mantra for me.

It was after one when I put the half-empty bottle of wine in the fridge. In the pale light from the hall, I rechecked the kitchen door and went cautiously to the window over the sink and tested the catch. The clasp was so wobbly a stray termite could break in and I’d promised myself for months that it was something that I’d get fixed. Tomorrow for sure.

Leaning on the sink, I stared out into the darkness beyond the faint glow seeping from the light on the carport. In the silence, the refrigerator wheezed and ice dropped into the bucket.

I studied the night, not really looking for anything, more as a ritual to reassure myself.

And then a light, where no light should be, appeared at the road, briefly . . . for a second only . . . and then it was gone. What kind of a light was it? The only thing I could think of was the light from a cell phone of someone out walking late at night. But it was too late for a stroll and too late to be making a normal call. I’d been traveling these roads for months and had never seen anyone out walking after dark.

I clutched the edge of the sink, every muscle straining, watching for the light to return. I told myself I was mistaken. Too many times lately I’d seen danger where there was none, cried wolf and had to apologize. This was just one more product of my overactive imagination. None of that stopped my panic. I waited. Only darkness.

Telling myself it was my head playing tricks on me didn’t stop the terror. Grabbing up my purse, I ran for the bedroom, taking out the pepper spray as I went and slamming the bedroom door shut behind me. I wedged the toe of a shoe under the bottom edge of the door and then I shoved a chest of drawers in front of it before I got Clay’s revolver out of the closet and fed six rounds into the cylinder.

I flicked off the light. Separating the curtains with a finger, I peered outside. It was a bright moonlit night. The dunes cast long shadows, deep pools of blackness for concealment, while drifts of sand and clumps of beach grasses offered more hiding places. I watched for movement. The breeze off the water waved the grasses, but other than that everything was still. Then something rustled in the clump of palms growing at the corner of the house. I lifted the Smith & Wesson, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, bracing my gun hand with my left just as I had been taught to do when preparing to shoot. And then I waited for a target to appear.

A coon ran through the shaft of moonlight from the house to the nearest dune.

I stepped away from the window and lowered the gun. I gently placed the gun on top of the night table. My hands were trembling and my whole body was reacting to the release of fear.

Sleep was gone. I huddled in the bed, clutching my cell in one hand and my canister of pepper spray in the other hand. Rationally, I knew no one was out in the dark stalking me, but it’s hard to be sensible in the middle of the night.

I hit Clay’s number.

“Hi, darlin’,” he drawled, as though it were two in the afternoon and not two in the morning.

“I can’t sleep.” I didn’t even bother apologizing about the time. He’d heard it all before.

“Tell me,” he said softly, as if it were the first time. “I saw a light where no light should be and I think someone followed me back from the Sunset.”

“Want me to come home?” It was the same offer he always made when I called late at night, no matter that he’d already told me he couldn’t come home.

I loosened my grip on the can of hot pink pepper spray and laid it on the bed. I rolled on my side. “Talking to you makes me feel better. I’m okay during the day but not at night.”

I pulled the edge of the spread over me. “Will I ever get over these panic attacks? Will I ever believe that it’s over?”

“God, Sherri, after what you’ve been through? It isn’t something you put behind you like a parking ticket. It’ll take time and some help.”

“You help me.”

“I mean professional help.”

“Let’s not start that again. I don’t need anyone else but you.”

He didn’t answer, didn’t give me any reassurance or say he’d always be there to look after me.

The night had just become longer.

CHAPTER 25

Somewhere around four I drifted off and awoke about eight to the sound of a chainsaw. I was out of bed and on my feet, hunting for a weapon before I identified the enemy. With my heart still racing, I slowly realized that no one was coming through the walls to get at me. It was the beginning of the renovations on the house next door.

Light flooded through the thin curtains. Daylight took away most of my anxiety but still I crept through the house with the pepper spray in my hand, waiting for someone to jump out at me. I was more than prepared to cause the temporary blindness, choking and nausea the manufacturer promised.

I wished I’d also bought the stun gun, for twenty-seven dollars and ninety-nine cents, which was on special when I bought the spray. One more night like the last one and a stun gun was going to be a mandatory part of my arsenal. My ways of coping with my terror might be ratcheting up my feelings of panic rather than diminishing them, but they had the advantage of being affordable and immediate. Nothing says safe like a stun gun.

And all because of a light, a tiny little firefly of a light that I saw for maybe ten seconds. Maybe Marley and Clay were right and I was a card-carrying member of the crazy party and it was time to get professional help. Even knowing what I feared was all in my head didn’t offer any relief. Bummer.

I went for a short run, wearing my pepper spray, my can of comfort, in a little tube container around my neck. It did more to make me feel secure than any therapist ever could.

When I switched on my cell there were calls from Marley and Clay, but it was the voicemail from my former mother-in-law, saying, “Let’s do lunch and talk things out,” that had me hyperventilating.

“Yeah, when hell freezes over, bitch,” I screamed at my cell.

I could wipe away her voice but not the burning anger that shot through me. I had a stock of things that would bring me joy to tell Bernice, a long list of stuff I’d been holding onto since I first met her, but there was no way I was going to risk losing what Aunt Kay was paying me by taking time off. Still, there was one small, mean way to get even. After my shower, I called Bernice and told her I would meet her for lunch. Leaving Bernice sitting there, waiting for me to show up, would be almost as sweet as telling the bitch a few colorful truths.

Aunt Kay opened the door and stepped back into the kitchen. “Did you find out why Cal was in Jacaranda?”

“Well, good morning to you to.” She frowned.

I closed the door and took a good look at her. She was dressed in pink . . . hot pink. Her cropped pink pants were topped with a square-cut pink top emblazoned with a pink sequined flamingo. In a crowd I’d be able to find her. She flashed like neon.

I said, “I’m not sure what either of them wanted.”

“Either?”

“Yup, Vachess times two.”

“Oh dear.” Her forehead wrinkled in thought. “Was it just a coincidence that they came to the Sunset?”

“Please.”

She pulled out a chair and sat down. “How did they know where to find you?”

“The same way Sunny knew. Holly told them about me, although why she talked about me, I’ll never know.”

“Let’s face it, your life has been more exciting than most. Make a guess why they came to the Sunset.”

“Ryan was still high and thought I came to Sarasota searching for him. Maybe he was excited by the thought of a woman hunting for him, some kind of sexual turn on.”

“And Cal, why was he there?”

“Cal seemed to know Ryan was going to show up at the Sunset and was there to try to control him. That’s what I made of it, but maybe I got it wrong.”

She nodded her head, thinking it through. “So it wasn’t about Holly?”

“I’m not sure.” I took a deep breath. “This is the bottom line. I don’t want anything to do with those guys, Aunt Kay.” I could see the Sunset going down the tubes as I said it. “They’re out of our league.”

She straightened. “We’ll stay well away from them, but I still want to see if we can find Angel, okay? That’s all I’m interested in.”

“Fine. But if we seem to be crossing into their territory, I’m done. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” She picked up her purse and got to her feet, waving me towards the door. “Now let’s go.”

The name of the lawyer was Shane Deveral. It took a little talking on Aunt Kay’s part to get him to see us without an appointment. When he heard why we were there, he suggested, none too politely, that we leave.

Aunt Kay heaved a resigned sigh and said, “All right, dear.”

“Oh, oh,” I said to myself. I’d worked out that when Aunt Kay said “dear” like that, what she was really saying to Shane was, “All right, asshole, this is where I get tough.”

“All right, dear,” she said again to old Shane, “I didn’t want to turn this over to the police. I wanted to keep it all quiet and casual, as it were. I just want to know where Angel is, but perhaps the police need to know about your work here. Maybe they need to look into the adoptions you handle.”

“Don’t be silly,” Shane said.

I could have cautioned him not to diss Aunt Kay, but I hadn’t warmed to old Shane. Let him find out for himself.

He said, “Everything is perfectly legal.”

“I’m sure it is,” Aunt Kay said sweetly. “I’m not one to complain, but I did hear a rumor.” She turned to me. “Sherri, what was the name of that friend of yours who bought a baby?”

Shane looked like a wolverine had just clamped down on his testicles.

“Wasn’t the lawyer that arranged it a Mr. Deveral too?” She swung around to study him. “Well, perhaps bought is too strong a word, but there was a lot of money involved.”

She leaned towards Shane. “My nephew is in the district attorney’s office. I’m sure he would be interested enough to help his auntie out.”

Aunt Kay didn’t have any family but I figured I’d keep that to myself.

Shane’s eye twitched. Not much, but the twitch hadn’t been there when we came in.

“Everything is by the book,” he said.

“What book would that be, dear?” Aunt Kay’s voice was louder and more demanding when she said, “What was the name of you friend, Sherri?”

Before I needed to deliver an answer Shane lifted his palms and said, “Okay, no need to bring others into it. Yes, Holly Mitchell got in touch with me and asked if I could find a nice family for her baby. I did. But Holly never went through with it.” His handsome features twisted. “Left me with a real problem.”

“Did she say why she changed her mind?”

“Not exactly. She brought the baby in when the couple were here and showed them her little girl. She didn’t know the adopting family’s name but they all seemed happy enough with their agreement. Everything was fine, a done deal, but they wanted the baby to have a complete physical before they signed the papers. I made the appointment. It was for three days later. The day after the doctor’s appointment, Holly was supposed to bring in the baby and turn her over to her new parents. Holly didn’t show up. When I called her, she just said something silly like she wasn’t going to let a man like that raise her child. She said she found out he was using some escort service. I’m not sure where she got that idea, but I couldn’t talk her out of it. I never saw her or the baby again, didn’t even talk to her again. Now if you don’t mind, I have a practice to run.”

“Yes, dear, a very valuable one I’m sure,” Aunt Kay said. “Now if you could just give me his name, the name of this man who wanted to adopt Holly’s baby.”

Shane was beyond outraged. “No way. That’s confidential.”

Aunt Kay said, “I suppose you found this couple another child, even after you knew about the escort service. I’m not sure that would disqualify him but . . .” She left the sentence unfinished. “Do you know Sean Contrell, the district attorney in Sarasota? Such a nice boy, always my favorite nephew.”

All these years I’d been blaming Tully Jenkins and his family for my lying ways, but maybe my inspiration had come from another source.

“I’m sure Sean could clarify if you acted irresponsibly in finding them another baby. And I’m sure Sean could find Holly’s baby for me. But I do hate to disturb him.”

Shane clenched his jaw, grinding money for his dentist.

“You don’t have to write it down,” Aunt Kay told him. “I have a very good memory, and no one will ever know where I got the name and address from.” She looked up at me and smiled. “If it ever comes up I’ll say it came from Holly. It will be fine.”

“Gary and Melissa Hunt. He owns Elegant Dressing.”

Aunt Kay pushed herself to her feet, a queen in hot pink. She didn’t thank him and didn’t say goodbye. I followed her out of the office like a good little puppy dog.