Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) (20 page)

Fulfillment for me would be finding out who killed Max. Do you have a phone number?

Okay, that was brave. But now what did I do—set it on fire and let the smoke blow up the chimney like a message to Santa Claus?
What the hell . . .
I stuck a wad of gum on the back and attached it to my door. I had officially taken a flying leap into the loony bin.

After flinging my impossible question to the Universe, I needed to ground myself in something more practical, like who had run over the kids. I had no idea where to start hunting down corporate spies, but I had names to go with license plate numbers that I could research. It wasn’t as if I had a bed to sleep in.

I turned on my netbook and looked for an open wireless connection. It’s amazing how many schmoes leave their networks without password protection. I found three and chose the strongest. I was uncertain how reliable the Internet would be this close to the Zone, but my choices were limited.

I Googled all four names associated with the partial plate the kids had given me—two representatives and two senators were using cars with those plates. One senator was old and had been around since time began. The second senator was from a filthy rich local family who’d bought his way into power. The representatives were fairly new to D.C. and had probably never been to Baltimore. I doubted that they would know the Zone existed. I checked their websites but they were meaningless unless one lived in Kansas or Nebraska.

So I focused on the senators: the old one, Senator Ted Towson from Tennessee—you could write a country song about that name—and the younger one, Senator Dane Vanderventer from Maryland. Rhetorical question—if you were me, which one of those two would you pick as the bad guy? The local one, of course, the rich, young power broker who’d probably grown up knowing about the Zone.

But just in case I was wrong, I checked out the old Tennessee guy. Teddy Boy had a head of glistening white hair and a big toothy smile of expensive dental work. His website showed a good ol’ boy wearing jeans and a cowboy hat, shaking hands with farmers in front of golden haystacks. He had a mouse of a wife, two daughters, and three grandchildren. The wife was an orthodontist, which explained the good dental work on the entire family.

I didn’t want the hit-and-run driver to be a family man, no matter how unctuous. So I looked up the local boy with total prejudice. If cowboys can judge
villains by the color of their hats, I could judge by the color of their websites.

Sure enough, Dane wore a tailored suit and his page featured him standing with the president and several world leaders. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the fat cat I was expecting. Widowed and childless, this guy was looking
goo-ood
. He had to have a personal trainer to look that toned dining on the rich food they served up in D.C. Styled, chestnut hair framed a warm smile and cleft chin, better than James Garner and Clint Eastwood rolled in one. He kind of favored Max, actually, without the long curly hair. But the eyes looked flat and soulless, I decided, based on nothing.

If I could have picked perps by picture, I’d have been all set. But even I knew that wasn’t rational. So I put Dane on the top of my bad-guy list, opened the window overlooking the harbor, and curled up on the floor to sleep.

• • •

For a pleasant change, come Saturday morning, no one knocked on my door at some unearthly hour, and my phone didn’t ring to wake me up.

I did, however, wake to the sound of my window sliding open wider and turned over in time to catch a glimpse of blue-jeaned leg climbing out. I lurched from sleeping to awake in two seconds flat and lunged to grab a grubby athletic shoe, but the owner had already disappeared.

Literally.

I blinked, got up on my knees to look over the low sill, and saw no one. This window was to one side
of the porch, not over it, so I’d felt safe in leaving it open. But it might have been possible to sit on the porch rail and swing over the sill if one was long-legged and limber enough.

I turned around and hunted for Milo. He was watching me with interest but not making any noises like he’d seen anything suspicious. I hastily checked my bags and found nothing disturbed, not even my netbook. Weird. Maybe I’d been dreaming.

Well, so much for leaving open windows to pleasant breezes if they invited nightmares.

Still marveling that my hip was giving me no grief even after sleeping on a floor, I dragged toiletries and a change of clothes out of my shopping bag and took my first shower in my new apartment. I probably should have cleaned the tub and tile first, but given what I’d been living with lately, mold and mildew weren’t of terrible concern.

The bathroom mirror was old and gray and the light over it was dead. I hung a shirt from the light to cover the mirror. I didn’t know if my Max fixation would show up here, and I wasn’t ready to find out.

I hadn’t gone shopping for new shoes yet, so I wore the wedge-heeled walking sandals again. Because of my uneven legs, I’d never really been able to walk far in them. Now I could roll up the elastic waistband of my skirt and see unblemished calves and ankles. I could wear miniskirts, if I wanted. That was some kind of scary.

The apartment was less than half a mile to the businesses on Edgewater, so I jogged down to see if
anything was open. The minimart on the corner had coffee and donuts. The guy behind the counter had green teeth and directed me to a market three blocks north of the Zone.

Dragging my fascinated stare away from his chompers, I sipped my coffee and wandered outside and up the street to see what kind of market dared to nestle so close to the Zone.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover one with fresh produce on stands outside, just like in New York City. We’d lived in Jersey my junior year in high school, and walking all over the city had been my escape. I had a fondness for the Big Apple. I gathered up some fruit and lettuce, found a basket inside, and loaded up with cereal and milk and the basics of life. The guy behind the counter looked perfectly normal, balding, and probably of Indian or Pakistani descent. He even scratched Milo under his jaw when my nosy cat peered out to see what was happening. Milo purred, and I took that as a token of acceptance from my perceptive kitty.

I could easily get into urban living.

A dark-haired teenager hobbled from the back on crutches, and I recognized her from the limo mishap. Despite my part-time attempts to bring her some real-time justice, part of me wanted to duck and run, but I took a deep breath and stood my ground. This was my new neighborhood. If I was settling down here, I wanted to learn to do it right.

“Glad to see you up and about,” I said. My arms were full of bags or I’d have held out my hand. “My
name is Tina Clancy. I was there the day the limo hit you.”

She nodded. “I remember you. You looked like you could call down lightning, you were so mad. I’m Jennifer Barr.”

“Nice to see you again, Jennifer. And, so you know, I’m still mad. I’m looking for that limo, but with so little information, it will take time.”

The man behind the counter looked worried. “We shouldn’t make trouble with men like that. My daughter is all right now. I don’t want people asking questions.”

I understood his attitude better than I should have. I was starting not to like it. I merely smiled. “If I get my hands on him, he won’t have any teeth left to ask questions through. But I’ll not drag you into it, okay?”

The man didn’t look happy, but Jennifer gave me a thumbs-up.

Except for the dying-young part, I really
wanted
to be Saturn’s daughter, dispenser of justice. On my way back to the house, I designed a Supergirl suit and Batmobile in my head.

Now if only I could figure out how to scare away suits in Escalades, I could almost convince myself that I had superabilities.

I could have sworn an abandoned department store dummy winked at me as I traversed an alley shortcut through the Zone. I put my head back on straight and practically ran the rest of the way home.

I
left Milo to guard my new place while I traveled with Jane back to the old one, slipping inside from the rear. I stayed inside packing up clothes and dishes while the truck guys hauled out my bed and couch. They reported looky-loos in the parking lot, but that happens with any moving activity. I still had to assume my spies were suspicious and keeping an eye on the movers.

Before Jane’s friends finished packing up the trucks, I merrily went out the front, faking a limp, waved at the Escalade, and climbed into my Miata, praying no
one had had time to tamper with it overnight. Since the SUV seemed to stay in the lot, I didn’t know who they had tailing me. Whoever it was, I intended to keep them very occupied while the guys moved my stuff to the new apartment. Anything Jane might have thought she owed me was completely wiped out by the convenience of having friends with trucks.

I stopped at Goodwill and happily picked up some new ankle-breaking shoes and a few other necessities at a penny-per-pound price, then moseyed on to the library to do some research for one of my finals and to poke around a little more on Senator Vanderventer. Not unexpectedly, his name and that of Max’s wealthy family, the MacNeills, turned up regularly together. I didn’t run a genealogy, but from the stories it looked like there might even be a family connection.

It seemed beyond odd that a rich senator would be driving himself, much less banking near the Zone. So I could have been looking for someone who had permission to use his vehicle. Damn. I didn’t want a chauffeur to be guilty. My trailer trash prejudices were definitely showing.

I drove to Chesty’s and put in a few hours cleaning up during the lunch hour, though on Saturday the big business came later and Ernesto wouldn’t need me again until the dinner crowd.

Jane called to say the truck with my stuff was on the way. Leaving the Miata parked at the restaurant, I slipped down back alleys toward my new place. Now that I could walk without pain, I was kind of liking the proximity to my jobs, although I didn’t like
leaving my new car in the Zone, even if it distracted spies.

I could have sworn the Zone had added two new Dumpsters and a new angle in the alley since I’d been out here last. I skirted as far around the tin bins as I could and jogged faster, glad that it was broad daylight. Dipping statues had been amusing. Moving behemoths were not, especially if evil lurked inside them.

I had no way of sneaking inside the apartment without being seen, but I’d worked out that problem. In the alley behind the Victorian, I pulled on a bright yellow Indian tunic spangled in funky little mirrors that I’d bought in my bargain bag. I knew I couldn’t hope to fool the spies forever, but pretending to be someone else just for a while would be fun. I pinned up my hair, wrapped it in a hijab, and sauntered back to the street. With my swarthy complexion and prominent nose, the Middle Eastern look worked, even though I was pretty certain my mother was born in this country. My bet was that spies wouldn’t connect button-down me with someone in Muslim disguise.

I grabbed a box from the truck and followed the guys up to my place. I’d hoped to get more cleaning done before everyone arrived, but dodging spies sucks up time.

My silly message was still stuck to the door. I didn’t see any sign of my landlady or the other tenants as the guys efficiently arranged my meager furniture in the big rooms. I bought pizzas for everyone. While the men ate, I hung my clothes in the closet so they could take the boxes back to Jane. When the truck was empty, I gave
them passes for free drinks at Chesty’s and Bill’s bar so they could wet their whistles. Jane wouldn’t be moving until tomorrow, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt if they got a buzz on tonight. They’d earned it.

• • •

Milo prowled around the boxes of dishes and examined his favorite couch. I gave him fish for supper and debated leaving him to guard my stuff while I returned to work. I couldn’t change the locks until Monday.

“Want to stay here or go with me?” I asked him, as if he could answer.

He tilted his head as if considering, then climbed to a stack of clothes on my dresser that I hadn’t put away yet and kneaded a nest. Guess that answered that. I set up his litter box in the mostly empty pantry.

Feeling just a little lonely in my spiffy new apartment, I finally braved the newly moved cracked dresser mirror. I’d long since removed the shiny tunic and hijab. I was back to my preppy button-down shirts, even though I’d worn jeans for mop-slopping. I might not have been a lawyer yet, but I did my best to dress like one on my limited budget. On Monday, I’d be able to wear my kicky new sling-backs, which I was strangely looking forward to.

Max appeared almost instantly, his long, dark curls looking as if he’d run his nonexistent hands through them. “
Babe,
” he said warily.

“You make me think I’m losing my mind,” I warned, speaking hastily before he disappeared again. “But it’s not guilt worrying me anymore. Someone cut our brakes.”

His eyes widened in shock. How could I possibly be imagining this?