Deadly Gamble (15 page)

Evidently, that was the extent of my psychic power.

White Fang dozed again, busy digesting the lunch meat and the plastic, and I got the bright idea to lean over, pull something out of the freezer compartment, and throw it across the room. While he was gnawing at a rock-hard pot roast, I'd make a break for it.

I leaned.

He sprang.

I felt his hot breath against my forearm as I jerked back, just in time to avoid the fate I'd planned for the pot roast.

I yelled for help. As I said, it was a day for afterthoughts.

No response.

Everybody in Jolie's building, it seemed, had a real job.

I decided to examine the contents of the cupboards on either side of the refrigerator. Maybe I could bean the dog with a soup can and book it before he regained consciousness.

I found two boxes of outdated cereal, a package of stale crackers and the owner's manual for the microwave. I read it from cover to cover. Taught myself rudimentary Dutch, French, Spanish and Japanese by comparing the translation paragraphs to the English version. I figured I was a cinch for a bright future in appliance repair when, at long last, Jolie appeared in the back door window, shoving her key in the lock.

The Hound of Tucson rolled to his feet, yawned and gave a welcoming whimper.

Jolie paused to pet him, and her dark eyes danced as she looked up at me, perched on the top of her refrigerator. “I see you made yourself at home,” she said, plunking her briefcase and purse on the counter next to the door. She'd had a weave since I saw her last, and she looked sleekly professional in her tailored black slacks and crisp white blouse. No blood, gore or bone dust in evidence. The wonder of lab coats.

“You didn't mention the dog when we talked on the phone,” I pointed out. I had to pee like a cow on a flat rock, but I wasn't getting down until she either put the demon outside or shot him with a tranquilizer dart. Even then, he'd have to twitch for five minutes before the coast could be considered clear.

“Oops,” Jolie said, with a crooked, twinkly little smile. She gave Brutus a dog biscuit, closed the refrigerator with dispatch and looked up at me. “You can get down now.”

“No way,” I said. “That thing is vicious. He'll rip my throat out.”

“He's a pussycat,” Jolie assured me, and bent to pat his head. Her plentitude of tiny braids shimmered as she moved. “I got him at the pound last week. Another day and a half, and they'd have put him to sleep.”

“Timing is everything.”

Jolie laughed. “
Get down,
Moje. Sweetnik isn't going to hurt you.”

“Sweetnik?”
I peered over the edge, sizing him up. The name didn't fit; he looked as big and mean as ever.

“Sweetie for short,” Jolie said, eyeing him affectionately and scrabbling in the box for another Milk Bone. “We've had some robberies and home invasions in the neighborhood lately, so I thought it made sense to get a dog.”

I eased one foot down as far as the countertop. Sweetie didn't lunge. He was too busy mauling the second biscuit. I risked the other foot.

Sweetie raised his head and growled.

“Sweetie, shush,” Jolie cooed.

Sweetie shushed.

I got down.

Stretched my cramped muscles with some shoulder rolling and some careful leg shaking. “I don't think you have to worry about home invasions,” I said.

“I don't have to worry about you sneaking out of here in the middle of the night without telling me, either,” Jolie quipped. “Sister's on the move, I'm gonna know it.” She laid her hands on my shoulders and looked me over from head to foot and back again. “When was the last time you had a decent haircut?” she asked.

I sighed. “It's good to be back in the bosom of my family,” I said.

Jolie grinned. “I'll pour us some wine, and we'll have some good ole girl talk,” she responded.

I took a cautious side step in the direction of the hallway. “I've been on top of your refrigerator for three and a half hours,” I reminded her. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Sweetie looked up, gave a companionable little snarl.

“You do, too, don't you, fella?” Jolie asked the dog, taking a leash from a drawer and hooking it to his collar. She met my gaze. “You do your thing, Sweetie will do his, and then we'll have that wine.”

I nodded.

Dog and woman went out the back door.

I clamped my knees together and hop-sprinted for the john.

L
ike me, Jolie wasn't into premeditated cooking, so once Sweetie and I had both relieved ourselves—
I
, at least, washed my paws afterward—my sister and I piled into her black Pathfinder and headed for the nearest restaurant.

The place was Italian, a fragrant link in a national chain. The red-and-white checkered tablecloths, plank floors and Chianti-bottle candleholders provided atmosphere. We ordered iced tea, after sighing over the wine list, and the waiter brought warm bread and poured olive oil into a saucer, adding a squiggle of balsamic vinegar for yum.

While I pigged out, Jolie sat with her fingers curved into a graceful tent under her chin. Her dark eyes were large and luminous as she pondered me, and for a moment, I saw her dad in them and missed him sorely. Ham had made room in his life for Greer and me, and I would always appreciate that.

Jolie was perceptive, and she leaned in a little, prodded, “What are you thinking about right now?”

“Your dad.” I tore off another chunk of bread and dipped it in the dregs of the olive oil and vinegar. “He was a good guy.”

Jolie smiled softly. “Yeah,” she said. “He's been gone all this time, and there are still days when I think of something I want to tell him and dial half his phone number before I realize he won't pick up on the other end.”

My throat tightened.

Jolie reached across the table and patted my hand. “How's by you, Sister Girl?”

I replenished the olive oil and balsamic vinegar from the bottles the waiter had left behind. “I'm doing okay.”
If you don't count the ghosts, and the flashbacks, and how the harder I try to figure out who I am, the more confused I get.

“Your mouth is tellin' me one story,” Jolie observed, with wry good humor, “but your eyes say something else. What's really going on, Moje?”

I swallowed. Should I tell her about Nick and Chester? I'd told Bert, but he was a bartender, used to wild tales, and more of an acquaintance than a friend. Jolie was a sister-by-choice, and she was a scientist. It mattered to me whether she thought I was crazy or not.

The waiter returned, exhibiting the lousy timing that seems to be endemic to the species and stalwartly accepted our decision to split a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Jolie waited until he was gone, and then prodded me again.

“Moje? What's the deal? You look like you've been over some rocky roads lately.”

“I'm not crazy,” I said, as a preface.

Jolie grinned. “Debatable,” she said. “Spill it, Mojo. Something's definitely going on with you.”

I let out a long breath, and almost choked because I'd neglected to take one in first.

“Are you smoking again?” Jolie demanded, narrowing her eyes.

I drank a few sips of my recently arrived iced tea to quell the coughing. “Of course not,” I said. It was the safe answer, and mostly true, since I never had a cigarette unless I'd had good—make that
great
—sex first. Three weeks and counting since Tucker and I had gotten it on, so I was nicotine-free.

“Is it Lillian?”

“Partly,” I hedged, interlacing my fingers so I wouldn't go after the bread and olive oil again. I didn't exercise, and I wasn't overweight, but a person never knows when their metabolism is going to turn on them. I've seen it happen.

“Tell me,” Jolie urged.

I described the Lillian situation as clearly as I could, without getting maudlin.

Jolie frowned at the mention of the Tarot cards Lillian had given me.

“Death, the Queen of Pentacles and the Page of Cups,” she reflected thoughtfully, when I was finished. “What do they mean?”

“I don't exactly know,” I admitted. Sure, I'd looked them up in the
Damn Fool's Guide,
but the descriptions had seemed superficial to me. I had the feeling that I was trying too hard to understand the images, and anyway, there was always the chance that Lillian hadn't deliberately chosen them.

I said as much to Jolie, and then remembered the urgent way Lillian had urged those cards on me. “Take!” she'd said. “Take!”

Tears welled in my eyes. I longed for the old Lillian, the strong woman I used to know.

Jolie patted me again.

The spaghetti arrived.

The conversation stalled until we'd divided the meatballs.

“Maybe Lillian's mind is gone,” Jolie ventured, cutting delicately at her share of the protein. I speared my meatball with a fork and nibbled at it like a Popsicle. If anybody's written
The Damn Fool's Guide to Table Manners,
I have yet to come across a copy.

“It's possible,” I said. We both knew it was a tad
more
than possible, but the agreement was tacit.

“What else?” Jolie asked. She'd have made a great detective, but I guess when you get right down to it, forensic science isn't all that different. Both involve gathering clues and putting the pieces together.

I put down the meatball Popsicle. I'd been starving when we came in, but now my appetite was subsiding. Maybe it was the loaf of bread I'd consumed while we were waiting for the main course.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I ventured.

“No,” Jolie said, without hesitation, but she looked intrigued. “Why?”

“Because Nick popped in the other night.”

Jolie leaned back, studying me pensively. Probably wondering what I was on. “Shut
up,
” she said.

“It happened. You don't have to believe me.”

“Don't get your panties in a wad,” Jolie retorted. “I didn't say I didn't believe you.”

“The cat was real, too,” I insisted. When I get into a hole, I start digging like mad.

“
What
cat?”

“Chester. My half brother killed him during my birthday party. I was four.”

In the next moment, a vacuum opened, sucked all the air out of the restaurant, and reduced everybody but Jolie to black-and-white still-shots shimmering at the periphery of my vision.

“You remember that?” Jolie asked, almost whispering.

I caught my breath. Pulled myself back out of the vortex. Our surroundings solidified, and the noise, returning suddenly, seemed so loud I wanted to clamp both hands over my ears.

“Yes,” I said, as surprised as Jolie was. I blinked a couple of times. Mom had bought one of those doll cakes for the party, the kind with a frosted skirt. I could see the wax
4
pressed into the front as clearly as the platter of spaghetti on the table between us. There had been presents, and even guests—kids from the neighborhood, all in faded sunsuits.

Jolie's eyes were huge. “Oh. My. God.”

I started to cry. “I went looking for Chester, after the party. I'd saved him a piece of cake.” I paused, drew a tremulous breath. “I found him behind the storage shed in the backyard, Jolie. He'd been shot with one of the arrows from the archery set some idiot—probably my dad—gave Geoff for Christmas.”

Jolie handed me a red-and-white checked napkin so I could wipe my eyes. I stopped short of blowing my nose.

“I'm sorry, Moje,” she said. “That must have been beyond awful. But you're
remembering,
and that's a
good
thing, isn't it?”

“I don't know,” I said. I felt things gathering around me, unseen things, dangerous things. They pressed in so hard, I could barely breathe.
“I don't know.”

“Let's get out of here,” Jolie said. She signaled for the check, turned down the standard dessert pitch from the waiter and paid up.

Five minutes later, we were back in the Pathfinder.

I rolled the window down, even though the AC was on. I couldn't get enough air.

We went back to the apartment, and Sweetie didn't even growl when we came in.

Jolie pressed me into a chair at the kitchen table and rummaged for wineglasses and a bottle of red. Poured us each a double dose. We hadn't said a word all the way back from the restaurant, but now it was nitty-gritty time.

“What
else
do you remember?” Jolie asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“But it's a start.”

I wondered why that would be considered good news. When it comes to double homicide and the victims happen to be your parents, ignorance could be bliss.

“It means you're getting better,” Jolie persisted.

“I wasn't sick in the first place,” I pointed out, testy now that I was receiving an adequate oxygen supply.

Jolie topped off my wineglass, even though I hadn't taken a sip. “Okay,” she said, with cheerful resolve. “Let's talk about something else. The cop. What's his name again? Or what brings you down here. Or—”

“The ghosts?” I rested my elbows on the table and shoved the fingers of both hands into my hair.

“Or the ghosts,” Jolie said slowly.

“Do-over,” I said. “There weren't any ghosts. I made it up.”

“You saw something.”

“I was hallucinating. That's what you think, isn't it?”

Jolie lowered her eyes, licked her lips, took a taste of her wine.

“Isn't it?”

Probably sensing conflict, Sweetie snarled halfheartedly from his bed, which blocked the hallway.

Great,
I thought.
If I get up to use the bathroom during the night, I'll have to get past Dogzilla.

The glad tidings just kept on coming.

“All right,” Jolie agreed, with hasty diplomacy, raising both hands and holding them palms out. “Forget the ghosts. Forget Lillian and your fourth birthday. Tell me about the cop.”

“There's a poor-to-fair chance he blew up in a car explosion night before last,” I said, and even though the thought that it might be true, by some horrible coincidence, wrenched my gut, I admit I enjoyed watching Jolie's expression.

When she found her voice, she said, “Girl, your life is a full-scale terrorist alert. Level Orange.”

I considered describing my brief sojourn in Cactus Bend, but that would bring us back to the murders, and even though I wanted to know what had really happened the night my folks died, I needed to step back from it. It was like a psychological black hole, and if I didn't get some kind of grip, I was going to be sucked in and swallowed.

The whole subject could wait until breakfast. Things always looked better in the morning.

Didn't they?

I was inspired. “Let's talk about you,” I said. “How's the job? How's your love life?”

“I'm thinking of leaving the university and working as a crime-scene tech,” Jolie said. Which only went to prove I wasn't the only bomb-dropper in the family.

“Why would you do that?” I asked. I finally resorted to the wine; downed a couple of gulps while I waited for Jolie's answer.

She shrugged. I think you really have to be a black woman to pull that kind of shoulder action off with any style. “I'm tired of being stuck in a lab all the time,” she said. “I'm always one step removed from the action. What I do is so—well—after the fact.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Jolie had a master's degree in forensic science, and she was working on a Ph.D. She'd waited tables and sold shoes to get through school, and still maintained a four point, throughout. Plus, she really knew her bones.

“Excuse me,” I said, after clearing my throat, “but if there's
anything
that can be described as ‘after the fact,' it's a crime scene.”

“I want to be on the front lines,” she said. “I'm tired of weighing stomachs and counting bone fragments.”

The meatball I'd eaten earlier did a line-drive up my esophagus and slammed into the back of my throat. I felt the blood drain from my face, and Jolie noticed immediately.

“Sorry,” she said, with a little wince.

It was my turn to do the narrow-eyed stare. “What's really going on here?” Revelation struck, and I snapped my fingers. “I've got it. You're dating a homicide cop, and this is your misguided idea of togetherness.”

“You should write fiction,” Jolie replied. “I'm not dating
anybody
. This is about doing something different.”

“Weighing stomachs and scraping up samples of somebody's brains are not all that ‘different,' Jolie,” I pointed out.

She got that stubborn look I remembered from when Lillian and Ham first got together, over in Ventura Beach. Let's just say if Jolie had written a letter to Santa Claus that year, Lillian, Greer and I wouldn't have been on her list of requests.