Deadly Gamble (23 page)

“Where?” Jolie asked, squinting.

I sighed. “Never mind.” Turned to Nick. “Get out,” I said. “Go rattle chains at the foot of your mother's bed or something.”

Jolie was wide-eyed. After all, from her viewpoint, I was talking to an empty kitchen.

Nick blinked out. Chester, however, remained, curling around my ankles and purring.

“No wonder you didn't want me to bring Sweetie,” Jolie said.

I was stumped.

She looked down. “The cat?”

I gasped. “You can see him?”

“Of
course
I can see him. He's right there, circling your shoes.”

I scooped Chester up and sank into a chair at the table.

“What's wrong?” Jolie demanded.

“He's dead,” I said.

“
Who's
dead?” My sister took a seat of her own.

“This cat.”

“Nonsense,” Jolie said. She put out a hand to pet him, and before she could make contact, he disappeared.

My arms ached, suddenly empty. I felt the echo of an old loss in my heart.

Jolie's eyes were enormous. “What just happened here?”

“Do you believe me now?”

“No,” Jolie said. “I still think you're full of shit. How did you do that?” She turned in her chair, scanning the kitchen. “With a projector, right? Some kind of hologram?”

“Sure,” I said. “My credit card was denied at IHOP, but I can afford all
kinds
of sophisticated video equipment. Disneyworld has nothing on me.”

Jolie's rich mahogany complexion paled. I'm not sure how that was possible, but I saw it with my own eyes. “I am
losing
it,” she said, with a gulp, and I instantly felt sorry for her.

Nobody knew better than I did what a jolt it was to see a ghost.

“You're perfectly sane, Jolie.”

“That was the cat—”

“The one Geoff killed, when I was four,” I said.

Jolie wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked a couple of times. I got up and got her a bottle of water, from the dwindling store in the fridge, and handed it over—after checking to make sure the seal hadn't been broken.

The encounter would have been hard on anybody, but Jolie was a scientist. She'd be a long time getting the situation straight in her head, especially since her brain was heavily weighted to the left side.

“What—what does it mean?” she asked.

“I don't have the slightest idea,” I answered.

Jolie tested my forehead for fever, then her own.

The phone rang, and I was so concerned about Jolie that I didn't check caller ID. If I had, I wouldn't have taken the call.

“T
his is Margery DeLuca,” said Nick's mother. She sounded uncertain, as though she were as surprised to find herself calling me as I was to hear from her. “Maybe you remember me?”

I also remembered Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Jack the Ripper. “How could I forget?” I countered sweetly.

“I was just awakened, from a sound sleep, by the strangest dream—”

Jolie peered at me curiously.

I put the phone on speaker.

“O-kayyy,” I said, drawing the word out.

“I would have sworn Nick came to me.” Saying this, Attila DeLuca sounded so small and so sad that I almost felt sorry for her. And I stress
almost
.

I didn't speak. I'd rehearsed what I would say to the monster-in-law a million times, if I ever got the chance. Now, here it was, and not a damn thing came to mind.

“I suppose you're wondering why I called you, dear.”

Dear.

Jolie grimaced.

“I guess I am,” I said.

“I feel an urgent need to meet with you in person,” Margery said.

Jolie shook her head wildly from side to side, made a throat-slashing motion with one hand.

Like I needed clarification.

“I don't see the point,” I said. God, I was proud of my self-restraint. Plus, the way my life had been going lately, I could find myself in some train depot at any moment. I didn't want any guff at the ticket booth.

“I was in such a state after Nick's death,” Margery went on. “I might have overlooked some things.”

Yes, I thought. My jugular. My vital organs. And maybe there was a dime somewhere, in the bottom of an old purse in the back of my closet, that should have been hers.

“It's okay, Mrs. DeLuca,” I heard myself say. “Nick was your only son, and it was terrible, the way he died. But it's all in the past, and I really can't imagine what we have to say to each other now.”

“Please—just let me buy you lunch. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“All booked up,” I said, looking to Jolie as exhibit A. Of course, Margery couldn't see her, but it gave me the illusion that I was telling the truth.

Attila started to cry. I was not prepared for that.

“We
must
talk,” she said.

“Mrs. DeLuca, I'm very busy.”

For the first time since our conversation began, she showed some steel. “Too busy,” she replied, “to discuss my son's life insurance policy? It seems you were the beneficiary.”

Nick loomed behind Jolie, and he looked smug as hell.

Jolie followed my gaze and whirled.

“She still can't see me,” Nick said.

“Nick and I were divorced two years before he died,” I reminded Margery calmly.
As if
she didn't remember dancing naked around a bonfire the day the decree came through. “If I was still listed as the beneficiary, I'm sure it was an oversight.”

Nick shook his head.

Jolie looked behind her again.

“It is a sizable amount of money,” Margery said.

I swallowed. Jolie made a bring-it-on motion with both hands.

“I'm really not—”

Nick morphed over to the trash bin, fished out several pieces of the cut-up credit card, and held them under my nose.

Jolie fainted.

“I have to go,” I told Margery, and thumbed the button.

Nick stepped out of my way, and Jolie was already coming around by the time I got to her.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Jolie said. “I'm seeing things.”

I helped her to her feet, settled her in a chair, and handed her the water bottle I'd gotten out earlier.

“Vanishing cats,” Jolie murmured. “Garbage, floating in midair.”

I gave Nick a look.

He shrugged and spread his hands.

“You need a good night's sleep,” I told Jolie.

“I need a shrink,” Jolie argued.

“If you do, so do I,” I said, trying to console her.

“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” Jolie countered.

“I can't believe you're sisters,” Nick said. “You bicker a lot, and there's no family resemblance to speak of.” I guess he thought he was being droll. “Maybe a little around the eyes.”

“I've had about enough of you for one night,” I told him.

Jolie looked hurt.

I laid a hand on her shoulder. “I'm not talking to you,” I said.

When I was sure she wouldn't faint again, I went into the living room, folded down the couch and made a bed for her.

She crashed without so much as a whimper of protest.

I was a lot longer getting to sleep, and when I woke the next morning, it was to the buzz of my doorbell.

I kept the chain on and peered around the edge of the door to see a uniformed messenger on the landing, holding an oversized envelope.

“Ms. Sheepshanks?”

“Yes,” I said suspiciously. I had reason to mistrust unexpected deliveries.

What was in the envelope? Anthrax spores?

“I'm not expecting anything,” I told the messenger.

“Sign here,” he said, and shoved a clipboard through the crack in the door.

Oh, what the hell?

I signed, took the envelope, and shut the door hard.

No return address.

I like to live dangerously. I pulled the little tab and peered inside.

No spores, unless they were invisible.

Just a piece of paper.

I fished it out, read it, and yelled.

“What's that?” Jolie asked, jolted from sleep. Seconds later, she stood blinking at the end of the short hallway.

“It's a check,” I answered, waving it. Doing a little dance. “Jolie,
it's a check!
Get your clothes on. We're going out for breakfast, and
I'm
paying!”

T
HE YOUTHFUL TELLER
at my bank deposited Greer's check without a quiver, but when he saw the numbers on the second one, signed by Margery DeLuca, he gulped, examined me speculatively and summoned a manager.

The pair of them disappeared into a back room, and Jolie and I waited, she tapping her foot nervously, me smiling from ear to ear. My former mother-in-law was every kind of awful—at least in context with me—but she wasn't likely to pass bad checks. She had a position to maintain.

“Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Jolie kept whispering, under her breath, like a mantra. “What will you do with that kind of money, Mojo?”

“Breathe,” I said. Of course, I wanted to set a chunk aside for security. I'd pay off that last credit card balance, too. And then I would set myself up in business as a P.I.

I already had one case, didn't I? Okay, so the client was my sister, and it was a low-danger job. But Greer had been right when she said I'd make a good detective.

The manager returned, smiling ingratiatingly, the DeLuca check in hand. “We'd like to talk to you about some of our more elite investment programs,” he said.

“I'm sure you would,” I replied. I sounded really businesslike. Seemed like a good idea to start practicing that. “For now, just put the money in my regular checking account, please.”

“Certainly,” the manager said. I could tell he'd been building up a spiel about bank stock and certificates of deposit, and he looked disappointed at having to swallow a speech he'd spent a whole five minutes composing in his head.

“It's time to get serious,” I told Jolie, as we walked out of the bank. My branch was in a supermarket, alongside a Starbucks, and I'd sprung for double-mocha supreme frappacinos on the way out.

It was also time to pick up Russell—Bethany had left a message on my cell phone that he was good to go—and I was glad Jolie was with me, because despite my sudden riches, I wasn't real thrilled about facing Allison Darroch again.

We did the drive-through thing for breakfast, since we were in a hurry, and juggled our sausage biscuits and designer coffees as we drove out of town. I followed the same route Tucker had taken the day before; another reason to believe I could make the detective thing work.

I'm good with directions. That would come in handy on stake-outs and in high-speed chases.

“So you take Russell to the vet, and the doc turns out to be Tucker's wife,” Jolie recapped what I'd told her earlier, while we were both peering into the mirror over my bathroom sink, doing a sort of Siamese-twin makeup thing.

“Not his wife,” I stressed, sucking up some frappacino. “His
ex
-wife.”

“From what you said before, I'm not convinced she's made the shift.”

I sighed. “You can say that again. The way she looked at me, I might have had a neon sign over my head, flashing ‘Other Woman, Other Woman.' But Allison's a good vet, and she's professional. She probably saved Russell's life.”

“We need to be done in time for me to make that job interview,” Jolie said. She was a detail person. Always keeping little checklists in her head.

“No problem,” I told her.

When we arrived at the Darroch place, I pulled around behind, took a deep breath and jammed my frappacino into the cup holder between the front seats.

“Here goes,” I said.

As it turned out, my lucky streak, for which I was long overdue, I'd like to say, held. Allison was nowhere around. Maybe she was out helping a cow give birth or something. Bethany greeted us with a smile and a whopping bill, and I could hear Russell barking exuberantly in the back at the sound of my voice.

I wrote a check, and Bethany sprang the basset hound from his kennel.

He trotted toward me, tail a blur, tongue lolling. A lot of people say dogs don't smile, but I know differently. Russell was beaming.

I crouched to ruffle his ears. “Hey, buddy,” I said.

He licked my face.

Jolie, the dog and I piled back into the Volvo, Russell sitting in the middle of the backseat, ready to take on the world.

I glanced at Jolie as we started down the long driveway, back to the road. I knew she was disappointed that we hadn't encountered Allison. I was relieved enough for both of us.

“What now?” Jolie asked.

“I need to do some investigating,” I said. “You can get ready for your interview while I'm Googling all Alex Pennington's possible girlfriends.”

“Right,” Jolie said, but she sounded uncertain. “Do you think the dead cat will be around when we get back to your place?”

A lump rose in my throat. Whenever I thought of Chester, I was reminded that his presence in my life was temporary. Once he'd accomplished his mission, whatever it was, he'd be getting onto one of those trains Nick talked about, and that would be the last goodbye.

“I hope so,” I said softly.

Bad-Ass Bert's was still closed, of course, and it looked lonely. I wondered if Bert would give in to pressure from Sheila and sell the place. It wouldn't be the same with a new owner.

“Everything changes,” I mused, as I parked the Volvo.

“You just figuring that out?” Jolie asked.

“It's a process,” I replied. “An unfolding.”

“Where do you get this stuff?” Jolie teased. “Is there a
Damn Fool's Guide to Psychobabble?
”

“Shut up,” I told her, but I meant it in the kindest possible way.

We hiked up the stairs, Jolie, Russell and I, and I unlocked the door. Scoped the place out, detective style, scanning for unexpected food deliveries and other signs of intrusion.

Zip.

With routine reconnaissance out of the way, I proceeded to the kitchen, filled Russell's water dish and checked the voice mail.

Glory hallelujah.

No death threats.

No special offers from my personal Lucretia Borgia.

Jolie disappeared into the bedroom, to get ready for the big interview.

The phone rang, just as I was logging on to the computer, and I had the cordless receiver on the desk beside me.

I picked up. “Sheepshanks, Sheepshanks and Sheepshanks,” I said confidently. Sure, there was only one Sheepshanks in my new agency, but adding two more gave the business substance.

Tucker laughed. “Whatever you say, Moje,” he said. “Sorry to indulge in hot sex and run, but I got a call.”

I was in a good mood, so I let him off the hook. “It's not as if I just sit around here waiting for you to give me an orgasm,” I said loftily. “I'm starting a business. People are trying to kill me. I don't have a lot of free time.”