The Comeback Kiss (35 page)

Margie made a face and took another bite of pizza. There was a long moment of silence as Vickie remembered back to a night a lot like this one, when she and Margie and Kar
en Scuderi all sat around a pizza box, throwing out theories on who had started the mysterious string of fires in Lucy
’
s Lake, spanning seven years. Karen had suggested Matt Tarpey as a joke. After all, anyone who
’
d ever read a pulp novel would know it ha
d
to be the fire chief behind everything. However, even after the fire at Karen
’
s, they weren
’
t sure. And at that point, they didn
’
t care. Their best friend had died, and they decided it was time to let the amateur snooping go and make up for their stupidi
t
y the only way they could
—
by keeping eagle eyes on Tessa and Izzy.

Until, that was, Izzy started snooping around. She
’
d asked both Vickie and Margie casual questions about the fire that took her mother, and then Vickie
’
s worry box went missing for a day o
r so before mysteriously returning to her closet. It was then that Vickie and Margie had retreated to the basement with a bottle of scotch and came up with the plan of smoking Tarpey out with a classified ad placed in the
Lucy
’
s Lake Weekly.

M. I know what
you did. V.

And it worked, better than Vickie ever thought it would. Unfortunately, all she had to show for it was a charred office. No proof.

Vickie sighed. She
’
d done too much thinking in the past few days, and it was beginning to give her a headache. S
he needed to let it go for a little while.

She pushed up from the futon and plodded across the room to Margie
’
s laundry closet. From the top shelf, behind the Bounce dryer sheets, she pulled out a small wooden box. On her way back to the futon, she caught
Margie
’
s eye, and they shared a knowing look. Margie grabbed a pen and a small pad of notepaper from the small table next to the futon and began scribbling. She snapped one page off and handed it to Vickie.

Izzy.
Vickie folded it and tucked it in. Margie h
anded her another page.

Tessa.
Vickie stuffed it in the box, then looked to Margie, who had stubbornly set the pen and pad of paper down on the coffee table. Vickie rolled her eyes and picked up the pen.

“
You and your stupid grudges,”
she grumbled, scribbl
ing the last name down.

Finn.
She folded the last paper up and put it in. She closed the box, said a private prayer over it, and tucked it under the futon.

Margie pointed the remote at the television, flicking through the channels until they landed on the
BBC production of
Pride and Prejudice
playing on A&E. The two friends shared a knowing smile, sat back, and quietly let Darcy take them away.

Just another day in the basement,
Vickie thought,
as two middle-aged women pass the time waiting for a psycho to s
trike.

Chapter Seventeen

Joe sat at his kitchen table eating a bowl of Wheaties and stared at the spread before him. He
’
d looked at the pictures from Karen Scuderi
’
s fire so often during the years that he probably wouldn
’
t see anything new even if there
was something to see. He pretty much had every detail memorized by now: the charred craft supplies, the curled wallpaper, the barely recognizable defective coffeemaker that was at fault for the whole thing. It had been recalled just a month before the fi
r
e, but Karen had apparently never registered her purchase with the company, and therefore never received the recall notice.

It was an accident, just like the other twelve fires caused that year across the country by the same coffeemaker. Of course, none of
them had resulted in anything worse than charred linoleum.

This one had resulted in Karen Scuderi
’
s death.

If you
’
ve got a thing for Tessa, buy her some flowers. Don
’
t dig up her dead mother. It isn
’
t romantic.
He could hear Matt Tarpey
’
s voice as clearly
as if he were in the room. And damned if the man didn
’
t speak some sense.

There was nothing in those pictures that hadn
’
t been there before, and there was nothing he could do that would make Tessa see him as anything other than the brother of the guy she
really wanted.

Joe pushed himself up from the table and put his bowl and spoon in the sink, washing them absently as he wondered what he was doing. The thing with Tessa had been short-lived, and a long time ago. He
’
d moved on, she
’
d moved on, and the two o
f them had been doomed from the start, anyway.

So if it wasn
’
t for her, why was he doing this? Why was he so obsessed with the fire that preceded Karen Scuderi
’
s death? He leaned over his counter and stared at his own coffeemaker, trying to remember if he
’
d registered it or not. It was amazing how many thoughtless decisions could lead to disaster. You buy an innocent appliance one day, the next day it kills you.

Coffee.

Something buzzed in his brain and he couldn
’
t quite place it. He stood up and looked at
the pictures from the slightly greater distance. Then he took some steps backward until he was leaning against the wall and the pictures were too far away to get any good detail.

Coffee. It was the coffee that bugged him. Something about the coffee.

Next t
o him, in the corner of the dining room, a squawk sounded. Joe looked down at the cage on the floor, housing the macaw. Its chest was a brilliant gold, its face a strange white-and-black zebra pattern, and the wings and back feathers were a bright shade o
f
blue he
’
d seen only in crayon boxes. It was a pretty bird, but it looked kind of... well, pissed off. Could a bird look pissed off? Joe leaned down to get a better look and the thing squawked at him and flapped its wings violently.

Yep. Definitely pissed
off. Maybe it was hungry. Or thirsty. He
’
d picked it up from Tarpey
’
s place yesterday afternoon, then left it in the corner of the dining room with a handful of seed and a small cup of fresh water, but he didn
’
t know what else he was supposed to do for it.
He was an electrician. What the hell did he know about parrots?

Maybe he should find another foster family. Of course, the perfect one came to mind immediately, and he instantly decided against it. He was sure there were other people in town who could tak
e in the bird. If he brought that bird over, it would just be an excuse to see her, and he wasn
’
t desperate or stupid enough to keep trying with Tessa.

Buy her flowers. Dig up her dead mother. Give her a bird. It doesn
’
t matter. Far as she
’
s concerned, you
’
re a eunuch.

Well, that was true enough. And he did need to find someone to foster that bird...

“
What do you think?”
he said to the bird. “
You wanna go live with a couple of cute girls? Gotta be better company than me, right?”

The macaw answered this by t
urning its back on Joe and taking a huge dump on the newspaper that lined the bottom of the cage.

“
Yeah,”
Joe said, turning his attention back to the kitchen table. “
That
’
s what I...”

He trailed off.

The coffee. Or the coffeemaker, rather. He leaned in, lo
oked closer at the picture.

That wasn
’
t Karen Scuderi
’
s coffeemaker. At least, he didn
’
t think it was. It was a long time ago, and he couldn
’
t really remember for sure, but there was one person who might.

Joe stuffed the pictures into the manila envelope,
lifted his coat off the back of the kitchen chair, and grabbed the birdcage to a resounding squawk of annoyance from the macaw.

“
Cute girls,”
Joe said, tucking the envelope under his arm as he pulled the front door open. “
Quit your bitchin
’.”

***

Finn wo
ke up to the sounds of pans clattering in the kitchen. He rolled over on the sofa and tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use.

Something smelled good. Must be Tessa cooking.

Tessa.
The woman was definitely going to be the death of him. They
’
d spent ye
sterday afternoon calling every hotel in Bimini, and with all the fire and death and mayhem hanging over them, all he could think about was taking her up to the bedroom and making her forget her own name.

But he didn
’
t. Instead, he made call after call to
hotel after hotel, and came up with one very interesting, though not really surprising, fact: Vickie Kemp wasn
’
t registered at any hotel in Bimini. Finn
’
s gut told him that Margie Fletcher was lying, which led to another interesting question
—
why?

But it wa
sn
’
t a question either he or Tessa had the energy to try to answer last night, though. Instead, they
’
d talked around things for a while, had a quick dinner with Izzy and Babs, and then Tessa had gone to bed.

Finn spent the night on the sofa, tossing and tu
rning and trying to think of any excuse good enough to get him upstairs and into her room. Twice that night he
’
d made it as far as the landing on the stairs before turning around and going back to Sofa City.

Aside from the fact that Tessa had her fight bac
k
—
which turned him on even more, if that was possible
—
nothing else had changed since yesterday. If Tessa was really going to take that social worker on, the last thing she needed was to be associated with a bird thief, reformed or not. The best way Finn c
o
uld help Tessa defeat Mary Ellen Neeley was to distance himself as much as possible.

Hell, it was the only way he could help her.

He sat up and ran his hands over his crumpled jeans and T-shirt. He
’
d never been a pajamas kind of guy, and sleeping on a sofa
in a house full of women was no place to go
au naturel.
He got up and shuffled through the living room and through the kitchen door to find Babs standing at the stove, humming to herself. She was wearing a fluffy apron over her blouse and slacks, and appe
ared happy as a pig in shit, which with Babs usually meant trouble of some sort.

“
Oh, Christ,”
he groaned. “
You
’
re cooking again? Tessa told me what happened yesterday.”

Babs grinned. “
Good morning to you, too, Mr. Grump.”
She lifted the cast-iron skillet
and slid its contents
—
two eggs, over easy
—
onto a plate that already sported a few perfectly cooked bacon strips.

Finn raised one eyebrow. “
That actually looks good.”

Babs nodded toward the kitchen table. “
Tastes good, too. Sit down.”

He did as ordered, an
d Babs put the plate down in front of him, twirling back toward the counter to retrieve a fork. “
You made this?”
Finn said, looking down at the food.

“
What happened to the family curse, Aunt Clarice and whatnot?”

“
It
’
s Aunt Corrine,”
Babs corrected, sittin
g down at the table across from Finn. “
And your uncle is what happened.”
She nodded toward the plate. “
Go on, you big coward. Give it a try.”