The Real Mrs. Price (31 page)

Reporters talked about Marlowe's possible motives, her lack of alibi, and repeated lies she'd told to the police as grounds for her arrest. And they suggested that she may have had an accomplice, a person of interest that police weren't naming but were thoroughly investigating.

“We did this to her,” Lucy said shamefully. “I can't believe what I was thinking.”

“There's nothing else for us to do here, Lucy,” he told her. “We need to go home.”

He was right, of course. But still, Lucy couldn't help hoping that she could at least do something to try to help.

“We could tell them about that money, Roman. We could tell them what Ed was doing before he disappeared.”

“We've got no proof.”

Lucy bit down on her lower lip. “I have those numbers written down at my house.”

“We've got no PINs.”

“But maybe they can find some way to recover them, Roman. They have people who can do that.”

“Based on what? Our word?”

“Our word carries more weight than hers right now.”

He thought about it. “I just don't see what good it would do.”

Lucy turned her focus back to the news. “She must feel like we all just turned our backs on her.”

“Didn't we?”

If he wanted to guilt her any more than she had already guilted herself, he was wasting his time.

“Why'd you change your mind?”

“I don't know,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew that once he got his hands on those account numbers, we'd lose it all. I just went crazy.” She looked at him. “Like Ed. Like maybe Tom Hilliard. Am I bad person?”

“No worse than the rest of us in this crew,” he said soberly.

“I guess we should go home.”

He nodded. “It's over. Might as well.”

“What are you going to do when you get back?”

He sighed. “Try and land some more work. I've got tons of medical bills that need to be paid. Remember?”

“I'm selling the house,” she admitted. “And I'm thinking of moving out of state at the end of the semester. There's a teaching opportunity in Washington State that I'm going to look into.”

“Nice. I like it up there.”

“Maybe you can visit,” she said teasingly.

He raised his brows in surprise. “You'd invite me up?”

“I enjoy your company, Roman, when it's not all death and destruction about falling off the wagon.”

He smiled. “Well, I'll work on that.”

“I don't have the job yet, so if you wanted to stop by from time to time for some moral support, I wouldn't mind.”

“Yeah, I like your moral support. It's soft. And warm. And juice—”

“Stop.” She blushed.

“I'm just saying.”

She turned back to the television. “What do you think is going to happen with her?”

“She could get off, Lucy. They've got bullshit for evidence. Marlowe's been tried and convicted in the media based on nothing but sensationalism. What she needs now, more than anything, is a lawyer. A good one.”

“A good lawyer,” she murmured. “I think I know a good lawyer, and he owes me. Big.”

She picked up her phone and dialed a number. “Lawrence. Hi. It's me.” She smiled. “Remember that time when you were in high school and you snuck off in Dad's car to go to that girl's house?” She waited. “Yeah, it was forever ago, but you promised you'd pay me back for not telling. Yeah. I'm calling to collect. I need a favor. And I need it fast.”

 

Be Well

T
HE GOING RATE FOR TAKING
out a lowlife like Ed Price was half a million dollars. The going rate to recover and return funds was 5 percent of said funds. Plato had completed half of his job, recovering access to his client's funds of $47 million. He'd just made the other half of the $2.35 million promised to him by his client, the first half of which had already been deposited into an overseas account when Plato had accepted this job. He'd promised his employer that he could accomplish both tasks—get back the money and kill Price. They had their money; now he needed to get Price's head on a platter. It was really just cleanup work at this point. Price was an impotent rodent who meant harm to no one.

Except to her.

Plato was staying in a hotel on the edge of Clark City, a county over from Blink. News of Marlowe's arrest had gone national, with the local authorities making it clear that they didn't believe that she had committed this crime on her own. They hadn't named Plato yet, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before they would, if for no other reason than to find him.

Cockroaches scurry when the lights come on. Price was no different. He lay low during the day but scavenged at night. Marlowe's house had been ransacked. Plato knew that it was Price. He went there not sure what he was expecting to find, but when he got there, he was greeted on the porch by a frail-looking older woman wearing dark, round-lensed shades and close-cut, cropped silver hair. Marlowe's cousin, the woman from the restaurant, also appeared, standing behind the old woman like her tiny, senior-citizen ass was some sort of shield.

“Whatchu want?” the older woman asked unapologetically.

“To look around,” he stated simply.

“Ain't nothing here for you to look at.”

She wasn't looking at him directly. The angle and direction of her head told Plato that she wasn't looking at him at all. The old woman was blind.

He took a step up to that porch, and she had out a tiny, bony hand covered in silver, gemstones, and gold. It was as if she'd worn her entire jewelry collection all at once.

“Don't you even think about it,” she warned him.

And without understanding why, he stopped.

A sliver of a smirk spread on her thick lips. Her skin wasn't brown or even black. It had a red hue to it, a golden undertone to it, making her look almost as if she weren't of this world.

“You think I don't know who you are.” She nodded knowingly. “She told me 'bout you, but I saw you comin' first. I saw you long 'fore she did, but I couldn't say nothing 'cause Marlowe don't listen. All she had to do was look at you, and she was under your spell. Am I right?”

This shit was eerie, but Plato nodded.

“Say somethin'!” she snapped. “I can't see you. You need to talk.”

“I guess so,” he said tentatively.

What the fuck?

“First she married that one fool, then she fall for another one, right after that,” she grumbled.

He felt as if he should've been offended. “Who? Me?”

She smacked her lips. “Who the hell else you think I'm talkin' 'bout?”

Fool?

“You know she can't help it, Shou,” the other one said sympathetically. “You know how she is.”

How the hell is she?
Plato wondered.

Plato had almost forgotten why he'd come here but then concluded that he needed to get past these two and get on with his business. He took another step up those stairs. That old woman tapped her cane against the wooden porch, and a bolt of pain shot through his midsection, causing him to stumble back off those steps.

“I warned you,” she said coolly.

It took several moments for him to catch his breath. The old lady waited patiently while he did. The other one chuckled.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” he demanded to know.

“Nothing, compared to what I'm gonna do to you if you bring yo' ass back up on this porch.”

He couldn't believe this shit. It was scary enough listening to Marlowe talk sometimes, but this … this was … it was …

“Fuckin' crazy,” the old woman said as if she were finishing his sentence for him. “You got yo' weakness, devil. Pride. Beauty. Lust. Marlowe.” She whispered Marlowe's name. “You done scented her, and now you can't get her off yo' mind. She ain't yo' concern no mo'. So you get on. And you keep gettin' on. And don't think 'bout lookin' back, or I'll do to you what somebody did to me and put yo' eyes out.”

Had he really just met his match in a five-foot-tall, eighty-year-old blind woman? He left, practically with his tail tucked between his legs. Yes. Yes, he had.

*   *   *

Plato drove away reminding himself that he didn't believe in that hoodoo shit. He reminded himself all the way back to that hidden road that crossed behind Marlowe's house, where he parked. He could see the back of her house across that field, and he imagined himself as Ed Price, watching it, staring at it, especially at night when the lights were on and he could somewhat see inside. On this particular occasion, Plato saw that old woman stepping out onto the back deck with the other woman, gathering small potted plants and putting them into a box. Plato looked down the road leading into Nelson. Up ahead, about the length of a football field, he spotted something. The closer he got, he realized that it was trash, fast-food wrappings with a logo and a name on the outside of the bag.
Betta Burgers.

Plato got in his car and continued on that road until he arrived in Nelson, and he drove down the main road several times looking for a Betta Burger restaurant. He saw nothing. He stopped, pulled out his phone, and did a search. Betta Burger was just off the highway on the other side of town, and across from it was a budget motel. In that moment, he realized that he might've found where Price had been staying.

*   *   *

Medlock was packing up his car to leave when Plato arrived.

He spotted Plato, shook his head, pulled his keys out of his pocket, and reached for his car door. “I'm outta here, man,” Medlock said. “It's been a pleasure,” he said sarcastically.

As he pulled his car door open, Plato pushed it shut. “I think my feelings are hurt,” he said. “You don't even know why I'm here.”

“I don't want to know,” Medlock said bitterly. “I'm heading home. My work is done.”

“Not quite,” Plato said indifferently.

“What part of either kill me or leave me the fuck alone don't you understand, Wells?”

“I've found Price.”

Roman suddenly stopped acting like a scared bitch and paid attention.

“Well, I think I've found him,” Plato corrected himself. “But I'll need help wrangling that bronco,” he said in his best exaggerated cowboy accent.

Roman sighed. “Why would I help you?”

“You wouldn't be helping me,” he reminded him. “You'd be giving Lucy ‘Boo Thing' Price a reason to sleep peacefully at night.”

That got him to thinking. Women. Women always got men to thinking. Whether men wanted to think or not.

“He might not ever set foot in Boulder, Colorado, again,” Plato reasoned. “Or he might. But I think she'd prefer knowing that he was gone and that he wasn't coming back.”

The words
wasn't coming back
stood out like a flashing neon sign as he made peace with what Wells was really telling him.

Under normal circumstances, Plato wouldn't need help, but Price had the advantage in that he'd gotten pretty good at skunking around in the weeds with snakes and slithering on his belly in the mud. He needed to be wrangled, for real. He needed to be herded like an animal to a place that made him easy to catch. Roman needed to keep an eye on him, both eyes. Plato would do the rest.

 

Let Us Wander

T
HE MEDIA HAD GONE
into a frenzy when they found out that Lucy's brother, Lawrence, had represented Marlowe at her bond hearing. He'd impressed the hell out of Marlowe with all that legal talk that made her sound like she was being railroaded into taking the fall for a man's murder simply because the local police force was stupid. But his argument fell on deaf ears since Quentin's second cousin was the presiding judge. Bail was set at $2 million.

“I don't know what's going on between you and my sister, and I don't want to know.” Lawrence handed her his business card as they prepared to take Marlowe back to her cell. “But call me if you need anything or have any questions.”

She nodded and humbly whispered, “Thank you.”

*   *   *

Marlowe lay curled up on her cot, knowing good and damn well she wasn't going to be able to come up with the money to make bail. But two hours later, it was made for her.

“Do you know who paid my bail?” she asked the clerk as she was being processed out.

“Sign here” was all the woman would say before handing Marlowe her things.

Marlowe's first thought was that Lawrence had paid it, but why would he? He didn't even know her, and he certainly didn't know her well enough to want to pay her bail. Shou and Belle didn't have that kind of money. Lucy? She doubted seriously that Lucy would've paid it either. But someone had done it, and because they had, Marlowe didn't have to spend another night in that jail, at least for now, and that's all that mattered.

*   *   *

Belle picked up Marlowe, who came out of the jail wearing the robe that Quentin had arrested her in, and drove her back to her house, but when Marlowe opened the front door, the negative energy was so overpowering that it nearly knocked her over.

“I can't,” she said, backing away with tears in her eyes. “I can't go in there, Belle.”

The last thing Marlowe had wanted to do was to bring her drama into Shou Shou's house, but that old woman was prepared, coming out onto the front porch as soon as she heard Belle's car pull up in front of her house. “I knew you was comin',” she said, smiling and ushering Marlowe inside.

Shou Shou's home smelled of lavender, mint, and eucalyptus incense. Sunlight seemed to flood in from every window, and Marlowe's mood immediately began to change. She felt lighter, more peaceful, and she took a deep breath and inhaled calm.

“I got fresh flowers in every room,” she said proudly. “Opened all the windows and cabinets and clapped and hollered 'til my throat hurt. Walked through each room with incense making the sign of King Solomon's five-pointed star. Even the foul mood you walked in here with don't stand a chance.”