The Spia Family Presses On (14 page)

Then right when I should have been feeling perfectly content, reality snuck in to change the mood.

I hated when that happened.

“You know this can’t work between us,” I said. “We’re two different people. Besides, I don’t drink anymore, and don’t want to start up again. Having a winemaker for a boyfriend doesn’t exactly help my cause.”

His legs brushed mine. “Can’t we just take this one date at a time? No commitment.”

“See, that’s where I get all messed up. No commitment means other people, and other people means I’ll get jealous, and when I get jealous because I’ve fallen for you again, I’ll start drinking and if I start drinking again, well, it’s enough to give me a headache, especially with everything else going on.”

“Mia, I’m telling you I’m not like that anymore. You have to trust me on this.”

The real problem was I couldn’t trust myself, but at the moment, I felt too content to argue. I simply wanted to go to bed.

Alone.

But before I sent him on his contented way with the possibility of us coupling up again, I needed to ask him about what I saw that afternoon out on his porch. Our future rested on his answer. “So, what’s up with you and Dickey?”

His forehead creased. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what was the argument about?”

“Excuse me?”

His eyes darted to the candle. The man was giving off lie signals right and left. Didn’t he realize what he was doing?

“Come on. Come clean about this. I was passing the vineyard today and I saw you and Dickey out on your porch, arguing.”

He stared at me for a moment, as if he had to think about his answer. A stalling tactic he’d used before.

“I don’t know who you saw out there, but it wasn’t me. I’ve been in meetings all day and as far as Dickey being at my place, I never saw the man.”

“You’re lying,” I told him.

He smiled, and gazed down at the bubbly water. I expected our usual argument, but instead he said, “As pleasant as this has been, I need to go now.”

He stood and I watched the water infused with oil glide down his perfect body. He grabbed a towel, dried off, picked up his clothes and left the room.

This was a new tactic on his part: lying combined with complete avoidance. I wondered how long he would keep this new game up.

I stood and stepped out of the tub, drying off with a plush white towel, my body all smooth from the oil. I pulled on my flannel jammies with the giant red flowers and padded out to the living room.

“Tell you what,” he said, now dressed except for a shirt. Just the sight of that chest made me want to start all over again, despite his illusive behavior, but instead I bravely walked past him to the door and unlocked it. “I’ll see you at the Martini Madness ball and you can either talk to me or not. Either way, I won’t regret what just happened, but if you want a relationship, you’ll have to start believing me. We’ll take it slow. You can build up your trust. This is your game now, kitten. You can play it however you want to. If you want to. ‘Cause it’s not looking too promising at the moment.”

He gave my pajamas the once over, grinned, slipped on his shirt and opened the door. He leaned over and brushed my lips with a gentle kiss. It was just enough to make me crave him even more.

I watched Leo amble down the stairs before I slipped into my marshmallow-soft bed, covered my head with my white down blanket and told myself not to think of the man or I’d never fall asleep. The man was a continual menace to my otherwise comfortable life. And what made it even worse, he was hiding something from me about Dickey.

What was that all about?

Normally, I had no problem coping with my temporary celibacy and lack of alcohol. I’d come to look at it as a phase I was going through. That one day I would be enjoying men and wine again only in a sane way. At least that’s what my last shrink said. For some reason, I wasn’t seeing the vision in my future.

Especially after tonight.

The man’s lack of an answer to my question just proved that I was incapable of getting the truth out of him. The very fact that I didn’t push him on it was due to my complete lack of courage when it came to Leo. But why would he not answer me? What was he hiding? In the past, he would toss me some elaborate lie, but this time he said nothing. That was clearly more disturbing considering I was asking about a missing murder victim.

I turned on my side, fluffed my pillow, shifted my legs to a more comfortable fetal position, stared through my curtainless window at the night sky filled with stars, and forced myself to think of my favorite sleep inducer
—
uses for olive oil:

It preserves and cleans cutting boards. It’s great to push back cuticles, and it softens the rough spots on your feet. It’s a great suntan oil. It can sooth my chapped lips. A few drops will suffocate a tick. It works as a mosquito repellant, not to mention the great effect it has on dry skin in general. Olive oil has been known to lower blood pressure. It decreases blood sugar levels, helps prevent calcium loss and promotes cellular growth. Olive oil sooths sunburn pain, or is that vinegar? Anyway, it will help with a bee sting, and it will relieve my sore throat when I warm it and . . .

I was asleep before I could think of cleaning solutions.

I kept hearing a bird chirping off in the distance. Wait, not a bird exactly, more like a cat with laryngitis. No, it was definitely a bird. A sick bird. I opened my eyes a little and realized morning had erupted, and for the first time in months, I had slept right through the night.

Slowly the bird sound became stronger, along with a faint scent of blackberries. I tilted my head to get a better whiff, but the scent had been so faint that I couldn’t really smell it anymore.

As my mind began to clear out of the night’s fog, making love to Leo in the shower flashed up on my memory screen. I smiled and snuggled down under the covers while facing the window, realizing my lover was in bed with me. I rolled over to give him a luscious wake-up kiss when Lisa jumped up and dashed out of my bed. I moved away, suddenly remembering that Leo never crawled in bed with me, Lisa had, and thank God I was wearing my best flannel pajamas. I didn’t remember exactly how I ended up in my pajamas, but that was beside the point.

The bird I’d heard was Lisa’s now-working miracle phone.

“Hello,” she cooed into the phone, sensual excitement skipping off of each syllable. I figured whoever was on the other end of the call must be thinking that Lisa was thrilled to hear from them. Little did they know she was simply thrilled that her phone seemed to be working, despite its oil bath.

She giggled, a high-pitched girly giggle. What was that all about? Was a working phone that exciting to her?

She whispered something I didn’t catch, giggled a bit more, ended the call and fell back on the bed next to me, grinning up at the ceiling. And not just any old grin, this was more in the category of gleeful grinning, the kind that eventually causes cheek aches.

“At least your phone is working,” I said, looking over at her, watching for any tells that she might know about Leo coming up to my apartment last night. I couldn’t see any. If she did know, it was only a matter of time before she’d let me have it, with both barrels.

“I bet you’re happy about that,” I offered, wanting her to volunteer who was on the other end of that call.

She nodded then turned toward me, scrunching her pillow under her head, tugging on the covers, grinning. Apparently, Lisa was in a good mood.

“What? Tell me,” I begged. “Did your publisher call with a million dollar deal? Are you going to be on Oprah? Are they making a movie out of one of your books? Tell me.”

She giggled again. I scrunched my pillow under my head and faced her, joining in on her contagious laughter.

It had been a long time since Lisa and I shared a bed. When we were little we’d have sleepovers all summer long. We’d never get any sleep, way too much to talk and laugh about in those days. We had endless conversations, and when we weren’t talking about someone or something, Lisa would make up stories, long lavish stories about kids living on other planets or kids with special powers. I couldn’t count how many times I fell asleep listening to her lulling voice telling me about Zoey the goddess warrior, or Princess Omni, the last female demon slayer on Ozark, a planet on the other side of the universe.

“It was Nick,” she said. “But you’re not going to like what he said.”

My chest instantly tightened as reality came rushing in.

“Oh God! What did he say? No. Don’t tell me. I can’t take any bad news. I mean, what if Dickey pops up somewhere and Nick still has that gun. I bet you anything he already ran a ballistic check on it. This could get really ugly.”

I sat up, turned slightly and looked at her. Her expression hadn’t changed. Something was up, and it couldn’t be bad. “Why are you still smiling? This has to be good. Right? Okay. You can tell me. We don’t have any secrets.”

Lie. No way could I tell her about Leo and me. Her expression changed. She stopped giggling, but the smile still clung to her lips. “Okay. So it’s not good news. Those were nervous giggles, right? Like when we were caught smoking in the locker-room and Sister Marian Joseph made us stay after school and wait for our mothers to come and fetch us so she could personally tell them of our evil deeds. You kept laughing that day, too. Did Nick find Dickey? He ran ballistics and the bullet matches the gun and he’s on his way over to pick up my mom or me or all three of us. I knew this was going to happen. I should have never let him take that weapon. We’re in for it now. We could spend the rest of our lives in jail. You won’t care. You’ll just write more books: Surviving Prison or Surviving Bad Girls. Mom will adjust, she adjusts to anything. But me? I’ll die in jail, all that tasteless food, and confinement, not to mention those bad-ass biker chicks. I never could get along with biker women. You may as well just shoot me right now, because I’ll die if I go to jail.”

I flopped down on the bed, exhausted by my own outburst.

“Are you done ranting?” she asked.

I nodded and braced for the worst.

She stared at me for a moment longer, the smile never leaving her face.

“This isn’t funny. Jail time is serious business. Just ask my family.”

“You’re overreacting. Take a deep breath. Relax. Close your eyes for a minute. Wait to hear what I have to say before you decide we’re jail bait.”

I did as I was told, but there was still a little part of my mind that saw us in bright orange jumpsuits lifting weights out in a cement courtyard alongside buffed, mean-looking women with tattoos that said Eat Me!

When I opened my eyes, she was still smiling.

I thought I’d go with it and take a different approach. “You’re smiling so I’m going to assume it’s good news. Nick’s coming over with the gun. He believes your ridiculous story about research and wants to drive you to a firing range for target practice.”

She shook her head.

“Whaaa-aat?” I whined. “Tell me before my head explodes.”

“Okay. But I know you’ll hate it, especially after all that’s happened. I just can’t help myself. I tried, honest, but this is bigger than my willpower, and you know how strong my willpower is.”

This was true. I was the binge drinker. Lisa was the designated driver.

“Just tell me!”

She let out a breath. “Nick asked me to the Martini Madness Ball tomorrow tonight.”

“Get out. You wouldn’t go with him, right? Or would you?”

I didn’t quite know how to react to this news.

“Last night, while you were taking a shower to get rid of all that oil, Nick helped me clean up my car, and I helped him clean off his shoes. Anyway, one thing led to another and, well, he’s a total babe, so I gave him my phone number.”

“But your phone was oil bound at the time.”

“I know, but in the heat of the moment I forgot.”

This was serious. Lisa never forgot anything.

“He’s a detective with the Sheriff’s Department and we’re witnesses in a murder case. Not only did we tamper with the evidence, the body is missing, and the killer tried to frame my mom, and Nick more than likely has the murder weapon that we provided. I don’t care how much of a babe he is, until we can figure all this out, he’s trouble . . . several-years-in-the-slammer type of trouble. Bad-ass biker chick kind of trouble.”

She sat up, and folded her legs under her butt. “That’s not entirely true. I mean let’s review the facts. Your cousin Dickey has been murdered, but the body has gone missing, and as long as it’s missing there’s no murder, at least not according to the law.”

“You and I know there’s been a murder, not to mention my entire family. And we also know that somebody in my family probably knocked him off, and tried to pin it on my mom.”

“But do we actually know this as a fact or are we simply speculating because we found her gun near the body. Who knows how long that gun could have been there?”

“Not long enough. I’d just seen it in her jewelry armoire a few hours before Dickey was killed. That has to be the murder weapon. And what about her bracelet?”

“As long as the police don’t get it, it’s a non issue.”

“But I can’t get it out of my head that she wasn’t wearing a bracelet later in the evening when we all went back into the barn. For all I know, she really is the killer. Wait. Did I just say that?”