With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) (19 page)

TWENTY-NINE

“This is quite a coincidence,” I said, my voice shaking. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Madison. We met at the pool.”

“Of course I remember you,” he said. He held out his hand and I shook it. He leaned in and said, “I’m the reason you got the job back.”

I straightened up. “How’s that?” I asked.

“I heard her and her husband arguing about their choice of decorators. He wanted you out but she wanted you here. After what happened to her, he’d agree to just about anything to cheer her up. I took a chance that there weren’t many women named Madison who specialized in mid-century modern interiors, so I told her you were the best and she should rehire you. And then I added that she should bring me on board to make sure the job got done to her specifications.”

“I have my own contractor,” I said. “Hudson James.” Out front, Hudson pulled up behind my Alfa Romeo. “That’s him now.”

“Like Cleo said, the more the merrier.” Jake stood in the middle of the room, shirt off, jeans on. Safety glasses were pushed up on top of his head.

“Are you sawing in here?” I kept my voice steady even though my insides were dancing like teenagers on
American Bandstand
. I didn’t want to be alone with Jake. I didn’t want Cleo to be alone with Jake. I didn’t know what he was capable of, and I didn’t want to find out.

“Why not? You’re going to demo that wall, right? So the whole place is going to need to be cleaned when we’re done.”

“Yes, but we need a path from the front door to the great room. When we demo the glass wall, we’ll partition off the rest of the house so we’ll make less mess. You’re going to have to go outside.”

“Sure, okay.” He took the glasses off the top of his head and stuck them into the back pocket of his jeans. He unplugged the saw and lugged it out back.

I went out the front door and met Hudson halfway. Before he could say anything, I told him about Jake.

“You don’t like him,” Hudson said when I was done.

“I don’t
trust
him.” I told Hudson about the verbal assault the first day I’d met Jake at the pool, and how he’d followed me to my car and checked out the board with color streaks from Paintin’ Place. I didn’t have to find the piece of wood to remember that Mitchell had left a sticker with his store name and address on the bottom. “Now he’s taking credit for getting me back on this job, but really he used me to get work for himself.”

“There’s something else bothering you about him, isn’t there?”

“Tex arrested him for holding a woman against her will several years ago. There was a shootout and the woman died. The district attorney couldn’t make the case stick and Jake went free. He moved to Arizona,” I said.

“But now he’s back in Dallas. When did he show up?”

“Right around the time the first body was found. He knew about my affiliation with Paintin’ Place, and Cleo was abducted in the parking lot in front of that store. And now he’s here in her home. She’s probably not recovered from the whole experience. I have no idea why she’s so trusting, but she is.” I pulled the hardhat off of my head and set it on the floor. “I need to talk to her about this. She needs to know I have no experience working with that man.”

I went outside and found Cleo lounging on her chair with a fresh mimosa in her hand. The portable TV was on a small tulip table in front of her, and Rocky and Daisy were resting on the concrete next to her.

“Cleo, where’s Jake?” I asked.

“He’s setting up the drill in the garage. Do you need to talk to him?”

“No, I need to talk to you.”

“Sure, hon, what’s on your mind?” She waved toward the other chaise and I sat down.

“Jake might have misrepresented his relationship with me.”

“Honey, you don’t have to explain anything.”

“No, Cleo, I don’t think you understand. I met him three days ago, and it wasn’t a particularly nice first meeting.”

She tipped her head to the side and her red hair cascaded over one shoulder. “Oh?”

“This isn’t about me. Jake has a history with the law. He wasn’t found guilty of anything, but you went through something pretty horrible recently, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be so agreeable about a stranger coming into your house.”

Cleo leaned forward and rested one elbow on her thigh with her hand cupping her chin.

“Honey, I’m not exactly sure what happened between the two of you, but Jake is my baby brother. I know all about why he moved to Arizona, but we’re the reason he’s here now. After I came home from the hospital, Dan asked him to move into the spare room so I wouldn’t feel so alone.”

If I hadn’t been about to operate heavy machinery, I would have asked Cleo to pour me one of whatever she was drinking. Instead, I forced a smile onto my face and let her have her laugh. There was no way to describe how glad I was that Jake had already been relegated to the garage. If he’d have seen that exchange, I might have to quit and refund the Tyler money out of sheer embarrassment.

I rejoined Hudson in the living room. The unasked question of how it went was written on his face. I put my hand up, palm side out. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I picked up the hardhat and squashed it down on my head. Before Hudson could say another word, I took a rubber mallet and swung it at a concrete block that sat on the floor. The mallet bounced off the concrete without doing any damage.

“Demoing this wall would be more of an outlet,” Hudson said. He held a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other.

“I don’t think you want to let me loose on that wall right now.”

“It has to come down, right?”

We took the next half hour to frame out our work space with sheets of brown butcher paper from a construction roll taped to the ceiling and floor. After we’d created temporary walls around us, we used more paper to line the floor. Once the cocoon was complete, Hudson drilled a couple of holes into the mortar around the top left glass block. Next he tapped at the mortar with a chisel and hammer.

“Your turn. Break that glass block. It’s going to feel good, but if we do this the right way, it’s the only one you’re going to get to break. I’m not sure you can control your destructive impulses at the moment.” He grinned.

“Let me at ’em, let me at ’em,” I said, winding up my fists like the cowardly lion pretending to take on the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Put on your safety glasses, gloves, and ear plugs and then give it your best shot.”

I climbed up on the top step of a two step ladder and tapped the hammer against the block a few times to get a feel for it. After three taps, I put a little more energy into it. The block imploded into a thousand pieces. The hammer got caught in the remaining jagged glass edges.

I tapped against those that protruded up, knocking them inside with the others. When I’d cleared most of them, I looked down at Hudson.

“Done like a pro,” he said.

“Are you sure we don’t need to demolish all of them?”

“I’m sure.” He handed me a chisel. “Tap the mortar around the block you broke until it feels loose. Once we get that block out, we should be able to take down the rest of the wall block by block.”

It was a good thing I had Hudson with me. In my current frame of mind, I would have shattered all three hundred and sixty blocks. His calming instructions would save three hundred and fifty-nine of them that could be resold to another contractor.

I tapped the end of the chisel this time, more gently than I’d smashed the glass block. Soon I felt the mortar shift. When it was loose enough, I used my gloved fingers to dig away at the joint to free it and then lifted out the remaining scraps. I handed them down to Hudson and he put it in a black industrial garbage bag.

“Now follow the mortar joint across the top row. You should be able to loosen each block and lift them out one by one.”

It was slow going, but it worked. I felt the sweat pour down from under my hardhat, down my neck, and under the coveralls. Dust from the mortar stuck to me. For the first time in days, the only thing on my mind was the project in front of me, not the missing women, not Tex’s troubles, not the paint names for Paintin’ Place, not what to do with the apartment building. Ah, the Zen of renovation. Forget
Eat, Pray, Love
. The title of my book would be
Eat, Swim, Demolish.

Halfway down the wall, Hudson and I traded places. I handed him the chisel and the hammer.

“It’s your turn now. Take your best shot.”

“I’m saving my best shot for later,” he said, and smiled. I smiled back. He took the tools and picked up where I’d left off.

I’d forgotten how well Hudson and I worked in tandem. When the last of the glass blocks were down, I used the industrial vacuum to suck up the residual dust and glass that might have fallen. Hudson tore down the paper walls and balled up the drop cloth. We’d been so absorbed in the project that neither of us noticed Dan standing in the room behind us. His lips moved but I couldn’t hear what he said. Hudson pulled off his headphones and I remembered the ear plugs. I pulled them out.

“Have you been standing there long?” I asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Long enough,” he said. “You two are quite the team. When Cleo said this wall had to come down, I couldn’t stop thinking about people living in glass houses and throwing stones.”

“There’s not a whole lot that can’t be accomplished with a little TLC,” I said. I cut a glance to Hudson. Dan didn’t miss it.

“Madison, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure. Hudson…?”

“I’ll start stacking these blocks in the truck.”

I stepped over the pile of tools on the floor and followed Dan down the hallway and out the back door. “Is something wrong?”

“I wanted to apologize for firing you. Truth is, I was sure that police lieutenant had something to do with what happened to Cleo, and your friendship with him put me over the edge. But now Cleo tells me that you were worried about Jake being here.”

“Dan, nobody would blame you for being angry about what happened.”

“When Cleo was in the hospital, she said you told her Lt. Allen took a bullet for you. Maybe he is a good cop, if there is such a thing. I’ll never like the police, not after how I saw my brother change after he joined the force. He was dead inside before that accident ever happened—that’s why he drank so much. Couldn’t deal with what he saw every day. After he died, I joined a support group for families of police officers, but considering the circumstances, they shunned me. When I heard about Cleo, I wanted blood.”

I looked across the pool at Cleo, who was holding a toy above Rocky and Daisy’s head. The two dogs stood on hind legs trying to get at it. She tossed the toy into the yard and flipped her long red hair over her barely covered shoulder while they raced away.

“Madison, my wife hasn’t been faithful to me for our entire marriage, and she isn’t the type of woman to keep her indiscretions to herself.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? That she’s unfaithful?”

“Sure, it bothers me. It makes me damn near crazy. But I love her, and I’d do almost anything for her.” He pushed his hand up through his crew cut. “I was almost happy she was abducted. That was the first time in years she needed me to come to her rescue.”

The idea that Dan Tyler could think of his wife’s abduction as anything other than what it was made me ill. I smiled weakly. “I’m sure it will take a while before she can fully recover.”

“I’m counting on that,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. He watched her talk to Hudson by the pool while Daisy and Rocky ran around their feet. “Excuse me,” he said. He left me by the back doors and approached the two of them. He put his arm around Cleo in a territorial manner. Even from a distance of fifteen feet, I saw her flinch with the contact.

Something was off about Dan. What he’d said felt practiced, like he’d rehearsed a speech to deliver to me so I’d understand his animosity. I couldn’t blame him for how he felt after losing his brother, but he wasn’t laying any of the responsibility on George for driving under the influence or causing the death of two innocent girls. It was as if he’d absolved his brother from any ownership of the actions that had led to his death.

With Jake in the garage and Cleo, Dan, and Hudson out back, I went further into the house. The scope of my decorating job included everything in the house save for the master bedroom, but now hardly seemed the time to concern myself with floor plans and rooms off limits.

The door to the bedroom was closed. I turned the knob and eased myself inside. The bed had been made in a haphazard manner, pajamas tossed onto the pillows on top of the blanket. An iPad sat on one nightstand, a sound machine sat on the other. A small dog bed was next to the side of the bed, and I recognized Daisy’s toys in the center of it.

I moved to the closet and slid the mirrored doors to the left. Diaphanous pool cover-ups and a collection of jersey wrap dresses filled that side. I slid the closet doors to the right and found Dan’s business suits. Nothing unexpected. I started to slide the doors shut when something unusual caught my eye. I reopened the closet and looked at the garment hanging behind the business suits.

A dark blue policeman’s uniform.