by Emmy Grace
“I don’t think the word you’re looking for ends with a ‘z’,” Liam points out, to which I snort.
As if she’s just now seeing the way we’re holding each other, Regina pauses. “Was I interrupting?”
“Not at all,” I say, but I’m nodding my head YES, YES, YES!
Regina’s eyes dart from me to Liam and back again. Her lips then curve into a sheepish grin and she starts to back through the door. “The toilet can wait.”
I sigh.
It’s done now.
“No, never mind. It’s fine. Liam was just going to come in and get the tree decorations down from the attic while I run into town really quick.” When Liam’s head snaps toward me, I smile up at him. “Weren’t you?”
His eyes fall into slits that promise revenge before he agrees. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
“What do you have to go to town for?”
“You want to ride with me, and I’ll tell you?” I ask.
I hear Liam mumble, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I heard that,” Regina says.
“It’s fine,” I say again. “We don’t keep secrets. Besides, she’d find out soon enough anyway.”
Liam nods and heads inside as Regina steps the rest of the way out. She pauses for a long moment beside the toilet, which will probably forever color my memories of this place. I mean, a toilet on the porch.
That’s me. Lucky Boucher, bringing class back to town.
“What’s wrong?” I finally ask her.
“I’m just debating whether this is something I really want to know and how much trouble knowing is likely to get me into.”
“Yes, you do want to know, because you’re as nosey as me and not knowing will slowly eat you alive. And the answer to the second question is possibly a lot.”
Before she can respond, I grab her wrist and tug. “I hope you have your keys in your pocket.”
“I do, but my purse is inside. And my license is in it.”
She holds out a hand back toward the house, but I keep dragging her forward. “I can pretty much assure you that you won’t get arrested and thrown in jail for driving without your license in Salty Springs. Besides, there’s a good chance Clive made one phone call and is now taking a nap.”
“I thought you were driving,” she points out.
“You’re parked behind me. This is easier.”
Eventually she stops resisting. “Where are we going?”
“To the inn.”
At that, she digs in her heels. Literally.
“Oh no, I’m taken. Are you forgetting about Steven?”
“No, not for that,” I explain, waving her off. “We’re looking for a car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A 1972 Chevelle. Red. With black stripes.”
This time when I feel her pause, I know exactly what she’s reacting to.
“Surely that’s not…”
“Yep. I’m looking for Gavin’s car.”
“Why?”
“Because there might be something in it to explain why his dead body was dumped behind my house.”
She stiffens right as I get her to the driver’s side door of her car. I open it and try to nudge her inside, but she’s as rigid as a pretzel stick.
Which actually sounds quite delicious right now.
“Gavin is… He’s dead?”
Regina’s eyes are wide and slightly horrified.
“Yep.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know, but he was pretty fresh, so I’d say maybe last night. The M.E. will know more.” Again, I try to push her into the car, but until she loosens up, it ain’t happening.
“So, you’re telling me that your ex-boyfriend and the guy who tried to kidnap you showed up here in Salty Springs and is now dead and laying somewhere behind your house?”
“Great recap, now let’s go.”
This time, I put my hand on top of Regina’s head and do what I like to call the “perp bend” to get her into the car. I’ve never tried it before, but I’ve seen many a policeman use it on television. Surprisingly, it works.
Go figure.
When all her limbs are safely inside the vehicle, I shut the door and jog around to my side. By the time I’m buckled up and ready to go, Regina’s skin has taken on a sallow, almost green cast.
“I hated the guy, but still,” she says as she reaches to start the engine. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Regina shifts into reverse and backs carefully around the delivery van and out of the driveway. Before she puts it into drive, she turns hesitant eyes to me. “Do you know what happened to him? I mean, like was he shot or—”
“I know what you mean, and no. I don’t know for sure, but he smelled like burnt hair and pork rinds, and he was wrapped in Christmas lights, so I can give you an educated guess if you want it.”
“I’ll let the educated part of that comment go for now, but only because I’m concentrating on not throwing up.”
“You haven’t even seen the body!” I exclaim.
Usually Regina’s weak stomach only poses a problem when she sees something gruesome.
“No, but you paint quite the picture.”
I cringe. “Too much detail?”
“Let’s just say I’ll probably never eat meat again,” she says in a garbled voice as she shifts gears and accelerates down the road.
6
The Spring Water Inn is an enormous historic Charleston style house in creamy yellow. It has a carriage house like the one I live in, but it has various other buildings on the property, too. It’s more like a charming old compound. In fact, it’s so big that it takes up a whole corner lot where two streets intersect, which means there’s ample parking along the curb on two sides as well as the designated lot behind.
“Drive slow so we won’t arouse suspicion,” I tell Regina before the Inn comes into sight.
“You’re in the car. That’s automatic suspicion,” she replies. But still, she slows considerably.
She can’t be going more than four miles per hour as we drive along the front of the house, toward the stop sign. Unfortunately, Paul, the proprietor, is sitting on one of the white chairs on the porch, chatting with a guest. He looks up right as we crawl past.
“Oh my gosh, there’s Paul. Duck!” I hiss reflexively.
Without giving the words any more thought than I did before I said them, Regina does what I said, and she ducks down behind the wheel. Not only is that part inadvisable, but when she scrunches down, her foot presses too hard on the accelerator and we lurch forward with a loud squeal of tires.
“Regina!” I exclaim when we dart through the stop sign right into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
She pops up to take control of the car and slam on the brakes seconds before the widow Graves rolls right over us in her vintage Studebaker. That thing is made of at least one million tons of thick metal that would’ve flattened us if we hadn’t stopped.
Regina and I are both breathing heavily as we sit toward the middle of the intersection. Old Ms. Graves steers around us, frowning deeply as she passes. I lift a hand in apology and tell her sorry even though she can’t hear me. But whether she hears me or not, she responds. The little white-haired widow lifts a hand toward us, too. Only it’s not one of acceptance of my apology.
She’s flipping us the bird.
Our heads move in unison from right to left as we track the Studebaker passing us. When Ms. Graves is out of sight, Regina turns to look at me. Her jaw is as slack as mine.
“That sweet old lady flipped us the bird,” she says in amazement.
“She really flew it, too. I bet she has arthritis in every joint in her body except that one.”
We stare at each other in shock for a few more seconds before we dissolve into laughter.
“Guess we can check that off our bucket list,” I say when Regina makes a sharp right to get out of
the middle of the road. When she’s safely driving down the other street that fronts the inn, she reaches over and slaps my arm.
Hard.
“What were you thinking? Telling me to duck.”
I hold up my hands. “It was reflex. Why would you do it when you’re driving?”
“When someone says duck, I duck. That is reflex. Telling someone to duck when they’re driving is not.”
“I saw Paul and freaked. I figured you’d be humiliated if he saw you.”
“So, my car going by at turtle speed with no one behind the wheel is less humiliating?”
“Look at it this way. You didn’t want to hurt his feelings by blowing him off. Now he won’t even want to go out with you. Problem solved.”
I cross my arms over my chest, nodding and smiling in satisfaction.
“Remind me to never, ever let you solve my dating problems again.”
“The way things are going with you and McGruff, I won’t need to.”
As I expected, the mere mention of his name turns Regina’s mood from irritation to infatuation. “I hope you’re right. He’s so…so…” She gives up trying to describe his awesomeness and just sighs. Then she turns to me and asks, “You know what I mean?”
I can’t help grinning. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
And I do.
Liam.
Enough said.
There’s no sign of Gavin’s Chevelle on this street either, so I tap Regina’s arm. “Turn into the lot.”
“Do I have to? What if Paul comes out?”
“If he does, I’ll take care of him.”
“The last person you took care of is now dead behind your house. Maybe just stay out of this one.”
I turn a pout over to her. “Not fair.”
She gives a little eye roll. “Fine. Rescinded.”
“Better,” I announce, but it still stings a little.
If you get right down to it, I am the reason Gavin is dead. I didn’t do it, or have it done, or have anything to do with the actual commission of the crime, but I still feel somewhat responsible. He came here looking for me. Because I made the mistake of kissing him. The blessing did the rest, which made it no fault of Gavin’s. And while there’s never a good enough excuse to kidnap someone, I see it as him being under the influence of something pretty dang powerful.
And now he’s dead.
So, in a way, it is my fault.
“What?” Regina asks when she’s circled the lot once and is backing up to turn around.
“What what?”
“You’ve descended into deep thought. And that never means anything good. So, spill.”
“Gavin’s dead because of me,” I tell her in a small voice. “No matter how you slice it, the bottom line is that if it weren’t for me, he would be alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He came here looking for me. There’s no other way to slice that pie, Regina.”
“Who’s to say he wasn’t in some kind of trouble in Louisiana and it just caught up to him here? You can’t possibly know what happened until you solve the case.”
That makes me feel marginally better. “You’re right. There are dozens of other possibilities.”
“Maybe even hundreds,” she adds.
I give her a withering look. “Let’s not get ridiculous. He lived in Gator Cove, Louisiana. There’s only so much trouble anyone other than me can get into in a town that size.”
“I can’t really argue that,” she says, shifting into drive to exit the parking lot.
Before she can make it more than a few feet, a black sedan tears into the parking lot and skids to a sideways halt in front of us. In the passenger side window, I see the fuming and familiar face of Helen Rossdale.
Gavin’s mother.
She’s out the door before the dust from the gravel even settles.
“You murderess! You wicked, evil murderess. I knew you were trouble. Right from the start,” she keens, wobbling and tottering her way toward my window. Her words are a little slurred and I wonder if she’s drunk.
I don’t know what happened since we left the house, but it seems that word has gotten out—at least to these people—that Gavin is dead.
She lunges at the glass and I flinch back.
“I didn’t hurt him, Mrs. Rossdale,” I defend.
“You took him from the ones who loved him, and he was never the same. Look at his father. Look what this did to him!” She points back to the car and I follow her finger, gazing at the man behind the wheel. He’s watching me through the windshield with eyes that seem vacant. Gavin’s father is probably what most would call a “silver fox.” He’s a very handsome older man. Or at least he was. I’ll admit that he looks pretty haggard, especially in comparison to the robust man he used to be. Of course, he always did like the drink, too, so…
“I didn’t do anything to him. I swear.”
She pays me no attention, but simply continues with her indictments. “And his fiancée. You stole that poor girl’s future. The love of her life. How can you live with yourself? How?”
Mrs. Rossdale rails wildly as I sit, cowering like a cornered animal, in the car directly across from another pair of accusing eyes.
The woman in the backseat is obviously the fiancée to which Helen is referring. She’s a beautiful blonde with big doe eyes. She’d probably be pretty if it weren’t for the mascara streaks and the Rudolph-red nose. It’s obvious she’s been crying.
“I…I’m sorry for your loss, but I…I had nothing to do with Gavin’s death.”
Right before my eyes, every drop of color drains from Mrs. Rossdale’s face. Her lips part on her sharp inhale, and I’m instantly aware of my mistake.
Clearly, she has been referring to Gavin’s obsession with me, maybe assuming that he’d run away from them to follow me. She didn’t know he was actually dead.
Not until this very minute.
“Death? Gavin…he’s…he’s…”
Terrified eyes that are boring into mine grow dimmer and dimmer as they glaze over. Then, with fingertips squeaking eerily along the glass, Gavin’s mother sort of slithers to the ground and into unconsciousness like her legs were made of wax that, all of a sudden, started to melt.
I lean forward to watch her, forgetting that my window is up and smacking my forehead against the glass.
“Crap!” I spit, fumbling for the button to roll the window down. I lean out and look down. “Mrs. Rossdale, are you okay?”
Regina smashes my shoulder into the door as she practically climbs into my lap to look out at the fainted woman.
“Is she okay?”
“I’m assuming not, Regina,” I say, elbowing her back some.
“Ouch, that was my boob, you dingus.”
“That’s what you get for putting it on me.”
“I didn’t put it on you. I was leaning over.”
“Then you need to have a talk with those things because they were on me.”
“Lucky, the girl’s getting out,” she whispers frenetically.
My eyes dart over to the car just in time to see the fiancée climbing out and racing over to Mrs. Rossdale. For whatever reason, Mr. Rossdale is still sitting behind the wheel, staring blankly at me.
Yeah, he’s not in good shape.
The other blonde falls to her knees and takes Helen’s head in her hands, setting it on her lap and then patting Mrs. Rossdale’s cheeks. “Wake up, Helen. Wake up.”
Gavin’s mother makes a low moaning sound and her brow folds into a wrinkle. She starts crying before she even opens her eyes. “No, no, no. Nooooo.”
The fiancée turns her dark eyes on me, and they’re positively venomous. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done. You’ll pay.”
There is such coldness, such animosity in her eyes that I shrink back into my seat. I don’t doubt for one second that she means exactly what she says.
Yikes.
“Regina, maybe we should go,” I murmur quietly.
/>
“You’re just going to leave them?”
“Unless you want me to get them in the car and take them home for dinner then yes, I’m leaving them.”
“Okay. Whatever you say,” she says, pulling slowly away from the two women and edging her way around the car half blocking our way.
Mr. Rossdale watches us maneuver around him, never doing anything more than staring at us. I shudder.
Regina notices my reaction as she pulls out of the lot and back onto the street. “What?”
“He gives me the heebie jeebies.”
“All three of ‘em do me.” She shudders, too. “And what’s with Crazy Eyes? That was movie worthy threatening, wasn’t it?”
Crazy Eyes is evidently going to be the fiancée’s nickname. Very apropos, I must confess.
“I’d have applauded her performance if I hadn’t thought she’d stab me in the eye with her shoe.”
“You noticed her shoes?”
“Yeah, why?”
Regina shrugs. “No reason. That’s just usually not your thing.”
“I know. Weird, right? I just happened to look down at them when she got out of the car. They were super high, skinny stiletto type boots. Make great weapons.”
“Cute?”
“You’d like ‘em.”
“I’m glad I didn’t see them then. I can’t very well be wearing the same shoes as Crazy Eyes. That just wouldn’t be right.”
“Agreed.” We fall quiet and I’m lost in thought for a couple of minutes as we make our way back to my house. “We have to find out who did this,” I finally say.
“And fast, too. I think they’re out for blood.”
“Them and whoever killed Gavin.”
“Who’d ever think a sleepy little town like this could be so dangerous?”
“Not me,” I admit. “Not me.”
7
By the time we get back to the house, I’m even more rattled than I was at the inn. This is already getting way out of hand. Now the family knows Gavin is dead, and they think I did it. And I’m not dumb enough to think that they can’t be dangerous. People do crazy things when they’re grieving.
Crazy, crazy things.
When I get out of Regina’s car, my legs are shaky.