Third Time Lucky: Volume 1 (The Coxwells)

by Deborah Cooke

  “I’ll let you out, right after I tell you about a little something about footprints. You’re kidding yourself if you think you can skate through life without leaving an impression of your passing.”

  “Or your fingerprints in a file.”

  I ignored that. “Do you really think that no one has any memories of you in Rosemount? I’ve got a few and they’re not up for erasure, thanks very much.” He turned and watched me, but I played the inscrutable one for a change. “You set my life on another course twice, by something you said or something you did, and I don’t regret a bit of it.”

  “This must make three,” he said, his voice a lot less tight.

  “Well, the third time’s the charm, right?”

  He didn’t smile. “Do you regret my looking you up this time?”

  I stopped at a red and turned to look at him. “No. Do you?”

  He smiled. “No.” Then he frowned and looked away, drumming his fingers on the car door. “I’m just concerned that you’ll be drawn in deeper than you should be.”

  “Maybe I don’t care.”

  He flicked a hot glance at me. “Maybe you should.”

  “Why? Because the Sullivan boys are trouble?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Well, I beg to differ. In fact, I’m starting to think just the opposite.”

  I had his attention now. He was so engrossed in watching me that he didn’t even notice that I turned onto the highway to Rosemount.

  “How so?”

  “Well, think about it. The first time we met, you helped me pick myself up.”

  “You mean I cleaned up Sean’s mistake.”

  “Call it what you want. It was important to me and I’ll never forget it. The second time, you had enough faith in me to encourage me to buck my family’s expectations.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the second time.”

  “Because that’s what’s at the root of this?”

  He didn’t answer that, but then, he didn’t really need to. His fingers will still drumming, but his eyes were very green. “And the third time?” That smile toyed with his lips. “How are you going to pull something good out of this, Phil?”

  “Easy.” I grinned at him. “You satisfied my curiosity.”

  Oops. Now he’d want to know about what. The cat was out of the proverbial bag.

  Me and my big mouth. I drove, feigning tremendous concentration.

  “How?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He was way too interested and I was pretty sure I’d said too much already.

  “Sure it does.”

  “Well, you didn’t do it by answering any questions, that’s for sure.” I decided not to try a different tack. “You know, I think you could be my lucky charm.”

  He chuckled then and shook his head. “Fat chance.”

  Inspiration struck in a timely fashion. I snapped my fingers. “You showed up and we went into the black, that’s what happened the third time. How could that not turn things in a better direction? All these years I wondered whether we could make it work and now I know for sure.”

  I had a heartbeat to think he was convinced before he leaned across the great divide and touched my chin. “Curiosity about what, Phil?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re blushing.”

  “Just whether the business would ever fly.” It sounded more like a question than a statement, which must have been why he shook his head.

  “You knew it would or you wouldn’t have stuck with it. What were you curious about?”

  “I think it’s time I let you go without an answer on something.” His fingertip slid along my jaw line and I know he noticed how I swallowed. I was thinking about those fingertips wandering a little further south and had to focus hard on the road ahead. “Maybe it’s also time you hopped into the back seat.”

  His finger halted, he turned away and then he sat back in his seat. “Why are we going to Rosemount?”

  Oddly enough, there was no sense of victory in having surprised him this time. “Because I know something you don’t.”

  “Are you going to tell me that?”

  His words echoed with humor and I glanced over to find his eyes glinting with amusement. “There was a brandy glass on the kitchen counter.”

  He sobered immediately. “Lucia doesn’t drink, as a matter of principle.”

  “So, I was right to think that maybe Sean decided to have a sample of something better, on the house, before he left.”

  “And there will be evidence he was there. Good thinking, Phil.” He touched my shoulder, then climbed into the back seat. His butt was too close to be ignored, so I pinched it and smiled when he yelped.

  “I’ll get you for that.”

  I met his gaze in the rear view mirror and sighed theatrically. “Promises, promises.”

  He smiled the smile of a dragon checking on lunch.

  Chapter Nine

  I had a plan.

  What’s more, Nick approved of it.

  Things were definitely on a roll. I parked in Lucia’s driveway, liking how it was getting darker. That hadn’t been part of my scheme but it meshed very nicely. Nick wished me luck in a whisper as I got out of the Beast.

  Keeping to my cover from earlier in the day, I went to Lucia’s door and rang the bell.

  There was, of course, no answer. I rang again, giving my best impression of someone stood up and displeased about it. I rang once more, looking around with a bit more impatience.

  Mrs. Donnelly’s curtain moved. Ha! I had her.

  I headed right over to her door and used the brass door knocker. She didn’t answer until the second time, then peered around the door with suspicion.

  Evelyn Donnelly was probably in her sixties, a pinch-faced woman whose lips were always tightly pursed. Her eyes were so narrowed that no one could have guessed what color they were. If she ever had smiled, no one remembered the event.

  And there was no evidence left on her face. She’s always lived there alone, as far as I remembered, and always had extraordinary an number of cats.

  I smiled broadly. “Hi, Mrs. Donnelly. You may not remember me, but I’m Philippa Coxwell.”

  A cat wound around her ankles and mewled plaintively. “I remember you.”

  I offered one of my cards with a flourish. “I hate to bother you, but I was just on my way to my parents’”—an inspired embellishment and one that would ensure the gossip grapevine didn’t track my movements—“and I thought I’d try again to get hold of your neighbor.” I sighed. “You see, I had an appointment with Lucia Sullivan this morning but she wasn’t here.”

  Mrs. Donnelly fingered the card as she eyed me. “I saw you this morning.”

  “So, I just thought I’d try her house again, but there’s still no one there. I was wondering whether you knew where she was.”

  She picked up the cat, holding it before herself like a shield. “Lucia Sullivan hardly reports to me.”

  “Well, I know, but on a quiet street like this, it’s hard to not notice things once in a while.” I stepped deliberately into her line of vision to Lucia’s porch and willed Nick to run for it. “Have you seen Lucia today? You know, just coming or going?”

  Mrs. Donnelly shook her head firmly. “I haven’t seen her. Not that I would be looking or anything.”

  “Of course not! But Lucia is such a striking woman that she’d be hard to miss.”

  Mrs. Donnelly sniffed. “You can say that again.”

  “But, it’s just the oddest thing. She was so definite about the time. She didn’t strike me as a person who wouldn’t keep an appointment.”

  “She’s a person who would do whatsoever she wanted, everyone else be damned.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Mrs. Donnelly glowered at me. “I suppose since you’re a garden person you’re here about that greenhouse. Is she going to build it illegally? I’ll fight her all the way to the Supreme Court, you tell her that!”
<
br />   Playing dumb seemed the way to go. “But there already is a greenhouse. Why would anyone build another one?”

  “She wants to make it bigger, as if you don’t know all about it.” Mrs. Donnelly tried to close the door, but I was ready for her, my foot over the threshold.

  Nick hadn’t had nearly enough time to get in and out. I needed to stall.

  I smiled sweetly. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m supposed to update the exterior landscaping, and my goodness, but it does seem to need it.”

  Mrs. Donnelly snorted. “It’s a disgrace is what it is. She’s dragging down the property values of the entire street with all those dead beds. It doesn’t look so bad now, but you wait until summer when everyone else has lovely flowers. She shouldn’t be allowed to do that. There ought to be a law.”

  “Well, I guess she must agree with you, because she called me. How strange that she didn’t keep our appointment.” I frowned with apparent concern. “Have you seen her this week at all?”

  “No. But then, I seldom do. Its’ not like I’m watching or anything”

  “Of course not. Why a woman like you must have a thousand other things to do.”

  “Exactly.” She opened the door slightly. “What are you going to do to that garden?”

  “Well, actually, this is something that I should talk to you about. I was thinking that a lovely hedge would really show off the house, but of course, when it runs down the property line, it’s nice to ensure the neighbors think it’s a good idea. What do you think?”

  “How big of a hedge?”

  Fortunately, I had found some books in the back of the Beast. I juggled the three of them, then shivered elaborately. I looked at the light fixture in her hall ceiling. “Oh, that light will be so much better for you to see.” Without waiting for an invitation, I pushed into the foyer, barely avoiding the tail of one of her cats.

  The house stank of felines, and not particularly clean ones. The carpet might have been any color at all—it was so thick with the hair shed by her beloved creatures that you couldn’t see the wool any more. There were glinting pairs of eyes in every shadow, all fixed upon me.

  I cheerfully opened the book and pointed to a red barberry bush. “There, wouldn’t that look splendid? It would grow about four feet high.”

  “It’s got thorns!” Mrs. Donnelly nestled her cat closer. “You can’t put that up. My cats will hurt themselves.” The one she held looked mean enough to fend for itself against a mere shrub.

  “Oh. I hadn’t realized they went outside. What about a nice boxwood?”

  “Got to be trimmed.” She shook her head grimly. “There’d be people on my side all the time, stepping on things, bothering me, disturbing my babies.” She eased the cat to the floor despite its complaints and snatched the book. I was more than happy to help her find her glasses, no less to wait patiently while she pawed through the book for a plant that suited her.

  Go, Nick, go.

  * * *

  It took her fifteen minutes to choose and by then, we were the best of pals. One of her big Himalayans had crept down the stairs to rub itself against my ankles and a cross-eyed Siamese watched me fixedly from its perch on the stairs. The Persian she had put down sat by her feet and continued to complain at her neglect.

  Mission accomplished.

  I waved a merry good bye and climbed into the Beast, then turned to ostensibly chuck the books in the back seat. I fully expected a green-eyed devil to wink at me in triumph.

  But there was no one there.

  Which meant that Nick hadn’t made it back yet.

  I froze for a moment, uncertain what to do. How long could it take the man to collect one brandy snifter? Had he skipped out on me?

  Or had something gone wrong?

  Think, Philippa, think. Nick had told Josie that I’d know where he was, which left the latter option. I looked at the house, which wasn’t going to share any of its secrets with me, and worried.

  Mrs. Donnelly waved from her doorway, clearly intending to wait until I drove away. I started the engine because I didn’t seem to have many other options, then let it idle good and long while I stared at Lucia’s house.

  There wasn’t a single sign of life. Not a curtain moved, not a shadow flickered past the windows. Certainly no hunk of man waved madly from the doorway for me to wait up.

  What had happened to Nick?

  I had a very bad feeling and I know well enough not to ignore those things.

  But I waved to Mrs. Donnelly and backed out of the driveway as though I hadn’t a care in the world, my mind churning all the while. It was falling dark, but I couldn’t exactly return unnoticed in a noisy monster like the Beast. I reached the end of the street and turned on to the main drag before I had an idea.

  I couldn’t return unnoticed from the front.

  Lucia’s property ran all the way to the shore. And there was a service road that ambled along the coast, running north toward Rosemount. It didn’t go all the way to town, but it might even go to the back of Lucia’s lot. Or close enough to suit.

  It was worth a try. I pulled a U-turn and headed south of town.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, I’d parked at the end of the road and inched my way toward the hulk of Lucia’s house. I stubbed my toe more than once in the darkness but didn’t seem to have attracted any undue suspicion. It was a windy night and the trees were rattling their branches restlessly. The air was damp, as though a storm might be coming in, the clouds scuttled across the sky.

  As I got closer, the contrast between Lucia’s house and the others on the block was more noticeable. First of all, hers was bigger, and much less better tended. I couldn’t discern any gardens or even shrubbery, which was a shame since she must have great sunlight.

  But more significantly, every house had a light or two shining out into the darkness, except the Sullivan place. I could see Mrs. Donnelly in her kitchen, telling her cats some story while they sat on the counter and waited for num nums from Mama’s fingies. Golden light spilled from the windows of houses further along, shadows periodically moving across them as people went about their lives.

  But the Sullivan house stood apart, as well as silent and dark. I thought of one reason the family might have bought it—you could have anchored a boat here and run all sorts of stuff up to the house without anyone being the wiser. The land was so rugged and rife with hiding spots, that even if someone did try to intercept things, they could be evaded. I wished belatedly that I had something warmer than my suit jacket.

  It was only when I stood in the shadows at the back of Lucia’s house that I had a most unwelcome thought. What if she didn’t show the same disregard for locking the back of the house as the front?

  That seemed to open the floodgates of negative thinking. What if Nick had left while I’d been bashing up my toes and a pair of flats? What if I never knew what happened inside?

  Enough of that. I forced myself to remember that Dame Fortune was on my side and darted around the greenhouse. There was another door to the kitchen, one that opened onto that back patio. The fairy lights were still in the tree overhead, though they weren’t lit. The loose plug dangled near the wall, the wind slapping it against the brick. I looked up and the tree branches seemed to form an ominous web overhead, one that held the stars captive.

  I shivered and tried the door.

  Merciful heavens, but it was unlocked.

  I stepped inside, shivered and rubbed my arms as I leaned back against the closed door. At least the house was warm.

  Once inside, I realized that there was a light on, its glow casting a light into the kitchen. There were drapes on the windows, not great ones but evidently thick enough to disguise the light. I guessed that Lucia liked her privacy.

  The empty brandy snifter gleamed from its perch on the counter. I took a step closer, intending to pick it up even as I wondered how to not muck up any fingerprints on it.

  And then I heard the music. />
  It was faint, as though it came from a distance. I listened and could only discern that it was a woman’s voice.

  No, a recording of a woman’s voice. The sound quality was scratchy, as though it came from a very old record or a vinyl one that had been listened to many, many times.

  I know enough about opera to recognize it when I hear it, but that’s about it. I crept down the hall toward the source of both light and music, and that’s where I found him.

  Nick was sitting in an old red leather armchair, his fingers tented together and his eyes closed. He was so perfectly still that he could have been struck to stone. There was only one light on in the room, a lamp with a stained glass shade of voluptuous grapes in improbable colors. The light it cast across the room made me think of carnival rides.

  It also cast that light across photographs.

  On the walls, on the mantelpiece, on every surface, there were framed pictures. They were mostly old, black and white prints, in elaborate wooden frames. Treasures. Memories. I had never seen so many photographs in my life and for a moment, I just stood and stared.

  “It’s Lucia,” Nick said quietly. I looked to find his eyes open, though he was still doing the Mr. Spock. But when he moved to turn off the music, the motion changed the play of light on his face.

  His face was wet with tears.

  He was mourning. “Leave it on.” I said softly. I didn’t intend to interrupt any more than I had.

  Nick sat back again, watching me over his fingertips. “Iseult was her signature part.”

  Now, every card-carrying romantic knows the story of Tristan and Iseult, the doomed Celtic lovers whose tale may have inspired Shakespeare to pen Romeo and Juliet. I tried very hard to imagine Lucia as Iseult but failed miserably.

  Iseult, I’ve always thought, was a willowy maiden, one of limpid eyes, dulcet tones and flaxen tresses. Lucia came across as more of an Italian battleship, her breasts making a considerable prow, her manner enough to make anyone lay down their weapons and surrender.

  But like I said, I know beans about opera. “She was famous enough to be recorded?”

  That smile touched his lips. “It was a small pressing, but she was always proud of it.”