by Ann Charles
Having Susan here in my favorite kitchen, my sanctuary, on a day as shitty as today made me wonder if Aunt Zoe had ever found those shotgun shells she’d been planning to use to shoo Reid out the door.
Without even trying to hide my irritation, I pointed at the car keys on the table next to her cookie. “You should go back down to Mom and Dad’s now.”
Susan sniffed at me, her expression smooth and serene in the snarling face of my wholehearted hostility. “I’ll have you know that Aunt Zoe is my aunt, too, even if we don’t share the same DNA.”
Susan was my mother’s child with another man. When I was three, my parents had been having serious problems with their marriage. So much so that they had separated and my father had moved into an apartment, leaving me and my older brother, Quint, with my mom. Over the next year, my mother dated a few men, some I remembered, some I wished I didn’t. One from the latter category ended up fathering a child, only he hadn’t wanted to be a dad and had left my mom pregnant and alone.
When my father had found out, he had brought Mom flowers and suggested they work out their differences. They had, and he had stepped in to take the daddy role. Years later Quint had filled me in on all the details since I’d been too young at the time to understand what was happening. Per Mom’s order, we all had kept Susan’s dad’s true identity a secret—until the day my sister pushed me too far. Ever since then, when I wasn’t throwing knives at her pictures, I was stabbing myself with guilt for blowing Dad’s cover.
Since Aunt Zoe was my father’s sister, Susan had distanced herself from Zoe after she had learned the truth about her parentage. I’d be the first to admit that I couldn’t have been happier about that. Aunt Zoe was my favorite aunt, and this chasm between her and Susan gave me a haven free of Susan’s malicious ploys.
“Fine,” I conceded, “Aunt Zoe is your aunt, too. What are you doing up here?”
“I wanted to see my niece and nephew.”
The mother bear in me stood up on her hind legs. “Why?”
“I miss them.”
Liar. Susan only cared about Susan. Usually, any time spent around my kids was solely for the purpose of benefitting her in some way—like that time she shoplifted two pairs of expensive panties by stuffing them in Addy’s winter coat pockets and sweet talking the security guard while Addy skipped right by.
“What’s your angle?” I prodded.
“Honestly, big sis, you are so unattractive when you sneer like that. And you really should see someone about straightening that bird’s nest on your head. I have a girl down in Rapid who could probably help you.”
After my day of fun and games, my tolerance for Susan disintegrated in a heartbeat.
“Go home,” I ordered.
Susan leaned back in the chair, one of her over-plucked eyebrows arching. “I don’t get all of this hostility you’re harboring. I’m the one who should be full of rage still, but do you see me treating you so rudely?”
Oh, that was rich. I leaned closer, whispering, “Have you forgotten what you did with the father of my children? Because I certainly never will.”
“Jesus, Violet. You still can’t see that I did you a favor? Rex wasn’t father material. The man hasn’t ever paid you a single penny of support.”
That was because he’d signed a paper giving up all rights to both kids after they were born, but I wasn’t going to go down that road with the bitch from hell.
“If you would have just let me have him,” she continued, “I could have made sure all of you were taken care of until the kids became adults. But no, you had to go and scare him away.”
Wow, and here all of these years I’d figured she’d screwed Rex just to hurt me. Turned out she was being altruistic. Silly me for being upset about my sister seducing the guy of my college dreams and father of my children out from under me.
“Get out now,” I repeated, hearing a scuffling noise behind me. I glanced back and caught Harvey peeking around the corner. He gave me a finger-sign that showed he had my back; or he was making fun of my eyelashes again, I wasn’t sure.
Susan took her time standing up. She handed her nibbled cookie to me. “From the looks of it, you like these quite a bit. You can finish it for me.”
I thought about giving her a chocolate chip cookie enema with it, but I’d had enough dealings with assholes today.
“So,” she pulled on her leather coat, “Do you have any new boyfriends to tell me about?”
Rage blazed throughout my body. I was surprised steam didn’t blast out from every orifice in my head. If the whore even stepped one foot near Doc …
“Get the fuck out of this house, Susan. Right now.”
“Chill, big sis. I’m just trying to make friendly conversation. When I get home and tell Mom how you’re treating me she’s going to be so disappointed in you.”
Mom was often disappointed in me, especially when it came to Susan, so no hardship there. “Well, why don’t you run back down the hill and tattle on me.”
That reminded me of Ray tattling. Maybe I should introduce Susan to the rat bastard. Did I hate Ray that much, though? Maybe.
“I’ll leave after I say goodbye to the kids.”
“Make it quick.” I followed on her heels to the living room where both kids were immersed in cartoons. Harvey was missing in action.
Susan kissed both of my kids on the forehead. “I’ll see you both again soon.”
Not if I had anything to say about it. I needed to find someone who could put some kind of spells around the house that would make Susan break into hives every time she stepped through the door.
She paused to smirk down at me at the front door. “What’s with the makeup, big sis? You think you’re Marilyn Monroe or something?”
I shoved her out the screen door into the semi-darkness.
“Hey!” she yelled.
I slammed the door in her face and leaned my forehead against it. “And stay out,” I said, leaving the porch light off to inspire her to seek her next breath somewhere else better lit.
That was it. I’d managed to endure a visit from Susan without it breaking out into another epic battle. I deserved some kind of plaque to hang on the wall.
Damn. What a stinking rotten day from hell. At least it was over and I could hole up until the sun came out and I got a chance to start over again.
I heard her walking down the porch steps and stole a look through the window to make sure she didn’t try to sneak around to the back door in the dark. Susan dawdled getting into her car. With the help of Miss Geary’s halogen porch light, I could see Susan staring across the street at the black Jaguar sitting inside the open door of Miss Geary’s garage.
“Woo-wee,” Harvey said from behind me. He watched out the window, too. “That woman is meaner than a buck-toothed wolverine. Kind of sexy, though, I’ll give her that, with those long legs—”
“Harvey,” I warned.
“But a first-rate bitch.”
“That’s better.”
“Your aunt told me once that you weren’t too keen on her. After meetin’ her, I think I see why.”
“We have a history,” I said.
Damn the bitch for coming around my children. Now I was going to have to deal with a bunch of “Why don’t you like Aunt Susan?” questions for a day or two.
“Good riddance to her,” Harvey said as she drove off. “Doc should have Cooper keep an eye on her, too. She’s the kind that’ll turn on you faster than a cross-eyed rattler.”
“Undoubtedly.” I had callouses from years of her fangs digging in when I least expected. Why couldn’t she just move to … Wait a second. “What did you say? Doc should have Cooper keep an eye on her, too?”
“Yeah. That one can’t be trusted.”
“Why would you say ‘too’?”
Harvey grimaced. “Ah, well …” He licked his lips.
A lump of ice formed in my chest. “Harvey, did Doc tell Cooper to follow me?” Was that why Cooper seemed to be on top of m
y every move lately? He was getting inside information from my boyfriend?
Harvey stroked his beard, his eyes not meeting mine. “You’re twistin’ this up all wrong, girl. It’s not like that.”
“That son of a bitch,” I whispered, the pain of betrayal knocking the wind out of me.
I’d trusted Doc with almost every secret I had about the Mudder Brothers, Prudence, Cornelius, and more. How could he go behind my back to the one man in town who was constantly standing in my way, badgering me, threatening to throw me in jail—hell, throwing me in jail? My knees nearly buckled from anger.
“Violet,” Harvey took my arm. “I can tell by the way your face is getting all buggered up that you are makin’ a mess of this in that head of yours.”
I leaned against the wall for support. “How could he do this to me? Why would he?”
“He’s worried about you and lookin’ for ways to help keep you safe.”
“So he sicced Cooper on me? A pit bull with rabies would have been gentler.” I tugged my arm free, slipped into my tennis shoes, and yanked open the front door. “I need you to keep an eye on the kids for me for a bit, please.”
“Where are you going?” Harvey yelled after me as I crashed down the porch steps into the post-dusk shadows.
“Doc’s house. We need to get a few things straight.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The brisk walk to Doc’s house in the almost-dark gave me time to throw some punches in the air, practice a few half-assed karate kicks, and curse at the moon several times before facing him. I debated on calling ahead, but I knew Doc would hear the difference in my tone and I didn’t want to give him any head start on escaping over the state line.
By the time I reached the sidewalk leading up to his house, the anger, frustration, and heartache that had been all tangled up in my gut had loosened enough that breathing no longer hurt. But after the day I’d had, smoke still puffed out from my nostrils with each breath. Not even the cool, fresh air could dampen the embers still burning inside of me.
Doc’s place looked all shut up for the night from the front, the living and dining room curtains closed but for a sliver. I climbed the porch steps and knocked anyway. If he wasn’t home, I’d have to hoof it back home and track him down in the Picklemobile.
For a moment as I stood there in the silence waiting to see any sign of life, I wondered if I should have taken the time to shower, scrub the goop from my hair and face, and calm down a bit more before standing on Doc’s threshold. At the least it might have been wiser to wait until the lightning stopped crackling around my head.
Then the porch light came on, the door opened, and it was too late.
Doc did a double take at the sight of me. “Violet? What are you wearing?”
The reminder of my morning spent dancing to Jerry’s tune fired the embers in my belly. I shoved past Doc and waited in the brightly lit foyer until he’d shut the door before going into attack mode.
“Did you tell Cooper to keep an eye on me?”
Doc leaned back against the door, his gaze searching mine. “Not exactly.”
That was not the answer I wanted to hear. I clutched my stomach and clung to what little calm I had left after my day full of slap-downs. It was that or beat on his chest while crying, Why? Why? Why?
He continued to watch me in silence, his expression guarded.
“Define ‘not exactly,’” I ordered.
“I told him I was worried about your safety and suggested that having someone at the ready to help you might be a wise precaution, especially when I’m not in town.”
That made me feel like I needed a freaking babysitter. “Did you tell Cooper I was at the Lead library yesterday?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t know you went there.”
“Would you have told him if you had known?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“If I thought you might sneak over to the opera house and end up in some kind of trouble.”
Ah ha! There it was. Doc was just as susceptible as Cooper and Jerry to that dominant male gene that came with a complimentary wooden club and a vocabulary filled with grunts.
“Well, doesn’t that just beat all,” I said. “My boyfriend is working with the cops to keep me corralled.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Your point of view is skewed by your resentment of Cooper’s authority.”
Resentment? He didn’t know the half of it. “How could you, Doc? Of all of the people to go to behind my back, you chose the one man in town who is just looking for a reason to lock me up.”
“That’s not true.”
“Bullshit! You already had to spring me once.” A snippet of memory played of that day when Doc went back into the police station while I waited in the parking lot. I poked him in the chest, fighting the urge to pummel him. “Is that when you struck the deal with Cooper? Right after you got me out of jail?”
He grabbed my finger. “Violet, calm down.”
“Or have you been in cahoots since the poker game?” I tugged my finger free. “Oh, my God, were you part of the reason I ended up behind bars? Was that some elaborate scheme you two came up with to make me think you were on my side so I’d tell you even more about Helen Tarragon and Jane? So I’d take you completely into my confidence?”
I knew my conspiracy theory was far-fetched and I sounded borderline hysterical, but I had thought I was walking on solid ground when it came to Doc. Suddenly, everything felt slippery underfoot with fissures spreading and water seeping up.
His jaw ticked. “Violet, there is no side in this. Cooper is not out to get you. You’ve made him into a villain in your head, but he’s trying to help you.”
“Help me? By riding my ass constantly? By threatening to take me to jail every other day? By dragging me into his office and berating me on how I’m fucking up his cases? You call that helping me?” I threw up my hands. “I can’t …” I swallowed, trying to loosen the knot of emotion constricting my vocal cords. “I can’t believe you went to him, Doc. That you betrayed me like this.”
“I didn’t betray you,” he enunciated between gritted teeth. “I was trying to protect you.”
“Next time just get me a guard dog.” It might eat Elvis, killing two birds with one stone.
His dark gaze drilled mine. “You joke and make smartass comments about all of this shit happening to you, but you don’t understand what you’re getting into here.”
“And you do?”
“Yes.” Then he growled. “Well, not entirely,” he admitted and raked his fingers through his hair. “But I witnessed firsthand what happened to Prudence and the young prostitute’s ghost in The Old Prospector Hotel. Something tells me their deaths are somehow connected to you or something you’ve stumbled onto and I can’t always be close at hand. I needed help protecting you.”
“I never asked you to protect me.” If I’d wanted a bodyguard, I’d have Harvey and Bessie at my side day in and out. Wait! Was that why Harvey kept spending the night at Aunt Zoe’s? Did Doc put him up to that, too?
“It’s unspoken in a relationship.”
“Right, you Tarzan, me Jane. But maybe I like to swing through the jungle on my own, have you thought of that?”
Doc’s jaw tightened, his lips flattening.
“I can handle myself just fine,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“So when that albino was chasing you in Mudder Brothers basement, you had that all under control and didn’t need me to step in and get thrown through drywall while trying to buy you time to escape?”
Okay, when he put it that way, no, but I lifted my chin, pride at the helm. “I got rid of him, didn’t I? Just like when I took Wolfgang out of the equation.”
“And then almost burned to death.”
“I was working on an escape plan when you found me.” Dangling from an upstairs window would not have been my most gr
aceful exit, but I would have lived, broken leg or not.
He squinted down at me. “I see now that I’ve been under the delusion that you needed me.”
I did need him but not as my babysitter. I needed him to love me, which was something I could never say aloud because it sounded so damned pathetic.
“Hold on a second,” I said. “So all of this time, you’ve been with me only because you thought I needed you?”
He scoffed. “Violet, you’re not even being rational right now.”
While part of me knew he was right, I kept pushing, all of the frustrations from my day pouring out, barreling straight at him. “And here I thought you were sticking around because you actually enjoyed my company.”
“I do enjoy your company, especially the five minutes with you that I’m granted here and there when you’re not busy with all of your other obligations.”
I read between the lines. “I see. You like me but not all of the ‘baggage’ that comes with me.”
He cursed under his breath. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Well, someone needs to.”
“Meaning?”
“You don’t talk to me.”
“I call you every damned night.”
“For phone sex.” As soon as I said it, the rational side of my brain winced.
What was I doing? I sounded like some needy female begging for scraps of affection. God, I should leave before this ended with me clinging to his calf, begging for him to tell me that he loved me.
“Stop right there, Violet.” He pushed away from the door, taking a step toward me. “You’re the one keeping me at arm’s length, determining when it’s useful for me to be part of your life and for how long.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have Harvey stay at your house every night, but all I get is a damned phone call.”
“You think that’s my idea?” Maybe Doc hadn’t put Harvey up to it after all.