The Comeback Kiss

by Lani Diane Rich

  “So, how’d you find me here?”

  “There are only two bed-and-breakfasts in town, and you weren’t at either of those.” She shrugged. “It was just a guess.”

  Finn took another drag. “Good guess. Second question: why are you here?”

  Izzy hesitated for a second, then sat up a little straighter. “I’d like to hire you,” she said finally.

  Finn had to raise an eyebrow at that. “To do what?”

  “You’re a private detective, right?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Well, I need you to privately... detect something.”

  Interesting. He watched Izzy for a moment. “How much?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “How much are you willing to pay me?” he asked.

  “Um...,” she stammered, “don’t you want to hear the details of the case first?”

  “There’s only one detail I’m interested in,” he said. “How much?”

  “Okay.” She nibbled at her lip and reached into her bag, pulling out a clear Ziploc bag with some bills and change in it. “I have eighty-nine dollars and seventy-three cents that I can put down now. And then, when I turn eighteen, I’ll get my half of the money from Mom’s life insurance.”

  He kept his face impassive.

  She shifted on her seat. “I have an after-school job,” she said, wringing her hands in the way young girls did when they asked a favor. “Maybe I can pay you on an installment plan or something, then give you the balance next May?”

  Finn took another drag of his smoke. Whatever she wanted, the kid was serious about it. Which, when you’re talking about a sixteen-year-old girl, usually meant only one thing.

  A sixteen-year-old boy.

  “Hope you didn’t smash your piggy bank getting that money out,” Finn said, “because it’s all going back.”

  Izzy’s eyebrows knit together, and she looked down at the bag in her hand. “But... but... don’t you want to hear the details of the case first?”

  “Nope,” Finn said, “because whoever he is, he’s not worth it.”

  “What? Who are you talking about?”

  “Whatever little punk has got you so in a tizzy that you’re willing to part with the whole of your allowance money and then some to find out if he likes you or if he like likes you.” Finn took another drag. “Trust me, whoever he is, he’s not worth it.”

  “I want you to find the person who killed my mother,” Izzy said.

  Well. That’ll teach me to underestimate a Scuderi sister. “Your mother died in a car accident.” He leaned forward, watching her carefully. “Didn’t she?”

  Izzy bit her lip, then pulled her backpack into her lap, unzipped it, and presented Finn with a small wooden box, decorated with stickers and newspaper and dried flowers under shellac. Finn took the box, turned it over twice in his hands, and looked up at Izzy.

  “Look inside,” Izzy said. Finn slid the top off the box and pulled out a picture of three women at the beach, taken some time ago, judging from the bent corners and general wear and tear.

  Izzy leaned forward. “That’s Mom in the middle.” Finn nodded, recognizing Karen. Izzy pointed to a blonde on the right side. “That’s Margie Fletcher.” Her finger moved to the other side, indicating a tiny woman with dark curly hair. “And that’s Vickie Kemp.”

  Finn flipped the picture over. Nothing on the back. He took another glance at the box. Nothing unusual there. He handed it back to Izzy.

  “Great. A box and a picture of your mom and some friends. You using the new math? Because I don’t follow how this adds up to murder.”

  Izzy took the box back. “This is a worry box. My mom used to make them and sell them at the craft store. You write down your worries, put the paper inside, sleep with it under your bed, and in the morning, your worries are gone.”

  “Really?” he said. “People actually bought that crap?”

  Izzy gave him a harsh look, reminding him more of Tessa than ever. “Yes, they did, and it’s not crap.”

  Finn held up his hands. “I take it all back.”

  Izzy let out a sigh, gave him a grudging yet forgiving look, and went on. “Anyway, after Mom died, I found this under her bed.”

  “So, she was worried about her friends?” Finn asked.

  “The newspaper clippings on the box,” she said, handing the box back to him. “Do you notice anything weird about the clippings?”

  Finn looked at the box again and saw that Izzy was right. The clippings weren’t complete, mostly covered with the other decorations, but Finn did notice one thing.

  They were all about accidental fires that had happened in town. From what he could gather, there had been three in the seven years prior to Karen’s death.

  “Well,” he said, “this is a little quirky, I’ll grant you that. But your mom died in a car accident.”

  Izzy took a deep breath. “Running from a fire.”

  “And you think her fire was related to these other fires? Lucy’s Lake has been around for a while. Lots of old buildings with lots of old fuse boxes.”

  Izzy scooted forward on her chair. “Look at the box again.”

  “Izzy,” Finn said, holding the box out to her, “I’m not playing games here. If there’s something to see, just tell me what you think it is.”

  Izzy gave him plaintive eyes. “Please. Just look closer. I want to make sure it’s not my imagination.”

  Finn took another look at the box. Flowers. Stickers of little girls in fluffy dresses. Something registered and he looked closer.

  Everywhere the word “accidental” appeared in print, the shellac was just a little bit thicker, a little browner. Kinda like a subtle highlighter.

  “Do you see it?”

  Finn looked up at Izzy. “You think your mother thought these fires weren’t accidents?”

  Izzy relaxed and sat back. “You see it.”

  “I see it,” he said. “What’s it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Izzy said. “But here’s some more weird. I was working for Vickie Kemp last summer, and one day she asked me to go pick up something for her at her house, and I found an identical worry box in the far corner of her closet.”

  Finn raised an eyebrow. “She sent you to get something from the far corner of her closet?”

  Izzy rolled her eyes. “No. I snooped, okay? Don’t tell Tessa. Anyway, I found one, just like Mom’s, only it had a Catholic saint medal in it, Saint Catherine of Siena.”

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “I looked her up. She’s the patron saint for fire prevention.”

  Finn looked down at the box, then back up at Izzy.

  “It’s all clear, then,” he said flatly.

  “Well, duh,” Izzy said. “They knew who was setting the fires and they wanted to protect themselves.”

  Finn put the box down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. “Look, kid. I’m not gonna tell you there aren’t some questions here, but I think you’re connecting dots that might not be there.”

  “I’m looking for more dots,” Izzy said. “That’s why I’ve been snooping. I thought if I could find Margie’s box, you know, there might be another clue. I searched her car, her shop. I even broke into her safe—”

  “You what?” Forget underestimating Izzy; Finn made a mental note never to turn his back on this kid for a second.

  “—and there was nothing,” Izzy went on. “I know she’s gotta have a box, and there’s only one place I haven’t searched. Her house. It’s gotta be there, and if we can just get to it, her box might have another clue...”

  “Why are you so sure she has a box?”

  Izzy looked at him like he was stupid. “Because the three of them were best friends.”

  Finn waited for the rest. Instead, Izzy just looked at him.

  “Yeah. So?”

  Izzy huffed. “You don’t know a whole lot about women, do you?”

  “Apparently not,” Finn said, and couldn’t help but smile.

  “Look, be
st friends share everything. If Vickie and Mom had a box, Margie has a box. I just need to find it.”

  “Um, no,” Finn said. “You need to eat and sleep and breathe. You want to find this box. Big difference, as in, drop it.”

  “But if I could just find Margie’s box—”

  “Okay, fine,” Finn said. “Let’s say Margie had this box ten years ago. She might have thrown it out. She might have lost it.” Izzy made a rude face at this. Finn ignored it and talked over her. “And your mother died in an accident.”

  “Caused by the fire,” Izzy said.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But everything has been deemed an accident so far, and I think the best thing for you to do is let this go.”

  Izzy leaned forward, maintained eye contact. She wasn’t backing down, which meant this wasn’t about getting attention, or stirring up trouble. The kid really believed everything she was saying.

  “Joe said the fire at Mom’s might have been suspicious.”

  “He told you that?” Finn asked. That wasn’t like Joe, being the big, strong, silent, protect-the-womenfolk type that he was.

  “I overheard him say it to Max once a few years ago,” Izzy said. “And there’s one more thing.”

  She paused. Finn let her, just waiting. This was the big reveal; no need to rush it.

  “My mom... she had this locket. A little heart, a picture of me on one side, a picture of Tessa on the other. She always wore it, but they didn’t find it. It wasn’t at the shop, it wasn’t on her, and it wasn’t in the car.”

  Finn took this in. For a big reveal, it was on the smallish side, but it obviously meant something to Izzy. He shrugged. “Maybe she wasn’t wearing it that night.”

  Izzy shook her head. “She always wore it.”

  “Maybe it burned up in the fire.”

  “It was pure gold.”

  “Maybe an investigator pocketed it. Maybe a member of the cleanup crew swept it up and threw it away. Maybe your mom lost it before any of this happened and just didn’t want to tell you. At any rate, you got a lot of maybes and not a lot of facts.”

  Izzy sighed. “I know. It doesn’t make sense. But I’ve got a gut feeling on this. I really think there’s something here.”

  Her eyes were earnest and desperate. Getting bigger. And a little watery.

  Shit. If the kid started crying, he was a goner. Crying women were hell on him. He never knew what to say or do, usually ended up patting them on the shoulder and saying something lame like, “There, there.”

  “I know it was a long time ago. I know the fire was deemed an accident.” She sniffled. “I know there might be reasonable explanations for everything. But what if the reasonable explanation is that someone out there is responsible for my mother’s death? How can I just pretend these big questions aren’t there?”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. Finn patted her on the shoulder. “There, there.”

  She swiped at her eyes and sat up straighter. Thank God. Finn lowered his hand.

  “I don’t know if any of this means anything,” she said, “but it’s driving me crazy. I can’t sleep at night. I just... I need to know. I just need to, and I don’t know how to follow up on something like this. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you talked to Tessa about it?” Finn asked.

  “Oh, pffft,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t tell Tessa. She’d pull a freak-out of mammoth proportions if she found out I snooped around Vickie’s house, and my case kinda rests on that second box. I can’t go to the police. They’d just call Tessa. Can’t go to Joe, he’d just go to the police.”

  She looked up at Finn. Her eyes had somehow managed to get even bigger. How the hell did she do that?

  “But you,” she said, pleading, “you’re a detective. All certified and bona fide and... whatever. You could do this. You could help me.”

  Fiim sighed and took another drag of his cigarette, not quite having the heart to tell her that the only thing he knew about detectives was how to avoid getting caught by one. Besides, whatever Tessa had been telling people, he knew she had a reason. He wasn’t going to be the one to rat her out.

  “Look, Iz,” he said, trying to figure out how to let her down easy. He didn’t know what had happened to Karen Scuderi, but Izzy made a compelling argument. Not to mention the unsettling fact that Vickie’s pet shop got a fresh coat of soot yesterday morning. Izzy’s snooping could have made someone nervous, and a nervous arsonist can easily result in charred shih tzu.

  But he was no detective. He couldn’t take the case if he wanted to.

  Of course, because of Tessa’s lies and his decision to keep them, he couldn’t tell Izzy that.

  As it turned out, it didn’t matter. In the grand tradition of frying pan/fire, the door to the shack opened up, and in walked Babs Wiley McGregor, in all her Annie Hall-looking glory.

  “We’ve found him,” she said, and before Finn could wonder who exactly comprised the we, Tessa stepped into the shack. Izzy jumped up, stuffing the box into the backpack in one swift, deft movement.

  Tessa’s eyes went from Izzy to Finn to the cigarette and then back to Finn, where they flashed murder. Finn nudged Izzy with his elbow and leaned over to speak quietly in her ear.

  “Guess this means no Samoas for me.”

  Chapter Eight

  Tessa blinked, stunned. Even though her antennae had gone up when she’d seen the old Mazda she and Izzy shared parked by the lake, she still wasn’t prepared for what she was seeing.

  Izzy. In the shack.

  With Finn.

  During school hours.

  Smoking.

  “Well,” Tessa said. “I think I’m speechless. It doesn’t happen very often, so let me see.” She held up one finger, tried to think of something to say, then nodded. “Yep. Speechless.”

  Izzy took a step forward. “I just came here to say hi. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him.”

  “You don’t even remember him,” Tessa said.

  “Sure I do. He used to give me piggyback rides to school. And he fixed my bike once.”

  Finn leaned toward Izzy a bit and spoke in a quiet tone. “Roller skates.”

  “Right.” Izzy snapped her fingers. “Right. Roller skates.”

  Tessa crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Finn. “You are best off if you say nothing.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty much screwed no matter what,” Finn said, tossing his cigarette into the open woodstove behind him, “so I figure I might as well be chatty.”

  “Dermot,” Babs said. “I think you want to shut up now.”

  Tessa sighed, looked at Izzy. “You go straight home and call the school and tell them you’re sick. Shooting everything out both ends. The more disgusting the details, the less they’ll want to know. And then you wait for me. And you’re calling in sick at Margie’s, too.”

  Izzy huffed. “Tessa—”

  “Now.”

  Izzy shot a look at Finn, which Tessa couldn’t read, then slipped out past Babs. Tessa crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Finn.

  “And you—”

  “You know,” Babs said quietly from behind her. “I didn’t get a good enough look at that gorgeous lake. It’s all just so charming.”

  Tessa waited for Babs’s footsteps to retreat, then looked at Finn. They held eyes for a while, the silence only serving to feed her frustration. Even more infuriating was the fact that not all of her fury stemmed from protectiveness.

  “So,” she said finally, “since it’s okay for you to hang out in the shack smoking with my baby sister—”

  “I was smoking, she wasn’t.”

  “—maybe next we can take her to Riker’s and get her piss-ass drunk and teach her how to hustle pool. What do you think?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “She came looking for me because she wanted to talk about something.”

  “Talk to you? About what?”

  Finn let out a breath. “That’s her business to tel
l you, not mine.”

  “Whatever,” Tessa said. “There’s nothing she doesn’t tell me. Nothing.”

  “That’s a dangerously naive belief system you got there, Tess.”

  Ow. Tessa took a breath and put her hand to her chest. There were so many emotions in there, all of them unpleasant and tied up in such a whirling ball of bad that she couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

  What could Izzy tell Finn that she couldn’t tell me?

  Finn’s face softened a touch and he sighed. “Look,” he said. “She just wanted to talk. Nothing happened of which you would disapprove, except possibly the secondhand smoke.”

  “Possibly?” Tessa said, her voice taking on some volume. “You were in here smoking in front of my sister. What the hell were you thinking, Finn?”

  “I was thinking she’s sixteen,” Finn said. “I’m sure she’s been around a burning cigarette before. Jesus, when did you become so uptight?”

  Uptight? Tessa blinked. She was uptight?

  “I’m not uptight,” she said, her voice weakening because even as she said the words, she knew he was right. She was uptight. She was raising a kid on a tightrope. She had to be uptight, damnit.

  “Oh, God,” Tessa groaned. “I’m uptight.”

  Finn smiled. “Looks good on you, though.”

  Suddenly deflated, she walked across the room and sat on the edge of the cot. A little black-and-white mutt stuck its nose in her lap and wagged its tail.

  “Cute dog,” she said.

  “Not my dog,” Finn said.

  The dog wagged its tail a bit more, huffed, and walked away, settling on the floor next to the woodstove and giving a dramatic shiver.

  “Dog’s cold,” Tessa said.

  “It’s not my—”

  “Fine, then I’m cold,” she said. “It’s freezing in here. Build a fire, would you?”

  Finn gave a little nod and tossed some logs into the stove. She watched him as he lit it, his strong hands, the curve of his back, the spiky redness of his hair. There was a time when they were so close that she always knew what was running through his head. Now, she had no idea, and despite the familiarity of the characters and setting, everything felt foreign to her. When he was done, he grabbed a yellow backpack from where it sat next to the bed and fished out a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one cigarette out for himself and held the pack out to her.