“No.” Margie’s expression was pensive. “I’m just not sure we can trust him yet. I think he’s staying at Tessa’s.”
“That’s good; he can protect them,” Vickie said.
“I guess.” Margie’s eyebrows rose in reluctant approval. “He bought daisies.”
Vickie put her hand to her chest. “Ohhhh! His love is loyal and pure!”
“Eh. Maybe.” Margie dropped her pizza on her plate. “I just don’t trust him. After what he did to Tessa, I wanted to kill him. And now here he’s back after all these years, and...” Margie took a big swallow of her drink. “I don’t trust him.”
“You don't forgive him,” Vickie said. “Give him credit where credit’s due. He did save my store.”
Margie rolled her eyes.
“And he bought daisies.”
Margie gave a grudging shrug. “And he took in Bitsy.”
“Oh, honey.” Vickie winced. “You’ve gotta stop calling that mutt Bitsy. It’s got a penis. Give it some dignity.”
Margie took a bite of her pizza, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke. “If that boy hurts Tessa again, I’ll hunt him down and kill him, I swear I will.”
“Oh, please. You will not. You’ll do exactly what you did last time—be there for Tessa.” Vickie paused for a moment before saying what she had to say next. “Besides, I think we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Margie’s eyes met Vickie’s, and her face darkened. “What are we gonna do now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to formulate a plan B, but considering how stupid plan A was...”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Margie said. “He did try to burn your place down. We just didn’t catch him.”
“Which was the whole point of plan A, if I recall,” Vickie said. “The part where we catch the bastard.”
“Look, I said I was sorry,” Margie said. “I realize now I’m too old to be doing stakeouts.” She shrugged. “But at least we know he got in there between the hours of three and six. That’s something.”
Between the hours of what? “I thought you said you only fell asleep for twenty minutes.”
Margie refused to meet Vickie’s eyes. “Are we gonna argue about details, or are we gonna figure out a way to catch that asshole? People are beginning to seriously wonder where you are. And I’m getting nervous. I told Finn you were in Bimini.”
“Bimini?” Vickie had to laugh. “Why the hell would I go to Bimini?”
“I don’t know,” Margie whined. “I was under pressure, and he was looking at me like he didn’t believe me, and I’m a terrible, terrible liar. You know that. I wasn’t supposed to be getting questioned by people. That was not in the plan. Now, if he looks into it, he’ll find out you’re not there and...”
“Finn’s the least of our problems.” Vickie downed another swig of her drink. The vodka went right where it was supposed to, and she smiled. “Do you think it’s possible we’re not catching Matt Tarpey because we’re getting drunk every night?”
Margie paused with her drink half lifted, raised an eyebrow and smiled, then sallied forth and downed a large swallow.
“You know,” Vickie said for probably the tenth time in the last two days, “Finn is a private detective. And we’re both too old and too drunk to pull this crap off on our own. I think we’ve pretty much proven that.” She paused, then swung for the fence. “I really think we should consider bringing Finn in on this and letting him nail the bastard.”
“Maybe,” Margie said, looking unconvinced.
Vickie sat back. A “maybe” was progress. Every night prior, Margie had responded to Vickie’s sensible suggestion with rounds of creative cursing. Man, that woman could hold a grudge like no one Vickie had ever known.
“You know we’re gonna need help,” Vickie said. “I can’t hide out in this basement forever.”
“I know.” Margie paused for a moment, her expression troubled. “Izzy was acting weird again today at work. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I’m worried about her. If Matt Tarpey realizes it’s Izzy and not us who’s been snooping around—”
“He won’t,” Vickie said. “We’ll just have to keep his attention on us, and draw him out before he can suspect Izzy knows anything. And if Finn’s staying with Tessa and Izzy, it’s even more reason to let him in on everything. It’ll be easier to protect them if he knows who he’s protecting them from.”
Margie made a face and took another bite of pizza. There was a long moment of silence as Vickie remembered back to a night a lot like this one, when she and Margie and Karen Scuderi all sat around a pizza box, throwing out theories on who had started the mysterious string of fires in Lucy’s Lake, spanning seven years. Karen had suggested Matt Tarpey as a joke. After all, anyone who’d ever read a pulp novel would know it had to be the fire chief behind everything. However, even after the fire at Karen’s, they weren’t sure. And at that point, they didn’t care. Their best friend had died, and they decided it was time to let the amateur snooping go and make up for their stupidity the only way they could—by keeping eagle eyes on Tessa and Izzy.
Until, that was, Izzy started snooping around. She’d asked both Vickie and Margie casual questions about the fire that took her mother, and then Vickie’s worry box went missing for a day or so before mysteriously returning to her closet. It was then that Vickie and Margie had retreated to the basement with a bottle of scotch and came up with the plan of smoking Tarpey out with a classified ad placed in the Lucy’s Lake Weekly.
M. I know what you did. V.
And it worked, better than Vickie ever thought it would. Unfortunately, all she had to show for it was a charred office. No proof.
Vickie sighed. She’d done too much thinking in the past few days, and it was beginning to give her a headache. She needed to let it go for a little while.
She pushed up from the futon and plodded across the room to Margie’s laundry closet. From the top shelf, behind the Bounce dryer sheets, she pulled out a small wooden box. On her way back to the futon, she caught Margie’s eye, and they shared a knowing look. Margie grabbed a pen and a small pad of notepaper from the small table next to the futon and began scribbling. She snapped one page off and handed it to Vickie.
Izzy. Vickie folded it and tucked it in. Margie handed her another page.
Tessa. Vickie stuffed it in the box, then looked to Margie, who had stubbornly set the pen and pad of paper down on the coffee table. Vickie rolled her eyes and picked up the pen.
“You and your stupid grudges,” she grumbled, scribbling the last name down.
Finn. She folded the last paper up and put it in. She closed the box, said a private prayer over it, and tucked it under the futon.
Margie pointed the remote at the television, flicking through the channels until they landed on the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice playing on A&E. The two friends shared a knowing smile, sat back, and quietly let Darcy take them away.
Just another day in the basement, Vickie thought, as two middle-aged women pass the time waiting for a psycho to strike.
Chapter Seventeen
Joe sat at his kitchen table eating a bowl of Wheaties and stared at the spread before him. He’d looked at the pictures from Karen Scuderi’s fire so often during the years that he probably wouldn’t see anything new even if there was something to see. He pretty much had every detail memorized by now: the charred craft supplies, the curled wallpaper, the barely recognizable defective coffeemaker that was at fault for the whole thing. It had been recalled just a month before the fire, but Karen had apparently never registered her purchase with the company, and therefore never received the recall notice.
It was an accident, just like the other twelve fires caused that year across the country by the same coffeemaker. Of course, none of them had resulted in anything worse than charred linoleum.
This one had resulted in Karen Scuderi’s death.
If you’ve got a thing for Tessa, buy her some flowers. Don’t dig up he
r dead mother. It isn’t romantic. He could hear Matt Tarpey’s voice as clearly as if he were in the room. And damned if the man didn’t speak some sense.
There was nothing in those pictures that hadn’t been there before, and there was nothing he could do that would make Tessa see him as anything other than the brother of the guy she really wanted.
Joe pushed himself up from the table and put his bowl and spoon in the sink, washing them absently as he wondered what he was doing. The thing with Tessa had been short-lived, and a long time ago. He’d moved on, she’d moved on, and the two of them had been doomed from the start, anyway.
So if it wasn’t for her, why was he doing this? Why was he so obsessed with the fire that preceded Karen Scuderi’s death? He leaned over his counter and stared at his own coffeemaker, trying to remember if he’d registered it or not. It was amazing how many thoughtless decisions could lead to disaster. You buy an innocent appliance one day, the next day it kills you.
Coffee.
Something buzzed in his brain and he couldn’t quite place it. He stood up and looked at the pictures from the slightly greater distance. Then he took some steps backward until he was leaning against the wall and the pictures were too far away to get any good detail.
Coffee. It was the coffee that bugged him. Something about the coffee.
Next to him, in the corner of the dining room, a squawk sounded. Joe looked down at the cage on the floor, housing the macaw. Its chest was a brilliant gold, its face a strange white-and-black zebra pattern, and the wings and back feathers were a bright shade of blue he’d seen only in crayon boxes. It was a pretty bird, but it looked kind of... well, pissed off. Could a bird look pissed off? Joe leaned down to get a better look and the thing squawked at him and flapped its wings violently.
Yep. Definitely pissed off. Maybe it was hungry. Or thirsty. He’d picked it up from Tarpey’s place yesterday afternoon, then left it in the corner of the dining room with a handful of seed and a small cup of fresh water, but he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do for it. He was an electrician. What the hell did he know about parrots?
Maybe he should find another foster family. Of course, the perfect one came to mind immediately, and he instantly decided against it. He was sure there were other people in town who could take in the bird. If he brought that bird over, it would just be an excuse to see her, and he wasn’t desperate or stupid enough to keep trying with Tessa.
Buy her flowers. Dig up her dead mother. Give her a bird. It doesn’t matter. Far as she’s concerned, you’re a eunuch.
Well, that was true enough. And he did need to find someone to foster that bird...
“What do you think?” he said to the bird. “You wanna go live with a couple of cute girls? Gotta be better company than me, right?”
The macaw answered this by turning its back on Joe and taking a huge dump on the newspaper that lined the bottom of the cage.
“Yeah,” Joe said, turning his attention back to the kitchen table. “That’s what I...”
He trailed off.
The coffee. Or the coffeemaker, rather. He leaned in, looked closer at the picture.
That wasn’t Karen Scuderi’s coffeemaker. At least, he didn’t think it was. It was a long time ago, and he couldn’t really remember for sure, but there was one person who might.
Joe stuffed the pictures into the manila envelope, lifted his coat off the back of the kitchen chair, and grabbed the birdcage to a resounding squawk of annoyance from the macaw.
“Cute girls,” Joe said, tucking the envelope under his arm as he pulled the front door open. “Quit your bitchin’.”
***
Finn woke up to the sounds of pans clattering in the kitchen. He rolled over on the sofa and tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use.
Something smelled good. Must be Tessa cooking.
Tessa. The woman was definitely going to be the death of him. They’d spent yesterday afternoon calling every hotel in Bimini, and with all the fire and death and mayhem hanging over them, all he could think about was taking her up to the bedroom and making her forget her own name.
But he didn’t. Instead, he made call after call to hotel after hotel, and came up with one very interesting, though not really surprising, fact: Vickie Kemp wasn’t registered at any hotel in Bimini. Finn’s gut told him that Margie Fletcher was lying, which led to another interesting question—why?
But it wasn’t a question either he or Tessa had the energy to try to answer last night, though. Instead, they’d talked around things for a while, had a quick dinner with Izzy and Babs, and then Tessa had gone to bed.
Finn spent the night on the sofa, tossing and turning and trying to think of any excuse good enough to get him upstairs and into her room. Twice that night he’d made it as far as the landing on the stairs before turning around and going back to Sofa City.
Aside from the fact that Tessa had her fight back—which turned him on even more, if that was possible—nothing else had changed since yesterday. If Tessa was really going to take that social worker on, the last thing she needed was to be associated with a bird thief, reformed or not. The best way Finn could help Tessa defeat Mary Ellen Neeley was to distance himself as much as possible.
Hell, it was the only way he could help her.
He sat up and ran his hands over his crumpled jeans and T-shirt. He’d never been a pajamas kind of guy, and sleeping on a sofa in a house full of women was no place to go au naturel. He got up and shuffled through the living room and through the kitchen door to find Babs standing at the stove, humming to herself. She was wearing a fluffy apron over her blouse and slacks, and appeared happy as a pig in shit, which with Babs usually meant trouble of some sort.
“Oh, Christ,” he groaned. “You’re cooking again? Tessa told me what happened yesterday.”
Babs grinned. “Good morning to you, too, Mr. Grump.” She lifted the cast-iron skillet and slid its contents—two eggs, over easy—onto a plate that already sported a few perfectly cooked bacon strips.
Finn raised one eyebrow. “That actually looks good.”
Babs nodded toward the kitchen table. “Tastes good, too. Sit down.”
He did as ordered, and Babs put the plate down in front of him, twirling back toward the counter to retrieve a fork. “You made this?” Finn said, looking down at the food.
“What happened to the family curse, Aunt Clarice and whatnot?”
“It’s Aunt Corrine,” Babs corrected, sitting down at the table across from Finn. “And your uncle is what happened.” She nodded toward the plate. “Go on, you big coward. Give it a try.”
Finn picked up the fork, separated a bit of egg and some bacon, and put the combo in his mouth.
“Wow,” he said, amazed at how good it was. “So... what? Max taught you how to cook?”
Babs nodded, hopped up, and moved back to the stove. “It was slow last night, and he showed me a few things.” She took two eggs out of the carton, cracked them simultaneously with one hand, and sent them sizzling onto the skillet. “He’s an amazing man, your uncle.”
Finn took another bite. “Yeah, he’s gotta be if he can teach you to cook.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? It was like, he explained things to me and suddenly—” She snapped her fingers over her head. “I got it.”
“That’s... that’s amazing,” Finn said.
“Which reminds me, I hardly harangued you at all yesterday about your relationship with your uncle, which means I have loads to make up for today.”
The doorbell rang and Finn hopped up. “Hold that thought. Or, actually, dump that thought and get a new one. I’m gonna answer the door.”
“You can’t avoid this forever,” she called after him as he zipped through the swinging kitchen door. Finn ignored her, licking a bit of bacon off his thumb and crossing through the foyer to the front door.
And of all the things he might have expected to see on the other side, his brother holding a b
irdcage with the macaw in it was not one of them.
“Hey, it’s not my birthday,” Finn said.
Joe looked at him, his eyes narrowing. “What are you doing here?”
“No room at the inn,” Finn said. “What are you doing here?”
“I need someone to foster the macaw until we get a hold of Vickie Kemp,” he said.
Finn smiled. “Well, come on in, then.”
Joe eyed Finn warily for a moment, then stepped inside.
“I also have something I need to talk to Tessa about,” he said.
Finn worked up a subtly smug expression. “She’s still in bed. Maybe I can relay a message for you?”
Joe raised an eyebrow at Finn, and Finn raised one back. He knew Tessa would very likely kick his ass six ways from Sunday for insinuating to anyone in town, let alone Joe, that there was anything going on between them, but it had been ten years since he’d had any opportunity to aggravate Joe. He had a lot of lost time to make up for.
“No,” Joe said finally. “I need to speak to her in person.”
At that moment, footsteps thundered down the steps, and Tessa came flying down, pulling a flannel robe on over her sleep set of a concert T-shirt and a pair of lounge pants. Her eyes were half-open, and her hair was all lopsided, and he really wanted to take her back up to that bedroom and...
“Who’s cooking?” she said as she landed at the bottom of the steps. “And why? No one cooks. Those are the rules. My rules. No cooking.”
Finn put one hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Babs had some sort of religious experience last night, and now she can cook without burning anything down.”
“Oh.” Tessa blinked, looked at Joe, then glanced down at the cage. The macaw squawked. “You brought me a bird?”
“Uh, yeah,” Joe said. “Actually, I kinda need to find someone to foster it and—”
“Well, Joe! Good morning!” Babs’s voice cut him off as she came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She caught sight of the bird, squealed with delight, and clapped her hands.
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