by Amy Vansant
He snickered. “I don’t think grounding my bum is going to make a difference, but I’ll give it a go.” He eased himself to the floor and pushed his back up against the wall beneath the bar. She stepped toward him as he reached up and grasped the metal.
“Can you feel it?” she asked. “It’s subtle. Close your eyes and concentrate.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t feel—”
An all-too-familiar sensation grazed both wrists and he heard simultaneous clicks. His eyes opened as the sound of a third snap reached his ears.
“What the—”
Simone stepped away as he tried to pull down his arms, only to find his wrists in handcuffs. A third bracelet secured him to the handrail.
He jerked on the cuffs and found them secure.
“Are you a cop?” he asked.
She smirked. “Are you a handyman?”
He pursed his lips, thinking on a way out of his situation. “Look—”
“Hush.” She stepped forward and put a finger against his lips. She moved her finger to kiss him once, gently.
He stared at her, her face just inches from his own. “Lady, you’ve been reading way too much of that Fifty Shades stuff. Why don’t you unlock the cuffs and I’ll be on my way…”
Simone straddled him and sat in his lap, facing him.
“Oh…” The groan escaped his lips before he could stop it. “Oh boy…”
“Are you sure?” she asked, leaning in to kiss his neck.
He swallowed. “You people around here are crazy.”
“What do you want with Diana?” she asked, her tongue tracing the edges of his ear.
“Nothing!”
She bit his lobe.
“Ow!”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Fine!” He tilted his head to keep her teeth as far away as possible from his ear. “She bought a box at a yard sale that my girlfriend wishes she hadn’t sold. I’m trying to get it back.”
“So you’re going to try and steal it dressed up in this way?”
Seamus sighed. “Something like that.”
“Why is this thing so important? It is valuable?”
“I don’t know. It belongs to this guy Rock Conrad and he wants it back.”
“Rock Conrad!” She sat up straight. “Why does he want it?”
“I don’t know! Hey—” Seamus realized Simone’s heavy accent had disappeared. Her last sentence had sounded very much American. “What happened to your accent?”
“My accent? I do not know of what you speak—”
“Lady, you can’t just start talking all Frenchy again. I heard you lose the accent.”
“Fine. Who’s this girlfriend of yours?” she said without a tinge of French.
Seamus grimaced. “Look, I don’t need to sit here and answer all your loony questions. You’re obviously mental. Let me go. I have things to do.”
She slapped him on the cheek. Hard.
“Hey!”
She shook a finger in his face. “You do have to answer my questions or the next one will be a punch somewhere much more tender.”
“Fine! Jackie! Jackie Blankenship is her name. Okay?”
Simone stood. “Hm. She isn’t one of mine. Does she live in Tampa?”
“One of yours? What are you talking about?”
She raised her foot over his crotch. “Does she live in Tampa?”
“No! She lives in Pineapple Port.”
“Pineapple Port! Oh no…no, no, no…”
He sniffed. “You know, you Silver Lake people are really snobs, you know that?”
She scowled at him. “It’s not that. Why does he want the box?”
“I have no idea. But he’s threatening her so we’re trying to get it back. Can I go now?”
She nodded, slowly, as if still deep in thought as she reached into her pocket and retrieved the key to unlock him.
“There is someplace I need to be. If I let you go; you’ll be good, yes?” she asked.
“So now you’re French again?”
“Just answer me.”
“Yes. I’ll be good.”
She unlocked the cuffs and he stood, rubbing his wrists.
“You are off your nut.”
She shrugged, a coy smile on her lips. Seamus placed his hands together in front of him, as if he were praying.
“Look. I don’t need to know all your secrets, Simone, but you seem to know something about Rock that I don’t. Tell me, long story short, is my girlfriend safe?”
Simone sighed. “I don’t know. That’s why I must end our play date.”
“That’s what you call kidnapping a man? A play date?”
She smiled. “If I feel you need to worry about your Jackie, I will let you know.”
“Do you want my number?” he asked, reaching for his phone.
“No. I’ll find you. And my door is always open, Monsieur Seamus, should you choose to visit of your own volition.”
“Volition,” he echoed, unsure what the word meant but understanding the gist of her suggestion. “So you really are into this stuff? I was starting to think it was just a way to interrogate me.”
She walked to the closet and slid open the door, revealing a collection of whips and other items Seamus couldn’t identify. “You thought maybe I was a ballerina?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Lady, I don’t know what you are.”
Seamus walked out of the red room and made his way to the front door, where he paused and turned to take one last lingering look at Simone.
“I’ll admit, you have me intrigued.”
She smirked. “I could feel that.”
“But I think I prefer playing quarterback, if you know what I mean.”
She nodded once and blew him a kiss.
Seamus headed back to his car. Stopping at the guard booth on the way out of Silver Lake, he lowered his window.
“Get what you needed?” Pete asked.
Seamus shook his head. “No…” He rubbed his wrists. “I might have missed something, too.”
Pete leaned closer to him. “Simone?”
Seamus shot him a look and Pete nodded, settling back on to his stool and raising his newspaper to continue reading.
“You missed something all right,” he muttered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“It’s been going on for days, Ma’am, on and off.”
The officer’s gaze wandered to the roadside sign that read Casa Siesta in faded paint. Once a motel, the shabby building now served as an assisted living home for a handful of unlucky patrons. The doors were feet from the road. A telephone pole beside the sign had a black and white photo of a black cat’s face with Missing! written beneath it and a phone number. Keeping elderly people so close to the road didn’t seem like a good idea to her, and she suspected things wouldn’t turn out well for the cat either.
She sighed. If my kids throw me into one of these places when I’m old, I’m going to hunt them down from the afterlife.
Opening her notebook, she returned her attention to a young man wearing baggy shorts and a stained tank top. “So, you heard screaming?”
He scratched at his moppy hair and thought for a moment. “Not screaming really. Mr. Sutherland—he’s next door—he said he heard more like a moaning. I listened and heard somethin’ kinda screechy. Sutherland is half deaf so it must get pretty loud sometimes.”
“And you are?”
“Mark.”
“And what do you do here, Mark?”
“I’m like a general helper. Clean up the yard and stuff. My mom owns the place.”
“Uh huh. And why isn’t Mr. Sutherland calling in this complaint himself?”
“I told you; he doesn’t hear so good. He asked me to do it.”
“Mm hm.”
She jotted down a few notes and then squinted at the kid. This wouldn’t be the first time an older person or a kid had sent her on a wild goose chase, but she had to check every complaint. You never knew.
“Your mom name the place?” she asked, motioning at the sign. “Casa Siesta?”
“Yeah, it means napping house. A place where they can rest? Right?”
She grunted. “How would I know?”
“Uh—” the boy shrugged and looked away.
Officer Castillo knew she looked like she knew Spanish and it was her first language, but it was fun to mess with the kid.
She knocked on the dingy door of room 202.
“Ma’am, if you’re in there, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you open this door.”
Nothing.
“I have it!” said a voice behind her.
The owner of the assisted living hotel approached them, out of breath, holding a key in front of her. She started a coughing fit and Castillo snatched the key away before she could use it to cover her mouth. She soon realized she hadn’t needed to act so quickly. The woman had no intention of covering her mouth.
“Have you heard anything from Miss…” She looked down at her notes. “Miss Bobbi Marie Boite, lately?”
The woman held up a finger and took a second to clear her throat before spitting. “No. Her grandson’s been taking care of her. He told us he didn’t need us checkin’ in on her no more, so we didn’t.”
“Mm hm. And that just about broke your heart,” she mumbled before knocking again. “Miss Boite, I’m unlocking the door now to check on your safety. Please step away.” She turned to the two beside her. “You both step way back over there. You never know what’s going to come through this door once I open it.”
“She’s old,” said the boy.
“You will be too one day. Remember that.”
The kid snorted his disbelief and stepped a few feet back to stand beside his mother.
Officer Castillo slipped the key into the lock turned it, her hand on her weapon.
The door opened six inches before the first cat shot through. She turned to watch it skitter across the parking lot as two more slipped out and galloped after the first.
“How many cats does she have?” she asked.
The owner shrugged. “I thought she only had one.”
Castillo noticed paw prints on the cement outside the door and stooped down to examine them.
They look almost like…
She tapped the liquid and found it thick and sticky.
Blood.
She stood. “We’re coming in Ms. Boite!”
Drawing her weapon, Castillo pushed open the door and peeked around the corner. She spotted a body twenty feet inside, lying on the ground in front of a boxy television on a metal stand. The woman lay on her side, her back to the door. There were bloody paw prints on the carpet and what little furniture she could see. Two more cats looked up from their position near the body, their faces slick with blood. That’s when the stench of decay hit her nostrils and she recoiled as if someone had slapped her.
Castillo felt the blood drain from her face. She suffered a wave of nausea and took a step back from the doorway, re-sheathing her weapon and pulling her radio.
“I’m going to need an ambulance.”
Though, no hurry.
The boy stepped forward and poked his head in the door. He looked inside and then back at her, his nose wrinkling at the smell.
“Get back,” she snapped. “This is a potential crime scene.”
He strolled back to his mother.
“What is it?” she asked.
He thrust his hands in his pockets.
“Well, good news and bad news.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Bobbi’s dead.”
She hung her head. “Dang. That’s too bad, she was a steady pay. What’s the good news?”
He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I think we found Mrs. Williams’ cat…”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Charlotte felt Declan’s hands settle on her hips as they walked into the party tent.
Bonus.
“You’re a superstar for doing this at the last second,” she said from within the head of her unicorn costume. “Can you breathe?”
“Unicorn air; it’s like rainbows and kitten kisses back here,” she heard his muffled voice behind her.
She giggled. “Don’t worry, we’ll make a grand entrance and then we’ll split the horse. Then we just have to combine again for the judging.”
“We should have had a bunch of tiny people spill out of the costume. We could have been the Trojan Unicorn. That would have won for sure.”
“Shoot; that’s a great idea. But where would we get tiny people?”
“We’d fill it with dolls dressed like Trojan soldiers.”
“Darn. Really good idea. Make a note of that for next year.”
“Ha! Like I’m going to let you talk me into this again next year.”
He pinched her right butt cheek and she jumped forward, smacking her unicorn nose against a man’s shoulder. Luckily, he was wearing football pads and a helmet.
“Sorry.”
Charlotte squinted through the screened eyes of her papier-mâché head. The costume party was already crowded. She counted the usual array of witches, vampires, pirates and zombies and spotted a few admiring gazes directed toward her own costume.
“People seem to like us,” she said.
“We’re huge, they’re probably just trying to get around us to get to the punch. Assuming there is punch. I don’t know. All I see is…well…it’s not a bad view…”
She tried to reach back and smack him but found it difficult within the confines of the unicorn.
“We’re not in front of the punch, smarty. But you’re right, let’s go ahead and disengage.”
Declan took a few steps back and then stood, ruffling his hair and stretching his back. The tail end of the horse hung from him by suspenders.
“If Darla was ever thinking about being the back, I’d have to say this costume was ill-conceived,” he said, pulling at the chest of his tee shirt to let some air beneath it. “It is hot under there.”
“In our zeal to destroy Silver Lake we may have overestimated our abilities. Hey, have you heard any news from Seamus?”
“Nope. Last I heard he was going to dress up like a handyman and try and get into her house to look for the box, but he’s been gone all day.”
“Is he coming here?”
“I think so. He said Jackie invited him.”
Charlotte scanned the crowd, hoping to see Seamus enter, box in hand. She spotted a bright green sweatshirt with the letter “e” on it and realized it housed Frank. Darla stood beside him wearing another sweatshirt with paper clips and paper pinned all over it.
“What the heck are you two?” asked Charlotte as they approached.
“He’s email and I’m his attachment,” said Darla, pointing a thumb at Frank.
Charlotte laughed. “How did she get you to come this year?”
“She said all I had to do was wear a sweatshirt and I said, I’m in.”
“Finally,” said Darla. “I told him he couldn’t come as a sheriff anymore and that was the last I saw of him for four years.”
“I almost didn’t make it though, got a report another mailbox blew up.”
Charlotte straightened. “Where?”
“Down the street from the first.”
“Not Jackie’s?”
“No, over in the older part of the Port. Why would it be Jackie’s mailbox?”
Charlotte shrugged and shook her head, hoping Frank wouldn’t press for an answer.
“Anyway, good news is this time we had a witness. I’ve got an officer picking up the kids now.”
“So it was kids?”
“The Rutter boys.”
“Rutter?” Why did that name sound familiar…? Oh…Loretta Rutter. The bowler with fingers full of Gorilla Glue, compliments of Gloria. They probably destroyed her mailbox to avenge their mother and had so much fun doing it they came back for mischief night.
“So i
t’s safe for Gloria to go back home?”
Frank nodded. “I don’t see why not. I never thought she had anything to worry about in the first place, but if you want, I can let you know if they ‘fess to the letter and the fire, too.”
“That’d be great. Thanks Frank.”
Charlotte scanned the tent searching for other Pineapple Port residents and then blinked, certain her eyes were playing tricks on her.
“Is that woman naked?” she asked.
All heads turned.
“Oh no,” said Declan.
The blonde in question wore a sheer, flesh-colored body suit with leaves pasted strategically over her nipples and crotch. In her hand, she held a bright red apple.
“Is she naked?” asked Darla, squinting.
Frank grinned, his eyes never leaving the woman’s leaves. “Ours is not to question why…oof!”
Darla slapped him hard in the stomach and he ended his sentence.
“It’s Stephanie,” said Charlotte, her voice falling to a whisper. Boy does she have a body on her…
“Yep. Which is weird, because, gosh, normally she hates being the center of attention,” drawled Declan.
Darla gasped. “That’s the girl trying to steal—” Charlotte glared at her and she cut short before continuing. “I mean…trying to steel herself against the pain of losing Declan to a better woman?”
Charlotte dropped her head to her chest. “That might have been even worse.”
Mariska approached their group wearing a shiny red bubble of fabric with black dots all over it. The sack-like costume gripped her loosely at the knees and black antennae bounced atop the headband nestled in her curls. She turned in Stephanie’s direction, revealing her ladybug wings.
“Did you see that naked girl?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes,” said Declan, Charlotte and Darla together.
Bob, standing behind Mariska, shot Frank a look and they smirked at one another. Bob wore no costume; only his usual tee shirt and shorts.
“What are you supposed to be?” Charlotte asked him.
“I’m the most interesting man in the world.”
“Did you lose your beard?”
He shook his head. “I’m not the guy on the commercial; I just am the most interesting man in the world.”
“Ah, gotcha.”