by J. B. Lynn
Leave it to that man to flirt at the most inopportune moments.
My car door opened, startling me. I looked up to see Aunt Susan standing there, wrapped from head-to-toe in a chintz flannel nightgown complete with a high lace collar.
Just looking at it made me want to scratch my neck.
“There you are,” Aunt Susan said breathlessly.
“I’m fine,” I assured her climbing out of the car. Piss hopped out over my feet and disappeared into the yard.
“Of course you are,” Susan replied with a tinge of annoyance. “I thought you’d never get here.”
“Grass! Grass!” DeeDee panted excitedly.
“You’ve got to do something about her,” Susan complained.
“Okay, okay,” I muttered, opening the rear door of the car so that DeeDee could bound out and race in the direction Piss had taken off in.
“Not the dog,” Susan said with a heavy sigh. “Her!”
The ‘her’ my aunt was referring to was Aunt Leslie, who was stumbling across the yard, mumbling to herself and gesturing up to the sky like she was invoking some sort of drunken Wiccan spell.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Patrick lean forward to peer over the steering wheel at the deranged woman dancing in the moonlight.
“She’s high,” Susan muttered darkly, pulling her robe tight around herself. “I tried to get her to come inside before she falls and hurts herself, but she says she’ll only talk to you.”
Remembering how Aunt Susan had warned me that if-or-when Leslie stumbled on her sobriety journey Leslie would surely blame me, I wasn’t too keen on talking to the agitated woman.
“Please, Margaret,” Susan begged. She waved her arm in Leslie’s direction, signaling her disgust.
“I’ll do what I can.” I patted her arm. The flannel felt as scratchy as I’d imagined. “Why don’t you go inside?”
“It’s not like it’s much better in there,” she muttered before heading into the house.
Once she was out of earshot, I bent down to look at Patrick who remained parked behind the steering wheel like his butt was glued there. “Are you staying there all night?” I asked.
He looked toward Leslie who was wildly gesticulating and shrugged apologetically. “I don’t really do crazy.”
“Ha!” God mocked from the cup, which was still stuck in the cup holder.
Momentarily startled by the lizard’s outburst, Patrick and I both glanced at him. The little guy stuck his tongue out at me.
Ignoring the infantile reptile, I corrected Patrick. “She isn’t crazy. My mom is certifiably nuts, but Leslie isn’t. She’s just high.”
“On what?” Patrick asked.
“I dunno,” I admitted. “Usually pot’s her thing, but that…” I trailed off as she began to do some mutated version of The Chicken Dance. “….that is…new.”
“Disturbing,” Patrick opined solemnly. “Do you need my help?”
“No. You can go in the house.” I stepped away from the car, moving toward my wildly gyrating aunt.
“Don’t leave me here!” God bellowed.
Before I could ask Patrick to bring the little guy inside, the cop/hitman called out, “I’ll bring the lizard inside.”
I waved my acknowledgement, took a deep breath to fortify myself, and marched toward Aunt Leslie with a sense of determination I didn’t feel. “What are you doing?” I yelled out.
“Nothing,” I heard DeeDee whimper guiltily from the shadows, thinking I was asking her.
“Oh come on!” Stopping in my tracks, I put my hands on my hips and raged at the unseen dog. “I can’t watch you every moment of every day. I have things to do, you know. A life to live. I don’t need you getting into trouble every time I turn around.”
“I know,” Aunt Leslie said sheepishly, thinking I was yelling at her.
I turned my attention back to the chemically-enhanced woman. She’d stopped dancing. Now she swayed unsteadily like she was standing on the deck of a rolling ship instead of solid ground.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie murmured.
“Sorry,” DeeDee echoed, coming out of the shadows to stand behind Leslie.
The dog hung her head and my aunt held out her arms, both waiting for my forgiveness.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. “It’s been a long day. I was almost died a couple of times.”
“Blanche,” Leslie spat, like it was the single most vile name ever uttered.
I couldn’t blame her. According to Marshal Griswald, the woman we knew as Blanche was an operative working for the Lubovsky crime family. In order to get close to my family and find the evidence my father had stashed on the syndicate before going to prison, Blanche had befriended Aunt Leslie. Then her Narcotics Anonymous “sponsor” had tried to kill me.
“Blanche wasn’t your fault,” I told Leslie, moving forward and grabbing her hands. I tried to pull her toward the house. She wouldn’t budge.
For a moment, her sponsor’s betrayal acted like a splash of cold water on Leslie, sobering her up. “I should have known.”
I shook my head. “How could you have? You were vulnerable. She said all the right things.”
“You disliked her immediately.” She swayed slightly and almost imperceptibly slurred her words.
“I dislike everyone immediately,” I joked, tugging her forward. “Besides, you weren’t the only one who was fooled. Marshal Griswald had a mole on his team.”
“That man has a stick up his butt.” Leslie allowed me to lead her back to the house.
DeeDee followed close behind.
“Where’s the cat?” I asked.
“What cat?” Leslie turned around, looking for a non-existent kitty.
“Soon back,” DeeDee assured me.
Opening the back door, I let the dog rush into the B&B before helping Leslie navigate her way indoors.
“I need a nap,” she announced.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed. “You can sleep it off.”
“Here,” she said, slumping against the nearest wall.
“Not here.” I yanked her arm hard, shaking her awake. “This is the dining room.”
“It’s got a floor,” she argued.
“A little help?” I shouted.
I didn’t get a response, except for DeeDee loping back in and then trying, ineffectually, to skid to a stop on Aunt Susan’s prized hardwood floor.
“Help?” she asked, looking no worse for wear after crashing into a corner of the dining room table.
“You’d think with a houseful of people someone could come give me a hand,” I muttered. “Where is everyone?”
“Are you asking me or the dog?” Leslie asked.
“The dog.”
My aunt nodded like that made perfect sense.
“Furniture,” the dog replied.
Before I could tell her that her answer was confusing, I heard the unmistakable sound of a piece of furniture being pushed across the floor overhead.
“Why don’t you sit down here?” I kicked a chair away from the table, lowered Leslie into it, and guided her so that she could rest her arms and head on the table.
“Watch her,” I ordered the dog before hustling upstairs in search of the furniture movers.
I ran upstairs trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I didn’t have to go far. I heard the unmistakable scraping noise coming from the Primrose Room on the second floor.
Peering inside I watched Patrick, Marshal Griswald, and Aunt Susan struggling to push the giant four-poster bed across the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked from the doorway.
“They’ve all lost their minds,” God shouted. Looking around, I saw that the cup he was in was on top of the dresser.
Marshal Griswald sagged against his corner of the bed, breathing hard, Patrick straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, and Aunt Susan charged toward me.
“Help us,” Susan ordered, grabbing my wrist and dragging me into the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked again, bewildered as to the how and why she’d managed to rope a US Marshal and a police detective into being her impromptu moving staff.
“We have guests coming,” Susan said, pushing me toward the unmanned corner of the bed.
“Guests?”
“Yes,” Susan said snippily. “Those people that pay to stay here. This is a business after all, or did you forget that?”
“We’re moving it to that corner,” Patrick interjected, jerking his chin toward the farthest corner.
“Well did you?” Susan demanded, ignoring the redhead’s attempt to diffuse the tension.
“Of course I didn’t,” I replied to my aunt. “It’s just that with all that’s going on….”
Shoving at her corner of the bed, forcing us all to join her in the effort to move the bed, she muttered, “I took the reservation a week ago. Way before your father escaped from prison, your boyfriend tried to kill you, your---“
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I interrupted sharply.
Patrick raised his eyebrows.
Susan shook her head and continued on her tirade. “As I was saying, I took the reservation before your sister came home and before your apartment blew up. Besides, the request was made by a former guest. I couldn’t very well say no.”
“And what does any of that have to do with moving the furniture in the middle of the night?” I asked as the bed finally bumped up against the desired wall.
“Feng shui. It has to be far away from the door,” Susan said.
“Why?” I asked
“Feng shui.”
“Yes, you said that,” I said, trying not to lose my temper. “We’ve never moved furniture for a guest before.”
“Apparently she’s very particular.” Straightening, Susan rolled up the sleeves of her flannel gown. “She needs the bed to be against the wall and lots of blue in the room.”
“Okay. So you’re going with a the customer is always right theme,” I said slowly. The explanation didn’t explain the presence of the Law Enforcement officers.
“Don’t start, Margaret,” Susan snapped.
“Start what?” I asked. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. You’re moving furniture in the middle of the night.”
“Because Loretta and Templeton have gone to the airport to pick them up.”
“Dressed like that?” I gasped.
Susan narrowed her gaze. “Dressed like what?”
Swallowing hard, I shrugged.
I was saved from answering by a massive crash downstairs.
Everyone in the bedroom jumped, startled.
I winced. “That was either DeeDee or Leslie.”
“Boom Leslie,” the dog barked.
“I’m guessing it’s Leslie,” I told Susan.
“For heaven’s sake,” Susan practically growled. Ripping open the room’s closet, she grabbed a large garbage bag, stuffed to the gills, and threw it at me.
Instinctively I batted it away. It fell to the floor with a soft thud.
“Fix the bed,” she ordered before hurrying out of the room.
“Don’t go alone.” Marshal Griswald hurried after her. “Someone could have broken in.”
I could only hope.
Chapter Four
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the corner of the pink hand-knit spread and yanked it off the bed. As I rolled it into a ball, I could hear Susan’s agitated voice coming from the dining room, but I couldn’t understand what she was complaining about.
I glanced over at Patrick and realized he was staring at me in abject horror.
I whirled around to see what upset him, but saw nothing behind me. “What is it?” I asked, turning back to face him.
“You’re not going to fold that?”
I looked down at the rumpled mound of material pressed to my chest. I frowned. “Oh, you’re one of those people.”
“Those people?” Moving around the bed toward me, he held out his hands.
“People who believe in folding things.” I tossed the spread to him.
“You don’t believe in folding things?”
“Not if they’re going to need to be unfolded.”
“But they don’t get wrinkled if you fold them.” He folded the bed covering with the efficiency of a world-class origamist.
I eyed him suspiciously. “I bet you own an iron, don’t you?”
“I do.” He carefully laid his perfectly-cornered creation on top of the dresser. “And I know how to use it.”
I shook my head, reaching for a pillow. “And here I’d been thinking you were practically perfect.”
“I’m far from that,” he murmured in a self-recriminating tone.
We stripped the bed in silence. He folded all the removed bedding while I pulled a fresh set from the garbage bag. It was blue, as the guest had requested, but I didn’t know what she’d think of the tiny anchor pattern. Personally I thought it clashed with the floral patterns in the Primrose Room.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, as Patrick moved to help me make the bed.
He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t mind.”
“Why not?”
“I own an iron, Mags,” he teased. “Imagine the pleasure I get from making a bed.”
My heartbeat doubled as he flashed a good-natured smile at me.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs.
“Susan,” I told Patrick.
Sure enough, she popped her head into the room. “He’s trying to get Leslie sobered up before she hurts herself.”
“Who?” I asked, confused.
“Griswald,” Patrick supplied helpfully, sending a sheet billowing across the bed toward me.
“Where are you going to sleep, Margaret?” Susan asked. “I already gave Marlene your old room since we’d turned hers into a guest room years ago.”
“I can stay in one of the extra guest rooms.” Patrick and I pulled the corners of the fitted sheet around the mattress as I spoke.
“No you can’t,” Susan said tiredly. “I rented both of them too.”
“To who?” I asked, unable to remember a time in recent history when all four guest rooms had been rented out simultaneously.
“To the Marshal and his brother.”
I stared at her, an uneasy feeling pooling in the pit of my stomach. She was renting rooms to a US Marshal and an FBI agent just when her niece, the hitwoman, was moving back home. This did not bode well.
My panic must have shown on my face because Patrick said, “Catch.” He sent the upper sheet my way, while giving me a warning look.
Swallowing hard, I did my best to look composed. “I’ll sleep in the ship.”
“You’re terrified of the ship,” Susan said doubtfully.
“I was afraid when I was eight,” I told her. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it now.”
“Well that would be a solution,” she said slowly.
“Problem solved,” I told her with a fake cheery smile. “I’ll finish everything in here and then set up the ship.”
Susan nodded. “I’ll go check on Leslie.” She left, her footsteps clattering down the stairs.
“Ship?” Patrick asked, stuffing a pillow into its case.
“It’s the basement.”
“You call your basement a ship?”
“We called the shed The Barn. We call the basement The Ship.”
He pulled a blue bedspread from the bag and we smoothed it over the bed.
“Thanks.” I stowed the carefully folded bedding in the garbage bag and put it back in the closet. “I don’t know why Aunt Susan’s knocking herself out to accommodate this guest.”
“Maybe it’s the stress from everything else that’s going on,” Patrick mused. “Maybe being able to actually help someone, meet their needs, is important to her.”
“Probably.” I headed toward the door, but before I reached it, he reached over my shoulder and pushed it closed.
When I glanced over my shou
lder to see what was going on, he caught my chin and kissed me. Unlike the soothing pressure he’d applied in the car, this kiss was giving and taking, lips and tongue, hot and hotter. Then we heard the footsteps climbing the stairs and jumped apart like two guilty teenagers, both trying desperately to catch our breath and look composed.
“…so it looks like a ship,” I said with a fake laugh, hoping that it would sound like we’d been in the middle of a conservation and weren’t really ready to rip each other’s clothes off and mess up the freshly made bed.
Aunt Susan popped her head into the room and surveyed our progress on the makeover with a critical eye. “Very nice. Someone taught you well, Detective. Domestic duties were never one of our Margaret’s strengths.”
Stung, I looked away, pretending to focus on God, who’d curled up in the bottom of the cup that I snatched off the dresser. It wasn’t that what she said was untrue, I was never going to fool anyone into thinking I was a Domestic Goddess. But I felt like she’d been picking on me since the moment I’d walked in the door and I had no idea why.
Biting back as sarcastic retort, I asked quietly, “Did you need something else?”
“Loretta called,” Susan replied. “They’ll be here in less than five minutes and Leslie and that dog are both sprawled out on the kitchen floor.”
“I’ll move the dog, you move your sister,” I said, hurrying past her and rushing downstairs.
“DeeDee come,” I ordered, stalking through the dining room toward the kitchen.
Leslie, Agent Griswald, and the dog all watched my hurried progress across the room with identical befuddled expressions.
“Now,” I said, blinking back tears. “Please.” Logically I knew that I was overreacting to Susan’s irritability, but all I really wanted to do was have a good cry.
“Hurry up, beast,” God demanded from the cup. “Can’t you see she’s upset?”
“Wrong Maggie something?” DeeDee asked, getting to her feet.
Shaking my head, I stumbled into the kitchen and opened the door to the basement. “Down you go.”
DeeDee put her front paws on the top step and whined pitifully, “Dark.”
“You’re a Doberman,” the lizard reminded her, as I fumbled to find the light switch. “You can’t be scared of the dark.”
Switching on the fluorescent bulbs, I nudged her butt with my knee, forcing her to scamper down the stairs. I followed her, making sure I pulled the door closed behind me.