“I wanted to see the house from over here while the painters were taking a break,” Sheena said with a toss of her head. Indeed, the workers and the van were gone. She peeled off the sunglasses, stared at the house, and sighed. “It’s perfect.”
Penny straightened. “Pardon me, I was just leaving.”
“You don’t like it?” Sheena asked with an innocent smile.
Penny set her jaw. “It’s none of my concern. It’s Deke’s house.”
“And mine, soon enough,” Sheena said, holding out her left hand. On her ring finger, a huge, dazzling diamond nearly lasered Penny’s corneas. “I thought you should know that Deke and I are getting married.” She grinned, meanly. “No hard feelin’s.”
Hurt and rage rose in Penny’s chest like a tide, overwhelming her. Scenes from the past several months swam in her brain—the betrayal, the heartbreak, the attorneys, the arguments, the upheaval, the loneliness, the VD tests. She had found Deke’s fumbling foreplay amusing, his back hair endearing. She had loved him despite his faults, yet he had exposed her to ridicule and speculation. The mail in her left hand rattled as her arm began to shake. It was one thing to bear the humiliation of her husband’s kicking her to the curb for this … this … this cliché, but having to endure the woman coming over to her side of the street to rub it in was simply too much.
Something dark and sinister came over Penny, filling her with vengeance. She put her hand on Sheena’s bulbous chest and shoved her hard, off the sidewalk and in front of oncoming traffic.
4
A liberal dose of theatrics …
In slow motion, Sheena clawed at the air as she stumbled backward, her kohl-lined eyes wide with fear when she realized she was going down on asphalt. On the sidewalk, Penny stood frozen, part of her unable to believe that she’d just pushed the woman, part of her morbidly fascinated as she watched the action unfold. A dark SUV was barreling down Charm Street toward Sheena. The driver held a cell phone to his ear and hadn’t yet noticed the woman flailing in the street. From the other direction came a station wagon, but it slowed: The driver seemed to be distracted by the horrid pink house.
Alarm overrode self-preservation, propelling Penny into the street. She dove and tackled Sheena, then rolled them both to the center line and braced to be struck and torn into a dozen bloody parts. She hadn’t planned to die in the arms of her husband’s girlfriend. Their joint demise would spark scandal … headlines … folk songs.
Tires squealed and horns blasted the air, although Penny could barely hear over Sheena screaming in her ear. She was lying underneath the woman, pinned by Sheena’s pendulous breasts, unable to breathe. Her body sang with pain, especially where the mini binoculars in her pocket bit into her hip, but slowly Penny realized that they hadn’t been pulverized. She opened her eyes, squinting into the sun.
“Holy freak, are you ladies okay?” A wide-eyed teenager leaned out of the driver’s side window of the SUV. He still held his cell phone to his ear. “Dude,” he yelled into the mouthpiece, “I nearly mowed down two lesbians!” Then he moved the phone away from his mouth. “Seriously, are you two okay?”
“Get off me!” Sheena screeched at Penny.
“You’re on me,” Penny muttered, pushing to free herself.
Sheena flopped onto her back, her white neck brace and hair a stunning contrast against the dark asphalt. She looked dazed, and she’d lost a high-heeled shoe, but otherwise, she seemed fine. Well, other than the mad-as-hell part.
“I could have been killed!”
The teenager gave a dry laugh and pointed to Penny. “Yeah, she saved your life, lady. I would’ve splattered you for sure if she hadn’t knocked you out of the way.”
“Me, too,” shouted the lady driving the station wagon. “That woman is a hero.” Sporadic applause and cheers burst out from drivers who had rolled down their windows.
Penny pushed up on her elbows, looked at where the young man’s SUV had finally come to a stop, and swallowed hard. Sheena’s sunglasses lay in a thousand pieces behind one of the big tires. He would have splattered Sheena if she hadn’t decided to act.
Of course, if she hadn’t pushed Sheena, she wouldn’t have had to save her.
Penny clambered to her feet and brushed herself off, feeling shaky at the close encounter with death, and guilty that she was being heralded a hero. She reached down, grasped Sheena by the arm, and, with considerable effort, pulled the stunned woman to her feet. As soon as Sheena was standing, she slapped at Penny’s hands like a windmill.
“Get away from me, you lunatic!”
Penny shrank back, turned to give the teenager a wobbly smile, and called, “We’re fine here. Thanks.” He pulled away and other cars followed slowly, staring at Penny and Sheena standing on the center line. The pieces of mail that Penny had held flapped on the ground like wounded birds. She glanced toward The Charm Farm and saw Jimmy Scaggs jogging toward them.
Great.
“Let’s get out of the street, Sheena.”
“Where is my shoe?” Sheena bellowed, hobbling in one high heel.
“It’s over there,” Penny said, pointing to the curb in front of her former house, avoiding curious stares from drivers, growing more frantic by the minute. She had almost killed the woman—no matter what sins Sheena had committed, she didn’t deserve to die. Penny gulped air. What had she been thinking? Shaking noticeably, Penny touched Sheena’s elbow. “I’m sorry. Come on, I’ll help you across.”
Sheena swatted at Penny again, her face mottled as she limped ahead, stopping cars with a mere lift of her hand. “Don’t touch me. I told Deke you were going to blow, but he swore to me that you were a doormat.”
Penny recoiled as if she’d been slapped. She stumbled, then stepped up on the curb beside Sheena, mere feet from what used to be her own driveway. That crack in the concrete—she had pulled weeds out of that crack more times than she could count. “Excuse me?”
Sheena glared, then leaned over to scoop up her shoe. “You’ve got Deke snowed—he thinks you’re a meek little mouse without the backbone or the brains to retaliate.” She shook the shoe, wielding the stiletto like a blade. “You jealous little bitch—you can’t stand the thought of me marrying Deke, so you tried to kill me!” She shoved her face close to Penny’s. “You’re going to pay, Granola Girl.”
Penny’s body flamed with humiliation, both at the knowledge that Deke so thoroughly ridiculed her behind her back, and at the woman’s vicious tone.
“Is everything alright, Miss Penny?” Jimmy asked as he loped up next to them.
Penny turned, floundering for words. “F-fine, Jimmy. There was a little accident, but everything’s under control.”
“Accident, my ass,” Sheena said with a snort. “Did you see her push me in front of those cars?”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes at Sheena, then spat on the ground. “No. I didn’t see a thing.”
But when he looked at Penny, she had the feeling that he was lying to protect her. “Jimmy,” Penny said calmly, “please … leave us.”
He frowned, but nodded and waited until two cars went by before crossing the street, thankfully distracted by Henry, who had escaped from the truck bed and looked as if he might run after Jimmy. Penny turned back to Sheena, fighting desperation. “Sheena, I’m sorry. I was angry, but I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”
“Right.” Sheena lifted her dirty foot—did the woman ever wash her feet?—and shoved it into her shoe. “I’m calling Chief Davis to have you arrested for assault.”
Penny’s stomach bottomed out. Jail … prison. So after a lifetime of scrupulous behavior, she had finally succumbed to her family destiny. All of her well-kept secrets would be revealed… . Deke would be extra glad he’d left… .
“It’ll be my word against yours,” Penny said on an exhale.
“Not when you fail a polygraph.”
Penny felt the blood drain from her face.
The blond looked triumphant. “Then I’ll file a civil suit fo
r every piddly dime that Deke let you keep!”
Penny’s throat constricted. Not only had she pushed a woman in front of a car but she’d also pushed a woman who would sue her own mother in front of a car.
Sheena adjusted her neck brace with a savage twist. “You attacked an injured woman—a jury will give me anything I want.” She emitted a harsh laugh. “Just wait until Deke hears about this.”
Penny’s mind raced. God help her, the thought of Deke and everyone in town believing that she was so jealous that she would try to kill his mistress made her ill. She could lose her freedom, her business … not to mention what was left of her tattered pride. Sweat beaded on her hairline. But what could she do? She was guilty, and she had nothing to bargain with, no way to convince Sheena to keep quiet.
Then a memory chord stirred. Or did she?
Penny pulled herself up and summoned strength while giving Sheena her most level stare. “Speaking of Deke, wait until he hears about your visitor this morning.”
At the stiffening of the woman’s spine and the panicked look in her eyes, relief zigzagged through Penny’s chest—leverage. Thank you, God.
“What visitor?” Sheena asked lightly.
“You know—tall, dark, and handsome, brown leather jacket. Driving a green sedan. I assume you were good friends since you answered the door in your nightgown.” Penny angled her head. “Oh, and you weren’t wearing your neck brace then.”
Sheena’s jaw dropped. “You were spying on me?”
“I, um, just happened to be looking out the window.”
Sheena’s red mouth tightened, and Penny steeled herself for a verbal onslaught. Then magically, Sheena’s mouth curled into a repentant smile.
“Maybe I overreacted just a tad.” She emitted a hollow little laugh as she smoothed her hand over her stiff platinum hair. “After all, no one was hurt when you accidentally stumbled and pushed me off the sidewalk.” Sheena studied her nails. “So maybe I’ll just forget this little episode happened … if you forget that I had a visitor this morning.”
Entering into a pact with the woman sent a finger of unease up Penny’s spine, but she had no choice. “Agreed.”
Then Sheena’s eyes narrowed. “Just so that we’re clear—this doesn’t mean that you and I are friends, Granola Girl.”
Penny nodded. “Clear.”
“And spying on me is really pathetic,” Sheena added. “You need to get a life.”
Penny’s mouth watered with the words You got my life, but she swallowed them.
Sheena turned on her high heels and marched toward the pink house, her full hips swaying. Penny watched her go, flooded with relief but fighting an undertow of frustration and sudden, mounting fear.
Not fear of Sheena Linder but fear of herself, of what she was capable of. Deke’s description of her timidity wasn’t flattering, but it was more true than not, she admitted. Growing up in a family of hell-raisers, she had learned that the best way to escape notice was to fly below the radar. She was generally the kind of person who lived her life and let other people live their lives, because she’d learned that sticking her neck out usually led to messy situations … like confronting Sheena Linder about the dangers of her tanning beds.
The woman still had her tanning beds—and now had Penny’s husband to boot.
But pushing Sheena in front of a car … that was more than sticking her neck out. That was submitting to dark impulses that she entertained only in the wee hours of the morning… .
A horn blasted, stealing her breath. Penny jerked her head around to see that Lou’s painting van had returned and she was blocking the driveway. She was being honked like a stranger out of the driveway that used to be hers. She stepped aside, then looked down as one of the envelopes that she had been going to take to the museum blew across her sandal. She spotted the other two pieces of mail just off the sidewalk, dirty and damp. She picked them up as she made her way back to her side of Charm Street, her pulse thudding in her ears as realization bled through her about how differently the pushing incident could have ended, and how a person’s life could be forever changed by one impulsive decision.
This time she’d been lucky.
“Excuse me, Red.”
Penny startled from her musings and turned her head, then nearly swallowed her tongue. Sheena’s mystery man sat in his faded green car with the window rolled down, his head and one arm leaning out. Now that she was in a position to get a good look at his face, she immediately identified his relationship with Sheena: lover. He was breathtakingly handsome, with a darkened, chiseled jaw and glittering black eyes that hinted at danger despite the fact that he was smiling. No one had called her “Red” since grade school. Ridiculously, she shoved a strand of unruly hair behind her ear, thinking she must look frightful after rolling around in the street.
“Y-yes?” she managed, darting a nervous glance toward the pink house. If Sheena was watching, the woman might think she was gathering information to take to Deke.
He angled his head in a way that made her think he was used to getting what he wanted out of people—women, in particular, she guessed. “I was wondering if you could recommend a decent motel.” His smooth Cajun cadence made him sound as if his jaw was double-jointed.
So, whatever Sheena said hadn’t scared him away—apparently he was settling in … with plans to harass Sheena? Penny wet her lips and stared at the long, blunted fingers of his hand draped casually next to the side mirror. A man’s hands always fascinated her, and she liked the look of his—powerful … capable … ringless. Sexual awareness sprang to life in her midsection and she wondered crazily if Marie’s love potion had something to do with her bizarre reaction to this stranger, or perhaps her body was playing tricks on her because she already had him so firmly entrenched in her mind as a playboy.
“It doesn’t have to be fancy,” he added with a wink, “but clean sheets and a firm mattress would be nice.”
Her mind spun off into wild tangents, conjuring up visions of him tangled in clean sheets and performing erotic gymnastics on a firm mattress. She could feel the heat climbing her cheeks and the amused look on his face told her that he’d noticed her blush. Giving herself a mental shake, she tried desperately to be composed and act as if she were immune to the libidinous vibe he emitted.
“Try the Browning Motel,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction of downtown Mojo. “Stay on Charm Street, go past the interstate, and it’s on the left.”
He nodded curtly and gave her a savagely sexy grin. “Much obliged.” Then he pulled away from the curb, although she caught his reflection as he drove away when he glanced at her in his side mirror.
Penny tingled like a teenager over the chance encounter. The man had no idea that she knew of his connection to Sheena. Worse, because of his connection to her ex-husband’s girlfriend, she should have been repulsed by him … instead of standing there feeling as if her fuse had just been lit. Pushing aside her uncharacteristically wayward thoughts, she puffed her cheeks out in a cleansing exhale and turned her mind to something much less hazardous: delivering Hazel’s mail.
Instead of walking along the sidewalk past her store to the corner and down a half-block to the locked museum entrance, she retraced her steps to The Charm Farm parking lot, turning left past the tiny herb garden, to the new area that had been staked off for her planned expansion. She could take a few enjoyable minutes to imagine what the new garden would look like, then cut through the rusted opening in the iron fence along the tree line that separated her property from the property on which the museum sat.
Penny surveyed the area with pride and anticipation. She’d marked the boundaries herself with limber wire stakes topped with pink plastic flags. The flags danced in the wind, waving happily. The staked-off area, about a half acre, was covered in thick underbrush, thorny blackberry bushes, and waist-high weeds. Deke had sworn the soil underneath was rocky, clay-filled, and useless, but she was determined to make it work. He’d also warned her that
the zoning commission would never allow a garden to be planted, but she’d learned a little while working in Deke’s office. She knew how to decipher city ordinances … and to find loopholes that even her ex-mother-in-law the mayor couldn’t deny. When the land next to her had been rezoned to mixed use to allow the museum to open, the land that Deke’s father had given him had been zoned for mixed use as well, which meant that gardens and buildings were supposed to peacefully coexist.
She picked up a long stick and made her way through the brush, keeping an eye out for copperheads, which, Deke had warned, nested in the thicket. They would be slow-moving in the lower temperatures but deadly nonetheless. At the edge of her property there was a shoulder-high cast-iron fence, which was almost completely obscured by vines and heavy foliage. She had found the break in the fence when she had staked off the garden. There was an opening in the barbed hawthorne trees just large enough to squeeze through to the other side. It was her little secret, a shortcut to visit or just to study the house that had morbidly fascinated her ever since she’d moved to Mojo. It seemed like fate that she had wound up owning the property adjacent to the museum.
Part Victorian, part Tudor, part Gothic, the massive house was slate blue and dreary gray and faded black in various places, the kind of house that Penny imagined in the story of Hansel and Gretel. Surrounded by a tangle of trees and vines, the mansion was spooky enough to fuel all kinds of musings about secret passageways and hidden dungeons and, considering the rumored history of the Archambault family, the perfect setting for the Instruments of Death and Voodoo Museum.
From the back, the mansion was a peculiar-looking structure. Over the years, owners had built onto the monstrosity, uncaring about the appearance from the rear since it was seldom seen, leaving it with jutting, uneven roof lines, mismatched windows, and hodgepodge siding. Protruding off the back was a large garage for the three employees—Hazel and her mentally deficient son, Tilton, who did odd jobs around the museum and drove an old hearse for his occasional freelance work with the town’s two funeral homes; and Troy Archambault, the last remaining Archambault, a dermatologist who lived in New Orleans and oversaw the museum’s trust, stopping in occasionally to check on his family landmark. Alongside the almost medieval house, the contemporary garage, with its driveway and gate exiting to a side street, seemed an unfortunate but necessary appendage, like a colostomy bag.
In Deep Voodoo Page 4