Inwardly I reeled. If Pennington had been the one blackmailing Greer, it might mean she was safe, now that he was dead. Sure, he probably had partners, but he had to have been the ringleader—he was the one with the personal stake in getting rid of the woman who was draining away his inheritance and he was collecting the loot for himself at the same time. It was ingenious, really. He wouldn’t even have to pay taxes.
And now the police would dig into every corner of Pennington’s life, looking for clues to his killer’s identity. That would have his cohorts in crime running for cover, wouldn’t it?
“Why, specifically, do you think that, Ms.—?” Crowley asked, looking at Jolie again.
“Travers,” Jolie said. “Jolie Travers.” She drew a deep breath, huffed it out. “I heard them arguing—Jack Pennington and Greer, I mean—at Christmas. I was right here in this kitchen, helping Carmen clean up after dinner so she could go home and be with her own family, and they were on the back patio. Alex had given Greer a diamond bracelet as a present, and Jack was furious. He said it was extravagant, and accused her of playing his father for a fool.”
I stared at Jolie in undisguised surprise. She’d never mentioned the incident to me before, and I wondered why. I’d been confined to my apartment over the holidays, brought low by a flu bug.
And since when did Jack Pennington spend Christmas with his father and the second wife?
“How did Mrs. Pennington react?” Crowley asked.
Jolie looked at me then, and I saw acute misery in her eyes. Then she turned to Crowley, facing him squarely, her shoulders straight and rigid. “She laughed at him,” Jolie said.
“And?” Crowley pressed, very gently. There was an “and.” I’d sensed it, too, dangling unspoken at the end of Jolie’s last sentence.
“Greer said she could convince Alex of anything, and if Jack messed with her again, she’d tell his father he’d been coming on to her. Alex would have believed it, too. He was still crazy about Greer then, even though he was running around with other women—crazy enough to pay a hundred thousand dollars for a bracelet. He probably would have cut Jack out of his will.”
Crowley sat back in his chair, pondering. “Interesting,” he mused.
“Yeah,” I agreed, scowling at Jolie to let her know how I felt. She could have told me all this. She should have told me. “Very interesting.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CROWLEY KEPT JOLIE AND ME corralled in Greer’s kitchen until the wee small hours, drinking coffee and presenting the same questions over and over again, the words varying slightly, like little actors changing costumes in the dark wings of the conversation. Meanwhile, Jack Pennington’s body was being measured, photographed, examined, speculated over and finally bagged for shipment to the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office in Phoenix.
I knew two things for sure. Pennington had been shot to death—there’d been a lot of blood, and one of the cops had mentioned searching the house for the shooter—and Greer was missing, as was Carmen.
I believed my sister had been abducted by the same people who had been blackmailing her—since Tucker had let slip that her car was still in the garage—and might be dead herself, along with her housekeeper. I still believed Jack could have been behind the whole scam, but maybe I’d been mistaken. Or maybe something had gone wrong and the others, whoever they were, had decided to cut him out at the last minute. The cops had a different take on the situation, if Crowley’s general attitude was anything to go by—they thought Greer had pulled the trigger during an argument, and subsequently headed for the proverbial hills.
I suspect Jolie was leaning that way, too—in the cop direction, I mean—maybe because as horrible as it was to think Greer might have taken a life, it was better than thinking she’d died, or was dying, in any of the unspeakable ways described in the voice mail messages Tucker, Jolie and I had heard earlier.
By now, Tucker had surely turned the throwaway cell phone over to his superiors as evidence. The blackmailers-turned-extortionists had to know their terms had been violated—the police were definitely Involved, up to their badges.
Damage control. At this point, that was the best I could hope for.
It was nearly dawn when the gruesome party broke up.
Tucker took Jolie, Dave and me back to my place. I couldn’t stay at the guesthouse—I was too freaked out. Jolie, grimly distracted and moving like a sleepwalker, got into her Pathfinder and drove home to her little rental in Phoenix to get ready for work and see what furniture Sweetie might have eaten in her absence. Tucker came upstairs with me, checked the place out for psychos and, finding it clear, left the dog and me on our own while he went to a nearby supermarket to buy kibble and presumably the makings of breakfast. My fridge contained a box of baking soda, a package of AA batteries and a block of moldy cheese.
I was pacing the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew and trying to give birth to an idea that had been churning in the back of my head throughout the night, when the telephone rang. I pounced on it without checking caller ID, terrified and hopeful at the same time.
Let it be Greer, I prayed. Let her be safe.
“Where is Tucker?” Allison Darroch demanded, skipping right over “hello.”
I sighed. “He’s not here,” I said, feeling bruised.
“But he spent the night with you.” It was an accusation, and it hit me wrong.
“He spent the night bagging a body,” I countered. Okay, I was a little testy, but I was, after all, up to my butt in hungry alligators, and their jaws were snapping. “If you have questions for Tucker, ask him.” I was about to hang up when she stopped me.
“Wait,” she said, quickly and with some urgency.
I waited, thinking all the while that it would have been smarter to follow my first instinct and end the call. But I’d heard something in Allison’s voice, in that single word, that snagged my attention. Fear? Despair? I wasn’t sure.
“What?” I prodded, still terse, when she didn’t speak.
“You said Tucker was working, and I’m not going to ask how you know that. But, please—who was killed? Not another child?”
“Not another child,” I confirmed, almost gently. I wasn’t a mother, but I could imagine how frightened Allison must be for her own children, after what had happened to Gillian. The tragedy had struck too close to home. I also noted the subtle indication that if Allison was fearful, it meant she believed Vince Erland might not have been Gillian’s killer. For a moment I wished we weren’t natural adversaries, so I could talk to her about it. After meeting Erland, I didn’t know what to think.
She started to cry. “I need to talk to Tucker, and he’s not answering his cell phone,” she said.
“I’ll tell him,” I replied.
Allison sniffled. “Okay.”
We hung up.
I turned away from the phone, an old-fashioned wall unit, after setting the receiver back in its hook, and found myself face-to-face with the idea that had been eluding me.
Justin was standing in the middle of my kitchen, watching me.
I barely flinched, which meant I was getting used to impromptu visits from dead people. Was that good or bad?
I was too antsy to decide, at least at the moment.
“I need your help,” I said.
Justin looked pleased, in a broken, weary sort of way. Pepper had already gone on, and I knew Justin would follow soon. Just what I needed—another person to miss.
“Great,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “What do you want me to do?”
“Find my sister,” I answered, moving past him into the living room to go through the few photographs I owned. I kept them in a shoe box, since there weren’t enough to justify an album, let alone frames, and they were all outdated. Lillian hadn’t allowed a lot of pictures while I was growing up, since we were on the run the whole time, but there were a few. I’d burned Nick’s and my wedding photos, which is another story.
I riffled through snapshots
until I found what I was looking for—a strip of three black and whites, taken in a mall photo booth: Greer, Jolie and me, with our heads together, grinning like fools.
I felt a pang, looking at those youthful faces. Stared at them for a long moment before handing the strip to Justin.
Justin studied the images, a range of emotions moving across his face like cloud shadows dappling sunny ground.
A deep dread spread over me, and I felt sick, even a little dizzy. But I didn’t take time to question Justin; I wanted him on his way, ASAP. Tucker would be back any minute with the kibble for Dave and whatever he’d bought for our breakfast, and even though he knew I talked to dead people on a fairly regular basis, I wasn’t really keen on having a conversation with someone he couldn’t see or hear while he was around.
“Nice dog,” Justin said, bending to pat Dave, who licked his hand. It was comforting to know Justin was visible to him—it made me feel a touch less crazy.
“Thanks,” I replied. I pointed Greer out in the picture. She was young, only eighteen or nineteen years old, blond and smiling brightly, though, like the photo-me, she had a watchful, hunted look in her eyes. Of the three of us, Jolie was the only real person, confident in her identity—Greer and I were impostors, expecting to be caught out at any moment. “Her name is Greer Pennington,” I said. “Can you focus on her or something, and zap yourself to where she is?”
Justin pondered Greer’s image. “It’s harder with pictures,” he said. “And thinking ‘Greer Pennington’ isn’t working for me.”
Down in the parking lot, a car door slammed.
Tucker was back.
“Justin,” I said urgently, “please—just try.”
Justin nodded.
I thanked him again.
Tucker was coming up the outside stairway. Dave began to bark out happy, tentative little yips, and headed for the door, toenails skittering on the bare floor.
Justin handed back the photo, and I touched his arm. He was dead and no one could harm him, but he was still a child. What if he teleported himself into some grisly scene? “It might—it might be bad,” I said, compelled to warn him. “The place where Greer is, I mean.”
He nodded, squinched his eyes shut and blipped out.
I went to the door to let Tucker in. He was lugging a twenty-five-pound bag of dog food under one arm, and he carried a fast-food bag in his free hand. He gave me a tired smile and then a peck on the forehead as he entered.
“You need to call Allison,” I told him. “She said she tried your cell phone a few times, but you didn’t answer.”
He stiffened, turned his head to look back. I knew he was worried—I saw it in his eyes—though he tried to hide it. He was tired and he needed a shower and shave, and watching him, I felt something dangerously close to love. “The battery’s been acting up,” he said. “I need a new one.”
“You can call from the kitchen,” I said, nodding him in that direction.
I stayed in the living room, determined not to listen in. But it was a small place, and I couldn’t help hearing him set the dog food bag down and grab the telephone receiver off the hook.
Because I was all ears, I retreated to the bedroom, got a clean sundress from the closet, then showered, half expecting Tucker to be gone when I was finished.
Instead, he’d finished his phone call, set the fast-food breakfast out on plates and poured us each a cup of coffee. Dave was crunching away on his kibble, but it was the Glock that drew my attention.
Tucker had confiscated it the night before, but now it was sitting in the middle of the table, where a normal person might have kept salt and pepper shakers. I looked at it, looked away, remembering I was scheduled for a nine-o’clock shooting lesson with Max Summervale. I was sure Beverly Pennington would want to cancel our meeting at two that afternoon, given that her son had been shot to death the night before, but I meant to call her anyway, if only to leave a message of condolence with some visiting relative or a member of her staff. She’d been peeved when I hadn’t gotten in touch the day Alex’s body was found, and while a dead son was different from a dead ex-husband, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
“Everything okay at home?” I asked. If I’d had the energy, I would have been proud of the moderation in my tone and manner.
“Allison’s dad’s having some kind of surgery tomorrow morning,” Tucker answered. “She has to fly back to Tulsa right away, and since she’ll be at the hospital around the clock for a few days, she isn’t taking the kids. Chelsea will watch them after school, until I get off work.”
I smoothed the skirt of my sundress primly, like somebody at a garden tea party, and sat down. Reached for my breakfast sandwich, one of those croissant things with enough trans fats in them to clog a mule’s arteries, let alone those of an ordinary human being. “I’ve met Chelsea,” I remarked, because that was the first thing that came into my muddled head. I was actually thinking about Justin, wondering if he’d already zeroed in on Greer, and Tucker’s mention of Allison’s father’s surgery didn’t register immediately. In fact, a few moments passed before I even put Chelsea’s name and image together. “She’s Helen Erland’s neighbor, and she used to sit with Gillian sometimes.”
Tucker nodded absently, munching on his sandwich. His body might have been sitting at my kitchen table, but his mind was obviously somewhere else.
My brain finally began to work. Surgery, it said. Bad thing.
“I hope Allison’s father will be all right,” I said.
Tucker’s gaze connected with mine. “It’s probably his heart,” he said. “There’s been some talk about a bypass.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
That’s when Tucker surprised me. “I think it’s time Daisy and Danny got to know you a little better,” he told me. “How about coming by the house for supper tonight? Around seven?”
“Allison’s place?” I asked. I’d been on the property once, when Tucker and I took Russell to Allison’s veterinary clinic for emergency care, but I hadn’t gone inside the house.
A muscle ticked in Tucker’s cheek, but the expression in his eyes, though bleak, indicated a clear conscience. “That’s where they live,” he said.
“I don’t know,” I murmured. “It’s—well—kind of intrusive, isn’t it?”
“They need to get used to the idea, Moje.”
“The idea of what?” I was edgy and because of that, I probably sounded abrupt.
“You,” Tucker said. “The divorce. That life changes, and that’s okay.”
I wasn’t the other woman—Tucker’s divorce was final when I met him—but I felt guilty just the same, and it was a good bet that Allison had conditioned the twins to see me as the villain of the piece, the sole Reason Daddy Lived Somewhere Else.
Tears scalded my eyes.
Tucker reached across the table and took my chin in one hand. “No pressure, Moje,” he said hoarsely. “If you don’t feel ready, I’ll deal with it.”
My thoughts were still jumbled, but the gist of it was, I could go on orbiting the fringes of Tucker’s life like some negligible planetoid or stray moon, fighting the pull of gravity, or I could be somebody real to Danny and Daisy—and to myself. In some ways, even though I’d worked hard to raise Mojo Sheepshanks from the wreckage of Mary Josephine Mayhugh’s brief existence, I felt insubstantial, as invisible as Justin or Gillian or the dead greeter at Wal-Mart.
Tucker grinned gently at my expression. “You’re thinking too much again,” he said.
I wanted to smile back, but I couldn’t quite make the grade. “I guess it’s no big deal,” I admitted. “It’s not as if I’ll be their new stepmother or anything.”
Tucker didn’t say a word. He laid his sandwich down, though. Looked away, taking a sudden interest in the calendar tacked to one of the cupboard doors.
I figured it would be a good time to change the subject.
“Maybe you ought to get some sleep,” I said quietly. “I have an appointment,
but you can crash here if you want.”
He turned back to me, but his gaze dropped to the Glock before rising to meet mine. “No rest for the wicked,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “I didn’t get a chance to run the stats on this gun. If it’s illegal, I’m going to have to confiscate it—permanently.” He pushed back his chair, stood and set the pistol on top of the refrigerator. “In the meantime, hands off.”
As if I couldn’t get to it if I wanted to. I did an internal eye roll. “Whatever,” I said.
He came to stand directly in front of my chair and leaned down so we were practically eyeball to eyeball. “I mean it,” he said. “If the serial number checks out, I’ll teach you to shoot. If it doesn’t, I don’t want your fingerprints all over the thing.”
Something just in back of my stomach twitched, and paranoia hormones flooded my system. I hadn’t fired the Glock, but I’d certainly handled it.
“Promise,” Tucker insisted, still leaning, although now it was more mouth to mouth than eyeball to eyeball. His breath made my lips tingle.
I promised, albeit reluctantly.
He kissed me lightly, then straightened, but he was still within easy range.
I fought a strong temptation to unzip his jeans and delay his departure for a while.
He stepped back. Smiled down at me. “Don’t touch the gun,” he said.
I grinned up at him. “Is it loaded?” I asked.
“For bear,” he said. And then he kissed the top of my head, cleared the remains of his breakfast from the table and left.
I waited until I heard him descending the outside stairs before following to lock the door behind him and put the chain on.
Then I just stood there for a while, uncertain what to do next.
I decided Dave ought to have a walk, and found the leash. Went through the whole process of unlocking and unchaining the door again.
By the time Dave and I got back to the apartment, it was almost time for my shooting lesson at the range. I decided the sundress probably hadn’t been the best choice, and swapped it out for black jeans and a lightweight turtleneck of the same somber hue. All I needed to complete the cat-burglar look, I thought, assessing my reflection in the mirror over my bureau, was a stocking cap.
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