by JB Lynn
I turned in the direction of the voice to see Armani limping toward us at a breakneck pace.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when she was within earshot.
“Looking for your mother. Why are you here?”
“We saw her on the news and she was here.”
“Have you seen her?”
“Not yet.”
She glanced up at Angel. “I see you brought the cavalry.”
“Navy,” he corrected.
She smirked. “I do like a man with a sense of humor.”
Ignoring their banter I asked, “Did you have another vision? Is that why you’re here?”
She shook her head, a guilty look creeping over her face.
“Then why are you here looking for her?”
“She called and asked me to meet her.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“She called and—”
“She called you? Why would she call you?” My voice rose with each word.
“Don’t attract attention,” Angel warned.
“I gave her my phone number,” Armani admitted.
“Why? Why would you give a crazy woman your phone number?”
“You have my number,” she shot back.
“Ding. Ding.” Angel stepped between us. “Back to your respective corners ladies. We’re having a clean fight here.”
“Shut up!” Armani and I growled simultaneously.
Angel quickly stepped away.
“Why does my mother have your number?” I demanded to know.
“I gave it to her.”
“When?”
“At Alice’s wedding.”
I stared at her for a long beat. She didn’t look like she was lying, but what she said didn’t make any sense. “My mother can’t remember what month it is, how the hell would she remember a ten digit number?”
Armani shrugged. “Maybe it was important to her.”
“Why would it be?”
“Maybe she sensed I’d help her. She was right. She called and said she needed help and here I am.”
“You should have called me.”
She shook her head. “No. She specifically asked me not to tell anyone about the call. I couldn’t violate her trust like that.”
“Violate her trust?” I shrieked. “She’s robbing people for ice cream money!”
“Listen, chica. I know you’re upset, but—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” I warned her. I was pretty sure that if the word “calm” passed anyone’s lips that I’d need my very own rubber room.
“There!” Angel shouted, pointing into the crowd. “There she is!”
He took off after her, I followed closely behind.
He pushed his way through the crowd and I followed in his wake, drafting off him like I was riding in the Tour de France.
“Mary!” he yelled. “Mary, Maggie is here!”
“Can you see her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Running through the crowd, knocking people over, and yelling is going to attract attention,” God bellowed. It sounded as though he was talking into a fan, because each syllable was accented by him bouncing with every step I took.
“Maggie! Maggie!” a bimbo shouted.
I looked around and saw DeeDee charging at me.
“Hurt Zeke!” she panted. “Hurt Zeke.”
“He’s hurt?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I slowed my pace slightly, trying to decide whether it was more important to catch my mother or help Zeke.
“Angel,” I yelled. “Angel stop.”
But he didn’t hear me. He kept running.
“Do the right thing,” God intoned.
“Where’s Zeke?” I asked DeeDee who had her tongue lolling out.
“Me follow.”
And I did.
But I didn’t feel good about the choice.
Chapter Thirty-one
“What happened to Zeke?” I asked once we were away from the crowd and hustling down a darkened side street.
“Bar.”
“He got in a bar fight? What the hell was he doing in a bar?”
“Fight not. Bar.”
“What is she talking about?” I asked the lizard.
“The feline’s better at translating the canine gibberish.”
“Where’s Piss?” I asked the dog.
“Zeke with.” She trotted around a corner. “See?”
Rounding the corner I saw Zeke prone on the ground with the cat sitting beside his head.
“Thank goodness you’re here, sugar,” she meowed.
“What was he doing in a bar?” I asked.
“He wasn’t in a bar. He was hit by a bar.” She ran a few steps away. “This one.”
Looking over, I saw a rusty pipe on the ground. “Oh, a bar, bar.”
“Bar bar?” DeeDee panted.
“Where was he hit?” I asked, searching Zeke for visible injuries.
He groaned and started stirring.
“Don’t move,” I urged.
Instead of listening to me, he grabbed the back of his head. “Son of a – He hit me.”
“Who hit you?” I helped him as he struggled to sit up.
“I saw Mary. I was talking to her. Telling her how worried you all are and he came up behind me and BAM! Lights out.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Piss. “Who did this to him?”
“You do know the cat’s not going to answer you, don’t you?” Zeke said, looking at me like I had the noggin that had been scrambled.
I stared at the cat.
She looked away.
I couldn’t very well give her the third degree with Zeke looking like, at any moment, he was going to pull out a butterfly net to catch me with.
“Tell her,” God urged. “She deserves to know.”
Piss met my gaze with her one eye. “Him.”
“Him?” I repeated.
“Him who?” Zeke asked.
“Him!” DeeDee growled, leaping past me.
Him, of course, was the logical suspect.
I turned to find my father standing behind me, looking like a slightly deranged version of Santa Claus, minus the beard.
“I lost your mother,” he announced.
Jumping to my feet, I asked, “Why the hell did you hit Zeke? You had to know he was just trying to help her.”
“Hit Zeke no,” DeeDee growled.
Dad glanced at the Doberman nervously, but I made no move to call her off. Behind me, Zeke slowly got to his feet.
“He was trying to take her from me,” Dad said defensively.
“She shouldn’t have been with you in the first place.” I was so angry, I could barely get the words out.
“That’s your aunts talking.”
“No Dad, that’s me. I’m the person who’s been cleaning up after all her breakdowns for all these years. I’m the person who lost a sister because of her. I’m the one who should be taking better care of Teresa’s daughter, but I can’t because you, or mom, or you and mom are always ruining everything.” Tears were streaming down my face as I unleashed the last of my diatribe, the words coming out on hiccupping sobs. “And my aunts? My aunts are freaking saints to put up with all of us. You’re the one who ruins everything. You ruined mom.”
“I love your mother!” he thundered.
“And I hate you for it,” I screamed back.
We stared at each other, long-held resentments poisoning the space between us.
“Stardust. I think it’s stardust.”
Dad and I turned slowly in the direction of the singsong voice talking about stardust.
There my mother stood looking as beautiful and fragile as ever. Angel stood on one side of her and Armani on the other. The look of pity on both their faces magnified the pain that was eating away at me.
“Stardust,” Mom said again.
“What stardust, Mary?” my father asked, stepping t
oward her.
DeeDee growled, keeping him from getting any closer.
“What stardust?” he repeated.
“The embers from the fire,” Armani answered. “She thinks they’re stardust.”
My mother’s gaze focused on me and for a brief moment lucidity ruled. Her voice was clear and strong. “Did it ever occur to you Maggie, that maybe it was I who ruined him?”
Then it was gone.
Her gaze drifted away and she said again in the childish singsong, “Can we take the Ferris wheel up to the sky now?”
“Sure,” Armani soothed. “Sure we can.”
Without a word, my father turned and walked away in the opposite direction.
“Him stop?” DeeDee snarled uncertainly.
“Let him go,” God replied. “She’s safe now.”
I didn’t know whether he was referring to me or my mother.
“Do you want to take her back to the B&B or the hospital?” Zeke asked quietly.
I shrugged. “I don’t care.”
Angel, Zeke, and Armani shared a worried look. I didn’t know whether it was about my mental health or what to do about my mother.
“You can’t lay this decision on your friends,” God chided gently. “They’re only trying to help.”
I sighed heavily, knowing he was right. “It’s just that every decision I make seems to be the wrong one.”
“That’s not true,” Zeke said softly, walking up and draping an arm around my shoulders.
I looked to Armani for guidance. “I stopped her. Now what?”
“Stopped her from what?” Angel asked, confused.
“She pulled tiles that said Stop Mom,” Armani explained.
“Not ‘pot moms’?” I teased.
“I don’t think so.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
Letting go of my mother, Armani limped toward me, love and concern in her eyes. “What makes you so sure the prediction was for her?”
I blinked, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Why don’t we call the B&B and tell them we’re taking her back to the hospital. That way they can meet us there if they choose,” Angel suggested.
“Lovely,” my mother sighed, but there was no way of knowing whether she was agreeing to the solution or admiring the embers/stardust.
“Yes,” I agreed. “That makes sense.”
“We should go,” Armani urged.
“Zeke, you’ll call my aunts?”
“Of course.” He was already pulling out his cell phone.
“And I’ll drive,” Angel decided.
I nodded, pulling my keys out of my pocket.
“And I’ll take the animals and go back to the B&B to stay with Katie,” Armani offered.
We walked away from the embers, fluttering down from the sky like charred confetti with Angel holding on to my mother, Zeke supporting me, and Armani leading DeeDee.
Chapter Thirty-two
I left it to Aunt Susan, as her sister’s legal guardian, to get my mother checked back into the hospital.
As soon as she and Griswald arrived, I handed mom over to them, got back in my car and had Angel drive Zeke and I back to the B&B.
I was grateful for the silence of the two men. I felt so exhausted and raw that I couldn’t have endured a conversation.
I didn’t have the strength to face anyone, so I went in the rear entrance to the basement while Angel and Zeke walked in through the kitchen to relieve Armani of babysitting duties.
My loyal pets were waiting for me. Even they were uncharacteristically quiet.
“You should sleep, sugar,” Piss purred softly.
It was a good suggestion, so I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. DeeDee settled on one side of me and Piss on the other. I soaked up their warmth as I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke the next morning, DeeDee was watching me. I expected her to pant, “Gotta! Gotta!” like she did every morning, but instead she licked my forehead. “Maggie love,” she panted softly.
“I love you too.” I rubbed the spot between her eyes for a long moment before I sat up.
Piss was sitting on the edge of the bed watching me carefully with her good eye. “Morning, sugar.”
“Morning.”
I went to climb out of bed and every muscle in my body contracted painfully. I gasped.
“What’s wrong?” God asked.
“Her body took a beating,” Piss said. “Between the bus crash and the tree, she’s probably covered with bruises.”
When I undressed to take a shower, I found she was right. A good portion of my body was covered in various shades of black and blue, and greens and tans. It was not a good look for me.
When I got out of the shower I asked, “What time did Zeke leave?”
“He never came downstairs,” Piss replied.
I frowned as I dressed. “But there are no open beds upstairs.”
“Maybe he slept on the settee. It’s very comfortable,” she purred.
“For a cat maybe. Not a grown man.”
Since I didn’t hear any noises from above, I took that to mean everyone else was sleeping in after the late night.
I let the dog out in the backyard and then went into the kitchen. After I’d started the pot of coffee, I went in search of Zeke. I found him, sprawled over the settee as Piss predicted, looking uncomfortable, but sound asleep.
I took my coffee outside.
Not even Aunt Leslie was up yet. Usually she took her yoga practice literally and greeted the sunrise with sun salutations.
“Hey, Maggie,” a voice called softly.
I turned and found Patrick standing behind me.
“Maggie again,” I murmured.
“I heard your mother is back at the hospital.”
I nodded.
He searched my gaze. “Something bothering you?” He always did know me so well.
“Who’s the blonde?” I asked.
“Blonde?”
Considering he’s led a double life for years, you’d think he’d be a better liar.
“Belgard’s blonde.” I waited a beat. “The one you’re sleeping with.”
It’s really hard to shock a guy who’s a cop and a hitman and had two wives and families at the same time. You’ve got to figure he’s seen and done just about everything. It’s hard, but I’d stupefied him with that line.
I sipped my coffee, watching him over the top of the cup, waiting for him to form a cohesive response.
My calm wasn’t an act, I really felt flat inside after all I’d endured over the past couple of days. Besides, even though I found the redhead to be sexy as hell, I’d always known we had no future.
“Chloe. Chloe Panzo,” he said finally.
I rolled the name off my tongue. “Chloe Panzo. Who is she?”
“I told you, someone I was supposed to have killed.”
“But you didn’t because you fell in love with her?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked away to admit, “I’d fallen in love with her before I got the job.”
“Romeo and Juliet,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Star-crossed lovers. To save her you had to give her up.”
He tilted his head to the side and squinted at me. “You’re taking this awfully well.”
I shrugged and sipped my coffee again. “You weren’t making me happy.”
He winced.
I frowned. “I didn’t mean that as an insult. Just a statement of fact. Our lives didn’t mesh. You’re not in the position to make me happy, but Chloe makes you happy, right?”
He nodded slowly.
“I’m glad.”