Below us, in the distance, I heard the whine of an ambulance. “Hang in there,” he said. “Hear that? It’s for you. It’s help.”
She flopped forward. Mackenzie bent to lift her.
“I’ll let them in,” Boy said. “She looks bad. Can you save her, Gabby?”
Gabby? The hissing spectator? Nonetheless, she looked at her husband whose I.Q. I was beginning to question, and nodded. An arrogant witch, or maybe they all were. Came with the territory.
“Stop acting as if she’s a—”
“I can’t read you your rights anymore,” Mackenzie told Vicky, “but you’d better think about them, because the police are on their way, too.” He got Emmie to her feet. “Don’t give up yet,” he said. “C’mon,” and he walked her, slowly, toward the apartment.
“Police?” Vicky put her hands back up to her face. “You can’t—I didn’t do—” His back was to her, and she stopped, her mouth half open, her eyes suddenly tearing, and her words increasingly garbled. “You have to tell them I never meant for her to die! I only wanted—I only—you can’t—it wasn’t right—again! She’s the witch. She ruins my life over and over again!”
“Don’t you badmouth witches,” Gabby said.
“Doesn’t matter what you wanted,” Mackenzie said, his back to her as he softly spoke to Emmie, and patted her cheeks. “Murder’s what you got.”
“What’ll I do?” she wailed.
“Spend a long time in prison,” I said, but just then, I saw Emmie Cade trip as she crossed the threshold into the apartment. “Watch out!” I called. “She’s—” Gabby began, and both Mackenzie and Boy bent to catch her, bumped heads, then managed nonetheless to save Emmie from collapse before they stood up and rubbed their sore spots.
And all of us heard a terrifying squeal of tires and, from nowhere, down below, shouts.
I think I knew before I turned and saw the empty balcony that Vicky Baer was no longer with us.
IT WAS OVER. Pretty much like that. The paramedics were delayed because of Vicky’s leap, but they arrived in time, and there we were, locking up someone else’s apartment.
No fireworks, no dark alleys, no punches, chases, gunshots, merely a witch and a zombie and, for me, a subtle shaking that wouldn’t stop, and a terrible confusion about who, truly, the victim had been and when a crime actually begins. What do we do with hurts that started a lifetime ago?
I was glad Olivia refused to be cowed, that she’d move on, live her life. But what if Melanie kept showing up, kept removing what she held dear?
If you’re Gabby Mackenzie, you say it doesn’t bear thinking about right now. “It’s all confusion, honey. All you can do right now is go through the motions of normal. Then, someday, things fall into place of their own accord.”
That more or less made sense.
And if you’re Gabby, you say that maybe it was all for the best, perhaps the least painful end for Vicky Baer, and you adopt her dog.
That made sense, too.
And, later on, when we were having a drink, silently and still in shock, and the men chose to recuperate in a guy way, walking over to the TV, where the Phillies were involved in extra innings, you take a deep breath and say, “So we did it, didn’t we? A little witchcraft comes in handy.”
That made no sense.
For starters, what had we done? Vicky Baer had jumped to her death, still feeling pursued by a fury named Emmie Cade. Did we pat ourselves on the back for that?
And Gabby’s part of the we hadn’t done a thing except stretch her hands toward the sky.
When I didn’t respond, she prompted me. “Didn’t we save the good one?” she asked.
I wasn’t sure anymore who’d been the good one. “We saved the one who hadn’t murdered Claire Fairchild. Who only hurt people unintentionally. Or because it was easier, or more lucrative.”
“You said she was the good one.”
“Since you mention that, I’m confused why I had to tell you.”
“You care that I didn’t know which girl was which? Big deal.”
I also thought her incantations were pathetic rhymes, but she was going to be my mother-in-law, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Would you like it better if I called it women’s intuition, which is just another name for paying good attention?” She shook her head. Tendrils of her snow-colored hair had pulled loose from the ornate updo and looked like punctuation marks around her face. “Men don’t like that better. They ignore it. Puff up, pat your head, and say, There, there little lady.”
True enough. I’d never invoke intuition.
“Like, say, that parking spot I made happen. It is possible that while you all blathered away about who was going where, I saw the man come out holding his keys. But maybe not. Maybe it was magic, and what does it matter? It worked out. I mean, God knows I’m sorry for that girl, but she killed a woman and didn’t seem to give a damn. Not even now. She was going to kill another one. And—”
I knew what was coming, her priorities, what really got to her.
“—she endangered her doggie’s life taking away his medicine. She had the last word this way. Played judge and jury and doled out her own punishment.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, and now I did, while I sipped scotch. It helped. I was no longer as conscious of every nerve end in my body.
“So what do you think?” Gabby asked, breaking into my reverie. “Want to be a witch, too?”
“They don’t do well in these parts. Think Salem.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “A pity what they did, wasn’t it?”
“Plus, I think your son’s onto your game.”
She winked at me. “His father, too. Doesn’t matter, though. It’s like a middle ground where they can agree and still save face. And speaking of them, it’s high time they paid attention to us, don’t you think? I mean, you aren’t even married yet and he’s ignoring you. Can’t have that.” She clapped her hands, twice.
And damned if that instant a huge male cheer didn’t rise up from the bar. “Home run!” the TV announcer shouted out. “And that’s the game, folks, a nail-biter with the Phillies in eleven with—”
I looked at Gabby with new amazement.
She winked at me, and then at the men, whose mood had lightened considerably. “We won,” Mackenzie said.
I looked at him. “We did indeed,” I said. We had.
My partner, my fiancé, my love. My one-of-a-kind son-of-a-witch.
By Gillian Roberts
Published by Ballantine Books
CAUGHT DEAD IN PHILADELPHIA
PHILLY STAKES
I’D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
IN THE DEAD OF SUMMER
THE MUMMERS’ CURSE
THE BLUEST BLOOD
ADAM AND EVIL
HELEN HATH NO FURY
CLAIRE AND PRESENT DANGER
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are either
a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Judith Greber
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roberts, Gillian, 1939–
Claire and present danger / by Gillian Roberts.
p. cm.
1. Pepper, Amanda (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Preparatory school teachers—Fiction.
3. Philadelphia (Pa.)—Fiction. 4. Women teachers—Ficti
on. I. Title.
PS3557.R356C58 2003
813′.54—dc21 2002043654
eISBN: 978-0-345-46426-2
v3.0
Claire and Present Danger Page 24