by A W Hartoin
“What do I need all that stuff for?”
“For whatever you do.”
“Which would be…”
“How should I know?” asked Mom. “It’s your trip.”
“It’s not my trip. I don’t even know where I’m going.”
“Cairngorms Castle,” said Dad.
I backtracked up three stairs. “That better not be in Scotland.”
“It’s not in Scotland,” said Mom. “We wouldn’t send you to Scotland for four days.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Oh really?”
“Well, we wouldn’t this time. Cairngorms is on the edge of Johnson Shut-ins State Park. We took you there when you were thirteen. Don’t you remember?”
I did remember after some effort. Cairngorms Castle was the creation of a mining baron who decided it was a swell idea to build a Scottish-style castle in the middle of nowhere. The estate put him into bankruptcy and two years after it was finished, he threw himself off the parapet. It was said to be bad luck as well as haunted by a succession of ill-fated owners who never lived more than three years after purchase.
“I thought it was abandoned?” I asked.
“Not anymore,” said Dad. “It’s a world-class retreat.”
“Wouldn’t I be safer here with you than at a retreat? There’ll be all kinds of people there.”
“My friends own it now.”
“Your friends own Cairngorms Castle?” I asked. “Don’t all the owners die in hideous ways?”
Dad pulled me down the stairs. “Not all of them.”
“Which one didn’t die?”
“Julien Delancy. He sold the castle to John and Leslie,” said Dad.
“Why’d he sell it?”
Mom pulled me past Dad. “Never mind that.”
“No. No. I mind. What happened to Delancy?” I asked.
Dad shrugged. “It was just an accident.”
“The kind of accident that only happens in Cairngorms Castle?”
“He was in the armory. He safed a flintlock pepperbox revolver.”
I crossed my arms. “And…”
“It wasn’t loaded, but he heard a rattle so he was checking it out and shot off his ear,” said Dad all nonchalant.
“Was his finger on the trigger?”
“No.”
“Did it at least have powder in the pan?” I asked.
“Not so much,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“People actually pay money to stay the death castle?”
“Yes and handsomely, too. John and Leslie will take good care of you,” said Mom.
I glared at my parents. “What kind of friends are John and Leslie? Work friends?”
“You could say that,” said Dad.
“Would I say that?”
“Yes, they’re work friends.”
“What work?” I asked. Dad had friends in every walk of life. If John and Leslie had been cops, he would’ve just said that. They were something else and that made me nervous.
“They’re retired.”
“From what?
“That’s all you need to know,” said Mom. “Pick up a bag and let’s go.”
I grabbed the garment bag. “Wait. Where’s Pick?”
“He’s fine. Come on,” said Dad.
“Where is he?”
“You’re not taking him.”
I dropped the bag. “Pick! Pickpocket! Come here, fuzzball!”
“Mercy!” said Mom. “People are waiting.”
“Well, they can keep waiting. Chuck left his dog with me, not you.”
Mom and Dad followed me through the first floor, protesting that I needn’t worry about Pickpocket. The more they protested, the more I worried. And I was right to worry. I finally found Pick in the butler’s pantry, trembling in a corner, surrounded by the evil Siamese. Swish had a tuft of fuzzy fur in his chops and Swat had all his claws out.
I grabbed the broom and brandished it. “Not today, you freaks. One bald pet is enough.”
“Mercy!” said Mom. “If you hit my babies, so help me, I will—”
“What Mom? What are you going to do? Those cats are evil and mean and evil.”
She squinted at me. “You said that already.”
“I’ll smack them into next Tuesday!”
Dad wrestled the broom out of my hand. “No, you won’t.” Then he whispered in my ear. “Because I have to live here.”
“Give me that broom,” said Mom with a strange glint in her eye. She was going whack me with it. I could tell.
“No, I don’t think I will,” said Dad. “Mercy will take Pickpocket with her. Problem solved.”
I took Pick’s leash off its hook and Mom gathered up her babies and took them cooing into the parlor. They hissed at me over her shoulder, but, of course, she didn’t notice.
“Your friends won’t care about bringing Pick?” I asked.
“I’ll explain it to them. Get a move on,” said Dad.
We got my ridiculous number of bags and went out the old servant’s entrance. It was a concealed door that you’d never know was there if someone didn’t open it for you. Our house hadn’t seen a servant since Josiah Bled had lived there. He moved out and disappeared, then my parents moved in. Josiah designed the house with secret doors and hidden staircases. As we stepped out into the cool morning air, it occurred to me for the first time that the secret of why Millicent and Myrtle had given the house to my parent’s might be hidden in the house itself.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you’ve found all the hidden stuff in our house?” I asked.
“How would I know?” He laughed. “The building plans he filed with the city are practically blank.”
“That’s weird.”
Dad shushed me. “Keep quiet. Why do you think we’re getting you out at this hour?”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered.
“I’m hoping that if the Costillas have anyone watching the house, they’ll be lax at this hour.”
“Is that why we’re going to Sandy’s?”
Dad nodded and we went through Mom’s side garden. There was lots of ivy, good for concealment. All the outdoor lights were off and Dad was very quiet about opening the gate to Sandy’s house next door. Her house was built about the same time as ours but was a Tuscan-style villa. Every house in the Central West End was as unique as its owners.
We went through Sandy’s sculpture garden and Dad knocked softly on her side door, which wasn’t concealed at all.
The door cracked open, showing a young woman only five years my senior. Sandy was a celebrated young sculptor and heir to a small paper company fortune. “Hi,” she whispered and waved us in.
Sandy brought us through the main floor of her house to the garage, attached at the back through a long walkway. She gave Dad the keys to her Jag and said, “Good luck.”
The garage door opened and we drove out into the alley. Dad was all concentration, but there wasn’t anybody about. We left Hawthorne Avenue and were downtown at the Hyatt Regency in fifteen minutes. Dad pulled into the hotel’s underground parking after getting the nod from the attendant, who didn’t look like that was his real job.
As we drove down the ramp, I asked, “How well did you know Josiah?”
“What makes you think I knew him?”
“You have the building plans.”
“I got them from the city.”
“Oh. So you didn’t know him?”
Dad glanced at me and I tried to keep my expression neutral. I’d never asked Dad directly about Josiah Bled before. Until a few months ago, I thought Dad hadn’t known him at all. Myrtle and Millicent gave Mom the house, not Josiah, even though it was his house originally. Spidermonkey had discovered that Josiah signed over the house to The Girls the day he and Dad had taken off for Paris and The Girls in turn signed it over to Mom. No one would say why.
“We met,” said Dad. “He was an unusual man.”
“Did you like him?”
“Why all these questions about him of all people? We’re trying to slip you out of town so you don’t get murdered. Why aren’t you worried about that?”
“I am.”
Sort of.
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it. You’re handling it. So about Josiah?”
Dad grinned. “There they are. Perfect.” He pointed to a long black limo parked in a corner of the garage. There was a uniformed driver standing beside it and four plainclothes cops positioned around the area.
“A limo? That’s a little over the top,” I said.
“Your mother and Aunt Christine cooked it up,” said Dad.
“And they decided I’m Snot’s maid of honor?”
“Bingo.”
“Why me?” I asked. “She has two sisters.”
“They were fighting over it.” Dad pulled up beside the limo.
“She doesn’t even like me.”
Dad cocked his head at me. “Bridget likes you just fine.”
“No, she doesn’t. She and her sisters used to duct tape my legs together every Christmas and put me in a closet.”
He laughed. “Oh, that. That was bonding.”
“For them. What about me?”
“They were bonding with you.”
“I was their victim.”
“Potato potata.”
“I don’t think that works here.”
The chauffeur opened my door and I had a moment of panic. Years of duct taping flashed before my eyes. “What about Myrtle and Millicent? What about Lester? He just barely made it out of surgery. I can’t leave. I’m the nurse in the family.”
“Mercy, my girl, I can say that trio would rather have you gone and safe than here and in danger.”
“But—”
“Get out of the car,” growled Dad.
I got out, but I made a fuss about it, lots of grumbling. Dad and the chauffeur removed my many bags from the trunk and stowed them in the limo’s trunk next to the Troublesome Trio’s flowered matching luggage. My luggage looked like it’d been thrown from a train and stomped on by a horse. I wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t been. I inherited my luggage from Great Uncle Ned who was once a rodeo clown and thought train tickets were for those too slow to jump on.
Sadly, all the luggage fit and I was fast losing my chance to get away. Of course, I could just jump out at some point and make a run for it. I could hole up in some seedy motel for the four days and call it good. My eyes darted around the garage. It was just the limo. No other cars were there.
Dad laid a big hand on my shoulder. “What are you looking for?”
“The tail,” I said in a moment of surprising honesty.
“No tail today.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m not bothering to tail you, Mercy,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I know where you’re going and I’ve taken steps.”
Oh, no. Not steps. Steps is bad.
“What steps?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re not to leave the estate for any reason for the next four days. The property is secure. John and Leslie will be watching.”
“Swell,” I said. “This’ll be fun. So you’re saying no bodyguards.”
“Nope.”
“What about Aaron? Isn’t he going to be dogging my every step?” I asked. The good thing about Aaron was the food. Besides bothering me, he owned a restaurant, Kronos, and was the best cook ever. I’d been avoiding him since New Orleans in case he tried to feed me.
“Aaron’s got other things to do. You want him watching you get a manicure?”
“I have to get a manicure? What about the Shut-ins? Am I allowed to go there?”
“Absolutely not.” Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You don’t need to go anywhere. You’re going to be girly. They have a spa. Do that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Four days?”
“Four days.”
The chauffeur opened the limo’s back door and I gave in to the inevitable. At least the inevitable until I managed to jump out. I sighed as Sorcha aka Weepy peeked out. Her long red hair brushed the floor and she tossed it back over her shoulder. “Mercy, what’s taking so long? Let’s go.”
Dad gave me a thumbs up. Great. The last time he did that was at my eighth grade graduation a second after I got my diploma. He gave me the thumbs up and I proceeded to fall down the stage stairs, flashing everyone my polka-dotted panties and giving myself a fat lip. I won’t even discuss the time before that. Dad’s thumbs up were a harbinger of doom. My doom, specifically.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
“No problem.”
Not for you.
I got in the limo and doom was right. Sitting in the forward seat between my cousins, Bridget and Jilly, was Uncle Morty. No one in the history of the world has ever looked more out of place. I would say that he looked miserable, but he always looked like that. Think grumpy old toad. In comparison, my duct tape wielding cousins were lovely. They all had the Watts red hair and skinniness like my dad, except on them it was swan-like elegance.
I sat on the backseat with Sorcha. Pick jumped in behind me, spun around three times, and laid on the floor.
“Why on earth are you here?” I asked.
Uncle Morty snorted. “‘Cause you’re gonna try to jump out of this freaking limo.”
Ah crap!
Bridget and Jilly stared at him with wrinkled noses, but he didn’t smell any different than usual, pizza, cigars, and Irish Spring soap.
“I’m not going to jump out,” I said with a good amount of astonishment.
“I know. ‘Cause I’m here in this freaking ridiculous limo.”
Jilly ran her fingers over the suede roof liner. “Our mom made sure to get a good one.”
“A good what?” growled Uncle Morty.
“Limo, of course. There are different levels, you know.”
He stared at her in a way that made me think that Jilly was going to show up in his next novel as a sniveling twit soon to be killed off.
“You wouldn’t want to go in one of those limos they rent out for proms. They can’t ever get the vomit smell out.” Jilly shuddered. “We totally deserve a good limo.”
Sorcha rolled her eyes. “You think you deserve a limo for a trip to Kroger.”
Jilly tilted her head and showed off her two-carat diamond earrings. “But it would be hard to park.”
“Un. Freaking. Believable,” said Uncle Morty and he belched. It smelled like pickled eggs. We all leaned back and Pick put his snout under his paws.
Bridget smiled brightly. “Morty’s just here for the ride. He’s not going on our special weekend.” She sounded sure, but her eyes were worried.
“Ya damn skippy,” said Uncle Morty.
My cousins all smiled at me with a look I’d never seen them have before. Something like a cry for help.
“Why didn’t Dad just come?” I asked and the Troublesome Trio perked up.
“He’s got shit to do, saving your butt and what all. I sit all day anyway.” He patted the laptop bag at his feet. “I’m gonna work and keep an eye on you. I ain’t even getting out of this limo when we get there.”
Bridget nodded, her bobbed hair swinging wildly. “It’s a two-hour ride. We can get lots done. What’ve you been thinking?”
“Um…what?” I asked.
“For the wedding. I want to hear all your ideas.”
A mischievous grin spread across Uncle Morty’s face and he cracked his knuckles. “Let’s have it, Mercy. What are your ideas?”
You and me, fat man. One of these days, I will—
“I brought these,” said Sorcha as she dropped a pile of bride magazines in my lap. Then her voice hardened, “From when I was maid of honor.”
Oh, lord. I am so going to get taped.
“Ow, um, thanks.”
Uncle Morty got out his laptop. “I’m sure Mercy has been through all…seventeen of tho
se freaking awesome magazines. Since she’s not dating my wizard anymore, she has lots of time to focus on the wedding.”
And there it is. I’m being punished.
Jilly lacquered her thin lips with a layer of gloss and eyed me over her mirror. “You were dating a wizard?”
“My wizard,” said Uncle Morty.
“I thought you were dating a doctor,” said Sorcha, wistfully.
“She was,” said Bridget and then she lowered her voice like someone could overhear, “Then she kissed Chuck on that porny video. Don’t worry, Mercy. I don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind what?” I asked.
“Well, you’re notorious. But my mom says you’ll lend a kind of je ne sais quoi to the wedding and that’s good.”
“Er…”
“Je ne sais quoi translates to I don’t know what,” said Uncle Morty with his big hairy hands poised over his keyboard. “Come to think about it, that’s pretty accurate.”
“That’s not what it means,” I said.
“It does when they’re talking about you. Who knows what you’ll add to that freaking wedding.”
I sneered. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome for ruining my life.”
“Right back at you.”
I had not ruined Uncle Morty’s life any more than he had ruined mine. I made a mistake. I kissed the hell out of Chuck. It was caught on video, which wasn’t porny by the way, and my then boyfriend, Pete, saw it. He dumped me and his Dungeons and Dragons cronies a.k.a. Uncle Morty. Pete was their wizard and apparently irreplaceable.
Morty pressed the intercom. “What the hell’s the holdup? I got four women back here and no booze.”
The back door opened and Dad leaned in. “I got it.” He handed me a pizza box from Louie’s with a rank smell coming out of it. “Have a good time, girls.”
Dad slammed the door, thumped the roof, and the limo started rolling.
Morty grabbed the pizza box, dropped it in Jilly’s lap, she only squawked a little, and lifted the lid. Noxious fumes rolled out and Jilly recoiled. Sausage, anchovy, and onion. Extra onion by the look of it.
Uncle Morty rubbed his hands together and said to me, “And now we’re even.”
Gag.
Chapter Six
TWO HOURS IN a limo sounds like cake, except we didn’t have cake. We had an obese fantasy writer, a stinky pizza, the air-conditioning on high because said writer was hot, and the constant clatter of typing. The muttering and cursing didn’t help either.