by Lynn, JB
“I’m pretty sure it’s not the singer you have to watch out for. Can’t you think of anything else pink to worry about?”
Remembering the giant pink Winnebago, I nodded. R.V. had never explained what she’d been doing reliving the horrors of the Revolutionary War. Had she been the one responsible for the attempt on Alton Concord’s life?
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Armani gasped.
“What?”
“Well pink indicates a baby girl’s clothes…”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“Whew.” She drew the back of her hand across her brow for dramatic effect. “That’s good, because something like that would put a crimp in our road trip plans.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that we had no such plans.
She clutched my arm. “I need a favor.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “What kind of favor?”
“I need you to help me out at a séance.”
“I already agreed to that.”
“Not the séance here,” she pointed to the house, “another one.”
“Another one?”
“I need seven people and I’ve only got six. Tell me you’ll help me out. It’s really, really important.”
I bit my tongue to prevent myself from asking what I’d get in return. “Fine.”
“Fine?” She seemed surprised by my immediate capitulation and I got the feeling I’d agreed too easily. “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well I’ve got to go. I’ve got a hot date tonight.”
“Have fun.”
“I will, but remember to beware pink.”
“Will do,” I promised, just as someone opened the front door of the house.
“You can’t hide out here forever, Margaret,” Susan said stridently.
“My fault,” Armani called out. “I was talking her into doing me a favor.”
I smiled my thanks for her loyalty as she got into her car.
“Leslie!” Susan gasped with outrage when she spotted her half-dressed sister lolling in her seat. “Are you naked?”
“Oh shut up, sis.” Leslie waved at Susan to go away.
“She’s got a bra on,” I said, climbing the stairs. “So technically she’s not naked…not to mention her lower half is covered.”
“And that makes it okay to prop her up here for the neighbors to see?” Susan snapped.
Considering that Aunt Loretta wore less on a regular basis, I figured the neighbors had seen much worse, but I kept that thought to myself.
“Help me get her inside.”
Between us, Susan and I got Leslie on her feet and coaxed her indoors.
I kicked the door shut behind us.
“Forget don’t me,” DeeDee whined pitifully.
I turned back to the door to let her in, releasing Leslie’s arm in the process since I was still holding the bag o’ bugs in my other hand.
She immediately used her newfound freedom to swipe a photograph off a shelf in the foyer. She shoved it in front of Susan’s face. “Look at this.”
Susan pushed it away. “A little help, Margaret?”
I opened the door for the dog and pushed it shut the moment she darted inside. Then I reached for Leslie and the picture, but she was undeterred.
“You can’t tell me…” she slurred.
That’s when a wine glass flew past my head, hit the wall, and shattered into a hundred pieces.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Incominnnnnnng!” God shouted. “Take cover!”
Templeton, Aunt Loretta’s fiancé, pushed past us. He looked like he was running for his life. “She’s trying to kill me.”
It was getting way too crowded in the foyer.
“We’re going to die,” God whimpered.
“We’re not going to die,” I muttered.
As though to prove me wrong, another glass flew past.
“Duck! Duck!” God begged.
“Goose!” DeeDee barked.
“Goose?” God parroted.
“Duck, duck, goose…for once her word order is right,” I said with amazement.
“Stop!” Aunt Susan roared. “That’s my Waterford crystal you’re throwing.”
“Where’d he go?” Aunt Loretta, limped in. “Where is that no-good lothario?”
I let go of Leslie to catch her twin who swayed unsteadily on her bad ankle. “Easy, Aunt Loretta. What happened?”
She blinked her fake eyelashes at me like they were flags of outrage. “He was flirting with that hussy.”
“Hussy?” Susan mocked.
“Kind of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” God jeered.
“Miniskirt, stilettos, and a horrible perfume that smelled like baby powder.” She shuddered at the memory.
“I wasn’t flirting,” Templeton yelled from the other room.
“Were too!” Loretta countered brandishing another wine glass.
“Don’t you dare throw that,” Susan ordered.
“Well, who could blame the poor guy,” Leslie interrupted. “You drive the poor man bananas. You drive all your men nuts.”
“I didn’t flirt,” Templeton insisted from the other side of the wall.
“Liar!” Loretta screeched, raising the glass.
Releasing Leslie, Susan strode toward Loretta and snatched the glass.
At least she tried to take it from her. Loretta wasn’t about to give her weapon of choice away. The two tussled over it like toddlers fighting over a favorite toy.
I stepped away, not wanting to become a casualty of the battle.
Meanwhile, Leslie slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.
“What the hell is going on?” Angel asked, walking into the middle of the war zone.
“Angel!” DeeDee jumped up on him, almost knocking the big, muscular guy on his butt.
“Aren’t you sorry you’re leaving this?” I quipped.
“What do you mean leaving?” Susan asked sharply, wrenching the glass away from her sister.
Angel gently put DeeDee down on the floor, and reached to make sure that passed-out Leslie still had a pulse, before meeting Susan’s gaze.
I admired his courage considering she looked like she was now going to use the crystal she held to beat him about the head.
“You can’t leave,” Susan told him.
“Excuse me, but my problem is more pressing,” Loretta complained. “The cheater.”
“Cheater?” Angel asked, confused.
“If you’d just listen to me, honeypoo,” Templeton said, creeping in behind Angel, using him as a human shield. “I wasn’t flirting. I was just helping.”
“Helping yourself into her skirt,” Loretta spat viciously.
Both Angel and Templeton recoiled.
“He wasn’t even a her,” Templeton groaned.
“Really?” Loretta gasped.
“You broke my Waterford over a cross-dresser?” Susan asked.
“A very attractive cross-dresser,” Templeton admitted.
“A knockout,” Loretta agreed.
“It was Waterford,” Susan stressed.
I started to giggle. I couldn’t help it. The situation was even more ridiculous than usual for my family.
“I told you I wasn’t flirting,” Templeton said. Now it was his turn to be outraged.
“Forgive me, darling.” Pushing past Angel, Loretta threw herself at her fiancé.
I had to turn away when they started making out because it made me queasy.
Aunt Susan, though, wasn’t as distracted. “What’s this about you leaving?” she demanded of Angel.
“Give him a break,” I interjected. “We always knew he’d only be here temporarily.”
“But—” Susan protested.
Loretta and Templeton stumbled out of the foyer.
“Please tell me Katie is asleep and won’t see those two,” I said. “Otherwise she’ll be traumatized for life.”
“She’s asleep,” An
gel confirmed, crouching down to pick up Leslie. He made it look ridiculously easy to pick up a grown woman. “Or at least she was before the breaking of glass. We should put this one to bed too.”
“We should put her in rehab,” Susan groused.
The look Angel gave her seemed to indicate she should take up residence with my mother in the loony bin.
“What is that racket?” Susan asked.
“Crickets.” I held up the bag for her inspection.
She shuddered with revulsion. “Why?”
“They’re for God.” I hurriedly tacked on “Zilla” when her eyes grew wide.
A knock at the door startled us all, well, except for Leslie who was too far gone to know that she was being cradled by the hunky manny.
Susan was closest to the front door, so she opened it.
“Hi,” Darlene said. “I needed to talk to Maggie.”
Remembering how our last conversation had turned into a shouting match, I hoped Susan would slam the door in her face.
Instead she invited her inside.
“I’ll put Leslie in her room,” Angel said, making his exit as Darlene made her entrance.
Taking in the shattered glass on the floor, Darlene eyed me nervously. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Just a very attractive cross-dresser,” I replied flatly.
“Now don’t fight, girls,” Aunt Susan admonished.
“Seriously?” I mocked. “After your ‘It was Waterford’ bit?”
“Maybe we should go sit in the dining room,” Darlene suggested.
Susan nodded. “An excellent idea.”
“I’m putting DeeDee in the basement before she cuts herself on the glass,” I said, not wanting to allow Darlene to call the shots.
“You need to keep breathing,” God coached after the dog was safely ensconced in the basement, as I stood in the kitchen pouring myself a glass of water. “You forget to breathe when you tense up and then oxygen doesn’t make it to your brain and you think and say dumb things.”
“Thanks for the support,” I muttered.
“I’m just trying to help.”
I drank the water, killing time, before going into the dining room. I needed a moment to compose my thoughts. Otherwise, any communication with Darlene might turn into the equivalent of a bar room brawl.
“Everything okay?” a male voice asked.
I turned to find U.S. Marshal Larry Griswald watching me carefully.
I nodded.
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s why you’re hiding out?”
“I was getting a drink.” I toasted him with my water glass to prove my point.
“Come on,” he said. “Trust me, this isn’t going to be as bad as you think.” He held out his hand, inviting me to take it.
“You don’t know that,” I said putting my glass in the dishwasher.
“Sure I do,” he assured me. “I know what Darlene is here to say.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Seated at the dining room table, Darlene looked as nervous as I felt. Her eyes skittered around the room, not landing anywhere for too long.
Sitting opposite her, Susan was holding up the wine glass, examining it for chips and cracks.
I chose a seat at the end of the table, with the thought that it offered the best escape route from the room.
To my surprise, Griswald sat beside me instead of next to Susan. He winked at me, letting me know he had my back.
I nodded back weakly, thinking it was really weird that my lone support was a guy who could arrest me.
“Maybe we should wait for Leslie and Loretta for this,” Darlene suggested.
Griswald shook his head. “Susan and Maggie waited long enough. They deserve this.”
Susan put the glass down. “Waited for what?”
“An explanation,” Griswald said firmly.
Darlene nodded. “You’re right.” She took a deep breath. “I need to explain my disappearance.”
“You certainly do,” Susan agreed sharply.
“Let her speak,” Griswald urged.
His girlfriend shot him an angry look, but sat back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap.
“I should probably start at what happened at the carnival,” Darlene began.
The memory of that long-ago day, the panic I’d felt at the realization she was missing, stole my breath.
“Inhale,” God whispered.
Darlene’s gaze settled on mine. “You need to know it wasn’t your fault.”
“I was supposed to be watching you,” I choked out, pressure building behind my eyes.
She shook her head. “You were trying to watch all of us and Mom was acting up. It was an impossible job. And you were just a kid.”
“I agree,” Susan interjected. “You were just a child yourself.”
“I got lost in the haunted house,” Darlene continued. “You remember that, don’t you? All the dark corridors and trick mirrors?”
I nodded.
“Somehow I ended up going out the staff exit at the rear of the building.” She clasped her hands together so tightly that I could see her knuckles turning white. “That’s when I saw them…” She trailed off, looking to Griswald for guidance.
“She saw something terrible,” Griswald supplied.
I rolled my eyes at the deliberately vague explanation.
Seeing my reaction, Darlene said quickly, “I can’t give you more details than that for both legal and safety reasons.”
“Go on with your story, dear,” Susan urged, shooting me a warning look.
“They saw me, back there. The noise of the rides had drowned out my scream,” Darlene continued, her voice ragged from the stress of the memory. She focused on the table in front of her as she spoke. “They would have killed me.”
Susan reached across the table and patted Darlene’s clenched hands.
“But fortunately someone else offered me a place to hide.” Darlene took a deep breath. “It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.” She looked at me again. “If I’d gone back to you, everyone would have been in terrible danger. At least that’s what I believed,” she shrugged tiredly. “But I was just a kid. What did I know?”
I nodded my understanding. I knew what it was like to have to make a terrible, seemingly impossible decision, in order to protect the family.
She transferred her gaze to our aunt. “So I took the protection I was offered, did what I could to ensure the men were punished, and stayed away in order to ensure your safety.”
“So brave of you,” Susan praised.
I wondered if she’d be quite so effusive if I confided what I’d done.
“I really thought I’d never come back and eventually I decided to move forward with my life. I got married, had the girls, had a life.”
“But then you came back to us,” Susan concluded.
Darlene nodded. “I never meant to hurt anyone and I understand that my return has upset everyone.”
“Change is hard, whether it’s good or bad,” Susan excused. “We’re just so overjoyed to have you back.” Jumping out of her seat, she ran around the table and enveloped Darlene in a hug.
My sister looked across the table to me, silently asking if I shared the sentiment.
I nodded, my gaze misty with unshed tears. How could I blame her for taking care of the family when I too had done questionable things for the very same reason.
Darlene burst into tears.
Griswald put his hand on my shoulder, leaned over, and said, “See? Told you it wasn’t going to be that bad.”
I nodded.
For once things hadn’t morphed into a full-blown catastrophe.
I should have been happy, but I had the unsettling feeling I was stuck in the eye of the storm and that all hell was about to break loose.
Chapter Twenty-three
It was God’s idea to go talk to the horses.