by Nancy Bush
I wanted to say: Now, wait. She’s got to be fifteen years older than you. At least ten or twelve. She’s been married and divorced three or four times, maybe more. She’s not for you, Dwayne!
But I didn’t say a word because I knew he wouldn’t care. It wasn’t about that, anyway. It was attraction in its purest form. The kind where the rest of the world simply fades into the background and all the color and life is in that space between the two of you.
People have killed over lesser things.
I subsided into silence and reminded myself I was glad Dwayne and I were best friends. Beneath the table I tore my little cocktail napkin to shreds.
Logan was released from the hospital with a concussion, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and headed to their respective homes. I learned that Violet’s appearance had basically forced Dahlia, Roderick, and Benjamin from their rooms at the Purcell mansion. Garrett and Satin had followed suit, leaving only James on the premises. Violet clearly thought it was all for the best, and I had to agree. It seemed a good idea for the Purcells to get back to their everyday lives.
As we were all getting ready to leave, Violet casually invited Dwayne out for a drink, and maybe…dinner?
Dwayne and I locked eyes. I tried for a noncommital expression while I telegraphed, no, no, no!
Jazz said to Violet, Dwayne, and me, “Come over to my house. We’ll get Logan settled and I’ll order in Chinese.” He was clearly thrilled about the attraction developing between Dwayne and Violet. I was struggling. These things seem to suddenly have a life of their own.
Dwayne said, “Sounds good to me.”
Violet purred, “Well, if that’s all I can get for tonight, all right.” Her red lips parted over blinding white teeth. I had a mental image of her filing them down like a cannibal.
I’d come in my own car to the hospital and I left the same way, sick at heart. Dwayne called me on my cell, and I debated about even answering. When I did pick up, I said, “Hey, there,” as if nothing had changed.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Of course. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Ah, yes, we unfathomable females. We’re just so darn hard to read.
“So, what do you think about this car accident?” he asked.
“I think it’s damn suspicious.” I bit off the words.
“Did Cammie give a description of the car?”
“I didn’t ask her. The police are involved.”
“You make it sound like you’re not interested.”
“I’m not, Dwayne. I’m not interested. I’m over the whole damn thing.”
A pause. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure thing. Bye, darlin’.”
I threw my cell phone across the car. It bounced off the seat and onto the floor.
Chapter Eighteen
By the time I met them for dinner, I was in a better state of mind. I’d managed to push thoughts of Dwayne and Violet aside, at least for the moment. Instead I’d concentrated on Logan who’d managed to tug at my heart with his quiet stoicism as Jazz had helped him to his car.
I had the presence of mind to stop and pick him up a gift. After all, the kid had been through a lot recently. When I arrived at Jazz’s I saw that I was the last one there. Jazz had made another fire and Logan was ensconced on the couch with his Game Boy in hand. He was having a slushy drink of some weird lavender color. “Grape juice, lemon juice, and vodka,” Violet said, holding up hers in a daiquiri glass. “Logan’s is a virgin, of course. It’s my signature drink.”
“It’s violet-colored,” Logan said. He looked far healthier. No more starey gaze and his color had returned. The white head wrap gave him a foreign look that somehow worked for him. Or, maybe it was his sudden soberness. A newly adult look around his eyes.
I declined a signature drink though I was really trying not to be a total drag.
Music was playing softly. More Sinatra. Violet was mouthing the words, looking happy. “Mom loved Frankie,” she said.
Dwayne was leaning against the mantel, holding a long-necked beer loosely in a couple of fingers. I was pissed off to see that he’d changed into a really nice blue shirt and his jeans were pressed. He had his cowboy boots on, and tonight they added to his “outfit.” His blue eyes met mine squarely. I felt like blowing a raspberry at him but I contained myself. Instead I said, “How do I get one of those?” pointing to his beer.
“Coming right up,” Jazz said, sailing into the kitchen. His worry over Logan had been replaced by a kind of manic relief.
I handed Logan the sack with the video store’s logo. “I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
He gazed at the bag, then up at me in dumb surprise. Opening the sack, he pulled out the video game I’d purchased. “Fissure,” he said.
“It doesn’t come for Game Boy, so I bought it for your system upstairs. A friend of mine recommended it.”
“It’s a great game!”
I could tell by the way he gazed at me I’d zoomed way up in his estimation. I told myself to be careful. I just might start liking the little creep.
Jazz handed me my beer, looking bemused by my gift. “I wouldn’t know which one to buy.”
Violet had sidled over to Dwayne. Her hips swayed to the music. “Wanna dance, cowboy?” she asked.
Logan ripped Fissure out of its wrapper. “I’m going upstairs to play.” He looked at me. “Wanna come?”
It was the best invitation I’d had all night. “Sure.”
Jazz beamed at me as I followed Logan up the steps. I was scoring points all over the place only it was for the wrong team. I tried not to look back at Dwayne and Violet, but I couldn’t stop myself. She had her hands around the back of his neck, her whole body slithering against his. Dwayne wasn’t moving, but then I’d never known him to dance.
I hurried to catch up with Logan.
I entered his room, expecting to see him already flopped in front of the huge TV, but he was waiting to shut the door behind me.
“I wanted to talk to you alone,” he said.
I looked at his taut expression. Another Purcell with secrets.
“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy. I’m not crazy.”
“Okay.”
“Someone’s trying to kill me. This is the second time they’ve tried. I don’t want to worry my dad, but that’s what it is.”
I met his gaze. I didn’t really want to break this tenuous olive branch he was holding out to me—the first sign of his being more than a noxious brat—but I also didn’t want to legitimize his own self-absorption. “It may seem that way, but your accident today wasn’t a hit-and-run. It could have been just an accident.”
“I got Nana’s money,” Logan reminded me, as if I could forget. “The first accident? It was right after Nana told me she was leaving everything to me. And this one? After she did leave it to me. Somebody’s trying to kill me,” he repeated, enunciating each word. “I don’t want the money anymore. I want them to take it back. I want you to help me convince them.”
I sighed. Like Jazz was going to let that happen. Jazz’s doorbell rang as I pondered a response. “That’s our dinner. Let’s go downstairs and think this through a little more.”
“I’m not making this up.”
“Okay.” I headed for the stairs.
The assortment from Mr. Chin’s almost made me forget my problems. Food can do that for me, sometimes. It was a mouthwatering array of little white boxes filled with sesame beef, General Tso’s chicken, ten-ingredient lo-mein, sauteed string beans, white rice and various and sundry hot mustards, soy sauce, fortune cookies, napkins and chopsticks. Jazz handed me a fresh beer and we all sat down at the table and dug in. Even Violet seemed distracted for the few moments while we ate. Only Logan picked at his food, his gaze digging into me, but I studiously ignored him until I was finished. Only when I pushed my plate aside, drank lustily of my beer and leaned back in my chair, did I look over at him.
&nb
sp; He clearly wanted me to do something now. I’d become his new voice, apparently. He’d been all about Violet until I showed up with the video game. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be nice.
I was avoiding Dwayne’s eyes, although he probably didn’t have a clue because Violet began sucking up his attention again. She was like a death ray, the kind that entraps its victim inside the cone of its beam.
As I was walking outside to my car, Jazz at my side, my cell phone, back on vibrate, buzzed inside my purse. I congratulated myself on how good I was getting on reprogramming the damn thing. Today, ring tones, tomorrow text messaging. I might not have noticed it except I could feel and hear it vibrating against something inside.
I whipped it out as Jazz was leaning in for a kiss. “Sorry,” I said, and gave him a smack on the lips and a wink. Keep it light, Jane. Oh, yes. It seemed to satisfy him and he mouthed, “I’ll call you later,” as he headed back inside.
I turned my attention to my Caller ID as I climbed behind the wheel. No name. A local prefix that I didn’t recognize. The phone was still buzzing, so I offered a cautious “Hello?” as I slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Hello, Jane,” a familiar, slightly nervous male voice greeted.
I screwed up my face. “James?” I asked. His call was so unexpected that it took me a moment to put it together.
“I asked Jazz for your number,” he said.
“Okay.” I was waiting for the reason he called.
He seemed hard pressed to come up with that himself. After a hesitation, he asked, “Can you come to the house?”
“Tonight?”
“I’d like to talk to you about something.”
My earlier conversation with Violet was still fresh on my mind. I thought of young, pretty Lily Purcell with her brothers in the playhouse, and I also thought about James’s spectacularly creepy knife paintings. Cynthia had suggested the knives represented power: the male anatomy as a weapon.
Like, oh, sure. That’s just what I wanted to do. Race over to that moldering house and have a tête-à-tête alone with James.
“Can I get a preview?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I know who murdered my mother. I saw them go into her room.”
I blinked. “You’re siding with Garrett on this?” My disbelief couldn’t quite be disguised.
“I haven’t talked to the police about it. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“James, you really believe your mother was murdered?”
But I was talking to air, as he’d already hung up.
I put my cell phone back in my purse and glanced back at Jazz’s front door, the one he’d just reentered. Should I go back inside? Rejoin the party? I didn’t really want to. I wanted to talk to Dwayne. I didn’t get what James was trying to pull. It felt like some kind of setup, but I couldn’t figure out what. Orchid murdered? Was he serious? James’s conscience seemed to be working overtime.
Through the windshield I saw the front door open and Dwayne step out on the porch. The entry’s interior light spilled out around him, leaving him in silhouette. I reached for my door handle, glad for the chance to catch him alone, but then Violet joined him, shivering a little as she closed the door behind them. She didn’t play coy. She just swooped in on him and laid a kiss on his lips that caused my mouth to drop open. I watched Dwayne slide a hand around her back. The vision of his fingers splayed across her skin reminded me of how he’d held me and kissed me only days earlier.
“God…damn…it,” I muttered through gritted teeth, twisting the ignition and revving the engine more than I meant to.
I backed out carefully. I would’ve liked to burn rubber, spray gravel, roar my engine. Instead I simply left. I headed back to Lake Chinook. I wasn’t going to the Purcells. I wasn’t dealing with James, or anyone else. I was going home to my dog and bed.
Period.
My cell phone buzzed again. I fumbled inside my purse with one hand till I grasped it. This time the phone accessed my contact list: Dwayne’s cell.
I made a series of frustrated noises to myself, fragments of swear words combined with derogatory names like dick-weed and jerkwad, then pushed the green button. “Okay, hot lips, what is it?”
He barked out a laugh. “Hey, she kissed me.”
“Yeah, I could see you were hating it.”
“You sound like a jealous girlfriend.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I said. “So, why’d you call?”
“Violet said you talked with her about Lily.”
I could hear the rattletrap noise of his truck. “Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m in my truck, darlin’, and the passenger seat is empty.”
Did I ask? Did I? It bugged me that he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “I told you before, I’m over it. All the Purcells.”
“Thought you were going with Jazz to Black Butte.”
“What? Hell, no. Who told you that? Jazz? I never said I was going.”
“Violet told me. She invited me along, too.”
Violet was going? And Dwayne? “Well, have a great time,” I said. “I’m out of that one.”
“So, you’re out of all of it, but you’re still talking to Violet about Purcell history.”
“Okay, fine.” I cut to the chase. “Listen, James just called me.”
“James Purcell?”
“He said he wants me to come over to the house. He wants to talk to me about his mother’s murder. Says he saw someone go into her room.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dwayne responded skeptically. “He brings this up now? Calls you on your cell?”
“He asked Jazz for the number.”
“What’s with the timing? Something clicked and he just decided to unburden himself? I don’t buy it. Something’s off.” He paused. “You didn’t say you’d meet him, did you?”
“He hung up. He seemed…” I searched for the word. “Skittish. Worried.”
“You’re not talking yourself into going, are you?”
“No…I don’t know…Where’s Violet?”
“She’s probably halfway to the house by now.”
“So, if I did go, she’d be there.”
“Soon.” He sounded dubious about the whole plan. “I don’t like it.”
“Dwayne, what if he’s right?” I asked suddenly. “What if she was killed by someone? I just dismissed that idea as farfetched, but what do I know?”
“Why would she be killed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because she was losing it? Maybe someone didn’t want her bringing up what happened in the past? But now Violet’s showed up, and she knows what happened, and she’s not afraid to say what she remembers.”
“So, you think Orchid was killed to hide a secret?”
“I’m just trying it out as a theory, Dwayne.”
He grunted, which I took as a sign to continue. “Now Violet shows up,” I went on. “Someone they’ve practically dropped out of their consciousness. Cammie, Jazz and probably Benjamin didn’t even know she existed. Someone could be really nervous, wondering just what Violet could blab.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound like he believed me, but he was trying to keep an open mind.
“Okay, I don’t know. If Orchid was deliberately murdered, and I’m not saying she was, then maybe the motive was something other than the money. After all they had the POA. The money was safe. And maybe they figured they would still inherit, so killing Orchid wasn’t going to change things anyway. They just needed to close her mouth.”
“But then Logan inherited and Violet showed up.”
“That’s right. And it gummed up the grand plan.” I added, “And along with that, Logan thinks someone’s trying to kill him for the money. Says they’ve tried twice already.”
Dwayne made a disparaging sound. “Yeah, well the first accident was long before Orchid’s death, and this one could just be because Cammie panicked.”
“I don’t believe him, either, but there have been a lot of ‘
accidents.’” We both were silent for a moment, digesting it all, then I suddenly decided, “I’m going to go, Dwayne. “I want to know what he says he saw.”
“Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Much as I’d like that, it won’t work,” I said. “James sounds tentative, maybe scared. And I won’t be alone with him. Violet’s gotta be right behind me.”
“You can’t wait fifteen minutes?”
“Just be hanging by your cell phone,” I said. “I’ve got you on speed dial. You see a call coming in from me, don’t answer, just storm the castle.” Seeing the turn for Military Road, I said, “I’m heading into Dunthorpe now.”
“I’m right behind you,” Dwayne clipped out. “I’ll park in the exit drive. If I don’t hear from you in half an hour, I’m coming in.”
I smiled as I hung up. I kind of like when he sounds all male and protective. But I’d told him the truth. I didn’t feel all that worried for my own safety. There was an ick factor with James which was totally off-putting, but I’d be more worried if I were Violet. She was the one blabbing now.
I headed up my usual route. It was practically second nature by now. I’d learned every twist and turn to Chrysanthemum Lane and the Purcells’ entry drive. It had only been a couple of weeks since I’d first met Jazz but it felt like a lifetime since my world and the Purcells’ had become intertwined.
It was a comfort to know that Dwayne had my back. I didn’t really know what to expect when I met with James, but at least he’d contacted me so maybe he was finally prepared to open up. To date it had been like pulling teeth to get any of the Purcells to reveal anything pertinent about the family. It was also a comfort to know Violet would be showing up soon, too. I didn’t relish being the first one on James’s doorstep. It would have been nice to have Reyna around, but I wasn’t sure she hadn’t already quit the job, and anyway the staff only worked days.
I parked my car in the portico. Nana’s vanilla convertible was in its usual space. The two sports cars were there, as well. I’d never learned whom they belonged to. One of them was James’s probably. Maybe both.