Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1

by Margaret Lashley

  “Don’t say another word. My boyfriend’s a cop, remember.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What’s what supposed to mean?”

  I studied Milly’s body language. She was too perky. And she looked nervous, like she’d been caught in a lie. Was she having an affair with Tom? Or was I just the most paranoid idiot on the planet?

  Milly maneuvered her BMW down US 19 like a race car driver on crack. The tires squealed when she took the exit toward Safety Harbor. I had to hang onto the door handle to keep from toppling over. As we sped across the Bayside Bridge, I tried to keep my eyes on the scenery and my trap shut, but sometimes my mouth had a mind of its own.

  “Milly, do you think it’s okay to go through someone’s phone...when you’re in a relationship, I mean?”

  “Hell no! There ought to be a law against it!”

  She glanced over at me, then backpedaled.

  “I mean, unless you did already. Then it’s okay.”

  I was glad for Milly’s support, but it wasn’t like her to back down like that. Did she do it out of friendship? Guilt? Pity?

  “No, I didn’t go through anyone’s phone. I just saw someone do it on TV.”

  “Oh. In that case, it’s definitely a big no-no in my book.”

  Milly was either a good friend or a good liar. For the moment, I decided to give her the benefit of a doubt.

  MILLY AND I SAT IN a small, dimly lit reception room with two other women, wearing nothing but thick, white-cotton robes and whichever panties we had fated ourselves to. The door opened and a short, unattractive man with curly hair and a big split nose came in. He was dressed in a white polo shirt, white shorts, white socks and black tennis shoes.

  “Valerie?” he asked, and looked around the room.

  “That’s me,” said the woman to my right.

  “This way, please.”

  The woman got up and left with him. Milly and I rolled our eyes at each other like schoolgirls. The door cracked open again. A fat woman of around fifty with a butch haircut peeked in. She looked as out of place in her white dress as a pig in a ball gown.

  “Teresa?”

  The woman next to Milly blew out a breath. “That’s me.”

  She disappeared with the woman in white, leaving Milly and me alone.

  “Milly, did you tell them you wanted a male masseuse?”

  “No. I just took the luck of the draw.”

  We both grimaced as the door cracked open again. In stepped a guy too gorgeous to be anything but gay. His jet-black hair was slicked back into a neat curl behind his ear. Trendy stubble darkened his square jaw, and his tan, buff arms rippled with muscles. Milly and I both held our breath.

  “Val?”

  I smirked. Milly scowled.

  “Um. That would be me. Bye, Milly!”

  As I sashayed out the door with my hunky man-masseuse, I was glad I’d opted for my sexy panties. I followed him down the hall like a lost fawn.

  “Here we are,” he said. He opened the door to a small room glowing with scented candles and humming with soft, relaxing music.

  “I’m Kevin. Undress to your comfort level and lie down on your stomach. I’ll be back in a minute to check on you.”

  He winked a dark-brown eye at me and I suddenly needed to pee. After he left, I peeked out the door. Down the hallway on the right, I saw a restroom sign. I scampered to the toilet, pulled down my tiny, tiger-striped panties and squatted over the bowl. I emptied my bladder and reached for the roll. It was empty.

  “No! This can’t be happening!” I said aloud.

  My thighs began to wobble from hovering over the toilet.

  What now? I put my hands on my thighs to brace them, and heard a crinkling sound. Paper! In my robe pocket! I reached in and pulled out a handful of wrinkly coupons and advertisements. Better than nothing. I wiped myself as best I could with them and flushed them down the toilet. I pulled up my panties, scurried back to my room, flung off my robe and dove, face-down on the massage bed. The sheet was still settling down on my derriere when Kevin knocked on the door.

  “Ready for me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good!” Kevin entered and closed the door behind him.

  “I’ll start with your legs,” he whispered.

  “Okay.”

  Kevin ran his warm, strong fingers along my right calf. I bit my lip. His hand moved up past my knee to my lower thigh. As he massaged my hamstrings, I closed my eyes. He moved the sheet up higher, all the way to my panties.

  His hand stopped suddenly. I felt a slight tug on my thigh. Kevin started to snicker.

  My eyes flew open. I bolted upright, red-faced, and pulled the sheet around me.

  “Is my butt really that funny, Kevin?”

  “No! I’m sorry! It’s just that...” Kevin buckled and burst into laughter again. “I’m sorry. It’s just...I never got a tip like this before. Here. This was on your thigh.”

  Kevin reached toward me. Between his elegant finger and thumb was a dollar-off coupon for Anusol hemorrhoid salve.

  I WAS PROBABLY THE only woman on earth who ever wanted to leave a day spa early. I didn’t mention a word about my coupon catastrophe to Milly. I let her think the special looks I got from Kevin during our side-by-side pedicures had nothing to do with discounts on itchy-ass crème.

  “Do you want to do the sauna next?” Milly asked, eyeing me jealously. “Or are you hot and bothered enough?”

  I looked at the ox of a woman filing callouses off Milly’s heels. A foot away, handsome Kevin was busy massaging oil onto my toes. The touch of his hands made me squirm. Not from delight, but embarrassment. I didn’t dare make eye contact with him. I put on a brave façade.

  “Sour grapes, Milly. Sour grapes.”

  Milly stared at Kevin. “Yeah. Li’l bit.”

  “After this, let’s leave, Milly. I’m starving.”

  “But I hear they make a great spa lunch here, Val. And we can stay and eat in our robes.”

  “Yeah. I’m not in the mood for grass clippings on cardboard.”

  “Are you sure? It’s included.”

  “Milly, sometimes coupons aren’t worth using.”

  Kevin stifled a laugh. His hand jerked and he painted a stripe of red nail polish across my big toe. Milly eyed me with suspicion, but said nothing.

  MILLY AND I WERE STANDING beside her Beemer in the spa parking lot. I wanted to go home.

  “Val, it’s only two o’clock. Let’s go shopping. Have a drink somewhere.” She shot me an envious look. “Maybe you can ask Kevin to join us.”

  “Milly, like I said, he’s gay. I just want to go home.”

  “Oh! Look at all the shops! Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.”

  My traitorous stomach gurgled. “Okay. Then we’re going home.”

  We walked along Safety Harbor’s quaint old main street. Between a seafood restaurant and a guitar-picking barber shop was a boutique selling the kind of tacky, nautical tourist crap visitors to Florida found oddly irresistible. A sign in the window read, “Starfish Wishes and Mermaid Dreams.” Milly pointed at it and scowled.

  “Makes me want to bust a cap in a barnacle’s butt.”

  I grinned. “How about this place? Raw oysters. Eight bucks a dozen. Not bad.”

  “Anything but oysters, please!”

  “I thought you loved them, Milly.”

  “I do. Or let’s just say I did. I’m still recovering from a bad date last night.”

  “What’s that got to do with oysters?”

  “Let’s order a drink and I’ll give you all the gory details.”

  A waitress led us to a table by a window and took our order. Milly looked over at me.

  “Two margaritas and two fried shrimp baskets?” she asked.

  “That’ll work.”

  The waitress wrote down our order and left. Milly turned and gave me the lowdown.

  “Okay. I met this guy on Match
Mate. He said he was five-foot eight. So I thought I’d give him a break and wear flats. I meet him a PJ’s Oyster Bar last night. No heels and he’s still eyeballs to tits with me. He couldn’t have been more than five-foot two. There ought to be a law against lying about your height. I mean, did he think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “He can’t help that he’s short.”

  “I get that. But he can help lying about it.”

  “True enough.”

  “He was bald, too. Before you go judging me, Val, I know he had no control over that either. But he could help the fact that he wore Birkenstocks, a ridiculous Hawaiian print shirt and a baseball cap. What hair he had left was tied in a greasy ponytail. It hung down his back like the tail of a drown rodent.”

  “Eww. The rat tail. That’s the worst!”

  “Oh no. The worst is yet to come. When we sat down to dinner, the first thing this guy asked me was whether I was going to have one glass of wine or two, because it was cheaper to order by the bottle than by the glass.”

  “How quaint.”

  “I told him I’d have just one glass. He ordered that, along with a dozen raw oysters for us to share. If he thought it was going to be an aphrodisiac, he should have asked me first. I could have saved him even more money.”

  “Nice.”

  “You won’t believe this part. He counted the oysters, then divided them on the plate so we both got six each.”

  I shrugged. “Eh.”

  “After I’d eaten my six, he took his tiny seafood fork and went to work on the meat left on the shells. Val, he was so caught up in getting every last morsel that I could have been all the way home before he noticed I’d left!”

  “Geeze!”

  “Then came the piece de résistance. When he was finally done picking over the oysters, he used that same little fork to pick his teeth for – I dunno. Five minutes? I ordered another glass of wine. It was worth it just to watch him wince. When the check came, I insisted on splitting it. I wanted to make sure he didn’t feel like I ‘owed’ him anything. I handed him my half in cash and said I had to go. I wasn’t lying, either. If I’d stayed another second I’d have kicked my own self in the butt.”

  “That sounds pretty crappy. But at least he didn’t take you for all you were worth.”

  Milly’s angry, sneering face melted.

  “No. You’re right. Just thirty bucks.”

  “So count yourself lucky.”

  “Your German guy, Val. How much did he cost?”

  “Monetarily? Eh. Just everything.”

  “That’s horrible! I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t a total loss. I figure if I can survive him, I can survive anything. Puts silly things like your date into perspective, you know?”

  “Are you saying I should have given this guy more credit?”

  “Hell no! If he’d lie about his height, he’d lie about anything. I guess I’m just saying that the guy isn’t worth getting all worked up over. Thirty bucks? Small change. By tomorrow he should be nothing but a stupid, distant memory.”

  “Like your Germany guy?”

  “Friedrich? No. If the going rate is thirty bucks a day, I’ll still be thinking about him into the next millennium.”

  IT WAS NEARLY FIVE o’clock by the time Milly and I finished eating lunch and window shopping the entire Main Street of Safety Harbor. The sun hung low in the sky, but Milly’s manic need for speed this morning had mellowed considerably. It was nearly six when Milly hooked a left off Gulf Boulevard into Bahia Shores.

  As she turned onto Bimini Circle, I saw Tom’s silver 4Runner parked in my drive.

  “What’s he doing here?” I asked.

  “I thought you two lived together.”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  Milly pulled her BMW up behind Tom’s 4Runner and cut the engine.

  “I’ll take that tour of your place now, if you don’t mind.”

  Did she really want to see my place, or did she want to see Tom?

  “I’m kind of tired. How about another time?”

  “Come on, Val, there’s no time like the present.”

  Crap. I guess I had no choice.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I OPENED MY FRONT DOOR and nearly fell over.

  “Surprise!”

  A pile of familiar faces grinned back at me. Winky. Winnie. Laverne. Goober. Jorge. And Tom.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Welcome to your proper birthday party,” Tom said.

  He slapped a sparkly plastic tiara on my head. I adjusted my crown and looked around my place. Peeking out from behind my friends, colored balloons floated toward the ceiling, tied to every chair, picture and lamp. A huge cake lay on the kitchen counter, covered in a forest of candles. A ton of food and drinks surrounded it.

  “Wow! This is too much!”

  “There’s more,” Laverne said and pointed to her left. “Look.”

  I followed the line of her manicured finger. My mouth fell open. My new sofa sat against the wall. I could barely make it out for all the gifts heaped upon it.

  “My couch!”

  “It got here today,” Laverne said. “I threatened them with the wrath of a Vegas showgirl if they didn’t deliver it before four today.”

  “Looks like it worked,” I said.

  “Ready for a TNT?” Winnie asked.

  “Sure, thanks!”

  I turned to Milly. “You knew.”

  “Of course. We’ve been planning this for weeks.”

  “Oh.” Tears filled my eyes. I hugged Milly. “Thanks,” I whispered in her ear.

  “You’re welcome. I got you a gift, too, girlfriend.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Let’s just say I won’t be the only one riding into the sunset on a Pleasure Pony.”

  I laughed out loud. Winky, Jorge, Goober and Laverne came up to me carrying a beautiful pink-foiled gift bag.

  “Happy birthday, Val! We all chipped in for these.”

  I took the bag. “It’s so pretty! I like the pink –”

  “Open it, gaul-dang it!” Winky demanded impatiently.

  I shot the freckle-faced redneck a mock scowl.

  “Okay, already!”

  I pushed aside the tissue paper. Inside were a jumble of figurines. I blushed.

  “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  “Let’s see ‘em,” Winky hollered.

  They all grinned at me like a pride of Cheshire cats. I pulled the figures out one by one and stood them on the counter next to the cake. A slender, red-headed ballerina. A black-haired girl with glasses. A cocoa-skinned boy. A freckled kid in overalls. A bald shoemaker with a big moustache. A blonde girl with a shopping bag. When I unwrapped Petie the Police Boy, I finally realized the trinkets were meant to represent each of my friends. But there was still one in the bag. I pulled it out. It was a brunette with a saw and a hammer. I smiled up at them wryly.

  “I take it I’m Sassy Sallie.”

  “Woo hoo!” Winky hollered.

  “Right on the money,” Goober said.

  “Took us a month of yard sale-ing, but we finally found what we were looking for,” Laverne said.

  “Well, they’re...amazing. Thank you all.”

  “Now I need to show you something,” Tom said. “Here, put on this blindfold.”

  “You can’t show me something when I’m blindfolded,” I argued. “Besides, someone already tried to kidnap me once this month.”

  “Ha ha. We’re not taking you anywhere. Just put it on.”

  I slipped the mask over my eyes. I felt Tom’s strong hand take mine and lead me across the living room. I heard the sliding glass door move and warm air hit my face. Tom led me outside and took off my mask. My jaw dropped to my chest.

  My former trash-heaped, weed-infested yard had been transformed into a tropical oasis. A stone walkway wove a path through freshly laid grass to a swing by the water with a canopy top. A hammock hung between two palm trees. And in one corner
, a thatch-roofed tiki bar was lit up with Christmas lights. Mr. Fellows was behind the counter. He waved at me and raised his margarita glass.

  “Do you like it?” Tom asked, and wrapped his arms around me.

  “I love it.”

  He took my chin softly in his hand and looked me in the eyes.

  “Good. Because I love you, Val.”

  Oh my lord! Tom had never said the ‘L’ word to me before! But...I wasn’t ready to say it back. I’d made a promise I’d never again force myself to say or be something I wasn’t. I had to keep my word to myself, or I’d be lost...again.

  “I...I don’t know what to say, Tom.”

  Tom smiled at me tenderly and kissed my nose.

  “It’s okay. ‘Thank you’ will do for now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  AFTER LAVERNE HOBBLED home in her high heels and the squeaky old Dodge full of party guests left, I fixed another TNT. I sat at a barstool and studied the funny figurines lined up on the kitchen counter as Tom finished up the dishes.

  “So this is my new circle of friends,” I said.

  Tom glanced up at me and smiled. “Looks like.”

  “They really do look like everyone. Especially yours, Petie the Police Boy.”

  Tom laughed. “I think Sassy Sallie has you pegged, too.”

  “Ha ha. You know, we’ll have to find one for Mr. Fellows.”

  “I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

  I picked up Sassy Sally and Petie the Police Boy. I glanced over at Tom to make sure he wasn’t watching, and made the two kiss. I smiled to myself and carried them to the mantle. They and the other figurines were going to take pride of place next to Glad in her piggybank.

  As I reached up to put the figurines on the mantle, I realized that Glad wasn’t there. Where had I seen her last? Oh yeah. I wandered out into the beautiful, tropical backyard, then came back into the house.

  “Tom, where’s my mom’s RV?”

  Tom looked up from the dishes.

  “Oh. I sold it. To a scrapper. He hauled it away this morning.”

  “No!”

  “Val, it was just a piece of junk.”