by Leslie Kelly
Shaking her head, Sabrina bit back the urge to launch into that whole rant. But she wouldn’t. Not now and certainly not with Max. She would let loose one of these days, but when she did it would be at her grandfather or her mother. “She’s my responsibility.”
“For how long?” he asked. “When did you sign on to become a parent to a full-grown woman and her newborn?”
The day she’d led Peter to Allie’s door. That’s when. But she wasn’t about to tell Max that, not when there was so much else going on in their lives.
“We’d better go,” she mumbled, walking toward the parking lot where Max had parked Mortimer’s Caddy.
Max grabbed her arm. “Sabrina, you can’t do this on your own. Are you sure your family won’t help? Your mother—have you or Allie tried talking to her without your grandfather around?”
“That’s impossible. Besides, it doesn’t matter whether he’s around or not, he’s got her so convinced she has nowhere else to go that she won’t stand up to him. Once in her lifetime was her quota, I’m afraid.”
Sad, so sad. As angry as she was at her mother, Sabrina’s heart also broke for her. Having grown up in that rigid household, it must have taken every bit of courage she possessed to run away to marry Dad. To lose him when she had four young children to raise, well, Sabrina didn’t fault her mother for doing what she had to in order to survive. She just wished her mother had found the strength to get out and stand on her own eventually.
“All I’m saying is you have to try. Give her a chance to be the woman you want her to be,” Max murmured, stroking her arm as if he could sense her inner turmoil. “Everyone deserves a chance to make things right, to make up for past wrongs.” He lowered his voice. “And after today, I’m very aware of the fact that you can never be certain of anything. People you love can be taken from you in a moment.”
Covering his hand with hers, she squeezed it. “We’ll find him, Max.”
“And you’ll think about what I said?”
“I will.” She only wished she could believe reaching out to her mother would make a difference. “Now, we’d better go find Allie. I don’t want to lose her.”
Fortunately, there wasn’t much risk of that. Because within a few minutes, as they drove to the northernmost street of Trouble and turned onto it, Sabrina spotted her car right away. It was parked in the driveway of a sagging old monstrosity of a house—which mirrored the one next door to it. They were both more dilapidated than Mr. Potts’s, the paint even thinner, the walls more bowed. Wondering if this was where Allie’s friend—the older lady who’d given her a ride from the bus station—lived, she pointed it out to Max.
“I thought she was going to stay near the phone,” she said with a sigh, wishing her sister wasn’t so damn irresponsible. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. The chief has one of his men stopping by the house every half hour or so to check in. We’d hear if Grandfather came back.”
Funny, Max’s mood seemed better—he appeared less tense, less angry than he’d been before. She suspected it was because his focus had shifted—for at least a little while—off his grandfather, and onto her. Her life. Her family. Her problems.
He would deny it and a lot of people probably wouldn’t believe it, but Max Taylor was a caring and deeply feeling man. The charm and sense of humor she’d taken for granted all along—she just hadn’t anticipated the integrity.
They parked in the driveway behind Sabrina’s car and got out. Walking by it, Sabrina suddenly realized Allie was still in the driver’s seat. Her hands clutched around the wheel, she was staring straight ahead at the house. She was so deep in thought she didn’t even notice their presence until Sabrina tapped on the window.
“Oh!” Allie exclaimed, whirling around with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“Oh is right. What are you doing here?”
Opening the door, Allie stepped out. Giorgio hopped out after her, immediately bounding over to the closest patch of dirt and grass to do his business. “And why did you bring the dog?”
Allie swallowed visibly. “I figured he’d be a big help. You know, a bloodhound.”
“The only thing that dog can track is canned dog food.”
“And fruit,” Max offered, laughter in his voice.
She closed her eyes, willing the image of poor naked Mr. Fitzweather out of her head. “Come on, tell me what you’re really doing here.”
Allie put her hand on her stomach and rubbed. She was not going for effect here. Sabrina knew her sister often stroked her belly as if already tenderly touching her baby.
She’d be a good mother. If she ever grew up.
Finally, after a long pause, Allie squared her shoulders. “I wanted to take care of this since it’s my problem…and my fault. I didn’t want you to have any more to deal with.”
A feeling of dread began at Sabrina’s feet and started crawling up her body like a spider. This was bad. She knew it. Still, there was a part of her that couldn’t help admiring Allie’s calm and confidence. This wasn’t her hysterical baby sister here, it was an in-control young woman. One Sabrina suddenly wondered if she’d ever even met before.
“Tell me.”
Allie nodded. “Peter followed me to Trouble. I saw him go in this house yesterday.”
Sabrina froze, not believing she’d heard the words correctly. But Allie’s unwavering expression and the clenching of her jaw said she wasn’t kidding. Peter Prescott was here. In town. Now.
Which meant it hadn’t been a spider crawling up Sabrina’s body. It had been a snake.
PETER HAD NO IDEA why the local Deputy Dawg cops were hanging around outside the house where Sabrina and Allie had been staying, he just knew they were in his way. He sat in his car at the edge of town, watching the place, wondering why the cops kept cruising up the driveway every thirty minutes. The waiting was driving him nuts.
Figured—hadn’t his luck run like this for months? Since Sabrina.
“Bitch,” he muttered, lifting his foam cup of coffee to his mouth and sipping from it. He was tired, having sat here most of the night, watching all the activity going on up there—lights in the woods, the cops, cars going in and out.
But no ambulances. So he didn’t figure anything had happened to Sabrina, Allie or her kid.
He didn’t particularly care to think of it as his.
“So what the hell’s going on?” His head was pounding with the tension of waiting.
He should have known something would prevent him from sneaking into that house. Because things had been going too well. He’d finally gotten those batty old sisters to admit their stupid fiction book—which they’d submitted to him at Liberty Books a couple of years ago—was actually based on truth. They’d also revealed their theories about what the murder victim, some clockmaker, had done with his stolen money.
It had taken some doing to get them to open up to him yesterday when he’d popped in on them unannounced. They’d been suspicious, one refusing to even come to the door, the other coming out on her porch and yelling at him to go away. But when he’d told them he was visiting to talk about their brilliant piece of fiction, they’d been much more accommodating.
He’d turned on the charm. They’d been putty in his hands.
He was good at charming women, no matter how old they were. He hadn’t been there ten minutes before they were falling over themselves trying to get him to have tea and freshly baked almond cookies. They’d seemed terribly disappointed when he refused.
Women. All the same.
He’d promised he would come back soon to take them up on that offer and they’d said they couldn’t wait. Which was a good thing, because it meant they had no idea that if he didn’t find anything up at the drafty old house where the murder had taken place, he’d have to go back to plan B.
Blackmail.
Those two silly old hags wouldn’t want the police finding out about their not-so-fictional book, which they said they’d written together a few years ag
o. Because they knew a little too much detail. Which meant, in Peter’s opinion, they had to have been the ones who killed the guy.
Twenty-to-life in the big house would sound pretty damn long to a couple of seventy-year-olds. He’d be willing to bet they’d do anything—pay anything—to prevent him from bringing their crappy manuscript to the cops.
Of course, he didn’t actually have a copy of the thing.
But they didn’t know that.
It was good to have that piece of ammunition to use against them, just in case. But he hoped he wouldn’t need to. Because ever since he’d gotten to town and heard his landlord talking about all that lost money—millions, he’d claimed—Peter had been able to think of nothing else but finding it.
And how perfect would it be if he took it right out from under the noses of his ex and her new boyfriend.
Oh, yeah, he knew about the boyfriend. Everyone in town talked about the pilot—the way he and Sabrina had been stuck together like glue for days.
“See how much you stick with him once you find out the money’s gone,” he muttered, figuring that’s what Sabrina was up to. Why she was here, in Trouble, at that house.
Maybe she’d found an old copy of the Feeney sisters’ manuscript. Or heard a rumor. Something had tipped her off to the money and she was here trying to get it herself.
He only wished he could see her face when she realized who had gotten to it first.
MAX DIDN’T KNOW Peter Prescott, but he knew within a minute of hearing about the man that he wanted to kill him.
A few things had become clear as soon as Allie had begun filling her sister in on what was happening. First—this Peter guy was the father of Allie’s baby. Second—he’d been involved with Sabrina once, too. And third—he hated them both.
That was enough for Max. The guy was a pig. Filth. It was one thing to get pissed off at an ex-girlfriend. But to then take up with her virginal younger sister, that was scumbag territory.
“What does he look like?” he bit out, seeing both women flinch as if they’d completely forgotten he was here.
“Max…”
“Don’t, Sabrina. Don’t tell me to stay cool and relaxed. There’s only one reason an ex follows a woman across the state. He’s a goddamn stalker who is dangerous and needs to be dealt with.”
“I’ll deal with him,” Allie said, her voice not shaking at all. As if she—all one hundred thirty pregnant pounds of her—could deal with any man with revenge on his mind.
“No, sweetie, you won’t. I’ll deal with him.”
And he would. Not knowing where his grandfather was had built up a genuine frustration in Max—a worry, and even a rage. Sounded like this Peter Prescott dude would be the perfect way to work all that off.
“What are you people doing out here making all this noise?”
Max, Sabrina and Allie all spun around at the sound of a querulous voice. On the porch closest to them stood an elderly woman, her face tugged so deep into a frown that her eyes were almost invisible beneath her bushy brows.
He recognized her easily. This was one of the women who’d been brawling over his grandfather in the street last weekend. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” he said, stepping closer to the porch where the woman stood. Offering her his most disarming smile, he added, “I’m Max Taylor.”
Her stiff stance didn’t relax. Tugging her housecoat tighter around her shoulders, she pointed an index finger at him. “What are you doing out here with two women? Have you no shame? If that’s your bun in her oven, what business have you got in a car with the blond floozy who called my sister an animal?”
He heard a gasp, and had to assume Sabrina didn’t like being called a floozy. He almost had to bite the insides of his cheeks to prevent a laugh from spilling out. He didn’t have to turn around to know what expression was on Sabrina’s beautiful face.
“Actually, ma’am, we’re all going door to door looking for a missing person.”
The old lady—Ida Mae Feeney, someone had called her during the fight outside Tootie’s Tavern—waved him off impatiently. “Nobody’s missing around here. We’re all just fine. Now off you go.”
Determined old lady, that was for sure. She even crossed her arms, lifting up her sagging bosom, and stepped to the top of the stairs, blocking them from trying to come up.
Allie, however, thought on her feet. “Oh,” she cried, clutching at her stomach. “The baby. I need to sit down!”
The old woman apparently had some kind of heart, because she immediately came down the steps, her hands fluttering about her head like a pair of birds. “Goodness, bring the girl inside. What’s wrong with you people these days? Letting a woman with child go gallivanting about on her own?”
As they walked up to the porch, Sabrina and Max each holding one of Allie’s elbows, the younger woman winked.
He liked Sabrina’s sister—liked her a lot. Even if she did have the most horrible timing.
Reaching the front door, minding their hostess’s order to wipe their feet, they stepped inside. The air in the old house smelled of rose petals and talcum powder. Thick. Cloying. Not an inch of fussily papered wall space was left clear of some heavy, dark furniture, and there wasn’t even much room to walk around it. Maneuvering Allie between an enormous rolltop desk and a solid side table, they managed to get her to the couch, which looked like a lumpy corpse covered in worn, faded velvet.
When they sat down, he realized it felt more like a lumpy bale of straw covered in worn, faded velvet.
“Tea?” the woman asked.
Sabrina nodded. “That would be…”
“I was asking her,” she said, nodding at Allie. “Not you.”
Sabrina’s lips disappeared into her mouth. Whether to keep from bursting into laughter or just to avoid telling their hostess she was a rude old shrew, he honestly didn’t know. He suspected Ida Mae was holding a grudge about the cage remark.
“No, thank you,” Allie said. “But water would be nice.”
The woman nodded hard, sending her chins bouncing beneath her face and her mammoth bosom bouncing beneath her housecoat. “Mind that dog,” she said, pointing at Giorgio, who’d followed them inside. “I usually don’t let dogs into my house.” Then a reluctant smile curled her lips. “But since I heard what he did to nasty-bum Al Fitzweather, I guess he’s all right.”
Cackling in audible schadenfreude over Mr. Fitzweather’s humiliation, she left the room. Once she was gone, the three of them looked at one another. “What are we doing here again? I can’t breathe without feeling like I’m being smothered by a musty blanket full of rotting rose petals.”
“Nice description,” Sabrina said.
“Thanks. From a writer, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She quickly looked away, clearing her throat. “Now, Allie, you’re sure Peter was inside this house yesterday?”
“Positive.”
“Ah, so that’s the mission, trying to figure out what he was doing here?” Remembering the way the old lady and her sister had been brawling over Mortimer, he murmured, “Plus we can ask her when she last saw Grandfather.”
From the next room, he could hear the sounds of Ida Mae slamming cabinet doors and cracking an ice cube tray. He also suddenly heard a thump from upstairs, almost directly overhead. Exchanging glances with Sabrina, he noticed her concern.
When their hostess returned with two water glasses—one of which she handed to Allie, and the other of which she kept for herself—Sabrina asked her about the noise. “Does your sister live with you? If so, you might want to check on her—I think something fell upstairs.”
The woman ignored her, smiling pleasantly at Allie. “Now, what did you say you’re doing today? Looking for someone?”
Allie nodded. “Mr. Potts. You remember Mr. Potts?”
“Well, of course, what a kind gentleman. Sister and I just loved having him over for tea last week.”
“So your sister does live with you?” Sabrina asked, obviously sti
ll worried, as was Max.
Frowning, Ida Mae finally deigned to turn her head slightly toward Sabrina. “She most certainly does not. She lives next door. I called her a moment ago and she’s going to come join us.”
“But the noise…”
“Rats. It is an old house, you know.”
Must’ve been a pair of hundred-pound rats, by the sound of the thump. But they obviously didn’t bother the old lady, who said the word as if she’d just mentioned having a niggling little problem with too many ladybugs in her garden.
Before Sabrina could reply—and judging by her wide-open mouth, she was also surprised by the lady’s unconcern about having giant mutant rats in her house—the screen door opened. The sister came in, giving them all a languid wave. “Why, good afternoon, how lovely that you’ve come to call.”
She was smaller than the other one—thinner and probably younger—and obviously dressed for company. Wearing a long, flowery dress and a wide-brimmed red hat, she smiled as though they were her audience and she an old-time movie starlet. The yellowed gloves—once white—completed the look that screamed “I’m living in the forties in my mind.”
“Ivy,” their hostess said with a frown. She also tugged at her housecoat, quite obviously wishing she was dressed to compete with her sibling.
“Ida.” The newcomer’s smile was tight. Then, almost floating across the floor and lowering herself onto the edge of a chair, she turned her attention toward Max. “Well, aren’t you the handsome one. And so much like your grandfather. I was just telling that man he’s the spitting image of Steve McQueen, if Steve McQueen hadn’t died so young. And wasn’t that an almighty shame…had the cancer, you know.”
“Ivy…”
She ignored her sister’s warning tone. “I imagine you have to beat the young ladies off with a stick.” Then she glanced toward Sabrina and Allie. Quickly dismissing them, she leaned closer to Max, dropping her gloved hand on his thigh. High on his thigh, to Max’s discomfort. Sotto voce, she added, “Might want to get a bigger one, though, looks like you missed a few.”
He didn’t dare look at Sabrina. “Speaking of my grandfather…”