All Things Considered

by A B Plum

  Elijah didn’t answer his phone on the first ring. Or the second. Or the third. Which might mean, like her, he was staring at graffiti as he waited for his food. Or it could mean … any number of scenarios Ryn didn’t want to consider. She hung up on the seventh ring.

  No use scaring herself half to death imagining monsters under the bed when they might simply be dust bunnies.

  Where the hell is Elijah? The pizza came as soon as Ryn sat down. The cheesy steam turned her stomach upside down. She gulped the icy beer. It tasted sour. The waitress passed by, took one look at Ryn, and continued on without asking if everything was okay. Nothing was okay. Everything was very bad. Where was Elijah? Were he and Lulu stuck in a godawful freeway wreck? What if they were dead in his Jeep? What if CHP couldn’t identify the bodies?

  What if the sky is falling? She reached for her glass of water. It slipped out of her fingers and knocked over the beer. Several heads turned her way.

  The waitress rushed over and mopped up the mess? “Another one?

  Do you know how to keep a low profile—or what?

  Ryn ordered soup and cut a bargain with herself. She’d wait to call until she’d eaten all—half—her soup.

  She took two bites and pushed the soup away. To hell with bargains. She was calling Elijah once more, and then she was calling the police.

  Neither man hunched over the end phones glanced her way. Cigarette smoke rolled off the guy to her right. She didn’t care. They weren’t Vega or his sidekick. All she wanted was to make this her last trip to this pay phone.

  Elijah’s voice came across the airwaves as clearly as if he stood at one of the pay phones. “You okay?”

  “Now I am.” She exhaled.

  “Don’t say anything.”

  A sudden squall of rage blew a brain circuit. What’d he think? She didn’t know about cell-phone security? Did he think she was going to blab who she was, where she was calling from, and why she was calling?

  “I’ve got bad news.”

  Her scalp prickled. “You know they used to shoot the messenger …”

  He let the remark go. Her smart mouth didn’t stop him, though. Quickly, clearly, he announced, “Beau’s gone.”

  Ryn’s heart froze as a snapshot of Beaus’ boyish, smiling face, surged into her consciousness. The image wavered. The smile turned to tears. Rynnnn.

  God, why hadn’t she taken longer to explain the rules?

  Why hadn’t she insisted Beau go with Elijah to the airport?

  For Big Brother’s benefit, Elijah spoke in brief, cryptic sentences. “Got a page my car was being towed. I fell for it.”

  At SFO, Ryn assumed. The ba-BUM, ba-BUM, ba-BUM of her heartbeat sent a rush of blood to her head. She wanted to yell at Elijah, Forget details. Where’s Beau?

  In a modulated monotone, Elijah continued, “Ran out and found four flat tires.”

  How long has Beau been missing?

  “A headlight smashed, too.”

  Is Maj with Beau?

  “Tore back inside …”

  Where was Lulu?

  “Picked up the cargo. Hung around for ten minutes. Waiting.”

  “No pay—” Ryn shut up. Elijah had either figured out she’d paged him or he hadn’t. No use opening her mouth and blaming him or confirming her own stupidity. It was her fault Beau had disappeared.

  “Meanwhile back at the ranch … our friends in blue showed up five minutes after we arrived.”

  Are they searching for Beau?

  A whooshing sound, followed by static, drowned out Elijah’s next words. The coughing man hacked.

  Ryn yelled, “I CAN’T hear.”

  “Welll, excuuuuse me,” the smoker snarled and proved his manhood by slamming this fist against the metal partition separating the two phones.

  Adrenaline flooded into her aching body. She shifted her weight to face the other phone booth. She laid down the receiver. One kick to the knees …

  And the police will have you in jail before you pay for the pizza. Think of Beau.

  Elijah, unaware of the fight she’d just won with herself, kept on talking as if she’d heard every word he’d said.

  She picked up the receiver, and his voice dropped to whisper, “… all match a .38, registered to Kathryn Pauline Davis, residing at one oh one Magnolia.”

  “Kathryn Pauline? I’ve never told anyone but Stone and my GYN my middle name.” She hated it. “It’s not even on my driver’s license.” So she sure as hell never used it to buy a .38 revolver to kill four people. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I’m workin’ on this.”

  “Find Beau. Forget who bought the gun.”

  More static. Ryn clenched her teeth and waited, mentally counting: uno, dos, tres. When she reached ten, she decided she’d lost the connection. She punched in the first three digits of Elijah’s cell and hung up.

  Why call back? What more could he tell her? She fought to breathe.

  When she limped past the smoker, he sniped, “Bitch.”

  Your lucky day, asshat. Nothing he said could distract her. She tossed two of her crisp twenties on the table, shaking her head at the waitress who called after her on her march to the door. No time for change. She knew where Beau was.

  No denying the truth any longer. Comfrey had been right. She’d known all along who killed Stone. The murder of The Monkey Boys had thrown her—made her doubt what she knew. Comfrey’s murder had derailed her.

  Cry later. Could she stop once she started?

  Hold on Beau. Hold on.

  She threw open the pizzeria’s door. Fingers of silver mist reached out, and she shivered. Wasn’t this like a woman-in-jeopardy TV movie? Where the heroine experienced one of those panic-filled defining moments? When the heroine—lovely but dumb as a rutabaga—stepped into the fog, the music going soft, creepy—mixed with the tempo of a fast heartbeat?

  “Shut the damn door, will ya?” Someone at the bar wanted a warm, cozy ambience for his defining moment.

  Ryn pulled the door shut. No soft, creepy music. On the other hand, her sledgehammer-heartbeat was scary enough.

  Chapter 42

  “I’m in the lobby,” Ryn announced, speaking softly into the house phone at the Fairmont.

  “Why, Ryn! What a suh-prise.” Amber gushed. Amber Watt, Ryn’s BFF. Laying on the Texas accent a little thick.

  “I know everything.” Like one plus one and you killed Stone. And the others.

  “Why, Darlin’, I don’t doubt you know everthang. You an’ Stone always were alike that way. Know-it-alls.” Amber paused and laughed. Amber Watt, Funny Girl.

  “I want to talk to Beau.”

  Silence. Short, wispy Marilyn-Monroe sighs in Ryn’s ears. The elegant lobby hummed with orchestrated serenity.

  “Beau’s not here.” Amber puzzled. Concerned. Worried Ryn was losing it. “Would you like to come up and … talk?” Amber, The Sweet Young Thing.

  Is that honey dripping from her fangs—or blood?

  “On my way.”

  Ryn tried—unsuccessfully—to punch the CLOSE button in the elevator as soon as she stepped in. But an older man, Harris tweed jacket, oxblood shoes, stuck his foot in a second before the door snicked shut. He shoved it completely open with his arm and glared at Ryn. She stood in the back corner and tried to pass for a Fairmont guest in her dirty jeans, ski jacket, and muddy shoes. Her disguise failed to fool his blue-haired, mink-wrapped companion who stretched her neck like a preening goose.

  Good, no elevator chatter. Eighteen floors to figure out a plan.

  By the second floor, icicles hung from the couple’s ears. Sniffing from time to time, they communicated with each other telepathically. Ryn was trash. Riff raff. Probably homeless. When the door opened at the floor below the penthouse, Ryn thought she might have to administer CPR to the old gentleman.

  Amber, dressed in a transparent white negligee, stood in the hall. About a hundred diamond earrings flashed in each ear. She sported enough gold and diamond bling�
�rings, bracelets, necklaces—to pass for a newly discovered mummy. Except the spiky black hair and green pigtail honed away the sharp edge of mystery one might expect from a pharaoh’s concubine. The bare feet with a rainbow of painted toenails and sparkling rings added to her aura as Texas hillbilly.

  “You look whacked.” Amber entered the elevator as the older couple shuffled to exit. When the man passed within five inches of Amber, she retrieved the penthouse key from between her double DDs. The old guy stumbled, but his wife valiantly held him upright.

  The elevator doors closed. “You think they recognized me?” she asked.

  “Where’s Beau?”

  “Let’s go sit in the living room,” Amber swept past Ryn into the penthouse hallway—wide enough to land jumbo jets. “The view is spec—”

  “Amber. Where’s Beau?” The muscles in Ryn’s neck tightened like a noose. “You haven’t killed him, have you?”

  “Kill Beau?” Eyes wide. Hand over heart. “Beau’s my buddy. He trusts me.”

  “Baby spiders trust their mothers. So what about trust? Did you play on his trust to get him to leave my apartment?”

  Amber sailed past the antiques, Baccarat crystal, and dozens of candles.

  Beau’s not here. He’d knock over half these in thirty seconds.

  Hips swiveling, Amber sashayed around an end table and waved her right hand in the air. “Have a seat. You want something stronger than ginger ale?”

  “Nothing.” Is she high? Ryn had always suspected Amber liked her recreational drugs, but Stone had played watchdog for The Stoned Gang. Ryn had never mentioned her suspicions.

  An image exploded inside her brain. It was like a million camera flashes snapping the same picture. The little white bottle of melatonin.

  “On second thought, got any melatonin around?” Great segue, Ryn.

  “Like I told the police, I never touch the stuff. Never offered you any, either.” Amber sank down on the white sofa and threw Ryn a sly smile. “Ah sleep like a baby.” She snuggled into the sofa, wiggling to get comfy, tugging her white peignoir over her toes. She sighed and repeated she slept like a baby.

  With four dead men on her conscience?

  “What’d you do with the bottle you gave me that night?”

  “Like I told the police, I think you musta dreamed that, Hon.” Amber yawned, patting her mouth with the back of her hand. Bored, sure Ryn had played her only ace. “Why don’t you sit down—before you fall down?”

  Said the spider to the fly.

  “My knee’s a little stiff. I’d rather stand.” How the hell did all those amateur TV sleuths get the murderer to confess about seven-eighths through a good mystery? Was she wrong about this? Was she grasping at air? Simply because she wanted Amber to be the murderer didn’t mean Amber had killed anyone. No evidence existed. Did I imagine she gave me the melatonin?

  “C’mon, Ryn.” Amber sneered. “you wouldn’t take ice cream from me in hell.”

  “Ice cream hurts my teeth, but if you offered salted, caramel almond?” Ryn shifted her wonky knee. Where was Beau?

  “Bull. Why would you take a bottle of melatonin from me? With your paranoia, you’d swear I’d tampered with the contents.”

  Heat stung Ryn’s ears and she felt dizzy decoding Amber’s confession.

  “You know,” Amber examined one of her rings, holding it near a candle, “with all the designer drugs out there, you can’t be too careful these days.”

  Sweat slid down Ryn’s sides, and her throat froze. Frame after frame rolled forward at warp speed. That little white pill … Had Amber implied Ryn’s brain could suddenly explode one day because that one tiny pill was a time bomb? Set to go off when she least expected it? Had it already detonated? Would she end up like Beau, the little gray cells sloughing off until she was left with the brain of a flea?

  Amber laughed—a hard, mocking noise. “Too bad—too bad—you can’t … can’t see … yer face.” Laughing Girl had to stop and catch her breath. “Never thought I’d live to see the day—oops, the night—when the Great Kathryn Pauline Davis looked scared of me.”

  Ryn’s heart jumped, and her legs turned to meringue. She managed the two steps to an over-stuffed chair and collapsed. Miz Casual, she stretched her legs in front of her, rotated her ankles, and ignored the searing spike in her knee. “Scared? Just because you killed four men? If I was scared of you, Amber, would I be sitting here right now?”

  “It’s been mah experience that you nevah know what a pill popper’s gonna do.” Amber pointed her finger at her head, cocked her thumb, and pulled the imaginary trigger—with no acknowledgment of Ryn’s allegation.

  Ryn’s best effort at a laugh fell flat. “Huh. On the day I blow out my brains, that’s the day you win a Grammy.”

  “Slander gets people killed.” Amber punched the pillows and dragged her heels up on the sofa. “Under the circumstances—your extreme mental stress—I’ll overlook the comment.”

  Ryn held her breath. For all she knew, Amber had her trusty .38—the one registered to Kathryn Pauline Davis—tucked under one of those damn pillows. Has she already killed Beau?

  One knee up, the other extended on the sofa, Amber lay still. “Stone had that kind of attitude. As you well know. Always had to be right. Thought the mighty God Yahweh had made Stone Wall the greatest songwriter in creation.”

  Ryn’s jaw dropped. She stared. When did the subject change to songwriting? “A hundred mill—”

  “Don’t give me any statistical crap.” Amber swung her feet off the sofa. “Ah’ve got a few stats of my own.” She tapped her chest and walked three steps toward Ryn in the narrow alley between the sofa and antique coffee table. “Stone Wall stole half his songs from me. Where do you think he got the idea for OJ?”

  Oh, my God. What a joke to take credit for. When Ryn simply pressed her lips together, Amber whirled around and retraced her steps, the filmy negligee billowing behind her. “Stone wrote his best songs ever while he was my lover.”

  Careful. She’s on the edge.

  Amber came at Ryn again, pointing her finger, shaking it like an angry angel in her diaphanous white nightgown. “He owed me plenty. Plenty. A lot.”

  The candles flickered, and her weird turquoise eyes flashed pink. Chin out, she glared. Defiant. Eager to justify murder.

  Don’t move. Don’t ask about Beau. Not yet. Ryn’s throat ached from clenching her jaw.

  “Whazzamatter, Ryn? Cat gotchyer tongue?” Amber snapped her fingers and boogied in place between flashes of Beau and Maj.

  Please let them be all right.

  Amber snapped her fingers close to Ryn’s nose. She scowled and slapped her hands on her hips. Lady Impatience.

  Now or never. Ryn’s scalp prickled. She pushed up straighter. “Cat makes me think of—”

  “Shut. Up. Don’t even go there,” Amber barked. “Beau’s fine. He’ll stay fine as long as you cooperate.”

  “Whatever you want.” Except a polo pony. Ryn bit her lip. God, where did that off-the-wall—

  Amber’s eyes narrowed to slit. “You paying attention, Ryn?”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course.” She swallowed to control the quaver in her voice. “Tell me what you want, Amber.”

  “Come to Jesus, Ryn. That’s all you gotta do.” Amber’s zombie-smile raised a caravan of goosebumps on Ryn’s arms. Amber ratchetted up the wattage and opened a drawer in the coffee table. When she straightened, she pointed the gun at Ryn’s heart. “Come to Jesus.”

  Chapter 43

  In the empty elevator, a grinning, all-teeth-on-display Amber stood closer to Ryn than her shadow.

  Keeps the pressure on—just like in the movies.

  Despite Amber’s heavy coat and Ryn’s two bulky sweaters, the little metal nose of Jesus pressed hard against a rib. Ryn doubted it would get her anywhere to ask Amber to let up on the pressure a little.

  What are the chances of trying to cut a bargain with the murderer of four men?

  The most Ryn thoug
ht she could hope for was that the super-efficient elevator made it to the lobby without any sudden stops. The slightest bump might cause Amber’s finger to slip on the trigger.

  As if by mutual agreement, they didn’t talk on the short taxi ride to the Ritz. What were they going to discuss? The weather? That Danny was Amber’s partner?

  Ryn’s mind bounced around like a racket ball throwing out one ridiculous idea after the other. Each on the par with offering Amber a polo pony. One recurring thought looped in the background. Speak really fast and hard in Pig Latin to the driver made sense for two seconds. Until she realized he was from Pakistan or Timbuktu or Inner Mongolia.

  Gratitude overrode her disdain. Pig Latin took her mind off her absolute certainty that Amber intended to kill her and Beau.

  The old murder-suicide ploy? Ryn pinched the inside of her wrist, leaned her head on the seat, and shut her eyes. Sleazoid headlines danced like a swarm of killer bees. Rock Star’s Depressed Lover Fakes Own Life After Killing Beau “Peep” Scott.

  Would Elijah, McCoy—anyone—believe such a farce?

  Only the faithful millions who bought The Inquiring Enquirer each week. And of course Amber would be around to embroider the lies. Not to mention Jericho, who’d happily state he’d known Ryn was a head case from Day One.

  Up and down. Up and down. Down and up … Ryn’s mind swerved off into cuckoo-land as Amber inserted the key into the Ritz PENTHOUSE slot. Riding up and down in an elevator now felt normal. Ryn’s leg muscles contracted. It would be so easy to lean a little to the right, raise her left foot …

  “Try anything and Beau’s dead meat.” Amber stared at the polished brass panel and spoke in the intonation of a TV weather personality.

  Ryn’s mouth went dry. She clenched her jaw and swallowed her smart-aleck retort.

  “Danny and I have this all worked out.” Amber removed the gun from her coat pocket.

  Ryn flinched. “As if two brains beat one?”

  Amber chuckled. “Definitely Especially if one brain belongs to you.”

  Low blow. “You’ll never get away with six murders.”

  So original, Ryn.