by Anna Castle
Marion smiled. She knew that had done the trick. “Tuesday night, seven o’clock, at the museum. The meeting room is in the annex in back. Don’t be late.”
“I’m never late!” I was stung. Punctuality outranks cleanliness in the Army lifestyle and both come way before godliness. “Are you really not going to tell me what the project is?”
Another Mona Lisa smile, this time with an extra edge. “If I tell you now, you won’t have to go to the meeting. You said you want to get involved in things here and the Historical Society is perfect. You too, Tillie. Somebody needs to bring the Mexican-American perspective into the mix.”
Tillie drew in a sharp breath. “I think I’m supposed to do the books at Dolly’s on Tuesday night.” While watching Hell’s Kitchen, I knew. Tillie was hooked on reality TV.
“Next month, then.” Marion got up and went to the fridge to pour herself a glass of tea.
“I would’ve gotten that.” Tillie hopped halfway up and then sat down again. No doubt she was feeling guilty for weaseling out of the meeting.
“Don’t be silly. I’m quite capable of pouring a glass of tea.” She got a fork out of the drawer and set it firmly in front of me. I’d started eating salad with my fingers — in my own kitchen, mind you — which could not be allowed to continue. In the interest of keeping Marion in a peaceable mood, I accepted the fork.
Marion put her glass on the table and went back to the fridge to study its contents. She came up with a grapefruit and finally sat down. “How is your aunt Dolly, anyway?”
That was the cue for gossip time. Tillie’s aunt, Dolorcitas Espinoza Garza, owned Dolly’s Doll House of Beauty. Her husband, Felipe “Flip” Garza, was the desk sergeant at the Long County Law Enforcement Center. Between the two of them, they heard pretty much everything that happened in Lost Hat. Marion pretended that keeping up with local news was part of her job, but really, she just liked to dish.
I listened to the news feed while I ate my greenery, giving it only half my attention, since I didn’t know any of the people involved. The other half wondered what Marion the All-Knowing would do if she ever got a letter like mine. An image of the well-upholstered Thomas Albrecht posing nude on an iron bed flashed into my mind and short-circuited my visual cortex for a second. I shook my head and concentrated on spearing a slippery cherry tomato while I recovered.
Marion would confront rather than evade. She’d have Greg hung by his thumbs from the courthouse roof for interfering with her family. But then she and Thomas had been married for centuries. They had two sons. They were dug in. He’d stand by her, if only to maintain his nutritional standards.
I had no such confidence in my new flame.
Tillie reached a plump hand for one of my tamalitos. I slid the box closer to her, glad to be drawn back out of my thoughts.
“Things are not so great at the Matslars’,” she said. “Melanie was in to the salon on Saturday getting the works — a perm, highlights, everything. She says she’s going to leave her husband for this guy she met in a chat room on the Internet.”
“What?” Marion’s eyebrows shot up under her bangs. “I don’t believe it!”
“Isn’t that kind of risky?” I was now an expert on the hazards of the information superhighway.
Tillie nodded. “It’s totally risky. Everybody at the salon was like, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ But she says she’s really, really in love for the first time in her life and nothing else matters.”
“She has to be stopped.” Marion was truly shocked. “They have three children. Who on earth is this fellow?”
Tillie shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell us his name, but she says he owns a car dealership in Austin. Fancy cars, like Jaguars and Land Rovers.”
“Has she even seen a picture of this supposed car salesman?” Marion asked.
“Uh-huh. She showed us. He’s good-looking, kind of distinguished, you know? A little gray, but fit, like he plays golf or something. She says he’s handsome, he’s rich, and he loves her.”
Tillie put a hand on her hip, imitating a woman bragging about her man. “‘He’s all that and a bag of chips.’”
Suddenly, Marion made her worried face, where she pulls her lips into a deep pout, dragging down her nose so she looks like a basset hound. “This sounds very fishy to me. I’d better have a talk with Melanie before she does something she can’t take back.”
Better Melanie than me, I thought uncharitably. Still, anything that distracted Marion this week would be a bonus.
“Have y’all noticed a lot of bickering lately?” Tillie asked. “Seems like everybody’s mad at everybody.”
“Nonsense,” Marion said. “It’s just normal winter testiness. Cabin fever.”
Do we get cabin fever in Texas? The average winter temperature is pretty much perfect. But she was right about the bickering. “Whatever it is, it’s taking over the town.” I told them about the couple at the gas station. As I spoke, I realized their problem might be related to mine. Hadn’t the guy mentioned an Internet brokerage site? Maybe Greg had caught them in his net, too.
“Who were they?” Marion asked.
“Uh—”
“What did they look like?” Tillie asked.
I closed my eyes and summoned up the image. “Forty-somethings in a gray sedan. She was sort of square — not fat, but busty — with shoulder-length brownish hair. He was buff, like a weight lifter. Straw-colored flattop and a regulation moustache. Ex-military or I’m a cowgirl.”
“Andy Lynch.” Tillie and Marion spoke in unison.
“He’s the State Farm agent,” Marion added. “I hope he’s not in serious trouble.”
“He’s in trouble with his wife, that’s for sure,” I said.
I thought about the tearful fight between Lexie and her friend and how hostile she’d been toward Greg. I wondered what penalties he’d tried to extract from her and Andy Lynch and why they hadn’t paid.
I knew one thing: retribution for noncompliance was swift and devastating.
Chapter 5
Mariposa Internet Services is housed in a three-office strip at the southern edge of town. It shares the strip with the State Farm agent’s office and a title company. I parked at a wide slant, hogging the small lot with my truck. I wanted to gun the engine and smash right through the windows, but I had no beef with the insurance guy and I was afraid the Beast would take down half the building.
I pushed through the glass door into the anteroom where the receptionist usually sat at a plain metal desk with a potted plant and two filing cabinets for company. She was gone for the day. Her desk was clean with a cover pulled over her keyboard. Another glass door let me into the hall that led to Greg’s office. There he sat, leaning back in a well-upholstered chair, with a smarmy smile on his face. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall: 4:57. “You’re early. I’m not sure I should allow that.”
“Let’s get it over with.” My voice sounded alien in my ears. The sight of him set my blood boiling. The sorry truth was that he had me and whatever it was that he wanted, he was going to get it. For now, anyway. I needed to buy time to find a way out of this mess.
I got far enough in to see behind his desk and stopped short, tucking my chin in surprise. A woman about my age knelt on the floor in front of him, holding one of his bare feet against her thigh. I had interrupted a foot massage.
But what a masseuse! The woman was breathtaking: sunshine-blond hair, a heart-shaped face, and a Hollywood figure. She was so glamorous it made me feel disoriented, like I’d stepped out of the real world and into TV Land. What was she doing on her knees in front of Lost Hat’s answer to Jabba the Hutt?
Then I recognized the cold fury in her bright blue eyes: she was another blackmail victim.
Her shapely lips twisted as she snarled like a mountain cat. She leapt up, dropping his foot to the gray nylon carpet with a thump, and shoved past me into the hall, leaving a rose-scented wake. I heard a door bang shut at the back of the building. I fel
t a sour trickle of dread in my gut. Was that going to be my penalty?
Greg was watching me, enjoying himself. “Don’t worry, I have other plans for you.” He wiggled his toes, smiling down at them contentedly. “Krystle doesn’t have many skills.”
“There are limits—” I started.
“Shh.” He put a finger to his lips. “I tell you, that’s how it works.” He bent with a grunt, picked up a pair of thin black socks and got his feet covered again. “Have a seat, why don’t you?” He gestured at the chair in front of his desk.
I sat.
Greg stuffed his feet into his black sneakers and bent again to lace them up, puffing from the effort. Too fat to bend over: that was hopeful. If I could rattle him enough, maybe he’d drop dead of an apoplexy. Then I could rifle his hard disks and destroy those pictures. I could withdraw from the contest and no harm would be done.
And hogs would fly and the Mariposa River would run with French champagne.
Greg twirled his chair around and opened the top drawer of a long file cabinet. He took out a bottle of Wild Turkey, twirled again, and grabbed a paper cup from a shelf. One more twirl and he faced me again. He poured a shot, tossed it down his throat, and crumpled the cup in his fist. “Aaaah.” He smacked his lips. “That’s the way to end the day. Now let the fun begin.” He made a basketball throw toward the wastebasket and missed. He jerked his chin at it and I got the message. I leaned wide and snagged the cup, tossing it into the trash.
“Good girl.”
My lip curled and he chuckled. He reached for a box of the pink snack cakes he’d bought at DeGroot’s and held it out to me. “Raspberry cake?”
“No, thanks.”
He chuckled again and put the box back. “I’m sure you’re wondering what your penalty is going to be. I don’t blame you for rushing over here; you must be feeling pretty anxious.”
“Like I said, there are—”
He cut me off by wagging his finger from side to side. “Ah ah ah! Me first. And me second, now that I think of it.” He poured the last of the whiskey into a fresh paper cup and drank it down.
Crumple, toss, miss. I put the second cup in the wastebasket without being asked.
Greg sighed dramatically and settled back in his chair. He beamed at me.
“You see, Penny,” he said, with the air of a man who was about to tell a long and tedious story, “I like to think of myself as a student of human nature. I’m basically a people person, endlessly fascinated by the passing parade. You’d be amazed what sorts of hijinks people get up to on the Internet. They reveal their true natures in everything they do: the things they buy, the things they say. They think no one will know, that there won’t be any consequences. Their principles go right out the window. And all their little secrets come streaming in to my servers, ready for my harvesting scripts to search out the juiciest morsels and flag them for me.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “Can we cut to the chase here?”
“Tsk tsk. Mind your manners.”
“Sorry.” I forced a smile.
He ran his tongue over his lower lip as if savoring my compliance. “Everyone is always in such a rush to find out what they owe me. I see more to this than crime and punishment. I like to think that I’m helping people, in the long run, to understand the true effects of their actions.”
He balanced his elbows on his belly and clasped his hands in front of him, tapping his index fingers together. His eyes twinkled behind his Poindexter glasses. He was having all kinds of fun. “I pride myself on my ability to set penalties that fit both the offense and the offender.” He opened his hands wide and made a leveling gesture. “It’s a balance, you see. What are they able to pay? What are they willing to pay? It isn’t only about money; I’m flexible. There are many little gaps in my lifestyle that need to be filled.” He waved a hand at the empty whiskey bottle. “Gifts, services. From each according to his abilities, that’s my motto.”
I felt a knot between my shoulder blades unravel and tried not to show the relief that washed through me. He was going to ask for photographs.
Then I remembered what he’d done to Ty’s picture and the knot tied itself up again, twice as tight. “What kind of photographs?”
He nodded approvingly. “You’re quick. I like that. Believe me, it will make things much smoother if you make an effort to anticipate my needs, rather than waiting for instructions at every step. Here’s the deal. In order to earn brownie points with the local muckety-mucks, I volunteered to host the Long County Museum website free of charge. That’s OK; I’ve got memory to burn. It doesn’t cost me anything. But I also told them that I would donate my services to build the site. That would be work.”
“Tedious work.” That tension knot untied itself again. “I can do a website.”
“You see? You practically volunteered. That’s my gift: choosing a payment that can be made willingly.”
Yeah, he was a genius, I got it. Very skillful. He should write a book: Blackmail for Dummies.
“I believe they were going to draft you anyway,” he said, “to do photographs of the existing museum exhibits. So your additional involvement would be more or less invisible, if you understand me.”
I nodded. I understood perfectly. If it got too obvious that the townsfolk were funneling gifts and services into Greg Alexander’s lap, someone in authority might start asking questions. “Just so we’re clear: you want me to design and implement a website for the Long County Museum, but make it look like you did it?”
“That’s it exactly. Good girl! You’ll have to go to the meeting tomorrow night to get the details. I’m not sure what all they want, frankly.”
This museum website must be what Marion had been hinting at. It could be very cool, actually. My imagination started running through colors and layouts. I shut it off. Now was not the time. We hadn’t covered the most important part of this negotiation, from my perspective.
“And then what?” I asked him.
“And then what what?”
“When do I get my photographs back?”
“Oh, that! Let’s revisit that question when we’re a bit farther along, shall we?”
I glared at him. “Like I tried to say before, there are limits. Push me too far and I’ll just tell Ty everything. We’ll deal with the consequences together.”
“Pah! Everybody says that. I rather doubt Tyler Hawkins is the kind of man who could shrug off a betrayal of that magnitude.”
I honestly didn’t know what Ty would do. I’d only known him for a month and a half. He might say, “Well, that’s art for you,” and let it go. Or he might have me flogged on the courthouse steps and denounce me to the populace and never speak to me again.
Which would break my heart and ruin my professional reputation in one stroke.
Greg watched me think it through, enjoying the play of emotions across my face. I sighed and he smiled.
He owned me. And we both knew it.
Chapter 6
I was in a jam. I was in a pickle. And I had no relish for the pickled jam that I was in.
I’d spent the evening racketing between the guilty knowledge that I deserved all the punishment Greg could dish out and a hot fury that he was taking evil advantage of my fully legitimate actions.
I’m an artist; I’m supposed to show my work. Ty effectively consented to having those photographs shown when he let me take them. You don’t spill your secrets to a journalist and then get all huffy when they turn up in the daily news, do you? Of course not.
The real crime was what Greg did. Anybody with a little editing experience could stick body parts on photographs. Sleazy pseudo-fans did it to celebrities all the time.
I paced and puttered all evening, dusting every one of the ten thousand knick-knacks Aunt Sophie had stuffed into her house. In her later years, she slid from maintaining a stock of antiques to hoarding piles of stuff. I noticed it on my visits, but never knew what to do, beyond making sure there were no encroachments by membe
rs of the rodent family.
I used to pride myself on being able to fit all my worldly goods in the back of a pickup. Now, I’d need a 15-foot U-Haul for the knick-knacks alone. I picked up a porcelain shepherdess seated on a tuffet alongside an animal that looked to me like a poodle. I polished their matching pink bows and wondered why anyone would pay good money to own such an object.
I should tell Ty and face the music. He was a decent, intelligent man with a good sense of humor; that’s why I loved him. He’d understand. Then together we could put Greg out of business. And possibly behind bars.
I had to tell him.
No, no, no!
Ty wouldn’t understand. He would never forgive me. Why should he? I had arrogantly disregarded his right to privacy. He worked in the high-tech industry: everyone he knew would see that picture. His partners, his clients, his employees. His CEO would go ballistic. What about those Japanese moguls he was wooing in the gigantic deal he was working on? He’d be humiliated, the deal would collapse, and it would be my fault.
I could never tell him.
I had to get rid of some of these knick-knacks, but what was valuable and what was junk? For all I knew, this shepherdess was an original work of art. I couldn’t even decide where to put the damn thing. It was like my inner Decider was jammed.
I could at least round up all the old books. They were mostly paperbacks, including the complete works of Belva Plain and Lilian Jackson Braun. I also found a Time-Life series on plumbing from back when pipes were made of carved deer bones. Aunt Sophie had kept every paper bag that had ever come her way, folded neatly into other paper bags. I filled them all and stacked them into piles near the front of the garage. If I took them to Half-Priced Books in Austin next time I went, I might get enough money to buy a sandwich at Schlotzsky’s on the way home.
Sacking the books used up the last of my fretful energy. I fell asleep with a dust rag in my hand and woke up at sunrise with the sheets tangled around my legs. I swilled two cups of black coffee standing at the sink. My eyes felt like they’d been baked in a barbecue pit and my body was as achy as if I had the flu. I needed a run. I needed to clear my head. I needed a plan for getting myself out of hell and back into my life.