by Anna Castle
The sight of him rose my hackles.
“Did you growl?” Ty said. “You didn’t growl when we first started dating. I’m not saying I don’t like it, mind you.”
We spun around. This time he noticed Greg leaning in the doorway. Also, I think I may have growled again. “Has he been hitting on you?” Ty gave him a hard look, which set Greg’s ears back.
“Can’t stand the little creep.”
Ty chuckled. “He’s the classic nerd. My shop is full of ’em. I’ll admit he’s an odd duck out here in ranch country, but we’re lucky to have him.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are. Darlin’, most people in rural areas still have dial-up. We’re lucky that Greg was willing to take the risk of setting up a satellite system out here.”
“He’s a sleazy, slime-sucking scumball.”
“Ho ho! He has been hitting on you!” Ty twirled us around so he could shoot a manly glare Greg’s way. “Listen, Penny. All you have to do is rap him sharply on the snout. Show him you won’t let him hassle you and he’ll back right down.”
“Very psychological. Did you learn that in business school?”
“Nope. 4-H Club.”
We danced through the whole CD. Then Ben put on Junior Brown and shifted the mood one hundred and eighty degrees. Boot-scootin’ country music, good for fools like me. We picked up the pace.
The front door banged open again. We stopped in our tracks, ready for another black-clad widow crying doom. What we saw was the very portrait of an L.A. hipster, complete with skinny jeans, flat sneakers, stylishly untidy hair, and inadequate jacket. He was clutching a bottle in one hand and peering into the studio, looking totally clueless. He couldn’t have wandered in by accident. The highway to California was a hundred miles to the south.
He spotted Krystle and called out to her, arms held wide, “Special K! At last I found you!”
“Jason!” Krystle did not sound happy to see him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” She separated herself from Finley and faced the new guy with her hands on her hips.
I slid across the room and turned down the music so we could all hear the fight that was about to commence. We don’t get the big acts out here in the country, so we have to settle for whatever comes our way.
Jason took a few steps forward. Krystle did too, closely trailed by Deputy Finley. Jason’s eyes slid from Krystle to Finley, Krystle to Finley, then back for another round.
“What do you want, Jason?”
“I want to see you, baby. I told you I was coming.”
“You said you were thinking about it and I told you to stop thinking.”
“Can’t be done. Besides, I was in Arizona when I called.” His gaze slid to Finley again. I sensed that he’d be pleading his case with more touch if Krystle had been alone.
“Go away, Jason. We’re through. I mean it.”
“Gimme a break, K. At least give me a glass of water. I drove all the way from L.A. to see your shining smile again.”
Ty said, “That’s a good thirty hours. Should we make him some coffee?” The question was addressed to the room at large.
Jason said, “Thanks, man, but I’m caffeined out. I wouldn’t hate a trip to the john, if there is one.”
My cue. “Down the hall.”
He held up his bottle as a peace offering. “Look, K. I brought you a bottle of El Maguey. Mezcal, remember? A hundred percent Tobala-la-la?” He shifted his hips in a micro-cha-cha.
“The moon and the blue lagoon?” He held her eyes in a long exchange of telepathic messages. I couldn’t decode the transmission, but I caught a vibe of pleading with an under-vibe of threat.
Krystle let out a huge sigh of exasperated surrender. “Whatever.” She turned to stalk into the kitchen, but saw Greg leaning in the doorway with a smirk on his face. She let out a frustrated “Eeeyeww!” and turned around again.
Finley gathered her into his arms and glowered over her head at Jason. Jason stared at the pair in amazement. “That is, like, so weird.”
Weird to see Krystle with another man or weird to see her with a deputy sheriff? The latter, most likely. But what was that undercurrent of threat I’d sensed? I’d bet twenty yearbooks’ worth of scanning that Greg already knew.
“I can help you with that bottle, Hoss,” Ben said, walking over to clap the sorry loser on his skinny back. Jason startled and looked up at yet another outsized Texan. He handed the bottle to Ben and moved toward the hall, trying to walk cool.
Ben took the bottle to the buffet table and worked it open. It was fancy stuff all right: it had a lead seal and a cork and everything. Somebody went to the kitchen and came back with clean cups. Ben poured a shot for himself and tasted. “Whee-ooo!”
He passed the bottle to Tillie, who took a sniff, made a face, and passed it on. Most of the women followed Tillie’s lead; most of the men poured a short shot.
While we were sampling, Jason came back out. “That’s handmade in a single village in Mexico,” he informed us, trying to look like one of the gang. Since he was the only one in the gang with two silver rings in his nostril, he did not succeed.
My turn. I took a sniff and a teeny-tiny shot and made a sour face. “Bleeaahh!”
I passed the bottle to Finley, who replaced the cork with a whack of his palm and handed it briskly to Jason. “Come along, son. I’ll give you a ride to the motel.”
“Uh,” Jason said, “I don’t really have any…”
Krystle snarled. “Typical! That is so typical of you, Jason! You drive all this way and land on my doorstep flat bottom broke.”
“Got a free bed in the jailhouse,” Finley offered. “No strings, just a night’s lodging at the county’s expense.” He stepped forward, a determined twinkle in his eyes.
“Sounds cozy.” Jason backed up a few steps, bumping into Ben, who looked down at him and grinned. Panic replaced his lame attempt at detached hipster irony.
“No, no,” Krystle said. “Stop scaring him. He’s just an idiot.” She looked Jason up and down, shaking her head. “What did I ever see in you?” She laid a hand on Finley’s arm. “He can sleep on my couch tonight and drive back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“Then I reckon I’ll be sleeping in the hall,” Finley said, only half joking.
Chapter 21
“I can’t stand looking at it, but I can’t tear my eyes away, either,” Ty said. “It’s like a four-car pile-up on the highway.”
We were sitting at the blue Formica table in my kitchen, drinking the last of the gourmet coffee I’d brought from Austin. Eight-by-ten prints of my figure studies, along with a print-out of Greg’s disfigured version, lay on the table between us. Ty took a slow sip of coffee, staring down at the fouled photo. His green eyes were hard and his upper lip curled as if there were something nasty in his cup.
I stared out at the bare-limbed pecan tree that occupied one corner of my back yard. Its leaves covered half the yard; the rest was brown grass corralled by a chain-link fence. Aunt Sophie hadn’t been much of a gardener, but a barren wasteland suited my mood perfectly at this moment. My crime wasn’t so great, but the picture sure was ugly. I couldn’t blame Ty for being mad. I’d be mad; heck, I’d probably be stomping around saying things I’d regret later. Part of me wondered if he’d learned to be so cool when angry or if it was a natural part of his character.
Ty stabbed at the print with his finger. “The thought of that guy sitting there editing my photograph makes me sick to my stomach. He must have spent hours at it. See here? He even stuck a tiny cigarette between my lips.”
“He did?” I bent to peer at the photo. “I didn’t notice that. I can’t stand to look at it, to tell you the truth.” I tried to catch Ty’s eyes, but he’d refused to look at me since I’d spilled the whole sorry tale.
“Then let’s not.” Ty grabbed the page and crumpled it in one fist, half-turning in his chair to lob it at the sink. It bounced off the tile rim and fell to the floor. He set his coffee cup down and
rose to retrieve the ball and place it with exquisite care in the bin under the sink. The precision of his movements told me more than anything how furious he was. He stood at the sink for a minute, staring blankly out the window. The sky was turning from pearl gray to blue, the color deepening like a photograph in a chemical bath.
I gathered up the prints of my beautiful figure studies and tucked them into their folder. I couldn’t even feel proud of them anymore. Maybe later, when this bad patch was far behind us.
Ty took a deep breath and turned away from the window.
“Ty, I am so sorry.”
His eyes cut toward me. “I know you are.” His voice was hard. Ty took another audible breath, ran his hands through his thick brown hair, and leaned against the counter, hands on his hips. When he spoke, he addressed his remarks to the broom closet beside the stove. “Here’s the plan. Greg must have installed a Trojan horse on your computer, in with the security software he gave you.”
It was Geek to me, but I knew he knew what he was talking about.
“Write down all your usernames and passwords. I’ll find somebody with some spare time to look into this. Somehow.” He frowned at the closet with that rapid-eye-movement stare that meant he was juggling things in his head.
I wrote my info on the scratch pad that lives on my kitchen table. Like most people these days, I have three sets of passwords: strong, medium and light. I wrote out the name of Greg’s company, too, in case the somebody with spare time was somehow unable to use Google.
Ty said, “I’ll call you when we know how he’s capturing the data. It won’t be today. Or tomorrow.” He bit his lip while his eyes did that thing again. “This week. I won’t leave you hanging. Until then, just keep playing along, if you can stand it. I want evidence we can take to the sheriff and I don’t want him to clean things up before we get it.”
“Absolutely. I’m fine. It’s not that hard. It was just the not telling you—” I cut it off when he drew in a sharp breath. Not ready for that yet.
Ty nodded twice. “I gotta go.” He shot me a short glance and strode through the dining room and into the living room. He lifted his coat off the back of the armchair where he’d thrown it last night in our fever to get each other undressed.
I followed him at a slight distance. I wanted a hug, but I didn’t want to push it. When I’m seriously pissed off, I want people to let me get through it my own way. I try to return the favor.
Ty shrugged into his coat and stood there, looking at his feet. His boots were glossy and every inch as finely made as Mr. M’s python marvels. Finally, he looked straight at me, for the first time in centuries. “Listen, Penny, I’m too mad to talk about us right now.”
“I understand.”
“Yeah.” His eyes held mine for a long moment, then he turned his head and spoke to the nubby green sofa. “If it weren’t for Bob’s crazed political ambitions, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about that doctored photo. Greg could splatter it from here to Hong Kong if he wanted to. In my circles, it’s more embarrassing to have a girlfriend who lets herself get hacked. And your pictures, those figure studies: they’re excellent. I know they’re excellent. If the figure were anyone but me, I’d be urging you to exhibit them. But they are me and they are naked and you knew I was in high-discretion mode right now. So what did you do? You emailed them through an insecure network without giving me so much as a head’s up. You didn’t even bother to show me the damn prints last weekend.”
“I know, I should have—”
He held up a finger. I snapped my mouth shut. I was woman enough to stand mute and take a scolding. Just this once.
“You should’ve told me — no, you should have asked me first. Failing that, you should have told me about it. And you should have called me the minute — I mean the very same minute — that you got that abomination in your mail. Instead, you covered it up. You let that sleazeball yank you around instead of talking to me. You lied to me. How many times?”
I didn’t even try to count. I was too busy biting my lip. My turn would come later. I was going to stand here and be cool and collected and adult and not argue back or burst into tears. It kind of worked: I saw a softening of the anger in his eyes and knew he was going forgive me. That little flicker inside my heart? That was called hope.
His eyes narrowed; he must have read my mind. Again. Ty poked his tongue against the inside of his cheek and studied me for a long minute. Then he shook his head. “All right. There’s no point in belaboring the subject. I really do have to go. I’ve been away too long already.”
He opened the door and walked onto the porch. I followed him outside, though it was too cold for a terrycloth robe and stocking feet. “Once I get the proof,” he told the box hedges below the porch railing, “you can go tell that scumbag that I will make it my personal mission to put him behind bars.” He grinned a twisted grin that sent a bolt of vengeful energy up my spine. Or maybe it was the chill rising from the concrete floor. “Until then, hang tight. Lay low. I’ll send you a disc to scrub your system. UPS. Coupla days.”
I hopped up and down, wrapping my arms around myself. Ty watched me, sidelong, for a second and then made a chuffing noise and shook his head. He took my face in one hand and gazed down at me. I poured love and repentance and a willingness to do whatever it took into my eyes. He almost smiled. Tiny pulses of joy zoomed around my nervous system. But all he said was, “I gotta go to work.”
I watched him climb into his BMW and drive away. Then I curtsied toward my neighbor across the street, who had been standing on her front walk in her bathrobe clutching her paper in her hand the whole time, watching the mini-drama on my front porch.
Chapter 22
I went back into the kitchen for another swallow of coffee and checked the Kit-Kat clock over the back door. 8:43. It had only taken thirty minutes to drive my love life over a cliff. How long would it take for Ty to climb back up, if he even wanted to try? And how long would it take him to find a wizard to expose Greg’s spyware?
Don’t hold your breath, was the answer to both questions. Give Ty space until that icky pic faded from his mind’s eye and let him see that I was worth a few rockslides. Keep playing Greg’s game like nothing had changed, to buy time until the wizard could work his magic. Which reminded me: Greg hadn’t said anything about the yearbooks at the wake last night, possibly because I’d been avoiding him. Had he even looked at what I’d uploaded Friday night? I hadn’t finished the job, not by a mile. Surely he’d have something to say about that.
Another thing left hanging. I could sit here drumming my fingers on my kitchen table until I wore a hole in the Formica, or I could pick myself up and find something to do. I needed a plan, but you need a clue to make a plan and I was clue-free at the moment. I also needed an ally, but it was way too early for normal people to be up on a Sunday morning.
I was pouring cereal in a bowl when the phone rang. It was Marion, calling me at this ungodly hour to nag me about going to church. “You say you want to meet people and integrate yourself into the town, Penny. Well, this is what people do in Lost Hat.”
Not all the people, I’d noticed. I explained, yet again, that I was a nature photographer and the planet Earth was my church. Then I had a bright idea. “I was on my way to go clean my studio. Cleanliness is next to godliness, right? A bucket of suds is as good as a sermon.” She couldn’t argue with that. She promised to come by that afternoon to check out the bags of books in my garage. Something to look forward to.
I ate my cereal and hopped into some scruffy-wear and drove downtown. Inside the studio, I put on the Asylum Street Spankers, cranked it up to full blast, and started with trash patrol, sorting as I went into separate bags for cans, plastic, and other. The bags went into the back of the truck. Then I swept and dusted high and low, feeling better by the minute. I secretly love cleaning: it works off a lot of angst and also leaves everything sparkly and new.
I filled a bucket with warm sudsy water and added a splash of
virus-killing bleach, like they’d taught us to do in the Philippines. I scrubbed every inch of the downstairs, from the scuff marks on the white walls to the sticky dribbles of punch in my darkroom. Then I got the mop and started on the darkroom floor. I reclaimed my space as I worked, sudsing away molecules of frustration with Ty and Greg. I felt like both of those guys were both yanking me around, in two different directions. Or rather, Greg was yanking — do this, do that — and Ty was squelching —hang tight, do nothing. But I was nobody’s puppet. I would vastly prefer to rescue my own self, if I could think of a way.
The situation with Ty was out of my hands for now. He’d be back in his office soon and probably be mobbed by a pack of nerds the minute he walked in the door. If he had two minutes to spare today for my little spot of weirdness, it would be a miracle. He’d said he’d send me something in a couple of days: I would wait. The ball was in his court. I was not going to keep checking on him. He’d get to it — he was a man of his word — but it couldn’t be his top priority. After all, I wasn’t in danger of losing anything but time.
Or was I? I mopped over my own foot as I suddenly remembered Susanna and her claim that Jim had been poisoned with opiates. I’d forgotten about it, with all the personal drama. That damned pink snack cake: someone had doctored it and put it back in the box. But it couldn’t have been meant for Jim. Nobody could have predicted he would eat it. Who would eat fake food when there were homemade goodies to choose from?
Nobody but Greg. Who could even have guessed he would bring those things to the meeting? Nobody at all. Therefore, that doped-up cake had been meant for Greg. And who might want to murder Greg, present company excepted?
Pretty much half the town, from what I’d seen. Andy Lynch, Krystle, the nurse with the vacuum cleaner. Deputy Finley, maybe. Lexie at the grocery store. They were surely just the tip of the iceberg. I’d been imagining that everybody’s problems were like mine: some embarrassing little folderol you wish you hadn’t done. Worth scanning a few yearbooks or knitting a sweater to keep secret for a while, but certainly not worth killing for. Greg must have seriously misjudged one of his victims. Maybe he’d stumbled onto something major, something criminal, even, some dark secret someone would be desperate to protect. And now that someone was serving up sugary treats with a side of opiates.