Sheryl raised her right hand. “I won’t get blitzed again. I promise. And Joe’s at his folks’ house. He’s staying the night, so he won’t show up and bust us.” Allie raised her eyebrows.
“I heard him telling one of the guys.”
Allie couldn’t help grinning. “Thank God for that. Give me five minutes.”
Sheryl took care of Spook while Allie changed. She could retire her plastic bag since the rain stopped. She opted for a bedroom shoe instead. Pink. Fuzzy.
As they were leaving, Sheryl gestured at the crutches. “You need those things?”
“Absolutely not,” Allie said.
“Good. No sense making ourselves conspicuous.”
Allie looked down at her bedroom shoe. Her laughter followed them to the car.
It was getting dark. The day of rain ushered in a front, and it was fifteen degrees colder now. Allie wore jeans and a crewneck sweater over her blouse and hoped it would be enough.
They took Sheryl’s car. The SUV might be big on economy, but it was short on comfort and cleanliness. Allie tossed the fast-food wrappers, the files, and newspapers in the direction of the backseat and barely fastened her seatbelt before Sheryl shot out on to the road.
“What’s your hurry?” Allie asked.
“Sorry. I forgot I had a passenger.”
“You drive that way all the time?”
“Yeah.”
Allie grinned at her. “Good thing you’re a cop.”
The grin faded five minutes later when Sheryl pulled into Lester’s parking lot. “Why in the world are we coming here for dinner?”
Sheryl shrugged, unhooking her seatbelt. “It’s close and popular. Good food.”
“How would you know?” Allie asked, her voice skeptical.
Sheryl climbed out of the car. “You can tell by the crowd. Besides, I ate here once, something other than chicken wings.” Her face turned mischievous. “And it’s the one place where no guys will hit on us. They know we have our own personal bodyguard.”
“Very funny.”
Allie climbed out of the Honda and followed Sheryl into the bar, hoping Sheryl was right about the food. Her bedroom shoe earned her only a few stares. As they headed toward what she thought of as their end of the bar, the men parted like water in the wake of a speedboat. The two at the end of the bar climbed off their stools and moved away as she and Sheryl approached. Allie sighed. Obviously, their reputation preceded them.
The bartender headed their way, his smile genial but his eyes wary. “Ladies,” he said. “Just the two of you tonight?”
“For the whole night,” Sheryl said, hopping up on the stool. “I’d like a Diet Coke, and my friend will have a regular Coke.”
Allie blinked. “Excuse me? I want a Diet Coke too.”
Sheryl narrowed her eyes. “You need a regular Coke. We’ve got to get you fattened back up.”
The bartender looked from Sheryl to Allie.
“Regular Coke,” Allie said, lifting her chin.
“And two menus,” Sheryl added, as he turned away.
“You’re really going to eat?”
“Sure, I hear the steak’s good here and maybe some potato skins. Salad.”
Allie laughed. Sheryl squirmed on her stool. “I eat sometimes.”
And she did. She ate all hers and most of Allie’s. They stuck to Coke and safe subjects—Allie’s aunt, Sheryl’s family, Allie’s family. Insane stories from their youth.
“Too bad your brother’s such a horse’s ass,” Sheryl said, wiping her mouth on her napkin. “That is one seriously good-looking dude.”
Sheryl was right. Women fell all over themselves when Len entered a room. He took after their mother, with his dark hair and darker eyes. He also had a face and body that belonged on the cover of Playgirl. Allie could imagine that his female clients regularly made fools of themselves over him, and she could equally imagine that he made the most of it. Only professionally, she hoped. “He’s a seriously married dude,” she said on a laugh, “and he is a horse’s ass. Besides, you haven’t seen him in a while. His looks are ruined from his years of dissipation.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. I just wanted to make you feel better.”
“Ha, ha.” Sheryl picked up a potato skin and took a bite. “Remember the time he caught us skinny dipping? He said we would turn out to be sluts.”
Allie burst out laughing. “He was a lofty fifteen years old, and we were eleven. I don’t know many eleven-year-old sluts.”
“Yeah, most of them wait until they’re at least thirteen,” Sheryl said, grinning. “He pretended not to look while we were dressing, but he watched us the whole time.”
“You, maybe. I didn’t have anything to look at back then.”
Sheryl cuffed her on the shoulder. “You still don’t.”
That set them off again.
“Whew!” Sheryl said, holding up her hand for the bartender. “Two more,” she called when she got his attention. She turned and scanned the room. Allie saw her stiffen and turned on her stool to see what Sheryl saw. She expected Joe, a big gun on his hip, but it was Marc, sitting alone in a booth across the room watching them. She felt her heart give a little twist. Maybe fear. Maybe not.
He caught her eye. No smile. He made no move to approach them. He sat watching. Allie didn’t know if he was angry with her or if he thought Sheryl would pull a pistol on him if he approached. She couldn’t stand it. Whatever he was accused of, he wasn’t convicted of anything. “I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder to Sheryl.
“Wait—”
Allie slid off the barstool and limped across the room, painfully aware of her pink fuzzy slipper. At least she could have worn a pink sweater to go with it. It seemed to take hours to get around the crowded dance floor. His eyes held hers the whole time. Once she got there, she didn’t have a clue what to say to him. “Sorry my friend tried to arrest you.” “So, did you kill them?” In the end, she settled for “Hi, Marc.”
. “Hi,” he said, his face expressionless.
“My foot’s a lot better.”
“So I see.”
“Can I sit down for a minute?”
“Sure.”
She slid into the booth. Marc watched her. She couldn’t blame him. If he was guilty, he should be wary. If he was innocent, he should be pissed. She knew she would be.
The jukebox played something country at top volume. A few couples were dancing in the middle of the floor. One guy stumbled into a chair, almost taking his date with him. He obviously wasn’t drinking Coke. Sheryl watched from the bar.
Allie saw Marc’s jacket tossed on the booth seat, a hotel keycard folder sticking prominently out of the pocket with a room number scrawled across the cover. Hilton, she registered. She caught her breath, as an insane plan sprang full-blown into her head.
She looked back at Marc and saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. “Get you something?” he asked.
“Sure. A Coke.”
He moved to the bar, leaving plenty of room between himself and Sheryl. The minute he turned his back, Allie slipped the keycard out of the folder and into her pocket. Then, she dropped the folder on the floor under the table as if it had fallen out of his jacket. When she looked up again, Marc was headed back her way. She knew he couldn’t have seen her, and Sheryl missed it because her eyes were riveted on Marc.
Allie could feel her face flaming, but she counted on the room’s darkness to hide that. If only she could control her hands’ shaking. She searched frantically for something to say, as he put the Coke in front of her and sat down. “I’m sorry for what happened,” she blurted out.
He gaze didn’t flicker. “You didn’t do anything.”
If he only knew. “But Joe—”
“Hey, you’re not responsible for his actions.” His voice was level, conversational, but the intensity in his eyes burned her. “He did his job. It’s over.”
Allie thought that might not be the only thing that was o
ver. “Are you going back to Miami?”
“No,” he answered shortly. “I’m not leaving until I do what I came here to do.”
She swallowed hard. “What did you come here to do?”
“Not what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
He started to answer. Then, his eyes flicked toward the bar. “Your friend’s getting restless.”
Sheryl was on her feet, and she knew in a minute she’d head their way. Allie scooted out of the booth and stood. “I—I’m sorry,” she said again.
“You have my number if you want to reach me,” he said.
Allie limped back to the bar in her mismatched shoes. Sheryl’s fists were clenched at her sides. “What in the hell was that about?” she demanded.
Allie couldn’t meet her eyes. “We don’t know that he’s done anything. You and Joe have tried and convicted him without any evidence. He’s been more than nice to me, and I feel terrible for the way he’s been treated.”
“Right, and you’ll feel dead if it turns out he’s guilty.”
*
February became March. Allie’s mobility improved. The stitches would soon come out, but they weren’t slowing her down much anymore. She started taking Spook for short walks on the beach. Then, longer jaunts and finally down to the jetty, relieved that she could walk there again without mentally seeing a body floating against the rocks.
She saw nothing of Joe, but Sheryl came over a couple of times to share a pizza—her choice to fatten Allie up, God help her arteries—and to help her pack up the rest of Lou’s things. They sorted a box of treasures for people at the Sheriff’s Office—a deck of cards featuring the Chippendale dancers for Sallie Jo Henley, another dispatcher; a set of BCSO coasters for Jerry Friedman; a belt with a huge silver buckle for Tom Tarkas; a stack of National Geographics for Sidney Finch. Allie asked Sheryl if they should pick out something for the sheriff, but Sheryl said he wasn’t a sentimental guy. Allie agreed.
Sheryl tried to talk her into going with her to hand them out, but Allie felt unequal to that. Sheryl told Allie later that there were as many tears as smiles, and Allie was glad she decided to stay home. She thought maybe Marc had left the city, but she held on to his room key for no good reason. She wondered what she thought she would find in his room. Locks of hair from the dead women? Extra scarves for his next victims? The theft of his key was an impulse she should have resisted. If he were still in town, he would know by now that the key was missing. He would have changed rooms or hotels. Or the hotel would have changed the code. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to toss it. It might be the only thing she had to remember him by, and she wanted to remember him because Marc meant something to her. She’d seen him only a few times, but every minute they spent together remained precious, even in light of all she knew. She would find herself smiling at something he said while they were in the emergency room or some remark he’d made during that magic day they spent together. If Marc was a killer, he was a damn charming one.
She picked up her reprints at the photo store. They were old grainy black-and-whites, and she couldn’t make out the faces of the people very well, except for her aunt, who featured prominently in each one. One of the three was certainly the one Joe took, but they told her nothing, except that her aunt looked great back then. Even the lousy quality of the photos couldn’t disguise that. In the foreground of the most likely snapshot were a much younger Sheriff Arbutten—probably not even sheriff back then—and some woman with a young man standing behind her. The large straw hat she wore blocked his face, but Allie saw one hand on her arm, which seemed like a possessive gesture. The woman held what appeared to be a pair of scissors. Nothing in the photo that accounted for Joe’s strange reaction. Maybe the picture of her aunt triggered it. If Allie had overlooked Sheryl’s affection for Lou, maybe Joe felt the same way. It was a wonderful picture of Lou. She decided to have it enlarged and cut out the other people. She put it back in the album but sticking out like a bookmark, so she wouldn’t forget.
She finally broke down and bought an answering machine, although the only calls she’d received were from Sheryl and, occasionally, her mother to see how she fared in her too-small, inadequate house. Her mother’s sentiments.
One afternoon as she prepared lunch, the phone rang. She decided to let the machine get it. She should get some value for her money. Her heart stuttered when she heard a man’s voice, then kicked into high gear when she realized what he was saying, “…would like to come by and appraise your property. We can offer top dollar for properties as near the water as yours, and you might want to think about—”
She snatched up the phone. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Grainger? I’m glad I caught you at home. It has been brought to our attention that you might be ready to put your house on the market. Fortham Properties is ideally suited to your—”
“Brought to your attention by who?” Whom, she mentally corrected herself and then cursed her father.
“Uh—by your husband, I assumed. A Mr. Grainger?”
“Mr. Who Grainger?”
She heard papers rustling. “Oh, here it is. Mr. J. Leonard Grainger.”
She felt the anger bubbling near the surface. “Mr. J. Leonard Grainger is my brother, not my husband.”
“Oh. Well, I—”
“…and Mr. Grainger has nothing to say about this house. The house is mine, free and clear, and I can assure you I do not intend to sell it.”
“Well, if it’s free and clear, the profits you’d garner would be enormous.”
“I have no interest in enormous profits. I’m not selling.”
“Oh, I see. Well, if at some future time you change your mind, Fortham Properties would be happy—”
“I’m not selling. Not now. Not in the future. Got it?” She dropped the receiver back on the hook. She sounded so much like Sheryl that she scared herself.
She stood riveted to the floor, stewing. That snake. That miserable low-life coward, calling property developers instead of calling her, not that the outcome would have been any different. She snatched up the phone and dialed his work number. Her hands were shaking with fury. “I need to talk to Len,” she said when the receptionist answered.
The line went quiet. Julie, their receptionist, probably wondered who had the audacity to call her elevated boss by his nickname. “Mr. Grainger is in a meeting.”
Stock answer. “For how long?”
“I’m not certain. I’ll be happy to transfer you to his voice mail and—”
“I don’t want his voice mail. This is Allie. Where’s mother?”
“Oh, Allie. I didn’t recognize your voice. Mr. Grainger is meeting with your mother right now. Should I interrupt them?”
Perfect. “Yes, Julie. Please do. Thanks.”
The phone hummed while she waited. Vivian Grainger’s voice came on the line. “Allie? Julie said you sounded upset.”
Allie clutched the receiver. “Is that snake in the room with you?”
“If you’re referring to your brother, then yes, Len is here.”
“Put me on speakerphone.”
“Really, Allie. I don’t like your tone of voice.”
“Please,” she said through gritted teeth. “Pretty please.”
The sound became a hollow echo, and Allie knew she was on speaker. “Len?”
“Hi, Allie.”
She could imagine him sitting on the corner of mother’s desk, a smug look on his face. “Hi, Len. Did you by any chance let someone know I might be interested in selling my house?”
He gave a short laugh. “I might have called a few people to see—”
“A few.” Oh, my God. He’d called more? “Did you tell them all that you were my husband?”
“I never said, I mean, they might have assumed…” She could almost hear the sounds of his thoughts regrouping. “I felt certain once you heard what the house is worth, you’d see how insane it is for you to continue to hold on to it.
”
“Insane,” she echoed.
There was a moment of silence, and she could imagine the meaningful looks passing between him and her mother.
“I didn’t mean insane. You know that, Allie, but that property is worth a lot of money,” he said in a voice you’d use to explain something to a particularly dim child.
“It’s priceless.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You could get top dollar—”
“You’re not listening, Len. I said priceless, as in there is no price they could offer that would induce me to sell the house.”
“Now, you’re being stubborn. You’re hanging on to that ramshackle place out of some kind of misguided—”
“Call them back.”
“What?”
“Call them all back and tell them you were wrong. Your wife doesn’t want to sell.”
“But Allie—” her mother said.
“Call them back, Len, or I’ll call your wife anonymously and tell her you’re having an affair with Julie.”
“That is insane.”
Allie felt a grim smile form on her face. “So is your calling developers down here and telling them I want to sell my house. My house, Len.”
The hollow silence hummed for a few minutes. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.
Allie let it hum some more. Then, she heard a door slam.
“Allie,” her mother said, taking the phone off speaker, “I think you’re being unreasonable. Len was trying to help. He’s as aware as I am that you have no idea of the property values in that area. He only wanted to open your eyes to the facts.”
Allie sighed. “Please, Mom. Don’t defend him. What Len did was wrong.”
“Well, maybe a bit pre-emptive.”
Allie leaned against the wall, suddenly aware of how tense she was. Her neck ached, and her temples throbbed like the incessant pounding of a bass drum. “It was more than a bit pre-emptive. It was presumptuous and high-handed. I might sell the house—” Allie heard Vivian’s indrawn breath, and she continued. “I might sell the house some day in the far, far distant future. Like when I’m sixty or seventy, but when I’m ready, I’ll call my own developers. OK? I don’t need Len to do it for me. Len had better call them back.”
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