Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  I wasn’t ready to sign a peace treaty and, anyway, anger felt a smidgeon better than the incessant, throbbing sorrow of losing Lillian. “Cyanide?” I suggested. A wild thought landed, and I examined him narrowly. “Or maybe chow mein with a dash of rat poisoning for flavor?”

  Either Joseph was genuinely puzzled, or he had a SAG card tucked away somewhere. “Maybe you should sit down,” he said, frowning. “You’re really not making much sense.”

  Barbara passed by, elegant in the kind of black knit suit they sell out of vaults, greeting perhaps a dozen guests. I didn’t recognize any of them, but that didn’t mean anything. I was used to strangers; I saw one looking back at me out of the mirror every morning.

  “She must be having one of her good days,” I said, of the splendid Mrs. Larimer.

  Joseph thrust out a sigh. He didn’t like me, I didn’t like him. But, of the two of us, he was the one trying to be polite. “Most likely,” he said, “she’ll overdo it and take to her bed for a week.”

  Barbara looked strong to me, even confident. She was in her element, playing the hostess, and I felt a faint flicker of resentment. A fragmented memory flashed at the back of my mind, and for a millisecond, I knew I was seeing Barbara through my mother’s eyes.

  I felt the faintest echo of envy.

  Barbara worked her way around to me. The good political wife. Her china-blue eyes were clear as she looked steadily into my face.

  “Perhaps you and your…sisters…would like to spend the night in the guesthouse,” she said. “Avoid the press a little longer.”

  Something jammed up inside me at the brief hesitation before the word “sisters.” My mother’s helpless jealousy of this woman, I supposed—the contrast between Barbara Larimer’s life and hers must have been hard to take—along with an emotion singularly my own, though I couldn’t quite identify it.

  “Thank you,” I said. “But we all have things we need to do back home.”

  Jolie was in the process of moving. She was eager to be reunited with Sweetie and start her new job.

  Greer was walking on eggshells with Alex, either waiting for the marriage to collapse or still hoping against hope that it wouldn’t really happen.

  And I was going back to an empty apartment, over the biker bar I had just inherited. I’d been at Tucker’s long enough, and even though we’d had some serious medicinal sex, I’d merely been marking time. I was ready to get off the treadmill and face up to the rest of my life.

  For a moment, Barbara looked as though she might say something more, try to persuade me to stay after all. In the end, though, she simply nodded, exchanged glances with Joseph and walked away.

  I scanned the small, quiet crowd. Greer was hobnobbing with Clive and a well-dressed couple, a glass of champagne in hand. She looked elegant and fragile, and even though I knew her mourning was real, I also knew she was deliberately using it to grease the social wheels.

  I definitely loved my sister, but there were times when I didn’t like her much, and that was one of them. Jolie appeared at my side. “We’re only putting off the inevitable, you know,” she said. “The reporters will follow us back to the mortuary when we go to pick up my car. If they can’t get answers there, they’ll probably follow us all the way home.”

  I nodded, swallowed. “I know,” I said. “I just wanted a few minutes to get a grip. Maybe I should go ahead and talk to them. Get it over with.”

  Jolie touched my arm. “Not now, Moje,” she counseled. “You’re not ready for that. Anyway, what would you say? There’s so much you don’t remember.”

  Some part of my brain had been closed for business for twenty-three years, and yet there was a stirring. At Tucker’s, on two different nights, I’d dreamed, the images so vivid, so in-my-face, that forgetting them should have been impossible, waking or sleeping. Both times I’d rocketed into half-consciousness, trembling and drenched in cold sweat, only to find that the memories had submerged themselves again.

  Tucker had held me, but I had been afraid to close my eyes.

  “God, Moje,” Jolie whispered, “what is it? You look as though you’re going to pass out again.”

  I felt a prickly sensation on the back of my neck, automatically turned my head and caught Barbara Larimer staring at me. I looked at Jolie again. “I’m not some fragile flower,” I told my sister tersely, “and I’m getting really tired of everybody watching me as though I might come unwrapped at any moment!”

  “Time to go,” Jolie said, almost singing the words under her breath. “I know you’re tough, Moje, but you’re only human, and your life has been a horror show lately. I’ll snag Greer and convey our thanks to the Larimers, then we’re leaving.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d used up all my firepower protesting the current and obviously widespread perception that I was on the verge of emotional collapse, and now I was practically in crawl mode again. I almost smiled at the irony.

  When Jolie returned, she had Greer in tow, and Uncle Clive came along with them. He’d removed his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. It was warm, but he might have been trying to look like a man of the people, too. When I’m faced with a choice between suspicion and benefit-of-the-doubt, I usually go with suspicion.

  “Is this wise?” he asked. “Leaving now, I mean?”

  I didn’t care if it was wise or not. I just wanted to be home, so I could cry and miss Lillian, and if that meant running a gauntlet of barking newshounds, that was what I would do. The point was to get from here to there.

  I repeated my things-to-do speech.

  Clive listened, nodded and leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Barbara and I want you to consider this your home,” he said. “Say the word any time you need a place to come to, and we’ll welcome you with open arms.”

  I nodded.

  Jolie, a reluctant Greer and I all got into the mortuary limo again. The gates whispered open at the bottom of the driveway, and three vans and a couple of cars, parked alongside the road, pulled out behind us.

  “Good Lord,” Greer said, practically kneeling on the seat to stare out the tinted rear window. “One of those vans is from CNN!”

  I ignored her.

  “Greer,” Jolie said.

  Greer sagged in the plush seat, kicked off her shoes and sighed.

  We reached the mortuary and piled into Jolie’s Pathfinder before the vans could come to a full stop. One reporter actually ran to my side of the car and tapped on the window with a microphone. Jolie nearly ran over his toes, backing out of visitors’ parking.

  The caravan followed us all the way to Greer’s place just outside Scottsdale, and hemmed us in from behind.

  I was trapped between the reporters and Alex, who came out of the house to glare holes into me from beneath the portico.

  I chose the reporters.

  “Miss Mayhugh,” one of the women cried, leaping out of a van and rushing me like a quarterback. “May I call you Mary Jo?”

  “My name,” I said, “is Mojo Sheepshanks.”

  “You mean, that’s your assumed name.”

  I wasn’t going to argue.

  “Mojo,” a man asked, pushing past the woman who wanted to call me Mary Jo. “What is your relationship to Senator Larimer?”

  “He’s my uncle,” I said.

  “Mary Jo,” the woman persisted, elbowing to stay at the front of the pack, now that the slower ones were catching up.

  I didn’t speak.

  The CNN crew spoke up next. They had the cameras rolling, and I shielded my eyes from the brightness of the sun and their portable lights. “Ms. Sheepshanks,” the lead reporter began, “tell us what it was like to be on the run all those years. Were you afraid? Did you ever try to escape? Did Ms…. Travers abuse you in any way?”

  “No one abused me,” I said.

  Had I been scared? Hell, yes. But not of Lillian.

  “You were a witness to your parents’ brutal homicides, weren’t you?” someone else inquired.

  “I was,” I answered
, “but I don’t remember what happened.”

  “Are you aware that there is some speculation that you might have been the one to fire the fatal shots?”

  Acid stung the back of my throat.

  “She was five years old, you ninny,” Jolie put in, all but pushing up her sleeves in preparation for a fight. “How could she have killed anyone? Even if she’d gotten hold of a gun, she wouldn’t have known how to fire it!”

  “My half brother, Geoff Waters, confessed to the murders and spent time in a correction facility in California,” I said carefully. I hoped I sounded calm; inside, I was churning like an off balance washing machine on spin.

  “You don’t remember anything?” The young male reporter who asked that question looked so disappointed that I was tempted to make something up. Maybe this was his first job, and getting information out of me could put him on the map.

  “I recall hiding in the dryer,” I said, instead. “My clothes were covered with blood. That’s about it, except—” I paused. Everyone waited expectantly, including Jolie and Greer. “Except that sometimes I feel as though I’m on the verge of remembering.”

  Alex had apparently had enough of the paparazzi. He came striding down the driveway, still handsome, with his gym-fit physique and full head of steel-gray hair. His eyes were Mel Gibson-blue, and they practically took the skin off me.

  “This,” he said, taking a possessive hold on Greer’s arm, “is private property. Harass Ms. Sheepshanks all you like, but get out of here before I have you removed!”

  “Dude,” said the young reporter.

  “Who are you?” asked a woman on the CNN crew.

  “My name is Dr. Alexander Pennington, and you are trespassing. Clear out!”

  Greer looked up at her husband in alarm, but she didn’t try to pull free of his grasp, and that bothered me. It looked as though he was squeezing her arm hard enough to leave bruises.

  I took a step toward him.

  “Can you comment on Ms. Sheepshanks’s case, Dr. Pennington?” asked some intrepid soul.

  Alex’s gaze sliced to me, and it was so viciously angry that I stopped, between one step and the next, as abruptly as if I’d just run into an invisible wall.

  “Yes,” Alex spat. “She’s a liar and a cheat. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d gunned her parents down and blamed her brother!”

  “Alex,” Greer whispered.

  He released her with such force that she almost fell. Stormed back up the driveway, got into his Mercedes and roared toward us at top speed. Everyone scrambled to get out of the way.

  The reporters recovered first.

  They thrust cards at me, from every direction.

  “Call if you remember anything.”

  “We’d like an exclusive.”

  I didn’t take the cards, but Jolie did. She shoved them into the side flap on my purse.

  “Please go,” Greer said, watching as Alex’s Mercedes raced along the road below, practically fishtailing on the dry pavement. I think she was talking to the reporters, but she might have meant all of us.

  “Stay here with Greer and me,” Jolie pleaded, catching hold of my hand.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “I need a ride back to Tucker’s place, so I can pick up my car. Then I’m going home to the apartment.”

  “You shouldn’t be alone,” Jolie protested, but I could see in her eyes that she knew I wouldn’t give in.

  Greer, a beat or two behind, nodded agreement with what Jolie had said. She looked shaken and gray.

  “I need to be alone,” I said.

  Greer turned, without a word, and trudged slowly toward the house. Jolie got into the Pathfinder, fired up the engine and waited, her face set.

  “Did you see the way Alex grabbed Greer’s arm?” I asked, when I was buckled in on the passenger side. “Jolie, do you think…?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Jolie said. “About either of you.”

  That was pretty much the extent of our conversation. She took me to Tucker’s place, and came in with me while I gathered up my stuff.

  “Hey,” she said, looking around, “where’s the dog?”

  I bit my lower lip. “Some relative of Bert’s claimed him,” I answered. I didn’t like lying to her, but I couldn’t put Bert and Sheila at risk by telling her what I knew, either. Jolie wasn’t a gossip, but people can’t accidentally reveal things they don’t know.

  “You really liked him, though,” Jolie murmured sympathetically.

  “I really liked him,” I agreed.

  “If you won’t go to Greer’s with me, then I’ll come and stay at your place.” She shuddered. “Spooky hotbed of crime that it is.”

  I shook my head, went into the kitchen. “I meant it when I said I needed some alone-time,” I told her. There was a dry-erase board hanging on the front of the fridge, and I smiled a little at the lone notation scrawled across the top. Daisy’s dance recital, Friday, 7:00.

  Uncorking the marker dangling from the board by a string, I added, Gone home. Thanks for everything. Mojo.

  “You’re nuts not to stay here,” Jolie said. “Tucker’s a cop. He can protect you.”

  “He’s not around,” I retorted, “and I can protect myself.”

  “Oh, right. Says what Damn Fool’s Guide?”

  I backtracked to the front door, picked up my garbage-bag weekender and stepped outside. Jolie had no choice but to follow, and she stood glowering while I locked up.

  “You won’t change your mind?” she urged, sounding as anxious as she looked.

  “I won’t change my mind,” I confirmed.

  We parted on the street; she got into her Pathfinder, and I got into my Volvo.

  I stopped for groceries, since I planned on holing up for a while, but within an hour of leaving Tucker’s, I pulled into the lot at Bert’s and sat there, looking at my inheritance. Rusted-out beer signs adorned the weathered wood walls, and the air conditioner perched on the roof looked like it might fall straight through my place and land on one of the pool tables in the bar.

  I got out of the car, gathered my groceries and tramped up the outside stairs.

  “Nick?” I called, as I entered.

  My voice echoed back to me, hollow-sounding.

  I decided to scope the place out before I put the chain on and turned the dead bolt, and before I did that, I needed to put my purchases away, since some of them were frozen. Once the foodstuffs were safe in the cupboards, fridge and freezer, I did a quick but thorough search.

  I looked in the back of the closet, under the bed and, heart hammering, behind the shower curtain.

  I was well and truly alone.

  All clear on the maniac front.

  I made coffee, grabbed the phone and sat down at the table to check for voice mail.

  Alex had called to say he was going to sue me for harassment if I didn’t stop prying into his affairs. I thought that was an interesting choice of words, since his affairs were precisely the point.

  Two other doctors—both friends of Alex’s, of course—called to say my coding and billing services were no longer required.

  Good thing I was going into the P.I. business.

  The last call made me sit up and take notice.

  “Mojo, this is Allison Darroch. I’m calling because there’s something I think you need to know about Tucker. He’s not a cop.”

  Was she drunk?

  “Ask him what he really does for a living,” Allison finished. A long pause followed, then she said, “Oh, hell. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Forget it. Forget I ever made this stupid call. I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Click.

  I sat staring at the receiver.

  He’s not a cop.

  Ask him what he really does for a living.

  “Well, I’d love to, Allison,” I said out loud.

  I played through her message again and pressed 88 at the end, for a call back.

  “Dr. Darroch,” Allison answered crisply.

  �
�Mojo Sheepshanks,” I said.

  Uncomfortable silence. Allison broke it, finally. “Look, about that phone call. I don’t—I was upset—”

  “What does Tucker ‘really’ do for a living, Allison?”

  “Please let this go. He’ll be furious—”

  “You opened this can of worms,” I reminded her. “Not me.”

  “Ask him.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know where he is, or when I’ll see him again. Case of the disappearing—what?”

  “Cop.”

  “Not buying, Allison.”

  “I really can’t tell you.”

  “You wanted me to know he wasn’t telling me the truth,” I said. “That’s why you called in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “I know you must think I’m some kind of jealous, codependent idiot—”

  “I can’t imagine why you’d care what I think,” I said, and hung up.

  For a while, I just sat there, staring at the wall.

  Tucker had lied to me about his work?

  How could that be? I’d seen the write-up in the newspaper, when he’d supposedly been killed in an explosion. Academy graduation photo, cops-in-mourning, the whole bit.

  Still, Allison’s statement resonated.

  Something was off, and I’d sensed it all along. That was one of several reasons I’d been so reluctant to let things get too serious, too soon.

  I’d known, on some level, that Tucker wasn’t telling me the truth.

  What else had he lied about?

  I’m not sleeping with my ex-wife.

  Well, that one was up for grabs.

  You won’t get pregnant. I had a vasectomy two years ago.

  Yikes. I got up and checked the calendar on the wall. Heaved a sigh of relief.

  The phone rang again. I checked the caller ID, and it said, Number Unavailable. Probably Tucker, on a borrowed cell, calling to feed me some other line of b.s.

  “Hello,” I snapped.

  It was Distorto again. “There’s a way into your place you don’t know about,” he said, in that weird electronic warble. “I don’t need a key.”

  If I hadn’t been so pissed off, I would have been terrified. “Geoff? Look, I know you killed Lillian. I know you did.”

  He laughed. “Whoever Geoff is,” he said.