“Hey, we swimming or not?” Will appeared in the doorway. He took in Black Plague Jade, his mouth dropping open in a strange fascination. He wore swim trunks and nothing else. I had a hard time not glomming onto his naked chest, lean abs and defined arms. Holy Toledo. I missed the boat. He was way cuter than I gave him credit for once you got a load of the boy beneath the office clothes.
Jade’s gaze swept him up and down. “Who the hell are you? Cabana Boy?” She served her trademark bitch on him.
“Will.” A crimson tide spread up his pale torso. “Friend of Ivy’s. You swimming with us?”
Ax scrambled off the bed and pulled Jade against him in a fierce protective move. “Take a hike. We don’t hang with your kind.”
Your kind? Breathing, blood flowing humans versus half-dead corpses waiting for a coffin to queue up?
I took hold of Will’s wrist, kicking the pile of debris at my feet. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah. Outta my room.” Jade cuddled into Ax’s side.
“Keep it cool, Jade,” Jesse admonished. “No more of your shit. Make your voodoo dolls of people who deserve it. Ivy and Alice don’t.”
“Quit burning candles before you burn the house down.” I threw over my shoulder, wincing at the hazy image of Dad and Ms. Jerome engulfed in flames on the sailboat.
By the time we’d made our silent way to the pool, I had calmed down. Jesse, Will, and I swam for an hour until Will had to leave. Jade had left a damper on our impromptu party and we never got a chance to talk about his home life. But he left in a surprisingly good mood and didn’t try to kiss me. Small favors.
Jesse shut the door on Cabana Boy. “I’m heading to band practice. Be home by dinner.”
“In Santa Cruz?”
“Yeah. Ronnie’s house. He’s the drummer.” He tucked strands of damp hair behind my ear, his finger lingering, tracing the outline of my ear, searing a layer of skin off. “What’re your plans?”
“Chores. Still can’t quit doing The List.” I explained the chore list to Jesse. “It feels normal to keep up the routine.”
He snatched his fisted hand away from me. “Sounded like an asshat slave driver on this side of the hill.”
“Exactly how I felt.” I left him standing in the foyer, unable to confront the opposition of my prior life, the flip side of Leo Lynwood’s coin of lies.
“Hey,” Jesse called as I ascended the stairs. I stopped, my back to him. “Normal’s overrated.”
Smiling, I resumed climbing the stairs. Jesse’s light footsteps approached, his hand alighting on the small of my back, pressing as though he needed to touch me. One day, I was nothing. The next, reduced to a receptacle of lust. At the second-floor landing, he exited stage left, while I veered right. I battled the urge to follow him, knowing we couldn’t expose what was occurring between us to the world.
Avoiding Jade, I grabbed clean clothes and hightailed it for Mom’s room, locking the door. I dumped my clothes on the bathroom vanity and viewed my mess in the mirror. My stringier-than-a-guitar hair resembled vines brushed back from my plain, scrubbed face. My new nickname seemed to fit. I’d rather be a vine than a rock, to wrap around Jade’s neck and choke the Lynwood out of her.
As I showered, I chucked my J-squared thoughts aside and luxuriated in my alone time, until I spied through the shower doors the clothes my mother had left scattered on her dressing room chair. It was unlike her to pick and choose through various outfits for an outing. She usually knew exactly what to wear, and she’d never not put everything away. I thought about her intrigue du jour. She normally didn’t do lunch dates unless it was a Corporate Wife pity party, but those invitations had ceased rolling in after news of Dad’s affair probably made all the other wives delve deep inside their own homes for extramarital flings. Why let my mother’s cooties destroy the Desperate Corporate Wives?
Had she and the mysterious N gone to lunch?
After I combed my wet hair, careful to flush the strays down the toilet, I decided to snoop around her bedroom. There had to be evidence of the mysterious N and Mom’s whereabouts the night of the fire.
By the time I’d scoured her dressers and nightstands, I was clenching my jaw tight enough to invite lockjaw. What was the one place, drawer, or cupboard Dad never invaded? He used to rifle through her lingerie drawers and pick out what he wanted her to wear. Ditto her jewelry cabinet. Well, hells bells, same with pretty much everything. Although he didn’t tell her what to wear every day, he had his favorites for certain occasions.
I swept through all the drawers in her walk-in closet, rummaging through belts, scarves, more lingerie. Nada. My frustration faltered as a bird flew past the closet window, spurring me to rush. I opened the bottom drawer of old nylons and sport socks. Bending over the drawer, I pushed them aside, losing my balance, and I caught my hand on the bottom. As I sagged to the ground in a heap, I noticed the cedar panel lining the bottom give way a fraction. Cedar liners were tacked into all the drawers.
Memories of old mystery movies flicked on a light bulb in my head. I scooped the socks onto the carpet and lifted up the cedar panel. Smoothing my fingers along the edge, my index finger dipped into a tiny depression at the rear. I pushed on the depression and a muffled click eclipsed the sound of my breathing in the dead silent closet. Nothing happened. Bending my ear to the drawer, I pressed again. This time, a click came from the drawer to the right. I pulled it open and shoved out a stack of old T-shirts. To my surprise, the false bottom of the second drawer lifted up in the back. As I pulled it up on the hidden hinge, my gaze devoured a stack of rubber-banded papers shoved underneath it. Hello, Mother Lode.
I snagged the papers and a leather-bound checkbook. The checkbook earned an eye bug-out as I noted deposits going back ten years, a hundred dollars here and there. Holy secret money stash. Socking getaway money? Or like, let’s kill my husband and his lover escape money?
I set the checkbook aside and unfolded a manila envelope, peeked at the official-looking documents. My heart stopped and I cupped a hand over my mouth to stifle my cry. Another life insurance policy. Two million dollars, purchased one month before my father’s death.
Air grew nonexistent. I rewrapped the papers and returned them to the drawers. Bent over, hands to my stomach, I swallowed the rising bile.
Chapter 17
Too many pieces fit the gruesome puzzle: Mom’s mysterious whereabouts the night-that-remains-on-center-stage, her lies, the gas-reeking hoodie, a secret money stash, and a new secret life insurance policy. The significance wasn’t rocket science.
Battling my tailspin, I flopped on my bed and checked email, trying to decide what to do. I replied to an email from Mariana letting me know she’d arrived in Italy. I didn’t want to burst her happy bubble, and kept mum about how my world had tilted on its axis. I didn’t want to confess how grief-stricken I wasn’t, or how waves of relief surged and ebbed inside me. I wanted to tell her about Jesse, but it was too twisted to mention, and her barrage of questions would blow the lid off my strongbox of secrets.
I holed up in my bedroom contemplating my next moves and expanding my lame death haiku into a poem. The rest of the afternoon flew by in a blur, until I realized Jesse had returned from band practice. His guitar strumming in the guest suite drew me to him, its haunting lure demanding and unforgiving. Notebook closed, I held it tight to my chest, armor for battling the compulsion toward him, and tiptoed down the hall. I stood outside his open door and listened to the low, soft rock on his acoustic guitar. It was amazing, original, and carried me into an eerie, consuming calm.
The music ended and Jesse’s hand slapped the guitar. “I know you’re there, Ivy.”
I stepped into the doorway. “You have X-ray hearing?”
“Tuned to you.” He grinned.
I sat on the loveseat in the sitting room before my legs gave way. Perched on an ottoman, Jesse nestled the guitar on his lap, exactly where I wanted to nestle, with his hands strumming my chords, making beautiful music togethe
r. Newsflash: Ivy Lynwood has lost her wits. If found, please deposit in the nearest loony bin.
“Is that original?” I set my notebook on my lap.
“Yes. You like?” He plucked a few strings.
“It’s haunting, melodic. Beautiful. You definitely have talent for making music.”
He made a grab at my notebook, but I beat him to it, hiding it behind my back. He chuckled. I loved the sound of his laugh. “A journal?”
“No. Poetry.”
I’d never shared my poems with anyone. What I’d written subconsciously fit the chilling music wafting down the hallway. I flipped the notebook pages to my unfinished poem and showed it to him.
“This is awesome. You either heard me in your bedroom or you’re psychic.”
“It flowed together.”
“Then let’s help it surge.” He set the notebook between us.
He adjusted his music and we set my poem to lyrics, playing it through several times until it sounded perfect. Joy danced inside me, softly singing my poem to his soulful music. He knew exactly how to make my poem soar.
We finished on a laughing note, defraying the laden tension that had sprung up between us.
“At least dogs aren’t howling,” he said.
“I never said I was a singer.”
“That’s why I only sing backup.”
He relaxed his hand on his guitar and we sat and talked about music. I wanted to know everything about him. Music was a good start, especially when I had a hard time opening up. Our talk eventually evolved to goals and dreams for our future. I told him about my affinity for finances, which he’d already gathered from my handling of the household bills.
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you want to be a musician?”
“Musical production. I’d like to form my own label. I plan to start with business school.” He winked. “I’d love a financial-whiz partner.”
There was every possibility we’d end up at college together taking the same classes. “What about now? Will you continue with Joe’s Crows or join a new band?”
“Joe’s band was a good start for me. Eventually I want to form a band in San Jose.” He plucked strings on his guitar, head tipped to the side to listen as he tuned them.
By the time Mom called me down to help her in the kitchen for our late dinner, I had leveled out and was ready to join the asylum. Her presence reminded me I hadn’t dredged up any decisions about her complicity in Dad’s and Ms. Jerome’s death.
“Where’d you go this afternoon?” I edged closer, engaging in small talk to ferret out info.
“I had a lunch date.” Passively, she stirred a bowl of cold pesto pasta. Not even her right eye twitched, her telltale avoidance sign.
“With who?” A mega dose of curiosity imbued my voice.
She tossed chopped olives in the bowl. “If you must know, Anita Bryce, the CPS officer, suggested I contact a group therapist who deals with blending mixed families. I figured therapy would help me deal if I met him on the side since we have a unique situation. We’re not exactly the type of blended family the group members experience.”
Not a twitch, not a flush to show she lied like a rug. “Is it helpful?” Will they help you deal with the fact that you cleaned up your act for the Jeromes? Or that you’d grown a backbone? Or left your daughter dangling over a pit of hungry snapping alligators, led by one black-crusted gator named Jade Jerome, with a blonde voodoo doll clutched in her claw?
“So far so good.” She set the pasta salad on the cart next to the cold rolls and a loaded garden salad with a myriad of green, red, and yellow vegetables. “Please take the cart to the dining room and call the… others down.”
“Why so fancy in the formal dining room?”
“It’s a nice room. I miss having dinner in there.” She dished her famous chicken Kiev onto a platter, the savory aroma and melted cheese stuffing permeating the kitchen. One of Dad’s favorite meals, except for the cold dinner rolls. A roll wasn’t a roll unless it was piping hot with soft butter on the side. Heaven forbid you gave him cold, unspreadable butter.
I plunked the dishes on the table already set with the everyday china versus the special occasion china or Christmas china—both sets missing plates His Highness had broken in various temper tantrums. I lit the candles in the centerpiece surrounded by pink and yellow roses embraced in fern fronds from the garden.
“Looks nice.” Jesse filled the doorway, hands in his pockets.
Startled, I glanced up. “Can you get Jade?”
“On her way.”
Toting a ration of bitch? “In what mood? Is Ax gone?”
He studied his sneakers. “He’s gone. As for her mood—”
“It comes and goes with every breath she takes?”
“Guess you’ve suffered through fifteen.”
“Not Jade’s fifteen.” Sarcasm made an impromptu visit to my voice.
He held up a hand. “Dial it down. Didn’t mean…”
I softened my glare. “Sorry. Been a weird day.” My paranoia begged for liberation. What would happen to us if the police arrested Mom for premeditated double murder? She’d go to prison for life and we’d end up in foster homes. Why didn’t I have a crazy single aunt with a dozen cats somewhere? Of course, there was always twenty-year-old Kristen. We could all go live in her dorm room and party every day. Jesse’s movement into the room forced my mind back to the present before I led myself into a breakdown.
“I forgot to ask how your band practice went.”
“Same old.” He pulled out a chair, avoiding my eyes. “Need help?”
“Dinner’s ready.” Mom carried in the chicken platter, Jade behind her, silent and deadly, and both took up seats.
“I’ve come up with a plan.” Mom rapped her fork against her water glass. “I want Ivy and Jesse to take over the bills for now. I’ve marked items on your spreadsheet, Ivy. I think you two make a good team to represent both the Lynwood and Jerome concerns.”
“I’m game,” Jesse said.
“Sure.” The idea of working side by side with Jesse, getting to know him better without hiding, wound a searing thread through me. A little annoyance trailed that thread. I was used to dealing with these things on my own. I guess I needed lessons in team work.
“Money will be tight until the insurance kicks in. I understand your mother left you kids a life insurance policy?” She cast her gaze from Jesse to Jade. “Put the money in savings for your future, college, maintenance on your house. We can make do here without it. I like your idea about renting out your house, and I want you to keep the extra rental money for your spending funds. Will it be enough?”
Who was this masked mother building a solid plan in her pretty little head? Had her marbles come home to roost?
Jesse smiled wide. “More than enough. We can even save some, right, Jade?”
“I guess.” She pouted, spinning those dollars in her pea-brain. Maybe her voodoo supplies had taxed her reserves.
“Good, good.” Mom beamed before her star dimmed. “I called the Porsche dealership and they’ll pick up the car in the morning. Ivy, call the insurance company tomorrow and cancel it, please.” I nodded. We could use the thousand bucks a month of car and insurance dough. “Now, as for the cabin—”
“Cabin?” Jade’s fork clanked onto her plate hard enough to have broken cheaper china. “Lake Tahoe? You own the cabin?”
Stunned, my own fork clattered onto my plate, the stuffed chicken cushioning it from cracking the plate in half. Wow, Jade and I had fork clattering in common. “You’ve been to the cabin?”
“We hit a cabin in Tahoe every year at spring break,” Jesse explained. “Dad said it was a rental.”
I slapped my napkin over my mouth to cease the word bombs priming to detonate. Perspiration glistened on Mom’s forehead and her eyelids drooped. She spun her wedding rings into her personal orbit.
“We own the Tahoe cabin.” Ice chugged in my blood. I hated that they’d vacationed with Dad at t
he one place we actually enjoyed Lynwood family time. They’d tromped on my illusions, shattered them into frosty shards.
“Of course.” Jade sneered. “You own the freaking world, while we chamber maids clean your piss pots.”
“Jade,” Jesse said through gritted teeth. “It was all his lies. He lied to them too. Not just us.”
“But they got the cars, the palace, the resort living, the cabin. They had him.” Jade shoved her chair away from the table, clanging it on its back, the sound crackling up to the high ceiling and bouncing back to reality. “What’d we get? A few days a month and hand-me-down shit.”
She bolted. The front door slammed, rattling the painting on the foyer wall. I spied the ratty pickup parked at the curb and watched Jade climb aboard and glue herself to Ax’s rail-thin side. The truck glugged and emitted a gunshot boom, speeding off down the street at the speed of a snail searching for the light. A very sick snail billowing smoke.
“She just split with her boyfriend, Ax,” I said for the benefit of my silent mother.
“It’s fine. She needs to find her ground.” Mom dug into her salad and took a dainty bite the way she always did for His Majesty’s benefit.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse apologized. “She’s having a hard time adjusting.”
Pony up to the clue jar, Jesse. Like we all hadn’t flipped upside down?
“What about the cabin?” I asked tentatively and nibbled on a sourdough roll.
“I want us to make one last trip, two weeks for the Fourth of July. I’ll meet with a realtor in Tahoe to determine if we should sell it or if we can cover the expenses by weekly rentals. It’ll be a good time for us to get to know one another, and have fun on the lake.” She touched Jesse’s hand sitting to her left. “I had no idea your family had ever been at the cabin.”
“Only during late ski season.” He stirred his pasta around on his plate as if it unearthed answers to another world of secrets.
“It’ll be different, that’s for sure.” I stacked my plate on the rolling cart. If I ate another bite of change, I’d go mental on Mom’s festive offering of new normal.
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