Under normal circumstances I could gaze at Anarchy’s smile for hours. Circumstances weren’t normal. “Water?” My throat was on fire.
“Sure.” Anarchy wrapped an arm around my back and helped me sit before offering me a mauve plastic cup with a bendy straw.
I took the cup and sipped greedily. Water never tasted so good. Only when I’d drained the last drop did I really look at him. Worry creased his forehead, and dark moons hung beneath his eyes as if he hadn’t slept. Anger, concern, determination—they all flickered across his features.
“Thank you.” My voice was raw. “For the water.” For gathering me in your arms, for tolerating my crazy life, and for being here now.
“Do you want more?”
It hurt to swallow. My fingers rose to my throat and I shook my head.
He scowled at my throat. “Lots of bruising, but the doctors promise you’ll be fine.”
“Where’s Grace?”
“Your mother took her home.”
My heartrate spiked and a monitor next to the bed beeped like crazy. “Is Aggie there? Or Aunt Sis? Is she alone?”
“Your mother’s home.”
I slumped.
“Let me adjust the bed for you.” Anarchy pushed a button, and the head of the bed angled until I could lean back comfortably.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Fluff your pillows?”
“They’re fine.”
“What happened?”
I told him.
Anarchy frowned. “You didn’t see his face?”
“No. Not even his shoes.” I’d been too desperate to slip my fingers under the improvised noose to notice details. “It’s possible the dog bit him.”
“Max?”
“The Labrador. The reason I went outside.” I strained for details—anything that might help catch the assailant. “Did Grace or Aunt Sis see anything?”
“Grace saw a figure. By the time she got outside, he was gone.”
Thank God for that.
“Aunt Sis?”
“Her bedroom looks out on the backyard. She didn’t see anything, and if she did, I doubt it would be reliable.” Anarchy settled into the chair next to the bed. “Grace pounded on her door to wake her.”
I’d heard Max’s barks across a large yard and through a closed window. “Was she drunk?” That didn’t sound like Aunt Sis.
“She was—” Anarchy searched for a word “—loopy.”
Loopy? Did he mean stoned?
Oh, dear Lord. What had she taken? A question I didn’t care to explore with my rule-following police detective. Especially when my brain was muzzy with fatigue, and the drugs the doctors had prescribed for my headache weren’t working. “Who would do this?”
Anarchy scowled. “You asked someone the wrong—the right—question.” His expression darkened from charcoal grey to deepest black. “Getting you involved in this investigation was a mistake.”
“Or maybe not. Maybe the killer is targeting women from my set.”
A pretty nurse—dewy skin, bouncy hair, bright eyes, no bruises—peeked her head in my room. “You’re awake.” How she could tell with her gaze locked on Anarchy was a mystery for another day. “I’ll be back with your pills.”
She returned in less than a minute carrying a tray with a tiny plastic cup holding two pills and a fresh pink plastic cup filled with water. Her white-clad hips swayed as she walked, and her smile was not meant for her patient.
I dutifully swallowed the pills—ouch—drank the water and settled into my pillows.
When I opened my eyes, night pressed against the window, and I was alone.
I pressed the call button, and a nurse (not the flirty one who drugged me) appeared with this-patient’s-mother-is-on-the-board alacrity. “How are we feeling?”
We were parched. “May I please have some water?”
“Of course. May I get you anything else?”
“Am I hooked to anything that won’t move?”
She raised her brows.
“A visit to the powder room?”
She smiled and unhooked a cord from a monitor. “I’ll help you get up.”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. My head hurt. My body ached. And someone had nearly murdered me. I sat, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and nearly fainted from dizziness.
“Let me help.” She wrapped an arm around my back, and we shuffled to the bathroom.
The nurse made sure I had a tight hold on the bar next to the toilet and left me.
When I looked in the mirror, I stumbled. The reflection revealed a milk-pale woman with a circle of bruises around her neck. The bruises were ugly. Ultramarine violet and black, they told me how close I’d come to dying.
With shaking fingers, I touched my neck.
“Are you doing okay, Mrs. Russell?”
“Fine,” I lied.
Someone had a wrapped a strip of silk around my neck and pulled till I couldn’t breathe.
Emotion overwhelmed me, and I clutched the sink.
Horror. Terror. Fury. They fanned in front of me. Pick a card. Any card.
Horror—the necklace of bruises.
Terror—the phantom pull of a sash cutting off air to my lungs.
Fury—fury was good.
Fury did things. Strong things.
Fury caught killers.
Fury did not crawl into bed and weep.
I picked fury.
Tap, tap. “Mrs. Russell?”
“Coming.” I emerged from the bathroom. “Is there anything to eat? Maybe some broth?”
The nurse smiled brightly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” Fury was ravenous.
The next time I opened my eyes, sunlight brightened the room, and Aunt Sis sat next to the hospital bed. She held a copy of LeCarré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and wore reading glasses.
“What time is it?” I croaked.
She glanced at her watch. “Nine o’clock.”
“Coffee?”
She grinned. “I’ll get you some. Cream?”
“Please.”
While she was gone, I took stock. My headache was better. My throat was still raw, but the glass shards’ sharp edges had softened. Fury warmed me all the way to my toes.
Aunt Sis returned bearing a cup of hospital coffee.
I sipped slowly, unsure how hot would feel on my ravaged throat. Not great. Nor was hospital coffee worth the pain. “When can I get out of here?” Fury and I had things to do.
“The doctors want to talk to you.”
“Is that all?” I’d tell them to let me go. “Where’s Grace?”
“Frances sent her to school.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“Having an alarm installed in your house.”
Without consulting me? “Seriously?”
Aunt Sis nodded, took a sip of her own coffee, and grimaced. “She’s convinced there’s a deranged killer roaming the streets and says you need an alarm system. Max isn’t good enough.”
“What do you think?”
“About the deranged killer or the alarm system? The alarm system is a good idea.”
“And the deranged killer?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t either. Almost anyone could have knocked me down and wrapped the sash around my throat.
“What time did you and Gordon get home that night?”
Aunt Sis’s brows rose. “Why do you ask?”
“Did you see anything suspicious?”
“No,” she replied. “Nothing.”
Had Gordon lingered and choked me? I rubbed my temples. Gordon had no reason to kill me. Not one.
“Knock, knock.”
We turned our heads to Libba. She stood in the doorway holding a pot of pansies and smiled at someone in the hallway. A you’re-handsome-and-I’m-single smile.
“Who’s in the hallway?” I whispered to Aunt Sis.
“A police guard,” she replied.
> “A guard?”
“Your father and Anarchy arranged it.”
Comforting or alarming?
Both. Comforting that a man with a gun sat outside my door, alarming that the men in my life thought I needed a guard.
In the hallway, Libba upped the wattage of her smile.
“I can’t believe she brought pansies.” With their sun-seeking colorful faces, they’d always been a favorite. Not anymore.
My hospital room was already filled with spring blooms—lilies of the valley, hyacinths, lilacs, and daffodils. Their sweet scents masked the hospital’s antiseptic air.
With a final lingering smile at the guard, Libba stepped into my room and made a place for the pansies on the windowsill.
I nodded to the hallway. “What happened to Jimmy?”
“Nothing.” Her smile went from get-better-soon to naughty. “I bet that man has a big gun.”
“I thought Jimmy was good with a hose.”
Aunt Sis’s eyes widened.
“Jimmy is a fireman,” I explained.
“And Ellison is right.” Libba’s naughty smile turned lascivious. “He’s excellent with a hose.”
“Hose handling is so important,” mused Aunt Sis.
“Enough.” No double entendres with the aunt who’d ruined my couch.
“You started it,” said Libba.
Had I?
“You don’t need a fireman, Sis. From what I hear, Gordon knows his way around—”
“Libba!” I’d already seen my aunt having sex, I didn’t need to discuss it too.
Libba chuckled. “Glad to see you’re feeling better. You had us scared.” She took my fingers in her hand and squeezed.
“Thank you. And thank you for the pansies.” I glanced at the pot of pansies as purple as the bruises ringing my neck. “They’re lovely.”
“Have the doctors given you a clean bill of health?” Worry clung to her voice.
“They will.” My gaze wandered back to my aunt. “What happened to the lab?”
“The lab?”
“I heard him yelp after he attacked the man choking me.”
“Max chased him away.”
“Has he been back?”
“How would I know?”
“Are my pansies still in the ground?”
“Oh. Yes. They’re there.” She glanced at her watch and shifted in her chair.
“Late for something?”
Aunt Sis flushed. “I’m meeting Gordon for coffee on the Plaza.”
“About Gordon—” How did I ask if her new love was a killer?
“What about him?”
“How serious are you?”
Aunt Sis’s answering smile lit her whole face.
“I see. Should I be watching your left hand?”
Her smile widened. “It’s early days, Ellison.” She kissed my cheek, promised to return later, and left me with Libba.
“How do you do it?” Libba settled into the naugahyde chair next to the bed.
“Do what?”
“Attract killers.”
“If I knew, I’d stop.”
“I saw Frances when I stopped by yesterday. She’s on the warpath.”
“I worried her.”
“You scared her half to death. You’re the daughter she depends on.”
“Marjorie’s her favorite.”
“Wrong. Have you seen Anarchy?”
“Last night.”
“When I saw him, he looked as if he might shoot anyone who glanced at you funny.”
“I doubt that.” Anarchy was a big believer in law and order. Shooting people for no reason didn’t mesh with his belief system.
“Believe it, sister.” Libba leaned closer to me. “He’s in love with you.”
I didn’t respond.
She leaned back against the naugahyde and smirked at me. “And you’re in love with him.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Because it is.”
“No. It’s not. You once told me he was hiding something. You were right.”
Libba scrunched her face. “How bad could it be?”
“I won’t know till he tells me.”
“This is Anarchy Jones we’re talking about. His deepest secret is probably a bench warrant for an unpaid parking ticket. You, my dear, are looking for excuses.”
“Henry’s been gone less than a year.”
“Excuse.”
“There’s Grace to consider.”
“Now you’re clutching at straws. Grace wants you to be happy. You—” she pointed an accusing finger at me “—are afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid. Have you forgotten how my marriage ended?”
“Anarchy and Henry are nothing alike.”
“I know that,” I snapped.
“So what’s the problem?”
I didn’t know how to explain, so I crossed my arms and shook my head.
“Have you talked to Anarchy about this?”
“Not in so many words.”
“How many words?”
None. “You should mind your own business.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“I mean it.”
“Fine. But only because you’re not up to snuff. We’re not done talking about this. I hear you’re reading at Phyllis’s funeral.”
I’d completely forgotten. My hand rose to my throat. “Isn’t that today? Stan will have to find someone else.”
“Postponed.”
“Who postpones a funeral?”
“One of Phyllis’s relatives couldn’t get here in time. You’re still on the hook for walking through the valley of death.”
I scowled at my best friend and imagined a filled-to-capacity church staring at the ring of bruises on my neck. “Would you swing by Swanson’s and pick up a scarf I can wear with a navy dress?”
“Delighted.” Libba never passed up shopping. “Does Anarchy have any leads?”
“I don’t think so. He’s worried I asked someone the wrong question.”
“What question?”
“No idea.”
“Did you ask Stan who wanted Phyllis dead?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He sent me to Joan.”
“Did you ask Ted who wanted Bobbi dead?”
I nodded and gestured Libba closer. “Joan told me Bobbi was pregnant with Gordon’s baby.”
“Wait—” Libba held up a hand “—Gordon’s baby? Aunt Sis’s Gordon?”
“That’s what she said. But if Gordon is telling the truth, then Joan is lying.”
“Why would she lie?”
“Have you noticed how big her hands are?”
Libba’s mouth twitched. “That’s not something I usually notice. You don’t think Joan—”
“Women commit murder.”
“But strangling? That strikes me as a masculine crime. Who else is a suspect?”
“Gordon.”
“I see why you like Joan for it. Sis is crazy about him.”
“I know.” The knowledge made my stomach ache.
“Over the moon.”
“I know.”
“Stars in her eyes. You’re my one and only—”
“I know!”
“So find another suspect.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Of course it does. Who has the most to gain from Phyllis’s death?”
“Joan.”
“What about Bobbi? Who gained from her death?”
“Ted. But Ted has an alibi.”
Libba rubbed her chin. “What do you, Phyllis, and Bobbi have in common?”
“Me?”
“Do you think there are multiple stranglers?”
“Fair point. We’re near the same age.”
“You’re younger.”
“Same country club.”
Libba nodded. “Same power imbalances in your marriages.”
I stared at her. “What?”
&nbs
p; “You made more money than Henry. Phyllis made more money than Stan. Bobbi inherited more money than Ted ever dreamed of making.”
“Henry’s dead.”
“If you’re going to shoot holes in every theory—”
“Ellison.” Mother stood in the doorway. “How are you feeling?”
Libba rose from her chair. “Good morning, Mrs. Walford.”
“Good morning.” Mother glanced over her shoulder. “I brought Dr. Holland.”
A balding man with a stethoscope hung round his neck stepped into my room.
Libba kissed the air next to my cheek. “We’ll talk soon.” Her tone turned the promise into a threat.
When Libba stepped out of my room, Dr. Holland poked and prodded. He shined a light in my eyes. He made me stick out my tongue and shined the light down my throat. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. I’m ready to go home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mother.
I suspected the direction of her argument—nowhere good. “I’m going home.”
“You’re coming to my house.”
“For how long?” Aggie could make drizzle icing with the amount of sugar I put in my voice.
“Till the killer is caught.”
“And if he’s never caught? I won’t be at my house alone. Aggie will be there. And Max. And Grace and Aunt Sis.”
Mother sniffed. “Dr. Holland may not release you.”
“How’s your head?” asked Dr. Holland.
“Nothing aspirin can’t handle.”
He made a note. “Then we should send you home.”
Mother scowled. “You cannot go home without protection, and the alarm system won’t be installed till next week.”
“I’ll ask Anarchy.”
Her scowl deepened.
“Ask me what?” Anarchy stood in the doorway wearing an amused expression.
“Mother thinks I need protection.”
He rubbed his chin. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“See?” Mother gifted Anarchy a rare smile.
“Should I move back into the carriage house?”
I glanced at Mother. Her smile had crumbled to dust, and her jaw hung near her waistline.
“Don’t be silly,” I told him. “I have a spare bedroom.”
Chapter Thirteen
Friends filled my house with flowers and casseroles and books. Per Mother’s training, I kept a running list of who brought what so I could write thank-you notes. I was already woefully behind. I owed missives to the gala committee members and the major donors, but sitting at a desk and writing seemed an impossible task.
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