by Elaine Viets
She’d almost returned to her old life. She was able to take back about half the clothes she’d bought in her spending spree. The rest she had to pay for, including the skirt she’d destroyed capturing Rob.
She’d nearly emptied the stash she kept in her stuffed bear, Chocolate. But it was worth it. When she made the last payment, Helen cut up her credit card. She was once again a free woman.
Now she was looking for another dead-end job. She hadn’t found anything yet, but she was choosing carefully. She figured her stashed money should hold out for another month.
The Toad belched stinking smoke into the rarefied air of Golden Palms. A woman walking her Pomeranian glared at the smelly rolling wreck. Her little dog yapped.
Helen waved to the guard at the Superior Club gate and drove to the employee lot, the place where she’d punched Rob in the face a lifetime ago. I paid a high price for that moment of satisfaction, she thought. If I’d kept my temper, would any of this have happened?
It was another question Helen couldn’t answer. But she knew she was happier now that she wasn’t working at the club.
Helen walked into the Superior Club office. It was as if she’d never left. Cam was scrubbing down his desk with alcohol spray. Xaviera was giggling into her phone, and Helen could tell by the pretty flush on her cheeks that she was talking to her boyfriend, Steven. Jessica was placating someone on her phone: “I’m sorry you’re not happy, ma’am.”
“May I help you?” A fortyish blonde was sitting in Jackie’s old desk. Jackie’s replacement seemed polite and efficient.
She thinks I’m a member, Helen thought. I don’t know whether to be insulted or pleased.
“Helen!” squealed Jessica. She put down her phone and ran up to the front counter. “Give me a hug. I’ve missed you. We have so much to tell you.”
“Yes, we do,” Xaviera said, and presented her left hand. A diamond sparkled on her fourth finger.
“Congratulations,” Helen said.
“Steven got the job with the Lauderdale police,” Xaviera said. “We’re getting married in June.”
“And I’ve given notice,” Jessica said. “I have a part in a new cop show set in Miami. I play the hero’s boss. I’m a lieutenant.” Her pale skin glowed like fine ivory.
“We call her the Loot,” Xaviera said.
“Speaking of the Loot, where’s Kitty?” Helen said. “I don’t see her in her office.”
“Oh, you don’t know,” Jessica said. Her eyes grew wide—a storyteller primed to begin a fantastic tale.
Xaviera giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Helen said.
“Solange was fired when Mr. Ironton found out that the club files had been sold to Rob,” Jessica said.
“He’d been looking for an excuse for months,” Xaviera said.
“I guess you never see Solange,” Helen said.
“Oh, no,” Jessica said. “She’s in here all the time. She’s Mr. Casabella’s new DU.”
Helen’s jaw dropped. “Solange has taken up with a gangster?”
“We think she’s going to be wife number four,” Jessica said.
“I thought he only liked blondes,” Helen said. “Solange is a redhead.”
“Was,” Jessica said. “She dyed her hair for the part.”
“Which part is that?” Xaviera said, trying to look innocent.
“You’re disgusting,” Cam said. He waved his bottle of hand sanitizer as if their dirty laughter were full of germs.
“And you heard about Jackie? She got life without possibility of parole,” Xaviera said.
“That’s what she wanted,” Helen said.
Kitty came out of Solange’s office, looking happier than she’d been in months. There were no tear trails on her cheeks. Her skin glowed. She was wearing her wedding ring again. She was back with her husband.
“I wondered what caused the commotion,” Kitty said, and smiled. “Are you coming back to us?”
“I can’t,” Helen said.
Kitty’s face clouded.
“You’re one of the nicest bosses I’ve ever had,” Helen said. “But this isn’t a good place for me. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” She turned in her employee card, her office key and her uniform.
Kitty gave Helen her final paycheck. “Come back to us if things change, sweetpea. You’re welcome anytime.”
Helen hugged everyone, except the germ-phobic Cam. She left in a welter of good-byes, feeling sad and relieved at the same time. She took the path along the golf course for the last time. Elegant white egrets pecked at the velvety green lawn with long yellow beaks. Orchids dripped from a spreading banyan. The sun sparkled on a fountain, turning it into a spray of diamonds.
This was paradise. Now Helen was barred from it forever.
“Hey, you, look where you’re going,” an unlovely voice honked. Helen recognized it immediately: Blythe St. Ives.
She turned around for a good look at her telephone tormentor. A tall gray-haired woman with a large wart on her chin was bullying her way down the path in a striped golf cart. Pink-covered clubs bristled in the golf bag. A ridiculous ruby bumblebee was perched on the woman’s golf visor.
Blythe St. Ives was golfing alone. Now that Brenda was dead, she had no one to play with.
Blythe whipped around Helen so fast, her cart nearly tipped. Helen giggled as she watched the woman sail past. Then she started laughing. “Good-bye,” Helen said, waving at the disappearing cart. “Good-bye for good.”
She’d never have to deal with the snakes in this paradise again. She was free.
She sang her three-word anthem to freedom all the way back to the Coronado. The Toad bucked and lurched, but made the final trip.
Helen expected to find a disapproving Margery waiting for her. Instead, there was Phil, sitting out by the pool. He stood up, and once again, Helen was startled by his broad shoulders and deep blue eyes. He was wearing jeans and her favorite blue shirt. His silver-white hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Ah, those eye crinkles. He should smile more often, Helen thought.
“Let’s go for a walk along the beach,” Phil said.
A midmorning walk along the ocean. That was true luxury. They rode to the beach in Phil’s battered black Jeep. It was a sunny day, but a blustery wind stirred the sand into stinging needles and kept the beachgoers away.
Helen and Phil covered their eyes with sunglasses and turned up their collars, like spies in a movie. They watched a single windsurfer ride the turbulent water. A gust knocked his brightly colored sail over and he fell into the water, then got up and started skimming over the waves again. He’d go for a good distance, then another gust would send him flying and he’d fall again. And get up. He always got up and tried again. Helen liked that.
As she walked along the wild water, Helen talked about her final visit to the club. “There’s a happy ending for everyone, Phil. Xaviera will marry Steven at last. Jessica has a serious part in a TV show. Kitty is back with her husband. Jackie will be taken care of for the rest of her life. Marcella sailed off into the sunset with her club concierge. Rob walked away with a million bucks. I can’t believe that con man got away with his crooked schemes.”
“Are you sure he got away?” Phil said. “How do you know he’s alive? No one’s seen him since we delivered him to Marcella’s yacht. Marcella says he left town, but we only have her word for it.”
“What are you saying?” Helen asked.
“Just giving you something to think about,” Phil said. “He’s gone, but do you really think Rob got away?”
“Yes,” Helen said. “If South Florida were nuked tomorrow, Rob and the cockroaches would crawl out of the steaming ashes. He’ll be back to torment me. I know it.”
“We could go back to St. Louis and face your problems together.”
“No,” Helen said. “This episode taught me one thing: Rob will always win. I have to stay ready to run. He could drag me back to my old life anytime.”
“So there’s no h
appy ending for you?” Phil said.
“I don’t have that kind of luck,” Helen said. “I was a fool twice with that man.”
“No, Rob is the fool,” Phil said. “For throwing away a treasure like you.”
Helen watched the wind whip his silver hair and thought again how handsome he looked.
“Rob wasn’t the right man for you,” Phil said. “But he’s gone. You’re a different woman now. And I’m not Rob. We could have a happy ending.”
He fumbled in his shirt pocket and pulled out a blue velvet box. Inside was a sparkling blue-white diamond ring—two diamonds side by side, equal in size, set in platinum.
“Marry me, Helen,” Phil said.
Helen couldn’t find the right words. She was too surprised. But she was soaringly happy. “It’s beautiful,” she said, finally. “Is it an antique?”
“This is a new ring,” Phil said. “For a new life.”
Suddenly, Helen knew exactly what to say. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
ALSO BY ELAINE VIETS
ANGELA RICHMAN, DEATH INVESTIGATOR
Brain Storm
Fire and Ashes
A Star is Dead
Ice Blonde (Novella)*
DEAD-END JOB MYSTERIES
Shop Till You Drop*
Murder Between the Covers*
Dying to Call You*
Just Murdered*
Murder Unleashed*
Murder with Reservations*
Clubbed to Death*
Killer Cuts*
Half Price Homicide*
Pumped for Murder*
Final Sail*
Board Stiff*
Catnapped!*
Checked Out
The Art of Murder
Killer Blonde (Novella)
JOSIE MARCUS, MYSTERY SHOPPER
Dying in Style*
High Heels Are Murder*
Accessory to Murder*
Murder with All the Trimmings*
The Fashion Hound Murders*
An Uplifting Murder*
Death on a Platter*
Murder Is a Piece of Cake*
Fixing to Die*
A Dog Gone Murder*
FRANCESCA VIERLING MYSTERIES
Backstab*
Rubout*
The Pink Flamingo Murders*
Doc in the Box*
SHORT FICTION
Deal with the Devil and 13 Short Stories
*Available in JABberwocky eBook editions
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elaine Viets has written 34 mysteries in four series: the bestselling Dead-End Job series with South Florida PI Helen Hawthorne, the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries, and the dark Francesca Vierling mysteries. With the Angela Richman Death Investigator series, Elaine returns to her hardboiled roots and uses her experience as a stroke survivor and her studies at the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course. Elaine was a director at large for the Mystery Writers of America. She's a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Lawrence Block. Elaine won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty Awards.
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