Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademarks Acknowledgement
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
New Excerpt
About the Author
Publisher Page
Murder by Dummies
ISBN # 978-1-78686-228-0
©Copyright Kayce Lassiter 2017
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright July 2017
Edited by Rebecca Baker
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2017 by Totally Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, UK
Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Simmering and a Sexometer of 1.
The Marilyn Club
MURDER BY DUMMIES
Kayce Lassiter
Book one in the Marilyn Club series
The Munsters had their niece, Marilyn. Buzzard’s Breath has Emily Redfeather. Being the only ‘normal’ one in the bunch ain’t for the faint of heart.
Emily Redfeather, Brittney Redfeather and Jo Parker are buried under the chaos in Buzzard’s Breath, Arizona. Between Emily getting stuck running a no-kill animal shelter, Jo’s great-aunt accidentally killing Jo’s mother and Brittney’s father blowing up the farm truck while trying to kill gophers with dynamite, the girls have their hands full sorting out the family crazies. Sanity is so tough to come by in today’s dysfunctional version of the Munster family that the girls band together to form their private sanctuary in the midst of the chaos—the Marilyn Club.
After years of dancing around their feelings for each other, Hawk and Emily struggle to find a way through the obstacles preventing them from pursuing a relationship. But the dangers of Hawk’s career stand in their way and anyone he gets close to could end up dead. As they work to solve a murder that Jo Parker’s Aunt Maddie is up to her neck in, Hawk and Emily realize they must either find a solution to their relationship challenges or put their feelings behind them and move on.
Dedication
I dedicate this story to my friend Pam, the original Marilyn and the mastermind behind the story concept, and to her husband Mike, who had the courage to fall in love with a Marilyn. They come with lots of family baggage, so being in love with a Marilyn ain’t an easy gig.
I also dedicate it to my loving and butt-kicking critique partners, Cheyenne McCray and Tina Gerow. Without them to keep me on the straight and narrow (sort of), this story may never have seen the light of day. You girls rock!
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Armani: Giorgio Armani S.p.A.
Boy Scouts of America: William D. Boyce, Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard
Buick: General Motors Company
Cadillac Escalade: General Motors Company
Dove: Unilever plc
Facebook: Facebook, Inc.
Fibber McGee: National Broadcasting Company
Google: Google Inc.
GQ: Advance Publications
Kleenex: Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Lava: WD-40 Company
Mutt and Jeff: King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Red Man chewing tobacco: Swedish Match AB
Star Wars: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
The Flying Nun: Sony Pictures Television Inc.
The Lone Ranger: American Broadcasting Company
The Munsters: NBCUniversal Television Distribution
The Three Musketeers: Alexandre Dumas
The Wizard of Oz: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Twitter: Twitter, Inc.
Wrangler: VF Corporation
Chapter One
Emily Redfeather
“Dead? What do you mean she’s dead? I just got a letter from her a week ago. How can she be dead?”
“Maybe she wrote the letter before she died.”
“Ya think?”
“Yep, she was probably still alive when she wrote it.”
“Probably?” I groaned. A headache thumped at the base of my brain.
This is going nowhere.
My dad didn’t always make sense on a good day. The fact that he thought his sister was dead wouldn’t make this one of his good days.
Am I really having this conversation on the phone—and from the office, no less? Holy cow, this is freaking painful. But I’ll get further if I just go along with him.
“Okay, Norman. How did she die and where is she?”
“I don’t rightly know how she died, Emily. She’s just dead.”
“Where is she?” I shouldn’t be short with my dad, but he was so trying at times like this.
When he didn’t answer, I went back in for another shot. “Daddy, where is Aunt Beatrice?”
My father, for some unknown reason, always said he preferred it when I called him Norman. But through the years, I’d found ‘Daddy’ worked best when I needed him to focus on what I said. I’d long suspected it was the name he secretly treasured, so I saved it like an ace-in-the-hole for when I really needed it, despite his protests.
Dad hesitated before replying, “Aunt Beatrice?”
I closed my eyes to keep from screaming.
The quiver in his voice was a sure indication he wasn’t as steady as he tried to make me believe. He walked a thin line.
My father had been an insurance salesman for many years, but had retired when he’d sustained a serious head injury in a car accident the summer after I moved to Tucson. For the most part, he functioned okay and got along well in the small town he lived in, but often drifted into a fantasy world where he claimed to be an ex-DEA agent. Everyone in town knew of his injury and loved him, so they went along with his fantasies and sometimes humored him more than they should.
His best friend these days was a chimpanzee named Chaz someone had dropped off at the farm well before Dad’s accident. He’d taken to the creature right off the bat and delighted in telling everyone Chaz used to be his partner in the DEA.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and tried again. “Daddy, tell me where Aunt Beatrice is.”
“She’s right here, sitting in her rocking chair.”
“In her rocking chair? She’s in her rocking chair?” My mind reeled as I skimmed through all the possibilities. “Are you sure Aunt Beatrice is dead?”
Aunt Beatrice was my father’s sister and he lived with her on the family farm where they’d grown up. My mom had died of lung cancer shortly before my fifth birthday, so Dad and Aunt Bea had raised me along with half the children in town. They were always taking in strays, whether they had two legs or four.
Sounding like a man discussing the weather, he replied, “She’s dead all right. I’ve seen dead before and she’s definitely dead.”
“Where’s Beau?”
“Beau?”
“Yes, Daddy. You remember Beau—your son. Where is he?”
“Oh, Beau. He stayed at his girlfriend’s house last night.”
“Great.” Fine time for my brother to find a girlfriend.
I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had to ask, “Daddy, how long has Aunt Beatrice been sitting in her rocker…dead?”
“Let’s see. She was there yesterday, but I don’t think she was dead. No, I remember her crocheting and we talked a bit. So, she must’ve been alive yesterday, or was it the day before? Hmmm. No, I think it was yesterday. Yes, definitely yesterday. She must’ve died today then…I think…maybe.”
Holy crap. Really? Can this be any weirder?
Frustration and panic had me by the throat and my stomach clenched. In a flash of inspiration, I had an epiphany and decided to come at it from another direction. “Daddy, think hard. Is Aunt Beatrice in the same clothes she had on yesterday when she was crocheting?”
The silence stretched on forever. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I prodded, “Do you remember what Aunt Bea wore yesterday? Pants? Overalls? A skirt? Can you remember? Is she wearing the same clothes?”
“That’s a lot of questions, Lumpy. I can’t answer all those at once and I can’t think with you poppin’ off questions like they wuz bullets from a machine gun. Which one do you want me to answer?”
I groaned at the reminder of the nickname he’d pinned on me in puberty, about the time I’d gotten my first bra. Only two people in the world ever called me Lumpy—my dad and my best childhood buddy, Hawk. Dad got away with it because he couldn’t remember I hated it. Hawk got away with it because it was impossible to stop him.
I pinched my lip with my fingers to keep from snapping. No way I’d get a straight story from him. He was too confused today. “Okay, Daddy. Don’t worry. I’m gonna call Dal and have him come check on you and Aunt Beatrice. You stay in the house and I’ll have him come out right away. You understand?”
“Sure, honey. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Aunt Bea. You give us a call when you get to town and Chaz and I will ride in and pick you up. I love you.”
I pushed hard on the bridge of my nose to ease the pain collecting there. It’d take way too much time and effort to convince him I couldn’t come home. I prayed this was just another one of his paranoid fantasies.
“All right, Daddy. I’ll talk to you later. I love you, too. Bye.”
After confirming he had disconnected, I then dialed the cell number for my childhood buddy, Dal, who was also the deputy sheriff in my hometown. He’d always kept an eye on my dad and Aunt Bea for me.
It had been almost a year since I’d gone home for Christmas. After college, I’d bounced around the Phoenix area for almost three years and worked a couple of programmer positions until I managed to get a job as a project leader with a small software firm in Tucson.
We didn’t do real elaborate stuff, just fleet management software for small businesses like trucking companies. My current assignment was a project to customize our software package for a local garbage company. Handling the logistics of spoiled prunes, empty beer bottles and dirty diapers wasn’t the dream job I’d imagined I’d have by now, but it paid the bills.
“BBPD, may I help you?”
“Hi, Viola, this is Emily Redfeather. Is Dal around?”
“Hello, Emily. How you been, honey? Long time since you been home. When you gonna come visit a spell?”
I’d grown up in that small, dusty town and knew everyone from the town drunk to the mayor. Viola had been the receptionist and dispatcher at the police station longer than I’d been alive.
Unfortunately, she was also the town gossip and a Facebook and Twitter addict. Any news that hit the police station would be broadcast across the continent within approximately ten-point-five seconds. I pictured her opening her Facebook account as we spoke.
“Sorry, no plans to come back right now. I’ve got lots of work stacked on my desk and can’t get away. Uh, I really need to talk to Dal. Can you get him on the phone, please?”
“Sure, honey. Everything okay?”
I failed to hide my frustration as I half-snapped, “Yes, Viola, everything’s okay. I need to talk to Dal and I’m in kind of a rush. Please get him.”
“You don’t have to be in such an all-fired hurry. Used to be a time when you’d spare a few minutes to talk to your Aunt Viola. Guess things have changed. I’ll go get Dal. Hold on.”
I shouldn’t have been short with her so I worked to calm myself while I waited. Viola wasn’t really my aunt. Life was different in a town with a population of under five hundred people. Kids grew up believing everyone in the community was related, and they often were in one way or another. Anyone more than fifteen years older became an adopted aunt or uncle and anyone over fifty was called ‘Grampa’ or ‘Gramma’. Nothing happened in a small town without it being everyone’s business and life happened at one pace—slow.
Slow might not be so bad right now.
My life had shifted into fast forward and sometimes I thought it was just a matter of time before the wheels came off. I’d been working long, hard hours. My emotions were frazzled from the workload and the bad direction my relationship with Jeremy had taken. I needed a break before I went over the edge, but it wouldn’t happen any time soon, given the backlog at the office.
“This is Dal.” The familiar voice at the other end of the line soaked through me like a healing tonic. Dal Ryan and I had gone to school together as kids. He’d been my friend forever.
“Hi, Dal, this is Emily. How are you?”
“Em. Good to hear from you. I’m great. How you doin’?”
“Not so hot right now. I got a call from Norman. He says Aunt Bea’s dead in her rocking chair.”
“What? Dead?”
Dal’s chair creaked in the background as he sat at his desk.
“That’s what he says. But you know Norman. He sounds pretty confused and isn’t sure how long she’s been in her chair. My guess is, she’s exhausted herself with all those animals and she’s so sound asleep, she can’t hear him. You know how deaf she is these days.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re right. Listen, hon, don’t worry. I’ll take a run out there myself, wake her up and get Norman squared away. All right?”
“Thanks, Dal. You’re a life saver.”
“No problem. I’ll give you a call back when I get ’em settled down.”
“I appreciate it. I’m beat and I’m gonna knock off on time today. Call me on my cell phone. You got the number?”
“Yep, sure do. You take it easy and don’t worry. I’ll talk to ya in a bit.”
Never one to waste time, Dal disconnected.
I flopped back in my chair. My stomach knotted and bile burned the back of my throat.
Can Dad be right? Is it possible Aunt Bea is dead?
“God, I hope not,” I whispered.
Just then, the office door swung open and slammed against the wall. I jumped an inch off the chair and almost toppled backward, chair and all. With both feet straight out in front of me and arms windmilling, I struggled to save myself. As I barely avoided a very humiliating upset by regaining my balance, I stared hard at my boss and waited for an explanation.
“I need to talk to you in my office.” He wouldn’t make eye contact.
Not a good sign.
I took a deep, measured breath and counted to ten as he hurried away. Annoyed, I dragged my poor, tired body across the hall and slumped into the first chair I came to.
“Will this take long?” I was too frayed to hide my annoyance.
He raised his brows. “It might. Are you in a hurry?”
“Sort of. It’s Friday afternoon and I’ve got almost eighty hours in this week. I’m exhausted and there’s a family emergency brewing. I just want to go home and curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and pray for good news. Can it wait?”
George stared at some loose papers on his desk. He still wouldn’t make eye contact, which wasn’t unusual. He was a short, bald man with no people skills and beady little eyes that were always sneaking peeks as if he was on a mission to catch someone doing something wrong.
“Uh, no. This can’t wait, and I’m afraid you’re not going home early. The company is downsizing and you’re being RIF’d.”
The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds while the silence hung thick in the air between us. After a few moments, the wheels churned in my mind.
“RIF’d? What do you mean, RIF’d?”
“A Reduction In Force—job cuts.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil. “I know what it means. Why me?”
“Like I said, the company is downsizing. Your department is being outsourced and your project has been cancelled. We’re sending the work offshore.” Before I got the chance to respond, he hurried on. “Don’t worry. You’ll be compensated. We’ll give you a severance package and help you update your resume.”
“Severance package? Help me update my resume?” My voice pitched higher as I slid closer to the edge. “Do you know what I’m dealing with right now?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry if this comes at a bad time. It’s not personal, just a cost-saving measure.”
My stomach knotted tighter as my foot slip over the mental edge. “Not personal? Are you kidding me? This is my freaking job. It’s damn personal to me. I’ve given this company two hundred percent for the last four years and this is the thanks I get?”
RIFs happened and they weren’t always selective, but some part of me had always believed that if I worked hard and did a good job, I’d be rewarded. I’d never expected to give so much of myself to my career, only to get kicked in the teeth.
Unreasonable rage bubbled up from somewhere deep inside and I shouted. “You think a few lousy months’ pay and some re-training is adequate compensation for having this prestigious career of facilitating the movement of garbage ripped out from under me?”
I was on a roll now, my propensity for sarcasm kicking into high gear and I leaned forward in my seat.
“You think that’ll even begin to compensate me for being thrown out of my corner cubicle and barred from the county dump? For the humiliation of being supervised as I pack my personal belongings into the one box I’m allowed to carry out? For the loss of my insurance and the huge pension I’m counting on for when I’m old and shriveled? You think you can come up with enough compensation for all that?”
He stammered, as if searching for the right words, “Actually, it’s only two weeks’ pay and no training. But there are outplacement services.”
“Two weeks’ pay? That’s it?” Hanging off the edge of sanity by my fingernails, I surged to my feet and stormed to the door. I jerked it open, stepped through and glared at him. “Outplacement services?”
Heads popped up all over the groundhog farm as everyone struggled to see and hear what was going on.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re offering me outplacement services? After four years of weekends, late nights, working overtime until I live each day dead on my feet, you tell me outplacement services and two weeks’ severance is all I get? Are you freaking nuts? Well, you can kiss my outplacement services!”
George moved to the door, where he stood with his mouth open, hands stuffed in his front pants pockets. He scanned the room full of gawkers standing on chairs to peer over partitions.
I stared at him and tried to catch my breath, expecting some sort of reply, maybe an explanation that made more sense than outsourcing. When none was forthcoming, I straightened my back and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. I guess that’s it, then.”
“actually, you need to go to HR and sign some papers so they can get things rolling today.”
“No.” I was done. What did I have to lose?
His eyebrows pushed together. “No? What do you mean ‘No’?”
“No.”
I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering and stuck out my chin to growl, “No, I’m not going to HR. I feel sick. I’m going home to lie down. If HR wants to talk to me, they can come to my house and sit at my bedside. I will not sign your damn papers today. As a matter of fact, I might not be well enough to sign any papers next week, either. In fact, I might decide to get a lawyer and drag you and this stinkin’ company to court.”
I strode away, ducked into my cubicle, grabbed my purse from the drawer, pulled out my keys and locked the desk. At the front door, I spun about and pointed a finger at my ex-boss and added, “If anyone touches a thing in my office before I get back to pack up, I’ll tell HR all about our little affair.”
“Affair? What affair?” In a panic, he started after me, his comb-over flapping as he moved.
A wave of snickers flowed through the office. Only a moron on crack would ever believe there had been anything between me and my meatball of a boss. But his inflated little ego would think they might believe it. If an idle threat kept him from cleaning out my office before I got back, what did I have to lose? I’d sped past my breaking point five minutes earlier and was now hurtling full-throttle over the edge of an emotional cliff.
I exited the office, closed the door behind me and hurried to my car parked a few spaces down the sidewalk. I climbed in, flung my purse across the seat and jammed the key into the ignition.
The engine roared as I squealed out of the parking space. Black smoke billowed out behind me as George hit the street and screamed for me to come back.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I give the sniveling little weasel the last word.
I soon pulled into my designated parking spot at the apartment complex, switched off the car and leaned back in the seat. The engine coughed and sputtered to a stop.
I can’t believe it—RIF’d.
I’d always dreaded having to do layoffs whenever management said we had to cut staff. This time, it was my whole group and I’d never seen it coming. Not a hint. Weasel-man had sure played his cards close to his chest. He should at least have dropped hints to give people a chance to get some irons in the fire. Nothing.
Bastard.
My only comfort was the shock on his face when I’d threatened to tell HR we’d had an affair. That had sure gotten his attention, though, and it made me feel a little better to be in control of something…anything. I shrugged off the little nick of conscience that snaked through me.
He deserved it. After all the times I’ve saved his ass on critical projects, this is the thanks I get?
I replayed the events of the last hour in my head, a hot lump in the pit of my stomach and a sour taste burning in my throat. I looked across the courtyard at the front door to my apartment, the one I’d shared with Jeremy for almost a year now.
Losing my job sure won’t help our relationship.
Things had been good for the first six months. He was so different from anyone I’d ever dated. With light green eyes and sandy hair in a long choppy cut, he had a sensitive artist-look that’d melted my heart the moment I’d laid eyes on him. But in time, the whole sensitive thing had become annoying. He’d hinted at marriage but I wasn’t ready for a commitment. I simply changed the subject whenever it came up.
Maybe I’m just not ready to commit to Jeremy.
Then he’d lost his construction job and things had gotten dicey. He’d tried to find another job, but his heart hadn’t been in it. After a couple of months, he’d quit searching and spent all his time painting.
Painting…ha! It’s more like paint hurling.
Frustrated with his lack of direction, I’d searched for a way to make Jeremy a contributing partner. At my wits’ end, I’d given him responsibility for the running of the household, so he cleaned and paid the bills. At first, I had refused when he’d offered. But when work stretched into eighty-hour weeks, I’d had to take the chance. I’d hoped he’d be motivated when he saw how difficult it was to make ends meet on only one salary.
No such luck.
The first few months, I’d double-checked his work and it was fine. So, I’d backed off and let him handle it, in spite of my paranoia. But he’d gotten too comfy with the house-husband role, so I’d begun to push him again to get a job.
I’d thought it might be working when he’d come home late one night a few weeks ago, very excited about the new job he’d found. He wouldn’t give me any details because he said they were still hammering it out, but had assured me our money troubles were in the past. When I’d asked what he meant by ‘money troubles’, he laughed and said it was just a figure of speech.
It’d nagged at me for a night or two, but I’d convinced myself all he needed was a chance to prove himself the man of the house. I’d decided to back off for a few weeks and see how things went.
Stupid.
The middle of last week, Jeremy’s mood had soured again and he still wouldn’t talk about the job. He’d gone to work every day, which had been a good sign, but his attitude had been like a fingernail on a chalkboard. I’d been at the end of my rope and had begun to consider severing the relationship.
Now what? I don’t love him anymore. It wouldn’t be right to stay for financial reasons, but how can I walk away without a job?
Given how testy he’d been, I had a nagging suspicion there might not be any savings left. I never should have given over the financial reins, but I’d been so tired and I’d hoped it might bring him around. If he screwed up, I’d figured I could repair the damage in a few months with the small stash I hadn’t told him about.
I had managed to squirrele away three thousand dollars in the false bottom of my jewelry box to put a down payment on a new car by the time Jeremy found a real job. The car I drove now coughed and sputtered on what cold winter mornings we had in Tucson and smoked like a house afire. It was a race to see if it would last long enough for the cops to pull me over for pollution.
Now, the money would have to go toward bills. Three thousand dollars wouldn’t stretch very far, but it might keep me afloat until I found another job.
I shivered as I reached for my jacket and pulled it on. It was chilly and sitting in the car wouldn’t fix anything. Time to go in and rifle through the filing cabinet before Jeremy got home. My stomach churned over what I might find. Thank God for my secret stash. I needed to keep the old clunker running a little bit longer.
Chapter Two
Emily
I walked to the front door, unlocked it and swung it open. Once inside, I tossed my purse onto the side table like I did every day. This time, however, there was no side table to catch the purse. I stared at the handbag when it thudded to the floor.
Where’s the table?
I swung my gaze around the room. There was no couch on the far wall either. No loveseat, no recliner, no coffee table and no big-screen TV. Only the broken DVD player sat cordless in the middle of the living room floor.
Huh?
I took a few steps across the room and peeked around the corner, into the kitchen and dining area. Bare. Several kitchen cabinets stood open enough for me to see they’d been cleaned out too.
My heart pounded and my mind churned. I’d been robbed. I darted my gaze around the room. I went on high alert, listening for the sound of someone in the apartment.
I spotted a piece of paper on the kitchen counter that looked like a note. When I approached the piece of paper and saw it was Jeremy’s handwriting, an overwhelming reality hit me. I almost dropped to my knees. This was no robbery.
Jeremy cleaned me out.
While I’d worried about how to break it to him I’d lost my job, the son of a bitch had robbed me blind.
I ran from room to room, opening cupboards and closet doors. Anger mounted with each step and each bare closet. Everything was gone except my clothes on hangers in the bedroom closet and two drawers of underwear and pajamas dumped on the floor. Apparently, Jeremy had needed the drawers to go with the dresser he’d stolen. The shoes flung across the floor were a pathetic testament to his hurried escape with the shoe rack.
“You ass,” I shouted. “You freaking ass!”
Pushed past my limit, I kicked at the pile of clothes and shoes, flinging panties and bras across the room. “Guess you didn’t need my underwear, huh? What’s the matter, Jeremy, didn’t want my dresses and high heels, either?”
I ran to the closet, grabbed an armful of clothes on hangers and dumped them onto the pile in the middle of the floor as I took aim with my right foot and sent a red pump sailing across the room.
Blood pounded in my ears. I stood still a moment and shook, trying to get a grip. I left the bedroom and went across the hall to Jeremy’s art room. No easels, no awful paintings stacked against the far wall, no tarps hanging from the ceiling with dried paint splatter on them, nothing but the heavy stained plastic stretched from baseboard to baseboard to protect the carpet.
I wandered back into the living room and sunk to the floor next to my purse, where I flopped flat on my back with my arms flung wide and tried to get my mind around it all.
Exhausted and deep in thought, I jumped a foot off the floor when my cell phone rang. Fumbling to find the phone in my jumbled purse, I cursed under my breath. “Crap. I forgot all about my dad and Aunt Bea. It’s probably Dal.”
I found the phone and slid my finger across the screen to open the call without checking to see who it was. “Hello, this is Emily.”
“Em.” Hawk’s deep, smooth baritone flowed over me and the hair on my arms stood up. My heart stuttered at the calm, steady tone in Hawk’s voice. His cop voice.
I swallowed hard. “You talked to Dal?”
There was a moment of silence. “Yeah.”
“Hawk, please tell me Aunt Bea’s not dead.” Just saying it out loud made my eyes fill with tears.
“I wish I could, Em.”
My throat slammed shut. I tried to talk and all that came out was a painful sob. “No. No. Not Aunt Bea.”
“I’m sorry, Em. Dal says Norman was right. She’s gone. I wish it wasn’t so.”
She’d raised Hawk for most of his life and he loved her, too. Everyone did. Aunt Bea had always said every kid in town belonged to her and there was no such thing as a bad kid. She’d baked cookies and sewn costumes and prom dresses for all my friends and me when we were growing up.
She’d doctored our sick and injured pets and had been our biggest cheerleader when we’d brought home good grades or won a football or baseball game. There wasn’t a kid in town whose heart hadn’t been touched by Aunt Bea.
Mine shattered into a million little pieces.
“No, Hawk. It can’t be. Please, no.”
His voice remained calm, controlled and steady. “Em, you can’t fall apart now, honey. You need to stay strong. Do you hear me? Norman needs you. Dal said he’s a mess. You need to come home.”
I nodded and sniffled, the tears falling. I managed to contain the sobs as Hawk’s words penetrated my bruised and foggy brain.
This has to be a nightmare. It can’t be happening.
“My dad’s okay, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s okay, but he’s having a hard time of it. He’s real confused and Dal thinks he needs to see you. You need to come home. Can Jeremy drive you?”
I shook my head, still not realizing Hawk couldn’t see me over the phone.
“Em, you still there?”
I sucked in a quick breath to fight back the sobs. “Yeah, sorry. I’m okay. I’ll have to drive myself. But don’t worry—I’ll be all right.”
“I don’t want you to drive yourself in this condition. Jeremy doesn’t have a job right now. Have him bring you home.”
“He’s gone. Jeremy’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
The tears spilled over again, pain squeezed my heart and I sobbed. “He left. He took everything, cleaned me out. I’m sitting on the floor in an empty apartment with nothing but a pile of clothes and shoes. The son of a bitch is gone.”
“What?” he shouted into the phone. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you call me?”
I pictured him on his feet, one fist clenched at his side, steel-gray eyes flashing as he shouted into the phone. Unable to control the sobbing, I hiccupped, “It just happened. I came…home tonight and he was…gone.”
“Dammit, Emily, I told you he was no good.”
A few moments passed while I struggled to regain control.
There was almost a growl in his voice. “You stay put. I’ll pick you up in the morning, after I put things on the back burner here.”
“No. I’m okay.” I sucked in a deep breath to steady my voice. “I’m fine. Really. I can drive.” I didn’t need Hawk here in Tucson tearing up turf like a bull in a china shop. “I just need to pull myself together a bit. Okay?”
“Em, I do not want you to drive that far in the state you’re in. I’ll pick you up. Period.”
I breathed deep and tried to focus. The last thing I needed right now was for Hawk to blow into town and boss me around. We’d been best friends our entire lives. Somewhere along the way, my feelings for him had become more romantic in nature—they now sucked the air from the room when he walked in. But Hawk didn’t seem to suffer from the same affliction.
Whenever bad things happened in my life, Hawk moved into big-brother mode. He’d become super-protective and snap at anyone who came close, like a junkyard dog protecting a bone. I didn’t need the stress right now, not on top of everything else.
“No, Hawk. I’m going to need my car. I’ll drive and meet you there.”
Hawk wasn’t one to take no for an answer. Getting out of this wouldn’t be easy, but the thought of being in the same car with him for two hours was unbearable. There were times when it was almost impossible to keep my mouth shut and not blurt out how I felt about him. To be so close while I was this vulnerable couldn’t end well.
“You wait there. Give me until about noon to wrap things up here, then I should be to your place by two and I can follow you from there.”
Someone talked to him in the background, so I didn’t respond right away.
“Em, I’ve gotta run. Stay put. I’ll see you about two tomorrow.”
He disconnected and I breathed a sigh of relief when I tapped the icon on my phone and ended the call. My mind felt disconnected, as though I was in someone else’s body. Numbness pushed aside the pain and a sense of total isolation settled in the pit of my stomach.
The room seemed twice as big now that it was empty. I was truly alone. Random thoughts of pain and loss bounced off the bare walls.
I rolled onto my back again and lay in the middle of the still room. My mind flipped through images of Aunt Bea, and my heart constricted once the pain seeped in and I began to cry.
The tears flowed for the better part of an hour. Not the racking sobs that had shaken my body earlier, but the soft weeping of a broken heart. When the tears stopped, I was drained. I lay there sniffling, my mind wandering nowhere in particular.
The image of Aunt Bea on the day of her mother’s funeral came to mind. I’d been a kid at the time, but I remember her pulling me onto her lap and holding me while tears coursed down her face. She’d whipped a handkerchief from her pocket, dried her eyes and blown her nose. Then she’d leaned back and said, ‘There. I’ve had my cry and got all the stinkin’ ol’ pain up outta my chest. Now it’s time to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get on with it. You, too.’
‘Get on with what?’
Her answer had mystified me at the time. ‘Why, get on with living, that’s what. Death is sad, but it’s not the end. We’ll see your granny again one day. Our job is to get on with life.’
I smiled at the memory. “Well, Aunt Bea,” I whispered into the empty room, “I think I understand it now. I’ve had my cry and I guess it’s time to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get on with it.”
I struggled to my feet, wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand and made my way toward the bathroom, desperately hoping Jeremy hadn’t taken the tissues, too. Halfway down the hall, I froze at the traditional cramp on the right side of my abdomen that always heralded the onset of my monthly cycle.
Really?
I threw my hands into the air and shouted, “Great! Exactly what I freakin’ need right now!” A few steps later, I took a deep breath and added, “I guess it could be worse. I might not be having my period.” Somehow, the good news didn’t outshine the bad by a whole hell of a lot.
I was relieved to find a full roll of toilet paper in the holder. “See, Jeremy, you think you’re so damn smart. You missed something. You lost a whole two-twenty-nine because you forgot to empty the toilet paper holder.” Anger flooded through me again and I shouted at the toilet, “I told you and I told you to empty the holder and replace the roll when the old one is empty. But nooo. You never saw the toilet paper holder, did you? And now it’s cost you money, mister.”
I’d lost it. I stopped, put my hand to my forehead and took another deep breath. Maybe if someone ripped the vise grip off my head, I’d be able to think straight.
With one last desperate act, I peeked into the cabinet under the sink. “Thank God.” I’d never been so happy to see half a box of tampons in my entire life.
A few minutes later, I emerged with wet face and hands. I’d splashed water on my face, but there were no towels. Remembering the note on the kitchen counter, I wiped my face and dried my hands on my pants. Then I hurried back to the kitchen to see what the slug had to say.
My hands shook and the blood pounded in my ears while Jeremy’s note explained how bad things really were.
Dear Emily,
By now, you’ve discovered I’m gone and I’m sure you’re furious with me for not saying goodbye, but I couldn’t do it.
When I lost my job, I was desperate. I knew with another dead-end construction job, I’d have no time to myself, and my art would suffer. So, I worked on my paintings every morning and again at night. Then I’d go to the casino to build up a bankroll. I did good for a while, and managed to put down a security deposit on a small art studio off Swan and Twenty-Second Street…because I knew you didn’t really like me painting here at the apartment.
Before I got the first month’s rent paid, those bastards at the casino changed the odds on the machines and robbed me of everything—the entire bankroll and all my winnings.
I knew you’d be mad when you saw the eviction notice and I figured you’d break up with me. So, I had to go first, before you took everything and left me with nothing to show for our year together.
Besides, you’ve got a gravy job, so you’ll be back on your feet in no time. Please don’t hold a grudge. I promise when I hit it big with my art, I’ll pay you back every penny. Sorry about the furniture and the jewelry. I’ll need to sell it to keep from starving.
By the way, I never did like camping and used gear doesn’t bring much, so I left it all in the storage unit. You’ll get more use out of it than I will. You’d better get it out before the landlord puts a padlock on the door.
Love, Jeremy
I stared at the signature on the note, the blood pounding a deafening roar in my ears.
Love, Jeremy? Love? Who’s he kidding? This isn’t love. This is pure hell. I’m stuck in Hades and there’s no knob on the door to get out!
Another glance at the note brought my mind into focus. My eyes fixed on the word jewelry. “No.” I spun toward the bedroom.
A quick glance around the room confirmed my worst fears. No jewelry box sitting in a corner I hadn’t noticed. I clawed through the pile of clothes on the floor.
Nothing.
“It’s all gone,” I whispered. “He took everything—my jewelry, my mom’s jewelry, the money in the jewelry box. It’s all gone.”
What’s next on this day of horrors?
Then the lights went out.
Blinking, I stared around. “What the…” Light peeked through the part in the curtains from the streetlights outside. Maybe the breaker tripped.
When I was halfway across the living room, the doorknob rattled. I opened the front door and found a heavyset man walking away. He looked over his shoulder, shrugged then shook his head and pointed to the doorknob. “Sorry, lady. Just doin’ my job.”
I stared down at the knob, horrified.
Turnoff notice?
“Oh, God, no. Don’t tell me he didn’t pay the electric bill, either.”
I ripped the notice from the knob and waved it over my head to run after the fast-retreating man. “Hey, you, come back. I need to talk to you.”
The man broke into a run, so I stepped it up. I had to catch him before he got to his truck and left me alone in the dark.
“Come back!” I screamed and chased him into the parking lot, waving the notice like a flag of surrender.
The guy was quick for someone carrying an extra sixty or seventy pounds. He managed to get in, lock the door and had the engine started by the time I reached the truck. I pounded on the hood, still waving the turnoff notice like a flag of surrender. The unreasonable creep refused to even glance at me. He shifted the truck into reverse and backed past me into the driveway.
“Come back here,” I screamed. I had to get my service restored. The guy reversed direction and peeled out of the parking lot. I reached down, took off my shoe and threw it. In keeping with the tone of the day, it hit the back window and bounced into the bed of the truck. So, there I stood in the parking lot with only one shoe and a turnoff notice in my hand.
Holy crap. Really?
I crumpled the paper I held and pressed my fists against my eyes, trying to ease the throbbing behind my eyeballs. My bare foot ached from the cold and the little pieces of asphalt pressed into my sole. I opened my eyes and limped back toward the apartment. A group of people around a barbecue grill watched me rather than their burgers smoking over the fire.
Embarrassed, I kept my head down and stared at the sidewalk. I was almost home free when I heard one of the men yell, “Quite a shot with the shoe. You got a little rim, but it went in.”
Laughter erupted and I mumbled to myself, “If I ever find Jeremy, I’ll rip his arms off and beat him to death with them. What else could possibly happen in this freak show of a day?”
You’re really gonna tempt God like that?
It dawned on me the sky might open up and lightning strike me dead where I stood. I ducked back into the apartment and slammed the door.
With my back against the door, I tried to focus and decide what to do next. I needed sleep. Maybe I’d wake up in the morning to find it had all been a dream—a very, very bad dream. A nightmare of epic proportions. Yes, sleep was what I needed.
But there’s no bed.
Then I remembered the air mattress in the camping gear and lunged for the purse I’d tossed to the floor earlier. I ripped open the Velcro closure and dug for the locker keys buried somewhere in the bottom. Within seconds, I headed for the storage locker with keys in hand and hope in my heart. Maybe the landlord hadn’t yet padlocked it. I stopped dead at the front door.
Wait a minute. The landlord might padlock the storage unit. Why?
I returned to the note and read it again.
Are we behind on the rent? We can’t be. Jeremy gave me the rent payment and I dropped it off myself a couple of weeks ago. It must be a mistake.
As I read the last line of the note again, my mind refused to believe.
There must be some mistake. I’ll get it straight in the morning.
It was tricky finding my way in the dark, but I did find the locker and it was accessible, with only my lock on the door. I breathed a sigh of relief before I opened it and rummaged through the camping gear. The flashlight should be in the top box. I found it.
Finally, something is the way it should be.
The batteries were a bit weak, but I found the camping mattress and sleeping bags and dragged them back to the apartment. My mind cleared and I went back for the rest of the equipment…just in case. If I moved everything into the apartment, the landlord couldn’t lock it up. At least I’d have a battery-operated lantern and some canned food from the camping boxes. I wouldn’t starve or be forced to sit in the dark, alone with my demons.
Once I’d moved it all into the apartment, I felt better with some familiar things around me. I blew up the air mattress and threw a couple of sleeping bags over it in the corner of the living room. Without electricity, I’d have no heat. I’d be thankful for the sleeping bags come the middle of the night.
Too numb to eat, I threw on some sweats, switched off the lantern and crawled into bed. Exhausted and running on emotional empty, I rolled onto my side and stared into the darkness as my mind recalled a long-forgotten memory of Aunt Bea standing in the kitchen, baking cookies in her long black and white apron with the cow’s udder on the front.
I smiled at the precious image and closed my eyes. A single tear snaked its way down my cheek and I surrendered to the sleep I would need to face another day.
* * * *
The next morning, I awoke to a horrible pounding in my head. Groaning, I rolled over and scrunched deeper into the sleeping bag. It had barely begun to get light outside. I buried my head, but the pounding continued.
Strange. It seems so loud.
All of a sudden, the pounding stopped and a key scraped in the front lock. I bolted upright as the door swung open and I found myself staring at the scowling landlord.
“I thought you were gone. Why didn’t you answer the door?” He appeared angry and I wasn’t sure what legal ground I had to stand on…or if I needed any legal ground to stand on.
“I was sleeping. I didn’t realize you were knocking. I…I thought it was inside my head. Can I help you?”
His eyebrows knit together as he closed the door behind and entered the apartment. One quick look around and his face softened. He whistled. “Wow, it appears you’ve been cleaned out. Rest of the place this empty?”
I took a deep breath. “Worse. This room at least has a bed and a lamp. There are some clothes on the bedroom floor and a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom if you’re interested, but I’ll fight you for the tampons.”
With a slight twitch of his lips, the man I knew only as Mr. Evans took a couple of steps forward and folded his legs under him to sit on the floor a few feet away. My mind only registered he was awfully agile for a man who appeared to be twenty years my senior.
After a few moments of silence, Mr. Evans cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Redfeather, we do have a problem.”
I stared at him and parroted, “We?”
He didn’t respond right away. “You have a bigger problem than I do. But your problem creates one for me. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not an ogre who enjoys kicking young women out onto the street and you, Miss Redfeather, are two months behind on your rent.”
“Two months? How can I be two months behind? I dropped the rent payment off myself last month.”
His eyes narrowed. “What I got last month was a note asking for more time to pay, signed by your boyfriend.”
My heart sank. Jeremy must have given me the note to deliver, letting me believe it was the rent check. I never thought to check inside the envelope.
Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.
“Oh, God, what do I do now?” I cupped my hands around my head and raised my knees to support my forearms.
I will not cry in front of the landlord.
When I got myself under control, I raised my head to find him staring at me. His eyes brimmed with sympathy.
“Tell you what I’ll do. You were a good tenant before your boyfriend came along. I can give you a couple weeks to come up with this month’s rent and let you catch up on what you owe by paying an extra fifty dollars a month, starting next month. Would that help?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No, it wouldn’t. I lost my job yesterday. I’ve got two more weeks’ pay coming, but that’s it. They’ve shut the electricity off, I have no money to get the service restored and if my fears are correct, my old clunker is about to die a slow, tortuous death.” I twisted my head to relieve a kink in my neck and returned my gaze to the landlord. “It may actually end up being a blessing if it dies.” I blew out my breath. “Thank you. It’s a very generous offer, but I’m afraid it won’t help.”
Yesterday’s memories flooded back—the phone call from Norman and the news of Aunt Bea’s death. My heart constricted and tears stung the backs of my eyelids. I took several deep breaths to steady myself and coherent thought returned. I knew what I had to do.
“My Aunt Beatrice passed away yesterday and my dad needs me.” I scanned the empty apartment. “To be honest, I think I need to be back home right now. Any chance you’ll let me out of my lease and give me some time to pay what I already owe you?”
He scrunched up his mouth. “No.”
Stunned, I stared at him.
“I won’t give you more time because it appears you’ve got a hell of a lot on your plate already, more than any one person should have to deal with. I’ll forgive last month’s rent and if you can vacate the apartment by tomorrow and save me the cost of a court-ordered eviction, I’ll forget about this month’s rent also.”
Relief flooded my system. “No problem. I’ll be outta here in an hour. You can keep my security deposit to cover part of what I owe. As you can see, the place is pretty clean already.” I gazed around. “Really clean, actually.”
Mr. Evans stood and headed for the door. I climbed off the air mattress and padded after him in my sweats and socks. At the door, he stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m very sorry for the loss of your aunt, Miss Redfeather.”