Deadly Gamble
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I peered at the Death card again, then made my way into the living room. Chester was perched on the back of the couch, delicately washing his right forepaw with a pink tongue.
“Nick?” I demanded. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
No answer, of course.
Chester paused in his ablutions and regarded me with pity.
“This is not funny,” I told him.
“Meow,” he agreed.
I looked around the apartment. No one had a key except Bert; I’d had the locks changed after Tucker and I called it quits—not because I was afraid of him, but as a statement, as much to myself as to him—and besides, he’d never have pulled a mean trick like this. Even if he’d been so inclined, he couldn’t have known about Chester.
“Get a hold of yourself, Sheepshanks,” I said aloud. “This can’t be the same cat.”
“Meow,” said Chester, sounding almost indignant.
I saw the blood again. The arrow sticking out of the animal’s side.
I ran into the bathroom and dry heaved until my empty stomach finally shriveled up into a tight little ball and stopped convulsing.
“I thought you’d like him,” a familiar voice said mildly, from the doorway.
I whirled from the sink, my face still dripping water from the frantic splashing, and there was Nick, in his funeral suit, leaning casually against the doorjamb.
“Y-you—”
Nick’s mouth quirked at one corner, and he nodded his head. “It’s me, all right.” He wasn’t glowing, I noticed fitfully. Must be a nighttime phenom.
“This cat—where—?”
“I found him wandering in the train station,” Nick said.
I stared at him, goggle-eyed. My stomach threatened more mayhem.
“What train station? What the hell are you talking about?”
Chester arrived on the scene, wound himself, purring, around Nick’s ankles.
“It’s a kind of cosmic clearinghouse,” Nick explained. “On the other side.”
“Right,” I agreed. “You just head for Platform 9 and ¾ and catch the Hogwarts Express.”
Nick looked blank. He’d never been much of a reader.
“Forget it,” I said. I pushed past Nick, noting that he was neither cold nor nebulous. Maybe the bone-freeze was a night thing, too.
Maybe I was out of my freaking mind.
“He was your cat when you were a little girl,” Nick wheedled, following me. “I thought—”
I made it to the kitchen, wrenched open a cupboard door and ferreted around until I found a can of tuna with a fairly recent expiration date. “Do dead cats eat?” I asked, furious with confusion.
“I don’t know,” Nick said uncertainly. I jumped when I realized he was standing directly behind me, peering over my shoulder into the cupboard. “Are those Oreos?”
I grabbed the package of cookies off the shelf and thrust them at him. “Yes. They’re old, but what the hell. It’s not like you could be poisoned.”
“You could be a little kinder,” Nick pointed out, affronted. But he took the cookies.
“Excuse me,” I snapped.
He stuck his nose into the Oreos, sniffed with decadent appreciation. His eyes rolled closed in ecstasy, the way they used to do when we had serious sex.
“Delicious,” he said.
The can opener whirred jarringly as I opened the tuna. I dumped the contents onto a saucer, crumbled them with a fork and set the whole shooting match down on the floor.
Chester nosed the food with interest, but didn’t eat.
I looked up at Nick.
He was holding a cookie in one hand and staring at it as though it had just tried to bite him.
“Damn,” he muttered.
I glanced at the cat again, partly to make sure he was still there and partly to see if he would eat.
“Problem?” I asked, shifting my attention back to Nick.
“I bit into the thing, and nothing happened.”
“I’d like to see that,” I said. “Do it again, while I’m watching.”
Nick did his ironic look. “This is not a performance designed for your amusement,” he told me.
“Duh,” I shot back. “I am definitely not amused.”
Just then, a familiar knock sounded at the outside door.
Nick arched an eyebrow. “Company?”
“Disappear or something,” I whispered. “It’s Tucker!”
Nick folded his arms. “Oh, well, if it’s Tucker—”
“I mean it, Nick. Go back to the train station or whatever it is.”
He didn’t move.
“Boogie!” I ordered, and made for the hallway.
Tucker let himself in, since I’d forgotten to lock the door when I encountered Chester on the mat, and we practically collided. By that time, I was wishing I hadn’t told Nick to get lost. I would feel a lot less crazy if somebody else witnessed the dead-husband demo.
“Come in,” I said cordially. “I was just about to whip up a grilled cheese sandwich.” The last thing I wanted to do was eat, but I knew if I didn’t, I’d get sick. My stomach needed something to digest besides its lining.
Tuck looked surprised by my reception. He’d clearly expected a rebuff, given our agreement to take a step back, not to mention the bristly meeting downstairs, and he’d probably had some speech all prepared, like Ten Reasons Why We Should Have Sex.
No way was I doing the deed with the Great Decease-o watching.
Sometimes I wish I were a little less principled.
The biker-cop followed me into the living room, and I waited for him to acknowledge Nick, who was standing in the middle of the room, his arms still folded, grinning like an idiot.
Tucker didn’t react. Not to Nick, not to the cat.
They might as well have been invisible.
“He can’t see us,” Nick said.
“Shit,” I said.
Tucker gave me a wounded look. “I didn’t expect you to be glad to see me,” he said, “but you don’t have to swear.”
This from a guy who hung out in a biker bar when he wasn’t on duty.
“He’s right,” Nick said smugly. “It’s very unladylike to curse.”
“Shut up!” I snapped.
Tucker squinted. “What?”
I felt heat sting my cheekbones. “Never mind.” I glanced at Chester, who was grooming himself again. I won’t go into the details. After all, I wouldn’t want to come off as unladylike or anything.
“Never mind?” Tucker retorted. “First you ask me in for a grilled cheese, then you—”
“Just never mind,” I said, rubbing my temples. “You didn’t drop off a cat earlier today, did you?”
“Drop off a cat?”
I was losing patience, and possibly hemorrhaging brain cells at the same time. “Can we just stop doing the echo thing?”
“It’s very annoying,” Nick submitted.
I bit back another “Shut up.” Said nothing, because that seemed safest.
“Mojo, what the hell are you talking about?” Tucker demanded.
“You haven’t—well—seen a cat around? A white one, with blue eyes and a fluffy tail?”
Tucker crossed to me, took me gently but resolutely by one arm and squired me to the couch. “Sit down,” he said, somewhat after the fact. “Put your head between your knees or something.”
Nick chuckled.
I glared at him. Tucker caught me and followed my gaze. And saw nothing, of course.
“What’s going on, Mojo?”
“It’s been a difficult day.” More truth. My God, I was getting good at it.
“I’ll get you some water,” Tucker decided. He looked pretty worried, and that pleased me. When he went into the kitchen, I waved at Nick to get out.
He must have been running on alkaloid. Not even a flicker.
I heard the refrigerator door open, close again.
A pause followed.
“Mojo?”
I tried to sound normal. “Yes?”
“How come there’s a plate of tuna on the floor?”
Nick gave me a pointed, how-will-you-get-out-of-this-one look.
“Go screw yourself,” I told him.
Tucker appeared in the kitchen doorway, with a bottle of water in one hand. “Did you say something?”
I smiled endearingly. “No,” I lied. Hell, it’s just easier to do what comes naturally.
“So what’s with the fish?” Tucker pressed.
“I was sort of hoping to get a cat,” I said.
Chester nestled against my side, purring. I just barely caught myself before I would have stroked his back.
“O—kay,” Tucker said.
I went for perky. “Do you still want that grilled cheese?”
Tucker looked around the room and, for a second or so, I thought he might have sensed something. “No,” he decided. “I think you need to get out for a while. How about a steak and some vino at my place?”
I wanted to go home with Tuck. I really wanted to go. He was a great cook and an even better lover, but there were solid reasons for the decision we’d made. He was still entangled with his ex-wife, and I didn’t want to be Transition Woman. Hot sex, easy promises, and then either back to the old setup or on to a new one. And here’s me, in the middle, trampled.
With most guys, that experience would have been a mere bummer. With Tucker, it might mean checking into Heartbreak Hotel and never checking out again.
“Bad idea,” I said. “Steak, vino and your place, I mean. For reasons previously stated.”
“Bad idea for a lot of reasons,” Nick interjected.
Shut the frick up, I thought fiercely, smiling tenderly at Tucker, and I think Decease-o picked up on the brain waves, because he looked insulted and tugged at his shirt cuffs, the way he always did when he was miffed.
Tucker sighed. His broad shoulders sloped slightly. “Listen, Mojo, I know we agreed—”
“To be friends,” I finished for him.
“Friends,” Nick scoffed.
I ignored him. I’d tell him off later, if his batteries didn’t run down before Tucker left.
Chester nudged me again. It was harder to ignore him.
“This is no good,” Tucker lamented quietly. “Our being apart, that is. And it’s not as if I’m married. Allison and I are legally divorced.”
“Go home, Tucker. Go catch a bad guy. I’ve got nothing to offer you but grilled cheese.”
Nick rolled his eyes.
Tucker brought me the water. He hesitated, then said, “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine, Tucker.”
I set the water bottle aside on the end table, stood, and sort of steered him to the door. There, he laid his hands on my shoulders and brushed a kiss across my forehead, beneath my bangs.
I hoped he didn’t feel the tremor that went through me.
“Call me if you need anything,” he said.
“‘Call me if you need anything,’” Nick mimicked, from about a foot behind me. “Gag me with a kickstand.” If he’d been breathing, I probably would have felt it on my nape.
Tucker left. Reluctantly.
I closed the door and turned on Nick, ready to rip a strip off him.
But he was gone.
I looked around. “Chester?”
My cat was gone, too.
For a long time, I just stood there, trying to make sense of it all. Then, disconsolately, I went into the kitchen, picked up the plate I’d put out for Chester and dumped the tuna down the disposal.
I didn’t miss Nick. If he never came back, it would be too soon.
But I sure as hell missed the cat.
CHAPTER 3
I slept in the living room, on the couch, figuring I’d be less likely to wake up and find Nick lying beside me, since he wouldn’t fit. I guess it worked, because he wasn’t there when I opened my eyes, but Chester was.
He sat on the coffee table next to Lillian’s three Tarot cards, which were standing in an ominous little row, propped against the big Mexican fruit bowl I’d bought at the flea market a couple of years before.
I swung my feet over the side of the couch, sat upright and rubbed my face with both hands. When I looked again, Chester was still there.
“Meow,” he said.
Okay, this was a major sign of my mental instability, but I was glad to see him just the same—sans the arrow from Geoff’s bow. I had mostly visceral memories of the cat, nothing very specific, but his bloody end was vivid in my mind. I knew I’d found him in the backyard of our place in Cactus Bend, behind the storage shed where my dad kept all the stuff he was constantly swapping. He’d called it “horse-trading.” I recalled that, too, all of a sudden, but there were never any horses.
That was Dad for you. All dreams and wishes, no substance.
“Hey, Buddy,” I said to the cat. After the briefest hesitation, I reached out to pat his head. Silky soft, solid and warm. No glow, either.
I was heartened. Glad I’d taken the risk of touching him.
He meowed again, and knocked down all three Tarot cards with one swipe of his tail.
I left the Queen, the Page and Death where they lay. I’d studied them half the night, along with their corresponding chapters in The Damn Fool’s Guide to the Tarot, with a sensation of dread in the pit of my stomach the whole time. I was still in the dark. I didn’t know much about the symbology, but I did know that Lillian always read them intuitively, without recourse to books. She’d told me once that Tarot cards were like little windows into the psyche; you just had to learn the language of the subconscious mind.
Since the day was already underway, whether I wanted to go along for the ride or not, I decided I’d better jump aboard. Do something constructive, like eat and make coffee.
The phone rang as I entered the kitchen, Chester prancing twitchy-tailed behind me, and I picked up the cordless receiver and opened the refrigerator door simultaneously. It’s a mobile age, all about multitasking.
“Yo,” I said.
“Yo,” Greer mocked, with a peaky smile in her voice. “That’s a fine way to answer the telephone. What if I’d been one of your doctor clients? You certainly would have made a businesslike impression.”
Greer cared a lot about impressions. Interesting, since Lillian and I had found her in a bus station in Boise, Idaho, when I was nine and Greer was barely thirteen, working the waiting room in an effort to cadge enough money to buy a meal at the seedy lunch counter. She’d been wearing tight hip-hugger jeans that cold winter day, I recalled, along with a fitted black leather jacket, a blue Mohawk, a fat lip and an attitude.
Now, she was married to a famous plastic surgeon; she’d become the classic Snottsdale wife, with a tasteful blond pageboy, winsomely brushing her gym-fit shoulders, an Escalade and enough jewelry to add ten pounds to her weight on any given day.
“Thanks for the timely vocational pointer,” I said, reaching for the milk carton standing lonely on the top shelf of the fridge and taking a cautious sniff. I flinched, dumped the stuff in giant curds into the sink and tossed the carton. The water made a decisive whooshing sound as I washed the works down the drain. “If Alex told you to call about his Medicare billings, you can tell him I already e-mailed them to the office. And I’m not altering the codes.”
Alexander Pennington, M.D., was Greer’s husband. He was twenty years older than she was, with a very bitter ex-wife and a creative bent for diagnosis. As in, if the medical facts didn’t jibe with Medicare’s payment schedules, he whittled them to fit.
A chill wafted into my sphere, coming from Greer’s direction. “Alex didn’t ask me to call,” she said stiffly. “Nor did he say anything about the billings. We’re trying to help you, Mojo. Throw a little business your way, since you seem determined never to get a real job.”
I could have pointed out that at least I worked for my money, instead of drawing an allowance from a rich husband, but I didn’t. Greer really pissed me off sometimes, but I considered her my sister, and I loved her. That day in the bus station, Lillian had bought her a meal and a seat next to us on the Greyhound to Las Vegas. Our latest car had just died alongside the highway, but not to worry. When we got to Vegas, Lillian put twenty dollars into a slot machine and won a spiffy subcompact. Greer was as much a part of our strange little family as if she’d been born into it.
I’d been too young to get the big picture, back then. Greer was a runaway and, thus, pimp bait. She’d already done some hooking by the time Lillian took her in, but afterward, she’d been a straight-A student and an all-around good kid.
“Are you still seeing that cop?” Greer asked, when I went too long without saying anything. Greer was uncomfortable with silence. If I didn’t chatter like a magpie, she thought I was mad at her.
“No,” I said, examining the fridge again. There was nothing for it. I was going to have to tap my bank account and spring for a few provisions.
“Good,” she answered. “He might as well still be married.”
No way was I walking into that one. Alex Pennington, M.D., had been married when Greer met him at a country club mixer, where she’d gone to network, hoping to line up some jobs for her interior design firm. Yes, Pennington’s wife had been a raging drunk, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he and Greer had started an affair the same night. Systematically, they’d eased the first Mrs. Pennington right out of the picture, and within a year, Greer took over the title.
“Tucker,” I said, “is not married. He’s divorced.”
“Emotionally, he’s married,” Greer insisted. She sounded so damn self-righteous that I had to bite my lip and remind myself that she’d taken to the big sister role like a pro from the moment we cruised away from that bus station in Idaho. She was devoted to Lillian, too. It was Greer’s signature on the checks covering the nursing home.
Yes, I had a problem with people who cheat on their spouses, obviously because of Nick, but it was my problem, not Greer’s.
“Okay, whatever,” I said, shutting the fridge with a little slam. I hate grocery shopping. Nothing ever looks good, and when I get it home, I have to cook it. “Is there a point to this call, Greer, or did you just want to needle me about my unconventional lifestyle?”
“‘Unconventional lifestyle,’” Greer repeated. “Now why would I suggest anything like that—just because you live over a bar with a nasty name, do only enough work to survive and play the slot machines every chance you get?”
“Greer,” I said patiently, “don’t make me fight back. It isn’t as if the arsenal’s empty, you know.”
She sighed. “I didn’t call to fight,” she said wistfully, and I wondered if she was really talking to me or to herself. “Alex is out of town for a medical convention. I would have gone along, but it’s always so boring, with him in meetings the whole time. Besides, I haven’t been feeling my best—if there’s a God, I’m pregnant—so I decided to stay home. I was hoping you might come over tonight, keep me company for a while. We could have dinner by the pool.”
I looked down at Chester. I liked him, and I was glad he was around, but, hey, he was a ghost, likely to fade away at any moment. Tucker and I were on the outs, so I couldn’t expect any companionship from that quarter. And maybe if Greer and I spent a little time together, we might get back some tiny part of the old sisterly camaraderie we’d lost since she moved uptown, metaphorically speaking.
“Sure,” I said. “I’d like that. What time, and what can I bring?”
We agreed on six o’clock, she pleaded with me not to attempt anything culinary and we hung up.
Chester made the leap to the countertop and sat next to the coffeemaker. I elbowed him gently aside to get a pot brewing.
“So,” I said, “do dead cats need litter boxes?”
JUST MY LUCK to run into Psycho Bitch in the supermarket.
I was minding my own business, making the Lean Cuisine selections for the week in the freezer aisle, when all of a sudden, she rams my cart with hers and practically sends me headfirst into the stacked boxes of Sesame Chicken, New England Pot Roast and French Bread Pizza.
I whirled on her. “God damn it, Heather,” I cried, “I’m about one inch off filing a restraining order against your crazy ass!”
Heather Dillard, ex-wife of a guy I dated precisely twice, three years ago, gripped the handle of her cart and prepared for another assault. I didn’t see her for long periods of time—then, with no warning, she’d pop up out of nowhere, bent on avenging a whole slew of imagined wrongs. I’d caught her letting the air out of my tires once, and another time she’d waltzed into the bar and told Bert she was an old friend of mine, planning a surprise birthday party, and would he please, pretty-please, give her the key to my apartment?
Fortunately, he’d refused, but here’s the creepy part. It was my birthday, so she’d taken the trouble to find that out, along with God knew what other personal details.
And she’d sent me a present, too.
Three dead birds in a shoebox, tied up with a bow.
“You’re seeing Brian again,” she accused, knuckles whitening on the cart handle. Her nostrils flared, and her spiky hair—blond that week—stuck out all over her head, as if she’d gotten drunk and cut it herself, with a dull razor blade. Her pupils had white all around, like that bride in the news a couple of years ago, the one who skipped out on her wedding, stirred up a media frenzy and had a conglomeration of local, state and federal agencies frantically searching for her.
I sighed. “I’m not seeing Brian,” I said. My dead ex-husband and my murdered cat, yes. Brian, no.
“Of course you’d deny it,” Heather challenged, but she looked uncertain, and that gave me a moment’s hope that she might actually be reasonable. Which begged the question—who was crazy here, her or me?
“When something isn’t true, I deny it. Go figure.” I threw a couple of Yankee Pot Roast dinners into my cart, just to let her know I wasn’t scared.
“We have four children,” she said.
Two old ladies shopping for Stouffer’s backed off, and a manager appeared at the far end of the aisle, looking worried. I might have been reassured, if he hadn’t been about sixteen and roughly the same weight as Chester.
“I’m happy for you,” I replied, “and sorry for them. You need help, Heather. And you need to get away from me—and stay away from me—before I have you arrested.”
Her lower lip wobbled. It looked cracked and dry, as though she’d bitten it a lot. I felt a twinge of pity, but it passed quickly when her cart clanged against mine and one of the wheels ran over my toe.
“Bitch!” she screeched. “Homewrecker! Tramp!”
That did it.
I went after her. Right for her throat. I probably would have strangled her if two box boys and one of the old ladies hadn’t intervened. She must have been up on her Fosomax, that ancient shopper, because she dived straight into the fray, with no evident concern for broken bones.
“Somebody get security!” one of the box boys yelled.
A rent-a-cop appeared, overweight, his uniform shirt speckled with white powder, most likely doughnut residue.
“Did anybody see what happened?” he huffed.
“I did,” said the old lady, stepping between Heather and me.
I shook free of box boy #1.
Heather struggled in the grasp of #2.
“What?” asked the security guard—Marvin, according to his name tag—dusting off his shirt with one hand.
“This one,” answered the geriatric she-hero, pointing to Heather, “was harassing that one.” The arthritic finger moved to me.
“You’ve got that right,” I said huffily, tugging at the hem of my Be a Bad-Ass at Bert’s T-shirt. “It’s a fine thing when a person can’t even shop for frozen dinners without being attacked by some maniac. I’ve got a good mind to take my business elsewhere after this.”
Marvin and the box boys looked hopeful.
Heather started to cry. “She stole my husband,” she said, with more lip wobbling.
Marvin, the box boys and the old lady studied me thoughtfully.
“She’s nuts,” I said. “Certifiable. Over the edge. And furthermore, her husband is a jerk.”
“One of these days,” Heather said, “I am going to kill you.”
Public opinion swung in my direction.
“I rest my case,” I said.
“Did you steal her husband?” the old lady wanted to know.
“No,” I replied, ready to wheel into the sunset with my frozen dinners and what was left of my dignity. “And if I had, I’d have given him back.”