Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (32 page)

“See, no problem at all!” I tried for gaiety, but sounded hysterical. Farley shook his head.

“Tone it down a notch or you’ll never get rid of him.”

“I’m fine,” I said, more sedately this time. “Thanks for everything, James.”

“I’ll call you later. See how you’re doing,” he said.

“That would be great.” I meant it. I stepped away from the car, trying for a breezy smile that probably didn’t fit my bruised face. “See you.”

Then I turned toward Mr. Beaverton’s house next to Jasmine’s, hoping James would drive away, hoping he wouldn’t watch me navigate those four steps to the front door. I was afraid I’d end up crawling. He didn’t move, so I bounced up the steps, cursing under my breath with every jolt to my ribs, or my neck, or every other place that hurt, and knocked at the door.

Old Man Beaverton took a few minutes to get there, and I leaned against the jamb, trying to get back my strength. I managed to smile as he opened the door, staring suspiciously at me over his glasses until he finally recognized me.

“Ah, Jasmine’s friend,” he said. “I was waiting for you.” Then he frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Had a bit of an accident, Mr. Beaverton, but I’m okay,” I said, clinging to the door jamb for dear life. “Just tired.”

“Oh. Oh! Well, that explains the flowers, doesn’t it?” he said.

“Flowers?”

“The delivery truck was here about two hours ago. Dropped off some flowers.” He smiled. “There were so many, I was afraid there’d been a death.”

“Flowers?” I still didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and it must have showed.

“Don’t worry, I let him put them in Jasmine’s house. You must have a lot of friends, my dear. They seem to care very much. They’re expensive, I think.”

“Flowers?” I was beginning to feel positively stupid, because I still didn’t understand what Beaverton was talking about.

“Yes. Expensive.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Here you are, my dear.” Then he frowned again. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Fine,” I muttered, and took the keys.

“Enjoy the bouquets,” he said.

“I will.”

I walked across the grass to Jasmine’s house, with Farley on my heels.

“Nice place,” Farley said.

“Shut up.”

I didn’t turn around because I had to concentrate on working the key into the lock. I felt like I was ready to keel over, and didn’t need any of Farley’s sarcasm.

“No, I’m not kidding,” he said. “I shouldn’t have made the ‘Shit hole’ comment. This doesn’t seem too bad.”

He turned and counted the bikes littering the front yard. “Three,” he said. “She’s got three kids. Two boys and a girl. Right?”

“Right.” The stupid key chattered around the lock. Why wouldn’t it go in?

“That’s nice,” Farley said. He sounded different, and when I glanced over at him, he looked sad.

“Anything wrong?” I asked.

“Just feeling a little homesick,” he said. “I hope Sylvia kept up the yard. I liked that yard.”

“Sylvia’s your wife?”

“Ex-wife, yeah.” He looked at the ground, and frowned. “Get that door open, all right? Otherwise Jimmy boy is going to want to know what the hell’s going on.”

“Oh. Okay.” Finally, the key slipped into the lock, and I managed to get the door open. I turned to wave at James, and Farley walked past me into the house.

“Oh wow,” he said. “Marie, you gotta see this.”

I slammed the door shut on James’ wave, and walked into the living room, then stood stock still, staring. It was jam packed with bouquets of flowers. The splashes of colour were jarring against Jasmine’s silk plants and boring beige, wrapped-in-plastic furniture.

It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. Me, who can see ghosts, was saying that.

“Jasmine wouldn’t have ordered these—her youngest has allergies.” I reached out a hand, almost touching the flowers in the closest bouquet. There was no card.

“That’s weird.”

“Maybe they all came from the same person,” Farley said. “The old man said there was one delivery, didn’t he?”

“I can’t remember,” I muttered, staring at the rest of the bouquets that littered the entryway and wishing Farley would shut his mouth for just one minute. The last bouquet of flowers I’d received had come from my ex-boyfriend.

My heart started to pound, hard. Had he somehow known I was going to come here and sent all these?

Farley glanced around. “They’re too bright for my taste, but what the hell,” he said. “I didn’t know you were so popular.”

“Shut up, Farley,” I whispered. I walked into the living room, horrified. “Shut up.”

The big vases and baskets full of flowers were everywhere. Every available counter and table, plus a big bunch of the floor was taken up with the garish displays.

I inched into the room, creeping around the huge bouquets balanced precariously on the floor. On the biggest, most brightly coloured one I saw an envelope. I plucked it free, and ripped it open with hands that were shaking so badly, I could barely control them.

The card was more brightly coloured than the flowers, if that was possible. “Hope You’re Feeling Better” was printed on the outside.

Oh my God
, I thought.
He found me.

I opened the card, and a piece of paper fell to the floor. I looked at the inside of the card, but there was nothing written there.

Arnie always made sure I knew he’d sent his gifts. What was going on?

I bent and picked up the piece of paper between two fingers, as though it was dirty. It was the cheque from Carruthers, made out to me, and certified, as I had demanded.

Arnie hadn’t found me. Carruthers had.

“You can’t accept that,” Farley said.

“I know,” I whispered, staring at the cheque. For about a second, I thought about how many zeroes were on that cheque. How far that many zeroes would go to solve my problems.

Here was the big kick to the head. I knew that it wouldn’t. You can’t get rid of someone who wants to control you by playing nice. You couldn’t take their apologies for all the times they hurt you, and you sure couldn’t take their money.

Because they’d be back, and they’d demand more. And more and more, until the only way they could be satisfied was if you were dead.

I dropped the cheque on the floor, and turned to Farley.

“How did he know I was going to be here?” I asked. My voice was high pitched and scary sounding. I barely recognized it.

“I—I don’t know,” Farley said.

“Neither do I,” I said. And then I guess you could say I lost my mind.

I started tearing apart the bouquets of flowers, one by one.

“What the hell are you doing?” Farley flittered around me like a—well, a lot like a hugely useless ghost—as flowers and bits of greenery flew in all directions.

“That son of a bitch thinks he can buy me off with stupid flowers!” I cried. “Stupid, stupid flowers!” Another vase hit the floor and begonias, baby’s breath, and shards of glass flew everywhere. “Son of a bitch!” I grabbed another bouquet and began to dismember it, my breath catching in my throat in small sobs.

“Jesus, Marie, have you lost your mind?” Farley cried.

I stopped, momentarily, and stared at him.

“I don’t think so,” I finally said, and threw another handful of flowers against the wall. “Maybe. I don’t know.” More flowers flew, piling in a multi-coloured riot around the room.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

I stopped, and considered the question before carrying on.

“It’s because of what he did to you. He can’t buy me off after what he did to you.” The rain of flowers resumed.

“That’s nice,” Farley said. “I mean, thank you and all that, but . . .”

“But what?” I reached for the next vase—nope, not a vase this time, but a basket. It wasn’t going to shatter when I dropped it—and began taking it apart, flower by flower.

“This isn’t really helping. Is it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Probably not.”

“Then why don’t you stop?”

“Because, Farley, I’m not done yet.” I grabbed the last arrangement, threw the whole thing at the far wall, and watched with some satisfaction as it smashed into a thousand pieces. “Now I’ll stop.” Then I burst into tears.

“He blew up the Palais, and he was the reason you killed yourself, Farley. And he threatened my mother. He thinks I can be bought—I was almost bought . . . “

“Yeah,” he said. “But you weren’t.”

I took a deep hitching breath and blew it out in small puffs as I tried to get myself under control. “Yeah. I wasn’t.”

“Let’s figure out how to get him,” Farley said.

So, we sat down in Jasmine’s living room, littered with the remains of the most expensive bouquets I’d ever seen, and we planned our revenge.

The plan we came up with was pretty simple, which was good, and legal, which was better. I would send the cheque back to Carruthers, and then go to Sergeant Worth and tell her how he’d tried to bribe me, and how he’d implied that my mother was going to be in danger if I didn’t comply. Neither of us were sure what would happen after that, but it felt like the right place to start.

First I had to find the cheque. After some digging it popped into view, worse for wear but still legible. I stuffed it into an envelope and scribbled down the address from the business card he’d given me. There was a mailbox at the far end of Jasmine’s street, and I gimped my way to it, feeling much better when it was out of my sight. Then I started to clean up the mess.

“Don’t you think you should rest a minute or something?” Farley asked.

“Actually,” I said, and smiled at him, “I feel pretty good. And I have to clean this up. Jasmine won’t like this mess one bit.”

James called to see how I was doing as I stuffed the last of those stupid flowers in the stupid garbage bags. I thought he felt like a jerk for not being the hero and coming in with me, but I was wrong. He told me he had news from Helen Latterson and suggested we have a quick meal so he could tell me about it, if I felt up to it. I said yes, I’d be happy to.

All right, so maybe I was missing him a bit.

He was smart and didn’t say a darned thing about a date, which could have set me off, if I hadn’t been in such a good mood. He suggested Thai food, which sounded great, and said he’d pick me up at sevenish. Which, if I knew that man at all, meant seven on the dot, but it was okay. It was all right. Everything felt all right.

I was so glad that cheque was out of my sight and on its way back its rightful owner that I sang as I scrubbed the last of the green marks off Jasmine’s living room rug, thanking whatever interior decorating Gods there were that she’d gone with something with actual flecks of green in it so I didn’t have to try that hard. The money would have been a Godsend, especially for a person in my situation, no doubt about it. It was a lot easier, now that the cheque was not in my hands.

“What time does your friend come home from work?” Farley asked. I glanced up from a particularly stubborn patch of something I’d thought was plant goo until I figured out it was Play Doh, and frowned.

“I don’t know. Maybe four-thirty, or five-ish?”

“Well, it’s three thirty-ish now.” He pointed to the small clock adorning the top of Jasmine’s fake fireplace. “Isn’t it?”

“Good grief!” I looked around at the six bags of plant remains, and for a moment it felt like the scene of a crime. Which, to plant lovers, it probably was. “I have to get these out of here!”

Luckily they weren’t heavy, and it didn’t take me long to get them to the back yard, by her garbage bins. However, I felt light headed by the time I got back into the house.

“I need to lie down for a minute,” I said, wiping a sheen of sweat that had gathered on my brow. It felt cold and clammy, and suddenly things got dark.

“Sit down, now!” Farley barked, and I did so gratefully. My eyesight came back immediately, thank goodness, but I had obviously overdone.

“Go have a nap,” Farley said. “You can call Sergeant Worth after you’ve rested.”

I nodded my head, and groped my way down the back hallway to Jasmine’s room. The bed was soft and I’d nearly fallen asleep when Farley came into the room a few moments later. His soft glow made everything seem pretty, though Jasmine likes Sopranos style furniture, which is not to my taste in the bedroom. Or anywhere for that matter.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said, staring down at me. “How proud I am of you.”

“For what?” I asked, trying, barely, to pull myself back from the brink of sleep.

“For doing the right thing.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, and in that instant before I fell asleep, I felt proud of me too.

Farley forgot to wake me up. In fact, no-one woke me up. I was shocked when I opened my eyes and it was nearly six o’clock. I moved one arm, and the pain of my bruised muscles brought me fully awake.

“God,” I muttered, waving my appendages pathetically, like a turtle on its back. “I feel like crap.”