Some Like It Lethal (19 page)

"No thanks to Studmuffin here. What was I supposed to do for half an hour?" she demanded of him. "Hold a seance in there?"

"Scared of the dark?"

My little sister, stiff and pale, said, "I thought I was hiding from the police, not entering some kind of bladder competition. What were you and Rawlins arguing about after you locked me in there? Oh, never mind. My molars are floating and I'm going to burst if I don't find a place to pee real soon."

Michael seemed very pleased with himself as he loaded his luggage into the open trunk and slammed it shut. With the smaller duffel in hand, he said, "C'mon. Through that door."

The three of us trooped through an unlocked, windowless steel door. Last in line, I found we had entered the unsavory back hall of a restaurant. Kitchen steam blew at us from a blindingly bright room on our right. We heard pots banging and voices shouting. Across the narrow hall was a wooden door labeled with a grimy silhouette of a Victorian lady. Emma handed Spike to me and pushed inside.

Michael said, "Give me a minute to do some business."

And he disappeared down the hall, duffel in hand.

I followed Emma. The bathroom was a two-seater with a rusty sink and a towel dispenser that hung crookedly on the wall. The floor was so scuzzy I didn't dare put Spike down. Emma went into the first stall.

She'd been cursing under her breath since we left the alley.

I interrupted her to say through the door, "I'm glad you're safe, you know. The police came looking for you at the farm this morning."

"I gathered. Did you tell them anything?"

"Did I know anything?" I asked. "Except you're probably an idiot for staging an escape from a hospital."

"I knew the cops were going to arrest me in the morning. When Mick's co-conspirators showed up, it seemed like an opportune time to leave."

"Co-conspirators?" Things were getting more complicated every minute.

"Oh, yes, delightful chaps. Do you know those guys he hangs out with?"

"Not by name."

"Good thinking. I've never seen so many tattoos in one place at the same time outside a circus tent. With the exception of Rawlins."

"Rawlins?"

She flushed and came out of the stall, zipping up a perfectly new pair of blue jeans. So new they still had the tags attached to the hip pocket. While she washed her hands and face in the sink, I tore the tags off and presented them to her when she had dried her hands with a wad of paper towels.

"Yes, our nephew was front and center." She tossed
the towels and tags into the overflowing trash can. Spike attempted to lunge after them, but I held him fast. "Afterward, Mick's posse encouraged Rawlins to have a motherly tribute permanently imprinted on his butt."

"As a comment on his upbringing?"

"Something like that. He refrained, though."

I had mixed feelings about Rawlins hanging out with Mick's motley crew of misfits, but I had to admit my nephew was showing more signs of responsibility now than he had when he'd associated exclusively with his high school pals. Still, it seemed unwise to encourage a young kid to spend his evenings with men who had done hard time and looked like they could cause serious trouble for the Hell's Angels.

Emma stared at herself in the mirror. She was very pale, and her short, unwashed hair stuck out in a primo bed head. She had a shiner under her left eye that I hadn't noticed before. Her lower lip was swollen and chapped, and I thought her hands were shaking.

But, dammit, there was nobody who could wear a hospital scrubs shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans along with her own still-muddy riding boots and manage to look as if she just stepped off a flight from Paris. The meager overhead light caught the sharp cut of her cheekbones, and her feathery dark lashes cast delicate shadows beneath her eyes.

I opened my bag and handed her a lipstick. "You okay, really?"

"I refuse to get back into that trunk again. I don't care if the police haul me off to a chain gang, I'm not getting in the trunk again." She applied the lipstick gingerly.

"You can come back to the farm with me." I took the lipstick back when she was finished.

She rubbed her temples and managed a rueful smile. "No, I'm on the lam now, right? Sounds like an adventure I shouldn't miss."

"But, Em, if you have nothing to hide, why not go to the police and tell them everything?"

She looked balefully at me in the mirror. "Because I can't remember."

"What?"

"I was drunk." She put both hands on the edge of the sink and leaned there, head down. "Maybe I passed out, or maybe it was some kind of blackout. I don't remember much about that night."

"Do you remember going to the hunt club?"

She nodded. "I drove the trailer over there around two in the morning. I was going to sleep in the truck, but I had a bottle."

"So you drank in the truck?" Alone, I thought with a twist of sympathy.

"Next thing I know, Rush is knocking on my window. I let him into the truck and we had a few laughs, I guess. I don't remember much."

To me, she looked as if she hadn't laughed in weeks. "Do you remember going to the barn?"

She turned away from the sink and leaned against the wall, hugging herself, face still turned away from me. "Yeah, I guess so. Rush and I left the truck and . . ."

Her voice quavered, and I said, "Em, I'm sorry."

I saw her summon up the strength to hold back tears, but a single fat one spilled out of her left eye and traced a salty line down her cheek before trembling on the edge of her jaw. She said, "He was a good guy."

I felt my own heart crack and whispered, "I'm so sorry."

She nodded, and a terrible moment ticked by. At
last, she said, "Gussie turned up when we went over to the barn. It was early in the morning—before dawn. Rush hadn't expected her, and she caught us together." She frowned. "There were some pictures. Rush was showing them to me and she came in. I remember she got hysterical." Her hand strayed to the bruise under her eye and her frown deepened, as though she was trying to remember how she had come by her bruise.

"What do you remember about the pictures?"

"Nothing. Just— Nothing. But they were both upset about them."

"Did Gussie hit you?"

"I think so. Or maybe it was Rush. He was upset about the pictures. I can't put the pieces together." She ran her hand through her short hair. "There were other people, too, I think."

"Like who?"

She squinted at me. "Tottie Boarman. Does that make sense? And other people from the hunt club. Mostly, I heard voices. I think I was passed out."

"Like who?"

"Tim Naftzinger?" she guessed.

I nodded. "Tim was there with Merrie that morning."

Emma swiped her hands down her face slowly, thinking. "Merrie's a good kid, but I don't remember her being there. I know this is weird, but I think that really stupid guy came in, too. That peckerwood ex-model."

"Dougie Forsythe."

She tried to grin but failed. "I must have dreamed that one, right?"

"Not necessarily. Did you see Rush argue with anyone else besides Gussie?"

Before he was killed. But I didn't say the words.

Emma sighed. "I don't know."

"What about your riding crop? Do you remember what you did with it that morning?"

"Did I have it with me? I don't know. Jesus, I just don't know anything! It's driving me nuts, Nora. I was too drunk. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I—"

"No. You didn't kill Rush."

"But I must have done something. It's got to be my fault that he—that Rush—"

Emma cried then. She clenched her fists against her eyes, but she couldn't stop the tears. Tough, strong Emma suddenly looked lost and scared and bereft. I hugged her, crying, too, while Spike whined and struggled between us.

Emma pulled away first. I wiped my eyes and watched her try to make sense of the jumbled images in her head. But abruptly Emma gave up. She stopped weeping, shoved her hair off her forehead and blew an irritated sigh. "This is all par for the course, though, right?" she said with a bitter laugh. "We Blackbirds always pick the wrong men."

"I'm so sorry he's gone, Emma. I hadn't realized Rush truly meant something to you."

"I know better than to fool around with a married man. I almost fell for the old I'm-going-to-leave-my-wife line. Funny, isn't it? You'd think I'd be smarter than that."

I hated seeing her heartbroken and hopeless again. I knew if I didn't figure out what had happened, she was going to tear herself apart with grief and guilt. I'd seen her do it before, and I wondered if she'd survive it this time.

She couldn't help herself. Not yet. She needed to get healthy first.

"Let's go get something to eat," I suggested, putting
my arm around her again. Spike licked her face. "You look like you could use a meal and a good night's rest."

She leaned against me for the briefest moment and let Spike erase the salty line from her cheek. "What I need is a drink."

Michael knocked on the door then, and I opened it.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Emma's not getting into the trunk again."

He grinned. "Whatever she wants."

I noticed he wasn't carrying the duffel anymore. He took Spike from me.

By the time we reached the alley again, another car was pulling up beside the parked vehicles. Michael turned, Spike in his arm, and recognized the car. He waved it into a parking space.

I didn't know the man who got out of the car, but Michael missed a step at the sight of him.

Michael said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Aldo sent me. He couldn't make it."

"He couldn't make it? What'd he do, break a nail?"

The new guy grinned. He was younger and not as tall as Michael, but he had a swagger and a hard body under a leather jacket and jeans. He'd make a daunting adversary in a brawl, I found myself thinking. He wasn't bad-looking despite having slicked his black hair into a ponytail. He said, "Hey, she sent the Shakespeare kid home early, and Aldo's getting his sister out of custody tonight, so here I am."

Michael sighed.

Emma went over and said, "Who's this? Another one of your minions?"

"Nothing minimal about me, baby."

Michael said, "This is Danny Pescara."

"Mick's cousin," Danny supplied. "Kind of, anyway. Who are you, baby?"

"Cut it out," said Michael.

"You don't need to fight my battles for me." Emma sized up Danny Pescara with a practiced glance. "I can take care of an asshole with one hand tied behind my back."

Danny smiled and fingered the toothpick in his mouth. "We could do a few more things with your hands tied. What are you wearing, anyway?" He looked at her boots. "That's some fashion statement you got going."

"Know anything about horses?"

"I been to the track a few times."

"I don't like this," I said to Michael.

"You and me both. Look, Danny, let's just forget about this thing."

"Don't change your plans on my account." Emma was looking at Danny as if he might make a good punching bag. "I want to see if this idiot can keep the romance alive for more than three minutes."

"First we gotta find out if you can interest me that long, baby."

"Wake up and smell the inadequacy, big boy."

"Oh, Jesus," said Michael. "What's it going to be with you two? Machine guns at dawn?"

"He won't live that long," Emma predicted.

Danny laughed and strutted over to the hillbilly car Michael had just vacated. He opened the driver's side door and bowed to Emma. "You coming?"

She looked at Michael and managed to keep her cool. "Where am I going?"

He saw through her act and softened his tone. "We're just going to keep you out of the limelight for a few days. You'll be someplace safe. At least," he added with a meaningful glance at his cousin, "you better be, or I'll have a smaller family by morning."

Danny shrugged. "You want safe, call an ambulance."

Emma lightly punched Michael's arm. "It's okay, Mick. I'll go with this moron if he promises to buy me a steak."

"Before or after?" Danny asked.

"Just make sure you're not followed," Michael commanded. "And you call me every hour, got that?"

Danny raised his eyebrows at me. "You want to be interrupted every hour, that's no skin off my nose."

To me, Emma said, "Don't worry, Sis. You and the love machine have a nice night. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Be careful, Em."

But I knew I might as well have tossed those cautionary words off the edge of a cliff. Emma went around the car and got into the passenger's side. Michael reluctantly threw the keys at Danny, who winked and slid behind the wheel. A minute later, they were gone, Danny accelerating so the car's rear wheels skittered sideways in the snow before catching some traction and speeding off down the alley.