A Fatal Stain (7 page)

I could call directory assistance and get Ashton’s address before E got so bored he did something creative.

I fished my phone from my pocket and opened it. But before I could dial directory assistance, the phone rang. I pushed the ON button, and Ben’s voice thundered out of it, loud enough to be heard a good distance from my ear. “Dyce! What in hell are you up to?”

I remembered that I had left poor Ben alone with my mother, planning the wedding. As cruel as this might be, he probably deserved it. He was almost as much trouble as Mom, and was probably only mad because I hadn’t supported his plan for boutonniere rats. But it still seemed like unwarranted evil to leave him alone with the woman who had been planning to marry me to him since Ben and I had—unwisely—gone to high school prom together, even though Ben had worn a powder-blue tux, which should have served Mom notice that nothing would come of this.

“Nothing,” I said, defensively, as I put the phone to my ear.

The sound that came from the other side was a combination of a sniff, a snort, and a sigh of exasperation. It sounded something like the noise I imagined a dying pterodactyl might make, but I knew it was actually the call of the exasperated Benedict Colm.

“Dyce,” he said in the world-weary tone that implied he had seen civilizations rise and fall and had never, ever, ever met a woman more exasperating than myself. Which was, at any rate, a gross injustice, since if Ben had seen the civilizations rise and fall, he’d have concentrated on the Greek and Roman and others with shapely young men and not even noticed any of the women.

“What?”

“Nick just called,” he said. “They have an Amber Alert out for E.”

I looked at my son, who was looking out of the window at a couple of people browsing the trashy garage sale. “What?”

“It appears someone took him from the Mahrs’ backyard. Neighbors reported it was a woman in a blue Volvo. Someone who vandalized their trash enclosure.”

I sighed. “It’s my day to have him,” I whined. “They said he had a fever, but he doesn’t. And besides, I didn’t take him. He climbed out by himself.”

“
Climbed
out?”

“I might sort of have removed the gate to the trash enclosure so he could climb out,” I said. “But you know, they didn’t leave him a ladder or anything, so it’s their fault.”

There was a long silence; then Ben said, “I see,” in a
tone that indicated that he did in fact see and what’s more he didn’t approve of what he saw. “I’ll just call Nick, shall I? And tell him that you have E, and he’s fine. Are you sure this is your time to have him?”

“According to the custody agreement it is,” I said. I ran the whole thing through my mind and couldn’t imagine their being able to stick me with anything more than rudeness and possibly mild vandalism. It was my time to have E, and when it all boiled down to facts, anyone would stick by the word of the agreement.

“I see,” Ben said. “I’ll call Nick. You call the Mahrs and tell them you have E.
And
I will meet you at your house.”

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’m sure—”

“I
will
meet you at your house,” Ben said, firmly. “I’m already on the way.” And he hung up.

I’d often said, and it bore repeating, that of all the exasperating people in the world, Ben was probably the worst and that it was a good thing for all concerned that he had no interest in women.

Oh, sure, an ex-lover of his had done his best to set fire to that portion of Ben’s condo that he couldn’t throw out the balcony. But a woman would have been more targeted and careful, and Ben would be dead by now. She would have thrown
him
from the balcony, even if it took a lever.

I considered my options. I could call Michelle Mahr at home. The problem with calling someone, though, is that there is more than a good chance they will answer. And if she answered, I wasn’t absolutely sure what I’d do. There was bound to be some unpleasantness, and she might ask questions. It wouldn’t be a good thing. Or
I could call All-ex at work. It was the weekend, so he wouldn’t be there. Granted, he owned the realty company, but that was why he didn’t need to work on weekends. He had flunkies for that.

But then I thought that Ben would probably insist it didn’t fulfill the spirit of the thing for me to call a number the Mahrs wouldn’t check for two days.

Sighing, I dialed their house number. And lucked out. There was a busy sound, and ten seconds later the answering machine kicked up. “You have reached the residence of Alexander and Michelle Mahr. If you’re not a telemarketer, please leave a message at the tone.”

“Hi,” I said. “This is Dyce. Dyce Dare,” in case they knew more than one Dyce who sounded incredibly guilty. “I came by and E was…in the alley, and he didn’t seem feverish at all, so I picked him up. I’ll give him back to you on Wednesday.” I hung up and leaned against the seat, taking deep breaths and thinking that I’d give him back when pigs flew. If I couldn’t trust them not to lie to me and try to keep him, I didn’t want to give him to them at all.

I found my son was staring at me with wide open eyes. “You didn’t tell them how I got out, did you?”

“No,” I said. “Just that you were in the alley.”

“Oh, good,” he said. “They ask so many questions.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling guilty for backing the budding infantile delinquent against my fellow, supposedly responsible, adults. But I remembered being a budding infantile delinquent myself, and besides, I had very little patience for the Mahrs right now. What could they have meant by lying to me?

It might be something as stupid as their wanting to
show E off at some work-related function or other. All-ex liked to convey the impression that he was a devoted father without actually having much to do with E, who mostly got shuttled between myself and Mrs. All-ex. But if that was behind it, why didn’t they just tell me that? I’d never given them problems over that sort of thing before.

It was still bothering me as I pulled up in front of my house, right next to Cas’s SUV and behind Ben’s new—cream, exactly like the last one—BMW.

They both stepped away from their cars at the same time, as if I were a dangerous felon who must be contained. Ben had clearly been waiting beside his car and now walked toward me, as I opened the door, while Cas walked the other way, toward the passenger side of my car.

I thought it best to ignore them both and walk around, to open the door to E. Only E had already opened the door and was getting out. By the time I closed the door and gave E my hand, the two men were so close that I could feel both their sighs of exasperation as they loomed over me.

I looked up at them, with my best confused and innocent expression. “What?” I said. “It’s my day to get him.”

“I bet you didn’t even call the Mahrs,” Ben said.

“Wrong,” I said. “I left a message on their machine.”

“At Alex’s work,” Ben snapped.

Ah! He could, too, be wrong. His telepathy apparatus must be on the blink. “No,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, turning to walk toward the front door. “At their home.”

Since the guys were blocking the logical path between
my car and Ben’s, I squeezed between their parked cars. Ben tried to follow me, but he didn’t fit, so, with a sound of exasperation, he walked the long way around the car. Presumably, Cas did the same in the other direction, because as I got to my front door, the men were closing in on me, one from either side again.

I put my key in the lock and squared my shoulders. Holding my hand, E giggled.

I considered closing the door in both their faces, but decided that would be a bad idea. I could probably have a wedding without Ben, even if it might jinx it. But Cas was sort of essential to my marital plans, after all. At least unless I forged a proxy document in his name, which of course I would do, if absolutely needed. For his own good, of course. But I’d rather not have to.

So I let them come in behind us, and I went to the kitchen. I let go of E’s hand in the living room, fully expecting him to go to his room and play with his toys or pet Pythagoras or draw or whatever it was he did in there. But the little wretch followed me to the kitchen, which could only mean he expected something interesting would happen, in the way of fascinating arguments between three adults in his life.

I pretended I didn’t know what would happen and started making coffee. In the living room, I heard the guys whisper at each other, and I suspected it wasn’t tips about how to tie a perfect tie knot or how to design a rat boutonniere. I suspected it was either a rousing pre-battle speech or strategizing on how to approach me. Right.

“Dyce,” Cas said, coming into the kitchen. Ben came
in behind him and went to sit with E at the kitchen table. The kitchen consisted of tiled counters, an ancient tiled floor, a stove that had seen better days, and my grandmother’s beautiful antique kitchen table, surrounded by four matching chairs.

Cas sounded perfectly reasonable, which was just like him. Trying to get around me by being reasonable. Ah! He’d just see where that got him. I could defeat anyone trying to sound reasonable with my sheer lack of reason.

“You know you can’t do stuff like this,” he said. “When we’re married, it will sound like you’re doing this stuff because you know you can get away with it and…”

I glared at him. “It’s my day to have E.”

“Well, that’s fine,” he said, sounding like sweet sanity. Why is it he always does that when I’m spoiling for
a fight? It would be so much easier to scream, argue, and then be done. But nooooooo, he has to try to be reasonable. And I couldn’t even be mad at him, of course, because he was being…reasonable.

My front doorbell sounded, and Ben got up to go answer it, which meant for sure it was Nick. Right. For some reason, the fact that Ben would just open the door to his boyfriend without asking me first made me furious. I mean, he’d had keys to my house since…ever. And had I come back from an errand to find him and Nick sitting in my living room or even cooking in my kitchen, I’d have thought very little of it and waited for an explanation. And even if the explanation had been “We’re just tired of our kitchen and decided to change stoves,” that would be fine, too.

But right then, his taking the liberty to open the door to Nick like that just made me feel taken advantage of.

The fact that the two of them were whispering in my living room didn’t help. “I can hear you,” I said, crossly, just loud enough for my voice to carry to the living room.

“No, you really can’t,” Ben said. And Nick said something I couldn’t understand. Just proving I couldn’t hear him, I guessed. More of that annoying male logic. As if he had to rub my nose in it.

I got another cup from the cupboard and splashed coffee into all of them, thinking I’d much rather be pouring it onto male heads. Cas put his hand on my arm. “Dyce, look, I know it’s your day to have E and if you’d told Michelle Mahr that they couldn’t keep him, you’d have been absolutely in the right, but the thing is you didn’t. And then you went to their house and got him out of the backyard…You’re lucky they didn’t charge you with criminal mischief.”

Nick and Ben came in and, wordlessly, picked up their cups. Nick looks like a more casual version of Bacchus. He could have walked out of the friezes in a dozen ancient Greek palaces. Because I guess he was on duty—what part of duty was for both Nick and Cas to lounge around my kitchen—he wore khaki pants and a white polo shirt, instead of his normal jeans and T-shirts. Still, next to Ben’s freshly pressed elegance, he looked almost terminally relaxed, a pose not helped by his managing to lean against my kitchen counter, coffee cup in hand, giving the impression he was posing for a fashion magazine.

I glared at Cas, who as far as I was concerned had started all this. “I didn’t get him out of the backyard,” I said. “He got himself out of the backyard.”

“Okay,” Cas said. “So he climbed the gate himself. That doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Who removed the gate?”

“If they didn’t want their gate removed, they should have left something on the other side for E to climb. A ladder, for instance.”

E nodded vigorously at this.

Cas dropped into a chair and put his head in his hands. “Woman,” he said in the voice of a man tempted beyond all endurance. “What am I going to do with you?”

I heard Ben clear his throat and was seized with a horrible fear that he was about to make suggestions. I was almost sure they would be purely theoretical, but I didn’t want to hear them all the same. “You don’t have to do anything with me,” I said, stiffly. “I’m an adult. I can—”

He took his hands down from his face, and I could see him working his lips to say the unforgivable, then realizing it was the unforgivable and pulling back. He sighed. “Look, Dyce, it’s just that you have to think of
my position, too. I mean, we’re going to be married, which means what you do reflects on me, okay? I don’t like it, and you don’t like it, but it’s the way things are. I can’t afford to have you going around acting as if laws didn’t apply to you. Not that I don’t find what you do…criminally endearing…” I could
hear
Ben roll his eyes behind my back. “But you can’t keep doing it. Not and allow me to keep my job.”