4 Arch Enemy of Murder (2 page)

“You look like someone who went through a trash bin to get dressed.”

“Why would I wear nice clothes just to get them sweaty?” Lacy asked. She wore an old t-shirt with an outdated turtleneck underneath, along with a well-worn pair of jogging pants. The ensemble didn’t exactly match, but she wasn’t planning on having her photo taken; she was going for a run.

“Whatever,” Riley said. She stepped from her room—formerly Lacy’s room—and Lacy noted she was wearing running gear that cost as much as Lacy’s new shoes.

“You’re going running?” Lacy said.

“Nothing gets by you, sis,” Riley said. She quirked an eyebrow in Lacy’s direction. “You want to run together?”

The answer to that was a resounding no. Riley had always been athletic, and she was one of those odd creatures who actually enjoyed sweating. She was no doubt a faster and smoother runner than Lacy. But there was also a competitive edge to her tone when she asked the question. The tone couldn’t be ignored.

“Sure,” Lacy said, smiling in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
New shoes, don’t fail me now.
“But I have to talk to you about something.” She filled her in on Travis’s idea for a double date. She tried to talk up Travis’s good points; maybe Riley would be so interested that she would want to go out with him with no further incentive.

Riley clasped her hands behind her back, looking thoughtful. “I want something.”

“What?” Lacy asked.

“I don’t know yet. I have to think about it.”

“It has to be within reason,” Lacy said. “And by that I mean something I would consider reasonable.”

“Like what? A box of Ho-ho’s? It’s going to be bigger than that,” Riley said. “Are you trying to stall on our run?”

“No,” Lacy said. “Let’s go.”

There was no warm-up as they left the house. As soon as they stepped off the front porch, Riley started to run and Lacy tried to keep up. For about ten feet they were neck and neck. Lacy wasn’t even breathing hard. Just when she began to think that maybe all her hard workouts the last few months were paying off, the shooting pains started in her feet, inching their way up to her knees and settling deep in her thighs.

She was dying. There was no other explanation for the icicle stabs of pain radiating from her arches and shooting to the rest of her body. Perhaps that was how the new shoes were supposed to work—one lost weight by expiring. All Lacy knew was that she had to stop, but she couldn’t. A quick glance to her left showed Riley running in perfect stride, not even breaking a sweat. If Lacy gave up now, she would never hear the end of it. So she pressed on. Maybe if she lifted her legs higher, the pain would lessen.

“Why are you marching like a Nazi in Hitler’s army?” Riley asked, sounding not at all breathless.

Lacy couldn’t answer. If she opened her mouth, shrieks of agony would emerge to divulge her secret. Instead she kept up the sprint/march, hoping against hope that the pain would lesson if she simply powered through.

“I’m starting to remember why we’ve never run together before,” Riley said. “People are going to think I’m doing a good deed by taking a mental patient for some much-needed exercise.”

Lacy had no comeback, both because she still couldn’t speak and because it was probably true. If Riley ran ahead of her, there was a good chance people would think Lacy—with her mismatched clothing and schizophrenic stride—was trying to chase her down. On the other hand, it was always fun to humiliate her little sister. She began waving her arms maniacally in the air and Riley diverged, putting more space between them.

The fun of being able to mortify Riley temporarily distracted her from the pain, but it returned all too soon. There was no way she was going to be able to make it all the way home. She looked around for salvation and found it in the form of Tosh’s church, sitting a hundred feet ahead like a beacon of hope.

“Have to see friend,” Lacy panted. “See you home.”

Riley nodded, looking relieved. At least Lacy could hope her sister wouldn’t challenge her to a run again anytime soon. She ran up the steps to Tosh’s church, her pent-up tears of pain finally finding release as they coursed down her face. With one last glance to make sure Riley was out of sight, she reached the top step and dropped to her knees, crawling through the narthex like someone who had dropped a contact—head down, pace slow, concentration high. In reality she was merely trying to make it to Tosh’s office before she collapsed.

She inched over the threshold and encountered Pearl, Tosh’s roadblock of a secretary.

“Pastor Underwood is busy,” Pearl said, not even looking up from whatever held her attention.

Knowing better than to try and argue with Pearl, Lacy instead pulled out her phone and dialed Tosh’s cell. She could hear it ring in the next room.

“Hey,” he said, sounding cheerful.

“Could you step outside your door, please?” Lacy asked.

“Why, what…” his words cut off, his smile frozen, as he opened the door and saw her lying a dozen feet away. Closing his phone, he dashed forward and knelt beside her. “What happened?”

“I murdered my arches.”

“New shoes didn’t work out so well, huh?”

She shook her head.

He leaned closer and inspected the shoes. “Lacy, you have them on the wrong feet.”

She pushed herself up on her hands. “How can you tell? Do you read German?”

“No, but L and R are the same in any language.” He bent her right foot, showing her the giant L on the bottom of the shoe.

“Oh. I didn’t see that,” Lacy said.

“Can you stand?” Tosh said.

“Theoretically? Yes. In actuality? I can’t feel anything from the hips down, which is good because the pain before the numbness was intense.”

“Guess I’m going to have to carry you,” Tosh said, grinning.

“No,” Lacy blurted. She didn’t want him to carry her. That would feel awkward. Things with him had been borderline awkward since she returned from New York. She didn’t want anything to make it worse.

“All right, let me help you up and I’ll drive you home.” He put out his arm and attempted to lever her up while she scrambled like Bambi on ice. What sensation she had left in her legs felt rubbery, but as soon as she put her weight on her feet, the shooting pains began again and she yelped. Behind them, Pearl clucked her tongue and shook her head in disapproval.

“Here,” Tosh said. He turned his back to Lacy and crouched. “Hop on, Yoda.”

She couldn’t hop, but she somehow managed to climb up on his back. He carried her out of the church, down the steps, and to his car.

The drive home was quiet, and not the good kind. He parked in her grandmother’s driveway and surveyed the house. “When am I going to get to meet your phantom sister?”

The dislike in his tone was heartening. “How’s Sunday night?” she asked before launching into an explanation about Travis.

Tosh agreed to go, all the while shaking his head. “What’s Travis thinking? I don’t even know her and I know it’s not going to work out between them.”

“Some people aren’t logical when it comes to love,” Lacy said.

“That’s for sure,” Tosh said, sounding dismal all over again. Lacy thought of her twisted trio with Jason and Tosh. Right now no one was happy or getting what they wanted. With effort, she pushed the depressing thoughts away. Her friendship with Tosh was secure, Lacy had no doubts about that. Whatever trouble they were having was temporary. They understood each other; they would work through whatever was going on. Things with Jason, however, were much more uncertain. She had no idea what was going to happen there, and the insecurity made her anxious.

“So, Sunday,” Tosh said. Lacy knew it was her cue to get out of the car.

“Sunday,” she repeated. She put her hand on the door when he spoke again.

“I have a date tonight.”

Lacy paused and turned back to him. “With whom?”

He grinned. “Whom, Lacy? Really? Who uses that word in real life?”

“Someone who majored in English,” she said. “Are you holding out on me?”

“Nope. Her name is Nancy. She’s the secretary for a pastor I know a couple of towns over. She’s sweet, pretty, and stable. She has pastor’s wife material stamped all over her.”

Lacy couldn’t contain her surprise. “Oh.” She blinked at the dashboard a few times, trying to process. “Are you going to call me after and tell me how it went?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Have you met me? Since when am I not nosy?”

“Good point. All right, I’ll call after. You can give me the girl perspective on how you think it went.”

“Sounds good,” Lacy said, hoping it was true. Suddenly it felt like everyone was moving forward but her. This was a good thing, though. She knew Tosh was lonely and ready to settle down. Of course she would have to meet this Nancy person to make sure she had the Tosh stamp of approval. Could anyone be worthy of Tosh? Lacy had her doubts.

She waved goodbye and limped into the house, peeling off her shoes as soon as she entered the door. By all rights, they should be filled with her blood. She sank to the floor and leaned against the door until she heard Riley’s step on the porch. Then she jumped up and scurried to her room, trying in vain to convince herself that she wasn’t actually hiding from her little sister.

Work had become Lacy’s refuge. With the help of her grandfather, Lacy finally set up an office for herself in the unclaimed portion of the third floor of her building. The rational part of her mind told her that having an office was ridiculous. She was a glorified landlord. The emotional part of her loved the fact that it was all hers, that it represented what she was trying to do with the Stakely building and, most importantly, that it had a coffeemaker. Perhaps it was silly, but she felt like an honest-to-goodness professional when she put on a skirt and blouse, went to the Stakely building, and made a pot of coffee in her office.

At first she had been concerned that she wouldn’t have anything to do, that she would simply sit behind the desk all day twiddling her thumbs and trying hard not to consume the chocolate pie she kept in her bottom drawer for emergencies. But almost from the moment she attached her phone, it started ringing, and Lacy had been busy ever since. Not only was she consumed with the Stakely building, but people in town had started calling to ask her opinion on things. Lacy couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly important in the scheme of the town’s daily operations, but the questions were steady nonetheless. Now she kept regular working hours. It was she who opened and closed the Stakely building every day in a routine that was becoming comfortingly familiar.

“Hey, Joe,” she said as soon as she approached the building. Joe Anton, the man Lacy had unwittingly befriended when she visited him in prison, sat in his usual spot on the second from top stair. He looked as scruffy and disheveled as he had the day Lacy visited him in jail. Sometimes she worried that he slept on the stairs of the Stakely building, but she knew the police checked the place nightly. She also knew that Joe had lived with his sister ever since his release from prison. Almost immediately after he was free, he returned like a stray cat to his old haunt, the Stakely building. He looked a little like an old cat, Lacy thought as she took in his scruffy white whiskers and pinched face. And, just like an old cat, he was friendly, sweet, and kept to himself.

“What do you think are the chances I can make a decent cup of coffee today?” she asked.

“Not good, Lacy,” he said, scooting in behind her as she unlocked the door. He dogged her footsteps on the way up the stairs, too. The freight elevator was in good working order, but Lacy took the stairs because since Riley came home, she had been overindulging in her grandmother’s treats in an effort to ease her ever-present anxiety. She forgot until she was halfway up that her feet weren’t working properly. Joe paused while Lacy popped her shoes off and carried them on the tips of her fingers. They resumed their walk, not stopping until they reached her office. Joe waited while she unlocked that, too, and then shimmied inside before the door could close as if he was afraid to touch it for himself.

He sank into the chair beside the coffee pot and waited expectantly while she began her brew. Coffee always reminded her of Jason and the lesson he gave her on how to make it. It hadn’t stuck because she inevitably messed it up. She could never remember the proper ratio of coffee scoops to water so that the coffee was alternately too strong or too weak each day. Joe drank it nonetheless, a grimace to show his displeasure on the worst of days.