An Affair to Dismember (18 page)

Holden waited outside the bathroom door. He walked me to my bed and tucked me in.

“Thank you for everything. You’re my knight in shining armor,” I said.

Holden took a seat in the chair next to the bed and held my hand.

“I’m sticking around until morning, just in case Peter happens by or you get any more visitors bearing frozen food,” he said.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. But I was already halfway asleep. “I should have stuck with matchmaking. There’s no death in matchmaking.” I held his hand in both of mine. It was dry and warm and made me hungry for the rest of him. If only I wasn’t so tired.

“You’ll get back on the matchmaking wagon tomorrow. Now rest and dream something nice.”

“I’ll dream about you,” I mumbled. “Handsome Holden with his wavy blond locks.”

WHEN I woke, the sunlight was streaming through my window, the birds were chirping merrily, and Holden was slumped in my armchair, his gorgeous, perfect face slack, and his long legs stretched out in front of him. He didn’t snore. His Levi’s were worn, and I let my eyes travel up from his boots to his waistband.

I sighed. Holden stirred and opened his eyes.

“No,” I said. “Go back to sleep. I like watching you sleep.”

“That’s fair. I watched you a few hours last night, too.” He stretched, standing up. He eyed me. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Great.” But then I moved. “Not so great,” I amended. I struggled to my feet. My muscles rebelled, tightening in protest. Every bruise and scrape was screaming at me.

“Easy,” Holden said, helping me to my feet. “You don’t have to run a marathon today. You can rest, take a day off from being Wonder Woman.”

“Aspirin,” I moaned.

“Where?”

“Downstairs.”

“Stay here. I’ll run down and get it.”

“No, I’ll go, too. I want a bagel to go with it.”

Holden tucked an errant curl behind my ear, letting his fingers flutter against my cheek. He burned holes through me with his eyes. I was warm all over. It was like having my body slathered in Bengay but with a much better smell.

“Oh,” I said.

“You know, I thought it would take me a lot longer to make it up to your bedroom.”

“You’ve found me out. Getting dragged by a car was my little strategy to lure you up here.”

“Clever girl,” he said, his voice soft and deep. He leaned down and kissed my lips with a feather-light touch. He cupped my face in his hands and drew me closer. Our tongues met, and I took a step forward. I realized with a start that my body hurt a lot less. Even stranger, I had been transformed into a morning person.

WE MADE it downstairs to the kitchen a few minutes later. Grandma, Bird Gonzalez, and her pedicurist filled the room.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

I was conspicuous. I was still wearing my terrycloth robe. I had slept on wet hair, which meant that one side was plastered to my head and the other side was sticking up in angry spikes. I’m sure my cheeks were rosy—I had been trying to get my blood pressure down for the last ten minutes.

And those were the reasons for the gasps from the ladies-filled kitchen, or perhaps it was because of the man who followed me in, the man who was as rumpled as I but in a sexy Brad-Pitt-doesn’t-even-come-close kind of way.

There was a quieter gasp from Holden behind me, more genteel and circumspect, which was admirable, considering. I would have bet it was the first time Holden had ever seen an elderly woman getting a perm and a pedicure in her kitchen with cries of “Get the bunions, will you?” coming from her at regular intervals.

Bird was spending the morning on Grandma. Her salon was closed on Mondays, but that didn’t stop her from bringing it to Grandma’s kitchen. “Your grandmother knows the importance of grooming,” Bird had explained to me one day. “Age doesn’t mean a thing. Neither does the fact that she never leaves her property. Your grandmother doesn’t believe in gray roots.”

So Bird came every Monday morning. The kitchen table was covered in Pop-Tarts, coffee cups, cheese Danish, rollers, brushes, and a callus grater.

“Yum, cheese Danish. Is there any more coffee?” I asked.

But no one was listening to me. They had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Holden like he was the prize bull at the Cannes Springfest. All except for Grandma, who had seen him before, of course. She was pointing at her toes, telling the pedicurist to watch out for ingrown toenails.

“Everybody, this is Arthur Holden, our new neighbor,” I said.

“You can call me Holden,” he said, just as Bridget entered through the other door, a Danish sticking out of her mouth and a pile of papers in her hands. She noticed him, and the papers slid from her hands, falling to the floor in a tangled mess that undoubtedly would take her hours to set straight.

“Holden, this is my dear friend Bridget,” I said.

“Nice to meet you.” He put his hand out, but she stood dumbly, the Danish still in her mouth. I related to her. Holden had the same effect on me.

“Maybe you should go,” I told him. At this rate, I would never get my Danish.

“Anybody home?” Lucy called from the entranceway. The screen door creaked closed. “Zelda? Gladie? Anybody here?”

Lucy pranced into the kitchen, a picture of Southern grace, elegance, and peach chiffon.

“Are we having a party?” she asked, looking around at the crowded kitchen. “Oh, my,” she said, fanning herself once she had gotten a good look at Holden.

“Who do we have here? If you’re the plumber, I would love for you to look at my pipes.” She put her hand out for him to kiss. Holden took it and gave it a firm shake.

“Breathe deep and take a step back, Scarlett,” I said. “This is Holden. The new neighbor.”

“The sexy new neighbor. Yes, indeed. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you. Tell me, Mr. Holden, what is it that you do?”

“Whatever I can get away with, miss,” he said.

“Did you hear that? He called me miss.”

There was general giggling from the women in the kitchen. I had a terrible fear they would rush him at any moment.

“Bird, are you planning on frying my hair?” Grandma asked. “I pride myself on my thick head of hair, but one more minute in this solution and I’m going to be bald as a billiard ball.”

Bird squealed and went to work on the rollers. “So sorry, Zelda. I don’t know what came over me. I’ll get you rinsed pronto.”

“Maybe you should go,” I told Holden again.

He nodded and pulled me out of the kitchen.

“Remember our deal,” he said.

“Girl Scout’s honor.”

“I’ll look into Chuck Costas. Maybe I can find something.”

“You will?” I asked.

“Yes. And you’ll rest, right?”

“Right.”

Holden made his way to the front door, and I took a seat at the table.

“Holy crap. Did you see his ass?”

Bird washed Grandma’s hair in the sink. I poured myself a cup of coffee, took a Danish, and sat at the table.

“Well? Did you see his ass or what?” Bird repeated.

“I thought it was a rhetorical question,” I said. “I haven’t gotten under the jeans, no. I just met the guy. Bird, watch your language. My grandmother is right here.”

“She’s right, dolly,” Grandma said from under the tap. “Holden’s got a great ass.”

Bridget rifled through her papers, making little piles on the table. “Talk about winning the genetic lottery,” she commented.

“I asked around,” Lucy told me. “Your sexy neighbor used to be in the CIA.”

I choked on my Danish. “CIA?”

“I heard he was the Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden in the face,” the pedicurist piped in.

“That’s not true,” Bird said. “I heard from a reliable source Holden is a drug runner.”

Bridget snorted. “A drug runner in Cannes? Oh, please. Besides, I was at the grocery store, and the entire checkout lane said he was a stuntman and Brad Pitt’s stand-in. Or a butt model.”

“Holden is not a drug runner,” Grandma said from under one of Bird’s towels.

Our heads turned to Grandma. “Well, Zelda, what does Holden do?” Bird demanded.

“He never told me,” she said.

Eyebrows raised all over the kitchen. “What does that have to do with anything?” Bird asked. “What does he do?”

“I sense strength from him,” said Grandma. “And travel. And a nice ass.” It was uncharacteristically vague for Grandma, and the disappointment in the room was palpable.

“I still think he shot Osama bin Laden,” said the pedicurist.

“An international man of mystery,” Lucy said. “Well, well. Cannes is getting so interesting.”

Holden didn’t seem like an international man of mystery to me. He wore jeans and work boots. Mystery men wore black turtlenecks and fatigues, and they lived in Monaco, Malibu, or at least Minneapolis. Holden was probably an architect or a writer, or maybe he was an importer/exporter. Although, it wasn’t such a stretch to imagine him as Brad Pitt’s stand-in or a butt model.

All the speculation about Holden was a fun exercise but made me realize I didn’t know anything about him.
All I knew was that he was perfect, he wanted to save me, and he thought I was as tasty as chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling.

Bird wrapped a towel around Grandma’s shoulders. “Well, I was right. Those pheromones sure are working for you, Gladie.”

Bird had a point. I was attracting top-tier men. And without makeup, Spanx, or even a brush through my hair.

“You’ve got some mighty fine flies buzzing around you, Gladie,” said Lucy. “What are you going to do about it?”

What was I going to do about it? I hadn’t given it a thought. My thoughts were elsewhere. Focus on murder, find love. Was there a lesson there?

“I’m going to fix up Ruth’s grandniece, Julie,” I said.

Grandma slapped her thigh. “Excellent. A man might act as a buffer, make her less dangerous. Find a man with a bulletproof vest.”

“That was exactly my idea,” I said. “Who wants to go with me today to work on the match?”

“I’ll be here for a while getting your grandmother’s papers organized,” Bridget said. “And I have a protest later.”

“I have a couple of hours,” said Lucy. “I would love to go with you. Will we see Mr. Holden again?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I have a little work to do in the attic first.”

Lucy jumped up from her chair. “Great. I’ll spy on the Ternses’ house and keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.”

That won’t be hard
, I thought.

“Those are weird people,” Bird declared.

“I already told Gladie all about them,” Grandma said. “Fools won’t sell their house. Have you ever heard such a thing?”

Bird clucked her tongue. “That woman has never gotten her hair done. She does it herself.” Do-it-yourself beauty was anathema to Bird. There was no greater sin.

“Maybe she goes to a different salon,” I suggested.

“Gladie, I’m a professional, and I know everybody in this town. That woman has been setting and coloring her own hair since the beginning of time. I don’t make mistakes about those sorts of things.”

I popped four aspirin, slipped on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and met Lucy in the attic. I made an index card for Julie and one for Sergeant Fred. Obviously the money would have to come from him, although it was possible Ruth would splurge to have her grandniece off her hands. I had seen my grandmother extract a matchmaking fee from the unlikeliest sources, and I thought I had the sales pitch down, but I practiced anyway while Lucy spied out the window.