Electric Blue (14 page)

“She’s a lawyer,” Mom said, as if trying the word out on her tongue. “She practices criminal law.”

“I know, Mom.”

“She deals with criminals, I guess.”

“Or innocent victims. Booth’s with the police,” I pointed out.

“I guess that’s how they got to know each other?”

She’d learned all of this information weeks ago. I wasn’t sure why I was called upon to ensure its veracity. Maybe she thought that upon first meeting her, Sharona would give her a test.

“Do you like her?”

I heard the hope in my mother’s voice, and though my immediate response was to answer “yes,” I honestly wasn’t sure if I liked Sharona or not. I don’t know Sharona that well yet, and she’s kind of prickly. I’m sure it was her idea to get me the baby blue jogging suit.

I was afraid she would question me further, but apparently there was more on my mother’s mind. She moved on to other topics without waiting for my response. There appears to be a ritual only she understands, so we chatted away about nothing while I kept one eye on the clock. I was hungry. The little fairy cakes and tea hadn’t come my way after all. No one had the decency to grab for one. A damn shame and a terrible waste. Now, I was in desperate need of food. I wanted to call Dwayne back. I wanted to see Dwayne and have a debriefing.

Finally, she came around to what she wanted. “Booth and Sharona are planning to get married in Oregon. Not in a church. At some hall or something.”

“Yeah, but not for six months or so.”

“Next summer, but these things take so much planning.”

I had no idea how involved Booth’s wedding plans were. My brother wasn’t the type to make it a big deal, but maybe Sharona wanted the whole enchilada. I had a sudden gaggy thought about bridesmaids and bridal gowns and where I fit into the scheme of things. “Seems to me that sounds like enough time.”

“I was just thinking about the guest list.” Another pause. “Do you think Booth will invite your father?”

Her words stopped me cold. Of all the things I’d expected, this wasn’t one. My mother and father had divorced when Booth and I were two, and he’d stayed away from us like we were a bad smell, so it wasn’t like we had any real connection to him. He’d been a deadbeat dad; barely managing child support, though by all accounts he was a successful lawyer. He’d married his secretary at some point and pumped out a trio of kids. Maybe more by now. I had no idea. I’d never had anything to do with any of them. Neither had Booth, as far as I knew. “I doubt it. Geez, Mom. I’m surprised you even thought so. We don’t talk to him.”

“Oh, good.” She was relieved. “I didn’t want to impose my wishes, but it would be awkward.”

No shit. I couldn’t picture what I would say to the man who’d run away from his first marriage and children as if they had leprosy. The idea that he’d fathered a new family and found his way to love and cherish them bugged me in a way that would probably send a smarter person than I to the psychiatrist’s couch. As it was, I was in complete denial and glad to be there.

“I’ll see you soon,” Mom said as she hung up.

I called Dwayne, again, and left a blistering message on his voice mail about people who never answer their cell. Frustrated, I dug through my refrigerator. Failing there, I opened the freezer door and grabbed a small frozen meal of pasta, chicken and Alfredo sauce, refusing to look at the pull date. I microwaved it. As soon as it was cool enough for me to test my tongue on it, I gave it a taste. Not much to recommend it except that it was right in front of me. In that it met the only criteria I cared about. I dug in with gusto.

I put in a couple more calls to Dwayne, just to bug him. It felt good to transfer my worry over Orchid to annoyance with Dwayne. I sang the first few bars of a camp song on the second call, a dirty ditty that I’d learned from an older boy who’d tried hard to get into my pants when I was about thirteen. He’d pretty much struck out with everyone of the female sex; I’d been way down the list. He didn’t score with me, either, as I had ideas about love, marriage, and happily ever after that didn’t jibe with stolen moments of fumbled and hurried sexual encounters in the great outdoors. Also, he didn’t brush his teeth well.

I wondered if I should call Jazz. Or go to his house. I’m a terrible, terrible waiter. To distract myself I called Cynthia. She answered but said in hushed tones that she was on a date with Ernst.

“A date?” I questioned.

“Stop by the gallery and meet him later this week,” she urged.

“Okay.”

A date…The very idea made me feel blue. I picked up my keys. I
would
go to Jazz’s. Why not?

“Damn,” I muttered through my teeth, placing a call instead. He answered on the second ring.

“Oh, I’m glad you called,” he said, and my spirits lifted a bit. We talked about Orchid’s disappearance at length, well, Jazz did the talking/worrying and I just hung onto the phone for human contact. Hearing Logan in the background, complaining about something, made me relieved I’d stayed home after all. Jazz was just warming up on the fretting, and I listened quietly, inwardly stewing and worrying myself. Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel worse, and pretty soon I pretended exhaustion and hung up. I grabbed my living room/TV watching green quilt, cocooned myself inside and curled up on the couch. Binks came up to me and scratched at me with one paw. I scooted back to give her room and she jumped up and nosed her way under the blanket. We adjusted into sleep mode with me trying to shut my brain down and Binks snorting and snuffling as she settled down by my feet.

I thought it would never happen, but we were both asleep inside of ten minutes.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I shot to my feet, disoriented. It sounded like the roof was caving in. Stumbling around, I tried to get my brain to catch up. Where was I? What time was it? Two
A
.
M
.? Three? I squinted at the clock above the fireplace. Nine-thirty? Impossible. I looked again. Nine twenty-five, actually.

Binkster woofed a couple of times, and dug herself from beneath the blanket. She must have been convinced I was in no mortal danger; otherwise she would have trotted after me. She’s a notorious chicken, but in the face of a real threat she can rise to the occasion. She looked toward the kitchen with dark, liquid eyes as I realized someone was pounding on my back door.

It felt like all the hair on my body had lifted. My skin tingled. Unlike Binks, I wasn’t sure who or what had come to visit. Was this related to Orchid’s disappearance? I tiptoed forward, my mind casting about for a weapon, just in case. I’d dragged my feet to get licensed to own a gun. I can’t quite make myself carry one. Now, I sternly reprimanded myself. It would just make me
feel
better to think I had protection from anything that came my way.

I peeked around the corner to the kitchen. A man was framed in the glass of my back door. My heart clenched and I made an involuntary squeak of fear. Binkster jumped from the couch and came to my aid, a growl beginning in the back of her throat.

The growl turned to a yip of joy as Dwayne rattled the lock and peered inside at me. He was holding two bottles of wine. “Are you going to open the damn thing?” he demanded.

Muttering under my breath, I flipped the lock. Damn Dwayne. “You could give me a heart attack. It’s late,” I groused, as I switched on the light. I blinked in the blast of illumination that followed.

“Late? You gotta be kidding.” He stepped inside, set the wine on the counter, then squatted down, playing with Binkster, who wriggled and twisted and wagged her tail in sheer joy. She jumped up and licked him on the face a couple of times, too. He petted and nuzzled her right back.

Dwayne glanced up and read whatever showed on my face. “Tough day at the geriatric ward, darlin’?”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Have you got anything to eat around here? I missed lunch.”

“Look who you’re talking to.”

He took a gander inside my refrigerator anyway, snorting in disgust at what he found. Or, more accurately, what he didn’t find. Flipping open his cell phone, he pushed speed dial, connecting with a local pizza joint. I listened while he ordered a large pepperoni with double cheese and though it sounded like trouble for one with on-again/off-again lactose intolerance, saliva formed in my mouth.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to debrief you.”

“Yeah? You coulda called.”

“Your phone’s dead. But I enjoyed the song. Maybe later you could sing me the rest of it.”

I yanked the phone from my pocket and looked down at its blank face. “I’ll put it on my list of things to do before I die. I don’t get this. It’s dead. I swear to God, this battery sucks.”

“Who gave you the hickey? Jazz?”

I clapped a hand to the side of my neck as I headed to my bedroom to plug the phone into its charger. “An accident with my curling iron.”

“Good thing you don’t like guns.”

I set up the cell phone, glad to see it beep and whir to life now that it was being fed with electricity. Before heading back to the kitchen I examined my “hickey.” Grimacing, I wondered if Jazz may have thought the same thing.

When I returned to the kitchen Dwayne had put one bottle of white in the refrigerator and had uncorked the second. He was pouring us each a glass. Handing me mine, he arranged himself on one of my barstools. He wore a light blue shirt with snap-on mother-of-pearl buttons and his ubiquitous pair of disreputable denim jeans. His blondish-brown hair had grown longer than usual; it actually came over his ears a bit. Dwayne is nowhere near as classically handsome as Jazz, but there’s something distinctly male about him that I try hard to ignore. If I’ve had too many drinks he starts to look good to me in dangerous ways. His blue eyes aren’t as brilliant as Jazz’s but they’re sharp and astute and ironic.

“Orchid—Nana—is missing. I was the last one with her, and I seem to be the one everyone blames.” The weariness settled over me again.

Dwayne nodded as I sat down on the barstool next to him.

“You knew?” I asked incredulously.

“Cammie called me and said the Purcells wouldn’t be needing your services any longer.”

I could feel the back of my neck grow hot. “Well, thanks for telling me.”

“Darlin’, things are just getting interesting. Sounds like Grandma decided to get the hell out before they made her start signing things she didn’t wanna.”

“Maybe she just wandered off,” I said, but I’d begun to think that wasn’t likely. My gut feeling said there was something else going on.

“You didn’t find her anywhere on the grounds or nearby. And you looked pretty hard.”

“Cammie can’t fire me. Jazz hired me. And since when are you still talking to her?”

“I told you. The woman just keeps calling.”

“They’re the weirdest bunch,” I said with feeling. “All of them. And it doesn’t help that the men are a lot more attractive than the women. It’s like some lesson off the Discovery Channel: see how the males’ plumage makes them bright and colorful, while the peahens hide in dull camouflage in the reeds.”

“So, what are you gonna do next?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to think about it.”

Dwayne nodded. “Tell me more about your day at the spa, then.”

The pizza delivery boy rang the bell at that moment, sending Binkster shooting toward the door, her tail wagging furiously. Her nose told her what blessed gift had arrived.

Dwayne paid for the pizza and brought it into the kitchen. Binks sat down beside him, face turned attentively upward. I am a sucker for this, but Dwayne ignores her completely until he’s done. Then, he might break off a small piece of crust, but he never totally indulges her. It may be that he would be a better dog owner than I, but I’d rather rip out my tongue than admit as much to him.

While we ate I gave him all the details about my travails at Complete Me. Dwayne listened, nodding occasionally, grunting in agreement once in a while. This is one of his best attributes, the ability to really listen without cutting me off before I’m done. I don’t know if it’s me, or if other women have the same problem, but I rarely seem to be able to tell a whole story without having some man interrupt me. Is it that the male gender is disinterested in what I’m interested in? Or, is it that my telling of said story is such a snore that they can’t bear it?

“You haven’t talked to our client about Trevin, yet?” I finished.

“Nope.”

“I gave you this information when I was at the spa.”

“You just gave me the highlights. Didn’t want my head handed to me until I had all the facts.”

“Well, it’s too bad if he doesn’t like what he hears.” My voice was laced with judgment and Dwayne gave me a “what gives?” look. “He hired you to follow his wife while he’s meeting with Janice every chance he gets.”

“Who told you that?”

“I saw them at the Coffee Nook the other morning. Playing footsie under the counter. And I understand Miriam goes in there sometimes. Always alone. So, maybe she was just looking for love in all the wrong places.”

“It’s Spence who’s paying us,” Dwayne pointed out.