Elementary, My Dear Watkins (36 page)

The woman offered a limp handshake in return without taking off her sunglasses.

“A pleasure,” she said in a throaty voice.

Jo shook hands with the man also, who reeked of cigarette smoke.

“I’m Rick,” he said, his gaze intense. “Misty’s friend.”

“Nice to meet you both. Sorry I have to run.”

Jo introduced her bodyguard simply by name, and then the two of them left the studio and walked to the house. As she hobbled through the dining room, she could hear her Uncle Neil talking with Fernando about hiring him for a side job, something to do with moving his boat out of its dry dock winter storage and putting it in a wet slip for the summer. She reached the doorway to the foyer, where they were talking, Fernando standing there holding the folded-up ladder. As Jo stood and waited for them to finish their conversation, she glanced up at the chandelier to see that it was all aglow and sparkling beautifully. Consuela had done a great job.

“Uncle Neil?” Jo said softly.

Both men turned to see her. Fernando excused himself, taking the ladder as he went. Jo stepped forward into the room, wondering what to say.
I’m sorry you got questioned by the police, but by the way, did you try to kill me?

“Josie,” he said warmly, using the pet name he had for her. “Come here.”

Once she heard that, she knew it was going to be okay. They embraced for a long moment, and for some weird reason she could feel tears threatening at the back of her eyes. All she needed to know was that her favorite person in the Bosworth family wasn’t mad at her—or had wanted her dead.

When they pulled apart, he stepped back and held her out at arm’s length.

“I haven’t seen you in so long. I’d say you’ve grown even more beautiful, if that were possible.”

“I’ve missed you,” she told him, trying to remember the last time they’d been together. Neil was the same dapper figure as always, silver hair set off nicely by a tanned face and navy suit. “Thanks for coming out. Where’s Ian? They said he was here too.”

“He went to find Muck. The radiator’s overheating.”

“Some things never change, huh?”

Ian collected vintage sports cars, and he was forever dealing with the details of leaking oil, busted hoses, and thirsty radiators. Sometimes, Jo wondered if Ian might have had a happier and more productive life if he’d simply chucked all of his wealth early on and become an auto mechanic.

“He can join us when he comes in,” Neil said. “Obviously, we need to talk.”

“Yes.”

“But first things first. After I heard what happened, I just needed to see that you were okay. I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this.”

Before Jo could reply, she heard a swooshing sound and then suddenly the bodyguard was tackling her from behind, throwing his muscular arms around her and pushing her forward. As they went, somehow he managed to flip around so that they both landed on the ground, with her fall cushioned by his body. At the same moment, a loud crash reverberated around the room.

By the time Jo extracted herself from his grip and sat up, others had come running and were standing in doorways, faces pale with shock. Jo looked up at Consuela, Fernando, and her uncle. Then she looked at the ground where she had been standing, shards of crystal from the chandelier shattered against the marble floor.

“What are you doing here so early?” Alexa said to her mom and Uncle Rick, though she wasn’t disappointed. “You usually don’t come ’til around four or five.”

“Wanted to beat rush hour,” Rick replied. “I thought the car might overheat in heavy traffic.”

“You guys didn’t say anything to anyone here about last night, did you? I’ll get in big trouble if they find out I snuck out.”

They both shook their heads.

“When I woke up this morning, I thought I had just dreamed you were there,” her mom said. “Then Rick told me it really happened. You can’t do that anymore, Alexa. Don’t make them mad. It’s not worth the risk. What if they catch you and say that’s it, you’re outta here?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Even if they wouldn’t,” Rick said, “it isn’t safe to be running around at night by yourself.”

“You didn’t fuss at me last night.”

“Last night, I thought you were there with permission. I thought maybe they dropped you off in the neighborhood or something.”

“So I took the train by myself, big deal.” She didn’t add that the evening started with sneaking past security, climbing over a gate, and taking a bus to Connecticut.

“Anyway, you shouldn’t have left,” Rick said. “I was very worried about you when I woke up an hour later and you were gone.”

“The train was leaving soon,” Alexa said, shrugging. “I was okay. I know how to take care of myself.”

“Alexa, don’t do that again, you hear?” her mom said, looking awkward, as she always did when she tried to be parental. It was kind of a joke, really, considering that most of the time Alexa felt more like the mother than the daughter.

Hoping to smooth things over, she decided to change the subject. She pointed to the nearby table and told them if they wanted to sit they could see her latest schoolwork. Relieved, they did as she suggested. From her cubby, Alexa pulled out some folders and removed her best papers and tests. Proudly, she set everything down on the table and watched over her mother’s shoulder as she went through each one and then handed them off to Rick.

In a way, Alexa knew her mom didn’t care all that much. But this was always how they started out a visitation weekend, sort of as a way to catch up. Her mom would ooh and aah over the A’s and A+’s, and Alexa would feel something deep inside of her begin to heal, just a little bit. She’d spent a lifetime being a scholastic disappointment and the subject of dozens of emergency parent-teacher conferences, with the news getting worse every year.

You have to do something about your daughter
.

She’s obviously a bright girl
.

She’s not living up to her potential
.

She can barely follow a linear thought pattern
.

She’s hyper and impulsive
.

She’s impossible to control
.

She’s a danger to herself and others
.

She’s failing almost every class
.

It was a nice change to be the opposite of all of that now, a pleasure rather than a pain. A success rather than a failure.

“Gosh, Alexa,” Rick said proudly. “Look at this math. It’s like something they’d be doing in college. Impressive.”

Alexa smiled, glad that Uncle Rick had come. It would be the first visitation when it hadn’t been just her and her mom, but she didn’t mind him tagging along. Alexa looked forward to visitation weekends, mainly because it gave her something different to do. And they had their own little routine. Usually, Fernando and Alexa would pick up her mom at the train station on Friday afternoons and then he would drive them both to Mariner’s Village, which was a cute little tourist town about 15 minutes away, right on the Long Island Sound. There was a motel there that wasn’t half bad, and he would take them there, drop them off, and leave.

With something like 45 regular television channels plus a few premium ones, Alexa’s mom mostly liked hanging out in the room and watching TV. Sometimes, though, Alexa could get her to go out and do stuff. Since the whole town was within walking distance, they would eat in the restaurants, stroll the shops, maybe catch a movie in the dinky theater or play games in the arcade next door.

Alexa liked it most because it gave them a chance to spend time together in a way they never had before. Her mom liked it because the old lady always paid for the hotel and gave them plenty of spending cash besides.

Of course, the best weekends were the ones when her mom would actually stay sober the whole time and not leave Alexa in the room late at night so she could “take a walk” or “get some air.” Alexa always knew what that really meant. Her mom wouldn’t be back for hours, and when she returned she would reek of smoke and beer and collapse on the bed in a stupor. At least she never tried to bring any guys back with her, something she was always doing at home.

Suddenly, the thought of the upcoming weekend gave Alexa an idea. Maybe together, she and Uncle Rick could talk her mom into going to rehab. Maybe they could even drop her off at a place before the weekend was over.

Finally, Mom can get some help
.

Alexa needed to talk to Rick about it privately, but the conversation needed to take place
now
, before they left the estate. As her mom read through an essay, Alexa tapped Rick on the shoulder.

“While she’s looking at my schoolwork, could you help me move something heavy over in the carriage house? It’ll just take a minute.”

“Sure thing,” he said, getting up and following her from the room. At the doorway, she paused and told her mom they’d be right back.

“Okay,” she said, deeply engrossed in what she was reading.

Once they were outside, Alexa led Rick down the walkway and around the corner to the next building, but she didn’t talk until she opened the door and they had stepped inside.

“I don’t really need you to help me with something heavy, Uncle Rick,” Alexa said as she walked past the first row of exercise equipment and over toward the window where they could sit on the wide sill. “I just wanted to talk to you. We need a plan before we even get in the car. We’ve got to talk Mom into going into rehab.”

She sat but he remained standing, running a hand through his short, spiky hair. She could see the fingers of his other hand twitching toward his chest pocket, and she knew he was wishing he could smoke.

“You want to do an intervention, Alexa?”

“Don’t you?”

“I want her sober, yeah. Are we prepared to do a real intervention? Not really. Usually, you should wait until there’s a third party there, a person who knows what they’re doing—not to mention, you probably ought to have details about where and when the person could go into rehab, just in case they say yes. It’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss.”

“I could call Dr. Stebbins. He might have ideas about where we could take her.”

“Okay. For what it’s worth, I already checked for AA meetings in Mariner’s Village, and I’m hoping she’ll go with me while we’re there. That’ll help.”

Feeling excited, Alexa crossed the room to use the telephone on the wall, glad that she had memorized Dr. Stebbins’ private cell phone number. She was only supposed to use it for medical emergencies, but she figured this was one. Sort of.

Dr. Stebbins was actually quite nice about it when Alexa explained what she wanted. Though he didn’t have any answers for her right away, he said he’d be glad to have his secretary look into it.

“We don’t have any money, so it’s got to be a place covered by Medicaid. And it’s gotta be local too, because if we have to take my mom far away, she might chicken out.”

“Got it.”

Alexa told him that she was headed out for the weekend so she would have to call back from the road. He gave her his secretary’s direct line and said to wait an hour or two before calling.

When she hung up, Alexa beamed at Rick.

“They’re going to help us,” she said. “Let’s plan to do it at dinner tonight, okay?”

“Okay. It’s a deal.”

Walking carefully around the glass, Fernando helped Jo up first and then her bodyguard, the man who had pulled her to safety. The bodyguard’s face was flushed and his expression was concerned, but at least he seemed unhurt. Jo thanked him, knowing mere words were not enough. He brushed off his clothes and replied that he was only doing his job.

The foyer floor was covered with the shattered glass, but when Jo looked at it, she realized that only one piece had actually fallen—the loud crash had only made it seem like more.

Jo looked up at the huge fixture, spotting the empty place along the outer rim where the crystal had hung. Each piece on that rim was in the shape of an upside-down teardrop, pointed at the bottom, about four inches wide and ten inches long. Truly, if it had hit her, even just the one piece could have done some major damage.

Consuela looked up as well and burst into tears.

“This is my fault!” she cried, sobbing.