Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too (33 page)

From behind the green light, Jane said, “I have the key in my pocket.”

And Clover's voice said, “And we're not letting him loose until after we film the tribute.”

“Oh, no,” Rawlins moaned.

“Tribute?” I said.

The two girls climbed out of the Mustang, where they had been scribbling on a yellow legal pad. Jane carried the notepad in one hand, a heavy-duty flashlight in the other. Clover wore a bikini with a see-through baby-doll nightie over it, plus very high heels that made walking in the straw difficult.

One of the sheep panicked and butted past her, causing Clover to stumble. She cursed. “Who let the goats in here already? It's too soon.”

Jane's flashlight had a plastic filter taped to it so that the eerie green light created an aliens-have-landed glow in the barn. She pointed the flashlight at me, extending the notepad to Clover. “Learn your lines, and we'll get started.”

“I have to learn lines?” Clover assumed the classic pose of teenage irritation—one hand on hip, head cocked belligerently.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“They want to make a reality show,” Rawlins said. “She thinks it's going to make her famous.”

“A reality show?”

“Everybody's doing it.” Clover snatched the notepad from Jane. “But mine will be very cool. You know, sexy girl meets handsome farmhand.”

“Are you crazy?”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Both girls turned to stare at me while I hastily tried to think my way out of the situation. Clover bristled, not the least chilled by the nip in the air.

I looked at Rawlins, who hardly projected the aura of a handsome farmhand at that moment. The goose bumps on his chest were plainly visible.

I knew I couldn't overpower both of them and manage to get Rawlins out of the barn. So I said, “You don't plan on filming in here, do you? It's freezing.”

“Where else could we film a farm?”

“We were going to do it at my apartment and make it like
The Real World.
” Clover rolled her eyes. “But Raw kept yelling.”

“We were afraid somebody was going to call the cops.”

“They cut me!” Rawlins held up his free wrist to show me a wad of Band-Aids clumsily taped there. “They jumped me and put this handcuff on me, but it was too tight and then she tried to use a knife to get it off me, and—”

“You didn't have to act like such a scaredy-cat,” Clover said.

“I was bleeding!”

“You could have waited for the key.”

“Jackson had the key,” Jane explained to me. “He kept trying to chew it, so it took me a few minutes to get it away from him.”

“Meanwhile, I was bleeding.”

“Not to mention making way too much noise,” Clover said. “This is better anyway. There's a definite vibe.”

“Ambiance,” Jane agreed. She cast a filmmaker's glance around the drafty barn. “Very
Blair Witch Project.
It'll be like an indie film, you know? An art house flick.”

“So we're starting with a tribute,” Clover said.

Nodding, Jane said, “A tribute to tsunami victims to give, like, the whole movie some gravitas.”

“Will you stop with the big words?” Clover complained.

“Where's Jackson?” I asked as casually as I could manage.

“With his sitter.”

Clover said, “I told you, all you had to do was offer more money and you'd get a thousand babysitters camping out at your apartment like it's a
Star Wars
opening or something.”

“I stood in line for
Star Wars,
” Rawlins said.

“Of course you did,” Clover snapped.

I asked, “What about the ransom note in the kitchen at your apartment?”

“That? Oh, a publicist lady told me about a Mafia kid who got kidnapped and all the media attention he was getting. I mean, why should some kid from Jersey get famous and not me? So I thought I'd try it myself. You know, for the publicity.” Clover frowned at the notepad. “Can't we make these lines shorter? There's way too much stuff to say.”

“We already shortened it,” Jane said.

“And what the hell is this word?” Clover jammed one finger down on the notepad and shoved it under Jane's nose.

“Why can't you spell it right? Jeez! It's got a
t
in front of it!”

I said, “Did Zell know Jackson was his baby?”

Both girls looked at me again. I saw a flicker cross Jane's face.

“Of course he did,” said Clover.

“And he paid child support? And for your apartments?”

“Well, yeah,” Clover said testily. “He wanted us to share a place, but come on. Who wants to listen to a baby crying all the time?”

Jane reached for the video camera and began adjusting it. She avoided my gaze and spoke softly. “We really should start filming. The flashlight battery is going to die if we don't hurry up.”

All the things I knew about Zell suddenly came together in my head.

I said to Jane, “When you slept with Zell, you did it for her, didn't you?”

Jane didn't answer.

Clover gave an allover shiver of exaggerated revulsion. “I certainly wasn't going to do it. I mean, yuck!”

“So you sent Jane instead. And in exchange, Zell gave you everything you wanted. Money. Clothes. A car. Even a job at Cupcakes.”

“My mother told him not to give me stuff. But I knew how to get around her.” Clover smirked. “I knew what he wanted.”

“Did he ever? When you were a child, did he touch you?”

“Hell, no. My mom kept me far away from that dirty old man.”

“And after you had Jackson,” I said to Jane, “he didn't want you anymore, did he?”

Jane took a step back, her eyes fixed like a spooked cat.

“He didn't,” Clover said.

“And he stopped giving you money. Then ChaCha fired you, so you realized you were broke.”

I could see how Clover tried to maintain her income. She had pushed Jane at Zell, hoping the cash stream would continue.

“But you figured a way to get all of Zell's money, didn't you, Clover? If he were dead, you thought you'd inherit.”

“No,” said Clover, but she was a very bad actress. “Look, my mom has an old will he wrote a lot of years ago that gives everything to her and me. All she has to do is make sure it's the only will anybody else sees, and I'll get all the money I need to get famous. So that's what I'm doing. Are we ready to do this?” Clover appealed to Jane. “Can't somebody else say the words while you just show me on camera?”

The only question that remained was which one of them had killed Zell.

But there was Rawlins to think about first.

“Kids,” I said. “I respect your artistic choices, I really do. But the rustic look is passé.”

“What does that mean?” Clover frowned.

I mustered an air of authority. “The latest style in television is definitely retro. A modern look would be much more effective on camera. More MTV. You want to be completely cutting-edge, right?”

Clover snorted. “What do you know about it? You always dress like you're going to church. Except what's with those jeans?” She glanced down my lower body as if mold had sprouted on the denim.

I said, “I have a friend with a beautiful apartment, very retro. She'd let you use it, I'm sure. For—uh—screen credit.”

Clover's brow furrowed more deeply. “I don't know. I want this to be totally me. That's the point. Making me look good.”

“Of course. So the background of your movie should enhance you. Make you look your best. Why don't we go take a look at some other locations?”

“But I'm all dressed! I had my makeup done!” Clover began to pout.

“All the more reason to find a suitably attractive place to do the filming.”

Jane, who hadn't said a word, suddenly handed me a small key. I took it and unlocked the handcuff as quickly as I could manage. Swiftly, Rawlins slipped his wrist out of the cuff and sidestepped Clover.

“Hey!” She smacked him across the shoulder with her notepad. “Where do you think you're going? I need you!”

Quietly, Jane said, “I think he should go.”

“You do, huh? And what makes your opinion count?”

“Rawlins,” I said. “Go outside.”

He hesitated.

“It's okay.” Jane sounded resigned. “You won't tell, right?”

“Go,” I said to Rawlins, and gave him a shove.

He stumbled through the straw, rousing the sheep again.

Clover said, “What's happening? Will somebody explain why we're not doing what I want to do?”

“Let's go outside,” I said. “Do you have some clothes, Clover? Something a little warmer? It's raining. Let's get out of here and find somewhere to talk about this.”

Cold-blooded as a reptile, Clover said, “Bite me.”

I reached for her arm. Jane dropped the green flashlight. Rawlins slid the barn door open and let in a huge gust of cold air. Clover drew back to avoid my grasp.

Her elbow struck the lantern.

It skittered off the railing and dropped into the straw. We heard the glass break, and suddenly the small corner of the barn brightened. The confused sheep bolted around the Mustang.

“Now look what you've done,” Clover said. “Jeez, let me out of this place!”

Jane blocked her path. “We did a bad thing, Clove. We're going to get into big trouble now.”

“Shut up!”

“What are we going to do? Everybody's going to find out.”

“No, they're not.”

“She knows.” Jane pointed at me. “Your mom knows, too.”

“She doesn't!”

I said, “Yes, she does, Clover. Your mother knows you killed your grandfather. She went to the police and confessed to the murder to save you.”

“Then I'm in the clear, right? So get out of my way.”

The straw on the other side of the partition ignited with an audible
whoosh,
casting our huge shadows on the barn walls. The panicked sheep couldn't find the door.

“I don't want anybody to know what I did,” Jane said. “You have to help me, Clover.”

“Let's all get out of here,” I said to Jane. “We need to talk calmly about this—”

Clover hauled off and punched Jane so hard that the smaller girl fell backward into the straw. The flame from the lantern flickered more brightly, greedily consuming the fresh air and tinder. The sheep came dashing around the car and ran directly over Jane. She screamed, and the sheep wheeled away from her in tight formation. They saw the open door at last and leaped for it.

Clover stumbled away, shouting curses. I bent over Jane, reaching for her hands.

The flame reached the straw around her legs and she cried out, flinging her arms up over her face to avoid the heat. I grabbed her wrist and began to drag her away from the fire.

I saw Clover disappear into the darkness outside. I pulled Jane across the barn floor, heading for the door. Behind us, a wall of flame roared up as more loose straw caught fire.

Suddenly I couldn't see. I coughed on a breath of smoke and lost my footing. Jane felt like deadweight.

Then Rawlins was with me, calling my name and grabbing my arm. I shook him off, and he seized Jane's other wrist. Together, we pulled her outside. The rain felt like ice on my face, and the air was so sharp my lungs hurt.

I fell to my knees beside Jane. She coughed and began to cry. Rawlins had his arm around me, and he spoke, but I didn't understand him. He pulled us both up the hill away from the burning barn. Emma arrived, and suddenly everything was very bright. A fire truck's red light spun around us. Then a tremendous explosion rocked the world, and Rawlins knocked me down. I landed in the soft, cold grass.

“We're all safe,” said Rawlins close by. “Everybody's going to be all right. Are you okay? Aunt Nora?”

When I swam up from the depths of a dreamless sleep at last, a nurse was bending over me. “Hi, there,” she said. “Let me go catch Dr. Stengler.”

I closed my eyes again and felt my body go dark. I surrendered to the murk, but knew I was in a bed, tightly wrapped in warmth and strangely floating. I heard no voices, felt no human presence with me. I felt alone. And empty.

It might have been a minute or an hour later when Rachel Stengler touched my shoulder. “I'm sorry, Nora,” I heard her say. “It wasn't meant to be.”

Later, in a private room with a television hanging from the ceiling, Libby said, “You'll have more chances. You'll have lots of babies, Nora. We all do, eventually. It's a Blackbird thing. But this one wasn't meant to be.”

When another nurse came in to take my blood pressure in the dark, I heard her soothing voice murmur, but I did not hear her words until she sighed and said, “It just wasn't meant to be.”

Much later, I woke up sharply when I felt someone's gentle hand in my hair.

“Michael,” I said.

“Shh.” He leaned closer so I could see his face in the sliver of light that knifed across the bed from the hallway. “There's a very scary nurse who tried to kick me out once already.”

Someone had hit him. A purple bruise had begun to swell around his cheekbone, but he didn't seem to care. His hair was wet and smelled like thunderstorms. I found his other hand and held on fast. “Don't let me fall asleep again.”

“I won't.” He squeezed my hand in return and then bent his head to kiss my fingers.