Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (4 page)

Silence broken only by the whir of the air conditioner
filled the car for the next several minutes.

The need to escape her mother’s presence made Kate’s legs
ache, while giddiness at seeing her grandfather and sister made her fingers and
toes tingle. Without the two of them living close by over the last few months,
South Dakota had seemed washed out, lifeless.

As they drove under the Dancing Winnebagos R.V. Park sign
bridging the drive and crossed over a creek lined with willow trees and
cottonwoods, Deborah flipped down the visor and checked her appearance in the
mirror. Kate watched out of the corner of her eye as her mom added another coat
of red lipstick.

She parked in front of the General Store, leaving the car
idling so the air conditioner kept running, and turned to her mother. “Okay, Mom.
Remember the promise you made as part of the deal of me driving you down here?
You swore you’d be on your best behavior for the next few weeks.”

Deborah nodded, her smile wider than normal as a red-haired
woman walked out of the store and onto the porch, followed by Gramps. Kate
waved through the windshield at the two.

“I’m well aware of what I said, Kathryn,” Deborah said
through gritted teeth and reached for the door handle. “Now let’s go talk some
sense into your grandfather before that little gold digger gets his ring on her
finger and her hands in his bank account.”

“Claire, get your ass up here!” Gramps yelled from the top
of the basement steps, his tone downright grumpy.

Claire frowned at the open doorway of Ruby’s office. What
had she done now? Then it hit her.

Mother! Oh, God, Mother!? Norman Bates’s voice echoed in her
head.

Claire’s stomach cramped in anticipation. All hell was about
to break loose, and here she sat in Ruby’s office, right in the middle of
ground zero.

After a half-hour of searching for clues that would explain
why someone would break into Ruby’s office and leave thousands of dollars’
worth of rare antiques behind, she had nothing. Nada. Zilch. And now her mother
was here, who would undoubtedly make her feel even more like a loser.

She glanced around for a place to hide. The window caught
her eye. Could her butt squeeze through that little rectangle? Whoever had
broken in through it couldn’t have been packing any extra pounds around the
middle.

Grabbing the desk chair, she rolled it below the window. Her
flip-flops squeaked against the leather as she tried to balance on the chair,
which kept reclining.

After nearly falling ass-over-elbows for the second time,
she kicked the chair to the side and pulled the metal trashcan out from under
the desk. She dumped the trash on the floor, flipped the can upside down, and
crossed her fingers it would hold her weight—plus the three fudge brownies she’d
had for a late brunch. Ruby really needed to find another therapeutic release
for stress besides baking.

The new window latch unlocked with a click, but when she
tried to swing open the hinged window, the sucker refused to budge. She locked
and unlocked the latch again, pushing hard on the handle, but the window still
wouldn’t open. Gramps must have sealed the window shut after the break-in.

“Shit!” She hopped off the trashcan and ran over to the
door, listening for the screeching of fingernails on chalkboard, the sound she
associated with her mother’s yelling.

Silence issued from overhead.

Her mother must not have breached Ruby’s sanctuary yet. Maybe
she could escape out the back door at the top of the steps.

Claire had one foot on the bottom step when she heard her
sister’s forced laughter. Sweat trickled down her back.

Tiptoeing back into the office, she shut the door and looked
over at the floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with first edition books and
antique box cameras.

Katy, bar the door! Only in this case, her sister would be
on the outside.

What the hell. It was worth a try. She could hide out in
Ruby’s office until her mom went to sleep, then run like the wind.

She tried to pull the bookcase in front of the door, but it
wouldn’t budge thanks to the stupid shag carpeting. Moving around to the other
side, she shoved it with her shoulder, the oak cool against her damp skin.

The bookcase slid toward the door several inches, rocking
and teetering in the process. Claire caught an Eastman Kodak Brownie camera
mid-fall as it slid off a shelf. Placing the camera on Ruby’s desk, she returned
to the bookcase, dropped to her knees, and shoved with her shoulder again.

A couple of grunts later, she’d gained almost a foot with
four to go. Sweat trickled from her hairline.

The damned bookcase wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry unless
she gutted the books and collectibles lining its shelves. She leaned her head
against the wood, defeated.

“What are you doing?” Jess’s voice interrupted her pity
party.

Claire squeaked in surprise. She frowned at Jess, who stood
in the now-open doorway. Damn, she should’ve locked the door.

“I’m just making sure this thing is stable,” she lied. “You
never know when an earthquake might rattle this place.”

Jess’s eyebrows arched. “An earthquake? In Arizona?”

“Sure. Fault lines can be found throughout this whole state.
Just ask Mac.” As a geotechnician, scientific crap like range-bounding faults
and topographic contours were Mac’s idea of breakfast chatter. “Earthquakes
happen all of the time. They’re just too weak to be felt.”

Claire grabbed the trashcan and started sweeping the
crinkled papers and dust bunnies back into it while avoiding Jess’s gaze. “Did
you need me for something?”

“Harley sent me down here. He says you’re supposed to get
your butt upstairs right now.”

Claire curled her lip at Gramps’s bossiness. Picking up a
partially-wadded letter, she paused when she noticed the gold embossed heading.

Leo
M. Scott, Attorney at Law

1435
Chuckwalla Wash Dr.

Tucson, AZ  85520

The greeting was addressed to Mrs. Ruby Martino.

Now what? The woman had been badgered by creditors ever
since Joe had died and left her in a landslide of debt without a shovel in
sight.

“What are you looking at?” Jess bridged the distance between
them.

“Nothing.” Claire shoved the wrinkled letter into her back
pocket. Jess had enough angst in her life with hormones kicking in, boys
snapping her bra, and the hardware store no longer carrying her favorite
sparkly lip gloss. She didn’t need to learn about sharp-toothed lawyers today.

Claire motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Jess sighed. “Grownups suck. They’re always hiding stuff
from us teenagers.” She tromped toward the door.

“We live to torture teens.”

Jess paused in the doorway, looking at the bookcase. “Are
you going to put that back?”

“Oh, yeah.” The letter had distracted her.

As Claire gripped the side and prepared to lift, she glanced
at the wall behind the bookcase. Her breath caught, and not because of the
scorpion carcass lying on the carpet. A white metal door, three feet high by
three feet wide, had been fitted flush, hinges and all, into the wall.

She leaned down and ran her palm down the smooth surface of
the door. Her heart thrummed in her ears. Knowing what she did about Joe’s
crooked wheeling and dealing, the goods from King Tut’s tomb could be on the
other side of that door.

“What is it?” Jess’s question made her snap upright.

“Just a scorpion carcass.”

With Joe dead, Claire was pretty sure she was now the only
one who knew of the door’s existence. Jess didn’t need to be her partner in
crime. A hernia-inducing lift and tug later, Claire had the bookcase back in
place.

“All right, let’s go see my mother.”

Ruby’s rec room looked like an acid flashback of the 1970s.
Yellow cinderblock walls fenced in burnt-orange shag carpet worn flat in
traffic areas. The room still smelled of stale cigar smoke thanks to last night’s
Euchre game.

Jess led the way into the room and plopped into one of the
two beanbags clustered in the far corner. Claire hesitated at the threshold,
wanting to test the water before jumping in with the shark.

The head of a ten-point buck hung on the wall above where
Gramps glowered from the avocado couch. He looked like he was sitting on a
patch of Prickly Pear cactus. Next to him, Ruby balanced on the front edge of a
cushion, her face slightly flushed.

Across the room, Kate occupied one of the barstools at Ruby’s
bar, inspecting her fingernails.

Claire’s mother stood center stage, her freshly painted lips
pinched, her blonde hair perfectly coifed, her designer clothes somehow
crease-free in spite of the long car ride. All she needed was a spotlight and a
microphone.

“Claire, darling!” Deborah rushed over and enveloped Claire
in a Chanel No. 5 perfume-laced hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Dear Lord! Roll out the red carpet for the drama queen. It
wasn’t as if Claire had joined the Peace Corp and spent a year in some
ape-filled jungle. It’d been only three months since her last face-to-face
confrontation with her mom.

Claire shot her younger sister a what-the-hell frown over
her mom’s shoulder. Kate nudged her head toward Ruby, and Claire caught on
immediately.

Her sinuses burned from an overdose of perfume by the time
Deborah released her. “How was your trip, Mom?”

“Wonderful,” Deborah answered too quickly. If she smiled any
wider, her ears were going to cave in. “The scenery was breathtaking, and
Kathryn is such a good driver. Traveling with her was a treat.”

Kate coughed out what sounded vaguely like “bullshit.”

Claire seconded that cough. The last time she’d ridden with
her sister, Claire had left imprints of her size eight shoes in Kate’s
dashboard.

After snaking a glare at Kate, Deborah turned back to Claire
with another lip-splitting smile. “I was just telling Ruby and your grandfather
how excited Kathryn and I are to be joining them for their special day.”

“And we’re so happy you could join us.” Ruby’s voice was
warm and sweet, like frosting on a freshly baked cake.

Claire wanted to run over and shield Ruby with her body.

The sound of the bell jingling over the store’s front door
had Ruby eyeing the curtain.

“Sounds like we have a customer.”

When nobody moved, Ruby cleared her throat and stared
pointedly at Jess.

“Okay, okay,” Jess said, trudging across the room and
disappearing through the curtain.

Silence, soupy thick, filled the air.

Claire wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped out
the back door and left the state.

“You have a lovely daughter,” Deborah said.

“Thank you.” Ruby smiled back. “And you do, too. Both of
them. I mean, I really know only Claire, but I look forward to getting to know
Kate. I’ve heard such good things about her from your grandfath—” Ruby’s cheeks
reddened even more as she stumbled. “I mean your father.”

Again, heavy silence.

The bar stool squeaked as Kate crossed one leg over the
other.

Gramps scratched the back of his neck.

The clock cuckooed once, announcing the half-hour.

“Mom!” Jess hollered from the other side of the curtain,
snapping the silence like a dry twig.

Deborah and Kate both jumped. They’d need a couple of days
to get used to Jess and her propensity for yelling instead of talking.

“I’ll be right back.” Ruby stood, her whole face now the
same shade as her hair as she strode across the room.

As soon as the curtain stopped swaying from Ruby’s exit, Gramps
jumped up from the couch. For a seventy-plus man, he could sure hit the
turbo-boost when needed.

“Deborah Lynn Ford! I don’t know what game you think you’re
playing, but you’d better stop it right now.”

“What?” Deborah said, all wide-eyed. “I’m merely trying to
make a good impression. Unlike Kathryn with her swearing and Claire.”

“What did I do?” Claire asked.

Her mother sniffed. “You could have at least worn socks and
shoes to greet me. I didn’t raise you in a barn.” She glanced around the room,
her flawless face crunched in a sneer. “Although, judging by Ruby’s lack of
interior design, I can see why you’d think thongles were appropriate attire.”

Covering her eyes, Kate said, “They’re called thongs, Mom.”

Claire wanted to walk over and pinch Kate for bringing the
she-devil to her dusty paradise. They were all damned now. Not even an exorcism
would save them.

“Thongles, thongs, whatever.” Deborah pointed at the shelf
of German beer steins over the bar. “Just look at the dust on those mugs. And I
bet this ceiling hasn’t been washed in a decade.”

“Mom—” Kate tried to interrupt.

“This carpet probably hasn’t had a good raking since Carter
was President.”

“Mother, stop.” Claire crossed her arms. Not everyone
idolized Martha Stewart and her housekeeping skills. Some people actually had
lives to live.

“Are those cigar butts in the ashtray? What kind of woman
allows—”

“Deborah!” Gramps broke up Deborah’s monologue. The top of
his bald head glowed branding-iron red.

“What?”

“Shut up or get out.”

“I’m not leaving without you and Claire.”

“Me?” Claire took a step back.

“Yes, you. It’s time you realize that while MacDonald is a
nice enough boy, he’s just too lenient with you. You need someone forceful.
Someone who will push you to finish school, to make something of your life and
be more like Kathryn.”

Claire’s cheeks burned as if Deborah had reached out and
slapped her—twice. She stuffed her hands in her pockets to keep from strangling
her mother. She should have broken the office window Gramps had sealed shut.

“Mom.” Kate stood up. “Don’t start with this again.”