The Comeback Kiss (7 page)

Of course, that
’
s all she
’
d say about it. Izzy had no idea what Tessa had done that was so bad, so damaging, that Izzy had to pay the price. Her sister had all her limbs and seemed to be i
n full working condition, aside from being overprotective to the point of making the Amish look laid-back. But maybe now that Tessa
’
d gotten her precious Thing back...

Yeah, right,
Izzy thought.
I
’
m never getting a car.

Her back pocket buzzed, and she reac
hed for her cell phone, checking the caller ID window briefly before flipping it open and whispering, “
Not yet.”
She flipped it shut and stuffed it back into her pocket just as Margie Fletcher came up from behind and put her hand on Izzy
’
s shoulder. Izzy
s
miled, hoping that Margie wouldn
’
t see her heart pounding under her apron.

“
Great job, Izzy,”
Margie said, beaming at the display. A monkey could have put the display together, but because it was Izzy, Margie beamed. Margie
’
s sweetness almost made Izzy fee
l guilty about what she was planning, but she was only doing what she had to do.

“
I
’
m almost done,”
Izzy said, then cleared her throat. She was so nervous. She shouldn
’
t be so nervous, should she? “
Is there anything else you need me to do?”
Say yes, say ye
s, say yes, Izzy
chanted internally. She needed to have an excuse to stay just a little while longer, just long enough to get into Margie
’
s office...

“
Hmmm, no, I think you can
—”

The bell on the front door chimed, and Mrs. Sunberg came in, waddling behind
a tremendous ficus tree. Margie hurried to the front of the store, listening as Mrs. Sunberg complained that the left side kept drying up and dying. Izzy
’
s eyes shot to Margie
’
s office door, slightly ajar behind the counter.

This is it,
Izzy thought, her h
eart rate kicking up. She pushed the cart back into the storage room, then poked her head out. Margie
’
s back was to her.

Now or never.

She slipped sideways behind the counter and into Margie
’
s office, carefully returning the door to its slightly ajar state
. She took a moment to get her breath, then headed for the daisy still-life that sat on the wall behind Margie
’
s desk.

Geez. A painting over the safe in the office. Izzy had bit her tongue over that trite safety measure
—
any thief worth his or her salt woul
d have no trouble robbing this place blind
—
but Margie
’
s naivete worked toward Izzy
’
s gain, so despite the fact that Margie had been one of her mother
’
s best friends, and Izzy really liked her a lot, she
’
d kept her mouth shut.

She started on the combination
. It had taken two months of sneaking peeks through the crack in the door while Margie worked the safe in order to figure out what the numbers were. She clicked carefully to 50, then pulled out the cell phone in her pocket, hit her speed dial. After two r
i
ngs, Sosie answered, and Izzy said, “
Now.”

“
Now?”
Sosie sounded nervous. Then again, Sosie was always nervous. “
Are you sure you really want to do this? Maybe you should just call the police or
—”

“
Sose,”
Izzy whispered harshly. She
’
d explained her position
on this a thousand times; there was no time to go through it again now. “
Help me, or I
’
m going to Juvie.”

Sosie gave a short whine, then said, “
Okay,”
and hung up. Izzy tucked the phone in her back pocket with one hand as she carefully dialed 23 into the
combination lock with the other.

The bells on the door jingled. Either another customer had come in, which would be good, or Mrs. Sunberg had left, which would be bad. Izzy felt some sweat on the back of her neck.

Come on, Sosie. Come on...

Izzy maneuvere
d the lock to 46 and held her breath waiting for the phone to ring.

“
Come on, come on,”
she muttered. She could hear footsteps and no talking, which meant no other customer. Margie was a chatterbox; she couldn
’
t stand not to be social. Izzy had caught her
talking to the garden gnomes once or twice. If there was no one in the store, Margie would probably be heading for the office; if she caught Izzy now, it would be all over. Izzy swallowed hard as she imagined how Tessa would react. Even if Margie didn
’
t p
r
ess charges
—
which she probably wouldn
’
t
—
Tessa would be really upset.

Izzy
’
d probably never leave the house again.

She
’
d probably be homeschooled.

Oh, Jesus, Sosie, come on
...

The counter phone rang.

That
’
s my girl,
Izzy thought. If anyone could keep Margie
distracted with a thousand inane questions, it was Sosie. Izzy twirled the combination to the last number
—
18
—
and listened for Margie to start talking before she gently lifted the latch. A thrill ran through her as the safe opened, and she had to do a lit
t
le jig to keep herself from giggling with glee.

This was it. The last thing she needed. All the planning, and the mulling, and the maneuvering had finally come to this.

She started rummaging through the safe. There was some cash in a bank pouch, various de
posit slips and random account information, and two credit cards. Izzy rummaged farther and found Margie
’
s passport.

“
Damn,”
she muttered.
Where was it?

“
Well,”
she heard Margie saying from the shop, “
I suppose if you wanted to try and crossbreed a hydrang
ea with a hyacinth... I suppose you could... but that
’
s really not what we do here...”

She felt along the safe for a false bottom, a false side. Something. Damnit. Izzy had looked almost everywhere else
—
Margie
’
s car, every nook in FLOWERS, ETCETERA. The on
ly place left was Margie
’
s house, and Izzy
’
d need a car to get there. Then she
’
d have to figure out a way to break in. Then...

“
I have to go now,”
she heard Margie say quickly into the phone. This followed by the sound of the phone hanging up and the clack
of Margie
’
s heels on the hardwood floors as she headed into the office.

“
What are you doing?”
Margie asked as she walked in, a mere nanosecond after Izzy set the painting straight on the wall, her heart pumping like a freight train. Izzy smiled and picked
up an object from Margie
’
s desk.

“
Stapler,”
Izzy said. “
I need a stapler.”

Margie pulled a scrunchy out of her pocket, and drew her dishwater blonde hair back into a ponytail. “
What for?”

Izzy went blank, then started to laugh. “
Oh, man. Now I can
’
t remem
ber. Don
’
t you hate it when that happens? You go into a room for something
—”

Margie smiled. “
Oh, I know. Happens to me all the time.”

Izzy put the stapler down and looked at her watch. “
I have to run. I
’
m meeting Sosie at the mall, and then I
’
ve got to che
ck in with Tessa at Max
’
s. You know how she gets when I
’
m late.”
She rolled her eyes, playing up more annoyance than she actually felt because petulant teenagers don
’
t arouse suspicion as easily as compliant ones.

“
Don
’
t give her a hard time. She just worr
ies about you,”
Margie said. As Izzy passed, Margie reached out and touched her arm. “
It
’
s been really good having you here, Izzy. It
’
s a little like having your mom back.”

Izzy nodded, smiled back. “
Yeah.”

She grabbed her backpack from under the counter a
nd hightailed it out, not letting the smile fade from her face until the door had shut firmly behind her.

Chapter Four

Tessa stared out the front window of the diner as she poured Astrid
’
s coffee. Her eyes focused lazily on the backward image of the Max
’
s Diner logo painted on the front window, but her mind definitely qualified as being somewhere else.

Or, more accurately, with someone else. It was about three o
’
clock, almost eight hours since she
’
d been caught kissing Dermot Finnegan behind the drugstor
e, and she could still feel him. His fingers in her hair, his breath on her lips, his everything all smooshed up against
her
everything...

God. Izzy
’
d been right. If kissing Finn, the man who had been the bane of her existence for ten years, had this effec
t on her, maybe she really did need to get laid.

“
Watch it there, sweetie,”
Astrid said, putting her wiry hand on Tessa
’
s pouring arm. Tessa pulled the carafe back just as the coffee was about to flow over the mug.

“
Oh.”
Tessa stared down at the mug. Good
thing Astrid took her coffee black; there was no room for sugar or cream. “
Sorry.”

“
No problem,”
Astrid said, her smile overly bright, her eyes focusing tightly on Tessa, watching for anything worth reporting. It hadn
’
t taken long for the news of Finn
’
s re
turn to fly through town. Stella Hodgkiss was the heart of the gossip mill in Lucy
’
s Lake, and by seven-thirty that morning, Max
’
s breakfast business had tripled with people wanting to be at the heart of the action should Finn want to visit his uncle or h
i
s old girlfriend. Nothing happening followed by a whole lot more nothing had driven out most of the voyeurs, and now it was pretty much just the die-hard gossips
—
Astrid the laundry lady and a passel of PTA moms.

“
You look awfully distracted,”
Astrid said.
“
There something you want to talk about, honey?”

Tessa thought seriously about that. Did she want to talk about the most surreal morning of her young life, in which the car she
’
d been mourning for ten years had been mysteriously returned, and she
’
d practic
ally gotten busy in public with a man she thought she hated? Did she want to talk about the aching and irritating disappointment she
’
d felt when she
’
d gone back to take him out of town, and he was nowhere to be found?

She met Astrid
’
s grin with a distracte
d smile. “
No. Thanks. No.”

Astrid leaned forward over her coffee, the official Lucy
’
s Lake body language for
There
’
s gossip a-comin
’.
“
So .. . I hear they haven
’
t gotten in touch with Vickie yet. She didn
’
t tell Stella where she was going, just that she wa
s going on vacation. And then her place catches fire. Don
’
t you think that
’
s strange?”