1 Hot Scheming Mess (6 page)

She was next in line as the man in front of her was searching his palm for exact change to hand to the barista. The barista!
Hello, baby! So hot. Yes, today will be a good day. Be cool, Madison. Think of something clever to say. Quick. It’s your turn!

She stepped up to the cash register with her most beautiful smile, her head tilted ever so slightly to the side, one slow blink, and said, “Hi. I think I’ll get…”

“Potatoes!”

Her face froze.

“Hey, that was you, right? In Fight Cabaret last night? That was awesome!” He looked over his shoulder at a tall guy steaming the milk. “Hey, Jason. This is that girl we told you about.” He looked back at Madison with enthusiasm. “Damn. We all thought for sure you were about to barf at the end there when you stopped jumping. Is that why you left the stage all of a sudden? Were you really that drunk, or was that part of the act? That was so funny,” he said shaking his head. He slapped the counter. “What can I get for you?”

In a hesitant and timid voice, she answered, “Coffee and a… whole grain… raisin roll.”

He slapped the counter again. “Coming right up. But I’ll have to go in the back to get some more raisin rolls. Be right with you.” He started walking away and called out. “But don’t pull Jason’s pants down while I’m gone!”

The business lady in line behind her looked away quickly when Madison looked around. Madison felt compelled to say, “I didn’t pull anyone’s pants, you know, down, or anything.” The lady smiled and nodded and began a deep study of the treats in the glass case.

From near the espresso machine she heard a calm, manly voice say, “You don’t recognize me, do you?” She looked over at him. Tall, curly brown hair, with the kind of solid muscular build that comes naturally when great genes meet hard work. Jason’s hands were relaxed and steady as he poured a few of the lattes into cups. He looked over at her and smiled with hazel brown eyes and said, “Jason Clark.” He was cute and definitely familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she knew him from. “Well,” she began, “actually…” He turned around to set the lattes down on the counter for waiting customers. Madison dipped her eyes, recognized his awesome backside, and exclaimed, “Oh, my gosh!
That
Jason! You used to work for—”

“…Vincent Cruz Landscaping.” He turned back around, wiping his hands on a towel. “Yeah. Your grandfather was my boss.”

“Yes! I remember now.”

“Tough old guy. My dad used to work for him, too. How is he these days?”

“Retired. I’m about to go visit him.”

“Well, don’t tell him I talked to you,” he laughed. “That was a fireable offense when I was working for him. He never let us forget it.”

Madison put her face in her hand and laughed. “That’s right. None of you guys were allowed to talk to me. And if I ever talked to any of you, I got in SO much trouble.”

“Makes me feel like such a bad boy.” He winked at her and said, “This will be our secret. Say hi for me.” He resumed working the espresso machine.

“I will.”

Such a simple moment felt so calming for Madison as she reflected on how crazily the day had started. But seeing Jason made her feel like things were looking up. Nothing like a good cup of coffee. And Toonie didn’t die on her doorstep. And the living room wall was not beyond repair. Life was about to get great.

Toonie seemed older than Grandma ever got to be. Just how old had Grandma been when she died? It was still a hard memory. Ann was such a young mother; she was graduating high school when Madison started preschool, and Grandma had felt much more like her mother. Madison had been only twelve when Grandma had died.

The barista returned with her coffee, her roll in a bag, and told her how much she owed. And that was when it hit her. Grandpa’s behavior last night. She knew now why it had seemed familiar and had set off some subtle alarm within her. His behavior last night was like when he knew something bad was coming, like when Grandma was going to die, but he hadn’t told Madison yet. Her elated mood dissolved, giving way to a new fear.

The barista said, “Hey, it’s okay. We have a jar of change right here if you don’t have enough.” She looked at him without seeing him, tears breaking away from the corners of her eyes. He grew alarmed and said, “Look, I’ll pay for it myself. My treat.” She returned to herself and shook her head saying, “No, I’m just an idiot. Really. All my friends say so. I have to go!” She put the money down on the counter and grabbed her coffee and the bag, making a loud crumpling paper sound in her fist. She ran out to her car, threw her purse and paper bag with the roll in it onto the seat next to her, and tried not to slosh the hot coffee as she stuck it in the cup holder.

She headed out to Grandpa’s house where she had grown up, realizing she hadn’t been there much this last year except to borrow the drill.

*****

The big house had a slightly Victorian look to the architecture and had gone through many shades of paint over the years. Currently it was white which was always Madison’s favorite.

Parking next to Grandpa’s car in his driveway, Madison promised herself she would be calm and let him talk. I’m an adult now. I’m strong and he can count on me. If he’s sick like Grandma was, we’ll fight it together. Or if it’s not illness, like… like… She couldn’t even imagine what else there might be that he would be afraid to tell her.

Carrying the drill, she hurried down the walkway that led to the front door, past the garden. Grandpa always had a fantastic garden that was designed to have something blooming, or in some way showing color and life, during every month of the year. Whether it was flowers, growing vines, ground covers, autumn leaves, purple kales, or wintered-over tree bark wrapped in tiny white lights during the snows, Grandpa always had a garden to take your breath away. He had been doing that in the same big house for forty-five years.

As she climbed the porch steps she heard a voice from inside yelling what sounded to her like “Ned! Ned!”
That’s odd. Who’s Ned? Or was it “Annette”?
She came up to the door and heard thumps and then a muffled crash coming from inside. She skipped the formality of knocking and grabbed the doorknob, but it was locked. More thumping hollow sounds, like something heavy hitting the wooden floor. There was an old wooden cuckoo bird near the door that Grandpa used to leave a key in for her. The key was in its beak if she twisted it the right way. She reached up and twisted.
Yes! It’s still here
. She was beginning to feel adrenaline with each sound, and her hands shook as she unlocked the door and rushed in.

A few chairs and a little table were on their sides near the left wall, a vase in pieces in a nearby corner. A throw rug in the center of the floor was rumpled and scrunched up at one end.

Her grandfather and another older man about his age and size, a complete stranger to her eyes, were slugging it out at a speed that made it hard to track whose fist hit where, their jowls shaking from the blows. Their feet grew tangled in the rumpled throw rug as they went from pounding with their fists, to grabbing each other’s head by the ears and nose and even fistfuls of cheek meat with low inarticulate growls, pulling and pushing at each other. Their balance thrown off, they whirled round and round, banging into furniture and walls, knocking down big picture frames, tripping on their own feet.

Gritting their teeth in snarls, the men’s guttural rasps rose in volume as they grabbed one another’s hands, the bare knuckled fists waving side to side in front of their noses. Fingernails nicked faces, clawed down necks as each sought dominance. The stranger brought up an elbow blow to the underside of her grandfather’s chin, breaking his hold. Their faces were red, scratched, and a little bloody. Then one would let go and pound the other one’s face just as that one punched him in the stomach. Ripping, wheezing, and wet slapping sounds, accompanied the loud thumping that Madison had heard from outside, as each man tried to gain purchase.

For the first several seconds, Madison was in complete shock like a frightened child, then she slowly realized that what she was witnessing was real. Her voice was the first thing to return to her as she mumbled, “Aahh…” then screamed, “STOP!”

They didn’t seem to acknowledge her in any way as the weird violent scuffle went down to the floor. They rolled, knocking down a lamp that fell against her grandfather’s face, tangling his arms in the cord. That gave the stranger a momentary advantage and in the chaos of the lamp and tangled cord, he sat on top, straddling her grandfather as he put his hands around her grandfather’s throat.

Madison didn’t remember running across the room to them. But she would never forget the savagery she felt when she walloped the stranger on the side of his head with the wide end of the drill. His hand flew up to his head while he used the other hand to steady himself on the floor. Her grandfather rolled out onto his knees, faced the stranger, and finished him off with a roundhouse punch to his face. The momentum of his own punch threw her grandfather downward, forcing him to catch himself with his hands on the floor. The stranger fell to his side with a soft plop, rolling onto his back unconscious. His head flopped over to a halt. He had short gray hair with bushy salt and pepper eyebrows that touched in the center, forming a unibrow. His eyes were closed but the features of his face burned into her as she stared down at him, and she heard a small thump when the drill dropped from her hands to the floor. She hadn’t noticed the ringing in her ears and her pounding heart till now.

Her grandfather climbed to his feet like a tired rock climber. She moved to help him but he waved her away as he rose to a bending position with his hands on his knees, wheezing, coughing a little, and swallowing. His voice was rough but quiet. “He called it benevolent deception,” he said between whispered laughs. “But the deception… went so much deeper.” He scrunched up his face and pounded a frustrated fist on his knee. He gestured to the unconscious man on the floor. “He was used, too. More blackmail.”

He gulped more air, straightened up, and rubbed his face. “You shouldn’t be here.” He shook his head. “If I had lost that fight he would have got you. He doesn’t know you exist yet.”

She stared at him disbelieving and realized she needed to inhale. Her voice shook as she said, “If I hadn’t been here, you might be dead.”

“These people are still very dangerous.”

“Grandpa?”

His face took on a new note of urgency. “We have to move fast.”

“Grandpa!?”

“Now!” He stumbled over to a desk and rummaged around in a drawer.

She blinked a few times and thrust out a shaking finger to point at the unconscious man. Her voice cracked as she fought to control it. “Who is that? What just happened?”

“I need you to do something. I can’t stress enough how important it is,” he said as he found what he was looking for in the drawer. He turned around holding duct tape.

“Grandpa! What is going on?”

“Run out to the tool shed in the back. Remember all those shelves against the wall? At the very bottom on the concrete floor are a few builders blocks and an old metal box that are holding up the bottom shelf plank. Tear it all down so you can grab that box! Then leave before anyone else comes!”

Like a deer in headlights, she watched him duct tape the unconscious man’s mouth. Her heart pounded.

“This will slow him down,” he said. “You need to go!”

“But—”

“Hide that box! Then wait. Go about your normal life. That’s the safest thing you can do. I can’t tell you more right now. You won’t understand till you hear the whole thing, and I don’t know how long it will take to get help. Days, probably. Don’t call the police. And especially don’t tell Ann, promise me. Don’t tell Ann.”

“This is crazy—”

“There’s a very good reason. You’ve got to trust me, sweetheart!” He pleaded. “I need time! Now hurry!”

Chapter Seven

As if a switch had been thrown, Madison flew out the back door of the house with her costume dress hiked up to her knees and ran across the lawn to the tool shed. The shed door was swollen from the frequent Seattle rain, and she had to give it an extra bump with her hip. It popped open inward and the cool damp smells of earth, firewood, and vitamin rich plant food hit her nose. She had forgotten how much those smells were a part of her life during her childhood. She used to play in here and sometimes got in trouble for climbing those shelves and accidentally knocking tools down or breaking open a fresh bag of topsoil. That metal box and the large grey builders blocks at the bottom had been supporting those shelves as far back as she could remember. The box had never
not
been there. To her it was just this square thing, and she never knew it was actually a box. She’d never thought about it since it had always blended into the scenery.

In the dim light she could see why he had said to just knock everything over. There was absolutely no way of getting to the box until everything—all five shelves on top of it—was removed. She couldn’t quite reach the first shelf on top. She hugged her body up to the shelves that were covered in dust and old webs, reaching on tiptoe to use her fingertips to push off old cans of fence paint, metal parts to a mower, and clay pots. Things crunched and bounced as they hit the concrete floor. She pulled off the first shelf and flung it. It wasn’t attached to the wall and had been supported by big block bricks directly underneath it. Those bricks in turn had been standing on the next shelf down.

Now things were easier to reach, and the process of knocking things off the following shelves went faster. Spiders scattered and dust began to fill the air as she pushed everything as hard and as fast as she could. In her panic a cry escaped her throat once, but she clenched her jaw hard.
No! I have to be strong and find out what’s going on.
Sprinkler heads, curled up hoses, a sack of bar-b-q coals, half empty seed bags, all down and crashing and sometimes nipping her toes in close calls. Soon she was able to grab the second shelf and haul one end off of its support bricks and let gravity take over as an avalanche of hand tools danced and flew across the floor, glass jars of nails crashed and shattered. It even took the third shelf with it. She shoved over the fourth shelf, and the fifth, coughing in the dust.