Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries) (5 page)

“Aaron’s special alright.” I backed away. “You stink.”
 

“What’s in the bag, Chuck?” asked Mom.

“Present for Mercy. Wear it in good health,” he said.

I opened the bag and pulled out the smallest bikini I’d ever seen. It had pink polka dots and couldn’t have been used to cover an entire melon much less me.
 

“It’s adorable,” declared Mom. “I love the color.”
 

“Are you kidding? You said I had to have one-pieces with underwires,” I said.
 

Mom snorted. “This is a gift.”
 

“I can’t wear that. It’s illegal in fifty-eight countries.”

“But not in Honduras.” Mom left with the snack bag and yelled over her shoulder. “Thank your cousin.”
 

Chuck pursed his lips. “I’m ready to be thanked.”
 

“Ooh, gross.”
 

Chuck wasn’t a real blood relation. His mom married my uncle when he was thirteen and he’d been bothering me ever since.

“No kiss?” he asked.
 

“Not a chance. I do have a question for you though.”

“Yes, I’ll help you try on the bikini. It’s the least I can do.”
 

“It’s more than you can ever hope for. My question is about our house,” I said.

Chuck crossed his arms. “Oh, yeah. What about it?”
 

“Do you know when Myrtle and Millicent signed it over?”
 

“Before we were born. I don’t know the day.”
 

“Do you know why they signed it over?” I asked.

He watched me for a second and then said, “Why are you asking?”
 

“Because I got deposed about it.”
 

“Then it’s good you don’t know.”
 

“But you do?” I asked. “Did Dad tell you not to tell me?”
 

“Nope. He didn’t have to. If he wanted you to know something, he’d tell you. End of story.” Chuck opened the pantry door and a rush of coldness came in from my favorite space.

“But he told you?”
 

Chuck moved so quickly I didn’t have time to flinch. He gave me a peck on the lips and went into the pantry. I followed, a little breathless. “What do you think you’re doing?”
 

He gave me his best rakish grin. “Getting my thank-you.”
 

“Did Dad tell you about the house and how they got it?” I asked.
 

“No, but it doesn’t take a genius to know something weird’s going on there.” Chuck left through the back door and I stayed standing on the marble pantry floor, feeling the cold creep up my ankles.

Chapter 4

AN HOUR LATER, I found my boyfriend, Pete, in an on-call room, sleeping off back-to-back bowel resections. He claimed his surgical residency would end some day. I had my doubts.
 

I slipped in the room and knelt by the bunk bed and pushed the dark blond hair off his broad forehead. He didn’t move. His phone began vibrating away on the floor next to his slack hand that hung off the side of the bed. The screen said ICU Stat. Great. Foiled again. We’d had a few romantic moments in on-call rooms, but that night wasn’t going to be one of them.

I kissed his cheek and shook his shoulder. “Pete. They’re calling for you in the ICU.”
 

 
“Mercy?” he said in a rough throaty voice full of exhaustion.
 

“Sorry to wake you.” I gave him the phone.
 

He texted the nurse back and then groaned. “I have to go. The cops are trying to get in to see my patient.”

“In the ICU?”
 

“Gunshot victim. Happened in front of Plaza Frontenac, if you can believe that. She didn’t see anything. But I guess they don’t believe me.” He sat up and went to put on his shoes, only to discover that he’d slept in them.
 

“They’re paid not to believe.” I tried to quell my curiosity, but failed as usual. “So the victim talked to you before surgery?”
 

“Yep. She was walking out the door and someone shot her. She has no idea why. I’m off tomorrow. Let’s go see a movie or something.”

Pete followed me to the elevator. I pushed the up and down buttons.
 

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

I hugged him, breathing in his smell. Not cologne, sterile gloves and antiseptic. “No. I wish I was here tomorrow.”

“Where’re you going to be?”
 

“Vacation on Roatan. Mom changed it from the cruise.”

“Sorry. I totally forgot about the girl trip. So it’s Roatan, Honduras now?” he asked as the elevator doors opened.
 

“Apparently so.”

Pete stepped inside and held the door. “Take your full kit. Jonas did a Doctors Without Borders in Coxen Hole. They had expired antibiotics and no opiates.”

“Fantastic.” I kissed him and had a brief but disturbing flash of Chuck’s peck.
 

Pete must’ve read my mind. “Hey, is Chuck working tonight?”
 

“No,” I said with a twinge of guilt. I don’t know why. I didn’t kiss anybody. “He was just at my parents’.”

“Damn. I’d rather deal with him than some other detectives I don’t know. Be careful,” said Pete, getting out his prescription pad and writing out two for me. “Fill these just in case. Jonas said it’s like the Wild West down there.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you when I get back,” I said.

“I’ll try to be conscious.”
 

The doors closed and I took Pete’s prescriptions to the pharmacy, one for the antibiotic, Keflex, and the other a painkiller, Norco. Never leave home without them, especially when going to a Third World country. After that I got waxed and wished I hadn’t. Don’t believe them when they say it only hurts for a second. I’d been kicked with less sting. I nearly brought my Norco collection down by one, but I took a Motrin instead. I’d had my fill of painkillers after the Holtmeyers in Gavin’s case got through with me.
 

When I got home, I packed both my kits. Pete only knew about one, the medical one. It had sterile gloves, tweezers, alcohol pads, syringes, Betadine, and the like. I added the Keflex and Norco to the other medications I’d collected, zipped it shut and tossed it in with my bras. Then it was on to the kit Pete didn’t know about, Dad’s kit. It included less, shall we say, benign things, like zipties, three kinds of mace, two antique pistols, because one is not enough, and the recently added Universal Taser Dad gave me on the 4
th
of July. Thanks, Dad. Just what I always wanted. I left the pistols and the taser snug in between Christmas sweaters. Somehow I thought the TSA would take a dim view of them, even in checked baggage. I threw in an assortment of the clothes Sheila picked out, my two one-pieces, and Chuck’s bikini. Mom would be on me if I didn’t bring it. After that I passed out in front of a Denzel Washington movie with my cat, Skanky, and an untouched bag of baby carrots.
 

“Find that damn cat! We’ve got to go!” Dad stood in my living room at six in the morning with his arms crossed and his red hair standing on end. He was not a morning person and I doubted it was his idea to drive us to the airport.
 

“Stop yelling,” I said as I dropped to my knees and peered under the sofa.
 

“I’m not yelling.”
 

“Yes, you are. I’ll never find him now.” I’d been looking for Skanky for an hour. He always knew when I was going to take him over to Mom’s and leave him with her evil Siamese.
 

Dad walked past me. “I’ll get him.”

“You’ll never find him. He’s scared to death of you.”
 

“No, he isn’t. He likes me.” Dad went into my bedroom, which was a mess. At least it wasn’t Mom. She’d pause to pick up and lecture me.
 

“Skanky hates you. You’re always threatening to turn him into a cat taco.”
 

Dad walked back out, holding a wide-eyed Skanky by the scruff of the neck. “He knows I’m not serious.”
 

“How’d you do that?” I stuffed Skanky into his carrier and he didn’t even yowl. Dad must’ve petrified him.

“It’s a cat and you named him Skanky. How smart do you think he is?” Dad grabbed my suitcase and went out the door.

I locked up and chased him down the stairs. “He’s not stupid.”
 

“He’s a cat. Enough said.”
 

“Does Mom know you think her Siamese are stupid?”

“The Siamese aren’t stupid. They’re evil.”
 

We went out the front door of my building to find Dad’s car stuffed with Mom, Aunt Tenne, and Dixie. Dad somehow wedged my suitcase in the trunk and then grabbed my arm before I got in. “You got your kit?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“The taser, too?”

“We’re not supposed to bring those on aircraft.”

“Jesus, Mercy. I got you the export license so you could carry it.”

“Why would you do that? I’m not going to run around foreign countries tasing people.”
 

“You never know when you might need it. Especially now that the Fibonaccis are in the picture.”

“They’re not in the picture.”

I tried to get in the car, but Dad turned me around. “Go get it. We’ll wait.”
 

“I don’t need it. This is a vacation, crazy person.”
 

Mom rolled down her window. “Get in the car, Mercy. We’re going to be late.”
 

Dad gave me a little push toward my building’s front door. “Flight’s at eight-thirty. We have time.”

Mom got all squinty-eyed. “Time for what? You better not be doing anything. This is a vacation. No work.”
 

“Dad wants me to get my taser,” I said.
 

Dad groaned.

“No tasers. Get in the car,” said Mom.

“She needs it. Just in case,” said Dad.

Mom started to get out of the car. “If you’ve arranged any work for our daughter in Roatan, so help me I will—”
 

Dad held up his hands. “No. No. There’s no work in Roatan.” Out of the side of his mouth, he said to me. “For god’s sake, get in the car.”
 

I squashed in beside Aunt Tenne, who was wearing an enormous sun hat and fushia lipstick. “What was that about?”
 

“Dad’s crazy,” I said.

“I heard that,” he said.
 

“You should be used to it. I say it all the time.”
 

Dad growled and broke about ten traffic laws on the way to Lambert International. He dropped us at Departures with dire warnings about third world countries and a whisper in my ear about not talking to any Fibonaccis ever.
 

Fine. I’ll try to hold myself back.

Dad squealed his tires and was gone. I have to say it was a relief. He’d been glaring at me in the rearview the entire way over. I turned around and Dixie, Mom, and Aunt Tenne were standing in a line with their hands on their hips. Small, medium, and large suspicion.
 

“What?” I asked.

“Mercy,” said Dixie. “You know this trip is very special to me.”

“Yeah.”
 

“I loved Gavin, but he ruined every vacation we ever had with work. There was always a case. Someone always needed help. I need a fresh start.”

“Don’t worry. There’s no case. None at all,” I said.
 

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart. If a dead body lands at my feet, I’ll step over it.”
 

“That’s all we wanted to hear.” Mom grabbed her suitcase and led the way into the terminal. The crowd parted for her with all the usual smiles and whispers. Mom said she hated the Marilyn Monroe comparisons, but you’d never know it. She was dressed like a fifties movie star with a full-skirted dress cinched at the waist with a wide belt and a pair of oversized sunglasses. That was Mom incognito. She couldn’t help herself.
 

We walked through the terminal with people pointing first at her and then me. A woman ran up to me and asked for my autograph for her husband. I signed her notebook while Aunt Tenne rolled her eyes.
 

“My husband loves your website,” the woman said. “He says it’s like Marilyn is with us again.”
 

“Thanks, I guess.” I’d been getting more autograph seekers lately and it made me feel like apologizing to the real Marilyn. She worked hard to cultivate the image I was born with and I didn’t appreciate it. When people were staring at me, or worse, asking if I was a female impersonator, my face seemed more like a disease than anything else.
 

“You look so natural,” she said.
 

“I try.” I don’t know what that woman was thinking. It was six forty-five in the morning. I had no makeup, hair in a ponytail, and was wearing yoga pants and flip-flops. I couldn’t be more natural, but she still thought I was putting on a show.
 

We ended up at security with plenty of time to spare and I stood bleary-eyed, hoping the line would move someday soon. Then I smelled something. One of those smells that seeps into your brain and kicks it right in the crotch. Hot dogs. I squinted and looked over my shoulder. Aaron was standing directly behind me, holding a bottle of chocolate Yoo-Hoo and munching on a snowball snackcake. I looked forward. I did not just see Aaron. That would be ridiculous. Aaron never went anywhere unless it was with me. He would never be at the airport.