Hear No Evil (6 page)

“I don’t live in Beverly Hills,” Eden said. “Exactly.”

“All California’s going to sink into the sea,” Jessie said with a superior sniff. “Like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t sink into the sea.”

“In the end it amounts to the same,” Jessie said. “You didn’t come all this way to argue with me, I hope.”

For a moment, the two women regarded each other, their faces stiff with control. At last, Eden sighed. There was no such thing as staring down Jessie, there never had been, and why was she foolish enough to try?

“I’m sorry about—all this,” she said, making a helpless gesture. “I really am. I brought your things.”

Jessie’s cool gaze settled on the suitcase in Eden’s hand. She beckoned for Eden to bring it to her.

“If I’m going to stay here,” Jessie said, “I want a nightgown that covers my backside. I hope everything’s here. I wanted my hairbrush and my toothbrush and my plastic tortoiseshell combs and my slippers and my bathrobe and my medication. I need some different support hose for when I come home, I got runs in my other ones when I fell down the steps, though I paid nine ninety-nine for them and they’s supposed to be runless, and—”

“Slow down,” Eden said. “If anything’s not here, I’ll bring it later.”

She moved to Jessie’s bedside and wondered if she should kiss her grandmother’s cheek. But Jessie seemed interested only in snapping open the suitcase and rummaging through it. “Ain’t you going to ask me how I feel?” she asked querulously, not looking at Eden.

Eden decided against the kiss. “How do you feel?”

“Rode hard and put up wet. My leg’s swelled up like a watermelon and my ribs feel like they been beat on with hammers.”

“I’m sorry,” Eden said. “I really am. I just saw Dr. Vandeering. He says—”

Jessie cut her off. “Dr. Vandeering is a pipsqueak and a Pisces. He’s got watery blood and watery ways. Don’t talk to me about Dr. Vandeering.”

Eden set her jaw and thought,
I can’t tell her anything. This is how it always was between us. This is how it always will be
.

“All right,” she said, struggling to be patient. “Then you tell me how you are.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jessie said. “These doctors don’t know squat.”

“But—”

“Squat is what they don’t know. I passed out because I needed to rest in my etheric body awhile, that’s all. Now change the subject.”

So much for adult, rational, practical conversation
, Eden thought. “All right,” she said. “What do you want to talk about? Peyton?”

Jessie raised her chin righteously. “You shouldn’t make me ask about her. You should have said right off.”

“When I left this morning, she was still asleep. The Charteris man said it took her a long time to fall asleep last night. I guess she was
very
upset.”

“Of course she’s upset. Her mama’s gone, and her granny’s locked up in this hellhole. You take good care of that child. She’s your own blood, your own kin.”

“Who else’s kin is she? Have you any idea who’s the father of this child? Or where Mimi is?”

“The poor child’s got no father,” Jessie said. “She’s a woods colt. What did you expect?”

Eden winced. She supposed she had expected precisely that. “You’re sure?”

Jessie glowered. “Mimi sent me a copy of the birth certificate. That and a one-line note. One line. No wonder I had to rest in my etheric body.”

“Couldn’t you rest in your etheric body without bouncing your real one down the stairs?” Eden asked and immediately regretted it.

Jessie narrowed her eyes. “You always had a smart mouth. Always.”

“I’m sorry,” Eden said. “We’re both upset, that’s all.”

Jessie looked unmollified. “I want you to plug in my
business phone and handle my calls. Hospitals is expensive.”

Eden crossed her arms. “Now, listen, Jessie. Somebody’s got to take care of that little girl, and I’ll do what I can. But as for your business, I don’t want to get sucked into it.”

“Sucked into it?” Jessie demanded. “You didn’t mind it when it put a roof over your head and fed you and clothed you. You didn’t mind when it paid for your fancy singing and dancing lessons.”

Damn
, thought Eden.
This isn’t just a guilt trip. It’s an entire world cruise of guilt
.

She said, “Keep the phone unplugged for a while. It’s not much more than a week, and money isn’t everything. Right now you’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“Indeed, I do,” retorted Jessie. “And one of them’s your sister. So plug in that phone, miss, and do as I say.”

Eden cocked a dubious brow. “What’s the phone got to do with Mimi?”

Did she imagine it, or for an instant did Jessie’s expression grow less imperious?

“There’s been calls,” Jessie said. “Calls from somebody that is close to her. My vibrations is not good.”

A frisson tingled through Eden, as if her nerve endings had been touched by frost. “What do you mean?”

Jessie’s eyes, with their unnameable color, fastened on hers. “I think this time your sister’s in big trouble. I think this time she’s opened a bag of snakes. I’ve heard their tails rattle. I seen the gleam of their yellow eyes.”

T
HE CLICK OF BOOT HEELS ON THE TILE MADE
E
DEN TURN
. Owen Charteris stood in the doorway. He gave Jessie a measured smile. “I’m going over to Archie’s Archery. Can I get you anything while I’m out?”

“What I want is you,” Jessie said. “Come in. I got something to say, and I can tell by the expression on her face she don’t want to hear it.”

Owen gave Eden a wary look that said,
What’s this?
But he stepped inside, as if Jessie’s wishes overrode all else.

Eden said, “Jessie, please don’t involve him in this—”

“I want him to hear,” Jessie insisted. “Owen, this girl ain’t been here ten minutes and she got my blood pressure up. She needs to hear this, and so do you.”

Owen’s expression was one of grudging resignation, but like a courtier he moved to Jessie’s bedside. Although he didn’t touch her, his stance seemed to say he was her protector, her ally. “What is it, Jessie?”

Jessie looked up at him, her gaze softening into something like affection. “I told you I been having calls from somebody that knows Mimi. I think Mimi’s in trouble.”

Owen raised a dark brow as if in scientific interest.

“You phrased it a bit more dramatically to me,” Eden said, remembering the image of snakes. “Is this some vision you had? Something your spirit guide told you?”

“I
told
you, somebody’s been calling. For the past three-four weeks.”

Eden turned to the window so she wouldn’t have to look at her grandmother and the Charteris man; they seemed to have some bond that eluded and challenged her.

“All right,” said Owen. “Who was this person? What did they say? And what kind of trouble do you think Mimi’s in?”

Last night he didn’t want any part of this
, Eden thought resentfully.
Why’s he butting in now?

Jessie said, “Her name’s Constance. She won’t tell me no more except her birthday, and I ain’t sure she told the truth on that. She’s got a voice all breathy and ragged. Like she gargled glass.”

Eden kept staring through the window glass at the drowning day. She tried to harden herself for whatever was to come. “So what did this Constance say about Mimi?”

“She claimed she knowed about me from somebody
that sounds like Mimi. She was feeling me out for some reason. I could tell. My ears perked up.”

“Go on,” said Owen.

Jessie continued. “I tried to get her to talk more about it, but she wouldn’t. And right then I got a bad feeling—a
psychic
feeling—that something was going on.”

Eden forced herself to speak carefully. “You had a feeling? That’s all?”

“No, it’s
not
all.” Jessie looked queenly, but grim. “I says to her, ‘Where is this friend of yours?’

“And she says, ‘I don’t want to talk about her. I want to talk about me.’ Then she asked me to read her tarot cards, and I did. And a darker spread of cards I never seen.”

Eden allowed herself the ghost of a bitter smile. “The cards are pieces of paper, Jessie. That’s all.”

“The cards is windows—for them with wit enough to see through them,” Jessie retorted.

Owen gave Eden a cold glance that told her to stop being contentious. He put his hand gingerly on Jessie’s shoulder. “How many times has she called you?”

Jessie seemed comfortable with his touch. She looked up at him, not Eden. “Three-four time. She’s up to something, and she’s not alone. She always wants to know about somebody. She’ll tell me birthdays, but she won’t give me no names, she just wants readings. She’s nervous.”

“It’s not a crime to be nervous,” Eden objected.

Jessie ignored her and kept speaking to Owen. “One of them birthdays I recognized. It was Mimi’s.”

“Lots of people have the same birthday,” Owen said, but his face had hardened, as if he believed what she said and didn’t like it.

“Another one, I didn’t recognize,” Jessie told him. “It was a child. I didn’t know any such child. Until yesterday. And there that birthday was—on Peyton’s birth certificate. I checked it against my note cards. This here Constance knows them. I suspected it before, but I
know
it now.”

Eden winced in disbelief, but Owen looked grimmer than before.

Jessie said, “This Constance, she’s with at least four other people, and they are
up
to something, I tell you. She kept asking about dates—she says, ‘I got something to do. When should it happen? This day or that?’ ”

“Did you give her any dates?” asked Owen.

“I did,” said Jessie. “Yesterday was one. At the time it didn’t seem no better nor worse than any other.”

Owen frowned. “And yesterday Peyton showed up.”

Jessie sank more deeply into her pillow, as if wearied. “Yes. And scairt to death to talk, poor little tyke.”

His frown deepened. “You think this woman was feeling you out on Mimi’s behalf?”

Suddenly, without warning, Jessie put her face in her ringed hands. “Snakes,” she said miserably. “I keep seeing their yellow eyes, their wiggling tails. I hear ’em go rattle and hiss. Sweet Jesus, protect that child.”

Owen leaned nearer to her, concern etched on his lean face. “Jessie, calm down. It doesn’t help anything, you getting into a state.”

“Who’s going to protect little Peyton?” Jessie asked. “Who’s going to watch out for her?”

“
I’ll
watch out for her,” Owen said from between clenched teeth. “I promise. I won’t let anything happen to her, I swear.”

Jessie kept her eyes hidden with one hand, but with the other, she clutched his, making him look acutely uncomfortable.
“You always been good to me,” she said. “Better than family.”

“Look,” he said, disengaging his hand from hers, “I’m going to get a nurse. I don’t want you worked up like this.”

His blue eyes locked for a cold instant with Eden’s. “Help her, will you?” Then he left, and she heard his booted footsteps hurrying down the hall.

Eden felt alarmed by Jessie’s tears, but suspicious of them, as well. Never had she seen Jessie cry; she did not think she was crying now.

She moved to the old woman’s side and put her hand on Jessie’s shoulder, as Owen had done. But Jessie twitched away from her and sat upright again. She snatched a tissue from her bedside tray and made as if to wipe her eyes, but they were perfectly dry.

“All right,” Eden said in unhappy surrender, “just what do you want me to do?”

Jessie crumpled the tissue and stuffed it down into her bosom. “You go home and plug in my phone line. You take my calls for me, just like the old days. And you take care of Peyton. You tend to her and tend to business.”

She shook her finger at Eden. “And you keep a watch out for that Constance. She’ll call again, I feel it. Find out what you can from her. Think smart. Pretend you’re me.”

“Yes, yes,” Eden said. At this point she’d agree with anything if it meant escaping from Jessie.

“You treat my other callers with respect, you hear?” Jessie warned. “I got important people depending on my advice. And troubled souls needing my guidance.”

Eden nodded, looking as obedient as she could.

Jessie turned her attention back to the suitcase’s contents.
“Where’s my hearing-aid batteries? Where’s my rayon apricot-colored nightgown?”

“I don’t know,” Eden said. “I’ll bring them next time. I’ll bring anything you want, but—”

“I specifically said my rayon apricot-colored nightgown with the matching lace on the yoke,” Jessie said, displeased. Her face had grown red, her voice shook. “
Who
packed this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Eden said, alarmed that Jessie was growing upset again. “Calm down. Dr. Vandeering said your blood pressure—”

“Bring me that nightgown,” Jessie ordered. “No, send it with Owen. You stay home. Stay put and take care of that baby and that phone. Can you remember that, my rayon apricot-colored nightgown with the matching lace?”

“Yes, yes,” Eden said. “I’ll make sure you get it. Just settle down.”