Jaxson's Song (2 page)

“
Olivia, what are you doing?” Kate asked, crouching beside the
woman. She winced when the bruise on her knee came into contact
with the floor. Why didn’t old houses ever have carpet in the
bedrooms?

“
I’m seeing where this cord goes. I think this is your
Internet cable. It’s too thick to be a phone line.”

“
Couldn’t you just scoot the furniture over?” Lindsey asked,
moving to stand beside the four-poster, full canopy bed the
dignified lawyer was now practically underneath. “Wow, look at this
bed. I’m jealous.” She ran an admiring hand over one of the glossy,
dark chocolate posts that held up a section of lacy lavender
canopy. Her purse hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud and a
split second later she hopped onto the king-size mattress, bouncing
twice and laughing as she used one hand to shove shiny brown curls
away from her face.

“
Jesus, Lindsey!” Olivia exploded, scrambling out from under
the bed. “What if that thing had fallen on me?”

“
Guys,” Kate admonished as Lindsey fell back across the bed,
arms out, and rolled her eyes toward the purple canopy as Olivia
continued to glare. “So, why didn’t you just move the
bed?”

“
Do you have any idea how much furniture like this weighs?”
she demanded, pointedly refusing now to look at the bed in question
or its occupant. “Even without all the extra weight on
it.”

Kate pinched the bridge of
her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Okay, so what did you
find? What cord?”

“
Oh. This.” Olivia reached down and used one arm to fish
around the dark, cavernous space beneath the bed.

“
Better watch your arm, Liv, my big fat ass might make the bed
fall on it,” Lindsey huffed, pulling her hundred and twenty pound
frame into a sitting position and scooting to the edge of the
bed.

“
It’s your Internet cord,” Olivia announced a moment later,
holding up a frayed end. “But you’ll need to get a service tech out
here to fix it.”

“
Huh.” Kate briefly fingered the cord. “It looks like it’s
been chewed.”

“
Yeah, you might want to get an exterminator out here, too,
while you’re at it.” Olivia wrinkled her nose at the cobwebs that
clung to her and smoothed a hand over her skirt, leaving dark,
dusty streaks across the fabric.

Lindsey rolled her eyes
again. “Kate, we’ll stop off for some mouse traps before I head
back.”

Kate nodded absently,
leaving her cousin and best friend standing in the middle of the
room, squared off like gunslingers in the old West, while she
wandered to the window and looked out over the aging, sun-baked
neighborhood. Most of the houses in the immediate vicinity were
also two and three-story monstrosities, so she didn’t see much
beyond roof tiles in varying shades of gray and the occasional
patch of blue sky.

“
At least the inside is in better shape than the exterior.”
Olivia moved to stand next to Kate.

“
Yeah,” she agreed. “This place looks just like I remember it
from when you and Lilly and I were kids.”

“
Dustier, maybe.” A rare smile curved Olivia’s mouth. “Are you
going to be okay here?”

“
Sure. Yeah. I’m good.” Kate nodded, biting her lip and
turning away from the window. “Let’s just go sign the papers.
Everything looks to be in order here.”

“
Look,” Olivia eyed her cousin and frowned, “I hate to say it,
but maybe Lindsey is right. You shouldn’t spend your first night
here alone. One of us should stay with you.”

“
You’ve got to get back to your practice, and Lindsey has to
be at work in the morning. I’m fine. Really, guys. This house is
fine. It’s old and the neighborhood is a little bit dismal, so
what?” Kate shrugged, moving toward the door.

“
We aren’t talking about the neighborhood,” Lindsey said
quietly.

Kate paused and hung her
head. “I know.” She sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders. “But
I got over that a long time ago. Okay?”

“
Being back in this house doesn’t bother you?” her cousin
asked, blunt now.

Hell yes, it did. “No.”
Kate lied. “Anyway, Lilly will be here tonight, so I won’t be
alone.”

“
Right.” Olivia shrugged, not looking thrilled but apparently
willing to let it go, for now at least.

“
Okay,” Lindsey sighed, trailing after Olivia into the hallway
and down the stairs.

Kate followed, bringing up
the rear and wishing she could find the words that would undo all
of this. Wishing she could take Lindsey up on her offer to return
home to Georgia. But pride was a powerful thing, and the words
stuck in her throat. Sure, she could sell the house, but how long
would that take. And how much would she even get for it? No, she
shook her head. She was doing the right thing for herself and for
Lilly Ann. The
sensible
thing.

A flash of movement to her
left brought Kate’s head up.
What in
the hell
? She paused on the stairs,
one hand shooting out to grip the chestnut handrail. What
was
that
?

A long, dark shadow raced
past the half-open door and disappeared into the bedroom at the
other end of the hall, opposite to the one they’d been in a moment
ago.

“
Olivia! Lindsey!” she called out, heading back up the stairs,
her sneakers pounding the faded red-and-cream floral runner that
stretched the length of the hall.

When she reached the
doorway, she pulled the door shut and wrapped her hand firmly
around the knob to keep it closed until the other two women ran up
the stairs.

“
What are you doing?”

“
What’s going on?”

“
I think there’s someone in the bedroom,” Kate gasped. “I’m
pretty sure I saw someone’s shadow as they ran into this
room.”

“
Should we call the police?” Lindsey asked, backing up a few
paces.

“
You didn’t actually see a person?” Olivia frowned, looping
her purse strap around her knuckles and kicking off her
heels.

“
No.”

“
Okay, then open the door, Kate.”

“
Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It’s probably
nothing. This place was locked up tight when we got here. Why would
someone hide the entire time we’re up here, then suddenly decide to
move before we’re even out of the house? It doesn’t make sense,”
Olivia reasoned. “You probably saw light from those tall windows by
the door. But we’ll check it out,” she added, wielding her designer
bag like a club. “On three, Kate.”

“
One, two, three!” she shouted, flinging the door
open.

The three women burst into
the room and froze.

“
What the hell…”

“
What in God’s name is this?” Lindsey breathed.

“
Uh, Liv.” Kate’s eyes were wide as she turned a slow circle
in the obviously empty room. “Was Aunt Viola into kinky
sex?”

“
Oh, gross, Kate. Gross.” Olivia grimaced.

“
Well? Why else would someone have all these
mirrors?”

“
Oh, my God.” Lindsey gasped, grabbing at Kate’s arm. “They’re
on the floor, too.”

“
This entire room is made of mirrors. Walls, floor…” Kate
glanced up. “Ceiling.” She uncurled her fingers from around her
cousin’s sleeve and tip-toed further across the glass floor,
noticing that behind her, the other two women’s steps were also
halting and cautious.

She had the worst sense of
vertigo. The room was one giant, seamless box that reflected their
numb shock back at them in stark clarity; there was not a dust
bunny in sight here. This room looked like it had been Windexed to
within an inch of its life, and Kate had the stomach-dropping
sensation of walking on thin air, like the entire floor could drop
out from beneath them at any second.

“
And Viola couldn’t afford to fix up the outside of the house
and replace the whole roof?” Olivia asked skeptically. “Do you have
any idea how much something like this must have cost?”

“
Why did she do this?” Lindsey wondered aloud.

“
I don’t know,” Kate murmured.

“
Well…” Olivia was the first to recover. “Now you have a kinky
sex room.”

“
Wonderful,” Kate said dryly.

“
But I guess that explains the shadow you saw.” Olivia
shrugged, still eying the room like the foreign thing that it was.
“Reflection.”

“
Yeah, I guess.” Kate swallowed, unease creeping along the
edge of her spine as she ushered the other two out of the room and
down the stairs. Olivia passed her the shiny new house key the
locksmith had delivered to the hotel earlier in the day, and Kate
locked up.

Outside, a sudden crash
and accompanying four-letter word had all three women swiveling
toward the house next door in time to see a tall figure in a
flowered sundress and big hair trip over her mile-high stilettos.
Shards of broken pottery, spilled flowers, and dirt littered the
walkway. The woman righted herself, stepped over the mess, and
tottered into her own house without looking at the open-mouthed
trio on the sidewalk.

“
Oh, my…” Kate uttered, clapping a hand to her mouth. Beside
her, Lindsey giggled.

“
You’d better steer clear of that one, Kate.” Olivia stared
after the platinum blonde and shook her head. “Bad neighbors can
make your life a living hell.”

Chapter Two

Bad Day

H
e
was wearing a dress.

Jaxson hated his life. It
wasn’t enough that he worked long hours and hadn’t had a day off in
six months. It wasn’t enough that he worked like a slave—most of
the time, anyway. Such mundane, everyday shit, he could handle.
Hell, most days he didn’t even mind being so underpaid, but this…
He grimaced as he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length
mirror.

This was too much. It was
official; he’d reached an all-time low. Now they had him wearing a
goddamn dress. It was enough to make a man want to quit but he
couldn’t, not until they caught the bastard. And of course, like a
puppet on a string, his freedom was not his own. The New York City
DA was his puppet master, and if Jaxson wanted to avoid hard time,
he had to dance to their tune. Literally.

With this final thought,
he once again eyed the bright pink taffeta with disgust, slammed
his feet into the pair of matching size-eleven pumps, grabbed his
shell pink, beaded clutch—God, he was carrying a purse, too—and
stalked out the front door. He was brought up short an instant
later when the hem of his calf-length gown snagged on an old,
rusted nail. He froze, cursing as the fabric caught and pulled on
the sharp end of the nail.

Carefully, he freed the
delicate fabric and inspected it for tears. He didn’t know jack
about sewing, and he’d be damned if he’d visit a tailor like this.
Ditto for hitting up the local boutiques for a replacement dress.
It had been hard enough to find
“
evening wear” in New York to fit
his five-foot-eleven frame. But here in this Florida hick town?
Forget it. There wouldn’t be much to find; he’d overheard some of
the other dancers in the club talking about what a pain in the ass
it was having to order costumes off the Internet. Which wouldn’t be
so bad, except he didn’t have a computer here, which meant he’d
have to use Crystal Cove’s only public library to place the order.
Hell. No.

He shuddered at the
thought, eyed the gown one last time, and dropped the hem,
satisfied it was still more or less in one piece.

He made it as far as the
driveway before Jake stopped him. The seasoned detective slid the
dark brown 1984 Buick into the space beside Jaxson’s own
half-silver half-rust, aging Plymouth Voyager. Both vehicles were
police issued and hand picked for this particular
mission.

The department hadn’t
chosen them because they were good, serviceable vehicles. They
weren’t—a fact Jaxson could personally attest to—hell, most of the
time he counted himself lucky to make it to work. Then again, he
thought, glancing down at the silk pumps, maybe
“l
ucky” wasn’t the right
word.

Regardless, neither car
qualified as a reliable vehicle. They coughed, sputtered, and
guzzled oil like it was going out of style. But they were
nondescript, and fit in well among the cracked sidewalks and older
houses in this established, south Florida neighborhood. And it was
a good thing to, because he sure as hell didn’t blend in. He didn’t
care what Jake said about his elaborate disguise providing the
perfect camouflage; no other man in this neighborhood was wearing a
goddamn dress.