Love Game (13 page)

“I’ve got this, boss,” Remington said, putting his hand on Spencer’s.

I could hear Spencer’s blood pressure rise. I wanted to take a step out of the blast zone, but I was wedged between them. I held my breath. Remington was bigger and stronger than Spencer, but Spencer was pretty big and strong. And he was angry. Spencer was good at angry. Remington nodded and took a step back.

“You can take
my
statement, Hercules,” Ruth told Remington. “Not that anybody asked or anybody cares. I mean, what could an old lady in rollers know, huh? Am I right? Are you even listening to me, or is the voice of a woman without viable eggs out of your range of hearing?”

WE WERE
there for hours. Spencer wanted to know how I knew Rellik and how I had managed to get locked in the panic room. I asked him the same thing. It was unclear why a house flipper would entrap eleven innocent people—twelve, if you counted Spencer.

Had he flipped more than a house—like, his lid? Had he been planning on killing us in terrible ways, only to be thwarted by my grandmother’s jacket, Spencer’s appearance, and our escape? Was he now wandering the town, drooling from the mouth and searching for new victims?

We took the paddy wagon back to Grandma’s house. Ruth got dibs on the shower first, which gave me time to strategize with Lucy. We had decided to
raid Luanda’s the next night. I wanted to get Luanda off Uncle Harry’s back and stick around to make sure she didn’t mess with Fred.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get Luanda to unmatch Uncle Harry, but she had put a burr under my saddle, and I was ready to buck or kick her in the head or something else horsey. She made me mad.

“And prove that she’s a fraud,” Grandma reminded me. “Expose her for what she really is before she does permanent damage.”

Grandma had only Luanda on her brain. The fact that we had all been kidnapped and almost killed didn’t seem to faze her.

“I’m gifted in matters of love, not death, dolly. And that fake woman has got my love vibes all screwy.”

I sighed. My love vibes had already been screwy, and it was doubtful I would ever get them straight, despite Grandma’s assertions that I had “the gift.” Love vibes aside, I was getting a reputation for my death vibes. Thank goodness nobody had died in the panic rooms, or my reputation would have been sealed.

Bridget and Lucy picked up their purses and, after Bridget hugged us, I saw them out. I made sure to double-bolt the door and turned in time to see Ruth descending the stairs with a gun in her hand.

“Really?” I asked.

“I refuse to be a sitting duck,” she said.

“Is that loaded?”

“No. When the psycho killer comes to finish off what he started, I plan on throwing this at him. Of course it’s loaded, genius!”

I threw my hands up. Ruth was eighty-five years
old, with slow reflexes and limited vision, not to mention arthritis, and I’d heard at least three of her joints had serial numbers. Still, she was in better shape than me and she probably had learned sharpshooting from Patton himself.

“Great, Ruth, just please keep it away from Grandma. I don’t want her shooting herself by accident.”

Ruth snorted. “If she’s all-seeing, she shouldn’t have any accidents.”

“You win.”

I was filthy. Beyond filthy. Besides my plastered hair, I could only partially open my right eye, and I was picking up a distinct odor, which had to be coming from me, since the Cannes dump had been closed three years ago.

Even though there was a 50 percent chance that Ruth would shoot me in the back, I climbed the stairs to my bathroom. From the look of my filthy nylon boot and the fact that I hadn’t taken my antibiotics or changed the bandage on my foot, I had an 80 percent chance of gangrene, and I needed to get clean on the double.

I SOAKED
in the shower, as Bridget had suggested, but it took half a bottle of conditioner to get the last of the plaster out of my hair. Finally clean and dressed in a cotton nightgown, I hobbled out of the bathroom and into my bedroom.

I was only half surprised to see Spencer sitting on my bed.

“Don’t you like your house?” I asked. Spencer had
turned up in my bedroom on more than one occasion in the past couple of months, each time uninvited.

“There’s a lunatic out there, Pinkie. I’m just checking up on you.”

“I’m not worried about Rellik,” I said, and was surprised that I was telling the truth. For some reason, I didn’t think I had anything more to fear from the flipper. Perhaps he had run off to some other town. In any case, I figured I had been a hapless victim and not a specific target.

“Your foot’s not looking that great,” Spencer noted.

“I was afraid to change the bandage. I was afraid to look underneath it.”

Spencer patted the bed next to him. “Give it here.”

I sat on the bed and lifted my foot onto his lap. “Don’t hurt me,” I said.

“You mean, be gentle with you?” He smirked.

“You never change. How’s your head?”

“The paramedics said I would live. Bandages?”

I handed him the package the hospital had given me.

“I never noticed how big your feet are, Pinkie.” He caressed my toes, making them curl. I tried not to squirm, but my body wouldn’t comply.

“They’re normal, woman-sized feet.”

“Hmm …” he said, like I had told him I’d flown into town on an ostrich.

Spencer gently unwrapped my foot. He placed the soggy bandages on my nightstand and inspected my injury. “Holy shit.”

“What? What? Is it gangrene? Is it black and lifeless? Are there worms growing out of it?” I fell backward
on the bed and covered my eyes with my hands. “I knew it. I knew it. I didn’t take the antibiotics, and now I’m going to die. Rellik killed me!”

“Nowadays they just cut off your leg for gangrene. It doesn’t kill you,” Spencer said.

“Oh, my God! They’re going to cut off my leg? But that’s going to hurt.”

“They’re not going to cut off your leg. You’re fine, no gangrene.”

I bolted upright. My foot was gross, with crusty blood on my sole. “Are you sure? Then why did you say ‘holy shit’?”

Spencer sprayed my foot with a solution and began to dress it in clean bandages. “It was just that without the bandages your foot looked really big. What are you, a size twelve?”

I punched him in the arm. He was solid as a moose. “I’m a nine and a half,” I lied. I’m a size ten, but Spencer was so annoying.

“There you go, Cinderella.” Spencer finished wrapping my foot and tucked me into bed. He ran downstairs and came back a few minutes later with my medicine, a salami sandwich, and a root beer.

I took a bite of the sandwich, and Spencer popped open the root beer. He took a swig and put the can down on my nightstand.

“You’re a lot quieter than usual,” I said. “Why are you here?”

“What are your intentions with Cumberbatch?”

“Excuse me?”

“The new detective, the probie, Cumberbatch.”

“I understood that part. It’s the intentions part I’m fuzzy on.”

Spencer scooted closer to me. “So you’re not going with him to the Apple Days Swingathon tomorrow night?”

“The what?”

Spencer exhaled. “That lying sack of shit.”

It thrilled me to no end that Remington was lying to Spencer about taking me to the Apple Days Swingathon, whatever that was. With Holden gone and Spencer off women, I could use a little flirtation. But I was tired and injured and probably forever traumatized by my kidnapping.

I yawned. “I think I’m ready to go to sleep now. Good night, Spencer.” I nudged him with my leg, and he got off the bed. “Thank you for saving me, by the way.”

“Cumberbatch couldn’t save you,” he reminded me.

“Yeah, but he has a killer body.”

“I have a killer body, Pinkie.” It was true. Spencer had a body that men would kill to have and women would kill to be under.

“Not as killer as Remington’s,” I said, and buried myself deeper in the covers, my eyes shut, halfway to REM sleep. I thought I heard Spencer grind his teeth. “Be careful when you leave. Ruth is armed,” I told him.

“She’s what?”

But I was too far gone to answer. And I would need my rest. My life was about to get interesting.

THE NEXT
morning, Grandma’s kitchen was packed with people. The Single No More class was canceled because Grandma’s clients had jumped ship to Luanda, but life still had to go on. For my grandmother, that meant a permanent.

Hairdresser Bird Gonzalez made a house call to Grandma every Monday, but today was Wednesday.

“Sorry about the wait, Zelda,” Bird told her as she rolled her hair into tight curls. “All the Apple Days events have got me backlogged. It’s a relief being
away from the salon, I can tell you. It’s been nonstop. I’ve got carpal tunnel in my scissors hand.”

Bird had brought the pedicurist, who was going at Grandma’s feet with a cheese grater. Meryl, the blue-haired librarian, who usually delivered books to Grandma, was sipping a cup of coffee, and Grandma’s friend Sister Cyril was sitting next to her, slicing off a piece of cake.

“Hi, Gladie,” Sister Cyril greeted me. “You want a piece of apple crumb coffee cake? It’s heavenly.”

“I got it at Cup O’Cake,” Meryl said. “The shop was standing room only. Half the town was pretending to buy pastries, but they were really there to get the four-one-one on the whole kidnapping thing. It was like a Who concert. I couldn’t get near Mavis or Felicia, but I figured I could get the lowdown from Zelda.”

“The fake psychic has got my radar all wonky,” Grandma told her.

I took a seat and poured myself a cup of coffee. “I was kidnapped, too, Meryl.”

“I heard you stepped on a nail.” She glanced down at my nylon boot.

“That was before I got kidnapped,” I mumbled into my coffee cup.

“There you go, Zelda.” Bird stepped back from Grandma’s head. “That needs to sit awhile.” She put a machine on the counter and opened the refrigerator.

“I thought it was just Mavis, Felicia, Catherine Arbuthnot, and two gentlemen,” Meryl said. I caught her throwing a look to Sister Cyril, like
There goes crazy Gladie again
.

“I was in the other room,” I sputtered. It was bad enough that I had been kidnapped and almost killed by a psycho maniac, but not being believed about it really got my hackles up.

Bird flipped a switch, and her machine roared to life. The noise was deafening. She shoved some green leaves down a hole in the top of the machine, and it got even noisier.

“Bird is juicing,” Grandma yelled to me.

Bird turned around while continuing to cram vegetables and fruit into the grinder. “I’ve lost eight pounds in three days, and I feel great!” she announced, her voice rising above the din.

She turned off the machine and held up a glass of green liquid. “The best diet I’ve ever been on. Take a swig, Gladie. So much better than your coffee.”

I doubted it was better than my coffee, and, besides, every diet Bird had put me on ended in failure. But eight pounds in three days was hard to resist. The juice smelled like vomit and looked worse.

“Your skin will thank me,” Bird said. I had no idea what my skin had to do with it, but I felt that I had to taste the juice or hurt Bird’s feelings. She held it out, a smile plastered on her face.

All eyes were on me. Even the pedicurist took a break from Grandma’s heels to look my way. I accepted the glass from Bird and sipped at it. It tasted like pond scum with a touch of tree sap. I had a flashback to my month as a technician at a wastewater-treatment plant in Nevada.

I swallowed and tried to suppress my gag reflex. I gave Bird the thumbs-up and returned the glass to her.

“Isn’t it fabulous?” She beamed. “So clean. Makes you feel like you can run a marathon.” It made me feel like I had the stomach flu. “You take that one,” she said, handing me back the glass. “I’ll whip up another for myself.”

I stared at the juice. How would I get it down? How could I pour it down the sink without Bird noticing?

“What other room?” Meryl asked me. “Did he try to kill you, too? Did he beat you up?”

“No, I was in the plaster room. He tried to plaster us.” But death by plaster didn’t impress Meryl.

“I heard he terrorized Mavis and the others,” Meryl said. “He had a gun and a knife.”

Once again, I was reminded that I had been in the wrong panic room. I was in the boring, unscary panic room, while the others saw all the action and were now getting all the respect.

Ruth entered the kitchen and took a seat. “And what else did he have, Meryl? A nuclear weapon? A tank? Rhythm?”