Matchpoint (16 page)

Bridget walked further down the street, calling out Belinda’s name, while Lucy and I divvied up the yurts.

There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t have gone looking in the end-of-worlders’ yurts. I could think of fifteen reasons just off the top of my head. But I was concerned about Belinda, not only because she had enlisted my help to find love and to clear her name, but because Main Street looked like a war zone, and with all the crazies running around, including Rosalie, it wasn’t safe for Belinda to be on her own.

I opened a nylon flap and walked into a yurt. Inside, it looked like a big tent with sleeping bags littering the ground. In the center was a small kerosene heater, and I
noticed a strong smell of pot. No sign of Belinda or the Arrival.

I stuck my head out to see if the coast was clear and then hopped into the second yurt. It took me a moment to get my bearings. The yurt was nothing like the first one. It was nicer than any apartment I had lived in. Here, there were two cots with beautiful linens, some fancy folding chairs I remembered seeing in an airline gadget magazine, a stainless-steel heater and air purifier, and what looked like a portable kitchen with bar and fridge. It also housed an old-fashioned trunk for clothes, which I made a beeline for.

It was filled with beautiful clothes and shoes. I couldn’t help but notice the shoes were fancy, as nice as my grandmother’s, and pretty close to my size. I quietly slipped off my sneakers and tried on a pair of Louis Vuittons I saw hanging off the side of the trunk. They were excruciatingly painful, but they were gorgeous.

I hadn’t been feeling all that sexy lately, but walking around in those shoes made me feel sexy as hell. I had just the right dress for those shoes, I thought, and if I got a good manicure, Holden would swallow his tongue when he saw me.

It was such a relief to think about shoes instead of crazy women chasing me down the street with a knife. I had been having too much of a stressful time lately, a lot like the whole town. How did everything get so turned upside down? Spencer was hiding from women, Holden was hiding from me, a dead dentist with no face fell on me, and Belinda might go to jail before I could match her.

I was in the middle of searching the trunk for more shoes when I heard men’s voices approaching. I panicked and threw myself under one of the cots, bruising my knee pretty good. That’s when I recognized one of
the voices. It was dreamy, like butterfly kisses full of testosterone.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Steve. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw you were in town. Good luck for me. I’ve wanted to talk to you. This means a lot to me,” he said.

“I’m very busy, as you can imagine. I hope this won’t take long, Mr. Holden,” the other voice said.

“I’m sure it’s very complicated organizing all this. You have a lot of followers,” Holden said.

“We are all followers, followers of the Arrival. This is a very exciting time.”

I squished my body into the ground and prayed that no one could see me under the cot. It smelled of earth and dirty socks. I wondered if other matchmakers went through this. Grandma never left her house and was probably at that moment sitting on the couch watching
The View
on TV.

As much as I loved Whoopi Goldberg, however, nothing could stop me from listening to Holden’s conversation with what appeared to be the leader of the end-of-worlders’ cult. Technically, I was spying on Holden, but, I told myself, I was still a long way from stalking him with designer cutlery.

“I understand that. This will only take a minute,” Holden told Mr. Steve. “It’s my understanding that you may know where Becky went. It’s imperative that I contact her.”

“If Becky doesn’t want to be found, I don’t see how I could help you to find her.”

“Really? I think it’s crystal clear how you could help.” Holden’s voice was different than I had ever heard it. Cold with a hint of a threat.

“All right, I understand,” said the cult leader. “Maybe we can wash each other’s backs, as it were. Tell me again what Becky is to you.”

And that’s when a spider crawled over my hand, and I screamed like a blonde in a Hitchcock film, jumped up, and threw the cot off me and across the yurt, which ripped the nylon bindings that held it together, making the whole structure collapse like a house of cards on top of me.

Surprisingly, the yurt made a lot of noise as it fell apart. When the ruckus finally died down, I stumbled to a crawling position and struggled to make my way out of the yurt, which was now a pile of nylon and sticks. I pushed the material off of me, and just as I made my way outside, I felt a hand grab the back of my sweatshirt and pull me to a standing position.

“What the hell?” Holden asked, looking at me as if I were the last thing he ever expected to see in the cult leader’s yurt, and maybe I was.

“I was just visiting,” I said for no apparent reason. He was angry, like steam was going to shoot out of his ears and make a train-whistle sound like in cartoons.

“I was looking for Belinda,” I added, coming to my senses. “She followed the donkey.”

“Shut up,” he said between clenched teeth. “Shut up and don’t say a word. Nothing. Not a squeak.”

My jaw clamped shut in surprise. Holden had always been kind and gentle with me. He had never told me to shut up, that’s for sure. I took a step back to leave and find Lucy and Bridget, but I forgot I was wearing the heels and tripped. Holden caught me easily. “Not a sound,” he repeated.

We watched as Mr. Steve the cult leader climbed out from beneath the rubble. Quickly, other cult members circled him, concerned for his safety.

“What happened?” Mr. Steve asked. “I thought it was the Arrival for a moment,” he said to Holden, and then his eyes cut to me and down to my stolen shoes. He was not pleased.

“Uh …,” I started, but heard Holden’s molars grind together.

“There must have been a defect in the construction,” Holden said. “How about I buy you a cup of coffee and we’ll continue our conversation?”

Mr. Steve studied me and wagged his finger in my direction. “You’re the witch’s granddaughter, the one who found Simon Dulur’s body.”

“Uh, that’s a misconception about my grandmother. She’s just highly intuitive,” I said.

“The motive for Simon’s murder is obvious. I don’t know why the police can’t figure it out,” he continued.

“It is? You don’t?” I asked.

“Of course. It was a hate crime.”

“You mean, Dr. Dulur was …?” I asked.

“Yes, one of us,” he said, completely shocking me. “Simon was a devotee of the Sacred Mountain, waiting for the Arrival. Holy shit!” His head shot up, and his mouth dropped open. Holden, the other cult members, and I followed his gaze.

Above in the sky, the unfortunate Christmas pageant donkey floated by, suspended by a red, white, and blue parasail. The animal looked down and brayed pitifully.

“Uh,” Holden said.

The donkey kicked its legs, trying to get free, and then gave up, letting its body go slack.

“This is what happens when we are threatened, I’m afraid,” the cult leader explained after a moment with a shrug. “It becomes an exaggerated tennis game, a competition, as it were.”

I leaned into Holden. “I guess it’s pagans one, townsfolk zero.”

SIRENS CAME from all over. Police cars, an ambulance, and two fire trucks careened around the corner, seemingly following the donkey’s path as it floated over the town in order to catch it before the poor creature fell to its death or got caught in a power line.

We could hear the donkey’s pathetic cries for help as it floated above us. We could also hear giggling from some of the cult members, who were no doubt responsible for the vengeful act.

I caught a glimpse of Sergeant Brody driving by, his gaze toward the sky and the flying donkey. In fact, all law enforcement was looking up, watching the donkey’s trajectory as they drove to its rescue.

It wasn’t the safest way to travel.

They swerved through the streets. I gasped as I watched three near misses, and then finally there was an explosive sound as metal met metal and two police cars sideswiped each other.

Mr. Steve the cult leader hovered over my shoulder. “This town is so strange,” he said. He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. “Strange but lovely,” he added, throwing a look down at my stolen shoes and then into my eyes. His breath smelled of stale cheese, making my morning’s latte back up on me. He gripped me hard. I tried to wiggle away, but I couldn’t break his hold.

In an instant, Holden was there and peeled Mr. Steve’s hands off me and moved me to stand behind him. “So, about that talk,” he said to the cult leader.

“Inopportune moment,” he said. I couldn’t see them with Holden in front of me, but there was a small, almost imperceptible shuffle and Mr. Steve had a change of heart. “Fine, then. Tomorrow night. You can come for the firelight vigil. And bring your lady friend. I like her taste in shoes.”

Mr. Steve stepped away from us and ordered his minions to rebuild his yurt. The street, once deserted, was now a hive of activity between law enforcement managing their car accident, the cult managing the aftermath of the stampede, and the stragglers who wandered, pointing upward at the donkey, who was floating in a southeasterly direction.

Bridget and Lucy appeared as well. I was happy to see them safe, and I couldn’t wait to go home. Before we could say our hellos, however, we were interrupted by
Mayor Robinson running through the street with his costume half torn off his body.

“Dulcinea! Dulcinea!” he shouted to the heavens. “My donkey! Look what they’ve done to my donkey!” He ran in the donkey’s direction, shouting for it. The donkey seemed to recognize him and brayed even louder.

“Best Christmas pageant
ever
,” Lucy said cheerfully.

“Did you find Belinda? We came up empty,” said Bridget.

With no sign of her, we decided to double back and look for Belinda at Bridget’s condo.

But Holden had other ideas. He held on to my arm a little too firmly. “Ladies, Gladie and I are going to walk home together,” he told my friends. He used his authoritarian voice, which was out of character for him. I got goose bumps. I wasn’t scared, exactly, but he had my attention.

“Oh, my,” Lucy said, fanning herself.

“Okay,” giggled Bridget.

HOLDEN ESCORTED me by my arm away from Main Street, and in a short while, I found myself back in the alley where Rosalie had had me cornered only minutes before. Holden steered me up against a wall and planted his hand above my head. He leaned into me, his face about an inch from mine.

“What were you doing in the yurt?”

He was good-looking. More than good-looking. He left Brad Pitt in the dust in the looks department. But at that moment, he was all business. I had been a bad girl, he seemed to say with his eyes, and Holden didn’t like bad girls.

“I was looking for Belinda,” I croaked, my mouth dry all of a sudden.

“Under the cot? You thought Belinda was under the cot?”

“I heard your voice and got scared.”

Holden raised an eyebrow. “My voice scares you?” He took a strand of my hair and curled it around his fingers. “I was hoping my voice had another effect on you.”

I swallowed.

“What did you hear when you were listening to my scary voice?” he asked. “You wanted the cult leader’s help. You asked about Becky.”

“And who is Becky?”

“I don’t know,” I said. But I suspected her thighs were thinner than mine, and I hoped she wasn’t too pretty.

Holden caressed my cheek. “You are lovely,” he said like he was trying to convince himself. “And I can’t seem to stay away from you.”

“Are you trying to stay away from me?”

“It might be wiser,” he said.

“Ouch.”

“No, there’s no ouch.” He leaned in, pressing his body against mine, and captured my mouth with his. His face was scratchy with the start of a beard, but his lips were soft and warm, and I sank into him. He was yummy, even better than ice cream. My head swam, and I could swear I levitated. I wondered vaguely if I was going to float away and then they would have to chase me along with the donkey.

Holden kissed me like he meant it, like he never wanted to stop, but after a while, he did stop, and he rested his forehead against mine and caught his breath. I had stopped breathing altogether. I was past the need for oxygen.