Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (14 page)

To Miss Ruffles, who commandeered my bed now that Honeybelle was gone, I said, “Or maybe he goes to church.”

She gave me a long, pitying look. Nobody went to church for six or eight hours on a Saturday night, not even in Texas.

“It's better when he's here,” I said to Miss Ruffles. “I'm scared to be alone with Mae Mae.”

Miss Ruffles greeted this confession by plunking her butt on the bed and using one hind leg to scratch her ear.

Not happily, I went downstairs for my weekly uncomfortable dinner alone with Mae Mae. Tonight she had made a spicy chicken dish that would have sent Mr. Carver reaching for the Rolaids. A man had shown up at the back gate with the whole plucked chicken, saying he owed Honeybelle something nice after she gave him a lift out of town one day. Even though she was gone, he wanted to return the kindness, so Mae Mae accepted it. While I ate the chicken, she watched me from the corners of her eyes, maybe hoping I'd complain about the hot pepper.

“It's delicious,” I told Mae Mae. “It reminds me of the stews in Colombia. My mom took me there once. They cook with okra, too.”

Impervious to my conversation starter, she hmphed and served me a dish of melon slices—her usual dessert for Mr. Carver.

While I ate the melon, I thought about that trip to Colombia—one of the few occasions my mother lugged me along on one of her adventures. I was maybe thirteen, and I'd been terrified most of the time. The woman who had made the stew calmly killed a snake that slithered into her kitchen, and I'd had hysterics that made my mother disgusted with me. I had disappointed her then. I wondered if I continued to disappoint her for the rest of her life. Thinking about it made me low.

Mae Mae cleared the table. She snapped on the television and turned up the volume to hear the dialogue on a rerun of a forensic cop show, her obsession. I kept my thoughts to myself as I took out the trash. When Mae Mae poured herself a last cup of coffee and went up to her apartment over the kitchen—without so much as a “good night”—I made Miss Ruffles her nightly bowl of kibble. When I rattled the scoop in the tub of food, she usually came running.

Tonight, she didn't.

I went to the back door, held it open, and whistled, but she didn't show herself.

I went outside to look for Miss Ruffles. She wasn't digging up flowers or patrolling for invading UPS men. Nor was she snoozing under the lavender bush. She didn't come when I whistled again. She didn't yip when I called her name.

With a pang of horror, I rushed around to the front yard to check the rose garden. I pushed open the gate and found it beautifully silent, thank heaven—no sign of Miss Ruffles. I ran into the backyard to check the pool, suddenly dreading I might find her body floating in the pristine water. But no. I sagged with relief against the aluminum pool ladder. After that, I made a complete search of the big backyard. There were no telltale holes dug under the fence, no signs that Miss Ruffles had somehow scrambled over the six-foot stone wall by the garage or the hedge that ran around the rest of the property. She had never escaped before—not for lack of trying.

With concern rising in my throat, I stood in the middle of the large expanse of green grass and scanned the yard, trying to imagine where she'd gone. Down a prairie dog hole? Up a drainpipe?

I went out the back gate and stood on the driveway for a long moment, trying to quell the slam of my heart long enough to hear the snick-snack of her nails on the pavement as she trotted home. But the street was silent. Ten's Jeep was long gone, tire tracks obvious in the slight coating of dust on the asphalt. The Blues Brothers sat in their black car. One of them waved at me through the windshield.

No sign of the dog.

I stumbled back inside the gate. Miss Ruffles had run away. The realization hit me like a body blow. That's when I saw a slip of paper stuck between the slats of the gate.

I snatched it out and automatically unfolded it—a sheet of lined paper that had been hastily ripped from a ring-bound notebook. The ragged edge fluttered in my hand.

Block letters, printed in plain blue ink.

MISS RUFFELS IS SAFE BUT NOT FOR LONG. FOLLOW DIRECIONS AND SHE WILL BE RETURN TO YOU. YOU WILL GET ANOTHER NOTE ON MONDAY. DON'T TELL POLLICE OR ANYONE OR ELSE SHE WILL
DIE.

I read the note twice before the message sank in. The paper slipped from my fingers and fell to my feet. Instinctively I stepped back from it. Then my brain kicked in, and I bent to snatch it up with trembling fingers to read again, hoping I'd been wrong the first time.

When the news came that my mother had died, I felt for a split second as if I were in the midst of a plane crash—as if time slowed down, postponing the inevitable blunt force trauma of impact coming, coming, but not here yet. I was not yet hurled against the ground, not yet changed. One moment she was alive, and the next she was dead—but it took forever for that moment to arrive. When it came, her gone-ness hit me as if the power and momentum of the plunging plane had thrown me into solid earth.

It felt the same way as I read the words printed on the note.

Miss Ruffles had been taken. She was gone.

I cried out and clapped my hand over my mouth.

Then I noticed the blood on the paper. Blood from Miss Ruffles?

No, I thought instantly. Miss Ruffles had bitten her abductor. My heart twitched to life again.
Good for you, Miss Ruffles.
The blood made me think maybe she had escaped her captor. Maybe she had gotten free and was running loose in the neighborhood.

I jammed the note into my pocket to hide it. I ran back through the gate and across the yard and went in the side entrance of the house to grab a leash. In the kitchen, I filled my pockets with Milk-Bone biscuits, her favorite treat. As I moved to let myself out the kitchen door again, Mae Mae caught me. She was in her bathrobe, coming out of the pantry with a bag of microwave popcorn in hand. Her Saturday night ritual was eating popcorn in bed while watching reruns of
CSI
programs.

“Where are you going?” she snapped.

“I'll be back in a few minutes,” I said over my shoulder.

“But—”

I didn't wait to explain or hear more. I ran across the backyard and let myself into the driveway by the gate. Out on the street, I whistled once, then bit my lip. I shouldn't be advertising Miss Ruffles was missing.

The black car was still there. As I marched over, the driver's window rolled down. Mr. Costello was reading a newspaper in the passenger seat, but he leaned over to speak to me.

“Hello, there, Stretch. How you doing tonight?”

“Where's my dog? Where is Miss Ruffles?”

“Huh?”

“You grabbed her!”

“The cute dog? No, we didn't grab her. We're staying over at the Fairfield Inn. They don't take dogs. Did she run off?”

“Did you see anybody in the street?” I demanded. “Did anybody stop by the gate?”

Both of the Blues Brothers craned around to look at the back gate, as if someone might be standing there right that minute.

Costello said, “No, we didn't see nobody.”

“We took a drive over to the convenience store,” his partner said. “Gotta use the toilet sometimes.”

Costello poked him. “She's a nice girl. Don't talk to her like that.”

I said, “Are you sure you didn't see anybody with Miss Ruffles?”

Costello lifted one large paw. “Right hand up to God. Want us to drive you around a little? We could talk about the money for Mr. Postle—”

“No,” I said firmly.

“Hey, wait up. We'll follow you and—”

I didn't stick around to listen what their plan might be. I cut across the lawns of several neighbors and lost them quickly.

I hiked the nearest blocks of the residential neighborhood, hoping Miss Ruffles was loose, had escaped, was still somewhere nearby. When I ran with her in the mornings, we zigzagged through all the neighborhoods, so I prayed she was roaming around the territory we often traveled together, maybe finally getting to knock over the trash cans that always tempted her. I looked between houses, under bushes, behind trash cans and fence gates—I saw no glimpse of her brindle coat. I stopped on a corner and held my breath, listening for her yip, or maybe the telltale yowl of a cat being chased. Nothing. No sign, no sound of Miss Ruffles.

I couldn't believe she'd been kidnapped. I pulled the note from my pocket and read it again to be sure.

It was true. She was gone.

It was a human instinct to find someone to help me. Mae Mae and Mr. Carver would be no use, though, and I didn't want to panic them. The police were out of the question—the note had said as much. I found myself jogging into town.

My mother used to say that scientific research started by knowing your organism. By that, I thought she meant knowing the environment or the community or whatever place your subject lived in. For her, it was the butterfly jungle. For me, it was the town of Mule Stop, and I was very glad I had spent so much time running its streets and learning about its inhabitants. Not just the place, but the people.

The football game was long over, and students thronged on the streets. Small, noisy groups hung out on the sidewalks as well as in doorways of the bars. Students held red plastic cups of beer and laughed with each other over the fiddle music of Crazy Mary.

I pushed my way past the students and barged through the door of Cowgirl Redux. My friend Gracie was leaning on one elbow on the counter. Her hair was in hot rollers. In front of her sat a cupcake with a burning candle stuck in it. The chocolate cupcake was positioned on a pink paper napkin. Gracie's eyes were squeezed shut tight as if she were making a wish.

“Gracie?”

She opened her eyes and smiled. “Hey, Sunny. It's my birthday. I got myself a cake.”

“Happy birthday,” I said automatically, catching my balance on the counter.

“Actually, I got myself a half-dozen cupcakes. Since I don't have a date, I'm going to drown myself in buttercream frosting. You want one?”

“No, thanks. But Gracie—”

“Just let me finish wishing I could drown myself in Rico Vega instead. The bartender around the corner. He's gorgeous, and I can't get him to notice I'm alive.” She took a deep breath, shut her eyes again, and blew hard on the candle.

Instead of going out, the candle tipped over and fell out of the thick frosting. It landed on the napkin, and a small flame sputtered up. A second later, the tiny fire leaped from the napkin to a bundle of receipts. Gracie yelped and grabbed the first thing she could reach—a polyester scarf—to put out the flame.

I blocked her arm and reached for the nearest display rack and a denim jacket decorated with a garish, hand-drawn skull—very ugly. I used the jacket to beat down the flames.

“Wow,” Gracie said. “You're quick.”

With the fire was out, I handed the jacket over to Gracie. A plume of smoke wafted in the air around us. “You okay?”

“Yeah. But—dang.” Gracie waved the jacket to dispel the smoke. “I just lost my chance to meet some firemen for my birthday, didn't I?”

“Sorry.”

“Hey, this jacket looks even more badass with the burn marks.” She examined the blackened edges of the fabric. “Cool.”

For her day job at the law firm, Gracie wore sensible suits, but when she hung out at the shop, she favored either cowgirl skirts with fringes or ruffled Mexican blouses overflowing with a feminine display that turned heads, although maybe not in the way she wanted. Deep down, Gracie wanted champagne and a handsome prince, but the message she was sending was all about margaritas and cheap motels. Tonight the blouse made her look like she was advertising cantaloupes.

Belatedly, the smoke alarm began to shriek, and it nearly gave me a heart attack.

I fell into the canvas chair in front of the big mirror.

Gracie waved the jacket at the smoke alarm until it stopped. Finally, she noticed the look on my face and the leash in my hand. “You okay, darlin'? What's wrong? Where's your pooch?”

“Gracie, you can't tell.” I felt a clog rise in my throat, and my voice cracked. “You can't tell a soul, but Miss Ruffles—she's gone.”

Gracie dropped the jacket on the counter and came out from behind it to squeeze my quaking shoulder. “Catch your breath. It can't be this bad. She probably went looking for love, that's all.”

I could hardly breathe, and it wasn't from the smoke. All my fears were suddenly boiling. I shook my head. “She's in real danger. She's been taken.”

“What? Taken? What do you mean? Why?”

“I don't know. I don't know what to do. Here.” I handed over the note.

Gracie skimmed it, growing more alarmed as she read each terse, misspelled sentence. “Wow! This is … it's crazy! No, look, calm down. I'll help you. Just … get a grip first. You need a drink? I've got some bourbon in the back.”

I realized I was rocking in the chair, hugging myself. My adrenaline was all used up. I wiped my eyes and shook my head. “No, thanks. I'm just … I'm scared for her.”

“I get that. But this note says she's okay for now. That's good, right?” Gracie went back behind the counter and returned to press a cold bottle of water into my shaking hand. “Tell me how this happened.”

I took a slug of water and blurted out the words. “She was out in the yard—nothing unusual. I was in the house. The gate is always closed. But someone just took her.”

“Why? No offense, but she's not exactly cuddly with strangers, right?”

“Somebody stole her.” I couldn't say the word “kidnap.” And I didn't have time to explain it all—how if Miss Ruffles was truly gone, Mr. Carver and Mae Mae would lose their chance at comfortable retirements. It had taken me only a week to lose the dog and ruin their futures. I began to tremble all over again. “Whoever took her will ask for money. Gracie, I don't have any money!”