Our Red Hot Romance Is Leaving Me Blue (2 page)

As gently as she had ever approached anyone or anything, she said, “Justin, Ed and I are in the business of finding people who’re cheating on their partners.”

“Living, breathing, still-in-the-flesh people,” Edwina said, now fully recovered from her choking spell.

Justin looked at them for a long time, his expression questioning. “But I thought you did surveillance work. I only want you to come to my house and set up some equipment. Some cameras or something. Somebody’s doing this to me. I want you to see if you can find out who.”

Debbie Sue felt tremendous relief that the guy sounded saner. “So you
don’t
believe your wife’s communicating from the grave?”

“My heart would love to think so. At first I tried to tell myself that’s what was happening. I miss her so much. But my logical side tells me some living person’s doing this, and I’ve had it. I want to know who and why.”

“Well, we can sure find
that
out,” Edwina said. “If there’s anything we’re good at, it’s catching people in the act of making fools of themselves. We relate, if you know what I mean.”

“Man, you had me going there for a while, Justin,” Debbie Sue said. “I mean, we’re good at what we do, but we’re not ghost busters.”

Justin’s mouth tipped into a weak smile. “Sorry for the confusion. If it was really Rachel, uh…that’s my wife’s name, my ex…Hell, I still don’t know how to refer to her.”

Rachel.
Debbie Sue zoomed through the halls of her memory. If a Rachel Sadler had ever been in the Styling Station for a hairdo, Debbie Sue would know it. But then, if Rachel was really from Midland, she probably didn’t come in to Salt Lick to shop or get hairdos, either.

“If her name’s Rachel, just call her Rachel,” Edwina said soothingly. “We’ll know who you’re talking about.”

“I really don’t believe it’s actually Rachel who’s doing this. It’s just that when I go into the house and see her rings on the table after I’ve just put them away a day or two before, or smell her perfume, it’s just—”

“Her rings? Her perfume?” Debbie Sue gave him the squint-eye. “Who besides you would have access to her jewelry and perfume?”

Now wringing his bill cap, he continued. “Nobody. But I’m gone a lot. It’s not impossible that somebody could come in the house and…” His voice trailed off again and his eyes took on a faraway look. “All I know is, somebody must have
it in for me bad and they’re doing things they know will get to me.”

“You have no idea who could hate you so much?”

“Her family maybe. They’re big-time wheeler dealers in Midland. They had higher hopes for her than marrying a city employee from Odessa. Rachel was brilliant and well educated. The world was her oyster.”

“Hunh,” Edwina said. “And you weren’t her pearl. Been there! So how’d y’all meet anyway?”

“She was an attorney for a firm that specializes in casualty loss. She spoke at a state convention of the International Firefighters Union in Austin.” A sheen of moisture appeared in his eyes and his face took on a wistful expression. “You should’ve heard her. She was something else.”

This guy was breaking Debbie Sue’s heart. “I’m sure she was,” she said softly.

Edwina sniffed.

“After her speech I went up to her and told her how much I enjoyed it,” Justin said, “and we got to talking. Turned out she was from Midland, grew up there and all her family was still there. We just kept talking until no one was left in the room but us. We went to dinner and pretty much never left each other’s side for six years. Guess you ladies would call that a mushy love story, huh?”

Edwina sniffled again and Debbie Sue bit her lower lip.

“But I still don’t understand why her family hated you so,” Debbie Sue said. “I mean, in time families usually get over things like that. Y’all were happy, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. Rachel used to say we were crazy happy. Oh, we’d have our disagreements. After all, she was a lawyer and she loved a good argument. Things could get pretty heated, but we usually ended up laughing about it.”

“If she’s from Midland and you’re from Odessa, how’d y’all end up living here in Cabell County?” Edwina asked.

“Cheap land that I could afford on my pay. She wanted a place for horses but we didn’t want to ask her folks for money. She found our place for sale on the Internet.”

“You still haven’t said why her family hates you so, now that she’s gone,” Debbie Sue said. “Why would they carry such a grudge?”

Justin re-formed the hat he had been twisting and set it on his head. He shoved his hands deep into his jean pockets and gave her an intent look. “Because I killed her.”

Debbie Sue caught a breath. She was married to a Texas Ranger. If a man had killed his wife within a hundred-mile radius, Buddy Overstreet would know about it. For the second time Edwina began coughing and sputtering. Debbie Sue gave her a daunting glare, then turned back to Justin. “Listen, we need to continue this conversation later. At this rate, Ed will be tossing her cookies. Neither one of us has time for her to be in the back room sick ’cause we’ve got customers arriving in the beauty shop any minute now. Give us directions to your house and we’ll come out and look around. We can talk then.”

“Sure thing,” Justin said. “What time works for you?”

“We’ll be done by three. We could meet you there around four.”

“Four o’clock is great,” Justin said. “I live about eighteen miles out, on the Odessa Highway. On the right side of the road.”

Debbie Sue was shocked at herself for volunteering to show up at this guy’s house when she really didn’t know him. He had just announced he had killed his wife, forgodsake, and he hadn’t disclosed the circumstances. The chill she had felt earlier was starting to creep back. “Even with cheap land, if you’re an Odessa firefighter, why don’t you live in Odessa or somewhere in Ector County?”

“I work three on and three off. I can live anywhere I want to on my days off. On my days on, I stay at the fire station.”

“Right,” Debbie Sue said, somewhat mollified.

“Listen, ma’am, I can’t thank you enough,” Justin said.

Debbie Sue was having a hard time believing he was a killer. She would talk to Buddy about it this evening. If this potential new client had been a suspect in a crime of any kind, Buddy would remember it.

But just in case Mr. Justin Sadler had done what he had just claimed and had somehow managed to escape detection, she said in her firmest, no-nonsense voice, “You need to know one thing, Justin. My husband is Texas Ranger James Russell Overstreet, Jr., and Cabell County is part of his territory.”

“Yes, ma’am, I remember when Buddy was sheriff.”

Not to be deterred, Debbie Sue continued, “And Edwina’s husband is a retired Navy SEAL. You hurt either one of us and between the two of them they’ll pound your head so
hard you’ll have to unzip your pants to blow out your birthday candles.
If
you live to see another birthday. Do we have an understanding?”

A frown of puzzlement formed a crease between Justin’s brows. His gaze switched between her and Edwina for several seconds. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

D
ebbie Sue, alongside Edwina, watched the Domestic Equalizers’ new client climb into his pickup and drive away. Then she and her partner walked back into the salon. Edwina began busying herself with permanent rods, dividing them into groups by size and color, a task Debbie Sue knew was a stalling tactic. Waiting for Edwina’s gripe to surface, Debbie Sue found a task of her own. She started straightening the objects that sat on her workstation. After several minutes, she could no longer stand the silence. “Okay, out with it. I know you’re thinking something.”

Edwina dropped a permanent rod into her tray and crossed her long arms over her flat chest, which was never a good sign. “We’ve never worked for a wife killer before. If he says he killed her, why didn’t we ask him how? And when? And
why? How come we’ve never heard anything about it? And how come you told him we’d meet him at his house?”

Good questions, all. “I’m almost positive Rachel Sadler died in a car accident. Hearing Justin say he had killed her had me so stunned I lost my train of thought. Meeting at his house just fell out of my mouth before I gave it thorough consideration.” Debbie Sue’s concern for her and Edwina’s safety loomed in her mind, but unwilling to admit going to a wife killer’s house might be a mistake, she planted a fist on her hip in her own show of defiance. “Why shouldn’t we go to his house? We couldn’t stand out there in the parking lot all day.”

“But you don’t like him. You don’t want to do this.”

Debbie Sue raised a palm in protest. “Whoa. I never said I didn’t like him.”

“That last remark you made to him wasn’t exactly an invitation for a good time. Hon, you’re easier to read than a newspaper. You do not like him and you don’t trust him.”

“Dammit, Ed, I don’t know how I feel about him.” Debbie Sue gave a deep sigh. “In the short time we spent talking to him, I went from disbelief, to pity, to suspicion and back to disbelief. I must be near my period. I just went through every emotion known to womankind.”

“Not all of ’em.” Edwina picked up a package of her favorite gum—Orbit Bubblemint—from her workstation, unwrapped a piece and popped it into her mouth. She plopped into her styling chair. “I can think of at least seven more.”

“Whatever. So tell me, poker face, what did you think of him? And about taking him on as a client?”

Chewing, Edwina said, “A client’s a client.”

“That’s right. Since when do we have to like everyone we say we’ll work for? We wouldn’t do much business if we took that attitude. But I have to admit, the whole conversation was a little bizarre.”

Edwina lifted her foot, appearing to study the beaded red hearts that adorned her platform shoe. “You got that right. Everything he said just flat-ass weirded me out.”

“You know what his story brings out in me?”

“What?”

“Curiosity. I mean, damn, Ed. Here we’ve got this cool-looking guy who’s heartbroken over his dead wife. A wife he says
he
killed. What’s not to love about that?”

“You left out the part about somebody trying to drive him crazy.”

“Yes, and someone’s trying to make him think he’s bonkers. If that’s not the makings of a good time for the Domestic Equalizers, I don’t know what is.”

“So you don’t buy into that ghost-of-the-dead-wife BS?”

“Nah. There’s got to be a logical explanation. I don’t believe in ghosts. But if anyone ever would be a believer,
you
would, Edwina Perkins-Martin.”

Edwina cocked her head, still studying her shoe. “Well…”

“I knew it!” Debbie Sue gleefully clapped her hands.

Edwina got to her feet and propped both hands on her skinny hips. “Just don’t get too smug, Miss Priss. I’ve seen and heard a thing or two. Things that would make anybody think twice about the supernatural stuff. Even a hardhead like you.”

Debbie Sue plucked a bottle of Windex from her bottom drawer and spritzed her mirror. “Oh, really? Like what?”

“You know my third husband, Jimmy Wayne Perkins? The one from El Paso? His mother—her name was Little Pearl Perkins—that woman either called or went to see a psychic in El Paso for every big decision she ever made. I mean, she—”

“Little Pearl?” Debbie Sue gave her partner an arch look.

“You honestly knew someone named Little Pearl?”

“Little Pearl’s mama was named Pearl too, so everyone called Jimmy Wayne’s mother Little Pearl. Do you want to hear this story or not?”

Debbie Sue bent and returned the Windex to her bottom drawer. “Did they call her mother Big Pearl?”

“As a matter of fact, they did. Just so they could keep them sorted out when they were talking about them.”

Debbie Sue straightened, a roll of paper towels in her hand. “Makes perfect sense.” She began to wipe Windex off her mirror prepared to hear another one of Edwina’s tales about her bizarre family.

“As I was saying,” Edwina continued, “this woman could tell your future and she could communicate with the dead. If I hadn’t witnessed it firsthand with my own beautiful brown eyes, I might not believe it either.”

“And what’d she do firsthand, tell you Jimmy Wayne was gonna cheat on you?”

“Oh, hell, I didn’t need a psychic to know that. But she did tell me he was hiding money from me. She even told me where to find it.”

Debbie Sue set down the roll of paper towels, her interest piqued.

“Really?”

“Yep. Toward the end of that marriage-made-in-hell to Jimmy Wayne, he was gone more than he was home. Only passed through long enough to shower and shave. Half the time me and my girls didn’t have enough food in the house to keep a person alive. Hell. If it hadn’t been for Halloween that year, we might’ve starved to death. Me and the kids hit half the houses in El Paso, trick-or-treating. To this day I want to barf when I see a popcorn ball. That year caused me a bunch of cavities, but we made it.”

Debbie Sue already knew Edwina had spent some hard times in her life. “Why haven’t you ever told me that story before?” she said, contrite.

“No point in digging up bones,” Edwina said absently, appearing to be lost for a moment in thought. Soon she resumed. “Anyway, that psychic told me to look in the toe of Jimmy Wayne’s brown alligator boots. I did and I pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills. It was thick enough to choke a horse. That bastard had twenty-three hundred dollars hidden away for his drinking and partying.”

Debbie Sue gasped. “The sonofabitch. I hope those were the same boots you poured cement in before you left him.”

“The very same. And all his other fancy boots too.”

“Finding that money might not have been something the psychic foresaw, Ed,” Debbie Sue pointed out. “She could’ve made a lucky guess, based on what you asked her. It’s not like people have never hidden anything in a boot.”

“But I didn’t ask her a single question. It wasn’t even me who went to see her. I was just waiting. Here I am, sitting in this strange living room with this pretty little girl, playing checkers and killing time while Little Pearl got her reading. This Mexican woman I never saw before in my life walks in and tells me to look in the toe of my husband’s alligator boot for the money I needed to feed my kids. It happened just like that. I was just sitting there waiting to have my king crowned and she says that.”

“That’s impressive,” Debbie Sue said.

“Damn sure was,” Edwina replied. “It changed my life.”

“You remember her name?”

“I’ll never forget it. It was Isabella Paredes.”

For the second time in the same day, Justin crossed the cattle guard entrance to his home. He felt hopeful. He had made a move toward regaining control of his life. That knowledge alone gave him an enthusiasm that had been long absent. He could tell Debbie Sue Overstreet had mixed feelings about him, though. Probably because she was married to a cop.

In his driveway, Justin killed his truck engine and scooted out with more energy than he had felt in months when approaching his front door. Whoever or whatever was harassing him would soon be exposed. Of that he had no doubt. He unlocked and opened the door.

And stopped dead in his tracks.

The smell of roses was overwhelming.

He quickstepped to the living room and there in the center of the coffee table was Rachel’s best Waterford cut
crystal vase holding a bouquet of yellow roses. His heartbeat escalated, sweat broke out on his brow.

When Rachel was alive, when her family, or
any
company, was expected, she would pull out that vase and fill it with fresh-cut roses. If the yellow roses in the backyard were in bloom, she used them. Or she might buy a bouquet from the grocery store or a florist. She had always put them on the living-room coffee table in full view. Sunlight through the window behind the sofa would bounce off the vase’s finely cut glass and send prisms of light through the room. The soft fragrance of roses would permeate the air.

Just like now.

Anxiety began creeping through him, dispelling the upbeat feeling he’d had after meeting Debbie Sue and Edwina. He stood perfectly still, re-gathering his emotions.

Then he was hit with a realization that made his knees almost buckle. Anyone who had ever visited in their home when Rachel was alive might know of her practice of putting out roses for company. But today, only
he
knew the Domestic Equalizers would be arriving here later this afternoon.

Company
.

Was Rachel’s Waterford crystal vase filled with yellow roses now sitting on the living-room coffee table for
company
?

He shook his head to clear it of those irrational thoughts zigzagging through his mind. He didn’t know how those flowers got into that vase and onto his coffee table, but he was damn glad they were there, waiting for Debbie Sue and Edwina to see that he wasn’t crazy or imagining things.

But whoever or whatever else the Domestic Equalizers might find lurking around his house, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Sitting at the dining table in her small apartment, Sophia pushed away a stack of bills, propped her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands. So many bills, so little money.

During Gran Bella’s illness, Sophia had put her own obligations on the back burner to concentrate on her dying grandmother’s needs. She had readily reached into her own pocket to pay when the insurance company no longer would, making certain Gran Bella had been denied no treatment, necessity or comfort. The illness that had robbed her grandmother of her lust for life and finally, life itself, had wiped out both their savings.

But Sophia couldn’t have done any less after all that Gran Bella had done for her. Senora Isabella Paredes’s dream had been for Sophia to graduate from college. No member of their family had ever attended a single college class, much less graduated. Though a lofty desire, it became achievable because Gran Bella had worked and sacrificed and helped. Sophia had worked hard too, of course. And she had graduated with a degree in elementary education from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Sophia had no regrets about how she had handled her grandmother’s last days, but she couldn’t keep from thinking of the dilemma she now faced. The cost of the funeral and interment, even after the least-expensive choices the fu
neral home offered, had taken the last pennies Sophia and her grandmother had to their names. Now, besides being grief stricken, Sophia was flat broke.

The road going forward portended to be decidedly rougher. First-year, first-grade schoolteachers earned paltry salaries. Before Gran Bella’s passing, Sophia’s plan had always been to obtain her master’s. Just a few additional letters after her name could add thousands to her paycheck. Now, a plan to continue her education would have to wait until she got back on her feet financially. The time she would have dedicated to evening classes would now have to be spent moonlighting.

She had to start by ceasing to dwell on the negative and turn her attention to the positive, even though at this moment, she was pretty positive her bank balance was a negative. She had to find a source of additional income. Being employed at a second job would be no different from holding down a full-time job while she had worked toward her college degree, she told herself.

She rose from her chair and pawed through the newspaper for the classified section. She carried it back to the table and in less than fifteen minutes, had scattered half a dozen red circles over the page in front of her.

While a student, she had held a variety of jobs. She already knew waitressing in a high-end eatery paid more than clerking in a retail store.

She had experience in both family dining and fast food. From that, she had learned that the real money in waiting tables came from tips. Good tips came in restaurants that
served food on plates, on tables with linen cloths. No tips came from places that served food in Styrofoam carry-out containers, ordered from a menu where a number beside a picture defined an entree.

Besides that, Sophia knew she had to be discreet. The school district didn’t forbid outside employment, but her employer might lose faith in her teaching ability if she spent part of her week wearing a paper hat resembling a chicken and asking,” Would you like to Super Cluck that order?”

Another thought lifted her mood. A second job would force her to get out of the house. She had virtually no social life and knew very few men. Among the patrons of an upscale restaurant she might meet men. Perhaps she would meet someone she would fall in love with and marry. She might even meet bachelors who were rich. She didn’t know how many women had met marriage-worthy men waiting tables, but surely there had been some. Wealth had never been at the top of her list of requirements in men, but after going through her stack of bills, money had jumped several notches.

She brought the phone to the dining table and pressed in the numbers from one of the ads. A male voice that made her think of silk answered the phone. After a brief conversation they agreed to meet at the restaurant at two o’clock for an interview. She had an hour to pull herself together.

Minutes later, she was at the bathroom sink brushing her teeth. Thanks to Gran Bella’s investment in good dental care at an early age, Sophia had perfect, sparkling white teeth.