Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack (4 page)

“But you forgot her completely until now?”

Fred tightened his lips and glared at me, letting me know I was being rude and pushy. I ignored him.

“It’s normal to suppress memories after a traumatic incident like the death of her parents,” he said.

I had just been reprimanded. I made a note to reprimand Fred later for reprimanding me.

“My aunt didn’t encourage imaginary stories. Over the years, I guess I just moved it to the back of my mind.”

“Do you remember what your imaginary friends looked like, Lindsay?” Fred asked.

“Sort of. Vaguely.”
Not really
. “Is this another test? Do you remember what your imaginary friends looked like?” I was always trying to find out personal things about Fred and he was always refusing to tell me.

Of course he ignored my question. “Sophie remembers Carolyn very clearly.”

Sophie nodded. “She had blond curly hair which I envied, blue eyes and fair skin. And her mother looked a lot like her.”

“Your imaginary friend had a mother? My friends taunted me with the fact that they didn’t have a mother and father who told them what to wear and when to go to bed and to finish their broccoli. Did your imaginary friends have parents, Fred?”

“When was the last time you saw your imaginary friends, Lindsay?” Fred asked, again ignoring my question.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I grew up and got interested in other things. It’s not like they came by for a farewell party one day.”

Fred looked at Sophie. She swallowed, leaned forward and carefully set her plate and fork on the coffee table. “I remember the last time I saw Carolyn. It was when she was murdered in Fred’s bedroom.”

Chapter
Four

My fork rattled against my plate. I realized my fingers were twitching. I took a big gulp of Coke in an effort to swallow the shock rising in my throat. “You were in Fred’s bedroom? You saw Carolyn get killed?”

I’m not an expert on imaginary friends, but I was pretty sure they didn’t often die violent deaths. Only real friends did that.

“Maybe Carolyn wasn’t imaginary,” I said quietly. “Maybe she was a real person who lived in this house and you witnessed her murder.”

Sophie gave a tight smile and shrugged. She was trying to appear nonchalant but it wasn’t working. “I used to believe it really happened. I remember
talking about it to my mother and father and then my aunt after my parents died. They all told me it was a dream, that Carolyn was imaginary. This house was vacant the whole time we lived here.”

I looked at Fred questioningly, trying to ask him silently if that was true, if the house had been vacant.

He frowned. “Are you having a seizure, Lindsay?”

So much for
my theory that he was psychic.

I turned back to Sophie. “You must have been in this house before.
You knew your way around. You went straight to Fred’s bedroom when you came here last night.”

She nodded. “My mother said I loved to sneak over here and play, that I told her Carolyn and her mother lived here.”

“I guess that makes sense. Mysterious, deserted house. Some kids would have populated it with witches and vampires and zombies.”

Sophie’s smile relaxed. “I was an only child, so I populated it with a best friend whose mother was a really good cook.”

I looked at Fred again. He looked back with no expression. It was not possible he didn’t see the absurdity of this conversation. Sophie’s friend had to be real.

“Your imaginary friend had an imaginary mother who was a good cook? You ate over here, in an empty house? What did you eat?”
Dust?

“I pretended we ate pizzas and hot dogs and ice cream. Carolyn’s mother let us have all sorts of food we only got at my house for special occasion
s. Surely you had tea parties with your imaginary friends.” She was beginning to sound a little defensive. I couldn’t blame her. I was being nosy and tactless.

“Yes, we did have tea parties,” I admitted. “But when Mother showed me how to pour air out of an empty teapot and pretend to drink from an empty teacup, I told her that was silly and demanded we have Coke and cookies for our tea parties.”

“Your imaginary friends drank Coke and ate cookies?” Fred asked.

If that wasn’t just like a man. Not a peep out of him when Sophie with her perfect skin and hair and eyes told an absurd tale about imaginary people and imaginary food. Then he called me out on my imaginary friends? I’d let him know later what I thought of such behavior.

I lifted my chin and glared indignantly at him. “I ate and drank for them when Mother wasn’t looking.”

“And you think she didn’t know that?”

“I think as long as I was sitting quietly, not making a mess, eating and conversing with people who didn’t make a mess, she was happy. Sophie, did you have Carolyn over to your house for dinner?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did your mother set a plate for her?”

“Yes.”

I leaned toward her, watching her expression carefully. “Did you eat her food for her?”

Sophie licked her lips and looked uncomfortable. “I guess so. It was a long time ago. Does it matter?”

Of course it mattered, but she didn’t seem to want to deal with it. “Probably not.”

She rose abruptly and smoothed her hands over her
slacks. “I should go. Thank you for the coffee, Fred, and the cake, Lindsay. And again, I apologize for last night.”

Fred and I both stood. I suddenly felt guilty about interrupting the two of them. Yeah, a minute ago I’d been jealous and desperate to insinuate myself into the conversation.
But who knew the conversation was going to be so intense? So personal? “You don’t need to leave,” I protested. “I just came over to bring Fred his chocolate fix. I need to get home and, uh, feed my cat.”

As if Henry heard me lying, a horrible noise came from Fred’s front door, a noise like a feral cat in the jungle about to take down a village. I’d heard that noise before, and it never meant anything good.

I dashed across the room and yanked open Fred’s front door just as Henry charged the screen and ripped it to shreds. I could only hope it hadn’t been a treasured antique. Yeah, screen doors are usually rusty relics, but Fred’s wasn’t rusty though it didn’t look new either. It was hard to tell with him.

Henry calmed as soon as he saw me. Well, at least he stopped yowling and being destructive. Instead he growled deep in his throat, paced to the edge of the porch then back to me, switching his tail the entire time. I opened what was left of the screen door and walked onto the porch. Henry trotted toward my house.

I looked in that direction and saw Rick hurrying down the sidewalk toward the black BMW convertible parked and running in the street.

“You have got to be kidding!” I protested to the universe.

I ran toward the car, but he got there before me. I barely had time to slap the trunk as he slid into the front seat and screeched away.

Henry trotted up, gave Rick’s car a scathing look as it disappeared around the corner, then turned back toward the house, looking over his shoulder to be certain I was following. I stood for a moment grinding my teeth, wondering what he’d done to my house that made him want to get away so fast. Only one way to find out. I turned to follow my cat.

“We might need to call Trent and have him send out the bomb squad before we go near the house, Henry. The way Rick peeled out of here, he may have left us a little present. Guess he wasn’t happy that I refused to take care of his kid.”

Henry trotted toward the porch and sat at the bottom of the steps, looking over his shoulder and grumbling deep in his throat. There was definitely something on that porch he didn’t like.

“What’s going on?”

Fred and Sophie were making their way through the uber-healthy vegetation in my yard, aka weeds. Fred held Sophie’s arm protectively as if concerned she might stumble. Walking across my nonconforming
yard, it was possible she might.

“Rick.” I pointed down the street. “He made his getaway.”

“What did he want?”

“May have planted a bomb.”

Fred released Sophie’s arm. “Stay here.” He moved toward my house in long strides.

“I was kidding.” I had to run to get to the porch before him. Why did I have to get there before him? I like being first.

Both of us stopped when we hit the second step up to the porch and were able to see what Rick had left for me.

Rickie sat on my porch swing, a long piece of
red licorice in one hand, a Coke in the other. A battered, bulging canvas suitcase rested beside him.

No wonder Henry hadn’t wanted to go on the porch.

“What are you doing here?” I already knew the answer to that question.

“My daddy said I was going to stay with you for two weeks and that you’d let me have all the Cokes and cookies I want. I want a cookie now.”

Sophie caught up with us and stood beside Fred. “Who is this adorable child?”

“My ex-husband’s son.”
I felt a little sorry for the kid, dropped off on one doorstep by his mother and on another by his father, but we had no time to waste. Rick could be planning to leave for the airport as soon as he got home and picked up Ginger. I pulled my keys from my pocket, grabbed Rickie’s suitcase and headed toward the garage. “Come on. We’re going back to your dad’s.”

“He’s going out of town to make money to pay child support for me.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Fred lift the boy bodily out of the swing and throw him over his shoulder.

I set the suitcase on the driveway and lifted my garage door then backed my Celica out. Fred opened the passenger door, slid the seat forward and put Rickie in the back seat then lifted the hatch and tossed in his suitcase.

He continued to hold the door open as he turned toward Sophie. “I apologize, but we have to leave for a few minutes. We’ll be back shortly. The way Lindsay drives, this won’t take long.”

We’ll
be back shortly?

“
Okay, I’ll, uh, talk to you later.” She sounded a little confused. Woman who sees imaginary playmate murdered meets woman who plans to murder ex-husband. We all have our little idiosyncrasies. 

“Close the door!” I shouted.

He slid into the passenger seat and complied with my order. “Go,” he said. “If you want to get this boy to Rick’s house before he leaves, you need to press on the accelerator and make this car move. Nobody’s going to beam you over there.”

“You can’t ride with me! You hate riding with me!”

“My life insurance is paid up.”

Even with the time constraints, I couldn’t resist the chance to find out something about Fred. “Who’s the beneficiary?”

“Do you really want to sit here and talk while Rick’s getting away?”

I hit the gas, backed out to the street, threw the car into gear and peeled out.

“I spilled my Coke,” Rickie whined from the back seat.

Great. I knew from experience how difficult Coke was to get out of the upholstery.

Rick would probably volunteer to clean it for me since his son did it. Yeah, I get sarcastic even in my thoughts.

“I don’t want to go to my dad’s,” Rickie complained. “I don’t like that woman who lives there.”

“Big deal. Neither do I.”

“Have you met Rick’s new girlfriend?” Fred asked.

“No, but if Rick likes her, I’m pretty sure I don’t.” I slid around a corner on two and a half wheels.

Rick drives a hot car, but it’s all for show. I easily caught up to him and pulled in behind him as he sat in his driveway waiting for his garage door to go up.

Of course he saw me. He pulled into the garage and immediately started the door on its downward journey. But those doors are slow. I slid out of my car and ran under before it got halfway down. Apparently I tripped the electric beam because the door stopped then went back up.

Rick jumped from his car. “Get out of my house!”

“Just as soon as I return what belongs to you.”

Fred ambled up beside me, Rickie in tow. Rick paled when he saw Fred. “What are you doing here?”

“Returning your son.” Fred’s voice betrayed no hint of the insanity in progress. He might have been referring to a piece of mail delivered to the wrong address.

The door to the house opened and a triple D blonde stepped out. “Honey, what’s going on? Who are those people?”

“Go back inside, Ginger. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Her bottom lip…another triple D implant…pouted. “I thought you were taking the kid to a babysitter so we could be alone.”

“I’ll take care of it. Go back inside.”

I recognized his tone. He had given an order and if she didn’t comply, she’d be in trouble. I was much more familiar with what happened when I didn’t comply with Rick’s demands than
with what happened when I did since I rarely did.

I strode toward Ginger, extending my hand. She moved backward, looking at Rick as if for directions on how to handle this latest atrocity. “Hi, I’m Lindsay, the ex. So nice to meet Rickie’s latest stepmother. Did you know Rick’s buying another ticket to Hawaii so you can go together as one big happy family?”

Her eyes widened. “You said it would be just us, Rick!”

“She’s lying,” Rick assured her.

I smiled. “Just kidding.”

“Go inside, Ginger. I’ll take care of this.”

She opened her mouth as if she was going to protest, but instead blinked and obediently went back into the house, closing the door behind her.

Rick turned on his salesman’s hundred watt smile. “Lindsay, please, this one time, do this favor for me. We have to leave for the airport at four in the morning. How am I going to find a babysitter by then?”

I looked at Fred. “Do you know the answer to that question?”

“No.”

I turned back to Rick. “Okay. I’ve asked the audience and I don’t want to phone a friend. I guess I’ll have to give up on that question. I have no idea. Good luck!”

Fred took my arm and we started out of the garage.

I turned back. “If you ever pull this kind of a stunt again, I’ll call social services. Do you want your son in a foster home?”

The look on Rick’s face told me that was a wasted threat. He didn’t care if his son went into a foster home
just as long as he didn’t have to be bothered with him. Now that I’d given him the idea, he might call social services just to get a babysitter. Damn.

“Daddy, she didn’t give me any cookies. You said she’d give me cookies.”

I could feel Rick seething behind me. Maybe he’d get so angry he’d explode. I walked a little faster so none of the pieces would hit me.