The Immaculate Deception (46 page)

I sat behind him of course. I gripped the hand he stretched back at me. The bus departed. Ten minutes into the trip, I glanced around for Norma Jean. She slept luxuriously in one of the grandpas’ deluxe beds at the rear of the bus. She snored.

I said, “How long is this total eclipse supposed to last?”

“
They’re fast, sweetheart. I think it’s probably over. There’s a storm brewing.”

“
Oh. Does all of this have anything to do with Mercury and Mars being in retrograde?”

“
I’d like to think so.”

~*~

We got caught in a backup on the Fourteenth Street Bridge. Traffic eventually snailed its way into the District of Columbia. Ashley steered the bus around some side streets until he found an area marked
Tour Buses Only
. He parked and cut the engine.

“
Where are we off to?” I asked.

“
The Bureau of Printing and Engraving.”

“
Where Chloe used to work undercover.”

He nodded. I peered out the tinted windows. The cars were all contemporary. “But we’re in the twenty-first century today.”

“
Yes, love. Have you got a leash for Norma Jean?”

I sifted through my bag. “Hey, yeah, I do. How’d that get in there?”

He winked at me. I snapped the retractable nylon lead onto Norma Jean’s collar. Ashley procured a pair of high-powered binoculars from an overhead compartment. He opened the door. Norma Jean dragged me down the steps and across the sidewalk to a grassy area. I waited as she sniffed around and then femininely relieved herself.

He was scanning the rooftop of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Sirens wailed past. I noticed a crowd on the ground at the rear of the building. Gazing up, I spotted a person perched on the edge of the roof.

“
Oh no. Don’t jump, mister!” I foolishly called out.

Ashley took the leash from me and handed me the binoculars. “Have a look.”

I wasn’t good with binoculars. Usually held the wrong end up. I fumbled around and twisted the little focus wheels. I saw him. “Officer Dick.”

“
Yep.”

“
Oh doesn’t he want attention? These guys never jump. He just wants to make the national news before he rots in jail.”

I heard Dick shouting, “I confess! I am a murderer! I poisoned Vera Blandings. I poisoned Meddlestein. I beat the hell out of Dr. Payne. It wasn’t my fault. The voices in my head made me do it. Mother’s voice. All I wanted was the money. The money that my father made. It was rightfully mine. But the voices made me do terrible things. I will silence the voices. I will kill myself. Tell my daughters Daddy loved them.”

I handed the binoculars back to Ashley. Norma Jean growled.

“
What’s wrong, girl?” The brown fur was humped up on her back.

A bolt of lightning zigzagged white through the indigo sky. The thunder crash caused me to jump. I heard screams from the crowd. Looking at the building, I watched in slow motion Officer Dick Fiddler plunge to his death.

Ashley wrapped his arms around me. “It’s over now, sweetheart.”

We stepped back on the bus.

~*~

Stopping at a traffic light across from the corner that Perry lived on, I giggled as I watched Tammy motioning for Perry to load the trunk of his car up with the heap of luggage in the driveway. She had a map spread open and a fat black magic marker between her teeth.

I laughed. “They’re driving to Palm Springs!” I pictured the bickering along the way. “I don’t even feel bad for sending them on a wild goose chase. They won’t even get to the end of the line. They’ll kill each other before they hit Chicago.”

Ashley said, “I’m glad I’m an only child.”

“
I wish I was. I mean, I was supposed to be. What is your family like, Ashley?”

“
Mom and Dad loved me very much.”

Norma Jean plopped her chin on my lap.

Ashley told me, “Put your seat belt on, sweetheart. I told you this bus was special. Gotta switch into up-drive.”

“
Up-drive?” We launched vertically, traveling faster than the speed of light, maybe. “Whoo hoo.” Tummy thrill. I marveled at the colored swirls outside the windows. Curly comet tails and galaxies whizzed by in a kaleidoscope of stained-glass colors. I felt as if I was on a virtual reality simulator ride.

I was grinning and out of breath when Ashley set the bus down and put it in park.

“
You make it all right?”

“
Yep. Where’d we travel through?”

“
The black hole, love. We’ve made it through to Mars.”

I stepped off the bus. Norma Jean scurried past me and began snuffling up sand. Ashley cuddled up behind me. He wrapped his arms around my ribs.

“
Higher.”

He nuzzled my neck. I arched my back and sighed.

“
Well, love, what do you think?”

I looked around. White sandy beach. Aquamarine water, deepening out to navy blue. Palm trees, hibiscus in all shades. Flowering vines running around banana and lime trees.

“
I think I adore Mars.”

I yanked him in for a kiss. His fiery lips teased me and then drew back. He took me by the hand and wended down to the water. We danced in the frothy warm surf. The water was waist deep. I heard music. Frank Sinatra’s “All The Way”.

My hair became drenched as he dipped me into the waves. We giggled. I tugged him down onto a white and red swirled sand bar. Waves lapped up against our backs, propelling us a few inches forward with each surge. Facing the shore, he said, “Well, love, what do you think of our house?”

Straight ahead, I observed a small white bungalow with a red tin roof, turquoise door and white gingerbread porch. “That’s ours?”

“
Uh-huh. One bedroom, one bathroom, one lounge, one music studio and one hammock for you and me to make love in.”

“
But where will I have my office? I need a computer and printer and files…” I said.

“
I thought we’d write music together. You’ll be my lyricist. I’ll birth the melodies, you birth the…um…babies?” He searched my face.

“
I’m forty-two years old. It’s getting a little late for that, don’t you think?” Hmm…Momma was forty-one when I was born.

“
All right, love. Then we’d better get busy. Lots of babies to be made. And no worries, there’s a fully equipped office for you in a separate little outbuilding. Fax machine too.” He inhaled. “But I thought we could make a great songwriting team. You know, like Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the Brothers Gibb?”

“
Um…Ashley, they’re all men. And I’m not blessed with songwriting. My muse is whispering full-blown adventures.”

“
Fair enough. We’ll work separately all day and collaborate on off-Broadway productions underneath the bedclothes every night.”

“
Deal. Can we go and have a look around the house now?”

As we strolled hand in hand up toward the bungalow, I noticed a tall wooden tower at the center of the island. “Hey, that looks like the lookout tower on Make Believe Island.”

“
It is.”

“
Well, what happened to Momma and Mike’s house?”

“
Relax, they’re on the other side of the island.”

“
But how is this all possible? I mean I don’t understand how—”

“
Shh, love, no more questions. This is our happily ever after.”

He was right. I didn’t want any answers right now. This was my fairy tale. “And Momma is living her happily ever after on Mars too.” I stretched up on my tippy toes and kissed his cheek.

In one swift movement, he snaked an arm behind my neck and an arm beneath my thighs, picking me up, honeymoon style. He proceeded toward the bungalow.

“
Hey, how come not the caveman carry?”

“
Fireman, sweetheart.”

“
Yeah, the over-the-shoulder thing.”

“
We’re past that now.” He stumbled up the stairs with his lips locked onto my mouth.

I heard Norma Jean pounce onto the wooden porch and stretch out in the shade. She sighed contentedly.

Enjoy a
sneak peek of:

Inappropriate

By Sherry Silver

Chapter One

I hate discovering dead bodies.

I shook my head and slammed on the brakes. While leaping out of the golf cart onto the smooth Cocoa Beach sand, I wiggled my fingers into a pair of nitrile gloves. A shiver of fear convulsed up my spine as a fishy dead-human stench wafted through the dawn. I tiptoed over to a bloated young black man face up in a drenched United States Navy uniform, matted with sand.

“
Sir, do you need some assistance?”
Please roll over and puke or something.
“Hey, buddy, you okay?" Nothing. I gave him a little nudge in the ribs with my sneaker. He felt squishy. I shuddered.

The June sun rose pink on the horizon. Red sky was good luck for sailors or something like that. Not for this guy.

This is so not the way I want to begin my last shift before vacation.

I loosened his tie, unfastened a button and placed two of my fingers on his carotid artery. No pulse. He stared past me, big brown eyes with long eyelashes frozen in a peaceful expression. No, not peaceful. The curl of his lips looked as though he had been up to something mischievous. I lowered my face and put my ear to his nose to listen for breathing as I studied his chest. I didn’t see or feel respirations. Up close he smelled like chlorine bleach.

I wasn’t a coroner but it was obvious to me that this guy had been dead for quite some time.

I struggled with the gritty wet material, unbuttoning the rest of his shirt exposing his hairy chest and a gold Star of David necklace. I didn’t find the dog tags I was searching for.

“
Rest in peace, unknown sailor.”

I whispered a little prayer for him and pulled off the gloves as I hurried back to the vehicle. After slipping them into the black plastic trash bag, I exhaled, flipped open my blue cell phone and punched nine on speed dial. I glanced at my simulated diamond Tinker Bell watch and wiggled my wrist to make the pixie dust dance under the crystal.

“
Cocoa Beach Department of Public Works. What is your complaint?” asked Igor the grouchy dispatcher.

“
It's Sandra Faire. I’ve found a military floater washed up in front of the Copacabana. He’s dead.”

Within ten minutes I was surrounded by three hotel security guys in gray trousers and blue blazers; Andres, the perpetually hung-over lifeguard; Eagle, the hotshot volunteer beach patrolman who always startled the sunbathers tearing around the sand in his ATV;
Bicep Betty
in the yellow polka dot bikini and matching support hose; six uniformed City of Cocoa Beach cops. And Lieutenant Hottie Hernandez, homicide.

Okay so his first name was William, and not that he was my type…anymore…but my temperature sure soared whenever he met my gaze. I needed to figure out how to reroute those errant hormones. I was through with hot
uber
good-looking alpha males. Especially this one. No man of mine answered his cell phone during a romantic interlude. Just because there was a category five hurricane looming was no excuse for him to run off to work and leave me panting on the kitchen table.

Well, yeah, we had some other issues. William and I weren’t compatible except when we were making out. His kisses sent me to nirvana. Perhaps it's just as well the hurricane interrupted us. I had nothing to regret.

We didn’t have anything in common. I was eighteen the first time he kissed me. And the last time. Now I’m twenty-three and he would be thirty soon. I didn’t like cops. They were paranoid, manipulative drama kings. Well, most of the ones in my family tree were.

Hottie was dressed in a black tee shirt, way too tight. I could see the outline of his chiseled abs and the ripple of his deltoids. A badge on a chain hung around his neck, a service weapon and handcuffs tucked into the rear of his deliciously form fitting Levis.

The lieutenant swaggered down and looked over the deceased from a distance as the tide lapped the sailor’s mucky dress shoes. He paced off an area for the uniforms to seal the death investigation scene. Hotel security assisted, offering hot pink umbrellas to shove into the sand to wrap the yellow police tape around.

The lieutenant stopped and squatted before approaching the body, shining his flashlight on the sand with a slow sweeping motion. He led the crime scene photographer to the areas he deemed important. After the initial images were shot, forensics arrived.

The CSI team deployed different colored lights and donned goggles. The photographer changed out the filters on his camera to match the colors the forensic team used.

The lieutenant had a lengthy conversation with the lifeguard then shook his head, scribbled on a notepad, ducked under the police tape and made a beeline for me.

I leaned casually against the umbrella rental stand, twisting an errant strand of pale hair around my finger, determined not to let his deep testosterone voice move me.