The Lush Life (Samantha Jamison Mystery Book 8) (13 page)

Chapter 38

Going Batty

Mona was taking everyone out for dinner in New Hope at Marsha Brown’s for some Creole cooking. I was beat and begged off, after returning the last of the collectable books to the family room shelves. We rechecked them, verifying their value with the book sites and past auctions.

I knew the ladies were looking forward to going out. Mona also managed to get Scarlett and Teddy to go too. I didn’t think there was enough money out there to make me accept babysitting that group, bonus included. This was round two of Mona taking one for the team.

Clay returned shortly after Tony disappeared and headed straight for Chris’ office to make a few calls, still chasing down leads on
Tony’s
mother. That was probably why Clay had taken off earlier by himself, hence Tony bugging me.

I never got to speak with Clay about my
sit down
with Tony that afternoon, but would make a point of it tonight. I couldn’t believe we had a few hours alone to talk later on.

I passed by Clay, saying, “I’m going up to shower.”

I took the stairway to the master bedroom, reading an email on my phone, opened our bedroom door then shut it.

Then I heard Clay yell from downstairs.

“Holy shit! There’s a bat in the house!”

I stopped cold and peeked out, yelling, “What? Where?”

“It just flew down these stairs!”

I sucked in air. I had just walked up those stairs checking emails and had walked right passed it. My mind refused to accept that, so I yelled back to him reassuringly.

“It was probably just a bird that got into the house.”

I could deal with a bird. But a bat? Uh-uh.

“Sam, I know the difference between a bat and a bird!”

Then panicky thoughts gripped me. Could it be rabid? Where did it come from? One of the chimneys? No, there were chimney caps on them. I yelled down to Clay from behind the safety of our bedroom door, “Where is it now?”

He called out, “When I approached the first step to come upstairs it flew down passed me over my head. I don’t know where it went! I don’t see it anywhere down here.”

Well, there are two rooms in that area: Alicia’s office and Chris’s, then the hallway leads from that office to the rest of the house. I cautiously made my way down the steps and we both searched the two offices from top to bottom: Clay did the heavy lifting and moving. I gave instructions.

Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

We then proceeded to check the rest of the house and were walking back to the two offices when we noticed the basement door wide open.

“Let’s go,” said Clay. “We should check down there.”

I stared at him like he was a snake with two heads.

“What do you mean,
we
?
”

“You’re kidding, right? You write murder mysteries!”

I gritted my teeth and gestured, “You first, my good man. I’ve got your back.”

Clay shook his head, walking down. I followed closely. You guessed it. No bat. We made our way back up to our bedroom. After we shut the stairway door to our bedroom, I repeated, “Are you sure it wasn’t a bird?”

“Remember that barn in New Hampshire?”

He was right. We house-sat a horse farm a while back with a large barn. Bats were always congregating in the cupola at the top. He could identify one.

Then I remembered. “Oh, I almost forgot. I left my laptop on. Let me go and shut it off.”

I turned on the light and descended the stairway, stepped off the last step at the bottom, made the turn into my office and guess what flew right by in front of me? You guessed it, that damn bat. I began screaming like a wild woman.

I think they heard me all the way in California.

I raced out and smacked right into Clay, who rushed in. I shoved him into his office.

“Get it out! Now! I can’t believe I’ve been going in and out of that office all night to check emails and that creature was in there with me! He still is! Find it and get rid of it before it disappears again!”

Clay approached my office door and walked through, while I followed peeking over his shoulder. The minute he turned on all the overhead lights that bat went crazy flying back and forth across my office. I screamed again, turned and promptly slammed my office door shut leaving Clay in
in
there with me yelling, “Don’t let him escape!”

I heard all kinds of commotion then nothing.
Silence.

Then I heard, “I can’t find him.”

I leaned against the door dumbfounded.

“...What? He’s got to be in there!”

“Well, he’s not in here anywhere.”

I whipped the door open. “We just can’t leave him in there! That’s way too creepy.”

“I agree,” he said. “You’ll have bat shit and urine all over the place in no time.”

After a few minutes of silence, he said, “We might as well go up to bed. He’s not there.”

I looked back at him. “Over my dead body! You expect me to write in there?”

I couldn’t even picture that bat relieving himself either. Clay smirked. I knew he was daring me to come up with an alternative. I marched passed him right into my office.

“We are finding him
together
and
tonight
!”

Clay grabbed a flashlight and started looking under furniture, behind my bookcase... Me? I’m a Virgo: very methodical. I started with the first thing on the perimeter of my office: blinds first.
Nothing.

Next, my closed drapes. While keeping my body as far away as I could, I reached out and vigorously shook the heavy drapes back and forth. Out tumbled the bat rolling onto the carpet. He went airborne and so did I, right out of my office, slamming the door firmly behind me.

“Get him out! I know you can see him now!” I shouted through the closed office door.

I heard commotion and cursing from the other side.

I wasn’t sure if it was Clay or the bat.

I was so proud of my brave Clay,
duking
it out in there. Of course, I was hanging onto the doorknob tightly. So even if Clay did try to open it, he couldn’t.

He had a job to do and by golly he was going to do it!

“Grab a towel from the powder room in there and trap him in it,” I suggested.

I heard more commotion then one of the French doors being opened then I heard Clay’s footsteps outside then that same door closing shut.

Suddenly, the office door separating the two offices was ripped from my grasp. Clay stood there grinning, flushed from his victory.

“He’s out!”

I jumped into his arms and kept kissing him repeatedly.

“My hero has done it again!”

Then I winked, batted my eyelashes, and invited Clay upstairs to our bedroom with a come-hither seductive look.

“I want to personally thank you, Batman!”

No costume needed here...

Chapter 39

Lost & Found

In spite of Clay’s heroic feats, I still felt jumpy the next morning as I typed notes in Alicia’s office. Mona’s voice startled me.

“Just shoot me next time I offer to take them out again.”

“Oh, it couldn’t be as bad as my evening,” I said.

Mona sat in the nearest chair. “Speak to me.”

So I told her in rich and vivid detail—leaving out what happened after it was all over.

“I think I may have you beat for the top spot,” she said.

“This I have to hear.”

“Teddy started out with Maker’s Mark whiskey. Before I could stop her, Scarlett ordered Southern Comfort. So far so good, until we were told dinner was delayed.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “They kept on drinking.”

“Pretty soon Scarlett began singing, right after your senior trio left for the ladies room. Then Teddy joined in, turning it into a duet.”

I chuckled. “And you? You would’ve made a great trio.”

“Trust me, Marsha Brown’s doesn’t do Karaoke.”

“So what were they singing?”

“The theme song for
Gone With The Wind
!”

I didn’t know it had lyrics.

“The waiter finally showed up with their food, I guess, just to shut the both of them up.”

“So it all worked out then?”

“Not exactly. Martha, Hazel and Betty never returned.”

They were senior citizens.
“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Depends on how you see it.”

“Talk.”

“I instructed Teddy and Scarlett to start while I went to see what happened to them. I opened the restroom door and they piled out, almost knocking me down, all talking at the same time about
Tony’s
mother, that crazy woman.”

My stomach sank. “She was there?”

“Apparently Martha was about to come out of her stall when she stopped cold, noticing
Tony’s
mother washing her hands, her gun resting on the sink. Martha immediately backed up and locked her door again, texting the others not to come out under any circumstances.”

“Smart. So
Tony’s
mother eventually left?”

“That nut washes her hands before she enters a stall? The standoff began when she lost her patience and banged on the stalls with what sounded like the butt of her gun.”

“Did anyone else come in?”

“No. The restaurant was packed, speaker music was playing, the bar was full. You couldn’t hear anything else.”

“So then what happened?”

“She finally stormed out. I entered as the ladies ran out. She’d disappeared. We texted Clay and left shortly after.”

“So that was why Clay took off early this morning.”

“There’s more,” said Mona frowning.

“What else?”

“Something’s not right. As we were leaving, I spotted her with Tony talking at a side table downstairs in the pub.”

So why did Tony hire us to find her? This smelled.

Chapter 40

Belladonna

Belladonna: The leaves are just as deadly as the roots.

I thought it an offbeat place to meet, because the
Worths
’ house was certainly large enough to find some nook or cranny to talk in private, but Teddy insisted. Why there, I had no idea, but figured he had his reasons. He also insisted I come alone. No sleuthing crew, especially Mona.

The sudden lack of trust in Mona was obvious. They had arrived together, but their relationship had changed since the finger/nose incident. Amazing how stitches and drugs can alter circumstances. Teddy’s swelling had gone down considerably. But his demeanor about being seen in public hadn’t changed a bit. He was still apprehensive and edgy.

We were at Villa Vito on Bridge Street in downtown New Hope. It was an Italian restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating that was set up like a cozy grotto with tree-strung lights at night. Teddy insisted we sit outside by the running water fountain to mask our conversation from any eavesdropping by people at nearby tables.

We ordered the house salad, wine, and
Caprese
pizza. Teddy’s face still spoke volumes and I guess the owner felt sorry for him and surprised us with an appetizer of roasted vegetables on the house while we waited, subtly hinting about the possible car accident Teddy was in. Both Teddy and I let him think what he wanted and thanked him.

The finger-in-the-mail would be hard to explain.

We were both forking the appetizer when Teddy spoke.

“I guess you’re wondering why I asked you here.”

I nodded. “It had crossed my mind.”

I was instructed by Clay, Mona, and my crew to keep my cell phone handy just in case. The only one who was ignorant of this fact was Teddy. He thought we were meeting there on the sly.

“I’m must apologize for deception on my part,” he said.

“Deception?” I asked, playing dumb.

“I’m just an actor who was hired to romance Mona.”

I cleared my throat. “I figured it was an odd match-up. But don’t you think you should be telling this to Mona?”

“I think Mona hustled me on the other side, so there is enough shared guilt on both ends of this relationship.”

I was surprised by his astute take on the situation, but still wary as to why he chose now as the appropriate time to say something. “So, why tell me now?”

“I received a cash bonus slipped under my door today.”

My natural reaction was, “Was there a note with it?”

“A short one saying my services were no longer needed. It was a pure kiss-off note. In other words, get lost.”

“I’d be upset myself at being set up too,” I said “But it’s too late now. I do have a question for you though.”

“Sure,” he said. “Ask away.”

“Who hired you for this job?”

“It was all done via the Internet and after seeing it was a harmless stunt that was described, I accepted. Besides, I was stone broke and desperately needed the money.”

How long would he keep this pretense going?

“Was it worth it?”

He tapped his face, frowning. “I earned today’s bonus.”

At that point I didn’t mention me being shot at. He was hired to play his part and did. Not very well, but when I took into consideration what happened, I’d say that Teddy got the short end of the stick in the deal, bonus included.

...
If he was telling the truth. It was time to get serious.

“Is that why you didn’t use your real name, Anton?”

Teddy stiffened. “Then you know. But how?”

“Mona,” was all I said.

He deflated like a flat tire.

“You think you’re the only one with perfected acting skills?” I asked. “She’s a pro at deception.”

“She knew?”

“The minute she dug further into your background.”

“But I meant no harm,” countered Teddy defensively.

“The meaning and the cause in this were intertwined.”

“I should admit something else.”

I rubbed my eyes at that.
I hated confessions.
“Shoot.”

“Just because of this relationship, doesn’t mean I...”

I cut him off. “Doesn’t excuse your actions.”

“And your point is?”

I took a wild shot. “Was Tony the one who hired you?”

He blew out a breath, leaned back, and faltered.

“...No...his mother, my aunt, known as Belladonna, did.”

So Tony and Teddy were her offshoots? Some lineage.

“I must admit, I didn’t see that one coming.”

Maybe I should just kill myself and save her the trouble.