The Night Before (19 page)

“Don’t start with me, okay? As long as you live here, you answer to me and I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”

“I’m not nine anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, all grown up.”

“Jesus. What’s got into you?”

Sugar decided to wait a few minutes, until she’d calmed down, to tell Cricket about the phone call. It was probably just some loser from the club, someone getting his jollies by scaring her. No reason to spread the panic around. Not yet. Not until she’d calmed down. “I’m just jumpy today.”

“So that’s
my
problem? I don’t
think
so. Just chill out.”

“You could have called.”

“And you could quit nagging,” Cricket shot back. “Leave me alone, okay?”

Sugar took a deep breath. Shook off the terror that had, for a second, spread over her. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you.”

“Good. Then just stop, would ya? Enough with the surrogate mom routine.” Cricket yawned. “We got any coffee?” She ran a hand through her short hair. Dyed red with magenta streaks, it was weird, but didn’t look bad. When it was styled. Which it wasn’t this morning.

“It’s cold.”

“Doesn’t matter as long as it’s got caffeine.” She half sleepwalked into the kitchen, found a cup and poured in some of the sludge that had been coagulating in the glass pot. Yawning again, she put her mug into the microwave and hit the start button.

“You could make fresh.”

“This’ll do.”

“Where were you?”

“Out.” Her gaze hardened, but she didn’t elaborate.

“That much I know. Who were you with?”

Cricket just stared at her. She looked so small and tired, almost world-weary, and Sugar felt a needle prick of guilt. She hadn’t done her job right; had failed. When their mother was killed, Sugar had sworn to take care of her younger siblings, but she’d made a mess of it. Dickie Ray was basically a small-time crook and con man, while Cricket, a hairdresser who had trouble keeping her appointments, had never blossomed to her full potential. But . . . if they could get their hands on their fair share of the Montgomery fortune, all that would change.

Or would it? There was a chance that it was already too late. Damned Flynn Donahue.
It was time to give that lazy lawyer a kick in the butt. She’d call him later today, but at the thought of picking up the phone she remembered the harsh, ugly voice so recently on the line.

You drop dead
.

Who the devil had called?

“Guess who came into the shop yesterday?” Cricket asked, completely oblivious to Sugar’s panic attack. She kicked off her sandals as the microwave dinged.

“Who?”

“Hannah-friggin’-Montgomery, that’s who.” Sugar’s stomach knotted. As it always did when she thought of the Montgomerys.

Cricket chuckled as she grabbed her cup and padded barefoot to the back door. “I guess Hannah didn’t know that I’d switched over to Maurice’s.”

Sugar grabbed a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper, whistled to the dog and followed Cricket to the porch. Dickie Ray had rigged up a ceiling fan a couple of years back. Sugar switched it on while the dog walked down the wooden steps to nose around the fence line and scared up a couple of startled birds.

Sampling her coffee, Cricket took a seat in the flimsy chaise, a relic from a particularly bountiful garage sale spree. “Hannah nearly fell off Donna’s chair when she saw me.”

“What did you do?”

“Made monkey faces at her in the mirror the entire time she was getting her foil weave.” Cricket slid a glance at her older sister to see if she was buying her story. Sugar wasn’t. “Okay, so I said ‘hi’ and ignored her for the rest of the two hours. What did you expect me to do?”

“Make monkey faces,” Sugar joked.

“I should have, but I don’t want to lose this job. As it is, I probably cost Donna a major client. Got a cigarette?”

“I thought you quit.”

“I did. Mostly. But I’m tired and I could use a buzz.”

“Have more coffee.”

Cricket scowled into her cup. “It’s not the same.”

“You’ll survive,” Sugar predicted and glanced at the weed-choked yard. The wheelbarrow was where she’d left it two days ago, half full of weeds, the bark dust thin around the shrubbery flanking the house.

Curling one leg under her, Cricket asked, “You see him last night?”

“Who?”

“You know who. And don’t look so surprised. I figured it out on my own.” Cricket took a long drink, but her gaze was fixed steadily on her sister’s face. When Sugar didn’t answer, she added, “He’s using you, you know. If you think he’s gonna come in here and sweep you away and marry you, you’ve got another think comin’.”

That much Sugar knew. “At least I was home last night.”

“Too bad.” She ran a hand through her hair and grimaced. “I’m gonna shower and get down to the shop. Did I get any calls?”

“No one who left his name.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’re getting more and more hangups.”

“Wrong numbers?”

“Maybe . . . some of them, but . . .” Sugar lifted a shoulder and decided not to worry her baby sister about the recent call that had made her skin crawl. “It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ll bet it’s a weirdo from the club. You don’t exactly get the highest class of ‘clients’—isn’t that what you call ’em?—down at Pussies In Booties.”

Sugar bristled. Felt that same old knife of shame, but pushed it down deep. “It pays the rent and puts money in the bank.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it all before.” Cricket drained her cup and forced herself to her feet. “Someday I’m going to have clients who tip me a hundred dollars, and I won’t have to take off my clothes to do it.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” Sugar said, then immediately regretted the words as Cricket muttered something obscene and headed inside. A few minutes later Sugar heard the old pipes creaking as the water was turned on. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She’d had it with Cricket’s bad attitude. Where did she get off looking down at her older sister? If it hadn’t been for Sugar, Cricket would have been kicked around from one foster home to the other after their mother died. Worse yet, she could have landed in juvenile court half a dozen times for drinking under age, marijuana possession and other miscellaneous infractions. Cricket and the police had a long history.

But so did Sugar. Fortunately she had a friend on the force—her own personal leak. She’d even called him Deep Throat behind his back. He, thinking he might someday get into her pants—or more likely her thong—kept her informed. Even about the Joshua Bandeaux case. He seemed to think the detectives in charge of the investigation were leaning toward murder rather than suicide, which Sugar found interesting. She wanted more details, but her leak had been a little reticent, and she figured he was just angling for another shot at getting her into bed. Fat chance. The likelihood of her sleeping with him was about the same as the old snowball’s chance in hell.

She stared across the surrounding fields. Dry. Weed-choked. This five-acre patch wasn’t exactly prime Georgia real estate. But it was hers. She’d bought out Dickie Ray and Cricket when they’d inherited it. Both of her siblings could make cracks about her job at the club all they wanted, but she made more money in three months than the two of them did combined for an entire year. Maybe that wasn’t such an accomplishment considering that Cricket could barely hang on to a job and Dickie Ray spent most of his time as a welfare and disability cheat. When he wasn’t being a small-time crook who spent most of the pathetic money he made on loose women, booze, cock fights, video poker, and when he could afford it, cocaine. Why she put up with him she didn’t know.

Yeah, go tell that to the Montgomerys.

Sugar scowled as she thought about it. Took a long pull on her diet soda. It was funny, and kind of sick, how the Montgomerys and Biscaynes were all tied in together. Sugar looked enough like the Montgomery sisters—Amanda, the twins and Hannah—to pass as their full-blooded sister. Dickie Ray and Cricket, too, but the whole damned thing was so incestuous. There was a reason Dickie Ray wasn’t all that smart. She’d heard someone say, “the lights were on but no one was home.” In Dickie Ray’s case, the lights had burned out long ago.

For years Sugar had heard the whispers, the rumor that her mother, Copper, had been involved in an on-again, off-again affair with Cameron Montgomery, who was, in fact, Copper’s half-brother. How sick was that? And if the old scandal was true, that Sugar might be the spawn of that union, it made her nauseous. That would mean she’d have more Montgomery blood running through her veins than the legitimate side of the family.

The legitimate side of the family.
What a joke. There was not and never had been anything remotely legitimate about the Montgomerys, who, in her opinion, all playacted at working and lived off their damned trust funds, all the while pretending as if the Biscaynes were white trash or worse—like damned lepers. That Grandpa Benedict had kept Mary Lou Chaney as his mistress wasn’t scandal enough. That he’d sired a daughter out of wedlock along with his children, Cameron and Alice Ann, was only the tip of the iceberg. From that point on it got chilly, with Copper, hellion that she was, determined to embarrass the old man to all lengths, including engaging in an affair with Cameron.

Could he be her father? Sugar didn’t know, but her options weren’t all that great because the man Copper had married, Earl Dean Biscayne, was a loser of the lowest order, a liar, a cheat, a man who thought a “whuppin’ ” was the only answer to disobedience. His cruel streak ran deep, and Sugar wasn’t unhappy that he was out of their lives. He’d disappeared at the same time that his wife had been killed, here on this very plot, when her single-wide trailer had burst into flames. Careless smoking had been the official cause, according to the fire department, but Sugar knew her mother well enough not to believe that she’d dropped a cigarette in her bed. Copper had never smoked much in the house—and only in the kitchen. Then Earl Dean had disappeared. Hadn’t even shown up for the funeral. But Earl Dean had never put much stock in appearances or protocol. And some people figured he had found out about her cheating, killed her and taken off. Even Sugar wasn’t sure if that was true.

But if Earl Dean wasn’t her daddy, then most likely Cameron Montgomery was, and so she had a double dose of the Montgomery blood. She didn’t want to think too much about that or the mental illness that seemed to run rampant in the family because she might have double the genes. There were those times when she just couldn’t seem to think straight, when she got all screwed up with what she remembered, when reality seemed out of kilter, as if there were some electrical wires crossing in her mind. Then she was scared to death that something was wrong—really wrong—with her brain. But right now, for the moment, it was working fine, clicking along.

She’d have to call that lazy-ass lawyer and tell him to start pushing harder for a settlement. He needed to start earning his two-hundred-dollar-an-hour fee. She figured that if Flynn Donahue couldn’t handle the job, she had one last resort to try and get money from the Montgomerys. If the legal road was suddenly blocked, then they would take a different path. Dickie Ray was more than willing to work behind the scenes with the Montgomerys on what he called “a more personal level.” He’d smiled his toothy wicked smile and suggested, “Let me handle those rich snobs my own way.”

Which worried her.

Heretofore Sugar had reined him in.

But it might be time to let the reins slip a notch or two.

With one last look around the yard, Sugar took a final pull from her near-empty bottle and heard the pipes moan as the water was shut off. She pushed herself to her feet and considered the phone call again. Someone repeating her own words. Maybe it was nothing, a natural response.

But she sensed it was more. Something deadly and evil.

As if it was lurking nearby, just out of sight, hidden in the lengthening shadows that stole across the marshy acres, slipping through the reeds and cattails.

Caesarina felt it, too. The battered old hound stared across the unmoving landscape, and the skin beneath her coat quivered. Her stitches were an ugly reminder of something not quite right. Something evil. Caesarina let out a worried whimper, and Sugar’s heart turned as cold as death. The warning whispered through her mind and skittered up her spine again:

 

 

Atropos drove like a maniac. The wind whipped her hair. Adrenalin fired her blood. She’d heard the fear in Sugar Biscayne’s voice,
felt
her terror. God, what a rush! The little bastardess was getting some of her own back. Big time.

A semi with a load of chickens was blocking the road, so Atropos shifted down and nosed into the oncoming lane. It looked clear and so she floored it, shooting past the stacked cages where doomed foul were huddled and losing feathers onto the roadway. As she reached the cab of the truck, the driver, who damned near looked the part of a redneck chicken farmer, with gray hair poking out of a baseball cap, stared down from his cab, grinned and blasted his horn in an attempt to flirt.

As if!

Atropos looked up, gave him a dirty little smile, then flipped the bastard off as she saw the oncoming pickup and swerved in front of the semi, earning herself another blare from the trucker’s horn.

Oh, bite me,
she thought, the speed exhilarating, replaying in her mind Sugar Biscayne’s terror at the last phone call. She was becoming unhinged and wasn’t that fitting. All of her life Sugar wanted to be a Montgomery so badly she could taste it, and now she was getting the feel of what it was like to be one. Atropos wasn’t biased. She’d mete out her punishment to everyone connected to the Montgomery money in equal parts . . . and wasn’t that what Sugar had always desired, to be treated like a true, legitimate Montgomery?