The Root of All Trouble (5 page)

I hated her instantly.

He looked back at us for help.

"
Delphine?" Plum asked, smiling wide. "Do you want to answer the question of who she is?"

Grudgingly, Delphine said,
"Her name is Honey."

I could tell Perry was assessing Honey
's sky-high blond hair as he said, "Honey who?"

"
Does she like older men?" Mr. Cabrera smiled and waggled his eyebrows at her.

"
That's it," I said to him, taking his drink away. "I'm cutting you off."

The woman who clung to Kevin managed to control her crying long enough to peer up at him through glistening blue eyes.
"I'm Honey Miller. Joey Miller's wife."

Chapter Four

"H
is wife?" I echoed. I gave Mr. Cabrera back his drink but only after taking a sip. This kind of bombshell called for it.

"
I thought he was single?" Perry said.

"
So did I!" Delphine pressed her palms to her chest emphatically as though the act of squishing her boobies so hard that they practically erupted from her shirt would prove her innocence.

It succeeded only in making Bear drool.

"Honey is who Delphine and Joey were fighting about the day he walked out," Plum tattled.

I noticed Bear removed his hand from Delphine
's arm (but not his eyes from her chest). Plum noticed his withdrawal, too. She was trying hard to hide her smile.

Ethan still watched Perry like a hawk eyed its prey. I wished Perry had just let the man smoke.

Thunder cracked again, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as Ethan's gaze shifted to me.

"
Can I go home now?" I asked Kevin.

"
Where's Joey?" Honey cried, drowning out my plea.

She had a screechy voice
and it shredded my already thinned nerves.

"
I heard he was found." Watery eyes thick with false lashes looked around. "Where is he?"

"
Out there." Mr. Cabrera pointed to the back yard. "He's the one in the body bag."

"
Okay, really," I said, grabbing Mr. Cabrera's arm. I set his drink on the table. "We're going. Perry, call me later." I marched my drunken neighbor toward the front door only to be blocked by Kevin and Honey.

Honey finally pulled herself free from Kevin and stumbled toward the back door. She peered outside and gasped. As she started to sway Bear jumped up and grabbed hold of her. He cradled her in his arms and cooed that everything was going to be okay.

Maybe he was more teddy than I'd given him credit for.

"
I'll get a cool cloth," Perry said, rushing off down the hallway.

Delphine folded her arms and gave Bear a jealous
glare. "
Huh
, I see how it is."

"
For chrissakes," Plum muttered.

Ethan shook his head, and said to
Plum, "Maybe it's time to set your sights a bit higher."

"
Like to you?" Plum snapped.

"
Don't flatter yourself," Ethan replied coldly and then turned his attention to Honey's performance.

Delphine motioned to Honey.
"Could she be more dramatic? She didn't even like Joey."

"
Says who?" Ethan asked.

"
Joey," she bit back. "He said that even though they'd been married only three months that she was already giving him the cold shoulder."

Ethan rose out of his chair and went for the gin bottle.
"Right. Because he's a pillar of truth and honesty."

"
He cheated as a newlywed?" I knew he was a lowlife, but that was...lower than low.

Delphine shrugged.
"If he couldn't get it at home..."

Bear continued to coo at Honey, who I noticed kept opening her eyes a fraction to see if anyone was paying attention to her in her prone state.

No one but Bear was.

I
'd had enough. Besides, Mr. Cabrera was starting to look a bit greenish. "Don't you dare toss your cookies," I said to him.

He clamped a hand over his mouth.

"We're going now," I said to Kevin.

"
What's stopping you from leaving?" he asked.

"
You are. You're blocking the door." I tried pushing him to the side so I could access the handle, but he wouldn't budge. "Move."

"
Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked.

I sighed.
"Move,
please
?"

"
I wasn't referring to your manners, but you do score points for politeness."

I sighed more heavily and debated kicking him in the shins.
"What am I forgetting?"

"
That's Perry's towel. Shouldn't you give it back?"

I hip-checked Kevin, pulled open the door and stormed out, dragging Mr. Cabrera behi
nd me like a petulant child towing her rag doll. Kevin's chuckle followed us down the walkway.

My truck was blocked in the driveway by a police cruiser, so I left it behind as I headed for
Mr. Cabrera's house across the street.

A verdant Mr. Cabrera took his hand off his mouth and said,
"Maybe you ought to think about giving the old boy another chance, Nina."

At the end of the driveway, I stopped and looked at him.
"And maybe you should just ask Brickhouse to marry you and get it over with, yes?"

He stared at me for a second, then bent over and tossed his cookies all over my work boots.

I took that as a no. A big no.

For both of us.

***

I
left Mr. Cabrera with Brickhouse with no other explanation than "gin." Clucking angrily, she'd held open the screen door to him, and he'd scooted inside like a little boy who'd just been scolded by his mama.

I stomped through the wet grass separating our houses, toward my side door. Thunder rumbled softly somewher
e far in the distance. Charcoal-gray clouds still hovered overhead but the rain had stopped and it felt like the danger was gone.

Well, most of it...

Across the street two men dressed in scrubs loaded a white body bag into the coroner's van. Another man stood off to the side, and I tried to place how I knew him. Easy on the eyes, he appeared to be older than me, maybe mid- to late-thirties, and was a bit under six feet tall, with dark brown hair and a strong chin. He wore a light-colored button down shirt, jeans, a black windbreaker with CORONER INVESTIGATOR written in bright yellow letters, and had a shiny badge clipped at his waist. There was a hint of mystery about him, but maybe that was my imagination running wild in light of the recent corpse.

As if realizing he was being watched he glanced over and faced
me full-on, I
knew
I knew him. I just didn't know how. He studied me as much as I had done him, and I suddenly wished I didn't look like a half-drowned miscreant with puke on her shoes. Fortunately I had a firm grip on the towel wrapped around my chest or else he'd be getting quite an intimate look at me.

Giving me a curt nod, he turned his attention back to his work. Quickly I kicked off my boots and left them by the back door, hoping they
'd disintegrate overnight.

The creaking side door opened into the utility room, which housed not only the washer and dryer, but most of my shoe collection and an assortment of cleaning supplies. As I headed for the kitchen, I suddenly realized I hadn
't had to unlock the door to get inside. I knew I'd locked it that morning—I'd become rather OCD about the locks after one too many break-ins. Wary, I grabbed a hockey stick from next to the dryer and tiptoed into the kitchen, my weapon aimed high.

I noticed three things straight off. One was that someone had been rummaging through my cupboards and drawers. Another was the strong scent of Chanel perfume in the air. And the third was a tiny puddle of pee in the middle of the floor.

Letting out a sigh, I leaned the hockey stick against the island, grabbed a paper towel to wipe up the pee, and tried to get my adrenaline to stop pumping. After washing my hands, I strode into the living room, looking for my intruder and her accomplice. "Maria!"

My very pregnant sister appeared at the top of the stairs, a guilty flush darkening her full cheeks.
"Nina! I didn't know you were home. Your truck is still across the street."

I folded my arms and tapped my foot as she carefully navigated the stairs. Each step was a hazard simply because she couldn
't see her feet. Her enormous belly blocked the view of anything south of her navel.

"
Don't look at me like that," she said, pouting.

She was a master pouter. Seriously, she could give lessons. However, I had spent my whole life building up immunity.
"You promised me the last time I caught you breaking in that you weren't going to do it again. Plus, you're supposed to be on bed rest, remember? How did you even get here? And where's Gracie?"

Gracie was my sister
's mostly blind, mostly incontinent Chihuahua. Lately, she'd also become mostly deaf. The only thing she had going for her was her innate cuteness—and my sister's adoration.

"
Gracie's around here somewhere," Maria said. "Check under the couch."

In her pre-pregnant days Maria most
ly resembled Grace Kelly. These days...she looked more like a relative of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Pregnancy hadn
't been kind to her, or easy. A few months ago she swelled up and was diagnosed with a case of mild preeclampsia and prescribed bed rest. Her cheeks had puffed up and her ankles had puffed out. As she neared the end of her pregnancy, her bed rest orders had become stricter—the baby's lungs weren't quite mature yet and no one wanted a premature delivery.

At Christmastime she thought she was two months pregnant but a later ultrasound confirmed it to be closer to three. Her due date was in three weeks.

Maria's husband, Nate, and our mother had been taking turns caring for her. But my mother and father had just left on a long-planned cruise around Fiji so Nate had taken vacation time from his new job to stay home and look after Maria—who had a tendency to forget doctor's orders. She simply was not one to sit still for long and the bed rest was driving her crazy.

Therefore she drove everyone around her crazy as well.

I crouched down. Sure enough, Gracie was under the sofa, curled into a little ball snoozing away. Her "mostly" deaf might have become "totally" deaf over the last couple of months—she hadn't heard me come in at all. "She's there. Sleeping."

"
She's been tired lately." There was wistfulness in her voice, an acknowledgement that her beloved pet probably wasn't going to live forever. However, I fully believed Gracie had a few more good years left in her.

Maria waddled toward the couch and slowly lowered herself down onto a cushion, expelling a long breath as she did so. Letting her head fall back onto a pillow, she said,
"My doctor let me off bed rest now that the baby's lungs are mature. We set the date for the induction."

This was news.
"You did? When is it?"

"
A week from today, after Mom and Dad get home from their trip. I still have to take my blood pressure every few hours and email my doctor the results in case my blood pressure skyrockets, but the end is in sight. Thank God. Have you seen my cankles? Out of control."

Her ankles had long since blended in with her calves becoming cankles—and they were out of control. She hadn
't been able to wear footwear other than flip-flops for two months now.

"
That's still a little early...is the doctor sure the baby's okay to be delivered?"

"
It's only two weeks early—and the doctor thinks it's best."

"
She's seen your cankles, too?"

Maria chucked a pillow at me. I caught it and smiled. I tried not to tease her too much, but sometimes it slipped out. Payback for years of her torturing me about my looks.
"And how did you get here?" She surely hadn't walked and her car wasn't out front.

"
Nate dropped me off."

I
'd taken to calling him Saint Nate for all he had to put up with. Maria had always been a self-centered and controlling dynamo, but her pregnancy hormones coupled with no physical activity had created quite the demanding diva.

"
Why?" I asked.

"
There was some sort of emergency at work. Something to do with the storm. He had to go in, and he didn't want to leave me alone."

Nate had recently taken a new job as TV news producer and loved it. However, it did make for odd hours, and when emergencies happened, he usually had to work, vacations or not.