Deadly Gamble

Thank God, I thought.

I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, hyperventilating.

Tucker tried again, this time with a note of urgency in his voice. “Mojo? Is that you? Where—? Damn it, say something.”

“I saw him,” I ground out. Then I had to slap a hand over my mouth for a moment, because I was either going to puke or start screaming.

“You saw who?”

According to the Damn Fool’s Guide to English Grammar, he should have said “whom,” but this was no time to split hairs. The man was an ASU graduate, for God’s sake. If he hadn’t mastered the language by now, there was no point in correcting him.

I spoke through parted fingers. “My b-brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Tucker mused. “Where are you?”

I uncovered my mouth, but screaming and puking were still viable options. “In the parking lot,” I squeaked.

“You’re calling from the parking lot?”

Screaming squeezed out puking and took a solid lead. “No, damn it! I’m calling from the freakin’ roof!”

“Chill,” Tucker said. “I’ll be right out.”

I watched, still clutching the phone to my ear, as the side door swung open and Tucker ambled out of Bad-Ass Bert’s. He scanned the lot, got a fix on the Volvo, and sprinted in my direction.

I rolled down the driver’s-side window about an inch.

“He might have followed me,” I whispered.

Tucker braced his hands on the side of the Volvo and peered in at me. “Open the door, Mojo,” he said.

“He killed my cat,” I said. Not to mention my parents.

“Christ,” Tucker snapped, and pulled at the door handle.

I popped the locks, and he almost fell on his very attractive ass in the gravel.

“I need help,” I told him.

“That’s for damn sure,” Tucker agreed. He sounded testy, but I could tell he was concerned by the way he kept sweeping the lot with his gaze. He reached into the car, unfastened the seat belt and tugged me out, onto my feet.

I landed hard against his chest, and I’ll admit it, I clung for a couple of seconds.

“I saw him,” I repeated.

Tucker held me up with one arm, reached inside for my purse and car keys with the other. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you upstairs. Can you make it on your own, or should I carry you?”

The offer was tempting, but I had a thing about standing on my own two feet whenever possible, literally and figuratively. Besides, Tucker and I were officially Not Dating, and I was just scared enough to go from being carried to being laid without passing Go and certainly without collecting $200.

I gave a moment’s forlorn thought to the credits I’d left in the Ten Times Pay machine when I fled the casino. I could have made my car payment with that money.

“I can walk,” I said, though it was still pretty much a theory.

Tuck squired me up the stairs, unlocked the door and swung it open.

Chester sat waiting in the hallway. There was a faint, greenish glow around him.

I burst into tears.

Tucker muttered something, steered me to the couch and bent over me to look deep into my weepy eyes.

“Booze,” I said.

“You’ve been drinking booze?”

“No. I want to drink booze. Now.”

Tucker nodded, probably relieved that he wouldn’t have to bust me for drinking and driving, went into the kitchen, rifled the cupboards and came back with a double shot of Christian Brothers in a jelly glass. I hadn’t touched that bottle since the last bad bout of cramps, but if things kept going the way they’d been going, I’d be hitting the sauce on an hourly basis.

I took a few sips, holding the jelly glass with both hands. Chester jumped onto the back of the couch and nestled behind my neck, purring. Tucker dragged over an ottoman and sat down, his knees touching mine.

“Start at the beginning and take it slow,” he said.

I knocked back the rest of the brandy and set the glass aside. My nerves, all trying to break through my skin only seconds before, collapsed with dizzying suddenness.

“When I was five years old,” I said shakily, “my half brother shot my mom and dad to death.”

Tucker’s face tightened. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

I drew another deep breath. Let it out.

“Go on,” Tucker urged.

“I was there, but if I saw what happened, I don’t remember. A neighbor found me hiding in the clothes dryer. I was d-drenched in blood. Their blood—”

I gagged a couple of times.

“Easy,” Tucker said, and took both my hands in his.

His strong grasp felt so treacherously good that I immediately pulled free.

“My half brother—his name is Geoff—was arrested that night, according to the newspaper accounts I read a lot later. He confessed, so there wasn’t a trial, and they sent him to a youthful offenders’ program in California.”

Tucker nodded in solemn encouragement when my voice faltered again, but he didn’t say anything. He might have looked like a biker, but he was in cop mode now.

“I saw him tonight, Tuck. At Talking Stick. He sat down at the slot machine next to mine—” I swallowed, pushed my hair back with the palm of my right hand. “It was the Sizzling Sevens.”

A faint grin flickered at one corner of Tucker’s mouth, gone as quickly as it appeared. His eyes were dead serious.

“Are you sure it was him? Not just somebody who looked like your brother?”

“My half brother,” I said. I didn’t want to claim even that much of Geoff, but we had the same mother. The thought made me want to check into a hospital, have all my blood drained out and replaced with somebody else’s. “And yes, Tucker, it was Geoff. He tried to pass himself off as Steve Roberts, but I know who he was.”

Tucker took a notepad from his hip pocket and scrawled the name on a page, but I knew what he was thinking. There were probably a dozen Steve Robertses in Phoenix alone, never mind all the once-separate cities butting up against its sprawling borders—Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale.

“Google,” I said, catching sight of the computer across the room, and started to get off the couch.

Tucker pressed me gently back onto the cushion. “Take a few minutes to catch your breath,” he said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

An hysterical laugh bubbled out of my throat at the irony of that statement. Then I started to shiver.

Tucker got off the ottoman, disappeared into the bedroom and returned with an afghan, which he wrapped tightly around my shoulders. I snuggled in.

“Did he threaten you?” Tucker asked.

“Not exactly,” I answered, huddling inside a field of yarn daisies. Jolie had made the afghan for Nick and me, years before, as a wedding gift. God, I wished I could talk to Jolie, but she was a workaholic and probably busy in her Tucson lab, sorting bones.

“How come you never told me what happened to your parents?” Tucker asked. At the same time, he went to the computer, perched on the edge of the desk chair, and logged onto my Internet account. The password was stored, so there was no delay.

“The time never seemed right.”

“Uh-huh,” Tucker said tightly.

I bristled. “We were only together for six weeks,” I reminded him. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, by the way, when I was five, my half brother slaughtered our parents, and a neighbor kidnapped me, and I’ve been living under an alias ever since’?”

Too late, I realized that I’d given away a lot more than I’d intended.

Tucker spun around in the desk chair. “What?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“You’ve been living under an alias?”

“Not now, Tucker.”

He glared at me for a long moment, then spun back to the computer and started punching keys. On TV, cops usually use the hunt-and-peck method, but Tucker knew his keyboard, and all ten fingers tapped at a steady clip.

“Don’t think for one damn second,” he warned, without turning around, “that I’m going to pretend we didn’t have this conversation.”

He paused after a while, and peered at the screen.

“Is this him?”

I got off the couch, letting Chester roll unceremoniously to the cushions, and padded over to look at the monitor.

Sure enough, there was Geoff, smiling out of a Web page.

I sucked in a breath.

“I’ll take that for a yes,” Tucker said, and printed the page.

I leaned over his shoulder, studying the site.

“Steve Roberts” worked as a private nurse, an RN, no less. He sold vitamins for some network marketing outfit, too, and was available for consultations. Consultations! Have you been thinking of murdering your parents? I can tell you how to do it and get away with a slap on the wrist. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be back on the streets, looking for your next victim!

I shivered.

“I don’t think you should be alone tonight,” Tucker said.

“I’m not going to your place.”

“Then I’ll stay here.”

“On the couch.”

He sighed.

“On the couch,” he agreed, but belatedly, and with reluctance.

SOMETHING LANDED heavily on my chest. Sprawled in the middle of my bed, I opened one eye to sunlight and a purring white cat. I felt the familiar mingling of delight and sadness as I looked into Chester’s fuzzy face.

“I’m so sorry he killed you,” I whispered, stroking his back.

I heard the shower running and for a moment I was jarred, until I remembered that Tucker had spent the night. I’d no more than formed the thought when the pipes stopped rattling. I eased Chester off my breasts and rolled onto my side; I didn’t want to be caught petting empty air when Tucker put in an appearance.

He did just that, a minute or so later, standing naked in the doorway, except for a towel around his waist. I put down an unseemly urge to 1—summon Tucker to my bed and 2—lick the little droplets of standing water off every muscled inch of his flesh.

“Coffee’s on,” he said.

Chester hopped onto the broad window sill and sat looking down at the main street of Cave Creek, tail slowly sweeping the warm morning air.

I was grappling with my libido. In short, I wanted some nookie.

What harm would it do? said libido inquired.

I thought of Tucker’s kids. The custody battle. His beautiful ex-wife. Sure, they were divorced, but Allison still had a powerful hold on him. He visited regularly, despite their conflict; he’d been up front about that from the first. I couldn’t be sure all the emotional ties had been broken, and I knew it would kill me if they were still sleeping together.

The best orgasm I ever had with Nick happened an hour after we left the courtroom, with the ink still wet on our decree.

I don’t need another broken heart, I replied.

“I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” I said, quelling the need to stretch because it might be misinterpreted as a sensual invitation, and I was barely holding on to my resolve as it was.

Tucker looked disappointed but resigned. “I’ve got to get to work anyway,” he said. “You’ll be all right alone?”

For some reason, those innocuous words blew through my soul like an icy wind. You’ll be all right alone?

It wasn’t just Tucker talking. It was the whole universe.

I blinked a couple of times. “Sure. I was just a little freaked out last night, that’s all. Thanks for staying. I really appreciate it.”

After a beat, Tucker nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take that printout from your brother’s Web site. Do some follow-up.”

“I’d appreciate that,” I said.

Tucker made the slightest move, a sort of gathering of his forces, as though he might take a step toward me. Then he stopped himself, turned and went back into the bathroom to put on yesterday’s clothes. I wondered if a shower violated his job description, since he usually looked like he’d been living in a shelter for at least a week.

It occurred to me, as I was lying there feeling sorry for myself, that I didn’t know much more about Tucker than he did about me. I knew he was a detective with Scottsdale PD, and that he worked Narcotics. I knew he had an ex-wife and two beautiful kids.

Oh, yes. And I knew he could drive me crazy in bed.

That was about the sum of it, though.

I felt a little better, having thus justified keeping my own secrets, but not much.

When I heard the outside door close and Tucker’s boots on the stairs, I got out of bed. After nipping down the hall to turn the dead bolt, I wandered into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee.

It was when I went to the refrigerator, hoping a carton of eggs might have materialized while I slept, that I saw the sticky note he’d left on the freezer door.

“We’ve got a lot more to talk about. Like why you own a litter box and no cat. See you tonight. Tucker.”

“That’s what I get,” I told Chester, now watching me with interest from the floor, “for getting involved with a detective.”

Chester wound himself around my ankles, his fur tickling my bare feet.

“Ree-ooow,” he said earnestly.

I bent, my eyes stinging, and gathered him in my arms. “How am I going to explain the cat litter?” I asked.

He snuggled close, humming like a lawn mower at full throttle.

“Don’t go,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

He did.

It wasn’t a poof—nothing as dramatic as that.

He just dissolved in my arms, between one moment and the next.

One of these days, I knew, Chester was going to pull his vanishing act for good, and I would never see him again.

CHAPTER 5

I was standing there in my kitchen, wondering what to do with the rest of my life, never mind the remains of the day, when the telephone rang. It’s funny how fate answers questions like that, even when I don’t consciously ask them.

I checked the caller ID in the wild hope of heading off a conversation with either Heather the Stalker or Geoff the Parent/Cat Killer, and saw Clive Larimer’s name and number in the little window. With only slight trepidation, I pressed the talk button. “Mojo Sheepshanks,” I said.

My uncle responded with his name, in a businesslike tone, and then a smile sneaked into his voice. “Mojo Sheepshanks, is it? I guess I’ll have to get used to that, but you’ll always be Mary Jo to me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. If things fell out right, though, I decided I might get around to telling him about last night’s casino encounter with the mad killer. I was used to playing my cards close to my vest, and it would be a hard habit to break.

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” my uncle went on. I liked the warm, confident timbre of his voice. “Barbara—that’s my wife—and I are hoping you’ll drive down to Cactus Bend for a visit today or tomorrow, if it’s not too short notice. We have a guesthouse, so you’d have a little privacy. We don’t want this to be too much, all at once.”

I knew Larimer’s voting record in the state senate, and his surface stats—married to Barbara, four beautiful offspring, gracious mansion just outside of Cactus Bend. He was considered a contender in the upcoming governor’s race, too. Beyond those public-consumption details, though, he was merely a misty figure from a past plunged into oblivion one horrible night in 1983.

I hadn’t been back to Cactus Bend since the day Lillian and I went on the lam. I couldn’t help passing it whenever I went to see Jolie in Tucson, but I always whizzed by the freeway exit with my jaw clenched and my gaze fixed straight ahead.

An old, nameless fear gripped me, all of a sudden; Jolie and six or eight different therapists had suggested, more than once, that I had deliberately chosen not to remember the murders. Now, scared as I was, I was also curious, and I needed some answers. Maybe it was time to bite the bullet and wade in.

“Okay,” I heard myself say. It was Thursday; the weekend was coming up. I could check out Clive and Barbara, in their native habitat, ask a few questions and answer a few of theirs. In case of cataclysmic anxiety, I could always either speed back north to Cave Creek or pay Jolie a visit in Tucson. Come to think of it, the latter wasn’t a bad idea. I hadn’t seen my foster sister in two months.

“Will I be meeting the children?” I heard myself ask. I hadn’t given the Larimer sibs a conscious thought, but my shadow side wasn’t up for the inevitable comparisons between their lives and mine. They were professionals, no doubt. I, on the other hand, lived over a bar, read Damn Fool’s Guides, and did billing and coding for half a dozen doctors to scrape out a living.

Greer could be right, I conceded silently. There was a good chance that I needed to get a real job.

Hell, I needed to get a life.

Uncle Clive chuckled warmly. “The ‘children’ are thirty-two, twenty-nine, twenty-six and twenty-four respectively, and scattered all over the country. We’ll show you their pictures and tell you all about them—probably more than you want to know. Anyway, it’s better if you just have Barbara and me to contend with on this first trip.” He paused, waiting for me to agree.

“You’re right,” I said.

“You’ll join us, then?”

“Yes,” I decided, in that moment. It would be good to get out of town for a few days. I was caught up on my work, Tucker and I were on hold, and here was an opportunity to put some miles between myself and my half brother.

Unless, of course, he decided to follow me.

Don’t be paranoid, I told myself.

“When should we expect you?”

I glanced at the clock on the stove. It was barely eight-thirty, but I was running low on clean clothes, so a trip to the Laundromat was critical. I needed some cash, too, and I wanted to stop and look in on Lillian before I left the area. “Four o’clock?” I ventured.

“Just in time for cocktails,” Uncle Clive said, and gave me unnecessary directions. I hadn’t been to Cactus Bend in a lot of years, it was true, but I still knew the general layout of the town. Guess it was sort of like riding a bike—one of those things you don’t forget, no matter how traumatized you are.

After Clive and I hung up, I immediately put a call through to Jolie.

“Travers,” she answered. Evidently, her assistant, who usually screened calls, either hadn’t come in yet or was otherwise occupied.

Sweet memories washed over me at the sound of Jolie’s no-nonsense voice. My life changed for the better when I was thirteen, and Jolie was a major factor in the turnaround. Lillian met Jolie’s dad, Michael “Ham” Hamilton, a recently widowed security guard, in Ventura Beach, California. They’d fallen madly in love, and Lillian had finally settled down. There was never a wedding, as far as I know, but Lillian took Ham’s last name, and it was definitely a good match. Jolie hadn’t accepted Lillian, Greer and me right away, but in time we’d melded into a family.

Lillian had loved Ham so much that, when he’d decided to take a job in Phoenix, she’d willingly followed him. Jolie, Greer and I had all come along, of course, though Lillian had insisted on home schooling Greer and me. I don’t know if she ever told Ham the whole truth, or any part of it. I do know that she was happy with him, and when he died nearly a decade into their relationship, she went on the emotional skids.

“Hell-ooo,” Jolie prompted.

I laughed. “Don’t hang up,” I said. “It’s Mojo.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t slam this phone down in your ear,” Jolie shot back. “I haven’t had so much as an e-mail from you in three weeks.”

“I’m heading down that way, and I’d like to see you.”

“Really?” Jolie sounded pleased. “You wouldn’t jerk a girl around, would you?”

“It’s for real. I’m sorry about the e-mails—I’ve just been…well…distracted.”

“By what?” Jolie demanded suspiciously.

“Things,” I said evasively. “I’ll tell all when I get there, I promise.”

“Freakin’A,” said Jolie.

“I have some business to attend to tonight, and you’ve got work in the morning. How about tomorrow night?”

“I’ll even change the sheets on the hide-a-bed,” Jolie said, with one of her rich laughs. Jolie’s voice matched her dark-chocolate skin. She was smart as hell and beautiful enough to be a model or a TV star. If she hadn’t worked an average of eighteen hours a day, she’d have had men making pilgrimages to her door on their knees.

“Anybody sharing your bed these days?” I ventured hopefully.

Jolie’s sigh was telling. “No. How about you?”

“Tucker and I are on hiatus.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she agreed skeptically.

I let that one pass. “It’s really okay for me to crash at your place? I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Jolie gave a snort. “Just don’t sneak off in the middle of the night, like you did last time. I swear, Mojo, sometimes I think you turn into a she-wolf at the full moon, or something.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I retorted, hedging. I knew exactly what Jolie was talking about. It hadn’t happened in a while, but occasionally I had nightmares, full of faceless characters in black hooded robes, grabbing at me with skeletal fingers. My own personal crew of Dementors. On the referenced occasion, I was staying at Jolie’s place. I’d gotten out of bed at roughly 1:30 a.m., pulled on my clothes, left a hasty note, and booked it back to Cave Creek.

“Let’s not get into an argument before you even get here, all right? You may be white, and you may be crazy, but except for Sweet Lillian and Greer, you’re all I’ve got. How is Lady Bountiful these days, anyway? Still livin’ the high life in Scottsdale? And before you answer—how’s Lillian?”

“I’ll bring you up to speed on Lillian when I get to your place. I’m planning on stopping by Sunset Villa on my way south to make sure she’s all right.” I paused. “As for Greer—well, she’s Greer.” There was something off about Mrs. Pennington, but mentioning that could wait until Jolie and I met in person.

“I’ll be looking for you Friday night, then,” Jolie said. “Call my cell if I’m not at the apartment when you get there.”

I promised I would and hung up.

Breakfast was a Lean Cuisine. I kept hoping, as I went through my wardrobe for clean and presentable items of clothing, that Chester would pop in—it would even have been worth another round with Nick to see my cat—but he didn’t show. Maybe he’d hopped one of those trains out of the heavenly depot, bound for feline glory.

I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, Chester deserved Cat Paradise. On the other, I’d have to start missing him all over again.

I packed my toothbrush and cosmetics, stuffed what I intended to wear into a black garbage bag, and left the apartment. Next stop, Maggie’s Spin-N-Dry.

Bert’s bike wasn’t in the lot, and I could see the padlock gleaming on the side door, still fastened tight. I wanted to let him know I was going to be away for a few days, both so he wouldn’t worry and as an incentive to keep an eye on my apartment. I decided to stop by after my laundry was done.

A chill tiptoed up my spine and did a moon-walk at my nape.

I looked around again. Nobody in sight, but I would have sworn I was being watched. Seriously creepy feeling.

I opened the rear door of the Volvo, on the driver’s side, and tossed in my trash bag. Something drew my gaze upward, to the apartment, and I saw Nick’s face, framed in the kitchen window. I couldn’t read his expression from that distance, but I knew he was trying to push my buttons.

I’m a poor lonely ghost. How can you leave me like this?

I actually considered going back upstairs to keep the dead ex company for a little while—and maybe Chester was with him—but I wasn’t going to get my laundry done and make Cactus Bend by four o’clock if I tarried. So I smiled and did a waggly-fingered wave, then got into the Volvo and sped away.

I felt only mildly guilty.

Things went okay at Maggie’s. I folded my blue sundress, clean jeans, fresh underwear and T-shirts, put them back in the garbage bag and made for the Volvo. One of these days, I was going to have to invest in a suitcase.