Deadly Gamble

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.