by Lynn, JB
He looked up as DeeDee bounded toward him. “Zeke!” she panted excitedly.
“You act like you haven’t seen me in forever,” he told the dog with a laugh. “I’ve been gone less than an hour.”
“Dogs have no concept of time,” God muttered from where he’d scampered up to my shoulder. As I drew closer to Zeke, the lizard dove into my bra.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you,” I said. “But I kind of doubt this is a social visit.”
He straightened from petting the dog and looked me in the eye. “You’re right.”
“Why are you back, Zeke?” My shoulder was really starting to ache, and all I wanted to do was get an ice pack and lie down.
“It’s about Rhonda Pelly,” he started slowly.
“What about her?”
“She’s escaped.”
“Escaped where?” I asked, confused.
“Escaped prison. Or, at least, that’s what’s being claimed,”
Zeke revealed.
“Who’s claiming it?” I asked.
“Prison officials, I guess,” Zeke said.
“Did you guys break her out?” I asked hopefully. Whitehat had said that she was going to come up with a plan. Maybe this had been it.
Zeke shook his head. “No, and Whitehat’s pretty upset.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “She’s blaming me. First, I get Boscov killed, and now…” I didn’t voice my fear that now I’d gotten Boyd’s mother killed.
“I don’t think she’s blaming you,” Zeke said. “But she is tasking you with finding her.”
I blinked at him. “I’m not some sort of tracker,” I told him.
He shrugged helplessly, signaling he was just the messenger.
“If she escaped, she doesn’t want to be found. If someone took her, they don’t want her to be found,” I said. “How am I supposed to find her?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Whitehat said if anybody could do it, you could.”
“Her faith in me is misplaced,” I said.
“But you’re going to try,” Zeke said. “If only for the child’s sake.”
I nodded slowly. “But I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Sleep on it,” Zeke said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we’ll tackle it together.”
I nodded, even though I thought that, as plans go, this one pretty much sucked. I headed back to the house and Zeke pulled away. I considered telling him about my attacker warning me off Pelly, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that without revealing Patrick’s involvement.
DeeDee trotted along beside me. “Track can I her,” she offered.
“You’re not a bloodhound,” God scoffed, scrambling up onto my shoulder. “You’re a Doberman pinscher.
“But I appreciate the offer,” I told the dog when she looked downtrodden. “You’re always very helpful.”
Her ears perked up at that and she trotted ahead of us happily.
“Don’t do that to her,” I warned the lizard. “She has a hard enough time as it is without you destroying her confidence.”
“Aren’t you just Miss Touchy Feely about dogs’ feelings tonight,” the lizard mocked.
“All I’m saying is that people, and animals, do things for reasons we don’t understand.”
The lizard fell silent and I walked back into the house.
I went into my bedroom and lay down on the bed, after placing him in his fishbowl and checking on Benny in his tissue box. It felt strangely empty without the dog or the cat or the pig there.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Well, you know Piss is watching over Katie,” God said.
“But that doesn’t explain where DeeDee went off to,” I said.
“You know you left Templeton in the kitchen, right? The dog might not be able to track humans, but if there’s food anywhere available, she shows up,” the lizard said.
I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how I could possibly find Rhonda Pelly.
I didn’t believe that she had escaped. She had been too insistent on me bringing Boyd to visit her there.
That meant that someone had disappeared her and that did not bode well for her future.
I rubbed my sore shoulder with my other hand. “It’s got to be tied to the Concord family,” I said out loud.
“If you shake that tree,” God warned, “there is no telling what could fall out.”
I nodded. He had a point. But Boyd had the right to have his mother.
“I’ll be subtle,” I declared.
“Oh goodie,” God drawled sarcastically. “Subtlety is definitely one of your strongest assets.”
“I have to do something,” I snapped back.
“They’re dangerous,” God reminded me.
“They’re going to find it suspicious that whoever they sent to warn me off doesn’t return,” I murmured aloud.
“I doubt that it’s the type of thing where they’ll post a missing person report on him,” God observed.
He was probably right about that, but by Patrick taking the man out of the equation permanently, he inadvertently signaled to the Concord family that I was an opponent.
“I suspect this is going to get messy,” I muttered.
“I suspect it has something to do with the cursed skull,” God added.
I didn’t believe that, but then again, there were a lot of other things that had happened that I had never believed in, like talking to animals, psychic predictions, and ghosts. I let out a shaky sigh. “What’s next?” I asked the universe. It wouldn’t be too long before I got my answer.
34
Zeke, ended up with some other responsibility he had to take care of, but he still got me the address of the property that Rhonda Pelly had inherited from her grandmother that the Concords, apparently, desperately wanted.
I recruited God and DeeDee to come along with me as I went to check it out. Piss wanted to come along, too, but I explained to her that while it wouldn’t be unusual for me to be walking a Doberman pinscher, people would remember me if they saw me walking a cat. She reluctantly agreed and pledged to protect Katie from Zippy while I was gone.
I wasn’t as convinced as everyone else that the little white dog was a threat, but I thanked her for her service.
The property that was a point of contention wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It was at the end of a dead-end street. Most of the other homes on the street were slightly run-down looking, the Pelly place, because it was not occupied, looked abandoned. I’d parked three blocks away and put DeeDee on her leash, and just pretended to stroll down the street.
“What are we looking for?” God asked. He was perched on my shoulder, holding on to my ear for balance.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “I thought maybe this would be near some sort of development that the Concords were working on, but it just seems to be like a regular residential neighborhood.”
“Maybe she lied to you,” God suggested.
“Why would she do that?”
“Because that’s what people in prison do, they lie. Haven’t you ever met Archie?”
I shrugged; he had a point. Still, I hadn’t felt like Rhonda was lying to me. And if she was, it was a strange lie to make up, that the Concord family was after her property and they had framed her.
“DeeDee, I’m going to let go of your leash. I need you to run around the building. I’ll chase you, but don’t let me catch you unless I call your name.”
“That’s a complicated plan,” God warned.
“Do you understand, DeeDee?” I asked.
“Understand I,” she woofed.
I dropped the leash.
She just stood there.
Realizing someone might be watching, I bent to pick it up, thinking I’d have to figure out another plan for exploring the property.
As I reached for it, God leapt from my shoulder to DeeDee’s back. He grabbed her collar and bellowed, “Run, you furry fool!”
The Doberma
n took off.
I gave chase.
With God’s guidance, she’d go a few steps, just long enough for me to carefully survey an area and then make a show of grabbing for the leash before she scooted a few more feet away.
The lizard can be a pain sometimes, but there are moments when he’s heaven sent. This was one of those.
There was nothing that jumped out at me about the property that would explain the Concords’ interest in it. I sidled up to the house, but the door was locked. I peered inside, but from what I could tell, it looked like all furniture and personal belongings had been taken out.
“Intruder!” DeeDee barked.
Startled, I jumped away from the window and found an older man, a folded newspaper clutched to his chest, watching me through a cataract clouded gaze.
“Help you?” he grunted.
“My dog got loose and I was trying to catch her.”
“She’s not inside.”
I let out a guilty laugh. “A friend of mine used to come here sometimes,” I lied. “Rhonda.”
I grabbed her leash as DeeDee trotted up to us, no doubt because God wanted to hear the conversation.
The man’s face split into a wide smile. “Janice’s granddaughter. You must have been one of those kids that used to chase the ice cream truck with her.”
I nodded encouragingly.
He shook his head sadly. “Last time I saw Rhonda was at Janice’s funeral.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“They said it was that mono poisoning,” he said. “Damnedest thing. She just went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up.”
I looked at the old house. “Carbon monoxide poisoning?”
He nodded. “That’s it. A silent killer.”
“But Rhonda didn’t believe it?”
The old man shook his head. “She suspected foul play.”
I nodded slowly. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “I know that Janice had made some enemies in the months before her death.”
“What kind of enemies?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.
“Rich family wants to buy the place,” he said. He frowned and stared at the house. “If you ask me, Janice should have taken the amount of money they offered.”
“Because they threatened her?”
He chuckled. “Because they offered her twice what it was worth, cash. That kind of money could change a person’s life.”
“It certainly could.” I stared at the house, trying to figure out why they would have made that kind of offer. “What about it is so valuable?”
He shrugged. “Janice never said. All she ever said was that she would never sell to them.”
“And Rhonda hasn’t, either,” I murmured.
“Well, I’ve got to get inside,” he said. “It’s almost time for my program.”
I nodded my understanding. “It was nice talking to you.” With a final pat for the dog, he shuffled away.
“Well, that was informative,” God said, coming back to perch on my shoulder.
“It sure sounds like Rhonda wasn’t lying to me,” I told him.
Now, the challenge was to find out why exactly the Concord family wanted the property that nobody seemed to understand the value of. I began to walk back to my car, tugging DeeDee along. She wasn’t in the most helpful mood, stopping to smell every clump of grass we passed.
When I got to the corner, there was a familiar face watching me.
“Hi,” I said carefully.
Gino, Delveccio’s bodyguard, nodded at me. “Hi.”
“Does he need to see me now?” I asked.
Gino shook his head. “I just got curious and wanted to see what you were up to.”
“I’m walking my dog,” I told him.
“Me!” DeeDee barked for emphasis.
“You put your dog in the car, drove halfway across town, walked back and forth on the same street for more than fifteen minutes,” Gino said, his disbelief evident, “all to walk your dog?”
“We needed a change of scenery,” I told him defensively.
“You are such a bad liar,” he muttered. “Are you any closer to finding the skull?”
I shook my head. “I heard a rumor that it’s cursed.”
He jerked his head to the side, indicating I should walk with him, and led the way back to my car. “There are a lot of suspicions around it,” he admitted.
“Do you believe them?”
He shrugged. “People believe in prayers, why can’t they believe in curses?”
“True.”
He gave me a sideways look. “How did you hear about the curse?”
I considered lying about it, but he’d already pointed out how bad I am at it. “My dad told me.”
Gino shook his head. “Don’t tell me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, technically,” he said quietly, “I’m supposed to tell the bosses every time you have contact with your father.”
“What else are you supposed to tell them?” I asked curiously.
“Every time you see the reporter, every time you see your brother, and every time you see your sister.”
“Well, you can’t possibly know that,” I said. “Unless you have cameras in the house, and you know every time we run into each other.”
“Not her,” Gino said. “The other one, Darlene.”
“She’s left town,” I said. I startled myself with how cold and angry my tone was.
He nodded. “I know.”
“You know?” I asked.
“I told you that all of your family is under observation,” Gino said.
He raised his hands defensively. “And don’t you dare get mad at me about it, I’m not the one giving the orders. I’m just doing what I’m told.”
“Do you know where she went?” I asked curiously.
“No, we dropped the tail when she reached the Delaware Water Gap,” he said.
“So, Pennsylvania,” I said.
He nodded. “I don’t know if that was her final destination, I’m just saying that’s where the tail was dropped.”
I nodded my understanding.
“You did the right thing in fighting for Katie,” Gino told me.
“And how do you know about that?” I asked.
“I may have read the letter she left for you before you did,” he admitted. He had the good sense to look embarrassed about it.
Wanting to change the subject, I asked, “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded.
“Do you know anything about the Concord family?” We had reached my car, and instead of answering me, he opened the driver’s side door for me and motioned for me to get inside. Instead of doing as he requested, I opened the rear door so that the dog could jump in. I closed that and then met his gaze. “Do you?”
“They’re trouble, Maggie,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you any more than that. But I will warn you to stay away from them.”
35
I returned home with more questions than I had before I’d left to go check out the property. Gino’s reaction had been interesting, and while he hadn’t explicitly told me, he’d confirmed my opinion that the Concords were a dangerous family.
After I parked the car, I let DeeDee loose and slowly began to walk toward the main house. Zippy dashed out in front of me.
“Zippy,” I called. “Come here a second.”
The little dog took on an aggressive posture and bared his teeth at me.
“I just want to talk to you,” I told him.
He made no attempt to move closer to me, but he didn’t run away.
Shrugging, and not wanting to appear like I was threatening him, I sat down on the ground.
“I’m not sure talking—” God began.
“I’m not talking to you,” I told him.
The little dog seemed to like that the lizard had been put in his place and, instead of standing, he sat down, observing me carefully.
“I un
derstand there have been a lot of changes,” I told Zippy. “I was wondering if there was anything I could do to maybe make things easier for you, smooth things over with everyone else.”
“Leave,” he barked. “Leave! Leave! Leave!”
I swallowed my annoyance, and said, “I’m afraid we are all here to stay.”
His reaction to that was to stand back up, lift his leg, and pee.
“See?” God said indignantly. “You can’t have the simplest discourse with him.”
Part of me wanted to agree with the lizard, but I was trying to give the little dog the benefit of the doubt. “Tell me what you’re so upset about,” I urged.
The white fluff ball growled something unintelligible and raced off.
“Well, that was effective,” God mocked.
“At least I tried,” I said, slowly getting to my feet.
“There’s a difference between trying, and making progress,” God informed me.
He had a point, but I wasn’t going to concede.
“Margaret!” I turned to see Aunt Susan hurrying toward me. “Do you have a moment?” she asked.
I nodded. “Is everything okay with Katie?”
Susan smiled. “Katie is doing very well.”
I let out a shaky sigh of relief. Together, Susan and I walked into the main house and sat down in the living room. For once, there was nobody else there.
“I wanted to talk to you about Darlene,” she began. She looked worried. The lines around her eyes more pronounced than usual.
I waited, knowing that silence was my best friend in this sort of situation.
“Do you think she left because of what I did,” Susan asked finally. She sounded ashamed of her actions.
“Do you mean when you slapped her?” I asked.
Looking away, Susan nodded tightly.
“No. I’m sure that that did not affect her decision to leave, at all.”
“You’re sure?”
Hating the doubt that I heard in my aunt’s voice, I nodded. “A hundred percent. Her mind was made up before she ever even came over here. We couldn’t talk her out of it and you certainly can’t be blamed.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” she admitted. “I don’t really know what came over me.”
