by Kelly Rey
"She really is gifted." Eunice sounded awed. "Do you think she can teach me how to do that? I lock myself out of the house a lot. I gave a spare key to my next-door neighbor, but I want it back. I think he sneaks in and tries on my unmentionables when I'm at work."
Curt bit his lip to keep from laughing.
A shadow shifted inside the office area. A large shadow.
Immediately a vise squeezed my chest. "Do you see that?"
He nodded, his ghost smile gone. "I see it."
"I see it, too." Eunice pushed up between the seats, her face bloodless. "It's huge. What is that? Does it have wings?"
"That's a Hank," I said.
"Really?" Eunice pushed her glasses up her nose. "Well, isn't he a lot of man. He's more man than Antoine from the Twining Valley Country Club." I heard her pull in a breath. "Wait a minute," she muttered to herself. Papers rustling then another small gasp. "Hank, Hank, Hank," she muttered.
I kept my eyes on the office. "What are you doing?"
"That's him," Eunice said. "That's Howard's defendant. Hank Sedgwick. Max's Garage. That's him."
"Are you sure?"
She'd gone pale. "Our client said he's enormous. And this is where he works. Only he isn't supposed to be working since the accident. He lied."
Not exactly a novelty in the land of litigation.
The shadow in the office had gone still.
"What's he doing?" I asked.
"He's watching," Curt said.
But who was he watching, us or Maizy? Either way, the thought gave me the shakes.
"I have to get some pictures," Eunice said. "Right?"
"Right," I said.
"I've got him dead to rights," she added. "He's not incapacitated, right?"
"Right," I said.
The large shadow moved some more, and the pale jutting square of Hank's jaw appeared in the window, faintly illuminated by the light of a nearly full moon.
"Oh, my," Eunice said. "He is a big man."
Another shift, and the tire iron in his hand became visible.
"Eunice." Curt's voice was level and sharp. "Behind your seat is a toolbox. It's unlocked. Get me the hammer."
"What are you going to do with that?" Eunice asked him. "Are you going to hit him?"
"I'm going to help him hang a picture," Curt said.
I kept my eyes on the pickup. No sign of Maizy. No interior light. No sign of movement from the office. Everything felt wrong.
"There's no need for violence," Eunice said disapprovingly. "I can handle this. I used to be a fake lawyer, remember?"
And not a very good one. Public speaking tended to make Eunice faint. And by public speaking, I meant speaking in public. I turned to discourage whatever scheme she was cooking, but she was already gone. When she neared the office, the door opened, and Hank stepped out of the shadows.
Immediately Eunice stopped and swayed a little on her feet.
I forgot all about using my indoor voice. "What is she doing?" I practically yelled.
Curt's cell phone buzzed with an incoming text from Maizy. What is she doing?
Across the lot, Hank moved fast to snake an arm around Eunice's waist, keeping her from going down. Her head lolled back, her knees gave way, and she sagged into him.
"She fainted," Curt said. "We need to—"
"We sure do," I said. I grabbed his phone and texted Stay put to Maizy.
She replied, Duh.
Curt and I reached for the door handles.
Hank hoisted Eunice over his shoulder and turned to tote her into the office, her backside bumping around six feet off the ground. Not a good look for her.
Suddenly Eunice turned her head to us and gave us the thumbs-up.
"She's got this," Curt said with wonder.
His cell phone buzzed. She's got this.
The office light came on to show them sitting with their backs to the window, Eunice slumped over and Hank trying to foist a paper cup on her while doing some useless there-there back patting.
I texted Maizy, Now.
She replied, Duh.
Maizy was starting to get on my nerves.
The pickup's door cracked open, and she slithered out, rushed across the lot, and slipped into the back seat.
"So?" I demanded. "Whose truck is it?"
She shrugged. "Beats me. There wasn't any paperwork. Not even an insurance card. The worst part is I couldn't even blow the horn, with the giant doofus over there." She pointed her chin at the office. "What's with her? That wasn't very smart."
"You're right about that." Curt's voice was grim. "You won't be doing this again, will you?"
"I didn't mean me," Maizy said. "I meant Eunice. She went in without a plan. You need to have a plan. Now we'll have to do an extraction."
That sounded painful. And potentially dangerous. And, as it turned out, unnecessary, since Eunice abruptly stood up and handed over a piece of paper, which Hank read, nodding, before stuffing it into his breast pocket. Then she walked out and back to the Jeep. When she got in, we all turned to stare at her.
"What?" She patted her head. "Have I got pine needles stuck in my hair?"
"Did you just give him your phone number?" I asked.
"Did he threaten you?" Curt asked.
"Did he confess?" Maizy asked.
Eunice blinked at us. "No. But he offered to fix my car in exchange for a home-cooked meal."
"With who?" Maizy asked.
Eunice smiled. "With me. I'm going to home-cook that man straight to the altar."
"Do you give lessons?" Curt asked her.
I ignored that. "What happened to 'he lied'?"
"It was just a little lie," she said. "I'm sure he had to use a heating pad after the accident. Maybe take some aspirin."
Whatever. That was Howard's fight, not mine.
"I hate to tell you this," I said, "but he's got a girlfriend."
"He mentioned that," Eunice said. "But she's too busy chasing after musicians to pay much attention to him. He's really mad about it, and I don't blame him. Can you imagine ignoring a hunk of man like that? He said he'd taken care of the problem, but now he needs a good woman. That's me."
"Wait a minute," I said. "What does that mean, taken care of the problem?"
Eunice shrugged. "He didn't say, and I didn't ask. I wasn't about to risk turning him off when I'd just turned him on."
Disturbing on so many levels.
Eunice tapped Curt's shoulder. "Can you break my car?"
He frowned. "Excuse me?"
"Hank agreed to fix my car," Eunice said. "My car's not broken. You don't have to do anything dramatic. Just…break it somehow."
"I know what we can do," Maizy began.
"No," Curt said. "I'll loosen a plug," he told Eunice. "Easy to fix, no lasting damage."
She sat back, satisfied. "I should get a picture of his house," she said. "Show Howard that I did something so he won't fire me. It's 106 Third Street. Did we pass Third Street?"
"They have names?" Maizy lowered her window, ushering in a flood of steamy air and a few thousand buzzing and flapping insects. "They barely have streets," she said. "Or signs."
"Do you mind?" I asked. "I'm getting eaten alive."
"More drama," Maizy said. She rolled up the window. Which only trapped seven hundred bugs inside with us and treated them to air conditioning.
"There's a sign." Eunice pointed to a three-foot wooden stake driven into the ground. Curt slowed so we could read it. "The letters are a little faded, though."
"You think?" Maizy cocked her head. "I can't make out anything but a T and an r."
"But the letters are in the right place," Eunice said. "Turn here."
Here was a tiny, no lane, rutted dirt road leading to utter blackness at the end of the earth. That road had horror movie written all over it, even though Curt was with us. That was small comfort when everyone knows the man always gets it first in those movies, leaving the women to fend for themselves.
He rolled
down his window and hauled in a big breath of tree-scented air and all the relatives of the seven hundred bugs who must have sent out invitations. "It's great down here. We should come camping some time."
"Sure thing," I said. "I look good in big red welts. Roll up the window."
"You don't have to worry about these." Curt flicked at some tiny winged horror that had landed on his forearm. "It's the no-see-ums that'll drive you crazy."
Just that name made it so much worse.
I rubbed my arms. "I'm chilly."
"It's 85 degrees," Curt said.
"It's probably ghosts you're feeling," Maizy said. "There's bound to be a lot of them in the Pine Barrens."
Well, that didn't help.
"You think they're hitching a ride?" Curt asked.
"You don't know," Maizy said. "They have places to go, too."
"Why wouldn't they just fly there?" Eunice asked.
Maizy snorted. "Maybe they're saying the same thing about you."
"Where do they have to go?" Curt asked. One of his dimples twinkled at me. He wasn't buying it for a minute. I wasn't too sure. I'd been in the Haunted Mansion. I knew for a fact that ghosts hitched rides.
Maizy shrugged. "Different places. You ever see an abandoned psychiatric institution? You can't tell me there are no ghosts in there. There's all kinds of stuff going on in those places."
"How would you know that?" Curt asked her. "Have you been on the Herbie Hairston Delinquency Tour again?"
"That's not bad," Maizy said. "Okay if he steals that?"
"Why not?" Curt said. "He steals everything else."
Maizy tapped me on the shoulder. "Maybe we should expand into ghost hunting. I saw it on TV. It's a growing field."
"That's a good idea," I said. "No."
"Think about it," Maizy said. "It doesn't seem that hard. Practice saying 'Did you hear that?' a lot, and you've pretty much got it."
"I'll do it," Eunice said, "only I'll have to buy some running shoes first."
Maizy poked me. "See? And she faints at everything."
Curt grinned at me. "Camping sounds a little better now, huh?"
"Yeah," I said. "That's just what I was thinking."
Maizy snorted.
"You don't want to go camping," Eunice said. "You're better off ghost hunting."
"She's right," Maizy said. "This place is a dead zone for cell phone service."
"That's kind of the point," Curt said. "No phones. No TV." He scowled into the mirror. "No teenagers."
"You can beg all you want," Maizy said. "I'm not coming. Hey, look. A house. Sort of."
The house was a cheerless one-story stone box with a patched roof, sagging porch, wooden steps, and one set of shutters for two windows. The dirt yard was strewn with car parts and litter. No grass, garden, driveway, or pavement of any kind. The address had been scrawled in heavy black marker above the door.
"That's not it," Eunice said with relief. "It can't be far, though. It says 100, and we're looking for 106."
We drove until we came to another house. 202.
"That doesn't make sense," Curt said. "We couldn't have missed that many houses."
"Maybe they were set back in the trees," I said. "But I didn't see any driveways."
"You know what?" Maizy asked. "I bet they're tree houses."
"Be serious," I said. "Nobody lives in a tree house."
"The Swiss Family Robinson does," Eunice said.
"The Papua Tree people do," Maizy said.
We all leaned forward, looking up. No tree houses.
"Either we have the wrong street," Eunice said, "or the house doesn't exist."
"Couple of things," Maizy said. "First, this isn't a street. Second, these aren't houses. And third, you're going about this all wrong."
"I usually do," Eunice said. She slumped in dejection. "What am I going to tell Howard? I don't have any pictures."
"Yeah, that's a problem," Maizy said. "Now can we go talk to Susan One?"
"We agreed to help," I said.
Maizy rolled her eyes. "Fine. You know what you should do? You should ask around at the Pinelands Bar, see if anyone knows where this house is. Those people know everyone. It's like a high school clique there, only with a cover charge."
"I wouldn't know about that," Eunice said. "I wasn't part of any high school cliques. I was what you'd call a loner."
"Me, too," Maizy said. "Only I call it being an individualist 'cause I'm not a doofus."
Eunice smiled. "I like that. An individualist. Maybe that's what I am."
"Nah," Maizy said. "I'm pretty sure you're a—"
"She found the dink," I cut in. "It's Hank."
"Seriously?" Maizy asked. "That dude's a walking nuclear plant accident. You better get a telephoto lens so you can keep your distance."
"Oh, no," Eunice said. "You've got him all wrong. He didn't make me faint or anything."
"You need to raise the bar a little," Maizy told her.
"Did anyone hear that?" Curt cut in.
We all got still.
"Hear what?" Maizy asked.
"I'm not sure." Curt stared hard at the dirt road unfurling in front of us. "It almost sounded like a scream."
"I knew it," Eunice whispered. "It's still out there."
Icy fingers clawed their way up my spine.
"I doubt anything's out there," Curt said. "Except maybe campers and animals."
"Yeah," I said. "Let's go with that."
"The Jersey Devil is kind of an animal," Eunice said.
"She's right," Maizy agreed. "It's got horns and wings and claws and a forked tail. But it didn't start out that way. It started out normal. Well, as normal as a kid can be whose father's the devil. Come to think of it, maybe it's Herbie Hairston."
"That's not nice," I told her.
"Have you met Herbie Hairston?" she asked.
"Whatever it was," Curt said, "it's gone now. I think we're done here." He executed a crisp K-turn on the dirt road and headed back the way we'd come. "What's next? Susan One or the Pinelands?"
"Susan One," Maizy said immediately. "The store closes soon." She looked at Eunice. "You'd better wait in the car, since you're trying to steal her boyfriend."
Eunice shook her head. "No way. I want to know what I'm up against. I might have to up my game."
"What does that look like?" Maizy asked.
"Steak tartare instead of spaghetti," Eunice said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It took fifteen minutes to find the store nestled in a clearing along Route 206 and two seconds for me to turn on Maizy. "You didn't mention that she works at a lingerie store!"
"She works at a lingerie store," Maizy said.
Curt's expression was pure delight. "Let's go. Time's wasting."
I rolled my eyes. I could just imagine what Susan One looked like, and I was bound to come up short in comparison since I had a body like a fishing pole. What was a lingerie shop doing in the middle of a forest, anyway? Susan One couldn't have found a job selling rock crawlers or digging up bait worms like a normal woman?
"I could use another flannel nightgown," Eunice said. "Plus it'll give me a chance to get a look at Hank's soon-to-be ex."
"Good idea," Curt said. "Let's go."
"You've got an awful lot of faith in that home-cooked meal," I told her.
"I've got a can't-fail recipe," Eunice said. "I use lots of gravy. What man doesn't love gravy?"
Curt glanced at his watch. "She'll be closing up soon. We ought to get inside."
"Why don't you go in," I said to Maizy. "If we all go, it might intimidate her."
"She's got a point," Eunice said. She opened her door. "Come on, everyone."
I could see Eunice and her gravy meant business. We got out and followed her into the store.
Maizy paused to take it in. "I think I've seen this before. In those catalogs that come in plain brown envelopes."
She was right. The place was ho-hum on the outside and va-va-voom on the inside
. Lots of mannequin busts wearing lots of lingerie of the racy, lacy, and complicated variety, like bodysuits made of shoelaces held together by silver rings or rhinestone clasps. White lacquered tables and faux dressers held panties and bras. Short silk nighties and camisoles hung in staggered rows from silver racks. The walls shone in soft mint green and white stripes under recessed lighting. A jazz saxophone recording played softly in the background.
"I don't see any flannel," Eunice said, looking around.
"I don't see Susan One," Maizy said.
I didn't see any point in being in a place where the mannequins were built better than I was. It wasn't exactly a confidence booster.
Curt handed me his credit card. "Go buy something."
As if. I was wearing perfectly comfortable cotton underwear from the 2012 Hanes collection. "Don't try to change me," I said.
He grinned. "Maybe I'll just browse around, see what catches my eye."
"I knew we should have left you in the car," I called after him.
"Maybe he can help me find the flannel," Eunice said. She followed him.
"Isn't that cute," Maizy said. "Uncle Curt wants to do nicky-nack with you."
I watched him move through the store. "How can you tell?"
Maizy shrugged. "He's buying you the uniform."
I turned. "What?"
"Black lace," she said. "It's so clichéd it's almost funny. Why can't men just accept women who wield their feminine power in untraditional ways?"
"Pretty sure I don't have feminine power," I said.
"Sure you do," she said. "You just need some black lace to bring it out of hiding."
I stared at her.
"I'm sorry. I'm getting ready to close. Can I help you?"
We turned to find Susan One standing behind us. She was pretty, but not stunning. Athletically built, not voluptuous. She smelled faintly of cigarettes and wore black-framed glasses with no lenses in them.
Across the store, Eunice pretended to browse a rack of camisoles with her eyes locked on Susan One.
"Hey, I saw you at the Virtual Waste concert Friday night," Maizy said, as if our being in the store was by accident rather than design.
"Yeah, I saw you, too." Susan One's gaze floated up to Maizy's blue nimbus of hair. "You're pretty memorable."
"I'm special," Maizy agreed. "Did you hear what happened to Nicky D?"
