She guessed that was pretty well over, considering he hadn’t bothered to say goodbye before he’d left.
And while she would have liked to say good riddance – she hadn’t wanted to get involved, had she? Hadn’t she told him to leave her be? – Ava was too honest with herself not to recognize the little bump to her heart.
Just a bruise, she told herself, and checked her rearview as she slid her Mustang into the line of traffic in Calhoun Square. Better to take the hit now, get them both out of the line of fire before someone got seriously hurt.
And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been bruised before. Her uncle had seen to that, and Michael… well, Michael had been all too eager to abandon the field.
All but righteous now with the rage that threatened to blister anyone who got too close, Ava whipped into Lou Ellen’s drive. So many of her corpuscles had boiled away that she went lightheaded as she slammed into park.
Jack streaked out from under a camellia bush, and Ava’s heart shot up to her throat.
“Dammit. Jack, how did you get out?” Fingers tingling from the heat of her rage, from the scare, Ava reached down to scoop him up. In her hurry to get to work that morning, she’d decided to leave him at home. Inside, she recalled irritably, where he couldn’t be run over by a stupid car.
Annoyed by the tightness of her grip, Jack dug his claws into her arm.
“Stop it. Just stop it right now, you ingrate. I almost hit you.”
His warning growl let her know he was pissed. “Yeah, well, get in line, buddy. I’ve got plenty of damn fool men angry with me already.”
“Problem, Ava?”
Ava glanced up to see Lou Ellen, glass in hand, cropped orange pants and bright green shirt making her look unfortunately like a skinny pumpkin, standing on the veranda with a uniformed young man.
“No, not at all. Everything’s just peachy. Ouch. Ouch, you little shit.” With the mark from his teeth burning her arm, Ava dropped the cat to the ground. He crawled under an oleander to glare, eyes narrowed, tail twitching.
Lou Ellen cleared her throat. “Seems the peach crop is rotten this year.”
“You have no idea,” Ava muttered.
“Um, if that’s going to be all, Ms. Calhoun?”
Ava looked at the man who’d spoken, noted the Glass Doctor logo on the cap pulled low over short, light hair. There was a name embroidered on his shirt, but she was too far away to see it. If she hadn’t been so angry that she was all but deaf, dumb and blind with it, she would have noticed his van parked along the street.
“Yes, I’m sorry. You need me to sign something, baby doll?”
“Yes ma’am.” He turned red to the tips of his ears. “Here and… here.” He avoided looking at Ava as Lou Ellen took the clipboard.
Probably a good call, as he’d likely suffer corneal flash burn.
When he’d trotted down the steps and hurried away, Ava sighed and walked toward Lou Ellen.
“I’m sorry about the window.”
“I do believe you frightened that young man.” Lou Ellen offered her a drink, which despite the brownish color and slice of lemon bore little resemblance to iced tea. But Ava shook her head. She was volatile enough without adding alcohol. “And it’s glass, Ava. Old glass. Probably needed to be replaced, anyway.”
Ava dropped, simply dropped, onto the rosy brick steps. And lowered her head to her knees.
The tinkling of ice let her know that Lou Ellen had joined her a moment before she felt the hand stroke down her back.
“Lou Ellen. I’m –”
“Don’t you tell me you’re sorry again, child, or you’re just gonna piss me off. One of us in a temper is about all I can take.”
Disgusted, Ava felt tears swim into her eyes. She couldn’t let it make her cry. She just couldn’t. “I hate,” she sucked in a breath, let it shudder out instead of tears “that any of this is touching you.”
“Seems to me that if something isn’t touching you in this life – good, bad, what have you – you must not be living right. Me? I prefer to take a chance of things getting messy rather than inhabit a sterile box. Might as well live in one of those damn snow globes that litter Joyce Phillips’ parlor. The ones with those little Precious Moments creatures inside? And her a grown woman. She ought to be ashamed.”
A laugh tickling her throat now, Ava lifted her face to the evening breeze. “Those things always creeped me out. Their eyes look like black teardrops, and their heads are entirely too large for their bodies.”
“There you go.” Lou toasted her with the glass. “It’s little wonder those poodles are so nervous.”
Because she felt better, marginally, Ava took a swig since it was there. “Jesus.” Her eyes watered. “I think you forgot the mixer.”
“Why ruin a good drink? I saw your handsome prosecutor drop by this morning.”
Ava watched Jack slide out from the oleander and dart after the first butterfly she’d seen that spring. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that won’t be happening again anytime soon. He’s sufficiently annoyed because I wouldn’t call his good friends, the police. I think he’s ready to wash his hands of me.”
When Lou Ellen didn’t immediately respond, Ava turned to glance at her friend.
“What?” She knew that look.
“Well Ava, it seems that you’ve managed to piss me off anyway.” The anger frosting those dark eyes was cool where Ava’s was hot. “Not everyone is willing to cut and run quite as easily as that pansy-assed Michael. I’m not sure who you’re doing the bigger disservice, that young man or yourself. And since I am pissed off, I think I’ll leave you to your sulk and go paint. I find I’m more creative when I’m annoyed.”
If that was the case, Ava thought as Lou Ellen glided away, the woman must have been happy as ten clams every other time she’d picked up a brush.
“Aren’t I just the bitch tonight?” Ava watched the butterfly outmaneuver Jack. Big, hungry predator. Little, clever invertebrate.
“And you don’t even have a spine.”
Ava decided to wrap up the pity party and find hers. “Let’s go, Jack.” She needed to hit the shower, change clothes.
Just what did one wear to visit their father in jail these days?
Ava figured it was time to find out.
“YOU think you can tell me no?”
Jordan closed his arm around the woman’s neck, pulled her back against his chest to subdue her struggles. The pretty little brunette’s cornrowed ponytail tickled his chin, her smooth, dark throat soft as butter beneath his hand. “I said, get in the car.”
“No!”
Her chin dipped into the inside curve of his elbow, forcing him to loosen his hold. And just like that, her hand shot behind her, aiming straight for his eyes. Her heel came down hard on his instep as the sharp point of her elbow rapped against his ribs.
When he fell back, she swiveled, snapped out a kick that caught him squarely in the solar plexus.
Applause broke out around the room.
“I did it.” Tasha Van Sant, pretty little brunette, college junior and total sweetheart, bounced on the soles of her size six feet. Her dark eyes danced with pleasure. “You’re, like, huge, and I just dropped you on your ass.”
Jordan smiled from his prone position on the mat and accepted her outstretched hand. “And that’s because…”
“Because the outcome of a confrontation isn’t always about size, or strength.”
Jordan climbed to his feet, looked at the other students. “And…?”
“It’s about being aware of your surroundings,” they chorused “and knowing your assailant’s weak spots.”
“SING,” Tasha added, grinning. “Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin. Though I think I hit you more in the eye.”
“Eyes work. And my groin appreciates the fact that you overlooked it.”
“Who said I did?”
With a laugh, Jordan offered her a bow. “Well done, Tasha.”
When he straightened, Jordan ca
ught sight of Chip Coleman smirking in the doorway. “Okay ladies.” Jordan nodded to acknowledge the detective, then turned toward his class. “That wraps things up for this evening. Next week we’ll talk about techniques for breaking a wristlock, without breaking your own wrist.”
After answering a couple last minute questions and deflecting one invitation to River Street for a drink, Jordan grabbed his towel and headed toward Coleman.
“And to think, these women actually pay to wrestle around with you on a sweaty mat.”
“Well, they pay the Y. I’m just a lowly volunteer. But somebody has to do it.”
“Jiu-jitsu?” Coleman rattled the change in his pocket.
“Some.” Jordan wiped his neck. “Some Krav Maga. How to use your opponent’s momentum against him. Situational awareness. Which, considering I’m talking to the detective in charge of my own assault, makes me sound like a giant ass-hat.”
“Even the best of us can be caught unawares.”
“Tell me about it.” As the last of his students faded out the door, Jordan tossed the towel toward his duffel. “I’m assuming you didn’t stop by because you wanted to watch me get poked in the eye.”
“Well, that was a nice bonus, but no. We found Leslie Fitzsimmons’ cell phone.”
The words, the tone, struck Jordan like another kick. Found her phone, but not Leslie. “Maybe you’d better explain.”
Coleman stepped into the room, and Jordan scanned the hall before closing the door. A couple of the women tended to linger, and this wasn’t a conversation he cared to be overheard. He’d been honest about his own assault, using it as a – rather humbling – touchstone for that night’s class, but saw no need for them to be privy to the gritty details.
“Ms. Fitzsimmons’ mother has been adamant that her daughter wouldn’t just take off without a word, and certainly wouldn’t, and here I quote, ‘allow some fool of a man to cause her to lose all sense.’”
“She never liked me. The old witch.”
Chip’s grin was wry. “I think that’s more of a gender thing than a specific comment on your lack of attributes. But anyway, because she doesn’t have to worry about little niceties like probable cause and convincing a judge to sign a warrant, she hired a company to track the GPS chip in her daughter’s phone. Turns out it’s in some house out on Tybee, so once again ignoring the finer points of the law, she drives out there and bangs on the door. A teenaged boy answers, accusations fly, the kid’s mother calls the police, and what comes out is that he does indeed have the phone. Claims he found it behind a dumpster on River Street.”
Because a nasty sort of bile wanted to rise in his throat, Jordan grabbed his water. “I’m assuming you checked her call record.”
“Oh yeah.” Chip’s Mayberry face went grim. “Filter out the calls that the kid copped to, and it showed nothing outgoing between seven p.m. on the night in question and around one-thirty a.m., when our boy says he picked it up. But when one of the tech guys brought up the phone’s internal call log, he discovered an aborted 911 originating from her cell in between the time of her last call and the time the kid started calling his friends. The numbers were punched, but never sent.”
“Because someone got to her before she could.” Jordan scrubbed both hands over his face, swore viciously as he pieced the timeline together. “Leslie witnessed my assault.”
“Speculation.” Chip rattled his change again. “But yeah, that’s what I’m thinking at this point. You two argue, you exit through the stairwell toward your car. She waits maybe a minute or two before she decides to follow, get in one last word, and stumbles upon something she shouldn’t. Like you getting your head cracked open.”
“Hell.” Feeling the weight of the uncharitable feelings he’d suffered toward Leslie that week, Jordan sank onto one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. Shock started to fill the space in his bones worn hollow from fatigue.
“On another happy note, Mrs. Fitzsimmons has demanded we look at you as a prime suspect in her daughter’s disappearance.”
If he wasn’t so sick at heart Jordan might have laughed. “So I fabricated my assault, complete with concussion, to cover up the fact that I’d, what, killed Leslie to get her off my back?”
“Grief and worry don’t leave much room for reason.”
The detective had no idea how true that was. “Why spare me?” Jordan wondered aloud. “Why drop me off in front of the emergency room, for God’s sake, and not Leslie. Unless… hell, what if Leslie was the target? But if that were the case, why not just leave me where I fell? What –”
“Jordan. We’re pursuing all those avenues.”
“I know. And I know that you know how to do your job. The, uh, list of license plates I gave you…”
“We’re checking them out. And checking traffic cameras for the area near the hotel, see if we can place a car matching that description in the vicinity any time that night.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she, Chip?”
“We don’t have enough evidence to treat this as a homicide as of yet, but… okay, okay.” Coleman held up his hands when Jordan’s eyes went to slits. “My personal opinion? Yeah. The lady’s probably done. I’m sorry, Jordan. I know this isn’t how you hoped this would shake out.”
AVA’S landlord stood on the porch under a circle of buttery light when Jordan pulled to the curb. The air had gone soft with twilight, but her white smock shone with smudges and bursts of color, like a toddler’s finger painting gone awry. As he watched, she stabbed her brush toward an enormous canvas with the aggressive grace of a veteran fencer.
Then dunked the brush in what looked like iced tea.
When Jordan rolled down the window, Finn let out a greeting bark.
“Well, well.” She looked up with a grin. “Look what the canine dragged in. Hello, lover. You come to pay me a visit?”
Jordan dug deep and came up with a smile. “You know I’m only using Ava to get to you.”
Lou Ellen laughed, delighted.
“Finn, stay.” Ignoring the dog’s pitiful whine, Jordan grabbed his peace offering off the back seat. “And since she’s not answering her phone and her car’s not in the drive,” he said as he climbed the brick steps to the porch “I’m deducing that she’s not around, leaving me free to have my wicked way with you.”
“Seems you’re as clever as you are good lookin’. She’s gone out of town for the night.”
That stopped Jordan in his tracks. “Where?”
A moth danced in front of the spotlight she’d set up, and Lou Ellen batted it away. “I’m afraid that’s for Ava to share, darlin’.”
Recognizing a rock solid wall of loyalty when he hit it, Jordan glanced toward the carriage house. Its windows were dark, shuttered eyes that refused to look his way.
He’d sat outside for hours last night, and someone had broken in after he’d left.
He wondered if they’d seen him, and waited.
Not knowing what he was up against burned his ass.
“In case you’re wondering about the window, I had it replaced today.”
Having nearly forgotten the older woman’s presence, Jordan drummed up another smile. But it fell flat after the first beat. “I could stand here, shoot the breeze, and pretend there’s not an elephant sitting right on this porch between us, but I’m too tired for cajoling. Who’s messing with her, Lou Ellen?”
To his surprise, she reached over the easel and patted his cheek. “I knew you weren’t a pansy-ass.” And before he could even begin to figure out how to respond, she picked up the glass, brush and all, and drank. “And look at you, too well-mannered to gawk at me like I’m crazy. I might be.” She lifted the glass high. “But it speaks to your breeding that you didn’t point it out. And just to calm your mind, I decided to paint with alcohol tonight, instead of the confounding contents of these tubes and jars.” She gestured toward the paints scattered like discarded toys at her feet. “It makes the whole process more appealing.”
“Lou
Ellen –”
“Don’t interrupt, lest I’m forced to retract my good opinion. You’re not a pansy-ass,” she continued, green eyes clearer than they should be. “And while I would sincerely love to be more forthcoming in regards to your question, I can only repeat, that’s for Ava. But have a care how you handle her, darlin’. She’s got a hard-ass shell, but inside, she’s bruised. And her heart? It’s gold. So you remember that, and this: things aren’t always what they seem.”
Feeling like he’d just been battered by a velvet-gloved fist, Jordan could only stare. “It’s nice,” he finally said “to hear what you didn’t say. You love her.”
“Like my own,” she agreed. “Now, are you going to explain why you’re carrying that big ole’ stuffed whatever?”
“It’s Donkey.” He turned the animal around. “You know, from Shrek? Cute and lovable, despite the fact that he’s an ass.”
“Oh.” She pressed a hand to her heart, then bent over and simply laughed. “Oh. That does it. Aren’t you just the sweetest thing.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Ava doesn’t think so right about now. I was frustrated with her this morning. I had a right to be,” he said darkly “but probably could have handled it a little better. Not everyone’s drawers are open. And wow, that didn’t come out right.”
Jordan shook his head as Lou Ellen broke up. “Since exhaustion has robbed me of the ability not to sound like an idiot, I’m going to bid you goodnight. Is it okay if I leave this here? Maybe you could sit it on Ava’s doorstep, or whatever?”
“Darlin’, I’d be happy to give Ava your ass.”
“Saved by the bell,” Jordan said as Finn started to howl. “I’m not even going to attempt a response. Thanks, Lou Ellen.”
“Oh, child. It’s my pleasure.”
BECAUSE guilt and anxiety had tangled to form a nasty ball in his stomach, Jordan found himself driving toward his parents’ house. And wondered that no matter how old a person got to be, when they were sick, were hurting, there was an almost primal yearning for home.
Turning Finn loose in the backyard, where he immediately streaked toward a squirrel that muttered irritably from a loblolly pine, Jordan let himself in through the back door. The heady scent of something baking – brownies. Hot damn. – made him doubly glad he’d stopped by. The smell, the sound of his mother humming in the kitchen brought childhood back in a flash of sensory memory. Here was continuity, and comfort.
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