by Amy Vansant
It couldn’t be.
He swallowed, only to find he had no moisture left in his mouth.
Stephanie.
The ex.
He hadn’t seen her in over a year. He’d read about natural disasters all over the globe though, and assumed she’d been there.
“Charlotte, can I call you back?”
“Sure. I just—”
“Okay, thanks.”
It didn’t occur to him that she’d been about to say something until he’d hung up. He winced and looked at his phone. He hadn’t meant to be rude. He’d tell her later that a demon had rolled into his driveway and he’d had to call an exorcist. She’d understand. You didn’t want to leave evil unattended until heads started spinning and your good furniture was covered in pea soup.
The door of Stephanie’s red Dodge Viper opened and a long, tan leg capped by a black four-inch-heeled sandal slithered out. She stood and smiled at him, bleach-white teeth flashing beneath her Ray-Ban Aviators.
“Hey baby, you miss me?” she purred.
Declan felt a growl rumbling in his chest.
“I wake up to find you gone a year ago, along with all the money in my cash drawer and my favorite three wood, and you come back with hey baby?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t have a three wood.”
“You didn’t need a three wood. You don’t play golf. I don’t have a cricket bat because I don’t play cricket. That’s how not playing a sport works.”
“Well…I was thinking about taking lessons.”
“So buy your own!”
The corner of her mouth curled into a smile. Thanks to the plunging neckline of her tight-fitting red blouse, he had full view of the inside curve of her breasts. The right one bobbed up and down as she winked.
The movement was what Stephanie called a “bink”—short for “boob wink.”
He shook his head and crossed his arms against his chest. “Don’t bink at me. That isn’t going to even come close to working.”
“You used to love a good binking…” She walked toward him with her arms outstretched. “Come on…don’t be like that…”
He took a step back, clipping the back of the low stone wall surrounding his front garden against his calf. He flailed and fell backwards, landing tush-first in the dirt. He lifted his right hand to find a flattened geranium beneath his palm, its hot pink petals strewn like confetti.
Stephanie giggled and held out a hand to help him up. He pushed away her fingers and climbed out of the garden, furiously wiping the back of his shorts.
“Now I’m going to have to change. Why are you here anyway? It’s almost Halloween. Maybe there’s a witch convention in town?”
“My mother died. I’m here to take care of her affairs.”
“Oh…I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not. She was long overdue.”
“Well…still. But now I need you to go away.”
He turned and strode towards his front door.
“I came to tell you important news!” she called after him.
He could hear the click of her heels on his stone walkway and increased his speed.
“I’m your boss!”
He stopped, his hand on his door, and turned. “You know, you shouldn’t be drinking and driving. Especially this early in the morn—”
“I found the will.”
She ceased her pursuit and smoothed her skirt as if anything that form fitting could raise a crease.
Declan put his left hand against his abdomen. It felt as though a giant spatula had stabbed into his guts and flipped his stomach.
His uncle Seamus and Seamus’ business partner, Bonehead O’Malley, had once owned his pawnshop. When Seamus moved to Miami, he made a deal with Bonehead that Declan would inherit the shop. The deal was scrawled on a bar napkin now framed on the wall of the Hock o’ Bell’s office.
Stephanie’s mother, Bonehead’s ex-girlfriend, had once claimed, during a drunken, post-funeral tirade, that she possessed a will stating Bonehead had left the shop to her. The next day she admitted she’d been lying. With Declan already running the store as if it were his own, life went on as usual.
Now Stephanie had returned, much like a nasty case of shingles, invoking the threat of the will.
Had she found it? Did it really exist?
Declan wondered if it was too late to fall on the ground and play dead until she left. It worked with bears.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I came back to take care of Mom’s funeral and found Bonehead’s will in her papers. So… looks like you work for me now.”
“That’s not true. Even if you do have an old will, Bonehead and Seamus made a deal and he changed his wishes.”
“Did he? What do you have to prove that? A framed note scrawled on a napkin?”
Declan’s stomach spatula went back to work and flipped his guts back to their original side. Stephanie was a lawyer, capable of mounting her case at no expense. Even if he won the battle, it would cost him a fortune.
“Why would you want the pawnshop? It doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“Neither did the three wood.”
She smiled and he felt like throwing up in the surviving geraniums. He held very still, hoping she wouldn’t notice him and wander off.
When was the last time I breathed? Do I have to breathe? Is that an everyday thing? It doesn’t seem right but I’m feeling kind of dizzy…maybe I should breathe…
She waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry. I don’t want to take the shop from you.”
He took a gasp of air.
Yep. Need to breathe.
“You don’t? Let me guess… You want me to buy you out?”
“Nope. I don’t want you to buy me out either.”
He grimaced. This was going to end badly. He could feel it.
“You know I can’t afford to fight you in court.”
“I know.”
“So what do you want?”
“I want to own the pawnshop together. I don’t want anything to do with it…but I want everything to do with you.” She pointed an index finger at him, her long red nails flashing in the morning sun like the blood-tipped claws of a velociraptor. “And of course twenty percent off the top.”
He swallowed. “You’ve got to be kidding. I ended our relationship the night I discovered you’d been sleeping with my best friend and that was the last of me having anything to do with you or him.”
Her eyes flashed. “I remember. That was the first time anyone ever broke up with me, and since then two people have dumped me. You ruined my perfect record. You cursed me somehow!”
“I’d blame that on karma, not me. If you dated people for love instead of money, you might find they stick around. And I don’t care. We’re done.”
“I don’t think so…” she said in a sing-song tone as she pulled a plastic tube from her purse and waved it in the air. “The paper in here says we’ll be partners or you lose the pawnshop.”
“We’re not going to be partners.”
“Then I hope you have a good lawyer and a lot of spare cash.”
She winked and the mound of her enhanced breast bobbed beneath her blouse.
“Stop that!”
She turned on her heel to leave.
“Stephanie, wait.”
He jogged after her.
“What can I do to make this go away? You don’t need the pawnshop. You have your own career.”
She paused and slowly turned to face him. “I want a date.”
“A what?”
“A date. You. Me. Out on a date.”
He barked one loud ha! in her direction, so visceral even she lost her cool and paled.
“I’m not going out with you! I’d rather take a wolverine to a drive-in movie. In a very small car. Wearing a meat suit. It would be safer.”
Stephanie set her jaw and glared at him.
“We’re going out. And while we’re out, we’ll discuss things. M
aybe it will all go away for the price of a few cocktails.”
“Why do I suspect that isn’t how things will go?”
She put her palms on his chest and stared at him with her big blue eyes.
He realized she smelled like candy. Much like the house in Hansel and Gretel must have.
“Maybe I just want an opportunity to apologize,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
He couldn’t move.
This must be what it’s like being hypnotized by a cobra.
Stephanie pushed the hair back from her face, revealing a heart-shaped scar above her left cheekbone. They’d been kids when that happened. He’d been on his way to find her when she’d run out of a store, stolen candy in her hand, the shop owner screaming at her in the background. She took the corner onto the sidewalk too fast, slipped, and clipped the side of her face on the low fence. She didn’t cry. She picked herself off the ground, cradling her cheek with one hand, and stared at him. When the shop owner came barreling out of his store, Stephanie pushed Declan behind her, leaving a bloody hand print on his favorite shirt. She ran away, and the man accused him of being her accomplice, when all he’d been was an impromptu speed bump to slow her pursuer.
Strangely, it made him feel as if he had saved her somehow, and he’d liked the feeling.
When they first started dating, their entanglement seemed like an inevitable fate. They’d known each other for so long. On and off through high school and into early adulthood they’d danced. Between his grandmother moving him to Tampa and Stephanie attending college and law school, it took him too long to realize that he was nothing more to her than a safe port between conquests.
Using him to seduce his wealthy friend had been the last straw. Finally, he realized he’d always be the one sacrificed while she ran away with the candy.
He’d realized her happiness wasn’t his responsibility.
It made her furious.
“Apologize for what? Being who you are?” he asked.
She stared into his eyes a moment longer, turned and opened her car door.
The Viper roared to life and the window slid down.
“We need to talk,” she said. “You pick the day, but be sure it’s this week.”
There were many things he wanted to say and none of them were nice, but she had him over a barrel. He had to be accommodating. Had to play along until he could coerce her into signing off on any claim she might have on his store. He wasn’t sure if his napkin contract would stand under scrutiny.
“Bring the will. I don’t even know if it’s real. I want to see it,” he said.
“Oh it’s real.” She again waved the tube at him. Stuffing it back in her bag, she blew him a kiss and he threw his head to the side to avoid it.
“See you soon, lover.”
She pulled out of the driveway and sped away.
Declan dropped his head and stared at a dandelion growing through a crack in his walkway.
Weeds. You never know where they will sprout. Your house…your business…your love life…
Someone cleared a throat and he turned to spot Seamus grinning at him, leaning against the tired VW Jetta he’d bought for a thousand dollars after arriving in Charity. Declan sighed and rubbed his eye with his left palm.
“Okay, let’s get this over with. How much did you see?”
His uncle strolled toward him.
“That was quite a lady.”
“She’s not a lady. Charles Manson in drag is more of a lady than her.”
“I dunno…she’s certainly a fine thing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t give her credit for what she was born with. Everything she has any control over is a nightmare. She’s certifiably insane.”
“So, ex-girlfriend I assume?”
“Yes, and you know her. She’s Bonehead’s ex-girlfriend’s daughter, Stephanie.”
“That’s Stephanie?” Seamus looked down the street after a car that was long gone. He held a face-down palm out at hip level. “Little Stephanie? The one that used to run around the shop with you when you were kids?”
“Yup. Now she’s a full-grown psychopath.”
“Just like her mother. Bonehead broke up with her because she tried to run him down with his John Deere. Thank the heavens lawn tractors are loud; he was a little deaf. If she’d gone after him with one of those electric cars he’d be dead.”
“Stephanie’s usually more diabolical than lawnmower hit-and-runs. When we were kids, she locked me in that treasure chest you had in the shop. She left me there for three hours. That should have been my first hint.”
“I remember that! When we heard you yelling she said she’d lost the key and had been too scared to tell us.”
“And you believed her. Trusting morons like you helped convince her she could cause havoc without consequences.”
Seamus chuckled. “Most things are my fault in the end. So, what does she want this time?”
Declan felt ridiculous, but there was no way he could hide his embarrassment from his uncle forever. The man was clever, street smart and constantly nearby, living in his house and drinking his beer. Whenever he suggested Seamus buy his own beer, the wily Irishman pulled him into a shady bar game or card trick and he ended up paying for it anyway. He wouldn’t be able to hide anything from him for long.
“She said she found a will stating Bonehead left the pawnshop to her mother.”
“What? Bah…she’s off her nut.”
“I told you that.”
“You still have the napkin?”
“Yes. Of course. It’s on the wall, framed in the…”
Declan’s voice faded. He could feel the blood draining from his face and his cheeks began to tingle.
“What is it?”
“She said framed.”
“What?”
“While she was here. She said, What proof do you have? A framed napkin?”
“So?”
“So, she just got back to town. I moved the shop into the old Taco Bell after we broke up and it was then that I framed the napkin. How could she know it was framed?”
“She must have visited. Maybe you were waiting on someone and didn’t see her?”
Declan shook his head. “I would have felt the icy breeze.” He covered his mouth with his hand. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“The napkin is hanging in the office, in the back. She couldn’t have seen it from the floor. That means she went into the office. That means she was looking for it.”
“Oh. That’s not good.”
“I have a bad feeling about this. I have to get to the shop!”
He gave the seat of his shorts one last brushing and ran to his car.
Chapter Six
Charlotte patted Abby on the head and walked outside to where Mariska and Darla sat in Mariska’s golf cart waiting to chauffeur her to water aerobics. She took her usual place on the rumble seat and Mariska stomped on the gas.
“Did you get your investigating finished?” asked Mariska.
“More importantly, did you find Witchy-Poo?” asked Darla.
“I didn’t find your witch. I’m only about half way through the neighborhood though. I needed a break. So far I’ve identified about ten switched items, but I did have something interesting pop up with Gloria.”
“Short Gloria or chubby Gloria?” asked Darla.
“Short. Someone sent her a death threat.”
“A death threat!” exclaimed Mariska. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone wants to kill you,” said Darla.
Mariska shot her a look and nearly hit the curb sidelong as her arms followed her gaze. With a jerk of the wheel, she adjusted the trajectory and Charlotte scrambled to catch her towel as it attempted a suicide leap from the back seat.
“Frank thinks it’s kids being stupid,” said Charlotte.
“Frank knows about it? Then I’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Darla. �
�That man pretends he’s a vault but he loves telling me about his police stuff. Especially if I promise him some sugar.”
Charlotte stuck out her tongue. “Oh, gross. Too much information.”
“No, I mean actual sugar. He isn’t supposed to have it but if I want to know something I throw him some cookies. When you’re young it’s all sex, sex, sex, but when you’re old just letting them use real salt does the trick.”
“I’ll make a note of that.”
“So do you think it’s just kids?” asked Mariska. “Gloria’s so sweet!”
“I saw some teens outside her house while I was there. I chased them but they went through the trees to the cow pasture.”
“You chased them? What were you thinking?”
“It’s sort of my job now. Fighting crime and whatnot.”
“Well, I don’t like that one bit. And I don’t like someone threatening Gloria either. This place is turning into New York City.”
“The real victim of this nonsense is Witchy-Poo,” grumbled Darla. “Let’s not forget that.”
Mariska parked at the pool and they piled off the cart with bags, towels and floaty noodles in tow. Jackie was poolside, her boom box at the ready. She hated being in charge of water aerobics, but she’d volunteered years ago and now no one would agree to take her place.
“Ready for some water aerobics?” Charlotte asked, teasing.
Jackie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to push play but I’m out of commission. I think I tore something in my shoulder trying to get out of that stupid ghouly suit.”
“Ghillie suit.”
“Whatever.”
“I’d say I’m sorry but you did shoot me dead.”
Jackie chuckled. “Did you figure out who’s up to the mischief?”
“Kids we think. I saw them running away from Gloria’s house but I couldn’t catch them. She’s having some…uh…issues, and it may all be related.”
“Big-eyes Gloria or big-nose Gloria?”
“Big-eyes.” Charlotte considered telling Jackie about the death threat letter, but decided there was no reason to cause alarm. Pineapple Port was too small. If she told one person, soon the whole neighborhood would be in a sweat, frightened to check their mailboxes. Telling Darla and Mariska wasn’t the smartest idea, but she figured Frank would tell Darla anyway. “Well, I hope you feel better.”
