by Sheryl Lynn
“I don’t believe you.”
He spit on his right palm and thrust his hand toward her. “Spit oath.”
She recoiled, wrinkling her nose. “Gross!”
“You didn’t think it was gross back in high school.”
“I didn’t know as much about germs back then.” Her hands curled into knots.
He laughed. “We just swapped a lot more than spit and now you worry about germs? When did you turn squeamish?”
“You are impossible!” She jerked the transmission into Drive and stomped the gas pedal. Easy whooped, grabbing the door. She whipped into a parking space. “All right, this is it, the final deal. I will listen to what Mr. Tupper has to say. I’ll keep an open mind. Then it’s over. Everything is over. Me, Jeffrey, you. We will all go our separate ways. You won’t bother me anymore.”
He plucked a tissue from a small dispenser on the console. Wiping saliva off his hand, he nodded agreement. Of course, as in any contract, there were loopholes and he’d find a way to continue courting her. Once Livman was completely out of her system, that is.
When they reached the restaurant door, Easy paused and rested a hand on the small of Catherine’s back. “Let me explain what happened to my face. If Trish freaks, she’ll tell my parents and then Mom will flip.”
Her eyes sparkled and her soft mouth worked slightly as if restraining a smile. “Still scared of your mother?”
His anxiety faded as he remembered their old joke. His mother had a solid-gold heart as soft as a marshmallow. She adored without reservation all animals and children—she’d all but adopted Catherine. Easy had loved teasing Mom, showing off when Catherine was around. Mom would bluster and threaten him with an oversize wooden spoon, never failing to take part in the game. Catherine had lapped it up like a cat after cream.
She’d named their child after his mother. A great swelling of warmth and aching pain filled his chest.
“Anyone with half a brain is terrified of Mom.” He opened the door for her.
As he expected and feared, Trish practically screamed. “Oh my God! What happened to your face?” Diners and the wait staff swiveled about to follow her cry. Easy hushed her as best he could and urged her to slide back into the booth. He caught Catherine’s hand and brought her around to the fore. John Tupper stood while Easy made the introductions.
“Wow,” Trish said, “you really look great, Catherine. You were pretty in high school, but now you’re gorgeous.” She touched her dark, curly locks and added, “I’d kill for your hair.”
A blush trailed Catherine’s cheeks. Her discomfiture gave Easy an opportunity to arrange the seating to his liking. He maneuvered John into the booth next to Trish so Easy could sit next to Catherine.
“So,” Trish said, leaning forward to peer critically at his face. “What happened? Those are stitches.’’
“Yep.” He pushed John’s plate of food across the table. “Livman sent a pair of thugs to tell me to back off.”
Trish gasped and John paled. Trish demanded to know what weapon the thugs had used on him. A baseball bat? Billy club? Brass knuckles?
“His fist He kicked me, too. You ought to see my side.”
“You should carry a gun.” Trish’s flashing eyes landed on Catherine. “He’s always getting himself in a pickle, but he won’t carry a gun.”
John Tupper’s reaction to the tidings bemused Easy. The insurance adjuster had stopped swabbing and sweating. He stared, round-eyed, at Catherine’s hands. A greenish tinge spread under the man’s eyes. Easy feared John might lose his lunch.
Catherine noticed Tupper’s stare. She drew herself into the corner.
“You’re wearing Mother’s ring.” John’s tone held indignation.
Catherine jerked her hands beneath the table. “Pardon?”
“That’s Mother’s ring. Jeffrey gave you my mother’s ring?” John mopped furiously at his clammy brow.
Catherine slowly brought her left hand into the open. The big blue sapphire glittered and winked as if alive, surrounded by the fire of small diamonds. “No,” she said. “You’re mistaken. Jeffrey had this made for me.”
John shook his head in firm denial. “That is my mother’s ring! When she died, Roberta inherited it She never took it off her hand. Never. It was all she had left of Mother.”
Cringing even farther into the corner, Catherine stared at the ring. “He made it for me.”
“Mother’s initials are inside the band. G-T-T, for Gladys Tyler Tupper. My grandparents gave it to her the day I was born.”
Looking a tad ill herself, Catherine worked the ring off her slender finger. She held the band to the light streaming in from the wide bank of windows. She squinted, bringing the ring closer and closer until it almost touched her nose. She gasped and dropped the ring.
Easy caught it before it struck the table. He, too, peered inside the band. There, carved in the gold in tiny elegant script, were the letters GTT.
Chapter Nine
Catherine had been wearing a dead woman’s ring. A nasty taste filled her throat and mouth. Jeffrey lying about his age was silly and conceited. Knowing her own reluctance to speak of painful subjects, she understood his failure to mention a previous marriage.
The ring, however…She envisioned his face, candlelit and earnest, his eyes shining. How he assured her in proud sincerity that he had the ring made especially for her. To match her eyes—to play her for a fool.
She watched John take the ring from Easy. The man cradled the shining jewel in his palm, gently, reverently, his hands trembling. His lower lids reddened and turned wet. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his thin neck.
“John.” Trish rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Roberta was a good girl. She always had time to help out others. She never asked for much. When Mother died, I told her to keep the house, but she refused. She wanted my family to have it. It’s a good place for children to grow up.” He lifted his moist gaze to Catherine. “He didn’t have to kill her.”
This slim, nervous man wore a mantle of sorrow around his bony shoulders so heavy it seemed too much for any one man to bear. It shrouded Catherine, as well, casting a pall over her heart.
Catherine suffered through a miserable lunch. Unable to eat, she sipped a glass of iced tea. She choked down the cold, slightly bitter brew, and wished she could order something stronger, something powerful enough to blot out Easy’s scent. His essence clung to her, rising with every minuscule movement. He crowded her in the booth. Her knee kept finding his beneath the table. She bumped his elbow. Each touch jolted her like a shot of static electricity.
John described Jeffrey’s courtship of Roberta, how he’d swept her off her feet. Creepy claws trickled up and down Catherine’s spine—Jeffrey had tried to rush her, too.
During a pause, Catherine asked, “How long did Roberta work for the mortgage company?”
“She started with them right out of college. She loved her job. She had trouble sometimes talking face-to-face with people, but she liked talking on the phone. That’s where she did most of her business. She won some awards for productivity.”
She did not want to ask the next question, but she had to know. “Did your sister have a drinking problem?”
John pulled an incredulous face. “She never had more than an occasional glass of wine.” He thumped the center of his chest. “She had asthma. She avoided anything that depressed her ability to breathe.”
Unable to meet his gaze, she toyed with a saltshaker. “Jeffrey claims she was intoxicated when she fell.”
“He’s a liar.”
His cold statement said it all to Catherine. He’d loved Roberta, plain and simple. Her death had broken his heart Her murder enraged his soul.
Catherine shifted her attention to Trish. Easy’s sister had changed very little since high school. She still wore lots of makeup to enhance her striking face, and wore plenty of flashy jewelry. Like Easy, she was attractive, generous, quick-tempered, mouthy, wit
ty and self-confident to the point of arrogance.
Now she wondered about the furtive little looks Trish kept darting her way. Trish seemed to know exactly what Catherine and Easy had been up to at his apartment.
Catherine wanted to be anywhere but here, with Easy, while this sad, sad man told her about his beloved sister.
That Easy could sit through the ordeal while eating a fish sandwich and french fries made her feel sick. Resentment mingled with longing. Surely every person at the table—every person in the restaurant!—knew what she and Easy had been up to. Everyone must know that her still-tingling cheeks had been reddened by his coarse beard stubble. Her lips felt five times too big from his kisses. If the people could not see, then surely they could smell the clinging aroma of lust and loving. She longed for a shower to wash away the last traces of his touch. How dare he sit there, chomping away, licking his lips and slurping iced tea, while she agonized in tormented silence.
“Jeffrey Livman is a creep,” Trish said. “You aren’t going to marry him, are you?”
“No.” Under the table, Easy found Catherine’s hand and squeezed her fingers. “We sort of broke up already.”
“Help us catch him.” Trish bobbed her head so that her dangling earrings danced against her cloud of black hair. “We know he did it. We just have to prove it.”
“I don’t know what I can do.” Her guilt and shame deepened. Unwitting or not, she played a role in Jeffrey’s game, which made her responsible for some of John’s agony. “Jeffrey lied to me. About Roberta, about the ring. Even about where he works.” Most likely he lied about loving her, too.
Trish glanced at her watch and groaned. She gulped the remains of her iced tea. “John and I have to get back to work.” She shook a finger at Easy’s face. “We still have a lot to talk about”. She followed John out of the booth. ‘‘Can we get together tonight? And you, too, Catherine. I’d really like a chance to talk to you. Not just about this. About…old times?”
She stared out the window at the parking lot. She didn’t want anything to do with these people. “I’ll have to let you know.”
Alone with Easy, she wished he’d move around to the other side of the table. He draped an arm over the back of the bench seat. His dangling fingers brushed her shoulder.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” His voice held a note of concern.
“No, thank you.” The weight of the evidence against Jeffrey crushed her. Her now-bare left hand felt slimy and soiled from the purloined ring. “It’s true. Jeffrey murdered her.”
“Yep.”
How, she wondered, had she fallen for Jeffrey’s lies? They appeared so transparent now. She saw where he’d taken advantage of her unwillingness to delve too deeply into his life. She had little need or desire for socializing, so there were few opportunities for her to hear inconsistencies from his friends. What was it that Easy had said? Jeffrey had played her.
Even Jeffrey’s angry, hurt silence fit in with the game. The silent treatment was supposed to frazzle her so much, she’d do anything to appease him.
“I don’t understand why the police won’t do anything.”
He tapped a finger against his forehead as if dislodging thoughts. “Just because he was the only person present when she fell and just because he profited from her death, the state can’t charge him. There isn’t any hard evidence a crime was committed.” His smile turned lopsided. “Truth is, that’s the way it ought to work. I’ve been in countries where malicious prosecution is a fact of life. Not pretty.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin then tossed the wilted paper on his plate.
She couldn’t help laughing at her own gullibility. With the laughter came anger, deep and cold. “Jeffrey knows my financial situation. Grandma’s estate was worth almost three hundred thousand dollars. I paid cash for my home and Blazer. I have a nice nest egg. I make a fairly steady income from royalties. Children’s books don’t make massive sales, but they stay in print a long time. Plus I’m in the middle of negotiating a contract worth more than a million dollars.”
He made a sharp sound. “For drawing pictures?”
“Not just any pictures. I’ve been chosen to illustrate Doc Halladay’s science book series.”
“The Science Brain?” He whistled softly.
“You know about him?”
“His picture is everywhere and his shows are all over the cable stations. Not to mention aisles full of Science Brain crap in every store. A million bucks, huh.” He grinned. “My lucky day. Beautiful and loaded. Want to take me shopping? I need new shoes.”
She laughed, genuinely this time. “Get serious. Now you’ve got me all worked up and I’m mad. What are we going to do about Jeffrey?” Several ideas occurred to her: boiling in oil, hoisting on a petard, stranding him on a desert island.
He looked around the now-quiet restaurant. The majority of the lunch crowd had cleared out Waitpersons clustered in a knot around the cash register while busboys cleaned tables. Easy lifted a strand of Catherine’s hair and rubbed it idly between his forefinger and thumb.
“Can you think of anything you’ve seen in his house? Anything he might have said?”
Now her appetite made an appearance. A display of pies and cakes caught her attention. “He only tells me what I want to hear.” She waved her hand to flag down a passing waitress. She ordered more iced tea and a salad. With some regret, she pushed thoughts of pie from mind. No matter how upset she was, she wasn’t drifting back into old bad habits.
“We need a confession, Tink.”
She used her elbow to make him move over and give her some breathing room. “Let me borrow your phone. I’ll call him now.” She mimed holding a phone to her ear. “Excuse me, Jeffrey, I was wondering if you killed your wife. You did? Thank you for sharing.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, babe.”
“Idiocy doesn’t become you. Jeffrey won’t even talk to me. He knows I know he lied.”
“His motive goes a lot deeper than greed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe he believes he did it just for the money, but I think it goes back to when he was a kid. Talking to his mother gave me some insights.”
Catherine groaned. Jeffrey had even lied about his family. As much as she disliked her own parents, she’d never told anyone they were dead. “I called Mrs. Livman. She sounds like a nice lady.”
“Maybe, maybe not. His father died not long after Livman was born. He has five older sisters. I contacted some of them. They want nothing to do with their brother. One got angry at me. She thought I would give her phone number to Livman.”
“What happened?”
“According to the mother, Livman could do no wrong. The sisters say he was a monster. He started fires, abused animals and lied for the hell of it” He gave her hair a light tug. “Get this, all his sisters are blue-eyed blondes. Does that suggest any possible neuroses to you?”
“You’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared. He has you locked in his radar. I don’t think he’ll give you up without a fight”.
She stared incredulously at his face. “Are you saying he’ll hurt me?”
“I told you about Melissa and Joan. Both of them claim he was a perfect gentleman, until he got into an argument he couldn’t win. Then he turned violent.”
She tried to shove down the fear he roused, but failed. The waitress brought the salad, and Catherine was glad for the distraction. She nibbled a piece of cucumber. “If it’s so important for him to win, why is he giving me the cold shoulder? I’ve spoken to him once in the past four days. He acted as if I were trying to sell him something.’’
Easy played a rolling tattoo on the tabletop. “He could be buying time. He has to somehow explain the information he stole from your house.”
She doubted if she’d ever be able to shower again without double-checking all the locks and barricading the doors.
“He’s a sociopath, a man without a conscience. If he feel
s anything about killing Roberta, he feels smug. I’ll bet that’s the ego boost he’s waited for all his life. Now he’s targeted you. He won’t let a little thing like the truth stand in his way.” He dropped his hand onto her shoulder and his long fingers squeezed her flesh. “He’s arrogant. He believes you’ll fall for any line of bull he feeds you. He thinks I’ll quit because of a couple of thugs. That’s how we’ll nab him. You can get him to confess.”
She had to swallow hard several times before she could speak. “I don’t know if I can even face him, much less talk to him.”
“So he gets off scot-free because you’re chicken.” He leaned back and quirked a challenging eyebrow. “I guess I can wait until he picks out another victim. Maybe she’ll help—if he doesn’t kill her first”.
She twisted on the seat to give him the full benefit of her glare. “You fight dirty.”
He held up his hands as if to prove his innocence. “Hey, I learned from the best.” A slow, wicked smile turned his face from gorgeous to breathtaking. Not even the blackened eye disguised the fact he was a beautiful man. “Remember what you used to tell me about being good? You said you didn’t love me because I did good things. You loved me because I was good, period.”
She rubbed absently at her throat. Easy had been good, along with generous, kind, warmhearted and full of spirit. He’d been so eager to please her back then, as she’d been eager to please him.
“I don’t want you within fifty miles of that dirtbag. But you’re the only one with a chance of getting to him.” He leaned over until he nearly touched her ear with his lips. His warm breath ruffled her hair. “Catching him is the right thing for a good person to do.”
“I hate you, Easy Martel,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what all the girls say.” He snitched a crouton out of her salad bowl and popped it into his mouth. “Finish eating. We’ve got work to do.”
