by D. C. Brod
“I have to meet someone. And, remember, if you’re going to sit here with me, you’ve got to be patient. We may be here a while.” And then I added before she could ask again, “And there’s no smoking here.”
She looked at me with her mouth pinched. “Of course, dear.” She unzipped her purse and felt around in it, then assumed a panicky look before saying, “My money! What happened to my money?”
I leveled a cool look at her and said, “You loaned it to me. Remember?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, zipping her purse, then looked at me and said, “Lucky for us I didn’t get my purse stolen.”
I could have reminded her that Jack would not have entered our lives had it not been for her past dalliances. But then, had it not been for those dalliances, I wouldn’t be here.
The spot was still there when I circled the block, but after I pulled in and got out, I saw that my mother wasn’t standing by the Lizard’s entrance. My gut clutched with panic, and I ran across the middle of the street, dodging traffic and praying that in a fit of either obstinacy or impatience, she had gone in without me. When I yanked open the door I felt a rush of relief when I saw her tousled white hair and the navy sweatsuit. But it was short lived when I realized she was sitting at a table with Erika Starwise.
Shit.
I glanced at my watch. Twelve twenty-eight. Surely she’d be gone in thirty minutes. Whatever she had to say to me and my mother couldn’t take that long. But when I approached the table and saw her chatting amiably with my recalcitrant mother, I had a bad feeling about the way the next hour would play out. I hadn’t told my mother that Jack was Erika’s brother, thinking she was already on information overload. But now I wished I had because she’d clearly taken to the woman. The fact that Erika Starwise was able to connect my mother with the love of her life no doubt had a lot to do with it.
When Erika saw me approaching the table, she rose and claimed an empty chair from another table, which she tucked under ours. Then she gestured for me to sit with them. As if I were the one intruding. I saw that both Erika and my mother had a cup of coffee and a scone, so I secured my usual—a large regular with no cream, steamed milk, sugar—no nothing.
As I waited for the barista to fill the cup, I glanced around. It was crowded, as I figured it would be, with only one other table empty. I didn’t see anyone I knew—fortunately—and as I scanned the faces I had to admit to myself that if Bull had someone in here, I had no way of knowing which one of these coffee drinkers that might be. As I took the ceramic mug in my hand, I conceded that there was nothing to do but sit down with my mother and her psychic.
“Erika has something to tell us,” my mother said as I scooted up to the table and tucked my tote bag underneath it.
Erika looked up from her mocha coffee and into my eyes. “That detective came to see me this morning.”
Just then my cell phone thrummed against my hip. It was Mick.
“Just a second,” I said to him. Then to Erika, “It’s noisy in here. I’ll be right back.”
Fortunately, the women’s room was open. Once I’d locked myself in there, I realized I had worked up a bit of anger toward Mick. If he wanted to get pissy regarding my goat judgment, then I’d give him some back.
“Bull’s bringing the money,” Mick told me.
“Will he be alone?” I leaned against the wall, feeling the cold metal of the toilet paper dispenser against the side of my right knee.
“Far as I know.”
I wanted guarantees this was going to go smoothly. But I knew I wouldn’t get them. “You’re sure there won’t be someone else there?”
“I don’t think so. Unless he’s doing it behind my back.”
That was no comfort at all. Was this what it felt like when things started to spin out of control? Or had the spinning started last night and I was just catching up with it? I rested my head against the wall, fighting a sense of displacement.
“I think we should forget this, Mick.”
Someone knocked on the restroom door. I ignored her.
“What’re you talking about?”
“I don’t think I can go through with this.”
“Robyn, you have to.”
“Actually, I don’t.” It wasn’t too late to back out. Was it?
“Robyn,” he said, lowering his voice, “we are an hour away from pulling this off. If you fuck this up, I’m...” He trailed off.
The knock came again.
“Just a minute!” I said, raising my voice.
“What—” he started.
“I’m in the john and someone has to go.”
“Pull it together, Robyn. You can do this.”
I sank to the floor, my legs crossed beneath me. The tile felt damp and disgusting.
“All you have to do is wait for Bull to leave, go into the bar and collect the money. Don’t—”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
I put my hand to my forehead, which felt cool and damp. “I left the duffel in the car.”
“Where’s the car?”
“Just down from Phinny’s.”
“Then it’s not a problem.”
“I don’t know, Mick.”
“Robyn, you have to—” he began. His delivery was calm and quiet, but I thought I heard an implied threat.
Just then the woman knocked again. “Could you hurry?”
“Would you wait just a goddamned minute!” I screamed through the door.
Then I jumped up and started pacing the short length of the room. When I stopped in front of the sink I didn’t recognize the wild, terrified eyes looking back at me. She scared me. I turned water on full blast and let loose: “And if I don’t? What’re you going to do, Mick? Kill me? Shoot my kneecaps out? Kidnap my mother? I am doing my best under really difficult circumstances. I have just—and I mean just—learned that I am the product of an affair my mother had with a married Hollywood producer who died and left her a stamp worth hundreds of thousands of dollars only neither of us realized that until it was too late.” I splashed my face with cold water. “The guy who stole my purse also stole the stamp. I think he also killed someone. And now I’m sitting in this coffee shop with my mother and the killer’s psychic sister, and I’m ready to shoot out my own kneecaps.” I stopped there. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks, cutting through the dripping water, and I did not want him to hear them in my voice.
For a few moments I suffered through complete silence, pulling in deep breaths. I began to wonder if I’d been dropped. “Mick?” I said. “Are you there?”
“Shit, Robyn.” Then, “Shit.” And, finally, “Shit.”
I waited.
“What the... psychics? Stamps? Hollywood producers? You got a UFO or some little green men to throw in the mix?”
“No.” I swallowed, sensing I’d best let him work through this on his own.
After several long seconds, I heard his sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me this, Robyn?” The anger was gone.
“I didn’t think it was all going to come toppling down on me at the same moment.” Then I said, “Maybe we should just forget this. I’ll leave Sassy somewhere and call Bull.”
“Robyn, he’s about to drop a half million dollars in the men’s room across the street from you. If you don’t pick up the money, the guy who empties the trash will.”
When I didn’t respond, he kept going, “We’re almost there.”
She knocked again. “Please.”
“I’ve gotta go,” I said.
“Okay, Robyn, listen to me. The rest is easy.” Then he said, “Can you do this without your mother and her psychic knowing what’s going on?”
I pictured the two of them chatting over their lattes and scones. They didn’t need me to stoke the conversation. Maybe this would work. No, I had to do better than that. I needed to get back to the place where I believed I might be able to do this. I set the phone on the sink and splashed more water on my face, stared back at the frightene
d woman and told her to grow a pair. Then I picked up the phone and said to Mick, “No problem.”
I heard him sigh. “Okay, Bull’s gonna be at Phinny’s any minute now, so I gotta go. After you get the money, what’re you going to do?”
He was testing me to make sure I hadn’t completely melted down.
“I’m taking Sassy to the farm on the northwest corner of Route 75 and Hammond.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll call Bull and tell him.”
“Right.” Then, “Good luck.”
Easy for him to say.
I wiped my face with a paper towel, then opened the door to a short, plump woman with spiky, red hair. She was glaring at me. I apologized. When she saw the look on my face and the phone in my hand, I said, “Bad breakup.”
“No problem,” she said after a few seconds.
When I returned to the table, my mother said, “Is everything all right, dear?”
“Fine, Mom.” I took a sip of coffee, grateful I could keep the mug steady. The way my insides were jumping I wished the Lizard had a liquor license.
Fortunately, Erika had chosen a table near the window and my seat faced the street so I had a clear view of Phinny’s.
In a matter of minutes I was going to have to leave my mother, probably in the care of Erika. I needed to know whether I could trust her.
I turned to her and said, “What did Detective Hedges want?”
“He came about Jack.” She shook her head. “I did not know what he had planned, and I most certainly did not know that he might have killed that woman.”
“Why were you helping him?”
She took her time answering, setting her mug down. “Jack is not my brother.” Looking up at me, she said, “He is my ex-husband. We were married for less than a year.”
Another member of the wow-was-this-a-bad-idea club. “I have an ex too, and if he tried to use me in a con I’d tell him to pound sand.”
“Robyn,” my mother scolded, “this isn’t easy for her.”
Without acknowledging my mother’s defense, Erika said, “The rest is not important. Not right now. You need to listen to me.”
My mother, divine judge of human character, touched my wrist. “Listen to her.”
I chomped down on my tongue and waited.
“I did set up the séance so that you could be...” She seemed to be searching for the appropriate word.
“Manipulated?” I suggested.
“Yes. That is true.” But then her tone softened as she continued. “But I did see your father.” She looked at my mother and said, “Robbie.” My mother gave her a fond smile.
“Right,” I said.
“When your mother was with you that time, he was as clear and as real to me as your mother and you were.”
Even as I said, “Sure, Erika,” that crawly feeling slid down my back.
“I have a gift—if that’s what you want to call it. You may choose to believe me or not.”
I didn’t know yet. “What’s your point?”
Her gaze locked onto mine and held me there for a few seconds before releasing me. Then she said, “I see that you are in trouble right now.”
My mother looked from me to Erika and back again. “What’s this about, Robyn?”
“Nothing, Mother.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“I’d like to try to help you.”
I sighed. I wanted to believe she was telling the truth. But even if she was, what the hell could she do for me except tell me I was driving off a cliff? And I knew that already.
Then she said, “I saw something again.” She sipped from her coffee, and when she set the mug down she continued to stare into it.
“What?”
“Water. I saw water.”
She looked up and her throat constricted, and I remembered how she had told me that her first image ever was of her sister drowning.
“Was someone in the water?” I asked.
“You were.” Then she shook her head, as though confused. “But you were breathing.”
“Underwater?”
“You were alive.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.” But she added, “These visions that I have, they’re not always literal, you know. And they aren’t always inevitable. It may be a warning.”
I hoped she was right because I didn’t plan to be anywhere near water today.
My phone buzzed again. This time I didn’t recognize the number.
“Ms. Hutton?” The voice was young and sounded panicky.
I almost told him he had the wrong number, but then I remembered who Miss Hutton was—me—and knew that Matt Cirico was calling me, which could only mean trouble.
“Matt?”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry, Cindy. There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“What happened?”
“That guy came back.”
Oh, shit.
“Your old boyfriend.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But he had a gun. I had to give him the key to your room.”
“That’s okay, Matt.” But it really, really wasn’t. “Did he—”
“He didn’t take anything,” he said before I could finish.
“You went in?”
“No. But I saw him leave.” Then, “But maybe I should go in to see if your mom is okay.”
“She’s with me, Matt. She’s fine. You don’t need to go in. Really. He didn’t find what he was looking for.”
I heard him sigh. “You sure? I can check?”
“No. It’s okay. Really. You’ve done enough. When did this happen?”
“Um,” he paused. “It was a little while ago. I’m sorry.” And he really sounded it. “I couldn’t find the number you gave me. I—”
“It’s okay, Matt. Really.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “And thank you... really, thank you for calling.”
“Should I call the cops?”
“No. He won’t be back. I promise.” Then I said, “I’ll be back in an hour or so. You’ve been great, Matt.”
After disconnecting, I just sat there for a second, letting it all sink in. Thinking maybe I should call him back and tell him to check to see if there was still a goat and a dog in the room. Both alive and well. But once he saw Sassy—first in the room and then later featured on the news—I was sunk. What did Jack still want? He had the stamp. He had the letter. And for whatever it was worth, he had my handbag... and its contents...
... Oh, shit. My notes! If he’d looked through the purse he’d have found my extortion script. And it was obviously about extortion. Focus. I couldn’t do anything about that right now, so—
Someone touched my arm. “Is the goat all right?” It was my mother.
I felt Erika watching me as I tried to silence my mother, too late, with a narrow-eyed look.
“The goat?” Erika said, leaning toward me, with a touch of smugness.
All I said was, “Erika, if you forget about the goat, I will forget that you helped set us up.”
“Did the goat have a crescent moon across its belly?”
I didn’t back away from her gaze. “Yes. It did.”
“Then do you believe that I am who I say I am?”
I did. And it wasn’t the psychic thing. Yes, I believed that. But, mainly, she was asking me, as a woman who had also suffered the consequences of a very, very, bad choice, to trust her. And I did.
I was about to say something—I’m not sure what—when I saw a Mercedes pull into a parking space in front of Phinny’s Tap. I set my mug down. Bull Severn climbed out, looked around, his gaze skimming the Wired Lizard, and I knew exactly how a sparrow felt trying to blend into a bush as the hawk flies overhead. But he didn’t hesitate. Once he looked around, he turned and walked into Phinny’s. He carried a sports bag, which kind of fit with the shorts and T-shirt he wore.
“Robyn? Are you all right?” It was my m
other.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
I had to wait this out. I looked at Erika, who had followed my gaze out the window and across the street, and I nodded, then turned to my mother. “How’s your scone?”
“It’s got currants in it.” She continued on about the pastry, almost as though she felt she was the one who had to keep the conversation going. Erika and I contributed, but mostly it was my mother, virtually tap dancing. She must have sensed the tension, and I have to admit I was surprised that she knew me that well.
Several minutes passed before Bull left Phinny’s. I watched him get into his Mercedes and pull away, then I rose from my chair, gave my mother’s hand a squeeze, and said, “I forgot something. I need to go to my car. Stay here.” When she didn’t respond, I repeated myself. “Promise to stay here.”
Erika was looking out the window, trying to figure what I was up to, but she didn’t question me.
“Of course. Where would I go?”
Then I said to Erika. “Would you stay here and watch my mother? I’ll just be a minute.”
“I can watch myself,” my mother said, sitting up straight and doing a little shoulder toss.
“You know what a worrier I am, Mom.”
“I will watch her,” Erika said to me.
I left the Lizard and walked to the corner and across the street with the light. I thought about the call from Matt, trying to work through it. Jack had seen the goat, but he’d left it there. For whatever reason. Maybe he just didn’t have the means to move it. And he knew it needed to be alive. I tried to reassure myself with this theory, but I wasn’t easy to reassure.
I got into my Civic on the driver’s side and reached into the backseat for my duffel. Feeling the stiff nylon straps in my grip gave me a little courage. I yanked it into the front seat and clutched it to my chest. Just as I swung my legs out of the car, the door to Phinny’s flew open, and Jack Landis came running out with a backpack flung over his shoulder. I froze. Moments later another man came barreling out the door in pursuit. This guy was big and bald with a full beard. My brain told me to duck, but before it conveyed that message to the muscles required to do it, Jack saw me. And before I could react, he had the door on the passenger side open and a gun pointed at my head.
“Drive.”
