Tall, Dark, and Deadly

by Heather Graham

  Laura returned from the kitchen. The men came back down the stairs, Kevin in the lead, Rowan behind him, Phil bringing up the rear.

  “Nothing,” Kevin said. “No sign of Marnie.”

  “And no sign of any disturbance,” Phil added.

  “Her car is gone, right?” Rowan asked slowly.

  “Yes, her car is gone,” Laura said. She turned to Sam. “Honestly, Sammy, she’s just gone off, and if she were to come home now, she’d probably be furious with the lot of us!”

  At that moment the front door suddenly burst open. In a group they spun around, startled—guilty.

  Expecting Marnie.

  But it wasn’t Marnie. An odor swept into the house along with the grizzled old man who burst in. He was unshaven, gray-haired, both fierce and frightening in appearance. He was wearing a suit, but it had been slept in. Often, over many nights, so it appeared.

  His teeth were crooked and yellowed. A shame, because Sam knew that Marnie gave him plenty of money for dentistry and doctor’s visits.

  “Where the hell is my daughter, that bitch? And what are you yellow-bellied leeches doing here?”

  Sam felt Mr. Daly stiffening by her side. She realized that most of them knew Colin Newcastle, Marnie’s father.

  “I’ll find her myself! What’s she doing, whoring around in her brand-new bedroom?” he demanded, starting up the stairs. He teetered dangerously, but when Kevin took a step after him, he turned around, furious. “Get back! What is this down here, a line? Where is my daughter?”

  “Someone should get him down,” Mr. Daly said. “Before he kills himself.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe Marnie would thank us all if he did!” Kevin muttered.

  No one objected to his statement, but Rowan took a step toward the stairs. “You’re right; he’s totally inebriated and he will kill himself on the stairs.”

  But before Rowan could move, Colin Newcastle came running back down. He missed a step but recovered. Sam thought that God did indeed look after fools and drunks.

  “Where the hell is she?” he shouted, looking at them all one by one.

  “Marnie isn’t here, Mr. Newcastle,” Kevin said, his voice rich with contempt.

  “Then what are you doing here? I oughta call the police,” Newcastle spat out.

  “Pop!”

  Newcastle went still.

  A young man appeared in the doorway. He was twenty-something, Sam decided. She realized that although she hadn’t seen him in a long time, she did know him. Thayer Newcastle, Marnie’s baby brother. Marnie often said that she tried to help him, but he didn’t want to help himself. He had long, dark hair, a thin, aesthetic face. Strangely, he also looked a lot like Marnie, beautiful in a masculine way. He spoke so softly. So differently from Marnie.

  “Pop, you’re drunk as a skunk.” The young man looked at the faces around him. He recognized Sam and smiled. “Hi, Sam, good to see you, though I’m sorry for the intrusion. I’ve been following him around for a while… I’ll get him out of here. Is my sister here?”

  “No,” Sam said.

  “Where is she?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know. She isn’t here.”

  He arched a brow, looking around at all of them. “Then maybe none of us should be here, either.” he said softly. “Pop, come on, before you fall down.”

  “He’s right,” Rowan said firmly. “None of us should be here.”

  Thayer strode across the room for his father, took him by the arm, and started out with him.

  Colin Newcastle shook off his son’s hand. “Leave me be, boy.”

  “That’s Marnie’s boss, Dad.”

  “Hell, I know who it is! You think he’s any better than the rest of them?”

  “You want to get her fired? There’d be no more money at all then. Let’s go.”

  Colin Newcastle squared his shoulders and turned toward them. He lifted his chin in a semblance of dignity.

  “Get out of my daughter’s house!” he ordered.

  Sam was startled when Rowan was the one to answer him again.

  “From what I understand,” Rowan said, his eyes narrowed sharply on Colin Newcastle, “you don’t have any right to be anywhere near your daughter, period. You gave up that right years ago. You’re lucky she hasn’t prosecuted you.”

  “What?” Colin Newcastle looked as if he wanted to charge Rowan.

  And Rowan might have been waiting for him to do just that. Sam felt an intense desire to defuse the situation. Before there were blows.

  “Mr. Newcastle, the reason we’re in Marnie’s house is because we’re worried about her,” Sam said.

  Colin Newcastle said, “You think something happened to Marnie?”

  “I’m just worried. She didn’t tell me she was going away,” Sam explained. Despite his manner, she tried to speak patiently. He was Marnie’s father, after all.

  Newcastle smirked. “If something has happened to Marnie, then this place is mine. Get out of my house!” he demanded.

  Sam’s heart seemed to twist. People who thought that Marnie was hard didn’t begin to understand just where she had come from. Sam glanced at Laura and saw that her cousin seemed stricken. Everyone in the house, even old Mr. Daly, seemed stunned.

  It was Thayer Newcastle who broke the silence.

  “Pop, let’s go! Nothing has happened to Marnie.”

  He clutched his father by the arm and started to drag him out of the house.

  But Marnie’s father turned back.“There had better not be a thing out of place here. Nothing. Nothing gone. I’ll sue you. I don’t care if you are a bunch of attorneys. I’ll get better attorneys. I’ll sue you to the bones, I’ll have you jailed for breaking and entry—·”

  “Pop!” Thayer said.

  But Colin wasn’t about to go in silence. He smiled suddenly, wagging a finger at all of them. “If something has happened to Marnie, it’s my place. You remember that. My place. Sam, honey, I’ll be your new neighbor. Won’t that be cozy?”

  Sam didn’t have to reply. Thayer had finally managed to drag him out. The door closed behind the two of them. For long moments they were all silent.

  “My God!” Laura breathed then. “My God! Sam, feel free to hit me anytime I say anything bad about Marnie from now on, okay?”

  “Get me home, Kevin. I think I’ve had enough local color for the night,” Mr. Daly said. “Watch out for our girl now, Miss Miller,” he said to Sam. She started. She hadn’t been certain that Daly knew she had ever been in the office, much less her name.

  “I’m going to leave her a note in the kitchen, telling her that we’re all worried,” Sam assured him.

  Daly was heading toward the door on his own. Kevin Madigan paused briefly, taking her hands. “Please, feel free to call us if you hear anything, find out anything… or if we can do anything at all.”

  “Thanks.” She withdrew her hands uneasily, aware that everyone was watching. “I’ll write the note now.”

  “Want me to stick around?” Phil asked.

  “No, thanks… Laura is with me. I can lock up,” Sam said.

  She turned around and hurried into the kitchen, feeling as if she were being watched every step of the way. As she dug into one of Marnie’s drawers, she heard the front door open and close. She found paper and a pencil and wrote, Marnie! Call me, first thing, now, not later! Sam. P.S. Immediately. Don’t go to sleep, don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars! Call me!

  Marnie didn’t have any refrigerator magnets. She couldn’t stand clutter. She would never put cute little pictures drawn by a kindergarten child facing her by the ice machine. Sam found heavy tape and secured her note.

  She turned around. Laura and Rowan had followed her into the kitchen.

  “The others are gone,” Laura said. She shivered. “I don’t like this house. It may be beautiful, it may be high tech, but it gives me the shakes. Like it’s evil. Like the house itself did something to Marnie.”

  “Laura! Sam said, shaking
her head. “Marnie’s going to be mad as hell that I’ve gotten sticky stuff all over her refrigerator,” she commented.

  “Let’s lock it up,” Rowan said, obviously impatient to be gone.

  “I can really manage—” Sam began, simply because she felt a need to protest anything he had to say.

  “There’s nothing more to do here. Unless you want to tape another note to the front door—just in case she isn’t hungry when she comes home,” Rowan said.

  She stared at him, then felt a tremendous urge to grit her teeth. Of all the times for Rowan to step into her life.

  “That’s a good idea,” Laura agreed.

  Of course it was a good idea. She turned around, found more paper, wrote another note. When she was done, she reached for the tape. Rowan had already gone for it. His fingers brushed hers. She despised the sensations that leapt through her body.

  Going without, that’s what caused it. Marnie had told her once that it wasn’t natural to go without. Everyone needed sex, no matter how smart or sophisticated. We were just animals, and sex was instinct.

  Maybe Marnie had been right.

  Her hormones seemed to be flying. Yes, she had a vivid memory. Just from his touch. His thumb moving against her lips, fingers brushing her cheeks. Tall, taut, whipcord lean, he lent an air of power to the space around him. Once it had been her space. No, it hadn’t ever really been hers. That had been illusion. Now, they were strangers, by chance cast together. She stepped away. Damn Laura! He might have stayed in his own house if it hadn’t been for her wretched cousin.

  Rowan was moving ahead of her. She hurried after him, eager to get out of the house. Laura was on her heels, unaware of the tension. Sam brushed past Rowan again on her way out. She decided not to wait, aware that he was taping the second note to the door and that Laura hovered on the elegant porch. “Sammy!”

  “Laura, it doesn’t take more than one person to tape a note to a door!” she said, then determined that she was going to have her wits about her and behave like a normal functioning person. “Thanks, Rowan. Good night.”

  “But, Sam…” Laura came hurrying after her, catching her on the street between the two houses. “Sam, Rowan is going to come with us. Can you believe that? He’s going to come and see Aidan play!”

  Sam, felt as if she’d been hit in the chest. But Laura was so excited. It meant so much to her.

  “Of course, he’ll come to see Aidan. I’m sure he remembers what it was like to be a struggling musician. And Aidan is good; he’ll do himself proud. But you know what? You know how I hate clubs and being out so late. Since Rowan is going, please, can I bow out?”

  Laura frowned. “But we were going shopping first!”

  “You look like a million bucks already,” Sam assured her. It was true. Laura was in a little white sundress that showed off her tan, her hair, her legs. She looked great. “Go get some dinner or something first. Honestly.”

  Honestly? She was lying like a rug. She suddenly wanted nothing more in the world that to go with them. All she could remember was the way she had landed on the floor, the way he had straddled her, chest hair, thighs so strong, the hair on them teasing her flesh.

  Oh, good God, that was exactly why she couldn’t go!

  “But, Sam—”

  “And if Teddy shows up, he’ll think you have a really hot date!” she said, smiling.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Go, girl. Go do it!”

  She kissed her cousin on the cheek and fled into her own house.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting by her pool, sipping Merlot and damning herself for feeling sorry for herself.

  All dressed up in her fuck-you shoes and everything, and no place to go!

  Well, what had she thought, that they would come barging in and demand that she go with them? That Rowan would walk in and say that he had only said he would go so he could be with her?

  She walked to the small, rustic dock on the edge of her property. Her little dinghy—nothing more than a rowboat with a weak motor, really—was tied there. As she looked into the water, no more than five or six feet from behind the house here, she smiled, feeling her heart lighten a bit.

  “Mollie!”

  The neighborhood sea cow was right below her dock. Mollie the manatee was one of the reasons she would never dream of selling her property, not even if her house caved in on top of her. Mollie had once gotten too close to the propellers of a boat, and she still carried the scar. Wounded, she had remained close to the shallows here in the bay, by the homes on this little peninsula. She had been fed and pampered by the sea-loving people in the area.

  “Hungry?” Sam asked. “Sure, you’re hungry.”

  She hurried inside, rummaged in the refrigerator, found a new head of lettuce. She hurried back out with it—barefoot now. She sat down on the dock, splitting the head of lettuce, tossing the leaves in. Moonlight reflected on the water, and the stars were shining above her. Mollie munched happily on lettuce, allowing Sam to scratch her head. Sam smiled. Most people felt about manatees the way they did about bulldogs—the creatures were just so ugly that they were cute. Hundreds of pounds of cute, in Mollie’s case. And she was so wonderful She had made her peace with man. Sometimes that was bad for the animals. Most were hurt simply because boaters were careless. But sometimes manatees just wanted to be close to their human neighbors.

  Luckily, Mollie stayed close to the neighborhood, close to those who looked out for her. Mollie was more careful than most women, Sam thought ruefully.

  Where the hell was Marnie?

  She stood up, staring at Marnie’s place.

  She suddenly thought of what Laura had said. The house itself seemed evil. Dark, looming.

  She looked back to the water. Mollie was gone. The manatee had swum away.

  Chapter 5

  They called her the Goddess of Grace.

  She loved to dance.

  Lord, but she loved to dance.

  Swing, dip, strut, stretch, swirl. Dance was in the mind as much as in the body. It was feeling, thought, and emotion. The body was the tool, music the impetus. She knew that she felt the music, the flow, that it touched her in a way that sent her into a different dimension. She was good. Good enough that her dreams had real flight. In her dreams she soared. She was on Broadway. Maybe doing Cats. Maybe a revival of West Side Story. She was a decent singer, and excellent dancer. She loved to feel the music, feel it invade her body, do the moving for her…

  Her dance ended. The audience broke into applause. She felt the lights, felt the acclaim, for a moment felt the dream.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  And saw her audience.

  All men. They were disgusting. Old, hairy, middle-aged guys. The kind with gray, grizzled faces, who belched and watched football while guzzling beer and scratching their balls.

  “Go, Goddess, go!” someone called.

  “Ooh, baby!”

  “Closer, closer!”

  Closer was the way to get them to stick bills into her G-string—the last garment she was wearing, other than the long red wig that concealed her natural hair. It was the way to make real money here. Once or twice, when they hadn’t been too bad-looking, she had managed to let it happen.

  Not tonight. She made enough dancing. She was one of the best the place had ever had.

  She grabbed the pole at her side, and fled behind the curtain.

  Twenty minutes later, Lacey Henley was sitting at a rear table at Joffrey’s, a coffee shop in Coconut Grove, wondering whether or not any of her friends would be appearing. She was much later than she had expected to be. In fact, she was surprised to have found her table free. Though it was late and a lot of the afternoon crowd that often frequented the coffee shop had moved into the bars and clubs for drinks or entertainment, this place was always crowded. Kids loved it; adults loved it. The coffees were really good, and they also made one heck of a milkshake.

  She was sipping a milkshake. At twenty, she wasn’t ol
d enough to buy a drink in the state of Florida. Though she’d lied about her name on her application at the strip joint, she hadn’t lied about her age. Go figure. It was legal for a twenty-year-old to serve drinks or strip, but not to buy a beer herself. Funny, her mom might have understood. Laura had told her about growing up in the last days of Vietnam. They had changed the drinking age to eighteen back then. “Kids were dying, fighting as ordered by their country. It was the right thing to do.”

  “But no more?” Lacey had asked her.

  “You are over eighteen. That means you’re adult enough to think on your own. But I heard an idea once that’s really important. Responsible freedom. If you’re going to drink, you need to be with a designated driver. If you’re going to be out late, you need to be careful about where, and who you’re with. Make sense?”

  It made sense, yes, but what did sense have to do with the law?

  Everyone broke the law, of course. Kids out of high school—and in it—could get booze.

  And strip.

  She took a long sip of her milkshake, ready to burst into tears. Yes, she had made money. But she didn’t feel very free, or very responsible.

  She shivered then, feeling slightly ill. It was okay, because no one knew. It was the kind of money that would eventually get her to New York, where she could audition to really dance.

  If her father didn’t catch her.

  If he found out what she was up to, he’d kill her.

  He would never find out, she assured herself. He never went to the club, his friends never went to the club, no one he knew would ever go to the club. And even if they did, she would never be recognized. Never in a million years. Not with the wig she wore and the makeup she caked on.

  “Why, hello! Goddess of Grace, isn’t it?”

  Stunned, Lacey looked up. A tall, full-figured woman with fluffy long brown hair was looking down at her. The woman held a cup of steaming coffee. She was attractive— thirty-something, Lacey thought, without a stitch of makeup. She was in stretch pants and an oversized shirt, looking comfortable and very sweet.

  “Goddess of Grace?” Lacey repeated blankly.