I gazed at my father and sighed. “I had an interview this morning, Pa. I’m looking! But you’re right, I could use some help around here, I don’t need bodyguards though. Just having people around will keep Nick from bothering me. He’s really a coward, Pa.”
Pa snorted. “You let me handle him, cara mia. He won’t bother you no more after I’m done with him!”
He walked past us, out into the hallway and across to what was about to become my bedroom. “You guys up for a little guard duty?” he asked, then stepped inside the room and closed the door.
“Joey,” I said, turning back to my brother, “you made that up about Gray and you taking shifts, right? You know I can handle this by myself. Don’t sweat it.”
Joey just stared at me. “No, Soph, I did not make that up. Pa’s right, you can’t stay here by yourself. That’s why Gray and I worked it out. I knew you wouldn’t move back home. You’re too stubborn. What else was I supposed to do?”
Ma’s voice came bellowing up from the first floor. “Mangiamo!” I was rescued from further caretaking by lunch. I followed my brother, father and the crew of old guys down the steps, thinking about my predicament. As I saw it, I really had no other alternative. If I wanted any chance at a new life I was going to have to find Nick Komassi and see that he went back to prison where he belonged. In order to do that, I had to prove Nick had killed Connie Bono and was now hunting me.
“I can do this,” I muttered to myself. “I’ll have it all wrapped up by tomorrow.” Of course, I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this feat, but life was too short to spend it trapped under a self-and family-imposed house arrest.
Chapter 8
Pa and his old guys were in heaven. It was a love affair between them and my wreck of a house. As the day wore on, they found more and more to do. My kitchen became the central planning and recruiting hub, and old men flocked to my neighborhood, called by Pa or one of his cronies.
One new recruit, Alfonso, knew plaster. He arrived wearing the old guy standard uniform, a V-necked T-shirt, baggy chino pants, a worn leather belt and ancient work boots. The unlit cigar was an extra, provided by Pa.
Another old guy materialized and studied the wooden floors. His name was Frank and he looked like a hot dog—tall, thin and bald, with a ruddy complexion.
“We do the upstairs floors tomorrow,” he said. He turned to Pa. “You’ll need to rent a floor sander, only one if nobody else has floor experience.” There was silence from the crew of old guys. Joey finally spoke up. “I don’t have experience, but I’d like to learn.” Joey had the muscle to help the old guys, and they needed him but would never have admitted it. Apprenticing him was the only way they could take him in and save face.
Frank studied Joey. “You don’t fly hot when I tell you do it over or go slow, right? I don’t need no hotheaded kids, now.”
Joey, forty-two years old, clamped down on his cigar. “Yes, sir,” he said, his jaw working overtime to keep his mouth shut. I figured a week working for the old guys was good for at least one book of poetry by next year. Maybe even a novel.
Pete, the landscaper, Pa’s tennis buddy, came in from surveying my yard. He was a little man with a fringe of white, close-cropped hair that couldn’t hide his tanned and freckled scalp. Pete laughed all the time and rode his ten-speed bike everywhere he went in Pa’s neighborhood.
Pa saw Pete as a challenge. He felt Pete didn’t accurately understand the great seriousness with which we should face life. Pa was always presenting some glum fact of their current reality to Pete and waiting expectantly for Pete’s cherubic face to fall as he realized the gravity of old age. Pete never came through for Pa. He always saw the best in every situation.
“Sophie,” he cried, stepping into the kitchen, “your yard is beautiful! My God, the plants you have out there. And that girl! Honey, she’s working her tail off for you.
Pete took a long swig from a plastic cup of water and turned to me. “There are old rose bushes back there,” he said, “lining the picket fence. I think if they’re uncovered, they’ll bloom. In fact, I think you should pull all that honeysuckle. Now the pachysandra in the front’s another matter.”
I must’ve looked dazed, because Pete nodded. “Don’t worry. Della and I can handle it.”
Outside, Durrell barked. Della yelled at him to stop and I heard Darlene squeal. “Get down, you mangy hound! I do not like you! I don’t like any dogs and I especially don’t like you!”
Before I could intervene, Darlene flew in through the front door. She was wearing a swirl of blue colors, a multilayered paisley dress that gave her a gypsylike appearance. Long strands of colored beads and tiny bells tinkled as she moved quickly to shut the door behind her, closing out the offending Durrell.
“Is he always like that?” she demanded. “Does he do that to Joey and Pa? He doesn’t, does he? It’s just me he’s after. That dog wants to eat me! He’s vicious, I tell you. He ought to be locked up. That evil girl should be locked up along with him. She doesn’t even try to control him.”
“Darlene, if you would stop running from him, acting like a crazy woman, Durrell would leave you alone. The way you dart around and squeal, he thinks it’s a game and you’re playing with him.”
“Bullshit!” Darlene said. “He wants to eat me.”
I shrugged. Convincing Darlene that Durrell was basically harmless was an exercise in futility. Her mind was made up. “So, the workers are here today?” she said. She was progressing through the house toward the kitchen, in search of a late afternoon snack. She stopped in the doorway, taking in Pa and the old guys, then seeing Emily and Joey.
“Hi, everybody!” she called.
The old guys smiled, every single one of them.
“Mort, how’s your wife?” Darlene asked. “Frank, are you wearing sunscreen when you go out? You know, with your skin type you’re a prime candidate for melanoma.” She beamed at sour Alfonso. “I hear you and the wife are taking the grandkids to Disney World. You are just the bomb!”
The old guys ate Darlene up with a spoon. She wandered into the center of the group, grabbed a cookie and managed to speak to and touch every man in the room. She beamed at them, honestly delighted to see them, basking in their attention and doling out plenty of her own.
Joey sidled over to me. “Next, she’ll be signing autographed pictures so they can pin them up in their workshops.”
Darlene walked past him on her way to the refrigerator. “I heard that, Joey,” she said in an undertone. “You just wish you charmed them like I do, don’t you?” she whispered, the smile never leaving her face.
“Bite me, Darlene,” Joey said, and smiled just as sweetly.
My sister poured herself a tall glass of milk, took my arm and pulled me into the living room.
“I have been giving the situation a great deal of thought,” she said. “And now I have a plan.” Darlene paused for effect. “We need to have a séance.”
“What?” This was so Darlene.
“I’m serious,” she said. “There is a disturbance in the energy. Someone must’ve died here with unfinished business.”
I thought of Connie Bono. “Of course they did, Darlene. Have you forgotten the body in the backyard?”
Darlene shook her head. “Not her,” she said. “I mean, sure, she’s got things to tell us, but that’s not where the disturbance is coming from.” Darlene closed her eyes and swayed gently back and forth for a few moments. Her eyes popped open and focused on my face.
“Sophie, you are such a literalist. If you can’t see it, you think it doesn’t exist. I’m telling you, we need to contact the afterlife, and if you don’t do it with me, I’ll do it by myself.” She looked around the room as if scouting a location. Her eyes settled on the fireplace.
“Okay, Darlene, we’ll have a séance, but in the meantime I need to find Nick.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” she said.
I gave her the evil eye. “You think?” I said. “The pol
ice can’t find him. His parole officer can’t find him. I don’t expect the spirit world to have much luck, either.”
Darlene rolled her eyes at me. “Not the spirits, stupid. They’re for finding dead people.”
“Then why do you think it won’t be hard to find Nick?” I asked.
Darlene sighed, looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen and pulled me closer to the fireplace.
“Because I saw him this morning as I was leaving for work. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
The fact that Darlene had tried no such thing was beside the point. “What do you mean you saw him? Did you talk to him? Are you sure it was Nick?”
Darlene nodded. “It was Nick, all right. I’d recognize that sleazeball anywhere. He was parked down the street from Ma and Pa’s place, watching it. But when I drove by and saw him, he took off.”
“Did you call Wendell? Did you warn Ma and Pa?” The idea of Nick stalking my parents terrified me. I never expected him to go after them.
Darlene pulled herself up straight and gave me her haughty act. “I am not calling that Wendell Arrow,” she said. “He isn’t at all who I thought he was. And I didn’t tell Ma and Pa because he’s looking for you, not them. Besides, they’d just freak out and Pa would kill Nick if he saw him.”
“And that would be a bad thing?”
“Well, yes,” Darlene said. “Pa would have a criminal record. His karma would be forever twisted. We can’t have that. The Virgin Mary can’t give you immunity from homicide. Pa would take the universe into his own hands if we didn’t watch him.”
“You’re sure it was Nick?”
“Absolutely,” Darlene said, “one hundred percent positive.”
“What was he driving?”
Darlene closed her eyes, screwed up her face as she concentrated and seemed to think for almost two minutes. At last her eyes opened and she looked at me.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It was a car and it was a sort of royal blue. Oh, and it was dented up pretty much.”
“That’s beautiful, Darlene. That is so helpful. I’m sure we can narrow that down and find him immediately.”
Darlene stamped her foot and glared at me. “I am not a mechanic,” she said. “I am a professional therapist.”
I counted to ten and let the car question drop. “All right, so Nick is in New Bern and he’s looking for me. Why did he kill his girlfriend?”
Darlene was poking around the fireplace, testing the bricks with her fingertips and running her hands along the wall.
“Maybe they were spying on you and Nick realized he wanted you back,” she said. “Or maybe because he found out she lied to him about her breasts.”
“Darlene, shut up! What are you doing?”
She straightened and looked over her shoulder at me. “I am searching for secret passageways. These old houses had them, you know.”
“Darlene, this is a cottage. Secret passageways are found in big houses, like mansions and castles.”
“Well, I was just trying to help,” she said. Her feelings were obviously hurt. “You never know.”
I tried to smile. “No, you never know.”
“Never know what?”
Darlene and I whirled around at the sound of Gray’s voice. He stood in my front doorway, a small duffel bag in hand. He smiled when I looked at him and I felt my insides begin to melt.
“What can we do for you, Detective?” I asked.
My tone unsettled him. He looked around and seemed, for once, uncertain. “Didn’t Joey tell you I was coming?”
“Joey did, but I told him that wouldn’t be necessary.”
Gray advanced a few steps into the room, moving toward the spot where Darlene and I stood.
“Sophie, I want to do this.”
Darlene sighed, as if this were the culmination of a life’s dream on her part. “That is so…wonderful,” she breathed. “I wish a man wanted to protect me.”
I stepped on her foot and glared at her. Had she forgotten that Gray and Wendell thought I had murderous potential?
“Ouch!” Darlene cried.
This brought Joey to the doorway. “It’s about time you got here,” he said to Gray. He looked at me and added, “Della said to tell you she’s going home. You can pay her at the end of the day tomorrow.”
Gray smiled at Joey and came even farther into the room. “Sophie says she doesn’t like the plan,” he said.
“She likes the plan just fine, don’t you?” Pa stood in the dining room doorway, his dark eyes focused on me, waiting for me to deny it so he could pack me off to his house.
They were all looking at me, waiting for me to say something. The way I saw it, I had no choice but to go along. I shrugged. “I was just saying that it would be a huge inconvenience for Gray.”
“So then you could come home,” Pa said.
“It’s no trouble, really,” Gray said. “This is a good place for me to be, in terms of getting this case settled. Maybe Nick Komassi will come snooping around and I’ll be here to talk to him.”
“Then it’s settled,” Joey said. “Good, because me and Emily have to head home and, Pa, I know you gotta get all these guys back.”
Joey hustled everybody out the door, but returned within a minute, sticking his head inside the doorway and giving me a meaningful look.
“Hey, Soph, maybe you can tell Gray about your job interview,” he said. “I’m sure he’d like to hear all about it.”
When Gray looked interested, Joey threw his parting shot. “Yeah, Gray, it must’ve been a hell of an interview because she came back with her clothes all dirty, saying she had a flat tire. Funny thing,” he said, pausing to look at me. “My spare tire hasn’t even been used! Imagine that!”
Before I could kill him, he was gone, leaving me alone with Gray.
“Did something happen, Sophie?’
I forced a long deep breath into my lungs and exhaled softly. If I told him, he’d side with Joey and Pa, wanting me to go home and stay “safe” while the big, strong men dealt with Nick. And it’s not like I could help the investigation by telling him. I didn’t actually find out anything he and the FBI didn’t already know. At least, that’s how I saw it.
“Okay, okay,” I said, and sighed again. “I didn’t have a flat tire. I saw a stray dog get hit by a delivery truck. The dog took off into the woods, but I knew he was hurt, so I followed the poor thing.”
Gray’s eyebrow rose into a skeptical arch. “But you didn’t find him, huh?”
I shook my head and smiled the kindergarten teacher smile. “No. I was such a mess! I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Joey I was chasing a hurt dog. He would’ve given me hell about trying to put a bleeding animal in his immaculate car.”
“You’re sure that’s all it was?” he asked.
“Yep. That’s all it was.”
Gray and I were facing each other across the living room. I sat on the sofa and he took the wingback chair. Neither of us spoke. I looked around the room, letting my attention slowly settle back on him. He was watching me, still trying to decide whether or not he believed me. His blue-gray eyes seemed electrified with intensity, as if he were trying to communicate something without speaking.
I met his gaze and held it for a moment, then broke the silence. “About yesterday, I know you had a job to do,” I began. “I know that’s what you were trying to do.”
He nodded and seemed relieved. “I didn’t mean to—”
I interrupted. “Misunderstandings happen when two people don’t really know each other well, don’t you think? And since you know a lot about me maybe I should know more about you. Don’t you agree? I mean, I should know so that I can communicate with you more effectively and avoid situations like the one we had yesterday. I mean, if two people have a common ground and understand where each one is coming from, then they have a better working relationship.” I was babbling. Why was I babbling?
Gray’s face relaxed into a warm smile that lit his eyes an
d softened the hard angles of his jaw.
“Sophie, you don’t need a reason to ask me about myself. All you have to do is ask. Now where would you like to start? Let’s see…how about this? I was born about ten miles from here—”
“Tell me about your girlfriend,” I said, interrupting. As soon as the words left my lips, I wished like hell I could’ve taken them back. Nothing like looking obvious. “I mean, you know about my ex, so…”
I was relieved when he stopped me. “What girlfriend?”
“Joey said you had a girlfriend. He said she comes to watch your games.” I could’ve shot myself for even asking, but on the other hand, I felt a foolish flicker of relief start in my chest. Maybe there wasn’t a girlfriend, after all.
Gray’s brows furrowed even more before the lights went on. “Oh, he must’ve meant Tina.” He grinned. “Yeah, she’s hot all right, but she’s not my girlfriend, she’s my sister. I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment.”
I nodded, hardly daring to believe what was both my good fortune and deepest fear: this man was absolutely available. I closed my eyes for a second, muttering my mantra silently. Like a fish needs a bicycle. Then I stopped, realizing that I was smiling, and forgetting for a second the man who sat across the room watching me.
“More questions?” he asked, his voice suddenly husky, deepening just as his eyes seemed to darken with both intent and interest.
“Oh, right,” I said, trying my best to sound like a cheery kindergarten teacher. “I have lots of questions. For example, where did you go to—” I broke off when I saw him move.
He pushed himself up out of his chair, striding toward me with a purpose that was all too clearly communicated when he stopped just in front of me, grabbed my hands and slowly pulled me to my feet.
He cupped my jaw in his hand, tilted my chin and stared deep into my eyes. Without another word, he lowered his head and kissed me. His lips were soft, gentle at first, but then as he felt me respond, his hand moved to cradle my neck. He pulled me close with a hunger that took my breath away.
Sophie’s Last Stand Page 12
