Hell in a Handbasket

by Denise Grover Swank

  Neely Kate grabbed her floppy hat out of the back and stuffed it on her head.

  “Is Tabitha here?” I asked, but she got out of the truck and walked toward the entrance.

  “What?” she asked, playing innocent.

  I pushed the door closed as she tried to open it. “We’re not goin’ in there until you tell me why you’re tryin’ to hide your face.”

  She gave me an exasperated look. “Charlene didn’t want to meet us, but her sister didn’t want to pick Charlene up from her art lesson, so she said we could pick her up and bring her home and have a chance to ask our questions. Kill two birds with one stone.” She gave me a cheesy grin.

  My gaze pierced hers. “Let me get this straight: Charlene doesn’t know we’re pickin’ her up? How do you propose to get her in the truck?”

  “Pearl told her she was sendin’ an Uber and gave her the description of your truck.”

  “Then why are we goin’ inside?”

  “Because I’m not sittin’ out here for ten minutes if Charlene’s not even here. Pearl could have lied.”

  “Huh.”

  Against my better judgment, I let Neely Kate open the door and followed her inside.

  The class was fuller than I’d expected. Several long cafeteria-type tables had been set out, and twenty women and a few men were scattered around with canvases and palettes of paint.

  A man was standing on the stage at the far end of the entrance, and the only stitch of clothing he had on was a white cloth wrapped around his groin like a diaper.

  “What in the Sam Hill . . . ?” Neely Kate blurted out in a low whisper.

  A few of the people closest to us turned around and shot her a glare.

  I leaned in close. “Obviously it’s a painting class with a live model.”

  “So they asked some old flabby guy to wear a diaper?”

  She had a point.

  “Do you see Charlene?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to see around this hat,” she said, lifting the flap and lowering it after she took a peek.

  “Can I help you?” a woman in her sixties called out from the front of the room. She wore a long, flowing purple and red floral caftan dress paired with a black caftan robe, and her pure white hair was swept up into a beehive updo wrapped in a purple cloth. The welcoming smile told me she wasn’t going to kick us out . . . yet.

  “We heard about your painting class and decided to check it out,” Neely Kate said, walking toward her but keeping the brim of her floppy hat covering the side of her face. “We didn’t realize you used a live model.”

  “I’m Sagittarius, the art guide.”

  “Art guide?” Neely Kate asked.

  She winked with a conspiratorial grin. “One can’t actually instruct someone to paint or draw, can they? I guide.”

  Neely Kate gave her a skeptical look. “Actually, I think one can.”

  Sagittarius either didn’t hear Neely Kate’s statement or chose to ignore it. I was going with the latter. “Painting living things is so much more spiritual, and the human body is the most spiritual of all. All that flesh and perfection . . .” She motioned over her shoulder toward the man on the stage. “That’s why we have Dave with us.”

  “More like the dog from last week wouldn’t stay still and everyone complained,” an older woman grumbled next to me. I glanced down at her painting and refrained from gasping in horror. She’d made poor Dave look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  While Dave wasn’t exactly an Adonis with rippling abs, he wasn’t quite a hunchback either. He looked like the kind of guy whose idea of a good weekend was eating a massive amount of barbeque and putting away a twelve-pack of beer. On his own. His thinning hairline wasn’t helping matters. Neither were his cracked feet and yellow toenails that had needed trimming several weeks ago. The woman next to me had exaggerated all those unfortunate features and more.

  “Now, Lois,” Sagittarius admonished, but even that sounded soft and breezy.

  Lois shrugged and started adding ivy to her painting. At least I thought it was ivy, although there was a chance they were marijuana leaves.

  “Did you bring art supplies?” Sagittarius asked, glancing behind us.

  “Sadly, no,” Neely Kate said as she made a slight pouty face. “We thought we’d just drop by and take a peek today.”

  Sagittarius motioned her arm toward her students with a dramatic sweep. “Feel free to wander around. Let your spirit lead you.” The art guide glanced over at one of her guidees and started to tsk as she hurried over. “Susan! Let me help you blend together a clamshell color that will be perfect for his skin tone.”

  “My spirit’s about to lead me out the door,” Lois said.

  “If you hate it so much, why don’t you just leave?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Court-ordered anger management,” the woman said. “Gotta stay the whole time or it don’t count.” She shrugged again. “It beats group therapy sessions.”

  Neely Kate and I turned to each other with raised brows.

  I leaned down to Lois, keeping my voice low. “Just out of curiosity, why aren’t there very many cars in the parking lot?”

  Her upper lip curled as she looked at me. “Most of us walk on account of we lost our licenses with DUIs and such, but Thelma over there drives anyway.” She flung the end of her paint brush toward a middle-aged woman at the other table, sending flecks of green paint onto the canvas of a younger woman across from her.

  The younger woman’s gaze jerked up, her eyes blazing. “Did you do that on purpose, old woman?”

  Lois’ back straightened. “Old woman? Who you callin’ an old woman?”

  “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” the younger woman asked in a hateful tone as she got to her feet. She ran a hand over her ample hips. “You ain’t looked like this since before they made cars.”

  Lois looked disgusted. “My body’s doin’ just fine. I don’t have no trouble gettin’ men in my bed. It’s getting’ them out that’s the problem.” She glanced back at me and Neely Kate and said under her breath, “On account of two of ’em’s got bad hips.”

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “Hey!” the younger woman shouted. “I’m still talkin’ to you, old woman!”

  “Give it a rest, Kesha,” Lois grumbled. “The grown-ups are talkin’.”

  The rage on Kesha’s face didn’t look like a good sign.

  “Hey, Lois,” Neely Kate said in a cheery voice. “If you’re here for anger management, what’s Kesha here for?”

  Lois rolled her eyes, then said dismissively, “Manslaughter.”

  I grabbed Neely Kate’s arm and headed toward the exit.

  Moments later, Kesha launched over the table and tackled Lois to the ground. Rather than intervene, Sagittarius spun around to face them. “Oh, isn’t this lovely. Art brings out so many emotions.”

  Dave was still on the stage, but he looked like he was ready to bolt, especially when a woman at the farthest table squirted a tube of paint onto the man next to her and all hell broke loose.

  “Hey,” Neely Kate said, “I see Charlene on the other side of the room.”

  “Come on,” I said, pulling her to the door. “We’ll wait for her outside.”

  Neely Kate lifted her phone and took a photo. “Pearl wanted proof that Charlene was here.” She snapped several photos before I got her out the door and into the truck cab.

  I rolled the windows back up and turned on the a/c, but we could still hear the shouts filtering out from inside. About five minutes later, I heard sirens and a sheriff’s patrol car parked next to my truck. My heart sank when I saw who got out.

  “Oh, crappy doodles,” I muttered. “It’s Deputy Abbie Lee Hoffstetter.” This was bad. That woman hated us.

  Deputy Hoffstetter moved to the front of my truck and put her hands on her hips, staring us down as though she could zap us with her laser eyes.

  “What’s she doin’? Why’s she just standin’ there?” Neely Kate roll
ed down the window and partially leaned out. “The ruckus is inside!” Then she pointed to the door.

  Deputy Hoffstetter looked good and pissed. “Don’t you two go anywhere or I’ll hunt you down and arrest you for fleeing a crime scene!” Then she spun around and stomped inside, stumbling over the curb in her haste to reach the door.

  “Can she do that?” Neely Kate asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “Maybe we should call Joe.”

  “Why?” she asked, getting worked up. “We literally had zero part in startin’ that riot.”

  I made a face. “Well, maybe we played a tiny part.”

  “We were askin’ questions like good investigators,” she snapped. “We are not callin’ Joe Simmons.”

  I pulled out my phone.

  “You better not be callin’ him, Rose. I mean it!”

  “Calm down. I’m not. I’m texting Jed to let him know. Otherwise, he might hear about the riot and worry about us.”

  The fight bled out of her. “Oh. I guess I should have thought of that.”

  “Hey,” I said as I tapped out the message. “I’ve got months and months of experience of keepin’ Jed in the loop.” I sent the message and looked up. “You’re still new to keepin’ him involved.”

  “I always hid this stuff from Ronnie,” she said with a frown.

  “And I hid it from Mason and look where it got me. It’s good that Jed knows the real you and you don’t have to hide it.”

  She studied me for a moment. “I guess it’s like that with Skeeter for you, huh? Mason hated you bein’ Lady, but Skeeter embraces it.”

  I didn’t see any point in answering.

  She was quiet for a moment. “Now that I think about it, other than Jed, Skeeter’s the only guy who knows the real you.”

  I scowled. “Mason knew the real me. Turned out he didn’t much like it.”

  “Mason doesn’t deserve you,” she said quietly.

  Tears flooded my eyes. “Maybe so, but why does it still hurt so much to see him?”

  She wrapped an arm around my back and laid her head on my shoulder. “Because your life with Mason was everything you always wanted. A successful man who loved you like crazy. Someone good, and stable, and kind.” She turned to look at me, her face inches from mine. “But I think you outgrew him. I think you outgrew the you that wanted that.” She dropped her arm and sat up. “If you’d never approached Skeeter Malcolm last fall, you would have been perfectly content with your quiet life, but then you were exposed to something bigger and you became this different person because of it.”

  “I screwed everything up.” I leaned back against the headrest.

  “No,” she said softly. “You opened up a whole new world.”

  “A criminal world,” I said derisively.

  “No, Rose. Think bigger. You’re the Lady in Black. Two major players in the criminal world see you as neutral. Do you know what you could do with that? What you’re already doin’? You could bring real peace to this county.”

  I shook my head. “Dermot’s pissed at me. He wants me to have five visions for him in exchange for standing with me against Wagner, and I wouldn’t commit.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You had visions for Skeeter.” Her face fell. “Oh. You still haven’t had a vision.”

  “No. I tried to have one with James yesterday afternoon, but a passin’ car backfired. I told him I’d try one with you later, but it scared me too much to try again.”

  “Oh, Rose . . .”

  “But my current dry spell aside, I gave Dermot certain conditions that he refused to agree to, and I won’t budge, so no deal.”

  “What kind of conditions?”

  I cringed. “One of them was that Jed has to be with me each time.”

  Her face paled. “What?” She took a second to recover. “Rose, he’s not even workin’ for Skeeter anymore.”

  “I know. Which is why he’s perfect. He’s neutral like me. It could help establish his neutrality quicker.”

  “And he agreed to that?” she asked.

  Crap. “I haven’t asked him yet.”

  “You just volunteered him for it without even askin’?”

  “I’m sorry, Neely Kate. Honestly, I was just throwin’ out requests. Dermot didn’t go for it, so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  She looked good and ticked. “You still had no right to bring him in like that without his permission.”

  “I know. You’re right. Even if Dermot agreed, I wouldn’t have flat-out said yes. I would have told him I’d need time to think about it and to talk to Jed. If he’d said no, I would have figured something out.”

  A frown wrinkled her forehead. “Why did you suggest him in the first place?”

  I pushed out a breath. I’d gone and screwed things up again. “Because I trust him. You have no idea how vulnerable I was last winter, alone in a room with some of the most hardened criminals in the county. You know how I get when I have a vision—I just blank out, and then there’s the way I blurt out something about the vision . . . Jed was the only one there to protect me. Part of the reason I was so successful was because I knew he would never let anything happen to me.”

  “You had Skeeter,” she said defensively.

  I shook my head. “No. When I had my visions, it was just me, the guy I was questioning, and Jed off to the side. A couple of times I sent Jed out and handled the guy alone. But I always knew he was out there waiting if I needed him.”

  She pinched her lips together.

  “When I was the Lady in Black, Jed was my bodyguard, not James. You know he stood between me and James’ wrath when I got pissed and quit. I trusted Jed to have my back—I still do—and I know he has yours. Do you have any idea how relieved I felt when I found out he was with you in Oklahoma? There’s no one alive I trust more than Jed to keep you safe . . . because I know how much he did to keep me safe.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears. “He would have said yes.”

  “What?”

  She turned back to face me. “He would have agreed to protect you while you had visions for Dermot. He would have said yes, no questions asked.” She sniffed. “But I don’t want him to. I want him good and out of that world, and sayin’ yes will drag him back into it.”

  My heart sunk. “I’m sorry, Neely Kate. I didn’t even think of that part of it.”

  “I know.” She took a breath. “Maybe I’m bein’ hypocritical. I want him out, yet we’re askin’ him to help us hold off Kip Wagner and protect Marshall.”

  “No, I understand,” I said quietly. “It’s complicated. And it’s all a moot point anyway. Dermot said no. He said he wouldn’t know how to explain Jed bein’ there. And while Dermot has helped me plenty, I don’t trust him enough to protect me if a vision goes bad. So no deal.”

  “You need Dermot, Rose. That’s the only way this will really work.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe this whole idea of Lady being neutral was foolish. Especially with Mason back in town and intent on rootin’ out all the crime in the county. After seein’ Dermot’s name on the prescription on Monday, he already suspects I’m up to no good. Yesterday, when he was good and pissed at me, he told me to get my house in order before he brings everything down.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “He threatened you?”

  I found myself in the odd position of defending him. “We both know Fenton County is a hotbed of corruption.”

  “But he threatened the woman he claimed to still love the day before?”

  “What do you expect him to do? It’s his job.”

  “He protected you last winter.”

  “That was different,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she spat out in disgust. “He was sleepin’ with you then.”

  I cringed. “Neely Kate.”

  “It’s true. You said he told you that he still loves you, and we both know he loved you last winter. So the only difference is you won’t take him back, so he’s punishin’ you for it.”

  I sho
ok my head, but before I could protest, the doors to the community center flew open and a mass exodus of people covered in paint spilled out of the building.

  Neely Kate tugged the hat brim to cover her face as one person headed straight for my truck—more like wove a curvy path—then opened the rear passenger door. I could see that it was a woman, but I had a hard time determining anything else since her face and shirt were smeared with paint. When she opened the back door and climbed inside, all I could think about was that she was going to ruin my upholstery, but I was too stunned to protest.

  She gave me a look of disgust. “What are you waitin’ for? Drive!”

  What had Neely Kate gotten us into? “Charlene?”

  “Yep, but I’m about to become Prison-Shower-Good-Times Sally if you don’t hurry up and get out of here.” Charlene flung her hand toward the entrance. “You better get goin’ before that battle-ax gets herself together and tries to arrest me for pantsing her.”

  What? But sure enough, Deputy Hoffstetter hobbled out the door, her pants at her ankles and her hot pink underwear covered with cat faces flashing the world.

  Neely Kate lifted her phone and snapped a photo of the deputy.

  “Neely Kate!” I protested.

  “Neely Kate?” the woman in the backseat asked in confusion.

  “What?” she asked, taking another. “We might need these later when we get in trouble.”

  “In trouble for what?”

  “For disobeyin’ Abbie Lee, now go!”

  I jerked the truck in reverse as the deputy ran toward it.

  “Don’t you dare think about leavin’!” Deputy Hoffstetter shouted.

  But I’d already backed out and shoved the handle into drive. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her trying to run after us, but her pants weren’t very forgiving, and she toppled face-first in a patch of grass.

  I had a feeling I was going to be having some one-on-one time with my defense attorney, Carter Hale. But the more imminent threat was sitting in my backseat, shooting daggers at the back of my best friend’s head.

  Chapter 24

  “Neely Kate Rivers,” Charlene said in a low tone. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”