So much for the concealer and the Band-Aid.
“It’s an allergy, nothing else. An allergy to, um, strawberries.”
“If you’re allergic to strawberries, why do you eat them?”
“Listen, I am fine. So you can take your friend”—I gestured toward the plastic bag—“and go. Van is coming.”
“He can’t get here for an hour or more. That’s why he called me. And I want to look at the emails and notes myself.”
“Van’s men are looking into them.”
“My guys can go places the cops can’t. Or the Feebies, for that matter.”
Lou and DUE could break any law they wanted, or make up their own. That’s why Lou scared me to death, no matter how many people told me he’d been my bodyguard, watching over me for months. Like now, when he pushed right past me without an invitation to come in. At least he left the rat outside the door.
So I made copies of the emails and gave him the note that came with the flowers and explained how Deni’d used my own drawings to send her nasty messages.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me take the whole computer to my cyber department, would you?”
“With all my notes and sketches and drawing programs? No way.”
“All right, don’t get bent out of shape. We’ll take it to Russ at the Harbor. He’s as good as my guys anyway.”
“Better.”
“Yeah, he’s got cyberpsi talent like we’ve never seen. They tried to get him to London, too.”
I knew by the “too” he meant me. I refused to go get indoctrinated or whatever they did at the secret Royce. I might have been more prepared for all the woo-woo stuff, but I’d have been their puppet, not myself. Then it occurred to me: “What do you mean, we’ll take it to Russ?”
“Everything centers there lately, and it’s too dangerous for you in the city until we get rid of these threats. So you’ll leave after Van brings the pizza. I’ll get there tomorrow, once I make sure no one follows you. Are you packed?”
He had to have noticed the suitcase out, and Little Red’s traveling case by the front door. “Van said he’d drop me at the bus stop in the morning and see that I got on okay.”
“That’s not soon enough.”
“Well, that’s when it will be. I need to speak to my father in the morning.”
That got his attention. “What did he say?”
“A friend needs a favor. Oh, you mean what did he foresee? He smelled a rat, but he heard an Irish tenor, and a horse.”
Lou rubbed his chin, all stubbly today in keeping with his rough appearance, not that he needed a scruffy beard to look menacing. “An Irish singer and a horse, huh? Not much to go on, is it?”
“It never is.”
“But he felt a threat?”
“I guess.”
“And he nailed the rat.”
“There’s that, even if the thing already arrived. And I couldn’t have done anything about it, no matter when or what I knew.”
“You could have left Manhattan.”
“I’m leaving as soon as I speak to him. He’s not home now and doesn’t put his cell phone on when he’s on a date, but he said he really needs to talk to me.”
Lou looked out the window, searching for spies. Then he pulled the curtains closed. What, did he think Deni’d be shooting at me from a roof across the street? “Listen, my father’s warnings are always vague. This time he’s right. That rat will be smelling soon if you don’t take it away.”
“Yeah, I’ll get it to the lab, try to figure out what the thing actually died of. See if the techs can guess at a weapon or find fingerprints on the note. Maybe send a sketch artist to Mrs. Abbottini for a better description of the delivery kid. Meantime, I’ll have someone watching the building until you leave with Van in the morning.”
For a minute I’d been afraid he’d insist on staying, too. “Thanks. That’ll be great.”
“And do not go out until then, hear me?” He looked down at the dog, who had one of my shoes in his mouth and was shaking it, pretending the shoe was a dangerous rat. I grabbed my sneaker. If he couldn’t kill it, Little Red would pee on it.
“Red can use his papers until then. Or the garbage alley by the back exit.”
“Good. It’s too easy for someone to follow your patterns if they know you have a pet to walk.”
“His picture’s on my website, so she didn’t need to be any genius sleuth.”
He gave one more look around, searching for heaven knew what, nodded when he didn’t find it, then headed for the door. I felt safer, knowing he’d have the place watched, knowing the guard would be someone else. I started to say good-bye, but I had to ask, “Um, you don’t happen to have any kind of rash, do you?”
“Yeah, on my . . .” He turned in the doorway, staring as if he could see into my head, wondering if I’d developed new talent the people at Royce could use and manipulate. “How’d you know about that?”
“A wild guess. There’s a lot going around.”
“Lily mentioned something about that, but she said the Health Department was on it.”
“They think it has something to do with the flu shots, but it doesn’t. It’s blood that brings it on, the pinprick, a rose thorn, a paper cut, a nosebleed, not the serum. And as far as I can figure, the only people getting the rash are those who were on the cruise ship the night of the storm.”
He shook his head. “The ship was full of sand and water and muck from being tipped over before we got on board. Maybe the floors and walls got filled with a brown tide thing or started growing black mold. Something toxic in the carpets.”
I hated to say it, but knew I had to. “No, it’s the sand. They’re mad.”
“They who? Mad about what?”
“The sandmen.”
“Come on, Willy, I have crotch rot, not insomnia.”
He wasn’t going to sleep well tonight, not after I showed him my drawings and the professor’s story.
“I can’t be certain, of course.”
He scratched his head, then scratched his ass. “Why am I not surprised?”
Then Van arrived. Lou gave me a look that warned me not to talk of sandmen, rashes, or the capsized ship. He drew a finger across his throat to reinforce his message. As if I needed his warning.
The two men spoke quietly in the hall while I put paper plates and napkins on the table. Lou didn’t accept Van’s invitation to stay, thank goodness.
Van closed the door behind Lou and turned to me, his brows lowered. “You look terrible, Willy,” he said after Lou left. “What’s on your face?”
“It’s just a rash. At least it’s not on my cr— That is, too many strawberries.”
“No, it’s blood. Your nose is bleeding.”
He reached out to touch it, to show me. I batted his hand away. And grabbed for the napkins. “Don’t touch it! You’ll get the plague, too.”
He edged toward the door. “You have HIV?”
“No, another plague. But you weren’t there. You didn’t, ah, eat the strawberries. So you can’t catch it.”
His brow stayed wrinkled. “You sure no one hit you in the head?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I had reservations. And reservations.
The early Jitney bus would get me to the Harbor midday, get Van to work almost on time, and get my father home after his hot date. That was the best I could do for him until I got off the bus. Whatever he wanted couldn’t be discussed in the three-minute limit the bus company requested. I hated when people spoke on their cell phones, right next to me, interfering with a nap or note taking or a good book. I would not abuse the rules for courtesy, not even for my father and his friend.
I finished packing after dinner, with pieces of tissue stuffed in my nose. How embarra
ssing was that? Van said he saw worse every day on the job. And I still looked adorable. How nice was that?
We took Little Red down the stairs, under my sweatshirt jacket, to the back door, the fire door that stayed locked. Van checked the area first, and the security camera over the door before letting me step outside. I felt safe. And safer, knowing Mrs. Abbottini kept watch, too.
“Who’s there?” she called down from her open window. “I’ll call the police.”
“It’s all right, ma’am,” Van shouted. “I am the police. I’m with Ms. Tate.”
She poked a flashlight through her window. “Oh, it’s that nice Black officer. Your mother won’t be happy, Willow.”
Before I could apologize to Van, or claim my mother was not a bigot, that she preferred dogs to men, all men, the old lady went on, loudly, the way hard of hearing people did: “She wants that vet in the family. Thinks she’ll get a discount on expenses for her rescued dogs, I guess. And then you’ll go out to the Island, Willy, so she can have the apartment back.”
Great. Why didn’t she tell Van and the downstairs neighbors my bra size while she was at it? And mention how my mother offered to get me a boob job as a college graduation gift?
“I am going out to the Harbor in the morning, but I’ll be back. And Mother won’t stay here long, not with the apartment rules banning dogs.”
“What’s that sniffing around the garbage, then?” she shouted.
“A big ra—” I caught myself before I mentioned the R word. She must have heard about the dead rat by now, but I did not want to remind her or give her nightmares. I figured I’d have enough for the whole apartment.
“Good night, Mrs. Abbottini. I’ll let you know when I’m coming home.” I stressed the home. This is where I lived, not that scrap of land hours away from everything. Except Matt. The hours away from Deni mattered more right now.
“Will you water my plants?” They lived at her house, I’d been gone so frequently. Mrs. Abbottini still considered them mine so she could complain about the extra work, for a jade plant and two violets. I always brought her a thank-you gift when I got back, a jar of jam from Grandma Eve’s farm stand, some ripe tomatoes, or a pretty shell or a smooth piece of driftglass from the beach. She had a whole collection in a jar.
She raised the flashlight to my face and raised the decibel level. “Why do you have toilet paper hanging out of your nose?”
Yup, safe from the menace, but not the mortification.
Van chuckled. “Being around you is better than Comedy Central.”
“We live to serve,” I muttered.
When we went back upstairs, I took a shower, once I was certain there’d be no more blood to spread the rash all over my body, if that was the causative irritant. It seemed to be, what with the rashes coming after paper cuts, cat scratches, razor burn, and needle pricks. Thank God I didn’t expect my period soon.
When I got out of the shower and dressed in unsuggestive sweatpants and a long T-shirt, Van was hanging up the phone.
“The vet called. At least I guess Dr. Matt Spenser is the vet your mother wants you to marry.”
I glared at him while I spread crumbs from the broken cookies on top of chocolate fudge ice cream. Never waste food, right? “You didn’t check the caller ID? Or let the machine pick up?”
He shrugged. “I answered in case it was your hinky admirer. Sometimes letting the crazies know their victim has protection is enough to discourage them. They’d rather prey on vulnerable targets.”
“Just doing your job, huh?”
Now he grinned. “And satisfying my curiosity. The dude didn’t sound happy you had company.”
Damn. “I hope you explained.”
“Sure, I explained that you were passed out after steamy sex in the shower. And, gee, you hadn’t called out ‘Matt’ when you came, just some other guy’s name. Harry? No, it might have been a Hail, Mary.”
They gave the death penalty for killing a cop, didn’t they? It might be worth it.
Van laughed and held his hand up when I came at him with the ice cream scoop. “Just kidding. I told him about the rat and said you’d call him back, that’s all.”
I waited for Van to take his turn in the shower before I dialed Matt’s number. I opened my email while I waited for him to pick up.
DID YOU LIKE MY PRESENT, BITCH?
This time the email came from Loves2read837, which sounded innocuous enough. Hah. It contained a picture from my own website, Little Red at the beach. But the photo had been photoshopped in two, so his head was separate from his body. I dropped the phone and screamed.
“Willy? Willy? What is it? What’s wrong, sweetheart? Did that stranger break in? Was that guy really a cop or just pretending to be one?”
I picked up the phone in shaking hands, gasping. “No, he is a cop and he’s right—Good grief, put on some clothes and put down the gun!”
“Sorry. You okay?” Van lowered the gun, strategically, except it wasn’t that big a gun.
“Willy? What the hell is going on? Why is the cop naked?”
“I got another email from that psycho. Van got out of the shower when I screamed.”
Van left and came back with a towel, not the gun, and looked over my shoulder and cursed.
Matt heard him and cursed louder. “Tell me what’s happening, damn it! And that guy better have his clothes on now, cop or not.”
“It was another email. From a different name. You don’t want to see it.” Or Van in a smallish towel.
I had to look at him, his sleek, wet back with its well defined muscles, while he forwarded the horror to police headquarters and to Lou so they could try tracing this new screen name. Yummy. Not that Matt didn’t keep in shape, but Van was younger and had more time to work out. Not that I was the least bit tempted, not when I had a madwoman after me and a mad Matt on the line.
Van said he’d go get dressed while I talked to Matt. He did turn the computer away before he went, but I saw it and moaned.
Matt sounded frantic. “Are you okay?”
“No! She left a dead rat and now pictures of my dog with his head torn off! And my nose is bleeding again!” I held the bottom of my T-shirt to it, until I could grab a handful of paper towels, half cursing, half crying.
“Calm down, Willy, and tell me what’s going on.”
If there was anything I hated worse, it was someone telling me to calm down when I had every right to have hysterics. It did no good, and didn’t solve the original problem. I wouldn’t be this frantic without damn good cause, would I? “I told you what happened.”
“No, your naked buddy with the gun told me about the rat first. You didn’t.”
His tone was accusative, as if I’d withheld evidence. Or been disloyal. “I didn’t have time. Lou came and then Van came and a message from my father about smelling a rat and Mrs. Abbottini saw us in the alley.”
“What the hell were you doing in the alley with the cop?”
“Forget about the cop already!”
“Why? You called him and that weird guy Lou you think is some kind of terminator, instead of me. For all I know you called the firefighter and the Brit and the cowboy, too.”
“No, neither Piet nor Ty could deal with this, and Grant was no help at all. He’s got two broken legs and a concussion.”
“But you called him, your ex-fiancé, before you called me?”
“For crying out loud”—which I was trying not to do—“we weren’t officially engaged. And I called the professor, too.”
Silence across the line, Van whistling in the guest bedroom.
“Listen, I wouldn’t have called any of you if I could speak with Oey. The bird has flown the coop, though, so I called whoever I thought could get here fastest and do the most good. Van’s police station is right in the city
, in this very district, and Lou seems to be everywhere. You weren’t.”
“Are you blaming me? If you’d come to the Harbor when I asked you to . . .”
“Are you blaming me for having a life of my own?”
“I thought I was part of your life.”
I heard the unspoken sounds of betrayal, sorrow, distrust. And jealousy.
I understood jealousy. I hated every woman who looked at Matt in speculation or the way I’d looked at Van. And every woman he looked at, period. But tonight was not the time. “I do not need this now. I’ll be there tomorrow. I thought I’d stay at your house, in case the nut job figures I went to Paumanok Harbor.”
“With your posse?”
“With my dog. On second thought, maybe we’ll be fine at my house. Little Red still isn’t all that comfortable around your Newfie. And Susan’ll be there with the big dogs, and Uncle Roger is just across the street.”
“But the cop is staying at your apartment tonight?”
“Yes. Him and his gun. You have a problem with that?”
“No,” he snapped, an obvious lie. “You have a problem with me caring?”
“No,” I snapped right back, furious at both of us now for acting like teenagers, when I should have been angry at Deni, the teenager. “He’s a friend, that’s all.”
“Where’s he sleeping?”
“What does it matter? The guest room or the sleep sofa, he is not sleeping in my bed! Are you satisfied now?”
“What’s he wearing?”
A big grin, but I didn’t tell Matt that. I made shoo-ing gestures to Van, who went toward the kitchen to get more ice cream. I handed him my dish, too.
“He is wearing one of my dresses and high heels, okay? He’s gay.”
Something crashed in the kitchen.
“Listen, I’ve got to go finish packing. I’ll call tomorrow when I get in.”
We left it at that. No fervent invitation to stay with him tomorrow or forever, no tender words of apology for doubting my fidelity, no blowing kisses through the phone lines. I told myself the reason I didn’t say I love you, I’m sorry we argued, I can’t wait to see you, was because Van could hear every word.
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