Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim

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Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim Page 56

by Jan Coffey


  “You know, first I was really teed off. Then, I was looking out the window and saw you go by across the street. So I just thought I’d pop out and say hi. That’s my shop across the way.”

  Léa looked in the direction Sheila was pointing.

  “Right there. Desjardins Hair Impressions. Rich says it’s a mouthful, but I don’t care. For the last three years I’ve been the only show in town, and I don’t hear any of my customers complaining.”

  “How about the cancelled appointment? You don’t think she was trying to make a statement about the name?” Léa was very proud of herself to get more than two words in.

  Sheila looked startled for a second, then her eyes rounded in mock horror. “Do you really think so?”

  “Hey, this is Stonybrook. Who knows?”

  The skin around the green eyes crinkled when she smiled. “You know, you look darn cute this close, and one heck of a lot better than you do in those pictures in the paper. But that thing on your head, when are they taking it off?”

  “The stitches come out in ten days. The bandages should get smaller long before that.” Léa paused, surprised that Sheila had not asked about how she’d gotten the injury to begin with. “How did you know about it?”

  “Honey, nothing gets by me.” She lowered her voice and slid closer to Léa. “As the long-suffering girlfriend of the chief of police, there isn’t much that goes on in this burg that I don’t hear about.” Sheila put a hand on Léa’s knee. “But, you shouldn’t blame Rich. You see, he has this control problem. You know, when we have sex. Especially when I wear this one-piece, see-through leopard thing I bought through this great catalogue I get. So, anyway, I saw this sex therapist or something on one of the afternoon shows, and she said to help him—never mind him, to save your sex life, you need to take the pressure off him by talking to him and getting him to talk while we’re—”

  “Really, Sheila, I don’t think I—”

  “And it worked! I just have to get him talking. It gets his mind off his Little Chief and we’ve been known to go at it for—”

  “Sheila, please. I—”

  “That’s okay, honey. But you know, there’s nothing improper about Rich telling me stuff. I mean, half the people in Stonybrook have one of those police scanners sitting next to their sugar bowl, and the other half have them sitting on top of their TV’s. You think with cable adding the Playboy Channel a couple of years ago, things would get better. But no way! Stonybrook is full of Peeping Tom busybodies who like to know just what everyone is getting into. I have no time for them, myself.”

  Léa couldn’t sort out how she was feeling about chatting away with the girlfriend of one of her enemies. But it didn’t matter; Sheila started right in again.

  “You know, two weeks ago—after the Spring Fling Art Festival we have downtown here—I got him to tell me about each and every one of the fifty-four parking violations, the six drunken driving cases, the case of theft from an open car, and about the pair of teenagers they caught going at it in the back seat of a police car that was parked in that building’s parking lot—the gate was left open. It was like a miracle.”

  Léa glanced at the police station down the street, and wondered how Rich Weir would feel about a Hardy getting the scoop on Little Chief and his sexual ‘shortcomings.’

  “But that wasn’t even the good part.” A mischievous smile broke out on the perfectly painted lips. “After we were done at my place, I made him bring me downtown and show me exactly what it was that those kids were doing in the backseat of that car. That was the best sex I’ve had in a long time.”

  She fanned herself with her hands and took another quick look around at the passersby.

  “So, how is your sex-life, honey?”

  Léa found herself gaping.

  “Well, I heard you’re staying at Mick’s.” Sheila’s thinly plucked eyebrows went up and down meaningfully.

  “He and Heather gave me a ride back from the hospital yesterday. That was it.” Léa tried to not think of the incredible sex they’d had in the laundry room this morning. She forced herself not to think of the promise he’d whispered in her ear before leaving for work earlier. Something about lunchtime and a hotel room in Doylestown and what he was planning to do to her. And this time, very slowly.

  “Oh, I thought you were staying at his place.”

  “Well, I did…but in the guestroom, and only for last night.” She didn’t know what was making her answer. It was nobody’s business. But then again, she thought, it was probably good to set the record straight with Sheila. It was obvious that this woman’s ability to trumpet information was better than publishing it in the paper.

  “He is one hot number.” Sheila picked up one of the folded newspapers off Léa’s lap and fanned herself. “There is not a woman in this town who hasn’t dreamed of being where you are right now, honey.”

  “We were under the same roof, not in the same room.”

  “Okay, if you say so. God knows, as Mick gets older--and better, I might add—he’s been getting pretty darn picky.”

  “I’m sure that with a teenager in the house, discretion and appropriateness are an issue with him.”

  Sheila raised one eyebrow and then shrugged. “That might be it, honey, or it might not. I think this change in him started even before Heather came back. I really believe it has to do with getting sick and tired of the same selfish babes who’ve been hanging on him all of his life. The man is thirty-eight years old and every relationship he’s had went like this…Mick gives. Mick buys. Mick takes care of her. Mick plays the nice guy and lets her put her life and needs ahead of his. In short, Mick spoils the heck out of her. I mean, if your love life was like that, wouldn’t you get a little sick of it?”

  Léa hung on every word. Sheila waved at a police cruiser that was driving slowly past.

  “I mean, look at his ex-wife. Smart, pretty, and spoiled. She hooked him in college, had a baby, and used him until she was out of that West Coast med school and didn’t need him anymore. Then…what, nine years ago…he comes back home, fresh from his divorce, and who does he start going out with? The reigning queen of selfishness, Marilyn Foley.”

  Sheila nodded at Léa, for she must have read the disbelief in her face.

  “Don’t worry, that was during the year before Ted and Marilyn got married. Luckily, Mick must have seen right through her. He dumped her before she could dig her claws too deep into him. Now, after that, the women were less screwed up than Marilyn—and maybe his ex—but there was still not much improvement that I could see.”

  “There have been a lot of women?” Léa asked, feeling an empty ache that she knew she had no right to feel.

  Sheila gave a meaningful nod. “Maybe not as many as he could have. But there was the weather girl on the Jersey cable station. A lawyer who moved to D.C. An engineer at one of those pharmaceutical companies down the road. There were others, too. I’ve lost track over the years. But you’ve got to give him credit. He doesn’t like them dumb.”

  Sheila smiled at the couple crossing the street toward them. “Hi, Reverend Webster. Don’t forget you are coming in for a cut this afternoon, Pat.” The clergyman was a very distinguished-looking man with graying reddish hair. The small-built woman looked hard at Léa and then steered her husband past them.

  “Now, what was I saying?” Sheila said, turning back to Léa. “Oh, yeah. Mick. I think he’s been getting sick and tired of this whole thing for a while now. Trust me, I notice these things. He’s been dating less and less lately. But who could blame him with all the sharks in the water.”

  Léa felt ill, thinking of herself as the next one in a line of sharks.

  She’d never been a taker and yet here she was, dragging Mick and even Heather into her dismal situation. She pushed her sunglasses higher on the bridge of her nose and wished she could forget how wonderful every minute she’d spent with him had been.

  “Joanna! Joanna!”

  Sheila’s voice pulled Léa’s
attention back to the present. A gray van with wild flowers stenciled on the side of it had just pulled into a parking spot.

  “Jo! Over here!”

  A tall and very striking-looking young woman with long curly brown hair and wearing a flowered sundress paused after closing the driver’s door. She glanced in their direction.

  “Come over here, Jo. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Léa saw the woman push a large woven handbag up onto her shoulder and start slowly toward them.

  “Joanna Miller and her sister Gwen own and run Miller Flower shop.” Sheila whispered to Léa. “Gwen is a bitch, but Jo has always been an outsider with the old townies…kind of like you, I guess.”

  A warm spot immediately formed inside Léa at the comment. She got to her feet and shook Joanna’s hand as Sheila made the introductions.

  “You two weren’t classmates or anything. I think Jo was a couple years younger. But there’s no way you would have recognized her anyway. Back then, she wasn’t wearing any size double-D bra like she does now!”

  “Look who’s talking? Miss Jellyfish Implants herself!” Jo’s brown eyes glared at Sheila over the top of her shades before turning to Léa. “Watch out for her. She charges an arm and a leg.”

  “Speaking of which, you do need a trim, you wild woman.” Sheila took a few strands of Joanna’s hair and shook her head disapprovingly after a close look at the ends. She turned to Léa next. “And you need a total makeover. Look at her, Jo. With those eyes and her high cheekbones. I could cut her some bangs…maybe layer the sides and back. A little make up here and there. I say she’ll look just like that movie actress. What’s her name? David Duchovny’s wife.”

  “Téa Leoni.”

  “That’s it,” Sheila said excitedly. “I can fit you in this afternoon if you want to come over.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll have to take a rain check for now,” Léa answered.

  “Suit yourself. But don’t put it off too long. You want to impress that number you’re living with.”

  “I am not living with anyone.”

  “Say what you want, honey.” Sheila gave a knowing wink to Joanna. “She’s staying with Mick Conklin and not playing doctor with the boy.”

  “You’re staying with Mick?” Joanna asked, her surprise showing in her face.

  “Just temporarily.”

  “Same as you and Andrew Rice have been temporarily screwing each other’s brains out for I don’t know how long!”

  “Sheila!” Jo complained.

  “At least, one of us is not in denial.” The hairdresser waved off their glares and glanced across the street. Rich Weir was heading in the direction of her store. “Sorry, girls, but I have to go. I believe I’m in for a backroom table top treat. I just hope that there are lots and lots of crimes on the Big Chief’s mind. Well, enough to give Little Chief time to do it right. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  Totally amazed, Léa watched Sheila hurry across the street after her beau. “Will she really try to tell us about it later?”

  “You can count on it.”

  Léa couldn’t hold back her laughter. When she turned to Joanna, she found her smiling, too.

  “So is it true? About you and Mick?”

  This time Léa blushed. “We’re friends. Old neighbors.”

  Jo gave her an I-don’t-believe-you look over the top of her sunglasses.

  “Do I have something tattooed on my forehead?”

  “With Sheila doing the interrogating, you don’t need a tattoo.” Jo’s expression was softer, friendlier when she took off the shades. “How did you like the flowers?”

  “What flowers?”

  “The ones Andrew Rice had delivered to your house this morning.”

  “I didn’t see them. I must have left before they came.” Sheila’s comment about Jo and Andrew flickered in Léa’s mind. “Andrew and I were friends when we were kids. I know he bought the pharmacy that my great grandfather owned eons ago, but I haven’t seen or talked to him for a long, long time. Why is he sending me flowers?”

  “I think to make me jealous,” Joanna said wistfully. “I’ve been the one, well, in favor of keeping our affair hush-hush, and he’s not too happy about it.”

  Léa didn’t know how it was that they’d become so comfortable with each other so fast, but she decided this probably wasn’t the right time to analyze it.

  “Are you in a situation that want to get out of?” she asked.

  “Hardly!” Jo shook her head. “God, being with Andrew is the only thing that makes me want to stay around this stinking town. He is everything to me.”

  The sound of a woman’s scream echoed off the storefronts. The driver’s door to the gray Cadillac was open wide. Stumbling out from behind the wheel, Stephanie Slater was hysterical, crying and calling out incoherently. She was clutching a small object in one hand.

  A number of pedestrians stopped and were staring from a safe distance. But none approached the distressed woman.

  “Hanna!”

  This time Léa had no difficulty understanding the older woman’s wrenching cry.

  “Maybe we can talk later,” she said, touching Joanna’s arm and taking a couple of steps into the street.

  She stopped. Of anyone in this town, Léa knew she would be the last one Stephanie would want to see right now. The distraught woman leaned against the car.

  Léa looked around again for any sign of someone else going to her. At the entrance to the park, not far from the bench were she had been sitting, a ragged-looking homeless man stood watching the spectacle across the street. Longer hair, a bit dirtier than she remembered from her childhood, his back slightly more rounded. But she remembered Dusty. If ever a smile could be described as nasty, his was it.

  “Hanna! Please…Hanna!”

  Stephanie’s choked cries brought tears to Léa’s eyes. When she looked back again at Dusty, he was disappearing into the park.

  “Hanna, where is your sister? Get your sister.”

  Cars slowed down, but no one was stopping. Faces were staring out of windows of stores, but no one was coming out. Léa pushed her doubt aside and crossed the street.

  “Hanna!”

  Léa reached out and touched Stephanie’s arm. The older woman whirled and looked at her.

  “Have you seen my granddaughter? Oh! It’s you!” She started crying even harder now. “You! What have you done with my children? Bring them back…monster!”

  Léa didn’t back up. “It’s me, Stephanie. It’s Léa.”

  “You killed them. You took them away from me.”

  “I loved them, just like you. Stephanie, listen to me.” She caught the hysterical woman by the arm. She was clutching a small stuffed animal tightly to her chest. She was shaking violently. Ignoring her weak attempt to struggle, Léa wrapped her arms around her and just held on.

  “Give them back to me,” Stephanie sobbed. “I want my girls back.”

  “I want them back, too.” Léa opened the back door of the car and gently got her to sit. She crouched down on the street before her. Stephanie’s eyes were riveted on the stuffed tiger.

  “Hanna is here. She is downtown somewhere. Find her for me.” She was not lashing out at Léa anymore, but pleading. The tears and the mascara were streaking her face. She grabbed Léa’s hand. “Please, get her!”

  “I would if I could.” Léa cried with her. “But she’s gone, Stephanie. Hanna’s in heaven, now.”

  “No. She’s here.” The older woman shook her head. “She left me this…in the car...when I was inside.” She pushed the small toy tiger into Léa’s hands. “She is here. She must be.”

  The stuffed animal was identical to one that had belonged to Hanna. The little girl and the tiger had been inseparable. But it was also identical to thousands of others that were sold in toy stores all over in America. Léa pushed herself to her feet and looked around at the bystanders who were watching the old woman’s misery as if it were a leisure activity. Sh
e wondered which one of them could be cruel enough to drop something like that into the car.

  “Do you see her?” Stephanie persisted, her hand tugging on Léa’s arm.

  “No, I don’t.” She looked down at the broken woman and dashed away her tears. “I don’t think she is going to come back.”

  A painful sob escaped the grandmother, but there was no denial left in her. The shivering hands moved down Léa’s arm. Then, for the briefest of seconds, she squeezed Léa’s hand before collapsing back against the seat.

  “I want to go home.”

  Léa felt a soft touch on her shoulder. She turned and saw Joanna standing behind her.

  “I’ll drive her home.”

  Chapter 20

  Traffic on Main Street was moving at a crawl.

  Mick watched for Léa as he followed the slow-moving line of cars. A small crowd of people standing near Hughes Grille was staring across the street. A gray Cadillac nosed out into traffic. He recognized Stephanie Slater’s car, but the driver was Joanna Miller.

  He saw Léa back away from the Cadillac. She was talking to someone in the back seat, and she looked upset. Mick pushed open the truck door, ignoring the honk of horns from the cars behind him, and went to her.

  “Léa!”

  She turned in surprise. They were tears glistening in her hazel eyes. Without any regard to the dozens of onlookers, he put his arm around her.

  “What happened here?”

  “Somebody played an ugly joke on Stephanie.” She held on to him, and her voice wavered. “They left a toy, like one of Hanna’s, on her front seat. She thought…she thought Hanna was still alive. She was confused and upset.”

  Mick held her tightly against him.

  “She wasn’t blaming you, was she?”

  Léa shook her head. “She was just confused for a moment or two. That’s all. But I think it’s so cruel for someone to do that.”

  The crowd was drifting off, but he knew the tongues would already be wagging. He didn’t give a damn. “Did you see who did it? Did anyone see who put it there?”

  Léa shook her head and let go of him, looking suddenly shy.

 

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