He was feeling lucky.
Flynn threw her feet up over the edge of the tremendous oak desk that had been Esther’s, and was now hers. She concluded that fairies themselves must have built the leather office chair she was sitting in, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that comfortable sitting up. The carpet below her was a deep green, and the walls an antique white. Two large, glass-paned French doors faced out into the courtyard, with an unobscured view of the fountain in the center. As she tucked her cell phone between her ear and shoulder, she wondered if she could bring the desk and chair back with her to Boston.
“Freya Daly.” Even at a spa in Tucson, Freya could not get the business out of her voice.
“Just checking in, boss,” Flynn said. “So far this morning I have taken a detailed tour of the grounds, had four cups of coffee, a wonderful lunch of grilled Alaskan salmon with a side of the creamiest saffron mashed potatoes known to man. I’m sitting here in my office with my feet on the desk, and doing absolutely no work.”
“Oh, my God,” Freya said, her voice rising in a fake cry. “Did you just say ‘my office’?” She sniffled dramatically. “You’re going to have to give me a moment.”
Flynn pulled her feet off the desk. “What am I even doing here? There’s nothing for me to do. Apparently, Aunt Esther did nothing but sit here and look pretty, and everything’s running just fine without me lifting a finger. The concierge practically bit my hand off when I tried to get a look at the reservations system.”
Freya released a sigh. “Honey. You’re not there to work. You’re there to be a presence. And the staff is gonna be territorial. Change freaks people out. Your purpose there is to keep them from freaking out. Leave the damn reservations system alone.”
“So . . . what?” Flynn pulled out the mammoth file drawer on the left side of the desk. It was empty. “I’m supposed to just . . . what? Exist?”
“Pretty much. Enjoy it. I promise, I’ll have plenty of real work waiting for you when you get home.”
Flynn stood up and walked over to the French doors looking out over the courtyard and leaned her head against the frame. “I can’t just exist here, Freya. This place is freaking me out. There’s nature everywhere.”
“You know, you would have made a horrible cavewoman,” Freya said.
“And the front desk girl? Totally perky. You know how I feel about perky people.”
“Well. No wonder you’re freaked.”
“Exactly. I need something to do. Something to distract me. I think hard work is the answer. I think if I can apply myself to something, then maybe . . .” Maybe the lambs will stop screaming. “Plus,” she went on quickly, “these people already don’t like me. I thought maybe if I pitched in, proved myself, I could get their respect, you know?”
“You get their respect by paying their salaries,” Freya said. “Don’t get all romantic about it. Look, if you don’t like sitting around, then don’t. Hit the town. Pick some apples, tip some cows, do whatever the locals do. Find a good-looking man and have inappropriate sex. Just make sure he doesn’t work for us.” She paused. “Trust me. Bad idea.”
Flynn touched the window glass with one finger, and a flash of Jake Tucker’s face went through her mind. “Oh, God, Fray. I would never. That would just be . . .” Kinda nice maybe. “. . . wrong.”
“I can’t believe you’re calling me to complain about not having enough work. Most people would love this, you know.”
“Most people aren’t being haunted by their dead aunts,” Flynn muttered.
Freya snorted. “Sorry, what?”
Flynn hesitated, then closed her eyes tight and said it out loud. “Aunt Esther. She’s been haunting me every night.”
“Darling, Aunt Esther is dead, and there’s no such thing as haunting. Dead is dead. Dead is gone.”
“I know. I’m not saying she’s really haunting me. But that cottage is creepy. It’s full of old lady stuff. It smells like peppermint. Don’t they say that ghosts all have a particular smell?”
“I’m sure some crazy people have said that before. But sane people know that ghosts don’t exist, hence they lack a scent. And if her cottage creeps you out so much, move into one of the rooms.”
Flynn sighed. “You’re right. I know. It’s just stress, I think. I just . . . I don’t belong here, Fray.”
“Sweetie, you know I wouldn’t have sent you there if I didn’t think you could do this, right?”
No. “Right.”
“So don’t worry about it. Get out. See a movie. Wander around the grounds twice a day looking like you know what you’re doing and then go get a mani-pedi.” There was a shuffle on the phone and Freya seemed to be talking to someone, then she was back. “Look, babe, I’m about to get a very nice massage from a man so beautiful you should have to prick a hole in a piece of paper just to look at him. Relax, you’ll be fine. Love you.”
“You, too,” Flynn said, then flipped the phone shut and closed her eyes.
Relax, she thought. Think of city streets. Museums. The sounds of traffic. The T. Civilization.
She opened her eyes, feeling just as tense as ever. She turned and stared at the desk. There had to be something she could do. Esther must have done something. She sat in the leather chair and pulled at the drawer on the right.
It was full of Pop-Tarts. Strawberry frosted.
With sprinkles.
Flynn’s heart started booming in her chest. Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts. Something about Pop—
I really miss Pop-Tarts. The strawberry ones with the frosting and sprinkles were my favorite, Esther’s voice said in her head.
Flynn shot up out of her office and scrambled down the hall to the front desk.
“Oh, hi, Flynn,” Annabelle said, her grin fading as she took in Flynn’s expression. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” Flynn said. “What’s up with all the Pop-Tarts?”
Annabelle blinked. “What Pop-Tarts?”
“In Esther’s—in my desk. There’s Pop-Tarts.” Flynn felt a bead of cold sweat run down the back of her neck. Her heart started to race.
It wasn’t possible. They were just dreams.
It wasn’t possible.
“Ohhhhh.” Annabelle giggled. “Those are Esther’s. She had a thing for Pop-Tarts, would eat them all day long if I didn’t make her have something healthy.”
“Get them out.” Flynn pulled on a tight smile. “Please.”
Annabelle’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I do remember seeing them in there when I cleaned out her desk. I must have forgotten to take them out. If I thought they would upset you, I would have. You’re a little pale. Are you okay?”
“No.” Flynn glanced at her watch. It was almost two. She’d put in enough of a presence for the day, right? Five hours including a lunch break. It would have to do. “Look, I’ve got something I need to take care of right now. What was that stuff you were talking about? The stuff that would knock me out? The stuff that you don’t dream with?”
“Oh, Tylenol PM?” Annabelle nodded. “It’ll knock you out. I don’t know about dreams. I didn’t have any when I used it, but I don’t tend to dream much. If you want, I can ask Herman to make a run down to Hannaford’s and—”
“Yes,” Flynn said. “Please. I’ll be in the cottage. Can you have him bring them there?”
“Sure.” Annabelle picked up the desk phone and dialed, then raised her eyes up to Flynn. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Actually, yeah.” Flynn smiled. “Is there a Catholic church within walking distance?”
Chapter Seven
Jake sat in his sister’s Honda Accord and stared across the street into Gordon Chase’s dark office window. If looks could laser, he’d already be inside. As it was, he was waiting patiently to make his move until the last of Chase’s business park neighbors, a lawyer by the name of Finola Scott, finally cleared out of her office. The last thing he needed was anyone tipping off Chase that they’d seen him lu
rking around; still, the key Rhonda Bacon had given him was practically burning a hole in his palm, and he was anxious to use it. He knew that anything he found wouldn’t be admissible in court, but if he knew it was there, he could give Gerard Levy a nudge in the right direction, let the department take it from there. Then he would have fixed what he’d broken, and he could move on from it. Finally forget the whole damn thing. All he had to do was be sure the evidence was really there first, and in order for him to do that, Finola Scott had to go the hell home.
He glanced at the clock glowing green in front of him, watched as 8:52 switched silently to 8:53. Jake thumped his head back against the headrest. This was going to be the longest night of his life. He could feel it.
The cell phone in his shirt pocket vibrated. Glancing back at Finola Scott’s window—light still on, he could see her riffling through the filing cabinet, her and her damn work ethic—he glanced down at the caller ID: The Goodhouse Arms. He flipped the phone open and smiled.
“I didn’t steal your car, Mercy. I borrowed it without permission. Totally different thing.”
“Jake?”
Even with only one syllable, her voice bounced. “Hey, Annabelle. What’s up?”
He leaned forward in his seat as he caught some movement behind Finola Scott’s window; was she finally putting on her coat?
“I know it’s your night off and everything,” Annabelle said, “and I really wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important, you know that, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Oh, good, because I would hate it if you thought I’d just bother you for any old thing, but I didn’t know . . .”
Yes, Finola Scott had definitely put on her coat. And now she was pulling her keys out of her purse.
About damn time.
“. . . and the music is really loud and she won’t answer the phone, and all the shades are drawn and I don’t think there’s been any movement . . .”
Jake shook his head and tried to latch on to something in Annabelle’s conversational meandering that made any sense.
The light in Finola Scott’s office went off.
“Look, Annabelle, I’ve kinda got a thing going on. You wanna cut to the chase?”
“It’s Flynn,” she said, her voice taut with worry. “I’m probably overreacting, so I don’t want to call the police, but—”
“Wait, what?” Jake blinked, glanced away from Finola Scott’s window, and tried to focus. “Why would you have to call the police?”
“Because of the sleeping pills,” Annabelle said, frustration deep in her voice.
Jake’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “What sleeping pills?”
“I told you, Flynn had Herman deliver her a bottle of Tylenol PM this afternoon. Weren’t you listening?”
Jake relaxed. “Tylenol PM are not sleeping pills. They’re glorified antihistamines.”
“Not when mixed with a liter of peppermint schnapps,” Annabelle hissed. “I’m really worried about her. She was acting kinda weird today.”
“And that’s different from every other day how?”
“I’m serious, Jake. She found a bunch of Pop-Tarts in Esther’s desk and got really upset. It was weird. I think she might be . . . you know . . . unstable.”
Jake shrugged. “Again. We’ve covered this ground.”
“But then she asked me to have Herman deliver a bottle of Tylenol PM. When Herman dropped it off, he saw Esther’s old rocking chair just sitting on the porch, and there was an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps on it.”
“I’m sure it’s all fine. If she was alive and well enough to dump the rocker on the porch—”
“That was five hours ago. Music has been blaring from the cottage since three o’clock this afternoon. She’s not answering phone calls. She’s not answering the door.”
Tendrils of alarm began to vibrate within him, and Jake sat up straighter. He didn’t figure Flynn Daly for the suicidal type, but if he’d learned anything while he was a cop, it was that everyone had a surprise or two up their sleeve.
A chill went down his spine. Flynn had just had lunch with Chase. Had she obstinately told Chase she wasn’t going to sell just to be a pain in the ass, to prove to him that she wouldn’t be played? It seemed in her character to do something like that, and people who ended up being a pain in Chase’s ass usually ended up neutralized one way or another.
But Chase wouldn’t hurt her. He had no reason to hurt her.
Unless he had a reason Jake just didn’t know about.
“Christ.” Jake tossed Chase’s office key on the passenger seat and started up the car. “I’m on my way. Go on in there and make sure she’s okay.”
“My key won’t work,” Annabelle said. “Esther never locked up, so I haven’t ever had to try it, but it doesn’t work. And what if . . .”
Jake screeched out of his spot on the street, cutting off Finola Scott’s BMW as he did.
“Jake,” Annabelle said, anxiety thick in her voice. “What if she’s dead? I don’t like dead bodies, Jake. They make me very tense.”
“I’ll be there in two minutes,” he said, running the red light in the center of town. “You go out there and bang on the window, try to peek through the shades. If she doesn’t answer, or you can see she isn’t moving, you call the police whether I’m there yet or not, okay?”
He flipped the phone shut and tossed it down, unconcerned about where it landed, certain even as his heart pounded in his chest that this was a nothing situation. Flynn Daly was the last person in the world who would commit suicide . . .
On purpose. But chasing over-the-counter meds with booze without thinking first? She seems exactly the type.
. . . and it was a hell of a stretch to think that Chase would do anything to her . . .
Although Esther got in his way, too, and look where she is now.
A vision flashed in his mind: Flynn, lying on the bed where they’d found Esther, body limp, dead eyes staring blankly out into the world. He pounded the accelerator. He had no idea why he was so panicked, she was probably fine, but reason wasn’t a player at the moment. He had to get to that cottage, had to see for himself that Flynn was okay even though he knew in his gut that she was.
He ran a stop sign.
He’d worry about how that made sense later.
Flynn sat cross-legged on the bed in her golden aura’d bedroom, smiling smugly at Aunt Esther, who rocked on the ghostly chair in the corner. As one of the many anti-Esther tactics she’d employed that afternoon, Flynn had dumped the real rocking chair on the porch. She’d also doused the room with holy water, which turned out to be more emotionally comforting than technically effective. In a case of true serendipity, when she was out in the garden shed looking for wood she could fashion a cross from, she’d found a CD player with AC/DC’s Back in Black in a garden shed and been hit by inspiration. Blaring the music hadn’t prevented Esther from visiting, but the obvious annoyance on the old lady’s face as she tried to shout over the music was oddly gratifying. Flynn put her hand to her ear and shook her head at her aunt’s ghost.
“Sorry?” she yelled. “I can’t seem to hear you, lady. Maybe you’d better just go find that white light, because I’m of no use to you if you can’t communicate with me, right?”
Aunt Esther merely rolled her eyes and wound another piece of purple yarn around the tip of one knitting needle.
Okay, fine. So maybe the blaring music wasn’t working as far as the general haunting went, but it sure was shutting up Aunt Esther. That was a good thing. That was progress.
BOOM! Flynn gasped and jerked as a loud banging sound came from the living room. What the . . . ? She turned wide eyes on Esther.
“Was that you?”
Esther put her hand to her ear, shrugged, and pointed at the stereo.
Flynn narrowed her eyes. “No one likes a smart-ass, lady.”
THWACK! The bedroom door burst open and suddenly Tucker was in the room, his eyes all wide a
nd crazy. Behind him, Annabelle flew in and ran to the CD player, which she shut off. The quiet was so marked, it felt loud. On the bed, Tucker was shaking Flynn’s sleeping body, and Flynn could feel the pull of his will on her.
“Flynn!” Her teeth rattled as he shook her shoulders. “Flynn! Wake up, goddamnit!”
As Flynn felt herself being yanked back, she caught one last glimpse of Esther grinning, and heard the old lady’s parting shot: “We’ll talk later, dear.”
With an almost audible pop, Flynn’s eyes opened and she looked up to see Tucker’s face just inches from her own. His cheeks were red, his eyes crazy, his breath ragged and coming down over her in rough, angry waves. His right hand came up from her shoulder to touch her face, and she could see his Adam’s apple jump as he swallowed hard.
“Flynn,” he said, his voice oddly soft, “what the hell did you—”
But then Annabelle pushed herself between them, pulling Flynn into a tight, bouncy hug.
“Oh, my God, Flynn. I was so worried!” Annabelle’s bony arms wrapped around Flynn, and it kinda hurt, but Flynn fought the urge to recoil. Instead, she glanced up to see Tucker stepping back from the bed, running his hand through his hair. He turned his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face, but based on the tension in his stance, she guessed he was at least a little pissed off. Which didn’t make any sense. She was the one who’d been woken up like a crackhead on an episode of COPS.
“. . . and the music was playing and I couldn’t see through the shades and my key doesn’t work so we had to break the door down and . . .”
Annabelle was chattering away, her hands grasping at Flynn’s as she spoke.
“. . . but whatever it is, it’s not worth your life. Life is so precious, Flynn. So precious, and you have to know that you’re so much better than—”
Flynn held up her hand to shush Annabelle.
“Wait. What? You guys think I tried to kill myself?”
Tucker motioned toward the bottle of Tylenol PM on the nightstand by her bed, his eyes blazing with accusation. When he spoke, however, his voice was calm and controlled. “Between this and the empty bottle of booze sitting on the porch, what did you expect us to think? You’re out here for hours, music blaring, no sign of life . . .”
Crazy in Love Page 10
