Down & Dead In Dixie (Down & Dead, Inc. Series)

by Vicki Hinze

  Mark gently squeezed my hand. “It’ll all settle, Daisy. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Mr. Perini grabbed something from the bookshelf near the stack of license plates and followed him. “Be right back. I’m going to walk Dexter out.”

  Moments later, an engine rumbled outside and brakes squealed. “What is that?” I looked at Mark. “It can’t be them.” Adriano. Marcello. Keller and Johnson. “It’s too soon.”

  Mark looked out a window near the door. “It’s not them.” He looked back at me. “It’s a truck—an eighteen wheeler.”

  “What’s an eighteen wheeler doing on this street?” Emily asked Lester.

  I wondered the same thing. It didn’t belong in a little neighborhood like this unless . . . no, it wouldn’t be delivering coffins at this time of night.

  “I don’t know,” Lester said, loosening his tie.

  Mark stepped back from the window and faced the three of us. “I don’t know either, but Dexter left and Paul’s talking to the truck driver.”

  Emily elbowed Lester. “Best see to it now. No better time.”

  He nodded and reached to his inside pocket and pulled out a thick envelope then passed it to Daisy. “This is for the two of you. Go ahead and open it.”

  I broke the seal and nearly hit the floor. It was crammed with hundred dollar bills. “Lester, no.” I looked from it to Mark and then to Lester. “There’s thousands of dollars in here.”

  “Yep. Three-hundred fifty thousand, to be exact.” He leveled an even look on me. “You and Mark need front money to get started. Paul will explain all that.”

  “I—we can’t take this, Lester.” I fought tears. “Where did you get this?”

  “It’s mine and I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I told you he had money, pet,” Emily added. “Don’t you remember?”

  “I remember.” I eyed Lester warily. “But all this time—bail money?”

  He couldn’t hold my gaze, and let his drop to the skirt of my gown. “I had to know, Daisy girl.”

  “Know what?”

  “If I could trust you.” He did look up at me then. “When you used your grocery money to get me out of jail . . . I knew then.”

  “So you did it over and again?” I’d eaten peanut butter for a solid week every time.

  “I couldn’t believe it.” He glanced at Mark. “I’m an old man. She thought I had nothing. I couldn’t do a thing for her, and worse, I cost her. But she still stayed put and kept me under her wing. See why I say she’ll never leave you, son.” He took my hand. “You know I been by myself most of my life, Daisy. I saw what you done with my own eyes, but I just couldn’t believe that a woman like you would take me into her heart like we was family. But you did. And then you rescued me again and again, like I was somebody important.”

  “You are somebody important. You always have been.” He tested me. Again and again. “So after you got it through your head I’d keep bailing you out, why didn’t you tell me the truth?” A thought ran through my mind that hurt. “Are you telling me after all that, you still didn’t trust me?”

  “No! I trusted you.” He looked away.

  “I want an answer, Lester. I deserve one, too.”

  “Yeah, I guess you do.” He shuffled and slumped, then finally looked at me, his wrinkled eyes burning with truth. “Fact of the matter is, I was scared to tell you then. If I told you what I’d done, then you wouldn’t trust me. I didn’t want to hurt you, girl, but I didn’t want you to kick me to the curb, either, and I was scared you might.” He looked at Mark. “I was selfish, pure and simple.”

  He feared losing me. Me. The orphan. “You were not selfish.” I hugged him. He kept the truth to himself to assure I stayed. “You risked yourself to bust me out of jail and to keep me from walking in on the thugs ransacking my apartment. There’s nothing selfish in that.”

  “You forgive me?” Surprise lit his eyes. “I know you got stuck with a peanut butter diet every time you bailed me out of jail, Daisy, and I’m sorry. I really am. How can you forgive me for that?”

  “You’re an easy man to forgive.” That earned me a blank look, so I made the reason plain. “I love you.”

  He brightened. “I love you too, Daisy girl.”

  Mr. Perini came back in and shut the door. “Okay, then. You two better change clothes—”

  “Wait.” Lester lifted a hand. “What’s with the eighteen wheeler, and why’d you take that tracker outside with you. I notice you ain’t carrying it now.”

  “He’s astute, no?” Mr. Perini smiled. “That truck will soon be on its way to Minnesota.”

  “Ah, Minnesota.” Lester let out a whoop that dissolved into a chuckle.

  “What?” I asked, then looked at Mark.

  “Beats me,” he said, every bit as clueless.

  “The driver put the tracker on the truck.” Paul’s eyes lit up. “Divide and conquer, Daisy. Marcello and Adriano will be here, but they’ll also have half their people following that tracker. They’ll think you’re on the move—at least, they will until they find out you two are dead.”

  “What about the driver?” Their men wouldn’t take being duped kindly. The truck driver would feel the brunt of that. “Will he be safe?”

  “He’ll be fine. He won’t know the tracker is on his truck.”

  Mark disputed that. “You handed him the tracker, Mr. Perini. I saw it. How can he not know?”

  “I talked to this driver, who happens to own the truck. He doesn’t drive loads anymore. I didn’t talk to the driver heading to Minnesota. He will have no idea he’s carrying a tracker.”

  Mark grimaced. “Which means Marcello and Adriano’s goons will blindside him.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Mark,” Lester said. “Well, not anymore. The families use a little more finesse now. He’ll be fine.” Lester turned to Mr. Perini. “Clever.” Lester rubbed his chin. “Owner’s one of ours?”

  Mr. Perini nodded.

  Ours? Our what? I should ask. I knew it, but I really didn’t want to know. I limited my concern to the driver. If Lester said the man would be safe, then he would be safe. Lester wouldn’t lie about something like that.

  “Okay, the driver’s safe.” Mark grunted, obviously opting not to explore that one of ours either. “But Marcello and Adriano and all their thugs will be back here once they figure out the tracker was planted on the truck and that’s a dead-end for them. Which means they’ll all be here for the funeral.”

  “No doubt.” Mr. Perini nodded. “But don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.”

  “Covered how?” Mark pushed. “They’re going to demand to see our dead bodies, Mr. Perini.”

  “Yes. They surely will.”

  That set Mark back on his heels. “We won’t be dead—or will we?” His uncertainty about that triggered my own.

  “Technically, yes, but—oh, I see you’re concerned.” He clapped Mark’s shoulder. “No, of course you and Daisy won’t be dead, though she’ll be Rose, then, and you’ll be Matthew Green.”

  “So how can they see our dead bodies if we’re not dead?”

  “I have it covered—and I’ll tell you in due time, Mark. It’s better that you know only what you must know when you must know it.” Paul motioned to Barry. “Get the crew geared up. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.” Barry left without a backward look.

  Paul waited until he had gone and the sound of the door thudded closed behind him, then he turned back to Mark. “You’re going to have to trust me. I’ve been through this before and you haven’t, eh? Like I said, it’s best for you not to know any more than is necessary at a given time.”

  Trust? On what basis? I have trouble with trust. I’ve never denied it, not even to myself. And Mr. Perini was, after all, a stranger to me and I was placing my life and Mark’s in his hands by trusting him with our deaths. “Why is secrecy important, Mr. Perini?” I asked. “In thirty minutes, we’ll be d
ead.”

  He looked me right in the eye. “Because you die today. But your final arrangements won’t be final for three days. A lot can happen in three days, Daisy.”

  “Three days?” Mark asked. “Why so long?”

  “We have to wait for Jackson to get here,” Lester told them. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe his only sister dies and he don’t come to the funeral.”

  “He’s right,” I told Mark. Worrying my lip, I thought this through, looking for a way—any credible way—to spare Jackson from getting mixed up in this.

  I failed to find one. “Jackson has to be here for this to work. Rachel and Chris, too.”

  Mark grunted. “Considering the paperwork Dexter is handling later this morning, I doubt Rachel or Chris will come here for my funeral. None of them will. Well, maybe Tank and Craig Parker but not Rachel.”

  That truth hurt him. I could hear that it did and looped our arms, then said to Mr. Perini, “I’ve been thinking through all this, and there’s one thing I see as a problem. I’m afraid it has the potential to be a big one.”

  “What’s that?” Paul’s surprise fell to keen curiosity.

  “Okay, so we die and are buried,” I said. “What’s to stop any of them—Keller, Johnson, Marcello or Adriano—from digging us up and finding our coffins empty?” I glanced at Mark. “We’re never going to have a minute of peace. We’ll be looking over our shoulders all day, every day, for the rest of our lives.”

  “Naw, you won’t.” Lester pulled his loosened tie off and stuffed it into his pocket. The ends dangled at his hip.

  “I don’t see how we won’t.” I crossed my arms. “First thing every morning it’s going to be, is today the day they dig us up? The day they find us?”

  “Daisy’s right,” Mark said. “Have you considered that, Mr. Perini?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well?” Again, Mark pushed. “What do we do about it?”

  The light overhead reflected in his eyes and sparked a mischievous twinkle. “I told you. Trust me.”

  I looked at Mark and he at me. Simultaneously, we shrugged, accepting that we had no choice.

  Who knew what he had in mind? Maybe his mind was as much a maze as Lester’s. But things worked out for Lester, who actually was quite clever, and he looked totally relaxed. If I were going to be in jeopardy, Lester would not be relaxed. Knowing that, I relaxed, too. “It’s not like we’ve got other options,” I told Mark. “Mr. Perini’s handled everything else that’s come along. He’ll handle this, too.”

  Mark hesitated. All the reasons against trust ran through his expressions like cars circling a racetrack. But when he spoke, he looked at peace about it. “All right, then. We’ll trust you.”

  “Sensible decision.” Paul looked extremely pleased. “Now, you two go change your clothes and let’s get you killed.”

  In the same ante-room where I’d dressed before, I changed clothes and carefully hung the lovely gown back on its hanger. It’d been a perfect wedding. I fingered the delicate fabric and let out a sigh. If only…

  “Daisy, are you ready?” Mark called out from the other side of the door.

  Back in my Cinderella garb, I opened the door and faced my patch-less pirate. “Ready.”

  Together we joined the others in the reception area.

  “Ah, good.” Mr. Perini stood up. “We’re cutting it close. It’s nearly dawn. Let’s hurry.”

  “Um, how are we going to wreck?”

  “Aided by mother nature, my boy.” Mr. Perini shoved on his red newsboy cap then clapped Mark’s shoulder. “Barry will tell you exactly what to do…”

  Chapter 13

  ON THE FRONT lawn, Mark got instructions from Barry while Lester and I said our good-byes, and then Mark and I got into the Honda. I buckled up. “So what now?”

  “I drive and follow him.”

  Surprise rippled through me. “That’s it? That’s our instructions?”

  “That’s it.”

  I wrung my hands. I’d always hated it when women did that, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “I don’t like the idea of not being prepared. I mean, if we’re the ones doing the dying, shouldn’t we be prepared?”

  Mark gave me a look. “People die unprepared all the time, Daisy.”

  “Yeah, but they really die. I don’t want to really die.”

  He clasped my hand. I couldn’t tell if it was clammy with sweat or freezing. “We’re not going to really die.”

  How could he sound so confident? So calm? My insides felt like they were stuck in a whirring blender. “What else did he tell you?”

  “I told you what he said.”

  “You didn’t tell me all of it.” I sniffed in the darkness—loudly, to be sure he didn’t miss it. “I know you Mark Jensen. He told you something or you’d at least be tense. You just don’t want to tell me.”

  “I told you what he said,” he repeated, sparing me a glance. “Where’s your wedding dress? I thought you were going to wear it.”

  His face even looked good in the green light cast from the dash. How could anyone look good green?

  “What am I supposed to make of that?” He gripped the wheel. “I wasn’t sure what to make of you wanting to die in it, so I sure don’t know what to make of you not wanting to die in it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Maybe he’d been around Lester and Emily too much. Or I had. Even applying Lester-logic, Mark’s comments made no sense.

  “Did you want to wear it to signal me that when we die, our marriage dies, too? Or were you telling me that you were taking me with you? Or that you—”

  He wasn’t as calm as he’d seemed. I’d have to remember that. Right now, though, he needed reassuring. “I was thinking that I’d be taking you with me through eternity.”

  “Oh.” He smiled. “I like that.” A second later, he grunted. “But you didn’t wear it. I don’t like that you changed your mind. So you are dumping me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not dumping you.” What was wrong with him? Even nervous, the man rarely lacked confidence.

  “Harrumph. Interesting.”

  “Interesting?” I sat here a nervous wreck and he was worried about why I was and wasn’t wearing my wedding dress? We were about to die—hopefully without really dying, but with Mr. Perini and Lester at the helm . . . who knew?

  “Fascinating,” Mark said. “I could be wrong, of course, but I think you might not be as opposed to our marriage as I initially thought.” He glanced over. “I have to tell you, Daisy, I was a little stung by your reluctance to marry me.”

  Flabbergasted, I blurted out the truth. “How was I supposed to react? I’m not a mind reader, Mark. They said we should marry. You said nothing. I was stunned by the suggestion. I didn’t see it coming, and I had no idea how you were reacting to it. You sure weren’t saying. I didn’t know how to react anymore than you did. I mean, I don’t even know how you feel about me. Isn’t that reason enough to hedge?”

  “Sputter.”

  “What?” What was he talking about now?

  “You didn’t hedge, you sputtered.”

  I probably had. “I didn't see you jumping in—”

  “I did. I said I wanted the marriage to be real. That’s jumping in.”

  True. But it didn’t resolve other issues. How did he feel about me? He still hadn’t told me, and I’d been clear on that. I’d specifically said I had no idea how he felt about me. “Okay, you did. But I didn’t know why. That’s kind of important, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” he agreed. “But how could you not know why?” Now he sounded baffled. “We connected the first time we met, Daisy. Are you going to sit there and say we didn’t?”

  “I never said that.” Flustered, I lifted my hands. “I was never opposed to marrying you, okay?”

  “Me either, Daisy.”

  I caught a sharp breath and the heat left my voice. “So that’s good. We understand each other then.” I still didn’t have a clue if he loved me or he
just didn’t want to die alone or be alone when he tackled his fresh start. Or if he wanted family and I was it.

  “Yeah, I think we do.” He spared her another glance. “Now tell me the truth. Why didn’t you wear your wedding gown?”

  Typical male. Push and push. And then push some more. “It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever had. And I felt beautiful in it.”

  “You were. Stunningly beautiful. So why not wear it?”

  Stunningly beautiful. I’d remember those words forever. He thought I was stunningly beautiful. And he knew there was more. He’d always known, and I suppose he always would. No holding back anything from this one. “I couldn’t bear to get blood on it. I told Emily I wanted to wear it for the funeral instead.”

  “Closer to the whole truth, but that’s not all of it, is it, Daisy?”

  The lights from the car streaked across a wide ditch and beyond it, through the trees lining the road. “It’s almost all.” I read a Dangerous Curve sign and spotted a little cluster of white crosses just beyond the road’s shoulder.

  “You promised me honesty. The whole truth is honest.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll tell you later.” I felt far too emotional to admit the truth. The look in Mark’s eyes, that special twinkle that was just for me . . . I’d worn that dress and stood before the altar with him. I wanted to wear it always and feel as perfect as I felt in that moment.

  “I knew you were holding out on me, Daisy Jensen.”

  Daisy Jensen. It sounded good. Right. “Just a little.”

  “And just so you know I know. That later meant really later not just a little later. I can tell the difference.” He clasped my hand. “But one day you’ll tell me.”

  Boy, could he tell the difference. That’s exactly what she’d meant. Later as in a long, long time from now. “Maybe when we’re old and gray and you’ve lost all your hair and teeth.”

  Mark laughed. “How charming a picture you paint of me in our future.”

  “Hey, I’m picturing us living long enough to get old and gray and you to get bald and toothless. In our situation, that’s having a pretty vivid imagination, don’t you think?”