A Poison Manicure & Peach Liqueur

by Traci Andrighetti

  "So, in a crazy twist, Ivy did me a favor. And this whole situation would've ended with Jade's death if you'd let the police do their job."

  His words reminded me of Zac. How I wished I could go back to that night at the Lobster Pot and listen to him, be with him, hold on to him. But I couldn't afford to think about that.

  "Don't blame me for what you did." I sounded as hard as the rock wall. "The police would've connected her murder to you, and they'll figure out you killed Sabine too."

  "I've already taken care of that." His tone was casual as though he was talking about mowing the lawn. "Thanks to the pictures I took when I followed Jade to a motel, Detective Marshall arrested Clark this morning."

  My stomach dropped like it had fallen into a well—or a flooded cave. The detective was infamous for hasty arrests. And now that he had evidence against Clark, Randall might get away with murder.

  I arrived at the exit and stopped.

  The water gushed to my knees, but I couldn't feel it. My legs were going numb.

  I contemplated making a swim for the exit, but in the shallow depth he would have no trouble gunning me down.

  "Time to go to your grave." Randall grabbed my hair and pushed me forward with the pistol, preventing any chance I had of escape.

  Bile bubbled from my belly like water from the ocean. Was this it? Was I going to Davy Jones' locker?

  "Get in." He shoved my head low and forced me into the cave.

  I entered with a splash. The water came to my collarbone, and it was so gelid that I started shivering. "Mr. Olcott, please. Don't leave me here to drown."

  With the flashlight under his arm and the gun in his hand, he dragged a large rock in front of the hole. "According to my research, a person can only last thirty to sixty minutes in water at this temperature. So the good news is you might freeze to death first."

  How comforting. Pleading wasn't going to work, so I decided to try another tactic. "Sabine told me about the mermaid on the seahorse, and I texted Detective Marshall the description this morning."

  Randall stood as still as the stone he was holding.

  Apparently, Sabine had told the truth about the killer's father's tattoo. Too bad I wasn't telling the truth about the text.

  He placed the rock at the opening. "There are no pictures of my father's chest, and everyone knows Sabine LaSalle is a liar. And like I said, I have powerful people in my corner."

  I wanted to scream at him and tell him that Gia and my aunt would bring him to justice, but I didn't dare call attention to them. A part of me knew he had awful plans for them too, and my stomach contorted at the thought. I would've given anything to be able to warn them, but I was in no position to help myself, much less my family.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and kicked my legs to generate some heat.

  It didn't work.

  If only I'd told my aunt where I was going.

  But I hadn't.

  And I had no way to contact anyone.

  In the frigid water the fight ebbed from my body. As did the hope.

  Nevertheless, there was something I had to know. "Why go to such horrible lengths to hide your Viagra use?"

  Randall heaved a rock onto the pile, leaving a ten-inch window for me to see out. Then he reached inside and tweaked my nose, and there was something like affection in his eyes. "Ladies don't ask personal questions."

  I wanted to tell him to rot in hell—or at least that I hoped he'd lose the election—but my teeth were chattering too badly.

  He lifted one last rock. "Here our ways divide."

  The rock blocked the opening.

  And my world went black.

  * * *

  Terror swept over me in glacial waves.

  To prevent a panic attack, I started my breathing exercise, inhaling the stale cavern air. For whatever it was worth, I told myself I was in a spa flotation tank, but reality told me I was in a watery grave.

  Mine.

  Although it seemed like a fatal mistake, I stopped kicking to keep warm. I was losing a sense of where I was in the opaque darkness, and I couldn't drift deeper into the cave, or I was a gone girl. For any chance of escape, I needed to stay at the barricade Randall made. And somehow, I had to find a way to knock it down.

  Anchoring my feet in jagged grooves on the cave floor, I leaned forward and pushed with trembling limbs.

  Nothing budged.

  My arms had grown too weak from the wintry temperatures.

  I put numb hands on either side of the narrow cave wall and raised my feet to the barricade.

  My hand slipped on some slime, and I plunged below the black water, submerging my head.

  I surfaced and floated supine. Placing my hands on the walls, I pressed my boots against the barricade and pushed as hard as I could manage.

  The rocks stood steadfast.

  I wasn't sure I was strong enough under normal conditions to move any of the rocks. To make matters worse, I didn't know whether I was pushing the right ones.

  Was I turned around?

  Something slammed into the cave with a thwack, and I jumped upright.

  Had help arrived?

  My chest inflated with hope. I cocked my head and listened.

  Water poured in.

  I exhaled in despair. The sound had been caused by a surging wave, not by someone coming to save me. Meanwhile, the water inched up my neck.

  I reached for the cave ceiling.

  There was an arm's length of space—and air—left.

  My body shook so hard I was practically convulsing. But I barely felt the cold. I could no longer feel much of anything except exhaustion.

  I leaned against a wall and slid down the side. My strength was disappearing. Fast.

  Returning to my back, I extended my arms to either side of the cave wall and prepared to kick the barricade. But my legs didn't cooperate. They hardly moved.

  My brain told me I should have been panicked, and yet I was at peace.

  I let go of the walls.

  And floated.

  A bright light appeared.

  Was this what people see when they die?

  A scarlet blur entered the light.

  Was it Sabine hanging in the nativity spotlight?

  No, not in heaven. She must be beckoning me to join her.

  But hold on a sec. How'd she get in here?

  Or…

  Had I gone to hell? And if I had, why wasn't I warm?

  The scarlet blur moved closer.

  That's not Sabine. It's a candle.

  And a cardinal.

  They're Christmas decorations.

  On a bowler hat?

  Harriet's constipated look came into hazy focus, highlighted by a wavering light.

  So I did go to hell.

  But what had I done to deserve a netherworld with The McCurmudgeon's head and hat in it?

  "Grab my scarf," her head shouted over the din of the ocean.

  Drops of water sprinkled onto my mouth and nose.

  "Come out of your coma. The cave is filling up." The head barked the command through a hole in the rock like a harried tour guide. "I'm going to throw the scarf again."

  Water splashed in my eye, and I blinked.

  Harriet came into sharp focus thanks to the electric candle on her hat and a flashlight she held ghost-story-at-camp style under her chin.

  This isn't an underworld hell—it's an earthly one.

  I'm alive.

  I tried to stand up, but I couldn't move, which was just as well because my face was about a foot from the rock ceiling.

  "I knew this partnership was going to be a pain." She grabbed my boot and used her candy cane scarf to tie me to a rock to prevent me from drifting further into the cave. Then she dismantled Randall's stonework with the ease of Hercules and pulled me by the ankles from my almost grave.

  I struggled to stand. "You're strong."

  "This is nothing. You should see the potted plants I have to drag inside every winter." She took my han
ds and hoisted me to my feet. "Upsy-daisy, or you'll be pushing them."

  My legs were fluid like the waist-high water, so I leaned against the wall.

  She tied the scarf around my wrists. Then she turned and pulled my arms over her head. "Lean on my back."

  I hung from her like a CPR dummy.

  She gave a disgusted snort. "For such a dainty-looking thing, you're dead weight."

  Just about.

  "Now hang tight. We're gonna blow this cave." She waded toward the exit with me half hanging, half floating from her neck. Despite the extra weight, she plowed through the incoming tidal waves with the force of a hippopotamus on the hunt.

  Within minutes she'd pulled me from the smugglers' caves to the safety of the nearby beach.

  The sun had come out, and the sky was a celestial blue.

  "Let's get you untied." Harriet raised my arms and removed the scarf.

  I collapsed, shivering, onto the semi-warm sand. Shading my eyes, I squinted at her. "Thank you for rescuing me."

  Her chins jiggled. "We've got a contract, remember?" She unzipped her Gortex jacket. "And nothing and no one's getting you out of it."

  She was right about our partnership—it wasn't going to be a party. "How did you know I was in the cave?"

  Harriet pulled a phone from an inner breast pocket and began tapping the display. "I was at the Shoreline Café, and I saw Randall go by, and then you. Since it's not exactly beach weather, I figured you two were going to rendezvous about Sabine's murder. Luckily for you, I followed him to the cave to get the scoop."

  A tightness overtook my chest. "Where is he?"

  "Probably out pretending to be an upstanding member of the community." She put the phone to her ear. "That man is slicker than an oil-dipped seal. I'm surprised he never ran for political office."

  I didn't have time to tell her he was about to do precisely that. "You've got to call 9-1-1."

  "I'm doing that now." She held up a hand to silence me. "Yes, I need an ambulance and the police at Two Mile Beach. There's been an attempted murder at the smugglers' caves."

  I shivered, and it wasn't from hypothermia. I was terrified Randall was on his way to The Clip and Sip to get revenge against my family.

  "Have you seen Cassidi Conti?" A man shouted from down the shore.

  Zac.

  A flush of warmth spread through me. I was going to see him again, and he would help me warn Gia and Aunt M.

  "Over here." Harriet flailed her arms, and her candle flickered. "She's safe, and help is on the way."

  Zac ran to my side and removed his coat. "We need to get you to the hospital."

  "I'll be fine." I gazed at him as he knelt and bundled me up. "But Gia and my aunt are in danger."

  "They followed me here in the Caddy." He pressed his lips to my forehead and caressed my cheek. "I went by the salon to tell you about my meeting with Randall, and Magnolia said you were in trouble."

  I wanted to warn him about Randall, but I was so tired that I was losing the will to speak.

  "We're comin', Cassidi Lee," my aunt called.

  I smiled at her voice.

  With the people I loved around me, I knew everything was going to be all right.

  Magnolia galloped up to Harriet like the Lone Ranger on Silver—except, instead of Tonto, she had Gia as a somewhat trusty sidekick. "What happened?" She shook a coiled rope. "Who did this to my niece?"

  Gia smacked a fist into her palm. "I'll take whoever it was out with my bare hands."

  And with the brass knuckles she was wearing.

  Sirens screamed in the distance.

  I closed my eyes. "How did you guys know where I was?"

  Zac rubbed my hands. "We didn't. A friend of your aunt's told her."

  My aunt's hive hovered over me. With her pink hair and yellow rain jacket, she looked like a no. 2 pencil.

  "My gizzard told me somethin' was amiss, and the next thing you know Barry was singin' 'We Live on Borrowed Time' and 'Beyond the Sea.'"

  At the reference to Mr. Manilow, my world went black again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "It's as cold as the cave in here." I stood alone in my bedroom, surprised I'd said that aloud. The comment was an attempt to lessen the lingering tension of my near-death experience, but it only increased my unease.

  Tightening the belt on my bathrobe, I crept down the stairs. The house was too quiet for a Sunday at ten a.m. "Like a cave grave."

  I shuddered and resolved to stop the morbid thoughts, not to mention the talking to myself. Then I stepped off the stairway onto…

  Sand?

  Dumbfounded, I stared at my feet. The floor looked like Two Mile Beach.

  I flashed back to the sedative the hospital had prescribed to me.

  Had those pills contained LSD?

  I trudged into the salon, and what I saw further persuaded me that I was on a psychedelic trip. There was a surfboard stand, blow-up palm trees, tiki torches, plastic leis, and a water-filled kiddie pool—with a crab that was smiling at me.

  The back door slammed, and the cowbell clanked.

  My aunt entered the salon looking like a pink-haired Annette Funicello after a lot of long, hard summers on the beach. "How you feelin', cutie pie?"

  "Like I'm on the set of Beach Blanket Bingo or Gidget Goes Hawaii." I picked up a dried starfish. "What is all of this?"

  "The reverse Christmas," Gia said behind me.

  "That's today?" I spun around to face my cousin, but instead I found Bond Girl Ursula Andress in the iconic white bikini.

  "Why not?" She flipped her wet blonde wig. "Thanks to the national news, the whole country heard about Randall's arrest yesterday. So now we can get back to business."

  I approached her, kicking a conch shell out of my way. "I should cancel this clambake since you didn't consult me."

  "But I got a pig roastin' on the grill." Magnolia sounded frantic at the idea of wasted meat.

  I didn't know what was more upsetting—not being informed about the promo date or the news of that poor pig. "We can refrigerate the food, Aunt M. The problem is that we haven't done any marketing, so we've got a salon full of sand for nothing."

  Gia sauntered to her station. "About that." She spritzed her wig with sea-scented beach spray. "I put flyers into those living nativity programs we passed out at the church, and the response was so huge I had to hire stylists to fill all of our stations."

  My aunt squealed—like a pig. "And you're booked through the New Year, sugar plum."

  I sunk into my salon chair. Six full-time stylists for a week and a half would go a long way toward keeping The Clip and Sip afloat—make that in business. "I can't believe it."

  "Oh, that's not the surprising part." Gia held out her hand in a check-this-out gesture—and showed off her steel-tipped nails. "Magnolia's old wigs were the selling point."

  My aunt touched her Funicello-ized hive. "When the audience saw the cast members' hairdos, they thought we were advertising for the event."

  Gia inspected my aunt's vintage red one-piece. "Since we're talking about the '60s, is that where you dug up that bathing suit?"

  Magnolia glanced at her fringed hips. "I keep it in Carlene's trunk."

  "What don't you keep in there?" Gia asked.

  A knock sounded at the salon door, and Detective Marshall peered through the glass.

  Gia's hand moved to the diver's knife on her bikini bottom belt. "What's Dick Marshall doing here?"

  My aunt slipped into a yellow beach cover-up, or possibly a Doris Day nightgown. "Let me git that." She padded into the reception area and jerked open the door. "This had better be about my guns you people stole, because you need to give those back."

  Detective Ohlsen stepped onto the porch. "We can discuss that on the day you leave town."

  Her face furrowed, and I was afraid she would pull a Bonnie Parker on him. "Let them in, Aunt M."

  She moved aside, and the men entered, staring at the sand.

  Detective M
arshall removed his reflective sunglasses and scanned the salon. "I didn't think you'd go to the beach again after yesterday."

  "Me either." I shot my cousin the stink eye. "But we're having a promotional event."

  Gia gave the detective her best Bond Girl stare. "And it starts in an hour."

  Detective Ohlsen moved in front of his colleague. "This won't take long. Lester and I wanted to check on Cassidi and let you know about some developments."

  As far as I could tell, Lester was as concerned about me as a corpse. But I took a seat on the waiting room couch next to Gia, and Magnolia stayed by the door.

  Detective Ohlsen rubbed his eyes. "We cleared Clark Graham of any involvement in the murders, and he was released last night. And thanks to the national news coverage, we received a call from a brother of Jade's out in San Francisco, Quan Liu. He said they're no relation to Mei."

  So Jade was a fraud, but her last name was legit.

  He glanced at Detective Marshall, who stepped closer to the couch. "Quan also said she lost her law license last year for fabricating evidence to win a case. Apparently, she hatched a plan to exploit the fact that she and Mei had the same last name."

  Gia twisted a lock of wig, trying to seem casual. But I knew she was freaking out inside—like me.

  We hadn't returned Mei's book to Bree because we hadn't had the chance. Were we about to get the book thrown at us for withholding the grammar book evidence?

  Detective Marshall folded his arms. "We think Jade identified her blackmail victims through a fishing exhibit at a Seattle museum near where she lived."

  He was referring to the one associated with the book Amy and I had used to search for the tattoos, but I wasn't going to confess that to him.

  "For the record, Randall, Clark, and The Reverend weren't her only targets." Detective Ohlsen tugged at the waistband of his pants. "A couple of other victims came forward last night."

  My aunt scratched her head. "And all their papas did the bedroom rodeo at that chicken ranch?"

  He stumbled on the sand. "The parlor house was popular in its heyday."

  "It was those two-for-one specials," Gia said.

  Silence fell over the salon, and I willed the Bond Girl to go back to her Jeannie bottle. "Am I allowed to know where Randall was apprehended?"