Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

by Blaize Clement

  “So you handled it?”

  “Yeah, it was just a favor to the guy. I might need his help in London someday.”

  “When was final payment made?”

  “It hasn’t been made yet. It’ll be finalized on January first.”

  “In two weeks?”

  “Right.”

  All my nerve endings were standing up waving red flags, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was still a little suspicious of Ethan or because what he’d said pointed to something that was important.

  I said, “How’d you know the company you dealt with was a shell company?”

  “Because the check they sent was cut by BiZogen Research, and the company buying the property was Zogenetic Industries.”

  An icy trickle crawled down my spine. “Do you know anything about BiZogen Research?”

  “Not a thing, do you?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t, but I intended to find out.

  The waiter brought our salads, and for a few minutes we filled time nodding yes to an offer of fresh ground pepper and then watching with faked rapt attention while he turned the pepper mill. You would have thought we were aboriginal people who’d just newly arrived in America and had never seen such an astonishing thing before. That’s when I realized that Ethan was just as nervous as I was, a realization that hit me like a thunderbolt. I’d known all along he was interested in me, but not that he was that interested. It was such a pleasant surprise that I smiled sweetly at him, the way you smile at a baby who’s doing something especially cute. Nothing like knowing a man is nervous in her presence to make a woman feel powerful.

  His shoulders relaxed and we both began to talk about safe things—the chill weather and wasn’t it a shame that all those tourists weren’t enjoying the beach, the salads and wasn’t the house dressing just the best, the music playing and wasn’t it smooth. The waiter whisked away our empty salad plates and replaced them with plates of grouper grilled exactly the way I like it, plain, with just a squeeze of lime and no yukky sauces to hide the fresh sea taste. With it we had what the menu had described as a “medley” of grilled vegetables—zucchini and snow peas and some broccoli flowerets. None of it was as good as what Michael makes on his prize grill, but then not many chefs cook as well as Michael.

  I had long since polished off my margarita and switched to water, and I noticed that Ethan had done the same. I liked that in him. Too many men guzzle down alcohol like they have to have it in order to boost their spirits or their nerve or their egos. The fact that Ethan was cool without booze made him go up another notch in my estimation.

  The musicians had moved from light listening music to dreamy dance music, and a few couples were on the dance floor.

  Ethan said, “Care to dance?”

  All my newfound feeling of female power went flying into space.

  “Dance?”

  “You know, the thing where two people stand with their arms around each other and move to music.”

  I hadn’t danced since a New Year’s Eve party just before Todd and Christy were killed. I hadn’t thought I’d ever dance again, hadn’t thought I’d ever be in another man’s arms again.

  I felt the old familiar tug of loss and grief and hopelessness—and let it go. I do not honor my husband or my child by living as if I had died with them.

  Ethan was looking at me with a dark shadow in his eyes. “Something wrong?”

  “No, I just spaced out for a minute. I couldn’t remember if I left water out for the last cat I saw today, but I did.”

  He nodded, eyes hooded, not believing me for one minute but letting his disbelief go to the same place I’d sent my sadness. Some things are better left unsaid. Some old wounds are better left under their scabs. I was glad we both understood that.

  I said, “To tell the truth, I haven’t danced in a long time. I’m pretty rusty.”

  “Then it’s time you did it again.”

  I rubbed my sweaty palms on my black leather thighs and tried not to look terrified. I wanted to ask Ethan if I could have time to think about it. I wanted to tell him I couldn’t get that close to him yet. I wanted to run to the ladies’ room and sit on a toilet and cry.

  In a bitsy voice that barely reached my own hearing, I said, “Okay.”

  He stood up and reached for my hand, and I allowed myself to be elevated to my feet and led to the dance floor, where Ethan took me in his arms and moved so gracefully that I forgot I was rusty at dancing and moved along with him. They say you can tell a lot about a man by the way he dances. Ethan danced like a man comfortable with taking the lead, like a man always mindful of where his partner was, both physically and mentally. Like a man who enjoyed his body. In a few minutes, my own body had learned him so it knew what he was going to do before he did it, knew by the flexing of his muscles when he was going to move this way or that, knew it was safe to let him lead me wherever he wanted me to go.

  I was an astronaut floating in space with a disconnected tether, moving through vast potential without any control over my next move. Even in the midst of all the music and laughter and sounds of dishes clinking, I felt as if I were in an eternal quietness where the only sound was a cosmic heartbeat. Or was that my own heartbeat? Or perhaps his? If I turned my cheek to lay it against his chest, I couldn’t be sure whose coursing blood sang under my ear. The only thing I could really be sure of was that I never wanted to move, never wanted to break this contact of flesh and breath and pulse beat. No doubt about it, I was in trouble.

  He tightened his arm around my waist and drew me close. Leaning to nuzzle my hair above my ear, he said, “Could I lure you to my place, right now?”

  Only God knows how much I wanted to say yes.

  I pulled back and looked up at him. “Not tonight, Ethan.”

  He grinned. “Does that mean I can try again?”

  I laid my finger on his lips to shush him, and he grabbed my hand and kissed it.

  Oh, my, when a man as handsome as Ethan Crane kisses your hand, it makes you feel like a fairy princess who’s just found a way out of the tower.

  We went back to the table, where I got my purse and Ethan picked up the bill that had been left while we danced.

  I said, “I think I’d better head home now.” I didn’t add Before I throw you to the floor and have my way with you here in front of all these people, but I thought it.

  As if he read my mind, Ethan gave me a slow grin. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  I shook my head. “No, thanks. I enjoyed the evening, Ethan.”

  Before he could debate the issue, I turned on my stiletto boot heel and hightailed it out of there, breaking into a run when I got to the parking lot as if I were afraid he was after me. The only thing I really feared was that I would turn around and run back in and fling myself into his arms. It had been too long since I’d been with a man. I didn’t know how to behave with one anymore.

  I headed home in something of a stupor, sort of letting the car drive itself. Every time I thought about what had just happened, my whole body blushed. My back still remembered the touch of Ethan’s hand. And that was nothing compared to what my front remembered—of feeling Ethan’s hardness, of knowing he was as turned on as I was.

  As I drove past the Kurtz house, I looked down the driveway and saw a dark sedan crisply illuminated by the full moon. I knew that sedan. It was the one the woman with the bulldog had driven. I made such a sharp turn that the car behind me went into a squealing skid and blasted me with its horn.

  With my heart pounding and my fists clenched on the steering wheel, I pulled even with the sedan. I didn’t see the woman or the dog, but I was certain it was the same car. Okay, dammit, this was proof that Kurtz had lied when he said he didn’t know her. He and the woman had made me look like a paranoid fool—to Guidry, to Michael, to Cora, and even to myself. The woman was probably inside with Kurtz, telling him how she’d made sure I would show up at his house. They were probably planning their next clever move.

&nbs
p; More than anything, I wanted to march up to the front door and confront Kurtz and his mysterious lady friend and force them to confess whatever their scheme was. But I’m not that dumb. I would call Guidry and let him handle it. Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I got out of the Bronco and moved to the side of the sedan next to the guardhouse.

  In the next instant, something hit the back of my head and the world went black.

  TWELVE

  I woke with a sickening headache, stretched on my back, both hands at my sides. I tried raising my head, but it stayed firmly fixed on the ground. My skin shuddered with sudden fear. Was I dead? Paralyzed? No, I could wiggle my toes, and I could flex my hands.

  Slowly, memory came seeping back—for a nanosecond there had been a dull scuffling sound behind me, somebody coming up fast on the pavement, perhaps from behind the guardhouse. Before I’d had time to turn my head, something had hit me. Hard.

  Willing my arms to move, I raised my hands and squinted at them. No blood, no mangled fingers. I pulled my knees up and extended my feet toward the sky. I was okay. Nothing was broken. I felt the back of my head and winced. I had a tennis-ball-sized lump, but it wasn’t wet and I didn’t feel any crusty dried blood. Okay, all I had was a concussion. Not my favorite way to end a day, but it wasn’t life-threatening.

  I managed to push myself up and sat swaying drunkenly for a few minutes while the surrounding landscape seesawed crazily. The air had a strange acrid smell and seemed oddly thick, as if I could cup it in my hand. I sat for a moment marveling at how it moved in pale gray swirls, ribboning around tree trunks and creeping along the ground.

  Then my civilized cortex pulled itself together and shouted down to my old primitive brain, Fool, that’s smoke!

  With an audible groan, I fumbled my cell phone open. When the 911 dispatcher answered, I said, “There’s a fire at a house on Midnight Pass Road. I imagine it’s arson. There may be people inside.”

  I was almost surprised the dispatcher didn’t recognize my voice and say, “Oh, hi, Dixie! Gee, it’s been a couple of months since we’ve heard from you!”

  Instead, he took the house number, told me to stay put, and promised somebody would be there shortly. As I stumbled to the Bronco, I could hear the fire engine’s siren coming from the station at the corner of Midnight Pass and Beach Drive. My brother would be on that truck, and the knowledge that he would soon be risking his life to battle a fire set by an arsonist didn’t do a thing for my headache.

  Before the firefighters arrived, I pulled the Bronco out of the way behind the woman’s sedan. Then I laid my cheek on the steering wheel and stayed very still because moving caused waves of nausea and chills. I raised my head when the fire truck careened into the driveway, but it sped by so fast that I couldn’t tell which yellow-suited man was my brother. The truck swung around the areca palm hedge and stopped in front of the row of garages.

  Within seconds, a fire marshal’s vehicle and an unmarked county car swung into the driveway and came to a stop behind me. Officers piled out of the cars and ran toward the invisible house.

  A fat column of black smoke was rising behind the hedge now, making my eyes and throat burn. I felt the back of my head again. There was definitely a large lump back there, but it wasn’t oozing blood or brain fluid. Turning my head very carefully to keep the shapes of things within their boundaries, I scanned the area around me. The sedan was still there, but where was the woman? Maybe she’d been hit by the same person who’d conked me on the head and was lying dead or unconscious somewhere. The officers from the Fire Department didn’t know about the woman. Boy, would they be surprised when I told them.

  A sense of importance gave me a little boost of energy that helped push me out of the car. I would go find the fire marshal and tell him about the woman, which would sort of cancel out my failure to report the dead security guard. When I told him, I would not look at the firemen who were risking their lives to put out the fire, because that was my brother in there and I could not bear to think of what might happen to him. I would simply tell the officers about the woman so they could initiate a search for her. Then I would go home and take a shower. Maybe one of the officers would give me a ride home. Maybe I could even catch a quick nap after my shower and get rid of my headache.

  My knees didn’t want to hold themselves straight and my spiky boot heels caused my ankles to wobble, but I managed to shame my legs into walking down the driveway toward the privacy hedge. At the end of the hedge, I leaned against an areca palm frond because I felt very, very tired. Then I felt myself falling and couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Next thing I knew, I was on my back again, and Guidry was on his knees beside me.

  “Dixie? Dixie? Wake up, Dixie. Come on, baby, wake up.”

  A little voice in my head said Baby?

  I guess that’s why I threw up. Hearing a man I lusted after call me Baby just naturally brought out my innate ability to show him my grossest side.

  He handled it with his usual finesse, which made me feel even klutzier. With a clean white hanky that only Guidry would have, he mopped my face and helped me to his car. I pulled away and pointed toward my Bronco, but he shook his head.

  “I’ll have somebody drive your car home. I’m taking you to Sarasota Memorial.”

  Ignoring my protests, he stuffed me in the passenger seat and slammed the door. I could still smell the heavy odor of smoke, but I could see firefighters putting away their equipment, so the fire must be out. Guidry got in the driver’s side and carefully backed down the driveway. I hadn’t seen Michael, but all the way to the hospital, I fought back the tears I’d felt when I knew Michael was there suited up to face a fire. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me it had brought back the pain I’d felt after our firefighting father had died.

  At the ER, a roomful of people coddling various sprains and cuts and bruises watched as Guidry pulled rank and got me immediately into an examining room. An intern who looked about twelve years old examined me and pronounced me concussed, which I could have told him without the examination.

  He said, “Any idea how long you were out?”

  “Just a minute or two.” I had no idea at all.

  “Any amnesia?”

  “No.”

  He recommended that I stay overnight in the hospital. When I refused, he didn’t seem surprised.

  He said, “Look, a concussion’s not something to fool around with. It’s especially important not to have another one anytime soon. I’m not kidding. A second impact syndrome can cause enough pressure in the brain to kill you.”

  “I don’t plan on having another one.”

  “Nobody does, but once you’ve had one, you’re four times more susceptible to another. Just be extra careful until this has had time to heal. Wait at least a month before you go skiing or bungee jumping or anything like that.”

  The kid actually thought I might leap off a bridge from a bungee. Made me feel about two hundred years old. I signed some papers, acknowledging that I was leaving against medical advice and absolving the hospital of any blame if I died during the night, and wobbled out to where Guidry waited.

  The pubescent intern followed me. He said, “Somebody should stay with her tonight. Don’t give her any anti-inflammatory drugs for her headache. They’ll stop the pain in the short run, but in the long run they’ll keep soft tissue from healing and create chronic pain. If her pain persists, bring her back for an MRI. Sometimes a concussion represses vasopressin, so if she experiences frequent urination in the next few weeks, she should see her doctor. It would be best if she didn’t sleep for several hours tonight. If she falls asleep, wake her every thirty minutes and check her pupils. If they contract any more than they already are, bring her back.”

  Guidry nodded and shook the kid’s hand, the way men do when they’re signaling each other that their superior male wisdom is ensuring a woman’s safety. For once, I didn’t mind. I just wanted to go home and take a nap.

  With one hand on my arm,
Guidry steered me out to his car in the cop’s reserved place outside the emergency room doors. I sank into the seat and leaned my aching head back on the headrest and didn’t look up until the car stopped beside my carport. Without saying a word, Guidry swiveled out of the car and trotted around to my door. Tender as a mother, he helped me out and stayed so close behind me as we headed for the stairs to my apartment that I could feel his breath on my neck. When we got to my shuttered French doors, I stopped and groaned.

  “The remote’s in my purse. In the Bronco.”

  The metal storm shutters started rising anyway, folding into neat little accordion pleats and disappearing into the soffit over the door.

  Guidry said, “I got your purse.”

  If I’d had all my faculties, I would have given him my grandmother’s lecture about how you never, ever, under any circumstances, stick your paws into a woman’s purse without her permission. But since my faculties seemed to be taking a sabbatical, I was just glad he could get us inside my apartment.

  Guidry reached around me and unlocked the French doors, using the keys from my purse—the purse I hadn’t given him permission to open. Then, with one arm around my fuzzy pink shoulders, he ushered me into my living room and steered me toward my grandmother’s sofa with the green flower-printed slipcovers.

  I said, “I want to take a shower.”

  “Not unless I’m in there with you.”

  I tried for indignant, but the most I could muster was a weak pout.

  “My mouth is nasty.”

  “Okay, we’ll go brush your teeth.”

  We?

  “Guidry, you aren’t going to the bathroom with me.”

  “Honey, you can pee without me, but only with the door unlocked. I know you. You’ll push the limits and end up getting hurt.”