“True, but this might not be the time,” my father said to her gently.
“Oh,” Mom said.
Richie turned toward her, which meant the gun turned toward her. “Oh, what?”
“Oh, sorry,” Mom tried. “I was probably mistaken about that.” Way to cover, Mom.
Maroni stood up. “No, she’s right,” he said, ambling casually toward Richie. “You’re pretty cooked, Rich. Now, suppose I help you. Is that worth part of SafT?”
I don’t know a lot about crime—I run a guesthouse on the Jersey Shore—but I did know that two bad guys making a deal with each other couldn’t be a good thing. The tide was turning and The Swine knew it was coming straight at him.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “This can be good for all of us. SafT is still a gold mine, and with Maurice out of the picture—may he rest in peace—there’s a larger pie to divide up.”
“Yeah?” Maroni asked. “The way I see it, you’re not offering anything, and if the pie only has to be cut in two halves, we get more than if you make us cut it in thirds. So what reason do we have to include you? The patent papers?”
Steven started tapping his foot impatiently, as if waiting for the brilliant idea he knew was just on the edge of his brain to manifest itself. But the best he could come up with was “I had it first. I let you guys in on SafT or you wouldn’t even know there was such a thing.” That was not going to help anybody, and The Swine knew it. His foot tapped harder. I thought he might cry.
Josh put an arm around my waist, which was definitely a good sign. Then I realized he was angling to stand in front of me if there was trouble. Tony, too, was now standing up and leaning toward Mom’s chair. The two Big Strong Men were going to protect us little ladies, and as comforting as the thought might have been, I was tired of being protected. I was tired of being threatened. And most of all, I was tired of The Swine.
“I know where the patent papers are,” I said. “But if you want them, you have to agree to my terms.”
Everyone turned toward me, each (including, I noted, Josh and my mother) with an expression of absolute amazement. They thought I wasn’t capable of playing in this league? I’d show them.
Now all I had to do was figure out whether what I had said was true.
“What just happened?” I heard Jeannie call from under the dining table.
“Just stay down there,” Tony told her.
“Your terms?” Maroni seemed more amused than surprised. “What are your terms?”
“Alison,” Steven jumped in before I could answer. “I’m begging you, don’t get in over your head. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
If there was one thing I definitely didn’t need, it was The Swine telling me I was just a silly girl and should sit and be quiet while the boys worked out their problem. “Shut up, Steven,” I said. “I’m negotiating.”
At the sound of the word negotiating, Constance perked up. “I think my husband and I should be allowed to leave,” she said. “We were invited under false pretenses.”
She tried to stand, but Richie waved her back into her seat with his gun hand.
Josh, hint of a smile on his face, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Let’s get married Saturday.”
That didn’t throw me off, but it did sidetrack me. “W-What?” I stammered.
“You heard me.”
“What are your terms?” Maroni repeated. “The clock is ticking.”
Josh stepped to the side. He knew I was fairly bulletproof as long as Maroni and Richie thought I was valuable to them. He was confident enough not to worry if I took charge of a situation.
That was the man I was marrying. Saturday.
I looked at Maroni, whose men were now standing and flanking him, and Richie, whose right hand must have been awfully tired of holding that gun. His arm drooped a little. “Simple. You get what you want, but everybody here goes free and nobody gets shot. I’ll tell you where to go, we’ll even give you the key to get in, and I never see any of you guys again. How’s that for easy?”
“And let you call the cops the second we’re out the door?” Maroni sneered. “You hand us a key to some house or something and we leave. The next thing you’re on your phone to the police and they get wherever we’re going at least fifteen minutes before we do. Was that your plan?”
Actually it hadn’t been—I was just going to let them get the forms they wanted and leave as long as I didn’t have to put up with this anymore—but I could see Maroni’s point. “Okay. Tell you what. You can take Steven with you.”
All right, that was sort of a divorce thing. As long as they got what they wanted, I expected no harm would come to The Swine that wasn’t financial in nature.
“Oh, we’re going to take Stevie, but that’s not gonna stop you from calling the cops,” Maroni answered. “We could take your daughter.” He looked in the direction of the stairs.
“No, you can’t.” The words came simultaneously from me, Mom, Dad (whose vocal effectiveness was limited in this crowd), Josh and The Swine.
I stared into Maroni’s eyes. “You make that a condition and I will definitely give you the address of the nearest police station instead of the place where the patent forms are sitting, just waiting for you to pick them up. You want to take that chance?”
Tony insinuated himself between one of Maroni’s gorillas and the man himself. The bodyguard gave him a shove and it looked like it might devolve, but Maroni held up his hand to get his man to stop.
“Nobody’s gonna get hurt unless it’s necessary,” he said. “Take it easy.”
Richie, weariness and anger in his face, fixed his aim on Maroni. “I told you, Lou. You’re not giving the orders. I am. The little girl is out of it. Steven’s going and you’re going. But I’m staying here.”
Okay, that was unexpected. “Huh?” both Maroni and I asked. I thought it was a fair question.
“That’s how it’s gonna work. You take your men and Steven to wherever she sends you.” He gestured at me, as if anyone thought he meant someone else. “But you stay in touch on your phone to mine every second of the way. The first time there’s any trouble that I hear . . .” He walked over to me and stood only a few feet away, then raised the gun again. “I shoot her. We got that?”
I couldn’t say that was my favorite possible plan, but it did keep Melissa out of harm’s way no matter what. Still, knowing that I wasn’t exactly a hundred percent certain I was right about the location of the documents involved, I wasn’t crazy about the possible consequences. “How about if something goes wrong, we just agree that was a possibility and chalk it up to experience?” I suggested.
Richie did not answer.
Maroni didn’t look happy, but he nodded. He and his men started to gather their belongings, which no doubt included weapons of their own that you’d think they would have drawn by now. Never trust gangsters, I say.
The last person I expected to stand up for me—or anyone else—did exactly that, shaking his right foot as if it had fallen asleep.
“You don’t need to threaten her,” The Swine said. “Why not take Alison and leave me here in case there are issues?”
Yeah, see? He was trying to—wait. What? Take Alison! How did that get to be a good idea?
Luckily Maroni and Richie were having none of it. Apparently they had learned—hopefully under different circumstances—what I had about Steven: If he wanted you to do something, it was definitely not going to turn out well. For you.
“The plan goes as I said,” Richie told him. “You go. She stays. That’s it.” Then, still standing only a couple of feet from me, he looked me straight in the eye with an expression that was not filled with warmth. “Now. Where are those papers?”
“They’re in a store called Madison Paints in Asbury Park,” I said. “Steven took them there this afternoon when he visited under a fake excu
se.”
Josh’s head had turned at the mention of his business. “They’re where?” he said in a low voice.
“You know the place?” Maroni asked him.
I was willing Josh to lie, but he’d pretty much already given away his position. “It’s my store. I own it.”
“Then you’re coming along, too,” Maroni said. “Get your coat. It’s cold out.”
One of the tree trunks in Maroni’s entourage grabbed Josh’s left arm, but he pulled it out of the larger man’s grip. “Happy to go,” he said, glaring at Maroni. “I want to make sure nothing gets damaged.” He walked toward the door to the front room.
I moved quickly past Richie and got into Josh’s path. He stopped. I grabbed for him and held him tightly to me. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Josh held the clinch for a moment, then eased up and when I looked at him he was smiling. “If I get killed,” he said, “will I be a ghost by Saturday? Because either way we’re getting married.”
“Can’t be sure,” I squeaked.
“You can be sure,” Josh told me. “I’ll be back.”
Maroni and his two unspeaking accoutrements put on their signature overcoats, the same style and fabric as the one Richie wore. The Swine was persuaded to do the same, although his borrowed jacket was not as strong protection. Gloves and hats were donned. It took a long minute for everyone to be braced for the cold and wind—and lightning—outside, but eventually they were all ready and at the front door.
Bobby actually volunteered to go along, and I thought Maroni was going to say no just to be contrary, but Richie was happy to get rid of the toady, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. I hoped Maroni had come in a large car.
Everett flew into the party. “I’ll go along, Ghost Lady,” he said. “Nothing will happen to your fiancé.”
I nodded gratefully, not adding aloud that if something happened to my ex-husband I would not be nearly as upset.
That feeling was compounded when I got a look at The Swine’s face. Walking out of the house, he turned for a moment to catch my gaze, smiled and winked. It was the most chilling moment of my life.
The door closed behind them, behind Josh, which was all that mattered, and I almost fell weeping into an easy chair in the den. I’d seen it in his face.
I was wrong about the patent papers. They weren’t at Madison Paints. Steven had some kind of ridiculous plan and things were about to go very, very wrong.
Josh was going to be in danger and in all likelihood I was going to get shot.
That meant my ex was going to get custody of Melissa.
That couldn’t happen.
Twenty-six
“What’s the matter?” Mom asked. She’d just seen the look on my face and, being my mother, chose not to keep it to herself.
“Yeah,” Maxie said. “You look like you just lost your best friend.”
This was bad. This was really bad. In the annals of bad, there was very little bad that was as bad as this bad.
It was bad, is what I’m saying.
But I couldn’t let Richie know that, so I put on my best neutral face and said, “A bunch of criminals and Steven just took my fiancé away and you’re wondering what’s the matter?” When you want to fool a man with a gun, berate your mother, I always say.
“Don’t sass your mother,” Dad said. “What are we going to do about this nut?” He pointed at Richie.
The nut, at that moment, was manipulating buttons on his cell phone, establishing the connection with the phone of either Maroni of one of the men with him, although I couldn’t understand why guys who never spoke would need phones.
“This is a good time to clobber him,” Maxie suggested. She opened the trench coat a bit and showed a baseball bat secreted inside. “He’s not looking.”
But Susannah gasped at the sight of the flying Louisville Slugger, so Maxie covered it back up. You could count on Susannah. Not to do anything useful, but she was at least always going to be an impediment.
“What was that?” she gaped.
“Lightning,” I said. There had been a flash, so it was at least a plausible response. Susannah didn’t react.
“I’ve got you,” Richie said into his phone. The rest of us knew he had us; he had the gun and we didn’t. And although there were in fact seven adult people in the room who were not Richie, rushing him while he was holding it didn’t seem the best idea.
I wanted to use my ghosts. I really did. The three of them would have enjoyed it—except Paul wasn’t paying attention—but you knew Maxie would have clobbered Richie happily and Dad would have applauded her efforts.
But now I knew that any serious disruption on this end of the conversation he was having (such as Richie suddenly losing consciousness and not answering) could have serious consequences for Josh and, I suppose, Steven. Telling Melissa about her dad would have been a problem. I guess.
There had to be something I could do. I’d played my best hunch and sent Josh—really the only one I cared about—after the Maltese Falcon of paperwork thinking I was being smart. But the smug grin on The Swine’s face had convinced me beyond doubt that I’d been mistaken and worse, that he thought I had been trying to help by revealing the wrong address. Maroni and his men had given up squeezing the information out of Steven because I’d given it to them, except they were going to get to Madison Paints, Josh was going to use his keys to let them in, and then they’d fail to find what they were looking for.
I couldn’t see how Steven thought that was a good thing, but if he did, it was certain to be as awful as it could possibly get. I surveyed the room and saw people who had adjusted to a bad situation. Jeannie was still on the floor, although Molly was asleep and Oliver was bored, reaching for his father, who picked him up and sat him on his lap. Tony communicates with Ollie better than anyone else, and started improvising a story about a contractor whose client insisted on using thinner plywood than was necessary for the floor of a shower just to save money.
Harry, his feet assuaged, was pacing the room and gave me that same wink his son had shot from the front door when he was leaving. Somehow on the father it was charming and on the son it was the visual equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.
Constance, who undoubtedly was trying to figure out how this was all my fault, did not realize that this was one of the only times since we’d met that I agreed with her. She had told Richie she needed the bathroom, and he had responded by confiscating every cell phone in the room and putting them in a small bag, then allowing her to leave and giving her exactly three minutes to return before he threatened to shoot her husband in the knee. Constance had managed not only to find another reason to be personally insulted, but also to get our only means of communication out of everyone’s hands. Well done, Constance.
I walked to the farthest corner of the room from where Richie was standing, having put his phone (he got to have one) on the table next to him in speaker mode, although nothing of any interest was being said. I beckoned with my head to Maxie and she fluttered down.
“You want me to get him with the baseball bat?” she asked.
I shook my head. “We can’t do anything until Josh is safe,” I whispered. “Go upstairs and tell Liss not to come down under any circumstances.”
“How about she calls the lady cop?” Maxie’s eyes were fiery. She didn’t care for anyone even getting near making danger for Melissa.
Again, I indicated no. “Anything happens here, Josh gets shot. Anything happens on Josh’s end and I get shot. Probably everybody else, too. Tell Liss. Stay up there.”
“Who are you talking to?” Richie yelled from across the room.
Maxie was already rising through the ceiling with a fist out like Iron Man. “Myself, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I said. “I’ve seen therapists.”
“Look,” the gunman said. “I don’t want to shoot yo
u. Really. You seem like a perfectly nice person.”
“She’s better than that,” my mother volunteered.
“But I need those papers and I need to be sure Maroni won’t steal them,” Richie went on, wisely choosing not to respond to Mom.
“What makes you think he’ll bring them back here?” Harry asked.
Richie turned to face him. “What?”
“Why won’t your friend just take these papers if they’re so valuable? How come you think he’ll drive all the way back here to give them to you?”
Richie raised the gun. “He knows I’ll shoot you if he doesn’t.”
Harry shrugged. “What does he care?”
“You’re not helping, Harry,” I told him.
“It is what it is.”
Constance came trotting into the room again. “It’s three minutes! Don’t shoot me!” she bleated. She sat back in the same chair she’d left, as if attendance were being taken and she didn’t want to be marked absent.
I debated whether to tell him it would be okay if he did. I could tell Harry about the reverend after.
“They’ll come back,” Richie reassured himself.
The scene felt weird, as if it were from an old black-and-white movie showing how time had passed. There should have been a slowly turning ceiling fan and well-used ashtrays on the table. For all the tension about possibly being shot, mostly what was happening now was simply dull.
Maxie came back from Melissa’s room, reporting that my daughter was worried but had been told with no wiggle room that she could not call for help or—definitely not—come downstairs to try to help. Maxie said she’d obtained this behavior by agreeing to fly up to the room periodically with updates. She had done so twice already, and I was afraid the reports were going to bore my daughter to tears. Nothing had changed.
At one point my mother drifted off to sleep and my father, despite not being capable of putting a foot on the ground, began to tiptoe exaggeratedly around her in fear of waking her up. The man was born to be a husband and a dad. Being dead didn’t even slow him down a bit.
Spouse on Haunted Hill Page 24
