Life is Better Brunette

by Diane Bator

  Gary snorted.

  Gilda glanced at him and shrugged. As long as the nurses thought Gary was her father, she'd be free to come and go. Sometimes Doc surprised her. "It's okay, I'll go. Do you want me to bring you something later?"

  "Chicken noodle soup from the deli would be great. Best comfort food ever." Gary smiled. "Bring some for you too. It would be nice to sit down and have dinner with you."

  "Deal." She turned to leave his hospital room to let him sleep while she went to find Mick and Kane.

  "Leaving so soon?" Fabio met her in the hallway. "How's he doing?"

  She folded her arms across her stomach. "I'm not sure if it's the medication talking or if he's genuinely afraid. He seems to think Miss Claudia is hiding around every corner and is even lurking in the closets."

  "Yeah." Fabio nodded as his phone dinged. "I take it you saw the bruise on his arm."

  "He said Miss Claudia, or whoever grabbed him, intended to hurt him. She only stopped because a car went past, but she watched the paramedics work on him, then followed them to the hospital."

  He pulled out his cell phone and checked the screen. "Yeah, the driver who went past called in the accident. A guy named Shawn O'Reilly."

  Gilda's eyes widened. "He's the guy who works in the smoke shop, right?"

  "Yeah. Fergus's grandson."

  "Huh." Gilda, absorbed in thought, walked past Fabio toward the waiting area.

  He grabbed her arm. "Where are you off to so fast? Gary's room is the other way."

  "I need to find Mick. I want to take a few days off work to help Gary."

  "Uh-huh." He scowled. "Don't you mean to figure out who did this to Gary?"

  She dropped her gaze to the floor. An instant sign of guilt, she knew, but she hoped Fabio understood.

  "I get it, Gilda." He sighed. "When you needed help, Gary put everything on the line for you, including being locked up for life. I understand why you're devoted to him, even though I don't like it. I'd prefer if you'd just go about your job and keep your ears open around the school and Kane's shop. Gary needs your help to heal right now, not to get yourself killed on his behalf."

  "I know." Gilda's eyes welled with tears. "If this was just about Miss Claudia, I would let it go, but—"

  "There's more?"

  "Aislin keeps predicting bad things will happen, and then they do. First Miss Claudia, then Marion, and now Gary. There are a lot of weird things about Miss Claudia's past, and they all seem to lead to people here in Sandstone Cove. I think you need to post a police officer at Gary's bedside in case he says anything else."

  He raised both eyebrows. "Is that your real concern?"

  "No." She took a deep breath. "I think whoever killed Miss Claudia may be trying to kill Gary as well."

  "I thought of that too." Fabio leaned against the wall. "That's actually why I'd hoped you'd stay with him. He seems to respond better to you than my officers."

  Gilda sighed. "I know, but I just want to help. I thought if I went to the library and found out some more information, then I could solve things."

  "Information about what?" he asked.

  "About what happened to Robert Sullivan's family and why he took on a woman's identity and came to Sandstone Cove rather than face a kidnapping charge in California."

  "Gilda…" Fabio closed his eyes. "I really wish you'd just stay here and worry about Gary rather than getting yourself into more trouble."

  "What do you mean more trouble?" She raised her eyebrows.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. "You need to stay out of things. I'm on it. I also heard Thayer caught you coming out of Miss Claudia's apartment."

  Gilda's face burned. "He told you about that?"

  Fabio chuckled. "Marion's a pretty easy nut to crack when you offer her chocolate."

  "I'm sorry, but I just had to see for myself." She slumped her shoulders and covered her eyes as she turned away from him. "Oh, I really need to have a word with her."

  "To thank her, I hope. She and Gary are the only people keeping you out of jail right now." He hesitated. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

  She winced. "Yes and no."

  "Thayer said he thought you found something." Fabio smirked. "He also mentioned you didn't leave a key behind like you said, and we wondered how you got inside."

  Her face grew warm. "I had a key."

  "From where?"

  Gilda rubbed the back of her neck. "I can't say."

  Fabio pinched her chin between his finger and thumb. "You can, and you will or else I will handcuff you to Gary's bedside and come back for you tomorrow. Is that what you want?"

  "Not really."

  "Then tell me where you got the key and where it is now, or I won't have a choice."

  She cringed. "I found it behind the picture of the boat in the stairwell."

  "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Fabio released her chin. "Where did you put it when you were done?"

  "Back behind the sailboat. Can I go now?"

  He narrowed his eyes. "That depends on where you're going."

  "I plan to head over to the library then come back here and check on Gary. He asked me to bring him some chicken noodle soup from the deli."

  "They do feed the patients here, you know." Fabio smiled.

  "I know, just not the chicken noodle soup from the deli." She blinked tears from her eyes. "It's his favorite, and depending on what I find at the library, I'll probably want to talk to him some more when he wakes up later."

  Fabio motioned to a uniformed officer, who strolled over to sit on a black plastic chair near Gary's door.

  Gilda narrowed her eyes. "You already planned to watch him."

  "Yup." He steered her down the hall toward the front entrance. "Once he said he saw Miss Claudia and I saw those bruises on his arm, I decided we needed to keep him safe. Are you seriously off to the library right now?"

  "Right after I let Mick know I'm taking tonight off work." She pulled out her cell phone.

  Fabio patted her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure he's already guessed that. Let me know what you find at the library."

  "Where are you off to?" She paused.

  "To get my hands on that key before you try to get back into Miss Claudia's apartment." He met her gaze. "By the way, what did you find when you were in there?"

  She hesitated, then grimaced and thumbed through the images on her phone. "There was a photo in one of her desk drawers. I think Miss Claudia knew Aislin when she was a little girl."

  Fabio took one look at the screen then clutched her phone and paled. He tapped a few buttons before he returned her phone. "I've got to go. If I were you, I'd hurry at the library. You need to be here with Gary when he wakes up later."

  "Yeah, you're probably right." Gilda watched him leave then checked her phone. Fabio had deleted the photo of Miss Claudia and Aislin.

  She huffed and pushed open the front door, heading toward the library, with no real idea what she was looking for. There had to be a reason Miss Claudia had wanted to buy that building so badly. It was as good a place to start as any.

  While Gilda had little knowledge about the Vines family, she knew Malcolm, the father, had owned the building where Miss Claudia had started her fabric store. Randy, his eldest son, ran the tattoo parlor. Nancy, Malcolm's daughter, was once married to Robert Sullivan, Miss Claudia's alter ego. Sullivan had kidnapped his and Nancy's daughter, Laurel, brought her to Sandstone Cove, and was caught in the front lobby of Randy's shop. According to Gary, Malcolm had molested Laurel but had never been arrested.

  She rubbed her forehead as if she could erase the confusion that swirled inside. What if she was on the wrong trail? Miss Claudia's murder might have had nothing to do with the past. Over the past few months, she'd stirred up enough people along Armadillo Street to put a neon target on her back.

  Of course, for all Gilda knew, Sullivan could have left Los Angeles for any number of other reasons as well.

  The Sandstone Cove Library was horri
bly underfunded. Gilda took a seat in front of the antiquated microfiche and began to peruse one old newspaper after another. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up. A brief article about Malcolm Vines building up half of Armadillo Street, then one of his new stores burning to the ground due to an electrical fire. Vines had been close friends with Gary. What if the fire and other incidents along Armadillo Street had nothing to do with Miss Claudia, but were mob related?

  Gilda wrote a few ideas in the notebook she'd started to keep in her purse then blew out a breath. Maybe she was making things far too complicated. She wished she still had the picture of Miss Claudia and Aislin, the one Fabio deleted, when one thought came to mind. In all of her searching, she still hadn't come across Sullivan's two kids, David and Laurel. Even his wife Nancy seemed to have vanished from the internet. She'd really hoped to find a lot more in the Sandstone Cove library's public records, but that was looking less likely.

  There was only one person who could answer most of the questions in her notebook, and he'd already given her half answers to a lot of them. Besides, someone had already tried to kill him once. It was likely the more time she spent interrogating Gary, the more she endangered his life, as well as her own.

  Gilda tucked her notebook in her purse and clutched her cell phone. She hoped Gary was both alert and coherent enough to talk. Not only about what he'd seen before and after his accident, but what he knew about Robert Sullivan and the Vines family.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The clatter of cutlery on the floor made Gilda flinch. She lifted her head and looked around wild-eyed. She'd fallen asleep on the hard, blue vinyl chair next to Gary's hospital bed.

  "Seriously?" Marion scowled. "I've been trying to wake you up for five minutes and all you did was snort at me. Gary drops a soup spoon and you pop right up ready to go."

  Gary smiled. "Sorry, Sherlock. I really didn't want to wake you, but she insisted."

  "That's okay." Gilda yawned. "How long was I out?"

  He shrugged. "No clue. You were already here when I woke up."

  "And I just got here ten minutes ago." Marion sat on a smaller chair she must have pulled over from the other side of the room. "I figured us chitchatting would wake you, but that didn't work either."

  "What time is it?" Gilda asked.

  Marion held up her phone. "Just after seven. You look like you've been up for a week."

  "Yeah, well, it's been a really long day." Gilda rubbed her eyes. "I'm surprised you're up to eating soup. When I left here earlier, you were a bit of a basket case."

  "The nurse gave me something to help me sleep. Once I woke up, I was starving and felt good as new." He waved one arm. "Well, except for the broken bones and bruises."

  Marion shook her head. "You're lucky you weren't killed. I saw your car when they towed it into town. There's not much left of your Buick."

  Gary met Gilda's gaze. "Good thing I've got a couple more cars at home."

  "You saw Gary's car? Where are they storing it?" Gilda stretched her arms up into the air and arched her back.

  "Oh no, Sherlock." Marion held up an index finger. "I am not helping you break into anywhere else to hunt for clues. You need to wait until the police are done with it and they release it back to your buddy over there. I am not getting fired over this."

  Gary raised his thick eyebrows. "Where else did you break into?"

  "Miss Claudia's apartment." Gilda winced. "So where's the car?"

  He chuckled. "They usually keep the wrecks over at the lot near the marina. Although, they might just take the heap over to a forensics lab or something for closer examination."

  Gilda doubted Fabio and Thayer would go to that kind of expense for a car accident, even if it did supposedly involve a woman who'd been dead for days. "Did either of you know Malcolm Vines?"

  "Oh, here we go." Marion rolled her eyes. "I came to track you down to tell you all about my amazing romance with Razi, and all you're concerned about is Miss Claudia's murder. Girl, maybe you need your head examined."

  "At least she's in the right place. CAT scan is down the hall and to the right." Gary lay back against his pillows and tucked his blankets around his chest. "Marion, would you be a dear and ask the nurse if I can get an extra blanket? I've got an awful chill suddenly."

  Marion shrugged. "Sure. You're probably just tired, but I will leave the room so you can talk to Gilda in private, and I'll get you a token blanket." She paused near the door. "Just make sure you knock some sense back into her while you're at it."

  "You don't need to knock anything back into me. I get it." Gilda stood to shake out the kinks in her legs. "Although, I do want to ask you about something I found in Miss Claudia's apartment."

  Gary's eyes widened, and his face paled. "You actually went into her lair? I thought you were joking. How did you convince Fabio to let you go there?"

  She hesitated. "I didn't."

  He bowed his head. "Oh, Gilda. I love you to pieces, and I've tried to protect you for a long time now, but…"

  "It's only been three months."

  "Okay, but you've made it seem like a long time." Gary grimaced. "The point is, you need to stay out of this case. These people you're investigating are not what they seem."

  Gilda smiled. "That's funny. Everyone used to say the same thing about you."

  "For very good reasons." He wagged a finger in her direction. "I knew Malcolm Vines very well back in the day. His sons, not as well, but we do still have a mutual respect for one another. They stay on Armadillo Street. I run the rest of town."

  "Get out." Her mouth dropped open. "Are you trying to tell me Randy and Adam are bookies too?"

  "No. I'm trying to tell you they're no-good punks who'd run their own family out of town just to get what they wanted."

  "You mean Robert Sullivan," Gilda said.

  Gary nodded. "They had him arrested the instant he set foot in town."

  She sat back and skimmed through her notes. "Was that when he'd kidnapped his daughter, Laurel, from her mother and brought her to Sandstone Cove?"

  "Yes, but that's only half true." He averted his gaze toward the door, where Marion stood chatting with a nurse. "He brought his daughter to Sandstone Cove, but he certainly didn't kidnap her. He simply brought the girl here to spend time with family while he worked on a construction crew for Malcolm, but he and his wife were already having marital problems."

  "Wasn't there a rumor that Malcolm was molesting Laurel as well?"

  "That was merely a rumor, as far as I know." Gary waved her off. "One of those things the media speculates and blows out of proportion, especially because of who Malcolm was."

  "And who was he?"

  Gary met her gaze. "Back then? He was my boss."

  Gilda stared. "So you took over your operations here from him when he died?"

  "Yes. He was a good man, and I would have given my life to protect him."

  She sat back and let his words sink in for a moment. "But if Sullivan's daughter was safe here with her family the whole time, where did the whole kidnapping story come from?"

  "That you'll have to ask the Vines boys." Gary lay back and closed his eyes. "It seems they weren't the loving family most of the town thought they were. Those kids all hoped to take over the family business, but Malcolm hated the lot of them. He did have a soft spot for Sullivan and his two kids though, just not his own kids."

  Before Gilda could ask what he meant, the door burst open.

  Marion strolled in and tossed a blanket on the end of Gary's bed. "I hope you've already said what you needed to say because I'm taking Gilda out of here for a little while. She and I need a little quality girl gossip time."

  "I did have a few more questions for him." Gilda unfolded the blanket and spread it over Gary.

  "Tough." Marion took her by the arm. "I'm craving a deli sandwich, and you're tagging along. Let's go."

  "Sounds good to me." Gilda met Gary's gaze and smiled. "I'll come back in a little while."

  "Ta
ke your time." He waved her off. "I've got your number if I need anything."

  She bit her lower lip. The last time she'd seen him, he was staring at the closet as though he expected the boogeyman to jump out. Whatever medication the nurse gave him, it seemed to be working pretty well. Maybe he'd save her a dose for later.

  Marion draped one arm around Gilda's shoulders. "Come on. I'll buy you dinner. We've got some catching up to do."

  Gilda cast a glance back at Gary then relaxed and let Marion steer her out of the hospital. As they headed toward the deli, her mind raced. "So. I guess we haven't really caught up since your date with Razi. How did everything go?"

  "Awesome," she sang, dropping her arm off Gilda's shoulders. "Well, at first things were a bit nerve-wracking. I tried to be a perfect lady and as polite as I could, but I kept dropping things and spilling things. When Razi couldn't stop laughing, I finally got mad."

  "Did he apologize?"

  Marion huffed. "No, he laughed even harder, so I threw a roll at him."

  "Oh no." Gilda winced. "Then what?"

  "He caught it, cut it open, then buttered it, and ate it."

  Gilda raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

  "Really." Marion nodded. "I was so worried he'd be disappointed I wasn't perfect, but he was so calm and treated me like I was totally special. Flowers, a nice bottle of wine, a lot of laughs, a long walk in the moonlight…it was all so perfect."

  "Are you going out again?"

  "We already did." Marion winked. "Plus we've texted each other constantly since then."

  Gilda chuckled. "That's great, I'm glad to hear it. I guess I've been too absorbed in this whole murder thing to even notice."

  "That's okay." Marion opened the deli door for her. "I know you can get a little obsessive about these things."

  "Obsessive?" Gilda gasped then froze.

  Randy Vines sat at the deli counter eating a thick pastrami sandwich with sauerkraut. He glanced back at them and gave a brief nod.

  "Oh no, you don't, Sherlock." Marion pushed Gilda past him to a small table in the back. "You and I are here to eat and catch up with each other. You are not going to interrogate the tattoo guy. He might be armed."