The Brush Off

by Laura Bradley

  I was feeling “or else” right now. The far end of the kitchen was looking a little hazy. I’d better hurry.

  “I’ll take another bite if you tell me why you killed Ricardo.”

  “Because he was a stupid busybody, just like you are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you sticking your neck out—your life out—just to find out who killed your friend?” He forced another bite into my mouth.

  I tried to act as if I was chewing. I shoved the wad into the corner of my cheek and pretended to swallow. “Because it wasn’t fair that he died. I owe it to him to find out who did him wrong.”

  “The only person you owe anything to is yourself. Those of us who live long lives know that. We are born selfish beings and are meant to live that way. But foolish Ricardo was just like you in the end. He thought he owed some kind of protection to a son he never acknowledged. I’m going to blow the poor boy out of the water in the state rep campaign, and Ricardo was trying to ensure his bastard son’s success by forcing me out of it.”

  Somehow, despite the oleander, the sick pit in my stomach seemed to lighten. I didn’t realize how hard the thought of Ricardo being so callous as to take a bribe hit me. That he tried to be altruistic in the end boosted my morale. I now saw two guys in tennis whites holding butcher knives, but they came together periodically. Then the whole room started to swim. “How was he going to force you out of it?”

  “Blackmail. You see, he was the first paramedic on the scene and found us in flagrante delicto. The old codger was finally dying in his study and had called 911 himself. Hell, I’d been trying to poison the old boy with oleander in his damned desserts for about a week. I didn’t know that night we’d hit the lotto. Ricardo went straight to Johnstone, and then his partner came in, they loaded him up, and off they went. We saw them at the hospital later, and I recommended to Sarah that she give him a “gift.” It was the perfect plan, because once he accepted the money, he became an accomplice. But he didn’t know an accomplice to what—just a little indiscretion or more.”

  “He knew it was more,” I said, not able to make the two Van Dykes in my vision come together again. I smelled that bitter, rotten lemon. My stomach was cramping, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. Thanks a lot, iron gut.

  “Yeah, I didn’t know that until he called and wanted to meet me at that queer club. He threatened to come forward with proof that I’d killed Johnstone. Then his fate was sealed. I hate to be pushed. He pushed. I stewed about it long enough to realize I didn’t want to give up anything I had, including my dream to be a politician. I called him and met him that night at his salon. He wouldn’t compromise this time, so I killed him.”

  “Hands up!”

  I tried to throw my hands into the air. I felt as if I was drunk on tequila in Tijuana. Nothing was focusing. I thought I heard Scythe’s voice, Trudy’s voice, and Mario’s voice. But I also saw floating in my mind’s eye suede crotchless black undies, a red and gold feather negligee, and a leopard-print pushup bra. I felt fingers slide under my jaw, I saw dry-ice eyes filled with a strong emotion—it may have been concern, but I was dying, so I couldn’t be sure—and suddenly, for the first time, I felt like throwing up. I tried to reach across the table for the barf bag that had been sitting there for days and buried my face in it.

  twenty-seven

  I BLINKED AND SAW STARK, HARSH WHITE. FOR SOME reason, I thought heaven would be a gentler color, like butter yellow or baby blue. Maybe I was in hell. I really didn’t think I’d been all that awful in my life, but I had been kind of a bitch to a couple of girls in high school, and of course I did swear. Only every now and then, but still, maybe God counted, and I’d surpassed the limit.

  I hadn’t gone to see my gran in about six months. I think she had major pull upstairs, so maybe she was the reason I wasn’t in heaven.

  Finally, I had given Mrs. Reinmeyer that mohawk. She was on the altar guild at church. I mowed her down by accident, though. Didn’t that count?

  “Reyn? Reyn? Oh, rednecks and rosaries, will you please wake up? I’m tired of praying, already.” Trudy’s voice floated my way. Oh, no, had that damned old Van Dyke killed her, too? Okay, maybe that’s why I was in hell, for leading her to the gallows. But she wouldn’t be there with me. She was a good Catholic.

  “I think she’s coming around.”

  That was Mario’s voice. So I’d dragged everyone down with me. Oh, the guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” I heard myself mumble.

  “What are you sorry for?” Trudy asked.

  “For taking you all to hell.”

  “We’d better not go to hell! Or I’ll kill you,” Trudy argued. “I’ve said enough Hail Marys in the last twenty-four hours to save us, our children, and our children’s children.”

  “I thought I was dead,” I explained as I tried to sit up. It took a few tries. It seemed I had the strength of a newborn baby.

  “They pumped your stomach a few times. You got a little dehydrated. They say you’re going to be okay, though. Well enough to wear those crotchless undies and leopard pushup bra.” Trude winked at me.

  I smiled. “I’m just glad you got the message.”

  “Listen, I couldn’t have gotten the message more clearly if you’d drawn me a picture. I called Scythe right away, and he was nearly to your house anyway. We weren’t long behind. He heard the confession you got out of Van Dyke while he was trying to figure out a way inside without getting you stabbed.”

  “Good. So Van Dyke is out of circulation?”

  “Yep, his case is already headed for the grand jury, it’s so tight. His wifey is long gone, though. They think she jumped the last plane to leave San Antonio that night for Acapulco with one of the gardeners.”

  The more things change, the more they are the same. “So everybody is okay?”

  “Everybody but Merlin, who’s unhurt but refuses to get down from the top of your wardrobe, and the vita- min salesman’s Porsche, which is toast.”

  “Oh, no. It wasn’t his car that…”

  Trudy was nodding. “Oh, yes, it was. You’re probably not his favorite neighbor right now.”

  So much for my love life. Even if it was nothing more than fantasy.

  “Did they ever find out who was following me?”

  “Scythe caught him, which was why he was late getting to your house. He was a heavy of Villita’s who was just supposed to report back on your comings and goings and got a little carried away. I imagine they are going to ask you to press charges against him.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t. I don’t want to cause Jon any more suffering than he’s already going through.”

  Mario was looking at me with pride, shaking his head in amazement. “You are so brave, Reyn.”

  “Really, it was nothing. I was just trying to do justice by Ricardo.”

  “No.” Mario waved that away, then ran a hand over his hair. “I’m talking about my new style. You were brave to give me this. And so many people love it. I am muy macho now.”

  Trudy watched him, glowing with pride. What was I going to do with these two? It was that love thing again. I still didn’t get it, despite my near-death experience.

  “Have you guys been here since I was brought in?”

  They tore their gazes from each other and looked at me. They nodded.

  “Would you please go home?”

  They did a visual consultation. “If you insist,” Trudy said.

  “I insist.”

  “By the way,” Trudy added as they walked out.

  “Zorita says your green aura is gone, and she’s sorry you didn’t listen to her when she tried to warn you about the impending injury.”

  “Did you tell her her list was a bunch of hooey?”

  “I mentioned it, and she said she never said the six people’s fates you had control of were on the list at all.”

  Well, hell, Zorita was right. So much for assuming. What did Gran always say? Don’t assume, it will make an
ass of you and me? How many times had I proved that in the past couple of days?

  “We’ll send Jon in, then,” Mario said, blowing me a kiss.

  “Jon?”

  “Jon Villita wants to talk to you,” Trude informed me as she exited, holding Mario’s hand.

  That was a shocker but also convenient, because as I’d slipped into whatever abyss I’d been in, I’d come up with what I ought to do with the salons should I live to see another day.

  The door to my hospital room opened, and Jon came in. It hit me hard, because he was so much like Ricardo in the way he moved, the way he held his head, the way he smiled. He’d cut his hair to the young man’s style of the moment—ultra-short with a front flip. It suited him. “I’m glad to see you made it. You had me worried.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to have the chance to thank you for caring about my father—my biological father—enough to risk your own life to prove who took his.”

  “Oh, you know?”

  “Some of it came out in the media. My mother and dad—the senator—told me the rest. Ricardo and my mother were in love, but she met my dad and thought he was a better future. When she turned up pregnant, Ricardo agreed not to fight for the right to me if they raised me right.”

  “Has the revelation messed up your political campaign?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “About half a dozen people have come out to challenge me all of a sudden. If I stay in it, my d—well, Senator Villita’s name is going to be dragged through the mud along with mine. If I get out, his spin doctors can fix it for him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jon shook his head. “I’m not. I didn’t want to do it, anyway. I was only doing it to please my dad. This gives me the perfect excuse to find a job I might like more.”

  “I think I have one for you.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m giving you Ricardo’s salons.”

  He was already shaking his head. “I can’t accept that kind of gift.”

  “It’s not a gift. It’s what’s rightfully yours. I think Ricardo knew when he willed them to me what was going to happen and what I would eventually do with them.” I replayed what I remembered of our last conversation in my mind. I nodded to myself.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Jon began as the door opened and Scythe stuck his head in.

  “Say ‘Thank you, Ricardo,’ ” I answered Jon. “And one day, I’ll tell you more about him.”

  “I’d like that.” Jon reached down and gently shook my hand.

  “You know, Ricardo said that he made two mistakes in his life—one was the best thing he ever did, and that was making you, I bet. And one was the worst thing he ever did, and that was taking that hush money from Sarah Johnstone. If you take the salons, it will be making right his wrong.”

  Jon nodded thoughtfully and left.

  “See, I knew you’d need that barf bag one day,” Scythe announced.

  “Yeah, who knew you’d give Zorita a run for her money in predicting the future?”

  “I didn’t do too good a job, or I would’ve been at your house sooner.”

  “Oh, well, I lived,” I responded lightly.

  He shook his head as he strode to my bedside. He was dressed in his requisite Wranglers and a wrinkled periwinkle polo shirt. It looked like he might have slept in it or at least wallowed around in it in a hospital chair for a few hours. His rusty blond hair stood on end. I got all mushy until he finished my sentence. “Although you really shouldn’t have.”

  “I shouldn’t have lived?” Anger made me strong enough to sit up all the way.

  “Right. Not the way you shook up half the city, baited the bad guy, and then set yourself up like a plate of enchiladas in the middle of a fiesta.”

  “But I hear Van Dyke’s behind bars now, along with a confession.”

  “It wasn’t worth it.”

  “It wasn’t worth what?

  “The headache you gave me.”

  “Okay, let’s make a deal: I’ll trim your hair, you’ll teach me the proper way to investigate, so next time—”

  Scythe was already shaking his head. “No next time. No deal.”

  “Why not?”

  “You get in enough people’s hair without knowing how to do it,” Scythe said, easing down on the edge of my bed, laser blues turned on high. “And besides, I still haven’t collected on the deal your pal made with me. It’s time to do that right now. You’d better pay up…”

  I smiled. “Or else?”

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Enough to make her hair curl. . .

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven