Murder Melts in Your Mouth

by Nancy Martin

  We’d gone only a few hundred yards before the ambulance came toward us and flashed by.

  I sat stiffly in the seat, trying to imagine what was happening at my house. Trying to imagine life without my father. He’d abandoned us more than a few times in our lives, but somehow he’d never truly left us. There was a difference now. I peered into the side mirror, but the red light on the ambulance had disappeared in the darkness behind us.

  Tierney glanced at me. “He’ll be fine.”

  “No thanks to you.” I felt a flood of anger inside. “If he dies, it will be your fault.”

  Shaking his head, Tierney said, “If he’s stayed alive this long in your daffy family, he’s tougher than he looks.”

  “Turn left,” said Goldie.

  “What did you want from my father?” I asked. “What’s all this about in the first place?”

  “I need to know some things.”

  “About what?”

  “Hoyt Cavendish’s death.”

  “I think you know enough already,” I said. “Didn’t you kill him?”

  Tierney sent me a squinting glance. “That’s what the police think, isn’t it?”

  “They’re looking for you. Dozens of people must have seen you at the Paine offices before you ran away. And you had a reason to kill your own father, didn’t you? Because he wouldn’t give you enough money for Amazon Chocolate.”

  “How the hell do you know about that?”

  “It wasn’t hard to figure it out,” I said tartly. “And the police are way ahead of me.”

  “What are you? Some kind of private detective?”

  “No, just a friend of Lexie Paine. Because of you, she spent last night and today going through hell.”

  “If you really thought I murdered him,” he said, “you’d be more scared than you are.”

  I contemplated that truth. I wasn’t afraid of Tierney. Not really. Now that the gun was out of sight, I was more angry than frightened. “I’m worried about my father,” I said finally. “You could have two murders on your hands, buster.”

  He made a snorting sound.

  “And you’ve put Lexie through a terrible ordeal,” I said. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone a partner in her firm, a man she’s known all her life—”

  “A man who’s going to bring down her business? Ruin her reputation? Make it impossible for her to work in her chosen field for the rest of her life? And he punched a hole in her painting, too.”

  I turned in the seat to look at him. “You were there when that happened?”

  “I had just arrived. The woman at the reception desk said he was in a meeting. So I waited.”

  “For how long?”

  “Less than a minute. I didn’t even have time to sit down before all hell broke loose. I went to the doorway in time to see Hoyt and Lexie Paine arguing. I saw him hit the painting.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then your friend shut the door, and they started shouting at each other.”

  “Did either of them see you there?”

  “No, but the receptionist knew I was in the office. Several more people were milling around. A woman in a wheelchair, for instance. I guess one of them could have told the police I was there.”

  Trying to imagine the melee, I asked, “Did you see Chad Zanzibar?”

  “Who?”

  “An actor. He played an elf in that big movie that came out last Christmas.”

  “I haven’t seen a movie in years. There was a short, rude kid hanging around the reception area, though. I don’t know what happened to him when things started popping.”

  So Chad had been in the Paine Building before Hoyt died.

  I asked, “Why did you run away?”

  “I didn’t run away,” he snapped. “Lexie came out of the office saying Hoyt had fallen or—I forget her exact words. I ran into her office and out onto the balcony. I saw Hoyt on the—I saw him, that’s all. I wanted to help. I ran downstairs to see if he—if—look, I wasn’t trying to run away.”

  My first instinct had been right, I realized. While Crewe assumed Tierney had been trying to make his escape, I thought he had run down the stairs to reach his father.

  “Why didn’t you take the elevator?” I asked.

  “A bunch of old ladies blocked my way. I figured I could make it faster on the stairs.”

  I thought about a frantic son trying to reach his father, unsure if he was alive or dead. Hoping he was okay, despite the odds of surviving such a long fall. Fearing he was gone forever.

  Unconsciously, I glanced at my watch. I touched it nervously.

  Tierney saw my gesture.

  “Call your house,” he said finally. “You have a cell phone, right? The paramedics are there by now. Call and find out how your dad’s doing.”

  I grabbed my cell phone and punched my home number. The phone rang and rang before someone finally picked up. I heard Lucy’s small voice. Thank heavens someone had found the key and released everyone from the scullery.

  “Luce? It’s Aunt Nora.”

  “Oh, hi,” she said, sounding as calm as if I had interrupted her watching an episode of Blue’s Clues.

  “Lucy, is Rawlins there? Can you put him on the phone?”

  “He’s helping Grandpa,” she said. “They’re all helping Grandpa.”

  “Is he okay? Is Grandpa awake?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He wants everybody to stop yelling. But he’s yelling, too. He doesn’t want to go to a hospital.”

  I gripped the phone with both hands to stop myself from dropping it from the relief. “But are they taking him to the hospital, Luce?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “One ambulance man is talking to Grandpa about it, but the other man is talking to the twins. They want to shock somebody with the electric box.”

  “Did they use the electric box on Grandpa?”

  “No, Aunt Nora. But the twins want to see how it works. I think they’re going to steal it.”

  “Don’t let them steal the defibrillator, Lucy. The nice ambulance men need it to help other people.”

  “Okay. Can I have some candy, Aunt Nora? Grandma says she found your secret stash and we can have it if we’re good. I’ve been good, right?”

  “Very good, Lucy, thank you.”

  Tierney said, “Hang up.”

  “Gotta go, Luce. Bye!”

  But she had already disconnected, hot on the trail of my emergency chocolate.

  I closed my cell phone. My hands were shaking. To Tierney, I said, “Thank you.”

  “He’s okay?”

  “He’s being taken care of, that’s all I know.”

  “But he’s conscious?”

  “Conscious and arguing with the paramedics.”

  “Good.”

  “Don’t sound so happy. If you hadn’t upset him, he’d be fine right now.” I put the cell phone back into my bag. “I don’t plan on forgiving you for this. What did you want from him, anyway? Why on earth did you take my family hostage?”

  “That wasn’t the plan. They all ganged up on me.”

  “What was the plan?”

  “To talk. To get some answers.”

  “With a gun? Those must have been some monstrous questions.”

  “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. I haven’t slept since—God, I don’t even know. Not in a long time.” He glared at the road ahead.

  “Then you’re still not thinking straight. Let me go, and you can—”

  “Forget it,” he said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “Why not? What can I possibly do to harm you?”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “I need to think. I need time to figure out what’s going on. You’re going to have to help.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll help. I give you my word. But you need some sleep. And I want that gun out of this car. Once the gun is gone—”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  In my bag, my cell phone began to ring.
I slipped it out and checked the screen. Michael’s new numbers gleamed up at me.

  Irritated, Tierney said, “Hand over that thing.”

  I gave him the phone. He rolled down the window. I cried, “Don’t throw it away. Please, don’t. It has all my numbers from work, and my job’s already in jeopardy. Please don’t get me fired.”

  Taking pity on me, he rolled up the window. He shut off the phone and put it in the cup holder between us.

  “Turn left,” said Goldie, sounding happy again.

  For once, he obeyed. Tierney drove over the bridge into New Jersey. He seemed to know where he was going. We went through a series of small towns, and I saw signs for Princeton before we arrived at the entrance of a drive-in theater. I could see the flicker of the movie through the trees.

  Tierney surprised me by pulling into the ticket booth. As he rolled down the car window, he said to me, “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll give you a lot of reasons to be scared, got it?”

  I said nothing as the woman opened the ticket window and leaned her elbow on the sill. A cloud of cigarette smoke billowed out into the warm evening air. In a voice like a rusty hinge, she said, “Movie started half an hour ago.”

  “Double feature?” Tierney asked.

  “Triple.” She burst into a fit of coughing. Unable to speak, she pointed at a sign that read, TEN DOLLERS PER CARLODE.

  Tierney pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and passed her a ten-dollar bill. Still coughing, she waved us through the gate, past a sign that said, TURN OFF YOUR HEADLITES.

  The drive-in parking lot was full of station wagons and pickup trucks parked backward so families could sit in folding chairs facing the big screen. Tierney drove past a concession stand pumping out smells of fried food and popcorn. On our right, a dozen children played on a swing set in the dark.

  Tierney chose the back row, where only a few cars were parked—each one positioned a distance from the next car to provide a certain amount of privacy. I could see no people sitting in the cars. Then I realized they probably weren’t sitting.

  Tierney shut off the car and unfastened his seat belt. He retrieved the gun from the door pocket and slid it into his belt. Then he released my seat belt and said, “Get out of the car.”

  “Why? What are we doing?”

  “Get out of the car.”

  He exited his side, came around the car and pulled me out of the passenger seat. He closed my door and opened the door to the backseat. “Get in.”

  “What do you—”

  He grabbed my wrist and pulled. “Just get in.”

  I obeyed, but my heartbeat had already accelerated. When he climbed into the backseat with me and slammed the door, though, I panicked and scrambled to get out the other side. Tierney seized my arm, preventing my escape.

  “Settle down,” he snapped. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want to do this,” I said, quaking. “I don’t know you, I don’t like you, I don’t—”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  Suddenly we were wrestling. I didn’t have enough room to kick him, but I made a lunge for the gun in his belt. He batted my hand away, but I managed to punch him in the chest, and he recoiled with a grunt. I yelped when he yanked my arm, so he clamped his other hand over my mouth. I bit him, but he hung on. He was stronger than I was, and soon he had spun me around with one arm twisted behind my back. I struggled with all my strength, determined to fight him every inch of the way. I kicked at the door, hoping to break the window.

  “Stop it,” he said, breathless in my ear. He twisted my arm until I cried out in pain and froze. I could feel the tense power of his body as he pinned me against himself.

  “Calm down!” He was panting, but determined. “I just need some sleep, get it? I need a couple of hours, and then I’ll be able to think straight. So relax, will you? I’m not going to do anything, for God’s sake. Understand?”

  He waited until I nodded my head. Then he released my mouth.

  “Just relax,” he said. “If you move, I’ll wake up. And I might do something stupid like shoot you.”

  I didn’t like it, but I let him stretch out on the backseat and pull me against him until we were spooning. I hated that I was forced to lean my head against his chest. I could smell him, and he hadn’t taken a shower in a while. He put one arm around me and gripped my forearm against my breast to hold me in place. Already, I could feel the heat of his body against mine.

  Shakily, I said, “Please.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “I’m not going to touch you, Nora.”

  Stiff in his arms, I said with as much threat as I could muster, “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I won’t,” he said. “After all, you’re my sister.”

  He put the gun on the floor and went to sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’ve been kidnapped, I thought to myself.

  Kidnapped by my brother.

  Maybe I’d already known who he was. Certainly Libby had hinted, and long ago I’d accepted Daddy’s affair, and maybe a tiny part of my brain had also acknowledged the possibility that somewhere I had another sibling. And now here he was.

  Tierney Cavendish was not a Cavendish at all, but a Blackbird.

  He fell asleep like a desk lamp being snapped off—exactly the way Emma did when she was exhausted or drunk or both.

  I lay there thinking about Emma for a while, wondering if she’d truly decided to get an abortion if she was drinking only ginger ale. Perhaps she’d already reconsidered that dreadful choice. No doubt Michael had something to do with that. He’d tangle with a mountain lion to protect a child. And Emma was only slightly more dangerous than a mountain lion.

  Eventually I was capable of thinking rationally about Tierney again, and how he must have felt about his father—Hoyt, that is, not Daddy—dying in a terrible fall.

  And if Tierney hadn’t killed Hoyt, and Lexie hadn’t, either, who had?

  Stewing over the possibilities, I listened to the sound track of a silly movie in which the same man played different parts—including all the women—but I couldn’t see the screen from the backseat, so it made very little sense. Besides, I couldn’t follow a story because of the tangled one already looping around in my head.

  I listened to Tierney snore softly, and felt his chest rise and fall, and I thought of Michael with an intense longing.

  Eventually I fell asleep.

  And woke up when the movies were finished. I could hear car engines starting up around us, and the crunch of gravel under tires as people left the drive-in theater. I decided to throw caution to the wind. Stealthily, I reached for the cup holder where Tierney had dropped my cell phone. My hand found it in the semidarkness. Slowly, so as not to wake Tierney, I thumbed it open. I touched the ON button. A second later, the phone rang in my grasp.

  Tierney woke.

  Still holding me, he rolled my wrist over and looked at my watch. His voice was rumbly. “Jesus, it’s three in the morning. Who calls you at this hour?”

  “Let’s find out,” I said. “May I sit up?”

  He gave me a shove, and I straightened in the seat. Praying I’d hear Michael’s voice, I answered the phone.

  “Aunt Nora?” It was Rawlins. “That you?”

  “Yes, honey, it’s me.”

  “You okay?”

  “Moderately so. How’s your grandfather?”

  “Pretty good, I guess. We just got back from the hospital. They’re going to keep him overnight. Well—until morning. I don’t know. What time is it?”

  “It’s the middle of the night, darling. Thank you for taking care of everybody. You’re my hero. He’s really going to be okay?”

  “I think so. Where are you?” he asked. “Mick’s going nuts.”

  “I’m fine. We’re at the movies.”

  “Huh?”

  Tierney yawned and hauled himself to a sitting position. “Hang up.”

  “Who’s that?” Rawlins said. “You still with t
hat guy with the gun?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Hang up,” Tierney said.

  “I’ve got to go, Rawlins, but everything’s—”

  Tierney took the phone and punched the off button so the screen went dead. He dropped it on the seat between us, and we sat looking at each other in the darkness.

  He had Daddy’s expressive brows and the same divot in his cheek that Libby had—not quite a dimple, but almost. And my eyes.

  I hugged myself, trying not to be spooked by our similarities.

  He shrugged, accepting.

  “How long have you known?” I asked.

  He shrugged again. “A while. I was a teenager when my mother told me.”

  “Did she—I don’t know—did she tell you gently?”

  Tierney’s cold smile flickered briefly. “Are we going to talk about our mothers now?”

  “Shouldn’t we?”

  “My mother was a complicated person,” he said. “She didn’t have it easy.”

  “Like my mother, you mean.”

  “Your mother is a natural disaster.”

  “Welcome to the family,” I replied, giving him a shaky smile.

  Which seemed to surprise him. He reached for the door handle and got out of the car. I climbed out of the other side, stretching my stiff limbs tentatively. The drive-in was deserted, except for the small mounds of trash everywhere. On the ground beside the car, I saw a used condom in a heap of spilled popcorn.

  Tierney walked over to the trees, turned his back to me and relieved himself in the bushes.

  I leaned against the car for a while, glad to be breathing fresh air. It was blessedly cool. I put my head back and looked up at the fading stars. A few clouds floated in front of the moon. I looked for Fred Flintstone.

  Tierney returned. “I could use some breakfast. And I know a place that’ll be open.”

  When he started the car, Goldie Hawn sounded delighted we were back. “Turn left.”

  I reached for the control panel and shut off the navigation system. I’d spent at least an hour staring at it from the backseat to guess how to turn it off.

  Tierney said, “Maybe I’ll like having sisters.”

  He drove into Princeton and found a diner that probably catered to students with the munchies and truckers who needed strong coffee. A huge neon sign depicted a buxom girl on roller skates. She winked as we pulled into the parking lot. Tierney locked the gun in the glove compartment and put my cell phone in his pocket.