Clutches and Curses

by Dorothy Howell

  “Okay. After seven.”

  “My husband isn’t here,” she said, as if that explained something, and hung up.

  I closed my phone, not sure what had just happened—I was getting a lot of that tonight.

  One thing for certain, I didn’t feel so great about showing up at her house at a designated hour—one she’d absolutely insisted on. I mean, I didn’t know her or anything, and from the things she said, Stephanie might very well have been involved in Courtney’s murder.

  Was she taking the time between our phone conversation and my arrival at her house to load a gun? Did she intend to confess, clear her conscience, then blow me away?

  Not a great feeling.

  Maybe I should call Jack.

  I stared out the window at the Starbucks parking lot, thinking over my options.

  Jack would know how to handle the situation, plus I was sure he was always packing heat. What’s the point of having a private detective for a friend if you couldn’t call on him at a time like this? Jack had always been there for me before. I knew he wouldn’t let me down.

  Of course, Jack would ask why I wasn’t with Ty tonight. I didn’t want to tell him that Ty had flown in just for a few minutes, then left again. It would make Ty look like a jerk and no way would I do that. Plus, it might make me look like a complete idiot for putting up with it, and I wasn’t anxious to have Jack think of me that way.

  For a split second, I considered calling Detective Dailey just so someone would know where to start searching for my body if I didn’t show up for work tomorrow morning. Just as quickly, I disregarded the idea. The farther I stayed from the homicide detectives, the better.

  If something went down at Stephanie’s house tonight, the detectives would eventually look at my Facebook page and see that she’d contacted me. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was all I could get at the moment.

  On the brighter side, Stephanie might very well confess to the murder and stand by quietly while I called Detective Dailey with the news that I’d solved the case for him, and let him know where he could come to pick up his murderer.

  I’d insist he bring Detective Webster, of course.

  I gathered my things, the way-cool scene playing in my mind, and left Starbucks.

  CHAPTER 15

  The GPS unit in my car routed me to the 215. Traffic was kind of heavy, but since I routinely drove the L.A. freeways, it didn’t bother me. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it. Driving was a perfect opportunity to think over major problems. I did it with ease.

  It’s a gift, really.

  Ty swept into my mind, his image bringing with it his offer to pay my college tuition. No way had I expected that. I figured I’d be doing well if he just didn’t break up with me.

  But Ty being Ty—he’s incredibly generous—hadn’t just left it at paying for everything so I could finish school without worry about money; he’d offered to pay my living expenses as well. Plus he’d be okay with it if I quit my job.

  I merged onto the northbound 15 toward North Las Vegas.

  It all sounded great. Really. And, better still, did it mean that the ridiculous curse—which I still didn’t believe in—had finally vanished, or floated away, or worn off, or whatever curses did when they were done?

  Really, I’d like to get in some gambling while I was here.

  Then another thought hit me: did it mean something that I hadn’t jumped at his offer when he’d made it in the Holt’s parking lot? Did I not want to move in with him? Or was something else going on?

  Yeah, okay, enough thinking about that.

  I exited the freeway and wound through a residential neighborhood of middle class homes with front yards filled with rocks instead of grass—translation: desert landscaping—and SUVs parked out front.

  Stephanie Holden—and her husband, presumably, though she’d made a point of saying he wouldn’t be home—lived on the corner in a house that, by design, looked a lot like every other place in the neighborhood.

  I left my Honda at the curb. The sun was going down. Long shadows stretched across cactus plants lining the sidewalk. I rang the doorbell.

  Stephanie answered the door and, luckily, didn’t cut lose with an AK-47 or anything. She looked like, if she had an AK-47, she’d turn it on herself.

  I would, if I looked like her.

  I figured her for around my age, probably, tall, with easily a hundred pounds on me. Regrowth from hell left her hair brown on top and blond from the ears down. No makeup. A T-shirt with stains on the front. Stretch pants that had reached their limit. Chipped toenail polish that screamed for a fresh pedi.

  She stood in the doorway looking at me in the fading light and said, “You look fabulous.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though it wasn’t a compliment. It was more an I-hate-you-for-looking-fabulous-when-I-look-like-crap kind of thing.

  Stephanie sighed heavily. “You don’t remember me, do you.”

  It wasn’t a question, more an accusation.

  I got a weird feeling.

  “Monroe High School?” she asked.

  My weird feeling turned really weird.

  “Senior year? Mrs. Moore’s English class? Mrs. Winn’s history class?” she said. “I was Stephanie Patterson back then.”

  Oh my God. I hadn’t recognized her at all. But I’d gone to high school with her. She was my age. She was my age and she looked this bad. How was that possible?

  “I had kids,” Stephanie said, as if she’d read my mind.

  She stepped back and let me into the house.

  The living room and dining room combo area was huge, made to look bigger by the vaulted ceiling. The place was mostly empty space. A couch, rocker, coffee and end tables, flat panel TV. No pictures on the walls, no artificial flowers, no fake ficus tree in the corner. The fireplace mantel was lined with photos of babies, some in their own frames, others stuck into the corners of frames.

  Toys were scattered across the floor and atop the couch and rocking chair. A laundry basket running over with clothes sat by the fireplace. Another pile of laundry lay in the rocker. I glimpsed the adjoining kitchen. Two high chairs, overturned cups on the table, and dirty dishes overflowing in the sink. The place smelled vaguely of pee.

  “How many children do you have?” I asked. I tried to sound interested but I don’t think I pulled it off.

  “Four.”

  Yikes!

  “Sorry I didn’t recognize you,” I said.

  Stephanie raked the toys off the couch and onto the floor, and gestured for me to sit. She did the same for the rocker.

  “Four kids in five years,” she said. “The last were twins.”

  “Wow,” I managed to say. It was the nicest thing I could think of.

  “They’re all in bed now,” Stephanie said. “They go down at seven—and not a minute after.”

  “Where’s your husband?” I asked.

  “Business trip.”

  Lucky him.

  “How about some wine?” Stephanie asked.

  She looked so exhausted I didn’t want to take her up on her offer—plus, I’d seen her kitchen.

  Before I could answer, she disappeared into the kitchen. At my elbow was an end table cluttered with Legos, Matchbox cars, and an assortment of baby bottles and juice cups. A photo of the kids showed the four of them dressed in red, standing beside a fake Christmas tree. Their names were engraved in the frame.

  The oldest was a boy named Avian—jeez, why didn’t she just name him beat-me-up—standing next to a girl named Shannon. The twins, looking none too happy, were named Jim and Joe. Apparently, Stephanie’s enthusiasm for names had waned as the kids popped out.

  She came back from the kitchen with two glasses of red wine, drinking hers as she crossed the room.

  “Thanks,” I said, as she passed me the glass. I took a sip, then placed it on the end table.

  I wasn’t all that anxious to stroll down high school memory lane—nor be in this house any longer than I had to—so I got down
to business.

  “I guess you and Courtney stayed in touch after high school?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Stephanie said.

  She plopped down in the rocking chair and started sorting the clothing on the floor into piles, wine glass in hand. Tiny socks here—sip—tiny pants there—sip—tiny shirts over there—sip.

  “I don’t—can’t—get out much, so I’m on the Internet a lot,” Stephanie said. She cut her gaze to me. “I see you’re working undercover. Something about national security?”

  Jeez, I’d forgotten all about posting that on the Monroe High School alumni site. Nothing to do now but run with it.

  “I can’t really discuss it,” I told her.

  Stephanie nodded as if that were just another reason to hate me, drank more wine, and went back to sorting clothes.

  “I saw Courtney’s info on the school site back last year sometime, when she was still living in California,” Stephanie said. “That fashion business she ran. It looked like—well, it looked like typical Courtney.”

  I’d visited the Monroe High School site just a few days ago, but Courtney’s page had stated nothing more than that she lived in Henderson. She must have taken down the info about the business she was involved in. I figured she didn’t want her old classmates to know how bad it was doing—not that I blamed her, of course.

  “I contacted Courtney on Facebook,” Stephanie said. “When she moved to Henderson, we got together a few times. You know, for old times’ sake.”

  “Did she talk about her business?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, she was thrilled with it. All sorts of big plans. Upscale this, and ultra that. Artisans and exclusive clientele,” Stephanie said, sipping and sorting more quickly now. “A partner who knew everything about everything, of course.”

  “Danielle?” I asked.

  Stephanie waved a sock around, as if to dismiss my question.

  “I guess that was her name. She convinced Courtney to come to Vegas.” Stephanie gave a disgusted grunt. “Seems to me L.A. would be the place to run a fashion business—or New York, maybe. But what do I know? I’m just a mom with four kids.”

  It seemed odd to me, too. The Los Angeles Garment District was home to all sorts of textile manufacturers, so it followed that Courtney would want to live near there.

  Unless she was hiding from Mike Ivan.

  “Anyway, our attempt at rekindling our high school friendship didn’t amount to much. Our lives were too different,” Stephanie said, and tipped back her wine glass again. “Courtney had a boyfriend keeping her busy. He called her every time we were out somewhere.”

  “Tony Hubbard,” I said.

  Stephanie pushed the piles of clothes toward me with her foot. “No, his name wasn’t Tony. I’d have remembered that. My husband’s name is Tony.”

  Okay, this was odd. I had no idea Courtney had a boyfriend besides Tony Hubbard.

  “Was his name Mike?” I asked. I doubted it, but it was worth a try.

  “How the hell could I possibly remember?”

  Stephanie got to her feet, one hand on her hip, the other clutching the wine glass. She glared down at me like she’d suddenly morphed into some kind of angry, crazy-ass Decepticon and wanted to crush me and the entire world.

  “Look, Haley, I did what I did, and that’s it. I don’t know how you found out, but you did,” Stephanie told me. “So now we’re just going to have to deal with it.”

  Oh, crap. What was happening?

  My senses rocketed to high alert—like when you go into the mall and somehow you just know there’s a sale at Nordstrom.

  Was she about to tell me she’d murdered Courtney? Was she really a complete psycho masquerading as a suburban mom?

  She’d lulled me into a false sense of security, plied me with wine. She’d piled a mountain of toys and clothes at my feet. I’d never make it to the front door through this obstacle course.

  I glanced around the room. She could have hidden a pistol, a rifle—a bazooka—anywhere in this mess.

  Was her husband really away on business, or had she shot him and buried him beneath the desert landscaping in the back yard? Not that I blamed her, really. If my husband had gotten me pregnant with four kids in five years, I might be tempted as well.

  “It was me,” Stephanie said. “I’m the one who told the detectives how you hated Courtney in high school because she stole Robbie Freedman from you.”

  I just looked at her, relieved that she wasn’t about to kill me, but disappointed that she hadn’t confessed to killing Courtney.

  “But I guess you already figured that out, Haley, with your undercover work and your national security job,” Stephanie said. She gulped down her wine. “Courtney and I were friends. I always liked her. I told those detectives what had happened back in high school because it was my civic duty. And, besides, I didn’t want to get into trouble for being an accessory to murder after the fact, or whatever they call it—certainly not to protect you.”

  I’d had enough of Stephanie’s my-life-sucks-and-I-hate-you-because-yours-doesn’t attitude. I got to my feet and left. I didn’t even say good-bye, just walked out the door, got into my car, and drove away.

  I made a mental note to call Fay and tell her I’d be late coming to work in the morning. I intended to stop and have my tubes tied on the way in.

  My room at the Culver Inn didn’t seem quite so bad when I crawled into the bed. Anyplace would be better than Stephanie’s house. I switched off the light, hoping I could fall asleep right away, but too many things kept popping up in my mind.

  The list of reasons for me to dislike being at Stephanie’s house tonight was understandably long and justified. But I couldn’t help thinking maybe there was more to it than the obvious.

  Had I seen my future with Ty in Stephanie’s living room? If I moved in with Ty, would he expect me to cook and clean? Wash his underwear?

  Oh my God. What if I got pregnant? Ty was hardly around now. What would it be like if we had kids? Would I turn into kind-of-psycho Stephanie?

  Not a great feeling.

  I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. Dim light filtered in around the curtains, casting thin shadows across the hopelessly out of style popcorn ceiling.

  Maybe tonight I’d seen my could-have-been past.

  Robbie Freedman. What if he’d dated me instead of Courtney? I’d never learned why the two of them had broken up after high school, but what if Robbie and I had dated and stayed together? What if we’d gotten married?

  Would I already be kind-of-psycho Stephanie?

  Maybe she and I would have been best friends, somehow, filling our days changing diapers and organizing play groups, and our nights trying to forget it all with bottles of red wine.

  Yeah, okay, enough of that scenario, I decided, and sat up.

  The image of Jack bloomed in my mind.

  Where was he tonight, I wondered? Had he gone back to Los Angeles? Was he still here in Vegas? I imagined him at a hot club on The Strip, looking hot, acting hot, hanging out with hot people.

  I wondered, too, if he was thinking about me—which was really bad, I know. Was he wondering if I was having hot sex with Ty right now? Would he care?

  My cell phone rang. Ty, according to the caller I.D. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table and saw that it was after two.

  Okay, that was weird. Ty almost never stayed up past ten o’clock.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I figured your voicemail would pick up.” His voice sounded deep and mellow. “I couldn’t sleep. I was lying here missing you.”

  Jeez, what kind of crappy girlfriend was I, thinking about Jack and hot sex, when my official boyfriend was calling just to tell me he missed me?

  “Want to have phone sex?” I asked.

  Yeah, okay, maybe that was overcompensating a little.

  “That doesn’t really work for me,” Ty said, and chuckled. “I’m more of a hands-on kind of guy, as you know.”

&n
bsp; Oh, yeah, I knew that all right.

  “Have you thought about our earlier conversation?” he asked.

  Our conversation about moving in together.

  This probably wasn’t a good time to mention that I’d also been thinking about Jack Bishop and Robbie Freedman.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Good,” Ty said. “As long as you’re thinking about it.”

  I appreciated that he wasn’t pushing me.

  “Have you checked your e-mail?” Ty asked.

  “Not in a while,” I said.

  “I sent you something,” he said.

  “Go to sleep,” I said. “You have a meeting in the morning.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You always have a meeting in the morning,” I said.

  He laughed softly, sending a warm shiver over me.

  “Good night,” he said.

  Luckily, we didn’t go through that whole who’s-going-to-hang-up-first thing. I said good night and we hung up.

  No way could I go to sleep now. I got my laptop into the bed and opened the e-mail he’d sent. His message simply read, Do you like this one?

  Attached were photos of a beachfront house in Malibu, waves crashing only yards from the deck, and interior shots of the gorgeous living room, kitchen, and bedrooms.

  My jaw sagged open and I just stared.

  Wow, he’d remembered. Ty had actually remembered that I’d said I liked beach homes. He’d even looked them up, found one, and e-mailed it to me.

  Jeez, he really was serious about us moving in together.

  A noise sounded in the hallway and a door slammed, jarring me back to the Culver Inn. Then I remembered Amber losing her job and the oh-so-lovely Whitley insisting no one but me was booked into this wing. I launched myself out of bed, yanked open the door, and leaped into the hallway.

  Empty.

  I ran to the end of the hallway and looked down the corridor toward the elevator.

  Nobody.

  I ran back, threw open the door to the stairwell at the end of the hall.

  Silence.

  I walked back into the hallway, stopped still, and listened.

  Not a sound.

  I figured that whoever had been booked into a room had to be staying in one of the two across the hall from mine. Otherwise, I’d have heard them through our shared, common wall.