Pick Your Poison

by Leann Sweeney

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Teaser chapter

  “PICK YOUR POISON GOES DOWN SWEET.”

  —Rick Riordan, Edgar Award-winning

  author of Cold Springs

  “Calm down or you’ll give the poor dog a heart attack. This is our house and I’m finding out this minute what’s going on. Who knows? Maybe there’s a bird trapped upstairs—or even a possum.” I sounded brave enough. But was I trying to convince Kate—or myself?

  “Okay,” she said. “But help me put Webster in the kitchen first. He’ll never go up those stairs.”

  She was right. “Come on, you poor excuse for a dog,” I said, pushing him from the rear.

  Kate stuck with his front end, but when we reached the kitchen door, footsteps—running, pounding steps—echoed through what I thought had been a vacant house.

  Someone was coming down the stairs.

  Neither of us had time to move before we saw that gray blur race through the foyer and out the open front door.

  Kate started screaming “Oh my God!” over and over, which sent Webster flying through the kitchen entry beyond us.

  I almost went after whoever ran off, buoyed by the idea the intruder felt compelled to escape. I’ve always preferred my criminal types on the spineless end of the bell curve. But I didn’t think that would be too smart, so I said, “Pull yourself together, Kate. We’ll corral Webster and wait in my car for the police.”

  I turned my attention to the kitchen, where sun persisted through the grime of curtainless windows, striping the room with dust-filled rays of light.

  What I saw didn’t register at first, considering I expected to see Webster cowering in the corner rather than where he was—sitting in the center of the room . . . next to the man lying in a pool of blood.

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, May 2004

  Copyright © Leann Sweeney, 2004

  All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09890-5

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  For Candy, my sister, best friend,

  and ally against the odds.

  1

  The sun could have melted diamonds that day, and I spent the afternoon poolside, wasting away in Liptonville for the thirtieth time in a month. I’d just come out of the water and was slopping on more sunscreen when I noticed Ben hovering by the gate to the pool.

  Ben never hovers. As the hardest-working yardman in the kingdom of River Oaks—the overindulged and overendowed section of Houston—he stays far too busy to hover. His daily challenge is to keep the property that my twin sister and I own from turning into something reminiscent of a tropical rain forest.

  He held a rake, and wore his regular white cotton shirt and gray khaki work pants. A wide-brimmed canvas hat shaded his face.

  “You need something, Ben?” I asked.

  “If you’ve got a moment, Miss Abby.”

  “A moment? I stay about as busy as a ghost-town undertaker, so I can offer you endless moments. Come on over here.”

  He rested the rake against the wrought-iron fence, dragged a chair from the patio table, and sat next to me. His lined face was tense with concern and he stared down at the pebbled deck. “Will your sister be home at the regular time?”

  I set down my bottle of SPF 45. “I think so. Is something wrong?”

  “Not wrong, exactly. Sorry . . . yes, maybe wrong—but nothing that’s your fault, or Miss Kate’s fault.”

  He took off his hat and wiped a forearm across his sweat-beaded forehead. “Didn’t think this would be so hard.”

  “You’re not quitting, are you? Because if you need more money or—”

  “I don’t need your money, miss.”

  “Okay. So what is it? You seem upset.”

  “You and Miss Kate . . . well, I know you’ve been grieving. Trying to get over losing your daddy so sudden and all. I’ve been waiting for the right time to say what needs saying.”

  I’d never seen him so nervous. “I’m listening, Ben.”

  He hesitated. “See, that’s why I was asking about Miss Kate. I don’t think I can say this more than once, and you both need to hear. I was hoping I could come up to the house when she gets home from the university.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “About six o’clock, then. Got work to do, miss. Lawn by the front drive needs edging.” And with that, he practically ran back to his rake and retreated across the yard.

  “Wait!” I called. “Can’t you give me a hint what this is all about?” Secrets—and this sure sounded secret—are something you tell only one person at a time, and he needed to tell me first.

  But he was hurrying toward the shed where we keep the lawn mowers, and if he heard me, it was ignored.

  He’d left the gate ajar, and Webster, Kate’s Border collie, took this as an invitation to join me. Since he c
ouldn’t fit beneath my low-to-the-ground chaise, he sought shade under the chair Ben had abandoned. After stretching out, I reached over to scratch his head.

  “What do you think that was all about, Webster?” I said.

  But he ignored me too, and soon I dozed off, still wondering what quiet, unobtrusive Ben might find too difficult to say more than once.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, but the monstrous brick house Daddy willed to Kate and me was beginning to cast its shadow over the pool when Webster started all the commotion. At first I was grateful his barking woke me, because I’d slipped into this mini nightmare where I found myself at the altar dressed in white tulle and red cowboy boots, prepared to remarry my ex-husband. Seems I’d spent so much time on the deck this summer, I’d sizzled my brain cells along with the rest of me.

  I slipped into the tepid water and swam a few laps, hoping to rid myself of the dream, but now that Steven had presented himself, the memories wouldn’t leave me alone. When he was sober, the man could charm the gloss off a photograph, and he’d been sober for months, a fact he wasn’t letting me forget.

  But if I went soft on him, I’d be watching him hug another commode or be bailing him out of jail on a drunk-and-disorderly charge again. I could resist. I could be strong. Besides, I missed Daddy, not Steven. The “Ex Man” just happened to show up in a stupid dream.

  Meanwhile, Webster hadn’t let up with the barking. I returned to my chair and flopped onto my belly, palms pressed against my ears. But I couldn’t drown him out, and since thinking about divorces and drunken encounters had primed my stinger, poor Webster was about to experience the full brunt of my irritation.

  I raised up and shouted, “Don’t you know it’s hot enough to boil mercury, animal?” This had no impact, so I flipped over and sat on the edge of the chair. “You’re gonna collapse in an overheated heap, you keep that up!”

  He yapped louder.

  Now, Webster’s vocabulary is limited to about twenty words, most of them related to food and bodily functions. No surprise the word overheated didn’t register. He kept on barking, transforming my aggravation into a full-fledged death wish.

  I stood, took a generous gulp of watered-down tea from my ever-present thermos, and marched on him like Sherman through Atlanta.

  The dog’s frenzy, I soon discovered, was focused on the greenhouse door, but where he’d found the energy to pull off this canine rendition of a nervous breakdown I’ll never know. See, Webster manages to squeeze in his twenty-three-and-a-half hours of sleep per day, come hell or high water. He is not your garden-variety Border collie. More like a basset hound in disguise.

  When I reached the greenhouse, a little Plexiglas building beyond the rose garden and fig trees on the east side of the property, I stood menacingly above the dog, hoping body language would have a silencing effect. This seemed to work, because he did shut up.

  “Guess you wore yourself out,” I said, sounding smug.

  Webster fixed his worried brown eyes on my face and sat down with a whimper.

  Hmm. Maybe smug wasn’t the appropriate emotion. Maybe I should be worried, too.

  Nah. Probably just an armadillo or a possum. Either that, or a water moccasin slithered in there from the nearby bayou.

  I reached over the dog for the door handle, ready to chase away whatever creature had him all riled up, but before I could say woof, Webster scampered between my legs like I was up on jacks in the garage and raced toward the house.

  “What’s got into you?” I mumbled, pushing my sunglasses to the top of my head. I pressed my nose against the screen to peer inside.

  What I saw made me yank open that door, but then I clung to the frame, paralyzed by the scene before me.

  Ben lay spread-eagled on the dirt floor between gallon pails of antique roses, and one look at his face told me I couldn’t help him. His eyes were wide, his lips were blue, and his face was scarlet.

  The tea I’d drunk threatened to erupt, but I swallowed hard and forced myself to take those few short steps to kneel beside him. A plastic watering can had tipped over—probably dropped it when he collapsed—and his right hand rested in a wide, wet circle. I checked his neck for a pulse, and though his skin felt warm, he was definitely dead.

  I gripped his shoulder, my head bent. “Oh, my God, Ben, I am so sorry. So very sorry.”

  The small building seemed to close in on me then, the smell of roses, pine-bark mulch, and lemon thyme all mixing together with another odor, something familiar but one I couldn’t identify.

  I grasped the edge of the nearby potting table for support, then stumbled outside. The flimsy door shut with a thwack, and I stood for a second, my pulse roaring in my ears.

  I had to call someone. The police? Yes . . . No . . . God! Why couldn’t I string two coherent thoughts together? Maybe because I’d discovered two dead people in a few short months, first my daddy and now Ben.

  I looked toward the house. Yes. Call. Tell someone.

  I made myself move, slowly at first on those shaky legs, then faster and faster. But if I thought running like a scorched cat would make the horrible images of death disappear, I was wrong. Ben’s wide eyes still seemed to be boring into me even after I reached the phone in the kitchen. Drenched with sweat by then, I dialed those three numbers you never want to use, tasting the salt on my lips, grateful for that tiny affirmation of life.

  An hour had passed since I called 911. An ambulance and a swarm of police had crowded onto my lawn ten minutes after I phoned. But even though I’d clearly told the dispatcher Ben was dead, the paramedics showed up anyway. How I wished they could have Heimliched or resuscitated him back to life. Six patrol cars were parked at awkward angles on the curving drive, doors ajar, their whirling lights calling the neighbors to assemble outside the fence and gawk.

  I’d been told to stay put after I led the first officers to the body, and so I sat twenty feet from the greenhouse door under the shade of a crape myrtle. People with shiny gloved hands were rushing around carrying plastic bags, while other officers wrote in notebooks, used cell phones, or spoke into walkie-talkies. They had propped open the screen door, and my gaze kept wandering back to Ben’s body. He still lay between the roses, and I wondered why they didn’t cover him up with one of those white sheets I always saw on the six-o’clock news.

  “You the homeowner?” came a voice from the vicinity of my right shoulder.

  I looked up. A man, maybe late thirties, his short blond hair darkened by sweat, stood to my right. He looked maybe six feet, one-eighty, wearing a button-down off-white shirt, mocha tie, and a “Don’t Mess with Texas” expression. I got to my feet, brushing grass off the back of my legs. His police shield, attached to the chest pocket of his shirt, glinted in the late-afternoon sun, and from those shadows under his tired eyes, I pegged him as the president-elect of the Burned-out Cop Society.

  I held out my hand. “Abby Rose, and yes, I’m the owner.”

  He ignored my gesture of greeting and said, “I see a compressor over by that cabana. Place air-conditioned?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, feeling like maybe I should salute with my useless, “out there” appendage.

  “Good.” He was already on his way before I could blink.

  Bet that man struts even when he’s sitting down, I thought, following on his heels.

  He asked one of the uniformed officers if the cabana had been searched and dusted for prints, and was told the place was clean. We went inside.

  I was scared, hot, and still in shock over my discovery, and the bathhouse-slash-refreshment center, with its cushioned wicker chairs and pastel walls, provided a cool, familiar atmosphere that calmed me almost immediately.

  I grabbed a robe from one of the dressing rooms and a bottled water from the fridge behind the small bar, offering water to the policeman as well. He declined and took a pack of Big Red gum from his shirt pocket.

  “My name is Sergeant Kline and I’m with Homicide,” he said. “Have a seat.�
�

  Guzzling down half the water before I took a breath, I sat opposite him at the table in the center of the room.

  He checked a palm-size notebook. “Ms. Rose, is it?”

  “Yes. Abby Rose. But did you say Homicide? Because Ben looked like maybe he’d had a stroke or choked to death or—”

  “We aren’t certain how he died. But there’re enough questions concerning the physical evidence in the greenhouse that—”

  “What evidence?”

  Sergeant Kline chewed his gum, tapping his pen on the glass tabletop. “Ms. Rose, let me ask the questions.”

  He sounded irritated, just like those probate lawyers had when we went over Daddy’s will and I kept interrupting their droning legalese for clarification.

  “Okay. Ask away.” I swigged down the rest of the water, thinking I might get frostbite if I took this guy’s pulse.

  “You told the first policeman on the scene that you heard nothing in the greenhouse prior to investigating the barking dog?”

  “I was asleep. The dog woke me.”

  “And you live here with your sister, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But you indicated she was not at home today? That you and Mr. Garrison were alone?”

  “Mr. Garrison?” I said, confused. “Oh—you mean Ben. Sorry, yes. We were alone.” Shame heated my face. I didn’t even remember Ben’s last name. What the hell kind of employer was I?

  Kline said, “We couldn’t locate a driver’s license or address book in Garrison’s garage apartment here on the property. The medical examiner’s officer found no ID in his pockets. No credit cards either. Were his quarters temporary? And if so, do you have a permanent address where we could find information to notify family?”

  “The apartment wasn’t temporary. He lived there all the time. His days off were Sunday and Monday and—”

  “Do you have an employment application? Something with a former address? Relatives hearing through the media about a loved one’s death . . . Well, we don’t like that.”

  Did he think I’d get a rip-roaring kick out of such an awful thing happening? After taking a deep breath to keep myself from spouting off, I said, “My father hired Ben, and Daddy would have scanned the application, if there was one, then filed it on his computer. I’m sure if you give me time I could find—”