by Debra Webb
What were they doing having this discussion? Alex strode over to the bed and touched his carotid pulse. She flinched at the cool feel of his skin. “How long’s he been like this?”
Marg plowed her fingers through her hair. “An hour maybe.”
Jesus, an hour? Damn straight he was dead. Alex glanced down at his lower anatomy. “Did he take something? I mean…” She gestured toward his erect penis. Too early for rigor mortis. “He’s still standing up there pretty damned good for a guy his age.”
Marg stared sadly at the well-endowed man. “Viagra.”
“We’re gonna have to call the cops. It’s not like we can put him in his car and drive him home.”
Marg grabbed her arm. “Please, Alex, you have to help me keep this quiet. What will it do to my reputation?”
Alex’s eyebrows raised. “What reputation is that?”
Her mother huffed indignantly. “Just help me out here. And, as God is my witness, I will never drink or have sex again. You have my word.”
Alex glanced back at poor Robert. That vow wouldn’t last. But hell, this was her mother. Helping her out was what Alex did.
With that thought, she picked up the phone and called Detective Patton. Man, she missed Henson.
An hour later poor Robert had been taken away in the M.E.’s wagon. The M.E. had told Alex that he suspected a heart attack. Patton had finished taking her mother’s statement and gone. Sometime during the whole insane mess, her mother had managed to put on some clothes. Now they sat on her sofa, both too numb to speak.
“I’ll miss him.”
Alex shifted her gaze to Marg. She supposed it was possible to form a strong attachment in only three dates and one sexual interlude. She’d formed an attachment to Henson in about the same.
“He was really a nice guy,” Marg bemoaned.
Alex figured she should say something so she grunted an affirmative.
“Nothing like your father was.”
The statement took Alex aback. What did this have to do with her father? He’d been dead for twenty-five years. “I’m not sure I’m following.” She cleared her throat and tried to look attentive. Her mother obviously needed to talk and Alex needed to listen.
Marg shook her head. “I know it was hard on you, Alex.” She heaved a heavy breath. “But we did love each other, we just weren’t good for each other. The jealousy and rage made us do crazy things.”
That was certainly true.
She thought back to those days and honestly didn’t see how her mother had survived. Maybe the booze had been her only escape. “Dad was a real jerk for taking the easy way out.”
“Maybe. I don’t know, but one of us had to end it. Maybe he did the right thing.” Her gaze connected with her daughter’s. “Who knows, we might both be dead if something hadn’t given. We were on a fast and furious course toward self-destruction.”
That possibility had never occurred to Alex. She’d always considered her father a coward for killing himself when his wife and daughter needed him.
“He knew I would never leave you—” she shrugged “—I couldn’t be what he needed me to be and take care of you. So maybe he did us a favor and saved us both by killing himself. We were a lethal combination, Alex. No matter that we loved each other, we couldn’t live together or without each other.”
That explanation made far too much sense. It seemed so ridiculous to consider her father’s suicide a selfless act…but maybe it had been. She’d been a kid at the time, what had she known about love and life and its many complications?
“Whatever his reasons,” Marg went on, “I can live with his choice. I married him. It was my mistake. But you”—he stared meaningfully at Alex—“I’m so afraid that the mistakes we made have kept you from living your life to the fullest.”
That was just ludicrous. “What’re you talking about? My life is great!” And it was. She had everything she needed or wanted.
“Alex.” Her mother placed a hand on hers. “You can’t run away from love forever. Sooner or later it’s going to sneak up on you and you need to be ready.”
Alex didn’t draw her hand away as was her first inclination. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings. She was vulnerable right now. This was the way it was with them. Her mother needed her, Alex jumped in and helped. It had been that way for as far back as she could remember.
“Mother, I’m fine. I’m perfectly happy with my life. I’m not interested in long-term.”
“You see, that’s my point. You should be. And I’m certain it’s my fault you haven’t let anyone close enough. You’ve been too busy taking care of me and cleaning up the messes I’ve made.”
Alex shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion.”
“I’ve depended on you and you’ve let me, Alex, but I could take care of myself.”
Apparently Alex’s lack of conviction on that point showed in her eyes. She hadn’t meant to let Marg see the doubt but there it was.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Marg countered. “You think I couldn’t get a job. You think I couldn’t get a place if I didn’t have this one.” She lifted her chin in defiance. “Well, you’re wrong. I keep the job at Never Happened because I love working with you. I live here because I love living near you. But I could make it on my own. I might fall down now and then but there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Alex wasn’t sure where she was going with all this. “Mom, you don’t have to—”
“That’s just it, Alex, I do have to,” she insisted. “I’m terrified that you don’t understand that it’s okay to make a mistake. It’s okay to fail every so often. Life isn’t supposed to be perfect. Living life is about taking risks, about allowing yourself to be vulnerable at times.” She squeezed Alex’s hand. “That’s what you don’t get. You need to fall. Otherwise you’re never going to know just how magical it is.”
Her day only got worse.
When she got back to the office, her mother in tow, Brown and the Professor had gone out on an apartment cleanup involving a drug deal gone bad over in Little Havana.
Shannon already had a call waiting for Alex.
Leaving Shannon in charge of her mother, Alex got moving. After the trauma of having Robert die on her and that unsettling mother-daughter conversation, Alex didn’t want to risk that her mother would turn to the bottle for solace.
At least there would be no breakup this time.
Alex rolled her eyes. She’d lost it. No doubt.
She parked in the driveway of the house where Walter Brimmer had lived. According to the landlord, he had been one of those obsessive-compulsive people who saved everything. She wanted the place emptied. Brimmer had no next of kin and she needed to get the place cleaned out in time for a new tenant by the first of the month. Mr. Brimmer’s attending physician had authorized the funeral home to come pick him up since the man had suffered with severe health problems, high blood pressure and heart problems, not to mention he was eighty. The law allowed for an attending physician to attend to a situation like this, forgoing the autopsy and such.
Donning shoe covers and gloves, Alex took the key she’d picked up from the landlord and opened the door. The less than pleasant odor of molding pizza greeted her. Could have been a lot worse. She shivered as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. The temp of the air-conditioning had to be set at sixty; it was like a fridge in here.
The living room was piled high with magazines and newspapers and dozens upon dozens of pizza boxes. Her nose twitched. That would explain the smell of moldy pepperoni. In one corner of the room stood a tower of aluminum cans. She would see that all recyclables were taken to a center.
Actually, she realized as she surveyed the furniture and what she could see of the floor, the place was pretty clean, the mounds of accumulated stuff notwithstanding.
She moved down the hall to check out the bathroom and bedrooms. The same scenario. Mountains of clothes and deterg
ent boxes and bottles. Tons of stuff.
She’d saved what would likely be the worst for last. The kitchen.
Taking the short hall back to the living room, she wove through the dining room and its boxes upon boxes of cheap china and into the kitchen.
She froze.
Walter Brimmer still sat at the kitchen table.
After squeezing her eyes shut just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, she looked again. Yep, he was still there, slumped over a nearly empty bowl of what appeared to be cereal.
Poor bastard.
She dug out her phone and called the landlord. “Hey, the body’s still in the house. I can’t touch this place with him still here.” The landlord had assured her that the funeral home had been here and gone already.
She listened impatiently as the landlord explained that there had been a mixup and the funeral home was on the way.
Alex shoved her phone back into her pocket and let go a breath of frustration. This was happening altogether too often lately.
Mr. Brimmer dressed well, khaki slacks and a navy polo. His hair had gone gray and thin, leaving his pate bare. He was a little pudgy around the middle. His skin was wrinkled from too many years in the Miami sun. Though he looked a little pale just now since the blood had settled in the lower portion of his body after he’d ceased to breathe.
He’d lived alone. Wife had died years ago. No kids. No close relatives that the landlord knew of. He’d been dead only one night. The UPS guy couldn’t get him to the door to sign for a delivery this morning. He and the UPS guy were on a first name basis since Mr. Brimmer ordered so many items from the home shopping network. There was a delivery practically every day.
Alex pulled out a chair and sat down on the opposite end of the table. Rigor mortis had settled in all his muscles, but the worst of what was to come hadn’t started yet. She wondered as she studied him, was this how she would end up?
She kicked herself for letting the thought pop into her head. She did this far too often lately. What the hell was wrong with her? Maybe she was like her mother and she just needed to get laid. With someone who didn’t require Viagra, preferably.
Her mother’s words about her not being able to take a chance kept haunting her, making Alex angry all over again. There was absolutely nothing wrong with being strong and independent. Why didn’t her mother get that?
Maybe Alex was guilty of not taking chances, but so what? At least she hadn’t gotten hurt. She didn’t walk around all vulnerable and fragile. She took care of herself.
The memory of Henson’s silly laugh and crooked grin poked into her rant, making her second-guess herself. He’d wanted to take that chance with her and she’d walked away. Maybe her mother was right…maybe she would end up all alone if she just kept walking away.
Was that what she wanted? Did she want to never know how it felt to spend years with one man? Did she want to never experience having a child of her own? Just because she wasn’t committed to a long-term relationship and didn’t have any kids didn’t mean she didn’t have a life.
Did it?
Was all her bluster really just a way to hide…to run away when she felt threatened emotionally?
Again her mind played a trick on her and an image of Austin Blake filled her head.
What the hell did he have to do with anything?
She was letting them get to her. Marg, Shannon, all of them. And all those people who’d died alone…
Disgusted with herself she got up and went over to the fridge. Might as well see what kind of mess needed to be cleaned up in there. Sitting around here having a debate about whether or not she was a coward was getting boring. She opened the door and peeked inside. Not that bad. Milk, cheese, eggs, the usual. Her gaze snagged on the six-pack of Michelob. She looked over at Mr. Brimmer. Hell, he wouldn’t mind and it was practically noon.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed a bottle and went back over to the table. She twisted off the cap and saluted poor old Mr. Brimmer. “Cheers,” she muttered, before taking a long, soothing drink.
As if she hadn’t berated herself enough, Shannon’s thoughts on the matter bobbed to the surface in her head. This was how it ended when you weren’t in a committed relationship or when your spouse bought the farm before you. All by yourself. Lonely.
But she wasn’t lonely, dammit. Alex cradled the beer in her hands. No way. She was happy. Busy. Even had her own action-adventure subplot going on this week.
Somehow that didn’t assuage the sick feeling she got every time she worked a case like this one. Or every time she thought of how her mother really felt about her…did her whole crew think she was a coward? Afraid of life?
She settled her gaze on Mr. Brimmer. Hell, maybe she was. Maybe she’d been running her whole life.
Maybe they were right. Dying was bad enough. But dying alone, that really sucked.
The question was, could she—did she even want to—do anything about it?
Late that evening, after dark, Alex made it home. Her tail was dragging.
The cleanup at the Brimmer location had taken forever. So much stuff. So many trips to the recycling center.
Despite how exhausted she was, she trudged up to her mother’s door and knocked.
When the door opened, Marg looked about as tired as Alex felt.
“You okay?”
Her mother nodded. “A couple of friends from my support group came over and stayed awhile.”
Alex nodded. “Good. I’m headed for a shower and a long, long hot bath. Let me know if you need anything.”
When she would have turned away, Marg stopped her. “Alex, there’s something I need to say.”
She faced her mother, had to do a double take to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Marg looked…humble.
“I want you to know that I appreciate the way you’re always here for me. You’re a good daughter and that means more to me than you can ever know. I shouldn’t have said those things to you this morning.”
As if that hadn’t stunned Alex speechless, then Marg hugged her.
Incredible.
Alex somehow managed to hug her back. “It’s okay. Maybe there was some truth to what you said.”
Her mother didn’t pursue the subject, just kept holding her the way a mother should hold her daughter. Maybe they both had a lot of catching up to do.
A little while later, after her shower, with a Michelob and a brimming hot bubble bath, Alex analyzed the moment. Was her mother finally growing up?
Okay, she couldn’t go counting her chickens before they hatched. This was Marg. She could relapse.
But she could also finally move on with her life.
A real life. Maybe a committed relationship.
Something squeezed deep inside Alex. Why did that bother her? She wanted her mother to be happy.
Maybe because that meant she really would be all alone?
Oh hell. Alex set the empty bottle on the floor next to the tub. She had to stop this. This whole poor-me-I’m-going-to-grow-old-alone pity party had gone far enough.
Maybe she would give some thought to this whole “risk” thing. She might even try to stick with the right guy for a while and see what happened.
But that was as far as she was willing to go right now.
She evicted all thought of age and dying and loneliness from her head and closed her eyes to relax. That second beer had her feeling a bit of a buzz. Might as well enjoy it.
A creak split the silence.
She sat up straight. Drew in a lungful of thick, steamy air.
Another creak.
Wood.
Porch.
Hers.
She was out of the tub and dripping all over the bath mat in three seconds flat. She thrust her arms into her robe and lashed the tie en route to the front door. The house was dark but she knew the way by heart.
Peering through the peephole, she repeated several of the vile curses in her extensive vocabulary.
B
lake.
What the hell did he want now?
He’d been tailing her all day. She’d spotted him at every turn, ensuring that he never completely left her thoughts. Then again, that was what he was supposed to do. After all she was his bait.
She jerked the door open. “What do you want?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He looked past her into the dark house. “Were you in bed already?”
She couldn’t answer right away, she was too busy taking in the guy’s appearance with the aid of the streetlamp and what little moonlight reached under the canopy of her porch. Suit, tie, the works, just like always. This guy was as uptight as they came. She could just imagine what kind of animal he would be if he let himself go.
What was she thinking?
She gave herself another of those mental kicks. Clearly seeing Robert naked, his penis frozen in erection, had damaged her somehow.
“Are you sleeping outside my house?”
He made no excuses. “Yes.”
Well, hell. She stepped back, opened the door wider. “Come on in. I suppose the least I can do is offer you my couch.” He was CIA after all, she owed her cooperation to her country, right?
She almost bit off her tongue when her sluggish brain caught up with her runaway mouth. Was she out of her mind?
Yes.
“That’s not necessary, Miss Jackson.”
She wasn’t about to argue with him. “Just lock up when you crash.” She’d already opened her mouth once too often today. She pivoted on her bare, damp heel and strode toward the bathroom, only slipping once—from the water sliding down her skin, of course.
Eventually she heard the door close and lock.
By her estimate it had taken Blake a full five minutes to decide to come inside. She’d had time to drain the tub, brush her teeth and climb into bed.
At least there was someone in this world more screwed up than her. He obviously didn’t know how to let his hair down. He internalized far too much. All that control had to be costly. It didn’t take a shrink to recognize he was unnaturally uptight.
