Miranda's Revenge

by Ruth Wind

  To begin, he said the rosary, all fifty decades, chanting them on his fingers as he loosened up. He’d run for a long time with beads around his wrist, but took enough ribbing he learned to do it on his hands. Faith was a private matter, between himself and his Maker. He felt no wish to defend his position or convert others to his way of thinking. If he’d learned one thing during his quest, it was that there were many paths to the divine. His was his own.

  This morning, he sought wisdom, guidance for his intuition and intellect. Intellect said Desi had likely killed Claude, no matter how much everyone wanted to believe otherwise, and intuition said she had not done it, that there was a darker evil afoot here. The land Desi and Claude had shared was worth one hell of a lot of money, and someone stood to make barrels more from it. That was as much a motive as a marriage gone foul.

  Claude had obviously collected a number of lovers. James needed to find out how many, where they were, what his love history was. Someone knew. It could be that some jilted woman had just grown tired of him taking yet another lover.

  His breath came more harshly as he ran a slight grade up a ridge, and sweat now started beading along his brow, but there was good rhythm in his movements this morning, a good stride even at what he guessed was nearly eleven thousand feet. He’d done a lot of altitude training in preparation for this race, and he felt it paying off now. The oxygen at such altitudes was about two-thirds of what it was at sea level. It took the body time to get used to that.

  Once he’d grown acclimated, he ran easily, without much thought to his feet or lungs, just the steady, steady rhythm that could carry him many long miles.

  One part of his brain was cataloging features—the sharp incline alongside a meadow that led—happily—to a long, relatively straight stretch where he could rest and recover. Through the trees to cool down, then over a rocky, difficult stretch that required close attention.

  The rest of his brain moved the puzzle pieces of the case around, then slid sideways toward Miranda. He drew his thoughts back to the case, to making a mental list of what needed doing today, then sneaked back toward the woman. He resolutely thought of the race, of who his strongest competitors might be, of what things he should prepare for, how to eat and sleep.

  In memory, he heard the sound of her laughter, low and hearty. He pondered the mysterious attachment to the skier. Lovingly reviewed the stunning sight of her breasts clasped by pale lace.

  He refocused on his feet, into the tightening muscles along his right quadriceps muscle, tiring because of the of the trail. He breathed into it, imagined cooling blue gel filling the area, and it eased slightly.

  Then to the case.

  Who killed Claude Tsosie? Who were the possibilities? He listed them in his mind, in a neat line: Desi. Developers. Jilted lover. Someone in the art world.

  Any others he might have overlooked? Ah. A lover’s partner—husband or lover of a woman who’d fallen for Claude. Yes.

  He had his work cut out for him, that much was true, and unless he could uncover the real killer, there was one thing absolutely certain: Desdemona Rousseau was going to go to jail.

  A sudden scrambling sounded in the forest to his left, and James jerked his head around. A fox, fluffy red and beautiful, landed on the trail as if he’d fallen from a ledge or just tumbled down the hillside. James froze. The fox, slightly bewildered, made a complaining noise and jumped to its feet, as if cursing some bad driver.

  James chuckled and the fox whipped his head around. For one long second, they stared at each other, animal and man. Its eyes were black and shiny, the nose long and sharp. James could see in great detail the ruff of fur on his chest, many of the individual hairs, had enough time to notice the whiskers, the tiny hand-paws. Then it seemed to realize it was staring at a man—an enemy!—and dashed across the trail, chattering, its thick tail the last thing to disappear into a stand of low bushes.

  Miranda.

  James let go of a breath and laughed aloud, waving a hand at the heavens. He was smart enough to see a sign when one arrived. He would not ignore the skittish, redheaded Miranda as he’d half intended. He would pursue her, Zorrorita, little fox.

  And then he pursed his lips and looked back over his shoulder. Maybe the fox meant to tell him more than that. Maybe Miranda knew something that would help solve the case. Maybe it was something she didn’t even realize she knew.

  Or maybe, he was just a fox.

  Chapter 5

  There was a murder to solve and her parents coming to town and an old boyfriend to deal with, Miranda thought, putting on her big black sunglasses, but there was also a wedding to finish planning. Clutching a list in her right hand, she headed out into the village to see if she could find a dress for Desi, or at least something that could be altered or brightened for her.

  Last night, Miranda and Juliet had gone through the last of the flower choices and settled on a mix of blue and green hydrangeas, calla lilies in cream and pure white, and roses in a rainbow of colors and shapes. The florist would fly the blooms in from Denver the night before and make everything up in the tents they were setting up outside the hotel where the ceremony would be held. The cake was ordered, the party favors chosen. Juliet’s dress was purchased, altered minutely, and now—draped in fine plastic film and tissue paper—awaited the big day. Miranda had her own dress, one Juliet had approved, and their mother almost certainly would not, a vintage Woodstock-era beauty she’d found on eBay.

  All that remained was to find something for Desi, who had never been tremendously fond of dresses, but was also pregnant, extraordinarily busty—even more so in pregnancy—and broad shouldered. A hard fit, but Miranda had confidence in her inner eye.

  As a nod to the usual sources, she stopped in a couple of boutiques along Black Diamond Boulevard, and found some charming and odd things, as one did in such places. She lingered over a soft pink twenties-style dress with a filmy overdress, and again over a sleek brown silk that would have set off her creamy skin, but moved on after some consideration. Neither was right for Desi.

  Instead she headed outside and opened the phone book to find out if there were any secondhand shops. She found two: the St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift shop, which was right around the corner from the casino, and Rita’s Remnants, on Second. Headed for the first one, she found herself humming happily. A butterfly, black with an edging of blue iridescence, landed on a bank of wild purple monarda that grew in a clump by the edge of a redbrick garage. Miranda pulled out the tiny digital camera she always carried and leaned in to snap some shots, intrigued by the combination of textures and colors—scalloped, delicate wings, repetitive blooms, the hard edges of the building. Even some quartz, glistening white, in the background.

  “Fantastic,” she said aloud, lowering the camera. The eye caught things the camera could not; the mind made connections a machine never knew.

  “Yes, it is,” said a voice nearby.

  Miranda didn’t quite startle, but there was a rush of that…whatever down her nape when she raised her head to see James Marquez leaning against the building. He’d obviously been watching her, and had come from a run—he wore a paper-thin singlet and a tiny pair of royal-blue running shorts and running shoes stained with red earth at the toes. His legs were the color of cinnamon, corded with lean muscle.

  “Hi,” she said, finally, dragging her gaze up to his face. Which also gave her that slight zing of pleasure—the startling passion of his mouth in the midst of those angles, the dark and teasing eyes, that fall of licorice hair on his brow. “Have you been running or are you going?”

  “Just back,” he said, crossing his arms, which were not as blade thin as she would have imagined, but respectably toned. He smiled. “I’ll keep my distance.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t mind honest sweat.” She pointed to the insects feeding on flower nectar. “Do you know what kind of butterfly that is?”

  “Mourning cloak,” he said. “They’re famous around here. The shrine on the mou
ntain is Our Lady of the Butterflies.”

  “A shrine?”

  “Yes.” He raised one eyebrow. “You should visit.”

  Miranda grinned. “Trying to reform my wicked shrine-building ways, are you?”

  “You would find it beautiful.”

  Instinctively she raised her camera and shot a photo of him before she even looked in the viewfinder. And when she did, he met her eyes steadfastly, the blackness both frank and mysterious. Miranda nodded. “I’ll think about it.” Tucking the camera away, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I’d better go. I’m on a mission.”

  He nodded, but didn’t immediately move. “I like it that you wear skirts.”

  Miranda felt his gaze on her bare legs, almost as clearly as if he were skimming a hand over her shins, over her knee, lightly up her thigh. She swallowed. “Um. Thanks.”

  His gaze remained fixed on her legs, traveled down to her feet, clad in a pair of turquoise wedges with rhinestones. “And you paint your toenails.”

  He said it slowly, raised his eyes and she had the sense that he was toying with her, but it was not the toying of a housecat batting round a mouse. A lion, a tiger. No, not quite…a big cat. She found herself looking at his mouth again, and her nipples suddenly straightened, as if that mouth was on them, as if his tongue—

  She frowned and took a step back, rattled slightly. “Okay, whatever,” she said, attempting to cloak herself in derision as a modern woman was wont to do.

  But her heel stuck in the crack of the sidewalk, stuck hard, and she was thrown off balance. Her foot slipped in the shoe, and she lurched sideways, tugged the shoe free and pitched right into his strong grip.

  His scent ripped violently into her, piercing her body in a dozen ways, all at once. It rushed over her neck and shoulders, down her spine, causing a ripple of lavalike heat over her back; it dived right through her nostrils to the back of her tongue, through her gut and into her belly, and lower still, like a fist, into her sex. She made a soft noise, a gasp of surprise, and gripped his hands and—almost against her will—sucked in a great lungful of his sweat, hot and spicy, clean and sharp. Not a smell she should like, but it swelled every molecule of her body, and she leaned infinitesimally closer to the sleek, slick skin only inches away from her mouth, her tongue, and gripped his bicep, smooth and hot beneath her fingers, and it made her think of other flesh, rigid and ready to plunge into her, dive—

  “Madre,” he whispered, a soft curse.

  Miranda realized that he could see down her blouse—as he had yesterday, and hadn’t she sort of planned this, hoped she would meet him?—to the thin lace clasping her breasts. She certainly could feel the rigidness of nipples shoving at that lace, and could only imagine what he saw.

  And he, too, was aroused, the weight of his sex filling—

  Miranda looked away, her face burning. What was wrong with her? “I’m sorry…I’m…this is…”

  “You all right now?”

  “Yes. Yeah.” She nodded. Shifted her weigh to demonstrate, brushed hair off her face. Which was probably as red as a tomato.

  “I need your help with something,” he said. “I’ll find you later today.”

  “All right.” Miranda waved a hand toward town. “I’ll be around. You have my cell number.”

  For one more moment, he stared at her, his eyes un-readable, then lifted a hand and ran toward the top of the hill.

  In other circumstances, Miranda might have let her knees buckle. Instead she walked shakily toward a bar of shade nearby the building and leaned there, waving a hand. It was the heat, she told herself. That was all.

  After a minute, her limbs felt normal and she looked up the hill the way he’d run. I’ll find you later today. Maybe she’d do better to make sure he didn’t find her.

  Miranda couldn’t find anything for Desi at the St. Vincent de Paul’s, or the secondhand shop. None of the boutiques had had anything. She’d even combed the weekly paper for garage sales, and looked for a costume shop where she might be able to buy something to make over.

  No luck.

  Frustrated, tired and thirsty, she ducked into ReNew, the coffee shop she so enjoyed. The faint smell of patchouli mingled with freshly baked blueberry scones and the dense siren call of freshly ground coffee beans. Miranda halted just inside the door and inhaled deeply. “Heaven,” she said.

  Sarah, a sturdy blond ski bum with bright blue eyes in her tanned face, grinned. “Nothing like the smell of fresh coffee.”

  “I’ll have a latte,” Miranda said. “And whatever scone you think is best today.”

  “You got it,” Sarah said. Her voice was low and cracked, a sexy sound that made her seem more worldly. As she measured coffee with efficient movements, she inclined her head. “You’re looking bummed, lady. Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. Well, aside from my sister being up for murder and all.”

  “That sucks, dude.”

  Miranda nodded, wandering over to the CDs while she waited. Something with a faintly Persian sound played on the overhead speakers. Above the racks was a scarf, beaded and gossamer, and a light flashed in Miranda’s brain. “A sari!” she said aloud, snapping her fingers.

  “I’m sorry?” Sarah asked, revealing her upper middle class roots.

  “My sister needs a dress for the wedding. I haven’t been able to find anything decent. A sari would be perfect.”

  The girl poured milk into a pitcher. “Isn’t the wedding in, like, a week?”

  “Yeah, that’s a problem. Maybe I can find somebody to deliver.”

  “They probably have something in Denver.” She put the milk beneath the steamer and raised her chin toward a bank of computers against the wall. “Check the Internet.”

  The only other person on the computers was a boy with a stocking cap and grimy fingernails, a large backpack at his knee. He typed in some language Miranda didn’t recognize, not quite German. Maybe Danish. She slid into a seat and brought up the Internet and found three places that sold saris in the Denver area. She drank her latte and gobbled the scone, and punched the numbers to each one into her cell phone.

  The first one was not interested in trying to get a sari to Mariposa within two days, and there was no answer at the second place, but on her third try, Miranda found a man who was more than willing to work with her, figure out what she wanted, and send someone down with a couple of different things for Desi to try. All for a price, of course, but that was one of the things the sisters really never had to worry about, was it? Money.

  She asked for three saris to be brought down, one in blue, one in pink, one in yellow. Buoyed, she hung up and wandered around the shop, picking up things here and there to accent a sari as wedding attire, a pair of silver earrings, a silver bracelet with bells, a silver barrette for Desi’s thick, beautiful hair. Carrying her things to the counter, she hummed a light tune.

  A man came around the corner, blond and hale and sturdy. Miranda started, glanced over her shoulder for a place to run, but she was trapped. She swore under her breath. Damn, damn, damn.

  “Good morning, Miranda,” said Max, his voice elegantly accented, beautiful.

  “Hi, Max.” She spilled her goods on the counter. “Are you enjoying your stay?”

  “Yes.” He gestured toward the tables. “Will you sit? Have a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve got to run.” She looked at her bare wrist. “I have to take these things to my sister.”

  Sarah was standing very still, her blue eyes blisteringly blue. “Aren’t you Max Boudrain? The gold-medal skier?”

  He glanced at her, dismissively, gave a curt, “Yes,” then turned his focus back to Miranda. “Only a little while? A few moments.”

  Miranda scowled at him. “Max, I’d like you to meet Sarah. She’s living here because her life is skiing. I bet she’d love your autograph.” Whipping a black pen from her purse, she gave it to him, along with a postcard from the counter.

  One side of his mouth lif
ted. “Trade?”

  “Sign it, Max.”

  He lifted a thick brown-blond brow. “All right.” He looked at the girl. “Sarah with an H?”

  Miranda’s phone rang, and she glanced at the screen. “I’ll be right back,” she said to the girl, and headed out to take the call. “Hi, James,” she said, flipping open the phone.

  “Hi, Miranda. I’m standing here across the street from ReNew.”

  She whirled around, putting a hand up to shade her eyes. He stood in a fall of thick shadows, his face made hard in very dark sunglasses. That odd little shimmer went through her belly. “I’m here!” she waved.

  He raised a hand. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Have a cup of coffee with your old boyfriend. See if you can find out anything about Christie and her feelings for Claude. Just—whatever.”

  Miranda’s chest got tight. “Uh…James…I—”

  “It might help, Miranda. Remember the point is to clear your sister’s name.”

  “Right. Okay. Shall I find you somewhere later?”

  “I have to interview some people and I’m going to sniff around the casino a bit. Call me when you’re done.”

  “Ten-four,” she said, one side of her mouth lifting. “Or is that ‘Roger’?”

  “Over and out, good buddy,” he said, and raised a hand.

  Miranda spun on her heel and went back inside. “Okay, Max,” she said, “let’s have that coffee. But you have to buy me a scone, too.” She’d just had one, but two in one day wouldn’t kill her.