He’d been spying on Grace. Threatened Grace. My blood ran cold. Then hot. “You stay away from my daughter.”
“We want what’s ours.” He waved the knife at me. It glinted in the sconces’ light.
I should have been terrified. Maybe if he’d been dressed as a clown I would have been. I was too angry, my blood still boiling over his threats against Grace, to be scared. “I can’t help you.”
He stepped closer to me and the scent of cigarettes and rotgut liquor tried to swallow me.
I stepped back, staring at the knife. Was it the same one that killed Brooks? Another step. My heel caught. I tripped and fell backward. I twisted and my hip rather than my head hit the pavement. The impact jolted through me. I closed my eyes for a second.
When I opened them, Earl loomed over me, glaring with pupils the size of quarters. There was more going on with him than too much whiskey. He was on something. There was no way his pupils could be so large without a little help from cocaine or some other drug. He sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and smiled. Dentistry. Why do people overlook the importance of regular trips to the dentist?
I was willing to bet the value of the Harneys’ trust that his smile was meant to intimidate me. It didn’t. I was too busy counting rotting teeth. Besides, Earl needed a chin to achieve intimidating.
Still, the Earl leaning over me seemed an altogether different man than the sad sack who’d trailed after Stormy on her way to the family pew at Brooks’ funeral. He was almost sinister, possibly dangerous.
Lights swept the lawn and the quiet purr of an expensive engine preceded an automobile coming up the drive.
The headlights caught Earl in their glare. He froze like a deer. Then, unlike a deer, he unfroze. Unfroze and ran.
My father leapt out of the car and looked at me. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I lied.
Daddy stared at me for a moment then sprinted across the lawn. Had he lost his mind? What did a sixty-year-old man hope to accomplish against an armed man half his age who was emboldened by coke?
My mother was slower to get out of the car. “Ellison.” Her voice cut through the night, sharper than Earl’s knife ever hoped of being.
“I’m here.” I pushed myself up on my elbows. The throb in my hip told me I wouldn’t be getting off the ground without help. “Where’s Dad?”
“Gone.” Mother yelled into the night, “Harrington.”
My father didn’t answer. My heart skittered in my chest. Had something happened to him? Had Mr. Mack with the knife hurt him?
“Who was that?” Mother demanded.
“Brooks Harney’s brother-in-law.”
“What was he doing here?”
“Threatening me.” The real question was what had happened to my father.
“Jane called us from the club. What did you do to get Hunter hauled away?”
“Nothing,” I snapped.
“Well.” Her disapproval of my tone—of me—was made evident by the set of her shoulders and the audible exhalation of her offended breath. She turned her head away from me. “There’s your father now.”
My father, one hand plastered against his right side, stumbled up the drive. “He got away.” Daddy bent over and rested his hands on his knees. His chest heaved.
“He had a knife, Harrington. What were you thinking?” Mother used the scandalized tone she usually reserved for my sister and me.
Daddy ignored Mother’s question and stared at me. “Why are you still on the ground?”
“I hurt my hip.”
He leaned down and offered me a hand.
I put my fingers inside his and he pulled me to standing.
“What the hell is going on?” Daddy’s white hair stood out from his head and even in the half-light his cheeks looked ruddy. Anger or exertion? Maybe both. “Who was that?”
I swallowed and smoothed the crushed beads on my dress. “Brooks Harney’s brother-in-law. His name is Earl Mack. He thought I could get his sister access to Brooks’ trust fund.”
“Why would he think that?” My father crossed his arms and glowered at me.
“Um…”
“Why, Ellison?”
I glanced at Mother. The trip to Stormy’s had been her idea. Sort of. She hadn’t planned on my going. Nothing good would come of telling my parents I’d driven Aggie. Not when Mother was furious with me. Not when Daddy’s lips were stretched back from his clenched teeth.
“I’m not sure.”
I scratched my nose. It itched too much not to.
“You’re lying.” Daddy growled the words.
I didn’t argue.
He shook his pointer finger at me. “I am tired of worrying about what disaster is going to befall you next. I almost had a heart attack when we pulled up the drive and saw a man with a knife.”
“Now, Harrington, it’s not as if Ellison invited that horrible man to attack her.”
“Ellison involves herself in situations that lead to trouble.” The look on his face dared us to argue. His furious gaze settled on me. “Now, why would he think you could get him access to the Harney money?”
Because I’d gone to his house with Aggie and talked about trusts as if I understood them.
“Maybe he found out Aggie works for her.” Mother spoke in a hushed tone.
“What has Aggie got to do with this?” My father’s voice warned of a storm gathering on the horizon.
“Aggie used to be a private detective.” Mother shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. Lines puckered her forehead. She was nervous. Daddy doesn’t get mad often, but when he does—watch out.
“So?” Daddy was never short with Mother. God help us when this storm broke.
“I suggested—at the Harneys’ request—that Aggie verify that woman was really Brooks’ wife.”
“So Aggie butted in and now a man with a knife has threatened Ellison.” My father’s face filled with thunder and lightning. “This is your fault.”
Mother’s response was a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes narrowed. Her shoulders squared. Boadicea stood ready for battle in my driveway.
Oh dear.
The last time Mother and Daddy fought, the toxic cloud of affronted feelings hung around for weeks. Weeks when Mother insisted on meeting me for coffee. Weeks when Daddy spent days on the golf course and nights nursing arid martinis. Weeks that felt like years.
All things considered, I preferred having Mother and Daddy mad at me as opposed to each other. “It’s not Mother’s fault. It’s mine.”
They left off scowling at each other and turned their choleric gazes on me.
“Oh?” One word from Mother and I was sixteen and late for curfew. Of course, that one word was spoken with the absolute certainty that Frances Walford was never wrong.
“I went to Stormy’s house with Aggie. I didn’t want her driving to that neighborhood in her car. It’s not reliable. And then I didn’t want to wait outside alone.”
Mother shook her head. Slowly. She’d given birth to a dimwitted daughter. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose as if my ill-considered actions had given her a splitting headache. Mother’s exasperated expression was nothing when compared to the look on my father’s face.
Daddy’s head lifted from his shoulders and completed a turn. Steam exploded from his ears. “Have you lost your damned mind?”
He didn’t expect an answer. His diatribes always began with rhetorical questions.
I answered anyway. “I have not. I can take care of myself.” This might have been slightly more convincing if they hadn’t arrived to see me on the ground at the apparent mercy of a deranged man with a knife.
“Your mother is right. You need to marry Hunter Tafft.”
I’d never been much good with non sequiturs. How had he gone from anger at my visiting a possible criminal and Earl’s subsequent visit to my shrubbery to the altar? “Pardon me?”
Daddy’s face was as red as the bricks on my house. He raked
his finger through his hair and shook his head. “You obviously don’t have the sense required to take care of yourself. You’re a danger to yourself and others. You need a man to manage you.”
Manage me? I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. I even raised my hand to my cheek. Some tiny part of my brain recognized that seeing Earl above me with a knife had frightened my father. Badly. Some tiny part knew his anger was based on love. A tiny, miniscule, microscopic part. A part too small to pay any mind. The large part of my brain curled into a fetal position and wailed.
Mother was supposed to say the cruel things. Not Daddy. Mother considered it her duty to point out my faults and failings. Hem too short. Hair too long. How many drinks does that make? She considered such comments helpful.
Right now she paled and laid a hand on my father’s arm as if she sensed he’d gone too far—as if her touch could somehow take back his words.
Children might chant about sticks and stones and words that could never hurt them, but the truth was words could wound. Deep as knives. My father considered me an incompetent ninny. He thought I needed a man to take care of me, to—his words—manage me.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue.” I walked toward the front door.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He spoke loud enough for his voice to bounce off the walls of my house and echo down the block.
“Harrington, the neighbors.”
“I don’t give a damn about the neighbors.”
Mother did. The thought that my witchy next-door neighbor, Margaret Hamilton, might have been listening to our family argue in the front yard would keep Mother up all night.
All things considered, I sided with Daddy on the neighbor debate. Especially when it came to Margaret Hamilton. Not that I’d admit it tonight. I reached the front door and inserted my key. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”
“We’re not done.” My father’s voice boomed.
Mother winced. “Harrington.”
“We are done.” My words sounded wobbly, unsure. Since I was old enough to toddle, I’d been taught to defer to my father—to men. Standing up to my father flew in the face of nearly forty years of putting a man’s wants and needs before my own. What had all that putting a man’s needs first got me? A cheating husband and a whole lot of unhappiness. “What I did was no less foolish than chasing after a man with a knife.” I straightened my spine. “Being my father doesn’t give you the right to say anything you want. I’m not your little girl anymore, Da—” Now was not the time to call my father Daddy. I opened the door and slipped inside, closed the door, and turned the lock.
My father pounded his fist on the other side.
I rested my forehead against the door’s solid expanse and slid the chain in place.
The sound of my father’s fist beating on my door echoed through the foyer, attracting a curious Max. He cocked his head to the side and growled.
I turned and walked away.
Twelve
I painted. Daubing color on canvas calmed me. Creating form and structure gave me the illusion of control. The meeting of brush and canvas and paint and inspiration was therapeutic. I needed therapy.
An hour passed.
Then another.
Then the darkness outside the windows lightened until an orange-sherbet tinged shade of lavender caressed the glass. Max lifted his head from his paws, yawned, stretched like a cat, then went and sat by the door.
I washed off my brushes and dropped them into a mason jar to dry. “I suppose you want to go out?”
His stubby tail wagged.
“Fine.” I opened the door and he sidled through.
Together we descended the stairs and entered the kitchen. I unlocked and opened the back door then cracked the storm. A rush of cool air swirled around me. The breeze carried the scent of falling leaves.
Max surveyed his domain. Was the squirrel far enough from the oak tree to make the chase worthwhile? Apparently not. My dog ambled outside rather than raced. I leaned against the doorframe and watched him sniff—presumably with his enormous nose he could smell more than leaves.
In the kitchen, Mr. Coffee offered me a flirty good morning. “I’ve got coffee.” He added a wink and a cheeky yellow gingham smile. “All you have to do is push my button.”
Sleep or coffee?
My eyes were gritty and my back ached from a night spent standing in front of my easel instead of snuggling in my bed. Fuzz grew in my brain like moss. I needed sleep. “Later,” I promised.
“Who are you talking to?” Grace stood barefoot and sneaky quiet next to the backstairs. She’d crossed her arms and tilted her head as if she was deeply worried.
Unfortunately, Max was still outside. I couldn’t say I was talking to him. “Mr. Coffee.”
She covered her eyes with her palm and shook her head. “Mom, you need a boyfriend.”
Exactly what my father had said. Well, except for the fact my father had meant a husband not a boyfriend. And he hadn’t been nearly as nice about it.
I snorted. “If you ask me, Mr. Coffee is just about perfect. He’s always here when I need him.”
“So is Mr. Tafft.”
“Mr. Coffee makes no demands and he doesn’t tell me what to do.”
“Has Mr. Tafft done either of those things? Has Detective Jones?”
“Drop it, Grace.”
One of her eyebrows rose in a fair approximation of Mother’s Ellison-you’re-being-ridiculous expression. “Just pick one so you can stop talking to the appliances.”
Pick one? Max’s scratch on the storm door saved me from coming up with a witty retort.
I let him in and he marched over to his food bowl and whapped it with one of his paws.
I bent and picked it up. My back creaked and I hid a yawn with my hand.
“Is Camille still asleep?”
“Yep. We stayed up late talking.”
“What are you doing up?”
Grace shrugged. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what Camille said. She’s sad about her brother, but she’s sadder that she’s the only one in her family who seems to care that he died.”
Poor girl. With Max’s careful supervision, I scooped two cups of kibble into his bowl and put it on the floor. “Is there anything we can do for her?”
Grace shook her head. “She wants to hang out here for a while. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
Max, totally unconcerned with teenage drama, grinned at me then dug in.
I rubbed my eyes. “Can you handle breakfast? I was up all night and I’m going to lie down.”
“You? Up all night? No wonder you’re talking to the coffeemaker. What happened?”
I yawned. “I’ll tell you about it when I wake up.”
“You had a fight with your mother?”
Close but no cigar. “Not exactly. We’ll talk later.” I was simply too tired to tell her about last night.
I trudged up the stairs and collapsed into bed.
Four hours later, I awoke with the sense I should be doing something important—something along the lines of following Hunter Tafft to the police station in his car so he had a ride home when Anarchy finished with his questions.
Sweet nine-pound baby Jesus.
I sat up so fast stars shimmered around my head.
I leapt out of bed but my feet slowed before I hit the bathroom. Why was I running? Hunter was probably long since home. I didn’t owe him a ride; I owed him an abject apology. I dropped my head to my hands and almost walked into the bathroom door.
“Damn.”
I’d never groveled in my life but today was the day.
I yanked a washcloth from the towel rack, wet it, scrubbed last night’s mascara off my eyes, then glanced in the mirror. I still looked like a deranged raccoon.
I sighed, turned on the tap in the shower, and stepped in.
The hot water did nothing to wash away my guilt. How could I have left him there? Shame swirled in my stomach like the wate
r circling the drain.
With jets of steaming water beating against me, I composed an epic apology speech, then I rinsed, turned off the taps, and toweled dry.
Again I glanced at the mirror. The dark circles under my eyes hadn’t budged. They weren’t the remnants of generously applied mascara. They were proof I needed more sleep.
I stepped into the bedroom and squinted at the clock. Almost noon. No sleep for me. I had an apology to make before I met with Priscilla Owens at three.
Ten minutes later, I descended the stairs ready to yield to Mr. Coffee’s charms. I anticipated yellow gingham and the nectar of the gods. I got Hunter Tafft sitting at the kitchen counter.
At least there was coffee.
I poured myself a cup then turned and faced him. “Would you like a cup?” The carefully worded apology I’d crafted in the shower had flitted away. Disappeared. Left me tongue-tied.
“No, thank you. I came to get my car. Grace let me in.” Hunter’s perfect shine seemed dimmer, as if a night with Anarchy had somehow tarnished him, as if my failure to appear had wounded him.
“About that—”
He held up his hand as if he didn’t care to hear my apology. “I didn’t ask you to follow me.”
He hadn’t asked me to come, but he’d expected that I would. A glimmer of hurt shone in his eyes.
“I was going to follow you to the station, but when I came home to change Earl was hiding in the bushes and he threatened me with a knife—”
“Stop.” He held up his right hand. “Who is Earl?”
“Earl Mack. Stormy’s brother. He seemed to think I could access Brooks’ trust.”
Hunter rubbed his left hand across his forehead.
“Good Lord, Ellison. Are you all right? What happened?”
“My parents pulled up and he ran away.”
“Did you call the police?”
I glanced at the floor. “Not exactly.”
“What exactly did you do?” He used his lawyer voice, the sonorous one that could convince a jury of grandmothers the tattoo-covered street thug who’d knocked down their friend, stolen her purse, and been caught red-handed was innocent. It was a voice that demanded an answer.
Send in the Clowns (The Country Club Murders Book 4) Page 12
