Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  I’d won the skirmish, but I hadn’t seen the last of the senator’s personal assistant and bodyguard. That was a given.

  I had just sat down again when my uncle walked in, looking rattled and slightly wan. “I’ve called Barbara’s physician,” he said, shoving a hand through his heretofore tidy gray hair. “She’s suffered some kind of setback, it would seem. She asked me to apologize for deserting you on your first evening here.”

  I stood. I wasn’t Barbara’s new best friend, and she wasn’t mine, but the woman was in a wheelchair, and I was not unsympathetic. “It would probably be better if I left,” I said.

  “Please, don’t,” my uncle responded, and he sounded sincere, though of course there was always the possibility that he was just trying to be polite. “There are so many things I want to ask you about. And Barbara is bound to feel better in the morning. The doctor will give her something, and she’ll rest. That’s what she needs—rest.”

  I nodded, though in truth I had no way of knowing what Barbara needed. “I’m sorry she’s ill. And of course you need to be with her. I was planning to visit my sister in Tucson anyway, so—”

  The senator interrupted, frowning. “You have a sister?”

  Naturally he’d be confused. We were almost total strangers to each other, but he knew Geoff and I were our parents’ only children, and with both of them dead, the chances of family expansion were nil.

  I leaned down to collect my purse from the floor next to my chair, straightened again. “Jolie’s an honorary sibling,” I said. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, I’ll get out of your way so you can concentrate on taking care of Mrs. Larimer.”

  He looked relieved, but regretful, too. “You will stay the night, won’t you? I’ll have Joseph show you to the guesthouse, and in the morning, we can have breakfast on the patio. Make up for lost time.” He paused. “It’s important to me, Mary Jo. When you get to my age, you realize that nothing matters as much as family.”

  As if I wanted to be alone with Joseph. “I’ll find the guesthouse on my own,” I said. “Is there anything I can do for Mrs.—”

  “Barbara,” Clive corrected gently. “Please, call her Barbara.”

  I would have been more comfortable if the injunction had come from Barbara herself, but I conceded with a nod. Since Joseph had departed through the kitchen, I decided to take the long way around, through the front door, even if I had to stumble around in the dark to find the appointed sleeping quarters.

  I waited, and when my uncle looked blank, I reiterated, “If I can help in any way, just let me know.”

  Clive shook his head. “No. I appreciate your understanding, Mary Jo. I’ll have Joseph walk you out—”

  “That’s okay,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt. After all, just because I’d refused Joseph as an escort, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t jump out at me from behind a shrub between there and the backyard, presumably where I’d find the guesthouse.

  “Nonsense,” my uncle argued. “Joseph!”

  The troll stuck his head in from the kitchen. “Yes, sir?”

  “If you’d see Miss Sheepshanks to the casita, I’d appreciate it. Mrs. Larimer is ill, and I’d like to get back upstairs and sit with her until the doctor arrives. You’ll watch for him and let him in when he gets here?”

  Joseph almost saluted. “Of course, Senator,” he said.

  Shit, I thought.

  “I really don’t want to impose,” I said, but my uncle had already turned his back, and he was walking away. If he heard me, he gave no sign of it.

  “No imposition,” Joseph told me, with a little grin of triumph.

  Besides bolting, my choices were limited. And, I remembered, the redoubtable assistant/bodyguard had driven my car around back when I arrived anyway. Since I couldn’t leave without the Volvo, I sighed and reluctantly followed Joseph through a kitchen large enough to serve a mid size hotel, toward a rear door.

  “Don’t get any ideas about ingratiating yourself with Senator and Mrs. Larimer and moving into the casita on a permanent basis,” Joseph warned quietly, once we were outside.

  Every cicada in the state must have been in that yard, singing backup.

  “I have a job, an apartment and a life,” I answered evenly. What I wanted to say was considerably less polite, but I was alone in the dark with the man, and if I yelled for help, nobody would hear me over the bug chorus. Assuming there was anyone around in the first place.

  “Keep it that way,” Joseph said, leading the way along a broad flagstone path. I noted towering topiary on either side, and heard a waterfall somewhere nearby.

  “How do you know I’m not a nice person?” I challenged.

  Joseph didn’t answer.

  We must have triggered a motion light somewhere, because suddenly the “casita” sprang into sharp relief against the night sky. It was about the size of the three-bedroom tract houses in one of Nick’s better developments, with its own modified courtyard and burbling fountain. Lamps behind the wooden blinds in the windows came on automatically, issuing an uncertain welcome.

  “I put your…stuff inside,” Joseph informed me, swinging open the front door. So he’d seen my garbage-bag luggage. I’d been hoping, foolishly, I know, that he’d overlooked it somehow. “Don’t get too comfortable, and if you need anything, call somebody else.”

  Mentally, I threw patience into the same category as truth and discretion. “Bite me, Buckaroo,” I said sweetly. “This is a here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing, and frankly, I’d rather be homeless than live within five miles of you.”

  At this, Joseph turned to look at me, and I thought I glimpsed a grudging respect in his eyes. It was gone quickly. “I guess we understand each other,” he said.

  “Only partially correct,” I said, moving past him and through the open doorway into a spacious, tiled front room. “I understand you. The reverse, unfortunately, is not true.”

  “Whatever,” Joseph said.

  I shut the door in his face and turned the dead bolt. He probably had a key, but I doubted he’d sneak in and murder me in my bed while I slept—assuming, of course, that I would sleep, which was doubtful. The senator would surely notice my absence when he showed up for that patio breakfast in the morning, and it went without saying that wholesale slaughter would make a mess in ye auld casita.

  Putting Joseph out of my mind as best I could, I took the grand tour. There were three bedrooms, each with its own bath, a kitchen half the size of my entire apartment and a master suite with a Jacuzzi tub and flat-screen plasma TV that came down out of the ceiling at the push of a button in a little console on the bedside table. Looking at that place, I almost reconsidered my stance on mooching.

  My one-bedroom digs over Bad-Ass Bert’s suffered by comparison.

  My cell phone launched into a muffled tune as I was emptying the trash bag in the middle of the bed. I rummaged, checked the caller ID and debated answering. The number on the panel was Tucker’s.

  I’m a sucker for punishment. I thumbed the talk button and snapped, “What?”

  “I guess I deserve that,” Tucker said.

  “I guess you do,” I answered, fishing my nightgown out of the pile of semifolded clothes I’d laundered that morning.

  He chuckled. “If I knew where you were,” he cajoled, “maybe I’d send flowers.”

  “Is there a point to this call?”

  “Yeah.” All rumbly and gruff, followed by a note of boyish mischief. “I’m trying to find out where you are.”

  “Why don’t you just ask me?”

  “I did. In a roundabout sort of way.”

  “I’m in Senator and Mrs. Clive Larimer’s guesthouse,” I said. “Cactus Bend, off Highway 10 east. Do you want the zip code?”

  “Are you premenstrual or something?”

  I sighed. “Just tired.” And scared to death you’re getting it on with your ex-wife.

  “Isn’t Cactus Bend where—?”

  Obviously, Tucke
r had been doing some research.

  “Where my folks were murdered?” I finished for him. “Yes.” I paused. “I thought you were undercover.”

  “I’m on a break. Look, Moje—”

  I plunked down on the edge of the bed and squeezed my eyes shut. Here it comes, I thought, and tried to brace myself. “Just say it, will you?”

  He hesitated. He was a cop; he picked up nuances. “What exactly are you expecting me to say?”

  My peepers popped open. “I don’t have the faintest idea,” I said.

  “Liar,” Tucker countered. “Give it up, Moje. You’ve on the peck about something, I can tell by your tone, and you’ve obviously written a script for this particular conversation, so how about feeding me my lines?”

  Heat surged into my face. “If you want to go back to your wife and kids, it’s your business,” I blurted.

  “Go back to—?”

  A wonderful/horrible possibility dawned on me. Wonderful because I might be wrong, and horrible for the same reason. The chances seemed good that I’d just made an ass out of myself.

  I tried to brave it through. “Isn’t that what you were going to tell me?”

  “No,” he said. He sounded terse and, at the same time, as though he might be trying not to laugh. “It isn’t. If you’re thinking of picking up some extra bucks as a phone psychic, forget it. You don’t have the goods.”

  I rocked back and forth on the edge of the bed, feeling like the mother of all fools. Maybe if I pulled the garbage bag over my head and cinched the pull-ties at my waist, I could end it all. It would save Joseph the trouble, along with that pesky stretch in prison.

  “Are you still there?” Tucker pressed.

  “Yeah,” I squeaked.

  “I’m not going back to Allison,” he said, “so put that out of your head.”

  I reached for the garbage bag. Pondered the cons of self-suffocation. There weren’t any pros, as it turned out. “Then what?” Very small voice.

  “It’s job-related. As in, I’m going to disappear for a couple of days, minimum. If you see my face on the evening news, or on the front page, don’t panic. Right now, that’s all I can say.”

  “Okay,” I said uncertainly.

  Tucker was a man of his word. He hung up without even saying goodbye.

  I stared at the phone. If you see my face on the evening news, or on the front page, don’t panic. What the hell did that mean?

  I dug out the charger and plugged the cell in to power up, then pushed a few buttons on the bedside console. The plasma TV came on, and I used the remote to scroll for the Phoenix stations.

  Everybody Loves Raymond was wrapping up the second or third rerun of the evening.

  I waited it out, watched the news.

  Nothing about Tucker’s face or any other part of his anatomy.

  I left the bedroom, double-checked the locks on both doors, and backtracked as far as the big tub in the master bath. I took a long soak, followed the trail of disparate thoughts that wandered through my head—Lillian and the Tarot cards she’d given me, which were still a puzzle, the Nick-and-Chester ghost team, Greer’s odd behavior, Heather and the supermarket incident, Geoff turning up at the casino, Joseph, Uncle Senator and the little wife and, last but certainly not least, Tucker.

  I was almost afraid to go to sleep.

  Nevertheless, I got out of the tub eventually, drained it, dried off and put on my nightgown. It was wrinkled—nothing I sleep in gets ironed, and neither does most of what I don’t sleep in—but comfortably soft, and definitely clean. I brushed my teeth, checked all the locks again and tumbled into bed.

  The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming into the room and I could hear a lawn crew outside, chattering in Spanish, with an accompaniment of lively Latin tunes.

  No night visits from Nick.

  No bad dreams.

  I figured I was on a roll, and the rest of the day would go well.

  Yeah, right.

  I put on jeans and a T-shirt with no logo—for dressup—and walked almost all the way around the main house before I found the patio. My uncle was already there, reading a newspaper. A china coffee service graced the table, and there was no sign of Aunt Barbara.

  Oh, well.

  “There you are.” Uncle Clive smiled. He seemed relieved, as though he’d been afraid I might have been misplaced, like a cufflink or a nine-iron.

  “I hope I’m not late,” I said, stifling a yawn. I’d slept deeply, and my brain wasn’t up to speed, or I would have asked about Barbara first. After the senator assured me that I was right on time, I corrected the oversight.

  “She’s a little fragile this morning,” Clive said fondly. “Dr. Blythe gave her a shot and ordered her to spend the day in bed.”

  I wondered, a mite uncharitably, if Barbara would be an asset or a liability on the campaign trail. I’m not as bad as I sound. I just like to consider as many perspectives as possible.

  “I hope she feels better soon,” I said, as my uncle drew back a chair at the patio table so I could sit.

  The moment my butt connected with the cushion, a maid bustled through a pair of French doors, beaming and carrying a tray. Efficiently, she set places for both of us, with china I could practically see through, and sterling polished to such a high shine that a hiker lost in the desert could have used it to signal for help. Orange juice followed, and buttery croissants.

  I figured that was it and waited for the signal to dig in, but Uncle Clive was perusing the newspaper again.

  “Awful what happened to that Scottsdale narcotics detective,” he said. He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder what this world is coming to.”

  I sat up as straight as if my backbone had been electrified, tried to eyeball the front page.

  Clive passed me the newspaper, and I almost dropped the orange juice I was holding in my other hand.

  There was an old shot of Tucker in a patrol uniform. His hair was still short, his eyes innocent of the things he’d probably seen since the day he graduated from the academy. He was even smiling a little.

  The headline would have stopped my heart if he hadn’t called the night before, and given me that cryptic warning.

  Family, Fellow Officers Mourn Fallen Comrade

  I blinked. Don’t panic, Tucker had said. I almost did, just the same; the thing looked so real. According to the article—which I skimmed three times because my brain kept balking at taking in more than a glaring phrase here and there—Detective Tucker Darroch, 32, had perished when his car exploded in the parking lot of a convenience store. Darroch was survived, the reporter went on, by his former wife, Allison Darroch, and seven-year-old twins, Danny and Daisy Darroch.

  I felt sick, and I must have looked pretty bad, too, because Clive put a firm hand on my arm and spoke with concern. “Mary Jo? Was this someone you knew?”

  If you see my face on the evening news…don’t panic.

  But this wasn’t the evening news, it was the Arizona Republic, the biggest daily in the state. Did that mean…?

  I shook myself inwardly. No. It doesn’t. Tucker mentioned the front page.

  But it was damn convincing.

  Uncle Clive sent the maid back to the kitchen for water.

  “Mary Jo?” he repeated.

  I finally realized he was talking to me. “I’ve met him,” I said, because I knew Larimer wouldn’t believe me if I denied it. People don’t react the way I did to the death of a stranger, no matter how tragic.

  I wondered if Allison and the kids were in on the secret, or if Daisy and Danny really believed their father had been killed.

  “It’s a shame,” Uncle Clive said.

  I put the paper aside with a shaking hand. “Yes,” I agreed, hoping to God this was what Tucker had meant when we talked the night before. What if, by some horrible coincidence, he’d really died in that explosion?

  I was saved from meaningful conversation when Uncle Clive’s personal communication device began to beep. He picked it u
p off the table, used a stylus to bring up the menu.

  “I’d better take care of this,” he said, with a frown. He got up and hurried into the house.

  For the second time since I’d arrived at Casa Larimer the night before, I found myself sitting alone at a table.

  I knew better, I really did, but I got out my own cell phone and speed-dialed Tucker.

  “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded as if she’d been crying. Allison Darroch. “Hello?” she repeated. “Who is this?”

  I hung up without answering.

  Because I didn’t know what to say.

  Because I couldn’t have spoken if I had.

  “PITY YOU CAN’T stay longer,” Joseph said, with merciless good humor, half an hour later, as he jingled my car keys under my nose. I’d packed my trash bag, after Uncle Clive came back to the patio long enough to tell me he’d been called into the Phoenix office on an emergency, scribbled a thank-you note on a piece of paper from the desk in the living room of the guest house and asked the maid to give it to Mrs. Larimer.

  “If you’re the senator’s assistant and bodyguard,” I challenged, “how come you didn’t leave with him?”

  “I have things to do here,” he replied.

  “Sucks to be you,” I said. I got into the Volvo, fired up the engine and got out of there.

  I hoped I’d never have to go back.

  I hoped Tucker wasn’t dead.

  Oh, God, how I hoped Tucker wasn’t dead.

  I wanted to go straight back to Cave Creek and try to find out for sure, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea, and for once, I listened to my own advice.

  It was too early to head for Jolie’s. She’d be at work, and totally focused on whatever bone or tissue sample she was decoding. If I showed up, I’d either blow her concentration, which she would not appreciate, or be ignored, which I would not appreciate.

  I set out for the cemetery outside of town, planning to grill Boomer about the murders, since he seemed to be an authority on the subject, but my car went into override again.

  I soon found myself sitting, with the Volvo idling, in front of the house Lillian had lived in, back in the day.