Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  Jolie put the pedal to the metal, and we streaked south. In the Sunset Villa lot, we screeched to a crooked stop next to Greer’s luxury vehicle, popped our seat belts and bolted.

  The reception area was completely empty, which could be either a very good sign or a very bad one. We didn’t stop to deliberate.

  Three women in too-cheerful print scrubs hovered in the corridor outside Lillian’s room, murmuring to each other. Jolie and I zipped past them and came upon one of those scenes that stick in a person’s memory forever.

  Greer stood next to Lillian’s bed, a metal pitcher in one upraised hand, ready to swing. She looked unbalanced, her eyes glittering with ferocious purpose. An octogenarian security guard faced her, his back to us.

  It was a standoff, but that wasn’t the most interesting thing.

  Lillian was sitting up in bed, her eyes bright, a crooked but cognizant smile on her mouth.

  “My—daughters—” she said, laboriously but with proud clarity.

  Greer slowly lowered the pitcher and turned to stare. Jolie and I brushed past the befuddled guard on either side, like water flowing around a rock in a rushing stream.

  “Lillian!” I gasped. “You can talk—”

  She shook her head. “Too—hard—” she said, gargling the words like mouthwash. “Soon—though.” With that, she raised both her arms, and Greer and Jolie and I all scrambled to do the huddle thing.

  Lillian clung to us, managed somehow to plant awkward kisses on each of our faces. I felt tears against my cheek, and couldn’t have said who they belonged to, because we were all crying.

  “This is highly irregular,” one of the nurse’s aides protested.

  “Get lost,” Greer sniffled.

  Lillian waited until we all receded. Then, eyes shining, she cupped our faces in her withered hands, each in our turn.

  I came last, and by then she looked serious again.

  “Be—careful—” Lillian said fiercely. “Queen. Page. Death.”

  I knew she was referring to the Tarot cards she’d given me during that earlier visit. “I don’t understand,” I whispered, frustrated to the point of desperation.

  Her hands tightened on either side of my skull. She kissed my forehead, closed her eyes and sighed.

  For a moment, I was electrified with fear. I thought she’d died.

  “She’s sleeping, Moje,” Jolie reasoned gently, pulling me away. “She’s just sleeping.”

  Greer remained close to Lillian’s bedside, took one of her hands, held it tightly in both her own. She looked terrified, as though she thought she would sink into some abyss if she let go.

  Jolie tugged me out into the corridor.

  The trio of nurse’s aides and the security guard receded a few steps, like a sluggish tide, wide-eyed with alarm.

  “How long has my stepmother been awake?” Jolie demanded.

  One of the women took a half step forward, a reluctant volunteer. Her eyes were huge, and her chin wobbled a little. “She just woke up a few minutes ago, far as we know, right while you was in there. Till then, she was in a coma. That’s why Dr. Bilbin called you all.”

  I put a hand to my heart; it was pounding so hard it made my head swim, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I must have looked pretty bad, because the prehistoric security guard shuffled over, took my arm and steered me to one of the plastic chairs along the hallway wall.

  “Lillian was comatose?” I swayed from the effort of speaking.

  “Drink this water,” ordered the ancient one, shoving a flimsy cone-shaped paper cup under my nose.

  I grabbed it so hard that the contents spilled over my hand, splashed onto the floor.

  “Oh, dear,” said the rent-a-cop. He looked so upset that I was afraid he’d end up as a patient at Sunset Villa, instead of an employee.

  “It’s okay,” I told him.

  He sank into the chair next to mine, breathing audibly.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” one of the nurse’s aides scolded. “Fred, are you all right? Rotika, get me some smelling salts.”

  Rotika hurried off, returned with a small bottle, unscrewed the lid and waved it under the old man’s nose. The stuff was so strong that it revived me, as well the intended victim, and after a shared whiff, both Fred and I were good to go.

  Greer meandered out of Lillian’s room, looking dazed and, to be frank, slightly peculiar. “She’s going to be all right,” she murmured. “Lillian is going to be all right.”

  “You need to go home now, the lot of you,” Rotika said. She’d put the cap back on the stink bottle, but traces of genie b.o. still lingered. “You come see Mrs. Travers in the morning. She got to rest now.”

  I must have looked rebellious as I came to my feet, and Greer was still smiling that odd, befuddled smile. Jolie took each of us by the arm and said, “Rotika’s right. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said.

  “Too bad,” Jolie replied, marching Greer and me down the corridor, past the reception desk and out into the warm Phoenix night. “You’re not driving,” she told Greer, and hustled her into the back seat of the Pathfinder. Jolie’s gaze swung to me. “Get in, Mojo.”

  “But, Lillian—”

  “Get in,” Jolie repeated.

  I glared at her.

  She glared at me.

  A person has to choose her battles in this life. I got into the passenger seat, though I did slam the door.

  “My car,” Greer said, from the back. And then she burst into tears.

  “Your car will be fine,” Jolie told her, tossing back a box of tissues as she spoke. “You can pick it up tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m taking you home. Mojo and I will spend the night with you.”

  I thought of the two breakins at Bert’s, the text message, the death threat and the poisoned chow mein. “I can’t leave Russell alone all night,” I said.

  “Russell,” Greer rallied enough to say, “is a dog.”

  I had an uneasy feeling, not only about Lillian, but about Russell, too. Part of the magic that is Mojo, I guess. “You can both stay at my place.”

  “Right,” Greer said snippily. “Jolie and I will just share your couch.”

  Under other circumstances, I might have reminded Greer that she’d slept on bus-station benches—among other unsavory places—in her time, and my couch would probably compare favorably with any of them. The problem was that Greer was obviously on the ragged edge and she needed some slack, whether I felt like cutting it or not.

  “Drop me off at the apartment, then,” I said quietly.

  “It’s nice to know where your loyalties lie,” Greer retorted.

  “Greer,” Jolie said, “put a sock in it.”

  Everybody fell silent, and that’s how we left it.

  The trip back to Cave Creek was a long one.

  Back at Bert’s, Greer waited in the car, and Jolie came upstairs with me to collect a nightgown, her toiletries and a change of clothes.

  Russell greeted me with sleepy gratitude. If Nick and Chester were around, they weren’t showing themselves. God only knew where Tucker was and what he was doing. The apartment felt overwhelmingly empty.

  Jolie paused, coming out of my bedroom with her things. “You’ll be okay here?”

  I nodded, bit my lower lip. I wasn’t usually fragile, but, hey, I’d been through a lot in the past week. I felt like somebody who’d just been flung off some hyped-up merry-go-round, and my equilibrium was disturbed.

  Jolie approached, touched my shoulder with her free hand. She balanced her stuff in the curve of her arm, deodorant, toothpaste and brush resting on top of the pile. “Greer’s not herself, Moje,” she said softly. “I’m trying to be more patient with her. Are you in?”

  I grinned wanly. Nodded again. “I’m in,” I said.

  “Be sure to lock up behind me,” Jolie said.

  I followed her to the door, Russell at my heels, and stood on the landing until she was safe in the Pathfinder aga
in. As Jolie and Greer drove away, I put on the chain and turned the dead bolt.

  I was almost relieved when I turned around and found myself practically standing on Nick’s toes.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Long enough,” he said. He studied my face, his eyes thoughtful, and I knew he was getting a virtual tour of the inside of my brain. “I thought you’d be happier, once I scared my mother into forking over the life insurance money.”

  I laughed, sounding a little raw, and shoved my hair back from my face with one hand. “I need tea,” I said. “Feel free to join me and sniff a few Oreos.”

  He followed me into the kitchen, Russell trotting at our heels. “Your head is a real jumble. Lillian’s awake. Greer’s acting weird. And you wish you knew where the cop is, and whether or not he’s sleeping with his ex-wife.”

  I thought hard about Lillian, since I didn’t want Nick viewing anything else that might pop into my head, especially where Tucker was concerned.

  He sighed. “I’ve accepted it,” he said. “You’re boinking the cop.”

  I whirled on him, in the kitchen doorway. “You didn’t—?”

  “Watch?” Nick grinned. I was blushing like mad, and he clearly enjoyed my discomfiture. “Nope. Too much male ego for that. And give me credit for a little class, will you?”

  “I forgive you. Go away.” I wrenched open a cupboard door, tossed him the bag of stale Oreos.

  He caught them easily and chuckled, but his eyes were sad. “You really don’t want me to leave. You’re lonely and you’re upset and you figure I’m better than nothing. Admit it. I’m right.”

  “You’re right,” I said. I snagged the tea kettle off the stove, filled it at the sink and slapped it back down on the burner. I glanced around, almost afraid to ask the question. “Where’s Chester?”

  “No idea,” Nick said, sticking his nose into the Oreo package and inhaling deeply. The exhalation came out as a long sigh. He looked down at Russell, who was sniffing his shoes, with an expression of speculative regret. “I hope you’re not counting on him as a watchdog,” he remarked.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” I countered, getting out the tea bags and plopping one into a mug. I was still thinking mostly about Lillian; I should have been thrilled that she was awake, and even regaining her powers of speech, but something about the whole situation troubled me.

  “Mainly because there’s a woman hiding behind your shower curtain,” Nick said.

  Good thing I wasn’t holding the tea kettle. It was already beginning to steam at the spout, and Russell and I would both have been scalded when I dropped it. “What?” I started for the bathroom.

  Nick sprang up in front of me like one of those ducks in an old-fashioned shooting gallery. “Wait a second,” he said. “She could be dangerous. Even armed. Better to call the cops, don’t you think?”

  “It would take them half an hour to get here,” I replied, and kept walking.

  I strode into the bathroom, threw back the curtain and found Heather there, a pair of nail scissors clasped in one hand.

  I guess I was too outraged to be scared.

  “How did you get in here?” I demanded.

  “I have my ways,” she said.

  “I’m calling the cops,” I told her. “If you get out before they arrive, so much the better, because I totally intend to press charges.”

  “Don’t turn your back on her,” Nick warned quietly, from the doorway.

  I had forgotten the nail scissors.

  “Stay out of this,” I said, but I kept my eyes on Heather as I backed out of the bathroom.

  Heather stepped daintily over the side of the tub. She was dressed for stealth—black jeans and turtleneck, black shoes. She even had the stretchy stocking cap. “How did you know I was in here?” she asked conversationally, as though she and I were friends and this was just some harmless practical joke.

  “A ghost told me,” I said.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she replied.

  “There you go,” I replied, backing down the hallway toward the living room. “I answered your question. You answer mine. How did you get into my apartment?”

  “A man let me in,” Heather replied.

  My blood froze. I glanced at Nick, but he shook his head.

  “What man, Heather?”

  “Just a man,” she said.

  “Describe him.”

  “He was just a man,” Heather insisted, as though put upon. “He said if I killed you, he wouldn’t have to get his hands all bloody.”

  My stomach turned over.

  Geoff?

  Where would he have gotten a key to my apartment, assuming that was how he’d opened the door?

  Actually, there were several disturbing possibilities. Bert, being my landlord, probably kept a set in the bar. Geoff could have stolen them—he might even have been the one to attack Sheila the night before. The building was old, and so were the locks. It was certainly conceivable that there was a skeleton key out there somewhere, or he could have used a burglar’s tool of some sort, and Heather, obviously a few votes short of a majority, had mistaken it for a key.

  I eased toward the telephone.

  Russell crawled under the coffee table and whimpered.

  Nick was right. He’d never make a watchdog.

  Heather sat down on the couch, and I actually felt a flash of pity, because she seemed oddly limp and jangly at the same time. She still held the scissors in a white-knuckled grasp, though, so I gave her a wide berth.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  “Poor baby,” said Nick.

  I ignored him and nipped into the kitchen. The tea kettle was boiling over, making a screaming sound, and I shoved it off the burner as I passed, headed for the phone.

  “I have a prowler,” I told the 911 operator. I was establishing a relationship with those people; pretty soon, I’d be able to call and say, “The usual.”

  I went back to the living room, still on the line with the dispatcher.

  Heather was nowhere in sight, but Russell still cowered under the coffee table, and Nick stood with his arms folded.

  “Behind the couch,” he said.

  I’d barely registered that when Heather suddenly sprang up from her hiding place, vaulted over the sofa back and came at me. She touched down once on top of the coffee table and flew through the air like some screeching hawk snagging a mouse.

  I yelped and dropped the receiver, prepared to defend myself. Everything shifted into a weird cinematic sequence, slow-mo. The background music was the blood thudding in my ears.

  Smaller than I was, Heather nonetheless had momentum going for her. She hit me like a locomotive, and both of us went down. I struck the floor so hard that the wind rushed out of my lungs, and I couldn’t seem to take in even a shallow breath.

  Heather straddled me.

  We grappled. I made distracted plans to order The Damn Fool’s Guide to Physical Fitness, since Self-Defense for Women didn’t seem to be packing it.

  She raised the scissors high; I saw light catch on the tips and tried to roll out of the way, but shock had turned every muscle in my body rigid. The brain gave orders, but the body didn’t respond.

  “Nick,” I gasped out, “do something!”

  The scissors began to descend.

  I screamed.

  Russell yowled.

  And a blur of shrieking, hissing cat shot into my limited range of vision like a white meteor plunging to earth. Chester landed on the back of Heather’s neck, claws bared, fur standing out all over his body, eyes feral.

  Heather screamed and flailed, dropping the scissors. Chester hung on, like some kind of feline demon.

  I threw Heather off, rolled free, scrambled to my feet.

  I could hear the 911 operator calling something from the discarded phone receiver.

  “Chester,” I rasped, when I caught my breath. “Sit.”

  “Sit?” Nick asked.

  I picked the
scissors up off the floor, threw them across the room, and pried my ghost cat off Heather’s back.

  Chester was bristly as a porcupine, and he still had a lot of fight left in him.

  Heather, who had fallen to her knees under the attack, got to her feet and fled. I stroked Chester’s back until he mellowed out. When I went to set him down, I saw that his coat was bloody.

  I screamed.

  Memories surged out of every dark closet, cupboard and cubbyhole in my mind. I must have passed out, or just put my brain on standby, and when I came to, Nick was gone. Chester was gone. And two cops were crouching on either side of my prone body, looking concerned.

  Russell growled uncertainly from his post beneath the coffee table.

  “Lie still, miss,” the younger cop said. “You’ve been stabbed. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

  Stabbed? I didn’t remember being stabbed. I hadn’t felt anything, during the whole tussle with Heather, besides stark, undiluted fear.

  “It was only a pair of nail scissors,” I said, in what I thought was a sensible tone.

  “Well, you’re bleeding a lot,” said the second cop.

  “I’m not going to the hospital.”

  “Excuse me?” asked the first cop. I focused on his name tag. Rodriguez.

  “I will not leave the dog,” I said. “He’s been traumatized.”

  Rodriguez and his partner exchanged looks.

  “I mean it,” I insisted, trying to sit up. I was woozy.

  “We’ll see,” said Rodriguez, pushing me gently back down. “Just lie still.”

  The EMTs arrived.

  I was examined, disinfected, bandaged and propped on the couch for questioning by Andy Crowley, who arrived late. I think he liked to make an entrance.

  He spared me a concerned smile. “Now what?” he asked.

  I filled him in, but grudgingly. I thought he could have been a little more sympathetic, given that the whole universe seemed to be out to get me.

  “Have the nutcase picked up,” he told Rodriguez and the partner. I’d tried to get a look at the other cop’s name tag, but the light always blanked it out.

  Twenty minutes later, Crowley took a call on his cell phone. Heather was in police custody.

  I breathed a little easier, except now that I knew my stab wounds were stab wounds, I was hurting.