Infernal Affairs

by Jane Heller

  “BS?” Jeremy said, finally breaking the silence.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s make sure you’re really over this darksider thing.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course, I’m over it. Look at me.”

  “Yeah, but what about the power? Maybe you’ve still got it. Maybe you can still make people do things they don’t want to do.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “The devil took away all that. I’m a normal person now. Relatively speaking.”

  “Come on, BS. Humor me. Try to make me do something I don’t want to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, let’s see if you can keep me from askin’ you to marry me.”

  I smiled. “That’s a no-brainer. You’d never propose to a woman you only kissed once.”

  “Go on, try it.”

  “Seriously, Jeremy. We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of—”

  “Try it,” he urged. “See if you’ve got the power to shut me up about this marriage thing.”

  I sighed. “All right.” I closed my eyes and tried to recreate the feeling I used to get whenever I tapped into my darksider power. And then I opened my eyes and said, “I wish that your jaw would lock and that you would not be able to ask me to marry you.”

  But his jaw didn’t lock.

  “Marry me, Barbara,” he said, no longer joking. “After you and Mitchell have figured things out.”

  “That might take a while,” I cautioned. “We haven’t even started negotiating the divorce settlement.”

  “I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little longer,” he said. “Love’s a lot like fishing, remember?”

  “I remember.” I smiled and knew that when it was time to catch the fish, we would.

  Epilogue

  The seas were calm—two feet or less—and the skies were dark, overcast, threatening, on that Monday morning in June, nearly two years since the night I was liberated from darksiderdom.

  “Perfect fishing conditions, BS,” pronounced my husband, the charter captain, after waking me at six-fifteen by throwing open the bedroom curtains.

  “Perfect sleeping conditions,” I grumbled, and rolled over in bed, pulling the covers up over my head.

  Jeremy promptly pulled them off of me, then kissed my cheek.

  “Up up up,” he said. “You and I’ve got a date with some dolphin. If we’re lucky.”

  Since Mondays were a slow day for Cook’s Charters, we often took the Devil-May-Care fishing on that day of the week.

  Not that I was much of a fisherperson, mind you, even after two years of intense coaching. Oh, I could tell a bonito from a barracuda, and I knew that when Jeremy spoke of dolphin, he was talking about mahi-mahi, not Flipper, everybody’s favorite mammal. I guess you could say I was a fisherperson in that I loved being out on the boat, loved being able to feel the wind in my hair and the salt water on my skin and all that Jack London stuff, loved the thrill of catching a fish and then bringing it home and cooking it for dinner, knowing it was as fresh as it gets.

  Mostly, I just loved being with Jeremy. We’d gotten married six months after my divorce was final and had barely spent any time apart. We were happy together, happier than I’d imagined two people could be. I absolutely adored the man, adored him so much that I let him wake me up on this dark and dreary Monday morning, the type of Monday morning that I ached to sleep through, particularly now that I no longer had to get up for Charlotte’s Monday morning meetings.

  I had given up real estate when I’d realized that I no longer gave a shit whether Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So bought the house with the coral fireplace in the master bathroom or the one with the twelve-burner range in the center-island kitchen. And since Jeremy’s father, who was in good health now but more interested in hanging around the sixty-five-year-old widow who’d moved in next door than he was in hanging around Eddie’s Marina, I took over the booking of the charters and became Jeremy’s business partner as well as his wife.

  We lived in Jeremy’s beach house, which had been restored to its former, pre-hurricane glory. My old house on 666 Seacrest Way was currently vacant and for sale, as Mitchell and Chrissy had decided not to live there after all. Mitchell had opened yet another eatery—a Thai restaurant and bar called Thai One On. Like Risotto! and Moo!, Thai One On was very successful—so successful that Mitchell and Chrissy saw themselves in grander quarters than 666 Seacrest Way. The last time I saw Althea Dicks, their real estate broker, she told me they were looking at the former Kennedy mansion.

  Other than the occasional mugging, life in Banyan Beach was remarkably crime-free once again. People were leaving their doors unlocked, trusting their neighbors, even trusting the police, who were no longer more corrupt than the citizens they were paid to protect. Other than the never-ending development and the steady influx of Northerners, it was almost as if the devil had never come to town at all. Except that he had come, and lives were changed inexorably. Some for the better.

  Take Ben. Yes, the devil had killed his emus, leaving him without a business. Uncertain of the direction he should go in next, Ben contacted Constance, the psychic, who predicted that the telephone would play an important role in his life. By the end of the reading, he and Constance had decided to go into business together: Ben would operate a 900 telephone number on which Constance would dispense psychic advice.

  Suzanne, too, actually benefited from the devil’s stay in Banyan Beach. If it weren’t for the storm he’d brought down on us on the afternoon of the River Princess party, she might never have met Danny Bettinstein. He had a thriving orthodontic practice in town, was living in the newly refurbished Nowak house and looking forward to marrying Suzanne in August.

  Frances didn’t exactly benefit from the devil’s visit to town, but she didn’t seem to have any lasting scars from it either. She didn’t remember anything about having been possessed—or exorcised—although she did remark that she had developed a sudden aversion to chicken.

  Charlotte, too, was thriving. She handled my defection like a lady, wishing me the best of luck with the fish market I planned to open and promising to stop in and buy some salmon.

  Althea was still griping, but not about her customers. It was her husband, the undertaker, who was the latest object of her wrath. His offense: he talked in his sleep. I did not ask about what.

  As for Lloyd and June Bellsey, they weren’t doing very well at all since the devil took off and left them without their darksider powers. Lloyd lost court case after court case, and, before he knew it, he and June were dropped from the A-list, and the only celebrities they got to brush up against were Mitchell and Chrissy, who were hardly Hollywood royalty.

  Of course, I’m leaving someone out—saving the best for last, actually. You see, Jeremy and I don’t live alone. We have a little one at home: a black Labrador retriever puppy whom we call PJ—for Pete Junior. I’m hopelessly impartial, but he’s the cutest dog I’ve ever seen, not including his namesake. PJ doesn’t stand on my scale and weigh himself or change the channels on the television remote control or write pithy messages in the carpet. Still, he’s a little trickster, I’m telling you. He hides the Brillo under our bed and swipes the newspaper right out of the delivery boy’s hands and chews on Jeremy’s favorite sneakers. But he saves his best stunts for the boat, for when we take him fishing with us on Mondays.

  The minute he’s onboard the Devil-May-Care, he thinks he’s Esther Williams and dives into the ocean without the slightest provocation. Another dog on a passing boat is an excuse for a swim…or a jet-skier whizzing by…or a seagull flying close to the boat. Our PJ is fearless when it comes to the water, but a total wimp when it comes to fish! Whenever Jeremy or I reel one in, PJ takes one look at it flopping around on the floor of the cockpit and buries his head in my legs! Obviously, the dog has personality, just as his predecessor did.

  On that Monday morning in June, when Jeremy woke me to cloudy, gray skies, the three of us climbed aboard the Hattera
s and made it out of the Inlet, into the ocean, by eight-fifteen. When the depth sounder indicated that we were in about sixty feet of water, Jeremy took the frozen ballyhoo out of the ice chest and rigged the four trolling rods, attaching two to the outriggers. We began trolling at four knots, heading north into the Atlantic, looking for dolphin, which tend to travel in schools and like to hide under weed lines or logs or anything that’s floating in the deep water.

  We trolled and we trolled and we trolled. There was no action whatsoever—if you don’t count the pelican that did his business all over the boat’s spiffy teak decks. Jeremy kept reeling in the lines to see if the fish had taken the bait, but the ballyhoo were intact, so we trolled some more. PJ was so bored he went below to the cabin and fell asleep on one of the berths. I was so bored I went below to the galley to fix lunch. I made roast beef sandwiches for Jeremy and me, a bowl of Iams for PJ. I ate my sandwich in the cockpit and brought Jeremy’s up to him in the tuna tower. No, we weren’t fishing for tuna and a tuna tower is virtually unnecessary for the sort of fishing we were doing, but the Hatteras had one and sitting up in it made Jeremy feel like a king on his throne, so I kept my mouth shut. I watched as he ate the sandwich, watched as the Russian dressing I’d spread on it leaked out from between the slices of bread and squirted onto his white T-shirt, watched as the Bud Lite I’d given him sprayed the crotch of his shorts. So what else was new.

  I’d made my sandwich with mustard instead of Russian dressing and drank Evian water instead of beer because I was dieting. Jeremy loved my hair gray and wild, so I’d left it alone, but we agreed that it wouldn’t be a total loss if I lost the double chin.

  I did the dishes and came back up to the cockpit, then concentrated once again on the business of fishing. I searched the waters for dolphin. And waited. And searched. And waited. I knew that fishing, like love, required patience, but mine was wearing thin. It was nearly two-thirty in the afternoon and we’d been out in the ocean all day. I was getting restless. I wanted to go home. I wanted to give up. Hell, I figured we could go to the store and buy the damn dolphin faster than we were going to catch one.

  I pulled my chair closer to the edge of the cockpit and sighed in exasperation. Then I looked up into the cloudy, gray sky and, totally without thinking, said out loud, “I’ll do anything to catch a dolphin. Anything.”

  The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t mean what I said, I told myself. I was just venting my frustration. I didn’t care if I ever caught another fish. Really, I didn’t. Please. No devil this time. Not again.

  Seconds later, a bolt of lightning flashed across the darkening sky. And then, one of the fishing rods jerked forward. Something was pulling on it. Something big.

  “Hey, BS! Looks like you’ve got a live one down there,” Jeremy called to me from the tuna tower.

  I pretended I didn’t hear him. I pretended I didn’t see the fish on my line or the lightning in the sky. I pretended I hadn’t said what I’d said.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Start reelin’ him in, would ya?”

  I ignored him. Maybe it was just a coincidence that I’d made my “I’ll-do-anything” speech and then the fish had grabbed on to the line and the sky had lit up. Maybe the devil hadn’t come back to Banyan Beach, back into our lives. Maybe he wasn’t trying to get me to make another deal with him. Maybe the nightmare wasn’t beginning all over again.

  Well, I wasn’t taking any chances. While Jeremy barked orders at me, I left the line—and the nice, meaty dolphin at the end of it—alone, hoping it would eat the ballyhoo and take off.

  Which is exactly what happened.

  Jeremy was positively baffled by my seeming indifference that the fish had gotten away.

  “I can’t believe it!” he said. “You just sat and watched the dolphin take the bait!”

  “Better he than I,” I said, and let it go at that.

  About the Author

  After nearly a decade of promoting bestselling authors for New York publishing houses, Jane Heller became a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author herself. Her 13 novels, nine of which have been sold to Hollywood for movies and television, are now entertaining readers around the world. She has also written a nonfiction book about her passion for baseball and the Yankees, as well as a survival guide for those caring for a loved one with a chronic or critical illness. Her new novel, Three Blonde Mice, a spinoff of her popular novel Princess Charming, will be published by Diversion in August 2016. Born and raised in Scarsdale, New York, Heller currently resides in New Preston, Connecticut, with her husband, Michael Forester.

  Connect with Jane

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  More from Jane Heller

  Romance and murder are on the menu in USA Today bestselling author Jane Heller’s wild comic novel Three Blonde Mice. Three best friends go on a cooking excursion led by a famous chef, only to discover one of their classmates is very keen on practicing knife technique. They and eight other guests will learn how to cook farm-to-table meals at a chic farm-to-table retreat, with renowned TV/restaurant chef Jason Hill. Elaine is less than thrilled—especially because the program wasn’t supposed to include a surprise appearance by her former boyfriend, Simon, who’s still the love of her life but can’t commit to her. What’s more, after milking a cow and making cheese, she stumbles on evidence that one of her fellow agritourists is out to murder Chef Hill at the resort’s Bounty Fest finale. Three Blonde Mice serves up a crackling romance between Elaine and Simon, a twisty whodunit involving a screwball cast of suspects and a satire of current food fads and the farm-to-table chefs who perpetuate them.

  Read on for an exclusive extended preview of Three Blonde Mice!

  Prologue

  The fingers hovered over the laptop’s keyboard, fidgeting and flexing, poised to begin typing. And then suddenly, propelled by the writer’s burst of inspiration or clarity of purpose, they were off, racing over the keys in a manic hurry. Within minutes, the following words appeared on the screen:

  Dear Pudding,

  Did you know I call you Pudding, by the way? No, of course not. The name came to me as I was watching your cooking video on YouTube. You were talking about how you’ve loved pudding since you were a kid—chocolate pudding, banana pudding, rice pudding, tapioca pudding, sticky date pudding with caramel sauce. I had this hilarious image of your body dissolving into a vat of thick, spongy, gelatinous pudding, sort of like the Killer Robot from Terminator 2 melting into liquid metal or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters transforming into the gummy white goop that buries Manhattan. Listen to me carry on about movie villains. Too much time on my hands, I guess.

  Anyway, I signed up to be a guest at the hotel’s Cultivate Our Bounty week just so I could get close to you, but since we won’t have quality time alone until the very end, I thought I should write a quick note to say how much I despise you.

  Yes, despise you. Does it scare you to hear that? Are you shocked that someone doesn’t think you’re God’s greatest gift to the world? I’ll pretend to be your fan for the entire week, and you’ll probably buy my act, because you don’t have a clue. You walk around like you’re this important chef, someone whose passion in the kitchen we’re supposed to admire, but we both know you’re in it for the money and the ego. You’re all about having foodies slobber over you as a promoter of the farm-to-table movement—excuse me, the farm-to-fork movement. Or is it plough-to-plate, cow-to-kitchen, barn-to-bistro, or mulch-to-meal? I can’t keep track of your terminology anymore, can you? Bottom line: There’s only one movement you promote, and it’s your own.

  You’re a fraud—100 percent con artist. You wouldn’t know authenticity if it hit you over the head with one of your overpriced cast iron skillets. You have the image of this do-gooder who’s all about the land and the farmer and the planet, when in fact you have no conscience, no remorse f
or your actions. Do you know how much those actions enrage me? Enrage me, as in pure, unprocessed, non-genetically modified rage. If you don’t get that, you will—as soon as it sinks in that your miserable life is nearly over. When that happens, your instinct will be to use this letter to protect yourself, but you won’t show it to anybody—not the police, not even the little toads who work for you, because you have too many secrets of your own and can’t risk the exposure. Pretty interesting predicament you’re in, wouldn’t you say?

  I’m sorry about having to kill you on Saturday at the Bounty Fest thing. Not because you deserve to live—we’re all better off with you dead, believe me—but because killing isn’t something I do on a regular basis, and I really don’t want to get caught. There’s always the chance that some unlucky bastards could show up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’d have to take them out too. Still, while I’d rather not commit multiple murders, killing you will be so satisfying after what you did that I’ll just have to shrug off potential collateral damage. Besides, any idiots who fall for your Cultivate Our Bounty bullshit deserve whatever they get.

  The fingers sagged over the keys, depleted after their flurry of activity, but eventually directed the cursor to the navigation bar, clicked “file,” then “print.” Seconds later, the Dear Pudding missive materialized on plain white paper, ready to be sent to its recipient or, perhaps, delivered in person.

  Day One:

  Monday, July 15