Fast Women

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Margie saw her shoot herself?” Gabe said, hope rising.

  “No,” Nell said. “I think she was in the next room. But she was there, and she found her mom. It must have been terrible.”

  “Yes it must have been,” Gabe said automatically, sitting back.

  Riley knocked and came in, and Gabe pushed the ledger toward him.

  “Did you see this?”

  Nell stood up. “I’ll leave you alone,” she said and left before Gabe could say anything.

  “What’s with her?” he said to Riley.

  “She probably didn’t want to get thrown out again,” Riley said, taking the ledger. “What’s this?” Gabe filled him in, and when he was done, Riley looked as lousy as he felt. “You think your dad helped Trevor cover up a murder?”

  “I think we’d better start looking into the suicide,” Gabe said. “I’m going to call Jack Dysart and see if this is what the blackmailer really hit Trevor for. You get the police report on Helena’s suicide.”

  Riley looked at the clock. “Tomorrow. It’s too late today. What about Lynnie? You think she has something that pins this on Trevor?”

  “I don’t know. I stopped by today and the landlady was there again. I think she lives in the other half of the duplex, and I think she doesn’t have much to do. I’m going to have to stake out the place tonight. Which reminds me, what happened with Nell last night? If we’re going to be sued for something, I want to know.”

  “She … misunderstood,” Riley said.

  Gabe closed his eyes. “How badly did she misunderstand?”

  “She went upstairs with him. I got her out before anything happened.”

  “This woman has no brains,” Gabe said. “Why the hell—”

  “She has brains,” Riley said. “You give up on women too fast. She’s a great secretary and a nice person.”

  “I’m glad you like her. You’ve got her again tonight.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t. I have a date.” Riley looked at his watch. “Your turn.”

  “Nope,” Gabe said. “I’m stalking Lynnie.”

  “So can’t this thing with Nell wait?”

  Gabe studied him. “Is there a reason you don’t want to see Nell tonight?”

  “No,” Riley said. “However, there is a reason I want to see the hort major.”

  “I see. No, it can’t wait. She’s going to kidnap that dog in New Albany.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Riley said.

  “I got twenty says she goes for it.”

  Riley considered it. “No bet. I’ll watch her.” He put the ledger back on Gabe’s desk. “Suicide, huh?”

  “We certainly hope so,” Gabe said and picked up the phone.

  * * *

  When Suze held the door to her yellow Beetle open for Margie that night at ten, Margie said, “So what are we doing?”

  “Stealing a dog,” Suze said, tugging up on her low-cut tank top, the only piece of black clothing she owned. Jack liked color.

  “Okay,” Margie said and climbed into the backseat, holding the skirt of her black halter dress around her. “When we get done, can we go unpack Nell’s china?”

  “Did you miss the stealing-the-dog part?” Nell said from the front passenger seat as Suze slid into the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t care,” Margie said. “I just wanted out of the house. Budge is mad at you. He says you shouldn’t be dragging me out this late at night.”

  “Sorry,” Nell said, and Suze thought, Budge needs a hobby. Besides Margie.

  “Dog stealing,” Margie said. “You have such an interesting job.”

  Suze headed for the highway, not at all sure this was a good idea. On the other hand, a dog was being abused, and she was against that. And since she’d gotten married the day after she’d graduated from high school, she’d never gotten to pull any college pranks. No tipping cows, no stealing mascots, no putting Volkswagens in dorm rooms. This was as close as she’d ever come to youthful indiscretion and she should be enjoying it. The problem was, there might be an age limit on pranks. She was thirty-two. “You’re not young anymore, babe,” Jack kept saying. “Get used to it.”

  “Why is that guy doing that?” Margie said, and Suze looked in her rearview mirror and saw a nondescript gray sedan behind them flashing its lights. Suze slowed and the car pulled up beside them.

  Nell leaned over her to look. “Oh, no. Pull over.”

  “I don’t think so,” Suze said. “On a dark road and we don’t know who he is? I don’t want to be tomorrow’s headline in the Dispatch.”

  “I know who he is,” Nell said. “Pull over.”

  Suze pulled to the side of the road and parked, and the other car pulled in front of her. “Who is he?”

  Nell shook her head and rolled down her window, and Suze squinted out the front. Whoever he was, he was big. Hulking even. “You sure about this?” she said to Nell, but then the guy reached the car and bent down to look in Nell’s window. Suze couldn’t see him clearly in the dark, but she got an impression of a lot of jaw made larger by a lot of frown.

  “You are dumb as a rock,” he said to Nell.

  “I am out for a drive with my friends,” Nell said politely. “You are not invited.”

  The guy looked past Nell and saw Suze and looked stunned for a minute, and then he scowled, not the reaction Suze was used to from men. Usually they looked stunned and then smiled.

  “You can go now,” Nell said.

  “You are out to steal a dog,” the guy said, transferring his disapproval back to Nell. “That is illegal. Turn around now or I’ll call the cops.”

  “You wouldn’t really, would you?” Nell said, and the guy sighed.

  “There’s a Chili’s out on 161, right before you make the turn into this place. Go there. I will follow you. If you take any fancy turns, I’m hitting 911 on the cell phone. And yes, I really will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Nell said, but she turned to Suze and said, “Drive to Chili’s, please.”

  When they were back on the road, the gray sedan following them every inch of the way, Suze said, “Give. Who is that?”

  “Riley McKenna,” Nell said. “One of the guys I work for.”

  “He looks familiar,” Margie said from the backseat. “Have I seen him before? Maybe he came into Chloe’s. I learned how to do the cash register today.”

  Suze ignored her to concentrate on the essentials. “Would he really call the police on you?”

  “No,” Nell said, “but he’d follow us and make it all impossible. So we’re going to have to convince him to let us go.”

  Suze shot her a glance. “What do you have on this guy?”

  “Nothing,” Nell said. “We’re just going to appeal to his better nature. I’m fairly sure he has one.”

  When Riley followed them into Chili’s, Suze got a better look at him. Tall, blond, and broad, with plain, non-flashy Midwestern good looks and enough jaw for two people, he frowned with exasperation and still drew glances from the women who passed him coming in. He wasn’t her type—Jack was her type—but Suze could understand the attraction.

  When they were sitting in a booth, Riley next to Margie who looked pleased to be there, he said to Nell, “You are not going to steal a dog,” and Suze felt her temper spurt.

  “Sure she is,” she told him. “Who died and made you God?”

  “This is my sister-in-law Suze,” Nell said, and Riley nodded at her, not impressed. That was irritating, too.

  “And this is my other sister-in-law, Margie,” Nell said, and Riley turned to Margie and smiled down at her.

  What the hell? The world was getting strange if Margie was going to get a job and all the men.

  “Very nice to meet you,” Riley said to Margie and turned back to Nell. “Three rules and you want to break them all. Gabe’ll fire you, you know. He has no sense of humor about this stuff.”

  “Three rules?” Nell sa
id. “I thought there were two, and I didn’t tell them who the client was, and rescuing an abused dog should not be against the law, so I think I’m still in clear.” She lifted her chin at him as the waitress came for their drink order, and Suze thought, Nell?

  When the waitress was gone, Nell added, “What’s the third one? I don’t want to trip over it by accident.” She sounded cheeky, almost flirting with him, and Suze sat back to watch.

  “You already tripped over it,” Riley said. “And fell. Last night.”

  Nell blushed.

  “Nell?” Margie said, and Nell’s blush deepened while Riley grinned at her.

  My God, she slept with him, Suze thought. Hallelujah. “I’m liking you more,” she told Riley. “But we’re still going to rescue that dog.”

  “I don’t want Nell to lose her job,” Margie said, looking at Riley with heightened curiosity. “It’s doing such good things for her.”

  Riley smiled at Margie, and Suze caught the crackle in his eyes and thought, Whoa. No wonder Nell fell. I would have, too. Then she remembered she was happily married.

  “There’s no reason Gabe has to know,” Nell was saying. “It has nothing to do with him.”

  “He turned down the job,” Riley said. “You’re part of the firm, so he turned it down for you, too.”

  “No,” Nell said. “If I was part of the firm, you’d have new business cards.”

  “Don’t start with the business cards,” Riley said. “This is about the dog you will not be stealing.”

  He sounded very sure, which was very irritating. Suze cleared her throat, and he turned to look at her, frowning again. “I don’t think you understand the situation,” she said. There was no crackle in his eyes at all as he tried to stare her down, none of the warmth she was used to when men looked at her, and it threw her off a little. “You can stop us tonight, but we’ll do it sooner or later. So you might as well help us tonight and get it over with so you can go back to whatever it is you usually do with your evenings.” She looked at Nell to see if she’d blush again, but she was nodding at Riley.

  “This is true,” she told him. “I’m going to get that dog.”

  “How long are you going to be insane?” Riley said to her. “Not that I don’t appreciate aspects of it, but you’re going to get burned here pretty soon if you don’t cool your jets. Your luck can’t hold forever.”

  “I am not insane,” Nell said. “I am reclaiming my life.”

  “And somebody else’s dog,” Riley said.

  “Yes.”

  Riley looked around the table. “And this is your gang.” He shook his head. “Three women dressed in black on a residential cul-de-sac in New Albany. What were you going to tell the cops when they picked you up? You’re theater majors?”

  “The cops were not going to come into it,” Suze said. “We were going to move unseen through the night.”

  “In a yellow Beetle,” Riley said. “That thing glows in the dark. What were you thinking of when you bought it?”

  “I didn’t know I was going into a life of crime,” Suze said. “You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah,” Riley said. “Unfortunately, I do.” He signaled to the waitress, who came over immediately and took his order for a hamburger to go.

  Somebody should give this guy some grief, Suze decided. Women were making it entirely too easy for him.

  Nell was smiling at him, compounding the problem, although it was lovely to see Nell smile again. “I knew you’d help,” she said to him.

  “It’s a good thing you’re cute,” he told Nell and her smile widened, and Suze forgave him everything.

  “I like you,” Margie said.

  “That’s good,” Riley said. “Because you’re staying with me.”

  Margie beamed at him, and Suze felt annoyed again. Nell was cute and Margie got invited to stay, so what was she, chopped liver?

  “We’ll use my car,” Riley said.

  “That’s a really boring car,” Suze said. “Only a guy with no imagination would buy a gray car.”

  Riley sighed. “Think it through. It’ll come to you.” He turned back to Nell. “We’ll drop you and the mouth one block from the address. If you’re nabbed, you’ll call my cell phone, and I will come and rescue you if I can. If I can’t, I’ll bail you out.”

  “Thank you,” Nell said. “Why can’t Margie come?”

  “Too many people,” Riley said. “It should be just you, but I’m not going to be yapped at for the next half hour, so the mouth goes, too.”

  “I do not yap,” Suze said.

  The waitress brought the hamburger, and Riley handed it to Nell. “Use that to lure the mutt. Make sure you take its collar off before you leave the yard. All these places have those invisible fences, and you don’t want the dog yelping as you drag it through an electromagnetic field.”

  “What if it bites her?” Margie said. “We don’t know anything about this dog.”

  “That’s her problem,” Riley said. “I’m just trying to keep her from getting arrested and fired.”

  “He’d really fire me?” Nell said.

  “If you dragged the agency into this? Hell, yes, he would. So would I. We have a reputation to protect.”

  “Hard to believe,” Suze said coolly and was rewarded when he flushed a little.

  “Don’t take shots at the family business, lady,” he said to her. “How would Jack feel if you dragged the law firm into this?”

  Suze felt herself grow red. “How do you know about Jack?”

  “I know everything.” His face softened when he turned to Nell. “You know, this is really not a good idea.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I have to. This is bigger than the dog, although the dog is enough.”

  “Okay.” Riley stood up and nodded toward the parking lot. “It’s quarter to eleven. If you’re going to do this, we go now.”

  Nell stood up, too, and took the hamburger. “I’m going to do this.”

  “Wonderful,” Riley said and headed for the door.

  “What about the check?” Suze said.

  “Pay it,” he called back. “This is your party.”

  “I don’t like him,” Suze said to Margie.

  Margie slid out of the booth. “Think of him as a growth experience.”

  “Oh, good, I’ve been wanting one of those,” Suze said and tossed a twenty on the table. It was too much, but she was in a hurry to steal a dog.

  * * *

  Riley dropped them at the corner, and as Nell shut the door, she heard him say, “So tell me about yourself,” to Margie. She and Suze walked across the lot lines until they found the address. Her watch said five till eleven when they ducked under the firs at the back of the dog’s lot, and ten minutes later, the door to the huge glass sunroom at the back of the house opened, and a man shoved a shaggy, cowering dachshund out into the yard with his foot. “Go on,” he said, sounding bored. “Make it fast.”

  He stood there in his expensive landscaping with his arms folded, and Nell whispered, “Oh, damn, he’s going to watch it.” She grabbed Suze’s arm. “Go ring the front doorbell. Go.”

  “I don’t wanna,” Suze said, but she ran off into the dark, looking like a rogue beauty queen in her low-cut black tank top, and Nell zeroed in on the trembling dachshund, now squatting not ten feet away from her, elongated and frumpy. She unwrapped the hamburger and waved it around, hoping the darkness under the trees hid her from Farnsworth, still standing in the doorway. While she watched him, he turned to look back into the house, and then he swore and went inside.

  “C’mon, SugarPie,” she cooed softly into the darkness, waving the hamburger in front of her. “C’mere, baby.”

  SugarPie froze in midsquat, her eyes sliding back and forth over her long narrow nose as if she were trying to decide between the house and Nell and wasn’t liking either much.

  “C’mere, sweetie,” Nell said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice, and SugarPie began to creep back toward the door. />
  “No, no, no!” Nell swooped down on the dachshund who squatted even closer to the ground in terror as Nell grabbed her around the middle, both ends sagging as she picked it up. “Shut up,” she said, balancing the flopping animal on her hip as she took off, leaping over hydrangea and low boxwood to get to the darkness of the trees while SugarPie squirmed like a stretched, greased pig. The dog flinched when Nell dashed across the lot line—“Sorry,” she said. “Forgot about the collar”—and then it bounced on her hip, quivering but silent, its back legs scrabbling to find purchase on Nell’s butt as she sped through the dark backyards. She heard Farnsworth yell, “SugarPie, you little bitch, where are you?” behind her, and then she was out onto the street, changing course to get as far away as she could, forgetting entirely where she was supposed to meet Riley.

  Anyplace was better than here.

  When she was six blocks away, she stopped to catch her breath and shifted SugarPie off her hip. “Sorry about that,” she said, and the dog looked at her, its eyes peeled back, huge as golf balls, shuddering in her arms until it almost vibrated free. “No, really, it’s okay.” She bent down and put it on the smooth, white sidewalk under the streetlight, keeping one hand on its collar in case it decided to bolt. Instead, SugarPie collapsed, rolling over on her back to let her head fall back against the sidewalk, limp with fear, giving out a high-pitched moan that sounded like air escaping from a balloon.

  “Good grief, don’t do that,” Nell said, trying to prop up the dog’s head. If things got any worse, she was going to have to give it mouth-to-mouth. She could see herself explaining to Deborah Farnsworth, “Well, the good news is, I got your dachshund back. The bad news is, she fibrillated on the sidewalk.” “Come on, SugarPie,” she said, looking uneasily back over her shoulder. “Pull yourself together. Be a woman.”

  She picked up the dog and cradled it in her arms and began to walk down the block toward the highway. “You’ll be okay,” she said to the dog. “Really, you just had to get away from that awful man. We’ll have you back to the lady who loves you in no time.”

  SugarPie didn’t seem convinced, but now that they were moving again, she tuned her vibrating down to an intermittent shudder.