Chapter Eight

 

 

“I’ll talk to Della. She’s the best one to help Maggie. I promise.” Simone felt like a traitor. Or maybe something else. A heel. Not quite right, either, too harsh. The person caught in the middle. Writing snippets for the Doodles to play with was fine. Giving Carl a fantasy when she knew he and Maggie were having problems was downright stupid.

Not that she’d thought of it that way until she figured out Carl hadn’t even used the story. At least not that she knew of.

“I’d rather you did it.”

Brax had walked her all the way home, hoping to change her mind, she was sure. Now he waited for her answer on her front walk, within touching distance, while she stood on the step trying to figure out how to get away with a fib.

She couldn’t risk talking to Maggie. What if she revealed something she shouldn’t? “I’d probably say the wrong thing.” She had a very big mouth sometimes, especially when she didn’t know how to bring up the subject. “My mother always says I speak before I think.”

“Your mother’s wrong.” A hard edge filtered through his voice. “You’re perfect the way you are. And you’ll say the perfect thing.”

A nice sentiment, but Simone knew her mother was right. “Della. She’ll do it. I’ll buy her a drink at Flood’s End and talk to her. I swear.”

“Why don’t you want to talk to Maggie?”

Darn. She’d forgotten he was a cop. They always asked why. Not that she’d had any real experience with cops, but that’s how they acted on TV. Now, if only she had a really good reason. Other than the fact that she was a big-mouthed coward. She looked over his head at the row of rusted barrels lining the side of her neighbor’s house. Thinking, thinking... She gave him a modified version of the truth. “I’m afraid of making things worse. A woman has to want to talk. You can’t butt in and tell them they need to talk. It gets their back up, then they won’t listen at all.”

He put his hand on the door frame, but didn’t interrupt. A good sign he was buying it.

“But she’s talked to Della. So Della’s the logical one to do it. And I’ll make sure Della doesn’t go off half-cocked again.”

“Following your logic, Della won’t like you butting in and telling her what to do, so she’ll ignore everything you say, and handle Maggie all wrong.”

“No, no, it’s okay to butt in if you’re asking a woman to help another woman. It’s only bad when you’re talking about a woman’s own problems.”

He opened his mouth, clapped it shut, looked around, then finally said, “I’ll never understand women.”

“That’s okay. We understand men and that makes everything work out.”

He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. She should have told him that her mother always claimed she could talk a person in circles until his or her head exploded, but Simone didn’t want Brax to know he’d been had.

He tugged her hand. “Come down here.”

“Why?”

“Because I want your lips within two inches of mine when you feed me a line of crap like that.”

 

* * * * *

 

Brax hadn’t believed her. He might not understand women on a personal level, but he for damn sure knew when someone wasn’t telling the truth. It was all in the body language. Most people couldn’t tell a lie while they looked you in the eye. Simone had been no different. At least not in that respect.

Yet it was an absurd thing to lie about. Why not tell him the truth about why she didn’t want to talk to Maggie about this thing going on with Carl?

His calves strained as he climbed the steep hill to Maggie and Carl’s home. Their trailer sat on a plateau overlooking Goldstone, and the high desert elevation worked his lungs.

The thought of that email tore a hole in his belly. He’d been done with that suspicion last night, convincing himself the email meant nothing, that Simone wasn’t having an affair with Carl, she was true-blue, and all the rest of that rot.

So why didn’t she want to talk to Maggie? Guilt?

No one was home when he got to the top of the hill, though Maggie had left the back door unlocked for him. She’d been gone most of the morning, now she’d disappeared again. Carl’s truck was absent, too.

Brax got a bad feeling. He wished he’d told Carl burgers were okay. Anything. As long as he and Maggie went somewhere together and talked.

Three hours later, as Brax sat in the darkened living room, the lock clicked on the front door.

 

* * * * *

 

Maggie unlocked the door and dropped her purse and keys on the foyer table. Not that her trailer had a real foyer like a real house should have. Another burst of anger shot through her chest. No foyer, no real house, and no man in her bed wanting to slip his hands beneath her nightie in the dark.

He’d even forced her to send her brother down to The Chicken Coop to check up on him. She couldn’t ask Chloe herself. That would have been worse than the scene at the tea party.

Bastard. If Carl were standing right in front of her, she’d have kicked his butt. All the way back to Vegas and that stupid wedding in that stupid chapel with those stupid flamingos that Carl had insisted on.

A shadow shifted in the living room. She marched three paces forward before she realized it wasn’t him.

It was her brother. Tyler sat in the dark family room just as her father had done when she’d been late coming home from a date. Dad never said a word, but he was good at saying I’m so disappointed in you I can’t even speak with just a look. She couldn’t see Tyler’s expression, but she didn’t think it would be any more sympathetic.

Dammit, she had a right to her anger, her tummy-clenching, spine-wrenching, teeth-gritting anger. Carl was cheating. She knew it in her bones.

“Where ya been, Maggie?” Tyler said, soft as steel.

“Where do you think I’ve been? Out looking for that no-good, dirty rotten bastard husband of mine.” Life wasn’t fair. She’d been a good wife...Carl had been less than a dog.

She marched into the kitchen. The Elvis clock ticked on the wall, his pendulum legs swinging. The only other sound in the trailer was Tyler’s footsteps across the linoleum as he followed.

“I would have come with you if you’d asked.”

She didn’t turn on the kitchen overhead, but moved to the light streaming in from the foyer. “I didn’t want you with me.”

She opened a cupboard, slamming the door against its neighbor, and grabbed a wineglass. The last remaining wineglass from the dime-store set she’d bought when they were first married. She didn’t even own a crystal wineglass. Carl would have broken it just as he had the others in this set. Clumsy oaf. She’d only broken one of them, and she hadn’t been tipsy either, but doing the dishes the morning after.

“Maggie, come into the family room and sit and talk.” Tyler touched her arm.

She flung him off. “I don’t want to talk. I want a glass of wine.” Wine out of a box, because that’s how she saved money. While that bastard was salting it away for his floozy. Who was she? What was she like? Where’d he meet her? Maggie hated her without knowing the answers.

“Tell me where you looked for him.”

She’d driven around Bullhead for hours, out into the nice neat suburbs where the houses were real houses, with manicured cactus gardens and decorative rock formations and fountains and paved driveways. “Bullhead.”

“I take it you didn’t find his truck.”

“No.”

“He might be playing darts. He goes to The Dartboard a lot.”

She whirled on him. “The only darting he was doing was sticking his thing in some other woman’s bull’s-eye.”

He took a step back. Bastard. Men always took a step back. She didn’t let him, stomping to within a foot to poke her finger in the center of his chest. He flinched.

“He’s fucking some bitch in heat and you know it and when I catch him I’m gonna Bobbitize him and I’m gonna stuff his tiny little dick down the garbage disposal and grind it up so they won’t be able to sew it back on.”

His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth. Open, close, open, close, like a fish, but nothing came out.

She whirled again, headed for the refrigerator and her precious box of cheap, stupid wine. “I hate this house. I hate him. He’s gonna be sorry. He’s gonna be really sorry.”

“Maggie, I don’t think he’s cheating on you.”

Her cold, numb fingers wouldn’t close around the refrigerator handle. Little spots flashed before her eyes. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “You don’t think? What do you know? You don’t live here, you don’t know anything. He gets drunk and goes out so Elwood will arrest him and throw him in jail so he doesn’t have to come home to me. You’re so stupid. You’re all so stupid. I know what’s going on. I know what he’s doing. I’m gonna kill him when I catch him and throw his parts down his goddamn outhouse holes.”

The glass in her hand suddenly smashed against the counter. Tiny shards pricked her face, her throat, and her arms. She closed her eyes in time to take the sting against her eyelids.

Her glass, her last precious stupid cheap glass, gone, just like that. Like her marriage. Like her life.

“Maggie, honey, sweetie.”

She felt Tyler pry the stem out of her fist, then brush the shards from her cheeks and shoulders.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “It’s all over the floor. I’ll clean it up.”

She couldn’t have moved if she tried. Sudden light beat at her eyelids. The paper towel holder rattled. Water ran in the sink. Air currents shifted as he moved, wiped the counter, around her feet. A cupboard opened, the trash can lid flipped up, then slapped shut.

“There, there. It’s okay.” Soothing voice, soothing words, as if he were talking to a child.

Her lip trembled. She opened her eyes. Tyler’s face blurred, then came back into focus. His eyes, almost slits, searched her face. Two deep grooves bit into his cheeks from his nose to his mouth, and his eyebrows almost touched in the middle, his frown was so deep.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She’d upset him. No, she’d damn near scared the bejesus out of him.

“Don’t worry.”

Tears welled up until she couldn’t see him clearly anymore. Legs suddenly weak like the aftereffects of an adrenaline rush, she wanted to crumple to the floor and lie there. For a long, long time. Drained. Empty.

“Do you think I’d be better off without him?”

Tyler put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed. “No. You were happy before. You’ll be happy again. This is just a bad patch, I swear.”

Then, almost hesitantly, he pulled her into his arms. Rocking her, he stroked her hair, the way their mom used to do when she was a kid. God, she missed that. Someone to stroke her hair as she fell asleep. She used to make Carl do that sometimes.

A fresh wave of tears rushed to the surface. Her throat clogged, and her nose stuffed up. Tyler rocked, stroking and murmuring while she cried and cried and cried until she didn’t think she could have any tears left.

“Why didn’t he come home tonight?” she muttered against his T-shirt.

He answered, though she was surprised he even understood her mumble. “I don’t know. But when he does come home, we’re all gonna sit down and talk. You, me, and him.” He pulled back, then tipped her chin up. “Look at me.”

She did. He was a blur.

“He’s not having an affair, Maggie. I don’t know what’s going on with him, sweetheart, but it’s not that.”

“Are you sure?” She wanted to believe him; she really, really did because she hated, hated feeling this way. Helpless and lost and broken down.

He nodded gravely. “Yeah, I’m positive. Together, we’ll find out what it is, honest. When he gets home.”

 

* * * * *

 

Returning from her evening walk, Simone opened her sunporch screen door. She was almost to the front door when she cocked her head and turned. Darn it. She’d locked that door. She stared at it a moment. Actually she remembered locking it when she went to bed last night. She didn’t have a clear memory of locking it when she left for her walk. She wracked her brain, but she couldn’t come up with the image of turning the lock.

Sighing, she opened the front door instead. At least she’d remembered to secure that one.

What was up with this weird need to lock her doors? She was jumping at coyote shadows in the night. This was Goldstone. Nobody locked up. Besides, she didn’t have anything worth stealing. Oh, her computer. There was that. At least she backed everything up on an Internet storage site. Hmm, what about the fantasies she’d created for her clients? Could they be used for blackmail purposes? Nah. She was sure there were far juicier secrets lurking in Goldstone than anything she’d ever written about.

On to more important things. Earlier, with her feet eating up the gravel streets, Simone had come up with a plan.

The smartest thing she could do was talk to Carl himself and get him to fork over the answer to her question. And force a commitment as to when he was going to put that darn fantasy to the test. Yes. Perfect plan.

Except that Carl wasn’t online. She’d emailed him five times. Then she’d called his office number—she couldn’t call the house itself. He hadn’t answered. She’d left her number and a terse message, but there was no blinking light on her machine. Simone tapped in her password and checked her emails. Carl hadn’t replied to those messages, either. He was ignoring her, darn it.

She understood Maggie’s feelings when Carl disappeared for hours on end.

Only one option remained. She’d have to go over there and pound on his door. Well, not pound, because Maggie might hear. Or Brax. Simone had to keep this private. At least until she’d talked to Carl. After that, well, it might be best to come clean and tell Maggie all. First, she’d warn Carl of her intentions.

She felt better now that she’d established a good solid plan.

Simone opened her closet door and perused the row of clothing. She needed black to blend in with the dark. Wouldn’t do for Maggie to spot her crossing the driveway. In the end, she chose a black T-shirt and black leggings.

The phone rang. Carl! She jumped on the receiver.

“Darling!”

She was getting terribly lax with checking caller ID. For the second time in two days, she’d let her mother take her by surprise. Why, she hadn’t even practiced her deep breathing before picking up.

“Hello, MOTHER.” Come to think of it, why was Ariana calling again so soon? Unusual. Simone’s antennae went up.

“Jackie tells me you’ve got a new man in your life. Why didn’t you tell me yesterday when I called?”

That was her mother, no beating around the bush. She’d probably plucked the information out of Jackie with a tweezerlike torture device. “He’s not exactly my new man.”

“What? He’s your new dog?”

“I mean he’s not my man. He’s just a man. And he’s not in my life. He’s visiting.”

“He’s visiting your life? Spoken like a transient. I knew that godforsaken town was going to be bad for you.”

She should have made Jackie swear she wouldn’t tell. Then again, her mother probably recorded all Jackie’s phone conversations just to nip anything unsavory right in the bud.

Simone tried again. “He’s visiting his sister. Remember Maggie? I’ve mentioned her to you before.”

“Holy Mary Mother of God,” Ariana shrieked, though she was as WASP as the Archbishop of Canterbury. “She’s the latrine cleaner’s wife. And you’ve fallen for that woman’s brother?” Simone heard a violent rustle, and her mother panted over the phone lines.

“Carl doesn’t clean latrines. And I haven’t fallen for Brax. I only met him a couple of days ago.”

“Brax? What on earth kind of heathen name is that?”

“It’s a nickname. A shortened version of his last name.” Why was she trying to explain? The more she said, the worse her mother would get. Ariana was magnificent at twisting words, her own as well as others. Simone knew she meant well, but her mother didn’t know when to let well enough alone.

“Does he clean latrines as well?”

“Nobody cleans latrines.” Irritation slipped through her voice.

“Don’t use that tone with me, young lady.”

Simone pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, MOTHER.”

“If this kind of insolence is any indication of what that man is teaching my poor little girl...” Ariana let her words trail off, expecting Simone’s apology.

Simone was well used to the maneuver, and she’d long since given up engaging in battles she’d never win. The best counter maneuver was to give her mother exactly what she wanted. Then get the heck off the phone. “You’re right. He is a bad influence. I didn’t realize until this moment, but you’re so right. MOTHER, you are so wonderfully astute.”

There was a short pause as if Ariana suspected sarcasm. If she did, she chose to ignore it. “I am, aren’t I? I love you, and I worry about you. It’s a mother’s instinct to protect her young.”

Some mammals ate their young. Ooh, that was an awful thing to think. “It’s lucky Brax is only visiting. But I won’t give him a by-your-leave from now on.” Brax wouldn’t give her a by-your-leave if he caught her sneaking up to Carl’s trailer, not after she’d refused to talk to Maggie. He would not understand.

“You’re such a smart girl. And you always listen to your mother.” A long-suffering sigh traveled across the line. “But your sister. I don’t know what I’m going to do with her.”

“Jackie?” Jackie had been born soaking up their mother’s every word, and suddenly Simone knew why her mother had let her off the hook so easily with Brax. “What’s wrong with Jackie?”

Another sigh. “Oh, I don’t know. She’s acting strangely. She hangs up the phone when I walk in her room.”

Her mother had barging-in-without-knocking down to a science, all in the name of taking care of her daughters. “I’m sure Jackie just wants to give you her undivided attention.”

Ariana didn’t get the sarcasm. Or, more likely, she was too wrapped up in the drama of the situation. “No, no, it’s a quick, furtive sort of thing.”

“Oh my.”

“And I’ve caught her in little lies about where she’s been and who she’s said she was with and what time she got in. Simone, I think your sister has”—gasp—“a man friend.”

“Noo!”

“Yes!”

“That’s terrible.” Good for Jackie. She deserved a little happiness. A lot of happiness.

“I don’t know what to do about it. She’s so naive. I know she’ll get herself hurt in the end.”

“She’s a big girl, MOTHER.” Sometimes a daughter had to make her own mistakes or she never learned. So great was her desire to protect, Ariana didn’t understand that.

Her mother snorted, a very un-Ariana-like sound. She was probably so distracted she hadn’t even heard herself do it. “He must be after her money.”

At least it would give Jackie the chance to get out of their mother’s smothering house. Simone loved her mother, but all that caring stifled a person. “But maybe he’s not. We should give her the benefit of the doubt, don’t you think?”

“Simone. Your sister has no sense of judgment when it comes to men. Remember that horrible Wesley person?”

Jackie had been eighteen and the “horrible Wesley person” a horrible twenty-five. Ariana had made sure Jackie’s heart got broken before Wesley had a chance to do it himself. Simone had always wondered if he’d really taken that payoff money or if Ariana had him shanghaied to Europe. Ariana was capable of a lot of not-so-nice things in the name of love.

Simone was suddenly tired of her mother’s voice and her mother’s worries. No one, least of all Simone herself, would ever convince Ariana to let Jackie have a life of her own. “There’s the timer on that yummy pan of brownies I’m making. I better get them out of the oven.”

Another gasp. “Simone, you can’t eat a whole pan of—”

“Oops, I can smell them burning. Gotta run.”

Now that was a dirty trick to play on her mother, but all was fair in war and daughterhood, especially when your mother was Ariana Chandler.

Besides, she had Carl and Maggie to worry about, and time was wasting.

 

* * * * *

 

Carl didn’t come home. In the end, Brax had to go searching for him.

His own hands had done their fair share of trembling in the kitchen, and his breath had wheezed from his chest as he’d watched his sister literally fall apart before his eyes. Then they’d sat in the living room for two hours—the longest two hours of his life—while she alternately talked and cried.

He hadn’t been able to say a damn useful thing. But he’d listened.

Finally, he’d pulled her to her feet. “You get some rest, honey. You’re exhausted.”

“Only if you go out and find Carl for me.”

He didn’t see that he’d have any more luck than she had. He was used to hunting criminals, not his sister’s husband. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

“I’m used to it.” She gripped his hand hard. “I need you to do this for me.”

How could he say no, even if his instinct was to stay and protect her, if only from her own dismal mood? “I’ll do whatever you need.”

“Go see Elwood.”

He quirked an eyebrow.

“Sheriff Teesdale.” She dipped her head, and her voice dropped. “Maybe Carl’s in the holding cell sleeping it off.”

“Does he do that often?”

“Only when he’s trying to get away from me. And if he isn’t there, maybe Elwood’s seen him.”

Maybe Elwood knew at whose house he’d parked his truck so Maggie couldn’t find it.

Damn. She looked so forlorn, she might have read the thought. He stroked the straggly hair back from her face. “I’ll check there first. Take a nice bath. You always did love a long, hot bath.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, with you yelling at me through the door and telling me to get out so you could take a leak.”

“The trials and tribulations of being a one-bathroom household.”

“You always were a brat.” Maggie sniffled, but a hint of a smile curved her lips.

“Yeah.” More like a model brother, putting up with her the way he had. “At least you’re old enough to have wine with your bath.” Women liked wine in the tub, though he could never understand the fascination with lying for hours while the water went cold. “I’ll pour you a glass.”

She sniffled. Her brow puckered and her mouth trembled. “I broke the last wineglass.”

Shit. “I’ll buy you a new set, I promise.”

“I have others. But that was my first set after we got married. And Woolworth’s is out of business.”

Ah God. He was an ass, forgetting, or clearly not having understood the correlation between a bath, a glass of wine, and the shards he’d mopped up and thrown in the trash. “You got any chocolate?”

She stopped crying long enough to question him with a look.

“Chocolate and wine in the tub.” Maybe that would take her mind off things. His ex had kept a special tin of chocolates on the bathroom counter. Upon pain of death, he was never allowed to touch them, and as far as he knew, she only ate them when she took a bath. Three had been her limit.

Fifteen minutes later, Maggie was in the tub, the sweet scent of bubbles wafting under the closed door and filling the trailer. Brax pulled his keys from his jeans pocket and let himself out the front door. Crickets chirped, and somewhere an owl hooted. Below, the lights of Goldstone trailers gleamed across the highway, but Maggie’s plateau lay in the complete darkness of a moonless night. Distant music wafted on a gentle breeze.

First stop, the county jail and Sheriff Elwood Teesdale.

Something rustled the weeds at the edge of the driveway. A dark shape scuttled to the top of the incline toward Carl’s office trailer.

“Carl?” If it was, where had he parked his truck? His usual spot sat empty.

The shadow, too small for the bulky Carl, stopped, crouched, then sucked in an audible breath and held it.

Brax crossed the drive and caught the unmistakable feminine scent. The sweet tang of citrus. A fragrance that had driven him crazy most of last night when he’d tried to fall asleep. Now she wore a tight T-shirt and black leggings that outlined every curve of her body.

Simone.