Chapter Nineteen

Cleo

“I don’t know what kind of mess you’ve gone and stepped in, child, but I’m afraid it’s a lot deeper and a lot more foul-smellin’ than you ever let on to me,” Minnie fumed.

I winced when I saw the ferocious way she was scrubbing the clean pot. How did the thing still have a bottom?

I needed Minnie’s help. I wanted to fill her in on everything in hopes that we’d be able to put our three heads together and come up with a plan, since so far, two heads weren’t working so well. My gaze strayed to Lily and silently asked the question, Can we tell her?

When she nodded, I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“You’re right, Minnie. I’ve kind of left some stuff out.”

Her wide shoulders stilled and then tensed up like she was waiting for a blow.

“Maybe you should sit down,” I suggested.

“I’ll stand,” she snapped.

“O-kay…” I mouthed silently. The best way was probably just to jump in and get it over with. Taking a deep breath, I blurted, “We-rescued-Raymond-from-the-trunk-of-some-bad-men-who-were-going-to-shoot-him-and-then-dump-him-in-the-river.” The whole sentence ran together like it was one long word, then I tagged on, “He was supposed to be the fourth one.”

Minnie turned to face me. Her normally caramel colored skin had turned a sickly shade of washed-out khaki. “Uh, maybe I will sit, after all.”

I moved over to make room. “Good idea.” Once she got settled, I continued, “The way these guys work, is they offer a job to desperate homeless men, with nothing to lose—men like Raymond. This job is too good to be true, one they couldn’t possibly refuse, but there’s a catch. If they say a single word about the job—to anyone—even a hint, they’re killed and thrown in the river.”

Minnie’s eyes were wide; her mouth formed a perfect circle. “What’s the job?”

“Printing hundred dollar bills.”

“Counterfeiting,” she breathed. After a long moment, she closed her mouth and pressed her lips together until they made a thin straight line.

Wow! She was handling this better than I thought she would.

“And Raymond was offered this job?” she asked, quietly.

“Yes.”

“And he talked about it to someone?”

I glanced at Lily before repeating my answer. “Yes.”

“But you all rescued him…from a trunk of a car, you said.”

I started feeling a little uneasy. She was acting too calm. “Y-yes.”

She stared at me another second or two, then narrowed her eyes. “How, exactly?”

Uh-oh. Looking at Lily was no help. She was rubbing her temples like she had a headache. “Well, it started out with us hiding in the alley behind the building where the counterfeiting is done.”

Minnie opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. “I suppose you’ll be telling me just how you knew it was that building, later?”

Oh, jeez, now Lily was holding her head like she was afraid it was going to fall off. “Um, sure…later. Anyway, we overheard enough to figure out what the plan was, and followed them in Jonas’ car.” I didn’t like the way Minnie’s nostrils sort of flared when I said that part, so I hurried on. “We followed them until they stopped at a truck stop and they went inside to get something to eat. I kept a lookout and Jonas jimmied the trunk lock with a screwdriver so he could get Raymond out. Then we stuffed him in the back seat of Jonas’ car, and tore out of there.”

“And came here.”

“Yeah, we came straight here.” Guessing where she was going with that, I rushed to explain. “Don’t worry! They couldn’t follow us. Jonas used the screwdriver to puncture two of their tires before we left. No one has two spares in their car, you know. They were stuck. It was brilliant, actually.”

Too late. I should’ve kept my editorial comment to myself.

“Brilliant!” she almost snarled the word. “You say it’s brilliant? Chasin’ after men who are murderers, who were on the way to kill another person, and who are also involved in a counterfeiting ring? You call that brilliant? Your boyfriend vandalizes their car, and he’s brilliant? Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?”

Call me crazy, but I sort of zoned out after she referred to Jonas as my boyfriend.

But Minnie wasn’t done. “When did you turn vigilante on me? We do have a police force, and they’re paid to handle situations like this. It’s their job. Why didn’t you pull out your phone and dial 9-1-1?”

“Because Mark Spencer…you know, Police Commissioner Mark Spencer? He’s the head of the whole thing.”

“What? He can’t be!”

“Well, he is,” I retorted. “And that’s why we couldn’t contact the police. The good guys are the bad guys in this situation!” I was losing my patience, tired of her interrogation. I needed help, not a pointing finger. “Look…you can rest assured we went through all this before going after Raymond. We’re trying to nail Spencer, which is why Jonas is out there somewhere, right now, disguised as a homeless man. He’s trying to be the next guy Spencer picks, and I’m scared to death. He has no idea Raymond’s back out there and I don’t know how to let him know.”

“Doesn’t he have a phone?” she asked in a more subdued tone.

Well, duh! I exchanged a look with Lily, thankful to see that apparently, she hadn’t thought of that either. “Um…yeah.”

Minnie rolled her eyes. “What’s the problem, then?” Her question followed me up the stairs. I was already halfway to my room to look for the business card he’d given me the day we met.

It only took a second to find it in my backpack, then my trembling finger was punching numbers on my phone as fast as I could go. After two interminably long rings, he answered.

“Holmes.”

“Jonas?”

“Cleo? What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, listen…I don’t want to blow your cover or anything, but Raymond is gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean, this morning, when I went upstairs to check on him, his bed was empty.” I didn’t think it was important to tell him about the note full of scribbles.

There was an exasperated sounding groan from the other end, and then, “We can’t save him this time. If they find him, they’ll kill him quickly, then dump him; they won’t make the same mistake twice.” He sighed. “How’s Lily?”

“Worried.”

“How are you?” His voice went soft, smooth like velvet, and I sort of melted.

“I’m worried too, but mostly about you.”

“I’m fine, babe.”

Babe? Did he just call me, babe? My heart stuttered a couple of times. My throat went dry. I knew better than to try to speak.

He cleared his throat, then continued as if the world hadn’t just stopped spinning. “Listen, I’m going to poke around some, keep my ears open, see if anything comes up. Then I’m going to break cover and run home to get my car about dusk. I’ll come by and pick you up, and we can go sit at the truck stop and see if we spot their car. They may not retrace their steps, but then again, they might. They don’t strike me as being highly intelligent, more like trained monkeys on steroids.”

“I don’t even remember what their car looks like!”

“I do. Got the tag number too, so we’re set.”

“Right. Okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my inner trembling. “I’ll see you this evening, then.”

“Bye, b—…Cleo.”

Had he started to say “babe,” again? Why’d he stop? How could I know for sure? Ugh! How…infuriating!

“Bye,” I whispered.

****

I went downstairs to tell Minnie and Lily the plan for this evening, then turned around and left. Unbelievably, Minnie spared me the third degree. Maybe she realized I was nearly at my breaking point and she didn’t want to be the “last straw.” Never stopped her before, but that’s the only explanation I could come up with, unless Lily had been bearing the brunt of a Minnie-style inquisition, and had managed to fill in enough blanks to satisfy her for the time being. Just to be on the safe side, though, I took the stairs two at a time and locked the door to my room. No sense in taking any chances, right?

I thought briefly about the expression Lily wore just seconds before. She seemed very deep in thought, her face sort of closed down, unreadable. Minnie was back at the sink, scrubbing the heck out of clean pots.

Seems we all had plenty to think about.

One thing for sure, if I wanted to keep from going crazy, I needed to get busy, and stay busy. If I just sat around and waited until Jonas finally got here, every single minute, between now then, would seem at least a month long, maybe a year.

The best way for me to lose track of time was to paint, so it was the perfect time to get started on that part of my illustration project. Setting up my easel and equipment, I donned my painting smock—which was really a man’s denim shirt I’d gotten from the Goodwill store years ago. I’d tried to girl-y it up a little by embroidering my initials and a few flowers here and there, added some lace to the cuffs. It helped some, but you didn’t really notice my decorations much anymore amid all the splotches and streaks of paint.

Grabbing a large canvas from my supply in the closet, I secured it to the easel, quickly prepared my palette, and immediately started blocking in color. I’d decided this first painting would be composed of Lily sprinkling glitter around a parking meter. Its purpose? Well, basically, I wanted to capture her essence two-dimensionally and introduce the viewer to her colorful personality. I wanted to make her real enough, so that everyone could experience the same magical pull I’d felt the minute I saw her. It was a tall order, but I was anxious to try.

It didn’t take me long to get lost in my work.

****

When I stepped back and glanced at my watch, I did a double-take. Wow! After five, already. I glanced at the window, noting the fading light with a mixture of emotions. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel. Excitement and anticipation were walking hand in hand with fear and worry…a veritable smorgasbord of emotional contradictions.

Tut opened one eye at me from his usual place on his pillow and yawned big enough I think I might’ve seen his small intestine. “Ugh! Thanks for sharing, Tut. Just what I wanted…a personal tour of a feline gastrological system.”

He ignored me and settled back down, pulling one of his front legs up over his face, like the big, bad light was hurting his poor, wittle eyes. Oh, brother!

Turning my attention back to the painting, I tried to study it “clinically,” in other words, to separate myself from my emotions—an admonition repeated by every SCAD professor when they critiqued our work. That was actually harder than it sounded. It’s the nature of the beast, really. We, artists get emotionally attached to our work, because we put a little piece of ourselves in everything we do. After a few minutes I nodded, and finally smiled. Not bad. Once it dried some, I’d add a few details here and there, and it could work. It could definitely work.

Hanging up my smock, I caught my reflection in the closet’s full-length mirror, and gave my appearance a critique, too. No stray paint splotches on my face…that was good, but was my outfit right for a stake-out? What did one wear to something like that? Was there some sort of protocol? Probably something dark, preferably black. I grimaced. Not really my color, so I don’t have too much to choose from. Decisions, decisions…Of course, the romantic side of me wanted to wear something pretty and feminine, something that’d knock Jonas’ socks off, but the practical side had a big mouth, and more volume.

Practicality won.

Heaving a sigh, I snagged a pair of black jeans from a hanger, before turning to the chest of drawers. The deep bottom one was full of sweaters that I rarely used since Savannah had such mild winters. The one I was looking for was underneath all the others; a black turtleneck that’d never been worn. Aunt Patricia had given it to me two Christmases ago and it still had the tags on it. I’d planned on exchanging it for something I’d be more likely to use, but had never gotten around to it. Staring at it, I wrinkled my nose.

Minutes later, I stared at the slim, boyish figure who gazed back at me from the mirror. The form-fitting black did nothing but emphasize my lack of “form.” I turned in order to get a side view and groaned. That was even worse! And I looked like a cat-burglar. All I needed was black knit cap and a mask. Maybe this wearing solid-black idea was overkill. Surely I had something both dark colored and frilly somewhere.

All of my clothes-changing activity had finally roused Tut, and he now sat at the end of my bed, staring at me.

“So…what do you think, boy? Do I look too much like Cat Woman?”

The expression he gave me was the feline equivalent of an eye roll.

I snorted. “Yeah, I know, I know…you’re saying, “You wish! Anne Hathaway, you’re not.” She might be able to make that look work, but…” I chewed my bottom lip, undecided. This was harder than it ought to be.

Minnie made the decision for me when she hollered upstairs. “Cleo, your date’s here!”

Date? Oh, no! I leaned my back against the door, head in my hands, embarrassed beyond belief. I felt like strangling her. This wasn’t a date, and Minnie knew it. I could almost picture the sly look she was more than likely wearing. What must Jonas be thinking? Probably wondering what I’d been telling her. My groan was filled with despair. If only the floor would supply a hole that would swallow me.

Okay, stop! Get a grip! You are not going to cringe back into the old Cleo…the pre-Lily Cleo. Jonas is downstairs, you idiot! What are you waiting for? Plus, you have no way of knowing what else Minnie might be saying to him at this very moment. She might refer to him as your boyfriend again…or worse. Get a move on!