“Men really are pigs.” I snorted.
Talking to myself, I drew a few bemused smiles as, battered and floundering in the aftermath of a storm of emotion, I wandered the lobby aimlessly.
God, sometimes I hated it when I was right. My theory had sort of begun as a tongue-in-cheek effort to get a laugh. Now, it wasn’t so funny.
I’d abandoned Teddie sitting at the table in Neb’s staring through the window.
Our confrontation had left me somewhat disconcerted, and oddly free. Unburdening myself had lightened the load for sure. Of course, I hadn’t told him the whole story, not really. I hadn’t told him that with him all my walls had come down; I fell fast and hard and completely for the first time in my life. So the hurt was immense. But, knowing him, he probably knew how I felt better than I did. Given that he was an expert on me, I’d sure like to ask him how I could’ve been so wrong.
But my men being pigs theory was proving oddly accurate. First Teddie, then Dane, another former friend with a secret, and my father . . . sort of. And now, Jean-Charles wasn’t exactly stepping up to the plate.
Mona found me staring, mouth open, eyes raised, trying to get my bearings under the Chihuly hummingbirds and butterflies. At this time of the afternoon, the day usually quieted, with many of the guests choosing to nap or relax before going out—the calm before the chaos.
“Lucky! There you are.” The woman was like a shark, able to sense the fresh blood of an open wound.
“I am so done with men.” I didn’t lower my gaze. Instead, I remained focused on the arced flight above me.
Not missing a beat, Mona stepped in next to me, her shoulder grazing mine. “Honey, have I taught you nothing? Take a lesson from their playbook: use them for sex and occasionally, if you find one who can think, an interesting dinner or two, but really, that’s pushing their limits.”
I gave her my attention. “Does Father know about this theory of yours?”
Mona puckered her lips as she gave me the that-is-such-a-stupid-question look. “Of course.”
I had absolutely no response. None. Glibness had fled, fast on the heels of rational thought.
My mother gave me an accusatory frown. “Where have you been?” Her voice lost the bounce of banter, taking on a sharp edge.
I didn’t even flinch. I was either numb or dead. Neither was optimal, so I tried not to think about it. “I am here, where I always am, just a rabbit in a cage.”
“Don’t be silly.” Mona put a hand on my arm. “You’re not in a cage. You can leave anytime you want to.”
I swiveled my eyes to hers. “You really think so?”
She gave me a quizzical, distracted look. “You were supposed to go with me to the doctor.”
The cloud lifted. My thoughts coalesced. Pulling out my phone, I punched the button and glanced at the time. Way late. “I’m so sorry. I forgot.” I gave her a quick once-over. To be honest, she didn’t look herself. In fact, if I had to say, she looked a little off-kilter—unusual for my mother, the laser-guided human missile. “Did you go? Are you okay?”
“Why did you mention rabbits?” Her voice had gone all fluttery, never a good sign.
“What?” I tried to marshal my somewhat dissipated attention. Even if she wasn’t acting totally in character, she sounded like my mother and looked like my mother, just bigger. I’d forgotten how far along in her pregnancy she was, but it seemed she was expanding before my eyes—sorta like someone had stuck an air hose up her ass . . . or like that fat girl who ate all the blueberries in Willy Wonka.
Pregnancy had an interesting effect on Mona, softening her features and the hard angles of her toned physique. Too bad it hadn’t seemed to affect the sharp edges of her personality.
Today, she wore a flowing peach top that dipped off one shoulder, a pair of tan pencil pants, and gold ballet slippers. A gold leaf barrette at the nape of her neck caught her hair into a tail. Normally a shiny brown, the golden highlights were new. A touch of peach lip gloss, a little smoke and violet to make her eyes pop. No need for blush—she radiated a contentment I don’t recall ever sensing before. As beautiful as ever.
A frown bunched the skin between her eyes, which were filled with worry. Glowing with health, she didn’t look like she had bad news, so I relaxed a little. The whole day had me jumpy. I pulled free a feather that had become lodged in her hair. “Turkeys clipping your wings?”
She pouted, sticking out her lower lip just a bit for effect. “That’s not funny.”
“That depends on your perspective.” I smoothed her hair as a parent would a child’s. “I trust you and Jerry got the bird thing figured out?”
She worked the huge diamond on the ring finger of her left hand as she chewed on her lower lip and nodded. “For now. But what am I going to do with a thousand live turkeys?” She gripped my arm harder. “Do you know they bite?”
I bit down on a grin. “I really don’t know what to say.” I tried to block the visuals of Mona and Jerry herding angry birds. I was only partially successful. The whole thing made me want to laugh.
Mona’s face crumpled into a frown, and she lasered me with the evil eye—it used to work. “You’re mocking me.”
“Mocking is one of my best things, along with chasing pipe dreams and kissing toads hoping for a prince.”
Mona let go of my arm. “Sarcasm is a shield, Lucky.”
I rubbed the spot she’d been gripping in an attempt to restore circulation. “Apparently, an ineffective one.”
“I heard Teddie was back.”
“Really?” I pretended not to care. “From whom?”
“Your father.”
“Did he happen to tell you the whole story?”
She put her hands on her hips and tried to look fierce in the face of my waning good humor. She wasn’t entirely successful. “For the record, I don’t agree with what he did. But just the same, I’m glad he did it—you need to figure out the Teddie thing and move on.”
Complicity. Betrayal, total and complete. And good intentions did little to soften the blow. I lowered my brows and gave her my best stern look. “You haven’t talked to Jordan recently, have you?”
Her eyes drifted from mine as she pretended to be interested in the sparse crowd. With one finger, she looped and twisted the thick gold chain around her neck, tightening it until the flesh underneath whitened.
My fingers itched to help her. “You do know accomplices are considered just as guilty as the perpetrator of the crime?”
Mona switched to concerned-parent mode, as if that worked anymore. “Lucky, your father and I have your best interests at heart. We’re worried about you. You’ve got to face Teddie, face yourself. You run around here solving everyone else’s problems, doing what you should do. When are you going to do what you want to do? Figure out your own dreams, sweetheart, and follow them.”
“It would be great if, just once, someone would leave me alone to solve my own problems, my own way, on my own time.”
She rested her hand delicately on my arm. “We would, but you don’t.”
Just as I was adjusting to the truth in her statement, Mona snapped back to the Mona I knew. She waved her hand, slapping away our previous discussion. “Now, about those rabbits.”
“What rabbits?” Floundering, I struggled to follow the flow of her conversation. I knew better—past experience taught me I’d end up at sea with a bad case of motion sickness.
“I went to the doctor today, and I killed two of them,” Mona announced, tilting her chin just a hint higher.
All I could do was blink at her. “You killed two doctors?”
Mona sighed and looked at me with that patronizing parental look she was so good at. “No. Rabbits.”
“You killed two rabbits at the doctor’s office?”
She nodded, then raised her eyebrows as if willing me to understand.
We stood there, staring at each other. Clearly, I needed a Rosetta Stone.
“Rabbits . . . ,” Mona prompted in a slightly louder voice, as if she were an ugly American willing a non–English speaker to understand.
“I got that, but why do they have rabbits at the doctor’s office?”
She sighed dramatically. “It’s an expression.”
“Oh, well, that makes it so much clearer.”
Mona rolled her eyes. “Twins,” she said with a smile that didn’t camouflage the panic in her eyes. “I’m having twins.”
Time stopped. I stared at my mother. When I felt light-headed, I gasped for air—that whole breathing thing again. “What?” I managed to gasp with the tiny bit of oxygen I had left. Clearly, none of it was reaching my brain.
“You’re going to have a brother and a sister.” She cocked her head upward and the corners of her mouth down. “Or maybe two brothers. Or two sisters.” She looked at me. “Two more girls. I’d like that. I haven’t a clue what to do with boys, do you?”
I felt pretty sure she had a real good handle on boys, but I didn’t point that out—the context seemed a bit iffy. Recent history had proved I was the last person to offer advice on men, old or young . . . unless shooting them became an option.
“Which would you like?” She acted as if I had a choice. Finally, the light dawned. “Lucky, you’re not saying anything. Why don’t you say something?”
I opened my mouth, but words failed me. Vaguely, I was aware of a vibrating at my hip.
After a beat or two, Mona nodded in that direction. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“What?”
“Your phone.”
My hand shook as I grabbed my phone from its holster, swiped my thumb across the face, tapped the green button, then held the thing to my ear. “Yeah.”
“Lucky?”
“Romeo?” I tried to gather my wits, but they drifted away like smoke in a strong breeze.
“Yeah, what’s the matter? You sound weird.”
“My family just . . .” I paused, searching for the words, but words were gone—not a good sign.
“No need to explain,” Romeo filled the dead air. “Your family defies explanation, anyway.”
“God love you, kid.” Still struggling to find my sea legs, I cradled my forehead, massaging my temples with thumb and forefinger. I stared at the ground, willing my mother to disappear. “You wouldn’t, by chance, be coming here to arrest my mother?”
The young detective had the audacity to laugh. “What for?”
“I don’t know . . . intentional infliction of emotional distress?”
“That’s not a crime, it’s a civil tort.” He didn’t even try to hide his amusement—he’d been finding me pretty darn humorous lately.
I wasn’t sure I appreciated his attitude. “I’ll take that as a no.” I blew at a lock of hair that tickled my eyes and tried to focus on a point across the lobby to stop my world from spinning. It didn’t work. “Give me time, I’ll think of some other reason. Maybe you could take her into protective custody?” My outlook brightened for a moment.
“From you?” This time, he laughed out loud. “Your bark is worse than your bite.”
I crumpled under the weight of defeat. “You never know. One of these days . . .”
“Keep me posted. You know I’m always here to get you out of hot water. But until then, the help I need is yours.”
“I figured as much. What can I do for you?”
“Fiona Richards’s killer left a note . . . and it’s addressed to you.”