Chris Rogers's Blog, page 9

Bitch Factor – Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Thursday, December 24, Grand Forks, North Dakota

Dixie zipped her denim jacket against a frigid wind and hustled across the motel parking lot. Even best-laid plans occasionally went awry. Dann had managed to dodge all her bird dogs and stay ahead of her on the all-night drive. Twice she’d wasted time checking out likely motels while the skip pressed on. Now here she was, twelve hundred miles north of Houston, in a state where she didn’t know a soul to call on for backup.

She hunkered behind a four-year-old Chevy sedan parked outside room 114. Her knees popped. Her back and leg muscles shrieked from too many hours on the road with too few stops. Scraping snow and grime off the Chevy’s license plate, she compared the numbers to those on her notepad. No match ̶ yet the car looked right.

Another blast of icy wind ruffled her short hair. Shivering, she unzipped her jacket far enough to reach her shirt pocket and pull out a grainy photo. She flipped it over, tilted it toward the morning sun, almost hidden behind a bank of ugly clouds, and studied the dealer’s description jotted on the back: cream, 1993 four-door Caprice, patched dent in right rear fender. Dann had probably snatched the plates off a parked car somewhere. Still, Dixie needed to be certain she had the right man.

She studied the faded blue drapes at room 114.

You in there, Dann?

Spying a maid’s cart stationed by the open door of room 120, Dixie ambled past and scooped up an armload of cheap white towels that smelled of soap. Snowflakes dampened her face. Catching a few flakes on her tongue, she filed the sensation in her memory for a hot Texas night. The frivolous part of her mind hoped the snowfall would continue. If she had to be in North Dakota on Christmas Eve, it should at least be a white one. Back home, snow was as scarce as snake feathers.

Approaching 114, Dixie considered retracing her steps to get the semiautomatic stored in the Mustang’s trunk. She didn’t like using deadly force when she didn’t need it, and Dann’s file hadn’t mentioned his owning any weapons. He was a salesman, for Pete’s sake, not a street punk. Walk in with a gun, he might panic, make a stupid move. Get one of them killed. No, she’d leave the .45 in the Mustang.

Cradling the towels, she unlocked a small stun gun from her belt and held it hidden in her right hand. Her palm felt damp. She juggled the stunner and wiped her hand on the top towel, then rapped on the dingy blue door.

“Maid service!” She flavored the words with a Mexican accent. Sometimes she found the smidgen of Apache blood that darkened her skin and hair to be remarkably handy.

Pretending not to understand English might buy her enough time to study the man’s face, get a quick take on the room, hazard a guess at whether he was alone; and she spoke a damn sight more Tex-Mex than Apache.

When the door remained shut, she rapped louder.

“Fresh linen, seňor?”

The door swung open. A hairy chunk of a man with bushy dark brows, a bold mustache, an angry jaw ̶ and a hell of a lot more muscle than she’d expected ̶ glared at her from the doorway. Dixie resisted a sudden urge to back away and try a different tack. He looked bigger, rougher than his mug shot. No shirt. Jeans zipped but unsnapped. Purple bags under fierce blue eyes. He needed a shave, and his hair was hiked up as if slept on crooked.

It was Dann, all right, drunk, child killer, bail jumper.

“The hell you want?” he thundered?

“I clean your room now, seňor?” Dixie’s gaze swept past him to take in the rumpled bed and the clothes spilling out of two plastic grocery bags.

“Hell no! Go clean somewhere else.”

“Que hora, seňor? What hour?” No roommate in sight. No weapons, either.

“The sign says I don’t have to check out till noon ̶ hellfire, it’s only ten-thirty.” Dann started to shut the door.

“Por favor, seňor, you take fresh linen.”

Dixie thrust the towels at his chest. At the same instant, she shoved the stun gun to his solar plexus, a fist-size mass of nerves nestled beneath the heart. Eighty thousand volts traveled from that sensitive mass to scramble his brain patterns.

Surprise, Dann.

Despite its limitations, Dixie preferred the stunner to more serious weapons. It was useless at farther than arm’s reach, dangerous on wet ground, and if you were actually touching your opponent, you’d get the full voltage yourself. But a stun gun was quiet and, in the right situation, remarkably effective.

When Dann jerked and started to fall, Dixie steered him awkwardly toward the bed. He landed half on, half off, eyes unfocused, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, like a fish.

She rolled him onto his stomach, with only his bare feet hanging off the mattress ̶ a quick glance outside to make sure no one had witnessed the scuffle ̶ then kicked the door shut. Locked and bolted it. She studied Dann for a moment: he looked dead to the world.

Unhitching the cuffs from her belt, Dixie scanned the sparsely furnished motel room. A heavy down jacket was draped over a ratty chair, a shirt tossed on the closet floor; still no weapons visible. She snapped the cuff on Dann’s thick left wrist, then had to reach across the bed for the other hand.

Incredibly, he rolled over.

The unexpected movement shoved Dixie off balance. As Dann rolled, the arc of his right forearm collided with the side of her head. Not much strength behind the blow, but damn!

He should’ve been out for at least five minutes. The stunner’s battery must be low.

As Dixie stumbled back, Dann hit the floor. He landed seated on his rump, legs out straight, hands splayed behind him on the worn beige carpet, bracing him from falling backward. His eyes were already flashing with comprehension. Dixie swept a quick appraisal over the powerful chest muscles and knew instantly she didn’t want to tackle this guy one-on-one. Her only hope was to restrain the bastard while he was still dazed. Or to get the hell of there. For a shaky instant, she wished Slim Jim McGrue were here to scare Dann into submission.

Stomping hard on his left hand from behind, she fished her key ring from her jeans pocket, wrapping her fingers around the Kubaton she carried there. Thick as a thumb, long as a ballpoint pen, and hard as steel, the Kubaton, like the stunner, was an up-close-and-personal weapon. Simple but persuasive. When applied with force to sensitive spots, a Kubaton could make grown men as docile as doves.

Thankfully, it didn’t require batteries.

Reaching around him, Dixie pressed it to the nerves in Dann’s right ear, forcing his head against her hip. Too much pressure and he’d black out. She wanted to avoid that, wanted him mobile to walk to her car. But without enough pressure, he could snatch the Kubaton and slap her against the wall like a bothersome horsefly. She wanted to avoid that, too.

“Put your right hand behind you,” she ordered, grateful to hear her voice sound strong and fearless. “Slowly.”

Dann didn’t move. She applied another ounce of pressure.

“You know the drill, Dann. We can do this hard or we can do it easy. So far I’ve been mercifully easy.”

When he tried to pull away, she pressed harder. She heard a satisfying grunt, but also felt his powerful back muscles tense against her leg. He still wasn’t convinced.

“The cosh in my back pocket,” she explained reasonably, “was invented by the Nazi SS. It can break a kneecap with one blow, quick as breaking eggs.” Absolutely true. She didn’t add that she’d never used it. “I’ll ask you once more, Dann, nice. Put your left hand behind you.”

She gave him time, holding the pressure steady, letting him think about it. After a moment she felt his shoulder move as he tried to comply, dazed neurons sending sluggish impulses to the arm. Then his left hand slid behind him, the spare cuff dangling.

“I’m going to move my foot,” she told him. “I want you to put the other hand back here, both wrists together so I can fasten the cuffs.”

Maintaining the pressure on his ear, she eased back on her boot heel and released his hand. He didn’t move. She knew what he was thinking  ̶  once the cuffs were locked, he’d lose any advantage.

Another ounce of pressure on the Kubaton.

He didn’t move. The pain in his ear had to be nearly unbearable. Dixie waited, mentally counting to ten.

At five, she felt his back muscles flex … six …

She wished she could see what he was doing. She leaned forward … seven …

He was stretching his fingers. Plotting a sudden grab? Eight …

Her hand around the Kubaton began to cramp. She wondered if the stun gun had any zap left. Nine …

Wincing at the pain in her hand, she applied more pressure … and his arm brushed her leg as he finally, with a gravelly curse, complied.

Dixie reached down to snap the lock one-handed, then stuffed the Kubaton back in her pocket and wiped the sweat off her upper lip. After a moment, her heart stopped hammering.

The easy part was over. Now she had to ferry this scumbag all the way to Houston, a twenty-six hour trip after already being up all night. Taking this job had been as dumb as spitting upwind.

Meet me here next week for another slice of Bitch Factor.
And check out Slice of Life, another Dixie Flannigan book, in the video below:

 

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Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 19

CHAPTER 19

“Bradley! Slow down.” The top of his son’s shaggy hair vanished through the trees. Booker rowed hard. No place to tie off at the bank. Finally bumping up to his pier, he tossed the rope over a post and levered himself from the boat. He could hear Bradley’s motorcycle ripping away in the distance.

The Buick’s tires spit gravel as Booker backed out of the driveway. He’d handled the damn drug business all wrong. Should’ve called an expert, a shrink. Should’ve heard the boy out before opening his own mouth.

When Bradley was a tyke, they could discuss anything from, “Where do babies come from?” to “How does light get into a light bulb?” Now the boy was at that awkward stage, nearly a man yet still a child, and as incomprehensible as the Moai statues on Easter Island.

Booker slowed at the stop sign then spun gravel again as he turned north on the state highway. Botched it. Botched it to hell. Bradley was probably on his way right now to do exactly what Booker accused him of doing.

Then again, he might gun that cycle all the way to Dallas. The boy’s granddad was his hero these days. His death-cycle buddy. As much as Booker despised the Harley, he’d rather lose his son forever to Brad Senior’s brand of danger than have him on crack. The bike was risky, but crack was a dead end.

And face it, the kid could’ve chosen a worse hero. Brad Senior might be rough as a cob and wild as a cougar, but he was also street smart. He’d know how to talk to his grandson about the disasters of drug abuse. The old man had danced with the monkey himself all those years ago.

Best thing Booker could do now was call his father and tell him the problem. Give the old man some time to mull it over before Bradley landed on his doorstep.

Yet… what if the boy didn’t head for Dallas?

Booker turned off the air conditioner and lowered a window to hear the cycle-buzz over his own engine noise. Sounded like the bike was headed north. Then again…

Clunk! The Buick shuddered and rattled.

“No, damn you! Not now!”

The engine clunked again and died. Smelling burnt oil, Booker glanced at the gauges. The oil light was on, heat gauge in the red zone. When had that happened?

The car coasted, slowing rapidly. Not a house or a business along this road for miles. The lodge would be nearer, straight back the way he’d come, a two-mile walk. The restaurant would be open for breakfast, and maybe Littlehawk would be there. Maybe someone was there to lend him a car or at least a phone.

He rummaged in the console for his cell phone and hit the power button. The display lit up with red letters: no service.

No surprise. He was still in the ten-mile vortex—no service, no grocery stores, no gasoline, no commerce. Wiping sweat off his forehead, Booker left the Buick and walked. The buzz of Bradley’s Harley grew fainter with every step.

CHAPTER 20

Bradley squinted into the wind and pushed the Harley’s engine as hard as it would go. Wind plastered his wet clothes to his skin, chilling him even though the morning sun had already turned hot. His hair still felt wet inside his helmet, feet squishing inside the soaked running shoes as he toed the gear up and down. He’d forgotten his sunglasses and was already catching a glare, but at the moment he just didn’t give a frack.

The whole scene with Dad had been a maximum embarrassment. Must’ve been brain deficient, thinking they could patch things up. After they got past the awkwardness of their first night, it’d felt like old times, him and Dad hanging together, shoving out in a boat before sunup.

For an instant he pictured his father’s surprised expression, surprised and sorry, the moment before Bradley dove from the boat. Well, he should be sorry. Why did parents turn stone-freakin-deaf anytime a kid tried to tell them anything? Should’ve known his mom and dad would back each other up. All he wanted now was time to think, something he hadn’t been hugely successful at lately.

The bass fishing, though, that part had been optimum, fish jumping right out of the water, grabbing his squiggly green frog.

He spied a road sign ahead and realized he’d have to turn at the next junction, where State Highway 3 would dead-end into US 79. His eyes ached from squinting and he hadn’t really thought about where he’d go now. Pretty much burned his welcome at two homes.

Slowing for the stop sign, he envisioned his grandfather’s silky gray hair, weathered face, leathery hands, and imagined asking him the questions he’d wanted to ask Dad. The picture ran through his mind like an old black-and-white TV sitcom, Gramps laughing, slapping his knee, saying girls would swarm like bees around a man on a Harley— just don’t worry so much— then wrapping Bradley with a wiry arm and saying, “Come on, boy, let’s put a tune on that engine.”

Gramps probably wasn’t the best person to ask about girls and their habits.

Stopping at the turn-off, Bradley studied two arrows, one pointing to I-45, which would take him to Dallas, 140 miles north. The other direction led to Austin, 117 miles west. He knew a few people in Austin, but nobody he could crash with, nobody he even wanted to be near right now. His mother had given him a credit card for emergencies, which he’d used only once, when he found himself short after offering to buy Rachel’s lunch, sweated bullets until the card came back approved. Maybe he could rent a cheap motel room, declare himself an orphan for a day while he sorted out his options.

He goosed the beast and turned toward Austin. Twenty miles later he saw a turn-off for Bryan-College Station, home of Texas A&M, Maroon U. He’d considered enrolling at A&M after high school, and right now a small college town sounded perfect.

The sun’s heat bounced up from the asphalt to melt the flesh off his bones. His clothes were nearly dry, his feet poached. He took the turn.

Just inside Bryan city limits, he saw a motel with a vacancy sign out front and hoped his mom hadn’t canceled the credit card. At the door to the motel office, he stalled. In less than three hours he could be in Dallas. Or he could turn around and, in about the same time, be at home in Houston facing his mother’s smug I-knew-you’d-be-back smile.

No, thanks. He’d rather return to Dad’s place than go home. At least his father had looked sorry for judging him.

Bradley shrugged away the options and pushed through the door to the motel office. A buzzer sounded as he entered. A skinny-faced woman in a pink flowered dress smiled at him from behind the counter. Her crooked teeth were enough to send him scooting away again, but her eyes were lively and inquisitive.

“Looks like you could use a drink, son.” She lifted a pitcher of ice water from a tray on the counter and poured a glass full. “Radio says it’s likely to hit a hundred and twelve today. All our rooms have individual air conditioners.”

“Yes, ma’am. I saw the sign.” Bradley laid the credit card on the counter. Suddenly parched, he picked up the glass and drank. “Thanks for the water.”

She held the card at arm’s length. “Bradley Carter Krane the Third. Quite a moniker. Must be your daddy’s.”

“He’s the second.”

She nodded. “Have some ID?”

Bradley handed her his new driver’s license.

“Forty dollars a night,” she said. “Two hundred for the week. Check-in before two is usually extra.”

Bradley glanced through the front window at the near-empty parking lot. “Guess I could come back.”

Her lively eyes twinkled at him. “Nah, I’ll make an exception, since most of our guests checked out early.”

“One night, then. For now.”

She rang up the sale and swiped the card through the scanner. While they waited for approval, Bradley felt a sweat bead beside his nose. He thumbed it away, crossed his arms, and tried to look unconcerned. Seconds later, she laid a pen and the credit slip on the counter.

“Duke’s Diner, about half a mile toward town, has good breakfasts and sandwiches, if you’re hungry.”

He took the key she handed him and, pushing the Harley, found his door three down on the right. Coming out of the bright August sunlight, the room looked shadowy and inviting, but the air felt hotter than outside. He located the air conditioner, a gray boxy thing under the window, and turned it on. As it groaned and blew dusty air, Bradley examined the room. He’d never been alone in a motel before.

A bed filled most of the space. Its nubby white bedspread, worn thin in spots, hung slightly crooked on one side and loosely covered a pair of thin pillows. For an instant he flashed on a vision of Rachel sitting there, stone perfect in her denim shorts and tank top. Propped on one elbow. Sandy blond hair falling long and shiny over her arm.

Bradley blinked, swallowed, and slouched into the bathroom. The pipes whistled as he ran cold water to splash his face then thumped when he shut off the faucet. He looked at his sunburned, sandblasted image in the medicine cabinet mirror and wondered what the freakin’ hell he was doing here. He sure hadn’t escaped any of his problems.

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Paradise Cursed – Snippet 15

CHAPTER 12

Before I could tie off properly, Ayanna was out of the dory and up the accommodation ladder. Though I didn’t know the measure of her curse before Shaman Damarae lifted it, I appreciated her excitement. I’d seen it many times before and could only liken it to learning that your terminal disease had responded favorably to treatment and you were cured.

Nevertheless, my first mate needed to tame her animated gladness and tidy up a bit.

“You might take a turn in the shower,” I said, “before our guests see you. Wouldn’t want to frighten anyone into jumping overboard.” The vast majority had no idea of the unusual goings on beneath the merriment of a Sarah Jane cruise, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Aye, Cap’n.” she smiled down at me in the moonlight. “Might want to consider the same yourself.”

Yes, a good scrubbing of my body as well as my thoughts, then a pipe and a stroll. Staying well clear of gatherings, we made our way down to the crew deck and to our separate quarters.

Half an hour later, I returned to the main deck. Mingling was expected, and I actually enjoyed the noisy good humor I encountered. Eventually, I made my way to the dining room.

My first mate, now in proper sailor attire, was already making her rounds, chatting up passengers at various tables. The air was sweet with the scent of rum swizzlers and wine.

Jase had gotten a guitar aboard somehow and was playing base notes to a fiddler, everybody slapping their knees and clapping. All at once, I was reminded of a very different sort of gathering.

It was after signing on with the Louisiana governor to lure pirate ships out of their hidey-holes. Our pay was good, and we frequently made anchor at New Orleans, Galveston and other ports along the Gulf Coast.

Roatan Island, off the coast of Honduras, was a favorite haven for pirates during those days, made so by the Welsh Privateer Henry Morgan, though he was long dead before my time. Loosely thought of as a northern version of Port Royal, Jamaica, Roatan offered the ribald sort of entertainment men crave after being at sea, especially so when they’ve taken a good prize. The pubs served goblets of rum for not much money, and the sweet-faced Honduran girls were quick on the spot with refills. If you wobbled too much to make it back safely to your ship, you could stretch out on the beach, gaze at the stars and dream of what you’d do if you struck it rich.

This night, I separated myself from the crew. A man craves isolation at times, but after an hour or so I’d had enough and ventured into the nearest pub. Some fool was torturing a homemade flute and another was strumming a three-stringed instrument made from a dried gourd. My ears rebelled so adamantly that I turned to leave.

“Cap’n McKinsey!” A fellow hailed me from a nearby table. “Yer lookin hale for an old buccaneer. Come have a spot o’ me special brew and spin me some sea yarns.”

You don’t sail the same waters for decades without bumping into people you’ve met in the past, and this was a sailor I’d known rather well some twenty years previous. He was showing those years in the deep creases of his haggard face and in the way he appeared to have shrunk inside his clothes. Like me, he was a Brit by birth, which was perhaps why we hit it off.

“Clarence Akers, you old shellback.” I hoped my reference to his experience at the helm might distract him from the perceived difference in our ages. “Let me buy you a leg.”

Pulling out a chair, I signaled for the nearest barmaid. “Two bootlegs of ale, dear lass.”

When she’d gone, I pointed to the silver flask in Akers’ hand. “What have you brewed up this time, Clarence?”

“Ye’ll have to taste it.”

I grinned my widest. “Fool me twice, shame on me.”

He had been carrying that same flask the day we met at a public house much like the one we were in now. Needing a liquor to take on a long sail without adding much weight to his bag, Akers had brewed what he termed a “compression.” One taste near took the top of my head off and made me cross-eyed. Only after having a good laugh did the crazy bloke reveal the drink’s ingredients: Scotch whiskey, gin, some grain alcohol in which a spider had soaked, and half a stick of dynamite.

We swapped stories this night as we drank our ale. After a while, Akers asked, “D’ya remember a fellow crewed with us on our first sail together, name of Bosco?”

“A thin brown boy, if I recall correctly. First rate sailor. What about him?”

“Loved the sun, ‘e did, and worked without a blouse most days. Remember what colorful batch of art e’d drawn all over ‘es self?”

Every favorite port, including this one, had an artist with a tattoo needle and a keen desire to relieve sailors of their coin for a picture of “Mom” on his biceps. Bosco, however, had boarded the ship with his own set of needles and inks. The art on his stomach, chest and arms was done completely by his own hand.

“I recall a heart pierced by a sword,” I said. “And an anchor. But the best was a brilliant parrot that covered part of his belly. When Bosco went a few weeks on tight rations, that bird got skinnier and skinnier.”

“So ye’ll know what yer lookin at, McKinsey, when I show what’s in me pocket. See, our ship anchored at Santiago de Cuba one day last year. I’d lost my tobacco pouch and was in need of a new one when I spied a little shop, out of the way in an alley, with a sign that said ‘Leather Goods.’ I stopped in to have a look at their goods. Most were as ye’d expect, but one was quite colorful, with painted flowers and such. Turning it to the back side gave me quite a shock, I tell ye.”

Akers laid the pouch on the table, and I noted the flowers set along one edge. Then he flipped it over and I saw a brilliantly colored parrot.

“I’d often wondered what ever happ’ned to Bosco,” Akers said.

“Hand me your flask,” I told him, and I gulped enough of his special brew to turn me bloody cross-eyed, so I could no longer see that wretched bird.

*

Now that Erin had agreed to give Ola a reading, Dayna hoped her natural abilities would settle in and stop scaring her. It was cool having a sister who could look into the future.

On that thought, though, Dayna hoped she wasn’t being selfish in wanting the old Erin back, the one who was always upbeat and fun to be with. “Hope in one hand and pour sand in the other,” their mother would say. “See which hand fills up first.” Dayna took that to mean, “Don’t just hope, do something.” Bringing the tarot cards on the cruise had felt right, but then she’d left them in the dining room.

Was it good that Ola had found them, not someone who would toss them in the trash? And what did it all mean?

Dayna often wondered if her own life was already written in the cards. Or the stars. If so, she wished someone would give her the Cliff Notes.

The good thing: Erin was smiling at Ola now.

“I use the planetary spread,” she explained as she dealt, “which combines the spiritual cognition of the cards with the solidity of guidance from the planets. From a deck of seventy-eight, these eight cards are most significant to you at this particular time, Ola Mae Eggars, and to your specific question, “what will this year bring for me.”

From the corner of her eye, Dayna saw the first mate walking their way. Decked out in her sailor-white shorts and t-shirt, Ayanna looked sharp and also more aglow than she’d seemed last night while serving them dinner. Maybe she’d spent her evening at a Cayman massage spa.

“Your first card,” Erin was saying, “represents the prime energy in your life this year. Here we have the Chariot. Advancement through bold action. Order established through vigilance. A trying situation you’ve been dealing with will be mastered through discipline, individual effort and endurance.”

“I’m worthless at discipline,” Ola admitted. “But danged good at endurance.”

“The second card…” Erin paused as Ayanna approached.

“Bonswé, I am sorry hackle you ladies but have mash-it-up good news and must pass along dis bitty gift.”

Dayna didn’t understand what she’d said, but Ayanna was all big-eyed happy as she handed Erin a heavy gold chain with a pendant on it. It didn’t look like dollar-store bling, either, but like an antique. Pressing it into Erin’s hand, closing her fingers over it, Ayanna flashed a smile that couldn’t have been bigger or more brilliant if she’d just won the lottery

“Bonswé,” she said again and headed toward another table.

“Thank you,” Erin called, opening her hand and gaping, obviously bewildered. “Ola, did you understand what she said?”

“I caught the gist, ’bout gettin good news and needin to pass it along. Beyond that, my dear, ah’m as mystified as you are.”

“Hey, sis,” Dayna said, “if you don’t want it, that gold chain will look great tomorrow with my turquoise town-seeing threads.”

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Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 18

Sunday morning, Booker heard the comforting sounds of Bradley’s new boots clumping around downstairs in the kitchen. Good to his word, the boy had come home early the night before. If he’d been using drugs, Booker saw no sign of it. Lord, he hoped Lauren was wrong. Bradley had always been a sensible kid, despite a streak of stubborn independence.

Facts were stubborn things too, though, and the crack cocaine in Bradley’s bureau hadn’t been put there by the tooth fairy. Maybe he’d been selling it. Not a pretty thought, yet more curable than addiction. Booker couldn’t put off much longer asking the dreaded questions. A shame to jinx a good fishing trip, but maybe the shared activity on the lake this morning would bring the two of them within talking distance.

Downstairs, he found the table set for breakfast and Bradley hunched over the stovetop. Booker sniffed the air, spied a platter piled high with sausages.

“When did you become so handy in the kitchen?”

“Mom hired a maid after you left, and Marina showed me how to do some stuff. Beats having sandwiches every meal.” He expertly flipped three hotcakes onto a plate and handed it to Booker. “There’s orange juice in the fridge.”

“Julia Child, watch out.” Booker set his plate on the table and poured two glasses of juice, reconstituted from a can of frozen concentrate.

“I was beginning to think you forgot we were going fishing. On fishing days, we always set the alarm for four thirty.” Bradley’s tone was light, but his new fishing rod stood in the corner, strung and ready to go, the tackle box beside it.

“In the city, we’d drive an hour or more to a lake. Now we sleep later and walk out the back door.”

Bradley grinned over a stack of hotcakes.

“Guess that does make a difference.” He set the plate on the table, swung a chair around backwards and straddled it. “Remember that time we both ran into the woods to take a leak, then came back to find a stray cat munching on our biggest trout?”

Booker remembered it well. “That skinny stray nearly bit off my thumb.”

He showed Bradley the ragged scar.

“Gross, dad! I didn’t remember it being such a huge deal.”

“Bled all over the camp trying to find the first aid kit. You were busy yelling at me not to hurt the cat.” Losing all interest in the fish they’d caught that day, Bradley begged to take the stray home. Two hundred dollars later, the tabby dubbed “Ribs” had been wormed, inoculated, and settled in as part of the family.

“Ribs is blind in one eye now.” Bradley speared a sausage chunk. “Had a fight last summer with an old Tom from down the street.”

“You should bring him to meet Pup. Lost his eye before I found him. We’d have a matched set.”

As they ate, the boy continued to bring up fishing trips from the past. Booker enjoyed the companionable atmosphere developing. He prayed what he had to do later wouldn’t shatter the mood like a glass gauntlet.

CHAPTER 18

Asking Dad’s advice hadn’t seemed such a huge deal out on the road, sun on his face, wind slithering up his sleeves, the Harley rumbling under him. Wearing his black jeans and boss t-shirt with “Born Wild” airbrushed on the front in hot colors—a skeleton burning rubber, flames flying all around—he’d felt free and focused. His thoughts had been clear.

Now, as his dad held the boat steady and Bradley loaded his new fishing gear, all the words that came together in his head sounding just right had gotten jumbled. At sixteen, he should be able to talk straight with his dad. Soon he’d be a man answering to nobody, so why was everything so hard? Damnesium. He wanted this day to be a good one.

Flat and calm, the lake mirrored trees and houses around the bank, and its stillness quieted Bradley’s flip-flopping nerves. He recalled other times on other lakes, when Dad had seemed the wisest man in the world, knowing answers to questions Bradley hadn’t even thought to ask. Once or twice, Dad dropped into one of his lectures, but mostly they’d just talked together, simple and straight.

He stole a glance at his father, decked out in khaki bush shorts, a vest with about two dozen pockets, and suddenly Bradley was flashing back in time, back to the toughest question of all. He was nine years old, a fourth-grader. Duff Clark, big, mean, new in school, a bully from day one, had started pushing him around at lunch and after school.

Why Duff hated him was like a big whodunnit, but Bradley was maximum sure Duff intended to stomp his guts out before another week passed, so that Sunday, fishing on Lake Travis, he asked Dad to show him how to fight. A big silence, thick like fog, fell all around them.

Then his father said, “You know, son, fighting’s not the best way to settle a quarrel.”

“Yes sir, but…sometimes you have to.”

“You mean, it’s a matter of honor? Standing up for what’s right?”

Bradley had an idea what honor meant, like when Nathan Hale had said, Give me liberty or give me death. “No sir, I don’t think it’s about honor.”

“Then what’s so important about this fight?”

Bradley didn’t want to admit being a coward. “Duff says he wants to ‘mop the floor with my face.’”

“That would tend to put a damper on reasoning, all right. This fellow Duff, did you do anything to make him mad?”

He’d thought about this a lot. “I don’t think so. He’s new. Guess he just hates me.”

They didn’t talk about it again until after the lunch plates were cleaned up, then Bradley felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder, steering him toward a clearing in the trees. “I take it this boy is way bigger than you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he’s been bragging to all his friends about mopping the floor with your face?”

“Yes, sir.” Some of Duff’s words had been even scarier, but Bradley just nodded.

“And you can’t figure out why he’s acting so mean.”

All the breath Bradley was holding in his chest whooshed out in a huge sigh. “No, I can’t.” He felt better now that Dad understood.

“That’s because you didn’t do anything. Likely as not, this boy singled you out because you represent something he’ll never be— bright, respected by the other students, diligent in making good grades.”

Bradley wasn’t sure about that diligent part.

“See, you’re The Big Test. Duff figures beating you up will impress the other students and focus all their attention and respect on himself.”

“Guess he’s not as dumb as he looks, huh?”

“Bullies can be sly, like old Wile E. Coyote. But remember, it’s Road Runner who always wins.”

Yeah, but Road Runner is fast and smart. “You mean I should…like…take something big and heavy upstairs and wait till Duff’s standing under a window?”

“Hmmm, that might shut him up more permanently than you intend. What you want is to beat him at his own game in front of all his friends.”

“Yeah!”

“Okay. First, you wait until Duff challenges you to a fight. Don’t start it yourself.”

“What if he just jumps me?”

“He won’t do that. He wants to beat his chest awhile, let the word spread so more kids turn out to watch.”

“Oh.” Bradley hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense. Duff never said much when they were alone, just stared at him, grinning his evil grin.

“Meanwhile, think of something to say that will make the boy mad enough to lose his cool.”

Bradley had seen Duff watching one of the fifth-grade girls. “You mean like, ‘Sue Spellman says your face looks like rotted oatmeal’?”

“He likes this girl, Sue?”

“Maybe. He watches her.”

“Then that might do it.”

Bradley hoped Dad was right. Trying to stay out of Duff’s way and not make him mad sure wasn’t working. “If we fight on school grounds, I’ll get in trouble.”

“Not any kind of trouble we can’t handle, and having teachers nearby ensures that not too much can go wrong before someone comes to break it up.”

“But Dad, what about the fighting part? Duff’s arms and fists are like Popeye’s.” Bradley held his hands in a circle as big as a soccer ball.

His father winked and punched him on the arm. “Big brains can beat big fists anytime.”

He explained how to stay out of reach while razzing Duff about Sue Spellman, how to watch Duff’s eyes to see the first punch coming.

“The thing to remember is that bullies never fight fair. Just the fact that he’s picked someone younger and smaller is proof he’ll do whatever it takes to win. Duff expects you to either back down and run or stand there toe-to-toe and slug it out, and since he’s bigger and stronger, Duff has the advantage. Boxing competitions never pit heavyweights against lightweights. Where’s the sport in that? So forget trying to be tougher, just be quicker and smarter.”

That’s when Dad had shown him the best move ever—how to dodge the first punch, swing around behind Duff, grab him by the collar, and kick him behind the knees.

“You won’t hurt him much, but he’ll drop. Anybody will. And while he’s on his knees, off balance, you can push him face down and secure his wrists.”

Bradley tried it on his father. Surprised when it worked, when his dad dropped to his knees like a sack of beans, Bradley pushed him flat, straddled him, then grabbed both wrists, pulled them across his back and leaned on them, shoving his dad’s face hard into the ground.

Suddenly realizing this was his father, not Duff, Bradley jumped off.

“You let me,” he said.

“No way.” Dad spit dirt out of his mouth. “That’s a standard take-down procedure for an officer with an oversized opponent who resists being handcuffed.” Then he’d grinned. “The face in the dirt, well, that’s not exactly standard, but it sure humiliates a bully.”

The following week, Bradley got his chance. Kids were crowded round, elbowing each other, smarting off, expecting to see Bradley get creamed. When Duff fell to his knees, it was like they all sucked in a breath at once, then Bradley straddled Duff and rubbed his face in the mud left from a morning rain.

Some of Bradley’s friends cheered, then other kids started cheering, until a teacher came to break it up. She yanked them both to the principal’s office, Duff staring down at his shoes all the way. Three days suspension for both of them.

Mom was furious.

But Dad told her, “Lauren, some fights simply have to be fought.”

Back at school, Duff still glared when he thought Bradley wasn’t looking, but otherwise ignored him, never meeting his eyes, until finally Duff moved away. Dad had been great back then. Later, he seemed to never have much time for fishing or anything. Then the divorce came.

“You want the prow or the stern, son?” The gear was loaded. Time to shove off.

“I’ll row.” It’d be easier to ask the hard questions if his hands were busy. As they rowed to a curve in the Lake, Bradley mentally rehearsed what he wanted to talk about.

“See those lily pads?” His father pointed to some growth near the bank. “Bass are shy, like to hide among rocks and in the shadows. Early morning like this, they’re active near the top of the water. We’ll likely find a few hiding near the surface, under those lilies, waiting for a choice morsel to swim by.”

“Guess I don’t want a sinker on the line, then.” Bradley rummaged through the weird artificial bait. He’d always used purple night-crawlers, fresh and squirming. The only decision was which one looked the liveliest.

“Afternoons,” Booker said, “bass lie farther down, among tree stumps and weeds growing along the lake bottom. Then your sinker will come in handy.”

Bradley picked out a rubbery frog, bright green with shiny eyes that caught the morning sunlight. Flopping it around in the air, he watched its legs wiggle like they were swimming.

“Good choice,” Booker said. “Now you’re thinking like a fly-fisherman. Next, you want to think like a fish, like a big-mouth bass, wide awake and hungry after the long night, ready to jump at the first tasty-looking mouthful. A bass wouldn’t be surprised to see a frog jump right off that lily pad.”

“You’re saying, land the frog real close to the lilies?” Bradley wasn’t sure his casting skills were up to that kind of precision.

“You could do that. Or you could land it on the lily pad, let it sit there until a bass spots the shadow of it and puckers his mouth up waiting for his feast to jump down for a swim.”

Now Bradley was sure his casting skills weren’t good enough. “I don’t think…”

“Imagine it’s a video game.”

Right. His games required maximum precision. He cast the lure—and overshot the target by two feet. “Damnage!”

The frog floated on the placid lake, shaded by a cottonwood tree.

“That’s fine,” Dad said. “Now crawl it back slowly across the water. If nothing bites, cast again.”

As he reeled in the lure, Bradley realized the activity suited him better than sitting with a pole hung over the side of a boat. It took some concentration, though, which meant he wouldn’t be able to ask his dad what he wanted to ask until they stopped for a break. On the third try, the frog splashed down beside the lily pad, barely missing it, but it was still a miss, Bradley cursing softly as he started reeling—

A huge fish leapt from the water, snatching the bait on its way up then dove back down.

“Whoa!” Bradley stiffened, tightening his grip on the rod.

“Easy there, easy. Hold off until you feel the weight of him before you set the hook.”

Too late. Bradley had already jerked back on the line, the frog pulling free and the bass streaking away. Adrenaline pumping like mad, Bradley couldn’t help smiling.

“Did you see that? That was a big mother.” He reeled the frog in for another cast.

“Big as I’ve seen,” Dad said.

“I should’ve known not to jerk the line so fast.”

“Natural, though, wanting to set the hook soon as bubbles begin churning around.” His father tied an orange cigar-shaped bug to his own line. “Takes practice, learning to hold off.

You’ll get the hang of it.”

Bradley studied the other lures in his box, liking the silver minnow but not sure he wanted to change, since his frog had almost brought him luck. Examining it, he made sure it was still tight. Then he cast again, this time dropping it dead on, plop, right smack on the lily pad, and from a distance it seemed almost real sitting there, looking out into the water.

His father cast the bug-thing into a clump of growth farther out. After it sat a moment, he started twitching it toward him. On the second twitch, a fish mouth big as a coffee cup flew up to grab it, while his dad held the line slack so long Bradley was ready to jump up and reel it in himself, but then the bass turned in the water— way over a foot long— and his dad leaned back, holding the rod high and tight.

“Shove that long-handled net over this way,” he said. “This fella’s playing tug-o’-war.” Bradley toed the net toward the bow, where Dad could reach it. Then he glanced at his own bait, figuring the frog had sat long enough, and popped it into the water, letting it settle. Slowly, he started crawling it home.

Bam! A strike.

This time he stopped himself from jerking the line. He would not lose this one. Relaxing his grip, he waited six seconds of torture, counting it under his breath, until the rod shivered in his hands. Then he hauled back, feeling the tug of the fish as the hook caught hold.

“Got it!” He risked a glance at his dad, found him grinning back, his own catch in arm’s reach.

“Looks like the Kranes are having one heck of a fish fry for lunch.”

Recalling the taste of fresh-caught fish cooked in an iron skillet, Bradley felt his mouth water, his stomach acting like he hadn’t eaten all those pancakes just an hour ago. “You got red sauce and Tater Tots?”

“Has a fish got scales?” Dad slid the net over the water and scooped his bass into it. “Two pounder. The one you hooked looks more like three pounds, maybe close to four.”

Bradley smiled. Bass fishing was optimum.

They spent another half hour in the same spot, Bradley catching a couple more strikes but too quick on the draw, losing them. Dad, not getting another bite, suggested they move into the cove where trees grew thicker, crowding the banks while their roots provided hidey holes for fish. As they rowed, Bradley’s mind danced around the words he’d put together. Sweat slid down his hairline. August heat, he told himself, he was not psyched by what he needed to ask. His friends had plenty to say on the subject, but Bradley needed an opinion from someone with more experience. He’d thought of asking Granddad. Maybe Granddad was a little too experienced.

Bradley’s palms felt damp around the oar. Then his gaze caught the slogan on his t-shirt, Born Wild. “Dad, there’s this girl I’ve been hanging with. Rachel.”

“Hmmmm. The way you say her name, Rachel sounds like someone of influence.”

“I’ve known her a while.”

As they rowed slowly into the shade of a big oak, Bradley slid the rusty iron pot that served as an anchor over the side of the boat. Trees and brush muted the few sounds that drifted from the main road.

“Hanging together can mean a number of things,” Dad said.

Bradley’s tongue felt suddenly too big for his mouth, like he’d caught it on one of his own fishhooks.

“Movies, homework, library, you know, hanging out.” He opened the ice chest, stared inside and pulled out two canned root beers. He tossed one to his dad.

“Rachel have a motorcycle?”

“She rides on mine sometimes, on the back, to the library or the park.”

“Lots of different kind of folks hang out in the park.”

“Yeah, well…Mom just about exploded all over the living room the first time I came home after two a.m. She doesn’t get it that I’m not a kid anymore.” Bradley swigged the cold root beer and wished his heart would stop thumping.

His father opened his tackle box. “I used to like driving my car down to Galveston beach to sit on the dunes at night. At lot of strange kind of folks hung out there, too. A little older than you, of course. Long before I met your mother. Me, couple of my friends, a case of cold beer. Sometimes we’d break out a pint of Wild Turkey.”

Hoping his dad wouldn’t reminisce too long, Bradley chose a new lure, a bunch of wavy yellow ribbons, and wondered absently why fish would want to bite it. He dropped the yellow lure back into its niche in the box.

His dad plucked out a long pink tubular thing.

“Two beers, and the whole world seemed to lift off my shoulders. Three beers plus a slug of whiskey, and… well, let’s just say I didn’t always make it home from those trips in time for school the next morning. That was before we started sampling marijuana.” He paused but continued again before Bradley could jump in. “Your mother told me about the drugs.”

“That’s just great!” Bradley couldn’t stop the anger from jumping up, shooting through his body like an electrical shock. “So now you have her side and you smoked pot at my age, so you think you know everything. Just like Mom, you think one little rock means I’m a crack head.”

“I didn’t say that, son. Your mom’s worried, I’m worried—”

“Since when did you and Mom ever agree on anything?”

“Where you’re concerned, we both tend to get a touch protective.”

“I’m not a kid anymore. I can take care of myself.”

“Bradley, I’ve seen fifty-year-old men who need protecting at times, often from their own bad judgment.”

“Bad judgment? Now you really sound like Mom.” Bradley squeezed the empty root beer can in the middle, crushing it, then smashed it flat on his knee. He wished he could smash it all over again, maybe twenty or thirty times. The conversation wasn’t going at all like he wanted.

Dad poured the last few drops of his own soda into the lake and tossed Bradley the can. Catching it, he found his father studying him, a concerned expression crinkling the skin around his eyes. Bradley tried lamely to smile back as he crushed the second can and dropped the pair into an empty pail.

“Rachel and I have been seeing each other since last semester, and…the drugs are hers.”

Bradley’s throat felt scratchy. His hands had balled up beside his thighs, and this whole thing wasn’t coming out the way he’d practiced.

“Son, it’s normal to experiment, you’re just having fun, then the next time is easier and the next—”

“Are you not listening? Have you already made plans to ship me off to rehab?”

“I didn’t say—”

“Maybe I’ve been smoking so much crack my ears don’t work anymore. You haven’t listened to anything I said. You listened to Mom’s twisted version.”

“This is not about your mother—”

“It’s about you and Mom ganging up on me. You never agree on anything, except now you’re taking her side, like nothing I say matters.”

“Bradley, sit down.” The boat was rocking side to side.

“Granddad might be old, but at least he listens!”

Bradley dove into the lake and swam, pulling the water hard and kicking, wishing he could kick the whole world away from him. He’d wasted his time coming here, thinking he and

Dad might finally be able to talk again like when he was a kid. Thinking maybe he could get some straight answers without being judged.

He liked Rachel so much at times it hurt, and he just wanted—

Ducking underwater, he scissored his legs and kicked with everything he had. Bottom line, he’d do anything for Rachel, had even kept her secret all these weeks, and this shouldn’t be such a huge deal. Yesterday, when he found himself on the highway, Dad had seemed like the answer. The old Dad. The one who listened.

Reaching the bank, he climbed out and looked back at his father rowing after him.

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Paradise Cursed – Snippet 14

CHAPTER 11

“Duppy,” Ola was saying over dinner, “is Jamaican for ‘spook.’ You hear duppy tales all over these parts.”

“Like ghost stories when we were kids?” Dayna said. “Dead guy coming up the stairs, dragging his wooden leg. I’m coming to getcha…thump…I’m on the first step…thump…” She thumped the table top. “I’m on the second step…”

“You got it, girl!” Ola laughed. “That’s what I’m talkin about, only a duppy, see, it might be a ghost or a gremlin or even a crocodile man. An them that practices Obeah—”

“Obeah?” Erin frowned.

Uh-oh. Dayna had asked Ola along to bring some cheer to their shore leave, hoping Erin would snap out of her gloom. Their restaurant had an ocean-front view on two sides and a sunken schooner right below where they were sitting. Tomorrow Dayna hoped to come back and, like the waiter suggested, climb down with breathing gear to look at the wreckage.

But Erin was taking Ola’s duppy talk way too seriously.

“Obeah is like magic, right?” Erin said.

“That’s it, child. Obeah folks can turn a duppy into a snake or a lizard. Make it spit on you. And you ain’t never been sick till you been spit on by a duppy lizard. Or a frog, they do frogs, too. Bring on fevers, belly tumors, you name it. Bad stuff.”

“How do you know when a person’s Obeah?” Erin set her fork down with a bite of fish still on it and pushed the plate aside.

Dayna reached over with her own fork and snatched a French Fry, which they referred to here as chips. At home, she’d had fast-food fish and chips, not nearly as good as these.

“Same way you know when a Texan’s got the sixth sense,” Ola said. “They have to tell you, and sometimes they lie. Show me a rich psychic and I’ll show you a liar. The real ones, they consider it a gift from God, and maybe they charge a little, we all have to make ends meet, but they don’t set hooks and keep reeling a person back time after time.”

She looked down at her empty plate for a moment, and Dayna was about to ask more about duppies, when Ola looked at Erin straight on and her expression turned sober.

“That’s why I know you’re the genuine article, Erin. Because you see things in the cards that scare you.”

Dayna held her breath. Erin going weirdo was becoming a habit. She hoped Ola hadn’t just dead-ended their great evening.

*

Hands flying, eyes gleaming, hair still gooey with chicken blood, Ayanna kept smiling and thanking me in her thick Jamaican patois, as if it were I who had lifted her curse.

“Coodeh! Tank you, don dada. We arrive dere I’m tink we got big choble us, all dees wimmin, is jus pure almshouse ah gwaan. Tank you, tank you, don dada.”

How could I not laugh? Then she started laughing, slapped a hand over her mouth, and after the laughter stopped, resumed her appreciation in perfect lilting English.

“Captain, when we arrived and I saw the setup with all those women in white, I just knew it was pure trickery. Not only had I fallen for Demarae’s smooth talk like a fool, I had brought you into it. The sacrifice I expected, but I did not expect such a spectacle.”

“Yet you believe it worked?”

“I do! I cannot explain, but when the blood came down on my head, my face, I felt the cleansing. My stomach does not hurt. My feet—it is all good. I am so thankful, Captain. I am your sailor-slave for life.”

“Well, now, that’s a deal I can’t pass up. Who’s life, yours or mine?”

She laughed again, and it was as musical as her patois. “Let’s say, as long as you need me—at full wage, of course.”

Considering how often my crew deserted me, that was still quite a deal. The change in my first mate as we motored back to the ship could only be described as phenomenal.

Perhaps it was the absolute beauty of the moon on the quiet sea and the excitement of having witnessed a true healing, but my mind kept picking at an absurd idea. I had not sailed among these islands for so long without consulting more practitioners of shamanism, mysticism and all other forms of mumbo jumbo than most people meet in a lifetime. None of it had worked against my own curse. But suppose I brought a powerful shaman such as Demarae aboard the Sarah Jane. Would whatever power permeated my ship reinforce the shaman’s curative spell with enough oomph to undo a curse rendered by a bolt from heaven?

Ayanna fingered a bobble on a neck chain, which usually nestled inside her shirt. I’d noticed it before without paying much attention. As she held the object now and gazed at it in a gleam of moonlight, I recognized it as a protection amulet.

“The Toucan and the Dove ladies, Captain, you have seen them, yeah?”

I knew exactly who she meant. An apt description of Dayna Kohl, with her flaming hair and “kiss me” t-shirt, and her sister, Erin, with her dark hair framing a solemn face and ivory skin.

“We’ve met briefly,” I said.

“The Dove, she got choble—is troubled—a magic kind of trouble, I think.”

“How do you know that?” Yet hadn’t I made the same assumption?

Ayanna waggled her hand, meaning “this-and-that.” Being free of her curse had definitely brought an animated happiness to this woman.

“I think I will pass some of my defense magic to the dove.”

“You believe she’s in danger?”

My first mate’s eyes caught mine in the moonlight, and I saw a grave concern that tweaked the short hairs on my arms and neck.

“I believe Jase Graham is not in danger,” she said. “And with the dove, my protection charm will have a worthy home.”

*

“Tell us a duppy story,” Dayna begged Ola as they waited for the launch. “The Crocodile Man or The Duppies of Rose Hill.”

“Rose Hall, chile. It’s a stone house on Little River in Montego Bay. You can read about it anywhere, visit there when we return, if you want. And Crocodile Man? Lawd, that story is too spooky for this time of night.”

“I like spooky.” Dayna glanced at Erin, obviously less enthusiastic about the idea, and relented. “Okay, then, tomorrow. Promise!”

Ola raised a finger and winked at Dayna. “There’s one story, though, about a man ridin his horse near the cemetery. It’s short, and I’d allow it’s not too spooky.”

Dayna nodded eagerly.

“So this man sees a puppy sittin there beside the road, an that puppy peers up at him with these big brown eyes, lookin all lost, an he can’t jus leave it there. So he climbs down off his horse and puts the puppy inside his coat.

“Now, his horse gets kinda jittery like, actin up all the way home. When they get to the man’s yard, he climbs down, tethers his horse and puts the puppy on the ground. It sits quiet like, lookin up at him with those big brown eyes, you know how they do. Puppies, lawd, they are natural beggars.

“But the man turns his back, not lettin those big eyes get the best of ’im, an he walks on up to his porch. And lo and behold, that puppy’s right back inside his coat!”

Dayna laughed and looked at her sister, who was smiling—not a big smile but better than the usual gloomy-face she wore most days since the aborted wedding.

“The man, he’s no fool, an he’s havin none of that.” Ola swiped her hands in the air as if to erase any thought of a foolish man. “He puts that puppy down again, gives it a good stare, then starts to move away—and there it is, back up again. He opens his door, turns and sets it down outside and closes the door, real quick like. But there it is, right back in his arms. Puppy put down, puppy back up, down, up. No way he can put that puppy away from him, and it goes on and on like that.”

When Ola stopped talking and looked at them expectantly, Dayna waited, urging her on with wide eyes until she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Well? So what happened? Tell us!”

Ola hunched her meaty shoulders and let them fall in a big Southern shrug. “Three weeks later, the man is dead.”

“Oh.” Dayna hadn’t expected such a weird and sudden twist. She glanced again at Erin, whose smile had turned slightly sour.

“Some weeks later,” Ola continued, “a man is riding a horse near the cemetery, and he sees a puppy….”

This time they all laughed. Dayna stole another glance at her sister, happy to see her having a good time, at last, and relieved that their evening was ending on a high note. Hearing the noisy launch headed their way, Dayna was about to move toward it when Ola took Erin’s hand.

“Now, tit for tat, chile. You promised me a reading. I did hear you promise, this morning. When the captain was telling us all about Grand Cayman?”

Dayna had overheard part of that conversation, but not Erin’s answer. Surprisingly, her sister nodded.

“Yes, I did, Ola. We can do it tomorrow, right after breakfast,” she said.

Ola patted her hand. “That would be good. But I’m willing to bet our Cookie has a pan of warm cinnamon buns waitin for us when we get back to the ship. How’s about we jus go on an get it done?”

Yes, Dayna mentally urged, do it. Erin’s interest in tarot and astrology had been a part of her life since they were kids, Erin and her friends playing with a Ouija board. It was only after she shoved that interest out of her life, fearing it, that she’d become so morose.

“All right,” she said, her smile not as bright as it might be. At least she was nodding. “We can do it tonight. But only if Cookie has cinnamon rolls.”

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Bitch Factor – Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Feed a cop and you’ve got a friend for life, an attorney had told Dixie when she joined the DA’ s staff. At the time, the remark had rubbed her naïve sense of ethics the wrong way.

In fact, the value of networking — building a grid of people who knew other people who knew other, possibly very important, people — eluded her until the day a patrolman in Denver witnessed a situation that helped Dixie nail a husband-wife burglary team in Houston. Working off-duty at a Rockies game, the patrolman saw the couple talking to a local fence they claimed never to have met. Bingo! Dixie closed the case quick as a hiccup. Now she had law enforcement contacts in forty-two of the fifty states — and the night truly had a thousand eyes.

She’d need all of them if Parker Dann had fled to Canada.

Slim Jim McGrue of the Texas Highway Patrol had come through more than once over the years. McGrue could be a big help tonight, too, if Dixie could only talk him into it. Unfortunately, the fact that Dann had not yet officially jumped bail prevented her from being totally honest.

After checking around Dann’s neighborhood without luck, Dixie had jimmied the lock on his back door. She found the small house neat and clean. A few hangers swung empty in the closet, but that didn’t mean much. A couple of empty suitcases were stacked behind the suits. His shaving gear remained in the bathroom cabinet, but not his toothbrush or toothpaste. The most permanent personal item in the house was a well-stocked bookcase. Dixie thumbed through a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Either Dann had bought it used or he had spent many hours reading it. Nothing told her specifically Dann had skipped, yet she knew he had. The house felt like its owner wouldn’t be returning.

Calling in a few favors, Dixie had set up watch posts at the nearest border towns, Brownsville and Laredo, and at the Louisiana state line. Then she’d phoned McGrue. When he agreed to meet, she’d had to fight off her usual case of the shivers. Watching him now through the diner window as he unfolded from his patrol car, Dixie was reminded of a praying mantis. How many lawbreakers had watched that sight in their rearview mirrors and soiled their car seats?

Six-foot-eight and thin as a shadow, the highway patrolman moved through the diner with a loose-jointed, sticklike grace. People stared. He didn’t seem to notice. Once, when apprehending a criminal, Dixie had seen McGrue stretch his long legs to cover the length of a football field in an eye blink, as if time itself had folded a stitch. Scary. With his deepset eyes, the iridescent green of pond algae, finely chiseled nose, and sensuous mouth, McGrue was admittedly handsome, but as spooky as a walking cadaver.

He nodded a greeting and slid into the booth. Dixie recalled Amy’s comment that the men Dixie worked around were all creeps — meaning the criminal element, of course. What would she think of McGrue?

When the waitress arrived, Dixie ordered an unwanted cup of coffee for herself. The patrolman ordered grapefruit juice.

“Tell me this, Counselor,” he said, after swallowing half the juice in one gulp. “With six major highways leaving Houston, not counting the Gulf Freeway to the coast, why would your friend choose to go through Oklahoma?” McGrue’s voice reminded Dixie of dead leaves scudding along the sidewalk.

“Habit, mostly. Dan travels all over the state on sales calls, but his favorite route is I-45 North. He’ll know the speed traps and the stretches where he can make the best time. He’ll know fifty-nine is currently rerouted for construction. Forty-five is flat, multilane, easy traveling.”

“Could head south.”

“Could.” While she told him about Dann’s former residences in Montana and Calgary, and her lookouts along the Mexico border, McGrue took some time over the menu, finally settling on steak, four eggs, hashbrown potatoes, biscuits with gravy, a side of ham, and double apple pie à la mode for dessert. Dixie regarded the skin stretched tight over his rangy frame. Maybe it was true that grapefruit juice burned fat.

“Dann was here in town as late as seven o’clock,” she said. “A neighbor saw him come home, stay a few minutes, then leave, carrying a couple of plastic grocery bags. I cruised his favorite hangouts. No sign of him or his car.” Dann’s Cadillac had been impounded after Betsy’s death. Now he drove a four-year-old Chevy sedan with a patched fender.

“Might ditch the car,” McGrue drawled in his raspy voice.

“Probably would, if he knew we were looking for him.”

“Now it’s we, is it?” McGrue took a handful of Jolly Rancher candies out of his pocket and laid them on the table, lemon, sour apple, and one peach. He slid the peach across to Dixie with a bony finger, the nail glossy and perfectly trimmed. Then he thumbed the cellophane off a lemon candy and crunched rather than sucked it. The sound made Dixie’s teeth hurt.

“I was hoping you’d put out a ‘suspicious vehicle’ watch,” she said, “along with a ‘do not attempt to apprehend,’ of course.” Asking the Highway Patrol to watch for Dann’s car was her best bet for picking the skip up fast, without an official contract. But it was also like issuing McGrue a Gold Card for paybacks.

“Hot plates, sugar!” The waitress covered the table with steaming dishes. “If the steak’s not done just right, now, I’ll take it back. Y’all hear?” She lingered, eyeing McGrue, her smile turned up to maximum wattage.

He held the woman’s gaze impassively a moment, then sliced into the steak, which promptly bled into the eggs. Turning back to the waitress, his gaze slid downward to an inch of cleavage above an open button.

“Looks good.”

She smiled even brighter. “Let me know if y’all want anything else.”

Dixie studied McGrue as he watched the waitress swivel down the aisle. Even in December, his skin was leathery and nut brown from the sun. His hair, almost the same shade, was expensively styled to fall magically into place after the weight of his uniform cowboy hat was lifted. McGrue was a man women noticed, no denying that. Dixie had seen others come on to him as blatantly as their waitress had just now. Maybe they didn’t notice the danger.

Or maybe that’s what attracted them.

“Tell me, Counselor,” he said, after he’d put away a dozen bites. “Just why are you looking for this guy?”

Dixie mulled that over. McGrue could be trusted not to get in her way, even if he ran Dann’s plates and recognized the name. But the people McGrue would be spreading the word to might not be as cooperative.

“A friend of his is worried about him. Thinks he’s … unstable.”

The patrolman looked up sharply. “Psycho?” Coming unexpectedly upon a raging lunatic was every officer’s nightmare.

“Let’s just say he needs careful handling.” This story was getting complicated. Dixie didn’t like fibbing, but she’d promised Belle to keep Dann’s whereabouts quiet, if he’d indeed fled the state. An overexuberant patrolman might throw Dann in jail. The paperwork would certainly find its way back to the DA’ s office. The DA would leak the information to the press. The jury, despite the judge’s reminder not to read or listen to news about the case, would discover Dann had tried to escape justice, and the fact would undoubtedly sway the verdict. Dixie was bitterly regretting she’d ever agreed to look for Dann.

But how could she disappoint Ryan? The kid trusted his Aunt Dixie to make things right in the world. They’re going to fry this guy…

McGrue’s narrow gaze inched over Dixie’s face with the glacial precision of an insect testing the air with its feelers. He knew she wasn’t being completely candid. She resisted the urge to look away.

“All you need is a sighting, then. That right?”

She nodded, reluctantly. “I’ll pick him up myself.”

In normal bail jumps, it worked the other way around. She located the skip, then alerted the law enforcement agency to bring him in. Safe. Smart. Uncomplicated.

McGrue sliced a ribbon of steak, cut it in half, and speared it with his fork.

“Last time I noticed, Counselor, I didn’t owe you any recompense.” He chewed the steak, slow and thorough.

“I’ll owe you a payback if we find Dann before he crosses a state line.”

“One?”

Dixie shrugged. “Whatever’s fair.” She was in no position to haggle.

A radio crackled on the seat beside him. He slipped the control switch. “McGrue.”

“Chevy sedan, Texas plates, 266ZPM,” the radio crackled. “Sighted seventy-two miles south of Dallas.”

“Got it.” McGrue switched off and speared another bloody chunk of meat. “I put out the bolo right after you called me,” he said, without looking up from his meal.

Just like McGrue to act quickly, yet keep her flapping like a butterfly on a collector’ s pin until he decided how much the favor was worth. Dixie looked at her watch.

“A two-hour lead. I’d better start making time.” Dann would stick close to the speed limit, knowing the highway would likely be thick with cops during the holidays. Her own 5.0-liter Mustang could tap out 110 miles an hour without breathing heavy. Even at that, and even with the state police looking the other way, it would take five hours to catch up with Dann, another five to bring him back to Houston. She picked up the dinner tab.

“Counselor?” McGrue stacked a thick slice of ham atop his biscuits and gravy. “If your friend crosses the Canadian border, best let him go about his business. Our northern neighbors don’t take bounty hunters to their bosoms like we do.”

Dixie nodded. A pair of skip tracers had been convicted of kidnapping recently when they tried to bring a bail jumper back from Canada. Technically, she might very well run into the same trouble here in the States, since Belle had insisted on leaving the bondsman out of the loop. But if all went as planned, Parker Dann would stop soon after midnight to bed down. That’d put him still in Texas or, at the outside, Oklahoma. One of McGrue’s lookouts would radio Dixie with his motel location, and Dann would get a surprise wake-up call. Easy.

“If he gets as far as Kansas, give me a buzz,” McGrue said. “I know a few people up there.” He speared the last triangle of ham. “Got plans for Christmas?”

The change of subject caught her by surprise.

“Usual family stuff. Lots of eggnog and fruitcake.” After the briefest pause, she added, “You?”

“My son … maybe. Lately, we haven’t been too close.”

Dixie hesitated. Even spooky Slim Jim McGrue shouldn’t spend Christmas alone. Divorced, he had hinted around more than once about catching a beer together. Dixie wondered how he’d stack up against Delbert Snelling.

Meet me here next week for Chapter 5, or Click Here to check out another Dixie Flannigan book, Slice of Life, because it’s a great weekend read.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 17

CHAPTER 17

Booker slid behind the wheel and punched the automatic door lock open for Bradley.

“Didn’t know you were such a lady-killer, Dad.”

“Don’t know that I am.”

“That Melinda lady was hot for you.”

“You think so?”

“And the one in the granny dress, what was that about?”

“Roxanna owns the inn and dresses to depict the era.”

“I mean, why was she boring holes in you with those dagger eyes?”

Booker had hoped it wasn’t that obvious. “Guess she mistook a friendly conversation for something more.”

“Melinda was holding your hand.”

“But I wasn’t holding hers.” Splitting that hair wasn’t likely to win any points with Roxanna, though.

“Is it the old-fashioned one who’s going to the play with us?”

“That’s the plan.”

Bradley shook his head. “I don’t know. I think you’re passing up the good stuff.”

Booker wasn’t sure how to respond. Explain that “easy” and “good” were not synonymous? Sounded preachy. Yet he wondered if such an opening might lead to Bradley telling him more about Rachel. Then they might move to the topic of smoking crack.

A deer darted across the road and into the woods.

“Optimum, Dad! Look at that! Is that why you’re suiting up to be a big-game bow-hunter?”

“I wouldn’t kill a deer.”

“Why not? We kill fish. Catch ‘em, gut ‘em, eat ‘em. I’ve heard venison is great, so what’s the difference?”

“I’m not sure.” Booker cruised past his turn at Turtle Lake Road and took the long way around, past Fowler’s property. “Hand me that spotlight from under the seat,” he said.

Bradley scrambled around and found it. Driving slowly, Booker trained the light on the shadowy depths of each lot he passed, searching out metal stakes at the property lines. A rabbit hunkered beneath the trees.

“What are we looking for?”

“Chuck Fowler died on the property next to mine.”

“Quantum gross. So are we, like, investigating?”

“More like snooping.” He counted six lots bearing for-sale signs from Melinda’s agency. Tallow trees, sweet gums, and live oaks crowded together with yaupon thicket—not a place you’d want to walk around in after dark. He bet the sun didn’t brighten it much even in daylight.

When they reached the farthest empty lot, Booker played the beam over three peach trees growing in a row. Dewberries and muscadine grapes grew wild at Lakeside, but he figured these peach trees must’ve been planted. The underbrush had been cleared away at some point, not entirely but a third or so, as if attacked on weekends and never finished.

Plenty of lots at Lakeside were in similar condition, owners enthusiastic at first then losing interest. No one had tended this property recently. Except for a trail near the fruit trees, native yaupon was fast reclaiming the area. Yaupon was a year-round nuisance, while Texas peaches usually didn’t last past July—yet the three little trees stood heavy with ripe fruit, their sweet odor permeating the night air.

“If all six of these lots were Fowler’s, that’s more than an acre of ground.” Seemed like plenty of room for target practice.

“It’d make a boss dirt-bike track. Think the old folks around here would go for it? We could make a mint.”

“It would cost a mint to buy that much property.”

“Oh. Guess it would.”

Handing the light back to Bradley, he turned the LaCrosse toward home. They unloaded the trunk, Bradley insisting on carrying more than his share. Pup sat on the front stoop, wearing his “poor dog” face, one paw resting on his empty food dish. Booker, having left the mutt’s dishes full that morning, walked right past, refusing to shoulder any guilt, but Bradley stopped to scratch Pup’s whiskers.

“I think I’ll take the bike down some of these country roads,” he said. “Try out my new riding boots.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” He didn’t want Bradley leaving already. This was one of those small moments Booker wanted to grab hold of.

“I’ll eat some cereal when I get in.”

“You just traveled miles of country road coming up here. Wouldn’t you rather unwrap your new tackle?”

“I want to ride while it’s still early enough to see the curves.”

Booker couldn’t argue with his logic. Were country roads safer than highways? With all the dips, gravel and unexpected wildlife, probably not.

“Don’t stay gone long,” he cautioned. “Or I’ll worry that some redneck has tried to quiet that beast with a shotgun.”

Watching Bradley rip down the road, leather jacket ballooning around him, Booker itched to take a sledgehammer to the Harley. Start with the engine, beat the racket out of it. Then hammer the wheels flat. Mangle the steering mechanism. Smash the gauges. A motorcycle, and all the biker club nonsense that went with it, had driven him away from his own father. At eighty, Brad Senior still loved the damn things. Miraculously, he’d retained his hearing, never had a serious accident, and to his credit, never insisted Booker take up the sport.

In the hospital, Booker had spent some time calculating the life he’d come close to losing. Figuring eighty as a reasonable expectancy, and subtracting his forty-six years, he’d tallied it out as nearly eighteen million minutes. He didn’t want to squander those minutes, especially ones like the present. In coming here, Bradley had made the first overture toward patching their broken relationship. Booker was wary of doing something stupid to send the boy off again. But damn he hated to see his son wearing biker leather.

The cycle’s roar became a distant hum while Booker stood in the dusk listening, until he could hear only a chorus of frogs. Suddenly needing a little uncomplicated affection, he opened the door and whistled Pup inside. Upstairs in the kitchen, he opened a can of premium dog food. When he dumped it into Pup’s supper dish, the mutt responded with tail-wagging, face-licking enthusiasm. If kids were as easy to satisfy, fatherhood would be less intimidating.

One ear tuned for Bradley’s return, he stood for a full two minutes gazing into his Tealstone refrigerator at the near empty shelves. Plenty of food in the freezer, if he were in the mood to cook. He removed a dish containing the withered remains of a barbecued chicken, decided it was past redemption, and settled on a bowl of Cheerios. Fingering a blackened banana, he found a section that felt more or less firm, and sliced it into his cereal. His pantry offered up a partial bag of chopped pecans and a snack-size box of raisins.

He added half of those to the bowl, leaving the other half for Bradley, then covered the whole mess with milk.

Once he thought he heard the buzz of an engine and carried his cereal out to the balcony, but it was only Booker’s ears playing tricks. Mosquitoes chased him back inside.

While he and Pup finished wolfing down their dinner, Booker eyed his bag of new toys: he needed a distraction. How long had it been since he’d played cowboys and Indians? He remembered a shiny Roy Rogers six-shooter, complete with white hat, fake leather holster, and a deputy sheriff’s badge pinned to a fake leather vest. Prized possessions. In his parents’ attic, in a wooden chest painted green and crayoned with KEEP OUT signs, the cowboy suit mildewed alongside a secret decoder ring, a space patrol flashlight, and countless other boyhood treasures. Even in fraud investigation, Booker had secretly enjoyed the trappings. Whipping out his ID badge. Flashing the card in his wallet declaring him a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. Perhaps a small part of him had never grown up.

Lauren would say a large part of him had never grown up.

Now the package of archery equipment beckoned like a wrapped gift under a Christmas tree. Booker rinsed his bowl, then rinsed Pup’s bowl, delaying the moment, wishing

Bradley would roar up the driveway and they could enjoy their purchases together. He’d read somewhere that delaying gratification was a sign of maturity. Like eating around the edge of a filled doughnut, saving the best part for last.

With the kitchen clean, he walked downstairs and out to the balcony again. The only buzz in the falling night came from those persistent mosquitoes. He retreated to the living room, where he’d left the bags of equipment, and lined up his items on a coffee table. Unwrapping the archery glove and pulling it over his fingers, he couldn’t help thinking about what Bradley had said in the car. Booker had no interest in deer hunting or any other kind of hunting. He simply liked testing his skill.

The plastic wrapper the glove had come in fluttered down from the table. Pup chased it across the floor, and suddenly Chuck Fowler’s body bobbed up in Booker’s mind. A shudder went through him. He’d finally forgiven the dog for dragging that whopping big problem from the lake. Now, with the sheriff declaring Fowler’s death accidental, the sensible thing would be to forget it. Anyway, after hearing Spiner’s view, Booker thought maybe Fowler got what he deserved. A hunter who would shoot dogs for practice had a wickedly twisted nature.

The glove fit snug. The book said to soak it in water the first time out, break it in wet. Flexing his fingers, he wondered if Fowler had worn a glove for practice that day. Booker hadn’t noticed one, but he’d been rushing, not wanting to see more than necessary to take the sheriff’s photographs.

He hung the quiver on his belt like a holster and tied down the leg thong. Stuffed the quiver with arrows then practiced pulling them out: Quick-Draw Krane.

Pup growled as Booker assessed himself in a mirror.

“What d’ya think, Pup? One of Robin’s merry men, or Geronimo’s scout?”

Unstrung bow in hand, Booker whipped out an arrow and nocked it against an imaginary bowstring. Plunk! A smile tickled his lips wide. He could get to like this retirement game if it came with plenty of neat gear.

“En garde!” He aimed playfully at Pup, fumbled the arrow, dropped the bow.

Pup scooped the bow up by one end and dragged it toward the stairs.

Some Robin Hood. Booker caught sight of himself in the mirror, standing with the arrow in his hand as if to lunge at the dog, and all the play went out of him. The arrows he’d bought were barely sharp enough to pierce a paper target, but he’d seen stronger, sharper, more vicious arrows tonight, and no one needed a permit to purchase them.

Swift, silent, deadly. Anyone handy with a hunting bow had no need for a gun.

He repacked the gear, then strolled out to the balcony again. All was quiet. Bradley had been gone an hour. Booker debated sitting on the doorstep with Pup, but his son probably wouldn’t appreciate a sentinel.

Instead, he settled in a chair and thumbed through Archery Basics. It gave step-by-step instructions for bow stringing, which required some body contortions and came with a warning: Improper stringing methods can result in the bow recoiling with tremendous force, easily putting out an eye or breaking an eardrum.

That was enough to instill caution.

The book also depicted a bow-stringing device, boasted to be faster, safer, and costing only a few bucks. Why hadn’t Spiner mentioned that little goodie? Another picayune attempt at getting even for Roxanna, no doubt.

Well, two could play that silly game. He’d buy a bow-stringer on Monday, when he went to Bryan to look up Aaron. Gary Spiner deserved to lose the business.

When Booker had read himself sleepy, Bradley still hadn’t returned. Had he changed his mind about staying?

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Paradise Cursed – Snippet 13

The island of Grand Cayman, only seventy-six square miles and fifty thousand residents, enjoys a rich economy. Of the fifty largest banks in the world, forty-three are here, though they exist primarily in digital format. Some say these islands have sold their soul to finance. Nevertheless, every city has its humble underbelly, including George Town, and that’s where Ayanna was meeting Shaman Demarae.

The streets narrowed here, the homes appeared older, shabbier and most were unfenced. Demarae’s house was not shabby, merely plain. White with peach trim, a popular Caribbean color that I considered pale and insipid, the shaman’s home had not seen a coat of paint in a while, but the hedges were neatly shorn and a tumble of bright magenta flowers grew in planters at each corner of the porch. All the shutters were tightly closed.

Before we could approach the door, a tall, ebony-skinned woman dressed in white greeted our taxi. Her smile a bright flash of red lip rouge and white teeth in her dusky, gaunt face, she guided us around back to an all white building with no windows at all.

“Oluku mi. Welcome, my friend,” she said. “I am Marisha. Shaman Demarae will be along. He is in the chapel room, cleansing.”

She opened the door, where ten women of various ages, sizes and skin colors sat on whitewashed wooden chairs. Like Marisha, the women wore loose white garments. They rose when the door opened and pushed their chairs against a wall.

In the center of the room sat a single white plastic chair, arranged for Ayanna, I assumed, the guest of honor tonight. This was not my first cleansing ritual to attend, by far. None was precisely the same as the last, but similarities were as constant as the charlatans that often used ceremonial pomp the way magicians use smoke and mirrors.

Beneath the plastic chair, on the clean concrete floor, was drawn a familiar chalk symbol. A circle, large enough that everyone in the room could stand inside it, was intersected around its circumference by short straight lines and flanked by a smaller circle on each side. The smaller versions were divided vertically and horizontally to form four equal parts, each containing either a cross, an X, an even smaller circle or a square.

“Santeria,” I said softly. An African-Caribbean religion.

“We prefer the proper and more ancient Yoruba title,” Marisha said, “Regla de Ocho. Remove your shoes, if you please, before entering.”

Once we were in the room, she said to me, “You know the religion?”

“Only in passing.” I tipped a nod toward a lace-covered altar along a back wall. A shelf above it held brightly colored bowls, each containing a river stone and cowries shells. “Your orichas?”

“Yes. We honor our saints and ancestors in this holy room. They attend and consider whether to offer the help we seek.”

Two larger bowls on the altar were surrounded by fresh flowers, plates of food offerings, and candles. The flickering glow from these and other candles placed about the room and bouncing from the whitewashed walls provided the only light. Having lived my entire life aboard a ship, where fire represented a serious hazard, I never felt quite comfortable surrounded by hundreds of tiny flames. At shamanic ceremonies, they were a staple.

A door opened and a man entered. That made two of us in this progesterone gathering.

Unlike his plainly dressed devotees, Shaman Demarae, for it could only be him, wore a red tunic and pants adorned with gold buttons. Strings of beads and feathers hung around his neck. In one hand he held a short stick of cane that, apparently hollowed out and filled with seeds, made a musical sound when shaken. In his right hand, he held a hatchet.

“Oluku mi,” he said, holstering the short ax in a leather loop at his side. He took Ayanna’s hand and made a slight bow. “Welcome, my friends. We have gathered to honor Oricha

Babalu Aye and Oricha Oya Mimo. We will request their help in cleansing the evil that is visiting Ayanna.”

A white man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, he spoke excellent English with an island lilt. He flashed a somewhat guarded smile at me before guiding Ayanna to the empty chair.

From an array of small instruments on the floor near the altar, half of the women picked up drums, shakers or ringing stones. Slowly, melodically, they began to play. Bata drumming, I’d heard it called. The music had a sensual and irresistible rhythm. Feeling the beat, I found myself nodding. After a moment, they began murmuring a soft chant.

“Huuuuuul, huuul-hum, huuuuuul, huuul-hum…”

I recognized it as a sacred mantra attributed to the ancient sound of the earth.

“Sir,” the shaman said to me, “if you are brethren or friend of Ayanna you are welcome here.”

I introduced myself, adding, “Ayanna is my first mate on the Sarah Jane. I am here to support her in any way I can.”

“Your good thoughts can only help.”

Demarae took up their chant and began to dance around Ayanna’s chair. He dipped his hands in a bowl on the altar and sprinkled Ayanna with what appeared to be water. Holy water, I assumed, previously blessed in preparation for the ritual. Ayanna’s eyes widened and sought mine. Seeing what I interpreted as a mixture of hope and fear, I smiled and nodded my support.

The mesmerizing music continued as the women arranged themselves along the perimeter of the largest circle. Those without instruments joined Demarae in the dance, and their cheerful smiles were infectious. Though I remained near the door where I had entered, I tapped my feet and clapped softly in rhythm, thinking the movement might lessen the stupor taking hold of my mind.

“Huuuuuul, huuul-hum…Babalu Aye, hear our prayer…huuuuul…Oya Mimo, hear our prayer…huuul-hum….”

Two women danced toward a corner where a wire cage contained a plump white hen.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman, Babalu Aye, hear our prayer…”

Caught up in the other ceremonial trappings, I hadn’t noticed the bird, which I assumed was about to be sacrificed to honor the orichas.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman, Oya Mimo, hear our prayer…”

The music’s volume and intensity increased. As the women removed the chicken from its cage, I might have been watching a slow-motion film. One woman held the hen’s feet, the other its head as they carried it squawking and flapping. They lifted the bird above Ayanna’s head.

Shaman Demarae approached with his hatchet.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman with the earth’s blood, Babalu Aye…”

Having witnessed animal sacrifice before, none of this surprised me, and in my stupor I could almost smell the chicken soup someone would make for dinner after the ceremony ended. Then a glint of candlelight on Demarae’s blade shattered my daze. Having known rituals, whether intentional or not, to turn savage on short notice, the line of demarcation between civil and savage quite thin enough at times to blur, I ceased clapping and readied my hands to yank Ayanna away from a possible cut.

“Huuuuuul, cleanse this good woman with the earth’s blood, Oya Mimo…”

The music intensified even more as Demarae artfully sliced through the chicken’s neck, halting his cleaver before it touched Ayanna’s hair.

Blood spurted. Startled, Ayanna flinched.

The women continued playing and dancing, but now only the shaman spoke, chanting as he handed off the blade and took the bird’s body.

“Huuuuuul, we return blood to earth to cleanse this good woman, Babalu Aye…”

Upending it, he drizzled Ayanna’s hair, skin and clothing with blood. Dancing around her chair, chanting, he shook blood at the other women. A hot spray of droplets touched my face.

“Huuuuuul, we return blood to earth to cleanse this good woman, Oya Mimo…”

The fervent drumming and chanting, Demarae’s bright ceremonial clothing the only color among the white garments lightly splattered with red—the spectacle was truly awesome.

I hoped Oricha Babalu Aye and Oricha Oya Mimo were dutifully impressed.

After another moment, Demarae began dribbling the last drops of blood into a pair of thimble-size bowls held by the same women who had proffered the hen. The drumming softened, and the shaman’s chant rose in timber.

“Huuuuuul, we offer this blood to cleanse this good woman, hear out prayer, Babalu Aye…”

When the two tiny bowls were filled, adequately I hoped, the women turned to the altar and drizzled the scant blood offering over the stones in the two largest bowls, which I took to represent the saints being honored by this gathering.

“Huuuuuul, we offer this blood to cleanse this good woman, hear our prayer, Oya Mimo… huuul-hum…huuuuuuuul…huuul-hum…”

Five minutes later, it was done.

Again, Shaman Demarae took Ayanna’s hand, this time to guide her in rising from the chair. He kissed her lightly on both cheeks. The women crowded round and took turns hugging Ayanna, kissing her cheeks, until everyone was cheerfully smeared with dabs of blood.

As we said our goodbyes, I saw the shaman give Ayanna a folded paper. In return, my first mate passed an envelope to Demarae, her smile as broad as I’d ever seen it.

How much, I wondered, does this man charge to lift a curse? No sum would be too much if the curse was indeed a fact and if Demarae’s magic worked to undo it.

Was there any chance in hell that it had worked?

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Bitch Factor – Chapter 3

Wednesday, December 23

“Aunt Dixie! We might get snow!” Ryan bounded through the back door, enthusiasm bubbling ahead of him.

Hearing her nephew’ s bullfrog voice, which had started to change the past few weeks, Dixie’s own enthusiasm welled up. Ryan was the best part of every holiday. Maybe trimming the tree with him would rekindle her Christmas spirit.

“Snow? It’s seventy-five degrees.” She pitched the Parker Dann file on the buffet, out of sight, out of her indecisive mind, at least for the moment, and found Ryan halfway down the hall cradling two Tupperware containers. “This is Houston,” she told him. “We get rain, or maybe sleet. Once in a coon’s age we get hail. We never get snow.”

“Dad says every eleven years. Last time I was a baby. We have pictures!”

“I know we have pictures. Who do you think bought you that baby snowsuit, special overnight delivery from Denver — and you only wore it three days?” She ruffled his hair, an affection Ryan hated. But with his hands full, he was at her mercy. “What smell so great?”

“Chocolate chip cookies and pecan pie. I made the cookies!” He grinned, standing hunched over from the weight of his backpack. Dixie could see the bulge of his laptop computer stuffed inside, and a favorite game, Gorn & Tribbles, threatening to tumble out. “Where’s Mud?” he asked.

“At the vet, getting poked and clipped.” When Ryan’s grin faded in disappointment, she punched him playfully. “Hey, kid, who’d you come to see, anyway, that mongrel pup or me?” Aiming him toward the dining room, she copped a swift kiss. “Put the food on the buffet.”

Then Dixie turned to help her keep sister carry a pair of enormous shopping bags. Amy looked all cushiony and warm, in a rose pink nubby sweater and wool pants. Pearl earrings dangled beneath her blonde Bob. In high school, she’d been a knockout cheerleader, the girl everyone wanted to chum with. To Dixie — short, plain, brainy, a total nerd — Amy had been a goddess. You didn’t compete with a goddess, you worshiped her, even when she asked your help with homework work two grades harder than your own or when she cried in your room over a different boy every week, but especially when she knuckled your head and said you were the world’s greatest sister. Now Amy’s glamorous curves has softened and spread. “Happy fat,” Dixie often teased. “The downside of a contented lifestyle.”

“Here, Amy, give me one of those!” Dixie said now. Red and gold Christmas balls peeked from the top of the bag. “What is all this?”

“Christmas decorations. You didn’t buy anything new for the tree, did you?” Freed from carrying the shopping bag, Amy patted Dixie’s shoulder and tucked her hair back. She could win first prize in a packing-and-tucking contest.

Dixie waited until Amy looked away, then untucked her hair.

“I thought we could use the stuff from the attic.” Actually, Dixie had stopped at a Trim-a-Tree store, but the vast selection there had overwhelmed her. She hated shopping for anything that came in more than one color. Besides, her adoptive parents, during their fifty-odd years of marriage, had collected boxes and boxes of trimmings.

“Dixie, you’ll have enough Christmas ghosts in this old house without dredging it in memories.”

“I’m not afraid of ghosts — certainly not Barney and Kathleen. And Christmas would be damned empty without memories.” Dixie bit down on a grain of annoyance. Kathleen had been dead only eighteen months, Barney less than a year. She wanted to remember them, and she couldn’t understand why Amy, their own blood daughter, wanted to bury the memories like old bones. She stopped short of saying it, though, having promised herself no arguments tonight. But dammit, it was Dixie’s house, Dixie’s tree, and if she wanted to deck the place with cobwebs of Christmas past, why shouldn’t she?

“That porch has a loose rail,” Carl called from the doorway. The smell of smoked meat drifted down the hallway with him. Carson Royal had his faults, but no one could barbecue a yummier brisket. “What I’m saying, someone’s going to fall, and you’ll have a lawsuit. Mailman takes a tumble, sue you for everything you own and then some.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, Carl. Cheers to you, too.” As they entered the living room under one of Kathleen’s needlepoint maxims — Visitors always give pleasure: if not the coming, then the going — Dixie congratulated herself on keeping the edge out her of her voice. Her brother-in-law could get under her skin quicker than anybody, but tonight Carl’s tiny barbs were going to bounce like water off a glass dome.

She mentally encased herself in a bubble … filled it with tranquility … and lifted the corners of her mouth. Yes, that would work. That would definitely work. She would enjoy this evening if it killed her.

“I see you haven’t stained the fence lately.” Carl shook his head. “Got to keep that wood treated, keep the damp out, or it’ll rot. I told Barney you’d never be able to keep this place up.”

Bounce… Bounce… Bounce…

“Too much work for a woman, running a pecan farm. Best thing is to sell the place now, while you can still get top dollar. What I’m saying, once you let it run down —”

“Carl, the same people are handling the orchard who handled it for three years before Barney died. You and Amy received the financial reports and your profits from this year’s crop.” Dixie dropped the bulging shopping bag near the Christmas tree, where Amy was already unloading ornaments. The room smelled pleasantly of wood smoke. By turning the air conditioner down to freeze, Dixie had felt justified in building a fire in the fireplace.

“Now, Carl, stop nagging,” Amy said, patting a huge red velvet bow into place on a tree limb. “Mom and Dad left the orchard to Dixie because they knew she’d take care of it.” She twirled a faceted gold ball. Light fragments darted around the room.

“All I’m saying is she’ll never get top dollar —”

Bounce … Bounce … Bounce …

What Carl was not saying was that he’d rather have thirty percent of a two-million-dollar sale to invest in the stock market than twenty-thousand-a-year income.

Actually, it had been Amy’s idea that Dixie inherit the family home and pecan orchard. From the day twenty-seven years ago when the Flannigan’s adopted Dixie as a troubled adolescent, they’d treated her as their own. Amy, an only child nearly three years older, had been eager to have a little sister. And Dixie had clung to all their love and attention like a flagging swimmer to a life raft — but she’d never hoped to inherit more than a few family mementos. Then the day Kathleen learned she had cancer, Barney called a family meeting to discuss the property. “I don’t want to run a pecan farm,” Amy had told her parents. “And Carl wouldn’t know how. I’ll never understand why Dixie loves this moldy old house, but she does, so she should have it. We’ll take the summer house in Maine.” After Barney’s death, the will specified that proceeds from the pecan farm would be split seventy-thirty in Dixie’s favor, with a provision that she could sell at any time. So far, she hadn’t wanted to.

A thunder of drums blasted from the stereo.

“Brian!” Amy shouted. “Turn off that racket.”

“It’s Christmas music, Mom.”

“Find a station playing traditional carols. And turn it down.” Amy handed Carl a string of colored lights. “Plug these in, would you, honey? I think they’re supposed to wink.”

Dixie opened one of the boxes she’d brought down from the attic. Some of the decorations were still in their original boxes, but older ones were wrapped in recycled gift paper. She found the beaded balls she and Amy had made in a craft class, then the salt and cornstarch gingerbread men Kathleen had baked and the girls had painted. She carried them to the tree. Amy had already tied several gold balls to the limbs with red velvet bows.

“Now, Dixie! We can’t use those things. They’ll upset the color balance. These are designer decorations. The latest fashion.”

“Gold balls and red bows. That’s new?”

“Look at the impressions in the gold. Computer chips!”

Dixie tucked the gingerbread men back in their box. “These beaded balls won’t clash there mostly red and gold.” Ignoring Amy’s exaggerated sigh, she hung the two ornaments in prominent positions, then stepped aside to let Carl work another string of lights among the branches.

“I said traditional!” Amy shouted at the paneled wall — on the other side, “Jingle Bells” was being rendered in something between rap and reggae.

Carl anchored the light string, then stood back to scowl at the electrical outlet.

“Must be fifty years old. This whole house likely needs rewiring. Cost you a bundle, changing all that wire.”

… bounce… bounce… bounce …

As Dixie resumed her exploration of the boxes from the attic, Brian charged into the middle of them. He found a snow family Kathleen had bought one Christmas — snowman, snow woman, two snow babies, the Flannigans’ names embroidered on their hats.

“Cool!” Ryan carried them to the tree. “I remember these. Gramma used them every year.”

Amy heaved another martyred sigh. “Put them somewhere inconspicuous, please, Ryan. Carl, what’s wrong with those lights? They’re not winking.”

“It’s the wiring. Old wiring’ s not going to work with these new-style lights.”

“I think you have to replace one of the bulbs with that special bulb in the plastic bag,” Amy pointed out. “Dixie, maybe you should consider selling this house — or rent it out — and move closer to town. There’s a nice place for sale right down the street from us.” She paused, then, offhanded, like it was nothing special, she added, “The nicest man has joined our choir.”

Dixie felt bad news coming like a blast of cold air.

“You mean Mr. Snelling, Mom?” Ryan rummaged through the attic boxes for more treasures. “Snelling’s old, and he stares at everybody over the top of his glasses.”

“Old? Delbert Snelling is younger than me!” Amy pinched her son playfully on the ear. “And your Aunt Dixie’s not getting any younger.”

Dixie had turned thirty-nine in November.

“Anyway, I invited him to dinner Christmas night —”

“Amy! I ask you not to fix me up —”

“Now, Dixie, this isn’t a date. I just thought … well, the poor man doesn’t have any family here, not a soul. I know how you hate to see anybody spend Christmas alone.”

True. But what a coincidence that this solitary soul happened to be near Dixie’s age and unmarried. Amy would never understand that some women preferred solitude. She believed people should be paired off like socks.

“My empty stomach tells me it’s time to set the table,” Dixie announced, making a beeline for the dining room. Dating had never been her strong suit. Men she met were always too tall, too short, too macho, too sensitive, too rude, or too quick with a lasso. In college, she’d dated sporadically, and in the years that followed had enjoyed several long-term “situations,” but she always bailed out when they looked like becoming permanent.

Kathleen’s good China gleamed behind the glass doors of the oak hutch. Dixie lifted down four plates, inspected them for dust, then set them around the oak table. The room rarely was used anymore, but until the final stages of Kathleen’s illness, every Sunday had found it filled with noisy good humor and the mouthwatering aroma of peaches and cinnamon.

Kathleen had made the best peach cobbler in Texas, attested to by a State Fair blue ribbon that hung framed on the dining-room wall, under another of Kathleen’s needlepoint maxims — When you make your mark in the world, watch out for the guys with erasers.

Dixie moved Carl’s brisket to a carving plate, then peeled plastic covers from a bowl of coleslaw and the pecan pie. Flannigan holiday meals always included dishes made with the rich meat of paper-shell pecans — from pecan rolls at breakfast to tuna-pecan sandwiches at lunch to pecan stuffing and buttered-pecan ice cream at dinner. Each Christmas eve, the family would gather in the kitchen, Kathleen rubbing oil on a turkey in a blue granite roaster, Barney chopping pecans from the family stash. Heat from the stove turned their faces rosy. Kathleen, her knot of white hair sprigging loose to halo around her face, always looked happiest in her kitchen, and Barney sang the goofiest Christmas songs. While

Amy mixed cookie dough, Dixie, who’d never been much of a cook even under Kathleen’s watchful eye, had kept the dishes washed. Flannigan holidays were a buzz of mundane activities made festive with wacky moments, colorful trappings, and marvelous food.

Holidays now were the times Dixie missed her adoptive parents most. She knew that’s why Amy had insisted on coming over this evening to trim the tree. Shortly after Kathleen’s death, when Barney started moping around looking like he wanted to join her, Dixie had moved back home. Six months later, despite Dixie’s best efforts, Barney was dead, too.

This would be her first Christmas alone in the house.

She sliced a fresh loaf of bakery bread, her solitary contribution to the night’ s meal, and arranged it in a basket under one of Kathleen’s embroidered dishtowels. A boyish hand slipped under the towel and snatched a slice. Ryan had come up quietly behind her.

“Snelling isn’t really so bad, I guess.” He picked up a carving knife and began drawing designs in the butter.

Dixie took the knife away and gave him a handful of utensils to arrange beside the plates.

“You think I should meet him? Think he’s prime uncle material?”

Ryan shrugged. “Mom thinks you should get a life.”

“I have a life. Only it’s not the kind your mother wants me to have.”

“Mom thinks I need an uncle to round out my extended family.”

“What do you think?”

He picked at a stray bit of meat that had clung to the foil cover. “I think if I had to live all alone I’d be lonely.”

Dixie winced. Sometimes Ryan’s perception at twelve was sharper than her own at thirty-nine. “Sometimes I do get lonely, but not because I’m alone. I get lonely for … people I miss.”

“Like Gramma and Granmpa Flannigan?”

“Sometimes. And like you, and your mother. That’s when your beeper goes off with a message to call your Aunt Dixie.” She goosed him lightly in the ribs. “What do you think? Think I need a life?”

He rolled his shoulders again in that lazy shrug, then turned to peel the plastic lid off the plate of cookies on the buffet. After a moment, he said, “I think, if I was you, living here in Gramma and Grampa’s house, with all their things here, but not them, I’d be sad.”

Dixie studied the framed family pictures on the bottom shelf of the hutch and searched for sadness in those familiar treasures. She didn’t find it.

“Mom says there’s lots of guys around who wouldn’t mind being an uncle.” He opened the Parker Dann file, where she had tossed it on the buffet, and stood flipping the cover lazily back and forth. “She says, pick up any newspaper and read the personals.”

“Did you tell her some of those guys are creeps you wouldn’t want for an uncle?”

The shoulder roll again. “She says the men you meet doing the work you do are creeps.” He hurried on, tugging a crumpled page of newsprint from his pocket. “Look at this. Some of the ads are guys with motorcycles and speedboats.”

“Hey, whose side are you on, kid?” Dixie could hear Amy’s influence in Ryan’s words. She was used to Amy trying to pat and tuck Dixie’s life into her own idea of perfection, but

Ryan had always thought his aunt’s work was “cool.” And what he thought mattered. Dixie couldn’t help wanting to be a hero in her nephew’s eyes.

“I’m on your side,” he said. “I asked mom if I could stay here and keep you company during school break.” He dipped his head. “She said you wouldn’t be home enough to notice.”

Unfolding the paper, he showed her an ad he’d circled in red marker.

“‘DWM, forty-five,’” she read. “Divorced white male? ‘Six-foot-five, two hundred pounds’?” At five-four, 120 pounds, Dixie would feel dwarfed by such a man. “The age is okay, I guess.”

“Look at the best part. He likes to hang-glide and bungee jump. That’s dangerous stuff, like you chasing criminals.”

“Dangerous?” She grinned at him. “Bungee jumping is insane.”

Then her gaze fell on the file Ryan was fingering, and she remembered she needed to call Belle Richards. Frankly, she didn’t want to risk missing Christmas with her family just to chase down some drunk driver. She should call now, give the attorney enough time to hire another skip tracer.

“Hey, I know her!” Ryan was looking down at the file. The Richards, Blackmon and Drake label was plastered on the front.

“Ms. Richards? Sure, you met her in the summer.” In August Ryan had spent a week with Dixie, and she’d taken him by the lawyer’s office.

“I mean Elizabeth Keyes, the girl who was run over.”

“Are you sure?” Their schools were miles apart.

“Yeah. We met last year, during the Kids in the Arts project. Remember, my drawing won a district honorable mention. So did Betsy’s story. And after the accident, a safety cop came to talk to us about it.” Ryan turned to the newspaper photo taken in the courtroom. “They’re going to fry this guy that killed Betsy, aren’t they?”

*

Watching the taillights on Carl’s Buick fade into the night, Dixie mentally ticked off the places Parker Dann was most likely to be found at 9 o’clock two nights before Christmas. According to the depositions in his file, the man’s closest friend was a bartender at the Green Hornet Saloon. A neighbor woman, obviously an admirer, had called Dann “a charming, thoughtful gentleman who always ran the lawnmower over her front yard when he finished cutting his own.” Perhaps the neighbor invited the “charming gentleman” over for some Christmas cheer.

In addition to the Green Hornet, Dann frequented neighborhood coffee houses, restaurants, movies — places where people were likely to congregate. He didn’t travel, except for work-related trips, which had ceased with his arrest and subsequent release on bail. Most of Dan’s bumming-around time appeared to be spent within a few city blocks.

All through dinner, Ryan’s words had kept nagging at her: They’re going to fry this guy … aren’t they? Sure. If he didn’t skip the country while the judge and jury were opening their Christmas gifts. When Amy offered to serve the pecan pie, warmed in the microwave and topped with buttered pecan ice cream, Dixie had slipped into the bedroom, phoned Belle, and agreed to keep an eye on Dann over the holidays. What could it take, an hour maybe, to check out his favorite haunts? Once she found him, she’d slap a tracking transmitter on his car — an expensive little toy that would let her know if he exceeded a fifty-mile radius from Houston. Then she’d go back to celebrating Christmas.

When Carl’s taillights finally turned the corner, Dixie shut the front door and began to seal up the Christmas boxes she’d brought down from the attic. A brass horn clattered to the rug. She picked it up. Amy’s designer tree had turned out fine, but a few pieces from the family collection might help the red and gold spectacle fit in better with Dixie’s traditional living room. The brass horn had adorned the Flannigan tree every Christmas Dixie could remember. She clipped it near a red bulb that immediately warmed the brass with a rosy glow.

About to close the box again, she noticed a string of crystal snowflakes. She had always loved those snowflakes — and the tree needed a spot of white.

During dinner, she’d also figured out how to handle Amy’s holiday matchmaking: simply play along. Later, while she and Amy were loading the dishwasher, Dixie “confessed” that she looked forward to meeting Delbert Snelling. She could pretend to be smitten when the day actually arrived — “Delbert’s really the nicest man, Sis, just as you said” — which would keep Amy from dragging up any other strays. At the same time, Dixie could come off so obnoxious that Snelling would never call her for a date. By the time Amy figured it out, the holidays would be long past.

Hanging the last ornament, a pudgy Santa face fashioned from cotton and yarn, Dixie pronounced the tree finished. She tossed the empty box in a corner, unplugged the lights, and heaved a resigned sigh: might as well start looking for Parker Dann. By now, he should be mildly sotted and easy to find. She grabbed his file from the buffet and her jacket from the closet.

As she strode through the kitchen, a piece of paper fluttered on the refrigerator door, anchored with a magnet Ryan had made in art class — a ceramic heart framing his school picture. Dixie stopped to look. On the notepaper, a neatly printed block read:

SWF, thirty-nine, brown hair, brown eyes, and still pretty foxy. Likes awesomely dangerous sports like downhill dirt biking. Sometimes brings her twelve-year-old nephew.

Below that, Ryan had scrawled: Dear Aunt Dixie: I’ll put this on the Internet tonight and scan in a snapshot of you from when we went swimming last summer. You’ll have loads of replies by New Year’s. So don’t worry about old Snelling.

Come Back Next Week for the next chapter in Bitch Factor.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 16

CHAPTER 16

Stowing the bag of archery and fishing equipment in the LaCrosse’s trunk, Booker tried to shake off the image of Fowler using stray dogs for target practice. Could any man be that evil?

And didn’t the county have an SPCA to prevent such behavior? Spiner might’ve been jerking Booker’s chain, figuring him for squeamish about such things. He’d got that part right.

On the other hand, what Spiner said about Fowler not practicing in August for an October hunting season made sense. So what was he doing in the woods with his equipment?

Bradley clumped around the car in his new boots, beaming excessively, leather jacket slung over his shoulder. The sight of him decked out like a biker gave Booker’s heart a flop. But the boots and jacket wouldn’t land the boy in a hospital. Brad Senior had provided the dangerous part of the picture.

As he slid behind the steering wheel, waiting for his son to buckle up, Booker considered another question: If Gary Spiner knew his former partner’s habits so well, why hadn’t he mentioned them to Sheriff Ringhoffer? And after listening to Spiner, Booker saw a few more holes in the accident theory, holes even an inexperienced county sheriff would see if he had all the facts. Booker didn’t like stirring up the idea of murder again, but Emaline had pegged him right when she said he couldn’t leave a problem alone until he worried it out in the open where he could see it.

He started the LaCrosse’s engine. A strange plink-plink sound lay beneath the motor’s purr. A glance at the mileage gauge suggested it was due for service—and wasn’t it handy that Fowler’s oldest son worked for a Chevy dealer in Bryan. Probably would have a maintenance shop. Aaron would know whether his father ever practiced on paper targets.

Booker’s hand rose unbidden to touch his sore lip. He’d have to broach the question of target practice without riling the young man again. Tomorrow was Sunday, the service department might be closed, but early next week he and Bradley could drop off the car. Afterward, they’d bum around town. Grab lunch. Take in a movie. How long had it been since they saw a movie together?

A stomach pang reminded him it’d also been a while since he’d eaten. “Hungry?”

“Uh…yeah, I could eat.” The boy rolled his boot soles on the carpet, getting the feel of them.

Booker drove around the square to the Masonville Bed and Brunch, hoping tonight’s menu included beef stew or hash, a meal with substance. He could go for another piece of Roxanna’s homemade peach pie.

Suddenly, his fertile mind conjured Pocahontas as she’d appeared in his dream last night, wearing feathers, braid, red and blue shorts, and hurrying away from one of the vacant lots on Turtle Lake. Fowler’s property? Roxanna hadn’t responded when Booker mentioned seeing her there. Didn’t mean anything, of course, and, in reality, she had not been carrying a hunting bow. That part was only in his dream.

She’d been carrying something, though. A package? A bag?

He and Bradley entered the dining room to the aroma of baked ham. The thought of wrapping around a few ham slices with au gratin potatoes made his taste buds snap awake. He salivated. Hell, if he were any more eager, he’d pant like Pup.

Scanning the room for a vacant table, he spied Roxanna chatting with a young family. Prim as a nineteenth-century schoolteacher in her gingham dress and matching hair ribbon, she spied Booker and smiled. As always, he felt it like an energy boost all the way to his toenails.

He pointed Bradley toward a small table near the kitchen. Despite the heat, the kid had donned his leather jacket. Sweat matted his hair as he steered a path through Roxanna’s Saturday night crowd, but he did look “optimum boss,” Booker had to admit.

No sign of the sheriff. Booker wouldn’t mind passing along what he’d learned from Spiner. No sign of Emaline, either, but he could do without her needling for a while. Tonight he wanted a quiet corner, a heaping plateful of Roxanna’s fine cooking, and a long chat with Bradley. Maybe he’d even find a tactful approach to the subject of drugs. In that leather jacket, the boy should be buttered up just about right to slide a few questions at him.

Booker stopped to check out a dessert tray stationed outside the kitchen door. Chocolate cake. Peach pie.

“Booker!” The voice, Melinda McRay’s voice, approached from behind. “You saw the doctor, after all, didn’t you? When I went to your house and you weren’t home, I said, ‘I hope he drove to the clinic to have his head looked at.’” Flashing a glittering smile, Melinda linked her arm around his, then slid her bottle-green gaze over Bradley. “Now this handsome young man! Why he looks just like you. He’s your younger brother, isn’t he?”

Booker introduced them. “Bradley, Ms. McCray is the lady who sold me the house.”

“Hello.” The boy gave her a thin smile and his rocking nod.

Melinda tugged Booker toward her table. With his interest on food, he hadn’t noticed her sitting there. Otherwise, he might’ve turned Bradley around and walked right out.

Wouldn’t be the first time they’d shared a bowl of cold cereal for supper.

“Did they do one of those CAT things?” Melinda asked. “Brain pictures from all directions?”

She wore a black pants outfit that molded to her curves like chocolate sauce on a double-dip ice cream cone. Booker stole a peek across the room at Roxanna. Though busily carrying plates to a table, she was watching.

“Actually, Melinda,” Booker said, “my son and I haven’t spent much time together lately. We’ll just take that table over—”

The table they’d been headed for was now occupied.

Melinda guided him to a chair. “These may be the only vacant seats in the house, so you two just sit right down and have dinner with me. Then I’ll tuck you in. How does that sound?”

Like trouble.

Bradley, ogling Melinda like she was a film star, slumped into the third chair.

“My son and I have an early date with some bass tomorrow,” Booker told her. “Won’t need any tucking in. I expect to be dead asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow tonight.”

She shuddered prettily. “Oh, don’t say that word. Everyone in the room has been talking about death. Chuck’s funeral is Monday. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“Chuck who?” Bradley swung his gaze to Booker.

“Chuck Fowler. He had a summer place at Lakeside Estates.”

“Are we going to the funeral?” Bradley made it sound like a road show. Maybe it was, to a sixteen-year-old who’d never been closer to death than a movie screen. Fowler’s funeral might be more of a show than most.

“We’ll all go together, won’t we?” Melinda chirped. “The memorial service is at the Lakeside church. Should I order flowers for you at the same time I order mine? I know how men hate doing those things.”

“Melinda, do you think that’s a good idea, going to the funeral? Knowing how the family feels about you?”

“I suppose they’ll be hateful, won’t they? But Chuck meant a great deal to me.” She stroked the gold and diamond watch on her left wrist, while the diamond dinner ring on her right hand bounced shards of light from Roxanna’s chandeliers. “You don’t really think Sarabelle would make another scene at the funeral, do you? Especially when you and I arrive together?”

She entwined her fingers with his on the table. Bradley stared at the pair of hands. Booker glanced uneasily at Roxanna.

She was watching. He felt trouble brewing like a bad wind.

“Melinda…” He gently retrieved his fingers. “Let me think about this when my head’s less muddled. Right now, I believe I’ll say goodnight. I just remembered half a barbecued chicken that needs to be eaten.”

He stood just as Roxanna approached. Lord, she looked splendid. He introduced Bradley.

“Mr. Krane,” she said coolly. “Are you and your son ready to order dinner?”

“Actually, I believe we’ll eat at home tonight.” He wished they’d waited another hour. Melinda would be gone, the crowd would’ve thinned out. Maybe Roxanna could’ve joined them for coffee.

“I’m sorry you won’t be staying.” Her gaze slid over him, leaving a chill in its wake.

Melinda’s glower, on the other hand, was hot enough to melt his belt buckle. Like an idiot, he smiled and nodded at both women.

“Ladies, I believe we’ll mosey on home.” He herded Bradley out the door as fast as he could without tripping over his own feet. The aroma of Roxanna’s baked ham hung in his nostrils, more punishment than even a coward deserved.

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