2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (17 page)

Saturday, December 9
^th

“Cat, you’re here.” Drew pulled her inside as if she
feared they were under surveillance. She hadn’t expounded on the situation,
just told her with a sort of grim certainty that she
needed
her to come
over, and considering Tara was staying here and probably driving all of them crazy,
her darker side wondered if Drew might have killed her and needed help getting
rid of the body. But the U-Haul wasn’t outside, so unless Klein was off
somewhere trying to drown it and any other evidence in one of Minnesota’s fine
lakes then maybe this wasn’t about Tara at all. Maybe she’d left town after
their last run-in and this was a more run-of-the-mill panic.

Drew’s voice was low and earnest. “I know you have a
lot going on, but I didn’t know what else to do and I—”

Catherine cringed, preparing for something grisly, unsure
of what she feared more, blood and guts or the possibility of a sexual
mishap—not that she thought Drew and Klein were kinky, but her mind was running
all over the place, and since most emergencies were better suited to calling
911 rather than Catherine Marie, who was a ninny and a fainter at anything much
beyond a paper cut, finding Klein naked and handcuffed to the bed seemed a real
possibility. Maybe they’d lost the key, or one of the kids had swallowed it—

“Come here.” Her sister-in-law led the way deeper into
the house. 

“What? What is it?” Afraid to move, afraid of what
this might do to their relationship, quite certain that she drew the line at
searching through someone’s shit for a key, though she would entertain taking a
saw to the antique four-poster bed for them as long as Drew covered her husband
in a Snuggly first.

Drew turned back, stared at her soberly and put a firm
hand on her arm, like maybe she was about to tell her that she’d accidently
fried Santa in the chimney last night. “It’s Tara, she’s—”

“Oh no. No way. Not my job.” She shook her head,
backing toward the door.

“Seriously, Cat, I’m worried about her. I think she might
have OD’d—”

“But she’s pregnant!” she blurted in something
bordering on anguish. Not that doing drugs was less bad if she weren’t
pregnant, but at least then she was only screwing up her own life. Except Tara
didn’t do that kind of stuff… although she had been acting erratically—even
more erratically than usual, which was already several ticks above the norm—

“Tara’s pregnant?” Drew reared back.

Catherine stared back as if she had no idea who could
have said that. Yes, she had been dying to tell, but she hadn’t meant to piggyback
it on top of an even worse accusation. Pregnant might be stupid, but drugs were
dangerous.

“Are you sure?”

A guilty nod.

“Whoa, I did not see that coming.” Drew scratched her
head, leading Catherine to the family room.

“So where is she?” Catherine looked around the space,
trying to equate what she saw with the image her mind had been expecting of
Tara strung-out on the couch. She’d already pictured her and Drew having to
haul Tara up into the shower to try to bring her around, and then locking her in
a room and waiting out the DTs all weekend. But there was no Tara at all.

“She left.”

“Left?” Accusatory. “Where?” She wondered if Tara was
in some back alley or some seedy motel room, or whether Nekoyah even had such
things. She wondered how Drew could have let her leave in her condition.

“She packed up and took off. Said something about
living out her Christmas fantasies.”

“So she’s delusional,” Catherine figured. “Do you know
what she’s on?”

“What she’s on? What do you mean? Drugs?” Shocked.
Appalled. An addict in her house with her kids.

Of course drugs!
As a pharmacist, she would
have thought Drew’d be smarter. “You’re the one who said you thought she OD’d.”

“On Christmas movies,” Drew clarified.

“
Movies
?” First bewildered and then angry at
the farce. “Did Tara put you up to this?”

Drew shook her head. “She’s in a bad way. She’s been
watching endless Christmas movies. They’re running some kind of marathon on TV and
she almost bit Garrett’s hand off last night when he tried to change the
channel. It was bad. And human bites are much worse than animal bites, you know.”
Like that was either here or there.

“Where is she?” Catherine sighed, not wanting a rift
between her and her sister-in-law but wondering what the hell kind of emergency
this was that had yanked her out of her nice warm house before she even checked
a mirror and reminded herself she had no makeup on and her hair was more nest
than anything.

“I don’t know, but I did find this in the guest room.”
Drew handed her a folded piece of paper, the flyer for the Nekoyah Nights of
Lights decorating competition, a hastily scribbled list of supplies in the
margin—ladder, extension cords, hammer, nails, hooks, etc.

“Shit.”

“What is it?”

“She’s going after Sophie Watts.” Catherine balled the
flyer in her fist.

“Don’t kill her. You can’t have your baby in jail,”
she said out loud, jamming her palm against the steering wheel at each red
light, wishing she could blink herself home. At this very moment Tara, in her
infinite mutinous gall, could be hanging from her porch railing dismantling
Fynn’s tasteful display of garland and lights meant for Elizabeth Hemmings’
approval, in favor of something obnoxious and gauche that would likely blow up
in one massive surge, taking the house with it. Her family could be homeless by
tomorrow if she didn’t take the woman out.

Catherine gripped the wheel tighter, wishing it was
Tara’s neck. How was she going to explain
this
to Fynn? To her parents?
To Cara, who would probably want to be right there beside Tara, holding the
ladder or the lights or the plug when things went sky-high. And after she’d
tried so hard to give the kid a nice safe home.

She turned into the driveway, afraid to find Tara
repelling down the chimney on a strand of lights, nullifying their friendship
completely. As the house came into view, though, Tara did not. No U-Haul either.
In fact, everything looked just the way it had when she’d left a half hour ago.

But of course even Tara couldn’t work that fast.  

Catherine pulled to a stop on the circle that looped in
front of the porch.

Fynn rounded the garage toward her. “You’re back. Everything
okay with Drew?”

“Oh, fine. Just fine.” Cagey.

He gave her a questioning look then moved on. “I
didn’t know when you’d be back and your parents wanted to take Cara out with
them, so I said yes.” Careful, and with a cockeyed shrug of deference.

“Good.” Relieved. This bought her time.

Fynn looked surprised that it was so easy; that she
didn’t mind or ask any further questions. “So, are you—”

But she didn’t let him finish, getting back in the car
and starting it up.

“Wait, where are you going now?” he asked through the
closed window.

She rolled it down. “I have some… errands.” The best
way to put it. She snatched the balled-up flyer from the passenger seat and
unraveled it to expose the list Tara had scrawled and left behind like a cry
for help, or more likely as bait to goad her into a wild-goose chase that ended
with them kicking some Sophie Watts ass together. Tara was sorely mistaken.

 “Oh, then I guess I’ll see you later. Are you coming
back for lunch?”

“Honestly,” she sighed, “I don’t know.” That much was
the truth.

She drove out, sending a shower of snow off the back tires
that said she wasn’t just picking up odds and ends; rather she was on a
mission. There would be explaining come the end of the day, more than likely,
but so long as she didn’t have to explain a massive electric bill, she would
still come out ahead.

Her first stop, Werner’s Hardware in town, where Phil
was there running the store as he did every day, and always with a smile.
Before she could get a word out, he was leading her to a new display, trying to
sell her on a portable radiant heater for Christmas. “It’s so quiet. Heats the
object not the space, which is totally different from other heaters that blow
air around. Honestly, it makes you feel kind of like a fast food burger in its
trough, waiting to be bought—” —which was oddly just the thing Fynn needed out
in his workshop in the winter months. What do you get for the man who wants
nothing? The guy who lives the bare minimum? Sold.

Then, at the checkout, she struck gold on Tara too. Turned
out she’d already been there, shopping and sharing just enough of her business,
leaving a large breadcrumb behind. Interesting, though, how people’s
perceptions differed. Catherine had asked about the weirdo driving a U-Haul
around and Phil had told her about the spunky new gal in town. It seemed both
of them were staying at the old Kelley place, which he further explained was a
few miles down Main Street, hang a left, fourth right, and quick left again.
That was the direct route, which it turned out indirectly led her almost back
to her own place. Within a mile, more or less.

A misstep or two later, she came upon a house with a
U-Haul out front. A basic two-story traditional with a front porch. There was
no “Kelley” sign anywhere. Not a bed and breakfast or an inn or even a halfway
house. Not an “establishment” of any kind.  Just a house. Catherine’s hair
bristled with discomfort, pretty certain this was not good. Not good at all. She
pulled into the driveway, hoping she was wrong and that this U-Haul wasn’t Tara’s
but the truck of some nice family moving in—

Except there she was. Tara. And worse, it was the Tara
of her imaginings, climbing a ladder with a reindeer under her arm.

Son of a bitch.

Catherine felt a swift kick in her belly as Eve seemingly
responded to her thoughts.
At least I didn’t say it
. She couldn’t
straighten up her act
that
much. And she certainly couldn’t handle a
telepathic kid. Just plain creepy.

She parked and got out with considerable effort,
noting that the back of the truck was yawning open and exposing the full gambit
of Christmas decorations inside.
What the f—
But she cut the thought
off, instead trying to do the math on how Tara could have amassed such a
quantity of Christmas décor so quickly. Unless she hadn’t so much rented a
truck as stolen one that was full of the stuff. The Delrio family
did
have
questionable ties.

“Oh, it’s you,” Tara said, loud and clear from her
perch on the ladder.

“What are you doing?” Catherine demanded, like a
mother confronting a child finger-painting on the walls.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She struggled with
the three-dimensional deer whose antlers kept hooking on the rungs of the
ladder.

“More importantly, does anyone else know what you’re
doing? Like the owner?”

“I’m perfectly within my rights to do whatever I want
to this place.”

“And how is that?” Catherine challenged.

Tara sighed a large puff of cold air that seemed to
say “I give up,” reversing her movement and fighting the deer back down to the
ground while Catherine watched in satisfaction. There was more to do, more
conversation to be had, but at least she’d stopped her before things got even
worse. The rest of the reindeer were lying on the snow in the front yard, and
the snowman and his family were easy enough to move out. The amount of lights
around was overwhelming, but Tara hadn’t gotten to actually stringing any of
them yet, so they too could be removed before anyone was the wiser.

“Here, I’ll help you clean up,” she offered, reaching
for the deer.

“I’m not cleaning up. I only came down so you wouldn’t
have a conniption fit and embarrass the hell out of me in front of the
neighbors.”

“Me? Embarrass you?” Righteous disbelief. 

“I have a lot to do and I don’t have time for a
scene,” Tara said in a sane monotone that made Catherine’s skin itch.

“You are not seriously going through with this.” She
gestured toward the house and surrounding area.

“Of course. Where there’s a will there’s a way,” she
shrugged. “I think I have a good chance.”

“Seriously, Tara, you can’t just commandeer a house
and decorate it. And don’t tell me someone put a listing on Craig’s List asking
for a professional Christmas display and this is your job now.”

A spark came to her friend’s eyes that said she
thought that was a wonderful idea, but then it dimmed into a steely resolve.
“It’s mine,” Tara said simply.

“What’s yours?”

“The house.”

“
This
house?” Catherine choked out.

Tara nodded.

“You
mortgaged
a place just to be able to enter
a competition to win an oil change?”

“Mortgaged is kind of a dirty word,” Tara said
evasively.

“A dirty word? Either you did or didn’t. Unless you’re
squatting—God, are you squatting? Do these people, whoever owns it, even know
you’re here?”

“Of course! I’m not an idiot, Cat, I paid for it.”

But as far as Catherine was concerned that didn’t make
her case for her. It might solidify that she wasn’t a thief or a trespasser,
but it didn’t refute the idiot label.

“Great, huh?” Tara prodded. “It’s a terrific
investment. Of course, it needs some work and updating, but I’m game. It’ll be
a good change for me.”

“So you paid for it.” Holding back the air quotes.

“Free and clear. If you’d met me at Grossman’s for the
closing, you would know that.”

Catherine groaned. So
that
was what the lawyer
was all about. Not that it made it better.

“And, see, I bought this place before I even knew
about the Christmas light competition. So there. I’m not just going all crazy
and buying a place to win a competition. It’s like it’s kismet or something. My
destiny.”

“Kismet?”

“Serendipity.”

“I know what it means,” Catherine smarted.

“Now I’m a genuine citizen of Nekoyah and therefore
perfectly within my rights to enter the competition. Sophie Watts won’t even
know what hit her.”

“A citizen?” she almost gagged.

“And since you are so hung up on the details,” Tara added,
completely unruffled, reaching in the pocket of her jeans. “I even filed the
paperwork. Every ‘t’ crossed; every ‘i’ dotted. Had my contest entry notarized
too, just for shits and giggles.”

Catherine was stunned, staring at the paper, trying to
wrap her head around what it meant and how any of this was possible. “Wait a
second, where the fuck do you have the money to buy a house?” she demanded, no
longer caring what she said or how old the ears who might hear it. There had to
be something hinky afoot.

“Oh, I have the money. Don’t you worry.”

“You have money?” A snarky challenge, thinking about
the Tara she’d known for years. They used to make about the same amount when
they shared a cubicle in New York. Also, Tara had lived with a whole host of
roommates in a cheap loft that screamed—
bad with money
or
poor
or
dysfunctional
on so many levels. She always assumed—

“I saved a lot over the years. And I have some family
money too.”

“Mob money?” Catherine blurted bitchily.

“We aren’t actually in the mob, you know.” Her tone
saying Catherine was being ridiculous and it was no longer funny.

“Tara, do you have any earthly idea what you’re doing
here?” She shielded her eyes from the glaring sun that was bouncing off the
snow now that it had broken through the clouds.

“I know exactly what I’m doing here.”

“Really?” Undisguised dubiousness.

“Yes, really. I’ve seen enough Christmas movies to get
the general idea.
Deck the Halls
,
Christmas Vacation
,
How the
Gr—
”

“Well, you got the Chevy Chase thing spot on,”
Catherine cut in, referencing the tangled knots of lights on the ground. “But
that isn’t what I’m talking about. And where did you get all of this stuff
anyway?”

“I called in a favor.”

“Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Why are you here anyway, Cat?” Tara demanded,
refusing to answer. “This has nothing to do with you, remember? You didn’t want
anything to do with it.”

“Damn straight it has to do with me. You’re my friend.
And people around here know it. They know that without me here, you wouldn’t be
here causing havoc.”

“Havoc? What kind of havoc?”

Catherine was silent for a moment. Buying a place and
then decorating it for Christmas was hardly something that could be elevated to
the level of havoc, but doing so just to take down a respected although
completely annoying member of the community might be construed as terrorism.
“You really couldn’t leave well enough alone,” she said instead.

“Why should I?”

“But I told you—”

“You told me not to touch your house. To keep you out of
it. That you had too much to worry about to play my reindeer games.”

“I didn’t say—”

“So I left you alone. Out of the loop. I’m not anywhere
near your house.”

Actually, Tara was
way too near
her house. “Who
does stuff like this?” Catherine asked the general landscape.

“Stranger things have happened,” Tara assured her.

“Not many.”
And even those only happen to you… or
because of you and being around you.
You
being the common denominator.
“People
think you’re nuts.”

“What do I care?”

“It’s a reflection on me.”

“That’s all everything is about for you anymore. How
does this reflect on
me
? How does this make
me
look? What about
me
?
Me. Me. Me.”

“That’s not true.”

Tara stared her down.

“I just—” But there was nothing more she could say.
Back when they were friends in New York, Tara’s quirkiness blended in with all
the other nuts and the pure volume of people made it hardly a problem. But here,
in Nekoyah, there was nowhere to hide. People knew who you were and who you ran
with and who was on top and who was on the bottom. It was like high school all
over again. And staying out of the hair of the powerful, like Sophie Watts, was
just smart living. Catherine had already tempted the fates and caused enough
problems by herself, and she’d been put in her place for it. She didn’t need
another run-in before Christmas.

“Uncle,” she blurted suddenly, taking a new tack.

“What?” Tara looked at her, panicked, like she’d just
had a seizure.

She threw her hands in the air. “I can’t take it. Put
up what you want. Fight the woman. Live here. Whatever you want. It’s your
life.” It was pointless to reason with Tara who ran on pure unregulated steam
and zest and verve, and even more frustratingly impossible to reason against
reason. Even amid Tara’s insanity, Catherine had to admire her complete
levelheadedness. Her take-no-shit-from-no-one attitude. Her grab-the-bull-by-the-horns
strength and fortitude.