6 Martini Regrets (16 page)

CHAPTER 31

The day before our trip to Dancing Lady Island, I went into the office to get the mask Ethan had given me. I wanted to have it framed in a shadow box to put behind the bar. The Sunset was slowly turning into a repository for bits of my life and was barely still on the side of tasteful, but there was room for one more treasure, especially one as beautiful as the black swan.

As my hand stroked the black feathers of the mask into place, I saw a small package on my desk. I set the mask down, took scissors from a cracked mug and cut across the top of the bubble wrap.

Inside was a pink flip-flop. No message, just the colorful rubber footwear with a red hibiscus on the instep. The shoe dropped to the desk as I sank down onto my chair and stared at it. What the hell did it mean?

Tully came in without knocking and I jerked back in startled fear, shooting the chair into the walnut bookcases behind me.

“What?” he said and stopped.

I was unable to answer.

He walked towards me. “What’s happened?”

I swallowed and pointed at the thing on my desk. “I was wearing that when I went to the gas bar.”

He reached for the flip-flop, turning it over in his hands. “What’s it doing here?”

I shook my head.

“You must have some idea how it got here. Did it just appear on your desk?”

I pointed to the empty envelope. “It came in the mail.”

He picked it up and looked at the postage stamp before he squeezed the envelope open and stared inside. Then he went to the door, glancing up and down the hall before closing it firmly. He came back to the desk. “Is it a threat?”

“Maybe. I lost one at the gas bar, but I don’t remember what happened to the other. It doesn’t matter. They know I was there. It was sent by someone who was also there that night.”

He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, Sherri, what have you got yourself into?”

I gave a choked laugh. “You know how many times I’ve heard you say those words?” I followed this with “Don’t tell Clay, will you?”

“Why?”

I couldn’t really say why I didn’t want Clay to know except that he was happy, excited about the future and our life together. I didn’t want to screw things up for him. What was I thinking? I’d already done that.

Tully collapsed on the chair across from my desk. “He has to know. He has to be able to protect you.”

The defiant part of me wanted to say I could look after myself, but it wasn’t true. It’s one thing to protect yourself from an enemy when you can identify them, but just who was I trying to protect myself from now? I tried to figure out why my flip-flop had been sent back to me. The only thing I could come up with was it was a ploy to make me do something. If I had the orchid, this definitely would make me get rid of it.

“Tell Clay,” Tully said.

I made a face.

“And I’m following you home.” He raised a hand to stop me from arguing, but I’d only been going to say, “Thanks.”

Clay was already asleep when I got home. I didn’t wake him.

My cold was still hanging on when I awoke to the sound of a lawn mower. Clay, determined to be the best little suburbanite ever, was mowing the sand that sprouted random blades of grass, but mostly weeds, in our backyard.

I checked the time. It was shortly after seven. I hadn’t fallen asleep until just about four. Not quite enough sleep for me, but no way was I going to get more with that annoying racket. I headed for the shower.

The coffee was finished dripping when Clay came in, grass clippings clinging to his jeans and sweat plastering his white tee to his chest. It was already in the high seventies and almost a hundred percent humidity. It was going to be a scorcher.

His hair was rumpled and his face was flushed from beating back nature, almost cute enough to stop me from telling him a few home truths about how much I liked being wakened by a lawn mower.

He lounged against the counter and drank his coffee without comment while I expanded on the theme.

My anger ran down, and I refilled my coffee cup and went to stand beside him, staring out the window at the unfinished house behind us. Clay had mowed neatly to the edge of the tall jungle. Behind that, the concrete-block walls of the house had blackened with mold, and the bare plywood on the roof was discolored and lifting. The holes left in the blocks for windows stared back at me like unseeing eyes. The next builder who came along would probably knock the whole structure down and start over.

“I got a present in the mail yesterday,” I said.

I turned my head to face Clay. He lifted his eyes to me and waited.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what it was?”

Slumped against the counter, one hand on the granite and the other holding the mug, he lifted his shoulder and said, “You wouldn’t have brought it up if you weren’t going to tell me.”

I’ve always figured conversation is a give-and-take kind of thing, but with Clay it was often a delivery of information from one person to another, and nothing more. He never felt it necessary to put in the extra morsel of chatter, the normal bits and pieces of everyday dialogue, so he just waited and listened until I dumped it all out there.

“Someone mailed one of my pink flip-flops back to me.”

This time I got a reaction. He jolted to his feet, no longer detached. He stared at me and then looked out the window for a minute before turning back to me. “But you have no idea who sent it, right?”

“Of course I don’t know who sent it.” But that wasn’t true. “Yes, I do.” I set my mug in the sink. “The guy who killed Tito sent it.”

“When did you get this package?”

“Yesterday.”

“And you’re only telling me now?”

I winced and folded my arms across my chest. “I was shocked, and I wanted to think about what it meant before I could talk about it. Besides, you were asleep when I got home.”

“You . . .” I could see he was searching for a nonconfrontational way to say what was on his mind. “Well . . .” He smiled. “You have a pretty active imagination.”

“What happened out in the Everglades wasn’t my imagination.”

“I know,” he soothed. “I know you were scared and it’s made you panicky and jumpy.”

“Only a fool wouldn’t be nervous, given the circumstances.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak calmly, to bring my voice back in the register where humans and not just dogs could hear it. “Doesn’t the fact that someone sent me that shoe say something?”

His thumbs rubbed back and forth on the smooth surface of his coffee mug as he stared straight ahead at the skeleton of a house.

“What?” I asked.

He shrugged.

And then it hit me. “You think I sent that thing to myself?”

He turned to me. “I think you’re angry because you believe I don’t take this as seriously as you’d like me to. You’d like some proof that it isn’t over, that someone out there is watching you and waiting to pounce . . . something real to account for the way you feel.”

“That’s just crazy.” Which was exactly his point. I sucked in air, struggling for calm. But how do you prove you aren’t crazy? “Clay, listen to me. I did not put that thing in the mail. Someone else did.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know, but it proves it isn’t over.”

“Ahh,” he said and nodded as if I’d just confirmed what he was saying. “When you decided not to tell anyone about Tito stealing your truck, it was over. That was your choice. And that put an end to it. Don’t keep trying to show there’s still something going on.”

He really believed I’d put that flip-flop in the mail. I was so shocked I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tell him he was full of shit. Big tears began to run down my cheeks and drip off my chin.

“Come here.” He tried to turn me around to face him, but I went rigid.

I put my hands on his chest and shoved him away. “I’m not lying to you.” I wiped away my tears with the flat of my hand.

“Okay. Call Styles and tell him everything. Turn it over to him, like you should have done weeks ago.”

While Clay went to shower, I called Styles. I got a message that he was out of the office until Friday. I was given a number to call if it was an emergency. This was Thursday, and we were off to spend the night on Dancing Lady Island, so Friday was the perfect time to talk to Styles. Besides, it let me put off a nasty task a bit longer. Avoiding difficult things has always worked for me.

CHAPTER 32

We were leaving for Liz’s after lunch, so I headed into the Sunset to make sure everything was in order. It wasn’t. I called two suppliers and let them know exactly how unhappy I was with their delivery system, and then, feeling mean enough to chew horseshoes and spit tacks, I called a kitchen employee who was an hour late and told him not to bother showing up—ever.

I wasn’t done with my very bad mood or the orchid party yet. I was stocking the bar when Martin Faust came in. He stopped just inside the door and looked around with a slight curl of contempt on his lip. My temper went into overdrive. The son of a bitch had the nerve to look down his nose at my bar, the best one on the Mangrove Coast—right there and then my patience ended.

When he got in front of me, I growled, “Doesn’t matter what you want, I ain’t got it. Get out.”

He jerked back in astonishment. “What?”

“You heard me. I don’t want you in my place—not you, not your wife, not any of your friends. My bar is off-limits to you.”

Faust’s stunned surprise nearly matched my own, but I’d already put up with enough shit for a lifetime.

His commitment to his quest was greater than my nastiness. He said, “I don’t want a drink.”

“That’s good because you aren’t getting one.”

The guy sitting on a stool to my left, pretending not to listen, let out a snort of laughter. Faust didn’t even blink. “I want the black orchid.”

“I don’t have it.”

His eyes narrowed and he studied me.

“Beat it.” I said it louder this time, in case he was deaf.

He didn’t move. It seemed neither rudeness nor anger was new to him. He said, “I’ll pay you well.”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“Why were you at the Orchid Ball? You’re the only one who would pull a stunt like that, putting the orchid on the table.” He jabbed a finger in my direction. “It was you.”

I turned away from him, went to the door of the kitchen and pushed it open. “Miguel, come here for a minute.” I started to turn away but pivoted back to add, “And bring your attitude adjuster; there’s a guy out here in need of it.”

Martin Faust may have been a smart man, but he knew nothing about angry women fighting a head cold, bartenders or a Mexican chef who grew up in a really tough neighborhood.

Miguel came through the door with a meat cleaver in his hand, looked around the room and then at me. Miguel raised his eyebrows, asking a question.

I pointed at Faust. “Him.”

“Oh,” Faust said, bouncing on his toes with anxiety. “Oh,” he said again before he scurried away like a rat fleeing a flooding ship.

“He wasn’t much fun,” Miguel said.

“Yeah, don’t you hate it when people don’t live up to their potential?”

Miguel grinned and went back to the kitchen while the three locals at the bar, finishing their two-martini lunches, clapped and cheered. They had one more story to add to their Sherri chronicles. A girl can get a real bad reputation without even trying.

I dug in my purse for more aspirin.

I’d just unlocked the pickup when a voice behind me called, “Hi there.”

I turned to see Ethan coming towards me. “Hi yourself.”

“I was heading in for lunch, but it looks like I won’t have anyone to talk to. It makes my day to lunch with you.”

I smiled. “Sorry, today’s the day we go out to Liz’s island.” I threw my purse onto the passenger seat.

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “I forgot about that.” He bent over a little, gazing up into my face and studying me. “You don’t look too excited about it. Don’t seem happy at all.”

“Head cold.” I slid behind the wheel. “Not much could excite me today.”

He laughed, started to say something and then caught himself. “Have fun.” He walked over to a Cadillac Escalade, digging out his keys. Obviously it took more than the best pastrami on rye in town to make him hang around.

My cell rang while I was packing. I threw my black bikini at my bag, not caring if it made the trip or not, and answered the call without checking the caller
ID
. The phone is my lifeline to the Sunset, and I pretty much never duck a call.

Sasha said, “You’ve been checking up on me.”

I flopped backwards onto the bed. “Nope, only Willow. I just wanted to know she was okay.” I watched the ceiling fan slowly turn. “Do you mind?”

He took his time answering. When he did, he surprised me by saying, “Bossy, concerned and pushy, just like my mother.”

“Oh, shit, I don’t want to remind any man of his mother.”

He laughed. “Have you found the orchid yet?”

I swallowed a curse and put my forearm over my aching head. “I’m not looking for it.”

“Like hell you aren’t. Why are you hanging with Ethan?”

“He and Clay have business.”

“And how did that come about?”

Did I owe him an answer? Not really, but the sooner I convinced him I knew nothing about nothing, the sooner he’d bugger off. “Ethan came into the Sunset and met Clay, or maybe he met Clay and then came into the Sunset. I don’t know. Ask Ethan if you’re so curious.”

“Like I thought, Ethan came looking for you, and the only reason he’d do that was because he thought you had the orchid.”

Or because he thought I knew Tito. Best to keep that to myself. “Look, instead of wasting my time, just call Ethan and ask him to satisfy your curiosity.”

He gave a harsh laugh and said, “It’s all the same to me how you got in the middle of this. I just want the black orchid.”

I sat up, making the room swirl. “Trust me, if I had that stupid flower I’d sell it to you in a second just to get rid of you all. Everyone at the ball has called, or come by, looking for it. If I knew anything about the freaking thing I’d have sold it already and be on the way to the bank with the money.”

Silence. Finally he said, “Who are you working for?”

I bit back a string of obscenities. “Not buying, not selling, not working for anyone. Cross my heart. Ben got in touch with you and tried to sell it to you, right?”

“Sure, that’s no secret. Half the people at the Orchid Ball were on Ben’s list . . . except Ethan. Ben would never sell to him.”

Or Nina, but there was no need for me to tell Sasha that.

Sasha said, “The orchid was going to the highest bidder. Ben told us that from the beginning. This was the owner’s chance to get his name on a new species; immortality, that’s what we were all buying. And Ben was looking to clear his debt.”

“So maybe Ben got an offer he couldn’t refuse and sold it before he died.”

“I thought about that. If Ben had a really good offer, he would have called us all back and tried to get us to up the price, but he didn’t. That means he still had it, was still collecting names and deals. Trust me; he was going to turn it into an auction with the black going to the highest bidder.”

“So then, it went up in the fire with him.”

“If that’s true, there’s no use looking any further. You were my last chance.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. Goodbye.”

“Wait, wait,” he said before I could put the phone down. “It couldn’t have gone in the fire. There was that bloom at the Orchid Ball. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t.”

“Are you certain Ethan doesn’t have the black? If Ethan has it, no one will ever see it again.”

I sighed. “Ethan didn’t know it existed until after Ben died.”

“Not quite true,” Sasha said.

“What do you mean, not quite true?”

“Ethan knew Ben had a black orchid.”

“How?”

“I told him. I called Ethan three days before Ben died. Ethan told me he knew nothing about any black orchid, said he and Ben hadn’t talked in years. I checked around after I talked to Ethan and he was telling the truth. The brothers had a nasty breakup, so it was unlikely Ethan knew what was happening at Osceola Nursery. All the same, once I told him about it, he would have checked it out.”

My head, already swollen with a virus, couldn’t take it in. “Ethan lied?”

“If he told you he didn’t know about the black until after Ben’s death, he lied.” His laughter had a spiteful, grating edge to it. “I’m positive Ethan didn’t know about the plant until I told him. I thought he was going to stroke out.” He laughed again, like he enjoyed upsetting Ethan.

I planted my elbow on my knee and put my head in my hand, staring at the floor and trying to decide if I really believed Sasha.

Sasha said, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah.” It was all I could manage.

He said, “Call me if you find the orchid.” It was more a demand than a request.

“Yeah, and I’ll call if I find an alien spacecraft or Bigfoot.” And just to annoy him, I added, “What happens when Willow gets out?”

“I’m through with her.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“Well, I would have expected you to just kick her to the curb when her bad habits got out of control, but you put her in rehab. Doesn’t sound like you’re done.”

He hung up. How many men did that make who’d hung up on me this week? I was losing my appeal.