Blind Dates Can Be Murder (26 page)

As friends, they didn’t usually hold hands, but there was something about having him there, showing affection to her in that way, that brought tears to her eyes.

“So how do you let yourself love,” he asked gently, “if that’s the kind of lessons you were given as a child?”

Jo swiped at her damp eyes and tried to smile.

“I guess it’s a cognitive thing. You tell yourself she was wrong. That she was cruel. You try not to learn the lesson she was teaching.”

“And have you been able to do that?”

She shrugged.

“I hope so. I’m still looking for true love.”

The afternoon was not going the way Danny wanted it to. He hadn’t realized the extent of the shadow that Jo’s visit with her grandmother would cast. Though Jo smiled and talked and threw the occasional stick for Chewie, he could see in her eyes that she was hurting.

Still, he was confident that he could turn the day around yet. He just needed to cheer her up. He tried joking and chatting, though once they rounded the final bend, he found himself growing speechless. There, in the middle of the woods, was an amazing waterfall at least three stories high, the water plunging down a series of rock ledges into a deep pool at the base.

The waterfall was natural, but the area around it had been neatly landscaped, with large boulders and blooming daffodils and even a bench at the end of the path.

“You said waterfall, and I was picturing a little something like ten feet high!” he cried excitedly. “This is gorgeous.”

“Yeah. I could do without the landscaping, but what do you expect in a gated community? They gotta neaten up nature the best they can.”

Chewie was so excited that he accidentally plunged into the pool at the foot of the falls. He began flopping around as he tried to get back out again. The rocks were slippery, preventing him from getting a foothold. Danny handed Jo the picnic basket, waded in up to his thighs, grabbed Chewie by the rump, and gave him a big shove. That got Chewie out, but the momentum caused Danny to lose his balance. He fell backward into the water, an icy shock that actually took his breath away.

“Oh, no!” Jo cried, but she was laughing so hard that she had to hold her stomach. And though Danny was so cold that his teeth were chattering, once he got back on his feet and he began to slip, he let himself fall again, just to keep her laughing.

Once he climbed out, water poured off him in rivulets. Jo apologized for laughing, but even as she did, she was still giggling.

“Take your shirt off,” she instructed.

As he did, she rooted through the picnic basket and came out with the blanket.

“We were going to use this as ground cover,” she said, “but we can sit on the bench instead.”

Danny handed Jo his wet shirt and undershirt and then wrapped up in the blanket, glad at least that it was a warm afternoon. The wet pants weren’t going to be very comfortable, but he’d been through worse. And Jo seemed so much better now that it had been worth it.

She wrung out his shirts and draped them across a big rock before asking him if he were hungry. He was starving. Sitting cross-legged on the wide bench, facing each other, they shared the lunch she had prepared. Except for the wet pants and being wrapped up in a blanket, Danny thought the moment couldn’t be more perfect. Conversation was light and almost flirty, the laughter easy. Even Chewie seemed happily subdued, resting on the ground at the foot of the bench and enjoying the sunshine.

“Jo, who
has
this?” Danny teased, holding up a round plastic container with eight shallow depressions, each filled with a deviled egg. “To store my food, I’m lucky if I can find a Ziploc baggie or an old cottage cheese container. You have Tupperware specifically designed for carrying deviled eggs.”

Jo smiled, took the container from him, and opened it up. Holding it out to him, she seemed pleased when he grabbed one and popped it into his mouth.

“Love me, love my Tupperware,” she said. “It’s just something simple that makes life easier.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you could say that simple solutions are your specialty,” Danny told her after he swallowed, thinking it was the best deviled egg he’d ever had. Jo nibbled at one as well, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin.

“If simple solutions are my specialty,” she said, “then why’s my love life so complicated?”

“Maybe it’s time to simplify that too,” he said, feeling that the moment was right. “Are you ready to hear what I came here to tell you?”

She studied him, an intrigued anticipation on her face.

“I guess so,” she said. “Though I’m just a little nervous.”

“Don’t be, Jo. I’ve got two things to share with you. One I’ve just learned. The other I’ve known for some time.”

Chuck’s tier got library time on Sunday afternoons, and though Chuck usually took a pass, today he thought he’d visit one last time, read a few news magazines, and try to catch up on the outside world.

It was easier to let things go here, to pretend that nothing existed beyond the walls of the prison. But now that he was getting out, he didn’t want to be stupid or uninformed. He sat by the window for more than an hour, flipping through the last year’s worth of
Time
and
Newsweek
. He skimmed the headlines and read a few articles and mostly couldn’t help thinking how it was always more of the same: another dirty politician who got busted, another natural disaster somewhere in the world, another treatment for cancer.

Cancer.

He held a
Newsweek
open in his lap, ignoring the article and the blown-up photos of cancer cells, and thought about the day he learned his mother had cancer. She was a saint, that woman, as perfect as the day was long. When she told him the doctor said she was probably dying, that she had leukemia, Chuck had driven his fist straight through the wall.

She hung on a good long while. Trooper that she was, she never complained, never cried. Lettie had really come through in a big way then, cooking meals she thought his mother might eat, taking her to the doctor, cleaning up after her when she was sick. Chuck had really laid off of Lettie then, because he knew the last thing his mother needed to see was how badly he had to discipline his wife. As awful a time as that was, it was also relatively peaceful—at least until the insurance company turned down the doctor’s request for a bone marrow transplant.

Experimental treatment
, they said.
Procedure denied
.

It seemed that no matter what Chuck did or how many threatening letters he sent or how much he yelled, they wouldn’t listen to reason.

The day his mother died, Chuck got through the funeral and then got drunk. He lost the next four days in a haze, and all he knew for sure was that when he came out of it, he was in bed with two of Mickey’s strippers. Otherwise, that time was a complete blank.

Once he sobered up, though, Chuck had had his work cut out for him. He didn’t know when, he didn’t know how, but he knew one thing: The insurance company would get what was coming to them.

He looked down now at the photo of the cancer cells and thought how colorful they were, how deceptively pretty. It was too bad Silver Shield Insurance Company had denied that claim.

In the end, they got what was coming to them.

“Okay, big news item number one,” Danny said, his eyes gleaming. “Yesterday morning I got an important phone message.”

Jo’s mind raced, but she couldn’t imagine what he was about to tell her.

“It was from Stockmasters,” he continued, “one of the companies that handles the sales of my stock photos.”

“Yeah…”

“It seems that my big break has finally arrived.”

Jo’s eyes flew wide open.

“Let me guess,” she said. “They’re using one of your pictures in a calendar.”

“Better than that,” he replied, grinning. “A movie poster. For Twentieth Century Fox.”

Jo’s mouth also flew open, but it took a good ten seconds for the squeal to come out.

“Oh, Danny!” she cried, throwing her arms around him. “That’s so exciting! What’s the movie?”

He hugged her back, the blanket slipping from his shoulders. After a moment, she realized that her cheek was against his bare shoulder. Blinking, she pulled back, startled at the warmth of his skin. She hadn’t realized he was quite so…muscular.

“I don’t know what the movie is,” he said. “I don’t even know which photo they want. They just said it’s for background, so I’m guess they’ll superimpose the stars’ faces over it or something.”

“Incredible. And you learned this when?”

“There was a message on my machine from Friday afternoon, but I didn’t realize it until yesterday morning. I tried calling Stockmasters then, but they’re closed for the weekend. I won’t find out any more about it until tomorrow.”

“You have
got
to be kidding!” she said, squealing again. Her noise disturbed Chewie, who got up and began sniffing around in the grass.

Jo was so happy for Danny. He deserved every bit of this success and more. “Will you be rich?”

He laughed.

“I’ll be better off than I was before. What the heck, I might even be able to afford some decent steaks for the grill. How about when the poster comes out, we have a little party?”

“I would love that,” Jo said, “but only if you let me throw it for you. Like, a congratulations thing. It’s the least I can do for my best friend.”

The smile on Danny’s face flickered a bit. That was when Jo remembered that he had two news items for her. If the second thing was as exciting as the first, they’d have one heck of a party.