D is for Drunk (15 page)

The stall looked undamaged except for a single board at the horse’s eye level. She must have reared and struck it.

Sofia stepped back and started to close the door.

“Why does he always taunt them so?” Annabelle said.

Sofia froze to listen.

“He likes it.” Pankhurst’s deep voice answered her.

“But he should let them be. He is so very cruel sometimes,” Annabelle said.

She had to mean Marcel, and the ones he was taunting must be Narek and Milena. Sofia felt a little bad about eavesdropping, but if it was for a case she practically had to. She moved back another pace so her shadow wouldn’t be visible in the doorway.

“That’s his thing,” said Pankhurst. “Always has been. You used to like it.”

“Did I?”

There was a long silence in the stable. Behind her, Sofia heard someone turn on music in the house. It wasn’t the band. It was a lot quieter.

“How’s Percy?” Pankhurst asked.

“Better. My lovely is better,” Annabelle spoke in a crooning voice. “But I hope she hasn’t injured herself.”

“Let me take a look at her.” Pankhurst’s voice faded. He must be moving around to the stall.

“I’m thinking of getting her a new stallfount,” Annabelle said. “Maybe one that’s heated. What do you think?”

Sofia wondered what a stallfount was.

“We don’t need one up here, but you treat Percy like a child,” Rick said.

“She’s the only child I’m likely to have.” Annabelle cooed at the horse.

Someone tapped on Sofia’s shoulder, and she jumped. She landed with her hands up to defend herself, Krav Maga-style.

CHAPTER 24

^“
I 
t’s me, Bambi!” Bambi held up her hands palm out. “Don’t hit me!”

“Sorry.” Sofia’s heart was ready to gallop out of her chest. She felt as jumpy as Percy.

“I’m looking for Rick.” Bambi tugged the borrowed sweatshirt down. It still didn’t cover enough.

“Inside.” Sofia pointed toward the stable door.

“I think your boyfriend is looking for you,” Bambi said. “He’s hot.”

“Aidan’s not my boyfriend,” Sofia said without thinking. She tried to correct that since they were supposed to be a couple. “We’re just here together. Trying things out.”

“Rick’s not my boyfriend either,” Bambi said. “I met him online and then met up with him at The Emoji Club before coming here.”

Rick was way too old to go to Emoji. It was one of those young people clubs with a different DJ every night.

Bambi played with the sweatshirt’s drawstring. “Or that Marcel guy either. But you never know. He seems rich.”

She looked totally at ease in Sofia’s sweatshirt, her butt hanging out in the breeze, talking about the various men in her life. Sofia kinda envied her.

“I’ll go look for Aidan,” Sofia said. “Are Marcel and Narek calmed down?”

“Is Narek the fat, old blond guy?” Bambi asked.

“Yes.” Not the most flattering description, but fairly accurate.

“Marcel seems calm. He already got dressed and he’s back inside the house with his friends. I’m going to go back in a minute, spend the night here, and I need to tell Rick that I won’t need a ride home.”

“What about Narek?” Sofia asked.

“Last I saw he was kicking his car’s tires and the dumpling with him was sitting in the front seat scowling.”

Dumpling wasn’t a very nice way to describe Milena either. Was she supposed to stick up for them because they were clients? She decided not.

“Oh,” Sofia said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

She headed back up to the giant house. Everyone was mostly inside now, but the music had been cranked up a notch. Through the front door she saw Marcel, dressed again, holding court in front of a group of admirers. He’d gotten rid of the frozen peas. She bet his recovery had more to do with the healing powers of cocaine than the peas.

Aidan stood back from Narek with his arms folded. Narek circled his car, kicked his tires one after the other with no indication he was getting tired. Not a happy guy, Narek. Milena sat in the front seat, looking like a dumpling and scowling, as Bambi had said.

“Hey,” Sofia said to Aidan. “Why’s he kicking his tires?”

“He wanted to kick something, and I said he couldn’t kick anything that didn’t belong to him,” Aidan said. “Where did you go?”

“Stable,” she answered. “Where’s the cop?”

“Over there.” He jerked his head to the side. Now she could see the police car, parked under a stand of trees with the dome light on and a resigned-looking cop watching them. “He says he’ll leave when Narek does. But both sides decided not to press charges, and the band’s packed up, so that’s good.”

Sofia looked toward the stage and whistled. “They must be the NASCAR pit crew of bands. They’re already gone.”

“We’re going to give Narek and Milena a ride home,” Aidan said. “I’ll drive Milena in her car, and you can take Narek in mine.”

“How about the other way round?” she asked.

“I think Milena might talk to me easier than you,” he said.

She couldn’t argue with that. Milena had never really spoken to her. “Did you find your drone?”

“Too many people to look,” he said. “I’ll come back for it tomorrow.”

“Like Marcel and Annabelle are going to be in a better mood tomorrow.”

“At least the police will be gone.” He patted his pockets.

“I still have your keys,” she said. “From before.”

“How did you cheat?” Aidan asked.

“Me, cheat?”

“The keys. I know you must have cheated to get my keys out of the bowl.”

“Maybe it was fate.” She wasn’t going to show him any of her tricks. “We were meant to be together.”

Aidan looked away.

“Can we leave?” Narek had worked his way back around to them. He had blood all over the front of his shirt, and his nose was starting to swell. Nobody had given him a bag of frozen peas.

Milena climbed out of the car, and Sofia tensed.

“Your keys,” Milena said to Narek.

Aidan held them up. They had a purple rabbit’s foot on them. Lucky.

Milena snatched the keys out of his hand and turned to Narek. “I’ll be at my mother’s.”

“But.” Narek held out his hands to her. “We—”

She slammed the car door and laid down a track of rubber on her way down the driveway. Marcel wouldn’t be happy when he saw those marks later.

Narek let his hands fall to his sides and watched Milena’s red taillights.

Now they were down to one car. That meant Sofia was going to have to cram herself into the third seat in the Porsche. It was exactly the right size to hold a bag of groceries or a small dog. But Narek was the client, and she was the smallest one in the group. The protocol was pretty clear.

Annabelle and Rick walked out of the barn, hand in hand. Bambi flounced behind them in Sofia’s sweatshirt. Rick opened the door of his truck for Annabelle, waited for her to climb in, then closed it after her. Gentlemanly manners. Then he got in on his side, started it up, and the truck passed by, leaving only the smell of diesel exhaust.

Bambi waved once, then hiked up to the house, her bare bottom bouncing in the moonlight.

“Isn’t that your sweatshirt?” asked Aidan.

“I guess I know where you’re looking,” Sofia said. “At the shirt.”

“At the whole picture,” Aidan said. “She’s a lot better looking naked than Marcel.”

Narek cleared his throat.

That was Sofia’s signal to get into the car so they could get off this hill. Narek climbed in after and slammed the Lemon Drop’s door. Aidan looked as if he was about to say something, then shook his head, and got into the car himself.

Narek didn’t say a word during the short ride back to his mansion. He stared straight ahead, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching as if he were chewing on something. She supposed he was. For her part, Sofia was feeling queasy again.

“Maybe your dad was right about this case,” she said after they left a silent Narek out at his front door.

“Happy people don’t hire detectives.” Aidan was driving at his usual crawl. But at least she was in the front seat and didn’t have anywhere she needed to be.

She stared out across the neatly ordered rows of grape vines shining. “Sometimes they’re happier after we finish our job.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen here.” Aidan took a turn so slowly she was pretty sure she could have pushed the car through it faster. “It makes me glad I have my checklist.”

“You think a checklist is going to keep you from having problems in your fictional future marriage?”

“
Doesn’t believe in extra-marital sex
is on there,” he said. “And I’m adding
No sex parties
.”

“That’ll solve all your problems.” She wasn’t sure why she was picking on him. She might not have a formal checklist, but those two items were certainly on her ‘no’ list.

“I don’t know how you worked it with the keys,” he said. “But thanks.”

“There’s no one you’d rather have handcuff you to a pole than me.” She laughed.

Aidan stiffened. “At that party, anyway.”

“Bambi was kind of cute.”

“She fails the
no sex parties
test.”

“Technically,
we
fail that test now, too.”

“That was for work,” he said.

“So you’d be fine with a woman who attended sex parties for work?”

“Meanwhile, back at the case,” he said. “Now we know why Narek and Marcel are feuding, and it isn’t about water.”

“Not mainly.” She looked down at the silvery ocean in the distance. “But both of them think the other is stealing their water. That’s weird.”

“Maybe they’re losing that much to evaporation. They farm about the same amount, so they probably lose the same amount, too.”

“Maybe.” She wasn’t happy with that answer, but she didn’t have a better one.

CHAPTER 25

S
ofia walked up the path to her trailer. The ocean shone in the moonlight, and the waves crashed and broke ceaselessly. It reminded her life could be simple and eternal. It didn’t have to be mean and petty.

She was pretty calm by the time she got to her trailer. Then she saw a dark figure standing on her porch. He had his hand in a bag, and he smelled of fish.

“Gray?” she called. “Is that you?”

He threw a tiny silvery fish into the air, and Fred dove to catch it before it hit the porch. “It’s not like I’d say I was a killer if I was.”

She used to think she had the only nocturnal seagull in the world, but she’d since discovered that lots of gulls stayed up late if they thought there was food in it for them. Fred, she suspected, had some kind of bird alarm around her trailer, because he flew in any time he thought he’d get something good.

She climbed the stairs and leaned next to Gray, butt against the cold porch railing. “What’re you feeding Fred?”

“I figured all that bologna can’t be good for him, so I got some fresh jack mackerel.” Gray tossed another one and Fred swooped down for it. “I saw your lights were off this evening, and I thought you might not be home tonight to feed him.”

“Thanks, Gray,” she said. “But why would I be out all night?”

“Work.” He smiled that slow, sexy smile that made millions of women around the world fantasize about having him on their porch. Not that it would do them any good.

“Did Emily tell you?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I also read about it online. I hear you’re basically dating Legolas, from
Lord of the Rings
.”

“His name is Jaxon,” she said. “And he’s a man, not an elf.”

“He looks pretty damn manly in the pictures,” Gray said. “I’m jealous.”

“Do you want tea?”

“I brought decaf Earl Grey.” He held up another bag. “In case you came home after all. And digestive biscuits.”

Digestive biscuits were a British thing. They tasted like sweetened cardboard, but Gray loved them. “Yay for the biscuits.”

“I also brought some chocolate chip cookies,” he said. “For American infidels who can’t appreciate the taste of British food.”

She unlocked her door and turned off her alarm while Gray tore open the bag of fish and left it on her porch.

“Don’t get used to this, Fred,” she said. “Tomorrow it’s back to pizza and bologna.”

An hour later, they’d almost made it through the pot of tea, the cookies, and the details about Jaxon.

“What’s
ortolans
?” she asked, remembering Bambi’s comment at the party. Gray knew all kinds of stuff.

“It’s a French delicacy,” he said. “But it’s too terrible, and you shouldn’t eat it.”

“Worse than your digestive biscuits?”

“These are good for you.” He took the last one. “
Ortolans
might taste fine, but it’s how they’re harvested that’s the problem.”

“Harvested? Are they some kind of fruit?”

“An
ortolan
is a kind of bird,” he said. “They have them in Europe, although I think they’re eating them to extinction.”

“But you eat chicken, so what’s the big deal?”

“
Ortolans
are caught wild, with nets. Then they are blinded and kept in a small cage to fatten them up, and then they are drowned in cognac.”

The cookies threatened to come back up. “That’s horrible! Why isn’t it illegal?”

“It is,” he said.

She pulled up the pictures on her phone. She’d taken pictures of the cheese plate, and she’d only had cheese and fruit. She hadn’t eaten one of those poor birds. In fact, she hadn’t even seen any birds on the food table.

“That cheese is illegal, too.” Gray pointed to a round cheese. “It used to be imported from Corsica, but the FDA made it illegal. Something about cheese maggots.”

“Cheese maggots?” She tried to remember if she’d eaten it. She hoped not.

“I used to date a guy who worked at the FDA,” he said. “If you want to report it. The cheese probably isn’t that big a deal, but the
ortolans
are. They’re endangered.”