Death on Demand (2 page)

“Look, Max, it’s great to hear from you. But I’ve got to make some phone calls, something I have to attend to.”

Unintentionally, the worry throbbing deep inside spilled over into her voice. She knew he heard it just as clearly as she did.

“What’s wrong, Annie?” The light tone was gone.

“Nothing big,” she said lightly. “Just some stuff with the shop.”

“You’re upset.”

She took a deep breath. Upset was putting it mildly; and if she didn’t get busy on the phone right this minute …

“Max, it isn’t your problem.”

“Come on, my love. What’s upset you?”

She forced a laugh. “Nothing. I just need to cancel a party for tonight.”

“Where’s the party?”

She was so obsessed with her problem that she’d forgotten everybody didn’t know. “It’s here at the bookstore.”

“Bookstore? Oh, hey, I like that—Death On Demand.”

She glanced at the clock. “Look, Max, it’s swell to talk to you.” It wasn’t swell. She steadied her voice—good, straight, crisp inflection. Good girl, Annie. Always knew there was a superb actress in you. “But I’ve got to get off the phone and cancel that party.”

“Don’t cancel it, Annie. You know I love a good party.”

She stiffened. “Look, Max, you
are
in New York, aren’t you?”

He chuckled. “Not by a long damn shot. See you at the party.”

The line went dead. Annie glared at the humming receiver.

He couldn’t be in South Carolina.

Max here
. She looked out the front windows of the shop at the green water surging against the rock wall of the harbor. He couldn’t actually be here.

Before she could assimilate the thought and order her emotions, her heart—that untrustworthy, undisciplined, irritating member—gave a happy leap.

Annie banged down the receiver. All right. Let him come. If he’d ferreted out her new home, followed her down here, just let him come. She’d never change her mind, no matter how much he piled on his careless charm.

They were poles apart, and apart they should stay.

She was poor.

Max was rich.

She’d grown up in a shabby frame house in a Texas prairie town.

Max had lived in lots of houses: a white stone mansion high above a Connecticut river, a rambling, weathered summer home with its own tennis court on Long Island, a penthouse high above Fifth Avenue, a medieval castle near a Scottish loch.

She’d scrimped through school on a drama scholarship.

Max lounged languidly through Princeton.

She liked life to be foursquare, aboveboard, and predictable.

He delighted in ambiguities, disdained certainties, and loved above anything to puncture pretensions.

But oh how happiness bubbled inside her. Max in South Carolina.

Footsteps sounded on the wooden porch. The shop was closed on Sundays, so it couldn’t be a customer.

But it was. Annie felt a spurt of irritation and wished she had a flag just like Dell Shannon’s, complete with a striking snake and the legend DONT TREAD ON ME, to hoist outside the main door when she wished to be undisturbed. Of course, Shannon raised her flag when she was hard at work on a new Luis Mendoza. And Annie doubted whether any flag would ward off Mrs. Brawley, who now stood with her fox-sharp nose squashed against the north window. Her snapping black eyes quite clearly saw Annie standing beside the cash desk next to the phone. Trust Mrs. Brawley. She must have followed Annie here from the early service at St. Mary’s-By-The-Sea.

Mrs. Brawley tapped on the window.

Mrs. Brawley bought books by the
carload.

Resignedly, Annie moved through the foyer. She opened the door and stepped out onto the slatted wooden planks of the verandah which fronted all the shops. The smile she managed wasn’t exactly hospitable, but it would do for a Sunday morning.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brawley, Death On Demand isn’t open now. I’m just here to catch up on—”

Mrs. Brawley had learned early on in life that persistence might outrage, but it was effective. She ignored Annie’s opening salvo.

“Miss Laurance, you
promised
you would get the latest Mrs. Pollifax for me. I came by the store Friday, and here it is Sunday, and I thought it might have come in on the late ferry yesterday. Couldn’t you just check your shipments and see?”

But Annie, standing with the shop door open, wasn’t listening. Her eyes were on the tall figure striding negligently across the plaza, obviously en route to Death On Demand. A wolfish smile exposed strong white teeth as Elliot Morgan looked up and saw her discomfiture.

Elliot Morgan. The last person in the world she wanted to see right now.

M
ax pressed the switch on the dash and a softly humming electric motor opened the Porsche’s sunroof. The marsh-scented air swirled gently around him. Damn, he liked this country! Enormous pines hugged the narrow blacktop. The dense woodland was broken by watery stretches where golden-stalked grasses rimmed dark green pools. He began to whistle, a slightly off-key but cheerful rendering of an almost forgotten tune about a happy wanderer. And that’s what he was, a happy wanderer. His goal was almost at hand.

Annie.

He frowned slightly. Annie with her sunny smile and serious gray eyes. Flyaway hair that couldn’t quite decide between spun gold and chipmunk brown. His happy … Max’s frown deepened. Not so happy at the moment, from the sound of her voice when they talked that morning. Well, whatever it was, he would soon put it right.

Coolness suddenly tingled beneath the warm sweep of air as a cloud briefly obscured the sun. He looked up, then squinted against the brightness as the cloud sped on. A road sign flashed by. Broward’s Bock Ferry, 5 Miles. He grinned and again sounded the song’s refrain. Nice place, all right. But he would be happy slogging up a rutted trail in the Mojave Desert if Annie waited at journey’s end. Still, South Carolina charmed him, although this narrow road left a little to be desired. Finally the Texaco truck straddling the center line pulled off into a two-pump
country station. For the moment, the road lay straight and empty before him.

Leaning forward, he pressed the accelerator. The Porsche leaped ahead, and the handful of varicolored speeding tickets jammed behind the visor fluttered hard.

Intent on her mission, Mrs. Brawley ignored Elliot Morgan. “I don’t want to be a bother,” she prodded, clearly not meaning a word of it, “but if you will just
check
your storeroom.” Her ingratiating smile had all the charm of the shark in
Jaws.

“Mrs. Brawley, I phoned the publisher on Friday to place a special order, but even special orders take a few days.”

The sharp eyes flickered past Annie to the open bookstore door. “I talked to Mr. Parotti and asked him if you received any packages this weekend. He said you did.”

Annie accepted defeat.

Both Mrs. Brawley and Elliot followed her down the central aisle, and they all turned left to troop into the storeroom at the back, where Annie slit open the shipping carton and displayed forty copies of the latest Dick Francis—and nothing else, despite Mrs. Brawley’s energetically skeptical probes into the packing material.

“Well,” she sighed. “I do so
want
that latest Mrs. Pollifax.”

Annie took her firmly by the elbow, without a great deal of subtlety, and tugged her away from the storeroom.

When they were even with the watercolors displayed along the back wall, Mrs. Brawley jerked to a stop.

“Miss Laurance, I’ve just got one question about that second one—”

“No hints,” Annie replied firmly, and gave a little shove toward the central corridor.

Deigning to move, Mrs. Brawley twisted her head to stare back at the paintings.

“These are just
too
hard,” she complained peevishly. She hugged a worn brown purse to her skinny chest and wriggled her bony shoulders in irritation. Then her face brightened. “I’m ahead of everyone else. This time I’m going to win. Just you wait and see.” She shook free of
Annie’s restraining fingers. “If I figure out that one, then I’m going to be the winner this month—and I’ll get my Mrs. Pollifax free.” She peered anxiously at Annie. “Have you heard anything about it? Is it supposed to be as good as the others?”

“I’m sure it will be wonderful, and I’ll call you as soon as it arrives.” One last push, and Mrs. Brawley was out the door and onto the porch.

Annie closed the door, took a deep breath, and turned to face Elliot Morgan.

“One of the joys of running a bookstore—dealing with book lovers,” he observed.

“Don’t enjoy it so much,” she said sourly. “I was just going to phone you.”

He grinned. Again she was reminded of a wolf, dark eyes deep set, pugnacious jaw. He stood at ease beside the enormous stuffed raven which perched on a pedestal just inside the door. The raven’s feathers shone a glossy black, uncannily like Elliots hair.

“Two minds that work as one?” he inquired lightly. “I dropped by to see if you wanted to lunch at Smuggler’s Inn.”

Annie was nonplussed, then infuriated. How could he possibly think she would lunch with him—ever—after his performance last week at the meeting of the Sunday Night Regulars? She stared at him, feeling wordless rage begin to boil.

He looked down at her, his darkly handsome face tilted. When she’d first met him, she’d been mildly impressed. Physically, Elliot was an imposing man—tall, lean, and well-built, with a bold, uncompromising Roman face. She realized now that he always turned a little to the left to present his best profile. He had the same pose on his most recent book jacket. That book sat right now in a ten-deep pile on a table behind her that held local authors’ latest efforts.

Annie had never before felt the urge to engage in book burning.

Still, maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she could keep disaster from happening.

She made a muscle-hard effort to sound pleasant. “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh?” Another wolfish smile. “Now what could you want to talk to me about?”

A dull flush spread over her face.
Oh, Lord, don’t let me lose my temper.
He was obviously going to be difficult.

Quirking an inquiring eyebrow, he lit one of his ever-present, abominable Turkish cigarettes.

“Those are going to make you very sick someday,” Annie commented through clenched teeth. A wisp of acrid smoke spiraled past the No Smoking sign prominently posted over the raven’s head.

He shrugged. “If I need a nursemaid, I’ll pick a nubile Swedish import. Besides, living too long is folly.”

“If you keep on the way you’re going, you may not live past tonight.”

That amused him.

“Are some of the pigs squealing?”

“Elliot, these are your friends. Why are you doing this?”

“So who needs friends?”

“Who do you think you are, Sam Spade?”

“I was a private investigator once and a damn good one. Everybody will see that tonight.” He blew several perfect smoke rings, enjoying himself enormously.

How could she ever have thought him attractive?

He picked up on that, too.

Elliot reached out and his fingers brushed her cheek. “Now, Annie, don’t be so damn soft-hearted. It will stir them up. They’ll probably all write best-sellers in revenge.”

She jerked away from his hand. “It isn’t funny,” she snapped. “You know, Elliot, you’re a louse.”

“Really?”

“For the last time, will you change your topic tonight?”

He drew deeply on the cigarette and pondered the smoke.

“No.”

Her hands clenched. His face was very unpleasant now, the heavy bones bunched up in a tight, hard frown.

“Then the party’s off.”

Lazily, he shook his head.

Annie exploded. “Look, this is my bookstore—I set up these sessions—I can cancel them.”

“Sure. But you won’t.”

She dug her nails into her palms.
“You
didn’t listen.
The party is off.”

Taking one last puff on his cigarette, be moved casually around her to snuff it out in a small skull-and-crossbones tray on the cash desk, scattering paper dips. “I guess I never told you that I invested my money front
Blood Tales
in island real estate.”

Annie looked at him blankly.
Blood Tales
, his most successful book, was a current Edgar nominee.

He tossed his head toward the dim interior of the shop. “Check your lease, Ms. Laurance. This belongs to Pleasanton Realty, lock, stock, and John D. MacDonalds.” He paused, then said coolly, “And yours truly is Pleasanton Realty.”

Elliot shook loose another cigarette. “Screw with me, baby, and you’d better be ready for a little increase in rent. Like another thou a month.”

Annie took two quick steps and yanked open the door. “Get out of here, Elliot.”

He didn’t hurry. He sauntered out onto the wooden porch, then looked back over his shoulder at Annie, a small, furious figure in the doorway.

“I thought we might go eat clams, but something tells me you aren’t hungry. Oh well, I’ll live. See you tonight, Annie.”

“Go to hell!”

A weathered board proclaimed in faded letters: Broward’s Rock Ferry.