Greedy Bones (24 page)

I laughed, mostly with relief. There was just a hint of "society Cece" in that statement. What I had to tell her, though, might be upsetting. I waited until she'd eaten her fill before I broached the subject. With Cece, it was best to jump right in. She wasn't much for pussy-footing around. "Erin Carlisle is missing. She hasn't been at work since the night you were beaten."

Cece's breathing was loud in the room. "She said some one
had been following her." The damage to her face made her words short and irregular.

A million questions flooded my brain, but I took it slow. Cece was fragile. Though she liked to present the image of being tough as nails, she had her breaking point too, and being battered into a bloody pulp had to be close to the edge. "You went to Memphis with Jimmy. He took you home?"

"He did. We had a tiff about the Carlisle land. I told him I was going to interview Erin." She took a moment to breathe again.

"Was he angry when he took you home?"

"Not angry. Unsettled."

"You obviously got in touch with Erin, and she agreed to meet you at Image Photography."

"That's right. You're a virtual telepath, dahling."

I rolled my eyes. "Did you talk to her?"

She shook her head. "We arrived at the parking lot at the same time, and we were walking to her studio when a car flew across the asphalt. We both dove out of the way. Before I could get up, someone hit me with a club or something. I think Erin screamed. Then I blacked out."

"Can you say whether Erin was attacked or abducted?"

"No."

Damn it. Cece was normally sharp and remembered details, but she'd been clocked from behind.

"Do you have any idea where Erin might be?"

"She said she was catching a flight to Chicago. She said she was going to meet her sister."

"Erin knows about Sonja Kessler?" This was unexpected.

"Didn't say her name. Just her sister."

"Think, Cece. Can you remember anything about the car that almost ran you down?"

"It was big. Dark. Maybe navy or black." She closed her eyes. "It happened so fast."

Jimmy Janks drove a big, dark SUV.

A nurse came into the room with a syringe. She injected the contents into the drip that fed into Cece's arms. Within seconds, Cece's eyelids fluttered.

"Thank you, Cece. You've been a big help." The search for Erin now had to be extended into the Windy City.

"Tomorrow." Cece's voice was a mere wisp of sound.

I kissed her forehead. "Is only a day away," I whispered in her ear. "Tomorrow you'll feel like hell, but all of your friends will be here to torment you."

"Cheerful bitch," she replied before she gave herself to sleep.

I stopped by to talk with Tammy and found her staring at Oscar, her face filled with that same determination Tinkie always showed.

"Don't give up hope, Sarah Booth," she said when she heard my footsteps and faced me.

"I'm too tired to hope
or
give up." The idea of walking to my car exhausted me. In fact, the cot in the hallway looked pretty damn good.

"I'll stay the night," Tammy offered.

"I promised Tinkie I would do it." It was a matter of honor that I support Tinkie in her battle against death.

"She'll be fine if I stand guard. You need to sleep. Both of you. I won't let any of them slip away in the dark hours."

Tammy had a better grip on things of the spirit than I ever would. My only connection with the other side
was Jitty, and somehow I didn't think she was a reliable source of information or inspiration. I felt hollow and drained, with just a vague twinge of nausea. Sleep was much needed.

"Will you call me if anything changes?" I asked.

"I will." She patted my shoulder. "Sarah Booth, I've had a few dreams about you."

Adrenaline shot a rush of energy to my limbs. Tammy's dreams were never trifling. They always had meaning. "Should I ask, or should I leave it alone?"

"I'm not sure. Most of the time I understand a dream, at least on some level. These images are confused. And troubling."

Tammy was a tall woman, nearly six feet. The turban she wore made her look even taller. The orange, green, and yellow caftan hid her curvaceous figure. She was an imposing figure, especially when she was talking about troubling dreams and visions.

"Tell me," I said with trepidation.

"Do you have any relatives left, Sarah Booth?"

The immediate answer was none, but Tammy didn't ask questions without a reason. "None that I know of." I was thinking of Erin and Sonja. Was there a sister or brother somewhere out there I didn't know about? The idea excited me--and gave me a sense of hope. I would love to have a sibling, especially a sister.

"There's fresh dirt turned in your family cemetery. That I saw clearly." Before I could ask, she held up a hand. "No, it isn't you."

"I can't think of anyone. Except . . . Sweetie Pie." The thought of my dog being injured made my throat close with emotion.

"Not the dog." She patted my arm. "Sweetie Pie has future adventures. As does her little friend, Chablis."

"That's good to know." Now that Sweetie and I were out of potential psychic danger, a load lifted from my shoulders. If there was a family member alive, I wasn't close to him or her. Well, that was a major understatement. I was so un-close I didn't know he or she existed. But for the life of me, I couldn't even come up with a third or fifth cousin. I was truly the last of the Delaney line. My mother was an only child of only children--so there were no descendants on that side of the family either.

Jitty had a point when she fussed at me to "breed up." If I didn't, what would become of Dahlia House?

"Do you see a future for Oscar?" I asked.

Tammy hesitated. "I haven't looked at his cards. Or Tinkie's. Sometimes when a deep friendship is involved, I'm blocked as to what I can and can't see."

She wasn't playing games. Tammy always told the truth, even when it hurt.

"Did you have any other visions about me?"

She rubbed her forehead, pulling at one of her dark curls. "You're on my mind a lot, Sarah Booth. There's someone else in Dahlia House, isn't there?"

My heart almost stopped. Tammy had been in the house a few times, and each time I thought she'd sensed Jitty, but she'd never said a word. "No one else lives there." Talk about splitting hairs, but I didn't want to outright lie to Tammy.

Her smile was conspiratorial. "There are many people who've crossed the River Jordan who watch over you. Many. While they can't keep hardship and pain from your door, they're always right beside you whether you know it or not." She arched one eyebrow. "And I think you know that better than you let on."

"If Oscar was going to die, would you know it?"

She looked through the glass and studied the sick bay.
"There's a darkness in the room, Sarah Booth. Not necessarily death, but a presence. Something that's absorbing the light."

"Where is it coming from?"

She kept her gaze riveted on the patients. "I can't find the source. All I know is someone, or something, dark and twisted is involved in this."

Her words generated a keen sense of dread. "Can we get rid of the darkness?" I asked.

"We can stand vigil against it."

Tinkie had been right all along. She'd sensed something none of us except Tammy understood. And she'd fought for the man she loved and her friends.

"Thank you for being here tonight." Tammy was a far better watcher than I was.

"Get some rest. Tinkie will be back tomorrow, and I keep hoping Doc and some of those experts will come up with some way to cure our friends."

"My hope exactly." I thought again of what Peyton had told me about the possibility that mold was at the source of this illness. Someone had to get to the bottom of this, and while I wasn't an expert on mold, I was an investigator.

First thing in the morning, I was heading to the Carlisle plantation.

My dragging feet thudded across the front porch of Dahlia House, and tired as I was, I missed my hound. Sweetie Pie was guarding Tinkie, and she was exactly where she needed to be.

Madame Tomeeka's dreams and visions filled my head as I climbed the beautiful curved staircase to my room. I was too tired even for the comfort of a few moments with Jack, my old Tennessee friend. Sleep was my only requirement. Perhaps, if my brain rested, I could see the facts of the case more clearly.

Such as--how had Erin found out about Sonja?

When I was in Chicago, Sonja had presented herself as a woman happy with her lot in life. She'd said she had no desire to make Erin aware of Gregory Carlisle's indiscretions. Yet Erin had said she was flying to Chicago
to meet her sister even as Sonja was informing me of her desire to stay in the background.

So who told Erin about Sonya? Erin had trusted the source of her information enough to plan a trip to Chicago. Luther was the logical choice, but there was no love lost between the Carlisle siblings. And certainly no trust.

Jimmy Janks was the next suspect. He stood to gain plenty if he could unsettle Erin enough to shake her blockage of the development of the Carlisle land. Maybe he'd hoped to make Erin so disgusted with her father's conduct that she'd yield the fate of the property to Luther.

According to Cece, Janks had dropped her at her home. He'd been aware of her intentions to drive to Jackson and speak with Erin. He could have followed Cece. But why? And why beat her so brutally?

Which begged a third question--had Erin vanished willingly? I didn't know her. She might have a habit of lost weekends--or lost weeks for that matter. She could be living it up in San Francisco or halfway around the world in Tahiti for all I could say.

As I struggled through the elements of the case, I removed my jeans and shoes and considered a hot bath or quick shower. Instead, I fell backward onto my bed. Cleanliness came second to sleepiness, at least for this night. My eyelids felt like cement blocks were tugging them downward.

From a far corner of the room came the lively sound of a big band. I could not believe this. I kept my eyes closed and willed the sound to disappear. I recognized the catchy tune as a dance number from the 1930s--"Tutti Frutti." Somewhere I'd seen film clips of energetic teenagers bobbing and swinging in complicated steps that required agility and a talented partner.

"Jitty!" I yelled. I was dying for the sandman's visit, and she was tormenting me with a full orchestra.

"Any hepcat would know the difference between an orchestra and a disc." Jitty materialized right in front of me. The white shirt closed at the throat with a black tie. The black skirt and saddle oxfords made me sit up in bed. Sleep fled the room.

"Get out!" I pointed at the door. "You are not allowed to read my thoughts like that." I hadn't said anything aloud. She'd stepped over the line.

"Be a rootie-tootie and find yourself a cutie," she sang back at me, wagging her finger and dancing around the bed.

"Jitty, I've been awake for days." I wanted to throttle her. "I could die. My death will be on your head."

"Sarah Booth, I think you got some anger issues."

Dear God, if she were not dead, I would gleefully kill her. "I have some sleep deprivation issues."

The music faded and she sat on the edge of the mattress. "I'm sorry, you do need your rest."

I flopped back against my pillow. "Then go away. If I don't get some shut-eye I may burst into flames."

"Sarah Booth, did you ever think about how the whole world relies on the young for true hope? Like those young boppers and swingers, they kept the spirit alive. The Great Depression, all of that. If it hadn't a'been for the younguns, folks woulda given up and crawled off to die."

I opened one eye to see her expression. Surely she was messing with me. "Did you ever stop to think that I could sell this place and you with it?"

She gave a little shake of her head. "No call to get all uppity. If you had a politically correct bone in your tired ole body, you wouldn't talk about sellin' me. Not to nobody, nowhere, no time."

I sighed. "You know what I meant."

"Yes, I do. No offense taken." She smiled, and in the moonlight filtering through the blinds I saw that her dancing and sashaying hid a deeper sadness.

It was hopeless. I couldn't fly to the arms of Hypnos if she was genuinely troubled. "What is it?" I asked.

"When do you think we cross the line between youth and gettin' old?"

This age thing was heavy on Jitty's mind. "You'll always be young. And sexy. And thin." I flounced in the bed seeking a more comfortable position. "I'll hit middle age and my middle will age and spread, but you'll always be just the way you are today. Somehow that's not fair."

"Middle age isn't old!" She hesitated. "Sometimes I forget you don't have a model for such things. Your mama died so young, and all your relatives are gone. There's no one left to show you the way."

"That applies to most of the situations of my life," I admitted. "I'd give almost anything for ten minutes with my folks. They could help me."