Hear No Evil (4 page)

Anger rose in Eden like a jet of lava. This was why Jessie wanted her? This was why she
needed
her?

Watching over Mimi’s daughter was one thing—Eden even felt a certain reluctant responsibility for the child.

But Jessie had spent over half the note detailing how she wanted Eden to take charge of the damned psychic hot line—because money was going down the drain. Money! No mention at all that Mimi might be in some sort of trouble.

Eden resisted the desire to rip the note to shreds and flush it down a toilet. For somebody who was supposed to be “sensitive”—endowed with psychic powers—Jessie was the most insensitive creature Eden knew. No wonder she had driven off first her daughter, then both granddaughters.

Yet at the same time, a sickening sensation contracted Eden’s stomach, worse than any the pitching plane had caused. She
did
owe Jessie. If she was honest, it always came down to that: she owed Jessie a great deal.

Jessie had lived by her wits alone, but she’d managed to raise Eden and Mimi. “I take care of my own,” she’d always said, and she’d done exactly that.

She loved money because she’d known poverty and feared it with all her heart. Security was as precious to her as life’s blood, and she was fiercely proud of her work, questionable as Eden found it.

Her trade demanded a bold mix of intuition, observation, guile, and pure chutzpah. She was good at it,
damned good. And she was right: no one could replace her—except Eden.

Eden could imitate Jessie’s voice to perfection, and Jessie had made her learn the fortune-teller’s trade. Eden could so expertly impersonate Jessie on the phone that no one could tell the difference.

She had done it twice in high school, once when Jessie had suffered complications from a gallbladder operation and again when she’d had surgery on her hand.

Back then, Jessie had simply ordered her to take over the phone business; they had to have money, and Eden did as she was told. She’d hated every duplicitous moment, and she had hated Jessie for making her do it.

She clearly remembered the hate—and humiliation, as well. Being Jessie’s granddaughter was not easy. Jessie was different from other people, not merely eccentric, but flamboyantly so. She could be loud and bossy and full of embarrassing pretension.

Yet Eden could also remember being eleven years old and waking up with an earache so agonizing that she was helpless to do anything except cry. Jessie stayed up and held her in her arms all night long, trying to comfort her.

Jessie had nursed Eden and Mimi through croup and flu and chicken pox. Somehow she’d found the money to get braces put on Mimi’s teeth, and, although she’d grumbled endlessly, she’d paid for Eden’s voice lessons. And Eden had often grudgingly admitted to herself that she loved Jessie.

She’d loved and hated her, a hopeless, helpless mix. In California she had thought she’d left Jessie far behind, but now she realized that she hadn’t. The old woman could still exasperate her and make her dizzy with guilt.

She reread Jessie’s words.

“… you take Care of my phone Bidness until I get
Home and to do it myself. You know how to do it and you are the Only one who can. Its the leest you can do for Me and I dont askt no more of you than That.”

Tears of frustration sprang into her eyes. “Dammit, Jessie,” she whispered through her teeth.

Once again she tasted blood in her mouth like an omen.

By some sort of cosmic accident, the woman’s luggage had arrived. Owen had thought the probability of this to be on a par with the sky raining goldfish, but her bags heaved into view on the creaking carousel. A suitcase, not weighing much, and a suitbag. She didn’t plan on staying long, obviously.

This actress wasn’t what he’d pictured. She wasn’t glamorous, she wasn’t even blond. Her brown hair was boyishly short, and she wore little makeup. But she was slim and trim and pretty in a fox-faced sort of way. She also had an air of razor-sharp intelligence, which was the last thing he’d expected.

Now she came bursting out of the rest room, and she had fire in her eye. For the first time she looked as if she were related to Jessie, all right.

She stalked up to him and waved the envelope at him. “Do you know what this says?” she demanded.

“No,” he said, and he didn’t care. He was tired of trouble. It had taken him and his sister until two in the morning to get Peyton to sleep. Now Shannon was passed out on Jessie’s bed, and he himself hadn’t slept for twenty hours.

“She hardly mentions my sister,” Eden said. “She’s not that concerned about my sister’s
child
. She wants me to take over her damned phone business.”

He was vaguely surprised, but he only shrugged. He noticed the longer he looked at her, the prettier she seemed, so he stopped looking. “Is this all your luggage?”

She ignored him. “I came all the way from Los Angeles to read tarot cards over the phone? What’s she thinking of?”

He picked up the luggage. “She’s built herself up a tidy little business. It’s about all she’s got.”

Eden’s eyes flashed. “I don’t want any part of it.”

“I’ve got nothing to do with it,” he said, and headed for the doors to the parking lot.

“I’ve got a mind to get back on a plane and go home,” she threatened, but she followed him.

“You’re forgetting about the kid,” he said. “I like Jessie, but I’m not a baby-sitter. The job is yours.”

She seized him by the elbow, trying to slow him. “Mine? I could hire somebody who could do a better job than I can. I could have done that by
phone
.”

Her touch startled him, came close to disturbing him. But he was in no mood to argue, so he shook off her hand and walked on. “I see it as a family matter,” he said.

He shouldered the door open and held it for her. The rain had weakened into a cold, clinging mist. She swept outside, her head held high. “What about this child? Who’s her father?”

“Ask Jessie,” Owen said. Jessie was the one who’d been sent the birth certificate, not him.

“Does
she
know?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” he said shortly.

“Oh, hell,” she said, her shoulders sagging again.

Owen thought she suspected the child was illegitimate, but he didn’t intend to be the one who told her.

He led Eden to his black Blazer, unlocked the
hatchback, pushed his hunting paraphernalia aside, and pitched her bags inside.

She shivered and said, “It seems wrong that a child’s mixed up in this.”

“But there is,” he said, “and she’s a handful. You’re welcome to her.”

He held the door open for her on the passenger side, but she only stood staring up at him. “What do you mean, she’s a handful?”

“I mean she’s a handful,” he said. “Get in, will you? It’s wet out here.”

Eden got into the car, and when he slid in beside her, she gave him a pointed look. “You’re telling me that Mimi’s child has a behavior problem?”

He switched on the ignition, turned on the windshield wipers. “Her name,” he said, “is Peyton. She marches to a different drummer.”

“Oh, great,” Eden said. “A different drummer. Why do I sense volumes of trouble in that phrase?”

She put her hand to her eyes, rubbed them tiredly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be sniping at you. This is between Jessie and me.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is.” He was uncomfortably aware of her nearness.

She kept her hand over her eyes. “I suppose she’s terribly upset over this. God. What a mess.”

He glanced at her, was vaguely surprised at how vulnerable she looked. “She’s having trouble admitting how much it bothers her,” he said quietly.

Eden shook her head. “This child—when did she get here? How? Can’t you tell me anything?”

He sighed tiredly and brushed his knuckle against the cleft in his chin. “Jessie didn’t know the kid existed. Yesterday morning a woman knocked at her door. She
had the kid by one hand, a beat-up suitcase in the other. She pushes them both toward Jessie. ‘This is your granddaughter’s girl,’ she says. ‘Mimi’s girl, Peyton. Take her. She’s your responsibility, not mine.’ ”

Eden’s hand dropped from her eyes. She stared at him, shock in her expression. “Just like that?”

He nodded. “Just like that. She handed Jessie a note from Mimi saying to take care of the kid—that’s all. Then she got in her car and drove away.”

“But my God,” she said. “Who was she?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

“But if she had a car, she had a license plate—”

“Jessie’s in shock. The kid’s in tears. Jessie thought the plate was from Missouri—she’s fairly sure; it was muddied.”

“Deliberately?”

“Very probably.”

Eden sighed in exasperation. “What kind of car?”

“Hell,” Owen said, “Jessie doesn’t know cars. It was blue. A blue car. That’s all she or Peyton could say.”

“Did the woman say anything else, anything at all?”

He rubbed his burning eyes. “That she didn’t want any part of the mess. That she refused to be involved.”

“Mess,” Eden repeated miserably. “Mess! What the hell’s Mimi gone and done now?”

“Hell would probably be a good place to look for an answer to that.”

She gave him an irritable glance. He shrugged and started the motor.

“What about Jessie’s accident?” she demanded. “How did
that
happen? A comet dropped out of the sky and hit her? It was just generally a bad day?”

The windshield wipers made their monotonous, melancholy sound. He backed out of the parking space.

“The kid arrived at about ten in the morning,” he said. “I wasn’t around. Later I was walking the dog, and Jessie yelled at me to come in. She was upset.”

“Well, naturally she was upset,” Eden countered. “But what
happened
to her?”

“I told her we should go to a lawyer. I called one. I went back to my place to lock up the dog. I drove up just as they were coming out of the house. Jessie just swayed and fell. The kid got pretty upset.”

“But did she faint—or what?” Eden persisted.

He shook his head. “The doctors aren’t sure. She’s got high blood pressure. Maybe she fainted, maybe just got dizzy, maybe it was a small stroke.”

“A stroke?” Eden echoed, horrified.

“Her mind seems fine,” he said. “Sharp as ever, if that’s what you’re worried about. Her leg got the worst of it. It’s a serious injury for a woman her age. But she’s strong. Very strong.”

“Yes,” she said tonelessly. Then she covered her eyes again. “Mimi,” she said in a weary voice.

They drove the rest of the way in silence. When he pulled up in the drive, she dropped her hand and stared dully at the little white house. At first, it seemed to sit alone, surrounded by the darkness of the woods, but then, through the rain, she saw another, taller house a hundred yards distant, almost hidden by the trees.

“It’s a nice place,” she said, looking at the little house. “Jessie’s finally done well for herself. You live around here, too?”

He nodded. He remembered when Jessie had lived in a sorry, rusted-out trailer on the edge of town. It was, he supposed, where Eden and Mimi had grown up. He had given Jessie a break on the rent for this house. Jessie
didn’t know, and her granddaughter didn’t need to know, either.

The rain had started to come down in earnest again.

“Come in and take a look at your niece,” he said.

“Peyton?” she said, as if trying to convince herself the child was real and had a real name.

“Yeah,” he said. “Peyton.”

S
OMETHING UNCUSTOMARY TRIED TO TUG
E
DEN FROM THE
safety of her dreamless sleep, but she was not ready to waken.

Everything was normal, fine, and warm. Polonius, Ted’s cat, curled up next to her, his silky hair tickling her chin.

“Bad cat, Polonius,” she muttered. “Move.”

No
.

This could not be Polonius. Eden had parted amicably with Ted months ago. He was gone and had taken the cat with him.

She was not even home in California, she was in Arkansas. Jessie had sent for her because there had been an accident. Jessie was hurt, and Mimi couldn’t be found, which was important because—

Eden’s eyes snapped open. What was in bed with her was a
child
. She tensed, automatically drawing away from the alien touch. Rising on her elbow, she stared down.

The little girl slept with her thumb securely in her mouth, and her hair was a wild tumble of curls, black as ink. Her lashes and eyebrows were just as midnight dark, the brows drawn together in a sleeping frown. She wore large gold hoop earrings that seemed too adult for her. This dark, exotic child was Mimi’s daughter. Peyton.

Last night the child had been sleeping soundly in the room’s other twin bed. Eden, still shaken from her flight, had stared at her numbly, too exhausted for emotion. All she could think was,
She doesn’t look like Mimi
.

Eden had undressed, clambered into her well-worn nightshirt, and collapsed into the scratchy, lavender-scented sheets. Sometime during the early hours of the morning, the child must have climbed into bed with her.

Now Peyton sighed in her sleep and her mouth twitched restlessly around her thumb. She frowned harder. Eden found herself oddly touched and saddened by this childish frown. Did the girl know why Mimi had abandoned her? Was she frightened? Homesick? Sorrowing?