High-Caliber Concealer (22 page)

“What? Are you in a hurry?” He picked up her
foot and gently removed her shoe before flinging it across the
room.

“Yes! One month, Z’ev. It’s been one
month!”

“So what you’re saying is that you want me
to get closer?” The other shoe went spinning through the air.

“There’s something wrong with you. Normal
men –“ Whatever Nikki had been about to say next was silenced by
Z’ev’s mouth. The petticoat was brutally removed and her bra was
popped off with a speed and efficiency that sent it flying across
the room.

An hour later, as they lay in the darkness
entangled in the sheets, Z’ev fumbled with his phone to turn off
the music. In the silence that followed, Nikki snuggled against him
and then pushed away.

“You’re too warm,” she complained.

“And you are like a tiny oven,” he murmured
back. “I could bake pizza on your stomach.”

“We’re not very sexy, are we?” she asked
plaintively.

“What are you talking about?” he asked,
disbelief coloring his tone. “How on earth was that not sexy? We
are sexy as hell. We are so sexy, they probably have a photo of us
in the dictionary under sexy.”

“No, I’m not complaining about the sex. The
sex was sexy. But you and I, we’re not very… we should be snuggling
and looking romantically at each other. Instead, we’re complaining
about the heat. I mean, we even waited until after dinner to tear
each other’s clothes off.”

“Because you are a tiny furnace. And we had
to wait until after dinner. It would have been rude otherwise.
Seriously, it’s hot. Did the air conditioning turn off? I hadn’t
realized that Washington was so hot. I thought it was supposed to
rain all the time.”

“West of the Cascades. East of the mountains
it’s a whole different weather system and it’s hot, hot, hot.”

“I think I can see a mirage in the heat
waves coming off your thighs.”

Nikki chuckled. “This is what I’m talking
about. How is that sexy talk?”

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” he
said. “We’re real people sexy.” He flipped over onto his stomach, a
position that Nikki knew meant sleep was imminent. “Real people
would feel like idiots if they talked like sexy people all the
time. Besides, who’s defining sexy? I’m not talking like some idiot
Fifty Shades of Grey
character. Here, I’ll
tell you what,” he reached out and pulled her closer. “Your lips
are a scarlet thread and your words enchanting. Your cheeks, behind
your veil, are halves of pomegranate.”

“What?”

“Song of Solomon. My love for you is like a
gazelle, yadda yadda yadda.”

Nikki wanted to laugh and make his quotes a
joke, but she couldn’t. There was something very serious about
having a man quote the Bible at her, and besides, Z’ev was already
unconscious on the last yadda. She lay next to him for a long time
before falling asleep.

“So,” said Jenny, when Nikki had finished
catching them up on her excursion to the body shop. “The DEA is
right, there’s definitely a smuggling pipeline coming through here.
Bill Pims is using modified cars to get it across the border and
they’re doing it here because frequent trips across the border
aren’t unusual. So what’s the problem? Let’s tip off the DEA.”

“Or better yet, your friend Donny,” said
Ellen, stroking by on an inner tube.

“Bill’s not the boss,” said Nikki. “And
although I might be able to tell Donny I illegally searched the
body shop, there’s not much he or the DEA can do without evidence.
But that’s not really what I’m worried about.”

“What’s got you worried?” Jenny flicked
water out of the pond with her feet and onto her inner tube.

“Ylina. We have the time to sit on the
smuggling situation and consider what the best course of action is,
but she’s running scared. Whoever the boss is, she’s scared of him.
I think we need to find her and get her out of town.”

“She didn’t sound very receptive,” said
Jenny.

“She wasn’t,” agreed Nikki. “But that’s
hardly surprising. There’s no Carrie Mae branch nearby, no Carrie
Mae lady to lay the groundwork. All Ylina knows is that some crazy
chick in a bar beat up her co-conspirators and now wants to ‘help’
her. I’d be suspicious too.”

“Well, and not to violate the prime
directive, but here’s a question,” said Ellen. “Just because she’s
a woman, are we obligated to help her? We don’t know she was
coerced. They could be co-conspirators. If she got herself mixed up
in drug smuggling, maybe she should reap the consequences.”

“And if the consequences were going to
jail,” said Nikki, applying more sunscreen and scooting further
into the shade of a beach umbrella propped in the fork of a tree,
“I’d agree with you, but the sheriff here seems more likely to
deport her and a drug kingpin isn’t likely to turn her over for a
jury by law either. She’s headed for trouble.”

“So then we have two options,” said Jenny,
kicking back toward the shore of the pond. “Find the drug kingpin
and eliminate him, either by having him arrested or something more
permanent. Or find Ylina and get her out of town, then tip off the
DEA.”

“I think we should pursue both,” said Ellen,
stretching out on her inner tube.

“I also want to hear what Donny has to say
tonight at the Fiesta,” said Nikki. “He keeps saying that he needs
to talk and he’s hinted that it’s work related. Maybe he’s got a
line on the drug smuggling that we don’t know about.”

“That would make it easier,” agreed Jenny.
“Although, that seems unlikely. I mean, when does anything go
‘easier’ for us?”

“Sometimes it does,” protested Ellen,
sounding closer and closer to being asleep. “By the way, has anyone
seen Jane?”

“She’s in my room, going through the clothes
with Grandma,” said Nikki. “I think she’s picking out outfits for
you and Jenny to wear.”

“She’d better not be. I’m not involved in
that pinup girl train wreck.” Ellen lifted up her sunglasses to
glare at Nikki as if the pinup girl train wreck was Nikki’s fault.
Which, upon reflection, it sort of was.

“What about Z’ev? Where’s he at?” asked
Jenny.

“Back at the hotel. I’m meeting him in town
for lunch and then we’re coming back here to hang out. You guys,
what am I going to do? I can’t have him staying at a hotel.”

“You mean, you can’t be staying at a hotel,”
said Ellen. “Don’t think we didn’t notice you sneaking in this
morning at the crack of dawn.”

“I did not sneak,” said Nikki vehemently.
“But staying at a hotel is ridiculous for all parties
concerned.”

“Yeah, but your grandma’s eyes kind of
bugged when Jane assumed he was going to stay with you,” said
Jenny. “It’s her house. I think you have to respect her
wishes.”

“We already live together,” said Nikki.
“It’s ridiculous!”

“Then you should have said something last
night,” said Ellen.

“I froze. It’s not a conversation that I’ve
ever had to have before. Maybe I can get Mom to talk to her,” said
Nikki with a sigh. “That went OK, right? She seemed to like
Z’ev.”

“Oh, yeah, she is definitely Team Z’ev,”
agreed Jenny.

“But your grandma is clearly Team Jackson,”
said Ellen. “What’s that about?”

“He has eighty-three acres,” said Nikki, as
if that explained everything. “And he really is a nice guy. I think
that’s probably why I was so heartbroken up when we split up. We
had always been friends and losing him wasn’t just losing a
boyfriend, it was like losing my best friend besides.”

“I think he’s dreamy,” sighed Jenny,
paddling by again.

“Yes, we all know,” said Ellen.

Jenny sighed again. “I wish I really could
date him,” she said wistfully.

“Speaking of your mom and grandma,” said
Ellen, paddling over to the shore and arriving dripping on Nikki’s
blanket. “Was it just me or were they weirdly twitchy?”

“Yeah, they’re fighting about something. I’m
not sure yet what it is. They’ll tell me eventually, or one of them
will slip up. I’m not really in a hurry to involve myself in
whatever drama they’ve cooked up.”

“Yeah, but…” Ellen trailed off and then
shrugged.

“Yeah, but what?”

“I don’t know. I thought they seemed extra
twitchy about the pot conversation.”

“Do you think one of them is involved?”
asked Ellen seriously and Nikki burst out laughing. “What? You’ve
said before how farms always have financial troubles. Maybe Peg’s
farm is a stopover on the green underground.”

This caused Nikki to laugh even harder.

“I don’t think she’s taking your slang
seriously,” said Jenny.

“Well, fine. Whatever you want to call it.
Peg could be involved.”

“Not a chance,” said Nikki, finally
recovering. “When my mom found out that I tried pot in college she
about lost her nut. And then Grandma called and followed up Mom’s
rant with one of her own. They both voted against Initiative 502
and legalizing marijuana. I doubt you could find two people more
opposed to marijuana and anything related to marijuana than those
two.”

“Could be a clever cover,” said Ellen,
leaning back on the blanket.

“Yes, a cover story they’ve been working on
for over a decade.” Nikki shook her head in disbelief. “That sounds
highly unlikely. Anyway, I’m going to go talk to Mom, see if she
can’t convince Grandma to let Z’ev at least stay somewhere in the
house.”

Nell was easy to find. She stood on the
porch, hands on her hips, the picture of angry womanhood.

“Have you seen your grandmother?”

“No, she probably went down to the orchard
to check in.”

“I don’t know why. Jorge runs it all just
fine without her.”

“She likes to keep tabs on her farm. What’s
wrong with that?”

Nell flapped her hands in annoyance at
Nikki’s comment.

“But speaking of Grandma. Do you think you
could talk to her about letting Z’ev stay at the house? Having him
stay at a hotel is embarrassing.”

“Sure. I mean, I’ll try. But honestly, you
should just pack him up and bring him here tonight. She can’t kick
him out and she’d never be rude to his face. That’s how I got your
father through the door.”

Nikki laughed. “I’ll do it.”

“I’m sure you don’t care what I think, but I
really do like him.”

“You like him because he’s not a
farmer.”

“I like him because he can provide for you
without both of you having to scrape and work all your lives. So
yes, that means, not a farmer.”

“I don’t have to be provided for, Mom.”

“And neither do I, but it would be nice to
have the option to not be strong all the time.”

Nikki bit back a sarcastic reply. There was
something incredibly sad about that statement. On impulse she
kissed her mother on the cheek. “You don’t have to be strong all
the time, Mom. I’ll take care of you.”

Nell look startled and clearly at a loss for
words.

“Anyway, I’m going to go meet Z’ev for lunch
and then I think you’re right, I’ll bring him back here.”

“How are you going to meet him? Your
grandmother has the car.”

“I’m going to take my car.”

“It doesn’t have any air conditioning.”

“So we’ll roll down the windows. Is there
some place you wanted to go, Mom?”

“Yes, I wanted to go into town and see
Leona.”

“You could take Grandpa’s truck. It’s in the
shed.”

“Does it still run?”

“Sure, I think Grandma keeps it for hauling
stuff.”

“It doesn’t have any air either. If I go to
the beauty parlor, my hair will be sweated out by the time I get
home. Can you stop by the orchard and tell your grandmother to come
back. I wanted to use her car.”

“Sure,” said Nikki wanting to leave before
her mother came up with a laundry list of chores or messages to
deliver.

Nikki made the short trip down to the
orchard. The orchard, with its neatly placed rows of peach trees,
should have seemed the picture of bucolic farminess, but it always
reminded Nikki most strongly of a construction job site. It was
organized and run from a rickety trailer that smelled of damp and
still faintly of skunk from the time a skunk had crawled under the
trailer and died. They had removed the skunk and relocated the
trailer to a new site, but even bleaching the floorboards hadn’t
quite removed the stink. In front of the trailer, there was a tiny
parking area, mostly for the four-wheel ATVs that pulled trailers
full of peaches from the orchard to the barn.

Nikki parked the car next to Peg’s SUV and
Jorge’s blue Toyota Tacoma and got out. A large whiteboard in front
of the trailer showed a list of names and assignments. She could
hear the rumble of ATVs further out in the orchard, but none were
close to the trailer.

She walked up the stairs and reached out to
open the door and then stopped. Something was wrong. She should
have been able to hear voices through the paper thin walls. Feeling
a little silly, she pressed her ear to the door. She could hear the
soft rustle of movement, but no voices. Frowning, Nikki leaned off
the stairs and peered through the window. She was able to hold the
position for only a few seconds and then had to jump off or fall
over.

Hurrying back to the truck, she climbed in
and drove away. She had been right. She was not prepared to deal
with her family’s drama.

She pulled up at the Kessel Run and shoved
her way past Harrison Ford. “Clyde, I need a shot of Yukon Jack
stat!”

Z’ev looked up from his menu. “Yukon Jack?”
he asked as Clyde poured. Nikki gulped it down and slammed the shot
glass back on the bar.

“Thanks Clyde, now bring me a margarita, and
don’t spare the tequila.”

She collapsed in a chair opposite Z’ev, and
fanned herself with a napkin.

“Bad morning with your mom?”

“My mom was actually supportive and fine,”
said Nikki. And then leaned in closer to whisper. “I think we’re in
the matrix.”