Ladies' Circle of Murder (A Lacy Steele Mystery Book 8) (3 page)

“No, I’ve never heard that,” Lacy said.

Frannie scowled at her again. Lacy had no idea why. For answering the man’s rhetorical question? It had seemed the polite thing to do. “I’m going to need the car back as soon as possible. My daughter’s about to go into labor any day now.”

Bob looked at Lacy up and down. “She doesn’t look that far along.”

Now it was Lacy’s turn to scowl.

“My other daughter,” Frannie said.

“The thing about being a mechanic is that everybody wants their car yesterday. I’ve got four other cars in there that people insist are high priority. And a couple of them are body damage. You know how long it takes for paint to dry?”

“This is a genuine necessity,” Frannie insisted.

Bob regarded her seriously for a second. She looked away from his intense gaze. He grinned. “For you, Frannie, I’ll make it a priority. For old time’s sake. I’m going to have to drive it to figure out what’s wrong with it, though. That okay with you?”

“That’s fine,” Frannie said, uncharacteristically meek and agreeable. Lacy thought for sure she would warn him not to get oil on the seats, but she didn’t. “Will you call me when it’s finished, or should I call you?”

“Oh, I’ll be in touch,” he promised. He handed her a paper to fill out and took her keys, touching her hand a little too long in the exchange. As soon as they left the shop, Lacy saw her wipe the same hand on her pant leg a few times.

“Mom, how do you know that guy?” she asked when they were in the car.

“I don’t.”

“He knew you.”

“Everyone knew me. I was popular. That doesn’t mean I knew them. He probably hung out with the shop kids. Our groups didn’t intermingle much.”

“That sounds very S.E. Hinton,” Lacy said.

Frannie gave her a perplexed look.

“
The Outsiders.
Soda Pop. Cherry. ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy.’”

“Honestly, Lacy, sometimes it’s like we speak a different language.”

“Never mind. But it really seemed like he knew you, and I mean
knew
you. Are you sure he wasn’t some kind of bad-boy fling? Everyone has one,” Lacy said. “Except me. The closest I ever got to dating a bad boy was that guy in college who willfully didn’t wear his retainer. But it was so long ago. You can fess up if you had a thing with Bob.”

“I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty that I did not have a ‘thing’ with Bob Hoskins. Please drop it. I’m getting a headache.” She pressed her fingers to her temples.

“I’ll take you home,” Lacy said, a little too gleefully. If her mom had a headache, she would be off the hook for the next few hours.

“No, take me to Mom’s. I’m having supper with her tonight since her
boyfriend
is out of town. How ridiculous is it that she has a boyfriend? Ridiculous. She’s eighty years old, for goodness sake. It’s not like she has needs her family can’t fulfill.”

“Mom, she and Grandpa love each other very much, and Riley and I love him. I think you might, too, if you give him a chance.”
Especially since he’s your biological father.

“I will not give him a chance. I make nice to him for Mom’s sake, but I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about it. The whole thing is…”

“Ridiculous?” Lacy supplied.

“Yes.”

“You don’t stop needing love because you get old,” Lacy said.

“What would you know about it? You’re still a starry-eyed teenager head over heels for a boy with nice eyes and good pecs.”

Lacy grimaced. She never wanted to hear her mother say “pecs” again, especially in reference to Jason.

“But when you get older, you realize those things don’t matter. Love fades. Eventually all you have left is companionship, loyalty, and duty.”

“Mom, you make marriage sound like the army. I seem to remember a lot of loving moments between you and Dad when I was younger. Are things really so bad between you now?”

“They’re fine,” Frannie insisted, but she didn’t make eye contact.

“You haven’t talked to him since he flew back to Florida.”

“Your father and I are fine. We’ve been married for almost three decades. We don’t need to talk every day like love-starved teenagers.”

“Maybe you should,” Lacy said. “Maybe acting like love-starved teenagers is exactly what you need.”

“We don’t need anything. We’re fine,” Frannie said. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her gaze out the window.

“Clearly it’s not fine, Mom. Riley and I aren’t stupid. We can see what’s going on between you, what’s been going on for a while. If you need to talk about anything, I’m here.”

Frannie turned toward her then, and it was Lacy who wanted to look away. Her mother’s eyes were filled with hurt and brimming with tears. “Really? So I can hear you take Dad’s side? He’s always been your favorite. Don’t pretend you don’t think the problems between us are anything but my fault.”

Lacy opened her mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come. She did think the problems in her parents’ marriage were her mother’s fault. She had always been prickly and difficult, but her father had a way of softening her. He could make her open up and get her to laugh. Lacy loved the person her mom became when she was with her dad. But the last few years, not even he had been able to break through her hardened exterior, and it was getting harder. Prickliness had turned to downright meanness. Being occasionally difficult had turned into being impossible.

“Forget it. I changed my mind. Take me back to Riley’s.”

“Mom,” Lacy tried, but Frannie interrupted her.

“I don’t want to talk anymore, Lacy. I want to lie down.”

Lacy sighed and turned the car around. “All right.” She felt guilty, not only because she had upset her mother, but because she was unduly relieved by the unexpected freedom. She could go home and eat a peaceful supper with her grandmother.

After that came dodgeball and certain doom.

Chapter 3

Lacy sat in her grandmother’s car, her hands bunched into white-knuckled manacles around the steering wheel. Jason had offered to pick her up, but she knew she would need the mental preparation. Time to face the enemy: sports equipment.

There was a reason she had chosen running as her preferred form of exercise, and it wasn’t because she was good at it. But at least when she ran, there were no electrical parts, straps, hooks, weights, or bouncing balls to break free and kill her. Short of tripping or running into something, which she did often enough, there were few ways to get injured. Inside a gym, however, all bets were off. For someone clumsy and uncoordinated, a YMCA was like a minefield, filled with mysterious equipment just waiting to break free and cause a contusion.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Jason had asked. She hadn’t told him, but she had already experienced the worst that could happen. Fifth grade dodgeball had been brutal. One day when they had a substitute gym teacher, who wasn’t well acquainted with the pubescent social hierarchy, he hadn’t been paying attention to the game. The athletic kids, the alien ones for whom dodgeball was fun, had picked out the weird, chubby, and slow kids like lions culling a herd of sick wildebeests. Lacy had been one of the lame wildebeests who took the brunt of their punishment that day. Four kids ganged up on her, backed her into a corner, and pelted her with balls. The hits kept coming and coming, raining down on her like shrapnel. Eventually when the bell rang, she stayed cowering in the fetal position with her hands over her head. It remained a dark day, one she had never entirely been able to push out of her mind.

            Jason hadn’t been there that day, but he was here now, and he wouldn’t let her be a target again. Or at least not more than anyone was a target in dodgeball. If she got hit, she would get hit once and be out. Still, the thought of getting attacked again made her insides clench with anxiety. Was it possible to have dodgeball-induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

When she couldn’t put it off any longer, she gave up and went inside. The locker room was in the basement. After signing in, she carried her bag downstairs. The smell of chlorine and rotten mushrooms assaulted her nose as she descended. How could people exercise in a place where there was no fresh air? It must be like doing cardio in someone’s armpit.

The women’s locker room was empty. Lacy changed and stowed her clothes in a locker. She checked her watch. Three minutes to go. Not wanting to appear on the court early, she busied herself exploring the locker room. She hadn’t been to the YMCA since she took swim lessons as a child. The pool was located through one of the doors, but she couldn’t remember which.

She pushed open a door and the automatic light came on. A tower of rubber balls stared menacingly back at her. They were contained in a floor-to-ceiling cage made of bungee cords. To Lacy’s overheated brain, they looked like dozens of prisoners glaring from behind their bars. She turned abruptly to leave and smacked into the concrete wall. Fleetingly stunned, she shook her head to clear it and took one step to the left. Her hand was on the door when she heard it, the ominous “ping” of snapping bungee. Her fingers scrambled for the handle, but it was too late; the tower of balls came undone and began cascading around her, filling the small space, bombarding the backs of her calves. When she tried to take a step, the balls jiggled and bounced around her like frantic puppies, and more kept coming. Inevitably, she went down and kept trying to migrate her way to the door while the sea of balls swarmed her, impeding her progress. They didn’t hurt, and she wasn’t going to die, but she couldn’t stop the encroaching sense of panic.

They’ve got me. Get them off! Get them off!
She reached for the door again as it swung open. A little old woman with buzzed gray hair stared down at her. Lacy’s panic fled, to be replaced quickly by humiliation. She could only imagine what she looked like on her hands and knees in a puddle of red rubber balls.

“I don’t know what happened,” Lacy said.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked. “I heard the strangest sounds coming from this room.”

“Yes, I’m fine. They spilled and…” her words trailed off as she stood. She kicked a ball away. It bounced off the wall and slammed hard into her thigh. She doubled over and clutched her leg. If they were keeping dodgeball score right now, she would have just tagged herself out.

The woman opened the door wider for her and moved aside as she exited the ball room. “It happens to the best of us,” the woman said, although Lacy had doubts it had ever happened to her. Though clearly past middle age, the woman still looked trim and athletic, like a former gym teacher.

“I was trying to find the pool,” Lacy explained.

The woman eyed her suspiciously. “You were going to swim in that outfit?”

“No, I wanted to see it. I haven’t been here since I was a kid.”

“The pool’s through that door.” She pointed to a door marked POOL in glaring neon letters.

“They should mark it better,” Lacy joked, but the woman didn’t laugh.

“Good luck,” she called and hurried briskly toward the exit. Lacy lagged slowly behind. She was probably almost late now. Jason would be pacing the floor. He liked to be early for everything. But her thigh hurt and the hateful game hadn’t even started yet. She had no desire to add to her bruise collection.

She entered the court as the game was getting ready to start. As she had predicted, Jason was waiting for her. He took her hand and led her forward. “Here, she’s here,” he announced. A man on the other side of the court nodded and marked something on a paper. “If you hadn’t shown up, we would have had to forfeit,” he explained.

Lacy nodded. “Sorry, I had some trouble in the locker room.”

“What kind of trouble?” he asked.

“The usual stuff. What do I need to know about playing this game?”

“Don’t get hit,” he said.

“Right,” she said. She reached in her pocket and inserted her mouth guard. Jason gave her a quick sidelong glance and then turned to stare at her fully.

“What is that?” he asked.

Talking was impossible with the guard in. She removed it to answer. “My mouth guard.”

“Why does it cover your face like a cage?” he asked.

“My orthodontist made it for me after I tried to play intramural football in college. He said I would need to wear it to avoid cracking another molar if I ever attempted sports again,” she explained. “Is it hideous?”

“No, I dig the
Silence of the Lambs
vibe. But I can’t believe your college intramurals let you play tackle football,” he said.

“They didn’t. It was flag.”

He blinked at her. “I love you.”

“Sometimes I’m suspicious you say that to remind yourself.” She smiled before reattaching the mouth guard that didn’t allow for any extraneous lip movement.

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze as the whistle blew and the game began. Jason didn’t move away from her, even though she had frozen like a statue and was now a glaring target. Around them, balls began to fly. She watched as one whizzed into the face of a heavily made up woman, leaving a makeup imprint on the ball.

“Oh, that had to hurt,” Jason muttered, wincing. “Come on, we need to get in the game. Stay behind me.”

Even without the mouth guard, she would have found speech impossible. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick and swollen with fear. She nodded and ducked low, scrabbling so closely behind him that she scraped his heels. A ball flew toward them. He caught it with one hand and tossed it away, pegging an opponent.

Another ball zinged toward them. Jason put his hand on her head and pushed her down. As she ducked, the ball whistled by, less than half an inch from her ear. As they advanced onto the court, Lacy began to feel like she was Keanu Reeves in
The Matrix.
More and more balls were being directed at them, but with Jason there, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. He caught them, tossed them away, tagged opponents, shifted her out of the line of fire, pivoted to catch another ball with his left hand while tossing one away with his right. Lacy stood still and watched it all happen as if in a dream. Meanwhile Jason continued to be everywhere at once. At one point he leapfrogged over her back, caught a ball that had gone impossibly high and still managed to shift Lacy out of the line of fire as he came back down. She had never seen anything like him before. It was as if all her bad luck on the court was reversed by being in his orbit.