Saving Allegheny Green (11 page)

Damn. They were probably out somewhere getting drunk.

I threw the receiver back on the hook and then, not knowing what else to do, I called Conahegg.

“H
ELLO
.”

At the sound of his husky voice that held the same smooth bite as expensive brandy, I almost hung up.

“Hello?” he said again, demanding that I answer.

“Um…hi.” I sank onto the edge of Sissy’s bed, and twisted the phone cord around my index finger until it turned dusky.

“Allegheny?”

I was inordinately pleased that he’d recognized my voice with so little to go on.

“Yes. Can you talk?” I untwisted my finger and shook my hand to get the blood circulating.

“Hang on a minute. I’ve got a potpie in the oven.”

I heard him settle the phone against what sounded like a countertop. He was talking to me from the kitchen, I deduced. Poor thing. Reduced to eating tasteless frozen dinners from a box. If I were there I’d make him my special chicken potpie with homemade crust and a tossed salad on the side.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m back.”

“You’re eating awfully late.” I could imagine him standing in the kitchen. His hair was damp from a shower and sticking up in spiky clumps. Was he in his underwear? I wondered. Or maybe even naked? My heart beat faster.

“Yeah, well, I left work late, then I had to cook and debone the chicken before putting the pie together.”

“You made it yourself? From scratch?” So much for my domestic fantasy of feeding Sheriff Burly He-Man. Still, I was impressed that he had made his own chicken potpie. My daydream shifted a little. In my mind’s eye he remained naked, but now he wore an apron that read: KISS THE COOK.

“I cheated a little,” he admitted. “I used Pillsbury ready-made crust. And I bought the vegetables already cut up.”

Ah! He wasn’t perfect after all.

“So, what can I do for you?” he asked.

Besides raise my core body temperature and drive me wild with desire? “I need to talk to you.”

“Fire when ready.”

I heard a chair scrape against a tile floor. I closed my eyes, licked my lips. He was pulling out the kitchen chair, sitting down. The KISS THE COOK apron fell strategically across his bare lap barely covering his large…

“Ally? You still there?”

“Huh?” I felt dazed. Like someone jerked from a deep sleep.

“You okay? You sound…funny.”

Try horny, fella.

“Fine, just fine,” I muttered, struggling to keep my mind on the topic at hand and off Conahegg’s imaginary anatomy. I kicked off my shoes, scooted to the middle of Sissy’s bed and tucked my legs beneath me.

“Where are you at?” he asked.

“I’m home.”

“Where at home?”

“In bed.”

“Ah.” His voice cracked.

Startled, I realized Conahegg might be having a few late-night fantasies of his own. The thought revved me up like a finely tuned car engine. Goose bumps spread across my arms.

“What are you wearing?”

Oh my gosh! Obviously he’d misinterpreted the meaning of my call. Time to jump in and tell him about Sissy, to nip the wayward conversation in the bud.

“Or are you wearing anything at all?”

My cheeks flamed. I glanced down at my faded, comfy, frumpy pj’s with the top button missing and the grape jelly stain on the collar. I could tell the truth and bring our little tête-à-tête to a screeching halt or I could play along and see where it might lead.

“A negligee,” I lied and heard a gulp from the other end of the line. I unfurled my legs, lay back against the pillow.

“What color?”

I could see him. His sweaty hand clasping the receiver, the KISS THE COOK apron making a tent big enough for a family of circus dwarfs to camp beneath.

“Scarlet,” I said, rubbing my palm along my feverish neck. “With black lace trim.”

He hissed in his breath as if he’d been scalded.

“Black garters and thigh-high stockings,” I embellished.

He growled.

“Crimson stiletto heels.”

“Stop!” he commanded in his cop voice.

My hand, which had somehow crept from my neck to my belly, froze in place.

Silence hung like a marble curtain.

Then, we both spoke at once, in a rush.

“I didn’t mean…”

“I’m sorry…”

Conahegg laughed. A rueful, rough noise that sent fresh shivers clamoring down my spine.

“Listen,” he said.

I pricked up my ears. “Yes?”

“I’m glad you called. There’s something I wanted to say to you.”

“Oh?” The word came out in a whispery Marilyn Monroe whoosh.

“I owe you an apology.”

“What for?”

“For my behavior just now and for the other day. At the gym.”

“What do you mean?”

“You greeted me cheerfully and I barely even acknowledged your presence.”

“You were busy. I shouldn’t have interrupted the weight training.”

“No,” he said. “That wasn’t it.”

“What was it?”

“You. Ally, you looked so damned hot in those skintight bicycle shorts and that skimpy little sport bra it was all I could do to keep from…”

“Yes?”

“Never mind.”

“No, go ahead.” I fanned myself with my naughty hand. It had been a very long time since a man I was interested in had talked to me in such a frankly sexual manner. The sensations jolting through me were at once both extremely arousing and quite terrifying. I could lose myself in a man like Conahegg. That idea frightened me. Suddenly, I realized why I’d always been attracted to passive, brooding artistic types. Those guys I could control. They were safe.

Conahegg was not.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel something for you, because I do.”

“You do?” I parroted.

“Yes. But I’m not the kind of guy who beats around the bush. This is a bad time for me. Both professionally and personally.
I know you like me, too, and I don’t want to lead you on. I really can’t get involved in anything serious. But if you’re not opposed to something casual…”

“Excuse me?” He was offering me a fling. A wild, hot affair. He didn’t want to meld with me mind, body and soul. He wanted a quick roll in the hay. I should have been relieved. Instead, I was incensed. “Who do you think you are, you arrogant—”

“That’s why you called, wasn’t it?” He sounded bewildered. “You were the one who mentioned crimson stilettos.”

Guilty as charged. And regretting it more with each passing second. What to do? Try to get the conversation back on a proper footing and tell him about Sissy? Or simply hang up and pretend the whole thing never happened.

“Your ego, Sheriff Conahegg, is bigger than the state of Texas.” I sniffed. “What on earth makes you think I’d have an affair with you?”

“Lust?” he said, his tone hopeful.

“Think again, smart guy.”

“Well, if you didn’t call to chat with me, what did you call for?”

“I need to tell you what Sissy’s been up to. I think Rocky’s got her involved in something shady.” I swallowed. What I had to say next was really tough for me. “I need your help.”

“You? You’re asking for help?”

“Don’t rub it in,” I snapped.

“Sorry. Please, go on. Tell me about your sister.”

If I hadn’t been so concerned for Sissy’s welfare, I might have told him to forget it. But I thought of the night she’d gotten beat up in the parking lot. I gulped down my pride and related to him everything Denny had told me.

“Would you like me to go talk to Hughes? See if I can shake him up? Tell him to stay away from Sissy?”

“That’d be great.”

“Consider it done. Oh, and, Ally.”

“Uh-huh?”

“I’m really sorry I’m not in a position to pursue a relationship with you.”

“I never said I wanted one.”

“I know. But another time, another place, I think maybe we could have had something great.”

S
ISSY DIDN’T COME HOME
all weekend, nor Monday, either. Conahegg called me on Sunday afternoon to say Rocky hadn’t been home when he’d dropped by to see him. We didn’t talk about the
other
thing on both our minds and I hung up really quickly before he decided to bring it up.

Tuesday, I had to do a home health visit on Rocky and there was no way around it. I dreaded the showdown, but it was long overdue. Driving down the same road to Andover Bend that I’d traveled the previous week, I experienced a weird sense of déjà vu.

When I reached Rocky’s trailer, I parked on the bare dirt yard, took a deep breath and peered over at Tim’s place. The shoddy trailer looked sad and forlorn. I shook my head over Tim’s wasted life and girded my loins for the battle before me.

Rocky’s rickety steps creaked under my weight. The screen door hung half off its hinges. I pushed it aside and pounded on the aluminum front door. I prayed Sistine wasn’t in there with him, even though I desperately wanted to find her. As much as we fight, I love my sister. More than anything in the world I’d love to see her happy and settled. Although Sissy seemed to believe otherwise.

I waited.

And waited.

“Criminey, not again,” I muttered. “The louse is probably
either stoned or drunk or both and passed out like a brick.” Resolutely, I turned the knob and the door opened.

“Rocky,” I shouted, unable to shake the feeling that I’d been through the scenario before. “It’s Ally. Is Sistine in there with you?” I certainly didn’t want to catch them doing the horizontal bop.

I stepped into the foyer. If you can call it that. It was a twelve-inch circle of parquet that blended into filthy brown carpeting.

Yuck. I saw what Denny meant by calling the place a roach motel. Actually, roach motel was a compliment.

The room was almost totally dark save for the light bleeding in from the opened door. Blankets had been draped over the windows in place of curtains. I had fleeting thoughts of vampires and shuddered.

A guitar lay in the middle of the floor, alongside a high-tech video camera on a tripod. I wondered where Rocky had gotten such expensive equipment and what he’d been doing with it.

Another shiver rippled down my spine as I considered a disgusting possibility. Had Sissy and Rocky been making their own dirty movies?

“Anybody home?” I was surprised to hear my voice quiver.

Nada.

In that instant Tim’s naked, hanging body flashed into my mind’s eye.

“Rocky!” I inched through the living room and pulled a blanket from one window to let in more light. Dust flew everywhere. I sneezed.

Still no response.

The urge to leave was strong. But I had to discover where my sister had gone. Maybe at least I could find a clue to Sissy’s whereabouts.

I took a deep breath and regretted it. The place smelled to high heaven of rotten garbage. An indolent blowfly buzzed around the ceiling.

Unwillingly, I moved deeper into the trailer house, skirting the maze of filth. A couch with the stuffing coming out of it, apparently doubled as a storage closet. There were stacks of clothes and girlie magazines and worn-out sneakers strewn over the cushion. Across from the couch rested a television set and beside it, a broken-down La-Z-Boy recliner as encumbered by debris as the couch.

Obviously, Rocky wasn’t lurking in the living room. Unless he was hiding under those dirty clothes. I could see the kitchen from where I stood and he wasn’t in there, either.

“Rockerfeller Hughes,” I raised my voice but I was beginning to suspect Rocky wasn’t home even though his battered pickup truck, the bed littered with A&W root beer cans and whiskey bottles, was parked outside.

I kicked aside more aluminum cans and pizza boxes littering the floor. I wrinkled my nose against the stench. Cripes, why in the world had Sissy brought Denny here? What was she thinking? Did she ever stop to ask herself what she was doing in a place like this with a guy like Rocky?

Sissy was pretty and she could have any man she wanted—well, if she took out the nose ring and the tongue stud. How come she was always attracted to bad boys?

I peeked down the hallway.

Not another closed bedroom door.

“Rocky!” I fairly screamed, praying he’d come staggering out of that bedroom. Hair sticking straight up, scratching his crotch, peering at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes.

But he didn’t.

There wasn’t a sound. Not a peep. Not a whisper. Not even a belch.

“No,” I whimpered. “I’m not going to look inside that bedroom.” But even as I was denying my intentions, I was creeping for that door.

I kept thinking about those awful teenage slasher movies where the too-stupid-to-live heroine blithely goes into the spooky dark basement to look for her friends while the entire audience is screaming for her to get the hell out of the house.

But a curiosity I couldn’t deny compelled me. What lay beyond the door?

When I got closer, I saw the door stood slightly ajar.

“Rocky?” I whispered but I wasn’t expecting an answer.

I nudged the door with my foot. It swung silently open.

There was someone or something sitting on the floor beside the headboard.

Gulping, I flipped on the light.

It wasn’t as dramatic as finding Tim’s body. Honestly, at first I thought Rocky really was deep in a drunken stupor and had rolled off the bed. He had the sheet over his face and he was naked with one hand resting in his lap.

“Hey,” I said, my voice wobbling a little. “Wake up.”

He didn’t move.

“Rocky?”

The apprehension was back, along with a huge knot in my chest. I moved toward the bed and as I got a better look I realized his body was stiff.

Rigor mortis.

Oh, boy.

I leaned over and lifted the sheet from his face, felt the same shocky kick I’d felt when I’d discovered Tim’s body.

I let out a soft cry and backpedaled, running smack into the wall, my hand over my mouth.

Rockerfeller Hughes’s face was black. His tongue lolling obscenely. His eyes bulging.

Then I saw it. The belt. One end looped around the bed post.

The other end around his neck.

“Here we go again,” I whispered and sank to the floor.

“W
E’VE GOT TO STOP
meeting like this,” Conahegg said.

“Har, har. Ever thought about becoming a stand-up comedian?”

“You look pale.”

I didn’t want or need his concern. Especially when I could tell that he was restraining himself from reaching over and touching my cheek. I wasn’t getting involved with a commitment phobic man. Nub-uh, not me. “Stumbling across two bodies in less than a week can do that to a girl.”