Sweet Poison (20 page)

“But I thought … oh, hell, I don’t know what I thought. I hoped you’d move to Chadwick, or that somehow, I could move to Minneapolis. But it hasn’t happened, and at this point, I don’t think it ever will.”

“You’re angry, or you’re hurt, so you’re taking the negative side.”

“There are lots of negatives, Lawless. For instance, your father buys this plane. You learn how to fly it, and I think, yeah! This will be the ticket. You tell me it will make it so much easier for us to get together. But you’re always so busy that you can’t fly down. And then your father runs for governor and he’s using the plane all the time.”

“That’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for that.”

“That’s just the point. I’m not sure anyone’s to blame. It’s not a matter of does this trump that?”

Now Jane was confused.

“Listen to me, Lawless. What I’m telling you is my truth. Maybe it’s not yours, but it’s the way it looks to me. See, there’s me on one side. On the other, there’s always something pulling at you. Your restaurants, or a friend who needs you, or Nolan and his wacky idea that you’re going to chuck everything become some idiotic shamus.
Or your dad’s campaign. Or your brother’s marital problems. Or there’s Cordelia’s having a meltdown and you have to spend time with her.”

“I have friends and family that mean the world to me. You’re part of that.”

Kenzie just stared at her.

“Look, I … I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe there’s nothing to say.”

“You mean, this is it? You’re breaking up with me because I’m busy? Because I have friends and a family?”

“I understand you have a life, Lawless. You get to have one. But what I have to ask myself is, is what’s left enough for me. It obviously is for you. But maybe you’re more independent than I am. Maybe I need more than you do. More of
you
, of your time. I need to be a bigger part of your life.”

“You’re a huge part of my life,” said Jane, moving toward her.

Kenzie held up her hand. “Just stay there for a damn minute. That’s what always happens. We start talking and then we get sidetracked. We make love and I lose my train of thought. Don’t you get it? I don’t think either of us is wrong, or to blame, or … the bad guy. I think we’re just different, that we want different things.”

“And so that’s it? We’re done?”

Kenzie looked down again, only this time her eyes welled with tears. “God this hurts.”

“Give me another chance.”

“To do what?” she asked. She moved back into the foyer and picked up her bags.

“You’re angry with me,” said Jane. “I know you are.”

“So what if I am?”

“You can’t make a decision like this out of anger.”

Silence gathered between them.

Kenzie opened the door, but before she walked through it, she stopped and took off her ring. “Here,” she said, holding it out to Jane.

“I don’t want it.”

“I can’t keep it. Not now.”

“Just … just put it back on. Something to remember me by.”

Kenzie set the ring on the table in the foyer. Without looking up, she said, “You be safe, Lawless. I’ll never forget you.”

A
s soon as Kenzie’s truck pulled away from the curb, Julia put her roadster in gear, waited a few seconds so it didn’t look too conspicuous, and finally followed at a respectful distance. She suspected that Kenzie might be leaving today but not quite this early.

Julia had trailed them to Stillwater last night, watched them order dinner while she sat in a dark corner of the bar and nursed a glass of wine. They looked very cozy together, talking intimately, laughing, staring deep into each other’s eyes. It wasn’t something Julia could stand to watch for very long. She was back home in White Bear Lake by eight, sitting in front of the fire with a brandy and the new FDR biography.

Today, she was simply being playful. She thought it would be interesting to follow Kenzie out of town. Maybe she’d stop somewhere and Julia would get another chance to observe her close up—or maybe even talk to her. Her curiosity about the new woman in Jane’s life was boundless. She saw it as a way to gain more insight into Jane, which was the whole point of the game.

But instead of taking 35W south or 55 west, Kenzie got on I-94 going east. Driving a good ten miles over the speed limit, she merged
onto 280 going north and eventually merged back onto 35W. Julia figured she must have been headed north all along but had simply circumvented the collapsed bridge closer in to the city. At one point, Julia was near enough to the truck to see that Kenzie was on her cell phone. Clearly, this wasn’t the way home. And that only ramped up Julia’s curiosity. If Kenzie wasn’t headed back to Chadwick, where was she going?

An hour later, the truck’s right-turn signal began to flash. Kenzie took the Hinckley exit, made another right at the top of the hill, and continued along Fire Monument Road for a mile or so. Julia was a quarter of a mile back when she saw the truck slow and come to a stop. And it stayed stopped for almost a full minute, until her roadster moved up behind it. Only then did Kenzie make a final right onto Lady Luck Drive, where she pulled into the parking lot of Grand Casino Hinckley, one of the many Ojibwe-owned gambling casinos in Minnesota.

Now Julia really was stumped. Parking behind a van and to the left of the truck about ten spaces, she waited for Kenzie to get out. It took a few minutes because she appeared to be on her cell phone again. When she did finally climb out, she stretched her long legs and glanced around the parking lot with a wary look on her face. Slipping on a pair of dark glasses, she took off her vest, stuffed it behind the driver’s seat, and replaced it with a zipper-front suede jacket. Pulling the collar up around her neck, she adjusted the sunglasses and finally made straight for the main entrance. Julia gave her a minute to get ahead of her before she got out of her car and followed.

The interior of the casino was much like the others Julia had seen: all tacky Las Vegas clones with bright lights and garish colors, yet still dim enough to feel like perpetual night. A flyer boasted that Grand Casino Hinckley had more than 2,000 EZ Play slots with payouts of a million dollars a day. There were twenty-eight blackjack tables, large bingo rooms, pull tabs, poker, four restaurants, a lounge, and an attached hotel. And that was just at the casino complex. Beyond that
was another hotel, cabins, a golf course, and on and on. Not bad for a small town in the middle of nowhere.

By the time Julia entered, Kenzie had disappeared. Moving slowly through the gaming floor, Julia finally spotted her in the Silver Sevens lounge, still wearing her sunglasses and jacket, sitting alone at the bar, talking to one of the bartenders. Julia made herself comfortable at a table across the room. When a waitress with dyed red topiary hair arrived to take her order, Julia asked for a glass of chardonnay. The woman suggested she run a tab and Julia, operating now on instinct, agreed.

Kenzie appeared to have ordered something harder. From Julia’s vantage point, it looked like a double vodka shot. Kenzie swallowed it in four neat sips, one right after the other, and asked for another.

This was growing more interesting by the minute. When Julia’s wine arrived, she thought about bringing it up to the bar and attempting to engage Kenzie in a conversation but decided on more of a wait-and-see approach.

Once the second double vodka was gone, Kenzie slapped some cash on the counter and walked out of the lounge. She seemed jumpy, fussing with her sunglasses as if she was afraid someone might recognize her. The fact that she hadn’t taken them off made her look even more conspicuous, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. She lingered at a few of the blackjack tables and finally chose one. Julia left her untouched glass of wine on the table and wandered out into the crowd. She chose a different blackjack table behind Kenzie so that she could watch without being observed. She played with little enthusiasm but noted that Kenzie had grown far less nervous, no doubt due to the alcohol working its way through her system.

Forty-five minutes later, Julia left the table she was at and moved to Kenzie’s. She stood next to her, acting like she wasn’t quite sure how the game was played. From the looks of Kenzie’s winnings, she was doing more than okay.

“Mind if I watch?” asked Julia. “I’m kind of new at this.”

“I suppose,” said Kenzie, giving her a sideways glance.

Not terribly friendly, thought Julia. She liked a challenge.

As the afternoon wore on, and as Julia began to do some playing herself, Kenzie seemed to warm to her presence.

Close-up, Julia found Kenzie quite attractive. She had lovely skin, a wonderfully engaging smile, and a dry sense of humor.

Kenzie’s small fortune went up and down all afternoon and into the evening. By seven, she admitted out loud that her luck seemed to have deserted her.

“Why don’t we take a break?” asked Julia. “Go have a drink, or something to eat. It’s on me.”

“I’m not that broke.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve taught me more about cards today than anybody ever has. Let me repay you.”

Grudgingly, Kenzie allowed herself to be dragged back to the Silver Sevens lounge, where they ordered roasted turkey sandwiches. Kenzie asked for another double shot of vodka, which she downed.

“Boy,” said Julia, sipping from a glass of wine, “you seem hell-bent on having one real train wreck of an evening.”

“You think?”

“Did you break up with your boyfriend?”

“Something like that.”

Julia tried not to react, but inside she was elated. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It’s what happens when you fall for that pathetic pipe dream called true love.”

Bitter, thought Julia. Even better. “My name’s Jules.”

“Kenzie.”

“Let’s leave it at that.”

“What happens in Hinckley
stays
in Hinckley,” Kenzie deadpanned.

Julia couldn’t help but laugh. “Exactly. You know, you’ve really got some serious gambling chops.”

The waitress with the topiary hair set Kenzie’s second double vodka
down in front of her. This time, Kenzie let it sit. “I haven’t been in a casino in eighteen years.”

“Any particular reason.”

“Yeah, but I’ll spare you the after-school special.”

“Hey, I loved those after-school specials. Come on, tell me.”

Kenzie hesitated but then relented. “Okay. But it’s nothing new. It’s not something I’ve thought much about for many years because I thought I’d beat it. When I was in college, during my junior year, I started gambling, just for fun. Friends were all doing it and so I went along for the ride. Casino stuff. Twenty-one. Slots. I thought it was just a casual thing until I woke up one day and realized I’d lost almost everything. I was on the verge of being tossed out of my apartment. My car had been repossessed. I was flunking out of school. I got some help, thank God. I promised myself I’d never gamble again. And I didn’t. Not until I met … someone. I gambled, and I lost.”

“That’s a sad story.”

“Sad stories and vodka go together like rice and … and—”

“Hot fudge.”

Kenzie laughed. “Perfect.”

“Where are you from?”

“I drove up from Minneapolis.”

“There’s a casino a lot closer than here. It’s just south of the cities.”

“Yeah, but I like poison with my poison.” She held up the shot glass. “Can’t drink at Mystic Lake.”

“Ah.”

“I’m making every bad decision in the book. And I’m gonna enjoy every last minute of it.”

“And tomorrow?”

She hoisted the shot glass and downed half of it. “This is tomorrow.”

The alcohol made Kenzie garrulous, which couldn’t have been better. Julia sat back and listened, trying to get a sense of who Kenzie Mulroy really was. She eventually came to the conclusion that Kenzie was well educated, but what stood out was her fundamental lack
of cultural underpinnings. She was a hayseed at heart who’d bettered herself, but she remained a small-town girl with small-town attitudes and aspirations. She was rough and essentially ordinary, not right for Jane at all, though she’d probably made for an interesting interlude.

As Julia sipped the wine, she arrived at a quiet revelation. “Will you excuse me for a few seconds?”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

Heading out of the lounge, Julia made straight for the casino hotel’s reception desk. The hotel was conveniently connected to the gaming floor. She booked a suite, paid for it with a credit card, and then stopped one of the bellmen and handed him two one-hundred-dollar bills. “I don’t have any bags, but I want you to go up to my room”—she told him the number—”and bring up a fifth of good vodka. Armadale, preferably. But Grey Goose would be okay. I also want a tray of fruit and cheese. Oh, and make sure there’s ice and something other than plastic glasses. And while you’re at it, if there are any windows to open, open them. If you can find some fresh flowers, bring those, too. Whatever you have left over is your tip. You got all that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the young man.

“I may be here for a couple of days, so there’s more where that came from, if you do it fast and right. What’s your name?”