The Stiff and the Dead (36 page)
Read The Stiff and the Dead Online
Authors: Lori Avocato
Jagger pulled up next to the curb and looked at me.
“What?” I shifted from foot to foot. “I wore the damned scrubs like you said.”
“No purse. I said don't bring a purse for this job.”
Shit. I'd forgotten. I really had to pay more attention to the details. Especially Jagger details. “I'll go give it to Goldieâ”
“Get in.”
He looked anxious to leave so I hurried around the other side of the car and got in. Nick always opened the door for me. Jagger, well, was Jagger.
“Take out your essentials and leave the purse under the seat,” he said as we spun out of the parking lot.
I gave him a dirty look, figuring his eyes were on the road, but he stopped at the light and looked at me. “Essentials. No crap like makeup, perfume, or money. You won't need money.”
“Fine.” I'd learned a long time ago not to argue with Jagger. Okay, what I really learned was
when
I argued with him, I lost. I opened my bag, took out a comb, lipstick, new key chain from Nick and tried to nonchalantly take out a Tampaxâjust in case.
When he jammed on the brake, the Tampax flew out of my hand, harpooning itself on the lambskin collar of Jagger's aviator jacket.
He pulled to a stop sign, turned and shook his head.
I reached over and grabbed the Tampax without a word. Somehow that made me feel empowered. If I'd broken down into hysterical sobs, as I wanted to do, or died of embarrassment, which was my second choice, Jagger wouldn't respect me. One more shake of his head and we were off.
Another thing I'd learned about Jagger was when he shook his head at me once, he was perturbed. Two shakes, well, no one would want Jagger shaking his head at them twice.
Exasperated
was the word I'd associate with two shakes.
We turned onto Interstate 91 headed north.
“You said this was only going to take a few hours. Where are we going?”
“Airport.”
“Airport!” flew out of my mouth so fast a hiccup followed. I ignored it like the harpooned Tampax. “I'm not flying anywhere.” Not being a frequent flyer, I needed a few doses of Prozac before stepping down the long jetway to confinement, and I didn't bring any.
“No, you are not.” He turned off the airport exit and before I knew it, we'd pulled up to the curb beneath the “Arrivals” sign.
“You can't park here,” I said after reading all the warning signs. “You know how tight security has gotten since 9/11.”
This time he merely looked at me. No head shaking.
Made my day.
“That state cop is coming over. You better drive around the airport a few times.”
The cop came near, leaned over, and looked at me. “No stoppingâ”
Jagger bent forward.
The cop looked at him, tipped his hat to me and said, “Have a nice day, ma'am.”
Often when I was with Jagger, the same physical things happened. Heart arrhythmias. My high IQ tanked. And jaw problems. The “problem” was that my jaw would drop down to my chest when he'd say or do something oh so very Jagger-like.
“What the hell? Why didn't you have toâ” No need to finish. It was foolish to ask Jagger anything. He was as closed-mouthed as a clam dug out of the Rhode Island beaches. I should have known and not wasted my words.
“There.” Jagger motioned his head toward the far door. “There she is. Mary Louise Huntington. Go get her.”
I looked up to see a young woman with blonde hair about my length coming out of the door. I stepped out of the car and squinted. “Holy shit. She looks like me!”
“Ata girl, Sherlock.”
Pleased that I'd figured something out, but having no clue as to what, I started walking towards the woman who was now followed by a nun. Another state cop came out of the far door near the baggage claim amid a crowd of people. A flight must have recently landed.
When I got closer to the woman, I said, “I'm here to escort you.” To a mental institution, but I didn't say that out loud. “I'm with him.” I turned around and pointed.
That jaw thing happened again.
No black Suburban.
No Jagger.
No idea what the hell I was doing.
I only hoped the woman, who looked even more like me close up, wouldn't freak out and give me a hard time.
“I need to pee,” she said and turned around. The nun was nowhere in sight now.
“Oh, wait,” I shouted as I followed her inside. She hurried toward the ladies' room near the baggage claim carousels. “I'm supposed to stay with you.”
I bumped into an elderly woman, coming out of the ladies' room.
“Watch it, bitch!” she shouted.
Appalled that a granny would speak that way, I offered an “Excuse me” and went inside. Mary Louise must have gone into a stall. I leaned against the sink and waited. “Er . . . you all right?”
Silence.
Jagger surely would be back from driving around the airport by now. He would do more than shake his head if I messed this case up.
“Look, Mary Louise, is it? I need to know that you are allâ”
The door opened.
My jaw dropped to my nipples this time.
Mary Louise Huntington stood in front of me as if I were looking in a mirror.
“I . . . did you notice how much weâ”
She took off her jacket. Beneath she wore drab blue scrubs.
Just like mine.
What the hell?
Before I could say a word, she hurried out the door again. I followed close behind. “Oh, no, lady. You are not getting me into trouble with Jagger.”
The nun approached, dropped her black carry on bag and bumped into me. “Oh, sorry, Sister. I'm not usually . . . ouch!”
I looked down at my arm. A syringe was pulled out. A syringe that the nun was now tucking into the sleeve of her robe. It gave me a chill.
A haze started to cloud the room. Or maybe it was . . . my . . . mind. My mind was . . . fuzzy. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Stop that,
PÄ
czki.
I laughed. The fuzzy nun pushed me into the bathroom. “Ouch.” I bumped my head on the wall. “Daddy calls me
PÄ
czki.
I giggled, stumbled. “It's a Polish prune-filled donut.” Jagger.
Where the hell was Jagger?
I rubbed at my arm. Make that three arms. I saw three arms attached to me on one side, four on the other. “You pinched me. That hurt. Nuns shouldn't . . . pinch . . . what did you give me? I hope to hell that syringe was sterile!”
Without a word, she pulled off her veil.
He?
He pulled off his veil, and he wasn't at all like Goldie. It didn't seem as if he usually dressed like a nun. I pushed at his chest and made it to the doorway of the rest room. Thank goodness there was no door that I had to open. My three arms felt as if they were made of rubber. Whatever was in that shot had kicked in, and I felt like crap.
My mouth dried.
My skin prickled.
My heart raced until the room spun, turned dark and started to wink out.
In the distance, on the other side of the glass door, watchingâstood
Jagger.
Photo by Sal Avocato
After serving in the Air Force as a registered nurse,
LORI AVOCATO
decided to give up nursing to write fiction. She lives in New England and is a member of Mystery Writers of America, PASIC, The Author's Guild, and Sisters in Crime. She's raising two teenage sons, one husband, and two dogs. Spanky, pictured above, has made his way into the Pauline Sokol mystery series as the joint-custody pup of Pauline, Miles, and Goldie. Lori believes that in today's world we all need a great entertaining read, and humor always helps. You can visit Lori's website at
www.loriavocato.com
. She loves to hear from her readers.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
An Imprint of
HarperCollins
Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022-5299
Copyright © 2005 by Lori Avocato
Excerpt from
One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest
copyright © 2005 by
Lori Avocato
ISBN 0-06-073166-4
EPub Edition July 2013 ISBN 9780062310293
T
HE STIFF AND THE DEAD
. Copyright © 2005 by Lori Avocato. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Avon Books paperback printing: July 2005
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