Working Stiff (28 page)

Bryn carried back two glasses, one for her, one for Annie. “All right. What’s Mom done to make you come running out here? Because you could have just mailed the present, you know.”

“I missed you!”

“I know, but come on. What happened?”

“She … Well, you know. She’s being Mom.” Annie drank, and fiddled with the glass. “She doesn’t like me working at the bar. She keeps trying to get me to quit and go to college. I just got tired of the lectures. I needed a break.”

“You weren’t arguing about money?”

“What?” Annie choked on her Coke. “No. No, don’t look at me like that! I swear, I didn’t ask her for a dime.” She sounded wounded. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, you bailed me out—I know. I remember.”

“I’ve never been able to figure out where you spend it all. You don’t drink; you don’t, you know …” Bryn made a smoking gesture.

“Do drugs? Jesus, Bryn, we’re not twelve; you can say it. No, I don’t!”

“Then—”

Annie sighed. “I just like to buy things. I try, I really do, but I just … lose track. And then the banks make it worse. Did you know they process the biggest charges first, so you bounce the most checks and get hit with the most fees? It’s awful.”

“You know what solves that? Not spending so much.”

“You sound just like her.” Meaning Mom. Of course. “Look, I
know
, okay? I’m trying really hard to get better with money.”

“Annie …” Bryn shook her head. “You say that, but you just spent too much on this present, and don’t tell me Tate and Mom and Grace pitched in; I know you paid for most of it, right? And then you flew all this way to deliver it.” The fresh airline tag was still on the handle of Annie’s bag. And she must have gotten a taxi, which cost a fortune from the airport. “Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

Annie seized the moment. “Yes! I’ve missed you, you know. We can go out—do you know I’ve never been to Sea-World? Or the zoo. I hear the zoo is amazing. We can go! And we can have so much fun. It’ll be like when we used to share a room— Oh, it’s okay if I stay, right? I didn’t get a motel.”

Joe gave Bryn a wide-eyed look of very clear warning. “Well … actually, there’s not much room. How about if I get you a hotel room? We can do things at night if you want. I do have to work during the day” That clearly wasn’t good enough; Joe gave her a tiny shake of his head. She glared back, trying to send the silent message of,
She’s family, damn it!
He finally shrugged. Surrender.

“Oh,” Annie said, subdued. “I didn’t think … Okay. Right, a hotel is fine, I guess. And I can just do things on my own.”

“Annie—”

“Maybe I should just see if I can get on standby and go home. I don’t want to bother you. I just thought … I wanted to spend time with you.”

Annie didn’t exactly
mean
to make it a guilt trip; she really did feel abandoned and sad, and didn’t cover it well. She never had. In some ways, Annalie was still a child, and Bryn sometimes forgot that. Everybody had always indulged her. Protected her.

And Bryn was no different, because she gave up at the sight of Annie’s sad, almost teary eyes. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You can stay here during the day. I’ll give you the codes to get in and out. Mr. French needs someone to play with, anyway….”
Oh, crap
. Bryn felt a guilty shock. Mr. French—she’d left him in the bathroom. She jumped up and hurried into the bedroom, embarrassed by the fact that she hadn’t made her bed or picked up the clothes on the floor, and the police had been in here staring at it. Too late now. She opened the bathroom door.

Mr. French was lying in a pile of snow, looking somehow supremely grumpy and self-satisfied. He let out a
whuff
of disapproval when she opened the door, and stood up to waddle regally past her.

No … that pile wasn’t snow.

It was the shredded remains of her full roll of toilet paper. He’d ripped it apart. Also, the towels were off the racks, although she couldn’t imagine how he’d bounced that high. And the back of the door was gouged with scratches.

“Damn,” Annie said from behind her. “Your dog knows how to party.”

“You know what? You really should stay here,” Bryn said, and shut the bathroom door. “He needs a walk right now. When you come back, you can pick up all that and clean it up.”

“Me? He’s
your
dog!”

“He was locked in because of
your
mistake. You clean it up.” Bryn handed her the key, took a piece of paper, and scribbled down the code for the alarm, which she thrust on her sister before Joe could tell her what an awful idea that was. “Memorize it and destroy the paper, and I mean
destroy
it; don’t just crumple it up, okay? Shred and flush.”

“Seriously? Bryn, are you mad at me? I had a key; I didn’t know it was going to be a problem. I mean, I know he made a mess, but I didn’t think—”

“I know,” Bryn said, and took a deep breath. Annie never meant to cause chaos. It just followed her around in a dark cloud. “It’s okay. You stay here today. I’ll see you tonight, and then we’ll figure things out.”

Annie brightened up into a smile immediately. “Cool. See you tonight. And I promise the house will be clean, your bed will be made, and I’ll have dinner for you.” Annie, bless her,
could
cook. And Bryn had just been thinking about how damn lonely life was becoming. Having family to come home to might be a blessing … just for a little while.

She hugged Annie, impulsively, and her sister hugged her back, then tenderly smoothed Bryn’s hair back. “You smell like dead people,” she said. “Confidentially, it’s probably why you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You are such a
bitch
.”

Annie grinned. She had perfect white teeth, the achievement of years of dentist visits, rigorous brushing, flossing, and bleaching. She had a nice tan, too. “I’m not judging. I smell like airplane,” she said. “I’m going to shower and lie out by the pool for a while.”

“After you clean the place.”

“Oh, absolutely. After.” Annie assumed a saintly expression and crossed her heart, which made Bryn laugh; it was Annie’s giveaway for lying. They exchanged another hug, a quick one, and Annie waved as she and Joe descended the steps.

“Lock the door!” Bryn called back. “And turn on the alarm!”

“Yes, Mom.”

Joe held his tongue until they were in the van, buckled in, and driving away. “Do I even need to tell you what a terrible idea this is?” he asked. “Or how incredibly pissed off McCallister will be?”

“Nope,” she said. She felt oddly very much steadier now. Annie might be a doofus sometimes, but she was an anchor to her past, to her family, and Bryn needed one right now.

Joe was a good guy, but there was no substitute for that.

The day passed. Bryn kept her e-mail in-box active, waiting for something, anything from her mysterious would-be supplier; nothing arrived. She’d fielded about twelve calls, eight of them certainly pranks, three legitimate customers, and one from her sister about dinner.

She was checking out a suspicious e-mail message when her phone rang again; the e-mail, it turned out, was legitimate, but trash.

The phone call was odd.

At first, Bryn thought it was a prank call; she’d gotten used to those fast. Lucy called them their sex-chat clients, and joked that they needed to start charging $9.95 a minute to make some extra money off of it; they usually started out with breathing and vague noises, and that was exactly what this was. Some kind of labored, wet gasp, and undefined sounds.

“Hello?” Bryn said, just to be sure. “Not funny. I’m hanging up now.”

Usually, that either brought some kind of obscene proposal, or a hang-up. She got neither, just more of the breathing. On reflection, it didn’t sound sexual. It sounded slow and tortured.

“Hello?” Bryn glanced at her phone. Caller ID had brought up a name, which was unusual for a sex caller.

And the name seemed familiar.

Bryn felt a sinking sensation, listening to that whispering breath. She tried again, but got no response to her questions.

She hung up and called Lucy on the intercom. “Lucy, can you look up a contact for a customer for me?”

“Sure. Which one?”

“Sammons, first initial
V
. I think someone was trying to call from her number and got cut off.”

“We get a lot of hang-ups, you know.”

“I know. But look it up, would you?”

“Just a sec.” Lucy put the phone down, and Bryn listened to keys clicking. “System’s always so slow— Oh, there it is. Sammons, Violetta. She wasn’t a customer, though. She was a client.”

“A client.” The difference, in Fairview terminology, was that customers wrote checks; clients filled coffins. “You’re sure about that?”

“Maybe somebody kept the number switched on? Could have been a relative; she had a husband who made arrangements. She only passed a couple of weeks ago, right before you arrived here. One of Mr. Fairview’s last personal preps, poor man.”

Personal prep
. Fairview seemed to do personal prep only on his special clients.

The ones who kept on paying.

She couldn’t talk,
Bryn realized.
Violetta Sammons was too far gone to talk, but she was trying to ask for help. My God. She’s been without a shot for … how long? Why didn’t her husband try to call us?

The implications made her sick and light-headed. “Thanks. Can you read me the address?”

“Sure.” Lucy recited it, and Bryn wrote it down. “You need anything else?”

“No,” Bryn said. Her knuckles had tightened around the phone. “No, thank you, Lucy.” She hung up and rang Joe’s extension. He didn’t answer at once; when he did, it was clear the call had switched to his cell. “Joe? Where are you?”

“At Atlantic Memorial, waiting on a pickup with Doreen.” Doreen was the latest in this week’s parade of assistants. “She’s still with us.”

“The pickup?”

“Doreen. What’s going on?”

Her throat felt tight with panic. “I had a weird phone call. I think it was someone Fairview … you know. She’s in trouble.”

“All right, give me the address; I’ll send people.”

“No. Joe … Joe, she called me. She needs help. We’ve got supplies, right? I want to give her the shot.”

“Bryn, you can‘t. The syringes are ID coded. You know that.”

“Then come back and go with me.”

“You want me to leave Doreen here alone to do the pickup? Even if I did, I’m a couple of hours away.”

“This can’t wait, Joe. It can’t.”

“She’s not going anywhere, right?”

Her eyes were burning now with unshed tears. She couldn’t explain why she felt so oppressed by this; she couldn’t understand it herself. “She needs help
now
. I’m going.”

“Tell me where you’re going first.” She read him the address. “Seriously, wait for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I can’t leave her like that.”

He was silent for a second, then said, “You know what you might have to do. She’s probably too far gone to dose.”

“I know,” she said. “I can’t let her suffer, Joe. That’s why I have to go.”

“As long as you know what you’re getting into. I’ll get Pat to meet you there; he’s not far. No arguments, boss. This is how it’s done.” The
boss
was ironic; Bryn was almost sure. She was no one’s boss, not even her own. He hung up before she could tell him not to call McCallister—not that he would have listened.

She hadn’t spoken directly to McCallister since they’d parted ways in that uncomfortable fashion at the mansion, and she wasn’t looking forward to it now. But mostly what she dreaded was what she was going to find at Violetta Sammons’s house. Where was Violetta’s husband?
McCallister will have the shot,
she thought.
We can do this. We can make it right and figure it out from there
.

She grabbed her preloaded removal bag from the locker room, added a few things, and took one of the mortuary vans—freshly cleaned out and smelling astringently of bleach.
Either I smell like dead people, or I smell like cleaning products
. Annie was right: boyfriends were probably out of the question at this point—presuming, of course, that she had any right to think about such real-life issues anymore.

She tried not to think about that, or anything, as she followed the navigation system’s directions to Violetta’s address up in the La Jolla hills. It was in a very posh neighborhood, with big, expansive houses and a breathtaking view. Not Patrick McCallister’s price range, but even the smallest of these properties must have gone for a couple of million.

No wonder Fairview had chosen Sammons for his scam.

Bryn parked the van and got out, carrying her black canvas bag, just as Patrick McCallister’s tinted black sedan closed in behind like a shark. He stepped out, and they looked at each other for a few seconds. His bruised cheek had mostly healed, and his suit looked clean and impeccable, as always.

He had a black bag, too. She didn’t think his held the same things hers did.

“Bryn,” he said, in a very careful, neutral tone. “What’s the emergency?”

“I think she’s one of Fairview’s,” Bryn said. “And I think she’s been without a shot all this time. I couldn’t just … I have to help. I have to. You understand?”

McCallister hesitated, then nodded. “Let me go first.”

“No,” she said. “I have to do this.”

“Not alone,” he said. “We do it together, then.”

That felt better, because she was terrified and trying not to show it. The house looked completely normal, nothing to sound alarms. Bryn rang the doorbell, then tried the front door, but it was locked.

“What now?” she asked. McCallister led her around to the side, to a kitchen door. She tried that one. “It’s locked, too.”