A Fatal Romance Read online

  A security light hanging from the soffit in the far corner of Eve’s roof offered visibility mostly away from the driveway. I sat scanning the left side of her yard and beyond to the house next door. Finding no signs of a person, I checked the right and again saw no one. I slipped out of my truck, shunning the instinct to grab a crowbar from my toolbox. I was going inside hoping to find my sister so I could convince her to come back to my place to stay. I didn’t want to walk in with a weapon raised and possibly swing it down at her if she startled me.

  The minute I stepped in front of my truck, a flash of light from the right called my attention. It came and disappeared, and I knew it was someone in the closest window of her snoopy neighbor’s house. After I’d pulled into Eve’s drive, someone there must have peeked out of that window to see who it was and then dropped the curtain.

  I could probably walk over to their house and ask whether my twin had arrived here, and both of them would know. But I didn’t want them to know anything about her whereabouts now. I rushed to Eve’s front door, used my key, and slipped into her house that was dark except for a timed-lamp in her den.

  “Eve, it’s me,” I yelled, not wanting to scare her. My gaze swept every area I could see. Shadows in the far reaches of her kitchen might belong to an item or person, but I couldn’t stand here and find out. If the alarm was set for Home, Eve or someone else who knew that was needed would be in here.

  Rushing to the alarm, I found it set, but not to show that anyone might move inside. Pleased to find it ticking down, I rushed back out before it blared and called Dave’s office to send the police.

  After locking up, I drove to my house. The only other places I figured she could have gone were to a hotel in the area or to Houston. Hotels wouldn’t tell me if she checked in, and who knew what distance she might have gone anyway? Maybe the cab driver. Those with nationally known companies surely had privacy codes so they weren’t allowed to tell who they drove or where they brought the person they carried. The cab she rode in must have been local.

  I checked the phone book, found Ray’s Taxicab listed, and called. I was content when they answered. To my dismay, the guy with the pleasant voice couldn’t tell me a thing about their customers.

  I pleaded, “It’s urgent.”

  “It just took one time for a man to beat up his wife after the guy who used to work here told him where our driver brought her. Then she stayed in the hospital for weeks.”

  “I’m sorry. I do understand that and your hesitation about giving a man information about a woman, but I need to know about my sister.”

  “No, we don’t give information to anyone.”

  In a last desperate attempt, I tried my sister’s phone again, praying she would answer.

  Her message box was full, but I knew she would check her phone since she’d want to know if Nicole went into labor or had problems. I shot her a text.

  Please come back, Sis. I love you.

  I sent the message on its way, hoping she would reply, or even better, that she would show up at my doorstep.

  Waiting for her response, I stepped into the dining room. Besides blank pages, she hadn’t taken the sketch I was creating or the pens I was using. I eyed her empty chair and sat in mine. On a blank page, I made wiggly lines and then crude drawings. The picture of a house like the one with a chimney that I’d created as a child began to take shape. I checked my phone. No return call. No text.

  I would play a stronger card to get her back. Again, I texted.

  Mom is real sick!

  I sent the words off hoping they weren’t really true, hoping our mother had only a slight cold, upset stomach, or other small ailment. Whether I heard from Eve about this or not, I would go back and check on Mom in the morning.

  This time I kept my eyes on my cell in my hand, watching for a return text from my sister, or possibly the phone to ring. My eyes grew heavy. My body weary. I made my way to bed, keeping my phone charged on the small table beside where I slept. But sleeping was one thing I didn’t do for most of the night. I waited, watched, pushed down the carol striving to come out my lips. I wasn’t scared for her, I told myself. This last sister would be all right. So would our mother. How could life go on otherwise?

  Chapter 25

  My eyes felt swollen when they opened in the morning. I grabbed my phone. No text message from Eve and no new call. I pressed in her number. As before, a recording told me her inbox was full. I shot her a text she may have missed last night.

  Mom’s ill! Call me.

  Holding the cell phone, I lay watching, knowing a return text would soon appear. If not, I’d hear its ring. I slid the volume control to max. Listening, I watched the screen of the device in my hand growing fuzzy, its apps blending together like one of Eve’s disjointed paintings.

  Pain in my neck woke me. My cheek pressed against something hard. I reached there and found my phone I’d fallen asleep on. It still showed no message. Surely Eve wasn’t so angry at me for suggesting her latest boyfriend might be a killer or thief that she didn’t care how our mother was doing. That attractive man might be enticing, but maybe his draw would prove lethal. I hurried to shower and dress, then grabbed a handful of dry cereal with a cup of coffee, and drove off to check on Mom.

  The manor was especially active during this late morning hour. Employees rushed about, reminding me of an ant farm I’d once had in which only a few ants remained still while most jostled around as though trying to prove their missions had the most purpose. Some residents moved, none of them rushing.

  My apprehension about Mom lying in bed ill waiting for an ambulance to carry her to the hospital dissipated. She sat front and center with her group, two of the ladies speaking at the same time, my mother looking from one to the other as though trying to keep up with what each was saying. Maybe she knew some trick.

  “Mom,” I said, happy to see her up and about.

  Her face lit and eyes sparkled when she saw me. She threw her arms out, and I rushed into them. I held my mother tighter than I had in some time. When we released each other, I again felt her forehead with my lips. The soft skin was cool. I touched my palm to her even softer cheek. No sign of fever there either.

  “What happened to your cheek?” she asked me.

  “I slept with my phone. Not a good idea,” I said with a smile.

  The woman seated beside her pushed over on the sofa to give me space to sit.

  I gripped my mother’s hand, which was even chillier than her head. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Just had a little indigestion last night. They told me your sister called during the night to find out how I was. Wasn’t that nice of her?”

  My nostrils released a long exhale. Eve could have contacted me.

  “And you checked on me, too.” Mom leaned the side of her head against mine.

  Did she say where she is? I was ready to whisper, annoyed with Eve yet worried about her. But she wouldn’t have told her location to whoever answered the phone here. She may have still been riding in the taxi, heading to Houston if my wish came true.

  I hoped Mom hadn’t heard about a man shooting at Eve. As much as I wanted to stay close to our mother, especially now that I’d feared for her health, I felt a need to leave before she asked anything about my twin. If I rushed off, though, the group might become suspicious. I should stay a few minutes longer.

  “Well, I never sleep with my phone,” Grace said from her wheelchair close to me. “Except that time I fell asleep in bed with it still in my bra. You know I don’t take my underwear off under my nightgown.” Her eyes swept across their circle of friends, some of them nodding like they knew.

  “That must have hurt,” I said, hoping to keep attention on her.

  “It sure did.” She shoved her hand into her cleavage, dug around a bit, and pulled out her phone. “I’ll bet this boobie had a big crease underneath it just like you have on your face.”

  “Has your son taken many
pictures for you lately?” I asked.

  She pushed her lips out in a small pout. “Not many. He just got a couple of them since that Snelling man’s funeral.”

  My heart lurched. “He brought your phone there?”

  “Yes. I never went to a funeral where they had the dead person in an urn.”

  “Me either,” two ladies said.

  “Tell me about the pictures,” I said, not wanting any distraction from the topic.

  “Well, somebody told me they heard the funeral parlor was going to put him in an urn, so I sent my brother to that funeral with my phone to get me some pictures of it.”

  “Can I see them?” I reached for her phone. Ignoring its clammy feel, I got into the photo app.

  “But he only got one picture. When that man’s wife was walking in the church.”

  That might help, I thought, as I scrolled through pictures. The most recent ones were of their Chat and Nap Group. Mom’s photo within it made a tight smile pull at my lips. Grace had taken pictures of some of their meals—one plate held beef stew and lima beans and chocolate cake and salad—and some photos of other residents, one man asleep in his wheelchair, some others at tables, smiling at her camera, two with cheese obvious on their lips.

  My breaths slowed when I reached the now deceased Daria Snelling. What had happened to this woman?

  “You see? That’s the only one he got at that funeral, and he didn’t even get the urn in the picture. The wife had already come in the church and dropped him. My brother just took this one picture and then left when everybody kept trying to get that man’s ashes up.” She reached for her phone, which I handed her, and flipped the screen. “But this next picture, that’s a good one. An eagle in her nest that he saw in a tree near the bayou.”

  “That’s a beauty.” I pulled the phone back, returning to Daria’s photo. I’d witnessed this scene. Right after Daria spilled Zane’s ashes, she was straightening up, resuming her stance with the priest, seminarian, and two altar boys nearby. The one I’d thought was a priest smiled. A grin also touched the lips of the tall altar boy.

  A couple of other people in church, I’d briefly noticed at that time, had also smiled, probably a reaction to what might have appeared a humorous scene if it hadn’t included a dead man. Most mourners, though, had looked shocked, just like Father Prejean in this photo. Daria’s lips pressed tight, her expression noncommittal.

  “Would you mind if I send a couple of your pictures to my phone?” I asked my mom’s friend.

  “No, of course not.” She leaned forward. “You want to show everybody that eagle, don’t you? It’s a beauty.”

  “It sure is. And I’d like a couple of others, especially with some of you.” She smiled while I forwarded to myself Daria’s picture first. And then I did as I’d said. I also grabbed copies of her eagle and Mom and some of these others. “Thank you so much.” I handed the phone back to her.

  “Anytime. You can check for new pictures on here later.”

  “Bless you.” I kissed her cheek.

  Mom and most of the other ladies smiled.

  I leaned to my mother and gave her a hug. “Love you. I’m so glad you’re doing well.”

  “I love you, too, Sunny. Now don’t let it take me getting sick to get you back here.”

  “It won’t.” I thanked the picture lender again, told all the ladies goodbye, and rushed out. What would I do with that photo of Daria? What did it really show? Nothing I could discover for sure, but I needed any miniscule of evidence or clue I could find. I drove through streets, considering where to start. Places where Daria had been might prove worthwhile. I’d left that message on her answering machine saying I had something of her husband’s that she’d want.

  Where had she gone after that partial funeral?

  All I knew was I’d seen her in the grocery store the next morning and by that afternoon, she was dead. She could have gone other places or been with other people after leaving the church, but I had no idea how to get that information. I knew she spoke with a man in the grocery store when her buggy looked empty. Possibly people in that store could give me answers, even though I wasn’t sure what my questions would be.

  Frigid air blasted me when I walked inside, followed by the odor of overripe bananas and baking French bread. Seeing the cantaloupes, I recalled that I’d also seen Jacques here and met his wife. When she wasn’t around, he’d told me to tell Eve he still thought about her all the time. They both drove Eve to Texas the other day. He kept calling her to ask how she was doing and then Jacques alone brought her back. An uncomfortable rumple of apprehension wiggled along my spine.

  Refocusing on what I might learn here, I couldn’t recall anyone else I may have seen shopping that day. Maybe the picture from Miss Grace’s phone would spark a person’s memory. Somebody who worked here may have seen Daria and noticed something else about her that could be important. Sure, Detective Wilet said they spoke to workers there, but now I had a photo.

  I dug my phone out of my purse and flipped through the screen till I found that photo with her in it, realizing I could be digging for one special grain of coffee out of a five-pound pack but not knowing what else to do. At least I was trying something instead of sitting home squirming.

  A husky teen boy wearing the store’s gray T-shirt grabbed avocados from a box and stacked them on a freestanding display. I scooted to him. “Excuse me. This is really important,” I said, and he looked at me, eyes wide. “Did you happen to notice this woman? Or a man who was in the store with her the other day?”

  He barely glanced at the snapshot and shook his head.

  I enlarged the picture and placed the phone in his hand. “How about now? Are you sure? Look closely.”

  He stared at the screen and shoved it back like the thing burned his hand. “Uh-uh, I don’t know her.”

  “I shop here fairly often. If you remember something, make sure you let me know when I come in again, okay?”

  “Yeah.” Turning his back on me, he shelved avocados.

  I continued down every aisle that held an employee. Sometimes I found two or more of them stacking or rearranging items on shelves. One after another checked the picture of Daria and the clergy and altar boys and shook their heads. Two employees said they’d seen her shopping here some time, but probably not lately and never with anyone else they could remember.

  A bearded man and short woman at the office area in front were speaking together and eyeing me as I neared the checkouts. They’d probably noticed me going up to all their employees with the phone. I would go to them with it, too, once I finished with other workers and ask the same thing, even though Detective Wilet probably already questioned them.

  Before speaking with those two, I still had a few more employees to question. I kept my gaze away from the office so direct eye contact wouldn’t give them a chance to wave me over to ask what I was doing.

  I reached the checkout area. At the first one with a light on a pole saying it was open, I waited in line for shoppers to take care of a few items ahead of me and then showed the clerk my picture, asking the same question—have you seen this woman lately and a man with her?

  The answer was always the same. No, nobody remembered seeing her.

  Getting strange looks from two of the clerks who I’d seen watching me go through one checkout line after another, I eventually made my way through every one, questioning each clerk.

  “What? That dude’s a priest?” the final clerk asked.

  I saw where his finger pointed. “He’s studying to become one. I guess he shops here?”

  The young man glanced behind me, where no customers had lined up. “Let me see that better.” The teen took the phone and spread the photo of Daria and the others even wider. “I only saw him one time.”

  “Oh. Did you ever see the woman in the picture?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That tight red dress? It’s the same kind my daddy’s new girlfriend wears. That’s re
ally why I noticed her.”

  I offered a frown to show my sympathy for his plight. “What else did you notice?”

  “It seemed weird that she came through the checkout with her buggy empty and didn’t even seem to realize it. I asked her if she needed anything she didn’t find, and then she grabbed a pack of gum.”

  He was telling me nothing unusual, nothing that could help my sister. “Was anyone with her?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I remember. But that dude—” He shifted the picture and blew it up more, touching the seminarian’s face. “He came in here—yeah, it might have been right after her—except he was wearing a baseball cap pulled kind of low over his face with some big sunglasses that seemed crazy in a store. But people do crazy things, ya know?” He shrugged. “Or maybe he had cataract surgery and needed those glasses a little while. That’s what happened to my paw-paw.”

  I grabbed his hand to keep his attention. “Did the woman do anything else? Or was there something else that made you remember him, especially if he might have been around her?”

  The clerk drew his head back, eyes narrowing. “Are you sure it’s okay to tell you this stuff? Is there some kind of reward or something?”

  I kept nodding. “Yes, indeed.” Your reward is in heaven. “So what else about this man in the picture?”

  He leaned toward me, arms animated. “Well, that dude threw a twenty at me, and all he had was some bread. And his twenty slipped down to the floor, and I told him wait for his change, but he was taking off, telling me to keep it and then ran outside. It was weird, man. Not that I’m complaining, ya know, keeping the change from a twenty for a loaf of bread.”

  I also was recalling a man in this store wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He’d been beyond the aisle where I stood. He’d walked on the other side of Daria. I hadn’t been able to see him well when they’d gone through the checkout and then he’d taken off right behind her.