Controversy (3 page)

R
emembering the cops upstairs in her living room, Michael clamped a hand over her mouth, but continued to stare wide-eyed at the angry face of her ex-husband. What in the hell did she do last night?

Phil rocked and bucked in this chair. No doubt his mumbled words behind his taped mouth were a long fervid stream of expletives and, given the circumstances, she didn't blame him. A lean five foot ten with hair shaved so low one would question whether to call it hair at all was still neatly groomed, but one would not miss the ugly purple-and-blue bruise against his left temple or the trickle of blood from his lips. His sable-brown eyes were wild and angry.

Again, she didn't blame him.

Michael stomped over to a squirming Phil and ripped the duct tape from his mouth.

“Ow!”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

His eyes rounded incredulously. “What does it look like?” he hissed. “I finally decided to take a vacation and spend it tied up in your basement.”

“Ms. Adams?” Detective Dekker's voice floated down and filled the basement. “Do you need any help down there?”

Phil filled his lungs with air, but before he could yell for help, the duct tape was back wrapped around his mouth and she clamped her hand over it for good measure and plopped down into his lap to prevent him from bucking and rocking the chair.

“Uh, no. I have everything under control.”

“You're sure?” The top stair creaked, letting her know that he was about to come down. “I thought I heard you scream.”

“Rats!” she shouted, and cut her gaze back to her ex. “I seem to have a rat infestation. I'm on my way back up.” With her free hand, she reached for the roll of duct tape on a cluttered shelf.

Dekker paused. “Are you sure you don't need help?”

“Positive.” She waited.

And waited.

Then finally she heard his weight shift on the stairs. Thinking he was about to descend, her heart plunged to her toes and all she could see in her mind was Detective Dekker slapping handcuffs on her wrists and sending her off to spend the rest of her life behind bars. Wasn't kidnapping, like, a federal offense?

For whatever reason, God had mercy on her soul and the cop went back upstairs and closed the door.

“Mmphf. Mmmugh,” Phil muttered behind his sealed lips.

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped, removing her hand from his mouth. “I can't think with you doing all of that.”

He glowered.

“What?” she challenged. “Just because I don't remember what happened last night doesn't mean that you didn't deserve it.”

Phil shook his head and rolled his eyes. Undoubtedly, he was thinking that she'd finally snapped and lost her mind. Actually, it looked as if she had. Michael glanced down. She had a lot of questions, but she didn't take the tape back off because she didn't trust him not to shout for help.

“I'm sorry about this,” she said. A half truth, but she would examine that later. Right now, she took the roll of tape and wrapped so much of it around his head his eyes bulged. “I'll be right back.”

Michael raced out of the basement and up the stairs. She had to get those cops out of her house quick, fast and in a hurry, but she was at a loss as to how she could do that without raising suspicions.

When she rushed into the living room, she was stunned to see Frankie and Sheldon there, shaking hands with the officers and smiling a little too openly at her dream lover.

Heifers.

Four sets of eyes swiveled in her direction. She told the first lie that came to mind. “Looks like I'm out of coffee.”

Frankie frowned. “All that coffee Daddy packed up for you?”

“Well, I couldn't find it,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Frankie insisted, heading for the basement door. “I helped him pack the cans myself.”

“Don't go down there!” Michael barked, jumping in front of her sister.

“What in the hell?” Frankie leaped back and stared at her sister as if she'd grown two heads. “What's gotten into you?”

The detectives stared at them.

Michael laughed to defuse the situation. She needed to step up her game. She was usually cooler under pressure, but something about being under Dekker's close scrutiny frayed her nerves.

“Um, I, uh—there's, um…”
Calm down, Mike. Calm down.
“Rats!” She remembered. “Big. Huge. Rats. Trust me. You don't want to go down there.”

“I guess we're going have to skip out on the coffee anyway,” Detective Griffin said. “Your sisters here corroborate your story.”

“Rats?” Sheldon echoed, looking over Michael's shoulder and toward the door.

“Yeah,” Dekker added with a soft smirk. “Sounds like you got pretty lit last night.”

“Speaking of which,” Frankie said, reaching into her expensive bag. “P.J. sent you this bill for her having to have the car cleaned.”

“Figures.” Michael snatched the bill from her hand.

“Maybe we need to get the exterminators here,” Sheldon said, still frowning at the door. “If the problem is really bad, maybe it's not too late to get you out of the lease.” She sidestepped Michael.

Michael blocked her again. “Trust me. You don't want to go down there.”

“Oh, I'm not afraid of rodents.” She shoved Mike out of the way. “If this is a serious problem then we need to jump on it.”

There was nothing else to do but to watch Sheldon plow through the door. “You coming, Frankie?”

Frankie laughed as if to say “get real” and turned her attention back to the cops. “I'm sure Phil is fine,” she assured them. “While he and Michael were married, he had a habit of disappearing. Isn't that right, Mike?”

“Uh?” Mike tore her gaze from the door, lost in what was being said.

“Phil,” Frankie stressed.

Michael panicked. “What about him? I don't know where he is!”

Frankie frowned.

Sheldon bolted back through the door with wide, wild eyes, and slammed it behind her.

“What the hell?” Frankie asked, turning.

Michael quickly moved to Sheldon's side. “I told you not to go down there,” she said.

“My goodness.” Frankie joined her sisters by the door. “Is it that bad?”

Sheldon panted as if she'd run a marathon. Her shocked gaze swung from Michael to the two officers.

“Ma'am? Are you all right?”

Michael jumped in before Sheldon spilled her guts. “I take it you saw the big
rat
downstairs?”

“Rat?” she echoed.

Michael swore if she was hauled to jail she'd strangle Sheldon first before they carted her off.

“Rat!” Sheldon affirmed, nodding, finally catching on. “Huge. We need to, uh, get someone here quick to, um, handle it.” She swallowed.

“Damn.” Frankie glanced around. “If they're down there, they can be up here, as well.” In dramatic fashion, Frankie leaped up onto the leather couch. “I'm allergic to rodents.”

Michael shook her head at her sister's diva-esque tendency. They'd all grown up digging in the dirt and climbing trees, but ever since Frankie married up, she acted as if she was born and raised in Beverly Hills.

“Maybe I should check it out for you,” Dekker suggested.

“No!” Michael and Sheldon shouted, both crowding and blocking the door.

Detective Dekker jerked back, but then his eyebrows crashed together.

“It's already dead,” Sheldon lied to cover.

Michael nodded, unable to speak. She was too busy praying for another miracle.

A phone chirped and Detective Griffin reached into his jacket while Detective Dekker reached into his back pocket.

This is it. I'm about to be handcuffed and dragged out of here in my pajamas like an episode of
Cops.

Instead, Detective Dekker produced a business card. Cops had business cards?

“If you do see or hear from your husband—”

“Ex.”

He smiled and amended, “Ex-husband, please don't hesitate to give us a call. My cell phone number is on the back.”

One miracle delivered.

“Thanks,” Michael said, taking the offered card and slipping it into her pajamas top and down her bra. “If I hear anything you're on the top of my list.”

Kyson didn't hear a word she said. His attention was focused on that lucky card he'd passed her. He'd watched the whole thing as if it played in slow motion.

“I don't see what the big deal is,” Frankie interjected. “No body. No crime.”

“We gotta roll,” Griffin said, cutting into Kyson's X-rated thoughts. “We have a new lead.”

When Kyson didn't respond, he walked over and clamped a hand down on his partner's shoulder. “Let's go.” Griffin chuckled. “One of Matthews's neighbors called, said she thought she'd seen something suspicious this morning. Thinks she got a good look at a car peeling out of the neighborhood.”

That damn Neighborhood Watch gang, Michael thought.

Kyson nodded and then returned his attention to the unique and unusual Michael Adams. “Make sure you use that card,” he said. It was the only thing he could say without spelling it out to her that he
wanted
her to call whether it was in regard to her missing ex-husband or not.

Griffin muttered something beneath his low laugh and then led the way back to the front door. The Adams sisters followed.

“Could you be any more pathetic?” Griffin asked when they climbed into Griff's late-model Mercury Sable.

“What?” Kyson laughed, though he knew exactly what his partner meant. He had acted like a teenager with a crush on his high-school teacher.

Griff shook his head and started the car. “I don't know, Kyson. You need to leave this one alone. Something tells me Ms. Adams eats men like you for breakfast.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

S
heldon and Michael crouched by the door and watched as the officers climbed into their vehicle. It seemed like it was taking forever for Detective Griffin to start the car.

“Can I ask what the hell you two are doing?” Frankie asked, standing behind them.

“Shh,” they hissed over their shoulders, their eyes glued to the car.

The engine started. Michael and Sheldon reached for each other's hands and held their breaths while the car backed out of the driveway. The short paved slab suddenly seemed a mile long.

Annoyed to be left out of the loop, Frankie inched up and crowded around the thin, glass panes next to the front door. Still she was clueless why they were watching the cops leave the property.

“That Detective Dekker was cute,” she hazarded a guess as to what the big deal was. “He'd make a good rebound guy.”

No response.

Frankie rolled her eyes.

The cop car pulled off from the property and Sheldon jumped as if a bomb had exploded beneath her.

“Michael Anthony Adams, you have lost your mind!” She snatched her hand away, bolted from the door and raced through the house.

“I can explain,” Michael lied, dogging her heels.

Frankie took up the rear, still clueless. “Somebody tell me what's going on!”

“We're going to jail!” Sheldon shouted as she threw open the basement door and flew down the stairs. “My children are going to grow up without a mother because I have a crazy sister!”

“Stop being dramatic,” Michael said, determined to downplay the situation.

“What about the rats?” Frankie asked, slowing as she descended the stairs. “Shouldn't we wait until we call the exterminator?”

“There are no rats!” Sheldon shouted. She rounded the corner and skidded to a stop as if she'd somehow hoped seeing her ex-brother-in-law tied to a chair had been a mirage.

In truth, Michael had held the same hope.

Frankie curved the corner, stopped and then let loose a high-pitched scream that required both Michael and Sheldon to backtrack and clamp their hands over Frankie's mouth.

“Will you be quiet?” Michael hissed in Frankie's ear. “Do you want the neighbors to call the cops back here?”

Frankie stopped screaming but her eyes remained bulged over the rims of their fingers.

“If we remove our hands, you promise you're not going to scream?” Sheldon asked for verification.

Frankie nodded.

Slowly, Michael and Sheldon removed their hands, but Frankie panted as if she was on the verge of hyperventilating. “What. Is. Going. On?”

“Everybody, calm down,” Michael instructed, though she was far from the emotion herself. “I'm sure there is a logical explanation for everything.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sheldon asked. “You're sure there's a logical explanation? Aren't you responsible for this?”

“Now, why would you think that?” Michael thundered back.

Sheldon tossed up her hands. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you're
insane.
”

“You take that back!” Michael demanded.

Sheldon leaned into Mike's face. “Make me.”

Frankie rolled her eyes and marched over to Phil. “You two, can it.”

Michael and Sheldon held combative stances while Frankie unwound the duct tape on Phil's face. “I'm sure this whole thing will just blow over.” When she ripped the last of the tape from Phil's mouth, he recoiled in pain.

“Ow. What are you trying to do, rip the skin off my face?” he accused, stretching his face, flexing to see whether the muscles still worked.

“Sorry,” Frankie said in a tone that indicated she was anything but.

Phil turned his head and his gaze speared Michael. There was no mistaking or denying the waves of anger pulsing from him. “You've gone too far this time,” he accused. “I'll see you rot in jail for this,” he promised.

Michael's chin came up while the muscles around her heart squeezed painfully. She knew when Phil meant business and this was one of those times. “I had nothing to do with this.”

“Tell it to the cops!”

“C'mon, Phil.” Sheldon stepped forward in an attempt to play peacemaker. “I'm sure we can work this out
within
the family.”

“I'm not a part of the family anymore. Remember?” he asked. “And thank God. You all are about as psycho as she is. Now untie me!”

“Don't!” Michael shouted. She was nowhere near ready to go to jail…again.

“We can't leave him tied up down here,” Frankie reasoned, cradling her bejeweled hands against her hips. “I love you, but I'm not about to become an accessory after the fact. I happen to
love
my freedom.”

“And I don't?” Michael stepped forward, ready to direct her anger at someone else. Anyone, really, would do. “Why should I go to jail for something I don't remember doing? For all I know, he tied himself up down here.”

Everyone kept their incredulous eyes on her.

“Well,” she said, annoyed no one bought that outrageous possibility. “It could've happened,” Michael insisted.

“Phil is right,” Frankie said. “You're psycho!”

“Now
you
take that back!”

“Make me!” Frankie stepped forward.

“Girls, girls!” Sheldon planted herself between the sisters. “Everyone needs to just calm down and take a deep breath.”

Michael took several, but it did nothing to calm her nerves or steady her heartbeat. Over the years, she'd prided herself on getting out of some pretty sticky situations, but now she feared she'd finally landed in something she wouldn't be able to get out of.

“Just tell us what happened,” Sheldon continued in the same calming voice.

Michael closed her eyes and tried to remember, but the only images that would come were snippets of her laughing and drinking at the Peppermill, vomiting in Peyton's car and staring up at the blanket of stars while lying in the backseat.

“I don't remember,” she finally said. Her shoulders slumped with despair. “But I know I was in no condition to pull off a kidnapping. You girls know that.”

Sheldon and Frankie reluctantly agreed.

“But you were apparently able to hire two thugs to do your dirty work,” Phil cut in snidely. Anger still simmered in his eyes.

Sheldon and Frankie groaned; their support shifted back into Phil's court.

“I'll tell you what happened,” Phil spat. “I had just come home from working late at the office—”

“Geez, we're not even married anymore and you're still using that same tired excuse?”

“I. Was. Working,” he insisted, eyes blazing.

Michael made a dismissive wave. “Whatever.”

Sheldon and Frankie rolled their eyes.

Phil cleared his throat. “Now, where was I?”

“You just came home after
working,
” the women repeated dully.

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “I went upstairs to take a shower, but just as I walked into my bedroom—”

“Our bedroom,” Michael couldn't help but correct him.

“
You
don't live there anymore.”

“It's still part mine until the property is sold.”

Phil opened his mouth to respond, when Sheldon jumped in. “Are you two kidding me? You two are divorced. Michael, will you please let him finish this story before my hundredth birthday?”

Phil flashed a smug smile.

Michael stuck her tongue out at him.

“What is this—
Romper Room?
” Frankie snapped.

Thoroughly chastised, Michael crossed her arms, clamped her jaw shut and grudgingly let Phil finish his story.

“So,” Phil went on. “I walked into
my
bedroom and before I could flip on the light switch your two goons slipped a pillowcase over my head and proceeded to beat the living
crap
out of me!”

A genuine smile eased across Michael's face. “Now,
that
I wish I was around to see.”

“Michael,” Sheldon warned, and then returned her attention to Phil. “What men?”

“How the hell would I know?” he said defensively. “Men—her cronies. All dressed in black and threatening to cut off my…” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Threatening to hurt me if I didn't come with them.”

The sisters stared.

“So you went with them?” Frankie asked, trying to speed along the story.

“Like I had a choice.” Phil's hard gaze swung from Mike to Frankie. “After the largest man used my chest as a punching bag for a few rounds, it was more like they carried me out.”

“This is crazy!” Michael barked. “I didn't send any men over to rough him up or kidnap him,” she pleaded to her sisters.

Sheldon rolled her eyes. “And yet, here he is tied up in
your
basement.” She returned her attention to Phil. “Continue.”

“What else is there to say? I was clubbed over the head and dragged here. And now the three of you refuse to untie me.”

“We're not refusing,” Frankie snapped, but made no move to release him. “We're carefully weighing our options.”

“Where do I come in on this incredible story?” Michael asked. “I didn't know you were here until I came down for some coffee.”

“Tell it to a jury,” Phil said. “Now, untie me!”

No one made a move.

“Now!” he roared.

“Can you put the tape back over his mouth so we can think?” Mike asked.

Frankie complied, but not without muttering, “Sorry about this.”

“No. Wait. No.” Phil tried twisting his head, but Frankie successfully rewound the duct tape around his mouth.

Mike still couldn't conjure a defense to Phil's allegations.

“What's this?” Frankie asked, removing something pinned to Phil's filthy blue shirt.

Michael and Sheldon quickly crowded around while Phil went back to mumbling behind his sealed lips and bouncing in his wooden chair.

“Oh, simmer down.” Michael popped him on the back of the head. The man really could be annoying at times. “Who's it from?” she asked, returning her attention to the letter.

“‘Dear Mikey,'” Frankie read. “‘After seeing you so depressed last night at the Peppermill, Ray and I thought you had a killer idea on how to exact revenge on your ex.'”

“Ray?” Michael said, bouncing the name in her mind, but coming up empty. Hell, she still hadn't had her morning coffee.

Frankie continued, “‘By the way, I never liked your ex personally. I always thought you could do better. You should have seen him crying for his momma when we picked him up.'”

The sisters swung their eyes toward Phil.

“‘Ray has it all on his camera phone. Funny stuff.'”

Michael laughed. “Looks like I will get to see it.”

Frankie read on, “‘No need to thank us, we figured this would make us even for when you helped us get revenge on a certain fraternity back in college. Good times, huh? We roughed him up a bit, but it was all in good fun.'”

“See? There's nothing in there that says I had anything to do with this.”

“‘Your directions to the house were great,'” Frankie read.

“What?” Michael sputtered and then glanced around at the hostile crowd. “All right…” She stalled while trying to think of something to say. “Maybe…I mentioned where I used to live.” She shrugged. “It doesn't mean I told them to break in.”

Frankie read the next line. “‘You were right. Your husband hadn't gotten around to changing the security codes and we walked right in.'”

Sheldon groaned and looked around. “I need to sit down.”

Michael stubbornly clung to denial. “I did
not
tell them to kidnap Phil.”

Again Frankie read. “‘You're an evil genius, Mikey. Your plan went off without a hitch.'”

“Give me that.” Michael snatched the letter from her sister's hands and read the damning words for herself and then quoted the last line. “‘Give him hell, doll! Your faithful friends, the Damon twins.'”

“More like the
Demon
twins,” Sheldon said, and then added, “Well, it looks like we're going to jail.”