Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again (99 page)

H
enry and I celebrated our victory by taking a three-hour nap at his place—different rooms; thanks for asking—while we waited for Rae to call me to bail her out of jail. (We assumed I would be her first choice.) Three hours later, we realized we were wrong.

My mother was the first person I saw as Henry and I entered the police station on Valencia and Seventeenth Street.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?” my mother asked.

“I believe,” I said, “if I have the facts straight, Rae has been booked for driving a stolen vehicle.”

“She borrowed your car without asking,” Mom clarified.

“Where I come from that’s called stealing,” I replied.

“You’re dropping the charges,” Mom said.

“No, I’m not,” I answered.

“Isabel, be reasonable,” my mother said, not sounding reasonable at all.

“She can do whatever she wants and there are never any real consequences. What’s the harm in making her meet a court appearance and do community service or whatever else they give her? She’s turning into a monster!”

“She’s testing her boundaries,” my mother replied. “That’s all. You did exactly the same.”

“And I paid!”

My father now approached the nexus of the drama. “What’s going on?” he said to no one in particular.

“She doesn’t want to drop the charges,” Mom said.

Henry finally came to my defense. “I could have had her arrested two months ago for trespassing and vandalism when she changed the locks on my door.”

“Once again, Henry, we’re very sorry about that,” my father said in his most sincere mode.

“I
will not
have two daughters with a juvie record,” Mom said.

“Come on, Isabel,” Dad continued, tag-team style. “She was driving drunk kids home from a party. Her blood alcohol level was zero. It’s not like she was dealing drugs.”

That’s when I lost it.
“I was a pothead; I was never a drug dealer!”
I shouted in the middle of the police precinct.

If you’d placed a wager against me in this battle, you probably would have doubled your money. Just when I dug my heels in and adamantly refused to negotiate, my father whispered in my ear: “Drop the charges or I’ll tell David where you’re living.”

When Rae was released, she looked rested and chipper—not at all the way someone is supposed to appear after she’s been graciously sprung from a holding cell.

“Sorry about the misunderstanding, Isabel,” Rae said after she embraced both of my parents.

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding, you little rat. You stole my car.”

“No, I borrowed your car,” Rae replied. “I just forgot to mention it to you.”

“That’s called stealing, or at the very least, conversion.”
¹

“How about I pay for a tank of gas and we call it even?” Rae suggested.

“You can’t be serious,” I replied as I felt the inside of my head start to overheat.

“Rae,” my dad said slowly. His tone was
Watch yourself
; she didn’t.

“I know you’re low on funds these days, being jobless and all. How about I give you a cut of tonight’s earnings?”

“I’m going to kill you,” I said as calmly as I could.

“In a police station? How bold.”

In an instant, I leapt at Rae, my hands reaching for the hood of her sweatshirt. Henry reached his arm around my waist, lifted me up, and spun me around. His arm was still holding me in place as he turned to my father and shouted, “Just get Rae out of here!”

As my parents ushered my sister out of the police station, I shouted the following threats, among others (sorry, I can’t remember in what order):

“You’re dead!”

“You think you’ve won, but you haven’t!”

“I really am going to hunt you down and kill you!”

“Just wait until you get your first car! It better be pretty to look at because I can guarantee it will never run!”

“You will pay! Mark my words!”

“Are you done?” Henry said to me when the family was well out of earshot and I was still screaming.

“Yes,” I said, beginning to feel the emotional crash of injustice coming on.

But speaking of injustice:
Rae
stole
my
car, but
I
had to wait two hours for it to be processed and released through the impound lot.

“We still have the silent treatment,” Henry said. When my car was finally released, we said our tired, defeated good-byes and agreed to reconvene later to come up with a follow-up plan.

On my way home, I ran out of gas.

R
uth and Morty had a three
P
.
M
. flight to Miami. All their household goods had been boxed and shipped. They had been staying at a downtown hotel for the past week. My mother invited the Schillings to brunch Sunday morning; Mom has always had limited contact with Morty, but ever since he handled my legal defense last year, in that matter I’d rather not mention yet again, she’d felt indebted to him. Like all of us, she was sorry to see him go.

I arrived at 1799 Clay Street earlier than the other guests to help my mother prepare. This involved putting food from delis and bakeries onto a serving plate, if it was not already on a serving plate. My mom tidied up and shouted for Rae to set the table. Rae raced downstairs and said, “Hi,” in my general direction.

I ignored her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Rae asked me how many people were coming. I didn’t answer. “Set the table for ten,” my mother said.

Within minutes the entire guest list arrived: Henry, David, Gabe, Petra, and of course the guests of honor, Morty and Ruth. I cornered my mother in the kitchen and said, “Could you have arranged a more awkward brunch if you tried?”

“We’re all adults here,” she said as Rae was passing through my peripheral vision.

“Not all of us,” I replied.

When Henry arrived, he tossed a jacket at my sister and said, “I found this in my hall closet.”

Rae looked over the jacket and spotted a missing button.

“Where’s my button?” Rae said, puzzled that it hadn’t been replaced like all her previous missing buttons.

“It’s in the pocket,” Henry replied.

Rae stared down at the jacket. Henry entered the kitchen and asked my mother if she needed any assistance.

As the rest of the guests arrived, an unappetizing blend of moods took shape. Some guests were sad, some were uncomfortable, some were cranky (Dad was extremely hungry), and some (Rae) were clueless. Morty was perhaps experiencing a mix of all of the above. His coping mechanism was to consume as much food as humanly possible.

Eventually, Ruthy said, “Morty, they got food in Miami, too.”

Even among such a crowd, at times I was certain that I was the most uncomfortable. Petra and my brother shared some awkward glances, but it almost seemed as if my mother had warmed to my old friend, knowing that she was now with another man. Oddly, the only outright hostility at the table was directed at Rae, and it took at least an hour for her to notice.

“Henry, pass the cookies,” Rae said.

Henry did nothing of the sort.

Rae, misinterpreting his unresponsiveness, said, much, much louder,
“Henry, will you please pass the cookies?”

My brother, hoping to avoid any blatant conflict, passed the cookies,
although Rae had lost interest in them. She stared at Henry for a long while, trying to unnerve him, but it didn’t work.

“Oh, I get it. You’re not speaking to me again,” she said.

Then she turned to me.

“You, too?” she asked, making eye contact, but I didn’t respond.

Rae scanned the table. “If you’re speaking to me, please raise your hand.”

Everyone else in the room raised their hands.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” I said.

Two hours and a pound of lox later, the guests began to disperse. I walked Morty and Ruth to the door and suddenly felt the full impact of his departure. Morty would be a postcard or a phone call away, but that was it, just handwriting or a voice.

Morty sucked some item from brunch out of his teeth. That wasn’t how I wanted to remember him.

“Remember, Morty, it’s going to be hard to make friends in Florida if you keep doing that.”

“Give me a hug, Izzele.”

When I hugged my short old friend good-bye he whispered in my ear, “Be good.” But then he went on to say that if I wasn’t good and happened to get myself arrested again, he’d be happy to fly back and take care of things.

“You’re not suggesting I break the law, now, are you, Morty?”

“Bah,” was his last word to me.

I felt a wave of sadness take over as he left. Morty had some good years left in him; I knew that. I also knew that I probably wouldn’t ever see him again. I held on to my tears as I waved my final good-bye. As I watched Morty shuffle to his car, I noticed that his shuffle had gotten slower in the past few weeks. Just getting into his car was an ordeal. I watched and kept a smile on my face. I waved good-bye until the car disappeared in the distance. Then I lost it.

When I turned back into the house, tears dripped down my face.

“Why are you crying?” Rae asked in a casually insensitive tone. I would have snapped at her, but I had no energy left. On the other hand, Henry did.

“Go to your room,” Henry said, practically seething.

What was odd was that Rae didn’t challenge him or turn to my mom or dad to challenge Henry’s authority. She merely followed his instructions.

T
hat night I showed up at the Philosopher’s Club for Milo’s good-bye party. The bar was packed beyond the fire limit. It was hard to move or breathe or even find Milo, and yet, in that mass of people, Bernie found me. Yes, Bernie. Don’t worry; he’s not back for good. He happened to be in town to deal with his apartment, which Milo was now vacating.

I was locked in a brutal bear hug before the voice bellowing my name completely registered.

“Izzzeeee!” Bernie shouted right into my ear as he held on tight.

When you’re talking into someone’s ear, you actually don’t need to shout, no matter how loud it is in the room. I twisted my head away from Bernie and tried to claw my way out of the embrace.

“Hey, Bernie,” I said.

“How you been?” he shouted. “Tell me everything.”

“I’d rather not,” I replied.

The thing about Bernie is that you can be rude, abrupt, and directly hostile and he remains friendly. Tonight I needed that.

“You want to move back into Casa Bernie?”

It sounded dirty when he said it.

“Maybe,” I said. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“Are
you
planning on moving back to Casa Bernie?”

“No, no. I might visit every once in a while. But things with Daisy are good.”

“Let me think on it,” I said.

“Think fast,” Bernie replied.

I swam through the crowd, searching for Milo. But it was Connor who found me.

“Isabel, I got another letter for ya,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I replied unenthusiastically.

“It’s in the office. Come with me.”

Connor took my arm and parted the crowd, guiding me into Milo’s office, which I guess now was technically Connor’s office. He shut the door behind us, which quieted the unnerving din that was starting to scrape my nerves. He passed me an envelope from the desk, which I opened, hoping nothing too culturally challenging was in my future. As usual, I was wrong.

This Isn’t Over
See A Play @ Act
Or Ur Secret Will
B Revealed

I stared down at the note longer than necessary. Connor watched me carefully.

“Bad news?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m currently unclear on what good news is.”

“Don’t be sad, Isabel.”

I turned to leave, but then I felt an arm around my waist turning me back around. Before I found the word for what was happening, Connor’s lips were on mine and his arms were holding me tight. It took me too long to break away. It was a nice kiss. Soft and warm. It was the kind of kiss that made you forget things, like where you were and that there were other people you’d prefer kissing. Once I figured out where my arms were located, I placed them on Connor’s shoulders and gently pushed him away.

“I have to go,” I said, and quickly left the office.

I scanned the room for Milo and caught him by the pool table. Once again, I fought my way through the crowd.

“I was wondering if you were gonna show,” Milo said.

Milo and I hugged for a good minute. We both knew it would be a while before I saw him again. There wasn’t much to say, so we didn’t say much. I knew I’d see Milo again someday, so I refused to let sadness take over. This was “See you around,” not “Good-bye.”

“I’ll miss you,” I said.

“Try to be good,” Milo said.

Then I skipped out through the emergency exit and made my way “home.”

W
hen I returned home, I checked my e-mail and finally had a message from burbmom28. She vaguely remembered Sharon, but like fairydust611, she had no recollection of a Linda Truesdale. I sent her a picture of Sharon to see if it would jog her memory. I cropped a surveillance photo to make it look like a snapshot. Burbmom28, AKA Lavae, responded later that night.

I sat up for a few more hours, trying to figure out the next step, only I couldn’t really think of one. I had two women, complete opposites, somehow connected, although not connected in the way they claimed to be. I also had a morally bankrupt detective and a deep-pocketed political con
sultant all trying to get to the bottom of the matter. And, to refresh your memory, I had only five days left before I was supposed to make a decision about my entire future.

Somehow I got it into my head that if I couldn’t solve this case before Harkey did, I shouldn’t be solving any cases. In the past, I’d stumbled upon the answers, often misreading the evidence, getting to the truth only by sheer doggedness. I wanted to solve this case without my usual bullying tactics. The answer was in front of me, only I couldn’t see it.

When the last bit of energy drained from my body, I went to bed. And I stayed there for the next three days. During that stretch of time, I watched bad TV at the lowest volume and ignored the rolling waves of voice mail messages that piled up on my cell phone.

Just to be clear, it wasn’t only my unsolved case that drew me into this funk, or my impending decision, or my sister’s minor victory, or my departing friends, or even the kiss from a near-stranger that I enjoyed just a little too much. No, something else was at work that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was vaguely like I had a sudden glimpse, a snapshot, of who I had become—a single, unemployed squatter in court-ordered therapy. No little girl dreams of growing up into that.

I alternated between real sleep and half sleep, but both were more than welcome. Semiconsciousness is underrated. After three days I was mostly out of food and my head throbbed from lack of caffeine, but still I didn’t budge. I’m not sure how long I would have lasted on my own, but my escape came to an abrupt and jarring end.

While I was watching a travel program in the late hours of a morning—no, I didn’t know what day or exactly what time it was—there was a knock on my door. Okay, if you are not fully comprehending the shock value of this loud knocking, let me remind you of this fact: This was the first knock at the door.
Ever.
Instantly, my heart started thumping. I felt my face flush, my hands go clammy, and my legs get weak. Shit. The jig was up. I took several deep breaths and waited. Maybe I’d imagined the knock. Maybe someone wasn’t knocking on my door but knocking on some other part of the house…

Then there was the knocking again. I was closer to the door this time, so I can say with 100 percent certainty that the knock was for me.

What was I supposed to do? I had only two options: 1) Ignore the knock and let unknown events unfold as they might, or 2) answer the door. Frankly, I had been living in a state of uncertainty for so long, I don’t think I could have taken much more. I answered the damn door.

David stood there in his bathrobe, holding a cup of coffee.

“Hi,” I said, because, really, what else can you say under this precise set of circumstances?

“Hi,” David casually replied. “Do you want some coffee?”

Dumbfounded, I took the offering. I took a sip of the coffee to kill some time and think of something, anything, to say.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“I’ve known all along,” David replied.

Long, long pause.

“So, are you my blackmailer?”

Twenty minutes later, David and I were sitting in his kitchen drinking coffee and eating breakfast while I grilled him about the details of my secret sublet. It wasn’t entirely true that David had known all along. It took him approximately three days to notice my presence below him. Here were his clues: The sound of footsteps in the middle of the night, the occasional drop in water pressure when he took a shower, and the time his neighbor Tom asked him how his new tenant was working out. Also, my soundproof closet phone booth apparently tunnels conversations directly into his kitchen pantry.

It had been over a month since David’s return. I had to ask the obvious question:

“Why didn’t you kick me out?”

David shrugged his shoulders. “It seemed like you were going through a rough time—no job, the therapy, who knows what else? I figured you were
broke or would be soon, and your only other option was to move back in with Mom and Dad. That didn’t seem like a good idea.”

His response was so out of character it was jarring; it took me some time to form words.

“I’m sorry, I’ll get out of here soon. I promise,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” David replied.

“You’re being suspiciously nice,” I said.

“I’m your brother. I’m going to be nice on random occasions.”

“Thanks. But I’m trying to understand why this time you were so nice.”

“Honestly, because you were so, so…pathetic.”

“True,” I replied.

“You need to take a shower,” David said.

It had been three days. I couldn’t argue with him.

“Right,” I replied.

And then I noticed that while David appeared clean and well—his health and arm repaired from his wilderness adventure mishap—he was still home in his bathrobe at 11:55
A
.
M
. on a weekday.

“What day is it?” I asked.

“Wednesday,” David replied.

“You’re still not at work,” I said, begging for an explanation.

“A natural detective, you are,” David replied. I think he was debating whether to speak the truth or concoct an untruth. I think we were all coming to the conclusion that the truth was actually easier to live with.

“I quit my job,” he said.
¹

“No!” I replied.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t care about it. If I’m going to work seventy hours a week, it should matter, right?”

“Right,” I replied. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

“Not yet. So keep your mouth shut.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

“More coffee?” David asked. He didn’t wait for a response; he just poured me another cup.

“So, are you or are you not my blackmailer?” I asked.