No Place Like Home - A Camilla Randall Mystery (The Camilla Randall Mysteries) (17 page)

The little bat-dog scurried off as Doria came to consciousness. She supposed its eyes weren't really that shade of red. Probably reflected firelight.

Somebody handed her a plastic bottle of water. She propped herself up and took a gulp. It helped, although the dented and grimy state of the bottle suggested it had been refilled with tap water many times. Maybe water from the creek. Who knew?

"Dorothy—you got booze in here? Really?" Bucky stood over her, holding Betsy's purse. He took out the wine bottle and held it up for the group to see.

Lucky took the purse and started rummaging through it.

"And what's this here?" she squealed "You got drugs on you?"

Damn. She'd found Betsy's pill box.

No. They were not going to take her pain pills.

"Help yourself to the wine," Doria said, trying to push herself up to a sitting position. "But please don't take my medication. I need that."

Lucky took out a round pink pill and held it toward the light from the fire.

"Oxy. Twenty mil. You're taking hillbilly heroin? Along with wine? Honey, no wonder you don't know where the hell you live."

Bucky poured the contents of Doria's wine bottle into the willows.

She was not going to let the pills be next.

"For God's sake, don't. That is a prescription medication." She reached for the tree to support herself. "You cannot have them." She slowly pulled herself to her feet. "I've just had surgery. Yesterday…or the day before. I don't know. They never gave me back my phone at that damned hospital."

"Surgery? Really? What for?" It was obvious Lucky thought Doria was making it all up.

"I had a tummy tuck—which is way more painful than a facelift, in case anybody wants to know. I wish somebody had warned me." Doria leaned against her tree, hoping she wouldn't pass out again. She did not want to go back to that weird place she'd been when she was coming to. It was not a time she wanted to be re-united with dead lovers. Not even Joey. She had a dreadful image of meeting Harry in the after-life. But she wouldn't. Certainly not if she went to Heaven. And she hadn't been that bad a person, had she? She touched her angel medal.

Lucky snorted. "Sure. Hospitals love giving homeless folks plastic surgery. I'm thinking of having a boob job next week." Lucky looked down at her flat chest.

The group broke into laughter.

Doria grabbed for the pillbox.

Lucky gave her a disgusted look but let her take it without much of a fight.

"Fine," Lucky said. "You're a junkie. I've been there. But you can't stay with us. It's bad enough we brought an addict in here. Sorry to have to kick you out at this time of night, but you heard Bucky. This is a clean and sober camp. You gotta go find your own place to sleep. You get yourself clean, you're welcome back."

Find her own place to sleep. In the woods. Which were full of man-eating beasts.

These hobos were kicking her off her own property.

"You can take Toto if you want," Tyler said. "He's little, but he's fierce. He'll let you know if there's anybody creeping around."

Doria looked down at the hideous little creature. Only a small boy could love something like that.

"He's your dog, Tyler. He'll want to stay with you."

"Na. He's the camp dog. He'll always come back here if you tell him to go home."

Home. This place was home to Tyler.

And his dog. The absurd thing wagged its tail at Doria as if it were greeting a long lost friend. She supposed she couldn't be choosy.

The thought of being on her own with nothing but a tiny dog for protection was beyond terrifying. She looked up at the lonely chimney on the other side of the vineyard and realized it was the only place she could go. She had to pray she could find a few blankets that hadn't been burned. She could sleep somewhere up there and then worry about what to do in the morning.

Yes. She'd put off thinking until tomorrow.

The wine would have helped with that. She wished she'd fought to keep it.

She thanked everybody as they said their reproachful goodbyes. Like people sending a reprobate off to rehab.

She didn't want them to know she was planning to visit the ruins of the "Wall Street scum" house, so she set off along the creek for a bit until she came to a charred open space where the willows had been burned away. It must have been Mr. Tooth's camp. The clearing gave her a direct view of the house, which looked to be only a few hundred yards up the hill. She found a path through the grape vines, idly wondering what would happen with nobody tending them.

She trudged up the path, with only the light of a half-moon to guide her, little Toto following at her ankles. She had to admit she was glad for his company.

It had seemed such a short walk down to the creek when they first bought the house. Now it felt like the Bataan Death March.

But somehow, she made her way up the hill and was glad to see Bucky had been right—there were no law enforcement people in evidence. Nothing but a lot of yellow plastic ribbon garlanding the ruins. Inside the yellow barrier, the old 1920s garage was still standing, not looking burned at all. Next to the side door was the big Mexican pot full of succulents she'd planted last December, apparently unscathed.

She tried the door. Locked, of course.

But she had a vague memory of stashing a spare key under the pot. She'd always been forgetful about keys. Getting down on the ground was painful, but she managed to reach under the wooden stand of the pot hoping not to grab onto any poisonous insects or vermin or whatever. She let Toto sniff around a bit, glad he didn't seem to find anything interesting.

But she did. There it was—something metallic. She grabbed it with two fingers and slid it out: the key.

She opened the door and stepped into blackness and the stink of stale smoke. Feeling around, she could tell she was surrounded by cardboard packing boxes, stacked high. Probably untouched since the moving company unloaded them. She could make out a path between the stacks as she stepped ahead gingerly. Her knee bumped into something soft, covered by something crinkly. A piece of furniture covered in a plastic tarp. If she wasn't mistaken, it was her chaise longue, the one she wanted to use in the master bedroom, but the colors didn't work with the new aubergine accent wall. She'd intended to have it reupholstered.

But right now, that chaise was her idea of perfection. She pulled up the tarp and collapsed on it, as Toto jumped up beside her, and her exhausted eyes closed for the night.

By the time I got out of the shower, Ronzo had fallen asleep. He'd taken off his shoes, tie and jacket, but was still wearing his suit trousers and shirt as he snored gently on the bed against the far wall.

I took the extra blanket from my bed and draped it over him. He looked younger when he slept. I realized he might be a bit younger than me. I wanted to kiss him and tuck him in, like a small child. Whoever he was, he certainly was cute.

And nice.

Mostly. Except when he went into his Tony Soprano routine.

He'd been such a sweet lover. Part of me wanted to ignore my apprehensions and snuggle into the bed with him.

But I hadn't been very warm to him tonight. He'd probably lost interest. Look at how easily he'd fallen asleep.

I wished I could do that. But I didn't feel sleepy at all. In fact, I felt as if I were about to jump out of my skin. My life after tonight was an abyss. I felt as if I should do something—anything, to fight the looming disaster. But there was nowhere to turn. Nothing I could do.

I needed a glass of wine and a good book to take my mind off all of it. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to pack either.

I got into bed with my laptop. At least I could read my email. There were over five hundred. Mostly spam.

I found a flurry of messages from about a week ago from my publisher in the UK. One from Vera, the office manager, and one from my editor, Pradeep Balasubramarium.

Vera's note was oddly apologetic, full of great detail about how she wasn't able to make a money wire transfer without more information. She said Pradeep wanted her to send my royalties electronically, but she was an old woman and all this electronic business was simply too much. So she'd sent the royalty check via the Royal Mail as per usual, and that would have to do.

I didn't understand. My quarterly checks usually amounted to less than fifty dollars, so a delay of a week or so for snail mail didn't much matter. Still, I could use fifty dollars right now, so I was grateful to know that the check was on its way.

"Professor" Pradeep's note was longer. It started with his usual slavish praise of the electronic book and how it was revolutionizing the publishing business. He went on and on about how the e-book department now put Sherwood, Ltd. on the "cutting edge" of the industry. He'd talked the owners into offering Sherwood's e-books in India—which has one of the largest English-speaking populations in the world, which is under-served, blah, blah.... I did wish he wouldn't write to me about all this. He knew my negative views about the Kindle and all its spawn and he wasn't going to change my mind.

But when I came to the third paragraph, I had to read it three times to make sure I understood correctly. He said he'd put Good Manners for Bad Times on Amazon's new India site and other websites with bizarre names like "Junglee" and "Eswar" and it had become a bestseller.

A bestseller. That's what he said. My book—which had been selling maybe twenty copies a month since it was published over a year ago—was suddenly a bestseller. In India.

Pradeep said Good Manners had been number one in Indian nonfiction for over three months. Indians wanted to know how to do business with Americans, so an up-to-date, easy-to-understand manners guide was exactly what they wanted.

And—I had to read this several more times—My royalties for the previous quarter amounted to £16,000—a little over $25,000. He had wanted to wire it right away, he said, but that was beyond Vera, who was "getting things sorted" and would "send a cheque as fast as the Royal snail mail could carry it."

Twenty-five thousand dollars.

I let out a yelp. I did try to stifle it—but I was a bit too late.

Ronzo threw off his blanket and jumped up from the bed.

"What is it? Are you okay?

"Oh, yes," I said. "More than okay." I motioned him over to look at my computer screen.

He perched next to me on the bed and took the laptop. He started to grin as he read the e-mail.

"I guess you're not going to be homeless, after all, huh? No more sharing cheap rooms with strange guys from New Jersey?"

"Oh, I think I may still have time for sharing with a guy from New Jersey."

I couldn't help myself. I leaned over and kissed him.

He kissed back.

I helped him out of his clothes, and we celebrated my good fortune under the Jackson Pollack bedspread, well into the night.

Doria woke to Toto's annoying barking. The little dog had jumped down to the floor. His nose pointed toward the gray dawn light that peeked through window beyond the packing boxes.

He was barking ferociously at something/somebody outside.

Something that crunched heavily on the gravel pathway.

Doria prayed it wasn't a large carnivorous beast.

No, those sounded like human footsteps. Right outside. Had she locked the door behind her?

The door creaked open.

Apparently not.

Toto ran toward the door and disappeared behind the stacks of packing boxes.

"Hi there, little guy!" a male voice spoke in a soothing tone, presumably to Toto. "Have you been trapped in here since the fire? Poor doggy. Come 'ere."

Toto stopped barking. Defecting to the sweet-talking intruder, apparently

Doria was on her own. She couldn't see around the pile of packing boxes, but the man could only be only a few feet away. She could feel a chilly morning breeze coming through the open door.

Who was he? A policeman? An FBI agent? Doria found herself wishing he'd turn out to be a nice homeless person, simply looking for something to steal. Of course, even if he were, it would be best to stay out of sight. She pulled the tarp up over her head.

Bad idea. The plastic made a crackly noise.

"Hey! Who's in there?"

Silence. Then some footsteps. And a presence, looming over the chaise.

She peeked from under the tarp. Standing over her was a well-groomed, youngish man who held Toto cradled in his arms. He had a nice smile.

But when he saw Doria, he made an odd sound. A sort of squeak. Toto jumped to the floor.

The man stood with his mouth open for a moment before he formed any words.

"Oh. My. God. It can't be. It wasn't you who went over that cliff in Pismo?"