“Seems far-fetched.”
“You’re living in the old days, but lots of women play the field, now. It’s more fun.”
“Alright. Suppose you’re correct,” Byrdswain said. “Wouldn’t she break it off with Lapport once she got married?”
“Maybe she was about to, or felt important by playing them both for a while. Whatever her reasons, an assistant principal would be smart enough to cover her tracks if she wanted to.”
“If that’s the case, she’d be relieved that her lover died, rather than kill herself over it.”
“Who’s to say? Her own grandmother said she was unstable from time to time. Maybe she loved Lapport more than Evans all along and couldn’t deal with a broken heart or all that guilt.”
Byrdswain tilted his head. “Maybe this is why I ended up divorced. I never understood what pushes women’s buttons.”
“You’re always asking me for my opinion and I think it’s just what it looks like: suicide. Mrs. Ellerbe, herself, said she trusted Evans, and wanted him to have the money. Not to mention it was half his already anyway.”
“I have to admit, that’s always been a good point.”
“We can’t hold that poor woman off forever.”
Byrdswain paused. “Okay, you’re breaking my heart. I’m going to wrap it up, just so that woman can have some closure, but we’re going to check in on this Evans guy from time to time.”
* * *
A week had elapsed since the yellow shirt day. Come to find out, Don didn’t stay in her bedroom after all. He slipped out the back window and left her to stew in her juices.
In some regards his performance amounted to psychological abuse but it made another point, too. Don’s point. She had let her emotions run away with her even though they’d hammered and hammered on how dangerous that was.
It may not have been the best way to make a statement but he was correct. She had become mushy-headed over Mac and it was screwing everything up. After all, Don was the one who was exciting and fun and dared to put together the strategy that saved Mickey from a merciless plight, when all Mac really brought to the table was the ability to make her melt. It was as if she was the candle and he was the flame that made it come to life. But when it came right down to it Mac was rather shallow compared to Don, and their high schoolish passion could easily wear off just as it had between her and her ex after they got married
Then, when Don found out how badly he frightened her he apologized for messing with her head. He admitted he was frustrated and promised to keep his act together. She heard the genuine regret in his tone. If she was fair about it, she had to acknowledge that Don had a tender side, too. He just didn’t wear it on his sleeve like Mac did. Then there was the fact that Mac tended to focus on all the problems, while Don was the one who always had solutions. Negative vs. positive. That was in Don’s favor too.
She was just as confused as ever and still had a horrible decision lingering in her future.
Meanwhile Rachel’s death had been classified a suicide and it was time to advance Mac’s image. Miranda took him to the million-dollar home she rented for him in Moon Shadow Hills. “Wow, this is nice,” he said, as they entered the foyer.
She took his hand. “I told you, Sweets. It’s a former model home. Nobody has ever lived here. The appliances are still in crates in the garage. How do you like the furniture?”
“I’ve never had stuff like this.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “Get used to it.”
Mac kissed her, then scanned the kitchen and dining area. “I can’t believe this place. How’d you pull this off?”
“Easy. I told them that most of the trust papers were about to be put in your name and you might be willing to buy it a little later if they’d cut you a good deal now. They called the attorney’s office and verified it all. No sweat.” She pointed across the large living room toward the back of the home. “Wait ‘til you see the sunken hot tub.”
“I can hardly wait.”
She grabbed his hand. “Later today, we can go pick up your new BMW. It’s pearl white and has a hard top convertible.”
Mac stopped cold. “What the heck are you talking about? Isn’t it a little early to start spending money like a drunken sailor?”
“No way. The cops closed the case. You’re a millionaire now. You deserve a reward for all you’ve done.”
He grinned and shook his head. “A BMW, huh? I hope Annie won’t get jealous. Does this mean we can finally spend the night together?”
“We still want to be cautious, but nobody’s been tailing you, so I think we can go to dinner tonight, like a date, and then come back after that and jump in the hot tub. One night can’t hurt.”
“Why don’t you just move in?”
She’d expected to hear something like that. “That might be too much. We can’t go crazy. Let’s just play it by ear. You want to go outside and see the garden area?”
“I’d like to see that hot tub first. How long do you think we need to keep this up?”
“I don’t know. At least a month, then maybe we can leave town. Spend a week or so somewhere.”
“I’d like that.”
“Before we do anything else, we should move some of the money into a mutual fund, just to verify that you have control of it.”
Mac stalled. “I guess we could. How much you got in mind?”
“At least a quarter million or so,” she said.
His eyes widened.
Miranda grinned and tapped his nose. “If you want to play with the big dogs, you can’t pee-pee like a puppy.”
Mac laughed and drew her in. “God, how I love you. Okay, let’s do it.”
By the end of the evening they had successfully transferred two million bucks into a handful of different mutual funds. Each time they set up a new account, they used the password Annie5.
Chapter Eighty-One
“You’ll set him up. I’ll finish him off,” Don said.
Miranda swallowed hard. Don had mentioned killing Mac repeatedly, but up to this point it was mostly just idle talk. But Don’s patience had run out and the end was approaching her like the ground to a skydiver whose chute had failed to open.
“Can’t we wait for a couple weeks?” she probed, knowing full well Don would nix the idea.
“Waiting will only make it harder. We have to do it before anybody in the neighborhood gets to know him.”
Miranda’s mouth went silent, but her heart screamed.
“Here’s how we do it,” Don said. “After a long day, you’ll bring him back to his new place and settle in near the hot tub. You’ll have a glass of wine and in a moment of poetic justice, you’ll slip him a few of the sleeping pills from the same batch he fed to that cow.”
“You mean Rachel,” she insisted. “Her name was Rachel.”
Don grinned. “You gettin’ soft on me?”
“It’s just that we ought to have a little respect for the dead. That’s all.”
“Screw that. We’ve got other things to worry about.”
Miranda’s jaw tightened. She wished she could desensitize too.
“When you see him getting drowsy—“
Miranda stared at Don’s face. His eyes were glazed. A faint smile indicated he was enjoying himself. She wanted him to stop, but he didn’t.
“Let him sleep for about an hour before you call me. Got it so far?”
Her lips moved, but no words came out.
“Are you following me or not?”
“I understand,” she murmured.
“Good. You can get any last-minute pictures of his tats if you don’t have them by then. When he’s zonked out and weak, I’ll sneak into the room and strangle him.” He made the appropriate gesture.
Miranda’s hands shot to her neck and she swallowed.
“You’ll be standing by his head with a short-handled sledgehammer.” Goose bumps rose along her arms and legs. “If anything goes wrong,” he said in a slower an
d softer manner, “you’ll hit him so hard, it will knock him into a faraway galaxy.”
Her entire body went cold. She envisioned Mac lying on his back and her holding the sledgehammer overhead. She squirmed. Wouldn’t Don’s head be in reach, too? But if she took out Don, what would she do with his body? She couldn’t recruit Mac without revealing she’d been lying to him from day one. She thought about a knife and shivered. She sure as hell couldn’t cut Don up into manageable parts either. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she pleaded. “Couldn’t you just do it by yourself?”
“No way. I want you to see him suffer. Teach you why you should have trusted me when I warned you not to get so lovey-dovey with him.”
The vision of a black widow flashed in her mind. “But he hasn’t done anything.”
Don stiffened. “The hell he hasn’t. While I‘ve been forced to live in sewers, the two of you have been fucking like a couple of spider monkeys.” He extended his index finger to within an inch of her nose. “I did a lot of this for you and your brother, so am I going to be able to count on you or not?”
For the first time ever Miranda was genuinely afraid of Don. She knew he’d always hated the trysts she shared with Mac, but now she understood how badly he wanted to watch his brother die—even more than he wanted to acquire Rachel’s money. That was his real motive all along. How could she have missed it? “No,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “We don’t have a problem. I love you, Donnie. I’ll be right by you, as you said.”
“Good. Then, call him right now and set it up for tomorrow.”
The force in her jaw sent shooting pain to her temples.
Chapter Eighty-Two
His mother’s funeral was yet another heart-rending experience for Stump. He broke down repeatedly and continued to blame himself for her passing. Other than Aunt Gerry, nobody was more supportive than Myles. He dropped by each night after Stump got out of school. Sometimes they went to dinner, other times they went to Myles’s apartment. It didn’t really matter, but Stump appreciated the effort.
The following Saturday, Myles picked up Stump to watch Iron Man on DVD. Stump turned down the volume during the pre-movie crap. “Do you really like this kind of picture?” he asked.
“You never know unless you try.”
“What would we see if you were picking? A detective movie?”
“They’re okay, but I tend to see the flaws.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They might show an interrogation or a court scene and do it all wrong. It’s hard to overlook.”
“So what do you like then?”
“Mostly comedies. They don’t have to be realistic.”
“I like Jim Carey.”
“Me, too.”
Stump glanced at the screen. Still crap. “Can I ask you something else? What did the people at your meeting say when . . . well, you know?”
Myles turned his head Stump’s way. “It’s okay to say it, Stump. What did they say when I drank?”
“Yeah. They must have been disappointed in you.”
Myles tilted his head. “That’s not how it works. We don’t shoot our wounded. We help each other get back on our feet. It’s very supportive.”
“I wish I treated Mom like that.”
Myles raised his finger. “You had to endure some very difficult situations. Your mother was extremely proud of how you stood up to bullies for her sake. That’s way more support than a lot of us get.”
“They should just make alcohol illegal. That would be easier on everybody.”
“You’re right—it would solve a lot of problems. Some people can drink in moderation. For other people alcoholism is a disease, not a choice. It’s like somebody who has pneumonia. They can’t just quit. They need medication and therapy. Speaking of therapy, what’s it like, living with Uncle Dirk and Aunt Gerry?”
“Not very good. I heard them talking the other night, when I was in bed.”
The promos were nearly over. “What’d they say?”
“Uncle Dirk said they have to cut back on a lot of things just to pay for me and to move and everything.”
“Oh, I see.”
“There is a lot more work for Aunt Gerry too. She tries to pack boxes for our move but ends up crying. They argue a lot. Willie gets mad because I have to share his room.” He lowered his head. “I make it worse for all of them.”
“Now wait a minute,” Myles insisted. “Nobody blames you. You didn’t cause the fire. And you certainly weren’t responsible for those bars. Any one of us should have been able to see they were unsafe.”
“I guess so, but I never realized how much trouble I am. I’m always in the way. It would be worse if Dogg had lived.” Stump turned his head Myles’s way. “Do you think I can get a job when I get to Texas?”
* * *
After the movie, Myles took Stump back to Aunt Gerry’s and offered to buy pizza for everybody. While the boys were busy in Willie’s room the adults waited for pizza downstairs. Lemonade in hand, Myles glanced at the stairway and then addressed Gerry. “Did you hear yesterday’s news?”
“Not really. We’ve been awfully busy.”
“It’s about that Clifton guy – the car dealer. A friend of mine says they’re essentially going to drop the charges.”
Gerry cupped her hands over her mouth. “That bastard.”
Dirk turned her way. “I can’t remember the last time I heard you say anything like that.”
“Without the key witness,” Myles continued, “all they have is Stump’s testimony. There’s no way to prove whether Jean gave consent or not.”
“Consent?” Gerry said. “That’s absurd. She was given a roofie! Why don’t they just ask us?”
“The problem is that guy has a lot of money and can drag things out in court for a long time. They don’t like to tie up a lot of time and money unless they’re sure they’re going to get a big-time conviction; but he could say she agreed to it, and all it takes is one juror to think there’s a reasonable doubt and Clifton walks. They offered to let him off with a misdemeanor.”
“That bastard.”
Dirk looked at her again and then back to Myles. “Should we tell Stump?”
“I think I can do it. It would probably be better if there wasn’t a long drawn-out media circus anyway.” Myles set down his drink. “That wasn’t why I came here. I’ve got something else I’d to ask you two.” They looked at each other and nodded.
“You guys already have lots of responsibilities—raising your own son, the upcoming move, a job change. Now, Stump is thrown into the mix.”
“It’s tougher alright,” Gerry said. “But Stump is family.”
“You’re both wonderful to him. He tells me so. That brings me to my question.” Myles paused and looked at Gerry. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to adopt Stump, that is, if he’s up for it.”
Dirk leaned back and Gerry looked deep into Myles eyes. “Wow. I don’t know, Myles. That’s awfully generous, but—”
“I was thinking about doing it before Jean died, but now it makes more sense. I can afford him, we get along well and we share a common loss.” Myles held up his finger. “The last thing she said to each of us was ‘I love you.’ We need each other.”
“I like the idea,” Dirk said.
Gerry waved him off and returned her attention to Myles. “Where would you live?”
“At first, I’d have to get a bigger apartment, closer to his school. Maybe later I could buy a house. They’re pretty cheap these days.”
She frowned. “But you’re talking about him staying here in California. I don’t want to break up the only family he’s ever had.”
Myles nodded. “But he and I can make a good family too. California is his home. He needs to be around his friends. It would be even harder for him to adapt to Texas. It would give us all good places to go on vacations.”
“Has he ever been on a vacation?” Dirk asked.
??
?What would happen if you met another woman?” Gerry ignored Dirk’s question. “Down the road, I mean. What if you wanted to get married? He’d be in the way all over again, especially if this new woman wanted to have her own family. Then what?”
Myles shook his head. “I don’t see anything like that happening for a long time, if ever. Even if it does, Stump and I would be a package deal. Any woman who couldn’t accept that wouldn’t be right for me anyway.”
“What about your drinking problem?”
“Geeze, Gerry.” Dirk said, “Give the guy a break. He’s had one relapse in six years. Hell, you drink more than he does.”
Myles made a gratuitous nod toward Dirk. “I admit I got drunk, Gerry, and I’m very sorry about that, but as soon as I was with Stump again, I realized I didn’t want any more of the bottle. And I’d been sober six years before that.”
“We like you a lot, Myles, and so does Stump, but this is a huge decision. Can you give us a few days to think it over, perhaps talk it over with him?”
“Well, it makes sense to me,” Dirk said, seconds before the doorbell rang.
Chapter Eighty-Three
When Don made it clear that the time to eliminate Mac had come, all Miranda could do was agree, but it wasn’t anywhere near as easy as that. If she followed his plan she and Mickey and Don would be intact with enough money for all of them. But that would mean Mac would die and she’d still have to deal with Don’s faults.
She considered running off with Mac and leaving Don behind, but if she betrayed Don in any way, he’d want revenge. He wouldn’t care if he went to prison. All of that would happen without Mac knowing that he would forever wear a target on his back—she might have one too.
She also considered cutting a deal with Don: She could peel off enough money to take care of Mickey and leave all the rest to him in exchange for his forgetting all about her and Mac; but the number one thing Don hated about his brother was the fact that Mac was always beating him in everything they did. No matter how much money Don got, he’d always know that his brother had bested him again, this time in the game of love, without Mac even realizing he was in a competition. Sooner or later Don’s humiliation and ego would get the best of him. He’d have all the resources he’d need to find some way to destroy Mac. And how would she explain to Mac her sudden willingness to forget the money?