Getting lucky, p.1
Getting Lucky, page 1
GETTING LUCKY
DC BROD
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
Dedication
For Joan O’Leary,
friend and book lover
(and thanks for the ride)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Getting Sassy
Also Available
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to writing friends and others for offering generous dollops of wisdom and support: Susan Anderson, Terra Ayres, Miriam Baily, Mary Brown, Brian Davis, Susan DeLay, Gail Eckl, Carol Haggas, Mary Lou Kelly, Joan O’Leary, Rachael Tecza, and Laura Vasilion. And, of course, Don Brod.
And to Alison Janssen, my editor, and Ben LeRoy, publisher.
Chapter 1
Weekly coffee sessions with my mother at the Twisted Lizard had become a ritual. I say “ritual” because it wasn’t always pleasant—although it could be—but it was necessary. For her, it was getting out among the “normal” folk and away from the “decrepits” at Dryden Manor. For me, it was a relatively easy hour spent with my not-always-easy mother.
We both liked the Lizard. It boasted tasty coffee and an abundance of breakfast pastries to tempt us. And if our conversation lagged, there were usually fellow patrons for us to deconstruct.
We had just finished conjecturing on the profession of a pretty young woman with tattoos up one arm and down the other. I had decided she was an art student, while my mother wasn’t nearly so generous. “Probably a drug addict,” she opined.
Before I could come to the woman’s defense, my mother said, “Robyn, I’ve been thinking …” she dabbed a tiny wedge of butter onto her croissant, “about our … my … inheritance.”
It took a gulp of coffee to wash down the lump of bagel that had gone dry in my mouth. This could go in any direction, none of which were good.
Placing her knife across her plate, she peered around the small, wooden table, pushing aside the napkin holder. “Is there any of that … oh,” she fisted her hand and rapped on the table, “that slow, golden stuff …” She gave me a sharp look. “You know—”
“Honey?”
“Yes, honey.”
“One second.” I went to the utensil bar and plucked a small tub from one of the bins.
“Thank you, dear,” she said when I returned and presented it to her with the foil cover pulled back.
I settled into my chair and sipped my coffee while she dripped several pea-sized globs of honey onto her croissant. Outside, cars hissed by on the wet pavement of downtown Fowler, Illinois.
She licked a smear of honey off the tip of her thumb and said, “Do you know what I’d like to do with that money?”
I peered at her over the rim of the mug. “What’s that, Mom?”
She cocked her chin, examining the work she’d done on the pastry, and said, “I’d like to buy a house.” Biting off the corner of the croissant, she nodded to herself while chewing. “Nothing fancy, of course. Just room enough for the two of us.” After a moment she added, with a small frown, “And, I suppose, that silly dog of yours.”
Overlooking the insult to Bix, I said, “A house?”
“You heard me.” Her pale blue eyes began to ice up as they often did when she sensed resistance.
Of course I’d heard her. I’d been expecting this. Dreading it, actually. And in the two months since that inheritance, I should have been able to come up with a better response than, “Hmm.” But what with the abrupt spike in my blood pressure, it was the best I could manage.
“Is that all you can say?”
I looked around at today’s group of coffee drinkers. Not one of them seemed inclined to help me out. Nor did a noteworthy hairdo or skimpy outfit provide distraction fodder. I took a deep breath and told myself this was probably a whim, a whim that would fall prey to her short-term memory loss.
Fingers crossed, I turned to my mother and said, “I thought you liked Dryden Manor.” It was the nicest assisted-living facility in the area. And now that she could actually afford it, she was looking elsewhere. Were we Guthrie women ever satisfied?
“Oh, it’s all right. I suppose. If you don’t care about privacy or decent food.”
“I thought you liked the food.”
“It’s fine.” She twisted her mouth. “If you like institutional dreck.”
“Aw, come on.” I smiled. “I thought you loved institutional dreck.”
She gave me a sour look. There was no stopping her now. “I think you need a house, Robyn. Somewhere to live other than that dismal apartment.”
I set my mug down. “It’s not so bad.”
“I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to buy a house with me.”
Where to begin?
She leaned toward me. “Are you and Mick getting serious?”
“No, Mom, we’re not,” I replied, a bit too quickly. Now was not the time to tell her we actually had talked about moving in together. Although it would have been a perfect way out of this situation, it was also the kind of thing she might bring up the next time she saw Mick. And I didn’t want her nosing around in that part of my life.
Relaxing, she nodded. “Just as well. Your children would have been short.”
“I’m a little old for the children thing.” Truth was, I’d punched my biological snooze alarm so many times, the silly thing had broken.
“You’re in your forties. Aren’t you?”
I nodded. We’d been here before.
“I just saw something on that morning show.” She tapped her forehead with a knuckle, and her face scrunched up. “What is it? The one with the weatherman who used to be fat.”
“Today Show?”
“Yes, that’s it. Women in their fifties are having children.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll think about it when I’m in my fifties.”
She sighed. “Oh, that’s all right. I suppose I’ve long ago given up the dream of being a grandmother.”
Wait for it, I told myself.
Settling into the chair, she said, “Can we talk about this house?”
Lizzie Guthrie had never lost her touch with timing.
“How much is the rent at Dryden?” she persisted.
“A lot.”
“How much?”
I was pretty sure she remembered, just like she knew my age, so there was no point in doctoring either figure.
When I told her, her eyes widened. “My Lord. For that hellhole?”
“It’s hardly a hellhole, Mother.”
“Think of how much I … we … would save.”
Financially speaking, there were a lot of good reasons to buy a house. Dryden was expensive. A house would be an investment. We would save money. It was a buyer’s market. But for every good financial reason, there was at least one mental health reason that made it the worst idea since Waterworld. It would not happen.
Just then, the “Mission Impossible” theme song erupted from my handbag. My mother watched, eyebrows bunched together, as I pulled out my cell phone. She hates any handheld electronic device. Especially when it interrupts her. Me, I could have kissed it.
When I saw it was Nita Stamos, friend and editor at the Fowler News and Record, I thought how perfect it was that I could delay this housing conversation with an assignment.
“Hey, Nita.”
“Robyn—” Nita’s voice broke off.
“What’s wrong?” I looked up at my mother, who was now busy scribbling something on a square paper napkin.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“It’s Clair.” She drew in a ragged breath. “She’s dead.”
“Clair?” As though I hadn’t heard her.
“It’s—” she couldn’t finish.
“What happened?”
“Hit by a car. Last night. She was out walking Scoop.”
Not Clair. I’d just seen her two or three days ago when we ran into each other at The Fig Tree. “Are you at the office?”
“Yeah. We’re all here.”
“I’m on my way.” I disconnected the call and stared at the blank screen where Nita’s name and number had just faded.
“What is it, Robyn?”
I looked up at my mother and was a little startled by the concern I read in her eyes.
“This young reporter at the paper is dead. Hit by a car.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
“I need to go there.”
“Of course you do.” She folded the napkin and thrust it into a pocket on the side of her purse. “We’ll talk about this later.”
In the car , my mother asked me about Clair.
“She’s been with the paper for a couple of years,” I told her. “Good reporter. Smart. Everyone loves her.” I realized I was speaking in present tense, but there was no other way to talk about Clair. “She has great instincts, you know. About stories. People.”
“Were you good friends?”
I considered that for a moment or two. “Not really. But we were friendly. We used to talk about our dogs—” What had happened to Scoop? In the scheme of things, Scoop’s fate should have been minor. But it wasn’t. Clair loved that dog—a gangly yellow mutt. If Scoop had died too, then that much more of Clair was gone.
“I’m sorry,” my mother said after a time.
“Thank you.”
I couldn’t imagine what the office would be like. How they’d have to keep working to get the newspaper to bed tomorrow. How someone would have to cover Clair’s stories.
As I stopped for a red light, I turned the wipers up a notch and squeezed my eyes shut against the rain hammering against the windshield. The rain had started last night, and the weather guy had predicted it would be with us, off and on, over the weekend.
”Robyn?”
I slowly opened my eyes again and saw my mother watching me. “What?”
“Does that newspaper have real estate listings?”
I turned on her. “Is that all you can think about?”
“Well,” she looked down and began blinking. “I—I just—”
Behind me a car honked.
“Will you shut up!” Not that the woman behind me could hear.
I popped the clutch and we stalled. “Shit!”
“Robyn—”
“Not. Now. Mother.”
She folded her hands and tightened her mouth.
I didn’t speak again until I dropped her off at Dryden. I walked around to the passenger side to give her benefit of the umbrella for the short distance from the car to the porch. The October wind had picked up and the umbrella wasn’t much protection from the rain gusting at us from the side. But I managed to get both of us to the entrance mostly dry, and as I held the door open for my mother she made no move to walk past me. Finally, because there was nothing left to do, I said, “I’ll call you later today.”
Her smile was small and timid, as though she feared my unchecked rage. “Will you think about the house?”
I sighed. “Yes, Mom.” I didn’t say what I would think about it. Probably not very much.
Chapter 2
I drove straight to the newspaper, on the other end of town. The News and Record was a good weekly paper with a hard-working staff. I’d been stringing for them since I’d moved to Fowler a couple of years ago, which was maybe a month after they hired Clair. I make a living as a freelance writer, and my news stringing is a fairly small part of my income, but I found I liked the connection the newspaper gave me to the town. And I especially liked the people. They were a tight-knit group. Nita was the oldest member—around my age, mid forties—and considered herself a mother to them all.
Although I wasn’t a member of the staff per se, they included me in most of their social events, and recently I’d begun spending some Thursday evenings with them up at Fingal’s Tap.
Nita greeted me at the door with a long, powerful hug, which I’d braced for. I’m not what you’d call a hugger, but I do understand that some people are. Nita engulfed me and held on. For such a tiny woman, she had a lot of strength. Both kinds.
When she finally released me, she took a step back. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She wiped her face and pushed her hands through her short, dark hair. “God, Robyn, why? Why?”
I had no answers. So I asked, “How did it happen?”
She pulled me into her paper-cluttered office. The cream-colored sweater over a pair of snug jeans indicated she must have learned of Clair’s death before she came in. Normally, she wore a suit or a dress to the office.
Instead of sitting behind her desk, she fell into one of the faux leather chairs intended for guests. I sat in the identical chair next to hers. She looked down at her folded hands and began to chip away at the red polish on her thumbnail. “She was walking Scoop by the side of the road—Keffling, near Regent.”
I nodded and she glanced at me before continuing, “The police are still investigating, but from the tire tracks they think the driver swerved into her.”
“They think? Was it hit and run?”
She looked up, as though surprised. “I didn’t tell you that?”
I shook my head, slumping deeper into the chair. Getting hit and killed by a car was one thing. Being left there in the rain to die was another. She was still watching me as I asked, “Do they think it was intentional?”
“No. Probably got distracted. Either that or the driver was drunk. There’s a couple of bars out that way. It was ten thirty, eleven.” She swallowed. “They’ll find him. Or her.”
“Yeah, they will,” I said, and had to ask, “Scoop? What about Scoop?”
“He’s okay.” She almost smiled. “Tough mutt. They found him sitting next to Clair. Some driver saw him and then saw Clair.”
“Where’s Scoop now?”
“Amy took him for a walk, but she can’t keep him.” Nita was watching me. “Do you know anyone who could take him? For a while. Clair’s folks are coming up from Bloomington. Maybe they’ll want to bring him home with them.”
I could foster Scoop—I wanted to—but I knew that Bix couldn’t handle it. A roomie would put him in the doggie bin. But I did have an idea. “Let me call Mick. He knows a lot of people. One’s gotta be a soft touch.” I thought of the goofy way Scoop cocked his head with one ear up and the other just hanging there. “No, on second thought, I’ll just take Scoop to his office.”
Responding to Nita’s puzzled look, I said, “He’ll melt when he sees that face. Maybe he’ll adopt him on the spot.”
“Hasn’t he got a—what is it?”
“Ferret. Yeah,” I conceded. “That probably won’t work. But I’ll bet he can help.” I sure hoped he could. I couldn’t leave this sad dog here to remind everyone of their loss.
Nodding, she glanced out the window to the inner office. “Thanks, Robyn.”
“Anything else I can do?”
She raised her hand in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know.”
We sat in silence for a minute or two, and then Nita said, “The police were here. They wanted to know what she was working on.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Sure. I mean, maybe there’s something there.” She sighed. “But I think they were just going through the motions.”
“Did they ask for her notes?”
“Of course.”
“Did you give them up?”
She glanced my way with a little smile. “Of course not.” With a shrug she added, “Actually, I don’t know where they are. She must have had them at her apartment.”
“What else did they want?”
“They wanted to know if anyone had a problem with her.”
I almost laughed. “She was a reporter. Of course people had problems with her.”
I thought of the story she’d written on how an aldermen had arranged to have the road leading to a new bridge across the Crystal River take a precipitous turn so it didn’t send traffic down his street. He had railed against Clair and the Record until he’d been voted out of office in the next election.
Beside me, Nita tilted back her head so it touched the wall behind her and pulled in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as one hand worked the remnants of a pink tissue into a misshapen ball. I didn’t know what else to say, so I glanced around the room for something to focus on, finally settling on the floor. Just as my vision began to blur, a long, narrow shadow split the beige and black tiles. When I looked up, a tall man stood in the open doorway. I felt my shoulder and neck muscles contract. Later I would think how strange it was that my subconscious recognized him before I did.
He took a step into the office. Nita had opened her eyes and now she stared at him for a moment before saying, “Can I help you?”
“You’re the editor?”
“I am. Who are you?”
He glanced my way, and that was when it clicked. I remembered the eyes. They were narrow and heavy-lidded and darted back and forth as though constantly evaluating his environment.
“My name is Kurt Vrana.”
He was probably around forty and wore a three-quarter-length brown canvas jacket over jeans and a slate-colored shirt. Water drops beaded on the shoulders of his jacket.
