I Think I Love You Page 25

  Speaking of home, Cissy was still bedridden, now with a summer cold; real or manufactured, Regina wasn’t sure. Uncle Lawrence was doing double duty by reading to his sister and posting his bodyguard in front of the house to thwart the throng of reporters that had descended upon the Metcalf home after their juicy story leaked and no other regional news had developed that was more titillating.

  She and her sisters had endured the humiliation of taking a polygraph test at the sheriff’s office this morning. Even though she had nothing to hide, her nervousness had bordered on hysteria for fear she would somehow incriminate her father when they asked her, “Do you know who killed Dean Haviland?” by hesitating a second too long. Less critical but nerve-racking nonetheless were her unreasonable fears that they were going to ask her trick questions like if she’d ever seen a porn flick or eaten an entire Pepperidge Farm cake in one sitting. They hadn’t, but the results wouldn’t be interpreted for several hours. By tomorrow, the girls would know if they were liars.

  Mitchell had passed some of the day at the sheriff’s office as well, trying to convince someone to follow up on the leads they’d uncovered. But since John was still missing, their jumbled theories seemed thin at best, even to her, now that she had a day’s distance from the conversations. Only the questions about the pills Dean tried to give Justine seemed legit, and those had already been sent to a lab in Asheville.

  Meanwhile, she hadn’t slept at all last night, imagining her father ill or injured or… worse. Uncle Lawrence was worried sick, too, and bad spent hours on the phone calling people and hospitals and hotels, pulling in favors from police departments all over the state.

  Mitchell had offered to come with her to the service, but she’d assured him there was no need, mostly because she was shaken by her desire to have him there. The last thing she needed was to start depending on him for emotional support when at this point she suspected he was only sticking around to satisfy a resurrected sense of judicial obligation.

  She had hoped this memorial ceremony would provide them all a small measure of closure on the horrible events of the past few days, although she conceded that the service might have proved more therapeutic if they were actually viewing a body. It was almost impossible to believe that the incorrigible Dean Haviland was now contained in what resembled an oversized martini shaker.

  The stainless-steel burial urn was presented atop a marble plant stand, surrounded by silk fern fronds, and backlit with a pinkish bulb meant to flatter flesh. It was, at best, tacky and, at worst, anticlimactic.

  The cremation had been another point of contention between her sisters, but when the topic arose, she had simply left the room before the fur started flying. How it ended she wasn’t sure, but they had all come to the service in the same car, so that was something.

  Tate Williams, the shiny-suited owner and director of the funeral home, walked to the front of the room and coughed politely as a sign that the service was about to begin, in case anyone needed to hit the rest room. Since Mica had opted for a non-religious ceremony—probably for fear that they’d all be struck by lightning—Tate had agreed to deliver the eulogy. He was an odd-looking man with waxy skin and lacquered hair that made a person wonder if over the years he had absorbed too much formaldehyde through his hands.

  “Welcome, friends,” he began. “We’re here today to celebrate the life of Dean Matthew Haviland, a life that was cut tragically short.”

  Mica started crying quietly, and Regina squeezed her hand. On her other side, Justine stared stonily ahead.

  In solemn tones, Tate delivered a generic send-off speech suitable for a murder victim who had no family, no friends, and no real accomplishments. Tate compared life to a candle flame, an hourglass, and a marathon. He spoke of trials and tribulation and troubled waters. And when at last he’d run out of uplifting song lyrics from the seventies, he said the two words that everyone had been waiting to hear.

  “And finally,” he said, his voice ponderous, his expression wistful, “death is a lesson for the living.” He left them to draw their own conclusions, but to Regina the moral of the story was that if you live your life as a cheating, conniving, manipulative parasite, you might get shot.

  “Would anyone like to say a few words about Dean?” Tate asked.

  At Justine’s first muscle movement, Regina gave her sister’s hand a bruising crush along with a warning shake of her head. Mica was still crying and in no shape to say anything, so in the wake of an awkward silence, Regina stood. Her mind raced for something soothing to say, but at the looks on her sisters’ faces, all she could think was how this man had trampled on all of them, had pecked at their vulnerabilities until they were laid open, then laughed in their faces.

  “Dean was a complex man,” she began, hoping that one word might lead to another. She shifted from foot to foot “But… he was a liver of life.” More like a bowel, actually. “And he left an impression on everyone he met.” So far, so good. Her sisters were rapt and hungry for comfort. Oh, God. But in their profoundly sad expressions, she found her next words.

  “Yet regardless of his human frailties,” she said with a little smile, “Dean enjoyed an abundance of what every one of us hopes to have at some point in our lives. He was loved.” She reclaimed her seat and was surprised when she received a hand squeeze from each side.

  Tate Williams seemed enormously relieved for the unexpected assistance and, apparently recognizing the advantage of ending on a positive note, abruptly thanked everyone for coming and explained that coffee and pop and sausage balls were available in the lounge. He stepped forward to shake Mica’s hand, then Justine’s, then her own, and must have figured what the heck, because he shook Pete’s, Jumper’s, and Spectacles’s hands, too.

  Then he picked up the urn and held it out to Mica. “May he rest in peace.”

  Mica stared at the urn. “Do I just carry him out of here?”

  Tate nodded encouragement and pressed the urn into her hands. “Are you going to scatter his ashes here or when you get back to LA?”

  “I hadn’t thought about where would be the best place.”

  Justine scoffed. “That’s easy. Just think of the place where he’d get under our skin the most, and that’s where he’d be the happiest.”

  “Mica?”

  They all turned at the sound of a man’s voice. He was a stranger. Fortyish, attractive, well-dressed.

  Mica’s face lit up. “Everett?” She handed the urn to Justine and ran to embrace him. “What are you doing here?”

  Regina and Justine exchanged surprised looks; then Justine frowned down at the urn.

  Mica pulled the man over and introduced him as her agent, Everett Collier.

  He eyed Justine suspiciously, obviously aware that because of her, his million-dollar product was at home in a shoe box. “I apologize for being late,” he said. “I had a little trouble finding the funeral home.” He looked at Mica with sad eyes. “I wanted to be here for my favorite client.”

  “I’ll just bet you did,” Justine muttered. Regina nudged her, but she wondered if Mica was involved with the man or if he was simply concerned about the viability of her career.

  Deputy Pete walked over, holding his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry, Mica, Justine, for…” He gestured toward the urn Justine held. “You know.”

  Justine seemed surprised to be lumped in with Mica but nodded her thanks.

  He turned to Regina. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She followed him to the end of the empty row of chairs. At his expression, her heart skipped a couple of beats. “Do you have news of Dad?”

  He shook his head. “But my dad is pretty upset about you and that Cooke fellow poking around asking questions.”

  “Pete, we’re all on the same side—we just want to get to the truth.”

  He frowned, looked away, then back. “I just can’t figure out why you trust that Cooke clown more than you trust me. How much do you really know about him, other than what he’s
told you?”

  She blinked. “Mitchell has been a good friend.”

  “Seems to me he’s managed to involve himself in your family’s problems mighty quick.”

  Anger sparked in her stomach at his implication that she was a needy little thing who would fall for a stranger’s pickup line. She was not little.

  He used the heel of his boot to scratch the shin of his other leg. “And then turns out he’s mixed up with the Bracken hearing, too.”

  “Mitchell believes that Lyla’s murder and Dean’s are related.”

  He sighed, then wiped his hand over his mouth. “Regina, I know you don’t want to believe your dad did what he did, but you’re allowing Cooke to lead you on a wild-goose chase. All he’s trying to do is build reasonable doubt on the Gilbert case so that when his brother wins a new trial, he’ll get Bracken off. You’re playing right into their hands.”

  She tried to calm her breathing and fight the tiny voice in her head that whispered, He’s right. You had reservations, too, but you threw them out the window because Mitchell flattered and flirted and did that squiggle maneuver.

  His frown was rueful. “Guys like Haviland and Cooke go through life using people, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  The anxiety in his blue eyes doused her previous anger. She hadn’t given him a chance, choosing Mitchell’s smooth-talking charm over Pete’s good-hearted attentions.

  Women can’t get enough of that kind of thing. Take it from a former bad boy.

  A new sense of self-awareness settled over her, and not comfortably. Regina wet her lips and touched Pete’s arm. “I really appreciate your concern, and I’m grateful for your advice. Thanks for coming tonight—I know you did it for us.”

  “I did it for you,” he corrected, and picked up her hand.

  “Regina?”

  She looked up to see Mitchell walking toward them, wearing slacks and a sport coat.

  Pete frowned and released her hand. “Speak of the devil,” he murmured. “I guess I’ll be going.”

  “Pete.”

  He turned back.

  “Maybe when all this mess is over, we can have dinner. For real, next time.”

  He smiled. “I’d like that.” He ignored Mitchell as the men passed.

  Mitchell walked up and watched Pete walk away. “What’s his problem?”

  “You,” she said, and couldn’t keep the indictment out of her voice.

  His eyebrows went up. “Let me guess—he said that we should stay out of police business.”

  She turned to walk toward the entrance where Justine, Mica, and her agent were heading. “Something like that.”

  “Who’s the new guy?”

  “Mica’s agent. I think he came to assess the damage.”

  “What’s she going to do—have her hair woven back on?”

  “I ready don’t know.”

  “Have your sisters patched things up?”

  She gave him a bright smile. “I really don’t know.”

  “So you’re finally letting them fight their own battles.”

  She set her jaw at his ease in evaluating her interaction with her sisters. “I could do without the analysis,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Sorry. How did the service go?”

  “Fine. I’m glad it’s over.”

  “I thought maybe we could have dinner,” he said. “And talk about some things I found out today.”

  “I was planning to spend the evening at home with my family.”

  He caught up to her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  She took in his handsome face, his crinkly eyes that made her heart jerk sideways. Pete was right—Mitchell had smiled and smirked his way into the corners of her life, and she’d put up very little resistance. What a sucker she was to think that he’d actually been attracted to her on some kind of connective level. “Wrong?” she managed to say. “Nothing new.”

  “At least let me give you a ride home.”

  She stopped beside Justine at the door. “I’m riding with Justine.”

  Justine looked back and forth between them with pursed mouth, then turned to Mica. “Are you riding with us?”

  Mica looked at Everett.

  “Absolutely. Go with your sisters,” he said.

  “Follow us home,” Mica said. “And we can talk there.”

  Mitchell looked at her as if he, too, was waiting for an invitation, but Regina stubbornly refused. “Maybe we can talk tomorrow,” she said, then followed Mica and Justine outside and across the parking lot to Justine’s car. Williams’s was deserted tonight—only the hearse, Mitchell’s van, and Everett’s expensive rental car sat in the lot opposite Justine’s Mercedes. She frowned, remembering the lady who had crashed the service. The woman must have been dropped off by one of the blue-hair regulars who considered the funeral home a social haunt.

  Justine stopped a few feet in front of her car and fished out her keys. She looked at Mica, then pointed to the urn. “Do you want Dean back? Or do you want me to take him, now that your boyfriend’s here?”

  Regina rolled her eyes—whatever truce her sisters had called hadn’t lasted long.

  Mica glared at Justine and wrapped her hands around the urn. “Everett is not my boyfriend.”

  Justine refused to relinquish the urn. “Then why was his coat hanging in your bathroom?”

  Mica tugged. “That’s none of your business, impersonating snoop. If you hadn’t hacked off my hair, Everett wouldn’t have had to come.”

  Justine tugged. “I should’ve used an ax like I did on that wardrobe.”

  Regina looked longingly in the direction of Mitchell’s van—maybe it wasn’t too late to catch a ride after all. He was looking back. She made a mental note not to be so predictable, then plucked Justine’s keys from her hand. “Whenever you two grow up, get in.”

  She opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel, shaking her head as the urn went back and forth, back and forth. She inserted the key and turned, tempted to leave them altogether. A loud boom shattered the air and shook the car, and for a moment she thought someone had fired a gun. But when she saw the spiderwebbed windshield and the buckled hood spewing smoke, she registered some type of explosion. More frightening still, she could see through the smoke that her sisters were no longer standing in front of the car.

  Regina hurtled herself out the door. She heard rather than saw Mitchell and Everett run toward them. Justine and Mica lay on the pavement several feet in front of the car, moving, thank God, but covered with pale smoky ash.

  Then she saw the topless urn next to a tire and realized the ash wasn’t just any old ash.

  “What happened?” Justine asked, unwittingly spitting Dean off her tongue. She looked as if she’d been powdered with a giant puff—only her eyes stood out in relief.

  “Car engine fire,” she said, giving Justine and Mica both a hand to their feet, dreading the moment they realized the true extent of the disaster. She relinquished Mica to Everett and pulled Justine away as Mitchell lifted the hood. A small fire licked at the engine block. He shrugged out of his sport coat and used it to smother the flames.

  “Are you okay?” she asked her sisters. “Any broken bones?”

  They shook their heads and peered down at their ash-covered fronts, arms extended. Justine suddenly went still. “Oh, God—is this what I think it is?”

  Regina pressed a fist to her mouth to quell a wholly inappropriate urge to laugh. She nodded.

  “What?” Mica asked, shaking her arms. “What is this?”

  Justine released a muffled scream. “It’s Dean, you idiot!”

  Chapter 28

  DO wash that man right outta your hair.

  Justine stood under the hottest shower she could withstand and scoured her body with soap and a stiff brush. She tried not to think about Dean’s remains swirling around her feet, washing down the drain. She’d eaten her words about putting him somewhere to get under their skin, and she’d eaten a good bit of him to boot
. Tate Williams had assured her that ingesting a little human ash wouldn’t harm her, but she was sure if anyone could reach back from the dead and ruin her life just a tad more, it would be Dean Freaking Haviland.

  The door opened.

  “Justine!” Regina called into the bathroom.

  “Yes?”

  “The sheriff is here and he needs to talk to you.” The door closed.

  She said every curse word she could think of, and made up a few. After a final rinse, she wrapped her hair in a towel and pulled a yellow terry-cloth robe from the back of the door. Another one of the noncosmetic items she’d added to the Cocoon line a year ago. And now it seemed likely she would never return to that penthouse corner office.

  God, what she wouldn’t give for a cup of nutmeg tea right now. Instead, she dressed quickly in jeans and casual pullover and slipped on sandals. She finger-combed her hair and walked downstairs, half-hoping and half-dreading that the sheriff had word of her father. But wouldn’t Regina have told her if they’d found him? She’d never forgive herself if he got into trouble… all because of her.

  Everyone had gathered in the TV room, including Cissy and Uncle Lawrence. Mica looked pink and fresh-scrubbed, and her agent, perplexed. Regina stood in front of the bookcase, next to Deputy Pete and across the room from Mitchell—curious. And Sheriff Hank Shadowen dominated the room in the center. He gestured to an empty wing chair.

  “Sit down, Justine. I need to talk to you girls about a few things.”

  “Did you find Daddy?” she asked. “Tell me now.”

  “No, we didn’t find your daddy.”

  She sat. “What, then?”

  “Someone tampered with your car.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Old trick,” Pete said. “Pull a plug wire, cut the fuel line, lay the wire in the fuel, and when you crank the engine—pow.”

  “Your gas tank was almost empty,” the sheriff said. “Else all you girls would probably be dead.”

  She swallowed, then murmured, “I always ride on empty.” She looked vaguely around the room. “Does anyone have a cigarette?”