Who Loves Ya, Baby? Read online

  Who Loves Ya, Baby?

  Gemma Bruce

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  The sole heir of a practical joker should always look before sitting down. Not the wisdom of an ancient Confucian proverb. Not a message in a fortune cookie. Just a little warning that Julie Excelsior failed to heed as she sat in Gunther and Gunther’s Manhattan law office and heard the terms of her uncle’s will.

  Now she was sitting in the dark somewhere in the Adirondacks, crammed into her Volkswagen, with suitcases, grocery bags, boxes of linens jumbled on the back seat, and a sixty-pound German shepherd named Smitty, sitting beside her. And it occurred to her that she might have acted a teensy bit too precipitately.

  She turned on her headlights again.Yep, still there. And it wasn’t going away. Funny. She remembered a sparkling white, board and batten house, with green gingerbread trim, a shady front porch with two big rocking chairs, and a turret, with elegant oval windows, that rose like a church steeple to a pitched roof and an iron finial that pointed to the sky.

  “Giving God the bird,” Uncle Wes explained to Julie and he would curl her five-year-old fingers into position so the two of them could join the finial in the Excelsior one-finger salute.

  That was before lightning struck, twisting the finial into a knot, blowing out the turret’s windows, and flooding Wes’s bedroom. Proving to his satisfaction that God couldn’t take a joke.

  But that was then. What Julie saw now was a monstrous old house, looming out of the shadows, its stark angles and dark recesses sending a chill up her spine. The wood siding was dingy gray, the windows were gaping black holes. The porch sagged ominously, and the turret seemed to be—she tilted her head to the left—leaning downhill. She could practically hear the doors creaking on rusted hinges. No wonder they called it American Gothic.

  It was a disaster. And it was all hers. The house, the pond, the apple orchard, the gazebo, the twenty acres of woodland. And the thing that brought her back to a place she’d tried to forget—the riddle.

  No bank account was mentioned in Wes’s will, only the hint of hidden treasure, written on a piece of yellow tablet paper and placed in a sealed envelope, addressed, but never mailed. It had been too tempting. She’d come home, just like her uncle intended. Good old Wes, laughing to the bitter end.

  Beyond the house, the headlights picked out chunks of the stone wall that meandered up the hillside, separating the two largest residences in town, Excelsior House and Reynolds Place. It was hard to believe she’d ever crouched beneath it, pulse pounding, fingers crossed, while she waited for Cas to sneak through the dark and silently scale its heights.

  Without warning, he’d tumble over the top, scaring the daylights out of her, and land sprawled at her feet, grinning, his hair sticking straight up from the cowlick over his forehead ...

  Yeah. And the rest was history, not her favorite subject.

  Julie briefly considered turning around and driving back to Manhattan. Then remembered that she had nothing to return to. She reached into the glove compartment for her flashlight, clipped on Smitty’s leash, killed the headlights, and opened her door.

  Smitty scrambled over her lap and leapt out of the car, dragging Julie with him.

  “Heel,” she cried as he plunged toward the scraggly bushes in front of the house. “Heel, you police academy dropout.” Smitty stopped and planted his feet. Julie careered past him and tripped over a piece of gingerbread molding that lay on the ground. Damn. She looked around, then upward and found a jagged, empty space along the eave above her head.

  She must have been out of her mind. She was a cop—an ex-cop—not Miss Fix-it.

  She let Smitty stake his claim to a rhododendron bush, then started up the steps. The floorboards groaned beneath her feet as she cautiously crossed the dark, deep-set porch, Smitty pressed to her side, the flashlight picking out glimmers of the red, blue and amber stained glass windows that flanked the heavy chestnut front door. It also picked out several squares of cardboard that covered sections of missing glass.

  Someone had left a pair of work boots by the door and Julie’s gut twisted to think of Wes, living and dying alone in the decaying house, with no friends, no family, just his riddles. He’d left her everything and she’d never even sent him a Christmas card.

  “Oh hell.” She sniffed and reached into her jeans pocket with suddenly clammy fingers, pulled out the key to the front door, and inserted it in the lock. The tumbler creaked. The latch clicked. She turned the knob and pushed the door inward—and was hit by a blast of air so cold and dead that she stepped backwards, her heart clamoring.

  Smitty padded past her into the dark.

  After a second, Julie followed. Not that she trusted Smitty’s sense of self-preservation. But it was either go inside or sleep in the front seat of a bug-sized car with a giant-sized dog.

  She groped for the light switch, and praying someone had paid the electric bill, flipped it on. A yellow light shone down from the teardrop chandelier and Julie let out a pent-up breath. Except for a fine layer of dust, the foyer looked just the way it always had: the dark wainscoting beneath pine green walls, the curving walnut staircase, the oriental runner, more threadbare than she remembered.

  Okay. This was better. She turned off the flashlight and looked into the parlor. The same overstuffed, red velvet couch and wing chair were placed around the fireplace. The same case clock and assortment of figurines rested on the mahogany mantel; the round oak table still held its place by the front bay window.

  She let Smitty off the leash and stepped inside the room. The ceiling-high bookshelves were stuffed with books: history books, nature books, sailing books, novels, and the cache of erotica that she and Cas had discovered on the top shelf one summer and had read aloud in the obscurity of the gazebo, only half understanding the words. They had giggled until their sides ached and then Cas had touched her and it was different. And their laughter turned into something else.

  Remembered warmth rushed through her. She clamped a lid on it and backed out of the room, away from the past. She had no intention of taking any little trips down memory lane. She was here to sell the house and get on with her life. Whatever it was going to be.

  She went out to the car and unloaded the essentials: her suitcase, a six-pack of beer, dog food, a gallon jug of water, and a bag of donuts. The rest could wait until the morning. She left her suitcase in the foyer and carried the rest down the hall.

  Smitty was waiting for her by a closed door.

  “Didn’t have any trouble finding the kitchen, did you?” said Julie. She turned the knob. The door opened; the knob came away in her hand. She looked at it, looked at the brass rod that hung out of the hole in the door.

  She sighed and put the knob on the kitchen table
. She thought longingly of Manuel, her apartment house super. He could fix anything, and Julie depended on him. She might be able to unload a clip into a bull’s-eye at sixty feet, but she didn’t know a washer from a bolt nut.

  Tomorrow she’d have to find a handy man, a cheap one.

  She turned on the kitchen light. A fluorescent tube flickered a few times, then came on with a buzz ... and kept buzzing.

  And an electrician.

  She filled Smitty’s water dish from the water bottle, and took a beer and donut out to the parlor. She sat down on the windowsill where she could see the lights of Reynolds Place winking in the distance.

  For years, she’d passed that house every Friday afternoon, carrying her overnight case for her weekend visit with Uncle Wes, knowing Miriam and Reynolds were watching her from the window, thinking white trash, though they would never dare say it out loud. She trudged along, dressed in her Sunday best, like Pip summoned by Miss Havisham. Only at Wes’s you were more likely to get a rubber ice cube than a calcified wedding cake.

  Julie grinned. Wouldn’t they be surprised when they found out their worst nightmare was now their neighbor.

  Too bad Cas wasn’t here. He’d get a big kick out of how things had turned out. But he must be a banker by now. The Reynolds men were always bankers. And since the local Savings and Loan had gone belly up fifteen years ago, he wouldn’t be banking here.

  Just as well. Sort of.

  Cas was her closest childhood friend. The first boy to look up her dress to see her underwear. The first boy to reach down her T-shirt to cop a feel. The first boy to tie her to a tree. Actually he was the only boy who’d tied her to a tree, but it had been a promising beginning. Julie smiled, then frowned. He was also the first man to betray her.

  Well, to hell with him and the rest of the Reynoldses. She wouldn’t embroil herself with that family ever again. She’d be more than content to smirk at Reynolds and Marian from over the wall.

  Suddenly tired, she pushed away from the sill and sank down on the velvet sofa. The cushion emitted a loud raspberry, and Julie jumped to her feet. “Ugh. For once, couldn’t I be surprised by an inflatable boy toy instead of a whoopee cushion?”

  She looked around for a safer place to sit and saw a piece of yellow tablet paper propped against a stack of books on the table.

  The next clue? Maybe this one would lead her to where Wes had hidden his money. She hurried over to read it.

  In marble halls as white as milk,

  Lined with skin as soft as silk

  Within a fountain crystal clear,

  A golden apple does appear.

  Great. Total nonsense.

  P.S. Sleep in your old room. The sheets are clean.

  “Right,” she muttered. “If someone else hasn’t slept in them in the last fifteen years.”

  P.P.S. Remember who loves you.

  She did remember.

  P.P.P.S. Get Cas to tell you the one about the chicken, the horse and the Harley.

  She frowned at the paper, but couldn’t stop the anticipatory shiver that ran over her.

  “Dammit, Wes, if this is another one of your pranks.” Cas couldn’t be here. He was a banker ... somewhere else.

  She sometimes pictured him sitting behind a desk, tall, potbellied, and stoop-shouldered, wearing a three-piece suit and rimless glasses, his cowlick supplanted by a shiny bald pate.

  She never imagined him tall and hot and tying her up. Not often. Not when she was awake. She looked at her watch. Hmm. Time for bed.

  She washed the last of her donut down with a swig of beer. She was not here to get sidetracked by the past, but to follow the clues to her inheritance. Because the past didn’t pay the rent.

  She didn’t have time to think about Cas. She didn’t miss him and she certainly didn’t need him. She had a dilapidated house, man’s best friend, and jokes from the grave.

  All in all, life was looking pretty good.

  Life was not so great for Acting Sheriff Cas Reynolds, a job he’d held for four months and for which he had no experience. What had started out as a weekend visit to a dying friend had turned into three months of disaster. He’d been in town for exactly four hours and ten minutes when Hank Jessop, the real sheriff, keeled over at the Fourth of July picnic, practically at Cas’s feet. An hour later, Hank was going through double bypass surgery and Cas had agreed to fill in as sheriff until he recovered.

  “Don’t worry,” Wes told him and slapped him on the back.” Nothing ever happens in Ex Falls.”

  And nothing had happened during his first three and a half months.

  Then Wes died and the chicken thefts began. Two coops in two weeks, cleaned out right under the noses of the owners. Cas had driven to each place, poked around in the muck looking for God knew what, took depositions, listened to suppositions and he still didn’t have one damn lead.

  He banged on a spot above the door handle of the police cruiser and the door swung open. He stepped out onto the graveled parking lot of the Roadhouse, tossed his uniform shirt into the back seat, and replaced it with a green sweater. Then he shoved his hands into his pants pockets and sauntered through the cluster of motorcycles, battered pickups and rusty cars to the entrance of the bar and grill.

  The place was hopping and Cas had to squeeze through the crowd toward the bar, where the black jackets of the local motorcycle gang took up nearly every seat. Cas settled onto the one free stool. Unfortunately, it was the one next to Henley Baxter, his least favorite person since third grade.

  “Hiya, Cas,” said Tilda Green as she slid a Foster’s draft toward him. Tonight Tilda’s hair was red and combed into a beehive, so high and finely teased that the barroom lights created a magenta halo around her head.

  “Evening, Tilda. Nice hairdo.”

  Tilda patted her head. “My Laverne and Shirley look.”

  Henley leaned into Cas and Cas got a whiff of hair grease.

  “Hey sheriff, seen any chickens lately?” Henley grinned and turned back to his beer.

  Cas sighed. He needed to take shit from someone who couldn’t decide if they were Elvis or The Fonz.

  “Yeah, see any chickens lately?” echoed Bo Whitaker, a shorter, stockier version of Henley, including the hair and the sideburns that grew down to his jawline.

  Tilda placed a battered plastic menu in front of Cas and turned to the two gang members. “I don’t want any business in here tonight. I’m still four chairs short from the last time you broke up the place. If you do it again, you’re out of here.”

  “Cheeseburger, medium, fries, well done,” Cas said and pushed the menu back to her.

  Tilda slipped it under the counter. “And Cas is in a mood. You wanna spend the night over on Walnut Street?”

  “Depends,” said Henley. “What’re they serving at the jail tonight? Chicken?”

  Beside him, Bo let out a nasal snort and said, “Chicken?”

  Cas sighed. He was getting a little tired of the chicken jokes. He didn’t know why he still stuck around, now that Wes was dead. The county sheriff could do Hank’s job. But there was that damn riddle, and he couldn’t leave until he figured it out.

  “They’re just razzing you, Cas,” said Tilda. “Cause there’s nothing else to do around here. I’ll put a piece of lettuce on that burger. Make sure you get a vegetable today.”

  Henley chewed on his lip and nodded. “Ya know, you should go down to the hotel. I’m sure your sister’s got some ... chicken cooking.”

  “Yeah, chicken cooking,” echoed Bo.

  Cas took a swig of beer. All he had ever wanted to do in life was build a boat, marry Julie Excelsior, and sail away. He’d managed to build a few boats. But he hadn’t married Julie and he’d never sailed away.

  His burger came, a wilted piece of lettuce drooped over each side. He doused it and the fries with ketchup and concentrated on eating.

  Henley stood up. “Well, gotta get going. Gonna find us some ... chicks.” He pulled his jacket collar up and did a cou
ple of shoulder twitches straight out of a fifties movie. “Like maybe your baby sister.”

  Cas’s jaw clenched. He put down his burger and slowly turned to face Henley as the rest of the bar grew silent. Henley grinned back and sucked on his tooth.

  “Put a sock in it, Henley,” said Tilda. “Or you’ll find yourself without a place to drink. And I mean it. Get outta here.”

  “Aw, Tilda. I was just goofing.”

  “You’re mean as a skunk, always were. Now beat it.”

  “Thanks, Tilda,” Cas said when Henley and Bo had left and the rest of the drinkers had gone back to minding their own business. “I didn’t really feel like breaking up a fight tonight.”

  Tilda pushed another Foster’s toward him and grinned. “Especially one you started.”

  “It’s this chicken thing,” said Cas.

  “You gotta admit, it’s funny,” said Tilda. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Wes Excelsior was stealing chickens from his grave just to bust your chops.”

  Cas took a sip of beer. “Believe me, Tilda, the thought has crossed my mind.”

  Chapter 2

  Julie stood outside her old bedroom, wondering how much dust, mold and mildew could build up in fifteen years.

  Smitty pushed his nose against the door.

  “Okay, but you’re sleeping on the floor.” Julie opened the door and felt along the wall for the light switch.

  Smitty sneezed.

  “Dust,” she said, her hand going unerringly to the switch. The light popped on and she blinked; then sucked in her breath.

  The room wasn’t dusty, it wasn’t moldy, it wasn’t mildewy. It was pink. Everywhere. The wallpaper was flocked with fuzzy pink blossoms on a light pink background. Her sneakers sank into plush pink carpet. Pink ruffled curtains hung from the window, and a pink satin comforter was spread across a new four-poster king-sized bed. Pink pillows were piled high against the headboard; frills, ruffles, ribbons, all pink.

  “Good God,” exclaimed Julie. “Maybe I shouldn’t mix donuts with beer.”