Lori Avocato - Nip, Tuck, Dead

“Look, Sherlock, if you’ve got nothing, say you’ve got nothing.”

I curled my lips as I turned away from him. “I’ll have something very soon.” There. That should shut him up.

But I noticed his reflection in the window. That stupid grin.

“I hope the pork is all right since it’s probably cold by now,” I said for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time Adele said it was fine and Jagger shook his head. Oh well, I wasn’t immune to making a fool of myself to get a conversation going. As I watched her eat, still with her white gloves on since her hands had been burned in the “joint,” as she’d once told me, the front door opened.

Half expecting, and fully regretting, that it might be Fabio, I tried not to look. But then I noticed Jagger-staring.

Nothing about Fabio would cause a Jagger-look like that.

I turned to see that walking across the waiting room was a woman who looked like a Victoria’s Secret model-dressed. Actually dressed in a black turtleneck, black jeans, and sunglasses propped on her head-very eerily Jagger-like in appearance.

Long brown hair bounced across her shoulders as she made her way closer until her spike-red spike, that is-heels clicked on the linoleum floor that bordered the stained carpet. Her eyes were enticingly large and deep brown, and I’m sure Jagger hadn’t missed that she was proportioned just so and knew it.

Yet there was a friendly air about her, and I knew I liked her on the spot-which sure as hell stunned me.

Adele flew up from her seat, knocking over her cup of coffee but not caring as she grabbed the woman in a hug.

“Chéri, Jagger, this is my Lilla. Lilla Marcel. Lilla, she is my fourth child and also married four times!” Both mother and daughter broke out into laughter.

Jagger and I remained silent, but I forced a smile and held my hand out toward Lilla. “Nice to meet you. Your mother is a peach.”

She eyed me with mascara-covered lashes, looking very chic, though a scent of cigarette smoke wafted from her. But I just knew she had a way of puffing that made her sexy.

Adele sat back down and started to tell Lilla to eat something. With her figure, I wondered if she ate more than once a year.

“What is this peach?” Lilla asked.

“Oh,” I chuckled. “It means that your mother is a doll. Priceless. She finds things out that no one else could.”

Lilla’s eyes darkened.

Oops. Wonder what that was about but figured I should keep my mouth shut since we’d just met. We made small talk, and I found out that Lilla, after signing her fourth set of divorce papers, moved in with Adele after leaving Canada to get away from ex-husbands two and four. Yikes. Talk about a double dose of trouble.

Both she and Adele seemed thankful that Lilla didn’t have any offspring with any of the spouses. But she was near destitution, as hubby number four took her to the cleaners, and she had to move down here with her mother. Since it could only be temporarily until she got her emigration paperwork in order, she needed to work.

And somehow I got the impression that legal or not, Lilla was going to be working there.

First thing that popped into my mind was: What can I get her to do to help with my case?

Jagger almost tripped as he stood from his seat to shake hands with Lilla. Hm. Maybe Adele needed help filing. Nope. I wasn’t the jealous type, and besides, what did I have to be jealous about?

Not that I thought I was some great beauty, but there was nothing between Jagger and me. Okay, a few rogue kisses, but possession apparently was not nine-tenths of the law when it came to men.

Lilla looked toward Jagger and mumbled, “Attaboy!”

He hadn’t done a thing to warrant any congratulations and the way she’d said it sounded more like a “wow.” I looked at Adele, who in fact mouthed the word “wow.”

Apparently French Canadian wasn’t that difficult to interpret.

“Okay, Adele, if you couldn’t find anything out about Olivia, that must mean she wasn’t around anywhere.” I tapped a nail to my tooth. “Hm. You think she’s not real?”

Jagger looked at me. “Ask Lydia.”

“I know she’s a real person, but is she really who she says she is? And why, if she isn’t, is she pretending to be who she is?”

The entire room gave me a well-deserved collective look of confusion.

I raised my hands. “Okay. Okay. That didn’t come out right, but you all know what I mean.”

“If she is an imposter,” Lilla said, “ça suce.”

This time Jagger mouthed, That sucks.

I made a mental note to buy a French dictionary on my way back to Newport. Then again, I think the Canadians probably had a different version. And speaking of Newport, I stood up. “I really have to get going and back to my job. Goldie’s surgery is tomorrow.”

Adele gasped. “Oh, chéri, take good care of our Goldie. I know you will.”

After hugging Adele and telling Lilla it was great to meet her, she walked us out to her “machine” (car) to have a smoke. When I looked inside the old gray Buick, I wondered just how long she’d been living in it, and why it took her that long to come to her mother.

Then again, this was Adele I was talking about. Not exactly Mother Goose mixed with Stella Sokol.

A woman should never sleep in her childhood bed when Jagger is in the next room.

I learned this hard lesson after getting my mother settled for the night and declaring that she was fit and well-adjusted to her pink cast, after spending the entire weekend working with her, so I could leave in the morning. But on my way to my old room, I happened to walk by my brother Peter’s old room and there in one of the twin beds-was Jagger.

Dark hair slightly tousled. Yikes.

Softly snoring. Ah.

Pheromones dancing in the doorway. Wow.

Thus the sleepless night.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” The voice seemed to come from a distance.

I turned over, ready to look at the clock to see if it was still the middle of the night. But the sun glowed on the numbers, and I could tell it was already Sunday morning.

The day I got to leave.

And Jagger was standing in my doorway watching me sleep!

My blonde hair looking very Rod Stewart. Oh damn.

Probably sawing wood like a three hundred pound man. Ah, shit.

And even while semiconscious, hormones at high alert for those stupid pheromones.

I rubbed my eyes, yanked the covers higher, although I was fully clothed in a jogging suit beneath, and said, “Oh, hey. Morning.” Please leave. “I’ll be up and ready in a few.”

“We need to make it quicker, Sherlock.”

“Oh.” I yawned. “Okay. What’s the rush?”

“The lieutenant from Newport called. They found out who killed Mr. Baines.”

“Ian?” I said. “Ian?” I shouted, then yanked on the sleeve of Jagger’s leather jacket. For springtime, it was still cool in the mornings.

“Maybe you need your hearing checked, Sherlock. Yes, Ian.”

“Ian James killed Mr. Baines?” The horrifying thought still hadn’t sunk in as Jagger took a right turn off the Newport Bridge ramp.

I’d asked pretty much the same question the entire two-hour trip but still said, “I can’t believe it. Ian? Ian killed someone?”

“Mr. Baines.”

We turned when the light changed, and Jagger weaved in and out of one-way streets through the narrow roads of Newport.

“You sound as if you are placating me with that tone.”

At the next stop sign he turned and merely looked at me.

“Okay, so I’m having a hard time with this one. He was such a nice guy. He really had fallen for Goldie.” Damn! Could my dear friend have been in any danger? Naw. Obviously there was more to this fraud stuff than I knew about, and Ian never would have hurt Goldie.