Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I enjoyed the evening, Ethan.”

Before he could debate the issue, I turned on my stiletto boot heel and hightailed it out of there, breaking into a run when I got to the parking lot as if I were afraid he was after me. The only thing I really feared was that I would turn around and run back in and fling myself into his arms. It had been too long since I’d been with a man. I didn’t know how to behave with one anymore.

I headed home in something of a stupor, sort of letting the car drive itself. Every time I thought about what had just happened, my whole body blushed. My back still remembered the touch of Ethan’s hand. And that was nothing compared to what my front remembered—of feeling Ethan’s hardness, of knowing he was as turned on as I was.

As I drove past the Kurtz house, I looked down the driveway and saw a dark sedan crisply illuminated by the full moon. I knew that sedan. It was the one the woman with the bulldog had driven. I made such a sharp turn that the car behind me went into a squealing skid and blasted me with its horn.

With my heart pounding and my fists clenched on the steering wheel, I pulled even with the sedan. I didn’t see the woman or the dog, but I was certain it was the same car. Okay, dammit, this was proof that Kurtz had lied when he said he didn’t know her. He and the woman had made me look like a paranoid fool—to Guidry, to Michael, to Cora, and even to myself. The woman was probably inside with Kurtz, telling him how she’d made sure I would show up at his house. They were probably planning their next clever move.

More than anything, I wanted to march up to the front door and confront Kurtz and his mysterious lady friend and force them to confess whatever their scheme was. But I’m not that dumb. I would call Guidry and let him handle it. Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I got out of the Bronco and moved to the side of the sedan next to the guardhouse.

In the next instant, something hit the back of my head and the world went black.

TWELVE

I woke with a sickening headache, stretched on my back, both hands at my sides. I tried raising my head, but it stayed firmly fixed on the ground. My skin shuddered with sudden fear. Was I dead? Paralyzed? No, I could wiggle my toes, and I could flex my hands.

Slowly, memory came seeping back—for a nanosecond there had been a dull scuffling sound behind me, somebody coming up fast on the pavement, perhaps from behind the guardhouse. Before I’d had time to turn my head, something had hit me. Hard.

Willing my arms to move, I raised my hands and squinted at them. No blood, no mangled fingers. I pulled my knees up and extended my feet toward the sky. I was okay. Nothing was broken. I felt the back of my head and winced. I had a tennis-ball-sized lump, but it wasn’t wet and I didn’t feel any crusty dried blood. Okay, all I had was a concussion. Not my favorite way to end a day, but it wasn’t life-threatening.

I managed to push myself up and sat swaying drunkenly for a few minutes while the surrounding landscape seesawed crazily. The air had a strange acrid smell and seemed oddly thick, as if I could cup it in my hand. I sat for a moment marveling at how it moved in pale gray swirls, ribboning around tree trunks and creeping along the ground.

Then my civilized cortex pulled itself together and shouted down to my old primitive brain, Fool, that’s smoke!

With an audible groan, I fumbled my cell phone open. When the 911 dispatcher answered, I said, “There’s a fire at a house on Midnight Pass Road. I imagine it’s arson. There may be people inside.”

I was almost surprised the dispatcher didn’t recognize my voice and say, “Oh, hi, Dixie! Gee, it’s been a couple of months since we’ve heard from you!”

Instead, he took the house number, told me to stay put, and promised somebody would be there shortly. As I stumbled to the Bronco, I could hear the fire engine’s siren coming from the station at the corner of Midnight Pass and Beach Drive. My brother would be on that truck, and the knowledge that he would soon be risking his life to battle a fire set by an arsonist didn’t do a thing for my headache.

Before the firefighters arrived, I pulled the Bronco out of the way behind the woman’s sedan. Then I laid my cheek on the steering wheel and stayed very still because moving caused waves of nausea and chills. I raised my head when the fire truck careened into the driveway, but it sped by so fast that I couldn’t tell which yellow-suited man was my brother. The truck swung around the areca palm hedge and stopped in front of the row of garages.

Within seconds, a fire marshal’s vehicle and an unmarked county car swung into the driveway and came to a stop behind me. Officers piled out of the cars and ran toward the invisible house.

A fat column of black smoke was rising behind the hedge now, making my eyes and throat burn. I felt the back of my head again. There was definitely a large lump back there, but it wasn’t oozing blood or brain fluid. Turning my head very carefully to keep the shapes of things within their boundaries, I scanned the area around me. The sedan was still there, but where was the woman? Maybe she’d been hit by the same person who’d conked me on the head and was lying dead or unconscious somewhere. The officers from the Fire Department didn’t know about the woman. Boy, would they be surprised when I told them.

A sense of importance gave me a little boost of energy that helped push me out of the car. I would go find the fire marshal and tell him about the woman, which would sort of cancel out my failure to report the dead security guard. When I told him, I would not look at the firemen who were risking their lives to put out the fire, because that was my brother in there and I could not bear to think of what might happen to him. I would simply tell the officers about the woman so they could initiate a search for her. Then I would go home and take a shower. Maybe one of the officers would give me a ride home. Maybe I could even catch a quick nap after my shower and get rid of my headache.

My knees didn’t want to hold themselves straight and my spiky boot heels caused my ankles to wobble, but I managed to shame my legs into walking down the driveway toward the privacy hedge. At the end of the hedge, I leaned against an areca palm frond because I felt very, very tired. Then I felt myself falling and couldn’t do a thing about it.

Next thing I knew, I was on my back again, and Guidry was on his knees beside me.

“Dixie? Dixie? Wake up, Dixie. Come on, baby, wake up.”

A little voice in my head said Baby ?

I guess that’s why I threw up. Hearing a man I lusted after call me Baby just naturally brought out my innate ability to show him my grossest side.

He handled it with his usual finesse, which made me feel even klutzier. With a clean white hanky that only Guidry would have, he mopped my face and helped me to his car. I pulled away and pointed toward my Bronco, but he shook his head.

“I’ll have somebody drive your car home. I’m taking you to Sarasota Memorial.”

Ignoring my protests, he stuffed me in the passenger seat and slammed the door. I could still smell the heavy odor of smoke, but I could see firefighters putting away their equipment, so the fire must be out. Guidry got in the driver’s side and carefully backed down the driveway. I hadn’t seen Michael, but all the way to the hospital, I fought back the tears I’d felt when I knew Michael was there suited up to face a fire. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me it had brought back the pain I’d felt after our firefighting father had died.

At the ER, a roomful of people coddling various sprains and cuts and bruises watched as Guidry pulled rank and got me immediately into an examining room. An intern who looked about twelve years old examined me and pronounced me concussed, which I could have told him without the examination.