Janet Evanovich - Full Bloom

"Annie, do you have any idea how much stress I'm under?" he said. "Eve Fortenberry calls some three or four times a day, yelling in my ear as loud as she can because she can't have a funeral for her son without his remains. And when she doesn't feel like yelling, she blows a whistle into the phone, and now I think I've got tinnitus. And did you know she's offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward to the person who finds her son's, um, body parts?"

"I could use ten grand," Annie said to herself.

Lamar pressed one hand against his forehead. "I've got TV and newspaper reporters hounding me day and night, crackpots calling saying aliens took Charles's remains, and now CNN wants to do a special on me. They're tired of focusing on big-city crimes and gangs. They want one of those touchy-feely stories about small towns with low crime rates, only we're going to look bad on account everybody thinks you killed your husband and buried him in the backyard. That's the kind of coldhearted big-city stuff CNN is trying to get away from. Dang, I wish this had never happened."

Annie sank into a chair and covered her face. Lamar leaned his fishing rod against the wall and paced. Annie wondered if Lamar would consider bringing in extra manpower to help with the investigation, wondered if he had even thought about the investigation. She sighed. "So what's the plan?"

"I'm going to let my agent handle it."

Annie looked up. "What?"

"The CNN deal. If they want me they're going to have to fight for me. They aren't the only big dog in town; know what I mean?"

Annie just looked at him, noted his gun. She wondered if he was allowed to keep real bullets in it. "I'd like to take Erdle home now."

Lamar shrugged. "You may as well. He's so hungover he can't think straight, and he's too sick to think of leaving town. I'll question him once his stomach settles."

Ten minutes later, a slow-walking, slow-talking Erdle Thorney followed Annie to her car.

"Are you out of your damn mind?" she demanded when he climbed into the front seat beside her and closed the door.

"Please don't yell," he said, leaning his head against the side window. "I've had a rotten day. I think."

"It's going to be a whole lot worse if you end up in prison for confessing to a crime you didn't commit. Not that I don't appreciate what you were trying to do," she added.

"How do you know I didn't do it? I had just as much opportunity as you did. I never liked Charles anyway."

"Just do me a favor and stop trying to help me, okay? I'm in enough trouble."

* * * * *

"How do you think Annie is holding up?" Jamie asked Destiny when she arrived at the office to pick up her mail.

Destiny shrugged. "As well as can be expected considering most of the town thinks she murdered her husband." She looked at Max. "It meant a lot to her that you retained a lawyer for her." Destiny paused and shot a glance toward the door. "Please don't just stand there." She pointed to the sofa.

Max and Jamie followed Destiny's gaze. "I take it your spirit is with you?" he asked.

"Like I have a choice? But I'm going to solve the problem once and for all. We have an appointment with a therapist in an hour."

Max and Jamie exchanged looks.

"Hold it, Destiny," Jamie said, "and let me get this straight. You're actually taking a spirit, an entity that no one but you can see, to a psychologist? Do you think that's wise?"

"She needs help. I can't just stand by and do nothing."

"What kind of help does she need?" Max said.

"I think she's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder."

Max nodded as though it made complete sense. "I know I'm going out on a limb here, but what if this therapist doesn't believe you?"

"He will. I mean, what kind of person would admit to this sort of thing unless it's for real?"

"A delusional person?" Jamie suggested.

Destiny glanced at the sofa. "Don't start shaking your head. We've already discussed this, and you agreed to go." She turned back to Max and Jamie. "Believe it or not, most, if not all, of my friends have been in therapy for years. Trust me; I know what I'm doing."

* * * * *

"May I borrow your muscles for about ten minutes?" Annie asked Wes when he returned from his outing.

"Sure. How can I help?"

"I need to set up some tables in the ballroom for the wedding on Saturday."

"Lead the way." He followed her toward the living room and through a door that led into a massive room with highly polished wood floors, ornate woodwork, bronzed statues, and the tallest ceiling he'd ever seen, on which fat white clouds had been painted. Wes gazed up at them, so realistic, and for a moment they seemed to be moving. He wasn't aware that Annie was watching him, a smile playing on her lips. It was impossible for him to look away. He thought he saw something in the clouds, but the harder he stared the more difficult it became.

"Don't try so hard," Annie said. "It's like looking at one of those three-D illusion pictures."

Wes relaxed his shoulders, neck, and eyes and simply waited. He had an odd sense of the clouds being alive somehow, as though something pulsed in their centers. The clouds seemed to expand and contract, the edges becoming crisp and distinct, and their roundness began to take on human forms, Rubenesque women and powerfully built men, and from behind, a radiant light somehow seemed to pass through them and purify their nakedness so that it was a thing of beauty. Wes blinked, and the forms faded once more into the clouds.

He looked to Annie for answers.

"One of my ancestors commissioned a French artist to paint something on the ceiling," she said. "He spent three years on the project. Most people can't see what's really there."

"What is it about this house?"

"I'm not sure. I just know it's important to preserve it. That's why I could never sell it."

Wes was quiet as Annie led him to an adjacent storage area where a number of tables, legs folded inside, were propped against one wall. Dozens of metal folding chairs with padded seats had been stacked around the room as well.

Annie selected seven large round tables, and she and Wes carried them into the ballroom and placed them near the wall. "I need to make sure there's enough room for dancing," she said.

Annie was breathing hard by the time they'd lugged some fifty-plus chairs into the room, placing eight at each table. "Boy, I must be out of shape," she said.

Wes looked her up and down. "Your shape looks fine to me."

"Anybody ever tell you you've got a silver tongue?"

He grinned. "As a matter of fact, I have received a few compliments with regard to dexterity—"

"Never mind," Annie said. "I don't think we're talking about the same thing."

"Perhaps it's time we should. Too bad you're already involved."

She knew he was referring to Danny, but she shrugged it off because it was difficult to explain the relationship she shared with him and because she was beginning to sense a subtle change in Danny. Perhaps it had been there all along and she'd simply been too wrapped up in other things to notice. Like with the clouds, she thought. One had to pause and look closely to see what was really there.

"The guy is in love with you, Annie."

"I can't think about that right now, Wes. Not with everything else that's going on."

"You might have to," he said. "I suspect he has been in love with you for a long time. The question is: what would he be willing to do to have you all to himself?"

Annie frowned. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"It hasn't crossed your mind?"

"Not even once. Danny would never."

"People will do almost anything to protect the person they love," Wes said.

Annie suddenly laughed. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were jealous of him."