Chapter Eight
EIGHT
MAVEN
Our silence is stunned. Esme is the first to recover.
“What do you mean they lost it?”
“Just what I said. They can’t find it. It’s gone.”
“Well, she didn’t just get up and walk out. How on earth does a corpse go missing?”
Unfortunately, Bea provides a theory. “The mortuary could be operating an illegal body farm.”
We all turn to stare at her. She has the decency to look sheepish, but not the good sense to stop talking.
“I saw a show on TV about this one funeral home that would sell people’s bodies instead of cremating them. I guess there’s, like, a black market for body parts? For research and stuff. And organs.”
Davina stares at her, horrified.
My daughter and her true crime documentaries. I really need to start monitoring her screen time. “I’m sure it’s just a mix-up.”
“A mix-up?” repeats Esme, dismayed. “It’s much worse than that!”
“I meant they can’t have literally lost her. There must be security cameras all over the building. All they need to do is take a look at the footage. Someone moved her casket into the wrong room. I’m sure this will get sorted out.”
Davina shakes her head. “I wouldn’t be so sure.
Not only did that dimwit Anderson say he and his staff conducted an exhaustive search of the entire building, including all the refrigerated storage areas and the garage, they also viewed the security footage.
No one entered the building after they locked it last night.
And no one snuck off with a casket in tow.
In fact, her casket was right where they left it.
It hadn’t been tampered with or damaged.
There were no signs of anything amiss. Mother simply vanished. ”
Stifling my irritation, I say, “Dead people don’t suddenly decide to sit up and go for a stroll in the park. They don’t evaporate, either. Someone knows what happened to Granny. I’m going down there to get answers. Bea, you stay here with your aunts. And no more theories, please. Q, let’s go.”
I’m about to turn and walk out, but the phone rings again. Before Davina can pick it up, I snatch the receiver from the wall, praying it’s Mr. Anderson with the answer to the morbid mystery of where my grandmother’s corpse went.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Maven. I was hoping it would be you who picked up. Lucky me.”
It’s Ronan. The floor drops out from under my feet.
“I know you probably can’t talk right now, what with all the sharks swimming around. But I thought I’d offer my assistance.”
I turn my back to the kitchen full of inquisitive eyes and say calmly, “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
His chuckle is warm and self-satisfied. “Oh, come on. You know I’m the only person in this town who can help you find Lorinda.”
When I don’t respond, he says, “Surprised I heard about that? You should know better. And before you accuse me of something nefarious, the answer is no. I had nothing to do with it. Though I have to admit the opportunity to help you with such an interesting dilemma is fucking delicious.”
Heat stings my cheeks. I grit my teeth, count to five, and silently curse the day Ronan Croft was born. “Like I said, lady, you have the wrong number. There’s nobody here by that name.”
I drop the receiver back into its cradle and leave the room without looking anyone in the eye. Q follows closely behind me, most likely dodging the trail of hot steam pouring from my ears.
I shouldn’t let him get under my skin, but Ronan Croft knows how to push every one of my buttons and always has. I wouldn’t be surprised if he orchestrated this entire preposterous disaster, no matter what he said.
When we arrive at Anderson’s Funeral Home, a sleek black sports car is parked in front. It looks expensive, anal retentive, and totally out of place for this town.
I already know who it belongs to.
Sitting beside me in the driver’s seat, Q turns to look at me.
I say, “Stay here. If I don’t come back out in fifteen minutes, drive straight to the police station and report Granny missing.”
He gazes at me silently, his expression one of doubt.
“Yes, I know Blackthorns don’t get other people involved in our business, but we’ve never had a dead body disappear on us before. I’ll deal with the aunties when we get home.”
I exit the car and walk into the front parlor of Anderson’s. The one person I hoped never to see again lounges in a chair next to an anemic potted palm, smoking a cigarette and looking beautiful and bored.
Until his feral gaze alights on me, then he smiles like a tiger at feeding time.
“Hello, Maven. Christ, that dye job is awful. Interesting shoes, though. Very sensible. Good for walking long distances. Did they belong to your grandmother?”
His icy eyes shine with amusement. Dressed in a black cashmere sweater, black slacks, and black leather loafers that are probably made from the hide of an endangered animal, he’s blindingly elegant. He also exudes the kind of utter self-satisfaction enjoyed by only narcissists or the uber-rich.
In his case, it’s both.
“Let me make myself clear. I don’t want your help with this or anything. My family is none of your business. Get lost.”
“None of my business? That’s a stretch, considering how close you and I were.” His amused tone turns throaty. “Do you remember how many times we were together? Because I sure do.”
His smirk is so aggravating, it takes every ounce of my self-control not to take off my sensible shoe and throw it at him.
“I don’t remember anything except that you’re the worst mistake I ever made. If I don’t put a bullet between your eyebrows while I’m here, it will be a miracle.”
“Eight.”
I stare at him, disappointed that my eyes aren’t laser beams capable of slicing him into tiny, less villainous pieces.
“It’s the number of times we fucked. Eight.”
“You’re hallucinating. It was half that at most.”
His burning gaze locked to mine, he slowly shakes his head.
“The time in the greenhouse on top of the bags of soil. Twice in my bedroom. Once in your bedroom. Three times in the backseat of my car. And of course the first time where we did it standing up in the alley behind the movie theater after you threw your soda in my face and called me a soulless, spoiled brat with the intellect of a garden slug.”
Hearing him recount it in such detail opens the floodgates of my memory. Images rush at me, fast and furious, bringing the blood to my face. I remember how voracious we were for each other, all greedy hands and panted breaths, bruising kisses and the darkest kind of need, bordering on desperation.
That first time in the alley, with his hard cock stretching me and his fingers digging into my bottom, his head bent to my neck and his bared teeth pressed into my skin as he fucked me against the wall, I went supernova.
Helplessly convulsing around him, I gave myself over to the kind of pleasure I now know is exceedingly rare.
Yes, most men can make a woman orgasm if they put their minds to it. But almost never can a man make a woman feel as if she’s seen the true face of god.
Ronan managed it every time we were together.
But I’d rather have my nose smashed in with a brick than admit he had any effect on me whatsoever.
I say blithely, “I really don’t recall. Now run along and go play with your daddy’s money, you Cymothoa exigua.”
“Ooo, she’s breaking out the Latin. Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess.” He thinks for a moment. “Cockroach?”
“Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“Okay, I give up. What’s a Cymothoa exigua?”
“A small, parasitic isopod that affixes itself to the tongue of a fish and sucks it dry of blood until the tongue dies and falls off. Then the creepy little fucker lives on the dead tongue’s stub inside the fish’s mouth until the fish starves to death, and the parasite has to find another host.”
Ronan starts to laugh. Softly at first, then he throws his head back, closes his eyes, and really gets into it.
When I walk off without another word, he calls out after me.
“Don’t be sore, Bugs. For a minute there, we were getting along so well!”
Ignoring him, I lean over the empty reception desk and look up and down the corridors on either side of the main room. “Mr. Anderson? Hello?”
I don’t get an answer but didn’t really expect to. The entire staff is most likely still frantically searching the grounds for my grandmother’s body.
Deciding to start first with the room Granny’s viewing was held in, I leave the reception area and find the red-and-black parlor. The door is locked. So I check the other rooms down the hallway, all of which are viewing rooms of various sizes but none of which hold an unaccounted-for corpse.
I try the other corridor, bypassing Ronan still lounging in the reception area, but have no luck there, either. The chapel and sales room displaying the urn and casket selections are both empty, as is the employee lounge.
When I return in defeat to the reception area, Ronan nonchalantly flicks his lit cigarette into the dry moss in the base of the potted palm and stands.
Exasperated by his carelessness, I say, “You could start a fire.”
“Fingers crossed. No luck locating the matriarch?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“Nobody’s laughing.”
“Except you, on the inside.”
“I wouldn’t dare. You’re far too dangerous to laugh at.”
“If you had half a brain, you’d realize how accurate that statement is. Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“I’m curious about something.”
“What a new experience that must be for you. I suggest having one of your minions conduct online research to find an answer.”
“Don’t be mean.”
“Believe me, if I were being mean, you’d already be missing a few fingers.”
“Fine. Humor me with the answer to a question. If you answer honestly, I promise I won’t bother you again.”
I narrow my eyes and examine his expression. He appears sincere, so I grudgingly relent. “What is it?”
His pause is long enough to be uncomfortable. Then, his voice low and his gaze intense, he says, “Does our daughter know who her real father is?”