Cool Shade Page 3

  "Eddie?"

  "Eddie Berlin. I tried to tell people Ricky had something on Eddie. He knew something Eddie didn't want to get out. So Eddie had him killed."

  Eddie Berlin. The name in Enid's book.

  Chapter 5

  Malfunction Junction

  Maddie put the map aside and stopped her battered Fiat at the beginning of the lane that led to Eddie Berlin's.

  A road to nowhere.

  No gate. Nowhere didn't need a gate. Or a fence. Or an intimidating sign that said KEEP OUT. Those things weren't necessary. People didn't go to nowhere.

  Nobody wanted to go there, Evelyn had explained, trying to talk Maddie out of it. But there were too many weird things going on. Like the Evelyn thing, and the Eddie Berlin thing, and the Enid thing. Maddie was beginning to wonder if there was more to her sister's disappearance than a simple spur-of-the-moment, take-off-with-a-new-guy and not-look-back situation. She couldn't help but feel that Eddie Berlin just might be a clue to the whole mess. And to be honest, she was curious about Eddie Berlin.

  Hot.

  It had been hot when she’d left Arizona, but in the desert it was a dry heat. The kind of heat that dehydrated your eyeballs and shrunk your skin until you looked like a piece of beef jerky.

  This… this was smothering.

  So wet.

  A steambath.

  In Arizona sweat immediately evaporated. In Nebraska it just pooled. It ran down your neck, your spine, between your breasts, and it stayed there.

  Maddie let out the clutch and accelerated, easing the little car up a road that had more potholes than a minefield had land mines. Twenty yards in, tree branches smacked the windshield and tattered green leaves stuck to the car's wipers and metal trim. She could feel thick-stemmed weeds scraping the floorboard under her feet. The steering wheel, when she hit a deep rut, was wrenched from her hands.

  Should have left the car at the end of the lane and walked. Too late now.

  Story of her life.

  There was no place to turn around, and there was no way she could back the distance she'd come. It was hard enough going forward, but to go in reverse was unthinkable. Her rusty muffler and wired tailpipe would never make it.

  She'd probably gone a mile, but it seemed like five, her car creeping so slowly that the speedometer tried to register something but could only bob feebly.

  Then the darkness of the overgrown lane suddenly gave way to muted light.

  A circle. And not of the crop kind.

  She’d arrived in an area that had once been cleared but was now on its way to becoming overgrown with brush and several years' growth of saplings. In the center of the clearing was a two-story farmhouse.

  Just a farmhouse.

  She didn't know what she'd expected. Some Gothic structure with turrets and a swirling sky behind it. Like everything else, the house was a victim of years of neglect. There was no way to know what color it had once been. Every stroke of paint was gone, and the exposed wood had turned a depressing shade of gray that made her think of storms.

  On the porch, below wooden, moss-covered shingles that bore witness to the absence of light, was an abandoned wicker rocking chair, a broken railing, and a torn and rusted screen door. Half of the building was covered with tangled ivy, several windows completely obscured.

  She shut off the car and stepped out.

  The air was heavy and still, smelling sweet, like clover, and pungent, like the catnip that made Hemingway go nuts. She took a deep breath and stood a little straighter. To her left, not far from the house, was an abandoned car. The kind of car that had once used a lot of gas and made a lot of noise.

  It wouldn't be doing any gas-guzzling now.

  It looked as if it had been driven up the road into the clearing, parked, and never touched again. The tires were flat and petrified. The body had settled into the ground so the car rested on the frame and axles. Huge tangled weeds with leaves that looked suspiciously like marijuana grew out the broken back window.

  To the right of the vehicle she detected what may have been a trail leading to the front steps, or at least an area that wasn't as tangled, that seemed somewhat beaten down.

  As in other instances in her life when she had to make a choice, she now took the path of least resistance.

  Weeds scraped her bare legs, making her think longingly of the jeans she'd left back at Enid's house, and of her penchant for finding even the smallest bit of poison ivy.

  At the farmhouse, she picked her way across the bowed porch, careful to watch for rotting boards. She felt like an idiot. No one except for maybe a family of racoons could possibly be inside. She knocked, the outer door banging loosely, releasing the smell of old, musty wood.

  Through the screen was a carved oak door, a door that, barring a tornado or fire, would outlast the house. The only ground-floor window that wasn't covered with ivy had a yellowed shade pulled down tight against the sill.

  Nobody could possibly live in such a dump.

  Feeling more ridiculous by the minute, she knocked again.

  Nothing.

  Except for the sound of bees moving through wildflowers. Except for crickets. And cicadas. Except for blackbirds, calling noisily from nearby trees, as if angered by her presence.

  Except for barking.

  Barking?

  Coming from the wooded area to her right.

  Getting closer.

  She froze, one hand raised to the door, her body turned slightly in the direction of her car.

  Never run from an angry dog. Just slowly back away. Never look an angry dog directly in the eye. It might take that as a challenge.

  A shaggy, middle-sized dog burst from the underbrush, barking frantically.

  Moving fast.

  She wasn't going to stick around long enough to issue a challenge. And to hell with walking.

  She gauged the distance from the porch to her car. If she hurried, she could make it before the dog nailed her.

  Her brain issued the command. Her feet, miraculously, obeyed. She tore down the steps. In her blind panic, she snagged the toe of her sneaker on a clump of tangled vines. She went down face first, as if she'd belly-flopped from a high-dive, her stomach, breasts, and legs all making contact with the ground at the same time, knocking the wind out of her.

  Dog food, she thought, fighting for air, knowing she didn't have enough time to recover, thinking about how painful a dog bite must be, about how those sharp, pointed teeth would feel sinking into her flesh. She had just enough time to bring her arms up to protect her face and throat before the animal was upon her.

  Chapter 6

  Angel Mine

  "He doesn't bite."

  Above her, the dog growled low in its throat.

  Maddie kept her eyes squeezed shut. Her heart hammered in her chest. She could hear the dog's panting breath. Smell its dog smell.

  A voice. A deep, annoyed voice, coming from somewhere up above. "I said, he doesn't bite."

  She ventured a peek from under her arm. The toe of a leather hiking boot, nine inches from her face. Tanned legs. Hairy, but not too hairy. Denim shorts that stopped at his knees. Gray T-shirt that draped softly over rounded chest muscles.

  Tall. Brooding. With dark hair that hung on either side of his face as he frowned down at her. Hair that was littered with bits of dead grass and leaves. His jaw was blue-tinged, as if shaded with charcoal. His lips, surrounded by a day or two's growth of stubble, were beautifully shaped.

  But what she really noticed were his eyes. Soulful. Eyes so dark that it was hard to tell where the iris left off and the pupil began. Soft eyes. Poet eyes.

  He was like somebody out of the past, out of time. He had these eyes that pulled me in, that made me go weak.

  The dog whined, licked the side of her face, wagged its tail, sat down, and whined some more.

  The man still towered over her, his shadow falling across her.

  "What are you doing here?"

  His voice was deep, l
ike the bass on a really good stereo system. And kind of gravelly, as if he didn't use it much.

  He repeated his question while continuing to pin her to the ground with his eyes.

  Instinct told her not to mention Enid, not yet anyway. She rolled to her back, elbows to the ground, feeling even more vulnerable in her new position.

  There were the Maxwell Smart "Would you believe" replies… Would you believe, selling Avon? Would you believe, reading your gas meter?

  Then there was the old shark skit from Saturday Night Live.

  Western Union.

  Pizza delivery.

  Candygram.

  "I'm lost."

  Simulcasting. The idea came to her the very second the words popped out of her mouth.

  His thick, dark brows lifted. Heavy-lidded eyes blinked. And his smile, when it came, revealed straight, white teeth.

  And when he smiled his slow smile—God. My legs went weak.

  "Aren't we all."

  She turned his response over in her head, rolling it around, deciding she liked it. It had the ring of philosophy, or maybe that was therapy.

  "I'm Eddie."

  There had never been any doubt in her mind. He couldn't have been anybody else. And then she realized he was reaching for her, hand extended.

  Beguiled, she could only put her hand in his.

  His grip was sure, firm. He pulled her smoothly to her feet.

  She came to his shoulder.

  His head was bent. A curtain of hair hid all but his jaw and mouth. She looked down and realized he was cupping her arm in one hand, examining it with the other. Brown fingers moved over white skin.

  She instantly regretted all those days spent curled up in bed asleep while the sun was high in the sky, regretted all those nights spent working on her tan under the fluorescent glow of radio station lights. She wished the skin he so carefully inspected was a beautiful shade of gold instead of marshmallow.

  "You've cut yourself."

  He sounded genuinely sorry. As if it had been his fault that she'd taken off like a wild animal caught by the side of the road, blindly darting into oncoming traffic.

  "My blood has excellent clotting properties."

  He rubbed a thumb across the soft skin of her inner arm.

  Tan against white. Firm against soft.

  Why hadn't she taken advantage of the YWCA weight room? Why hadn't she ever started jogging?

  "It should be cleaned."

  She stared at her arm. At his hand on her arm. Could he see the pulse beating madly in her wrist?

  "You're shaking."

  He was right. And it wasn't just the arm he was holding. She was shaking all over.

  He looked from her to the dog, which she'd totally forgotten. "Don't you feel bad, Murphy?"

  Murphy wagged his tail.

  "No wonder we hardly ever have company."

  The dog. He thought she was shaking because of the dog.

  Ah, yes. That was it. Who wouldn't be shaking?

  "Did you know your name is Eddie, and your dog's name is Murphy? Get it? Eddie Murphy."

  That lazy smile. "It's been mentioned."

  About a hundred times, were the unspoken words he was too much of a gentleman to utter.

  "Come up to the house and I'll clean that cut for you."

  The house? He actually lived there?

  He led her back the way she'd come. Dreamlike, she followed. On the porch, he took her by both hands and gently but firmly pushed her down in the wicker rocking chair. And this time the house didn't look ramshackle, it looked charming. It no longer looked abandoned and run-down; it looked more a product of carefully cultivated neglect.

  The screen door slammed behind him. She heard his booted footfall moving this way and that.

  With some distance between them, her head began to clear. She briefly toyed with the idea of running, but the dog—Murphy—was lying on the porch, muzzle against his paws, watching her with deceptively sleepy eyes.

  When Eddie returned, he was carrying a bottle of peroxide and a hand towel. He made her hold out her arm.

  "This'll sting."

  He poured the peroxide over the cut.

  She watched it bubble. Watched it run down the sides of her arm. Watched it drip on her bare leg.

  Normally quite a screamer, she didn't feel a thing.

  He capped the bottle and set it aside, then dabbed around the cut with the towel.

  "You have the whitest skin I've ever seen."

  "I… I, uh don't get out much."

  “You haven't been sick, have you?"

  Here she meets this really great-looking guy, and she looks so bad he thinks she's been sick. How embarrassing.

  "No. Actually, I work nights. I mean, I used to work nights. So I slept all day."

  She was talking. She knew she was talking, yet she was hardly aware of what she said. Was she making any sense at all?

  She couldn't take her eyes off the man crouched in front of her.

  He was beautiful.

  It wasn't like her to fall for a pretty face. Good-looking guys had never appealed to her. They were always too hung up on themselves. But it wasn't just his looks, she tried to tell herself. It went beyond physical. This was something that seemed to emanate from him. Something he carried with him. Inside him.

  He seems so together.

  And Maddie had never been together in her life.

  She stared at the leaves in his hair. Her fingers twitched. She started to reach up, stopped, started… Finally, she lifted her hand and touched a shiny, dark strand.

  Soft. Incredibly soft.

  She couldn't believe she was being so bold, but the whole encounter had a dreamlike quality that made it incredibly easy for her to touch him.

  His head came up. His eyes stared into hers.

  "You have a leaf…" she heard herself saying.

  She worked it loose, and when she was done, she showed it to him, just so he would know, just so he wouldn't get the wrong idea and think she was just looking for an excuse to touch him. Then she went to work on the next one.

  "There," she said, finally finished. When she looked into his eyes again, her breath caught. There was such electricity around them, between them. Was it all her? Did he feel it, too?

  This is insane.

  This is wonderful.

  Insanely wonderful.

  For the first time in years, she felt a sense of belonging, of amazing lightness.

  She didn't know how long she sat there mooning over him like the village idiot, when suddenly she came somewhat to her senses and decided he was probably politely waiting for her to leave.

  "I have to go," she said, getting to her feet.

  The dog lifted its head, then let it drop, bored.

  She was walking away, feeling awkward about having him watch, wondering if he was watching, when he jumped off the porch and fell into step beside her. "What about the road you were looking for? I might be able to give you directions."

  Enid.

  She'd completely forgotten about her sister.

  She had no idea why she'd made up the business about being lost. What could she say now that would make any sense? That wouldn't make her out to be a total fool?

  Before she could open the car door, he was there, beating her to it.

  She slid in, her mind in a turmoil.

  He shut the door. Then, bent at the waist, hands braced on the window frame, he looked in at her. "Who's place were you trying to find?"

  She would have to come clean. She would have to tell him the truth.

  She was trying to get the words lined up in her head when his beautiful eyes shifted from her face to the seat beside her.

  He frowned.

  His eyes lost their soft look.

  She followed the direction of his gaze.

  There in plain sight was the map Evelyn had given her. Circled in red magic marker was his place.

  He reached across and snatched the map. With it fisted in one h
and, he looked from it to her. "According to this—" he shook it at her, "you aren't lost at all. In fact, you seem to be exactly where you want to be."

  She grabbed the map from his hand, tearing it. She stuffed it between the driver's seat and console.

  "You're a reporter, aren't you?" he asked, suspicion giving way to certainty.

  Then he laughed in a self-deprecatory manner. "You're good." He nodded, agreeing with himself. "You are really good. And I'm an idiot. You, with that wide-eyed look. The shaking. That was a nice touch. You really had me going."

  "I'm not a reporter." A reporter. She'd never been a reporter. That might be a job she'd like. "I wish I were. Actually, I-I'm a hooker."

  His eyebrows lifted in disbelief.

  Where had that come from? Is that what they called themselves? Hookers? How about prostitute? Whore? Lady of the evening?

  "I didn't call for anybody."

  She almost collapsed against the steering wheel in relief. "I know. Someone gave me your name."

  He was watching her, looking her over in an almost analytical way. "You don't look like a whore," he said, still suspicious.

  "I'm kind of new at this. And hey. We don't all have to have short skirts, cleavage, and black eyeliner." She lifted her arm. "I told you my skin was white because of a night job."

  "Who told you about me?"

  "Who?"

  "Yeah. You said someone told you about me."

  "Oh. Yeah. Enid. Her name is Enid."

  His face closed. The eyes she thought were so soft were now hard. Emotionless. He straightened. "Get the hell out of here."

  She'd be happy to. More than happy to.

  She watched as he turned and walked toward the house, his boots making a shushing sound in the tall grass. On the porch, the dog rested, his eyes never leaving his master. In the sky above the house, waiting for darkness, was a pale, full moon.

  Chapter 7

  Where Is My Mind?

  "I think Eddie Berlin may know something about my sister's disappearance."

  Maddie stood in front of—she checked the name plate—Officer Gable's desk.

  Gable looked to be in his mid-thirties, with the completely bored, wiped-out attitude of a car salesman. Someone who wished he could be on a golf course instead of in an office. Anyplace but behind a desk with a woman badgering him about something he wanted no part of.