"Ain"t love," Fran said calmly. "Stopped being that years ago, you ask me."
"What is it then?"
"Fear."
I looked at Fran doubtfully. "Please!"
She narrowed her eyes. "You think I"m exaggerating? That lowlife has made her lover a promise she"ll never forget."
Fran"s wild-eyed stare made me nervous. "Which is?"
"O"Keefe has convinced Ba.s.sett that she"ll kill her if she tries to leave."
I let out a skeptical groan, which prompted Fran to say, "You don"t believe me? Go talk to her yourself."
I astonished Fran by walking out of the office without another word, and in less than twenty minutes, I"d reached Shirley Ba.s.sett"s investment firm in the Denver Tech Center. Ignoring the receptionist who served as gatekeeper for eight suites, I walked directly into Shirley"s office and slammed the door.
She looked up, startled.
"I need to speak to you."
Shirley rose and adjusted her leaf-print, slipover sh.e.l.l and reached for its matching jacket. She smoothed the elastic waistband of her black cropped pants. "You look familiar. Have you come to one of the Denver Women"s Chamber meetings?"
"Once, but-" I began.
"Wonderful," she said, gesturing for me to take a seat in the leather chair across from her oak desk. "You must be here for the free financial checkup. I leave coupons on every table."
"I don"t need investment advice-"
"Many women feel that way, but everyone could use a tip or two, and as you can see, my pa.s.sion is money."
Shirley Ba.s.sett wasn"t kidding.
She"d taken a nondescript, windowless s.p.a.ce and filled it with symbols of currency. In a freestanding, four-shelf gla.s.s case, she had a coin collection. A table behind her desk held a vintage cash register from the Old West, a ticker-tape machine, a miniature bank vault and a display of calculators and adding machines. One wall housed four clocks, set to time zones in Tokyo, Geneva, London and New York, and another was covered with framed stock certificates representing each of the thirty companies that comprised the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
"I don"t care about money," I said, almost violently. "I"m here to talk about your lover, Carolyn O"Keefe."
Shirley Ba.s.sett"s face lost all color. "What makes you believe we"re lovers?" she said unsteadily.
"The fact that you used to spend every night together at your home on Oneida Street, even though Carolyn owns her own home in the same neighborhood, on Holly Street."
"You seem to be well-informed, which puts me at a disadvantage. I don"t even know your name."
"Kristin Ashe."
"Nice to meet you," she said, force of habit.
"My lover is Destiny Greaves."
Only two strangled words came out of her mouth. "I see."
"I"m a private investigator. Twenty-seven days ago, Carolyn gave me ten thousand dollars and hired me to follow Destiny and find out everything I could. Carolyn said she was trying to decide whether to have an affair with her."
"Why did she hire you?" Shirley said, managing only a whisper.
"I don"t know, but I"m sick of the games, with her and with you."
"What have I done?"
"Suddenly appeared with a hundred-thousand-dollar donation to the Lesbian Community Center."
"That contribution was confidential."
"Not anymore."
"I give large sums to a variety of organizations."
"Four days after your lover approaches me about my lover. What the h.e.l.l"s going on?"
Shirley sipped coffee from a NYSE mug and took forever to swallow. "I have no idea what you"re talking about."
"We can do this one of two ways," I said, raising and lowering my voice to dis...o...b..bulate her. "You can continue to lie, and I"ll contact every business organization in this city and make the connection between your donation and your precious chamber. Are you ready for the most widespread outing of your life?"
"You wouldn"t dare," she sputtered.
"You"re right, I wouldn"t. At least not until I"ve contacted the Metro Denver Public School board and played a recording of every conversation I"ve had with Carolyn."
Her voice faded. "You couldn"t."
"I could. Happily," I lied. No such tapes existed.
"What do you want?" she said heavily.
"I want you to make Carolyn stop."
"I don"t care for your tone."
"Look," I said in a placating tone. "We"re on the same side. We"re both about to lose our lovers. Do you want that to happen?"
"You don"t know Carolyn," Shirley said, an undercurrent of fright in her voice. "She won"t listen to me."
"Why do you tolerate her predatory behavior?"
"Because I love her."
I shook my head, not bothering to conceal disgust.
"You may not understand this, but Carolyn loves me, too."
"How can you delude yourself?"
"She always comes back. We may not be s.e.xual, we haven"t been in years, but we share something deeper, something none of those other women can touch."
"This is sick," I said with deep feeling.
"I left her ten years ago," Shirley said helplessly. "I stayed with my sister for a week."
I shot her a quizzical look. "Why did you leave Carolyn, and why did you go back?"
"I left because I thought I"d die if I stayed with her," Shirley said, lowering her head. "And I went back because I knew I"d die if I didn"t."
Chapter 26.
The next morning, Wednesday, I could barely drag myself out of bed. By the time I stumbled into the shower at eight, Destiny was long gone.
Lately, if it hadn"t been for the frequency of my nocturnal wake-ups, I wouldn"t have seen her at all. She usually joined me under the covers sometime between one and five, and we"d talk for a few minutes before she dropped off to sleep, leaving me wide awake, one of the reasons I"d hit the slumber b.u.t.ton four times this morning.
The delay threw me off schedule, and I was a few minutes late to pick up Flax, but he didn"t seem to mind.
We told his Grandma Nell we were going to a computer store to browse for a system upgrade, but as planned, we headed to the Fielder mansion.
"Here"s my secret room," Flax said after we"d accessed the bas.e.m.e.nt through a back stairway in the main house and walked down a narrow hallway. He switched on two battery-operated, wall-mounted lights and showed me his private fort. He"d retrieved chairs, cushions and a cooler from nearby Dumpsters and added a Harry Potter poster, a mini boom box, a stash of candy and his grandmother"s collection of comic books.
While Flax practiced dowsing in the far reaches of the bas.e.m.e.nt, I lounged on a beanbag chair, chewed a rope of stale red licorice and read about the adventures of Richie Rich.
Right as the plot was heating up in the comic book, Flax came running back. "I"ve found a ghost."
"Oh, sure," I said, prying a clump of licorice off my back molar.
"No, really, Kris. It"s like something was pulling the rods out of my hand. Come see!"
"I"ll wait here," I said lazily. "You do some more investigative work."
"Can I open the door of the room where I"m getting the reading?"
"Feel free," I said magnanimously.
"It"s the room Grandma Nell thinks is haunted, the one they discovered at the seance. It"s locked, but I"ll bet I can break the lock with a hammer."
"You have a hammer?"
"A sledgehammer. I found it last summer. If Grandma Nell or Grandma Hazel finds out, will you tell them you said it was okay?"
"They"ll never know. Just in case, don"t do too much damage."
"Come with me, Kris. Please!"
I sighed, rose reluctantly and followed the beam of Flax"s headlamp.
Brow furrowed in concentration, he delicately held the two L-shaped rods Ca.s.s had given him, one in each hand. We had pa.s.sed a handful of small rooms with no results, when suddenly Flax"s arms sprang into movement. The copper rods crossed and pointed downward at the threshold of the locked, allegedly haunted room.
"You"re doing that to scare me," I said, my voice cracking.
"Honest, they do it on their own, like Ca.s.s said they would. I"m not moving them. Here, you try," he said, foisting the rods at me.
"I believe you," I said hurriedly, terrified of touching the metal rods that had, from all appearances, connected with energy from another world. "We should call Ca.s.s."
"We don"t need her. You"re just chicken."
I glared at him and, after a pause, said, "You hold the rods, and I"ll give the lock a whack." With one well-aimed blow, I knocked the padlock-hinge, screws and all-to the ground.
As Flax opened the door, it shuddered in a loud creak, which spooked us.
I instinctively took a few steps back, planning my emergency exit, but he proceeded forward toward a pile of dirt, loosely packed, in the shape of a body.
"We should leave," I said nervously.
He kicked at the mound. "I"m not scared."
I heard a gasp and the clang of two dowsing rods as they hit the dirt floor.
"There"s a body in there," he said in a stage whisper, as soon as he could catch me and his breath.
"No, there isn"t," I said in a little girl"s voice, from my safe zone twenty feet from the room.
"Then what is it?"
"Dirt. Clear plastic," I said, relying on my split-second view before the retreat. "Candles and air fresheners."
"No way!"
"Yes way!"
"Go in and see."
"I"m not going in there," I said adamantly. "You"re the one who wanted to test your dowsing skills. Let"s just close the door and pretend we were never there."
Flax straightened his shoulders. "I"m going back."
"Be careful," I said as I watched his determined stride down the hall.
I"d started to return to my beanbag when Flax let out a high-pitched scream and came stumbling down the hall, his headlamp askew.