2 Death Makes the Cut, page 2
Although most people assume we are sisters, Kyla and I are first cousins. Our fathers are identical twins and we look enough alike to be twins ourselves. Maybe not identical twins, but we’d been mistaken for each other before, a fact that drove Kyla absolutely crazy. She would never admit there was anything more than a remote family resemblance. For my part I would have been happy if we looked even more alike, or rather if I looked more like her. Because, although I wouldn’t break mirrors, Kyla was drop-dead gorgeous—the kind of beauty that made men stop in the middle of the street to pick their jaws up off the ground. She was no fool either, and was fully aware of the effect she had on men. In fact, she shamelessly used it to her full advantage, telling me once that she hadn’t bought a drink for herself in five years. It might have made her obnoxious, but she was also completely charming. And to be fair, it didn’t seem to mean much to her other than as an entertaining diversion. She’d graduated with honors in computer programming and now worked as a lead developer for a software company, raking in money and bonuses.
Today she looked glum. And beautiful, of course. And stylish and elegant. August in Austin, Texas, meant the temperature outside was at least ninety-five degrees. It meant that touching a steering wheel could leave grill marks on your palms. It meant that the thirty seconds it took to dash from an air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car could leave your shirt clinging to your back like a professional wrestler’s. However, in her white and yellow sundress, Kyla looked as cool and together as an ice sculpture. Even her dark hair curled and bounced around her shoulders with a life of its own. My own hair was pulled back in a limp ponytail, and I looked sourly down at my denim capris and oversized T-shirt. We could have been the Before and After shots in a makeover commercial.
Now, she dropped her purse on my desk with a thud and flopped dramatically into a chair with a groan.
“That doesn’t look like good news,” I said. “How did it go?”
Kyla had recently had a little trouble with the law.
“Pretty good. I guess. I got community service,” she added with a frown.
I whooped. “Hey, that’s great! You couldn’t have hoped for much better than that.”
She looked at me sourly. “The best thing would have been for them to give me a fucking medal for protecting myself and the public in general.”
“Well, yeah. But you pulled a concealed weapon on Sixth Street. They couldn’t exactly let that go,” I pointed out.
A look of outrage lit her sapphire eyes. “I don’t see why not. Was I supposed to just let those assholes carjack me? I don’t think so.”
“No, of course not.”
“If it wasn’t for me, those little bastards would still be out there, taking someone else’s car, maybe hurting someone.” Her finger jabbed the air at every word.
Now she was glaring at me like it was my fault.
I held up my hands. “You know I’m one hundred percent on your side. It’s just that carrying a gun down in that area is illegal. They had to do something. Think about it—community service is really just a slap on the wrist. It’s a good thing.”
“I don’t see what the good is of having a concealed-carry license if you can’t carry around bars. That’s exactly where you need to have a gun,” she grumbled.
“Yeah, maybe everyone should just walk around with holsters and six shooters on their hips.”
I was being sarcastic, but she considered it. “Not a bad idea. An armed society is a polite society.”
“Robert Heinlein,” I responded, impressed she knew the quote.
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, you’ll never guess what I have to do.”
From her tone, it was pretty nasty. “Pick up trash on the highway? Clean urinals at the bus station?”
“Worse. I have to teach a six-week seminar about girls in technology. You know, encourage high school girls to go into the sciences.”
I stared at her blankly. “You get arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and the punishment is teaching children?”
My whole life, my whole career, reduced down to a community-service penalty.
Kyla was oblivious. “Yeah, does that suck or what? But here’s the good part. I got them to let me do it here.”
I choked a little. “Here?”
“Yup. Twice a week for six weeks. And you have to help me. I don’t know what to say to the little monsters.”
Which probably meant that she expected me to do it for her. I threw up my hands. “I have a full schedule. You know, my own classes.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’ll be right after school, so your classes won’t interfere. We can go get dinner and drinks after,” she said by way of bribery. “It’ll be fun.”
I sighed. “I’ll help with the first one, but then you’re on your own.”
She decided not to argue, but I could see she was already thinking of ways she could get me to do the whole thing. She’s devious that way.
The afternoon sun threw golden rectangles of light across the desks and floor, lighting up tiny motes that twinkled in the glow like fireflies. Outside, I could hear the roar of a mower accompanied by a dull thumping of rap music from the groundskeeper’s radio. I consoled myself with the thought that the owner could look forward to an adulthood of early deafness and pounding headaches.
“So how’s Alan doing?” Kyla asked, changing the subject. Conversations with her often bounced around with very little in the way of segues.
I winced a little as though at a sore tooth, then shrugged. “Okay, I suppose.”
She looked at me. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Alan was my … well, boyfriend, I guess. I felt a little old to have a boyfriend, but there didn’t seem to be a better term in the English language. What do you call someone whom you’ve been dating for a few months, but who lives in a different city and who never seems to be around?
I’d met him when Kyla and I had taken a tour of Egypt, a tour that had gone disastrously wrong and ended up with both Alan and me almost getting killed. That kind of experience usually draws people together, I suppose, but I had to admit I wasn’t completely happy with the way things were going right now. For one thing, Alan had not yet moved to Austin, although he kept saying he was going to as soon as he could make the arrangements to move his travel company from Dallas. For another thing, because he was the owner of WorldPal Tours, he seemed to be on the road a lot. He was extraordinarily attractive, which made up for a lot, but on the other hand, I was still spending most of my evenings alone, with only a glass of wine and my fat elderly poodle for company.
I finally admitted, “I haven’t seen him in three weeks, but we’re going to Port Aransas for Labor Day.”
“That sounds fun,” she said with patently fake enthusiasm. “Wait, no it doesn’t. Why Port A? You can do that any time. Why doesn’t he take you somewhere awesome? He owns a tour company, for God’s sakes. You guys could go anywhere in the world.”
I gestured to the empty desks around us. “Not in three days. I have a job, remember? Besides, I want to pay my own way. I can afford Port Aransas.”
“Pay your own way?” she said with outrage. “Why? Is he that cheap? He sure isn’t racking up any boyfriend points, is he?” She looked thoughtful, as though struck by a sudden idea. “Are you going to kick him to the curb?”
“What, are you waiting to snap him up?” The question wasn’t quite as far-fetched as it sounded. She’d had her eye on him when we’d been in Egypt, although admittedly since I’d been dating him, she’d been strictly hands off.
Now she snorted. “Ew. I don’t need your sloppy seconds, thanks very much. Especially not some cheap bastard. But there’s this new guy in my office who’s sort of cute, and I could introduce you. You might like him.”
“Alan’s not a cheap bastard, and no, I’m not kicking him to the curb,” I said. But even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice.
Kyla ignored this. “It wouldn’t hurt you to meet this guy. Just for drinks or something. It’s not like you and Alan are exclusive.”
I frowned. Of course we were exclusive … weren’t we? Thinking about it, I supposed we’d never formally talked about it. No promises on either side, that sort of thing. Part of it was the distance. When you only got to see each other a weekend or two each month, things tended to move pretty slowly. It seemed like we spent half our time each visit getting reacquainted. Not that the reacquainting wasn’t a lot of fun, but I was getting tired of the dry spells in between.
“No, I don’t think so. Alan and I are doing okay. At least,” I added, “I want to give us a chance to do okay.”
She shrugged. “Think about it. Sherman’s a nice guy. And smart. And funny.”
“His name is Sherman?”
“He can’t help that. Besides, he’s a hottie. Or he would be if he had someone to tell him how to dress.”
“Why don’t you want him?” I asked suspiciously.
“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But I have to work with him. It would be awkward, especially since I’d have to make him buy a new wardrobe and change his name. You know I could never go out with a guy named Sherman.”
I decided to leave it at that. We spent the next hour going over what she could say in her first class. I made her take notes and reminded her that she’d have to do it on her own, but we both knew I’d be doing most of the real work. By the time we left, I’d already forgotten about Larry and his VIP guests. And about Coach Fred.
* * *
Austin is the best city in the world, I thought for about the millionth time as I drove home. On this August afternoon, the sun was gliding slowly down to meet the blue tops of the hills to the west and throwing a brassy golden light over the dusty live oaks and cedars that filled every undeveloped bit of land. Heat pulled color and shape into the air above the road, and made it shimmer and undulate like miniature underwater reefs. With the air conditioner blasting icy air in my face and my radio playing Brad Paisley’s “Mud on the Tires,” I didn’t care. Like most Texans, I’d take a miserably hot July and August over a miserably icy January and February any day.
I’d been born in Texas, although I hadn’t grown up there. Until his retirement, my father had been in the diplomatic corps, and my two brothers and I had spent much of our childhood in France, Italy, and Spain. Moreover, my mother was French, and as a result I was fluent in French and Italian, and had a fairly decent grasp of Spanish. We’d returned to Austin at the beginning of my high school years, and I’d been able to go to school with Kyla, which had been a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she’d resented me for looking so much like her and had stolen my very first boyfriend for no other reason than to prove she could. On the other hand, we’d somehow managed to become best friends anyway. We’d roomed together at the University of Texas, and even after we’d graduated and gone into separate careers, we still spent most of our spare time together.
The phone was ringing as I walked through the door, and my fat little poodle was barking and spinning in circles. A present from my parents for my sixteenth birthday, Belle was a small blob of black curls who weighed about ten pounds soaking wet and who had apparently been purchased without the optional brain pack. Knowing that no command of mine would stop the yapping, I grabbed the phone on my way to the back door and ushered her to the back door, where she galloped across the dry grass, intent on patrolling the perimeter, making the yard safe from squirrels. One of the evil ones liked to sit on the fence and chitter at her, a pastime that never got old for either of them.
“Hello?”
“Hi. I was just about to hang up.” The deep voice was that of Alan Stratton. I loved that voice.
I smiled. “Just got back from school. How was your day?”
Actually, I could just as easily have asked, “How was your week?” He didn’t call as often as I would like, but I didn’t want to be one of those clingy women. I glanced through the door to my bedroom where my suitcase lay on the floor, already half-packed for our trip to the coast.
“Better, now that I’m talking to you,” he said gallantly, “but not good overall. Vittoria has broken a leg, and she was supposed to start the “Tastes of Italy” tour on Saturday. She’ll be out of commission for at least six weeks, and I have no backup. It means I’ll have to go to Rome myself.”
“That’s terrible,” I said, trying to feel sympathetic for someone forced to go to Italy. Then I did a mental double take. “Wait, you mean this Saturday?” The Saturday that he and I were supposed to go to Port Aransas for a beach weekend? I held my breath.
“I’m afraid so. I’m really sorry.” His voice was sincere and full of regret, but it didn’t help much.
I thought about banging my head against the wall. “Me, too. I suppose you couldn’t postpone the tour?”
“No, all my clients have booked their tickets, either through WorldPal or on their own. Nonrefundable, nonchangeable. I suppose you couldn’t get away and come with me?” he asked. “I could really use someone who could speak Italian. All expenses paid, salary thrown in,” he added persuasively.
So tempting, but so impossible. It would mean not only losing my job but never working in Austin as a teacher again. And I liked my job. Bitter disappointment made me speechless.
He must have thought I was considering it because he added, “You know, you could work for me permanently. It would be so great to have you based here in Dallas.”
“You know I can’t. I have a job. With a contract. I can’t just give two weeks’ notice and scamper off, even if I wanted to. And anyway, I thought you were in the process of moving down here,” I reminded him.
Silence on his end. My stomach sank to my toes, bounced up against my esophagus, and then settled down to a wicked churn somewhere in the middle.
“Yes, I am. But it isn’t as easy as I originally thought,” he said at last. “I’ve been looking into it, don’t get me wrong. But it might be easier if you could come up here.”
Yeah, easier for him. “We’ve had this conversation before,” I said finally. “Maybe we need to spend some more time together before either of us uproots our lives.”
“No, don’t say that. I don’t mean it that way,” he protested. “Damn, it’s impossible talking on the phone. Look, I’ll come down there the minute I’m back from Rome. We can figure out what we’re going to do then, all right?”
I agreed, and we left it like that, neither of us happy. Funny how you can hear the death rattle of a relationship so clearly when you know what to listen for. I’d clung to the corpse of my first marriage for months after I’d heard that sound, and I wasn’t going to go through that again. Like seeing the future in a crystal ball, I knew he would come visit, we’d talk, he’d get angry, I’d cry, and then it would be over. No harm, no foul. At least I wouldn’t be stuck in a strange city when it happened, with no friends and no job. Much better this way, really.
I went to the back door to let Belle back inside and got a beer from the fridge. Passing the suitcase filled with brightly colored shirts, beach towels, and a swimsuit, I gave it a kick and then burst into tears.
Chapter 2
DEATH AND DIVAS
The next morning, the first day of the new school year, I drove into the parking lot at seven o’clock, a full hour and a half before classes started. I liked getting to school at that time. I liked having my pick of the best parking spaces in the teachers’ lot, which were those under a couple of massive live oaks. Trust me, shade in August is worth any amount of bird droppings. I also liked the relatively quiet time before most of the kids and teachers arrived. I always stopped in at the front office to chat with Maria Santos, who besides being my friend was also Larry’s secretary and knew more about what was happening at the school than he did. Then I would wander down the foreign-language hall and check in with Laura Esperanza, my friend and fellow early bird who could usually be counted on for some good gossip. And then I would head to my classroom, where I would spend the remaining time grading papers or helping kids with their homework. Not that I’d be doing that on the first day, but I was looking forward to catching up with my friends.
I knew something was wrong the minute my tires rolled with a crunch onto the pitted asphalt of the parking lot. A small group of kids milled around the tennis shed, a half-size portable building that stood beside the tennis courts and was used for storing tennis equipment and as a makeshift office. At this time of day, I might expect to see one or two kids dropping off their racquets, which were too big to fit into the school lockers. Five kids huddled in a tight circle meant trouble, especially since one of the girls appeared to be sobbing. When they saw my car, two of them ran straight at me, waving their arms. I stood on the brakes, making my little Civic skid to a stop. Heart pounding, I opened the door.
“What the hell are you doing? I could have hit you!”
They ignored this.
“Ms. Shore, come quick!” said the dark-haired boy, a kid named Dillon Andrews whom I’d had last year for American history.
The taller boy, skinny and blond, added, “It’s Coach.”
Fear is more contagious than any virus. It took maybe five seconds to cover the distance from my car to the open door of the shed, but in that tiny space of time, a nameless dread made my mouth go dry and filled my stomach with lead. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it would be bad.
It was. And it wasn’t. Other than a spilled bucket of tennis balls, the shed was almost preternaturally neat. Metal shelves lined the walls, loaded with neat stacks of towels, cans of tennis balls, and cases of bottled water and sports drinks. A handmade wooden stand held half a dozen battered tennis racquets, and an old desk stood in one corner, clean except for a small brass lamp and an empty in-box made of black plastic. I took two steps inside, far enough to see around the sets of shelves, and stopped. The only thing out of place, really, were the tennis balls and Fred.
