Part 24 (2/2)
”Still wish I could. This sucks.”
”Yeah. It does.”
Ca.s.sie put her arms around me again and squeezed a little. There was nothing really to say beyond that.
Then I saw the top of a familiar head moving toward us. ”Ca.s.s? Chip? Over there. Who does that look like to you?”
”Jenner,” he said. ”But it can't be. Can it?”
No, but it was. We just sat there, astonished, as he wormed his way through the crowd. Even more astonis.h.i.+ng, Wife No. 5 was tagging along behind. They were both dressed to the teeth, as though they were on their way to some nightmarish society event, and I couldn't imagine what they were doing here.
As soon as they got within view, Jenner made straight for us. ”Derry? Are you all right?”
As opposed to what? But I bit the question back; he seemed to be genuinely concerned. ”I'm fine. Thanks, Mr. Jenner. What brings you here?”
”Your house is on fire, isn't it?”
”Yes,” I said thoughtfully. ”It has been for a couple of hours now.”
”Well, there you are. I don't like fires. They're bad for business.”
Ca.s.sie pretended to be coughing. Under the blanket, she gave me a little nudge.
”I don't think insurance companies like them much either,” I agreed. ”But that still doesn't explain why you're here.”
He wagged his finger at me. ”I can't have an employee homeless. That would look bad.”
”But I'm not an employee anymore. You fired me at the Christmas party.”
”Yes. Well...” He s.h.i.+fted from foot to foot for a second, trying to think how to put it. ”That was Howard Abner. Howard Abner was a mistake, Derry. A bad, bad mistake. I want you to come back. You and Miss Wolfe. It's not the same without the two of you.”
”Yeah. It's a lot quieter,” Heather chipped in.
I turned to glare at her. She'd sneaked up behind us, the better to eavesdrop.
”You read my offer, didn't you?” Jenner asked. ”You're both getting raises, you know.”
His wife, suddenly petulant, tugged on his coat sleeve.
”Oh, for heaven's sake, Effie, you don't need another fur. And it's my money.” He turned to Ca.s.sie. ”You want to come back, don't you, Miss Wolfe?”
”Yes, I do,” she admitted. ”I may be partly insane. But I'm not coming back without Devvy. And she's not coming back if Jack...”
Jenner didn't have to hear the rest of that sentence. ”Forget Harper. He's gone. The miserable son of a b.i.t.c.h found G.o.d. I can't have that. What do you say, Derry?”
”This probably isn't the time or place,” I told him. ”My house is on fire. Could we talk about this later?”
”No,” Jenner said.
”No?”
”No.” He dug in his coat pocket and produced a key ring. ”This is for the house at the country club. We don't need it for clients right now, and you need a place to stay. The catch is, you have to be an employee to stay there. So if that would help you make up your mind...”
”She's not homeless,” Ca.s.sie protested. ”She'll move in with me.”
”Is that what you want, Derry? Or is that what she wants?” A little glint appeared in his eyes under the streetlight. Unwillingly, I had to admire his deviousness. ”It's a nice house. It'll give you a nice place of your own” -- he put a slight extra stress on own -- ”to stay till you find a new one. So what do you say?”
Without any cooperation from my brain, my lips said yes. I may have been the most surprised person there. But a few seconds' reflection didn't change the answer.
As for Ca.s.sie, she didn't quite know what to think yet; she'd won one battle, lost another, and wasn't sure which counted more. ”We'll talk about this later,” she whispered.
”Of course we will,” I a.s.sured her. ”Let me finish this.” I took the key ring from Jenner. ”Thanks. Which key?”
”The square one. You can move in tonight. And now that you're both employees again, you'll come to the New Year's Eve party. Abner's going to be there.” That little glint appeared again. ”I won't be responsible for anything you might decide to do to him, Derry. Understood?”
Ahhhh. It was good to be back. ”Understood, sir.”
”All right, then. We're off to a dinner party. Good luck with your fire.”
We waited until they were out of earshot again to breathe.
”I'll be d.a.m.ned,” Heather remarked.
A faint possibility was tickling at me. But better not to discuss it yet. ”We already are,” I said.
Ca.s.sie was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive to her house. She'd talked me into waiting till morning to move in at the country club -- not that she'd had to do much talking-into, because we were both dead tired.
”Well,” she finally said, ”at least we get to do lots and lots of shopping now. I always did want to do something about your wardrobe.”
”And you can just keep wanting.”
She laughed. ”We'll see. I still wish we knew what happened, though.”
”They'll find out. It's probably electrical. The wiring in that place was never much good.”
She glanced over -- maybe a little too long for safety, for someone who was driving. ”Do you really believe that?”
”I don't have many choices, Ca.s.s. I can believe it was an electrical short. I can believe it was spontaneous combustion. Or I can believe that demons did it. Which explanation do you want to give my landlord?”
”I think it was them. They were there. They probably got into a fight over the remote and started throwing fireb.a.l.l.s around.”
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