in thought, his brows drawn together, his expression sort of grim.
When I entered the room Jazz jumped to his feet. His smile nearly distracted me. “What do you think of her?” he asked eagerly. “Isn’t she great?”
I wasn’t sure what I thought of her, in point of fact. She’d seemed kind of spooky, and sometimes cagey, sometimes clear. She’d lamented her husband’s treatment of Lily, but then seemed oddly scared to talk about it.
“I don’t think she’s ready to give up control.”
“But should she? Is it dangerous, do you think?”
I shrugged. “Call an estate lawyer. Or, maybe the family doctor. Maybe they can figure out if she’s compos mentis.”
“What’s that?” Logan asked, eyeing me darkly.
“If Grandmother’s in her right mind,” Benjamin said, his voice sounding dreamy and distracted.
We all looked at him. My thought was: Now, why doesn’t he call her Nana?
“I hate doing that,” Jazz said. “It feels like such a betrayal. I really think she just needs someone with her.”
“She’s got Eileen,” Benjamin said.
Logan made a choking sound. “Her? She’s a thief! She stole those jewels.”
“We don’t know that,” Jazz reminded.
“Yes, we do. We just don’t want to do anything about it, ’cause no one wants to take care of Nana.”
Logan sounded fairly knowledgeable about the situation, especially for a twelve-year-old.
“I take it Eileen’s the caretaker?” I put in.
Benjamin nodded.
“You ready to go?” Jazz asked me. I got the feeling he wanted out of there even worse than I did.
“Sure.”
We headed through the back door to the portico and our vehicles. Jazz drove a silvery BMW convertible. The other two sports cars were gone. The vanilla Caddy still sat parked, looking for all the world that it had been there an eternity and would be there for another one. Bits of moss had taken up residence around the wipers, and the cream body was streaked with dirt.
I glanced at the entrance drive, which curved into the portico and exited out again, angling down another long, leaf-canopied lane, then at Jazz. He was in profile, looking at the house. He could have been posing for a J. Crew print ad. He looked wonderfully clean and beautiful against the decaying property. Briefly, I wondered what he did for a living. Did he even have a job? Or, was he on the dole with Nana’s money? He seemed so…untouched…that it was difficult to believe he’d ever toiled at anything.
A stiff breeze had kicked up and leaves swirled over his convertible BMW and my Volvo wagon. They settled onto his upholstery but Jazz didn’t appear to notice.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” I said. My job was done, and I was kind of wondering when Jazz planned to break out the checkbook.
I don’t know what I expected to come next, but he suddenly shook my hand, then impulsively hugged me. I could smell his scent, that same citrus cologne, and I felt the first stirrings of sexual interest. The man was just so attractive. He released me before things could become uncomfortable, which was probably a good thing.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problemo,” I said lightly, turning toward my car. My stomach growled, and I realized it was dinnertime. My thoughts ran ahead to food and a debriefing with Dwayne. I was about to ask Jazz where to send the bill when he reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of cash, then ripped off six one-hundred-dollar bills and handed them to me.
I was dazzled by the money.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and we can talk about Nana in depth,” he said, climbing into his car. “Oh, and I didn’t say it in front of Logan and Ben—but Eileen’s been let go.”
“The caretaker? You really think she stole?”
“I don’t know. The family decided she had too much influence on Nana.”
I got into my car slowly, carefully tucking the money into a safe little pocket of my wallet before starting the engine. I had no idea whether I was still employed or not. Meeting Jazz the next day held definite possibilities, but there was a niggling doubt associated with his family and their accusations concerning Eileen that followed me all the rest of the evening and through dinner with Dwayne.
Dwayne and I left Lou’s in companionable silence. It wasn’t until we pulled into my drive that we brought up the Purcells again, and it was Dwayne who broached the subject. “So, they want you to be the caretaker.”
“No. That’s not what I said. Where do you get that?” But I knew. Somewhere in the back of my mind the same thought had been circling.
Dwayne’s mouth uttered the thought perched on the tip of my tongue: “Why else were you there? Sounds like Jazz told you Eileen was out for a reason.”
“I’m not a caretaker. I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t want to do it, whatever it is. And besides, they’d have to pay me far more than what the job’s worth.”
“Good.”
“I mean it.”
“Even better.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I want you to do something for me,” Dwayne said, adroitly jumping to the next item on his mental to-do list. “And I don’t want the Purcells to get in the way.”
“What do you want?”
“You any good at shadowing?”
I gave him a look. He knew darn good and well that I suck at following people. I have no gift for subterfuge. “No.”
“I need someone to follow someone for me. A woman. And this woman spends a lotta time at the spas: massage, mud packs, painting the toes and fingers, facials. I don’t know what all. It’s boggling. I need someone to follow her there and see who she’s meeting.”
“To a spa?” He nodded. There was a hint of amusement around his eyes. He knows that I’m not the spa type. But I could tell he was serious about the assignment. “Okay. What do you want me to do and when?”
“Tomorrow. Follow her into Complete Me. It’s on Hawthorne. Fancy. Order up whatever’s she’s getting. Her next appointment’s at one.”
“How do you know?”
“Her husband’s the client. Thinks his lovely spouse is cheating on him. Thinks Complete Me gives a whole new meaning to hot rock therapy.”
“Who’s paying for my spa experience?”
“The client.” Dwayne smiled. “It’s a freebie, Jane.”
Free
