Bad Blood Page 3

  Her body kept warning her; the tremor in her thighs only a drink could quell, the morning blank spots in her memory of the day before, the traces of blood in her vomit after a long night’s binge. She knew the signs because she had watched her mother kill herself the same way. She also knew that if something didn’t change her life, she wasn’t going to stop. Suddenly, the normally happy party smells of chlorine and the coconut sunblock Jill slathered on her boys closed in on her, suffocating and claustrophobic.

  She turned to face Lexy and the mystery man as they squeaked the ornery gate shut and approached the flagstone apron surrounding Jill’s pool. He looked younger than Maggie’s thirty-six, probably closer in age to the other women, who were all younger than she. She liked his dutiful chuckle at Susan’s same old weary line about “drinks are on the house, but we have to take turns climbing up to get them.” Lexy just rolled her eyes and introduced the man as Brady Spain, the new tenant of the green house across the street.

  He was tall and trim, with the kind of sleek ropy muscles Maggie thought of as the sexiest, especially in younger men. His hair was dark enough it would appear black anywhere except next to Lexy’s, and he wore it long, almost shoulder length. Deep complexion as well, kind of Hispanic but maybe Asian too, with chocolate-brown eyes and a friendly smile. Not exactly handsome, but really cute. Lexy, of course, looked great in her little shorts and blow-away blouse. Enough to make you sick.

  Not that she disliked Lexy; they had a funny kind of unspoken bond because of their fathers. Maggie and Mark were one of the few couples who owned their home in Heron Point because Leo had been only too happy to sell to the daughter of the late Little Jake Thibideaux, Louisiana banking legend and cruel bastard of a father. Jake’s parenting legacy covered everything from holding six-year-old palms against a hot stovetop for discipline to the humiliation of a compulsory medical exam to prove her virginity when she missed her curfew on prom night. Not that Leo would know any of that, whether or not he had actually ever known her daddy as he claimed.

  Besides, she got a kick out of having Lexy around, enjoyed other women’s reactions to her. Like someone had brought a pet alligator to a party, supposedly tame but no one quite believed it. And all because they suspected Lexy could have any man she wanted, and from the rumors, she wanted plenty. Which didn’t intimidate Maggie, she wished someone would steal hers. She should be so lucky. She almost laughed aloud at the idea of Lexy going along with Mark’s Friday night routine: Kung Pao chicken and Mongolian beef from Charley Wi’s, with sex scheduled promptly at eight-fifteen. Every single Friday, without fail. With that serving as the highlight of romance in her life, thank God for Mai Tais and Häagen-Dazs.

  Maggie watched Brady’s eyes as he exchanged hellos with Ellie. He showed no recognition at all and Ellie displayed none of the hostile vibes from moments ago. Her face wore its normal friendly-ice-princess contradiction now. Must be Brady just resembled someone Ellie knew. Someone she certainly did not like.

  “I’m Maggie,” she said when he turned her way. “And I hereby volunteer to climb up and get you that drink.” She rose and sidled around the table to the serving cart where the pitcher of Mai Tais sat sweating in the sun, glad for an inconspicuous opportunity to refill her own. After all, it was nearly two o’clock, and it was only her third, she reasoned. She’d just drink less that evening.

  “No, thanks,” he said with a cute little sideways grin that crinkled his eyes. “I don’t think I’m tough enough to handle my liquor in this heat yet.”

  She got her chance to pour her own anyway when Susan jumped in and asked Brady if he was new to the area. Susan was usually loud, always funny, and would ask anyone any question any time. Maggie settled back in her chair and shared a secret smile with Ellie: here comes the Susan Leland show.

  “Yes, I am,” he answered with a bit more South in his voice than most Floridians. Closer to the bayou accents she grew up around, minus the Cajun twang. Sort of an “ah yam” diphthong in there. “Moved here from North Carolina three weeks ago.”

  “Gawd, where’d you get that tan?” Susan brayed. “Here we are broiling like rotisserie chickens and you look like you stepped right out of the South Seas.”

  “I did, sort of.” Brady laughed and his eyes got a playful look. “It’s what you call a genetic tan. My father is from the Philippines.”

  Maggie felt a jolt of embarrassment at Susan’s crassness, and heard a little snort from Ellie that meant she did too.

  “Don’t mind her, Brady,” drawled Jill, as she unwound her long limbs from her Adirondack chair and stood, patting him on the shoulder. “That’s just her idea of a pickup line. ’Scuse me a sec.” She took off in pursuit of a child who was trying to cough up a lungful of pool water.

  “Hey, I’m just jealous,” Susan cackled back. “It sure is a lot more interesting than ‘My dad’s from Iowa,’ which is all I can offer. Spain doesn’t sound Filipino, though.”

  “Susan!” Maggie had to jump in before this hunk decided they were all uncouth.

  He glanced over at her and winked with just enough intimacy to give her a little flutter, but the look in his eyes when they flicked back to Lexy told her that Lexy had already bewitched another one. “I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s only when beautiful women don’t ask me personal questions that I get worried. My father’s name is Torres, so she’s right.”

  Maggie saw Susan lean in with the bloodhound expression that signaled a serious invasion of privacy, but Lexy slid in before her with a description of Brady’s job and the conversation mercifully moved on.

  Maggie let the voices drone around her, wondering why Ellie and Lexy never talked directly to each other. Neither appeared to avoid the other or show any ill feelings, they just did not speak. Seems like they used to talk, so it could be Ellie had heard the rumors swirling around concerning J.D. and Lexy. Maggie avoided those rumors because she wanted to avoid getting stuck in a do-I-or-don’t-I-tell-her quandary.

  She slipped away to pour one more Mai Tai. Stole a peek at her reflection in Jill’s sliding glass doors, pleased that the booze still hadn’t touched her figure. Only four, right? She could handle it. She was going to be all right. She just needed something to change her life, maybe something like Brady Spain. She never had cheated on Mark, but when she did she wouldn’t settle for someone else’s husband like Lexy did with J.D. Macken, no matter how good looking he was. No, she would get a young single stud just like Brady there, with his big hands and warm brown eyes.

  An unbidden image rose in her mind, in vivid big-screen detail—Brady, his lean hard body all hot and sweaty, climbing up on her like a stallion. She crossed her legs, smothered the fire with a gulp of Mai Tai. Down, girl, you just met the guy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  So just kill one of them. Preferably Ellie, if he could hold off until she received her inheritance. Then he’d have the money and could be with Lexy every day. That epiphany came to J.D. Macken as he scrubbed the fourth and final tire on his nine-month-old black BMW 328i, sweat dripping from the end of his nose in the sizzling south Florida sunshine. He rocked back on his heels to check his work, pausing to stroke the car’s sleek, glistening flank before giving the tire one last vicious swipe and straightening up slowly to ease the kinks out of his spine.

  Okay, a nasty bastard of an idea for sure, but it was becoming ever clearer that he’d never get to have the money and both women. And worse, Lexy might have to be the one to die if she didn’t start practicing a little discretion. A mere matter of time before Ellie found out about Lexy anyway. Wives always did when the mistress moved in the same social circles. And there’d be no forgiving; Ellie would kick him to the curb. So he needed her to stay in the dark until that inheritance came, and then kill her for the money. He retrieved the water hose from the grass and sprayed the suds off his wheels and tires, ducking to avoid the ripening grapefruits that had begun their annual sag on the trees lining his drive.

  Laying it out cold like that felt kind
of queasy, because he did still feel something near love for Ellie. Their sex life was just dead though, with zero chance of resurrection, and who wants to live like that? Such a waste, too, because she had plenty of eye to her. But damn, she kept hanging onto that shorthaired, scrubbed-face college girl look, and J.D. was over it. Christ, didn’t she understand that a man gets to thirty-five, he needs a little glamour? Even the trim, athletic body that used to be such a turn-on now bored him. He twisted the spray nozzle to the off position and whipped the hose around in a whistling arc, imagining a machete or a hatchet, listening to the fleshy thunk as the heavy brass nozzle bit into a dangling grapefruit and sent it flying across the lawn.

  “Afternoon, J.D.”

  J.D. dropped the hose as if it had sprouted thorns and spun around to see Pete, the neighborhood fix-it guy, waving at him and dragging a tree limb down the street to wherever Pete dragged such things. J.D.’s heart caromed around in his chest. Could Pete tell what he was doing, what he was thinking?

  “Up to a little pruning today?” Pete asked with a chuckle. Thick-bodied and country-faced with an accent to match, Pete always reminded J.D. of his own hillbilly family wallowing around in their Southernness and ignorance back home in Martinsville, living for Friday night bowling and Sunday morning hunting. That weekly paycheck and a twelve-pack of Bud existence would be a fate worse than hell and, truth be told, J.D. wasn’t far from it, based on net worth.

  As it stood now, even the damn handyman was doing better than him, guy just piddled around all day and owned him a big fancy house to show for it. Two new trucks, too. Kept J.D. wondering why old Leo Burgess, the land czar who owned the whole neighborhood, paid Pete that kind of dough for such work. Though Leo sure could afford it—not only did he own Heron Point, from what J.D. heard the man owned half of this part of Florida. What J.D. would give to have that kind of jack.

  “Good afternoon yourself, Pete. Another day in paradise, eh?” J.D. said, his brain scrambling for a plausible explanation. “Just, uh, tired of banging my head on these things.” He forced a laugh of his own.

  “Whatever works for you, pardna.” Pete smiled, shook his head, and continued on down the street.

  J.D. blew out a sigh and returned to his tire rinsing, swatting away at the mosquitoes that showed up for their afternoon buffet. The only hitch in this perfect solution, other than getting away with it of course, was the waiting. He had to hold off until Ellie’s mother croaked because that’s where the money was. The blessed passing should be soon. The old bat lived in la-la land already and worsened every day. Her death would net Ellie over nine million bucks by last count. J.D. knew because he advised Mama Jean on many investments, her being all impressed with his job in banking. Sure, it was actually just a mortgage house that specialized in mobile home loans, overcharging the very young and the very old, but he hadn’t bothered setting Jean straight on it.

  Keeping a lid on things until Jean cashed out wasn’t going to be easy. Lexy seemed hell-bent on seeing just how obvious she could get, and controlling her behavior was about as likely as reining in a locomotive with kite string.

  The rumble of a vehicle slowing in front of his home grabbed his attention, and his heart rate doubled when he saw Lexy’s pearl-white Jaguar convertible. She probably felt his thoughts, knowing her.

  The passenger window of the Jaguar slid down. Lexy leaned across the console and called out, “Hey there, carwash boy, don’t go tiring yourself out. I know something fun you could save all that energy for, say in about thirty minutes or so.” She flaunted a raunchy grin, and he felt the instant crushing hunger she could set off whenever she wished.

  The memory of the day he met her, almost two years ago now, jumped at him in vivid detail. The perfect white smile flashing against her dark Florida tan and midnight-black hair, those impossible legs bewitching him as she strode about showing the house to Ellie. He got to see her often afterward in her role as their rental agent—which she was for all of her father’s homes in Heron Point—until finally, four months ago, she wound up in his bed. He had marveled at his luck in landing her, and now he lived in fear of her blowing his shot at nine million bucks. He tossed the hose aside again and hotfooted it down the drive, the sweat on his neck turning cold from the fear of her shouting something really revealing to the entire freaking neighborhood.

  “Damn if that ain’t the best offer I’ve had all day, babe,” he said, leaning down against the door to get his head under the closed convertible top. “But remember, Ellie’s not working this weekend.”

  “So? She’ll be at Jill’s pool party all afternoon. I just left there.” Lexy’s unreadable black eyes narrowed down. “Besides, I wouldn’t care if she did walk in on us.”

  He glanced reflexively across the Jaguar in the direction of Jill Granary’s house and then back at his mistress. “Look, let’s don’t go over all that, okay, babe? I’ve told you, soon but not yet, right?”

  There again loomed his problem with Lexy. Every conversation brought a new drive for bolder risk-taking, crazy stuff that multiplied their chances of getting caught and jacked up the likelihood of attracting the attention of Heron Point’s restless rumor factory. Which would surely get back to Ellie—she belonged to that set. He didn’t believe Lexy really gave a damn about him being married; she just got off on seeing him prove how bad he wanted it, if he’d push the limits of caution to have her. But crazy as he was about her—and he wanted her for keeps, like schmaltzy forever stuff—his epiphany included the realization that he’d kill her instead before he’d let her reckless moods or her big mouth ace him out of the money.

  She tossed her head, swinging her hair over her shoulder, a hint of contempt in the move. Crap like that made him want to tell her to get lost, though he knew he wouldn’t.

  “Hey, it’s not me that got into this with a wife along,” she said. “Anytime you’re tired of it, just say so, buster.”

  Her taunting tone sent a burst of anger through him and he opened his mouth to say just that, but the thought of life without Lexy jerked his leash back to heel. Well, plus the certainty of her pulling a big sisters-in-suffering sob scene with Ellie as soon as he ceased being an obedient toy. Good thing Lexy didn’t know about the money; she would crank up the true confession drama right away just to see if she was worth nine mil to him. Which she was not, nothing was. Or almost nothing. If only he could believe she would someday grow to feel for him what he felt for her. He would chuck it all and live in one of those trailer parks with his customers if she’d stay with him forever. But he didn’t kid himself about the chances of that, it had been asked and answered. So screw it, if he couldn’t keep her or dump her without the whole thing getting out before Jean died, Lexy was going to get herself killed.

  He reached in across the passenger seat and grabbed her hand. “Look, sugar, I know it’s my problem. I appreciate you working around it for me, okay? I just don’t want to hand her a gift-wrapped way to take me to the cleaners.”

  Humor crinkled the corners of her eyes. “You might be surprised, bet it’d cost you less than you think you have,” she said.

  Whatever the hell that meant, but then that was Lexy for you. A sea breeze drifted in, carrying the fresh smell of the ocean along with the hint of stink from the decayed vegetation and rotting fish carcasses low tide exposes. He let his gaze follow his nose, where the slivers of ocean visible between the trees and houses that separated him from the Gulf of Mexico seemed to be mocking his dream of that most ultimate of accomplishments: his own beachfront home. One like Leo Burgess’s would do just fine.

  “Well, just to be safe, Lex, can’t we hook up at your house?”

  She pulled her hand out of his and grabbed the gearshift. “Don’t make this a hassle, Jay. I want it on her bed, you know I like that. Her sofa too, maybe even the damn kitchen counter. I’m wearing my slut shoes and I want to make heel marks all over everything, okay? I’ve got to run some stuff over by Dad’s, and I’ll see you after that.”

>   She yanked the shift lever and J.D. snatched his arms out before she peeled away and amputated them, because she would. He watched the Jaguar disappear around the corner, the ticklish hollow feeling of anticipation climbing through his stomach as he pictured Lexy on his kitchen counter. Oh sweet Jesus, the things she would do when the clothes came off. Or even with them on, for that matter.

  J.D. always got plenty of opportunities with women and knew they found him irresistible—“kind of short but as cute as a Ken Doll,” he’d overheard once—and had even come to expect to have his every whim indulged. But this was different. Sex with Lexy made him feel like an absolute god. Woman was only twenty-six, yet light-years older than his plain-brain thirty-four-year-old wife. He shook off the wave of Lexy-lust like a dog coming out of the bathtub and trudged up the six steps to his back door.

  Well, what if, just what if, he could have Lexy and the money? The sudden image of her naked in an oceanside pool at his future beach house accelerated his blood to head-rush speed again, sending him to the liquor cabinet for a rum and Coke before his shower. He just needed to figure out how to keep her cool, hold things together for a while. And start making his murder plans now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sudden concussive whump sounded like it came from right under him, startling Nick Burgess. No, scratch that; spooked the fuck out of him. Probably would’ve bucked his ass straight up over the windshield if not for the snug fit of the bucket seat in his Porsche Boxster. His head snapped around to see what had hit his car even as his brain registered the noise as merely a slamming car door. And right behind him, in an empty lot with a hundred spaces. His pulse hiccupped with a spurt of paranoia that screamed cop as he watched the man walk toward the weekend-deserted office building.