MAKE ME A MATCH (Running Wild) Read online

“Anna’s doing my weekly horoscope on her laptop. She says this is a difficult transit, but it’s coming to an end soon.”

  “That’s great, Karo.” Eric closed his eyes and shook his head. Somebody oughta tell the cops to talk to Anna. They could get her to do one of her fancy charts and figure out exactly what was what, save the coroner a lot of trouble.

  “You didn’t—they didn’t ask you to identify the body or anything like that, did they, Karo?”

  Now Nicols had become the body. It didn’t really have a bad ring to it.

  “Bruno went.”

  Good old Bruno. Thank god he’d married Anna.

  “You sure you don’t want me to come over tonight?”

  “I’m fine, honest. Anna brought me some melatonin. She says it’ll help me sleep. Sophie said it was okay to take it.”

  “Let me talk to Anna for a minute. And you call me if you need me, anytime in the night, whenever. Do you want me to come over early and talk to the boys?”

  “Oh, Eric, yes, please.” He could hear relief in her voice. “I’ll tell them myself about Jimmy, but I’d like you to talk to them, too. Come early and I’ll make blueberry pancakes.”

  His eyes filled with tears. The kid knew they were his favorite, and in spite of everything, she wanted to please him.

  Sweet pea, what am I ever going to do with you?

  Karen handed over the phone, and while Anna talked to Eric, she tried hard to figure out how she felt about Jimmy being dead.

  Shocked, horrified. No one should end up murdered, if that’s what had happened. But there was also an overwhelming sense of relief, and that was followed right away by terrible guilt.

  Jimmy was the father of her sons. She’d slept with him; she knew exactly how he snored and farted, how he moaned when he came. At first, his lovemaking had mesmerized her with its intensity, swept her along with its wild, uncontrolled energy. She’d been so happy, knowing that he wanted her. And she’d believed in him, in his dreams of getting rich, of buying a wonderful house for them to live in.

  “I’m gonna be somebody,” he’d say, his fierce dark eyes glowing. That was in the beginning, when he was working steady, when they’d go riding along the dikes on their bicycles. She had those good memories.

  Simon barely remembered his father, Ian not at all. She thought of them, asleep upstairs. Jimmy hadn’t exactly been a doting father.

  “Take him, I’m not good with kids,” he used to say when Simon was a baby. They’d fought over that, too, because he didn’t cherish the boys the way she did. He hadn’t cared enough to come back and see them, after that last terrible fight.

  He was out of work, and he’d gone out drinking, dropping the kids with the sitter. She was exhausted when she came home and furious when she found out the kids weren’t there. He’d come home and fallen asleep on the couch, and she woke him up and raged at him. And he’d hit her, hard.

  Eric wasn’t around, so she called Sophie. Her sister had barged in the door within twenty minutes, taken one look at her, put ice on her nose, and called the police. Then Sophie had phoned Eric, ignoring the threats Jimmy was mouthing, the fist he kept shaking in her face.

  “Don’t try that shit on me, Nicols. You’ll end up in jail so fast it’ll make your head swim. And if I were you,” Sophie had said in a deadly voice Karen had never heard her use before, “I’d get out of here before Eric arrives. And I’d stay gone, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Jimmy had rammed some clothes in a gym bag and roared off in their old Toyota, just ahead of the cops. And he’d never come back. Now, he never would.

  Anna was off the phone now, brewing a fresh pot of chamomile tea.

  “I did Jimmy’s chart once, when you two were first together,” Anna confessed, her white blond hair swinging as she reached into the fridge and brought out cream. Anna was the only person Karen knew who put cream in chamomile tea.

  “It was so bad I figured I’d made a mistake.” Anna poured the tea into two mugs and handed one to Karen.

  It was good that Anna had come over, but now Karen wished she’d go, because now she had to talk, answer questions, think of words, pretend she wasn’t about to fall apart.

  “The planets indicated violence and tragedy, and I never told you, Karo. I should have. I blame myself.”

  “The police asked if I knew who might have wanted him dead,” Karen remembered. She gave Anna what felt like a smile and lifted the cup to her lips. She was still shaking so much the hot liquid slopped over, so she set it back down. “I told them that apart from my sisters, and especially my big brother, I couldn’t think of anybody.”

  Anna’s round blue eyes widened and she whistled between her teeth. “Good going, kid. I always did want to know what the inside of a cell felt like.”

  “I didn’t really say that,” Karen confessed. “Even though it’s the truth. I said I couldn’t think of anybody. They asked me a lot of questions about the fight in the pub, about Eric hitting Jimmy. Whether I knew Jimmy was coming there that night, whether Eric did. I told them of course I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have gone if I thought he’d be there. And Eric didn’t know either. How could he?”

  “There are no accidents; everything happens for a reason.”

  Somebody was going to kill Anna one of these days if she kept saying things like that.

  “They can’t think Eric had anything to do with it, can they, Anna?”

  Anna bristled. “Whatever they think, it won’t change the truth. Eric doesn’t have it in him to really hurt anybody, he’s a peaceful soul, his chart shows that clearly. Right now there’s a lot of disruption, but it’s all connected to Venus, which is the planet of love,” she said. “There’d have to be lots going on with Mars if he was going to get in trouble with the law, and there isn’t.”

  Karen felt relieved, even though she knew Anna could be making half of it up.

  She wanted to ask what her chart showed. She wanted Anna to tell her that she was going on a long trip, that there was a handsome stranger in her future, that she’d wake up one morning knowing how to manage the boys without hollering or dissolving into tears when they used her economy-size can of mousse to make snow on the living room rug, or plastered four hundred Band-Aid strips along the walls in the upstairs hallway, or poured an entire box of laundry soap into the machine and turned it on, laughing with glee when the soap bubbles reached the ceiling.

  She loved them, but they scared her. She didn’t know how to handle them. She didn’t want them growing up like Jimmy. But she didn’t want them growing up like her either, loving but never feeling good enough, strong enough.

  “Simon’s kindergarten teacher told me this afternoon that Simon’s a gifted child. She’s recommending him for special classes.”

  “I could have told them that years ago.”

  Tears name to Karen’s eves when Anna said that.

  She knew her sister loved her nephews, but Karen had wondered at times if she really liked them. She never offered to baby-sit, she never took them places the way Eric did. It was always Bruno who did things with them, not Anna.

  She and Anna and Sophie were close, but they were very different. Basically, Anna and Sophie were smart. Karen wasn’t. Sophie had breezed through medical school. Anna had graduated with honors in education, whereas she’d barely scraped through high school.

  What would happen when Simon had homework that she couldn’t begin to understand? He’d think he had a stupid mother.

  Karen had also told Tessa what the kindergarten teacher had said. Tessa had never been brilliant in school either. Both of them squeaked through agreeing that rocket science and brain surgery were probably boring as hell anyway.

  “Simon’s lucky he’s got you,” Tessa had said, and she meant it. “You can teach him the really important stuff that lots of smart guys never learn, like hugs and surprises and compliments and laughter.”

  “Love,” Karen said, nodding. Tessa made her feel better in a way that her sisters cou
ldn’t. “If I had a choice,” she confided, “I’d want my boys to grow up to be just like Eric. He’s good at loving.”

  Tessa nodded, but Karen could see that she wasn’t convinced. She would be, though, it was just a matter of time.

  Then Tessa had made Karen laugh telling her about the guy she’d dated right after her divorce. He’d invited her for dinner and then came to pick her up in a motor home. He’d bought steaks and potatoes and expected Tessa to cook them.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Told him I needed salad things, got him to stop at a supermarket where the produce guy let me out the back door and called a cab for me.”

  “Ever see him again?”

  “Trailer trash? Never. I did date the produce guy a couple times.”

  Karen wondered if the time would ever come when she’d want to date anybody. Eric had asked her about a membership to Synchronicity and she’d refused. She was a widow now; that was different from being divorced.

  She sort of wished Tessa was here instead of Anna right now. Maybe together they could figure out how a smart mother would go about telling her boys that their father was dead.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hatched, matched, and dispatched

  Simon and Ian met Eric at the door on Friday morning. It was barely seven, and they were still in pajamas. Simon’s were blue with Spiderman, Ian’s yellow with Power Rangers. They each took one of Eric’s hands, jumping around with excitement.

  “Uncle Eric, guess what?”

  Eric waited for them to tell him, trying to figure out how to answer.

  Simon didn’t wait for a response. “Auntie Sophie’s taking us to Science World. There’s a big mouth that you climb in and slide down into a stomach and then you get to come right out the bum part. Just like poop.”

  The two of them laughed uproariously.

  Simon added, “And Mommy said a policeman came here. He said my daddy died. We won’t be seeing him anymore. You don’t see people anymore when they get dead.”

  “Yeah, your mom told me. I’m sorry, guys.” He herded them down the hall and into Simon’s bedroom. He’d spent half the night awake, wondering how to talk to the boys about this. It was a traumatic moment in their young lives. He’d decided that honesty was best, although he wasn’t sure what to do when they asked about heaven. It was tough to imagine Jimmy in anything resembling heaven.

  He sat down on the bed and they leaned on his knees and looked up at him, all innocent eyes and auburn curls.

  “How do you guys feel about that, about your daddy dying?”

  “Okay.” Simon shrugged. “He didn’t live here with us, not for a long time. And Mommy can get a new one. Jenna’s mommy got her a new daddy.”

  “Get a new one,” Ian echoed, nodding sagely and swinging on Eric’s leg.

  “Yeah, well, that does happen, guys, people do marry again.” Usually not before the body’s buried, though. “After a while, that might be the case, but not now. Not for a while.”

  Simon was already off in another direction.

  “Did he had ’surance, Uncle Eric? My friend Kyle’s daddy got ’surance, and if he dies Kyle gets to have lots of money, maybe even a hundred dollars. Kyle’s gonna buy a new Game Boy.”

  Eric felt a little dizzy. How had this discussion gotten so far off-track?

  “I don’t know about insurance, Simon. I don’t think so. But it’s not good to just think of money when somebody dies.”

  “Why not? Our teacher said dead people can’t use money anymore, so other people gets to use it for them.”

  The kid’s teacher obviously was the down-to- earth sort. “Yeah, well, that’s true, but it usually makes us sad when people die, so we feel sad more than wondering about their money.”

  “Are you sad ’cause my daddy died?”

  He’d talked his way straight into that one. Lucky there was a time and place for lies. “Yeah, I am.”

  “Now we don’t have to watch for him through the pee hole, right?”

  “No more pee hole,” Ian agreed emphatically, and both of them burst into helpless giggles.

  God. Eric rubbed a hand over his eyes. His heart felt like a bucket of rocks, lying in his chest. How come he’d never talked to the boys before about Jimmy? He should have tried; these two had picked up some really strange ideas. He’d try again, but right now he couldn’t take anymore of this, not on an empty stomach.

  “Did you guys have breakfast yet?”

  “Nope, Mommy made us wait for you. She’s making blueberry pancakes. And we got maple syrup, and real butter.”

  “Let’s get you washed and into your clothes, so we can eat.”

  “Auntie Anna’s here. She and Uncle Bruno brought us maple syrup. Auntie Sophie’s coming, too. Last time she brought us ice-cream bars. Did you bring us anything, Uncle Eric?”

  The best of intentions, guys. I was going to explain about your daddy dying and feeling sad and how life goes on. I was going to sugarcoat it all for you. How could I forget about not being able to fool kids ?

  “I didn’t bring anything, but tomorrow I’m gonna take you guys to the park so I can show you how to throw a football.”

  “We don’t got a football.”

  “We’ll go buy one.”

  Screams of joy.

  Hello, football, good-bye Jimmy Nicols.

  Monday morning, Tessa decided it was time to say a firm, kind but definite good-bye to Alistair Farnsworth, the dot-com millionaire she’d been out with Friday and Saturday evenings. It was either that or die young from terminal boredom, in spite of Clara’s enthusiasm.

  “He’s wealthy, he’s attractive. He’s got to be smart to have made all that money,” Clara had enthused. “He seems sincere, committed to finding a mate. Give him an honest try, Tess. What have you got to lose?”

  At the moment, her right ear. Tessa balanced the phone on her shoulder and sorted through female profiles, searching for someone to sacrifice to Eric as she listened to Alistair bemoan the fact that one of his company shares had dropped from four figures to something behind a decimal point. They’d been on this news flash for over seven minutes before he switched gears, if you could call it that.

  “Byron Burbank, the North American expert on blue chip investing is in town tomorrow, Tessa. He’s giving a lecture at the Hyatt. I picked up tickets for us. It’ll be very enlightening. You’ll get good advice about where you could invest that divorce settlement you mentioned. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  “Thanks, Alistair, but I can’t make it.”

  What was wrong with the man’s head—besides thinning hair—thinking she’d want to go with him to listen to some poor unfortunate soul named Byron Burbank go on about the market’s ups and downs? She might be able to pretend a smidgen of interest if Alistair was sexy or if she had a single investment to track, but she didn’t and he wasn’t.

  She had her wonderful house, which she owned outright, which still seemed like a miracle, an ’89 white Beretta with red upholstery, and a paycheck that almost covered her monthly expenses, as long as she didn’t buy lingerie. And her divorce settlement was perfectly safe stashed in the bank in a savings account, collecting minute interest. Despite Alistair’s advice, she wasn’t about to risk it on stocks. By her own standards, she was well off.

  Grandma Blin always said that money was only worth the enjoyment a person got out of it, and by that criterion, Alistair Farnsworth was a pauper.

  It was a desert out there. Where had all the heroes gone?

  “Aren’t you concerned about your retirement, Tessa?”

  No. Her ovaries, yes. Retirement, no.

  “I’m sorry, Alistair, but I’m busy tomorrow evening.” She was busy. She had to cut her toenails and clear away rampant bits of hair that insisted on growing in visible places. Did she want to see him ever again in this lifetime? The simple answer to that was an unqualified no. It was time to cut him loose. She sighed, and wondered how to tell him. They got so upset when you dumped th
em, begging and promising.

  “You know, Tessa,” he was droning in her ear, “you’re a wonderful woman and some man is going to be very fortunate to spend his life with you, but the chemistry just doesn’t seem right between us.”

  Tessa almost dropped the phone. He was using one of Clara’s best lines on her, before she’d had a chance to remember it herself. The little weasel, how dare he dump her before she had a chance to dump him! And he didn’t even have the decency to wait five minutes and pretend to be heartbroken before whining, “Do you think you could arrange a date with someone else for me for the weekend? After all, I’m a member of Synchronicity. The understanding was that you people would find me a suitable companion.”

  Tessa crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at the telephone receiver, giving him the finger with her left hand as she exerted superhuman effort and kept her voice perfectly polite.

  “Absolutely, Alistair, I’ll make certain we locate someone compatible right away. I’ll get back to you.” She waited until Alistair hung up to smash the telephone down. The miserable creep. He could at least have been gentlemanly enough to let her let him go. She snatched up the files, determined to find a perfectly despicable unattractive gold digger who’d take Mr. Dot-Com dipstick on the ride he deserved. It shouldn’t be hard, there were a surprising number of members who fitted that profile exactly.

  But there were also messages to return, prospective clients to charm, and this nagging need to find someone for Eric. And today was the tenth business day Clara had been absent. It seemed strange that Clara didn’t care anymore if her clients dated or not. Each time Tessa phoned her, she seemed to be lying down with a cold cloth on her head. Why didn’t she just cut up all Boorish Bernard’s best suits, toss him and the scraps out on the driveway, and get on with her life?

  She flipped through the female possibilities and paused at Margaret Westwall, a perfectly despicable, unattractive gold digger. Yes, Alistair.

  Margaret was a widow, and going by the snapshot on the file, she was okay if you liked the bulldog look, square jaw, lots of mouth, big teeth, droopy eyes. She didn’t seem to drool, which was definitely a plus. Clara’s notes indicated that Margaret was interested in wealthy men who knew about the stock market. Probably didn’t want them to lose money before she had a chance to get her paws on it, Tessa concluded. Margaret wanted to travel, and she considered herself a good conversationalist. The good conversation bit was iffy with Alistair, but the stock market thing was positive.