An Embarrassment of Itches Read online

  Laney hunched her shoulders and turned her palms face up in the universal gesture of ‘haven’t a clue.’ Her expression grew thoughtful, and she glanced around as though concerned someone might overhear her.

  “I think something spooked her. She called me out of the blue and asked me to come see her, and Amanda wasn’t the type to use the phone when she could email. She wouldn’t say why, either, only that she needed to see me as soon as possible.” Laney eyed my basket with longing. “Are you going to finish that?”

  I wiped hands on my paper napkin and pushed the basket toward her. “Have at it. What kinds of things would she have needed to discuss with you? Urgently, I mean?”

  Amanda snagged a hush puppy and bit into it, closing her eyes and humming with delight. “Why is it carbs taste so darn good?”

  “Because life is stressful, and God knew we’d need something amazing to make up for it.”

  Laney laughed; a warm, rich sound that made me wonder if she sang. She had the voice for it. “While also making it a sin if we overindulge? Sounds about right.” She finished the second bite and wiped her fingers as well. “As for needing to see me, most of our communications could be handled by email. Contracts, museum loans, gallery tours and sales, that sort of thing. I came up to see her once or twice a year, and only then because she was by far my best client. But counterfeit artwork or copyright issues—anything of a legal nature, for that matter—might warrant a face-to-face meeting.”

  Ice shifted in my glass as I took another sip of water. “So, she might have wanted to see you about the will, then?”

  Frowning, Laney shook her head. “I don’t think so. The will had already been drawn up by that point. If she’d wanted to consult with me about her estate, she would have contacted me weeks ago. No, I think there was something else going on, and having met Derek, I think I have an idea now.”

  “Oh? I thought you didn’t know about him.”

  Laney tapped a long, blue fingernail on the table. “Not about him, per se, but I had a feeling someone like him existed. Amanda took being the reclusive artist to a whole other level. No headshots circulating of her online. No public appearances. Even her bio contained false details about where she actually lived. I think she was hiding from Derek.”

  “Yeah, I got that vibe, too. If she built a new life with a new identity for herself, I could see where she might have been afraid to file for divorce. But would she have called you about something like that?”

  “Maybe.” Laney grabbed another hush puppy. “If he found her, yeah. She might have been thinking about disappearing again.”

  That was a staggering thought. I slumped back in my chair. “How awful. She told me when she first moved here that her cat had been injured in an accident and had to have his jaw wired. Do you think—”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. I know the type. You’d better watch your step.”

  In my experience, men who hated cats—not those with a preference for dogs but actually hated cats—also hated women. Time and time again, I’d seen the pattern. The things they claimed to dislike about cats, their independence and their “slyness,” proved to be code for the things they wanted to quash in women. It was all about control with these men, and as you know, no one controls a cat. Not to mention, anyone who’d deliberately hurt a pet wouldn’t hesitate to hurt a person, either.

  “I hear what you’re saying. But Derek has no reason to hang around. Amanda’s dead, and she made it clear he’s not getting anything from her estate.” A sense of unease spread over me just the same. Time to wrap up dinner and get on the road. The cats needed feeding, and I no longer felt comfortable leaving Remy in my parked car.

  “Does he need a reason?” Scorn cut through Laney’s melodious voice. “He’s a man thwarted. First Amanda got away from him, and now she’s made sure he won’t inherit any of her wealth. He could transfer all that hostility toward you.”

  “Cheerful thought, thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I think you should be careful.” She scrubbed a hand across her short curls. “I hate this. I hate all of this.”

  “I know what you mean.” Trying to lighten the mood, I added, “If it’s any consolation, I think Brad’s a bigger threat than Derek right now.”

  Her pupils widened. “Right? He looked so pissed at the reading. If looks could kill, we’d be holding your funeral next. You know, if you’re right about him trying to sell Amanda’s drawings, that could be why she asked me to come up. Maybe he’s tried this before.”

  “Or maybe he was hitting her up for money. There has to be a reason he came to town. Derek, too, for that matter. How did he know where to come?”

  “Derek, you mean?” Laney winced. “That may be my fault, unless he already knew where to find her. When I heard about Amanda’s death, I notified some buyers and galleries. I also sent out press releases to several of the major news outlets. I included a pic I’d taken of her last summer on her back porch. It was a terrific photo, and I didn’t see the harm now that she was dead. I wish I hadn’t. I should have known she’d had her reasons for maintaining a low-profile.”

  I wished she hadn’t too, but saw no point in making Laney feel worse about it. “You meant well. And nothing can hurt Amanda now.”

  Laney finished my hush puppies. The server came with our tickets, and when we declined letting her box our leftovers, told us to pay at the bar. I insisted on picking up Laney’s tab. We engaged in some mild argument over that, as one does in those circumstances, but Laney’s position was weak by virtue of the fact I was the local who’d picked the bar.

  We walked back to the parking lot together. When we reached our cars, I asked for her email so we could keep in touch. As she dug a card out of her purse, she said, “I’m going to do a little digging around to see if there’s any hint of Amanda Kelly art being up for sale.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” I pocketed the card and glanced at my car. Thankfully, Remy sat up in the backseat, proving my fears about leaving him unattended to be mere paranoia.

  “Actually, I do. I have to make an accounting of her holdings—at least as far as the LLC is concerned—for the executor of the will. If someone is trying to sell her work without permission, they’d naturally want to hide it from me, if nothing else, to avoid paying my commission.”

  Made sense to me.

  “Besides, if someone is stealing from Amanda’s estate—and we all know by ‘someone’, I mean Brad—then he’s stealing from you now.” Laney unlocked her car door and shot me a grin. “I’ll put you in touch with the people running Amanda’s Etsy shop. I imagine for now, they’ll just keep operating as before, as long as they get paid. How does it feel to be a millionaire?”

  “My dinner wants to come back on me if I think about it too hard.” I pressed a hand to my stomach and grimaced. Laney laughed and waved as she drove off.

  There in the dark parking lot, a disturbing thought crossed my mind. Would Laney have been so friendly had I not been Amanda’s heir?

  Chapter Nine

  Deputy Linkous met me at Amanda’s place just after 8 p.m. Green as grass, and obviously having taken lessons from Frank on how to be a pompous ass, the former sheriff’s nephew, Rusty, was inclined to give me a hard time about being called away from more important duties to watch me feed a bunch of mangy cats until I asked him how his mother’s dog was doing. He unbent enough to admit Little Bit was feeling much better since I’d recommended the elimination of all table food and put him on a low-calorie kibble. Between the weight loss being kinder on his joints and the control of his chronic pancreatitis, Little Bit was much more his feisty self these days. Which meant he’d probably bite me during his next exam, but a return of surly behavior was a good sign in my book as far as Little Bit was concerned.

  It took some doing to persuade Rusty to wait by the barn for me to feed the cats, but I explained things would go faster if he did. No doubt, duty warred with a desire to go home and catch a late dinner, s
o after making a show of checking out my car and the containers of food, he allowed me to go to the feeding stations without him.

  As I expected, Harley was the only cat who showed up at this late hour, despite my calling “kitty, kitty, kitty” in a loud voice. I suspected he recognized the sound of my car engine, for he never failed to appear when I came to put out food.

  Given the results of the reading of the will, I decided not to set the traps that evening. If I was the presumptive heir, most likely I’d be given access to the property once the investigation had finished. If not, I could always trap the cats later.

  “That didn’t take long,” Rusty said when I returned to the barn. He watched as I tossed the empty cans in the trash and replaced the container of kibble on the shelf in the feed room.

  “As promised.” I glanced at my watch. With a little luck, I’d be home by nine. Amanda’s letter was burning a hole in my purse, but I didn’t want to read it until I was home and settled for the night. I wasn’t sure what kind of can of worms it might open. “Shall I call the station in the morning to arrange for someone to meet me here? How much longer are we going to have to keep this up, anyway?”

  In the powerful light of the feed room, Rusty looked distinctly uncomfortable, no doubt weighing how much he could tell me without getting into trouble. Shuffling his feet slightly, he said, “Word has it the coroner will release his report soon. So maybe not much longer.”

  “Good.” Coordinating my ever-changing schedule with the sheriff’s department was a pain in my butt I didn’t need. “I probably won’t be out here tomorrow until late morning. I don’t have anything scheduled before eleven a.m.”

  “Must be nice.” He escorted me back to our cars. “Being your own boss. Deciding when you want to work.”

  “Sure is.” I agreed. “I love constantly worrying where the money is going to come to pay the drug supply company, whose prices go up constantly, while I’m trying to keep my fees the same. And having to pay my own health, liability, and disability insurance. No paid time off, no sick days, no vacation...”

  Rusty’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed. “Here, I thought you vets were making money hand over fist.”

  Tempting as it was to enlighten Rusty on how, despite having a medical degree, I was making less money than I had as a new graduate, it wasn’t worth the battle. In a profession that was notoriously underpaid for the level of education it required, new graduates could spend a decade or more paying off their student loans. I certainly had. Yes, it is possible to make a good living as a veterinarian. But the big salaries rarely exist outside of the metropolitan areas with the high cost of living to boot. Unfortunately, drugs, equipment, and supplies to practice quality medicine tends to cost the same, regardless of species. Which is why the only place I could cut costs was by shaving off professional fees where I could. I couldn’t discount supplies, but I could discount my skills. Yeah, I know. It’s a lousy business model. I probably shouldn’t be my own boss but when you live in a farming community, you charge what the market will bear. There were few enough stand-alone small animal clinics these days. Most were operated by corporations now, and the veterinarian had no say in how much to charge.

  “Look, I bet people think your job is glamorous and exciting, right? Catching the bad guys, putting them away in jail?”

  Rusty snorted. “Breaking up bar fights and handing out traffic tickets is more like it.”

  “Well, it’s the same with being a vet. It’s not that I don’t love it, but it’s never as cool as other people think it is.”

  He nodded at that and waited until I got in my car before he got into his. He followed me out of the driveway, but turned left onto the main road when I turned right.

  If I really got that inheritance, I wouldn’t have to work at all.

  It was a seductive thought. I could sit on Amanda’s back porch, drinking herbal tea as I watched the sunrise. Remy could run to his heart’s content all day on the property. I could sleep as long as I wanted, and ride Scotty whenever I felt like it. I even had a condo in Hilton Head, within walking distance of the beach. Heck, I could travel. See parts of the world I’d only read about.

  But who would take care of the animals?

  Part of the reason the house-call practice worked in Greenbrier was because there were so few options for pet owners in the area. The existing practice in town was run by Amos Smith, who had to be pushing eighty. On nice days, Doc Amos was out fishing more often than not. I think he was happy to have me take the load off him, as I suspected the only reason he hadn’t retired was because he didn’t want to abandon his patients, either. Only with his reduced hours and his decision to no longer perform routine surgeries, our clients either had to drive to the single practice in Clearwater, or they could head almost an hour north to reach Birchwood Springs, a town large enough to host multiple vet hospitals and an emergency clinic. If they were looking for more specialized services, they had to cross over into North Carolina. I tried to envision elderly Mrs. Beasley getting on the interstate with her cat, Muffin, yowling in distress for the entire drive.

  Okay, but with the inheritance from Amanda's estate, I could start my own veterinary clinic.

  That had been the dream for a long time, hadn't it? I could buy Doc Amos out. He could retire with dignity, though practicing medicine in his ramshackle building that had gone through at least one incarnation as a Pizza Hut and another as Blockbuster Video, with a struggling second-hand clothing store in there somewhere, wasn't what I had in mind.

  No. I would build from the ground up. I could hire someone to do the surgeries, as it had been so long since I'd picked up a scalpel, it was not something I wanted to do myself. With an associate on board, I could have regular days off. I could even take a vacation if I wanted. The thought made me giddy.

  But quickly behind that fantasy came the realization of all the work that would be involved in pulling that dream off. Battles with the Zoning Commission. Regulations and licenses. Consultations with contractors. It was almost too much to contemplate, particularly coming at the end of several emotional days. If this was something I was going to even consider, I would probably need to take at least a month off before I could tackle it. Which put me back to: who would take care of the animals?

  A month wasn't the end of the world. My clients could get by without me for a month, couldn't they? I hadn't had a vacation in years. The idea of having an entire month off almost made me weep. I had so many choices now; it was an embarrassment of riches. My fingers practically itched to get started.

  Who was I kidding? Brad was going to fight me tooth and nail for Amanda's estate. Even though, according to Mr. Carter, I had an unimpeachable position, Brad could still bleed the estate dry before giving up. No point in planning my veterinary clinic before my monetary chickens had hatched.

  The full moon rose like a great golden disc among the trees as I came around a bend in the road. I slowed the car for a better look. Part of me wanted to pull over to the side and snap a picture with my cell phone, which was stupid. Those phone images never lived up to the glory that was the actual thing being photographed. And when did we become so obsessed with documenting the moments in our lives instead of actually experiencing them? I leaned forward to peer out the windshield at the glorious sight.

  Headlights in my rearview mirror reminded me to move along and not block traffic.

  I’d already sped up, but scarcely between one breath and the next, the headlights lit up my rear window. As they approached, they suddenly switched to high beam.

  Oh. One of those jerks.

  The winding road was too narrow for me to pull over and allow the car behind me to pass. The blinding light filled my car, causing me to squint as my concentration bounced from the car behind to the road ahead. I toggled the angle of my rearview mirror so that it pointed down, minimizing as much of the glare as possible. Whoever it was behind me was just going to have to wait. I wasn't driving that slowly, for heaven's sakes. Te
mpting as it was to consider slowing down to a crawl, the driver behind me was already being enough of a jerk that I didn’t want to piss him off further, so I resumed my normal speed.

  The roar of a sudden acceleration made me look up in alarm. The headlights loomed even closer than before. My hands tightened on the wheel as I pressed on the gas. I'd been driving these back roads since I was a teenager. I knew every curve like the back of my hand. Shifting gears like a Formula One driver, I saw the needle on the speedometer climb to forty-five, then to fifty. That may not sound fast if you're used to interstate driving, but when you’re looping turns on a mountain road at night at that speed, it’s like riding a roller coaster.

  The headlights behind me fell back, and I eased up on the gas when I took a corner tight enough that the car swayed as though it might roll over. Remy sat up and thrust his nose between the seats.

  “Not now, Remy. Lie down.” I snapped out my order with no thought of reassuring him. When I cornered another turn too sharply, his shoulder slammed into my driver's seat, and he withdrew.

  The road opened up into an open straightaway, and I slowed down. There still wasn't any good place to pull over, but if this idiot wanted to pass me, now was his chance. The view ahead was unobstructed, and there were no headlights coming from the opposite direction. As expected, when I decelerated, the car behind me sped up. Its headlights filled the interior of my car again as the car behind me loomed ever closer.

  The hair on the back of my neck rose when I realized the driver had no intention of passing.

  You can always tell. The aggressive, impatient drivers in their pickup trucks will roar into the opposite lane well before they reach your car to pass you on one of these back roads. Too late, I realized the car racing toward me had something different in mind.