Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [118]
“We have to recover the bodies,” Coleman said. “There’s no closure without a body. Oscar will be comforted to have Chablis home. It’s all he has left of Tinkie. He’ll need that little dog to help him put his grief behind him.”
I had the urge to smack him upside the head. Closure? Like seeing my corpse would put an end to all we’d shared? What was wrong with him? And Oscar? As if seeing Tinkie dead—and Chablis alive—would give him license to find a new wife and just get on with living. For a man who’d once claimed to love me, Coleman sure wasn’t taking my death very hard.
“We all knew this would happen to Sarah Booth and Tinkie eventually,” Cece said. “We tried to talk them out of this P.I. business, but those girls, heads as hard as coconuts.”
Tinkie and I exchanged a look. Oh, Cece was so going to hear about this later. There we were, dead and obviously floating down the river, and all she had to say was how stubborn we were!
That was the blast of adrenaline we needed. Tinkie and I lunged into the room with weapons at the ready. “Monica is alive! It’s a scam!” I screamed.
Then all hell broke loose.
A figure in black firing a handgun appeared on the stairs. Bullets exploded in walls and the floor. Barclay bolted over the sofa, heading for me and Tinkie, but before he could make it halfway, Coleman shot him in the leg.
He just whipped his gun out, aimed, and fired without a second’s hesitation. Millicent threw the tray of food at him, but Coleman ducked, and Cece karate-chopped the undead wench in the throat with a blow that dropped her to her knees, choking and gagging.
Acting on instinct and with a speed I never knew I possessed, I hurled myself across the open space toward Monica. She’d come out of her hidey-hole in the mansion, but I was ready for her. I brought the flashlight down across her gun arm with such force I thought I heard bone snap. And then I used the heel of my palm against her chin. Watching Jackie Chan movies was not a waste of time. She went down hard, and I kicked the gun out of her unresisting fingers.
Jerome threw Eleanor to the floor, then covered her with his body. Even knowing what she was, he protected her.
Tinkie and I were left panting side by side.
“Quick reaction,” I said to Coleman. I was still smarting at his easy dismissal of my death. “I see grief didn’t slow you down at all.”
His easy smile broke across his face. “Why, Sarah Booth, I see that reports of your death are greatly exaggerated.” He pulled me hard against his chest and held me, and I could feel his heart pounding.
“I’m not hurt,” I whispered.
His answer was to grip my hair and hold me tighter for a long moment until he released me. “Of course you aren’t,” he said.
“You knew I wasn’t dead?” I looked at Cece, who was also smiling.
“Dahling, you are too mean to die. That one, too.” She pointed at Tinkie.
“You knew they were up to something. How?” I demanded.
“Barclay.” Cece gave him a long look of regret. “Such a pity. He could have made a fortune as a gigolo.” She turned to me. “I was obsessed with him. So handsome. So charming. Such a liar. The whole story of his birth and abandonment was just a crock of shit, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, dahling. Once I really started looking, I realized a con was in progress.”
“How did you know it was the sisters?” I asked. With my wet boot—the second pair I’d ruined in this case—I prodded Monica, who was out like a sack of stones. Her teeth were a total mess, and I wondered if the Mississippi state prison at Parchman had a dental plan.
“We didn’t,” Coleman said. “But we were prepared for a double cross. The minute you rushed into the room, we knew. We were primed to react.”
“Get an ambulance!” Barclay demanded. “I’m bleeding.”
“Blood will tell,” I told him.
“But it often tells too much,” Cece concluded. “I learned that from Don Marquis, who created an intelligent cockroach. This is the perfect ending for a man who came to town as one literary figure