Dead Girls Are Easy Read online

  “Smart-ass.” I grinned to let him know he was right.

  “I’ll save us some time.” He got up and walked over to the bookshelf, pulling out a photo album. My heart began to pound as he came back to the table and laid it in front of me, resting a hand on the back of my chair. I hesitated, then opened the album.

  The first pictures were of a younger Joe in cap and gown, arms around an older man and woman. “Your parents?” He nodded. A girl with blond hair held her fingers in a V behind his head as Joe clutched a diploma and tried to look serious. “My sister Julie,” he chuckled, tapping the girl with a finger. “You’d like her.”

  I didn’t answer, turning the pages slowly, fascinated by how Joe looked in these family photos—here he was bundled up against the cold in a heavy jacket and knit cap, throwing a snowball at whoever held the camera. Here again with his sister and parents, posing on the couch next to some long-ago Christmas tree. He’d been skinny as a teenager, but there was still a hint of the handsome man he’d become. As for his hair, it appeared he’d always had a problem getting regular cuts—good thing the shaggy look suited him.

  I kept turning the pages, looking for the image I sought.

  And suddenly there she was, a girl with long dark hair parted in the middle and a serious expression on her face. She’d just looked up from the book she was reading and into the camera.

  “That’s Kelly,” Joe murmured, “though I probably didn’t need to tell you that.”

  I suppose there was a resemblance, though the girl in the picture wore no makeup and was barefoot, wearing a shapeless gray T-shirt that hid her figure.

  Here she was again, smiling this time, face in profile and long hair tucked behind an ear. It was then I saw it, though I didn’t want to. Her nose, her chin…they were my nose and chin.

  I kept flipping through the album, saying nothing. I saw pictures of Kelly at her college graduation, smiling and happy yet still no makeup; in the crowd at a rally to end world hunger, hair in a messy ponytail. My hair—the way it would look if I’d never learned the value of a good cut and color. Then there was one with Kelly and Joe together, standing beside a moving van. Joe had his arm around her, and she held a sign for the camera that said “Boston Bound.”

  “On the way to start my residency,” Joe murmured.

  I’d reached the end of the album, so I closed it, having looked my fill anyway.

  Thank God it was over before we got to wedding pictures.

  “Well?” he asked, taking the photo album. He shelved it away while I answered.

  “I guess she looks like me.” I shrugged. “Kinda hard to tell.”

  Joe looked at me closely, but I couldn’t quite meet his eyes. I’d just discovered that I didn’t like looking at pictures of Joe with some other woman. A woman he’d slept with, loved…married. If I didn’t know myself better, I’d have said I was jealous.

  Of my own twin.

  “Nicki, are you okay?” Joe’s hand was warm on mine. He squatted next to me, frowning. “That had to be weird, looking at those photos.” Dammit. Did he have to be psychic, too? “I want you to know that whatever feelings I had for Kelly…well, they were a long time ago. She’s a stranger to me now.” He squeezed my fingers, willing me to squeeze back. “Now there’s only you.”

  I caught my breath at the look in his eyes, hardly ready to hear, or exchange, vows of undying love. I felt claustrophic all of a sudden, trapped in my chair.

  “How about I clean up the dishes since you cooked?” I hoped my voice didn’t sound as panicky as I felt. “That was a great dinner.”

  Joe eased back and stood, no dummy.

  “We’ll do them together,” he said with a smile. I was grateful he’d let me change the subject so easily.

  “But I have one final comment…” He picked up his own plate and reached for mine, giving me a nice view of male biceps in action. “You and Kelly may look the same, but you’re very different. There’s thunder, and there’s lightning.” He shook his head with a smile. “You’re lightning.”

  On the other hand, maybe I’d been too hasty.

  “We could do these dishes now,” I said. “Or we could—” I cocked an eyebrow at him, laying a hand on his arm. “—do them later.”

  Joe gave me a lazy smile that made my toes curl. “Ah. You’ve thought of something else we could do together—you’re a clever woman, Nicki Styx.”

  “Yes, I am,” I agreed, stroking his arm and enjoying the rough rasp of hair beneath my fingers. “Is there any whipped cream left?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Granny Julep was waiting for me the next morning.

  I’d just unlocked the front door to Handbags and Gladrags when someone called my name. I glanced over my shoulder to see the old woman making her careful way down the front steps of Indigo—the steps where Caprice died—with the ever-faithful Albert supporting one elbow.

  Granny looked more ancient than ever, if such a thing were possible. She was using a cane today, too.

  “What took you so long, girl? We been waitin’ almost an hour.”

  I was in too good a mood to let the old lady’s crankiness bother me. It wasn’t like I’d asked them to wait, now was it? Besides, it was barely eight o’clock.

  “Good morning to you, too, Granny Julep. Albert.”

  That earned me a polite nod from Albert and no reaction from Granny Julep except a vague wave of her cane.

  “You seen the paper this morning?” Granny held up a copy of the Atlanta Constitution, folded to an article I couldn’t read. “Mojo confessed to killing my granddaughter, but he claimin’ it was self-defense.”

  “Self-defense?”

  “Let us in, girl. No need to spread our private business all over the street.”

  I hesitated. It’d been two days now since the incident with the snake, and no sign of Caprice. I’d be more than happy to let Granny Julep take care of things on her own from now on. Caprice was her granddaughter, after all, not mine.

  “I need to sit down,” the old woman said flatly. “And use the bathroom.”

  Albert gave me a look, and I suddenly realized why he hardly ever spoke. He didn’t need to.

  “All right,” I said, ungraciously, “but I’ve got work to do.” I held the door open. They went in and I came behind, flipping up a row of switches by the front door. The store came to life, and I felt a little thrill of pride. The mannequins, frozen in their glamorous poses, basked in the sudden blaze of light. Color and style were everywhere. Even the clothes racks were neat and orderly, contradicting Evan’s forecast of disaster in his absence.

  “Hoo-ee,” said Granny Julep, “ain’t that pretty.” She hobbled over to Audrey Hepburn, who looked elegant as always in a sapphire blue cocktail dress with a full organdy skirt. The flirty, feminine look was pure fifties, with the classic sheer sleeves and buttoned cuffs of the period. Granny fingered the huge blue flower on the matching sash.

  “The bathroom’s that way.” I pointed. “And just so you know, Caprice has left me alone. She hasn’t come back.”

  “Good, good,” Granny said, nodding while she examined the organdy skirt. “That grave dust slowed her down some. Give you a few days, anyway.”

  A few days? My heart sank.

  “Now we got to make sure she don’t find a way back in.”

  “Back in?” I asked weakly.

  “Back in your mind, girl. That’s the only place she is?that’s how she draw her power.” Granny gave the blue dress one last admiring look and turned to face me. “As long as she can make you hear her, the Evil Ones can use her. They’s always waitin’, remember?”

  Unfortunately, I did, though I’d have preferred to forget.

  “What use could they possibly have for Caprice, and why? She’s dead already!” I tamped down a sense of panic. “This ‘evil one’ stuff may make perfect sense to you, but I don’t get it. The more I try, the crazier it sounds.”

  Granny Julep drew herself up and gave me an affronted look.
“I may be many things, girl, but I ain’t crazy.” She wagged a gnarled finger at me. “You need to quit gettin’ all bitchy every time I tell you somethin’ you don’t wanna hear. You gonna be wishin’ you’d kept your mouth shut when Damballah start whispering in your ear.”

  Had a little old lady just called me “bitchy”?

  As if reading my mind, Albert gave a solemn nod, outspoken as ever.

  “Now get me a chair and let me explain things to you,” Granny said. “Albert, there’s one over there behind the counter.”

  The old man went to do her bidding while I fumed, biting my tongue. I couldn’t resist one comment, however.

  “I thought you had to go to the bathroom.”

  Granny didn’t hesitate. “I lied.” She turned and hobbled toward the main counter, taking the chair Evan liked to call his “catbird seat.”

  “I just sit here and wait for the pigeons, sweetie,” he’d say.

  I sure wished he was sitting there now, instead of a wrinkled voodoo queen with a bad attitude. Or maybe I had the bad attitude. Somebody did. I took one look at the sour expression on Albert’s face and decided to blame him.

  “The way I got this figured,” Granny said, “Caprice found out about Mojo and his woman. She done called on Baron Samedi before she died, and promised him a soul.” I looked away from Albert and went to lean against the counter, resigned to hearing whatever it was Granny Julep had to say. “Either Mojo’s or that tramp he was sleeping with?I don’t know which. It take time to call up the Baron. Caprice was mad…real mad. She knew somebody was gonna die that night.”

  “You mean she was going to kill Mojo?” I was shocked. “Or the other woman?”

  Granny gave me a level look and went on.

  “But something went wrong, and the Baron, he take the only soul he can?Caprice’s. Now Caprice know the risk before she call him, but she took it anyway. The Baron don’t leave empty-handed.” The old woman shook her head, looking sad. “The only way for Caprice’s soul to be set free is if she give that wily old rascal the soul she promised him to begin with.”

  This was giving me a seriously creepy feeling. “Mojo’s?”

  Granny nodded. “That’s right. He got to die.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, putting up my hands. “I’m not getting involved in anything like that! I don’t even want to hear anything like that!”

  I got identically impatient looks from Granny and Albert. I’m not certain, but I think Albert even sneered a little.

  “We ain’t gonna kill him, girl. He’ll get his reward soon enough.” For a moment Granny looked fierce, eager for Mojo to pay for what he’d done. “I’m just telling you why Caprice want him out of jail so bad. He’d go back to the store sooner or later, and when he did” ? here she gave me a grim smile ? “Damballah be waiting, with his friend the Baron. Together they send him straight to hell, and maybe?just maybe ? they let my granddaughter go into the Light.”

  I gasped, the mention of the Light more than I could ignore. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t expected to hear that from Granny Julep. Christian or not, her ways seemed darker.

  “You know about the Light?”

  Granny looked at me curiously. “Not as much as you do, I think.”

  Uncomfortable, I looked away.

  “Anyway, we got to keep Caprice away from you until nine-night. After that her soul will be at peace, and she can’t do you no harm.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t keep the hopeful note from my voice.

  “Really.” Granny fingered her cane, watching me. “If we can keep her away. If not,” the old woman’s eyes grew distant, “then maybe she offer you to the Baron instead.”

  Shit.

  If I were going to dance with the Devil, I’d prefer the more romantic, slightly edgy version presented by Anne Rice in her novels. A grinning skeleton with delusions of royalty just wasn’t my thing.

  Knowing when I was beaten, I gave in. “Okay, Granny Julep. What do we do now?”

  Granny rummaged in the straw bag she carried and brought out a handful of dried sticks. At least I thought that’s what they were until I got a closer look. She held a jumble of tiny straw figures, intricately tied and knotted. “Put one of these over every door and window of your house,” she ordered.

  She gave me two handfuls of the stick figures, and I had to pile them on the counter before I could take what else she offered.

  “Tobacco seeds. Sprinkle them on the windowsills and in front of every door before you sleep.”

  Lovely. Spread carcinogens in your home to keep out the zombies. Made perfect sense.

  “And wear these.” The last thing Granny pulled out of the bag was a necklace of jet black beads. “Wear it all the time,” she emphasized, squeezing my fingers as she placed it in my hand. “Put it on now and don’t take it off.”

  Now this was more like it. The beads were gorgeous?a double strand of multifaceted crystals?definitely vintage and definitely my style. I could hardly wait to show them to Evan.

  “These are beautiful…may I buy them from you?”

  Granny shook her head. “A gift, child. I done my part by wearing ’em all these years. They got most of the good in me, soaked up from my skin like a sponge. I’m almost dried up and done now, and you gonna need ’em.”

  I felt the unexpected sting of tears, and suddenly, keenly, missed my mother. I hardly knew what to say.

  “There must be someone else who—”

  “I was saving ’em for Caprice.”

  That silenced me.

  “Put ’em on, child,” Granny urged me gently. “Put ’em on.”

  So I did, the weight of the beads on my neck both a comfort and a sorrow. Without thinking, I slipped the beads beneath my shirt, where they lay warm against my skin.

  “Can I make you both some coffee?”

  That earned me my first-ever smile from Albert, and one from Granny, too.

  A half hour later I propped open the front door to the early birds on Moreland Avenue and waved good-bye to the old couple. Then I sat at the counter and did the books while I watched the store, trying to concentrate on the numbers instead of all the “jumbie” advice Granny had given me before she’d left. “Wear red,” was the last thing she’d said, “duppies don’t like that color.” I wondered if red lingerie counted…I had plenty of that.

  The phone rang, a welcome distraction.

  “Handbags and Gladrags. This is Nicki.”

  “Good morning.” Speaking of red lingerie. It was Joe. “You left awfully early.”

  I smiled into the phone, unable to deny a surge of pleasure. I’d never talked to him over the phone before. “I needed to go home and shower, and I didn’t want to wake you. I know you’re on call.”

  “Yeah. I have to be in the E.R. in less than an hour.” His voice lowered, became intimate. “The bed seems empty without you.”

  “I’ve spoiled you already, hm?”

  “Pretty much,” he agreed. In fact, he sounded pretty pleased about it.

  “Well, you’ll have the bed to yourself tonight, pretty boy,” I quipped. “I’m exhausted. I’m gonna sleep at my own place tonight.”

  I’d made that decision on the drive in that morning, and Granny Julep’s visit left me even more determined to take back my life. Things were going so well with Joe, and so crappy with everything else. The whole situation made me nervous. Great sex was one thing, but I needed more. Right now, I needed more time to myself.

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Then he said, “I can sleep on the couch, you know.”

  I closed my eyes, though he couldn’t see me. What a sweet gesture from a guy I’d just discovered was an extremely sensual—and extremely virile—stud muffin.

  “No strings, I promise.”

  I knew Joe was sincere. But for the first time in my life, strings didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  Problem was, these strings were damned tangled.

  “I need some time, Joe.�
�� Bluntness was always easier in theory. “Things are moving a little fast for me.”

  More silence, but not for too long.

  “Are we okay?” Joe could be blunt as well.

  “We’re okay. I just need to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

  “You’ll go see Ivy Jacobson tomorrow?”

  “I will,” I promised.

  “You’ll call me in the middle of the night if you’re scared?”

  I smiled again, cradling the phone to my ear.

  “I will.”

  “You should’ve taken the key.”

  “I should’ve.”

  A brief pause, then Joe said, “I guess I better go. Have a good day, hm?”

  “You, too.”

  I hung up feeling oddly wistful. He’d handled my decision even better than I hoped, but part of me wondered if he wasn’t just a tiny bit relieved.

  Girl dies, girl comes back to life, girl looks exactly like your wife. Oh yeah, and she hangs out with dead people.

  The phone rang again, and I jumped.

  “Handbags and Gladrags. This is Nicki.”

  “Hidey-ho,” sang Evan on the other end, “how’s business this morning? Do I need to come in?”

  “It’s Tuesday morning, silly. There’s nothing going on. You and Butch go get a pedicure or something, and don’t worry your pretty little head about me.”

  “Very funny. Worrying about you is a waste of time…I’d never risk the wrinkles. Just thought I’d check in.”

  “Bored with suburbia already?”

  Evan sighed. “Only a little. You’d think there’d be some decent shopping, but the upscale stores are pretty limited around here unless you play golf.”

  I smiled, knowing Evan considered golf clothes to be an insult to fashion unless paired with something utterly cool. To be trapped in a wasteland of plaid shorts and tepid Polo shirts was a fate worse than death.

  “Let’s have dinner tonight,” I said. “Just you and me.”

  “No can do.” Evan giggled, sounding quite pleased with himself. “I’m meeting Butch’s mom. She’s having us over for pot roast and mashed potatoes.”