Page 29 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

Chapter Seventeen

Jack

T he gophers were eating the Asiatic lilies again. I was going to have to rotate the bulbs to another field. The idea exhausted me.

I rocked back on my heels and stared at the big, spotted orange lilies, struggling to remember what the fuck I was doing at all.

Bucket. Lilies. Clippers, in my hand. Yes, it would seem that I was cutting them.

Then, I had to haul them to the cooler. Before dawn, I had to drive them into Portland. Right.

I grabbed the bucket, pushed my way listlessly through the towering stalks of Aconitum columbianum. The royal blue blossoms were just about to open. The vivid pink of the Campanula medium hurt my eyes. The Penstemon azureus was about ready, too. The Crocosmia ‘ Lucifer ’. The gladioli, too.

I was behind. Slacking off. I’d been too busy rolling around in bed to keep up with my flowers. I was going to lose money if I didn’t haul ass.

That idea exhausted me even more.

I hauled the bucket across the field and squatted in front of the Physostegia , staring stupidly at the white blossoms. Snip.

Put the cut stalk upright into the bucket.

Mind on what I was doing. Second by second.

Better to get used to it all at once. Much better than just to procrastinate and then have it ripped away again.

I’d be okay. I always had been before.

But goddamn, this was different. Vivi was everywhere.

The cosmos flower reminded me of her posture.

Colored yarrow, crimson bee balm made me think of her hair, her lips.

My bed seemed as wide as a football field without her curled up in it.

And her freckles. Faint constellations on her shoulders and throat.

I knew them the way an astronomer knew the night sky.

I stared at a ladybug clambering into the glowing white cavity of a half-open Physostegia blossom, and thought of her skin, her throat. Her red hair, vivid against my pillows.

I had never even told her that I loved her. I hadn’t wanted to confuse things, complicate things. Set up expectations that I would then have to dash when reality finally hit us. Like a train.

It was raining. I had hunkered on my haunches so long, my feet had fallen asleep.

I staggered to a tree and leaned against it, waiting for the pins and needles to die down.

Rain pattering on the pine needles made me think of the first time I had seen her.

The way her wet green shirt clung lovingly to her body.

I slogged toward the house, with the vague notion of making coffee, maybe some lunch, though it was late for lunch. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast. I’d have coffee. See if there was anything edible in the fridge. I didn’t really care if there wasn’t. Fuck it.

In my kitchen, I was as confused and slow as I had been in the field. Coffee. Right. I unscrewed the pot, moving like an arthritic old man. Grabbed the half-and-half out of the fridge. The carton was empty.

I stared at it, wondering what I must have been thinking, putting an empty carton back into the fridge. So I’d drink it black. Fuck it.

It took a long time to realize that the phone was ringing. Even longer to decide whether or not I cared enough to answer. Whoever was calling was stubborn to the point of insanity. My brain kept count. Twenty-two rings, twenty-three, twenty-four.

Then, blessed silence. I had just breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back down again when the fucking thing began to ring again.

I leaped to my feet with a filthy epithet, and grabbed the thing off the wall. “Who the hell is this?”

There was a nervous pause. “Uh, this is Rafael Siebling. Remember the guy you met at the blues festival a few nights ago? Is Vivi there? Because I really need to?—”

“No, she’s not here, and she’s not going to be in the future, ever. Delete this number from your phone and call her fucking cell if you want to talk to her.”

I slammed the phone down, suppressing my natural guilt at having been needlessly rude. Margaret would have lectured me if she heard that outburst. The guilt evaporated in an instant when the phone rang again. I snatched it up. “What?” I bellowed.

“I will overlook what a flaming pig-dog asshole you are because this is so important,” Rafael said, his voice frigid. “I have to talk to Vivi, and I?—”

“I told you! She’s moved out! Call her cell!”

“I did, you cretin!” Rafael yelled back. “Her cell phone’s not working! And I have to get in touch with her, like, now! It’s a matter of life or death! Literally, you get me?”

I finally registered the fear in the man’s voice. Life or death? A chill gripped me. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Well, since you’re so monumentally uninterested in anything having to do with Vivi, I won’t bore you with?—”

“Cut the shit.” My voice slashed across the other man’s nervous bitching. “Just tell me now.”

“It’s a creepy coincidence.” The other man’s voice shook.

“I went to an opening at Brian Wilder’s gallery last night.

The man is evil incarnate, but I thought it would be fun to do a little networking at Wilder’s expense and let that nasty dickhead in on the fact that Vivi’s happy and thriving, since he tried so hard to destroy her.

But of course he didn’t succeed, because she’s a goddess with more talent in one of her pinkie fingers than he has in his entire?—”

“And the creepy coincidence?” My guts were twisting nastily.

“It’s horrible.” Rafael’s voice rose in pitch. “The prick deserved it, if anyone ever could, but even so, it gives me the shudders that I was actually talking to him just hours before it happened, and he just?—”

“What happened to him?” I bellowed.

“He … well, his assistant found him this morning when she came in to work. He was impaled on the spikes of a big Waylan Winthrop bronze sculpture, like a hot dog on a stick. Someone must have flung him down from the walkway above. They say the sculpture was completely drenched with blood. Wilder’s assistant is in the hospital, having a total breakdown. ”

My body was electrified with fear. Thrumming with the excess voltage. “And Vivi won’t answer her phone now?”

“Ah, no. I’ve been calling for over several hours. As soon as I found out.”

I ran it through my head. “Did you tell Wilder where Viv was?”

“Uh, well, yes. I did mention that I saw her at a concert in Pebble River night before last,” Rafael faltered.

“And … but why should that ...” His voice choked off for a moment, and then he gasped, as it finally sank in.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh, my sweet God. Did I … what the fuck is going on?”

“Are you at home now?” I demanded.

“No, actually. I left this morning to meet a friend up in East Hampton. Why?”

“Stay there,” I told him. “Don’t go home. Under any circumstances.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Rafael moaned. “What have I done? What in holy hell is she mixed up in?”

“It’s bad,” I said. “But it’s not her fault. And you’re mixed up in it too, now, so watch yourself. Look, Rafael. Gotta go.”

“But I … but no! Wait! Tell me what this is all?—”

“No time. I have to go find Viv. If they found out where she was late last night, then they could already be here by now. Or they could call someone in the area to go after her. Call this number.” I rattled off Duncan’s cell to the other man.

“That’s Viv’s future brother-in-law. He knows everything.

Nell can talk to you, too. He’ll tell you what to do.

But do not go home. Promise me. You got that straight? ”

“Got it,” Rafael echoed faintly.

“Good.” I hung up on him and dialed Vivi’s cell from my landline. The recording told me it was off, or out of area.

Then the stench of burning rubber assailed my nose. The coffee had all boiled away, and the heat had melted the rubber ring while I was on the phone.

I flipped off the gas, turned my back on the mess, and ran toward my gun safe.