Giddy, I laughed. “Oh, yeah, baby, that’s it. The uniform. As far as I’m concerned, you can be Dylan ‘heavy on the har’ Hardy forever.”
He surged against me in a thrust that all but had my eyes rolling up into my head. Inside, my hormones broke into a praise-Jesus-Dix-is-gonna-get-laid-RIGHT-NOW hallelujah chorus.
“Make that heavy on the ‘hard’,” he said.
At his words, something broke loose in my brain, started rolling and tumbling in there.
Nooooooo! my hormones screamed. Stay with it. Stay right damned here! Get us laid, damn it!
My brain wouldn’t listen.
Heavy on the hard. Heavy on the hard. Dylan’s words kept echoing in my head. I strained to catch the significance. Heavy on the hard….
He bent to press his mouth to my neck, skimmed up my throat to my chin, my temple, my forehead, but I was all but oblivious. The tumblers in my head kept rolling, rolling…. Then stopped as everything clicked home.
My arms tightened around Dylan reflexively, and I cried out. “Omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod!”
Dylan froze for a second, then groaned and lifted his head to look at me. “What are the chances I just discovered a new G-spot, and that string of omigods was not about the case?”
“I know what happened! I know who did it! I know who the accomplice is. And oh, shit, I know where Mother’s diamond is!”
He rested his forehead on mine and exhaled. “Of course you do.”
His frustration was palpable. Poor guy. He might have reached for me first, but I was the one who’d fired the starter pistol. I was the one who shot us from zero to sixty in ten seconds, and here I was calling a screeching halt to our lovemaking. “Oh, Dylan, I’m sorry….”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” His breath fanned my forehead. “Just give me a second.”
True to his word, he collected himself quickly. With a sigh, he rolled off me.
I leapt out of bed. “It was the damned hormones!”
“I have no idea what you mean by that, but I presume you’re going to explain.” Dylan said, adjusting himself in his jeans. “So, what did I miss?”
“Oh, it’s not what you missed. It’s what I missed. It’s been out there all along. And I … I just couldn’t see it.” I looked at him sheepishly. “Hormones.”
His brow furrowed. “If this is one of those female things that I really don’t want to know about….”
I smiled. This would take some explaining to Dylan. And explain I would. Leisurely. We had time now. Not all the time in the world, but more than enough.
I knew what to do.
And oh, the pleasure I would have doing it!
Chapter 16
Dylan was just leaving when Mother and Mrs. P rolled in at two in the morning. Not intoxicated, but both ladies had had a wonderful time. So Dylan turned himself around and sat back down for a little bit while we explained to Mother and Mrs. P all we had surmised. Mother was disappointed as I told her what I’d deduced. She conceded that it made strange but perfect sense, but I caught the look of deep, deep disappointment in her eyes.
“You going to be okay?” I asked.
Of course she would. She was a woman, after all.
Dylan and I talked it over and agreed we should keep the Dylan Hardy persona a few more hours, if for no other reason than to keep Big Eddie feeling comfortable.
Big Eddie? Well, Big Eddie was going down (and not in the good way). The conclusions I’d reached last night only solidified his guilt.
We decided to break the case at Mona’s party. I know, I know, not nice to disrupt her birthday celebration. But it was when everyone in all three complexes would be gathered together. Hell, even Deputy Almond had promised a spitting Beth Mary that he would show up for a piece of cake. But I think Noel was showing up for a different reason. No, not for any interest in me. But I think the guy knew I was getting closer. What other explanation could there be for his not blowing my cover?
~*~
We were the last to arrive, but it was not a fashion statement kind of thing. And not just because I liked to show off. (Though I dearly love to show off.) It was strategic. By the time we arrived, everyone else was already there. The whole gang. Yes, including Almond and a few of his fellow deputies. Which raised some eyebrows, mine included. Why had he brought his posse? What did Almond know? Almond’s presence didn’t surprise me. He was, after all, a familiar figure at the Wildoh. But not with backup.
When Mother, Mrs. P and I walked into the rec room, we got a cool reception, to no one’s surprise.
Well, strictly speaking, we walked through the rec room to assemble on the outdoor patio. Apparently there had been some sort of kitchen accident. Burned buns of some kind. Doors stood open airing the place out while the smell of charred food hung heavy like a blanket in the air. We did the hand waving through the air as we walked through the smoky room.
Once again the only exception to the concerted shunning of Mother and company was Mona. But even she seemed off today. We weren’t greeted with her usual arm-waving enthusiasm, and her habitually happy expression was nowhere to be seen.
How much did Mona know already?
We arrived before the cake was cut. Before either cake was cut. Mona being Mona had made a diabetic cake for Big Eddie. These cakes, various drinks and a couple of fruit trays sat on a table surrounded by every single Wildoh resident. Even Dylan was sitting when I arrived. He quickly jumped up, gave his chair to Mrs. P and in fifteen seconds had secured another one for my mother from inside.
I’d stand. He’d stand.
Mona soon enlightened us as to why the doom and gloom at her own birthday celebration. She cleared her throat. In retrospect, I think that was more to get hold of her emotions than to herald the beginning of her speech. Her eyes welled with tears held back. I hated knowing they’d probably soon be falling, thanks to what we’d be disclosing.
“You’ve all been such good friends to me,” Mona said. She looked at my mother. “You more than anyone, Katt. My years here at the Wildoh have been some of the best in my life. After my husband died, and my daughter moved away to start a family of her own … I … I never thought I’d find a place for me again. Not one where I could truly belong. But I did. I found it here at the Wildoh with all of you. Beth Mary, Roger, even you Wiggie. Harriet. Of course with you too, Big Eddie. And that is why it pains — desperately pains me — to tell you all that I’m leaving.”
Okay, I had not seen this coming. Not at all. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in the shock as the collective gasp of dismay reverberated around the room. Well, almost ‘collective’. While some clutched hands to their chests and others held fingers to their mouths, one resident seemed singularly unsurprised. Tish McQueen sat in her lawn chair sipping her drink, dangling one finely shod leg over the other.
Mona continued, “I’ve decided to sell out. Tish has decided to buy in. Thank God, for Tish. I’m very glad of that. The market’s down, as everyone knows, but Tish … Tish has agreed to take my condo off my hands.”
I just bet Tish had agreed to take it off Mona’s hands. No doubt for a song. In addition to being a stripper of extraordinary reputation, Tish was a shrewd business woman. There was no question in my mind that she had beaten poor Mona down in price over the past weeks, whilst convincing the poor woman that she was her savior. And all the while depleting Mona’s resources by sponging off her while she ‘made up her mind’, putting Mona in an even more desperate bind.