Mr. Perfect Read online

  Thank goodness for that. She had been out a lot of money lately, and her bank account was seriously shriveled.

  The telephone rang. It was one of the nonfeminine things that hadn’t been damaged, so Jaine picked it up. She never had gotten around to hooking up the Caller ID unit, she remembered, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach at the thought of answering without knowing in advance who was calling.

  It could be Sam, though, so she hit the talk button and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Is this Jaine? Jaine Bright?”

  It was a woman’s voice, vaguely familiar.

  Relieved, she said, “Yes, it is.”

  “This is Cheryl… Cheryl Lobello, Marci’s sister.”

  Pain shot through her. That was why the voice sounded familiar; it reminded her of Marci’s. Cheryl’s voice lacked the smoker’s rasp, but the underlying tone was the same. Jaine gripped the phone tighter. “Marci talked about you a lot,” she said, blinking back the tears that hadn’t been very far away since Monday when Sam had told her about Marci’s death.

  “I was going to say the same thing to you,” Cheryl said, managing a sad little laugh. “She was always calling to tell me some remark you had made that cracked her up. She talked about Luna a lot, too. God, this doesn’t seem real, does it?”

  “No,” Jaine whispered.

  After a choked silence, Cheryl marshaled her control and said, “Anyway, the medical examiner has released her b-body to me, and I’m making the funeral arrangements. Our parents are buried in Taylor, and I think she would want to be close to them, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.” Her voice didn’t sound like Marci’s, Jaine thought; it was too thick with tears.

  “I’ve arranged for a graveside service Saturday at eleven.” Cheryl gave her the name of the funeral home and instructions on how to get to the cemetery. Taylor was south of Detroit and just east of Detroit Metro airport. Jaine wasn’t familiar with the area, but she was really good at following instructions and stopping for directions.

  She tried to think of something to say that would lessen Cheryl’s pain, but how could she when she couldn’t even lessen her own?

  Then it hit her, what she and Luna and T.J. should do. Marci would love it.

  “We’re going to hold a wake for her,” she blurted. “Would you like to come?”

  “A wake?” Cheryl sounded taken aback. “An Irish wake type of thing?”

  “Kind of, though we aren’t Irish. We’re going to sit around and lift a beer or two in her honor, and tell all sorts of stories about her.”

  Cheryl laughed, this time a real laugh. “She would get a kick out of that. I’d love to come. When is it?”

  Since she hadn’t talked to Luna and T.J. about it yet, she wasn’t certain exactly when this wake would begin, but it would have to be Friday night. “Tomorrow night,” she said. “Let me get back to you with the time and place—unless you think the funeral home would let us sit up with her and have it there?”

  “I kind of don’t think so,” Cheryl said, and sounded so much like Marci that Jaine got a lump in her throat all over again.

  After writing down Cheryl’s number, Jaine went over to Sam’s and got the bag containing her Caller ID unit and new cell phone, which she hadn’t even turned on yet.

  She sat at the table and carefully read the instructions, frowned, then wadded them into a ball and threw them in the trash. “It can’t be that complicated,” she muttered. “Just hook this thing between the line and the phone. How else would it work?”

  Looked at logically, it was simple enough. She unplugged the phone from the wall jack, took the phone wire provided with the unit, and hooked the unit to the jack, then connected the phone to the unit. Presto bingo. Then she went over to Sam’s house and dialed her number to see if the thing worked.

  It did. When she pressed the display button, Sam’s name popped up in the little window, with his number under it. Man, technology rocked.

  She had a list of calls to make, and the first one was to Shelley. “I need you to take BooBoo for the rest of Mom and Dad’s vacation,” she said.

  “Why?” asked Shelley belligerently, her hurt feelings evident.

  “Because my house was vandalized last night and I’m afraid BooBoo will be hurt.”

  “What?” Shelley fairly shrieked. “Someone broke into your house? Where were you? What happened?”

  “I was with Sam,” Jaine said, and left it at that. “And the house was pretty well trashed.”

  “Thank God you weren’t at home!” Then she paused, and Jaine could hear her sister’s thoughts churning. Shelley wasn’t slow. “Wait a minute. The house has already been trashed and BooBoo wasn’t hurt, was he?”

  “No, but I’m afraid he might be.”

  “You expect them to come back and trash your house again?” Shelley was shrieking again. “It’s that List, isn’t it? You have a bunch of crazies after you!”

  “Just one, I think,” Jaine said, and her voice caught.

  “Oh, my God. You think the man who killed Marci broke into your house? That’s what you think, isn’t it? Jaine, my God, what are we going to do? You have to get out of there. Come stay with me. Stay in a hotel. Something!”

  “Thanks for the offer, but Sam beat you to it, and I feel safe with him. He has a gun. A big one.”

  “I know; I saw it.” Shelley was silent a moment. “I’m scared.”

  “So am I,” Jaine admitted. “Sam’s working on it, though, and he has a couple of leads. Oh, by the way, we’re getting married.”

  Shelley began shrieking again. Jaine took the phone away from her ear. When there was silence again, she put the phone back and said, “The tentative date is the day after Mom and Dad get back.”

  “But that’s only three weeks! We can’t get everything done! What about the church? What about the reception? What about your gown?”

  “No church, no reception,” Jaine said firmly. “And I’ll find a gown. I don’t have to have one made for me; one off the rack will do fine. I have to go shopping anyway, because the creep cut up most of my clothes.”

  More shrieking. She waited until Shelley’s outrage died down. “Hey, let me give you my new cell phone number,” she said. “You’re the first one.”

  “I am, huh?” Shelley sounded fatigued from all her shrieking. “What about Sam?”

  “Even he doesn’t have it.”

  “Wow, I’m honored. You forgot to give it to him, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, let me get a pen.” There were rustling noises. “I can’t find one.” More noises. “Okay, shoot.”

  “You found a pen?”

  “No, but I have a can of Cheez Whiz. I’ll write your number on the counter with it, then find a pen and copy it.”

  Jaine recited her number and listened to the spewing noise as Shelley Cheez-Whizzed it on her coun-tertop.

  “Are you at home, or at work?”

  “At home.”

  “I’ll come pick up BooBoo now.”

  “Thanks,” Jaine said, relieved that worry was taken off her hands.

  Next she called Luna and T.J. at work, and did the three-way calling thing. They fussed over her, too, and she could hear the underlying knowledge in their voices that it could have happened to them. As Jaine had expected, they loved the idea of a wake for Marci. Luna immediately volunteered her apartment, and the time was set. She gave them her cell phone number, too.

  “I have something to tell both of you,” T.J. said, keeping her voice low. “But not while I’m here.”

  “Come by when you get off work,” Jaine said. “Luna, can you make it?”

  “Sure. Shamal called again, but I’m not in the mood to go out with him, not with Marci—” She stopped, and audibly swallowed.

  “You shouldn’t go out with him anyway,” Jaine said. “Remember what Sam said: family only. That means no dates.”

  “But Shamal isn’t—” Luna stopped hersel