Diced Read online

  Diced

  by

  Deany Ray

  Copyright © 2017 Deany Ray

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real names, characters, places, events and incidents is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise without prior consent from the author.

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  Chapter One

  “This is the last box.” Celeste set it on the twin bed. “I think you’re all moved in.”

  Marge studied a poster on the wall of the bedroom where I’d grown up and which I thought I’d left for good. “New Kids on the Block!” she cried. “I never could decide which one was the hottest.”

  “I wouldn’t mind spending time with that one in the middle.” Celeste walked over to take a look. “How did that song go?” She sang a few bars of one of the old tunes I used to play nonstop. Then she bumped hips with Marge as they danced across the room.

  “But New Kids on the Block?” Celeste looked at me with curiosity. “Aren’t you a little old? “

  Marge sank down on the bed. “And just think. They’re old like we are now. Isn’t that the weirdest thing?”

  I folded some t-shirts into a drawer. “Well, it’s not like I exactly put the poster up last week. This hasn’t been my room since I was in high school.”

  Celeste gave me a look. I saw that look a lot – whenever I tried to dance around an inconvenient truth.

  I grabbed some hangers and some jeans. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. We all know I moved back once not that long ago. But this time is the last time. And I won’t be back for long. I see money in our future.” I pushed my glasses further up my nose.

  “You got that one right.” Celeste took some books out of a box and headed toward a shelf.

  I was humiliated to be moving back in with my parents at the age of twenty-nine. But it was all part of the plan for starting my dream business with my two best friends. I was no longer a secretary for the police in Boston. Marge, Celeste and I were undercover spies for hire. And we were pretty kick ass, if I do say so myself.

  One reason that it worked was that we really looked the part. Nobody would suspect that we were working for the cops. Marge, with her softly rounded figure and constant wide-eyed smile, looked like she’d be more adept at making flowered wreaths or clipping coupons from the paper than pulling out her trusty gun just at the perfect moment.

  Celeste looked like anybody’s neighbor once she covered up her bright red hair, which she wore in an elaborate updo when she was Celeste Ortiz, and not the worst nightmare of any bad guy who dared to disturb the peace in Springston, Massachusetts.

  And as for me, I’d always been plain, easy to forget. Who knew that could be a talent? But now I guess it was.

  The only trouble was that I was pretty broke while I was waiting for my bank account to move from almost empty to borderline dirt poor. And here in affluent Springston, being poor won’t buy you much in the way of housing. Apartments in my budget were…well, to say that they were dismal would be a compliment. So, I’d moved in with my parents a couple of months ago, when I’d come back from Boston to start up the new business. Then I’d decided to move out and into my own place. Because I was twenty-nine. And living with my parents. But the apartment was so bad, I was only there for three weeks.

  Celeste frowned as she looked down at the stack of books she was arranging on a shelf. “Charlie, why did you buy this? Stop Being Such a Loser, a Guide to Love and Life.”

  It would have been better, I supposed, to have unpacked my things myself.

  Marge frowned. “Why buy a book that sounds so mean? You get enough of that from people.”

  “It was on sale?” I tried. “They had it for half price.”

  “Well, I guess they would,” Marge said thoughtfully. “Winners wouldn’t buy it, and losers have no money.” Then she linked her arm through mine. “You are not a loser, hon! Do you know how smart you are? And sometimes, of the three of us, I think you are the bravest. And we have seen some bad stuff since we went undercover.”

  Embarrassed, I tried to change the subject. “Hey, are you guys hungry?”

  Celeste looked down at another title. “How to Find Your Va Va Voom and Make the Men Come Running. Now, that’s a book I’d like to read. I bet that one’s from your mother.”

  I sat down on the bed. “Can you believe she gave me that? Now do you understand why I have to get my own place as soon as possible? Can we please make some money soon?”

  Celeste frowned. “Well, Bert’s been kind of vague about what kind of case he’ll send us next.”

  Bert was her ex-husband – who apparently had a secret he hoped she would never tell. Conveniently for us, he was now chief of police. He sent cases to us so Celeste would keep her mouth shut about…well, I had no idea what the secret was. Marge and I had begged, of course, to get the information, but Celeste would never tell. I loved her sense of loyalty to a man she kind of loathed – but I wished she’d bend it just a little.

  “I think your mom is fun. But if she drives you crazy, you can always live with me,” Marge said. She brushed at the colorful top that covered her oversized figure.

  “And I have lots of room.” Celeste finished with the books.

  She did have quite the big house. And a swimming pool! And a charming porch that wrapped all the way around the house and overlooked a stream. An overly generous settlement from her divorce from Bert? Celeste was very private. No one really knew.

  “You know I love you both,” I said. “But you see enough of me already.”

  Before I met the girls a couple of months ago, it had been a long time since I’d had close friends. And I wasn’t anxious to ruin the friendship with too much time together – even more important when you go into business with your besties. That meant there was no other choice. For now, this was my home.

  Distressing situations always made me think of cookies. So I had a thought – a thought covered in white chocolate with just the right amount of crunch and drizzled in white icing.

  “Let’s eat,” I told the girls. “Anybody up for Jack’s? I might just order my dessert before I order lunch.”

  “Oh, Jack’s. Absolutely!” Marge squeaked. “I think there’s a meatloaf sandwich calling out my name.”

  “Today is Tuesday. Pork chops,” I said. “Monday’s the meatloaf special.” I should know. I am, after all, the only daughter of the one and only Jack. My father’s diner has held for decades an honored spot among Springston’s favorite places.

  Marge put on her sweater. “Oh, they don’t put in on the menu. But if you ask real nicely, they’ll fix you up a sandwich if they have any meatloaf left. It tastes better on a Tuesday when the flavors all had time to meld.” Marge and Celeste had both spent time as waitresses at Jack’s.

  “Oh, shoot,” I said. I’d remembered something. “We unpacked everything from Marge’s car, but we forgot about the TV in my backseat. Maybe Brad can help.”

  Most likely, that meant we’d have to talk my brother into getting off the couch, which meant he’d give me grief. How dare I interrupt a good nap or a computer game?

  “Brad is here? What happened to his job?” Celeste asked, surprised.

  I sighed. “It lasted just about as long as any of his others.”

  Brad’s last attempt at working was a job so
rting mail at the post office here in town. At first, things had gone well. But his spurt of productivity came to a crashing halt as soon as he was named employee of the month. Without an incentive (tickets to the Celtics! And a two-hundred-dollar bonus), there really was no point, according to my brother, who soon got fired for laziness. The story of his life.

  As we made our way downstairs, none of the usual sounds were coming from the couch. No soft rumble of a snore building into a crescendo. No fake-sounding gun shots as he took aim at some bad guy on his gaming system.

  Hmm. I checked in the kitchen. Perhaps Brad was hungry too. Bingo. There, indeed, was Brad – or the back of him anyway – grabbing an armload from the fridge. Massive sandwich coming up.

  I glanced over at the counter to see if my mom had made some cookies. There are some advantages to living back at home. My mother loves to bake. But I saw something else instead: there was booze everywhere. Rum and gin and whiskey, along with other bottles that I didn’t recognize.

  “Party!” Marge said. “Can I come to the party?”

  “What is up with this?” I turned to my brother. My parents liked to entertain, but usually just in small groups. This seemed extreme.

  He turned and grunted in acknowledgement when he saw Celeste and Marge. “Mom’s taking some kind of class,” he said, “to learn to mix fancy drinks. Or some crazy thing like that.”

  “What?” I asked. “But why?”

  He shrugged. “Since when does she need a reason to do the stuff she does?”

  True enough, I thought. Why did my mother teach fitness to elderly students who looked too frail to stand up, let alone twist themselves into yoga poses I wouldn’t want to try myself? Why did my mother respond to any piece of bad news by spraying herbs into the air to perform some kind of cleanse? I should know by now never to ask why.

  I gazed at the supplies which would make a lot of drinks. Who was supposed to drink them all? The exercisers who were often in the backyard doing awkward-looking dance moves? My mom and dad and Brad? Even when they were sober, I had a crazy family. Please, I thought. Don’t let them all turn into drunks.

  “Where’s Mom? Is she here?” I asked.

  “She’s gone to see a student who wasn’t feeling well. She left you cookies. Oatmeal.”

  Score. I grabbed a handful for myself, then passed them to my friends.

  Brad agreed to help with my TV, sighing as if I’d asked him to carry eight TVs up ten flights of steps, and to do it with one hand. All I knew is, I needed to somehow get my TV up the stairs. I needed to be able to hole up in my room all by myself and watch my favorite shows.

  “You’re lucky I was here,” he said.

  “When are you not?” I mumbled.

  ***

  Marge got her meatloaf sandwich, and I tried one as well. Celeste had her favorite omelet with sun-dried tomatoes, cheese and spinach.

  “Thanks for the help today,” I said. “At least I didn’t have much stuff.”

  Marge took a bite of her sandwich. “Too bad it didn’t work out. Your place was really cute. I was working on a welcome gift.” She smiled. “A paint by number! You should try it, Charlie. It’s so much fun.” Sometimes Marge seemed twelve years old. Unless you were a bad guy at the wrong end of her gun.

  “Yep,” I said. “The new place was a bust.”

  At first I’d been excited. It had all the trappings of the kind of upscale housing I never could afford: exposed brick in the living room, a well-manicured front lawn, a spacious bedroom with a high ceiling and lots of closet space. Too bad that right below my window was a great big field set aside for the sport of archery. Who knew that shooting arrows from a bow was a thing?

  That shouldn’t be a problem, I thought. I’ll just keep the windows shut. But a couple of times the arrows had hit hard enough to pierce right through the glass.

  One late afternoon I’d opened a window briefly to get some fresh air and sunlight. The apartment felt so stuffy, and all seemed quiet down below. Apparently, the arrow throwers must all have other plans. Then, stupidly, I forgot to close the window before I went about my day, surfing the internet for an hour, then taking a long, hot shower.

  Then, as I stepped into my room to get my clothes, an arrow came hurtling through the living room and straight onto my bed. It missed my head by half a foot. What an embarrassing way to go that would be. They would have found me naked with an arrow stuck into my head, in the stupidest place on earth to have chosen an apartment.

  My line of work can be really brutal. But perhaps the most dangerous thing that I have ever done was to live at Chrysanthemum Garden Manors. Without a helmet. The apartment manager said that I’d lasted longer than other tenants that faced out toward the field. She said the apartment owners were thinking about a suit against the owners of the field. They were losing money fast, and I could tell they’d invested lots of cash into making the units attractive, high-end living spaces.

  So, that was a nightmare. But things were looking up for me. I loved the challenge of my new job. I was part of a good team. When a set of clues would seemingly lead nowhere, I would see a certain look come over Marge’s face. Or Celeste would suddenly grow quiet. And I’d know a great idea was brewing; we soon would have a plan.

  I took a sip of coffee. “I’m sure it won’t be long before I can afford a decent place. Because I have faith in us to make this business work. It’s really so much fun to watch the two of you in action.”

  Celeste took a sip of tea. “But Bert’s gonna try to mess with us. He’ll send us oddball cases, and he’ll do it just to spite me.”

  I knew she was right. Most likely, he’d keep sending business in the future to buy his ex-wife’s silence, but he would not be glad to do it. He would not be glad at all.

  Celeste stuck her fork into the small bowl of fruit that had come with her order. “But no matter what he throws at us, just keep one thing in mind: there’s a way to make it work and get to the bottom of each case. There always is a way.”

  “We just have to think of it in time,” Marge squeaked.

  Just a few weeks ago, we’d been chasing a missing panda who had slipped off from the zoo. Talk about a cross between an assignment and an insult! But we not only found our furry subject, but in the process found a clue to a much bigger case. We solved a counterfeiting case before Bert and his officers could catch the crooks themselves. That was really fun. Except for the explosion that sent us to the hospital and the bad guys kidnapping us.

  “Has Bert paid us the bonus yet?” Marge asked. “For helping with the other case?”

  “He paid us for both matters.” Celeste gently wiped her mouth. “So that’s enough for next month’s rent. We just need to get more cases.”

  In addition to hitting up Bert for work, we’d taken flyers to other law enforcement agencies in towns that were nearby. So far, we’d had no takers. But with a huge victory on our resume, Bert could vouch for us. And I had no doubt Celeste would make sure that he did.

  “The bad news,” Celeste said, “is that Bert didn’t bother to return my calls and now he’s out of town. Of course, I have his cell just for emergencies. I have a good mind to call him anyway, disturb his nice vacation.” She cut a bite of omelet.

  Marge shot me a grin.

  “Alex might help us this time,” she said in a singsong voice. “He’d do it for Charlie.”

  Hmm. I doubted that was true. Alex Spencer was a (gorgeous!) lead detective that we crossed paths with quite a bit. And he never seemed exactly happy for the help. More like annoyed that we interfered with his investigation. Which (Guess what?) we did.

  But something seemed to change as we closed up the investigations, delivering the crooks to jail and the panda to the zoo. When I looked into his eyes (Those blue eyes! They were so very blue!), I no longer saw exasperation and an ego that was bigger than a house; I saw something else instead. A genuine concern about my safety? That made sense in a way. I was prone to land right in the middle of the most u
nsafe situations. And it didn’t help that I was clumsy.

  Marge had other thoughts about what Alex had in mind. Now she folded her napkin in her lap. “I’ve been watching that boy a long time. He’s got it bad for you.”

  I wished. I loved the way his soft brown hair was always falling in his eyes. I loved the ways he sometimes broke into a grin like the world was just so funny. And I loved it when he wore his white shirt that stretched tight across his muscles. Alex was not the kind of guy who went for Charlie Cooper. Although he was fun to think about. And sometimes it almost seemed that he looked at me as if…No! That was wishful thinking.

  “What happened to that date that you two were gonna have?” Celeste broke into my daydream.

  I stared down at my mashed potatoes. “It wasn’t supposed to be a date. I think. And who knows if he really meant it.”

  Alex first brought up the not-date in the parking lot of this very diner not too long ago. He had just helped me distract the panda till Animal Control could make its way to where the little guy was scarfing down some pickles – from a sandwich that was meant to be the hot detective’s lunch. It was a funny thing: the panda had a thing for pickles. Alex said that I could thank him by taking him to dinner some evening in the future.

  “Okay,” I have said nonchalantly while my mind was screaming Yes, please! Can we do it soon? I’m available all week.

  “It was probably just a joke,” I said to Celeste. “Because it was just this crazy day. With the panda. And the pickles.”

  But was it? Was it just a joke? It was true that Alex liked to flirt. And wasn’t that sometimes just the start of something much, much more?

  Marge looked at me with determination. “It’s time you take some action. You can’t let that one get away. I can tell you really like him. Sometimes guys are just so slow. A girl has to make a move.”

  No way could I do that.

  “Well, Marge, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, I have an idea!” she squeaked. Her voice rose to such a high pitch that people turned to stare. “Have you read that book your mother gave you? About your va va voom?”