Kicking It

Her twin gave her a hard slash of smile and said, “Good idea on Jane’s prices, huh?”

Liz nodded and opened her mouth to tell Cia that Jane Yellowrock was in town for the hearing about the day their sister died. About the day Jane had killed her to save human lives. But she closed it on the words. Some things needed to die peacefully, things like the memory of their sister being put out of her insane, raving, psychotic, demon-drunk misery on live TV. So far she had been able to keep the news from her twin. Why spoil it?

Cia handed Liz the address and card and said, “Let’s get set up for lunch. I have the kitchen, and while the soups aren’t demanding, the salads and bread are.” Cia sashayed toward the back. “As soon as we’re done here for the afternoon,” she added, “let’s go by the mom’s house and get this over with.”

“Evangelina never had trouble handling the kitchen,” Liz grumbled. “Why can’t we get the knack? We need to hire a chef.”

“On it,” Cia said from behind the kitchen bar. “Resumes in a stack.” She waved a sheaf of papers in the air. “Maybe we should have a cook-off.”

Liz snorted and headed to the back to wash the breakfast dishes. A cafe didn’t run by itself.

* * *

The Subaru idled at the curb as the twins studied the house. It was a small home in the Montford Historic District, two-story, traditional, steeply gabled, slate-roofed, painted in shades of charcoal, pale gray, and white. The windows were new, triple-paned replacements, glinting in the cold sunlight. The winter plantings were tasteful, and a batch of early spring jonquils pushed up through the soil on the south side of the house. The white picket fence was newly painted. The bare branches of a small oak tree stretched over the Lexus parked in the short gravel drive.

“Looks okay,” Liz said.

“Looks expensive.”

“Is expensive. Probably goes for nearly seven-fifty in today’s market.” Liz could see her sister adding the necessary zeros to her housing cost figure.

“We could buy a place,” Cia said. “Not this nice, but we could buy a place somewhere else. We have the money from Evie’s estate. If we combined it—”

“No way. When you marry that guitar-playing, long-haired hippie you’re dating and start having all the six kids he wants, what happens to me?”

“You get to babysit, Sis.”

“Babysitting I can handle. It’s life as a live-in nanny I’m not interested in.”

“That long-haired hippie is rich as Midas. If Ray and I get married someday, we’ll get our own place and you can have our house.” Cia sounded part smug, part smitten, part unsure, the way she always did when she talked about Ray, the country singer who had fallen head over heels the first time he saw her and who had made a habit of sending flowers and candy and presents to get her attention.

A red car passed them slowly. “She’s here.” Liz couldn’t hide the bitterness in her words.

The vintage T-bird rolled into the drive and nestled into the small space behind the Lexus. When their archenemy stepped from the car, she was once again holding the baby goat. And it was wearing a diaper. Cia breathed out a giggle, but oddly, Layla didn’t look ridiculous. More like a socialite with a chic, pampered lapdog. Lap goat. Liz resisted a smile.

“Does it look to you like she’s making a pet of the kid?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Cia said. Unspoken but understood was the phrase that’s weird. “Can you house-train them?”

“No. And they’ll eat literally anything and everything. Shoes. Fancy pocketbooks.”

Cia laughed softly and shared a glance, both of them imagining the scene of the goat eating the pricey bag. Layla screaming and stomping her feet.

“And their poop stinks. Like, really bad,” Liz added.

“I see a rude awakening on the horizon,” Cia said with barely restrained glee. “Hope it’s today so I can watch.”

They got out of their car and moved across the street to the house, Cia in front, as if to protect her weaker sister. Cia’s dress blew back in the slow wind, the shifting shades of color mimicking the silver-pinkish hues of moonlight on orchids. She wore a long vintage wool coat from the sixties, gray with tan lapel and cuffs, unbuttoned so the dress would show. Her red hair, dyed to a deep wine, was pulled into a chignon that looked smooth and chic. Her boots, never worn until today—never worn despite her boot fetish—struck the pavement with steady force. She looked classy and quirky and expensive, like the rich man’s toy that Ray might want to make her.

Cia hadn’t been wearing the Old Gringo boots, the coat, or the moonlight dress when they left the house this morning. The pricey buff-colored boots, hand-stitched with scarlet dragons climbing each side, had been Ray’s gift, one she hadn’t felt like she could wear, and she had kept them in the box, under her bed. Until today. She had put aside her uncertainty about accepting Ray’s present to show off to Layla.

Liz looked down at her own well-worn hiking boots, old jeans, and warm sweater crocheted by Evangelina last winter, before she started consorting with demons. It wasn’t often that the twins’ clothing choices were so dissimilar.

She frowned, not liking the change in her sister but powerless to affect it. The fear reaction to the loss of Evangelina had been stimulating Cia’s aggressive tendencies for months, and this close to the full moon, Liz was going to be able only to mitigate her twin’s reaction, not stop it. Getting through the loss of their sister would take time, and though it might be helped along by Liz getting well and strong again, that wasn’t going to happen overnight.

Liz followed in Cia’s wake, walking more slowly, taking in the house the way she had seen their friend—if their sister’s killer could be called that—Jane Yellowrock do. None of the perfectly placed rocks beside the drive had been moved out of position. No leaves had been allowed to catch in the nooks and crannies of roots and winter plants. The gravel beside the Lexus looked undisturbed, no signs of struggle anywhere.

The small front porch where Layla waited was freshly painted and the door was locked. Liz made sure to search for signs of problems, like, say, a size twelve boot print and a busted door, or overturned flowerpots. There was nothing. “Wait,” Liz said. She walked around the porch, tilting back the clay pots until she found the extra key. Brass, shiny, looking new, it sat on the painted boards, an invitation of sorts. It had taken her less than fifteen seconds to find it. If anyone had wanted inside, they could have unlocked the door and walked in with no trouble. Layla looked horrified, her eyes wide.

“I’m going to walk around the house,” Liz said, planting the key in Layla’s palm.

Cia stared hard at her for a moment and then nodded in understanding. “Yeah. Okay.” Leaving Layla—who entered the house without them—Liz led the way and Cia followed, her boots drumming on the carefully placed stepping-stones that ringed the house. The yard to the left side of the house was shadowed, chilly, and narrow, and the gate in the picket fence at the back edge of the house was unlocked. There were no broken windows or any obvious damage. The backyard was deeper than it was wide, and not fenced. Deer tracks and scat indicated that wildlife was welcome out back. The back door was closed, locked, and looked undisturbed. There were no broken windows that a kidnapper or burglar might have used.

On the south side of the house there was a small greenhouse filled with bags of soil, fertilizer, and yard tools, and a gate, identical to the one on the other side. It too was unlocked, with only a tiny catch. Near the front corner of the house was the patch of green pushing up through the soil, the jonquils looking cheerful.

“Nothing,” Cia said.

“Yeah.” They went back up the short flight of steps to the door and it opened before they could knock, Layla watching through the door’s leaded-glass window. She stepped aside and the twins entered, drawing together, as usual, in the unfamiliar place.

The air was warm inside, the heat at a comfortable level, not a lower setting. Most people might decrease the setting of the central heat when planning an extended out-of-town stay, and the comfortable temps seemed significant. Liz unbuttoned her sweater and tucked her hands into her jeans pockets, thinking about fingerprints. Even though she wasn’t looking, Cia put her hands in her jacket pockets, too. Twin stuff.

The house had wide-board hardwood floors, creamy painted walls hung with framed art, painted floor moldings and ceiling moldings. Ten-foot ceilings. Antique furniture juxtaposed with designer pieces. The living room boasted an Oriental rug in wine and blues to match the navy leather couch and burgundy upholstered chairs. The dining room sported navy-and-wine-striped fabric on the dining chairs and a floral rug under the antique table for