Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(57)

198

Laura Levine

“A little discipline might help.”

Of course, I didn’t really say that. Lord only knew what it was like trying to rein in this kid.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m sure we’re going to get along just fine.”

I shot her a hopeful smile. “Right, Angel?”

“Let’s go already,” was her cheerful reply.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom before you leave?”

Kevin asked her.

“No, I don’t have to go to the bathroom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yesss. I’m sure.”

“What about a sweater? You’re gonna need one in that top.”

“Your father’s right, Angel,” I said. “We’re going to the beach. It might get chilly out there.”

“I don’t need a sweater,” she snapped. “Now are we going, or what?”

Kevin Cavanaugh shot me one last apologetic smile as we headed out the door. I was beginning to understand his hollow cheeks and baggy eyes.

“Good luck.” With a feeble wave goodbye, he shut the door behind us. How I envied him being on the other side of that door.

Angel and I started down the metal steps, Angel clomping along in her rickety heels.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay in those shoes?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “I’m going to be okay.”

“Here’s my car!” I said, trying to sound chirpy as I led her over to my Corolla.

“This is it?” She eyed my geriatric Corolla with unalloyed disdain. “Ugh. If I wanted to ride around in a crummy car, I could hang out with my dad. And even our car is nicer than this.”

“Just get in,” I said, resisting a sudden impulse to leap in and drive off without her.

THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES

199

She settled down on the passenger seat with a petulant plop.

“Buckle your seat belt,” I instructed.

“I don’t want to buckle my seat belt. It’ll wrinkle my top.”

“Buckle your belt!” I said through gritted teeth.

With an exasperated sigh, she buckled the belt and we took off.

“I don’t want to go to the beach,” she whined as I swung onto Santa Monica Boulevard and headed out to the ocean.

“I want to go to the mall.”

“We’re not going to the mall.”

“But I hate the beach. I want to go shopping.”

“It said on your profile you liked outdoor activities.”

“I do. I like shopping at outdoor malls.”

“Forget it, Angel. We’re not going shopping.”

“But you’re my Girlfriend. Aren’t you supposed to buy me gifts?”

“No, I’m not supposed to buy you gifts. It specifically says so in the Girlfriends Guidebook.”

“Oh, fudge.” Only that’s not the F word she used. “I woulda never signed up for this stupid Girlfriends thing if I knew there weren’t gonna be any presents.”

“You’re not getting any gifts. And watch your language.”

We rode the next few minutes in a tense silence, broken finally by Angel announcing: “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“For crying out loud, Angel, your dad told you to go back in the apartment.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“It’s too late now,” I snarled. “Hold it in.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t have a snit fit.”

By now my knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

The enormity of my mistake was beginning to hit me.

I no longer felt the least bit like Mother Teresa. No, as I piloted our way those final blocks out to the pier, I felt like a lion tamer in a cage without a whip and a chair.

200

Laura Levine



The Santa Monica Pier juts out into the Pacific, a rustic boardwalk dotted with restaurants and souvenir shops, right next to a small amusement park.

The minute I parked the car, Angel sprinted out to use the bathroom at one of the restaurants. I followed her inside and found myself in a tacky seafood joint with fishermen’s netting draped on the walls and a giant stuffed swordfish hanging over the bar. As Angel hustled off to the ladies’ room, I took a seat on a bar stool and eyed a bottle of Jose Cuervo. You’ll be ashamed of me, I know, but I seriously contemplated ordering a margarita. At eleven in the morning. But sanity prevailed. Instead I asked for a glass of water, and gulped down a few Tylenol to quell the headache that was now throbbing in my skull.

I sat there for a while, waiting for the pills to take effect and ruing the day I ever saw that story in the paper about L.A. Girlfriends.

Then I checked my watch and realized that ten minutes had passed since Angel had gone down the corridor to the ladies’ room. That’s an awfully long time for a trip to the bathroom. And suddenly I panicked. Dire scenarios began flashing in my brain. What if she’d run away? What if she slipped out a back door? Or wriggled out a bathroom window? For all I knew, she was turning tricks in the men’s room. Oh, Lord. Her father would never forgive me.

I jumped off the barstool and raced down the corridor to the ladies’ room, or as it was known in this particular establishment, The Little Mermaids’ Room.