Treasure Me

by Christine Nolfi

  He gave himself a mental kick in the keister. Maybe he should be the one to move out of the apartment.

  “So you’re friends with Mr. Shaeffer?” Blossom was saying.

  Birdie’s eyes refused to meet his. “Mr. Reporter? Yeah… we’re great friends.” A lie, and his heart squeezed. Was this a reprieve? “Which house is yours, Blossom?”

  “It’s way down, past those big pine trees. Do you want to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  Blossom hooked her arm through Birdie’s. Greasy shame filled Hugh’s gut. How to get out of here? After Blossom invited them inside she’d give Birdie a tour of the mansion Anthony was forever remodeling. They’d end up in the kitchen. Blossom would make hot chocolate. She’d hurry around the room heating water, fetching the chocolate, grabbing marshmallows; she’d sprinkle cinnamon on top to impress them.

  Trapped, Hugh would finish the ruse. He’d interview her for an article he’d never write.

  Soon, she’d open the Akron Register with her young heart soaring. She’d call through the house. Dad, come look! But she wouldn’t find an article about her recovery from leukemia. She’d drop into a chair and read about how her father had stolen thousands from the websites set up for her medical care. The bald facts would sweep her innocence away.

  It would be Hugh’s fault. All because he’d needed to destroy her world for the sole and regrettable fact that he’d screwed off long enough to lose his job.

  “Hugh? Are you coming or not?”

  Blinking, he looked up to find Birdie retracing her steps. Damned if he wasn’t standing in the center of the road with the sky opening up above him. Snow hurtled down from the blue-grey heavens. A layer of white was burying him alive.

  “Are you trying to become road kill?” Birdie looked genuinely concerned, and he felt sick. After the way he’d treated her, he didn’t deserve kindness. Besides, she’d do better to save her concern for Blossom once the article hit. “What’s wrong? You don’t look so great.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Come on, then. I skipped lunch. Maybe Blossom will feed us.”

  “Count on it. She’s Italian. In her world, food and hospitality go hand in hand.”

  “Good to know.” They rejoined the teenager, and Birdie said, “So, Blossom. Ethel Lynn says your Dad is on his honeymoon… ” Trailing off, she squinted over Blossom’s shoulder. “Hey! A pink house!”

  On a whoop, she leapt into the air. Startled, Hugh flinched. Blossom giggled.

  At full throttle, she sprinted down the street toward the Victorian mansion that, in Hugh’s estimation, was painted a stately brownish-rose, not pink.

  She halted before the long, rectangular lawn. Snow gathered on her sunlit hair and oversized army coat, and the way she looked—her hair flying, her expression brimming with childish wonderment—sucked the air right out of Hugh’s lungs. Longing curled in his chest beside his cold self-loathing. The longing won out, and he started toward her.

  Flecks of white caught on the filigreed, wraparound porch and the gingerbread latticework trimming the roof. Angels in cream lace flew around a wreath tacked on the door.

  “This is the house. The one Theodora told me about.” Birdie pulled Blossom into a hug. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Blossom chortled. “Do you want to come inside?”

  “Come in… you live here?” Birdie gaped at her. Then she turned to Hugh with enough delight to render him speechless. She really was beautiful. “Can you believe it? This is the house Justice Postell built. The kid lives here.”

  “With her father,” Hugh supplied.

  He was about to add, and her new mother, when his cell phone vibrated. He checked the display bar—Fatman Berelli.

  Probably the PI had dug something up on Birdie. With a twinge of guilt Hugh stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

  Blossom led Birdie toward the front porch. “My bedroom’s a little messy,” the kid was saying. “The rest of the house looks okay. Well, Meade’s stupid poodle has probably peed in a corner somewhere. But don’t worry. I’ll have Sweetcakes chase him back into his cage.”

  Grinning, Birdie let the kid drag her forward. “Is Meade your babysitter?”

  “Yeah, and she’s working late. I’ve got the place to myself. I’ll give you a tour.”

  Hugh paused on the walk, shame rooting him to the spot. In the midst of their girl bonding he hoped they’d forgotten him.

  Blossom sprinted down the steps. “Mr. Shaeffer, come on!”

  She clasped his hand. She’d always been an affectionate kid.

  Hugh closed his eyes.

  When he found the courage to open them he caught her darting glance. The trust burnishing her face was its own form of punishment.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she said, and he knew with depressing clarity what would come next.

  “What’s that, Blossom?”

  “After I show Birdie around I’ll make hot chocolate. You like hot chocolate, don’t you?”

  “Sure I do.”

  She gave his fingers a squeeze. “And you’ll interview me, right? I’ll tell you everything that’s been going on since I got healthy. It’ll make a great story in your newspaper.”

  “Sure it will,” he said.

  It took a moment then he swallowed down his shame.

  Chapter 10

  Meade tossed the mail on the kitchen counter.

  She’d spent the better part of the afternoon with the cosmetics buyer at Saks and had dodged two calls from her father. On the drive back to Liberty she’d foolishly snapped open her cell phone only to discover Theodora, of all people, on the line. The old battleaxe said she’d be visiting the Williams estate tomorrow morning to discuss important matters. The prospect of spending even a few hours of Thanksgiving with her was unpleasant. Meade had been about to press further when Theodora abruptly ended the conversation.

  And now this. A filthy kitchen. Meade set her face like someone with lockjaw. Setting down her briefcase, she fingered the stack of instant chocolate packets strewn across the counter. Three mugs sat on the table with marshmallows surrounding them like so many snowballs.

  “Blossom, where are you?” No reply. Sighing, she retrieved Melbourne from his cage in the corner of the kitchen. “Blossom? I know you can hear me!”

  The teen appeared in the doorway. “What?” She cradled an algebra book in one hand and a bag of chips in the other.

  “Did you have friends over this afternoon?” Probably some of the girls from Liberty High had stopped by. Which wasn’t a crisis even if they had left trash all over the countertops. “I don’t mind if you entertain friends while I’m working. I simply wish you’d pick up after yourself.”

  “I’ll clean the kitchen when Dad and Mary get back tomorrow night.”

  “You’ll do it now. I’m dropping you off at your grandparents’ house in the morning.” Where the girl would spend the holiday, thank God. “It looks like Huns invaded. Your new stepmother doesn’t want to come home to this mess.”

  “Okay, okay—I’ll clean the kitchen.”

  Melbourne yipped and Meade lowered him to the floor. He trotted over to his food bowl, which was empty, and eyed her plaintively. “Who was hanging around with you this afternoon?” she asked, pulling the dog chow from the cupboard.

  “Mr. Shaeffer was here.”

  “You let a man in the house? While I was at work?”

  “It’s okay. He’s the reporter from Akron. He interviewed me last summer.”

  The newspaper article, now framed, hung above the desk in Blossom’s bedroom. “He’s back?” Meade asked warily. She hated reporters. Bad publicity had destroyed her father and sent her mother to her death. “Is Mr. Shaeffer writing about you?”

  “Another feature. A really big one.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “About an hour. Birdie came with him. They’ve gone back to the restaurant.”

  Anxiety tripped up her spine. She’d offered to take her father
to the restaurant last night. He’d refused, mumbling something about a promise not to visit The Second Chance for several days. Baffled, she’d dropped the invitation.

  “Who’s Birdie?”

  “The new waitress at The Second Chance.”

  Had the new waitress insulted her father? Landon’s depression was hard for some people to take. Filling the dog’s bowl, Meade wondered if he’d had a run-in with the new employee. Yet her sense of unease warned that something more was going on here.

  The silence lengthened, and the niggling sensation increased. At the sink, Blossom had turned on the tap. But the girl wasn’t washing the dishes. She was staring at Meade with her eyes growing wide.

  Nearing, the teen tipped her head to the side. “You know what? Gosh, I don’t know why I didn’t notice earlier.”

  Sighing, Meade stared longingly at the door. A hot bath. A drink. She was exhausted, and in no mood for small talk. “Notice what earlier?”

  Blossom hesitated, and the uncomfortable sensation brought Meade’s attention back to her. “Birdie is a blonde, like you,” Blossom said. “I mean, her hair’s longer and she wears funny clothes, but…”

  “But what?”

  The teen blew out a stream of air. “Never mind.” She returned to the sink. “It’s stupid. Forget it.”

  Meade opened her mouth, reconsidered. The sensation pooling inside her warned not to press Blossom further.

  * * *

  On a leather couch in the Deer Creek hunting lodge, Fatman Berelli sprawled out like he owned the place.

  At well over six feet in height and weighing in at two hundred and eighty pounds, the private investigator looked like a big game hunter in his canvas shirt. In fact, if he told Hugh that he was leaving on safari tonight, the announcement would be utterly believable.

  “Hey, Fatman.” Seating himself, Hugh clasped the PI’s beefy fist. He surveyed the wall, attractively built of stone. Above the blaze in the fireplace the stuffed heads of moose, rhino and zebra stared down with baleful glass eyes. “We could’ve met at a fast food joint, but this works too. Out of the way, but the drive was scenic. Are you a member?”

  “Have been for years. You should join.”

  “I’m not into hunting.”

  “Unless we’re talking women, right? With your rep, you’re always on the hunt.” Fatman drained his glass and motioned to the waiter. “What are you drinking, man?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Chivas Regal it is.” The liveried waiter approached and Fatman handed over his glass. After they were alone, the PI gave the room a quick scan. He appeared pleased they had the place to themselves. “The woman you wanted me to check out? Birdie Kaminsky wasn’t easy to track. In cyberspace, she’s a ghost. But I got lucky.”

  “Then you found something?” At minimum, Hugh wanted basic information.

  He’d nearly convinced himself it was right to dig. They were still sharing the apartment, albeit in an increasingly tense standoff.

  “I might have come up empty if I hadn’t checked with a colleague. Remember DeWayne Simpson?”

  Hugh recalled the rude Jamaican from an interview with gang bangers he’d conducted nearly a decade ago. “Isn’t he doing five-to-ten for armed robbery?”

  “He’s out. And you won’t believe this. DeWayne works at a Big Brother outfit in Toledo. Remember his dreadlocks? Gone, man. He got religion in the joint. I nearly shit when I met up with him.”

  Trying to visualize the sullen Jamaican as pious was impossible. Thanking the waiter, who’d returned with their drinks, Hugh asked, “Has DeWayne met Birdie?”

  “Not Birdie—her mother.”

  “I didn’t know she had a mother.” A chat about their respective families never came up. Most of the time, they merely traded insults.

  “Everyone has a mother, even a cynical bastard like yourself.” Fatman took a sip of his drink. “Turns out Wish Kaminsky is a real player, the type who’ll clean you out then skin you alive for fun.”

  “Sounds like a real charmer. I’m beginning to feel sorry for Birdie.”

  “You should. Wish doesn’t have a soul. And she rarely uses her legal name. The FBI’s recently put her up on their radar.”

  “Is Birdie also wanted by the Feds?” God, he hoped not. For her sake, and his. If he was falling for a felon—

  Falling?

  No. Birdie was simply a beautiful woman. He was a red-blooded male, which meant he was hardwired with the need to bed her. So his programming was infected with a bad case of lust. Emotionally, he was the Sahara Desert.

  Until Fatman said, “Personally, I hope the Feds bag Wish. Any woman who’ll use her kid in scams deserves more than a visitor’s pass to Purgatory.”

  “Are we talking recently?”

  “Long time ago. She started using Birdie when the kid was four or five years old. A helpless mother-and-child routine. No motherly love there—Birdie was just another tool Wish used to scam men.”

  The comment nailed him in the chest—hard. Hugh took a healthy slug of his Scotch. Staring into the glass, he tried to process the ramifications. Life on the run. A felon you called mommy.

  Child abuse.

  He drained his glass. Given his track record with booze, he shouldn’t be drinking. Hoarsely, he called over to the waiter and ordered another.

  A navy briefcase sat on the stone floor beside Fatman. Hoisting it into his lap, the PI said, “According to DeWayne, Wish brought him in on a few jobs around fifteen years ago. One of the jobs was in Pennsylvania. Several others were in Florida. In one of the Florida games, Wish set herself up selling catastrophic health insurance to seniors. DeWayne was her sidekick. He said they made thousands working retirement communities.”

  “Where was Birdie in all this?”

  “Long gone by then, living on her own.”

  “Tell me about the scams involving her.”

  Fatman snapped open the briefcase. “The first one I tracked was a poor widow routine in Chattanooga. Birdie was the bait. Wish dressed the kid in ratty clothes and planted her in churches on Sundays near an upstanding type. The dupe was usually someone who’d lost his family in a car wreck or something equally grim.”

  A clammy sickness rolled through Hugh. “A man eager to replace the family he’d lost.” Eager to replace love.

  “In the Chattanooga scam, the kid was five years old. Check out this photo. Is this her?”

  Fatman dropped a five-by-seven glossy into Hugh’s lap. Slowly, Hugh picked up the photo of a young girl in pigtails. She sat stiffly on the lap of a man with haunted eyes. The man, who certainly looked like he was in mourning, hunched forward in his brown corduroy blazer.

  Hugh’s stomach did a painful flip. The girl’s matchless violet eyes, her high cheekbones and heart-shaped mouth—every feature was intensely familiar.

  “It’s Birdie.” He tossed the photo back as if it carried typhus. “Who’s the man?”

  “Name’s Sam Brinkley. His wife died of breast cancer five months before Wish arrived in Chattanooga. She probably read the obits.”

  “Easy enough to do. What line of work was Brinkley in?”

  “He owned a jewelry store. He really fell for Wish. Those wedding bells were ringing hard in his ears.”

  “They married?”

  “Are you kidding? She cleared out the cash and a fistful of gems from his store before he waltzed her up the aisle. The chump was even looking into adopting the kid—he thought she’d lost her daddy. I’ve found three other instances of men swallowing Wish’s poor widow routine. All were lonely. Seems they fell for Birdie as much as they fell for her mother.”

  Pity for the child she’d been nearly swamped Hugh. Had she loved any of those men like a father? A child couldn’t possibly understand that it was only about draining some poor bastard’s bank account.

  “Who is Birdie’s father?” He felt weightless, like an observer floating above the sordid debris of a ruined life.

  “Tanek Kaminsky
, a small time loan shark and something of a bumbler. A decent man when it came to his kid. During her childhood he was in and out of the pen.”

  “So they had a relationship?”

  “Tanek raised her part of the time. Wish, great gal that she is, dumped Birdie on whoever was nearby. Relatives, friends—Tanek whenever he wasn’t incarcerated. She only kept the kid around when a new scam popped up.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Tanek’s back in the pen. The chump writes to her pretty frequently.”

  Fatman handed over more photos, of Birdie at the ages of ten or twelve. Birdie in the lanky and awkward stages of puberty. School yearbook photos, and a newspaper clipping of her ninth grade class at a natural history museum in Trenton, New Jersey. She stood at the end of the front row with her blonde hair flowing like rain down her shoulders. She looked desolate, a hollow-eyed teen out of place in her torn jeans and rumpled tee shirt. By contrast the other students were dressed up for the school trip, the girls in skirts and blouses, the boys in slacks and long-sleeved shirts. One boy even sported a tie.

  Fatman rifled through the briefcase. Predictably efficient, the PI had typed up a rough chronology of Birdie’s life, which he handed over. The depressing list detailed Wish’s fraudulent activities and infrequent scrapes with the law. Gutted, Hugh noticed how many of the scams involved Birdie.

  “Why did you want background on this Birdie character?” Fatman asked, drawing him from his troubled thoughts. “Are you writing about her family?”

  “Thinking about it.” Which was bullshit. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to admit the personal reasons. Fatman would think he’d lost his sanity. Or worse, make jokes about taking the dive for a female criminal.

  Was sexual attraction ever logical?

  There was a story here. A professional thief was preying on the unsuspecting citizens of a small town. If he didn’t have a tangle of emotions for Birdie, he’d set to work. It would be the type of reporting sure to win accolades at the Akron Register.