“I’m close to my cousins, Paris and Liv. Are you guys close?” Did that sound too obvious?”
She shook her head, “I don’t see them very much. And they keep to themselves. They even live together, if you can believe that.”
That was weird. But it would make my phone tap a lot easier.
“Any sign of girlfriends . . . or maybe boyfriends?” I was on eggshells here.
Missi cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing that I can see. They’re probably androgynous.” She shook her head. “No, I never really knew them. Even as kids they were a pair of loners. I think that’s why they like living in New York City. Pretty anonymous there I would think.”
I sensed the conversation was over, so I thanked her for the gadgets and left. We were heading back tomorrow and I had to pack, pick up the latest edition of the family directory, get my complimentary family reunion photo and fill in Liv on my progress. But first, I had to download some killer tunes to my new toy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
- P. J. O’Rourke
In every family, there’s a black sheep. Someone who doesn’t quite fit in. You might think that would be everyone in my family, but you’d be wrong. Other than having The Grim Reaper as a job title, most of us are fairly normal.
Well, not everyone. Our family’s black sheep was Coney Bombay. I was always drawn to the stranger relatives. I didn’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we all have the same job – every last one of us. Not much interesting conversation when you were in a room full of people with the same occupation. Granted, this was the only place I could talk shop with a bunch of people. But dull nonetheless. Anyway, Coney, named for that trashy little island of thrills in New York, is a carnival entertainment technician.
Which means, you guessed it . . . Coney was a carnie. Actually, he preferred the term carnie. And did he dress the part. Most people would avoid him because of his shaved head, long beard and many tattoos. But I was one of the few people who knew he had a Ph.D. in philosophy. So, why did he do the carnival thing? Probably something in that brainy head of his made it all even out in the end. When I’d been younger, I thought he was cool because he was rebelling against the family. But I’d seen his tricked out RV, and he hadn’t avoided the trust fund. His transient lifestyle made it easier for the wet work.
Coney was the same age as my brother, and we actually got along great. The rest of the family looked down their noses at him, but he was really quite cool. If you met him in a dark alley, even without knowing what he did for a living, you’d be scared. At 6 foot 7 inches, with a powerful frame, he’s a big guy.
He favored muscle T-shirts, probably so you could see the tattoos that covered every inch of his arms, shoulders and torso. But if you looked closer (and believe me, no one ever did) you would notice that each tattoo had a story steeped in mythology or philosophy. Which would lead to the tatty paperback book by John Stuart Mill or Ayn Rand or whoever he was reading at the time. Of course, his outward appearance usually dictated that no one would look closer.
I admired Coney. Why? I guess because he loved what he did. He actually liked stuffing sticky brats onto a thrill ride of questionable safety. And the gig was great for his cover. Since he lived out of an RV, there was no personal address. He lived pretty much off the grid. Unlike the rest of us who basically did things like other people – got married, had kids, paid taxes, etc. – Coney had a freedom most of us only dream of.
I found him sitting by the pool when I got back from Missi’s lab. It was dark, and he was the only one there, nose deep in a book by Jean-Paul Sartre . . . in French, nonetheless.
I flung myself down beside him. He looked up and smiled.
“Hey, Ginny.” Coney looked like hell but smelled like that new very expensive Armani cologne.
“Hey, Coney!” I leaned over and hugged him, realizing how weird that would look in the real world.
“How’re they hanging?”
I shook my head. “Don’t try slumming it with me. I was there when you graduated magna cum laude from Yale.”
“Sure, but right now I wish I were back in my sweet RV in Florida.” He threw his thumb over his shoulder. “I hate this crap.”
“Me too. But it keeps you in your posh lifestyle and me from having to put Romi in daycare.”
Coney smiled, revealing two new gold embellishments on his teeth. “Oh, man. She was hilarious at the ritual. How’re you handlin’ that?”
“As well as any soccer mom could, I guess.”
“Yeah, but how many soccer moms do you know who can poison a captain of industry and still make a mean Twinkie cake in time for the bake sale?”
“Are you teasing me?”
“Duh.”
“Well stop it or I’ll send you a Twinkie cake that will give you diarrhea for a month.”
He laughed, lightly punching me in the arm. “Okay, then let’s switch subjects. How’s the love life?”
“What love life?” I countered, feeling a little guilty for lying.
“Bullshit. Dak told me about the Australian.”
“Remind me why we aren’t allowed to kill members of the family again?”
“I don’t know, but if anything changes, they’ll find my brother Richie dead in a freak bumper cars accident.”
“I thought you handled the roller coaster?”
Coney winked. “I got promoted.”
“Well, cousin, you’ll have to beat me to the punch on that hit.”
“So what else’s up?” It’s amazing that someone who could read difficult French philosophers in their native tongue could have such a limited vocabulary.
“Not much. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Me too. Gotta show in Truckee.”
I laughed. “I wish we could’ve had more time together. You know how much I love your stories.”
Coney smiled and tucked a bookmark into the book. “Yeah. These reunions aren’t very social, are they?”
“Nope. We’re not even one of those families that gets together for weddings and funerals.” And there aren’t many of those, I might add. “Maybe we can grab a few beers when you head through the Midwest again?”
He scratched his beard. “Well, I guess I’ll be in Peoria in a couple of months. You’re in the directory, right?”
We both laughed at this. Coney was the one person with whom I could enjoy the irony about our family and its business.
“Somethin’ botherin’ you?” he asked quietly, changing tone.
I nodded.
“But you can’t talk about it, huh?”
I shook my head.
Coney leaned back and sighed. “I knew something was up. You involved?”
“I am now.” Was all I said.
He didn’t speak for a moment. If he wanted to ask me about it, he kept it to himself. He knew the rules.
“You know you gotta do what the Council wants you to, right?”
I nodded slowly.
Leaning forward, he spoke softly. “Don’t do anything that’ll jeopardize you or that great kid of yours. Do whatever the Council wants. Promise?”
My jaw dropped in shock. Did he know something? Was he warning me? Or did he just guess there was something serious on the line?
“I mean it, Gin. Promise me.” His voice was sharp.
“Okay,” I responded.
Coney leaned back and relaxed his shoulders. “You have a great thing going there. Romi’s awesome. Take good care of her because right now, she’s the only one you can truly trust.” With that, my cousin squeezed my hand and left.
Liv and the girls were asleep when I got back to the room. I climbed into bed. Coney wasn’t entirely right. I trusted Liv and Dak. Maybe he’d been through some stuff with his family. . . maybe that’s why he lived on the road. But my family was different. I always knew there were trust issues with other relatives. I mean, come on! With Richie fo
r a brother and Lou for a grandfather. Who wouldn’t be a little paranoid?
I looked at the open door between my room and Liv’s. Isn’t it funny how in the dark your eyes see things in pixilated shadows? I trusted Dak. He’d never fail me. And Liv, well there was no question. If anyone could get me out of this mess, she could.
My mind wandered to my mother. I trusted her, but she was old school. Almost like Grandma – who, by the way, I didn’t trust. Then I thought about Romi. I smiled involuntarily at the way she’d acted at the induction. It startled me to think that she might see me like I see my own mother someday. No, she had to trust me. There could never be any doubt. I’d have to find a way to make her see that. She was already pissed off at what she saw as my betrayal at the ceremony. I didn’t want her to grow up looking over her shoulder every five minutes.
And then Diego popped into my mind. He might think he trusted me, but when he found out I fed his client to a tiger, he’d probably change his mind.
Shit. I was already screwing everything up! I was starting to doubt the people I used to trust and had lost the trust of the two people I cared most about. If I got through this alive, I was seriously going to consider pursuing a career as a mystery novelist.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You met me at a very strange time in my life.”
- The Narrator, Fight Club
I used the free time on the flights home the next day to think. I snagged one of the legal pads from the resort (with the family crest and motto on them and the Bombay name as watermark) and started scribbling notes on the private jet. Once again, it was just Liv, me and the girls, so we had some privacy.
I made up a page for each of the six cousins, starting with Dak and ending with Richie. Each page had their name, age, address and basic statistics. What struck me right away was that none of my male cousins were married or had children. I’d never thought about that before. That was weird.
From there, I made a list of my modus operandi. I would tap their phones and search their homes. Liv would hack into their bank accounts, credit card statements – all that stuff. I hoped this would give me enough information so I wouldn’t have to come up with a reason to interview each of them.
Once I had the backgrounds all filled in – if I were lucky and the planets were in perfect, harmonious alignment, I could figure out their movements and compare them to the dates listed in the dossier of when the mole met with his confessors in D.C. and London.
Silently, I cursed the Council. I mean, it didn’t make sense that they knew the dates Mole Man had coffee with the feds, knew that it was a male from my age group, yet had no idea where to even start.
Okay, I’d get through it. I hoped I could at least cover this much territory in two weeks and give the Council what I knew. I had serious doubts I would have Mole Man in custody by then.
We sat in first class from L.A. to Chicago. That gave me a little time to think, but not much. I eventually put my notebook away and picked up my knitting needles. I’d scored some bamboo yarn in L.A. and was eager to get started.
I was halfway through this cute, skinny scarf when we landed at O’Hare. Liv and I dragged two tired girls to our connecting flight, and within an hour and a half we were back home, trying to find our car in the airport parking lot.
When I dropped Liv and Alta at their house, we made plans to meet up the next afternoon. By the time I got home, wrestled Romi into the shower and bed and unpacked, I was too exhausted to pick up Poppy. Dad called and offered to keep her another day. And I slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The alarm tore me from my sleep the next morning. I managed to get Romi dressed, fed and to school, making it back in time to jump through the shower before Diego arrived. As I skipped into my clothes on the way to the front door, I remembered that I’d forgotten to wash the sheets on my bed. Damn. And Diego wanted to use the bed this time. I briefly wondered if I could come up with some excuse before opening the door.
“Hey!” Diego pulled me against him for a mind-flattening kiss. My hair was still damp from the shower and I had no makeup on, but somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. I pulled him inside and closed the door.
“Do that again.” I sighed, flinging my arms around his neck. Diego laughed and kissed me again. He smelled like soap, which was now my new favorite smell. His skin was smooth from what I assumed was a recent shave. His breath was warm and tasted like peppermint. For a brief moment, I thought about flinging him over my shoulder and carrying him up to the bedroom like a cavewoman.
“I guess you missed me too,” he said as he paused for a breath.
“Mmmmm, you have no idea.” I kissed him again. I didn’t want to talk about dead clients and I wasn’t ready to find out about an upcoming trip to Australia. I would just have to distract him with sex.
We groped each other all the way upstairs to my bedroom. I panicked for a moment when I realized I hadn’t washed the sheets or picked up the baskets of folded laundry (not that I ever did, really). But Diego’s kisses were urgent and the warmth of his hands unfastening my bra pretty much took care of that.
I pulled off his shirt and pants and pretty soon the bed looked like we’d messed it up ourselves. In fact, I decided to tell him it was made originally.
Diego’s touch turned my legs to jelly and my heart into a jackhammer. I craved every sound he made, every inch of his skin, especially when it met mine.
Obviously I was losing my mind, which is easy to do when a gorgeous man is licking your most sensitive parts. I decided to just go with the flow, before I exploded into a lovely, tingly orgasm. Then I climbed on top of that Australian bodyguard and rode him until he came.
We didn’t talk, just laid there tangled in the sheets. I was tired, spent and blissfully happy. It didn’t matter what bad news Diego had for me. The sex was a Band-Aid. There was nothing he could say to make me feel bad.
“Damn. I’ll miss you, Gin.”
Except that! “What? When will you miss me? Why will you miss me?”
Diego leaned up on his arm and said, “My job is done here. Dead clients don’t pay, or so the saying goes.”
I sat up. “Do you have another job somewhere else?”
“Well, no. Not yet. But I doubt if I could find something here.”
“Stay,” I said. No, demanded.
“You’re very important to me, Gin. There’s nothing I’d like more than to settle down somewhere and have a home and family.”
“So stay!” I tried not to sound pathetic, which was hard because I was naked in a messy room. “Here! With us!”
“I’d love to. But we really should talk about it first.”
I was beginning to sound hysterical. “Why? What’s there to talk about? Romi loves you! I . . .” I closed my mouth. Did I love Diego? How was that possible? No. I was just lonely and infatuated. That was all.
Diego politely ignored my outburst. “I’ll stay for a little while so we can talk about this. I don’t want it to go too fast. There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
You have no idea. “Okay. That’s a start.”
“But I can’t stay here. I’ll check into a hotel.”
“You can stay here!” I wanted to punch myself. How could I take care of this job and train Romi if Diego lived here? And what was I doing anyway? What kind of example was I setting for my daughter if I just let a strange foreigner move in?
“No.” Diego reached for his pants. (Why was he reaching for his pants?) “It has to be a hotel. I don’t want Romi to freak out. She’s a great kid.” He started to get dressed, so I did too.
“Okay, it’s settled,” I said once we’d installed ourselves in the kitchen with coffee.
“It’s far from settled,” Diego began, “and honestly, I don’t know what is going on in my head, but you’ve bewitched me. I can’t even think of leaving.”
Oooooh. That was so chauvinistic. Wasn’t that always the way men put it? They didn’t fall in love ; the evil woman cast a s
pell over him.
“I hate that analogy,” I muttered.
Diego looked surprised, and I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen him like that. “What? Oh. The bewitched thing? It’s just a phrase.”
Ohmygod! We were just about to have our first fight! “It also assumes that women are witches and men fall under their power.” Way to go, feminist Gin!
He laughed. “I never thought about it that way. Sorry. I’ll say it correctly then.” He paused for what seemed like two years, “I’m falling for you. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“YAAAAAYYYYYY!” I jumped up and down, punching my fists into the air. I kept up this action until I realized I wasn’t actually doing it in my head, like I thought I was. Damn.
Diego laughed so hard that tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I’ve never gotten a reaction like that before!”
I forgot my embarrassment and folded my arms over my chest. “Do you tell many women that you’re falling in love with them?”
He brought his hands up in protest. “No! That’s not what I meant! You’re the first since high school. But I love your reaction.”
I grabbed his hands across the counter. “Diego, I think I’m in love with you too.” I waited. “What? No little end-zone dance for me?”
Diego walked around to my side of the counter, lifting me onto it. I wrapped my arms and legs around him.
“Would you settle for a touchdown instead?” His voice was deep and I could feel him swelling between my thighs.
“Are we talking about football or soccer here?”
He closed his eyes and kissed me. “Football is soccer. And now I’m going to give you another lesson Down Under.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“We’re going to have to redo every conversation we’ve ever had.”
- John Smith, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Greatest Hits Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Page 14