Murder at The Blues Stop

by Wendy Byrne

  “I get it now. Pumping iron makes me feel powerful.” I sat up on the bench, flexing my muscles, while humming the theme song from Superman.

  He smiled. And suddenly I felt like shit. I couldn’t help but be struck by how relaxed and comfortable he looked. If he knew what I’d done behind his back, he’d hate me forever. But how could I broach the subject about being in over our heads without telling him everything. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable, which I, on the other hand, had become accustomed to over the years. Maybe that made me think about things more realistically than he did.

  “By the time we leave here, you’re going to be ripped.” He felt my bicep, causing my internal heat index to ratchet up a notch or two despite the fact my life was heading straight to hell.

  But I needed to stay focused and get to him to agree to let Patrick help us. Maybe if I made him feel guilty, he’d start to see reason.

  “It’s good to know I’ll look good in my casket. A girl has standards, after all.” I gave him a cheeky smile.

  He stroked my hand. “We’re going to be fine. Once I find the video, we can make a plan.”

  “But what if it doesn’t exist? What if they are figuring out where we are right now?”

  “They’re not. Mrs. Ryan inherited this place so it’s still in her maiden name. They’ll figure it out eventually, but not before we rip this fiasco wide open.” He took my face in his hands. “What’s going on, Gabriella?”

  And snap, he sucked me in like a magnet. “This is some scary stuff. I’m not like the rest of my family. I don’t do well under pressure.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “Pfft.” I chewed on my index finger, ruining a perfectly good manicure. The stress of playing both sides only added to my troubles. “Despite the fact I come from a long line of strong, intelligent women, I somehow got skipped over. I didn’t do well in school, especially in comparison to my siblings who are off-the-charts brilliant. I’ve always felt inadequate intellectually.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged, somewhat surprised by the words that were coming out. Getting him to see reason must be cathartic for me as well.

  “Relatives would always say I had the beauty and my younger sister, Juliana, had the brains. Those kind of things stick with you. My sister Juliana went to Harvard Law. My older sister Francesca is a savvy business wiz who owns a chain of spas in South Florida.”

  I continued, not thinking too much about my tale. “It bothered both of us in our own way. Juliana always thought of herself as this nerdy little geek, though she’s absolutely stunning.”

  “And you always thought of yourself as average when you’re anything but.” He intertwined his fingers with mine.

  “I’m working on it. But I gotta tell you, holidays can be a bitch around my house. It goes something like this: My mom asks, ‘Enrique, how many bad guys have you put behind bars?’” I lowered my voice a couple of octaves. “I don’t know, a couple of thousand, I guess, Mom. Oh wait, but that was last month. Let me get a calculator.”

  Shane smirked but didn’t say anything. He probably thought I was exaggerating. And I was, but only a little. Okay, a lot, but that’s how it felt when I compared myself to my siblings.

  Doing my best mom imitation voice, I continued. “Juliana, was that you I saw on TV arguing in front of the Supreme Court, taking names and kicking butt?”

  He shook his head. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “I haven’t even gotten to Francesca. ‘Isn’t it great, Gabriella; Francesca just opened her millionth salon on the planet Pluto. Isn’t she ahead of the curve giving all those aliens bikini waxes and massages?”

  He chuckled but didn’t seem to want to interrupt my flow.

  “And then there’s little Joaquin, who is no doubt the smartest, most eloquent senior in college on the planet with at least one gazillion job offers, all paying him untold riches for his brains and cleverness. It’s no wonder the FBI snatched him up so quickly.” I gave him a wry smile. “And our little Gabriella worked three whole days last month. And isn’t she clever? She didn’t fall for that ax-murderer hanging around trying to get her to go out with him.” I pinned my hands on my hips. “That’s a recap of my holidays. They make me feel woefully inadequate, to say the least. Is it any wonder I have this huge complex?”

  “Yeah, right. You’re so insecure, it’s amazing you can utter a word in public, let alone sing.” He gave me an incredulous smile.

  “All right, so shoot me. I’m exaggerating. I know your family isn’t perfect, but neither is mine. And before you start, it’s not that I’m minimizing what happened to you, but even if Patrick and your stepfather are as bad as you say they are, the Ryans love you like you’re their own. They might not be blood, but sometimes family takes different forms.”

  When or why I’d suddenly become so philosophical, I’d never know. But the words popped out of my mouth nonetheless.

  “Now it’s your turn.” I had an agenda. He could definitely tell by the way my gaze wouldn’t meet his for more than a few seconds. “Tell me more about your family.”

  “I’ve told you all there is to say.”

  “You’re a lousy liar, O’Neil.”

  “Actually, I’m a world class liar. I do it for a living, remember.”

  “If you ask me, you’re amazingly transparent.”

  He forced a smile, but capitulation eventually won. “There was this intense rivalry as far back as I remember.”

  “See, that’s the part I don’t get.” I drew in a breath. “How close in age are you and Patrick?”

  “Six months apart.”

  “What happened to your biological dad?”

  “He cut out once he found out my mom was pregnant. I have nothing but loathing for him.” He drew in a breath. “My mom was a nurse working in the maternity ward, and Patrick’s mom died during childbirth. That’s when my mom met Daniel. A year later they got married.” He stopped for a second. “My mom never played favorites between Patrick and me. I didn’t try to compete with him, at least not at first. But when I knew how mad it got Daniel, it became my goal in life. For me, it had been a total power trip.”

  “It became effortless after a while. I was the quarterback on the high school football team, had a four-point average, scored fourteen hundred on my SATs. Patrick scored twelve hundred.” He chuckled. “That’s what did him in. Solid proof that I was smarter.”

  “Don’t even ask me what I scored on my SATs.” I shook my head. “Sorry, my bad, go on.”

  “A couple of weeks before graduation, I was sleepwalking my way through the days after my mom’s death, not knowing what I was doing or where I was going, or really caring either way. I figured all I had to do was make it through the summer and I’d be off to Ohio State for college. I had a scholarship, but it didn’t cover everything. But my stepdad had one final way to screw me over. There was no money for college. He was ecstatic when he told me he had discretionary control over my mom’s life insurance, and college for me wasn’t in the plan. He couldn’t wait to stick it to me.”

  “You’re right. He is a prick,” I huffed. “Do you think if Daniel hadn’t worked so hard to amp up the competition between you and Patrick, you could have been friends?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Now we don’t know any other way.”

  I scooted up close and wound my arms around his neck. The contact felt good. No, it felt great.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. You could change things if you wanted to. You could choose to trust him.”

  “With our lives on the line, it doesn’t seem to be the best time to test familial bonds.” I couldn’t be sure if the kiss he laid on me was part of his twisted narrative or not. Either way, it felt delicious.

  “Hmmm.” I kissed him back, slipping my tongue inside his mouth for a brief foray before breaking away. “But maybe he genuinely wants to help.” I took a nip at the spot below his ear and sucked in the skin.

  “What the—” He pu
t some space between us to look into my eyes. “You’ve been talking to Patrick, haven’t you? Does he know where we’re at?”

  “No, but he could help. Listen—”

  He grasped my biceps and forced me to look at him. “Were you going to use sex to try to convince me?”

  “No.” I chewed my lip. “Yes. I mean no. Not really. You just got close to me. And let’s face it. Things have been heating up between us since...hmmm...day one.”

  “I’d never let sex interfere with my judgment. You might have a great relationship with your family and trust them implicitly, but I don’t trust Patrick and never will. A tumble with you would never have changed that.”

  “You’d rather have us both die instead of getting over this grudge between the two of you.” Anger sputtered out of me. “What does ‘A new US 10.28.52’ mean?”

  “You looked at my email?” He shook his head. “Hell if I know.”

  “Then why did Vince send it to you?”

  “Some kind of code.”

  “For what?”

  “Haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “I’m not buying it.” I folded my arms across my chest and conjured up a ‘tough-chick’ expression.

  He shook his head. “Don’t you get it? I need to protect you. You’ve just proven you trust people you shouldn’t. You’re the one who told me Daniel came to the office to warn me off a case. Isn’t that proof enough my family despises me?”

  “Or genuinely wants to protect you. Besides Patrick and Daniel aren’t one and the same.”

  “In my mind they are.”

  I shivered. “You won’t even give Patrick a chance, will you?”

  “Not an option. I got us into this. I’ll get us out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Things remained strained between us for the remainder of the evening. He didn’t say much. Neither did I.

  As I woke the following morning, instinctively I patted the spot next to me on the bed and found it vacant. Oh yeah. In a fit of I’ll-show-him attitude, I went into another bedroom to sleep rather than lie next to him like I had been since we embarked on this journey. It started out due to necessity because he had been sick plus the hotels we’d stayed at only had one bed in the room. I refused to sleep on the disgusting shag carpet, and he was too sick to be exposed to that level of germy-ness. Damn it all, I missed him, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

  The man was a total bed hog. He snored. He constantly trapped me in the bed with his leg. He stole the covers and most of my pillow when given the opportunity.

  But he did have that adorable little habit of cuddling up to my neck. Of cupping my breast and brushing his thumb across the nipple while sound asleep and oblivious.

  But now instead of going forward and eliciting trust from him, our relationship had taken a giant step backward, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. His issues had him so twisted up and wallowing in the past that he didn’t know one direction from another.

  But right now, my focus was on something different. My mind had shifted into a much less healthy and embarrassing direction. While I should be contemplating our safety and other more weighty issues, I just wanted to have sex with him to settle my own curiosity. My fantasy of how great it would more than likely be blown to smithereens when the real deal happened. The guy couldn’t possibly live up to my very vivid imagination. And then I rationalized that with my life on the line, it might be my last chance to have sex.

  But, after last night, fat chance it would be happening any time soon. But still I couldn’t give up on the idea…

  Even if by all accounts, I should have given up on him a long time ago. But instead, I seemed to have a sick fascination with his less than noble qualities.

  I heard him typing on the computer when I came downstairs. Acknowledging my presence with a quick nod, he went back to the keyboard, typing away.

  Since he’d already made coffee, I poured myself a cup and took a seat along the island. When he walked into the kitchen and sat down next to me, I had a sense that some of the chill between us had dissipated overnight.

  “Have you figured out what Vince meant in that email?” Maybe a miracle had happened over the course of the night. and he’d decided to trust me.

  Instead, he shook his head. “Nope. But Walt says we’re so hot he can feel the heat on the other side of the country.”

  “Gee, that’s encouraging. Any other good news?”

  “Not really. I still haven’t heard from Garrett. But I’m going to check out The Blues Stop tomorrow, come hell or high water.”

  “Why wait? Why not throw yourself into the fire today?” He was hedging about something; I didn’t know what yet.

  “Monday makes more sense than Sunday. I like the routine of the workweek. It’s much safer.”

  “Let me get this straight: You trust somebody who has a less than honest track record with your life?” I tried to think of an angle to bring up the Patrick card one more time but knew it would be pointless. “Sounds like a slam dunk.”

  “I know it’s sketchy, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  I eyed him. “Then I should be the one who goes sniffing around. If Walt says the evidence is there, I should go after it.” How had I become so brave all of a sudden? But it seemed silly for Shane to take the risk when I could slip by more than likely unnoticed. Especially if I talked to Patrick about it and didn’t tell Shane.

  “Hell no.”

  “Is this one of those boys-only kind of things?”

  Shane nodded. “I can’t let you take that kind of risk. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “But it’s not as much a risk for me as it is for you. Your face is practically on a marquee with dollar signs around it.” I had to get him to see reason. “I could ask Donna to meet me there. The two of us together would be much less conspicuous.”

  “Donna’s being watched, you said so yourself. That will never work.” With a light touch to my hand, he continued. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Mix life and death drama with sexual tension, and something’s going to pop.” He shook his head. “If something happened between us, it wouldn’t be good. And every time you throw Patrick into the mix, it’s a definite mood killer.”

  “You have a morose way of looking at things.”

  “The air practically ignites when we’re in the room together. Having sex would only prove my theory that it’s all spark and no fizzle.”

  “What?” Spark? Fizzle? What the heck did that mean? He’d gone off on some weird tangents before that didn’t make sense even to me. But this had to be hands down the weirdest conversation ever.

  “It could never live up to expectations.” He paced the room. “Every time I touch you, I want to take it to the next level, but it would be wrong.”

  “Because of the spark or because of the fizzle?” I was getting caught up in his silly rhetoric.

  “Because where would we go from there? We’re too opposite to ever sustain a relationship.”

  “Like you said before, I won’t be here long. That is, assuming we both manage to live until we can straighten this out. What would be the harm in exploring the spark? It might help get this sex thing that’s wedged between us out of our system. Then we can concentrate on what we need to.” I tried to shrug innocently, but I couldn’t be sure I’d pulled it off, considering the skeptical look on his face.

  “I don’t do well with relationships, no matter how short-lived they are.”

  “Will you stop already? It’s amazing you ever get laid.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You have gotten laid, haven’t you?”

  He looked so serious I was tempted to laugh, but I didn’t. Something bothered him today, and I’d bet it had nothing to do with sex.

  “But the other women knew how I was and didn’t care. I’m not sure you get me, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’m a grown-ass woman. You don’t have to protect me. Believe me, I’ve made some poor choices in men, and I’m still
here to talk about it.” I had to be hands down the worst at picking partners, but still, I knew Shane was different. “And I wasn’t completely honest when I told you about Max. I neglected to say that Max was only one on a long list of examples of why my family thinks I’m a dipstick.”

  He stopped pacing long enough to smile. “How so?”

  “I’ve dated a lot of musicians. Inevitably, the relationships ended badly, but one made my family do more than their usual eye roll. Terry Archer, the guy who was hailed as the new Marvin Gaye.”

  “He hit it big a while back, but I haven’t heard anything about him lately.”

  “That’s because he’s a regular customer at rehab. I think he and Amy Winehouse might have been twins separated at birth—lots of talent, but a penchant for all things illegal. For him, rehab’s like a revolving door. He’s Robert Downey Jr. without the nice smile and charm.”

  “You dated him?”

  Good question. “Dated him? I lived with him for a year and a half. I checked him into rehab so many times we got put into the express lane. The admittance staff knew what I’d say before I said it. I had some serious co-dependency issues. I guess I thought I could somehow save him even though he didn’t want to be saved. When my brother Enrique got wind of what was going on, we had a major family blowup—screaming, yelling, swearing—the usual family drama. Enrique’s first wife was an addict. Maybe things with Terry and I hit a little too close to home for my brother.”

  “You don’t have to tell me all this.” He shook his head. I could tell that in a perverse kind of way, he wanted me to continue. More than likely because it kept the focus on me rather than him.

  “Maybe I do. What I’m trying to say is when I do something, it’s always with the best intentions. But sometimes I screw it up. Badly.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I wanted to tell him everything, but the words stuck in my throat like a giant glob of peanut butter. What I was trying to say I couldn’t, because I knew where it would land me, and it wasn’t where I wanted to be. Not now.