Driftwood Cove--Two stories for the price of one

by Debbie Mason

  “You always said Marco was telling tall tales when he talked about his great-grandfather,” Kitty whispered as she moved the table out of the way with Rosa’s help.

  “Telling tales out of school, more like.” Waving at Kitty to answer the loud banging on the door, Rosa flattened her back against the dark-paneled wall.

  “I’ll be right with you,” Kitty said, rubbing her palms on her dress. She mouthed, Be careful to Rosa, her eyes worried as she looked at her old friend, and then she opened the door. “Hello, can I help you?”

  “Yeah, I’m looking for someone,” he said, roughly moving Kitty aside to swagger into the room. “Charlie Angel’s broad. Anyone know—” Whoomph. Rosa brought the poker down on his back.

  He fell face-first on the floor, and a gun went off. Obviously he’d been holding his weapon in the pocket of his black coat and involuntarily pulled the trigger. His leg jerked, and smoke came out of the sole of his black shoe. It looked like he’d shot himself in the foot.

  Worried his partner had heard the gunshot and would come running, Colleen waved to get Gabby’s attention. She mouthed that the man had a partner and that he’d been stationed at the door. The little girl passed along the information to her sister, who sighed. No doubt wondering how she was supposed to share the news. “I think he has a partner,” she blurted. “He wouldn’t come alone.”

  “I bet he’s guarding the door,” Gabby added.

  Apparently seeing their friend take out a wise guy had triggered the competitive nature—and confidence—of the Widows Club. Picking up weaponry in the form of vases and fireplace tools, the women set off. Rosa reached into the unconscious man’s pocket and carefully removed the gun. “Kitty, sit on him and make sure he doesn’t move,” Rosa said, and marched off after her friends, looking entirely too comfortable with the gun in her hand.

  * * *

  Standing in the gas station’s parking lot under a red and purple sky, Michael placed his hands on either side of Shay, trapping her between him and her car. “Come on, stay and wait for my rental with me. Jim said he’d look after your car like it’s his own. I promise, we’ll come get it as soon as the snow starts to melt.”

  “Michael, I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, I know exactly how fine you are, which is why I don’t want to let you go.” He leaned in to nuzzle her neck, his lips warm and teasing. “We can have at least another hour alone together. I’ll take you for dinner at the diner you like outside of town.”

  She curled her hands into his coat and went up on her toes to kiss him. She only meant it to be a quick kiss, but Michael had other ideas, which she would’ve been on board with if they hadn’t just received disturbing news from the manor.

  As reluctant as she was to break the kiss, she did. “Are you forgetting Cherry was almost kidnapped a couple hours ago? I have to check on her, Libby, and the kids.” The phone lines were still down, but Aidan had gotten in touch with the county sheriff, who’d delivered the news, at the same time informing them the highway had reopened. No doubt hoping to be done with his messenger duties once and for all.

  “Of course you do, because you don’t trust my cousins, brother, and the entire Harmony Harbor police force to protect them as well as you.”

  Okay, so he had a point. Not that she’d admit it to him. “We just spent nearly twenty-four hours together, and you’re acting as if you’ll never see me again.”

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Now who can’t let go of the past?” She leaned in and kissed the underside of his jaw, inhaling his warm, spicy sent. “I love you. I’ll see you and Atticus later tonight.”

  He opened the car door for her. “I’m holding you to that. But listen, if you’re going to the pub, I want you to call me. I’ll go with you.”

  “I thought you were going to headquarters after you stopped by the hospital to see Oliver.” The sheriff had also delivered news that Michael’s partner was having surgery on his shoulder today.

  “I should be back in town around nine. I figured you’d be checking in around then anyway.”

  “I probably won’t get to the pub before then, but if I do—” she began as she slid behind the wheel, her attention drawn to a cell phone on the passenger seat. It wasn’t hers. She frowned, leaning over to pick it up. She felt a panicked cry working its way up from the base of her throat. She swallowed hard. Instinctively, she dropped the phone and turned her body to block the photo of Charlie from Michael’s view. She cleared her throat, forcing a smile. “I-I’ll check with HHPD.”

  “You okay? You got pale all of a sudden.”

  “Just cold,” she said, telling him the truth, but not the whole truth. It wasn’t what she should be telling him, and she knew it.

  “You sure it’s not something more? You know you can tell me anything. I—”

  “I just want this to be over. They’re coming after people who matter to me. It needs to end.”

  “And it will. It’s almost over, babe.” He crouched beside the open car door and gave her knee a gentle squeeze. “You have to trust me to take care of this, okay? You take care of yourself, Cherry, Libby, and the kids, and I’ll deal with Costello and his crew. I need you to promise me that your involvement in this is done, Shay. I’m not fooling around.”

  “I know. I know.” She nodded, her words strained as she struggled to keep from blurting out the truth. She had to know what she was dealing with first. She’d tell him, she promised herself. She would. She’d tell him once she got the lay of the land.

  He curved his hand around her neck and drew her mouth to his. “I love you,” he said as he brushed his lips over hers. “Trust me to have your back and Charlie’s. I won’t let you down. I’ll never let you down again.”

  The only person who could save her uncle was her. She knew the minds of criminals better than Michael did, better than his colleagues did. She should; she’d been one. And in her heart, she knew that’s who she would always be.

  “I love you,” she whispered, her throat thick with unshed tears. She hated the tears, hated that he’d broken down her walls and found the woman she might’ve been. They’d done this to her. All of them: Michael, her uncle, Cherry, Teddy, Gabby, and Libby. They made her soft and vulnerable. They made her weak. She pulled back. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “I’ll see you tonight, right?”

  No. “Yeah.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Michael stood in the parking lot, hands in the pockets of his black coat as he watched Shay’s taillights disappear from view. It felt like the last time, only then she’d driven away in his car and not her own. He hadn’t been awake or been given the opportunity to kiss her goodbye or beg her to stay. She probably wondered what was going on, wondered when he’d turned into a needy guy, pretty much begging her to stay. The thing was, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was going down today and they’d end up in the same place they had ten years before.

  Moments ago, he’d discovered he hadn’t been wrong. The sense of impending doom that had been hanging over him all morning, the worry he assumed was because of their past, had proven not to be misplaced anxiety after all.

  He’d seen the phone on the passenger seat of her car, caught a glimpse of Charlie’s photo when she picked up the cell. Michael had given her plenty of opportunity to come clean. It didn’t take a genius to know why he hadn’t confronted her. He was afraid he knew what her answer would be. That was the problem with knowing the woman he loved as well as he knew himself.

  He raised his right hand, rubbing his fingers over his chest in an attempt to soothe the burning ache. With his other hand, he felt around in his pocket for the antacids he always carried with him and realized he hadn’t replaced the empty pack last week. He hadn’t needed them since Shay came back in his life.

  “Michael.” He turned to see Jim, the gas station owner, waving him over. “Landline’s working. The boys say cell service is back online too.”

  Michael wonder
ed if Shay knew. Even now was she on the phone to Costello? Torn between wanting to do his job and wanting to protect her, Michael tightened his fingers around the phone in his pocket.

  “Dammit, Shay,” he muttered, his anger a living, breathing thing. How did she not get that he’d open a vein for her? God knew it felt like she’d opened one in him, that he was bleeding out right here in the parking lot.

  He knew the moment he asked if he’d see her tonight that she was lying to him. She’d made her decision. He wasn’t going to see her again. And if he did, odds were she’d either be dead, lying in a hospital bed, or on the other side of a two-way mirror.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” Cherry said. “If we saw the lights, so will Costello’s men. Come on, you have to get out of here.” She strode across Shay’s bedroom and grabbed her arm.

  “Trust me, they’re not going to come looking for me. You should go, though. It’s safer for you to stay with Libby and the kids until this is over.” Unable to look at the other woman, Shay shook her arm free to finish stuffing her clothes in her knapsack.

  Cherry sat on the edge of the bed, reaching up to brush Shay’s hair over her shoulder. She gasped. “You’ve been crying. What is it? What happened?”

  She rubbed her face. “No, I haven’t been crying. I just…There’s things going on I can’t talk to you about. I’ve gotta get out of—”

  “What things? I’m your BFF. You can’t not talk to me about things. You have to tell me everything. And why are you packing?” She shot off the bed and got in Shay’s face. “Stop and talk, because this right here”—she circled Shay’s knapsack with her finger—“this is not happening. You are not running because things get hard.”

  A harsh laugh scraped from Shay’s throat. “Me? Run when things get hard? Who took care of the Sterlings? Who took care of you in the alley that night, of Ace and his gang? I don’t run when things get tough, Cherry. I stay and fight.”

  “That’s not the things I’m talking about. I’m talking about the things that you have a hard time dealing with. Like letting people help you, letting people love you and care about you. Real important stuff like letting yourself be vulnerable and leaning on someone else for a change. Trusting that we will do our best to never let you down. We’re not going anywhere, Shay. No one can make us leave you.”

  “Don’t. I can’t deal with this right now, Cherry.”

  “You have no choice. You are going to screw up the best—”

  “They’ve got Charlie! They’ve got my uncle, and they’ve beaten the crap out of him.” She grabbed the phone off her bed. “Look for yourself. It’s all there in Technicolor and Dolby sound. Every last punch and kick, him screaming and begging for them to stop. Him calling out for…” She sat on the edge of the bed and drew her hand across her leaking eyes and nose. “They want a trade, me for him, and that’s…that’s what I’m doing.”

  Once they had her, she was fairly certain they’d use her to get Michael to revoke Luigi’s immunity. Without Luigi’s testimony, they didn’t have enough to put Costello away. Sooner or later, the FBI would get the evidence they needed. Only it wouldn’t be soon enough for her uncle.

  “No, you can’t.” Cherry knelt on the floor in front of her, tears rolling down her face. “You and me, we know men like Costello. They’re not going to let you go, and they won’t let Charlie go either. Whatever they promised you is a lie.”

  “I have to try. He has to know that I tried. I won’t let him think I abandoned him. I won’t let him die by himself. I won’t.”

  “We’ll call Michael. He’ll know what to do. They can look at the video. They’ll see things we don’t. They’ll find him.”

  “I can’t. I can’t take the risk. They told me they’ll kill Charlie if I go to the FBI or police. They threatened Michael. They threatened everyone…everyone that I love,” she said, feeling the anger rise up inside her. It was a relief. For the past two hours, all she’d felt was helpless and alone.

  “They won’t know. I can go talk to Michael. No one will suspect a thing. Or we can go to his brother Logan. He’s still in town. Or his cousin Aidan, the detective at HHPD, we can talk to him.”

  “She can’t talk to anyone. They’ll know. They’ve got people on the inside.” They turned to see Libby leaning against the doorjamb.

  “You can’t know—” Cherry began before Shay cut her off.

  “Yes, she does. And she knows where they have Charlie, don’t you, Libby? It’s Benji, isn’t it? He called you,” she said, referring to the bouncer with the crew cut at Pussy Cat East.

  She gave a quick nod, anxiously twisting her hands. “I swear to you, he had no idea what was going on, Shay. He wants no part of it.”

  “Then tell him to go to the cops or the FBI,” Cherry challenged.

  “They’ll kill him. Now that Luigi has agreed to turn state’s evidence, they’re desperate. They have nothing to lose.” She looked at Shay. “Will you help him? When you go get Charlie, can you get him out too? I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

  They all froze when Shay’s cell phone rang. She closed her eyes. It was Michael. She waited until the call went to voice mail and picked it up, torn between wanting to hear his voice and not wanting to hear what he said.

  “You should listen to his message. Maybe he’s called to tell you they know where Charlie is,” Cherry said.

  Or maybe he was going to tell her how much he loved her again and reassure her that this would be over soon, that they’d finally get the happily-ever-after they deserved. He didn’t know that Shay and Charlie didn’t get happily-ever-afters. “I can’t.”

  Cherry picked up the phone, putting his message on speaker before Shay could stop her. When Michael’s deep voice came over the line, she couldn’t bring herself to end the call.

  “Shay, I’m putting my job on the line telling you this. I saw the cell phone and the photo of Charlie in your car so I know that you’ve most likely been in contact with Costello or his men by now. We know they have him, and we will find him. Let us do our job. If you get involved in any way, you’re going to make it harder for me to protect you from prosecution. At the very least, they will charge you with obstruction.”

  He paused and drew in a ragged breath, his voice quieter, the frustration and anger clearly audible when next he spoke. “They got to Luigi, Shay. He’s dead. He can’t back your story. There’s evidence that puts you at Two Face’s apartment along with what they planted. I love—”

  Cherry took the phone off speaker and handed it to Shay. She brought the phone to her ear. “—you. I honestly don’t think you have any idea how much. But I can’t keep doing this. You either trust me or you don’t. And I can’t be with a woman who doesn’t. A woman who won’t open up to me and let me in. So if you go after him on your own, we’re done. Don’t do it, babe. Don’t do it to—”

  The phone beeped, cutting him off. The message had gone on too long, but it was clear enough. They were over.

  “What are you going to do?” Cherry looked resigned as she asked the question, as if she already knew. Libby looked anxious yet hopeful. Both women knew her. Michael did too. He knew what she was going to do, which meant he’d have someone watching her.

  There was a knock at the front door, and the two women jumped. Shay started down the hall. “Relax. They’re not coming to get me. I’ve already arranged the meet.”

  Cherry and Libby followed her. “But what about Benji?” Libby asked.

  “I’ll do what I can. You should go home, be with your girls.”

  “I don’t want them around until this is over. After what happened at the manor today, I’m not taking any chances. They’re staying with a friend in Rhode Island.”

  “Good call,” Shay said as she opened the door. “Jasper, hi.”

  “Miss, may I come in? Hello, ladies,” he said as Shay opened the door wide, and he stepped inside. His gaze moved over the three of them. “Have I come at a bad time?
”

  Before Shay could stop her, Cherry threw herself into Jasper’s arms and cried all over his overcoat, spilling her guts and Shay’s secrets. Shay bowed her head and shut the door, preparing for Jasper to make his disapproval known and try to change her mind. Because even though she’d barely had any time at all, Cherry managed to cover pretty much everything. Including—and for someone who hadn’t heard the rest of the call, she’d done a good job connecting the dots—that if Shay capitulated to Costello’s demands, her relationship with Michael was over.

  “There, there, miss.” Jasper patted Cherry’s back and guided her to a chair in the living room. No sooner had he gotten her settled than Libby threw herself at him and blubbered Benji’s sorry tale.

  Shay sighed and walked over to the couch. She stretched out and covered her eyes with her arm, listening to Jasper comfort Libby. There was a part of Shay, one that she didn’t want to acknowledge, that wished someone would comfort her like that. But what was there to say? She could only see one way for this to end.

  She’d either get her uncle out of this alive or they’d both be dead before the night was over. Whatever happened, their life here was over. They couldn’t stay in Harmony Harbor. The mob would always be after them. They’d have to go into hiding.

  In the limited time that she’d had, Shay had prepared as best she could. She wasn’t sure if they’d stand up in court, but she’d drawn up papers leaving the house to Cherry and the management of the Salty Dog to Cherry and Libby. The car was packed and gassed, and Shay had close to eighty grand on hand.

  The first thing she’d done after talking to Costello was pawn the Harry Winston Belle engagement ring. She’d felt naked without it hanging close to her heart. It seemed silly after Michael had told her he never would have chosen the ring for her, still, it had felt like she carried something of him with her.

  She fingered the ring that now hung around her neck. She wondered if he’d ever know she was the one who’d taken it. She’d stopped by the cottage on her way back from the pawnshop. She’d only meant to take something small, maybe a cuff link or an old school ring, just a tiny memento to wear close to her heart. And then she saw it. The ring his great-grandmother had given him. The one he’d talked about that night. He’d said it was meant for her. She didn’t want him to give it to anyone else.