Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

Mick sped up a little; so did the other vehicle. He tapped his brakes—again, the same from the other driver. “Man, he’s really never done this before.”

  “Monty never was able to find good help,” Shane said, with his sardonic half-smile.

  Thank God. Otherwise Mick might not have broken free at fourteen. If Monty had a better lawyer, better shrink, more loyal emergency room doctors, Mick might have grown up in hell. As it was, his grandfather was still trying to drag him there.

  As evidenced by tonight’s tagalong.

  Mick had noticed the black SUV maintaining an exactly 3-car distance as he and his uncle drove back to Ocean Whispers Monday night. It had pulled out of the carnival parking lot right behind him, the flashy, expensive vehicle being far too noticeable to be used for following someone. Amateur.

  Mick hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Gypsy he needed more stuff. He’d been fine for the two nights he’d spent in the spare room at Shane and Gil’s. But he hadn’t brought enough with him for a longer stay. Considering how many people had touched him, hugged him, and grabbed him this weekend, he really needed cleaner—literally clean of memories—clothes.

  This time, he intended to stick around for as long as it took.

  Wanting to support his family, as well as Frank Bell and the rest of the carnival, he needed to be on hand to help Gypsy with the investigation. They hadn’t even had a chance to talk more about the anonymous letter with the picture of the feather. He’d been waiting for her to get it analyzed, knowing she intended to let him touch it afterward. Now that the investigation had been taken from her, he doubted that was going to happen.

  Much less would he be given the chance to examine the piece of paper found clutched in Jersey’s hand. The case could be solved if the sender had gotten a simple paper cut, but he doubted the Jacksonville detectives would see it that way.

  Hopefully Gypsy had at least managed to crack into the files and get a copy.

  “Meant to tell you, I dig the new car, even if it is a rolling example of crass commercialism.”

  Mick chuckled. His uncle the lawyer/hippie. “Sorry, I’m not willing to drive a VW van just to stick it to the hierarchy. I’m just glad you deigned to ride in it with me.”

  Shane had offered to go with him to Savannah, and since they rarely had time together, Mick had accepted. It had sounded like a quick and easy trip. Except for the tail.

  Shane again glanced over his shoulder.

  “You’re going to twist your head off if you keep doing that.”

  “I really wanna see who’s behind the wheel.”

  Mick was curious about that, too. The vehicle had been tracking them since they’d left Florida at seven, had parked up the block from his Savannah condo, and caught up with them on I-95 as they headed south at around ten p.m. Traffic was thinning late on this Monday night, so it wasn’t hard to keep those headlights in his rearview mirror. But he still hadn’t caught a glimpse of the driver’s face.

  “Let’s forget about him,” he said, shrugging off the disquiet of knowing his grandfather had hired people to keep tabs on him. It certainly wasn’t the first time. “How are you holding up? I know Barry and Jersey were old friends.”

  “Jersey was. Barry not so much, although we worked together for a long time.”

  Mick glanced over at his uncle, seeing a tightness in his face that hinted he had more to say. “Do you know something that might help Gypsy solve the case?”

  “Nah, not really. Just personal feelings.”

  “About Barry?”

  Shane nodded. “He could be an asshole. He gave me and Gil some trouble when we first got together.”

  “Barry was a homophobe?” Surprising. The dead man had always seemed so friendly and open to everyone. In fact, the entire carnival had a live-and-let-live attitude. Their openness was one reason his uncle had left the corporate world to go on the road with Gil, who’d been working as the carnival’s accountant and sometimes ride operator. That had been almost forty years ago, when the world had been even less friendly to people who were different than they were today.

  “Just in the beginning. He calmed down, eventually. Apparently he had a reputation as a real hard-ass before he met Sookie, and she straightened him out. But old habits die hard. He got drunk and started talking shit to Gil.”

  Gil, as smart and quick-witted as Uncle Shane was smart and laconic, had probably talked circles around an angry drunk man. But Mick didn’t like thinking that the couple had faced that kind of prejudice in a place they considered home.

  “Maybe you should let Gypsy know that,” Mick murmured, wondering if there were more secrets in Barry’s past. Despite the adage, people were usually quick to talk badly of the dead…the cops just might not have been asking the right questions of the right people.

  “Why don’t you tell her? You two seem to be spending a lot of time together, and you sure get along better than you did as kids,” Shane said, staring out the window, his voice so even Mick almost believed he wasn’t matchmaking. His uncle had been pushing him to find someone and settle down. Easy to say. Not so easy to do. Not when you could do what Mick could. “She sure grew up to be beautiful, didn’t she?”

  He didn’t even try to deny that. “Yes, she did.”

  “Lots of men have tried for her, you know. But she’s pretty straight-laced these days. Works hard, not in any relationship. She’s spent more time with you than she has any other man since she got to town.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Gil. Everybody tells him everything.”

  “Why was Gil talking about Gypsy? And me?”

  Shane just smirked. Yep. Matchmaking.

  “Give it up,” he said. “Gypsy has mentioned more than once that she wants a completely normal life, that’s nothing like the world she grew up in. Believe me, one thing I’m not is normal.”

  “She’s just saying that. She’s already bored; everyone who knows her can see that.”

  Maybe. But was he really the one who should try to un-bore her? With the baggage he carried around on his very palms, he hated to drag any woman into his world, much less one who wanted calm reliability above all things.

  “Enough about Gypsy Bell,” he said as he spied the exit for Ocean Whispers. He glanced into his review mirror. “Let’s give the clown behind us something to report.”

  “Don’t do anything dumb.”

  He laughed out loud. “Look who’s talking.”

  His uncle feigned offense. “Hey, quitting Doowe, Cheatem, and Howe to run away with the carnival with my dream man was not dumb.”

  “Definitely not.”

  He couldn’t even imagine his uncle living any other life. Nor could he picture his own life without the stable pair growing up. Gil had been as much a parent to him as Shane had. He’d never seen a happier, more committed couple. And if anybody tried to criticize them, Mick was prepared to kick some ass. Without gloves so he’d have secrets to hit with, as well as his fists.

  “But that’s not what I meant. Remember when you used to climb over the wall to see me when I was living with Satan? You know if he’d found out, he’d have had you thrown in jail.”

  Shane looked over at him. “I’d have done it every weekend if you’d let me.”

  “I needed you on the outside to help me get out,” Mick said, remembering those furtive visits that had helped him survive as a kid.

  He and Shane had worked out a signal whenever his uncle wasn’t on the road, involving a kite stuck in a tree outside the gates. It had seemed like cloak-and-dagger, TV stuff, but Mick had looked forward to those stolen visits like he’d never looked forward to anything. At least until they’d almost gotten caught when he was thirteen. Then he’d put an end to them, not willing to risk Shane’s future—or his own—for the sake of a few minutes of stolen happiness.

  “Maybe,” Shane said, brooding. “But it took too damn long. I’m still sorry about that.”

  Mick shrugged. “I survived. You stayed out
of jail. Happily ever after and all that shit.”

  “Wrong. The happily-ever-after usually comes after the villain is eaten by the dragon or something else as inappropriately brutal for five-year-olds to watch.”

  True. Cartoons and animated movies had a lock on good comeuppances for their villains. Mick had certainly fantasized as a kid about his grandfather falling off a cliff or getting an anvil dropped on his head.

  “Maybe he’ll just be smacked down by Gypsy,” he said.

  Uncle Shane chuckled. “If anybody could do it, she could.”

  “Okay, let’s put the fear of God into this asshole while we can,” Mick said, his eyes on the rearview. Pulling into a well-lit truck stop near the interstate, he added, “Why don’t you fill us up and I’ll go inside. Give me a nod when you see him coming in.”

  “Real cloak and dagger stuff. I’d prefer to just go over and beat the snot out of him.”

  “It’s not his fault he has a rotten employer.”

  “You can’t pick your family, as you well know. But you can sure as hell pick who you work for.”

  True. But Mick wasn’t about to say anything that would incite his uncle to violence.

  With a shrug, Shane got out of the car, heading for the pump, while Mick went inside. He stood in a crowded front corner, by the window, half-obscured behind a machine lazily churning wrinkled hot dogs over steaming rollers, and a case full of stale, day-old donuts. It didn’t take long for Shane to glance at him and slowly nod.

  “Bingo,” he muttered. The private security guy—a P.I.?—hadn’t waited ninety seconds to follow him inside, proving his interest was in Mick and not in Uncle Shane. No big surprise there.

  He waited until the man neared the door. Then, walking casually, glancing at items on the shelves geared toward tourists and truckers, he approached the back hallway that led to the restrooms. He could practically feel the stranger’s eyes on his back, boring in, taking note of his every movement.

  Well, maybe not every movement. In that rear corridor, there were shower facilities for the long-distance guys; a few of them were visibly empty. He ducked into the nearest one. Almost smiling, he pulled off a single glove, tucking it, and his bare hand, into the pocket of his jeans. A few thoughts tried to intrude—the thread, the fabric, the production line, the stock boy, the sales clerk. Having worn these comfortably soft jeans many times, he easily ignored them.

  Footsteps. Heavy and slow. Those clicking shoes sounded hard-soled, not like the comfortable, rubber-soled type a man on the road fourteen hours a day would choose. The guy was not at all good at blending in.

  The footsteps slowed even further, to a cautious trudge. The stalker had lost sight of Mick and was being careful, probably planning to peer into every shower room with an open door.

  He reached the first one. Mick grabbed his arm and stepped out.

  The chief’s gonna kill me for this if she finds out. I might lose my job.

  Jesus, the guy was a cop. One of Gypsy’s men. Mick had gotten that thought the moment he’d touched the dark-haired stranger’s cuff.

  Immediately dropping his arm, Mick tried to deal with the unexpected information.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the man asked, trying to bluff his way out of the confrontation. “Get away from me.”

  Eyes narrowed and jaw tense, Mick edged close to the guy, and hit him with what he knew. “Why are you following me, Officer?” he asked, wondering why the chief—Gypsy Bell?—would ‘kill’ her officer if she ‘found out.’

  That could be viewed two ways: that the cop was acting on somebody else’s orders and he was afraid she’d find out. Or he was acting on hers and was afraid he might have screwed up.

  There was no doubt which explanation he preferred to believe.

  Would she really put one of her men on his tail? He hated to think that. They’d come a long way in the past couple of days from their adversarial relationship of the past.

  But it was possible. Maybe she suspected him of something. Maybe he was the only one who felt like there could be some kind of personal connection building between them, despite what he’d just said to Uncle Shane.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, buddy,” the older guy responded. His face had reddened, and his eyes had widened in shock, whether because he’d thought he was so great at trailing someone, or because he’d never imagined he’d be identified as a cop, Mick didn’t know.

  “Don’t play dumb.” Mick glowered. “You’re shit at surveillance. I picked you up hours ago, right after I left the carnival. You trailed me all the way up to Savannah and parked right down the street from my building.”

  The cop gulped. Mick didn’t have to touch his jacket to know what he was thinking right now. Busted.

  “Now, I want to know why.” He lifted his bare hand, fingers spread, palm out. “I guarantee you, I’m going to find out, one way or another.”

  The stranger looked at Mick’s hand. Whoever he was, he knew something about Mick’s rumored abilities. Enough to make him take a quick step away. “I’m not bothering you.”

  Mick followed, again invading the other man’s personal space, keeping up the pressure. “But you are following me.”

  “Just doing a job.”

  “For who?”

  Gypsy? Or his grandfather?

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You don’t look like you’re on duty.”

  The tall man appeared irritated to have been ID’d as a cop. “There’s no law against me taking private security work on my own time.”

  Grandfather. Thank God.

  The idea that Gypsy might have doubted him, or suspected him of something, had struck him hard in the gut. Used to other people’s skepticism, he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if she’d been watching him, investigating him. But he would have been pretty damned bothered about it.

  “Tell Monty that if I choose to visit my uncles, that’s my business, and not his. I’ll be in Ocean Whispers as long as I want, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

  The cop’s jaw fell open.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Are you new to the job or something? If so, you’ll soon discover I’m my grandfather’s biggest obsession. Well, second biggest. First is his money.”

  “I’m not…I didn’t…”

  “Just stay away from me, officer.” He could have touched him again, gotten his name, his rank, his badge number, his home address, hell, his shoe size. But he didn’t, not liking to use those mind-reading abilities against people any more than he had to. The Ocean Whispers Police Department was very small. He would describe the guy to Gypsy and she’d be able to identify him. He strongly suspected she had no idea one of her officers was moonlighting for the biggest prick in the county.

  “Also, please tell my grandfather that if he doesn’t back off, he’ll be getting a restraining order from my attorneys.” He slowly pulled on his glove. “Make that, another restraining order.”

  He didn’t say another word; he didn’t need to. Instead, with a slight nod, he brushed past his inept follower, leaving him to stew in the juices of his own failure. Mick wondered who he was more worried about: his nighttime employer, or his daytime one.

  Frankly, Mick would put his money on Chief Gypsy Bell. She had more smarts, and more guts, in her right pinky than Montgomery Tanner had in his whole, sorry body.

  Chapter 7

  Mick looked ready to kill someone. Well, no, not someone. There were two viable candidates in this room.

  Tuesday’s meeting with Montgomery Tanner and his attorney was off to a great start.

  “Are you sure I can’t have some coffee brought in for anybody?” asked the lawyer, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced across his chest.

  Richard Fremantle was, as Gypsy had expected, arrogant and smug in his Hugo Boss suit and his Gucci shoes. His teeth were capped, his thinning hair in the midst of a plug-job, his voice hearty and his face florid. Although
Gypsy had seen the lawyer around town, she had never interacted with him. She suspected he’d relocated here only at Monty Tanner’s request, and that Tanner was his one and only client. Judging by the opulence of the office, which occupied a historic house on a downtown square of Ocean Whispers, there was enough Tanner business to keep him in those suits and shoes.

  “No, thank you,” she repeated, hoping to finally get to the point.

  They’d been kept waiting in the vestibule for fifteen minutes in a remember-who’s-boss display of power. Once they’d been ushered into Fremantle’s office, and realized Mick’s grandfather was already inside, the simmering tension had gone up ten degrees. This was so obviously all a setup to get grandson and grandfather in the same room. She honestly didn’t think the attorney or the millionaire gave a damn that two local men had been murdered.

  Monty Tanner she had met before. It was hard to be the Chief of Police of a town as small as Ocean Whispers without butting heads with a rich man who thought he owned it. He’d ordered her to arrest people lingering too close to his gates, and to shut down a restaurant that played music too loud on weekends. The fact that he didn’t get what he wanted probably meant he’d be pushing the next town council to replace her. But…screw it. She didn’t like bullies.

  Mick had done a good job hiding his rising anger, keeping his expression neutral, and gazing out the window as if he wasn’t even in the meeting. That had been tough, considering the provocation. The minute they’d sat down, Tanner had begun demanding his grandson’s attention, and his obedience. Now, after a solid five minutes of old-man griping, Mick’s face had finally begun to show its tension. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair, his jaw was granite-cracking hard, his teeth visibly grinding.

  She hated that he had to go through this, and wanted to stick earplugs in her own ears. The spoiled, rich old man just wouldn’t shut up. Barely able to get a word in, she hadn’t even asked a half-dozen questions yet.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Monty snapped, his red face almost glowing. “You can’t just pretend I don’t exist, Michael.”