It felt like a brand new day after receiving his text confirming his arrival. Hopefully, he would have the jetlag issue under control and would be as fresh as my new Layla bamboo sheets, so perfect for the desert.
I ordered finger foods to be delivered. Ample selections of seafood to fruits to meats and cheeses. Sauces were a given. Incredible messy sauces to be spread across the new sheets.
And then I recognized the caller even as it came in as unknown. One of those feelings. And the number always changed.
“ANTHONY BIBBIONE. I THOUGHT we agreed to part on friendly terms,” I said. Like, no more contact.
“This is a friendly call and I’m parked outside of your office building. Will you meet me for a cup of coffee at your friendly corner bistro?”
Ten minutes later I was again in front of a monster that had saved my life. Steaming cappuccinos were poured alongside the platter of biscotti and croissants that already graced the table.
He stood and bowed.
The godfather of Mafioso crime in Tucson just bowed to me. I took it as no more than good manners and sat my butt down on the seat across from him.
“It’s good to see you, and alive and well,” he said.
Cautious, but having no bad intuitions, I reached for the mug of steaming coffee and sipped. Extra bold Italian.
“My message is short, Ms. Clark. I’ve come to you with a warning.”
My eyebrows arched and I sat the mug down on the wobbly wood table. “I’m listening.”
He scooted away from the table to stretch out his long legs. His fancy Salvatore Ferragamo tasseled shoes were buffed to resemble a shade of amber polished glass.
“Rumor has it that you might be mixed-up with a substantial estate and some nasty business.”
“You understand that rumors have no place within the law, and largely they only play havoc in private.”
“We would be talking about the Paul Childs’ family trust.”
I shrugged and felt a disturbing O.J. Simpson twitch at my temples betraying deception. “Okay. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. It’s a family trust, and yes, the rumor is correct.”
There was no reason why I should bother asking him where he received that information. We had kept a tight lid on it. Bibbione always had his ways and had his answers.
He ceremoniously took a biscotti, broke it in half, and dipped the chocolate dipped end into the coffee. Then he sipped. And watched me. And sipped.
I could play that game and sipped. The only thing I couldn’t match was Bibbione’s habit of combing his perfectly groomed mustached with his fingernails.
“I like you, Cassidy. I want you to watch your back when it comes to Isidora Childs and her son, Hunter, as I can’t always be there.”
“What and why?”
“Meet me a week from today, Monday. Say, noon?”
“But, I’m here now.”
Bibbione glanced at the fancy timepiece on his wrist and rose to his feet. “Time constraints. And, I need to know you trust me. I can pick you up here or at your house.”
The crime lord, God knows responsible for how many lives that ended in brutality, had saved mine.
“I’ll be in front of my office. Noon. Don’t try to get into my pants or slit my throat.”
He let out a bellowing laugh. Another bow and he disappeared with his two thugs. Real bodyguards, I thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
STACIE CHILDS PARADED the narrow halls of her home. Her father had given her carte blanche on choosing the real estate as he had with all of his children. No downtown condo with a rooftop swimming pool for her and no pretentious and over-priced home in the foothills. Stacie chose the quality of the land over the home.
Her mother, Claudia, insisted on choosing the famed interior designer, Yarnu, from Yarnu. How convenient. She never bought it.
She knew she was no match for her mother. Stacie didn’t care that the wood furniture was largely from Malaysia and hadn’t been adapted to the arid desert. She knew it had begun cracking and she could toss it, absent of her mother’s eyes. Even for the desert and its happy colors, Stacie found these colors too bright and the patterns too busy. They’d be gone.
She complied when she should. Being a spoiled little daughter came with a price.
There was a rap at her kitchen door. That would be her neighbor, Jen, and one of her only friends that often helped out with all of the animals. Although not close, they enjoyed each other’s company as they both lived somewhat remotely, and Stacie appreciated any help she could get. Dusk had taken her by surprise and she had a lot of livestock to move around for the night.
After the emu had been corralled and all of the animals had fresh water, the women went inside and washed their hands.
Stacie opened a bottle of a rich Malbec and produced two wine glasses. She rummaged through her refrigerator for anything healthy, as she knew her neighbor was a health nut. Pushing aside the chocolate syrup and maraschino cherries, the leftover pizza, the new pecan pie, and the case of sodas, she finally gave up and reached into the pantry for an old jar of peanuts, dumped the few remains in a bowl, and sat them out.
They took seats at the kitchen table and Stacie poured while Jen, who had just received the final papers for her divorce, berated the sunovabitch she had once loved. She went on to discuss her urinary tract infection and finished her update with a report on her son, who had just been kicked out of UCLA for pimping out freshmen girls.”
“Ouch. That’s rough,” Stacie said.
Jen said, “I’ve spilled my ugly guts. Now, tell me. What’s going on with your nasty family trust business?”
Stacie’s eyes rose to sweep the ceiling. “It’s a swamp of evil. I have two dead siblings and no one can tell me their deaths have anything to do with the damn trust, but no one can tell me they don’t.”
Stacie knocked off the bowl of peanuts on her way to reaching for her wine glass. She dropped to the floor to clean up the mess, and then she remembered it. She used her hands to get up and slide back into her chair.
“What the hell? You look freaked out. It’s just peanuts and I live by the five-second rule,” Jen joked.
Stacie held her arms up near her head to signal she needed a moment. Jen poured more wine.
Damn, Stacie thought. Could I have been out of my mind? I must have been drunk, or nosey, or both. She had remembered Seth’s visit and snagging his wallet off of the floor. She’d hidden it in a cushion only later to retrieve it and toss it into one of her bottom kitchen cabinets. She had forgotten about it. Had he?
No. Not Seth. He had a life of rituals. Everything in its place and a place for everything. Stacie considered the time she snooped inside his closet to find all of his suits hanging, perfectly spaced, by order of color. His slacks, sport coats and shirts hung equally arranged.
“What, kiddo?” Jen coaxed.
As best as she could with a frayed memory, Stacie recounted the events of the night of Seth’s visit, to include snatching the wallet and ditching it.
“Damn, honey, I thought he’s your favorite sibling,” Jen said.
“He was. He is,” Stacie wailed. “I have no idea what got into me. He had told me that he wasn’t really staying with me. He only came over for the short time and he had a place to stay. Elsewhere. I’d cleaned the sheets and fluffed the pillows in the guest room, and he told me he’d be on his way. It’s like I became a pickpocket in the moment. I don’t remember anything but that he hugged me and said goodnight.”
“Well, I’m here and I’m gonna watch you sit your butt down in front of that cabinet and retrieve the thing.”
Stacie sat on the kitchen floor and opened up the cabinet door. When she didn’t see the wallet her face turned ashen and her lower lip began to tremble. “It’s not here.”
She scooted away from the cupboard as Jen sat down next to her with their two glasses of wine.
Stacie knew she had never been in that cupboard for any reason and neither would her hou
sekeeper. It housed kitchen appliances, all given to her by misguided friends and her mother. Her eyes glanced over the contents and she saw the stand mixer, a food processor, the copper fondue pot that her mother insisted was a family heirloom but Stacie had discovered the inconspicuous sales sticker. Expensive, but brand new.
“Oh, my God, look at this,” Stacie giggled.
“The wallet?”
“No.” Stacie pulled out the box of two escargot dishes.”
“What’s so funny. They look lovely,” Jen said.
“The night Seth came over he brought escargot. I told him I didn’t have any escargot dishes so we made do with a muffin tin.”
“What’s hysterical is that you even had a muffin tin,” Jen roared.
“And no wallet.”
“Maybe you just dreamed the whole thing.’
Stacie found it odd that her hands were shaking. She started to stand as her eyes peered into the cupboard one last time. She then saw the sliver of black, about four inches long.
She handed her wine glass to Jen and rolled out the lower shelf.
And there it was, wedged between the roll-out shelf and the side panel.
She snagged it and jumped up, with the wallet firmly in her grasp.
Stacie turned to Jen, still sitting on the floor, and said, “I guess it wasn’t a dream after all. I’m a fucking pickpocket.”
Stacie reclaimed her chair and placed the black alligator wallet squarely in front of her while Jen poured the last of the wine. Stacie didn’t want to muck up her brain any more.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Jen finally said, “Well, do something. You took the wallet, you have the wallet, and your brother must have no idea you have it.”
Stacie threw her arms across the table to reach for her friend’s hands and said, “I must have been dumbass drunk. I mean, why the hell did I snatch it from, as you said, the one sibling I adore?”
“Maybe you were just trying to play a trick on him and later forgot about it. Now do something about it.”
Stacie rolled her head in a full circle and listened to the pops of tension. Her fingers gently tapped on the wallet.
“I’ll send it back to Seth. I can blame my crappy housekeeper who just found it.”
“And before you do that?” Jen said.
Stacie took two deep breaths. She then opened the wallet.
“Watcha got?” Jen said, nudging with a wide grin and sparkles in her eyes.
“Okay. On the left is a row of credit cards that you can bet have all been canceled, and on the right is the plastic window for his driver’s license and a pocket for his business cards.”
She pulled out the cards and noticed that there were several of Seth’s, but also six from other people. Stacie quickly deduced that they must be Seth’s clients or prospects wanting to get into the stock market. She pulled out the driver’s license and felt a little less guilty that it would be expiring in the next month. Behind the license was another card marked ICE. In case of emergency. She recognized Seth’s chicken-scratch handwriting with the name of his wife, Chloe, and her phone numbers and address. She opened up the money pocket. She removed the contents and placed it on the table as Jen shuffled her chair closer.
“Only forty bucks?” Jen said. “And traveling?”
“Guess he preferred to use his cards.” She opened up two receipts. One came from the shop where he had bought the escargot and bread, and another evidenced the fact that he spared no expense on the purchase of the wine.
“Geez. Well, wasn’t this exciting,” Jen said after letting out a belly laugh. “See? No harm done.”
Stacie said nothing as she stared down at the one last compartment. A zippered pouch. Jen had it right. Stacie would just mail back the wallet with an apology for the delay in discovering it.
With her heartbeat now slower and her hands on her lap, she took inventory of the not-so-riveting contents of the wallet, along with trying to own up to the fact that she swiped the damn thing.
She then fingered the zipper, caught it, and unzipped the side pocket. She retrieved a single business card.
“Boring,” Jen said, getting up to toss the empty bottle.
Maybe, Stacie thought. Why wasn’t this card with the other random cards? She examined it closer. The Adams Group, L.L.C. A certified public accountant and the name, Melanie Adams, along with the usual business phone number and a downtown address. Now, why the hell did Seth have the card of a Tucson C.P.A.?
“Do you have a recycle bin, baby?”
Silence.
“Hey! Cat got your tongue. Do you have a recycle bin?” Jen repeated, swatting at the air with the wine bottle.
“Second cupboard left of the dishwasher,” Stacie barked.
“You don’t have to snap at me. What is it?” Jen tossed the bottle into the overflowing trash can and crossed back toward Stacie.
Stacie moved the business card over toward her. “Maybe Seth is a rat, playing it all cool while he hires someone to look into the ramifications of the trust deal.”
Jen picked up the card. “Maybe you have a sunovabitch, too.”
Stacie looked up at Jen and saw the back of the card. “Give me that back”
Jen shrugged and handed the card over to Stacie.
“Look at this. It’s Seth’s handwriting. The name Meg, and a different phone number and what must be a home address.
“And look at this,” Stacie said, removing her thumb from the corner of the card to reveal the masterpiece, likely drawn with colored pencils. A heart, but not any ordinary heart. This one had perfectly drawn stars shooting out of it and was topped off with a sunburst bearing a smiling face.
Seth was a lot of things but he was no artist.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
STACIE SAT WHIMPERING on the hard Saltillo tile floor in the corner of her kitchen at three in the morning.
She felt it. Something bad was coming, but would it come for her? She knew she was no Cassidy Clark, but she also knew to recognize the senses that stormed through her body.
She worried about Mason. His behavior of late had been erratic, at best. Even cleaned up, he wore a fragile shroud of constant sorrow. His lips were cracked. His cheeks had become sallow with dark shadows made more obvious against his fair skin.
He’d probably be the next top contender, she thought, in this wicked game called a family trust, unless he totally fucked it up. In the realm of possibilities.
Stacie had to use her hands and arms to lift herself off of the cold floor. Vulnerability was not in her vocabulary, so she thought as she checked her doors and windows and alarm system.
Only months ago she would have been carefree and eager for a midnight swim. Instead, she poured herself another drink. Oh. Yes. Cheap gin. Her mother would never approve.
She had met a man that caught her fancy and they would have exchanged cards but Stacie didn’t even have a card. What the hell had she done with her life that she didn’t even carry a business card? Daddy’s little girl? That’s all she could think of as her title. She did take the man’s card, and noted he was an interior designer. Maybe that would make things right in her world redoing her own home the way she wanted it, and land a designer friend with benefits. What could go wrong?
Oh, yes. Her mother, Stacie thought.
Climbing into bed, she turned on a rerun of Jeopardy. She never came up with one correct answer but she tried. Stacie failed to turn off the television as she drifted off to sleep with a little help from chasing the rot gut gin with the Klonopin. Prescribed, of course.
Her life needed new direction.
I RE-READ ALL OF THE files on the two deaths of the Childs brothers. I never warmed up to our new chief of police who wore female pride to the ball-busting bitch extreme. She had tightened up some screws, for sure, and officers were quitting in droves. The department was reduced to running ads in the papers and online for new candidates. I had my old buddy, the retired chief of police. He still had friends on the
department and that’s how I acquired copies of the police reports. Complete and flimsy files.
Schlep came to join me poolside for his ritualistic meeting. He’d swim a few laps, dry off and grab a glass of the fresh squeezed juice from grapefruit I had just picked off my tree. I had poured the juice, but rather than the swim and then sitting down next to me, he remained standing and rubbed his temples. There was something different about him. He either wore an after-sex glow or he’d found something for us.
“Let’s go back to your den where we can use the big monitor,” he said as he gulped down his juice and slammed the empty glass down on the table.
Schlep rushed to the office and commanded my desk chair. I let him take over and he quickly inserted his flash drive while he hummed a happy tune. I pulled an extra chair next to him.
“Here are my findings on the Angela Fine drowning incident.”
He started scrolling through his lengthy report. I tried to keep up with him while perusing what he had on the screen as his humming morphed into an annoying outburst of the lyrics to High Hopes.
He spewed the report findings out, “Bad weather. Accident. Boat retrieved from bottom of lake. Coroner’s report concludes accidental drowning. Victim’s lungs full of water. Large bump on back of skull likely caused by blow to the head with victim hitting it on the boat.”
I sighed and said, “Not exactly what I was hoping to learn.”
“Hey, I know you feel things and hear things and that’s why you wanted me to dig into this. Now look! Look at the first responder’s report under comments,” he urged.
“I would if you’d pull the damn thing up,” I said, holding my wrists behind my neck while I wanted to wring his.
“Gosh. Sorry. But this is important.” He pulled up the report.
I immediately looked at the comment section.
“Shit. And so it is. J.D.L R.”
“Yup. Code for Just Doesn’t Look Right. The cop wasn’t sure and he wasn’t in a position to do anything more than just note that it seemed like there could be something he might have been missing.”
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