SETH CHILDS KNEW his working years may be numbered, but for now he began his days on Wall Street at dawn and returned home after sunset.
The long hours tore him away from his family. He hated that, but he had to build up his own personal portfolio in order to provide for his family long term. That included any care he may need. His focus remained on his wife and their twin sons.
While trying to remain with it in every moment while on the floor when the stock market bells sounded the opening and the closing, Seth understood the grim truth. He wasn’t with it in all of life’s moments.
He had purchased a home in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains on the north side of Tucson, and his wife and twins helped with every effort in planning the move. The twins didn’t realize his medical diagnosis, Seth was certain, but they seemed thrilled to leave the big city and become little desert rats.
Seth worked out at the nearby gym every other evening. This was not something he would have ever done when healthy, to be so late to have dinner with his family, but he excused himself and his wife indulged him.
That night, he did some simple cardio workouts, tackled some weight machines, and finished his physical daily treatment in the sauna, trying to sweat out the bad and breathe in the good.
A Friday night, the club activity thinned as members opted for the bars and restaurants. Their reward for a good week of working out. Seth liked it that way. Friday night was his preferred night. He was later than usual, the desk clerk making note of his time of arrival and calling him a stupid stud that needed a life. Presumably, a joke.
“Hey, my brain is failing,” Seth said with a warm grin.
“If I could only be you,” the clerk said, unaware of the truth.
Seth looked at the wall clock after his usual routine. He should call his wife, Chloe. He didn’t realize it was so late, but one sauna and he’d shower and make the call.
He didn’t take his infrared saunas too hot, keeping them at about 120 degrees or below. No one else around. He dropped his Turkish towel and sat on the wood boards while the sauna heated.
A clicking sound? Maybe.
No one came around. No one peered into the single tiny window at the door of the hot therapy room.
Seth sat and enjoyed the rich woody scent as the heat eased out every drop of moisture in the spruce wood that comprised the surrounding walls and benches.
He meditated. That was his favorite thing to do. He couldn’t think clearly on the floor of the stock market, and he couldn’t think so clearly at home, but he excelled in meditation in nature, and in NYC outside of the busy parks, the sauna was his only source of refuge. He owned it. It was his time. His space. His destiny. Seth understood that his meditation practice may just keep him linked into his world but for a little while longer.
A loud click. No one there.
Seth felt the room becoming uncomfortably hot. Sweating out toxins became sweating out his own breath, but without inhaling.
He moved toward the door, clumsily grabbing his towel to wrap around his waist and then, not caring what may be found, he dropped to the floor.
“Just find me. Someone. Even if it’s my Lord, please find me quickly,” he whimpered to the whispers of dried wood that might be listening as he inhaled the odor of the desiccated hot floor.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
BREECIE WALTZED INTO my den. I had splayed my body across the Recamier, with my laptop open and my eyes closed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were sleeping.”
“Not to worry. If anything, I’m only practicing sleeping.”
“How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“Slow to heal and fast to grow frustrated. I have everything I need,” I said, pointing to Finnegan and Phoebe curled up on the lounger at my feet.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Oh, and the pickleball game you told me not to go to that day. Do you know why orthopedic surgeons love pickleball?”
I closed my laptop and laid it on the floor, giving Breecie my full attention. I shrugged.
Breecie yanked on her long black ponytail and laughed. “Because they can afford second homes.” She cranked her neck to the side and side, “My partner found a sub for me that day. A good player. She took a fall with a wicked ball coming her way. Dislocated her knee and broke her ankle. The surgeon told her it’s his favorite sport, and his patients’ least favorite.”
“Glad to hear,” I said.
“Uh oh. You really don’t want to talk.”
“I don’t want to chitchat.”
“I’ll come back after a swim.”
“Come sit down by me,” I said, hearing the irk in my own voice.
“The bruises, Breecie. That particular shade of eggplant might have turned to a dirty lavender on your wrists, but I’m guessing there are darker ones on your body. What gives?”
Breecie stood up and for a fleeting moment and I thought she was going to leave. I think she did, too.
Instead, she crossed to the bank of drawn window blinds and raised them, one at a time. She turned back to me, her eyes piercing mine. I watched as one lone tear form and begin to trickle down her sallow cheek.
And then, she stripped. One article of clothing at a time, disregarded to the floor. She stood before me in her nakedness, bruised and battered and with her eyes no longer looking away from me.
Still a bit somnolent but fully able, I stood and pulled her body back toward mine on the lounge chair.
I covered her slender body with one of my mother’s crocheted afghans and held herself against me for the longest time. I let her whimper.
Breecie didn’t know that my sixth sense had been fully restored as I lost my sense of smell. She didn’t know I knew exactly what this maniacal politician-wannabe did to her, and she didn’t know I had every intention of ending his wrath because Breecie wasn’t his first victim. This much I knew. This man, a demon, would come down.
It had been a while. Sometimes I don’t like what I know and I don’t like what I know I need to do.
Pfft. This guy was dirt and going down.
ANTHONY BIBBIONE SUGGESTED we meet at the food truck.
I laughed. No fancy limousine this time.
Attentive to my perfect order, he said, “How is my little friend?”
“Don’t fuck with me. Ibiza? My guy?”
We stood outside the cart. Two rickety tables and wobbly chairs managed to host imbibers of the amazing food, and with no complaints.
Bibbione stood a clear foot taller than me. Somehow, I always felt the even playing field, and I tell you, he did, too.
“I confirm that there is no known death of your lover. May I go on with the truth as I know it?”
This animal, this monster of the mob, asked me for permission to feel pain.
I shrugged.
“Protocol with tourists. Rape them with experimental drugs. It’s what they do.
“Cassidy, are you sure you want me to continue?”
I pierced his dark obsidian eyes with mine. Did that damn turtle thing where my shoulders raise up and my head seemingly sinks into the caverns of my chest.
“The way this works is that there are many wronged experiments, and deaths are numerous but obscured from the books, if you will. The sea. The dismemberment. It’s all too easy. The member pits that exist after your civil war? The bones? Limbs? It’s nothing like that. This isn’t even a tomb of ashes. This is nothing. A vast sea of secrets never to be told.
“I am sorry. Your friend’s story will never be told.”
I let it go. I would be in my lover’s arms again.
What I couldn’t let go of was the nagging knowing that Bibbione was entering my territory. I didn’t know what that meant. It didn’t seem scary. Just absurd.
My intuition screeched around corners toward imaginary finish lines with glossy ribbons waiting for me to burst through, with my arms in the air above my head. I had something within rea
ch. Hot damn time.
I called Schlep.
“Your wish,” he said.
“Oops. Kinda late. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Your wish is my command,” he finished.
“Something about that stupid maid. Way in the beginning of this damn Childs’ case. Do you remember her? Tripped out of that house right in front of me?”
“I remember.”
“And something about the photos. I took photos of the photos, Schlep. That garage I broke into. The one with the Harleys. I need those photos pulled up.”
“What am I looking for, Cassidy?”
“Dunno. Just pull it all back up into our circle of relevance.”
“You coming in this morning?” Schlep asked.
“I have a meeting here with a friend. Best you not come over for your swim this morning.”
“One more thing,” Schlep said. The black SUV that’s been watching your home. It belongs to Anthony Bibbione’s fleet.
BREECIE RECEIVED MY EMAIL. Funny. She lived in the guest house on one quarter of my grounds and yet I communicate by email. The thing is, I have the program. I know she opened the email that requested that she meet me out by the pool for coffee, juice, and croissants.
“How are you doing?” she asked as she joined me poolside clothed in a red silk kimono.
“Dizziness is gone. Headaches are infrequent. I’m ready to roll. How are you?”
“Managing.”
“And, by managing, does that mean you’re covering up all of those bruises when you head to court?”
Breecie froze. She dropped her coffee to the table and for the first time, in a long time, she looked up at me.
“I have a problem.”
“We can take care of the man, but maybe you can go back to your responsibility in all of this.”
Breecie brought her shoulders upright and trained her eyes on mine. “You have it back. You know! Your knowings.”
“Talk to me. You might as well.”
“Monthly tabs. That’s when you know you’re in trouble, you know. I kept monthly tabs on my sexual conquests. Strangers. Old colleagues. Married. Widowed.Young or old. I don’t care. I don’t care if I miss a deposition if I can get the next guy in bed. I’ve lost it, Cassie. And this last time, I played the wrong card. It got a little rough.”
“This man will be taken care of and he will never hurt another woman. As for you, you shall listen to me. This sexual addiction of yours, and that is what it is, is fueled by a need to fill an emptiness inside of you. I can’t help you. You’ve had it rough. You lost the man of your dreams. Your unborn child. But, fuck that. You have everything. Get your ass into SAA.”
“What?”
“You heard me. SAA. Sex Addicts Anonymous. I’ve sent a client there. They can help you. And baby, you are going to do this or wind up disbarred, broken or worse, dead.”
“I don’t think you should go after this guy that sort of hurt me,” Breecie said. “I played a role.”
“Too late.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
I RECOGNIZED THE AREA CODE. New York calling, and likely that would be Seth Childs.
The woman’s stilted breath caught me off guard. As if she had to take a breath in for every word she expelled, I felt her pain. I was speaking to Seth Childs’ wife, Chloe.
“He’ll be fine,” she conveyed. “They found him in a locked sauna. This means nothing and everything. Someone meant for his death. Do you understand me, Ms. Clark?”
A lonely divorcee had nothing to do one late night and made his way into the club. Not so successful on the weight machines, he had tried to enter the sauna. As the doors didn’t open he alerted the staff that he thought he had made out a body splayed out across the floor of the room swathed, barely, in a white towel.
“This would be an attempted murder, Ms. Cassidy,” said Seth Childs’ wife. “You, of all people understand this. The locals here are calling it an accident. A misfortune. You know better. Now, I reach out to you as does my husband, and he’s still with us. He knows what has happened to him. He is fully lucid at most times. Do you understand me?” Her voice drifted off into stiff crusts of verbiage. It was cold in New York. I could hear it in her voice. The home would be well heated, but the icicles in her throat conveyed emotions that nothing could warm.
“I don’t know what you mean. Talk to me.”
“You will not say a word?”
“Of course.”
“My husband has Alzheimer’s. It isn’t known in the family. No one knows this. I think the board of trustees handing down this golden business crown do know, or at least they know Seth is not a candidate to inherit the family jewels, but no family member knows this. Of this, I am certain.”
I asked her if they were in danger.
Negative. She would not let danger near her, her husband, nor her children. And she warned that there was nothing legal she could or would do at this time.
“And what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t like her, but I’m glad Stacie hired you. Just pay attention. I’ll take care of my man. I trust that you understand his situation is most private. And, we’ll be moving back to Tucson before the finalization of the family trust. The moving van will be here in two weeks. No one knows this, either.”
Okay. It appears that the entire remains of the Childs’ family tree had weak roots, no solid trunk or sturdy branches, synthetic leaves, and no viable sustenance for long-term survival.
BIBBIONE ENGAGED THE SERVICES of a new attorney. They both knew what they were up against. One bad ass going after another bad ass. Nothing too legal and the illegalities were well obscured under the veils of what only great wealth could buy.
The freshly hired attorney would bring justice to the bitch that had delivered this dead bird to his door front. His stupid competition hadn’t even considered the vault of invisible security that armed his property.
In his old ways and means, he might slay Isidora Childs’ not so adorable dog. But now, he had considerations.
The car he had sent arrived at his stables, where he had promised the attorney an afternoon of diligent fact-finding work, but only after a ride on his two finest white Arabian horses.
He hadn’t felt love in his heart in years. He hadn’t even felt the pang of urgent need in his groins.
This all changed as he assumed a quick stride to meet the limousine.
His driver performed the honors as Bibbione held a wide stance in his riding gear to watch this new woman emerge from the car.
Outstretched legs. No doubting her taste, she wore Franco Tucci custom riding boots with the Swarovski crystals. Her tight riding pants, belted waist, and thin silk top drove Bibbione’s eyes to move upward toward her perfectly sculpted face. Lipstick the color of claret and her eyes, as azure as the Ligurian Sea. Thick black hair had been pulled back into a chignon at the nape of a swan-like neck,
Yes. The rise in his pants told him he liked very much what he saw, but he vowed never to take this one as his prize. She would not be his possession like the others. She would be his legal partner in business and just maybe, something much more.
He waited for her to stand tall and cast her gaze toward him.
“Ms. Lemay. Breecie. I’m so glad to have you here. Welcome to my ranch.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“A helluva thing,” I said as I coerced Schlep into my office.
“I see the cat doesn’t have your tongue this morning,” he said as he waltzed in and took residence upon the closest chair.
“No. Get over here. I have to rearrange the furniture. I would have put it in our conference room but our outdoor garden is our only conference room.”
“Woah. And just how big is this new toy of yours?”
The computer had a fifty-four inch screen and more or less overwhelmed my private office.
Schlep wheeled a chair around toward me as I pulled up the image of the photographs I had captured from the garage when looking for the cheatin
g husband and the general manager of the Tucson Scorpions, Bill Michaels.
Not in any particular order, we had already presented the photographic goods to the wife that wanted proof Michaels had broken his marital vows. I’d heard that he’d moved out of their home and taken a rental downtown. Schelp watched as I went from image to another. Finally, I pulled up the photograph of the two men. Michaels and the other man I had thought seemed familiar.
“What am I looking at?” Schlep said as he cradled his head in the palm of his hands.
“The man standing next to Michaels has himself covered up pretty well with the sunglasses and the kerchief and cap but I ran the photo through our digital identity verification program. It’s Hunter Childs.”
“We know he’s a snake. We knew it. So, the two of them buddied up.”
“Keep looking, Mr. Brains,” I said.
“It’s not an Easter egg hunt. Give me something,” he whined.
“Look at the mirrored aviator sunglasses. After all, someone had to take the photograph. It’s too far away for a selfie stick. I should have known that.”
“Oh, am I believing what I’m seeing?”
“The gal behind the camera is none other than Isidora Childs.”
“Interesting. Not sure how the Michaels guy figures in, but I do have my own information for you. I finally dug up the dirt on the L.L.C., IHM Enterprises.”
“Go on,” I said, and now I was the one cupping my head in my palms.
“President. Isidora Childs. Vice-President. Hunter Childs. Secretary and treasurer. The seemingly deceased Manny Childs.
“And one more thing. Our client, Stacie Childs is now engaged to Bill Michaels, whose divorce it yet to be finalized.”
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