“And aren’t you glad I am? Who else could get you kidnapped out of a parking lot in the middle of the night?”
She rewarded him with a slow smile. “That wasn’t your fault. Sinclair was doing Duarte’s bidding.”
“The fact is you got involved in all this craziness because of my family.”
“I do like the way you saved me, giving up Dietrich like that.”
“Dietrich was nothing to me. You’re everything.”
“Aww.” She put a hand over her heart. “I’d forgotten how sweet you could be.”
“I’m a little out of practice.”
“It’s okay. I love to see you try to get the hang of it again.”
Shortly after six, they reached the Indigo house.
Jackson had already given everyone a heads up. With strict instructions to stay away from heavy duty topics like assassination plots and murder schemes, the family sat around the fire pit in the backyard drinking beer and roasting veggie and steak kabobs along with hot dogs. Lenore had made a huge bowl of mustard potato salad and a platter of deviled eggs.
“These are the best,” Raine muttered as she finished off half an egg in three bites and then started working her way up the kabob, starting with a tasty zucchini.
“Where’s Dominka these days?” Tessa asked Anniston, eyeing the green stubby fruit with a certain amount of suspicion before biting into her hot dog.
Anniston picked at the veggie kabob, looking at it from every angle, before breaking down and stuffing a hot dog in her mouth. “She left with Sebastian. Apparently she and my brother have become inseparable. She goes where he goes, thanks to Garret.”
Garret grinned. “I should go into the matchmaking business on the side, start a website pairing up soul mates, and charge a fortune for it.”
Anniston rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t see that Sebastian has anything in common with her except in the…you know…sack. She doesn’t even like Italian cooking. She barely eats anything except a salad. What’s she supposed to do at a Marcelli family gathering? My mother and grandmother aren’t exactly known for cooking light fare. So I give it another six months at most.”
Raine snickered. “Have you told Sebastian how you feel?”
“Are you kidding? He’s enamored, infatuated, whatever you call it.”
“Kind of like the professor with that diary,” Raine offered. “Where is Professor Bishop?”
Jackson drained his beer. “He’s taken the diary and closed himself off in what used to be my old room for some solitude and quiet deliberation.”
“Lots of luck with that with this crowd,” Garret sang out. “Most times, we make up a grocery list at the top of our lungs.”
By the time the cicadas came out to serenade them, the sun had made its way over the water. A few hungry mosquitos buzzed, then dive-bombed seeking to find a repellant-free patch of skin.
Mitch sat back in his lawn chair and listened to the byplay. He watched the day’s stress leave Raine’s body, layer by layer.
Surrounded by friends and family, there was something peaceful that settled over him. It was like a soothing song that played in his head, the refrain familiar but always there, never appreciated to the fullest, until right this moment.
He didn’t realize how he’d missed this. It was nothing spectacular or brilliant or fancy, but it was everything. Having his family around him now, the woman he loved, good friends, it was all coming together. The only thing missing was Livvy. Livvy wasn’t here to share his happiness, see his joy, or help guide him into a deeper understanding of what it all meant.
That, he realized, was the hole in his heart. No doubt, Raine filled a good chunk of that void.
When the pesky insects brought friends, doubling the size of their army, Mitch snatched Raine up out of her chair and pulled her inside to the kitchen.
“Tonight the Indigos proudly offer a series of movie choices from their selected stash. The only thing is they’re about a decade old. You get to pick from the kid’s menu, Finding Nemo, or Despicable Me. Then there’s a couple of my favorites—the action-packed sci-fi thriller, Terminator 3 or maybe The Matrix Reloaded.”
“If we’re watching Terminator 3, I want popcorn,” Raine proposed. “With lots of butter.”
“You just scarfed down three kabobs,” he pointed out. He looked her up and down. “Where do you put all that? Got a hollow leg I don’t know anything about?”
“The thing you have to realize about vegetables is they’re not as filling as you might think. Besides, movies, even the ones you load up at home, require popcorn. End of discussion.”
Mitch got down the pan and set it on the burner. He grabbed peanut oil from the pantry. “My mom doesn’t own one of those popcorn machines so it’s the old-fashioned method or not at all.”
“Even better. The old-fashioned way is best. I’ll do it. This is my favorite part.” She let the oil heat before dumping in a layer of corn. As soon as it started to pop, she moved the top over to allow the steam to escape. “It takes the moisture out of the corn making it a little drier and crunchier.”
Ten minutes later they took their snack into the living room and stretched out on the sofa to watch a string of their favorite movies just as they’d done in high school.
Jackson and Tessa wandered in during the credits, as did Anniston and Garret. When his mom and dad joined them, the smallish living room got even more crowded. Everyone wanted their share of the popcorn as greedy hands reached into the bowl. They bunched together just in time to see Schwarzenegger shoot his way out of a cemetery, also known as, how to turn a hearse into a convertible in ten easy shots using a blaster from the future.
For Mitch, sitting here like this with Raine, it was like a scene back in time, a step back to his younger self. He sat there wondering how many movies he’d watched with Raine just like this. He stopped counting when the number reached fifty. That last year of high school they’d been inseparable, doing everything together, going everywhere as a couple. What had he been thinking to take off and leave her, leave her at the whims of her mother, who’d forced her to step in and take the reins of a job she didn’t like?
He couldn’t keep his mind on the movie. Somewhere before the ending, Mitch drifted off to sleep. He woke to a blank screen on the TV, an empty living room, and a silent house. His mom and dad must’ve headed off to bed. The others must have gone, too. But where was Raine? Panic began to do a slow roll up his throat. He got to his feet, began a search of the kitchen, the hallway, the bathroom.
He found her on the front porch, legs tucked under her, sitting in the swing looking out into the front yard.
She glanced up at him, breathed in the night air, bursting with fragrant jasmine. “I had a nice time tonight. It took me coming out here for some solitude to clear my head before I figured out what you did in there. You knew exactly what I needed to get my mind off what happened this morning with my mom. Thank you for that.”
“What are friends for?”
“I thought you said you loved me?”
“Several times. Funny thing about that. You haven’t reciprocated using those same words. You’ve hinted around it. You’ve been grateful several times for me getting you off Duarte’s ship. It’s not the same thing.”
She let out a weary sigh. “We’ve been all through this. We keep circling around to the same issue. You know I can’t leave and you can’t stay. How many times do I have to say it?”
“I’m not asking for a decision about what’ll happen tomorrow. You of all people should know there are no guarantees in life. You lost our baby. You lost Danny. I’m asking you what’s in your heart, Raine? Tell me what’s in here.” He laid his hand over his chest, held his breath.
“I love you. I always have. I always will. I don’t see that changing. But—”
“No buts. That’s all I needed to know.” He held out his hand. “Come sleep with me tonight in my old room. It’ll be like a sleepover.”
; “Won’t your parents object to that?”
“I seriously doubt it. If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that life’s way too short to waste a single minute of it. Besides, I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
The smile she gave him made his heart flip in his chest.
“Yeah. Right. Where have I heard that before?”
“I keep trying to tell you. I’m no longer that same horny teen you knew in high school.”
She stood up, took his hand. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter Thirteen - Justice
At the bungalow across from the waterfront, Jackson rose early and stumbled into the kitchen to start breakfast. He fiddled with the coffee grinder. From there he was on automatic instinct to produce the strongest cup he could create.
The knock on the front door a few minutes before six had him reaching for the SIG pistol he favored, ever since purchasing the weapon from Michael Tang.
By the time he made his way to the living room, the knocking had turned to all-out pounding.
“Jackson, are you in there?”
He recognized the voice and looked through the peephole to see if she’d come alone. Turning the lock and opening the door, he stared at Wendy Hollister.
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“At six in the morning? You’re nuts.”
“Dave didn’t come home the other night.”
Jackson cocked a brow. “His home or yours?”
“What difference does it make? Okay his. I was at my own house at the time.”
“You mean the one you own with Nathan?”
“Do you want to hear me out or not?”
“This should be good. I’m holding my breath for the next installment,” Jackson mocked as he motioned for her to take a seat on the sofa.
Wendy took the offer but was so worked up, her legs were fidgeting like a drug addict’s might. “I called the bar where he was supposed to be. Darryl said he left with Baskin because he was too drunk to drive. Up to that point, he’d been texting me off and on all evening. After leaving with Baskin, nothing, no phone calls from him or texts. He didn’t make it home because I used my key around two-thirty to get into his house and he wasn’t there. His car wasn’t in the garage. He didn’t make it in to work the next day, either. That was two nights ago. I’m worried about him.”
Tessa appeared from the hallway still wearing her robe. “What’s going on?”
“It seems our distinguished mayor’s gone MIA,” Jackson explained. “Wendy was just getting to the good part.”
“I see,” Tessa said, although she really didn’t. “Why is she here in our house asking your help to find him? Shouldn’t she call our capable chief of police?”
He nodded. “I was just about to suggest that very thing. I’m sure Sinclair will write up the same kind of missing persons report he did for my sister’s family, for Nathan, and for Ryan Connelly. In case you haven’t heard, Wendy, we’ve had a rash of people going missing in this town lately. I’m sure Sinclair will be all over Dave’s disappearance.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wendy snapped. “You know exactly what’s been going on in this town, has been for years.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Do something,” Wendy shouted. “Find Dave before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“You’re just going to sit there and play games with me, aren’t you?”
“Not really. But it’s time you understand the situation completely. This entire house of cards is about to come tumbling down. It’s just a matter of time before the state police comes rolling down Main Street. They might show up today, it might be tomorrow, or the end of the week. The fuse has been lit on this powder keg, Wendy, and there’s no going back to stop it. What you have to decide now is whether you’re going down in the net with the rest of these bastards you’ve been working with. Or will you cut a deal to save yourself? As I see it, this case is winding down and it has a short shelf life. You’re caught in the crosshairs of your own making. Did you really think you could get away with such mass corruption, stealing from the people in this town, not to mention a string of murders as long as your arm?”
Knowing how vain Wendy came across, Tessa went in for the kill. “I understand prison adds ten years to the face, and on average, thirty pounds to the waistline, and that’s just in the first two years of incarceration.”
“You’re on the wrong side of this thing, Wendy. When this scandal rocks the town, it won’t be pretty. And it will. The residents here will look at you differently. All that respect and standing in the community you’ve built up over the years, will be gone.”
“So you think Dave is dead?”
“Oh yeah. I think Baskin is tying up all the loose ends. It’s time to face it, sweetheart, you’re a loose end that will eventually have to be put out of its misery.”
Wendy’s eyes darted around the room in panic. “I’ll take off. I’ll leave town. I can be packed and ready to go in thirty minutes. If it all came crumbling down, Dave and I had already talked about a plan. It was always to fly to Guyana anyway.”
Tessa stared at the woman, then at Jackson. “Interesting. Guyana has no extradition treaty with the US.”
“You could do that,” Jackson proffered. “But would you really be happy there alone in a strange place?”
“Not really. I wanted to go to Venezuela, more exotic, more tropical. I told Dave I thought Guyana was a mistake, that we’d have trouble fitting in there.”
“What about Nathan? How does Nathan fit in with your plans to go to South America?”
Wendy cut her eyes to look out the window. “I haven’t heard from him. He was supposed to call. He never did. Which means Nathan’s dead too. I’m sure of it.”
“So you’re alone without the two partners you’d counted on the most to get you out of this mess you’re in? You could head to what sounds like greener pastures, but you’d always wonder if you could’ve stayed and cut a deal, stayed right here in the good ol’ US of A. Not here, of course, not in Indigo Key. That’d be impossible now. But you wouldn’t have to seek out asylum on foreign soil if the state police valued what you knew enough to keep you out of jail.”
“I can’t talk to them or the feds. Baskin would kill me. And if he didn’t, Sinclair certainly would, maybe even Dandridge.”
“It’s certainly a pickle you’ve found yourself in. But you know I can’t let you hop a plane to South America now, Wendy. I can’t let you leave here.”
Tessa did her part by moving to the phone on the wall in the kitchen, picked up the receiver from its cradle. “So what’s it going to be, Wendy? Cooperating with the state police or us?”
Chapter Fourteen - Justice
Raine was the first one up. She found the professor stretched out on the sofa, the journal spread open on his chest, his glasses askew on the top of his head.
She went through the living room picking up the numerous empty Diet Coke cans scattered around the room. She’d never seen anyone drink so much soda in one sitting.
Her first instinct was to wake Hollings up and send him packing, back to the room he’d chosen at the rear of the house. But instead of rousting him, she removed the journal and his glasses before covering him with a blanket.
Heading to the kitchen, she went directly to Lenore’s fancy coffee machine, the one she knew the guys had given their mom last Christmas. After grinding beans, she decided to make some of her locally famous Blue Taco Chorizo, eggs and cheese breakfast burritos, and serve them up with her special super-secret chipotle sauce.
Just about the time Raine transferred the burritos to a large tray for the oven so they’d keep warm, she glanced up to see a bleary-eyed professor yawning his way into the kitchen.
“Raine, is it? Whatever it is you’re making, it smells wonderful.”
“Yes, it’s Raine, Raine Manning. How come you slept on the couch?”
“That bed in there didn’t exactly agree with me, hard as a board. So I thought I’d move out to the living room for a bit to get some work done.”
“How late did you stay up, Professor Bishop?”
“Hollings. Call me Hollings. Oh. Well. I get zeroed in on what I’m doing and I lose all track of time, happens all the time when I’m deep into a project. Drives my wife crazy. I think I dozed off around four o’clock.”
“That’s only three hours sleep. How do you do it?”
“I’m used to long hours of research.”
Raine motioned for him to sit down and pushed a plate in front of him with a hot fresh burrito on it. “Want coffee?”
“Never touch the stuff.”
“Really? Diet Coke for breakfast?”
“Diet Coke is good any time of the day or night and goes with everything. It’s the way I get my caffeine.”
She watched with great satisfaction as Hollings wolfed down the burrito in five bites. “You were hungry. Want another?”
“I should probably pace myself. There are other people in the house that haven’t had breakfast yet. I don’t want you to think I’m greedy.”
“I think you’re famished and running on nothing but Diet Coke. I run a restaurant, which makes me a professional.” She dumped another burrito on his plate. “I made plenty for everyone to enjoy.”
“But you aren’t eating.”
“Trust me. I’ve had my share of them over the years. They’re world famous, you know.”
Mitch came wandering into the kitchen, trying to wake up. On his way to the coffee pot, he stole a morning kiss from Raine. “Missed you when I woke up.”
“You’re growing on me.”
The doorbell rang.
“Who the heck could that be at this hour?” Mitch said as he headed off to get the door. He looked out the window to see a Fed Ex driver with a dolly loaded to the top with boxes.
“Uh, professor, you might want to check this out. It looks like your stuff has arrived.” Mitch opened the door and waved the man into the house.
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 79