by Wendy Wax
“The fact that it’s seriously in need of attention could work in our favor,” Avery said. “They’ve only just managed to keep it from falling down.”
“Renée wants it to fall down,” Kyra pointed out.
“But she might change her mind if it were renovated and made attractive to a buyer,” Avery said, her enthusiasm apparent. “This is an incredibly valuable piece of property that no one is making a penny from.” She shot a glance at John, who’d come to a stop at the end of the walkway. “Plus it’s barely a mile from Bella Flora.”
“I don’t know,” Nikki said. “We’d need to put together a renovation and production budget before we could even consider soliciting sponsorships or funding of any kind. And I don’t have any confidence that Renée would give her permission even if we could find the money. Or be able to talk her sister into it.”
“And I’m not sure she should,” Maddie said, setting Dustin on his feet. “She can’t even bring herself to set foot on the property. I doubt she’ll open herself up to the kind of attention that could surround a renovation here.”
“Dawn!” Dustin pointed toward the Realtor and began to toddle toward him. They followed him to where John stood staring at a two-bedroom unit set apart from the others. Largely obscured by the overgrown hibiscus, its faded blue paint was chipped and peeling. Unlike the other units, it had no sign. Its door was padlocked and hurricane shutters had been pulled down over its windows. The other units had looked deserted; Maddie thought this one looked downright desolate.
“This is where Renée and her family lived after the war while her father was helping to run the hotel.” John’s voice was quiet, almost drowned out by the rustle of nearby palms. “She was the one who found him.” They stood in silence for a time before John seemed to rouse himself.
“Would you like to see the hotel brought back, John?” Avery asked.
His shrug was anything but casual. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “In almost any other case I’d rather see something restored and enjoyed than torn down. But this isn’t your usual situation. Renée has always wanted to make it disappear, though I doubt even that would ease the hurt and loss. Annelise was only five when it happened and she’s never gotten over it.” He lowered his voice so that Dustin wouldn’t overhear him “Annelise is convinced that her mother didn’t do it, that an intruder killed their father and abducted her mother, even though there’s never been any evidence to support that.”
He sighed and turned his back on the cottage. “But then what child wants to believe their mother could kill their father and then run away and leave them behind?” He ran a hand over his face. “We’ve had offers to sell the property ‘as is,’ but Annelise has refused them all. Their grandparents’ will left the property to them equally and stipulates that they have to agree.”
“But why leave it to rot?” Maddie wondered aloud. “What does that accomplish?”
“At first I think Annelise just wanted to preserve the time before her life fell apart,” John said. “Then I think she convinced herself that there might be clues to what happened that night that would clear her mother’s name and explain what really happened.” He shook his head sadly. “She’s become quite addicted to Forensic Files and Cold Case and the like and has been trying to get the case reopened for a decade. But then, she’s never been a big fan of reality. She’s always been somewhat . . . fragile.”
Kyra stopped shooting. Slinging the video camera over one shoulder, she bent to pick up Dustin, who’d been eyeing a brightly colored butterfly.
“I think the Sunshine Hotel could be a great project for the new Do Over,” Avery said. “Would you ask Renée and her sister to at least let us present a plan and a budget for their consideration?”
John leaned even more heavily on his cane for a moment, his face stark. Then he slowly straightened. “I’ll ask,” he said. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I really can’t promise anything.”
Chapter Eight
Avery spent the next two days alternately pacing Bella Flora, walking the beach, and trying not to jump each time a phone rang. She’d stayed on because she was incapable of going even as far as Tampa with things in such a state of flux. And because although being in the house that Deirdre had so vividly left her mark on was painful, being there with Maddie, Nikki, Kyra, and Dustin, who had been a part of her reconnection with her mother, somehow helped ease that pain.
Chase and Jeff had agreed to look in the Tampa area for possible renovations and Avery had driven the west coast beach communities as far north as Tarpon Springs and as far south as Fort Myers, but so far nothing had even come close architecturally or historically to the Sunshine Hotel.
She was sitting outside staring morosely over the pass when Maddie appeared. “Come on, I need a lift to the grocery store. Plus I could use some company and an extra set of hands.”
At the store, Maddie flitted from aisle to aisle checking things off her shopping list while Avery glumly pushed the grocery cart, rousing only when something caught her eye.
“Seriously?” Maddie asked when she returned from the meat counter.
“What?” Avery looked up from her failed attempt to hide the pile of Twinkies and Ding Dongs behind the milk and cereal. “They were buy one, get one.”
“That’s what you said about the mac and cheese and Hamburger Helper,” Maddie replied. “As a mother I can’t stand by and let you choose nothing but junk food.”
“It’s not junk. There are meat and cheese in these products,” Avery countered. “And there’s a reason kale isn’t considered a ‘comfort’ food.” Defiantly she reached for a box of chocolate chunk double fudge brownie mix. “I just can’t stand being at such loose ends. Sitting around waiting for someone else to make something happen is driving me crazy.”
“I understand,” Maddie said. “But I don’t think overloading on sugar and carbs is the answer.” Like a lion tamer who knows better than to turn her back on the big cats, she maintained eye contact as she gently pried the brownie mix out of Avery’s hands. “Kyra’s following up with the networks and Nikki’s trying to come up with a list of potential funding sources. You could go ahead and work on a plan and a budget for the renovation. Maybe it’ll turn into a Field of Dreams scenario. You know, ‘if you plan it, the go-ahead will come’?”
“Or it could be more like washing your car and causing rain,” Avery said, pushing the cart around the end of the aisle. “I’m so afraid of jinxing things.”
In the chip aisle Avery swept a bag of Cheez Doodles from the shelf without slowing the cart. When Maddie only raised an eyebrow, Avery grabbed a second bag. She could do without the Twinkies and Ding Dongs if necessary, but a life without Cheez Doodles simply wasn’t worth living. “What do you think the chances are we’ll get a chance to present a plan to Renée and her sister?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “Given what John told us, I can’t blame Renée for wanting the hotel to disappear. Plus there’s the whole paparazzi problem. This renovation would get lots of attention whether we meant it to or not.”
In the produce section Maddie picked through the fruits and vegetables, checking the bananas for bruises in the same way Avery was now examining the roadblocks that stood in their way. Without a doable renovation project there could be no Do Over.
“We’ve got to find a way to convince Renée and Annelise to at least look at what we can do.”
“I think you should go ahead and put a presentation together,” Maddie said again as they unloaded the cart at the checkout and then watched the items get scanned and bagged. “Realistically, it’s our best shot.”
In reality it was most likely their only shot. And if Avery had learned anything during the demise of her marriage, her ex-husband’s hijacking of their original HGTV show, and the loss of her father’s life’s savings to Malcolm Dyer, it was that all of a woman’s eggs were not safe in one ba
sket.
“I was thinking it might be time to start looking for someone to handle the interior design,” Maddie added as they pushed the bulging cart through the parking lot.
“No, not yet,” she said too quickly. “I mean there’s no reason to replace her now when we don’t even have a project.”
“We all know that no one can really replace Deirdre.” Maddie’s voice was gentle. She laid a soothing hand on Avery’s arm. “But it only makes sense to start the search. I bet there are lots of designers who’d like to be involved who’d be completely different from Deirdre.”
Avery blinked back tears—tears—as they loaded the groceries. Not trusting her voice, she remained silent as she slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the Mini Cooper.
“Kyra’s been tweaking the Do Over Facebook and Twitter pages,” Maddie continued. “Maybe she can post what we’re looking for. Finding someone different shouldn’t be a problem given how completely unique Deirdre was.”
Avery nodded but made no comment as she backed out of the parking spot, her eyes locked in the rearview mirror.
Traffic on Gulf Boulevard was heavy as they made their way back toward Bella Flora. They were sitting at a light when Maddie heard a text ding in on her phone. She looked down at the screen expecting it to be some forgotten grocery item from Kyra or Nikki, but it was from Will. She felt her lips twisting into a smile as she read, Mornin’, Maddie-fan. Out on the flats. A couple of your fish friends asked me to say hi.
“I’m guessing from that shit-eating grin it must be Will,” Avery observed.
The grin grew bigger as Maddie typed back. If fiz knot lafing, tell fiz bi hack.
She hit “send,” then groaned when she realized what she’d sent. Damn. Mint hi pack . . . back!
“Good grief!” She tried again. Tumps are two prick. “God, I hate autocorrect,” she said.
Avery snorted. “You know you can shut that off, right? In the meantime, wouldn’t it be easier to call him back?”
“He’s out on the boat,” Maddie began. “I hate to disturb his fishing. I don’t want to . . .”
Avery took Maddie’s phone from her hands, scrolled down Maddie’s contacts with one thumb while keeping her eyes mostly on the road. She’d hit Will’s speed dial and handed back her phone before Maddie had finished protesting and well before she could have composed a legible response.
“Hi, Will.” Maddie grimaced at the tremor in her voice. It had been only a week since she’d left Mermaid Point, but even the sound of Will’s voice made her feel like a teenager crushing on a too-cute guy.
“Hi, Mad,” he said, and she could picture him out on the water, the bright morning sun reflecting off his mirrored sunglasses, hiding the dark eyes that were undoubtedly scanning the shadows beneath the surface.
“I hope I’m not scaring away any important fish.” She turned to look out the passenger window hunching into herself in an attempt at privacy, something that was pretty much unachievable within the confines of the Mini Cooper.
“Naw, I’ve mostly just been sitting out here thinking,” he said.
“Ahh,” she said. “Doing a little therapeutic fishing, are you?”
“I am.” There was a smile in Will’s voice, but there was something else there, too. “I heard from a guy at Aquarian, my old record label. They want to come down next week to talk.”
“About what?” she asked, barely seeing the Gulf Boulevard hotels whizzing by.
“Recording ‘Free Fall.’” He said this as if trying the words on for size.
“Oh.” Her stomach went into a free fall of its own as she thought about what that might mean. “Are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But they’re throwing all kinds of stuff at me.” There was a wry chuckle. “I forgot what it was like when they want you.”
“What kind of things?” She hoped the list of incentives didn’t include women.
“Well, when I said I didn’t want to travel they told me we could record in Miami. Then when I said I didn’t want to work with studio musicians they told me I could bring anybody I wanted to record with me.”
“Oh,” she said, looking up to see the Don CeSar Hotel looming ahead.
“When I told them I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do anything with the song, they offered me an obscene amount of money.”
The Don’s thick pink walls and white-trimmed windows whooshed by. A few blocks later they passed the massive hedge that she now knew hid the Sunshine Hotel.
“How obscene?” Maddie finally asked. After all, there were levels of monetary obscenity. Will had been a big name for a lot of years. He might have pissed away most of what he’d earned, but a fortune to her might not be enough to entice Will to walk across a street.
“Obscene enough to take care of the money I owe the bank. And to run the sober living facility for a year. I could subsidize a good number of residents who can’t afford the stay.”
“That would be pretty hard to say no to.”
“Yeah.”
Avery cut over to Gulf Way. The beach flitted past.
“When do you have to decide?” Maddie asked carefully. She did not want to picture what sort of temptation might be thrown in his path if he put himself back in the public eye. Or think about how that temptation might color how he saw her.
“I told them I’d let them know by tomorrow.” He sighed and she heard him settle in the boat. “But I’m interested in knowing what you think.”
Maddie fixed her eyes on the beach just beyond the row of parked cars and the low concrete wall that edged it, but she was picturing Will in the flats boat out off some small island.
She was ashamed of how much she hated the whole idea. How small she felt for wanting to keep things exactly as they were. How desperately she wished she could keep him all to herself.
“Well,” she said, determined to kick her own wants and needs to the curb. She’d vowed to always tell him the truth even when it was hard. “As a longtime fan, I . . .” She paused to weigh her words, her insecurity at war with how much she knew the song meant to him and what it could do for the facility. “The song is fabulous.” She swallowed and pushed forward. “And I think it would be a damn shame to keep it to yourself.”
Nicole’s legs had turned to rubber. Her chest heaved and the orange juice she drank for breakfast sloshed in her stomach as she jogged along the stretch of hard-packed sand. Her breathing turned ragged and it took everything she had to resist cutting her pace.
Footsteps sounded behind her. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. Glad of the distraction, she pulled it out, thumbed the screen open, and raised it to her ear.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” The footsteps drew up beside her and she heard Joe’s voice in stereo. There was a low rumble of laughter as he matched his pace to hers.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying not to wheeze. It had been only a week since she’d left Miami. Though she didn’t plan to say so, she’d already begun to miss him.
“I had a meeting in Tampa. I don’t have to be back in Miami until tomorrow.” Joe spoke easily, not the least out of breath. His T-shirt was tucked into the waistband of his running shorts, which left his broad shoulders and bare chest open to view. He moved with athletic grace, his all-seeing eyes hidden behind government-issue sunglasses. She could see her chest heaving in their reflection.
“Great.” That was the best she could do without having to gasp for breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked, automatically checking his stride.
“Sure.” She drew in a deep breath and tossed her head back.
“Nikki, seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a little out of breath,” she admitted as she brought her breathing under control.
“I have been known to occasionally have that effect on women.”
His lips quirked upward.
This was true. She could see the looks women shot him as they passed, the way they studied his body while pretending not to. “Is that right?” she drawled as they jogged by the dunes that bracketed the Sunshine Hotel.
He slowed to a walk just before they reached the Don CeSar, forcing her to slow with him. Her heart stopped pounding but her legs felt as if they might fold beneath her at any moment.
“Why don’t we stop and sit and have a cold drink?” he suggested, already angling up the beach.
She was so grateful she could have kissed him. She did give him a peck on the cheek, but said only, “Okay.” As if she were simply accommodating him. By the time they’d settled at a table near the Don’s outside pool bar with a view over the beach, her breathing had evened out. They ordered sparkling water and she filled him in on the Sunshine Hotel and their lack of progress so far in finding a project. She didn’t ask about his business trip or exactly what he was doing in Tampa, having learned that he would share what he could when he could.
A pelican caught her eye and she watched it soar high above the Gulf, its wings extended as it no doubt scanned beneath the surface for something worth diving for.
“I saw Malcolm.” He said this quietly as if attempting not to startle her, but just hearing her brother’s name sent the orange juice gurgling like a geyser in the pit of her stomach. As the special agent who’d brought Malcolm Dyer in and put him in prison, Joe had been sent to interview Malcolm a number of times. There was still a lot of money missing and unaccounted for.
Nikki did not ask how Malcolm looked or what he might have said. She could barely bring herself to think her brother’s name, let alone utter it.
“He’s asking to see you,” Joe said. “He’s promised to cooperate more fully if you come see him.”
“But he’s a liar.” It had taken her far too long to understand this about the brother she’d practically raised.
“He is,” Joe agreed even as he reached for her hand. “But if we can recover more of what he stole . . .”