No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms!
The Dance with Danger Mystery Anthology — Volume One
By Sara M. Barton
These novellas were previously released individually:
Bossa Nova with a Belligerent Bear
Foxtrot with a Furtive Fox
Mambo with a Maniacal Mako
Paso Doble with a Passionate Python
Square Dance with a Scandalous Skunk
Published by Sara M. Barton, at Smashwords
Copyright Sara M. Barton 2012
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Bossa Nova with a Belligerent Bear
Some women are so nice, they seem to attract bad guys like flies on honey. Some of us trust too much and believe that if we treat people with respect and kindness, we will be rewarded. Learning to tell the difference between a good man and a rotten one isn’t always easy, and when you make a mistake, it can be a painful lesson….
Chapter One —
“If you had any sense at all, you would admit just how wrong you really are!” Bosco snarled. “Of all the lame-brained, idiotic…female things to do, this tops the cake!”
“Female?” I glared at the seething man standing in front of me, ready to do battle. “Female, Bosco?”
“Yes, female!” he snapped, glaring at me over the rims of his glasses. Arms crossed against his powerful chest, furious, I knew he was looking for an opportunity to have it out with me. To him, getting into financial trouble was akin to committing treason, especially since he was a skilled investigator for Honshield Walker, the accounting firm. And I was just as determined not to allow him that opening. “You should have called me right away!”
“You’re not a cop. You can’t arrest anyone,” I pointed out. “And I shouldn’t have to depend on you for every little thing that happens to me.”
“This isn’t a little thing. This is your future!”
The trouble with ex-husbands is they have trouble seeing where that line in the sand is. They don’t really care that they signed on the dotted line and dissolved the marriage. All they care about is what they think is still theirs. After twenty years of marriage, Bosco still thought of me as his.
“I should have told you what? That George cleaned out my bank account? That he forged my name on a second mortgage on the house? That he absconded with my 401K? We’re divorced, remember?”
“How well I remember!” he growled. “I don’t need you to point it out to me. I told you that the guy was no good. I told you he was unworthy of you!”
There it was — the sound of the other shoe finally dropping, the proverbial “I told you so.” The trouble was I knew Bosco was right and I surely had no intention of admitting it.
“Look,” I said as calmly as I could, “I didn’t ask you here so you could rub my nose in it. I need your help.”
“Well, you’ll move in with me. I’ll get to work tracking that bastard down and once we know where he is, we’ll take care of it.”
“Move in with you?”
“Where else are you going to live? You can’t afford to live in the house. You need to conserve!” Bosco started making notes on his smartphone. “We’ll talk to the bank, make the necessary payments to avoid a lien, and rent it out. We can at least cover the mortgage until we get things straightened out.”
“We?” I came to Bosco for help, but did I really want him so involved in my life?
“Do you want my help or not?” he glowered at me, eyes blazing. “You should have come to me sooner.”
That’s the thing about Robert Baer, forensic accountant, better known as Bosco. He just can’t help himself. He had to point out the obvious. I looked at my ex-husband, now ensconced at my dining room table and all I could think at that moment was how I totally, completely, and possibly irreversibly, screwed up my life. And now I was learning the hard way that the charming man who swept me off my feet and convinced me that he loved me more than Bosco was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. Not only had George taken all my worldly goods, he had trampled my heart and my self-respect before evaporating into thin air.
“When did he leave?” Bosco demanded.
“Last Friday. He told me he had a conference in Albuquerque, something about social media strategies.”
“That probably means he went north. He wants us to waste time tracking down the false leads he gave you. What did he say about being in touch with you?”
“He told me he was having problems with his cell phone, that he dropped it down the stairs.”
“An excuse not to get his calls. What about emails?” I hung my head.
“I’ve sent him ten. I’m starting to feel like a stalker. He hasn’t responded at all.”
“What else happened?” Those steely blue eyes were on me like a power drill, boring into my secrets.
“We had a fight the night before he left. He accused me of some things.” I didn’t really want to get into detail about our skirmish. It would only stoke Bosco’s fire.
“And?”
“And what?” I asked, knowing full well what he wanted to know. I thought I might be able to hold out long enough to get beyond that question.
“Cough it up,” my ex-husband insisted. “It’s relevant to the investigation.”
I looked at him closely. The short-clipped Marine haircut was showing some gray now, but it was the same style he had always sported in all the years we were married. That tight-lip snarl was the same one I had seen over this same table many times before, but usually it was because he was fired up about a case he was working. This time, I was the victim. It was oddly reassuring to see Bosco so determined to track down the man who stole my life.
“What is relevant?” I played dumb, hoping I didn’t really know what he was asking.
“What was the argument about, Dori?” Bosco fastened his eyes on me and I could see the invisible wheels start to turn in his head. It meant he was on the trail and he wouldn’t stop until he got the answers he wanted. As an investigator, it made him successful. As a husband and lover, it meant he questioned every move, every intention, every comment I ever made. Bosco came with a built-in suspicion gene. He never completely trusted anyone, not even me. “You can tell me now or we can waste precious time and energy doing a little dance. Your choice.”
“George said I was still in love with you.” There. It was out in the open. I knew Bosco was going to pick it up and kick it around the room for a while.
“Are you?”
“You wanted to know what the argument was about. He accused me of still being in love with you.”
“And are you still in love with me?”
“Bosco,” I sighed, “you just yelled at me for wasting precious time. What does it matter about why we argued?”
“Goes to motive. If George really was angry that you are still in love with me, maybe he wanted to pay you back,” my ex-husband explained. I hate it when Bosco makes sense.
“Look,” I told him, finally taking a seat at the table opposite him, “why would George go to all the trouble of cleaning me out if this was just about me still having feelings for you? The guy robbed me blind, Bosco. His motive was greed.”
“Do you?” There were those piercing eyes aga
in, buzz-sawing their way through my coat of armor with a diamond blade. “Have feelings for me?”
“You tell me something, Bosco. Why would George steal from me if he was jealous of you? Wouldn’t he try to get you out of the picture? Wouldn’t he try to win my heart by trying to convince me he’s the better man?”
“Maybe he thought he was losing his touch. Maybe he thought you finally woke up one day and came to your senses. His charm was no longer working on you. Did it ever occur to you that the guy swept you off your feet because you’re so damned adorable?” He put his hands together, letting his index fingers touch, and he pointed in my direction. “After all these years, are you still that oblivious to the obvious?”
“Meaning what?”
“Do you really not know that men find you attractive? I swear that’s why he managed to sweep you off your feet! You’re so bloody naive!”
“Gee, thanks. That’s really helpful now that I’m penniless.” I gazed down at my lap, brushing away imaginary crumbs, wondering what I was going to do now that my life had been completely obliterated.
“What about Ralph?” Bosco asked. “Have you told him?”
“I didn’t dare,” I confessed. Ralph Durgin is my boss at Dynamic Productions. We’re a local video production house. We create and film commercials for the regional television market. I’ve been with Ralph for fifteen years as his right-hand. He hired me when he started his production house in Caulkins Corner. He rented a unit in the industrial park that consisted of office space, a bathroom and kitchenette, and a large warehouse area that we set up as a studio, with movable sets, klieg lights, and a tiny prop department. I started out as a scriptwriter, filled in with voice-overs and the occasional on-screen appearance, and learned to edit the material. Before long, Ralph made me his assistant producer.
Over the years, we built a respectable business. Ralph developed a reputation for providing quality advertising to local and state-wide businesses on cable TV. We occasionally also did production shorts, public interest spots, and even industrial training films. As the business grew, Ralph added people to the company. Now there were six full-time employees and two part-timers. We moved to our new building six months ago.
“Do you still have your stock in Dynamic Productions or did he take that, too?” Bosco asked. He and I were investors in the early years. When our son, Kevin, was a baby and my hours were flexible, I often took stock options instead of a steady paycheck, knowing that as Ralph built the company, the shares would improve and I would be compensated. Bosco and I also invested our own money over the years, to help Ralph expand. This was especially true in the last five years. On paper, the stock looked worthless, but that would soon turn around. Ralph hired new employees when we moved into the state-of-the-art facility and began to provide quality videos for Internet businesses.
“He didn’t know,” I admitted. “I never told him I was a part-owner of Dynamic.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” he replied with some relief. “Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you tell him?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged the subject off, but I knew I wasn’t really being honest with Bosco. The truth is that in the last two months, ever since George moved in, I had found myself feeling uneasy.
“Theodora Williams Baer, tell the truth. You had your doubts about the bastard and you ignored them!” I recoiled as my ex-husband lashed out at me with the accusation, wincing from the invisible blow that landed on my psyche like a smack from an aggrieved bear who just caught a hand in his honeycomb.
Chapter Two —
The subject of George Peterson was still a sticky point between us. To this day, Bosco still insisted that if he had not taken the African assignment, we would still be married. He’s certain that I never would have met George on that trip to Pleasant Bay.
It all came about when Bosco was sent overseas to investigate the theft of nearly a million dollars from a U.S.-sponsored famine relief fund in Somalia. It looked like the food was sold on the black market and the profits diverted to the pockets of the charity’s local administrators, who then kicked much of it back to the U.S. administrators in the New York office of Feed the World. Bosco’s job was to track the money down and document as much of it as he could.
Before you go thinking that I was a bad wife and I just went looking for an affair to relieve my boredom while he was away, let me explain. Bosco and I had been struggling for three years after Kevin, our only child, was killed by a drunk driver as he was riding his bike on a quiet little side street in our safe, sweet little neighborhood. He was all of thirteen years old. Part prankster, part history buff, my baby boy was the quintessential good kid. His death left a void in my heart that nothing seemed to fill. But for Bosco, it seemed like the end of life itself. Full of rage for the injustice of Kevin’s death, Bosco’s dark moods turned even darker, and I would find him sitting in the basement den, brooding for hours on end. He didn’t want to talk about his feelings. He didn’t want to talk about mine. I was completely shut out from his world and he wanted no part of mine. I was cast adrift in a cold, rough sea, left to fend for myself. Was I wrong to seek shelter and warmth elsewhere?
For Bosco, solace came in the form of work. He became more intense, more focused on the bad guys, more persistent in chasing them down, and even more determined to bring them to justice. I think part of that was because Matthew Horner, the drunk driver, also died at the scene. There was no one to punch out, no one to hold accountable, no one to punish. That was stolen from Bosco, so all his energy had to be redirected elsewhere.
Sometimes I wondered if he blamed me for letting Kevin ride his bike that day. God knows I wished I had driven him to soccer practice. Bosco’s withdrawal from our marriage was painful, but I sometimes suspected that it took a great effort on his part not to lash out at me.
“Dori?” He was speaking to me. I brought myself back to reality, shaking off the memories of those painful years. I tried to focus on Bosco, but all I saw was traces of my little boy’s face in the man who sat across from me. Kevin was the spitting image of his father, and now he would never grow up and become a man. It had been almost six months since Bosco and I had formally ended our marriage, but we had been separated for most of the past three years, each of us taking our solace in our own way.
“What?” I responded, wiping away a tear, wishing I could just as easily wipe out the mistakes in my life.
“Look, we know the guy is a louse,” Bosco said, more kindly now. He reached out and patted my hand. “We’ll get the guy, but I need you to cooperate. You can’t feel guilty or sorry for him.”
“That’s not why I was crying,” I said, wiping away more tears. How had my life become such a mess? I lost my son and I lost the only man I ever really loved. Bosco started to say something, but stopped himself. As I looked at him, I knew that he couldn’t open that door to a discussion about our son. So he did what Bosco does best in a crisis. He turned all his energy into finding George.
“Show me everything he left behind,” my ex-husband said. “Every piece of paper, every note, every email he ever wrote you. I want to see it all.”
“Is that really necessary?” I was feeling very foolish, the duped sucker who didn’t see this deceit coming. George had written so many love notes over the six months I had known him. At the time, I thought they were proof that he loved me.
I took them down from the two shoeboxes I kept on the top shelf in the bedroom closet. Bosco took a look at them and scowled in disgust. I knew the next hour would be unbearable as my ex-husband read the love notes given to me by the man who replaced him. It was everything that was needed for the perfect storm.
“Coffee?” I offered, hoping to remove myself to the kitchen.
“Sure. But come back as soon as you get it started. I need to ask you some questions.”
“Right.” I got busy in the next room, setting up the coffeemaker. I got out a tray and grabbed a couple of mugs, a small pitcher I filled with half a
nd half, and the sugar bowl. I threw a couple of packets of sweetener on the tray for myself. While I waited for the coffee to brew, I threw in a load of laundry. I was gone all of about seven minutes.
“What took you so long?” Bosco wanted to know when I appeared in the doorway with the tray. “Come here a minute. What does this mean?”
“What?” I put his mug in front of Bosco. He pushed it to the side, intent on the letter he was reading.
“‘The weekend at the Golden Sands was everything I ever dreamed I could have with you.’ What does that mean?”
“It means we had a good time.”
“What kind of good time?” my ex-husband wanted to know.
“What kind of question is that?” I snapped.
“It’s a legitimate one. What did you two do that weekend? I need to know so I can understand the man who ran off with your money.” He had his investigator face on, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him to keep his temper in check.
“Oh, we flew to the Bahamas for a weekend. It was the grand opening of the new casino on Grand Bahama Island. We saw a few shows, had a couple of romantic dinners, and played some roulette. Or rather George did. I just stood and watched.” As I let myself remember that weekend, the one thing that stood out for me was that George paid attention to me, lavishing me with affection as we wandered through the vast complex of hotel spaces and gaming rooms, relaxed in our own private cabana by the pool, or walked along the beach in the moonlight.
“How much did he lose?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “He was playing with purple and orange chips.”
“One or two at a time?” Bosco demanded.
“No, usually five or six, depending on the table we were at,” I told him.
“The purple chips are worth five hundred a piece, babe, and the orange are a thousand bucks a piece.” Bosco was watching my reaction. I thought about the piles of colorful chips that were swept up by the mucker at the table and the ones returned by the croupier. George had laughed off his losses. Bosco shook his head at that.
No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 Page 1