“Eh. I was thirsty…for beer. And after dealing with the shooting and the cops and shit, I just needed to chill. Know what I mean?”
Oh, how I did. “Kind of. Don’t steal again, okay?”
“You’re not going to turn me in?” he asked, turning his head slightly.
“No. And put your hands down.”
He flipped around, reset his cap. That was when I noticed the logo on his shirt. He was a SeaWorld employee. Perfect.
“How long you been working here? Uh…what’s your name?”
“Trey.”
“I’m Ivy.”
“Well, actually, you can call me Trey, but my name is William Harrison the third. Trey…three, you get it?”
I nodded. “This your day job?”
“You got it. Kind of hot during the summer, but between this and tips I get parking cars, I can rake in the bucks.”
“Sweet. Well, I haven’t been to this place in over ten years. Want to show me inside?”
He led the way as we made it to the front entrance. I paid my way in, and he met me on the other side of the gate.
“Well, thanks for letting me off the hook. You need anything else?” he asked, taking two steps away from me.
I could see a flock of flamingos high-stepping through a shallow pond just beyond his shoulder as two employees stood nearby to ensure that kids stayed out of the area. The pair looked younger than Trey.
“Are you starting your shift right now?”
“Well, I’ve got five minutes or so. Do you need me to show you around real quick?”
I smiled. “Just need a quick lay of the land.”
“No problem. Follow me.” He made a direct path toward a bunch of Sesame Street characters in the middle of an open play area. For every one step he took, I had to take two, but I stayed close enough. Once we reached Big Bird, he turned and pointed to the east. “Over there, that’s where you can see the whale show. Then, going counterclockwise, you’ll see this cool water-ski stadium. It’s awesome. I tried it once after hours and…well, anyway.”
“And what?”
“I crashed and burned, tore up some skis,” he said, scrunching his face.
“No one found out?”
“How’d you know?”
“Just a lucky guess.”
He continued giving me the rundown of the enormous park, emphasizing the penguin station and the sea lions as two of the cooler attractions.
“So, Trey, would you say you’re about the average age for employees here?”
He smirked, then turned more serious. “Why you asking?”
“Just answer me please,” I said, sounding like a high school teacher.
“Probably. I’m nineteen, just got out of my spring semester at Texas State. Once the high schools let out, then the employees get a little younger.”
I nodded, shading my eyes from the sun.
“You looking to score?”
“I’m sorry?” I shifted my eyes up to his. He must have been a foot taller.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you or anything. Different strokes and such, you know.”
“I don’t know. I’m not interested in dating a kid.” I tried to keep from biting his head off. “What about older folks? Do you know many older people working here?”
“You mean like thirty?”
I was twenty-eight. Help me. “I mean more like fifty or so, give or take.”
“Eh, I guess some folks in management. And security too. Old farts work in that group. Former cops mostly. Or wannabes.” He chuckled, his chin moving up and down
“And where would I find security?” I asked, extending my arm straight out. He grabbed my wrist and shifted it another foot to the right.
“You’re now pointing at the Welcome Center. Security has an office around back.”
“Thanks, Trey.” I popped him on the upper arm and started walking.
“Any time, Ivy. By the way, what kind of name is Ivy?”
“See ya,” I said, disappearing into the crowd.
A couple of minutes later, I opened the door to the Welcome Center and felt a blast of cool air hit my face. A few families milled about, little kids playing with stuffed whales, sea lions, and penguins. I found the sign to the security office, and I approached it.
“Ma’am, you’re not allowed to go in there,” a lady clerk said from behind the far counter.
With a hand on the doorknob, I turned and looked at her. “I’m with a child protection company, and I need to speak to the head of security.”
She opened her lips then closed them, apparently processing what I’d said. I kept moving.
“Thank you for understanding.” I pushed through the door and shut it behind me just as I heard her say something—what it was, I didn’t care.
A deep breath. I saw an open area of desks and filing cabinets. A heavyset man with his boots on a large desk lifted his eyes from his phone.
“Howdy,” I said, hoping to connect with him.
“You lost your kid?” His Texas accent was thick and slow.
“Uh, no…not exactly.” I noticed a man at the far end behind another desk, hunched over, picking up something from the floor.
“Did you have your purse stolen?”
“Nope. You were closer on the first try.”
“But you said you weren’t looking for your kid.” He leaned forward, his swivel chair squealing until his two elbows touched down on the desk.
I held out my business card. He took my card and mouthed the word ECHO.
“What’s ECHO?”
“We’re a small firm who’s focused on helping kids…those who might be in harm’s way, or might have run away from home, or might be involved in drugs or prostitution or in an abusive relationship.”
He cocked his head. “Why in the world would you be in a business like that?” A phone rang, and he held up his finger as he pulled the phone from his belt loop. He answered with a “Yeah?” and after a moment, he said, “Ah, crap. I’ll be right there.” He disconnected the call and lifted from his chair, which let out a wheezing sound. “I gotta go break up an altercation between two old ladies at the Penguin Encounter. Pudge over there can help you.”
He was out the door before I could say thanks.
I turned around and saw Pudge slowly lift his head above his desk. He wore a straw cowboy hat and had skin made of leather.
It was him.
My heart vaulted into the back of my throat. I grabbed a stapler off the desk, reared my arm back. “You get near me, and I’ll break your jaw.”
He brought a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
21
The man’s boots clipped the hollow floors as he went to the window, tipped his cowboy hat, and looked between the plastic blinds. “Anyone with you?” he asked, gnawing on a toothpick.
I lowered my center of gravity and repositioned the stapler in my hand, my pulse thumping in my neck. I saw what looked like a Taser at his holster. “My detective friend is walking around the park,” I said, lying so he wouldn’t know I was alone. “He’s supposed to meet me here any minute.”
He turned his head and stared. His face looked like a scarred saddle.
“Stop staring at me,” I said, shifting my eyes to the door, back into the Welcome Center. I questioned whether I could make it there before he could catch me. “I can also scream, and that clerk from the front will be here in five seconds.”
“No need to get upset.” He straightened up and removed his hat, running his hand along the inside rim. “I suppose you’ve got some questions for me.” He almost sounded contrite.
“Many.”
“Want to take a walk? I don’t want us to get interrupted.”
My shoulders weren’t quite as tense, but my alert meter was still hovering near the red mark. “How do I know you’re not going to drug me, throw me into the back of your silver pickup?”
His eyes narrowed, but I didn’t feel intimidated. It was like he was reading me, more concerne
d about what I thought than any deviant act he was about to commit.
“Have you seen the bed of my pickup? I use it to haul around goats for my granddaughter. It needs to be cleaned out.” He grabbed his phone off a table, slid it into another holster on his belt loop, and took two steps in my direction.
I hunkered lower, stapler at the ready.
“Whoa. I’m just going to the back door.”
“Are you carrying?”
“A gun? At a water park?” He chuckled, but it quickly morphed into a phlegmy cough. He used a fist to thump his chest, tried to inhale. “I breathe better outside in the fresh air.”
He walked past me and opened the back door. “You coming?”
I took three steps in that direction.
“You might want to leave the stapler here.”
I set the stapler on the desk and followed him outside. We circled around to the front of the building.
“I’ll take you on a brief tour. We can talk,” he said. “Unless you want to wait on your detective friend.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“It’s okay. I can see why you’re freaked out a bit. If my daughter were being followed by some creepy old cowboy, she’d be hiding under her bed, even at age thirty.”
If he only knew.
We hit the main path and soon mixed in with the crowd.
“I don’t know your full name,” I said, looking up at him, his cigarette-yellowed teeth now painfully apparent.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, you knowing who I am. It’s all going to come out anyway.” He walked up to a lemonade stand. “Want one? They’re the best thing in the park. Freshly squeezed.”
I nodded, pulled a wad of cash out of my purse.
“It’s on the house,” he said. A moment later, he handed me a cup, and I took a sip. We meandered toward the Sea Lion Stadium. “I’m Nomar Andrus. My buddies call me Pudge.”
I nodded. “I’m assuming you already know my name, since you broke into my car.” My voice had an edge to it.
“Look, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, but I’m no thief, and I’m not into vandalism. I did my best to not damage your car. Now, the number you did on my ankle…that’ll take some healing.” He smirked and took a pull from his lemonade.
I took a full gulp of my drink while thinking about how he was projecting himself. His easy demeanor hadn’t brainwashed me into thinking he was a saint, even if he worked security for SeaWorld.
“Nomar—”
“Pudge, please, if you don’t mind.”
“Pudge, you may think that a nice drink and pleasant walk can make me believe what I saw was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, but I’m not that gullible, let me assure you.”
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
I held up a finger. “You follow us in my car, then you show up after a shooting and break into my car, even if you didn’t steal anything of value.”
A quick nod. “You have a nice piece.”
“Excuse me?” I felt my pulse spike.
“Sorry. Your pistol…the Luger. It’s an LC9s, right?”
That was embarrassing. “And I know how to use it.”
“Believe me, I’m lucky you weren’t carrying when you found me,” he said with a chuckle.
I didn’t reciprocate with a chuckle of my own.
“That pepper spray made me cry for three or four hours straight. And what are you doing with a shank?”
“Not a shank. My keys.”
He shook his head. “You’re pretty damn scrappy.”
A roller coaster roared just over our heads as we walked up to the Penguin Encounter. Two ladies wearing see-through tank tops started laughing and screaming at two penguins doing their best at mating. I tried to ignore all four.
“Who do you work for, Pudge?”
He kept his eyes on the penguins—or the ladies; I wasn’t sure which. “I know it looks bad, that I was breaking into your car right after the shooting. I saw the news reports. Lots of rumors going around.”
“You’re good at dodging questions.”
“I should be. I used to be a cop.” His veiny eyes finally met mine. “I made a big mistake, got kicked off the force, and that’s why I’m doing this gig. But I shouldn’t complain. It pays the bills, provides insurance. And I can bring my grandkids here for free.”
He looked and sounded like a doting grandfather, but that didn’t change what he did and to whom he might be connected. “Pudge,” I said firmly, wanting him to get on with it.
He extended an arm, and we walked away from the cackling ladies. “I had to find out who you were, to make sure you wouldn’t harm Emma.”
My thoughts did a double-take as a speed boat zoomed past us on the right, pulling a water skier, The long-haired skier waved while leaning into a turn.
“You know Emma?”
“She’s family. Distant family, but family nonetheless. And I’d do anything for family.”
“What about Dillon? He got shot by a sniper.”
I saw his jaw muscles twitch.
“You still want to hold to your story that you weren’t involved in the shooting?”
“Yes…no. I mean, I did not have anything to do with that shooting. Innocent people could have been killed. Now, Dillon…I can’t say he didn’t have it coming, not that I condone someone trying to kill him.”
“So you’re related to Emma, but you got a thing against Dillon. And you didn’t try to kill him.”
“It’s not quite that black and white, but at a high level, yes.”
I stopped, put my hand on his elbow. He turned and faced me. I said, “Have you always been Emma’s protector? Because when I found her with her mom at a truck stop recently, you were nowhere to be found.”
His eyes shifted downward, and then back up to meet my gaze. “Emma’s mom, Cheryl, asked me to get involved. She said Emma’s life might be in danger. It was an easy decision for me.”
I found a park bench in the shade and sat down, my mind spinning from the puzzle pieces Pudge had shared. One question reverberated inside: did Emma have even one parent who hadn’t put her in a position to be killed?
22
Pudge wiped his moist eyes as we sat on a bench and watched the masses walk by, the sweet smell of cotton candy in the humid air.
“I’ve known Cheryl since she was yea high. She called me Uncle Pudge,” he said, holding his arm about three feet off the ground. “She was a handful, even at age five. Spunky. Had a real desire to live life to its fullest. Always inquisitive.”
He removed the lid from his cup, tipped it back, and chewed on a mouthful of ice.
“When did she get hooked on heroin?”
He scratched his chin, pausing for a moment. He let out a sigh and said, “She experimented some through high school and college. But it wasn’t until she married Dillon that her life began to spiral into a haze of drug binges, interventions, suicide attempts. Good God, it’s been tough on her, on everyone who’s known her.”
For the first time in the hour I’d gotten to know Pudge, my sympathy outweighed every other feeling, even if he’d thrown out Dillon’s name like he was some type of drug-addict accomplice. I knew better than that.
His head dropped, and he wiped his eyes again. I wanted to put my arm around him, which was a strange feeling for me. He cared about his family, even his extended family. And he’d been willing to commit a felony to keep Emma safe. My thoughts toward Dillon had swayed in the opposite direction, although it was difficult to reconcile so many contradictory bits of data. On one hand, Dillon had been shot and could have died, and there was the threat from Belsito. On the other hand, Dillon’s affection for his little girl seemed true blue, but then I’d overheard him in his office threatening that person on the phone. And now Pudge essentially put Cheryl’s addiction at Dillon’s feet. I didn’t have enough hands to count all the complicated pieces.
“I need to ask you a few more questions, Pudge.”
“Go ahead and shoot. I figure it’s just the warmup before the cops and FBI show up. Am I right?”
I pressed my lips together as a pang of guilt swept through my body. Not from what I’d done, but what I had to do. I had to relay all of this to Stan.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m defending Dillon—”
“Well, you are on his payroll, so I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s paid off a lot more than the likes of you over the years.”
That didn’t sit well, but I didn’t want to lose my train of thought. “Cheryl is an addict, and addicts are all about blaming everyone else for their issues.”
“You’re right,” he said, looking back over the pond as the boat and skier zipped by us again. “Cheryl owns her addiction. But that rat, Dillon, has pushed all of her buttons, knowing how she’d respond. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. It’s cruel. Fucking asshole.”
He couldn’t sit still, and after a minute, he was up again, gesturing for me to walk with him. We passed under another roller coaster, then approached a water ride where two kids reached over the side of their log and splashed water on each other. Looked like a nice way to cool off.
“So, with Cheryl off at the state hospital, how did she reach you?”
“She’s not at a state facility. She’s at Laurel Ridge. One of the best addiction recovery centers in the southwest.”
I picked up my ponytail and let a breeze cool my neck as I pondered what he’d said. “She’s got charges against her, and she’s cut off from Dillon and his money. How did she swing that? Family money and influence?”
Pudge pulled off his hat, brushed his face with his shoulder. “It’s Dillon. He paid for her lawyer, who got the judge to agree to admit her into this fancy facility.”
My eyes narrowed. “Wait, why would Dillon go to all that trouble for her, someone who could have harmed Emma with her negligence?”
He puffed out a breath. “It’s about control. Laurel Ridge is a private facility. He could use his influence to keep her away for a long time if he wanted, while showing the world that he was empathetic by paying for everything.”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 60