The Tea Series

by Sheila Horgan

“Roland didn’t tell anybody about the evidence they’ve collected.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “When we talked about it, he made a point of telling me that. That it was a secret weapon. Those aren’t the words he used, but that’s the idea.”

  “So then why would Barry take responsibility and go to prison? If they didn’t threaten him with all the information that they have, why would he confess? Actually, he confessed while he was still a little crazed, but I’m sure a good lawyer could get all that thrown out, and then he could do the whole I-have-issues-put-me-in-treatment-I’ll-be-good-forever thing. It’s not like he’s Mr. Wonderful.”

  “Yeah, now you have me asking myself the same question.”

  “Nothing you can do about that part of it right now. Barry is locked up, and the kid who was in that picture is still out there somewhere.”

  “But he can’t get in the apartment. That’s a good thing.”

  “But, dingleberry, you don’t live your whole life in the apartment. What if you’d been walking up to the door? You would have checked out the parking lot ‘cause you have got to be all paranoid after what they did to your house, but they were coming in from the other side. They were by the water retention pond. There’s no way you would have seen them from that direction.”

  “You just keep making me feel better and better.”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel better; I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “Well, crap. What do you want me to do?”

  “It’s probably time to buy a gun.”

  “You want me to shoot a kid? Adeline’s grandson? There’s a good plan, Teagan. That sounds like something I would do, shoot a kid.”

  “Yes I want you to shoot him — them. I don’t want you to throw the stupid gun at them. Cara, you have got to start taking this stuff seriously. Barry didn’t kick the crap out of you; he tried to kill you. Don’t think of them as kids. These are people who broke into your apartment. They wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, to kill you, so why do you think that protecting yourself is out of the question?”

  “Teagan…”

  “Cara, it wasn’t some random thing that could be seen as harmless. They picked your apartment. They did it for a reason. They were focused on you. You have to deal with that.”

  “I’ll talk to Roland.”

  “Okay, Cara, call me stupid, but I think you are putting your trust in the wrong people.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it. You said that Roland said that you couldn’t just call the cops because you don’t have any proof that the kid from hell was in your apartment.”

  “Right, we only have pictures of him at the front door. It’s kind of strange that he’s at my apartment, but strange isn’t a good enough reason to arrest someone.”

  “What about DNA?”

  “What about it?”

  “Okay, Cara, I know your brain isn’t working at full capacity, but come on now. If the kid cut his hand badly enough to require stitches and he bled all over your desk and Roland collected that DNA and cleaned up the mess to perfection — even you were impressed — and now he is telling you that he can’t prove the kid was in your apartment, what does that tell you?”

  “Crap. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Yeah, well, these people all have more money than a small country, and they don’t seem to be telling you the whole truth. Cara, I don’t want to be a jerk, but you need to protect yourself in all of this. For all you know, you are the one being set up.”

  “Please don’t start with the conspiracy stuff again.”

  “I’m not, but what is happening isn’t making any sense, and it scares me.”

  “You are starting to scare me.”

  “Good. A little fear makes you more aware. Just don’t let the fear get to the point that it makes you dysfunctional.”

  “No worries. I’m dysfunctional all by myself. I don’t need the help of fear.”

  “You need to talk to more people than Roland. First, did you even call A.J.?”

  “Damn! He’s going to be so upset. He’s under so much pressure at work. I don’t want to add to it.”

  “Nice story, but you didn’t even think to call him.”

  “You were right here with me, Teagan. Roland was here. What could A.J. add to it?”

  “I don’t know, but my relationship with Jessie is looking more and more normal. I may be physically distant from Jessie, but you have A.J. right here in town, and you don’t even call him. By the way, I wouldn’t mention that part to him. He’d be every kind of male-offended they have, and it wouldn’t turn out well at all.”

  “Okay, you know what, Teagan? I don’t need this right now.”

  “I know you’re gonna have a meltdown.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You keep using my name. When O’Flynns are upset, we keep using each other’s names. I think it goes back to when we were kids and Mom wouldn’t be able to put her finger on which one of us was which, unless she was really upset; then she knew your name, your middle name, your saint’s name. Everything.”

  “Good point. I’m not going to melt down. I’m upset, I admit that, but you would have to be brain-dead not to be upset with all the stuff that has been going on around here lately.”

  “You have every reason to be upset — ”

  My phone rang and scared the bejeezus out of me. Caller ID said it was Roland. I took a deep breath and connected the call.

  “Hi, Roland.”

  “Ms. O’Flynn, it’s me, Harry.”

  “Sorry, Harry. What’s up?”

  “Roland would like to talk to you.”

  “Put him on.”

  “No, he’d like to talk to you in person, and he’d like to do it here at the office. He said he can send a car for you at any time.”

  “That isn’t necessary. I can drive. What time do you want me there?”

  “Roland would feel a lot better if you didn’t drive. People don’t realize the strain that they’re under. It can be dangerous. A loss of attention for just a couple of seconds at freeway speed can end in tragedy. Please let one of us pick you up.”

  “Harry, no offense, but having one of you guys pick me up would probably be a whole lot more stressful than driving myself. My sister is here with me. I’ll have her drop me off, and you guys can drive me home. Will that work?”

  “Sure.”

  “What time?”

  “Sooner is better, Ms. O’Flynn.”

  “I’ll leave here in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And, Harry?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Cara. Not Ms. O’Flynn.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “I just volunteered you to give me a ride to the security office. Roland wants to talk to me, and they got all freaked out about me driving myself.”

  “So I’m just supposed to drop you off?”

  “I’m sorry. Do you have some place you need to be?”

  “No, dingleberry, I want to go in with you. You put me that close to the sanctum sanctorum, and I’m just supposed to drive away?”

  “Sanctum sanctorum? Really? Teagan, your O’Flynn religious-geek side is showing. Jeez, when is the last time I heard that term?”

  “Grandma used to say it all the time. That is how she referred to anything at Bernie’s house that wasn’t the living room. Remember? We weren’t allowed to go anywhere but in the front door, sit in the living room, back outside. I asked Mom what sanctum sanctorum meant; I didn’t know why we weren’t allowed anywhere, like even in the kitchen, and Mom said it meant Holy of Holies. A church thing. Still don’t know why they used the term to describe Bernie’s kitchen and bedrooms, but remember even back then she was all involved in the church, so I just figured it was a church thing, and I really didn’t want to hear about it. Got enough of that at school.”

  “That’s weird. I don’t reme
mber that at all. I can’t think about that right now. Did you want to give me a ride or not?”

  “Are you going to let me come in with you?”

  “You can come in with me, but I can’t guarantee that Roland is going to talk in front of you.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  The office hadn’t changed since the last time I was there. Although I remember Roland saying something about redoing the whole thing, it looks like he hasn’t started yet.

  He said that he was going to use Adeline’s decorator, so maybe he has to stand in line. All the people who work with and for the super-rich know each other and use each other’s services when they can. It’s a nice blend of professional courtesy and fraternization, not incestuousness and nepotism, which is what I thought it was at first.

  I know the decorator has been really busy trying to figure out what to do with Adeline’s rehab. They ended up taking out whole walls for rehab reasons. If you’ve got the drywall off for mold remediation, you might as well change the wiring and plumbing and update everything, and that leads to things no one anticipated. The end product is a house that has a completely different feel and needs a new look to go with it. Adeline and JoAnn have been meeting with the decorator, and I’ve found some really beautiful things online. It’s amazing how I can provide a magazine image as inspiration and the decorator can take that look and turn it into something appropriate for Adeline and the space.

  The space.

  I sound like a home improvement show, but that is the way these people talk.

  Down the street from Adeline’s, a couple bought a house for seven point two million dollars and then went about gutting the whole place. They had a couple of charities show up and take everything they could use, but it still seemed wasteful to me.

  Even after I win my hundred-million-dollar lottery, I’m not going to do things like that.

  I already have my dream house picked out. It’s very ordinary looking on the outside. Looks like a house out of the fifties. Teagan would have to comment on that. But on the inside it is light and airy. There are folding doors all along one side of the great room, windows all long the other side. I’ll have to get special glass because if a hurricane decides to blow through, all those glass windows and doors are going to be a problem. The kitchen has a built-in banquet that seats six. The island will seat another six. The kitchen is open to the dining area that is open to the family room.

  That’s what makes it a great room, I guess.

  Anyway, I can seat another six or eight at the dining room table, and I can stick a table in the family room if I am having everybody over. I can also get a little wooden table and chairs from Ikea for the little kids.

  “Dingleberry.”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sorry, thinking about my house.”

  “Understandable. Having your house trashed is a traumatic thing, but do you think you could stay with me here? The receptionist was talking to you.”

  “Sorry.”

  I guess Teagan had answered for me, because the receptionist, a big guy with a great smile, was on the phone talking to someone, and moments later Harry came out of the door to the right.

  “Hey, Cara. Ms. O’Flynn.”

  “Teagan. Good to see you again, Harry.”

  “The pleasure is mine. Roland is waiting for you in the small conference room, Cara. Want to follow me?”

  “Can Teagan come?”

  “Of course.”

  I was wrong about the redecorating. The conference room had been completely redone.

  It was lovely in shades of gray.

  The small conference room was much more casual than the big one. They hadn’t changed that part of it. Probably for psychological reasons. The smaller, more casual conference room was meant to make you comfortable, and the big conference room was meant to intimidate the hell out of you.

  Everybody knows that kind of thing, but it still works.

  It’s kind of like talking to the cops. Everybody knows that you aren’t supposed to say a word and that it doesn’t matter if the cops are in the room or not, someone is listening and watching, but people still talk.

  Human beings are so easy to manipulate.

  I sat on a gray leather chair. Actually it’s one of those chair-and-a-half things. More than a chair but less than a loveseat. Teagan sat in one too. Roland sat in one across from us. It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him, and I couldn’t decide if he was relaxed because he now knew who had broken into my apartment or if he was faking it.

  I’ve really got to learn to concentrate again.

  Vicky, my counselor, explained to me that my spending so much time in my own head and living like a ninety-year-old nun was a common reaction to what I’ve been through, but it’s beginning to get on my own nerves. Can’t imagine how much I am annoying everybody else.

  I’m not sure how A.J. has put up with me.

  Teagan owes me some crazy-person loyalty. She’s been annoying for years at a time, and I’ve hung in there with her.

  “Cara. Teagan. Welcome. Thank you for coming to the office. I have a few things I’d like to show you, and it’s easier to do it here.”

  “No problem. I hope you don’t mind that I brought Teagan, Roland.”

  “Not at all.”

  It didn’t take a body language expert to figure out that his response was a bald-faced lie. He wanted Teagan involved in the discussion about as much as he wanted to walk through a thistle patch with no protective gear from the shins up.

  Teagan caught it too, but she didn’t say anything. It didn’t slow her down at all. It isn’t that Teagan is pushy.

  Well, not really.

  It’s that when my mom told her once that it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, she took it to heart.

  She ran with it.

  She took it as the God’s honest truth and never looked back.

  It’s annoying, but I also admire that part of her. She doesn’t let anything stop her or slow her down.

  “So, here’s the thing. I’ve spoken to Adeline. I haven’t given her all the details, but I did tell her that your house had been molested and that it was my intent to investigate.”

  When he said “molested,” I thought Teagan was going to say something, but she didn’t.

  “Why not tell her everything, Roland? She’s my boss, and it makes me a little uncomfortable to be stuck in the middle of all of this. Keeping things from her. Going through you instead of her. That isn’t the relationship that Adeline and I have, and to be honest, I’m not willing to do it much longer unless you can give me a really good reason.”

  “I have several good reasons, Cara. We will get to them in a few minutes. First, I need to share with you what it is I need you to do.”

  “Again, Roland, I’m not sure how much more I can do without talking to Adeline.”

  “Remember the arrangements you were making for Adeline and her friends, to go to a park and camp out in the wilderness? I need you to do that, and I need them to leave. Soon. Tomorrow would be good. Today is better.”

  “What?”

  “We can protect Adeline better there. A rural area is more conducive to our needs.”

  I knew Teagan wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut long. She didn’t disappoint. “So let me get this straight. You want Cara to call up the girls, tell them that she has arrangements for them in a national park, where they are unfamiliar with everything and everybody, so that you can sit in a tree and wait for someone to come and do them bodily harm?”

  “I wouldn’t phrase it that way.”

  “Well, how else do you phrase it?”

  “Ms. O’Flynn, I can assure you that I have this well in hand.”

  “Oh, really? Then tell me why any of this happened at all. If you know everything about everybody that has anything to do with Adeline, then how did her own grandkid do this? Better question is why did her grandkid do thi
s? This wasn’t a random act. It happened for a reason. We don’t understand that reason, which means that we can’t defend against it. And now you want Cara to put Adeline and her friends in the line of fire so that you can swoop in and be a hero? What happens if this goes wrong? If it all goes sideways, it isn’t you who will have put them in harm’s way; it will have been Cara. That doesn’t sound like a good plan to me.”

  “Let me begin again. I think that once you have all the facts you will agree that our plan is a good one. We will move to the other conference room where I can show you some materials we’ve collected.”

  Teagan didn’t say anything this time.

  I just stood to follow him. I know it’s my job and my decision and really has nothing to do with Teagan and that in a normal world with normal circumstances Teagan wouldn’t have been included in all of this in the first place. I know that in a normal business situation her opinion wouldn’t be welcome.

  But these aren’t normal situations, and if Roland wasn’t going to kick Teagan to the curb, I wasn’t going to say anything that would stop her from running interference for me. Truth is, when you are accustomed to working with the fabulously wealthy, you are more inclined to allow the client to have their own way, and at this point Roland was treating me like an extension of his client, Adeline.

  Either that or they were setting up a firing squad out in the back, and I’m just too stupid to know that I’m the target.

  The big conference room is completely remodeled.

  Roland gave me a quick tour.

  Not only because I’m nosey and asked, but also because many of the same contractors are being used for Adeline’s house and I have a lot to say about who is hired and who is not. Seeing their work is a big help.

  My assistant, JoAnn, interacts with the contractors more than I do these days, but I’m still in charge and making final decisions — well, presenting my decisions to Adeline to make the final decision.

  It isn’t that I’m stalling.

  Not really.

  I just need time for things to percolate in the back of my brain for a little while.

  Especially since getting beat up, I’ve learned that very few things are so urgent that you can’t take a breath and think about them for a minute or three.