by Beth Flynn
Lucy looked confused. “How does a hooker connect you to my Peeping Tom? Mike could’ve been stepping out on his wife.”
“True,” Jonas agreed. “But it wasn’t until after Bruce asked me about Gloria that he added an extra detail. He hadn’t seen Gloria around for a while. He started checking with her friends, who told him Gloria wasn’t working as much because she hit pay dirt with a guy who rolled into Naples this past summer. A man who not only was paying her well but had bragged to her that he would be coming into a lot of money. Apparently, Gloria impressed this guy because as soon as he scored, he wanted Gloria to leave with him. When I realized it was Gloria I saw going into the house, I knew you were the big score he was talking about.”
Lucy jumped up and started pacing. “This is unbelievable. I feel like I’m in a movie, Jonas.” She paused and bent over to rub her sore thigh muscles. Looking up at him, she stated, “I talked to my mother. My parents were running from someone.”
“Your grandfather, Paddy O’Brien.”
“Yes, but my mother swears they never stole a dime from him.”
Jonas shrugged. “I can’t answer to that. Your neighbor thinks they did. And by the way. He’s not disabled. It was a good disguise, certainly made him seem harmless. He used it to pick Brad’s brain. Your friend is always walking his dog and from what I heard, he’s now walking Chaos too?”
Lucy nodded. “Yeah. He was upset that Chaos didn’t like him, so he offered to walk him to try and change his mind.”
“Mike made sure he limped out to his mailbox whenever he saw Brad coming. He purposely targeted the guy and would ask him about the neighbors. And he obviously used the socks on a rooster adage in front of Brad and all Brad did was repeat it to you. Anyway, Mike never specifically asked about you, but of course you came up after Brad started walking Chaos.”
Lucy tilted her head slightly. “I can see that. He probably noticed I got a dog and then to see Brad walking him would make for some casual conversation.”
“It was during one of their mailbox chats that Chaos showed his ass to Brad. And guess what Brad did?”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Chaos was scaring him so he tried to calm himself down by reciting your numbers. When Mike heard him, he asked Brad what he was doing. Brad mentioned that you were teaching him your numbers game, which consisted of one hundred and ninety digits, to help deal with his anxiety.”
“And Mike thought it was somehow connected to my parents,” Lucy finished. “He thinks they’re routing numbers and bank account numbers.”
“Could they be?” Jonas asked.
Lucy smirked. “I had a professor who heard me reciting them once and asked me about them. I told him how my father taught them to me when I was a child. How they’d become a super useful tool not only in memorization, but like Brad said, to help with anxiety.” She adjusted her glasses. “He was fascinated and asked if he could ask his friend at NASA to run them through the computer. Just for fun. NASA has the most advanced computer system in the world. If there was something to those numbers, it would be the most likely way to see if they meant anything.”
“And do they?”
Lucy shrugged. “Of course they do. They mean lots of things. They’re coordinates to certain constellations. The number one hundred and ninety is a Harshad number. In mathematics, a Harshad number in a given number base is an integer divisible by the sum of its digits when written in that base.”
Jonas stood back. “Whoa! Brain overload.”
Lucy stifled a small laugh. “Brazil is currently trying to establish a countrywide emergency call system similar to our 911. They plan on using 190.” She looked up at Jonas with a sheepish grin. “The number one hundred and ninety or the individual numbers themselves could be a lot of things. It’s true that bank routing numbers consist of nine digits and bank account numbers consist of ten digits. That’s nineteen total digits times ten equals one hundred and ninety, and could in fact be ten different bank accounts.” She slowly shook her head. “But, they’re not. It was just a memory game. That’s all it ever was.”
Jonas tugged at his beard. “Mike thought your father might’ve hidden them in your dolls.”
“That’s another reason I thought it was Brad. Mike mentioned that my dolls were a dead end. That they proved useless. Brad had spilled coffee…”
Jonas held up a hand. “I know that story too. Mike saw Brad carrying out the chair and the dolls. He asked him about it when he saw him again. Brad told him about the accidental spill and that he was having them cleaned. Mike casually asked when he was supposed to get them back to you. He followed Brad yesterday and after Brad picked up the dolls at the cleaners, he did some errands. Mike stole them out of his car. Brad may not even realize yet that they’re missing. Or he’s tearing up Naples looking for where he might’ve lost them.” Jonas gave Lucy a serious look. “We’re not calling the police about this, Lucy. When Brad comes crawling back with his tail between his legs thinking he lost your dolls, you’re going to have to put on the act of a lifetime. Come up with a way to make him think it’s okay without drawing suspicion.”
She didn’t address his comment. “Why aren’t we calling the police?”
Jonas shook his head. “Do you really want to bring the police into this? What if there’s a deeper investigation and it hits the news? What if there are other guys out there still serving time who’ve been looking for the Renquest family? And do you really want your family to have the stigma of being associated with Paddy O’Brien? Or worse yet, what if Paddy has old enemies who want retaliation for something Paddy may have done?” He gave her a stern look before adding, “Just like at the cabin, there are situations that warrant acting outside the law. This is one of them.”
Lucy kicked at the carpet and crossed her arms. “So you think that because he’s a self-admitted murderer, your form of justice should prevail?”
“Not at all,” he admitted. “My form of justice will prevail because he dared to lay a hand on you. If you want to throw in that he murdered your father and your mother’s neighbor to feel better about it, so be it.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the telephone. Lucy walked to the side of the bed where she’d left it on the floor. She picked it up and sat it on her nightstand. She answered it and Jonas watched her expression change to one of shock. She thanked whoever she was talking to and hung up.
“That was the vet,” she said with a shaky voice. “Chaos wasn’t sick from a toxic frog. He’s going to be okay but has to stay on an IV drip for a couple more days.” Lucy started to cry. “Oh, Jonas! He was poisoned.”
“To get him out of the house so that bastard could get to you. I’m going to guess he was going to tear this place apart one final time until you got home from school. And if he hadn’t found the numbers by then he was going to get them from you. Like he did.”
“Probably a safe assumption,” she replied with a sniffle.
The weight of Jonas’ voice shook the ground. Lucy flinched when he shouted, “That son of a bitch belongs to me.”
After discussing the next course of action with her, he pounced his way back to Mike Kelly’s rental home muttering under his breath. “I’m going to use your face to mop the bathroom floor and then wring you out in the bathtub. Piece by fucking piece.”
Chapter 53
Two months passed as Lucy did her best to recover from the shock of her family’s illicit connection to organized crime. A connection that resulted in the truth behind her father’s death and a terrible invasion of her privacy. Not to mention the neighborhood gossip surrounding Mike Kelly’s sudden departure from their quiet street.
She’d done as Jonas had said that Wednesday afternoon over a month ago. Before leaving the house, he’d insisted she do her best to return to her normal routine while he handled the situation. She knew what handling the situation meant and she battled an internal struggle that she eventually lost. Her moral obligation waned in
the shadow of knowing what that horrible man had done to her kind and gentle father.
She never asked Jonas about Mike Kelly’s true identity. She never shared with her mother or brother the nightmare she’d lived through or the man who’d rescued her. Her mother’s mid-October visit had come and gone, and after Mrs. Renquest sat her children down and shared her family history in more detail, Lucy posed a question.
“Mom, I believe you and Dad didn’t steal Paddy’s money. But I’m also guessing you needed funds to get new identities and make a fresh start. I know you bought this house and never held a mortgage on it. You said you were in college and Dad was an accountant for your father’s uniform laundering company. He couldn’t have made the kind of money you would need to start a new life. How did you do it without money?”
They’d been sitting on the couch and Lucy’s mother reached out and patted her knee. With a sad smile she told her children, “We had help.” She’d learned early on that Carmine Bilotti’s son, Sal, had been in love with his childhood sweetheart and was just as upset at the marriage proposition as she had been. “It was Sal. He risked his life to help us. He got us our new identities, gave us the money to buy this house.” She looked around the living room. “Your father and I didn’t have the resources to pull off our own escape.” She bobbed her head. “Which might explain how the rumor of us stealing money from my father got started. People would’ve assumed we needed money to live on the run. But, thanks to Sal, we weren’t on the run. We settled in Naples almost immediately. We had a good life until your father went missing.”
Lucy used the moment to excuse herself. She walked to the kitchen and when she was no longer in their line of sight, she leaned back against the refrigerator and started whispering her numbers. “Nine, four, four, nine, six, three, three, two, five.” She took in huge gulps of air between each chant. Her mother had the right to know what happened to her husband. But at what cost? Knowing her father had been beaten to death and dumped in a watery grave had left an unhealable hole in Lucy’s heart. It was that knowledge that allowed her to never question what Jonas had done with Mike Kelly. She couldn’t tell her mother about her father’s death without revealing the rest of the story. It had to stay tucked away in the recesses of her brain. She returned to the living room and asked her mother a final question. “Why did you name your dog after your father? A man you hated?”
Mrs. Renquest brought her hand to her chest as if surprised. “Oh, Lucy! I never hated my father. I hated what he did. I hated what he wanted me to do. But I loved my father. And I still love him and miss him even more.”
Like me and Jonas, Lucy thought as she now stood almost two months later, gazing out her window. A new family had moved into the Spindalls’ home across the street. They were a young couple with a new baby. Jonas had shown up only once to make sure she was okay. He’d invited her out to eat and told her to pick the place. She insisted he take her to the Waffle House on the back of his motorcycle. It was the first time she’d ridden on his bike, and her heart lurched when she saw the shadowy figure that was still displayed on his gas tank. He hadn’t painted over it.
Over a man-sized portion of eggs and waffles, she told him how she’d managed to soothe an upset Brad about the loss of her beloved Sam and Sally dolls. He’d rightly assumed they’d been stolen out of his car and had shown up days later with Raggedy Ann and Andy replacements. She’d casually asked him where he’d heard the saying about putting socks on a rooster. And like Jonas had suspected, it was something he’d heard Mike Kelly utter. She shared with Jonas what her mother told her about the man who’d financed her parents’ escape from Paddy O’Brien. And lastly, she told him that Chaos had made a complete recovery and asked Jonas if she could keep him.
“Of course you can,” Jonas told her.
She looked up at him with her beautiful and magnified eyes. “Your friend who’s getting out of prison won’t want him back?”
“I’ll tell him he ran away,” Jonas lied. “He doesn’t deserve a dog as good as Chaos,” he added. “Did your mother ask how you and Lenny managed to buy new cars?”
Lucy nodded. “Oh yeah. Good thing you got them from Christy Chapman’s dealership. I reminded her that me and Lenny used to tutor her in high school and she’d always wanted to show her gratitude. I mentioned how we ran into her at the restaurant, you know…” She looked away shyly. “The restaurant where we found each other again.” When Jonas didn’t comment, she continued, “Anyway, two cars for someone as wealthy as Christy is like peanuts. Even Lenny believed it.” She put a finger on her chin. “But I don’t know what the chances are that Lenny might ever run into Christy and thank her. Maybe I should try and get in touch with Christy to let her in on it.”
Jonas chuckled. “I can get word to her.”
The meal was almost over, but neither wanted it to end. Lucy stared at her empty plate before glancing up to meet his eyes. “Jonas, we belong together.”
“Not in this life we don’t, honey. Maybe in the next one,” he remarked with a throat full of gravel.
Her gaze was penetrating. “After all we’ve been through, you’re going to tell me we don’t belong together?”
“After all we’ve been through is exactly why we don’t belong together.” One heavy brow slanted in obvious disapproval. “I’ve introduced you to a world you should never know.”
“But it’s too late, Jonas. Because you’re in that world. And I want to be where you are.”
“Not gonna happen, Lucy. And it’s for your own good.”
She sat back against the hard booth and pressed her lips together. After giving him an angry once-over she said, “I know you thought you were scaring me away that day at the cabin. But I saw through it. You didn’t reject me because you didn’t love me. You rejected me because you do. Why would you have come around a month later showing concern for my welfare? The dog, the alarm system.” She waved her hand in the air. “The costs you racked up to have my parents investigated. Not to mention, the extra police patrol in my neighborhood. You went to a lot of trouble and expense for someone who’s not your type.” She used air quotes to emphasize the words he’d tossed her way at the cabin.
He shrugged indifferently. “I felt guilty for abducting you for a month. It wasn’t love, Lucy. It was guilt.”
She scooted out of the booth and stood over him. She threw her napkin on the table and said, “I thought that too. For about a second. But we both know that’s a load of crap. You don’t feel remorse for anything, Jonas. I know the things you’ve done, and I know you don’t feel guilty about any of them. I’m leaving after Christmas. The second week in January to be exact. You have until then to make a final decision. Because once I leave, I will not come back.” She walked over to the cash register and asked to use the phone. When he caught up to her, she said, “You can go now. I called myself a cab.”
She was certain he wouldn’t coax her into letting him take her home. She’d sensed his fight-or-flight defense strategy and knew she was getting close to breaking him because Jonas Brooks suddenly wanted to get away from her as quickly as possible. He distanced himself while they waited for her ride and he saw her safely into the cab. He tossed more than enough cash at the driver and told him, “Make sure she gets in the front door before you drive away.” There was no hug goodbye between friends. And there definitely wasn’t a kiss. Lucy refused to look in the rear window as the cab pulled away from the restaurant. Away from Jonas Brooks.
Two months had passed since Jonas rescued Lucy from Mike Kelly and another month since their meal at the Waffle House. He really is gone, she reluctantly told herself one day as she stood in her living room gazing out over her neighborhood.
At that moment, a white convertible Volkswagen Rabbit pulled into her driveway and Lucy was shocked to see who got out of it. She opened the door before the woman could knock. “Christy. What are you doing here?” Lucy asked.
Christy gave her a warm smile that didn’t reach her concerned eye
s. “I’m here about Brooks, Lucy. Can I come in?”
Chapter 54
Lucy ushered Christy in and after offering her a seat, did her best to hide the worry behind a mask of indifference.
Christy got right to the point. “Anthony wanted me to talk to you about Brooks.”
Lucy wasn’t used to Jonas being referred to as Brooks. “What about him?” she inquired, doing her best to feign disinterest.
Christy tried not to smile when she told her, “Lucy, I know you spent a month with him at his cabin in the Everglades.”
Lucy sat up primly. “He tricked me into going with him, Christy. It wasn’t my idea.” Without meeting Christy’s eyes, she added, “I did my best to get away from him.”
“Lucy, if that’s the story you want me to believe, I will, and I’ll never tell otherwise.” Christy tilted her head slightly. “But you are the most intelligent person I’ve ever met in my life. If you’d wanted to get away from Brooks, you would have.” When Lucy didn’t answer, Christy continued down another avenue, trying to soften the subject. “I know how smart you are, and I always wondered why you and Lenny bothered showing up to school. You both could’ve been in college by what? Thirteen? Fourteen years old, maybe?”
Lucy gave her a lopsided grin. “We were there at my mother’s insistence. She was determined for us to have a high school experience whether we wanted it or not. She worked out the details with our school and college. We showed up for only one class each semester starting in tenth grade. And of course, we volunteered our time to do some tutoring, but the rest of the time we were attending college.” Lucy looked wistful before adding, “We never let her know how miserable we were during those few classes we had to take.”