by Tina Whittle
Marisa slapped the 302 on Trey’s desk. “And how does this relate to your assigned duties?”
“I have no assigned duties until this afternoon. I’ll be back then.”
“I need you this morning.”
“No, you don’t.”
Marisa glared. I raised the newspaper. As gratifying as it was to watch Trey stand up for himself, I had the feeling there would be shrapnel flying any second.
I was right.
Marisa’s expression hardened. “I have about had it with you.”
“I know.”
“I’d replace you if I could. Right now.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It was the first hint of reaction I’d seen in him since she’d stormed into the room.
“I know that too,” he said evenly.
Marisa closed her eyes, then rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. Look at me.”
Trey scanned her forehead and cheekbones in that chemical-peel examination of his, pausing at her mouth. For some reason, lies lay especially heavy on the mouth.
“I don’t want to replace you,” she said. “You’re the best, and I charge accordingly, which makes you very valuable to me. But I don’t sell paperwork, Trey, I sell you.”
She placed one white hand on the inside of his elbow. He flinched, but didn’t move. He looked at her hand. And then he looked at her.
“Go on,” he said.
“I’m going to quote the Vulnerability Assessment Methodologies Report at you now, which says, in these exact words, that the quality and diligence of the assessor is the most important criteria in the success of any security plan.” She tilted her head and regarded him cannily. “And you, Mr. Seaver, are my assessor.”
He folded his arms. “My job description—”
“We’ve had this conversation before. You’re a field agent, you have fieldwork, and sometimes it will involve nothing more than showing up and looking pretty. And you will do this. Because it’s your job.”
He didn’t argue. But she’d gotten to him, I could tell, and I knew why. She’d used the phrase “showing up,” and in Trey’s world, showing up was everything. It was where he drew the big unbreachable line—people who showed up, and people who didn’t.
He exhaled slowly. “What do you need from me?”
She smoothed the front of her blouse, calm now in victory. “I need you to finish the tiered assessment, including cost analysis. I need you to coordinate with our current secondary vendors and make sure they have lines on the proposed budget.”
“I can do that.”
“And I need you to spend the afternoon with Reynolds.”
He opened his mouth, and she held up a hand.
“Not personal protection. He’s the linchpin to bringing off this tournament because he’s the only one who can convince Audrina it’s doable. Listen to what he wants, then figure out how to make it happen in a way that sticks with the numbers Audrina gave us.”
Trey raised an eyebrow. “And what about this morning?”
“You have four hours. I need you back here at noon.”
He nodded once. “I’ll be here.”
He went into the bedroom to get his notebooks and pens, the materials of his craft. He may have been strapped with a nine-millimeter and honed with Krav Maga, but in his bones, Trey was a math geek.
Marisa watched him go. Then she turned her gaze on me like a firehose. “I blame you for this.”
“For what?”
She pointed at the other room. “For that. He used to be my most reliable employee. Now I cringe when I see a 302 from him. What is it now? I wonder. Car chase? Dead body? Shooting? Did he really call Senator Lovejoy last night? Please tell me he didn’t.”
I put the newspaper back up. “That wasn’t Phoenix business. It was a personal favor, for me.”
“It involved Phoenix when it involved my premises liability agent in an ongoing criminal investigation.”
“Hence the 302 under your door.”
“He didn’t follow procedure!”
“Yes, he did. To the letter.”
She folded her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“Looks like my work has merged with Trey’s.” I nibbled my croissant. “And don’t act surprised. This is why you invited me along, after all—to poach my leads. Unfortunately, I found the map first, and I’m hot on the Bible. Try not to be a sore loser.”
Her eyes held a daggered loathing. “You think this is one big adventure. I suppose I might too, if my life revolved around a backwards little gun shop. Trey must take your mind off things.”
I lay the pastry on the plate and put down my newspaper. “I don’t think you want to start this fight.”
“I am itching to start this fight.” There was heat in her voice. “Unfortunately, I have real work to do. It’s not fun and games keeping Phoenix afloat, not since you darkened Fulton County with your presence.” She headed for the door. “I would say keep him out of trouble, but that doesn’t seem to be your M.O.”
“Trey has a mind of his own.”
“Indeed he does, as unique a mind as I’ve ever come across. I have the entire psychological profile on him, after all, compiled by your brother.” She narrowed her eyes. “I know things.”
“You know how to manipulate him.”
“So do you. But I know the dangers too, especially of dragging him into an investigation.” She made a little tsk-tsk noise. “Wish I could share that info, but it’s confidential, as I’m sure your brother has explained.”
She opened the door and tossed a look over her shoulder. “Be careful, sweetie. That’s all I can say.”
She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Trey came out of the bedroom, fastening his cufflinks. He’d heard every word, of course. But his expression was clear and bland and utterly undisturbed.
He adjusted his already perfect Windsor knot. “Are you ready?”
***
We took the bridge to Bay Street under a blue sky as brilliant and wet as fresh paint. The clouds were still present, though, tumbled and billowy and moving fast, a portent of things to come. The tropical storm continued its offshore spin, sharpening its teeth on the warm Gulf Stream waters. Landfall was imminent, said the forecaster, although its target remained unpredictable. Until then, the Lowcountry was being blessed with a temporary stretch of benevolent weather.
But I wasn’t fooled one bit.
River Street lay four hundred feet below us down the sloping pavement-and-cobblestone incline, and since the day was adazzle with fresh clean light, tourists already clogged the area. Trey drove carefully, avoiding the oblivious pedestrians lurching from every sidewalk.
“Please tell me you didn’t fall for that drivel,” I said.
He frowned. “What drivel?”
“Marisa’s drivel. I know you heard her.”
He turned the car into Emmett Park, within sight of the Waving Girl. The woman depicted in the giant bronze statue—waving a flag at the incoming ships, hoping against hope for the return of her one true love—was a monument to lost causes if there ever was one.
“It wasn’t drivel,” he said. “She had valid points.”
“That she uses to manipulate you.”
“Regardless.”
He eased the car into the parallel space on the curb, uneven and pocked with puddles. It was a short walk to Winston’s shop. But Trey remained seated, his eyes on the steering wheel, keys in hand. Something percolating in his head.
“You can have access to the psychological profile she mentioned,” he said. “I’ll call Eric and sign the authorization paperwork as soon as we get back to Atlanta.”
I tried not to look startled. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. It’s mostly Eric’s occupational assessments. APD records and recommendations, the OPS transcripts.”
The Off
ice of Professional Standards investigation, my brain filled in. On Trey, on the fatal shooting. The reason he resigned from the force.
“Your brother can explain more,” he said.
Are you sure you want to know? my brain countered.
I ignored my brain. “Marisa implied she knows something about you that I don’t, about why I shouldn’t involve you in investigations.”
“I heard.”
“Does she?”
“No.” He kept his eyes on the dashboard. “Investigation is not my strong point. But Eric has referenced no contra-indications to such work.” He turned to face me. “I’m not hiding anything from you. But there are things I don’t know how to talk about, not yet. Do you understand?”
I knew what he was telling me. It was the same thing Eric and Garrity were always telling me in oblique and nonspecific ways. Be careful, they said. Depths within depths. But I also knew my brother was as professional as they came. If Trey were a hazard, Eric wouldn’t have okayed him to work at Phoenix.
“I understand,” I said. “Just promise me two things.”
“What?”
“One, if I ever do need to know something, so matter how hard it might be to talk about, you’ll tell me.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
I pointed toward the statue. “And two, if you ever leave me, and I start standing on the street corner waving at every Ferrari that goes by, you’ll come back long enough to shoot me in the head. I’ll do the same for you. Deal?”
The corner of his mouth kinked in a suppressed smile. “Deal.” He opened his car door. “Shall we find Winston now?”
Chapter Twenty-five
As I suspected, River Street was a sprawling carnival, its narrow sidewalks packed and boisterous. Trey, however, threaded his way through the crowd with fluid efficiency.
I followed close behind. We passed the Olympia Café, and he caught the rhythm of the streaming people and the bouziki music, his body entraining itself to his environment, slipping in and out of it like camouflage. He brushed no one’s shoulder, blocked no one’s path, got trapped in no bottlenecks.
We arrived at the tour shop and stepped inside. The front room glowed with morning sunshine, bouncing off the shiny tourist faces browsing the brochures, fondling the souvenirs. Winston stepped up to the counter, his shirt a blinding explosion of red splashed with yellow and green, his professional smile in place. It wavered only the slightest when he saw me standing there.
“Hey, Tai. You change your mind about that job?”
“Not yet.” I took Trey’s elbow. “This is my boyfriend, Trey. Trey, Winston Cargill, my former boss.”
Winston gave him the salesman grin and extended a hand. Trey didn’t take it. He didn’t do anything. He just stood there, a look of dazed bafflement on his face.
“Trey? What’s wrong?”
He held up one finger.
“Trey?”
He sneezed, then sneezed again, violently. “I can’t—” Another sneeze, this one sending him up against the wall. A blowsy woman in a sundress moved out of the way, clucking to herself. Trey buried his face in his elbow and sneezed three more times.
“Parrot,” he said into his elbow, and pointed.
Jezebel cocked her head at him. Trey sneezed again. “I’m allergic. I can’t…” And then he shoved open the door and threw himself back onto the sidewalk. I watched the door shut behind him, jingling cheerfully.
The parrot trilled like a ringing telephone, then screamed. Out on the cobblestones, Trey sneezed again. The bird reached up a clawed toe and preened.
Winston shook his head. “Damn. Is he okay?”
I sighed. So much for tapping Trey’s cranial lie detector. Out on the sidewalk, I heard two concerned voices offering aid. Female, of course.
“He’s fine.” I propped my elbows on the counter and regarded Winston pleasantly. “We can talk without him.”
“Talk about what?”
“Did you hear about Bob Simmons?”
“The guy who drowned? Yeah. Did you know him?”
“No. Uncle Dexter did apparently. The newspaper had a good article, but it didn’t say anything about the map.”
Winston tried to look innocent. “What map?”
“The one I found last night. On Wassaw Island. Somebody set that man up with a fake treasure map, and he died trying to find the gold it supposedly pointed to. But it was a hoax. Another lost cause.”
Winston looked sick. “You found the real map?”
“Trey and I did. Long story. Here’s the kicker. The authorities are anxious to figure out where it came from.”
“What can they tell from a map?”
“Oh, lots of things. It’s a CSI Wonderland out there now.” I leaned forward until we were face to face. “Fingerprints, specks of dust, even DNA from skin cells. It’s amazing.”
Winston looked like a catfish out of water, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes wide. That was all a bunch of lies, but the less he knew, the better.
I lowered my voice. “I’m guessing it was a game to start with, a joke. But somebody’s dead now. And the cops aren’t laughing. Neither is the GBI. The Feds either. Multijurisdictional nonamusement.”
Winston collected himself. He shook his head slowly, with manufactured regret. “That’s a damn shame, that is.”
“I know. But here’s the thing. I’m sure Hope’s behind it, and I’m sure she’s not working alone. You have any ideas about that?”
“No, n-nothing.”
His eyes were clear and guileless, but the stammer gave him away.
“Listen to me, Winston. I—”
Three loud knocks at the back door interrupted me. Winston’s face went slack with relief, like he’d been tossed a life preserver.
“Hang on a second,” he said. “That’s UPS.”
And then he slipped out the door in back, like a rabbit making for the underbrush. I shook my head. Six months since I’d left town, and already he’d forgotten who he was dealing with.
I started with the shelf under the counter, whipping the cloth cover aside. The box was gone. I hadn’t really expected it to be there, of course, but sometimes amateurs get lucky. I gave the rest of the shelves a cursory examination to no avail. Whatever he’d been hiding under there, he’d hidden it better somewhere else.
I moved on to his desk calendar, getting a pencil and poking through it, flipping pages. The bird looked at me without judgment.
“I’ll bet you’ve heard all kinds of stuff, haven’t you?” I said.
Another trill.
“Polly know a secret?”
Another croak.
I returned my attention to the desk calendar. I recognized most of the entries as the typical tour shop agenda. But there was an interesting bit on Friday night, a seven o’clock meeting marked with an asterisk. Unlike every other entry in the meticulous calendar, this one had no meeting place, no person to be meeting. It reeked of mysterious assignation.
I heard the back door and slammed the book shut, hurrying to the other side of the counter. Winston came thumping in with frustration written bold on his face, which was as shiny and red as the splotches on his shirt.
“Look,” he said. “Hope Lyle is bad news. But are you really suggesting she killed that old guy?
I shrugged. “Who knows? But seriously, Winston, don’t get in over your head. You’ve got my card—call me if she shows up. I don’t want to be reading about your untimely demise in tomorrow’s headlines.”
***
I found Trey waiting in the Lincoln, sitting in the driver’s seat, head tilted back. I climbed in and slammed the door behind me.
“Parrots? Really?”
He nodded, not raising his head. His eyes still watered, but otherwise the allergic reaction had died down.
I fastened my seat belt, annoyed despite myself. “First reptiles, now birds. Any other conflicts with the animal kingdom I should know about?”
He pulled a slip of paper fr
om his pocket and held it in my direction. I caught a glimpse of numbers and letters.
“What’s that?”
“License plate number. From the car that pulled up to the back entrance of Winston’s shop.”
“UPS?”
“Not UPS. Silver Mercedes convertible.” Despite the watering eyes, Trey was back to his usual sharpness. “It was driven by this man. Five-six, light brown hair, slender build.”
He pulled out his phone and held it my way. He’d captured an image of Winston’s unexpected visitor, and Trey was right—not a delivery person. The two men looked to be arguing. Winston’s expression was tight with anger, the young man’s pale with anxiety. I looked closer, enlarged the image with a swipe. It was fuzzy, but I recognized the figure anyway.
“Aw, hell. That’s Skip!”
“Who?”
“He used to work at the tattoo shop where I met John. Talented artist, Skip. He quit, though, before I moved. I have no idea where he is now, but I bet Train might.”
“Train?”
“Yeah, he owns the tattoo shop. And I bet he can put me on Skip’s trail. After all, Winston’s got the knowhow and Hope’s got the goods—the missing link in this equation is someone with the artistic talent to create a forgery, and Skip’s got that in spades.” I handed Trey’s phone back to him. “Wanna come see where I got my first tattoo?”
Trey checked his watch. “I can’t. It’s almost noon.”
“Oh yeah. The Dragon Lady Summoneth.”
“Indeed.”
“No problem. You take the car. I’ll catch the water taxi back to the hotel.”
“Are you sure?”
“Train’s shop is at the other end of River Street, a five minute walk. In public, broad daylight.”
Trey did the rapid calculation, factoring in all the various ways I could screw things up, multiplying that by the probability that I would, divided by the potential information coming my way. The verdict? Probably sensible.
“Okay. But call me when you leave.”
“Where will you be? On some helicopter again?”
“At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
He took my hand. The abrupt intimacy started me, but then he pulled out his pen and wrote a number in my palm.