“Let him win,” Roger said, bitterness making his voice thick.
“Ah, there’s the magic of it, my young friend. You’re the one who wins. You know what’s wrong and you know what’s right. And you carry that knowledge in your heart. He can’t touch that, he can’t take that. That’s yours, forever,” Walter said. “And the other thing that’s yours forever is our love for you. Noah and Dot and I will still be here in a week when your father leaves town again. You will always be welcome here—you know that. But I hope you will be wise and not compromise your personal safety to visit us until it’s safe for you to do so without repercussion.”
“Someday me and Noah, we’re going to join the Navy,” Roger said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“We’re going to be SEALs,” Noah said.
“Yeah,” Roger said. “And that’s going to really piss my father off because he was in the Army.”
Walter laughed. “Ringo, I really like you. Nostradamus here has excellent taste when it comes to choosing his friends.”
Roger got very quiet. “I really like you, too, Uncle Walt.”
Walt hugged him, hugged Noah, too. It was funny, but this time it was Walter who had tears in his eyes. “You better head home, son.”
“Yes, sir,” Roger said. He climbed painfully to his feet. “Maybe he’ll go back on the road real soon,” he told Noah.
“When he does, we’ll be here,” Noah said, echoing his grandfather’s words.
CHAPTER
SIX
Clyde Wrigley was a freaking crybaby.
But he didn’t cry at the news that his ex-wife, Janine, was dead.
No, he didn’t start wailing until he realized that the FBI thought he might somehow be involved in her death.
Forget about Janine. The son of a bitch was crying because he was scared he might have to go back to jail.
He was right where Sam had expected him to be—parked in front of the TV at the house Clyde and Janine had shared back when they’d first moved to Sarasota. It was the same address Mary Lou had given Sam when he’d called to find out where to send money, after he’d been served with those divorce papers.
Manuel Conseco had made the scene, and he and his assistant—the young blonde who’d helped interview Sam—were questioning Clyde.
Sam itched to grab the son of a bitch by the T-shirt, slam him against the wall, order him to stop sniveling, and tell where Mary Lou and Haley were.
Alyssa surely knew that, too. She was standing close—close enough to grab Sam and keep him from getting himself into trouble.
Of course, he could use a little grabbing from Alyssa Locke right about now.
He experimented, shifting his weight, just a little, toward Clyde. Sure enough, Alyssa shifted just a little bit closer to Sam.
What would he have to do to get a full body block? Although, chances were, if he did that, she’d hustle him out of there and he wouldn’t get to hear whatever lame information Clyde did spit out.
“Three weeks,” Clyde was sobbing. “I haven’t seen Janine in at least three weeks. At least. And before that, it was months. Not since she moved out.”
“And when was the last time you went to her home on Camilia Street?” Conseco asked.
“That was it. It was the first time and the last time.” Clyde couldn’t seem to speak without a fresh flood of tears and snot.
Someone give the asshole a Kleenex. Crying was bad enough, but crying in public was freaking humiliating. Sam’s face heated as he remembered the way he’d broken down himself just a few hours earlier. Alyssa, thank you God, had quickly given him some privacy—unlike the time she’d barged into his hotel room and come across him weeping like a baby. She’d just stood there and stared. That had been embarrassing—doubly so since he’d been crying over her. He’d actually had to chase her out.
“It was the only time I went to her house,” Clyde was saying. “I didn’t even know where she lived until I ran into Carol.”
“Carol who?”
“I don’t know her last name. She was just some friend of Jan’s—she worked with her at the dry cleaners.”
Conseco made notes on his pad. “Which dry cleaners was that?”
“Quickie-Clean over on Clark,” Clyde said. “But Janine stopped working there—same time she moved out, months ago. I think she quit because she didn’t want to see me.”
“Because she was afraid of you?”
“No, man! She just … I don’t know, she said she was tired of lending me money. I’m on disability—half pay. You can’t live on that. It’s been rough these past few years and—”
“So Carol told you where Janine lived?” the blonde asked.
And Sam couldn’t keep it in anymore. Who cared what Carol told him? “Where’s Haley?”
Clyde aimed his teary gaze at Sam. “Jeez, I don’t know, man. I didn’t see her when I went over there. I haven’t seen Mary Lou or the baby since they all moved out.”
“Let us ask the questions, Lieutenant,” Alyssa murmured, as Conseco glared at them both. She was now standing so close that Sam couldn’t help but get a noseful of her every time he so much as inhaled.
She smelled so good. She wasn’t wearing perfume from a bottle, at least not the way Mary Lou had, in overpowering amounts guaranteed to overdose his sense of smell. No, Alyssa’s scent was far more subtle. It came from her shampoo or soap or maybe some kind of lotion she used or, who knows, maybe it was the perfume from her laundry dryer sheets, used to avoid static cling. Whatever it was, on Alyssa it smelled incredible.
It was enough to distract the shit out of him—to make at least part of his brain start working on the best way to get her naked and wrapped around him, as soon as possible, preferably tonight.
And—he was a freaking genius—now she knew it, too. The past few hours had put him way off-balance and he was far from on top of his game. Not only was he thinking about sex—again—when he should have been thinking only about his missing daughter, but he was enough of an asshole to fail to hide the nature of his thoughts from Alyssa.
Yes, indeed, she knew him well enough to know exactly what he was thinking, just from looking into his eyes.
For several long seconds, she just held his gaze, the expression on her face unreadable.
God, making love to her had been exquisite. How could she not want to do that, to feel that, again?
Because Sam had dumped her for Mary Lou, for one thing. Not that that had mattered so very much in the long term. Because Alyssa had told him in very clear English that she’d never intended to have more than a hot, brief affair with him—just a few months, tops, of that brain-searing sex—with no real emotional attachment involved.
At least not from her.
Now she was in a real relationship with someone she actually loved.
Max. The fucker.
Max wouldn’t have gone six months without seeing his daughter. Of course Max was too perfect to have had a daughter with some stranger he’d picked up in a bar in the first place. But if he did have a daughter, he’d no doubt have found her and brought her home by now, instead of standing around with his thumb up his ass, wistfully hoping that the kid was still alive.
Please God let Haley be alive.
“Sorry.” Sam was the one who broke eye contact.
“Keep it zipped,” Alyssa warned him sharply, “or you’re out of here.”
Interesting choice of words and definitely not unintentional.
“Carol didn’t know where Janine lived,” Clyde was saying. “I asked her because … because Jan took my Phish CDs when she moved out, and I wanted them back.”
Yeah, right.
“All Carol knew was that Janine just got a new job working as a receptionist at the vet’s over in Siesta Village,” Clyde continued, wiping his nose on his T-shirt sleeve. “She told me that Janine was doing really well, that she was working hard to stay clean. She said they were letting her help take care of the dogs on the weekends, and that she really lik
ed doing that.”
“And you figured she was probably getting paid overtime, so you went to see her?” Conseco knew the truth. Clyde had gone to see Janine to try to borrow some money. And when she’d refused to lend it to him …
“He wouldn’t have killed her over that,” Sam murmured to Alyssa. “Not this guy. It’s not in him.”
She glanced at him, glanced at Conseco, and then back.
“I’m not interrupting them,” he said softly to her. “As for the rest of me—I’m zipped.”
Alyssa Locke wasn’t the type to blush easily, but she definitely avoided eye contact at that. However, after a moment, she did lean slightly closer to whisper back to him, “What if he found her with another man—a new boyfriend?”
“No. Maybe he’d go home and smoke an extra doobie or two to deal with the pain, but …” Sam shook his head. “Nah. Besides, where’s the boyfriend? Wouldn’t he have shown up before this, saying, ‘I think something’s wrong—my girlfriend hasn’t answered her phone or her doorbell for nearly three weeks’? I mean, come on. Even assuming he’s an asshole and doesn’t come see her unless he wants some, three weeks is way too long for a guy to go without sex.”
Alyssa gave him a disgusted look, but then exhaled a short laugh and shook her head. “Men suck.”
“Some women suck, too.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
“No. I wanted those CDs back,” Clyde was sticking to his lame excuse. “That’s why I went over there and waited until she left work. I couldn’t find a parking space, so I ended up just following her home.”
“Where you killed her?”
Clyde started crying again. “No way, man. I didn’t kill her. I just, you know, rang the bell and we talked and—”
“Front door or back?”
“Front.” He perked up. “You know, her neighbor was out in the yard, washing his car. He saw me go in and he saw me come out, too. And Jan was with me when I left. She came out to get one of my CDs from the car.”
“Which neighbor?” Conseco asked.
“The fat guy who lives in the house on the left,” Clyde told him, “if you’re facing Jan’s house. I swear to you, I didn’t kill her.”
Conseco was silent, just looking through his notes.
“Can you please ask him if he knows where Mary Lou worked?” Sam said to Alyssa, loudly enough for Conseco and Clyde to hear. “Or where Haley went for day care?”
Clyde didn’t wait for the FBI agents to play telephone. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Honest. The only way I knew Haley was still living with Jan was from the toys on the living room floor.”
“Can you tell me your whereabouts the rest of that evening?” Conseco asked.
“I came here,” Clyde said. “And, you know, listened to my Phish CDs.”
“You were alone?”
“Yeah, but I swear, I didn’t kill her.” He pointed to Sam. “Why aren’t you questioning him? Maybe he killed her. The SEAL. You know, before Jan moved out, she and Mary Lou were always whispering about him. Stuff like, ‘What if Sam finds out?’ Like, ‘He won’t find out, how could he find out?’ I heard Jan say—more than once—‘What’s he going to do if he does find out? Kill me?’ I finally asked her what was going on—I was a little worried he was going to kick down the door in the middle of the night. I thought maybe Mary Lou had stolen something from him when she left. Something more valuable than a couple of CDs, you know? But Janine told me it was nothing—that back a few years ago, she gave Mary Lou a special box of condoms that wouldn’t do what they were supposed to do, if you get my drift. It was so that she’d get pregnant and the SEAL would have to marry her. Only now they were getting a divorce, so what did it matter? That’s what Jan said.
“But I remember thinking, Man, if I’m the SEAL and I find out about that …”
“Jesus,” Sam said. He’d heard the words Clyde was saying, but they’d stopped making sense. And then they made too much sense. Mary Lou had gotten pregnant on purpose. He’d always known that, but he hadn’t actually known it.
But apparently the condoms they’d used had been tampered with. God damn it, he’d always been so careful, so Mary Lou’s pregnancy had caught him by surprise. He’d spent hours trying to figure out exactly where he’d failed. It made so much more sense now.
And—perfect—now Conseco was looking at him with renewed interest. As if Sam really did have a motive for killing Janine.
It was so ridiculous, Sam didn’t say a word. He just held Conseco’s gaze. It was far better than looking at Alyssa, who had to be thinking that he was a total fool. Mary Lou had come to him, pregnant and alone and seemingly frightened to death, and he’d walked away from a budding relationship with Alyssa—a woman that he was crazy about—so he could do what he’d thought was the right thing. He’d taken responsibility for this woman he’d accidentally knocked up.
Only it hadn’t been accidental.
Jesus.
Alyssa pulled Conseco aside. She spoke quietly, but Sam still managed to overhear. “Look, he’s exhausted. Tomorrow, he’ll be giving you a complete record accounting for his time over the past weeks. If you still want to question Lieutenant Starrett after that, you’re welcome to do so, of course. But for right now, I’m taking him out of here.”
Conseco said something too quietly for Sam to hear.
“Absolutely,” Alyssa responded.
Conseco turned back to Clyde, and Alyssa headed for Sam. “Let’s go.”
He followed her out the front door, down the steps, and toward her rental car.
“You okay?” Alyssa asked.
Sam glanced at her. He laughed—a short burst of disparaging air. “Yeah, you know, that’s the best part about being a fucking idiot. You’re too stupid to know when you’re not okay.”
Alyssa opened her mouth and was about to say something, when her phone rang.
* * *
Alyssa answered after only one ring. “Locke.”
“Hey, it’s me,” Max said, opening the refrigerator and taking out the half gallon of milk. “How’s it going?”
“As well as can be expected, sir,” she answered, “considering that Manuel Conseco doesn’t play happily with us other children.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that about him. Other than that, he’s very good at what he does.”
“Yes, sir. And his entire team thinks he’s God, which makes me the Antichrist.”
“Cut it out with the sir,” Max ordered. “It’s after hours.”
“Maybe for you. But not for us angels of Satan. Or for poor overworked Manny Conseco. You know, actually, I feel like I’m one of those commodores on Star Trek—the ones who come in and make it hard for Captain Kirk to do his job.”
Max laughed, some of the fatigue of the day falling away. Talking to Alyssa always made him feel better. “Wow. How come I didn’t know you were a Trekkie?”
Crap. The milk was dated over three weeks ago. How did that happen? He didn’t bother to take a sniff, he just opened it up and poured it directly down the sink.
“When I was growing up, Lieutenant Uhura was a major role model for me,” Alyssa told him. “A strong black woman on the bridge of a starship …?”
“In a miniskirt, answering the interplanetary telephone?” Max looked at the bowl of Rice Krispies he’d already poured. Now what? He’d taken off his suit first thing upon arriving home, and walking down to the convenience store on the corner in his boxer shorts might not go over too well with his neighbors.
“Yeah, well, there were definitely some kinks that needed to be worked out.” She paused. “Is there a purpose to this phone call?”
“I was hoping for a status report. I figured you’d still be up.” Max took the bowl to the sink, adding water. It was pathetic, but it seemed less so than eating it dry.
“Up and running,” she told him. “I’m about to drive Lieutenant Starrett to the home of one of his friends.”
Max set the bowl down on the counter, hi
s appetite gone. Alyssa was still with Sam Starrett. At nearly midnight. There were a million questions he wanted to ask, none of them appropriate. He settled for “Is he okay?”
“Yes,” Alyssa said. “It’s been a very difficult day, but … yes. I assume you heard that the victim wasn’t Lieutenant Starrett’s wife after all. It was her sister.”
“Janine Wrigley.” Max had heard. He also heard the way Alyssa kept saying “Lieutenant Starrett.” She called Sam that whenever she tried to pretend she didn’t give a damn about him. And the key word there was pretend. Apparently she didn’t realize that Max had picked up on that a long time ago.
“Since it’s not Lieutenant Starrett’s wife who’s dead, the entire situation’s a little less volatile,” Alyssa said, “so you probably don’t need to—”
“Yeah,” Max interrupted her. “I’m not sure yet whether I’m still coming to Tampa tomorrow. Sarasota,” he quickly corrected himself. Crap. He was beyond tired, and he was losing it. The only thing he knew for goddamn sure was that whether or not he went to Sarasota tomorrow, he wasn’t going anywhere near Tampa. Or Gina Vitagliano.
He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “What’s Starrett’s take on the potential Gainesville connection?”
“Gainesville?” Alyssa asked.
Typical of Manny Conseco. Not only didn’t he play happily with others, he didn’t share his toys. Or information. “I got a call about two hours ago,” Max told her. “Apparently three weeks ago Janine Wrigley—or someone claiming to be her, because according to forensics she was already dead—sold a black 1989 Honda Civic hatchback to a used-car dealer in Gainesville, Florida.”
“Who does Mary Lou know in Gainesville?” Alyssa asked—presumably of Sam.
“No one that I know of.” Max could hear Starrett’s lazy Texas drawl through Alyssa’s cell phone. He had to be sitting really close. No doubt because the rental car Alyssa was driving was small. It didn’t mean anything.
And pigs could fly. Max knew Starrett was sitting as close to Alyssa as he possibly could.
“Why?” Starrett asked.
“We think she sold her car in Gainesville,” Alyssa told the SEAL.
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