New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2)

by Menard, Jayne

  Annetta appeared puzzled by Brian’s offering. She teased the bow off and opened the sealed wrapper, taking out a holiday card with a watercolor of Hyde Park in the snow. Inside she found an Adobe access code and a gift certificate for a year of the Cloud software suite, including all their animation programs. She passed it around the table. Inside Brian wrote:

  “To help start your dream of producing a good guy/bad guy animation film. May you enjoy a Happy Christmas and a promising New Year. With fond memories, Brian.”

  “I told Brian I wanted to one day produce an action series, perhaps an animated comic book with heroes, anti-heroes and vanquished souls having characteristics of both,” Nicola said. “How kind of him to think of me. I am touched.”

  Losing her equable demeanor, Nicola blushed, surprised and self-conscious.

  Mathew brought out a wrapped box for Maxim, containing a thick book of images of Chihuly glass sea forms. Maxim carefully undid the wrappings and took the volume into his hands, caressing the cover image with reverence.

  “This I will treasure.” He spoke with a broad smile Mathew guessed Maxim had almost forgotten how to use.

  They spent the luncheon on more general topics. Maxim talked about his work with glass and about how he hoped to market a line of his designs. He changed as he spoke of his fused glass studio, losing any remaining hardness from his life in the drug world and becoming a wistful artist and caring craftsman.

  While odd to be close to these two renegades, the experiences they had gone through together gave them bonds strong enough to transcend time, distance and even changes of persona. Mathew sighed in satisfaction. Even though two notorious criminals sat with him at the table, forty more, along with their henchmen and gangs, were incarcerated and awaiting trial because of their cooperation. Additional persons of interest continued to be under investigation. Nicola and Maxim, as they now called themselves, had paid for their liberty. He wished them well in their new lives. The Foundations they had established will benefit children for many years, making him proud to be entrusted as a guardian of those funds. Setting the money aside spoke well of the cousins' hearts.

  Callie reclined on the bed alone in her hotel room on a wet English afternoon. Susannah went to a performance of The Nutcracker with Rick and Sassy, but she begged off with a headache. With Moll and Mathew taking the train over from Paris later that day, Callie would see Mathew at dinner. She still failed to reconcile herself to his role in what transpired at the cemetery in Albuquerque.

  When a rat-tat-tat on the door interrupted her thoughts, she opened it thinking housekeeping needed to come into the room. Instead Steve asked her to tea downstairs. While she was unhappy with him for his part in the trickery, she found his actions easier to pardon than Mathew’s. Grabbing a rose-colored cashmere shawl and her room key, she followed the big man to the antique hotel elevator and rode in silence with him to the ground floor. They walked to the back part of the spacious lounge, where Steve had already ordered tea and sandwiches for three. Steve explained that Ivy would join them after she freshened up.

  “Callie, I know you are upset with Mathew for not telling you about our scenario, the one we gave the ominous number 13.13,” Steve said in his direct way.

  She nodded but stayed quiet, unsure she wanted to discuss this topic with Steve. He would defend Mathew as his friend. To be fair to Steve, he had helped her with finding a way to put her life with John Henry into compartments in her past. Steve deserved the courtesy from her to hear him out.

  “Two things to understand,” Steve said. “First, even though Mathew made an excellent FBI agent, the best I know, he didn’t run any significant operations. Certain aspects of this case made the sting both delicate and complicated. We didn’t know all the players or who we needed to convince of the Fuentes’ deaths. Second, you and Mathew share less history than Ivy and I do. The night before, I asked her to trust me but did not explain why.

  “We take confidentiality at the FBI very seriously. However, I have certain additional information that I have now been authorized to release to you.”

  Callie stared at him with distrust. What could Steve possibly tell her to make her feel any different about killing the cousins?

  “Julio, aka Annetta, and Cruze are not dead, Callie. They are alive and well and living under new identities somewhere in Europe.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Steve pulled a piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “Here, read this. It was signed at a lunch in Paris today. Mathew and Moll were there with the Fuentes cousins.”

  Callie held out a shaking hand, took the document and forced herself to focus on the words.

  “This can’t be real. You just want me to forgive Mathew.”

  Steve nodded, pulled out his cell phone and brought up a contact. He handed the phone to Callie. “Here, call Annetta on this line. She goes by the name of Nicola now. Ask her something that you might know that neither Mathew nor I would be privy to.”

  Callie stared at the phone in her hand, afraid to believe the truth of what Steve was telling her. She thought back to her conversation with Annetta on the plane back from London. Annetta had revealed that above all things, she loved to eat lobster claws, particularly the little segment in the arm, just below the claw itself. Callie dialed.

  “Hello?” Callie heard that distinctive moderated middle tone that Annetta used.

  “What is your very favorite food?” Callie asked.

  “That very tender, sweet bite of lobster in the joint of its big arm, right below the claw,” Annetta said with a soft laugh.

  “Annetta, you are alive!” Callie said, still hesitant to believe.

  “Yes, so is Cruze. I am so sorry for what we put you through. We had to make our deaths convincingly final. Please do not blame Mathew or Steve. This was what we needed. They carried it out at our request.”

  “And you are safe?”

  “So far. We will always be wary, but so far all is well.”

  They talked for a few more minutes, and then Callie handed the phone back to Steve. He spoke quietly to Annetta, wish her a Merry Christmas and put the cell phone back in his pocket.

  “The Fuentes needed the circumstances to be credible to the FBI, the DEA, Gerkasky the Warthog and those drug dealers who busted in,” Steve said. “The news had to spread in the underworld that Cruze Fuentes and the man known only as Julio were dead. Their real fates have become arcana imperii or state secrets. We took DNA samples from each of them. It is officially on file and linked to the dead brothers/cousins, Cristo and Eduardo.”

  “Ivy and I could have acted our parts if you had told us,” Callie said. “What you did was cruel.”

  “First, we did not expect you to be there. We thought you were at home.”

  “Lenny knew. Why didn’t he say anything?”

  “Part of being a federal agent is the discipline to keep our plans and maneuvers clandestine. This is how we are trained and how we operate. Mathew ran the operation as he did because he wanted to ensure the Fuentes could escape to the second halves of their lives. Provided they lived up to the deal we struck, we owed them a decent prospect for their safety. The world must believe they are dead. Otherwise, they will be hunted down by the villains from their pasts, by foreign governments where they operated, and even by the DEA or FBI. Mathew set up the ultimate witness protection program. When they turned state’s evidence for us, we became legally and morally obligated to shelter them.”

  “I still can’t accept that Mathew would not even give me a hint, as you did with Ivy. Is he that uncertain of me?”

  Steve chose a little round cucumber sandwich, ate it in one man-sized bite and took such a big swallow of Darjeeling he drained half his tea. His expression became thoughtful. “Despite what you feel now, will you concede Mathew will always function in a just manner, with the end benefit in mind?”

  Callie thought for a moment, sitting back holding her cup and taking comfort from its warm sens
ation in her fingers before asking, “Are you saying his goal of safeguarding Annetta and Cruze justified his lack of consideration for me?”

  “Think deeper. This is about how you view Mathew’s character.”

  “I thought he personified benevolence, but what he did hurt me profoundly. I am not sure I can free myself of the pain.”

  Steve sat contemplating those words and asked, “Are you wounded because Mathew engineered this resolution or are you frightened of relying on your own judgment? Did your first marriage so take away your good judgement that you can no longer discern the strengths versus the weaknesses in people?”

  She set down her teacup carefully, as the veracity of Steve’s questions came home to her. Had John Henry so undermined her sense of worth that she wanted an excuse not to place her faith in Mathew? Anger surged through her, rage at John Henry and fury at herself for failing to command more inner strength.

  “I need a few minutes,” Callie said. She jumped up, rushed out of the lounge and hurried down the hall to a side door where she grabbed a guest umbrella and fled into the little courtyard the hotel enclosed.

  She stood for a moment breathing in the cold, drizzly air before marching down to St. James Street. The rain coming down around her cleansed the air and the streets. She tilted the umbrella back and stared up at the clouds, letting the cold drops patter on her face, purifying her as well. She breathed in several times, oblivious to the passersby.

  Callie knew Annetta’s voice could be faked by a clever mimic. However in addition to Annetta’s love of lobster, Annetta had asked if Susannah would get the riding lessons she wanted for Christmas. With that question, Callie’s last doubts melted. It was a secret only Susannah and Callie shared, but Callie had mentioned it to Annetta on the plane after Mathew’s shooting. Not even Rick and Sassy knew.

  Warmth began coursing through her body. She tingled with the sheer joy of having the burden she wrestled with disappear as the import of Annetta and Cruze’s being alive sank in. She now grasped she could love Mathew and be assured that he, unlike John Henry, would proceed fairly and justly.

  Mathew is human and he will make mistakes, but not blunders of intent. He will not be unkind if he can help it. I must remember Mathew shielded two people to give them a new start in life. He fulfilled a bargain where many felons are now arrested. I must not be so self-centered and weak-hearted.

  Even with the raindrops, a ray of sunlight seemed to hit her smack in the face. She envisioned Mathew once more as she had first spotted him, standing tall in a field at Spook Hills, outlined in a golden nimbus and radiating goodness. Smiling to herself, she hopped up into the air, bounced down on the pavement, pumped the dark green umbrella up and down a few times in triumph and then almost skipped like a little girl with no adult burdens back to rejoin Steve.

  Steve must have asked for three snifters of cognac and called Ivy as she now sat next to him on the loveseat, sipping the warming amber liquid. Callie took her seat opposite them, her face lit up with a smile. Steve offered her the remaining glass of brandy. She took it with a cheerful smile, noticing for the first time how the stolid old building glittered around her, not in faded elegance, but in modernized preservation. The ornate ceilings and moldings shone in bright whiteness, and the gold cushioned chairs beckoned guests to sit and relax.

  “Once again, thank you,” she blurted out still with a smile. “I didn’t realize I remained so terrified of accepting Mathew as only able to act as appropriate to the situation. When an opportunity came to stop believing in him, I took it to protect my own heart. And then I wallowed in self-pity.”

  Callie paused to stare directly at Steve and asked, “What made you so wise?”

  At her question, Ivy hooted out a laugh of such full-blown mirth heads turned all the way through to the lobby. Even the doorman swung around to stare. Steve shook his head at her and chuckled. Callie hopped up to wrap her arms around the pair of them. They might one day be her foster in-laws. The outlook made her beam with happiness.

  After settling back down, Ivy said, “Wisdom is logic with the spin of knowledge and experience. Steve’s mind is extremely logical. He needed to mellow out enough to let the growth he underwent in his life temper his reasoning.”

  Callie liked Steve’s smile at Ivy’s words which was not his big grin, but a subtle curving of the corners of his mouth. He reached out, took Ivy’s hand and said, “Sometimes the hardest task is to move beyond ourselves to gain perspective.”

  “How right you are in saying that,” Callie replied.

  Now Callie anticipated Mathew’s arrival that evening with a teenager’s eagerness. Even if all London stood by watching, she intended to give him the kiss of his life when she first encountered him, leaving him with no doubts of her forgiveness.

  Chapter 35

  Two days later, Mathew found himself sitting alone in the lounge at the charming country house hotel, where he had spent the previous end of year holidays with Ivy and Steve following their wedding at Spook Hills. The inn embodied English countrified sophistication with a relaxing atmosphere, enhanced by a welcoming staff. Dining there delighted the eyes and scintillated the palate. Enfolded by peace, comfort, and the balm of a warming fire, this Christmas Eve seemed enriched by a rosy radiance.

  Despite the remaining pain in his shoulder, the night before he made love with Callie in a way that entwined the delicacy of their sentiments with the passion of their attraction, deepening their relationship. He found her to be amorous with a playful side, making their intimacy romantic and fun. They nibbled shortbread at midnight with tea in their room and at dawn took a walk out in the misted gardens where the moon shone between scattered clouds. They strolled along holding hands and feeling they could never get enough of each other.

  Callie dominated his thoughts. The weeks after the shooting in Albuquerque when she refused to see him threw him into a dark tunnel of tortuous despair. To the extent his shoulder allowed, he had worked with the contractor on the demolition of the interior of the old house to both relieve and hide his anguish.

  While he had chipped in his one-handed way at the floors and walls of the house, he had kept picturing Callie with him, even though she avoided him. He had pushed forward with a resolute hope she would come to understand the way things went in Albuquerque to make Annetta and Cruze as safe as possible in their escape to new lives. The FBI and DEA had documented them as dead, and they had verified that the same news circulated in the underworld. Only the Bureau Chiefs, current and former, were privy to the deal struck. By having Steve perform the mock execution, the deaths of the Fuentes became indisputable. As he used the benefit of hindsight, Ivy and Callie should have known about the chicanery.

  Mathew pressed his hand against his jacket pocket to verify the presence of the jewelry box. Like Steve and Ivy, he wanted to wait to be married until their house was completed to give Callie a home to make their own. Steve had asked Ivy to marry him within six months of meeting her. While Mathew first saw Callie 16 months before, even now he might be rushing, given her history with John Henry and recent events. Nonetheless, Fred’s words from last fall kept echoing in his mind – ‘A woman like that, she no be alone long before the men line up down the driveway.’ Fred’s comment gave him an extra impetus to propose during the holiday celebrations.

  He had consulted Steve, who had said, ‘Surprise and delight her, as I like to think I did with Ivy.’ Mathew wondered if he should ask her when away from the others to reduce their embarrassment if she declined. Even so, he wanted Callie to experience all the joys lacking in her first marriage. Troubles haunted her life, with losing her parents when a teenager, with having to wed the petulant John Henry and with the dreadful kidnapping of Susannah this year. She then had to adjust to a life where two repentant lawbreakers went into a unique protection program and where she served as an unwitting witness to their staged deaths.

  His life at the vineyard offered promise. He wanted to live as a family man with Callie. Mat
hew nodded to himself, confirming his decision to ask her at dinner between the appetizers and the mains.

  Steve and Ivy walked into the living room with Ivy wearing a sleek white wool suit over a silver-threaded cashmere top trimmed in satin. With her wild hair tamed back in a braided chignon, her elegance became her in the way of women who aged well. Callie entered next with Susannah, Sassy and Rick. From the moment of seeing her with her shiny dark hair flowing down her back over a crimson turtleneck knit dress, Mathew reaffirmed to himself that tonight was the night.

  “You’re enchanting,” Mathew whispered. “Mm, and your scent is spell-binding.”

  She smiled at him and gripped his hand. Susannah sat next to her, dressed in a vibrant green velvet skirt with a white angora sweater. With her hair held back in a big bow the color of her skirt, the three of them could be posing for a magazine spread on an adorable family at Christmas. Once they returned home, assuming he was engaged to Callie, he intended to bring up adopting Susannah.

  “You are nothing short of yummy yourself,” Callie murmured, as she nudged his foot.

  A significant change had come over her in the last two days. She acted more self-assured, approaching life with a degree of certainty she could direct her destiny.

  Once Brian, Moll and Terry came down and the fizz arrived, Steve gave a tribute to their intertwined friendships and to making merry the way good friends, happy couples and families should do. Susannah raised her flute of ginger ale and added a salute to their absent friends, Unca Lenny, Fred and Federico, but she did not include her father. Even though they talked by phone on and off, she had yet to fly back to San Francisco to see him. From what Mathew understood, Susannah’s father had failed to take his needed sobriety to heart, giving Mathew optimism about the adoption.