Merried

by Jamie Farrell

  “She’s not sending me to voicemail. Her phone’s disconnected.” Max held up his own phone and hit Merry’s picture, then turned on the speaker so the cop could hear the phone lady’s recorded message himself.

  The guy squinted and held out his hand, twitching his fingers. “That her picture?”

  “Yes. Merry. Merry Silver. Short for Meredith. I think.”

  He hadn’t paid that much attention.

  They hadn’t been serious.

  But Max got a punch in the gut every time he thought of never seeing her again.

  He rattled off her address for the cop, but the guy was busy typing something into his computer. Two grunts later, he twisted the screen so Max could see it.

  “This girl?”

  It was a grainy picture, more than a few years old, but those were definitely Merry’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t want to be found either if Nicholas Raymond was my father,” the cop said.

  Every molecule in Max’s body turned to ice.

  “Nicholas Raymond?” he repeated.

  “Suspected jewel thief. Heard of him?”

  Everything narrowed until Max’s entire life was one little pinprick of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. “No. No, that can’t be right.”

  “Son, you missing anything valuable?”

  Other than his heart?

  Max gripped the edge of the desk.

  He didn’t know.

  Merry wouldn’t have—she couldn’t—not his Merry.

  “Haven’t been able to reach her in two days, you say?” the cop said. “Suppose that warrants a look. Got an address?”

  And suddenly an address wasn’t all he had.

  He also had questions.

  Doubts.

  Fears.

  And a sudden all-too-real belief in curses.

  Chapter 27

  “You were supposed to be the good guys,” Phoebe Moon cried.

  The two ninja shared a glance. “Good and right are not always the same.”

  —Phoebe Moon and the Ninja Hideaway

  * * *

  Present day…

  The first thing that struck Max when he banged into his house was that he’d forgotten to set the alarm.

  The second was that Scout didn’t come running.

  Set your alarm, Max. I changed the code.

  He softly latched the door, then set the alarm code. It beeped, echoing over the wooden floors in most of the house. “Scout?” Max called. He whistled.

  Her joyful bark answered from the backyard.

  Max made his way slowly to the back door. Nothing seemed out of place, but then nothing about the past two days was right. Too many weird dreams, too much Phoebe Moon, and then watching Merry get arrested—nope. Nothing was right.

  He flipped on the back lights. Dusk was settling, and there were too many shadows. “Forgot I let you out, girl,” Max murmured to Scout.

  She happily trotted inside and went straight for her food bowl.

  His dog was fine. He was fine.

  But Merry wasn’t fine.

  He fed Scout, then considered feeding himself, but decided his stomach wasn’t up to the kind of liquid diet he had in mind to close the day out.

  That dream yesterday—it had been a dream. Hadn’t it?

  An itchy, unreasonable suspicion pulled his shoulder blades back. He made his way to the stairs, his stiff legs protesting each step, then climbed to his bedroom.

  The sheets were still rumpled from where he’d tossed and turned most of the past two days. He worked his tie with shaky hands. Eating was probably a good idea.

  But what was Merry eating in jail tonight?

  Not her mother’s reception dinner. Or the wedding cupcakes.

  He eyed his model cars.

  She’d said something about his cars. While he was beating himself up for dreaming that she’d steal the Mrs. Claus diamond, she’d been talking. About his cars.

  He tossed his tie on the bed. Let his suit jacket follow. His stomach grumbled a protest, but Max bent over the wood and Plexiglas case housing his model Mustangs.

  The trunk on the ’72 model wasn’t flush.

  Max wiped his palms on his shirt, then reached behind the case to unlatch the hinged top. He lifted the cobalt blue ’72 Cobra and opened her back hatch.

  Empty.

  But the movement made something rattle in the passenger cabin.

  “Holy shit, Merry,” Max muttered.

  What the hell had she been thinking?

  He finagled the ring out of the passenger seat. Hadn’t held it in his hand since Merry disappeared, because he hadn’t wanted to. The metal band was cool in his fingers, the diamonds real, the setting smooth, polished art.

  Merry wasn’t Phoebe Moon, but she’d pulled a trick straight out of the teenager’s handbook.

  What else had she said? After she told him she stole the ring, what else had she said?

  The paranoia over the alarm made sense now. And changing the code—had she told him that her father was in town?

  He had to call Dan. Get the ring back to the store. Talk to Merry. Talk to the police.

  “Don’t usually like to do things this way, but my daughter didn’t leave me much choice. I’ll take that now.”

  Max’s fingers curled around the ring while he turned to face his intruder.

  An older man stood in the doorway in a tan suit with a black dress shirt beneath it. His hands hung at his sides, a smirk playing on his lips, a farce of a gentlemanly apology lingering in the eyes he shared with his daughter.

  He carried no visible weapons, and he was a head shorter than Max, but if Merry had taught him anything, it was never to underestimate anyone.

  Was she in on this?

  Or had she truly been trying to keep the ring safe?

  “How’d you get past my dog?”

  “Sweet girl. She likes chicken.”

  Motherf—“You have to the count of three to get out of my house, and I’m calling the cops.”

  “You mean or?” Nicholas Raymond said.

  “No, I mean and. But if you’d rather have a seat and talk about how a father’s not supposed to fuck up his daughter’s life while we wait, we can do that too.” Damn hard to dial a smart phone while keeping one eye on the danger in the room though.

  Raymond took a seat in the corner chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. “I staged the robbery I pulled her into last year so she’d disappear. I have enemies. They threatened her.”

  Max thumbed the nine on his screen. “Nice story. You still belong behind bars. Which is where your daughter currently is, if you hadn’t heard.”

  “Good. She’s safe there. Her mother with her?”

  Max grunted and double-tapped the one.

  “Merry gets on that plane to France on Sunday, Whitey Burgess is going to follow her, and I can’t do a damn thing to protect her after that. So you can give me the ring so I can take it to him, he’ll call off his owl, I’ll turn myself in, and Merry goes free. Or you call the cops now, try to get that ring back to safety yourself, and if we’re lucky, you’ll wake up in a hospital bed instead of the morgue. You feeling lucky?”

  No, Max was more on the nauseous side of the spectrum. “Whitey Burgess is in a maximum security prison for killing an armored truck guard.”

  “Whitey Burgess Junior. Bloodthirsty gnarger.”

  It pains me when common criminals use Phoebe Moon’s words, Zack Diggory intoned in Max’s head. “Haven’t heard of him,” Max said.

  “You wouldn’t. How he gets away with it. And he’s ten times as mean as his father.”

  “Enough.” Max hit Dial and put his phone to his ear.

  Raymond’s foot dropped to the floor. He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “I know Merry thinks I’m the bad guy, but I’ve been clean for three years. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to do it. For her. I’m asking nice. Give me the diamond, she doesn’t get hurt.”

  If Merry were truly in
danger, Max would’ve surrendered the ring without hesitation.

  But Nicholas Raymond was a thief. A liar. He’d broken into Max’s house—his grandparents’ house—and now he was spouting stories so he could make off with Gramps’s most prized engagement ring. “Merry’s damn good at taking care of herself.”

  “Phone’s not ringing, is it?”

  A chill prickled Max’s neck. Raymond was right. His phone wasn’t ringing. “It’s ringing.”

  “You’re a bad liar. Whitey’s getting impatient. Hand over the diamond.”

  Max’s fingers tightened around the ring until the setting pressed into his skin. This was all a game. A setup. A ruse.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  Max was getting Merry out of jail as soon as her father was gone. He’d talk to Spencer McGraw and make Dan drop the charges. He’d make this right for her.

  But what if she was honestly in danger?

  “I know you did your research, Mr. Gregory. So I know you know I play a harmless game. Things are just things. Not worth getting hurt over. I also know you know I don’t make a habit of visiting with people whose wealth I’m redistributing. Would’ve preferred to find what you found for me before you got here, but I didn’t, and I can’t wait any longer.” He stood. “If I’m not walking out of here with that diamond, they can wheel me out on a stretcher.”

  “You gonna hit me?”

  “If I have to.” His steps were steady, but while the lines at the corners of his lips and eyes hinted at a lifetime of laughing—probably at his victims’ expense—his body seemed weighted down, his cheeks too weathered, his intentions reluctant. “My little girl—she’s not like her mother. Not like me. Did too much wrong by her over the years, and I’m paying for it now. Likely lost her forever. But I’ll be damned before I let my sins hurt her again.”

  “Like she’s hurting by being tossed in jail for trying to keep you from doing this?”

  “Would’ve kept her there all week if it’d been an option. She’ll get out. Live a good life. Might not ever forgive me, but she’ll bounce back. Heard you’re good for her. So are you going to be the man she needs you to be and hand over that ring, or are you going to put both of you in danger? That ring what her life is worth? Couple million dollars? You willing to risk it?”

  Max didn’t stand down when the old man stopped inches from him. He still had the ring in one hand and his phone in the other. It beeped—call failed. No service.

  “He’s coming for all of us,” Nicholas Raymond said.

  Max couldn’t stomach the thought of this man near Merry, much less some faceless, lurking enemy. She was strong. She was smart.

  But she was still only human. Could she battle a man coming at her with a knife? With a gun?

  If Max didn’t give her father the Mrs. Claus diamond, was he putting her in danger? What if Max gave Nicholas Raymond the ring, and then the bad dudes wanted something else? “When does it stop?”

  “Tonight.” Raymond dragged a knuckle over his brow. “That bastard threatened my daughter. His reign ends tonight. But I can’t get to him without the ring.”

  Max’s fist clenched around the diamond. Downstairs, Scout growled, then barked.

  Of everything Gramps had done in his life, he’d been most proud of this ring. The shop as a whole. The family.

  And Max was about to betray them all.

  “So help me, if Merry gets hurt, I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth and make you pay.” He shoved the ring at Merry’s father. “Go,” he snarled.

  Raymond tucked the ring in a pocket, and before Max could blink, he was gone. Out of the room, down the steps, banging through the front door.

  “Scout!” Max yelled.

  His dog bounded up the stairs.

  Moments later, the house alarm went off.

  And Max had full bars on his cell signal once again.

  “Dammit.”

  Whitey Burgess Junior hadn’t been here with a cell signal blocker.

  Merry’s father had.

  And Max had fallen for it.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Max was politely shown out of the Bliss Police Department after giving his statement. He was almost back to Trixie when he heard his name.

  “Max! Max, wait.”

  Did it count as being jilted if a guy’s bride was arrested at the altar? Even Bliss didn’t have guidelines on exactly what to call that. Either way, Patrick wasn’t enjoying the wedding night he should’ve. Max turned and nodded to him.

  Patrick huffed to a stop. “They’re saying Vicky’s first husband is a jewel thief. It’s not true, is it?”

  “It’s true.”

  “But—” Patrick slumped against Trixie’s door. “You knew?”

  Max was too drained to worry about the bro code on this one. Too drained and too worried about Merry. She should be out. Max had given his statement. He’d told the story to Spencer McGraw, to Dan, to the cops again. McGraw had said he didn’t want to press charges. Even Dan had given up his arguments for her incarceration.

  “I knew,” Max said to Patrick. “Take it you didn’t.”

  Patrick’s breath huffed out in abbreviated white puffs. “Vicky didn’t—she didn’t say much about any of them. I guess it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.”

  Max clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Been there, man.”

  “You knew, and you still…”

  He nodded. He knew, and he still.

  And he probably would forever.

  Merry was smart. She was funny. She was pretty. But she was so much more.

  Sexy. Intriguing. Compassionate.

  All despite the way she’d been raised. Or maybe because of how she’d been raised.

  “I still would too,” Patrick said to the dark sky.

  Max clamped his jaw shut. Vicky had had how many husbands? Patrick was facing insurmountable odds for a long and happy marriage if she was still his choice in brides.

  “Might make me as big a fool as my brother says I am,” Patrick continued, “and I know she probably has more secrets, but I love her. She makes me feel alive. What kind of man offers a lady his hand and then abandons her when she needs him the most?”

  “Not the kind of man I want to be,” Max said quietly. And so he’d be here as long as it took. He didn’t know exactly why she took the ring. He didn’t know if she was still planning to go to France. He didn’t even know what her real job was. But he understood why she had trust issues, and she wouldn’t ever let him in if he didn’t prove he was worth it.

  “You love her?” Patrick asked.

  An owl hooted nearby. Max’s whole body went rigid. He scanned the sky, but no white winged creatures swooped in. “Never loved a woman before,” he said to the stars. “I’m furious with her one minute, worried sick about her the next, and then I wish it was still yesterday, stomach bug and all, just so she’d be there feeding me soup and reading me stories. Is that love?”

  “Pretty good case of it, I think.”

  Max was starting to think so too. “You staying till they’re out?”

  Patrick nodded. “You?”

  “Damn right.”

  Headlights cut the darkness, and the soft sound of a hybrid engine whirred to a stop behind them. Rachel and Olivia climbed out. “Max, I’m so sorry,” Rach said.

  Again.

  Wasn’t her fault though. Max should’ve told them about Merry’s dad sooner. Or he shouldn’t have told them at all. If Dan hadn’t known, would he have looked closer at the Mrs. Claus diamond display? Would Merry have mentioned the ring again to him?

  She wouldn’t have let it sit there in his display case forever.

  Would she?

  “I brought you food,” Rachel said. “The kids love applesauce sandwiches when they start feeling better after having the sickies.”

  “Applesauce sandwiches are gross,” Olivia muttered.

  “They’re delicious.”

  Max was leaning toward siding with hi
s niece here. “Thanks, Rach.” He pulled Olivia in for a hug, because she was seven, and seven-year-old girls were incapable of judging their uncles for falling in love with daughters of jewel thieves.

  He hoped. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “Ty’s play went long, and then Gavin said Amber Finch is really a computer because no one has ever seen her and the newspaper people can’t find her. Amber Finch isn’t a computer, Uncle Max. She’s my favorite author in the whole wide world, and she’s real, and she’s going to write me back a letter and sign it with a real pen and probably give me lots of books for telling Gavin he’s a gnarger.”

  “Olivia, we don’t call people gnargers,” Rachel said.

  “Phoebe Moon does.”

  “Yes, and Phoebe Moon is thirteen, and she has to deal with evil Uncle Sandy and his nefarious plans all the time. You are seven, and you live a very comfortable life.”

  Unlike Merry, who grew up in a constant state of flux and whose father was definitely a gnarger.

  Whoa.

  Wait.

  Merry, whose father had called a fellow thief a gnarger tonight.

  Merry loved to read, and she said her father inspired that, but would Nicholas Raymond read kid books?

  Was—no. No, that was crazy.

  But Zack Diggory drove a sixty-nine Charger. Bright red.

  The exact car Max had told Merry he’d buy to give Trixie a sister.

  “Olivia, Uncle Max is right. It’s past your bedtime.” Rachel handed Max a brown bag. “There’s a banana and Pedialyte in there too. Call me if you need anything else. Dan said your parents should be home tomorrow too. I’m so sorry, Max.”

  A lone siren rang out in the distance, and a chill slithered down Max’s spine.

  Too much drama tonight.

  “Thanks for the sandwich,” Max said to Rach.

  “I hope it helps.” She kissed his cheek, a guilty smile making a rare appearance. “We want you healthy as you can be tomorrow night. If you’re still willing to participate.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” His heart wouldn’t be there, but the rest of him would be.