He’d swapped out his SWAT gear for a handsome dress shirt and sports coat. Most importantly, he wore a smile.
“Hey, kiddo, brought something for you.”
“Tanner, you shouldn’t have,” I said, but I could feel a big, goofy smile spread across my face.
“I didn’t.” He paused briefly at the sight of Nate’s gorgeous roses, then edged them back to make room for his in front.
“Huh?” My smile slipped.
“All the agents chipped in.”
“Oh.” Right. A lot of that going around, I thought, then immediately felt ungrateful. I pasted my smile back on. “Tell everyone thanks.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Sore,” I admitted.
“Well, I have news that will cheer you up.”
“Yes?”
“Ty has been released. And you were right about”—he glanced at my family, clearly hesitant to discuss the case in any kind of detail in front of them—“the missing evidence. And it’s a goldmine.”
“Awesome!”
“What about Tasha?” Nana asked.
“The last I heard, the attorneys are hammering out a deal. In return for her full cooperation, she might avoid jail time.”
“Oh, that’s good to hear,” Mom said. “Isn’t that good?” She turned to Nana.
Nana nodded. “For Gladys’s sake.”
Tanner’s cell phone went off. He glanced at the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll see you later.”
Mom shot me a gleeful glance at his friendly touch, while the muscle in Nate’s taut jaw twitched.
I mentally rolled my eyes, because hello? Translation: I’ll come back when we can discuss the case in private.
“We should be going too,” Nana said. “Serena needs her rest.”
Neither Nate nor Mom made any move to leave. Dad cupped Mom’s shoulders and prodded her away from the bed. “Mum’s right. Can we get you anything before we go?” he asked me.
“Yeah, I’d love something to eat. I think I must’ve missed dinner.”
Dad nodded and edged Mom toward the door. “We’ll stop by the cafeteria and bring you up something.”
Nana patted the blanket over my foot. “Take care.” She held my gaze only a moment, but it seemed to say so much more than she’d voiced.
“I will. Thank you for coming.”
With a quick nod, she trailed Mom and Dad from the room.
Nate tilted his head, curiosity lighting his eyes. “What just happened there?”
“Happened?”
“You’re grinning like you just cracked the city’s worst criminal organization.”
My smile widened. “I did, as I’m sure you heard from Aunt Martha.”
“Oh yeah, but I don’t sense it’s what has you skipping on clouds.”
I didn’t think I could grin any bigger, but I did. I had to give him credit for his perceptiveness. “Skipping on clouds, huh? Are you a closet poet on top of your many other interests?”
A smile lit his eyes. “I’ve been known to write a verse or two. What’s the deal with your grandmother?”
“Well, let’s just say I’m seeing her in a whole new light. And it has made my heart much lighter.”
“I’m glad. How long do you have to stay in here?”
“Just overnight.” I glanced at the bandage covering the wound. “The recovery won’t be nearly as trying as convincing my mother I don’t have a death wish if I don’t quit.”
He chuckled. “Your aunt would be disappointed if you did. She thrives on the chance to get in on your escapades.”
I groaned. “I thought today might’ve cured her of that. For a while there, it didn’t look like we’d make it out alive.”
Mom and Dad appeared at the door again, this time carrying a tray of food.
Nate offered me a wink. “I’d better get going. Don’t worry about Harold. I’ll see he gets fed and entertained.”
“Oh! Thank you.” I hadn’t even given a thought to my cat shut up in the apartment with no one to feed him. And Mom thought me having kids was a good idea?
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Nate whispered as if he’d read my thoughts.
“Nice seeing you again, Nate,” Mom said as he left. She moved the flower arrangements to the windowsill so Dad could set the dinner tray on the bedside table.
She spent a long time fussing with the blooms. “Which one do you think is nicer?” she asked, her back still facing me.
“They are both lovely,” I said, sipping the juice they’d brought.
Dad threw me a mischievous smirk.
Yeah, I was pretty sure she hadn’t been comparing the flowers either, but it was safer to play dumb. When Mom turned around, she was positively glowing. I could hardly blame her. I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy inside, myself.
Two lovely bouquets from two handsome, thoughtful men—okay, and from my colleagues and neighbors, but I was sure Mom wasn’t remembering that part.
I was sure Mom never imagined I’d have days like this.
A Note from the Author
Dear Reader,
In Another Day, Another Dali, Serena realizes her closely guarded secret has caused her to misinterpret her grandmother’s feelings toward her for years. Too often we see only what we expect to see in situations and others—like Gladys does with both her painting and her children and Tasha does with both her husband and her mother’s relationship with her brother. Aunt Martha sees Nate as the only option for Serena. Serena’s mother sees Serena’s job as a barrier to her happiness. The teens see the police as their enemy.
Sometimes it takes an appraiser’s objective perspective to recognize the forgery, whether in art or life. But identifying the forgery is only the beginning. As Serena discovers, getting to the truth requires a willingness to search, no matter how painful the outcome might be.
I hope you had as much fun reading Serena’s latest adventure as I had writing it. The enthusiastic response to my invitation at the end of A Fool and His Monet to vote for whom Serena should date has been eye-opening. The feedback will definitely shape Serena’s destiny moving forward.
If you would like to add your comment to the discussion, visit http://www.SandraOrchard.com/vote-for-your-favorite/. Also find fun bonus features such as character interviews, deleted scenes, and setting pictures at http://www.SandraOrchard.com/extras/bonus-book-features/.
Sincerely,
Sandra Orchard
1
I snatched my bag off the luggage carousel at Boston’s Logan International Airport and plunked it next to my parents as a sticky-fingered urchin tried to liberate the brightly colored ribbons I’d tied to the handles.
“Look at that little angel,” Mom said indulgently to Dad and Aunt Martha.
The pigtailed blond rewarded them with an impish grin, then skipped toward a grandparently looking couple.
Mom exhaled a wistful sigh. “That should be us.”
The little angel bypassed the couple and pounced upon another passenger’s brightly colored bag, squealing, “Doll!”
The sour-faced owner yanked his luggage out of the child’s reach.
“Don’t stare. It’s rude,” Mom scolded me.
But like a car wreck rubbernecker, I couldn’t rip my gaze away when a gaudy red statue tumbled out of the bag and panic streaked across the man’s face. Besides . . . “I’m paid to stare at people.”
The little girl scrambled after the souvenir, but a K-9 officer beat her to it.
The souvenir—probably meant to be a miniature replica of a Mayan god—reminded me of a case where a crooked European art dealer dipped artifacts in resin to smuggle them out of Egypt. Not that I thought this guy, who’d landed on one of the pre-cleared Caribbean flights, was an antiquities smuggler. Only . . .
Was that sweat popping out on his forehead?
The officer who’d rescued the seemingly cheap souvenir studied it a moment, then crouched low wh
ere the dog could sniff it. Sourpuss’s fingers danced a number on the sides of his legs before he reached out a shaky hand and asked for it back.
Interesting. I stepped closer for a better look at the souvenir and surreptitiously snapped a photo with my smartphone.
“Serena,” Mom said, pleadingly this time.
Right. I was on vacation—four glorious days on Martha’s Vineyard to relax and celebrate Uncle Jack’s engagement. A tingly feeling shivered down the back of my neck as if Mom wasn’t the only person eyeballing me. A quick glance about the luggage claim area pinpointed a military type in civilian clothes, and I had the sudden urge to echo Mom’s don’t-stare order.
Of course, somehow in the split second or three I’d looked away, Gaudy Souvenir Guy had vamoosed.
I returned to my parents. “Hey, where’s Aunt Martha?”
Mom did a frantic half jig. “I don’t know! She promised me she wouldn’t pull any of her crazy antics this time. Ward, did you see where she went?”
Laser-focused on the exit, Dad sloughed off the question with a “Check the restroom” and grabbed the handle of Aunt Martha’s bag to lug along with his own.
Aunt Martha had moved in with my parents and begun accompanying them on holidays a year and a half ago, following her hip surgery, but sharing the same roof hadn’t curbed her independence one iota.
“Oh dear,” Mom fussed.
Aunt Martha scurried toward us from the direction of the exit, not the restroom. Her eyes beamed with the gleeful sparkle they got when she fancied herself on to a good mystery.
I smothered a grin. At least I wasn’t the only one making mysteries out of molehills.
“Oh good, here you are,” Mom said and steered us all toward the bus stop. The two-hour bus ride would take us to Woods Hole, where we’d catch the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard—another forty-five minute ride, give or take.
Aunt Martha nabbed a seat next to me on the bus. “He took a cab.”
“What? Who took a cab?”
“That guy with the statue you were staring at back there. I tried to catch a glimpse of his name on his luggage tag but couldn’t get close enough.”
I inwardly groaned. Aunt Martha was in her midseventies and had become an incurable armchair sleuth since retiring from a job as a globetrotting personal assistant to some corporate bigwig. Trouble was, she didn’t know that armchair sleuth meant you were supposed to stay in your seat, not chase suspects through airports.
“Aunt Martha, I really have no interest in the man.”
“Nonsense. I saw the way he was squirming. He was guilty of something. You couldn’t have missed that. Do you think he was smuggling drugs inside the little statue?”
“No, honestly, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’m on vacation, remember?”
“Pfft, tell me you’re not going to visit the Artisan’s Spring Festival and all the art galleries on the island this weekend.”
I shrugged. Aunt Martha knew me too well to outright lie. Sure, I rambled through secondhand shops and galleries in every town I visited, but it really wasn’t because of my job as a member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team.
“Besides,” Aunt Martha went on, “a little mystery makes everything more fun. Like this mystery bride-to-be your Uncle Jack has swept off her feet.”
Uncle was actually an honorary title. Jack was an old college friend of Dad’s who’d invited us to vacation on the island every summer. Of course, I hadn’t been able to join Mom and Dad since the summer after my own first year of college.
“Have you ever heard Jack mention her?” Aunt Martha asked.
“No, but I haven’t talked to him since Christmas.” It was now early May. A lot could happen in the romance realm in four months, especially when you got to be Uncle Jack’s age and were still single.
Not that I knew such things from personal experience, being only twenty-nine. The only guys who’d come close to sweeping me off my feet were criminals trying to pull a fancy judo move before they ran.
Of course, Tanner had nearly dunked me into an algae-filled pond during an ill-fated surveillance op involving paddleboats and mobsters, but that was a whole other story.
And it certainly didn’t qualify as romance.
My phone beeped, and I glanced down at the text alert. Huh. Speak of the devil.
I opened the text.
Work is oddly peaceful . . . It’s almost like I’M on vacation.
A smile curved my lips, but I searched through my emoticons for the happy face that was rolling its eyeballs and hit Send. Then I added, Ha ha. You know you miss me.
“Serena!” Mom frowned at me. “Is that Tanner? You know we love him, but honey, you’re on vacation.”
How’d she know it was Tanner?
Before I could work that out, my text alert beeped again.
What I miss is your Mom’s bangers and mash.
A photo of a pathetic-looking take-out burger popped up on my screen.
I laughed out loud. In my rookie days, when Tanner was my field training agent, Mom had gotten it into her head that if she fed him, he’d make sure I stayed safe.
Boo hoo, I texted back, then conspicuously returned my phone to my purse under Mom’s watchful eye.
Mom leaned across the aisle and said, “You looking forward to seeing Ashley?”
“Sure, it’ll be great to see her again.” Maybe.
I stomped down on the faint, ridiculous twinge of hurt that’d never quite gone away. Ashley was Jack’s real niece, and we’d been bosom buddies as far back as I could remember—if I didn’t count my last visit to the island. Ashley had gotten mad at me, and I never did figure out why. Not that I tried very hard, after she hadn’t replied to the last letter I’d sent her. She seemed to think I should know, and hoping she’d have forgotten about whatever miffed her by my next visit seemed easier than figuring it out. Only with college and all, I stopped spending my summers on the island.
Two and a half hours later, Aunt Martha and I settled in at a table on the restaurant deck of the 1:15 ferry to Vineyard Haven. And whom should I see nursing a drink at one of the tables while perusing what looked like an art journal, of all things?
Gaudy Souvenir Guy.
Sandra Orchard is the award-winning author of many inspirational romantic suspense stories and mysteries, including Deadly Devotion, Blind Trust, and Desperate Measures. Her writing has garnered several Canadian Christian Writing Awards, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, a National Readers’ Choice Award, a HOLT Medallion Award of Merit, and a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. In addition to her busy writing schedule, Sandra enjoys speaking at events and teaching writing workshops. She lives in Ontario, Canada. Learn more about Sandra’s books and check out the special bonus features, such as deleted scenes and location pics, at sandraorchard.com.
Books by Sandra Orchard
PORT ASTER SECRETS
Deadly Devotion
Blind Trust
Desperate Measures
SERENA JONES MYSTERIES
A Fool and His Monet
Another Day, Another Dali
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