Changing Tides

by Veronica Mixon

  Bottom line—Barry Real Estate and Investment received bogus rent money from bogus companies and charged off bogus renovations completed by bogus construction companies. Our family business mustʼve been nothing more than a carefully constructed lie that could easily pass a routine bank perusal or an IRS audit. Anger played out as my major emotion, but blown away fought for a spot because this scheme was slick.

  Calvin’s participation was still murky, but I’d found enough documents with Granddad’s signature to verify he’d run the scheme before his stroke. I sat back in my chair and worked with what I knew. I knew how Granddad and later Joseph laundered rent monies through the company. I knew the name of the renters. I didn’t know why a company would pay exorbitant rents for broken-down warehouses.

  I rounded up my three throwaway phones and stuffed them in my purse. I threw away my empty wine bottle and stared at the map over the bar. There were moments in life that stole your breath and left you speechless, completely stunned at your naïve stupidity.

  The first rule of real estate investment: Location—location—location.

  I opened the storage closet and pulled an East Coast fishing chart out of a bin of maps and tacked it to the wall. I accessed Google Earth and marked the location of the first warehouse with a green pushpin, then the second. On the third, my heart skidded to a stop. I ran my finger from the first warehouse to a river and on to the ocean. Repeated the process for the second and third. All three were positioned just like Barry Island. Barry Real Estate and Development was in business to provide the cartel with safe harbors to break down and package drugs. I slid into my chair and laid my head against the cool surface of my desk. The special reserve Chablis threatened to reappear.

  My debt restructuring plan was Joseph’s catalyst. When I ordered appraisals, he knew his operation was in jeopardy. The legal ramifications of all this boggled my mind. I inhaled a deep breath, then another, and another. I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. I tried slowing my breath. Breathe. Breathe. My gasps turned shallower and faster. My heart beat harder. Paper bag. I needed a paper bag. I stuck my head between my legs.

  I had to talk to Cedar. He’d know what to do. Joseph—I had to find Joseph. I no longer cared about any embezzling. All the money was dirty. But Joseph was the only person who knew I was innocent. There was no way I’d be his dupe.

  I rifled through my purse for Cedar’s throwaway, came up with the Wal-Mart phone Ben had warned against using. My hand stilled. If Ben was right and the Feds had satellite reconnaissance, which no longer seemed far-fetched, my office could be bugged. Could that be the reason Ben hadn’t made contact?

  If my office was bugged, Nathan knew I helped Beth. And Peanut would be on Nathan’s radar. I ran to Joseph’s office, dragged a chair to the bookshelf, found the white binder with his personal records and stuck it under my arm. If knowledge was power, I planned to learn all I could about my scumbag property manager.

  But first, I needed to talk to Cedar.

  I opened the safe and placed the Cecil Cummings passport inside. I had enough to explain to Parsi without adding Granddad’s alias to the mix. For now, that would remain my secret. I switched off the light and hit the stairs two at a time.

  Taking a right out of the parking lot, I checked the rearview mirror for the Explorer lights. I wanted to bolt straight to Cedar’s and figure out the level of the mud I waded in. But hanging out with my lawyer this late at night screamed guilty. But I had to at least call him.

  I passed the Montgomery County sign five minutes from home and glanced in the rearview mirror. For the past ten miles a car that looked like an Explorer had kept a textbook six-car distance from my Hummer. If I used the burner to call Cedar and the vehicle behind me was tailing me, could the driver pick up my conversation? I chewed on the problem for another mile and admitted I didn’t watch enough detective shows to know the answer.

  If the driver of the car was a federal marshal, he probably had a bag of spy tools at his disposal—at the very least binoculars with a telescopic lens. My intuition said Parsi already had satellite on Spartina. I had to risk calling Cedar before I got home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I took the last exit off the interstate before home, and pulled in at the corner Citgo station. I swung in as close to the entrance as possible and hustled past the jumbo-sized candy bars and racks of potato chips. A bathroom sign hanging over a beer cooler featured a fisted hand with a finger pointing down a hallway stacked with boxes.

  Slipping into the single-serve bathroom, I fumbled with the lock. My hands were shaky and it took three tries before the bolt slid in place. I slumped against the wall. Fear rolled through every cell in my body. I dialed Cedar’s home number and whispered a two-minute rundown of my hellish day’s discoveries.

  He gurgled a wet phlegmy cough. “Why are you whispering?”

  “Someone’s following me.” The hiss in my voice mimicked a pissed-off snake.

  “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  I stomped across the five-by-eight room, turned on the cold faucet full blast and risked a semi-normal tone. “I’m being followed.” I wedged my butt between a rust-stained sink and graffiti-covered wall.

  “Where are you?”

  “In a service station bathroom.” I rushed through my go-directly-to-jail discovery again. “I need your help.”

  “We’ll talk this through in the morning.”

  “Cedar, I’ve signed three years of fraudulent financials. Before I go to the Feds with what I found, I have to go to the banks and straighten this out. This can’t wait.”

  “Hold on a minute.” The rustling of bed sheets, a mattress spring creak, and a couple more strangled coughs lasted ten seconds. Then silence.

  “Cedar, are you still there?” I looked at the screen on the burner and verified the coverage bars. I had plenty. “Cedar?”

  “I have early court in the morning, or I’d meet you sooner. Eleven’s the best I can do.” He heaved a sigh. “Come at ten-thirty. I’ll try and wrap my case early.”

  I slid down the wall. Halfway to the floor, I looked over at the toilet and pushed back to standing. “I need to go to First National and Nations Banks. Convince them that I didn’t know our financials were fabricated. I’m not sure how I’ll pull off claiming ignorance. It’s not like I don’t understand how financial reports work.” My pissed-off snake voice made another appearance.

  “Calm down. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Cedar’s tone worked like aloe on sunburn soothing my anxiety. Except this was more of a blazing inferno. I didn’t need a balm—I needed a Boeing 747 drowning me in chemical flame retardant.

  “We can work this out.” Self-confidence oozed from his voice. “We’ll meet in the morning and work through the quagmire,” he said.

  Quagmire—a superb description of my current state. Walking on a dark boggy surface, slowly giving way. Little black dots floated in front of my eyes. The room swirled. I slid all the way to the floor.

  “Kate, we’ll work this out. Take a deep breath and listen to me now, because this is important. Don’t talk to Erica or Parsi before we meet tomorrow. Not one word.”

  Three raps on the door sent a current of electricity over my skin. I eyed the door. The knob twisted. Held. “It’s occupied,” I yelled. Surely the Explorer guy wouldn’t pick the door lock on the woman’s bathroom.

  “Did you hear me?” Cedar said. “Don’t talk to the Feds.”

  “Might be a problem since they’re living on my property.” My voice sounded strong, but fear swam in my stomach like three goldfish in a brandy glass. I rested my head against the wall.

  “Weather,” he said.

  “What?”

  “If you have to say anything, talk about the weather. In a pinch, gardening.”

  “Gardening?” That was his advice? “I don’t know anything about gardening.”

  “Fake it.” He pushed a long-suffering breath through his nose. I pictured his cond
escending eye roll to the ceiling. “And remember Nathan Parsi can read your body language. Did you study the book?”

  “You just gave it to me this afternoon. My day’s been a little busy.” Studying Cedar’s hocus-pocus manual sat firmly on the not-gonna-happen-today line of my to-do list.

  ****

  Thirty minutes later, I tiptoed through the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom without the need to test my compelling knowledge of weather or gardening on Parsi or his team of ninjas. Spartina was cemetery quiet.

  I took a scalding shower, pulled on my favorite purple silk pajamas, and forced my eyes closed at two-fifteen. One question after another whirled. Where were Calvin and Ben? Was my office bugged? Had I hurt more than helped Beth? My lids popped open. Would Parsi go after Peanut? Maybe. But Beth wasn’t a criminal, and Pea selling her a car wasn’t illegal.

  Cedar would convince Parsi I was innocent, work a deal for Calvin. I turned on the lamp. Fifty percent of Cedar’s caseload was pro bono work. Keeping miscreants out of jail, according to Granddad, was Cedar’s penance for overcharging his wealthy clients. I climbed out of bed.

  My wine party for one caught up with me, and I craved water like a hibiscus after a two-week drought. I chugged a full bottle, opened a second, and sat cross-legged on my bed. Even if the company didn’t sell for the current book value, the family would survive financially but the Barry name would never recover. A sudden relief washed over me: Owen and I were Landers not Barrys.

  I’d have to go back to work. Would I be bondable after the story hit the papers? Who was I kidding—my family’s business was money laundering for the cartel. No matter my last name, my banking career was over.

  And if the company didn’t sell for the proposed value, I wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep on Spartina. Owen was just getting used to this house as his home. My chest constricted. I forgot to call, and I’d promised Owen we’d talk every day.

  You’re analytical, Kate, born without the mothering gene.

  No chance of sleep tonight. I found Cedar’s book, Mastering the Secrets of Nonverbal Communication, in my briefcase and thumbed through the first half. Turned back to the section on spotting a liar and started reading. In my world, scanning a person’s body while conversing would be considered leering. Not exactly a page out of the How to Win Friends and Influence People manual. I plunked Cedar’s book on top of another one headed for the trash, Ten Zen Seconds, an instructional guide to finding your purpose, power, and calm.

  Finding my Zen wasn’t going to help me convince a judge and jury I knew nothing about the money laundering business managed by my grandfather, the modern-day gangster who’d masqueraded as an upstanding businessman. And I was fairly certain a higher Zen state would fail to impress Marshal Parsi when I owned up to the scam currently being conducted under my nose by my low-life property manager, a guy who’d evidently taken Al Pacino’s Godfather term ‘go to the mattresses’ to heart. And finding my Zen sure as heck wasn’t going to help my slime-ball cousin who’d left me holding the proverbial bag. I was screwed, and no amount of Zen was coming to my rescue.

  I grabbed my laptop off the dresser and clicked on Ben’s email account. Nothing. Not one word. The niggling soft voice of reason residing in my head was flashing a screeching alarm. Something was very wrong.

  Calvin’s preliminary report was still in the inbox, along with two more reports I had yet to read. One file was labeled Sanchez, which was a surprise. Ben didn’t know Erica. Maybe I mentioned her in one of our conversations, and he assumed I’d want dirt on someone practically living under my roof.

  I skimmed her summary page and read through her ten-year service record, her three promotions, and six service accolades and found no surprises until the final paragraph. Subject spent six weeks in rehab on three occasions in the last five years. I rechecked the dates. Her last rehab visit, a three-month stay, had been nine months ago. Her drug of choice, the report stated, was alcohol. Erica going into rehab knocked me back. But I squelched the snippet of guilt worming its way into my head. She was no longer a part of my life.

  I opened the next report on Nathan Parsi, a file ten pages long. Two pages in I needed coffee, but it was already five-thirty and if I hurried I could slip out of the house before sunup, before Parsi’s men started their day of spying.

  I threw on a navy pin-striped pencil skirt and a crisp white blouse with a mandarin collar. Stepped into three-inch Manolo Blahnik croc heels, and ran a brush through my hair before slapping on a little makeup. I studied my reflection in the mirror and considered my upcoming bank meetings. Adding concealer to hide the black circles, I swiped peach blush across my cheeks and chose a darker lipstick. It’d have to do.

  At six o’clock, I unlocked the door connecting the house to the kitchen and faced Marshal Parsi sitting at the bar dunking an Oreo in a half-full glass of milk. My plan to sneak in, fill my to-go cup, and hide out in Savannah until my meeting with Cedar hit the skids and rolled into the danger zone. “Morning.” I grabbed my travel mug from the top drawer of the coffee bar.

  He grunted a greeting. The clock over the stove read six-twelve. The pile of crumbs gathered on the counter by his glass indicated he’d been up awhile.

  My coffee brewed, and I contemplated taking Cedar’s advice, but no gardening tips came to mind. And really, weather? Better to rush out using the excuse of a morning meeting.

  “Where are you going so early?” Parsi leveled his hooded brown eyes on me.

  My gut turned into a jumbled guilty blob. “I have an appointment.” At six forty-five? As impromptu excuses go, that one sucked. “It’s supposed to rain today.”

  His forehead creased, his gaze lingered on me, then he turned his attention to the window.

  A bright summer sun peeked over the horizon. Bold slashes of red and tangerine painted a cloudless morning sky. “Weatherman said we’d get hit with an afternoon rainstorm.”

  “Why don’t you join me?” he patted the adjacent barstool.

  I swallowed. “I need to get to the office and review a couple of files before my meeting.”

  “Won’t take long. I have a few questions.” His voice was soothing. Like elevator music or a soft summer rain or Vicodin.

  Cedar’s warning looped in my head. Weather. Gardening.

  “I’m really pushed this morning,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Even in Nathan’s sleep deprived state, he recognized Kate’s nervous energy. She danced from foot to foot while her coffee brewed, then stirred the lump of sugar in her cup long enough to churn butter.

  “If you’re too busy now,” he said. “I can stop by your office later.”

  All her nerve actions ceased. She glanced at the clock over the stove. “I guess I can spare a few minutes.” She made a production of rearranging a barstool against the wall as far from Nathan as possible.

  He half-stood and dragged his stool closer. “Was your trip to Charleston interesting?”

  Her only tell was the color of her eyes—a vivid emerald melding into an intense mossy green. She swung her long hair down her back. “My appointment was canceled. I spent the day in the office.” She propped a foot on the rim of her stool and relaxed against the wall. Except for the balled fist at her side, she almost nailed calm and composed. “How about you? You arrest any bad guys?”

  “Not yet.”

  Kate managed to look shifty and innocent at the same time. Like a kid with an empty hand, but cookie crumbs around her mouth.

  “What did you want to ask me?” she prompted.

  “Have you heard from your cousin?”

  She relaxed, fear abated. “No.”

  “How about his wife?” Her pupils dilated. The sound of the ice maker dropping another load broke the silence.

  She sipped her coffee. “I’m guessing you want to play your version of twenty questions.”

  “My version?”

  “You remember—that game where you ask the questions, and only I have to an
swer.”

  He ran his finger over the rim of his milk glass. “It’s my favorite.”

  “So it seems.” She shifted her weight, crossed then uncrossed her lean runner legs.

  A jolt of heat slid from his throat to his abdomen. He leaned back and put space between them.

  Her fisted hand moved over her breastbone. A nervous habit he’d picked up on and wasn’t sure she was aware of.

  “Will you go back into banking when you sell the family business?” he asked.

  “Did I mention Cal and I were selling out?” Her fingertips drummed a rapid staccato on the bar’s granite.

  He waited.

  She leaned forward. “I thought if I decided to sell out, I’d take up fortune telling, palm reading, that sort of thing.” Her voice defined blasé. She tapped the middle of her forehead. “I’ve always been a touch clairvoyant.”

  Nathan laughed deep and long.

  She let slip the barest hint of a smile. “You know anything about reading minds, Marshal?”

  “Nope, not a thing. I read bodies.” If he hadn’t been quite so enamored with her mesmerizing almond eyes, he might have missed the color as it faded from dazzling to just shy of flat. A current ran over his skin and sizzled the air between them.

  “And you’re good at this body-reading thing?” she said in a voice hovering just on the edge of a nervous whisper.

  His gaze moved from her eyes and meandered down, hesitated briefly on her mouth before landing on her clenched hand. He rested his forearms on the bar. “I am.” His voice as smooth as his father’s eighteen-year-old scotch.

  Kate swallowed. “Any chance you’re planning to practice on mine?”

  Three inches separated his forearm and her fingertips. Fire, like tendrils of liquid heat, slid through his body. “Oh, I’m past practicing, Kate. I’m all the way up to expert.”

  She stared into his face with an intensity usually displayed by surgeons with a scalpel in hand.

  “Must be yours,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  He tapped the hem of her jacket.