“Oh God, that tastes incredible.”
She pulled a dark towel out of a cabinet, leaned down, and wrapped his foot. Then she moved back into position and hoisted a good portion of his weight onto her shoulder. “We’ll put you up temporarily in my guest bedroom down this hallway.” They headed in that direction.
“But what about those assholes who held me hostage?”
“Aunt Kitty will take care of everything.” She helped him down the hall and into a room with a red chaise lounge, a four-post bed, and a patchwork quilt hanging over a rod on the wall.
He sat on the soft cushion of the chaise and released an exhausted breath.
She motored out of the room and came back seconds later with two plastic containers that had the words “Medical Supplies” written in red ink on their lids. “Yes sir, Aunt Kitty will take care of everything,” she said, opening the first container and fishing multiple packages of gauze pads, disinfectant, and a pair of tweezers.
Losing the desire to even open his mouth, he sat back, closed his eyes, and decided to trust the first normal, caring person he’d seen in days. Aunt Kitty would take care of him.
13
The sand crab’s tiny legs fluttered across the wet sand just as Luke had finally calmed down and begun to listen to his grandfather’s story.
“Quick, Erin, let’s get him!”
I kept the cone of light on the crab with my miniature spotlight as the kids darted around an unsuspecting couple holding hands, undoubtedly hoping to take a relaxing walk down the South Padre shoreline at almost ten o’clock at night.
“Sorry,” I yelled behind me just as Luke cut through shallow water next to a lady wearing a white summer dress. I couldn’t see much, but based on her expression I think he’d just coated her with a splattering of sandy mud.
He giggled as he ran by me, tripping up his sister in pursuit of the little critter.
“Erin, you okay?”
She picked herself up, and realizing her grandfather and his girlfriend were nearby, she decided to slap the sand off her legs and arms and downplay the situation—a rare occasion in our family.
I watched Luke close in on the shifty sand crab. Just as my determined son lunged, the crab disappeared into a hole, and Luke’s knees plunged into a mound of dry sand. Apparently, some of it sprayed into his mouth. He began to spit and paw at his mouth.
“Oh, sweetie, that will just make it worse,” Carly said, rushing to his side. “Here, use my bottled water.” He held out his hands and tongue, and she soaked him down.
“Thanks,” he said, brushing himself off. Just before he hopped over to Dad, he said to Carly, “You’re pretty cool.” She lit up and then glanced at me. Did she just arch a brow? Oh hell no.
I turned back around and led the brigade down the beach, again wondering if my perspective of Carly and everything about her was influenced by something…maybe even my mom from many years ago. I glanced out at the dark ocean and saw a few lights blinking. Those were typically huge ships carrying oil. As I tried to drown out the voices behind me, I had a quick déjà vu moment—Mario and me skipping down the beach as teenagers, about this same time of night, kicking water at each other until one of us fell. That would lead to a bout of uncontrollable laughter and maybe a quick kiss.
“You see, son, there are times when it doesn’t matter about the technology or the fancy equipment, it just comes down to…”
Under my breath, I joined him in saying “the fight in the dog.” I rolled my eyes, not because I’d heard this same story a thousand times, even if it was a time when my father was truly a hero. I was rolling my eyes because he was here, with us, my core family. It seemed out of place after the emotional exchange earlier. The feeling of manipulation hadn’t subsided; it had only been covered up by some authentic exchanges with Erin and Luke.
It was interesting how my dad and Carly had come to be there. The kids and I had arrived at the beach for a late-evening stroll in the low tide, when all of a sudden, Dad and Carly appeared. Luke hadn’t been able to hide his grin. “Grampy and I were trading text messages. I thought it would be cool to see them again. I wanted to hear the whole story of how he got that medal.”
“How much is this sucker worth?” Luke brought me back to the present.
“It’s priceless, Luke. Money doesn’t buy this kind of honor,” my dad said.
“I’m just wondering, since it is solid gold. What do you call this again, Grampy?”
“The Gold Lifesaving Medal. Dating back to 1874, this is one of the oldest decorations awarded in the United States.”
“Sorry,” Erin said suddenly interested, “but why did you get this?”
Oh my, did I have to hear it again?
“To make it short, Erin, a fifty-foot sea vessel crashed into some rocks in stormy seas off the coast of Virginia. As a trained rescue swimmer, I boarded a Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and we flew sixty miles due east. We knew from the radio reports that four crewman had abandoned ship and were trying to get to the life rafts. I was lowered from the helicopter, fully expecting a grab-and-go mission.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Where I would secure a person with a harness to my pulley, and then they would raise us back into the helicopter.”
“So what happened?”
“We had a malfunction. The cable wouldn’t retreat. So I dove into the water, swam through five-foot swells to the man who appeared to have the most trouble staying afloat, and then swam three hundred yards to the shore of a small rock island. I then went back out to sea and repeated that process three more times.”
“Holy crap, Grampy. You were like Aquaman and James Bond wrapped up in one.”
He chuckled so loudly I couldn’t help but turn around and watch him teeter backward, his hand over his belly. He popped it a couple of times. “I was in damn good shape in my twenties. Not so much these days.”
Carly nuzzled her face against his arm. “I can’t complain.”
“Oh brother,” I said under my breath.
We approached a larger crowd of folks admiring a jellyfish that had washed up on shore. As I led our group around the people, I could hear a recognizable voice calling out above the murmur. I stopped and peered into the cluster.
“Has anyone seen a blond-haired woman with two kids? Her name is Alex.”
I couldn’t see the afro, or much else in the darkened conditions, but I could certainly make out Archie’s voice.
From somewhere in the middle of the group of people, he continued. “She’s kind of yay big, a little hot if she has her shit together, and she doesn’t wear her wedding ring from her dead husband.”
That guy could get my blood pressure rising like no one else. I couldn’t run away fast enough, not with the kids and parents in tow. “Archie!”
About ten heads turned my direction. One older lady laid a hand on my arm. “Are you this Alex person?”
Before I could respond, a man broke through the crowd, tripped, and fell at our feet. Now I could see his afro.
“Archie, what the hell are you doing?”
“No cussing, Mom, right?” Erin said from behind me.
I ignored Erin’s comment and helped him up, trying to minimize our distraction to others. I just nodded at the woman and jerked Archie forward so our family could continue our so-called leisurely stroll. “What’s wrong with you?” I shined the flashlight directly into his eyes.
“I can’t see now,” he said, blinking his eyes and losing his balance.
I moved the beam down to the sand in front of us. “That better?”
“I’m only seeing tiny, red spots. Give me a moment.”
He leaned to the side and started shaking his head violently in one direction.
“What are you doing now?”
“Think I have sand in my ear.”
“You only do that when you have water stuck in your ear. Stop doing that. People think you’re weird.”
He raised back up. “Ok
ay, I guess I’ll have to live with fifty-percent hearing in one ear.”
I tried to ignore his drama. “How did you find me? Why did you find me?”
He splayed his arms while angling his frame in front of me, just to make sure I didn’t miss his pissy expression. “It’s the twenty-first century, Alex, and we’re in the middle of this case and you’re not checking your phone.”
I reached for my pocket, and I only felt the keys to the rental car.
“Ah, sorry,” I said, turning my head. “Erin, I need my phone.”
While she appeared to be listening to more of Dad’s epic rescue story, she also had one eye on my phone, where her thumbs were moving at supersonic speed.
“Can you stop texting for a moment and give me my phone back please?”
She sighed. “One sec…” she said as if I were inconveniencing her.
She must have been advising the president on some type of foreign policy. Now she appeared to be speaking into the phone.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Can’t say exactly…”
“Why not?”
“I’m on a Skype session, and we have about ten or fifteen people connected to talk about the latest episode of Teen Wolf.”
“What? We have a data plan, young lady. Turn off the phone.”
“Ugh. Okay.”
“Erin.”
“One more quick sec.” Her thumbs broke some type of speed record.
Just before I was about to dig into her and take away her own phone for the rest of our trip, she said, “Done.” Then she extended her arm.
A second later, Luke buzzed by and snatched the phone out of her hand, then zipped around to Archie and me as he made a noise that sounded like an incoming helicopter. He dropped the phone in my hand, then raised his fist for Archie.
“Luke, my man. You da bomb,” Archie said, as he bumped Luke’s small fist and then pretended to blow up his hand.
“You’re dating yourself, Archie,” I said. “‘Da bomb’? That’s circa 1998, maybe earlier.”
“I’m hip and you know it. The kids certainly know it.”
It was easy to roll my eyes right in front of Archie since (a) he was too busy paying attention to the woman in a tiny orange bikini and mesh cover-up walking by, and (b) it was too dark for him to see me. Probably more (a) than (b).
I flicked through my phone with my free hand and found dozens of texts from Archie. “What’s so urgent anyway?”
After a couple of seconds, he peeled his eyes off the curvaceous girl and turned my way. “I spoke to what’s her name…”
“Cynthia?
“Yeah, her.”
“The one you thought might be ‘the one’?” I moved the cone of light onto my face so he could see my subtle gesture toward the attractive woman who’d just passed.
“Yeah, well, a man can look, can’t he? Anyway…” He began to scratch his hairless chin. I noticed he had on a white and red T-shirt with the word “Baywatch” on the front. Maybe David Hasselhoff was his childhood hero, which would explain his cheesy ways and unique hairstyle.
“Cynthia and I met for drinks. I could tell something was on her mind. She seemed distant, constantly looking out to the water. So I suggested we take a walk on the pier.”
We could hear multiple octaves of laughter from behind us, and we both sneaked a quick glimpse in that direction. I motioned my arm for him to continue.
Another good-looking woman walked by. I snapped my fingers. “And so you’re on the pier with Cynthia…”
“Right. We watched some fish swim around, and then a seagull landed on a fence right next to us. She then said, ‘That’s me. The one on an island all by herself.’”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing for a few seconds.”
My jaw dropped open. “And then?”
“I put my hand on her elbow and asked if she was okay, if there was anything I could do to help.”
Did Archie have a brother? I really didn’t want to know. “So…”
“I kind of let the game come to me, you know?”
“Not really, not from you anyway. Did you ask her what she meant about the island reference?”
“I got around to it, but not in an overbearing way. More about what I could do to help, you know, because of my CIA background.”
Anything to land the babe, apparently.
“And she didn’t get scared off by you mentioning the CIA?”
“Not in the least. But she did tell me this: she said she was in the middle of something big, really big, both professionally and personally.”
“Hmm. Did you ask her what this big thing was?”
“Didn’t get into it. She seemed to be on the verge of having some type of emotional reaction. I went and got us another drink, and she regained her composure.”
“Doesn’t sound like the cold-blooded personality the boys described.”
Archie shook his head.
A high-pitched shrill came from behind us, and I jerked my head around to see a girl running from the direction of the jellyfish, screaming in a giggly way. I guess she wasn’t impressed. It was enough to make my heart jump.
I took in a breath. “So how did you and Cynthia end it?”
“Well, she picked up the tab, which was a nice side benefit.”
I put my hand on Archie’s shoulder. “And you think you’re going to land the girl of your dreams running from the bar tab?”
“Just looking out for numero uno.” He smiled so widely I could see his white teeth glowing in the dark.
“Numero cheapo.”
“Hey, I just like to make sure I spend the money when it counts, if you know what I mean.” He gently poked his elbow into my ribs.
I couldn’t imagine…check that, I could imagine what he was thinking, and that made it totally gross.
“I plan ahead, just to make sure the repo man doesn’t show up at my house to haul off my Camaro.”
“You and Camaros. Sheesh.”
Luke buzzed by us again.
“Helicopter approaching beach position, over,” Archie said with his hand cupped over his mouth to make his voice sound like a radio.
Luke amped up his helicopter sound. I was surrounded by twelve-year-old kids.
“Luke, give us a minute. Archie and I need to finish our discussion.”
“I’m hungry,” he said on a flyby.
“Uh, not sure Teresa has anything at the house. But if you’re good, we’ll stop and pick up a late snack at Captain Roy’s Seafood Pit.”
“Sweet daddy!”
“Where were we?” I asked Archie as Luke continued running or whirring around on the beach. “Oh yes, how you use women to keep you out of debt.”
“She just paid for drinks. I would have picked up the motel bill if she would have…”
I jabbed my elbow into his ribs this time, and he grunted.
Luke laughed as he flew by once again. “A debt connector came by the house today,” he said.
I did a double take, distracted by Luke’s assembly of words.
“Little boy, it’s not connector. It’s collector,” Erin yelled out, always eager to point out her brother’s flaws.
“I understand what you’re saying, Luke.” I turned and scooted backward to ask Erin a follow-up question. “You’re saying a debt collector dropped by Teresa’s house today?”
“Yeah, Corey was in the shower, so I answered the door.”
I tried to get that picture out of my head, as well as the next frame with Erin taking a peek of Corey in the shower. Chill, Alex. Erin said she had no interest in Corey, so I should just believe her. And he’s into older…rather, more mature women.
“Debt collector. Are you sure they had the right house? I mean, she’s not exactly suffering,” I said with a chuckle.
Erin shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know how that stuff works. He just said she owes something like twenty-seven thousand dollars to his agency.”
“Twenty-se
ven thousand, four hundred seventy-six dollars, and thirty-nine cents,” Luke said, running between us.
I could see Dad and Carly giggling behind Erin. Luke obviously enjoyed being the center of attention.
“How would you know, runt? You weren’t even there.”
“I was standing just behind the door. And don’t call me names. Or is it that time of the month?”
I heard Archie guffaw through his teeth.
“Luke Giordano, that’s not cool,” I said. “Tell your sister you’re sorry.”
“Sorry,” he said with a fat lower lip.
Carly started speaking with Erin while I turned back to Archie, my mind spinning around the number Luke recited. “Twenty-seven thousand dollars? I don’t get it.”
“It happens to all of us. First, you get an online invite to join some chat room where you can win a cruise to the Grand Cayman Islands, and then the next thing you know, you’re getting email alerts from your bank saying that you authorized some company in Poland to withdraw ten thousand dollars from your savings account.”
I pointed my finger at my one-time partner. “That happened to you?”
His eyes bugged out. “What…me? Nah. I’m just talking generically, about someone in the older community who could easily fall prey to online scams and shit like that.”
I released an unexpected yawn and tried to cover my mouth.
“You do have a nice set of canines on you,” Archie said.
I gave him one of my looks.
“My mom was a dental hygienist, so I know a lot about teeth. That’s why mine are so straight and white.”
“Glad someone in your family was concerned with personal hygiene.”
He snapped his wrist and made the sound of a drumstick tapping a cymbal. “Nice one. Do you pay anyone for those jokes? I hope not, because you’re going to lose money. You might have a debt collector showing up at your house.”
I feigned a half-smile, but couldn’t shake the thought of Teresa having financial issues. And not just carrying a little extra debt on a couple of credit cards. This was the type that brought debt collectors to her door. I began to wonder if there was more…more debt and more collectors.
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2) Page 16