by Lou Berney
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Her feline eyes remained unperturbed. Or seemed to. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you around.”
“I guess.”
Wyatt went back to his car. He used his phone to search for nearby pizza places and picked the one that popped up first. Hideaway Pizza. He called in an order for a large cheese and a large pepperoni.
Candace had just pulled in to her driveway when Wyatt arrived. She glanced at him, at the pizza boxes, and then went around to the backseat to unbuckle Lily.
“I was going to call you,” Candace said.
“Have you guys had lunch?”
Lily climbed out of the car. “Hi, Wyatt.”
“Hi, Lily.”
“We went to the Science Museum.”
“Was it fun?”
Lily considered the question gravely. You could see her stacking the weights, lining up the measures, checking her math.
“Yes,” she said finally.
Candace handed Lily a small pink backpack, decorated with the face of a Disney princess Wyatt couldn’t place—one of the newer, multicultural ones. Candace handed Lily her keys.
“Go on inside, baby. I’ll be there in a second, okay?”
“Okay.”
Wyatt watched Lily climb the steps to the porch. She unlocked the front door and went inside. He gave it another try.
“Have you had lunch?” he said. “I thought Lily might like pizza. Kids like pizza. That’s my understanding. That, actually, is the beginning and the end of my understanding.”
Candace slammed the car door shut. And then she yanked it back open, just so she could slam it shut again, even harder.
“You!” she said. “Are! Un! Be! Lievable!”
Wyatt didn’t know what she was talking about. He did know better than to ask. Any way he asked would make him sound like a smart-ass.
“I called Dallas a few minutes ago,” Candace said. “To see if she could watch Lily today for an hour or so? And she said you just left.”
“Candace—”
“I can’t believe you’re doing my bartender and not working on my case!”
“I’m not doing your bartender.”
“Then why were you over at her place?”
That question was more complicated. “Candace—”
“I don’t care!” she said. “I don’t care who you’re doing or if you’re doing anybody! I don’t care if you bring over stupid pizza at two o’clock when every normal person has already had lunch! Do you know what I care about?”
Wyatt kept his mouth shut. Candace was really pissed, more pissed than he’d ever seen her. He set the pizza boxes on the hood of his car and walked up the driveway to her.
“Do you?” she said.
She opened the car door and prepared to slam it again. Wyatt reached for her wrist to stop her but then—the look Candace gave him—thought better of it. She slammed the door so hard the car rocked.
“What have you been doing?” she said. “I mean, seriously? Besides my bartender. Ha. Have you been doing anything to help me? Gavin said you were like the best private detective he’d ever worked with.”
Again Wyatt kept his mouth shut. This time because he couldn’t argue Candace’s point. What had he been doing? In the past twenty-four hours, he’d spent roughly five minutes thinking about Candace’s case. Maybe less. He should have been pressing Finn’s manager for the list of fans, he should have already started bracing them. And before that? Wyatt had been off his game the minute his plane touched down in Oklahoma City. He’d never, he knew, really been present.
“What happened?” he said. “Why were you going to call me?”
“Mr. Eddy’s brother called me this morning. He said he was going to get the court to reopen the estate.”
“He can’t do that.”
“He said his lawyer can. He said I better get a lawyer, too. The best one I can afford.”
“He might be able to get probate opened again, but he won’t win.”
“Does he have to?” Candace said. “I’m not stupid. He said I can sell him the Land Run now or I can sell it to him later.”
So that was Jeff Eddy’s play, to make Candace spend so much money on lawyers she’d have to take a lowball offer.
Wyatt shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about any of that.”
“Oh?” Candace said. “Really? I don’t?”
“No.” He smiled. “Trust me.”
She looked like she was going for the car door again but then stopped. Lily had emerged from the house and was standing on the porch.
“Hi, baby,” Candace said. “What’s wrong?”
Wyatt felt it, too. A ripple of uneasiness moved through him, almost too faint to notice—a pebble dropped into a pond.
“Mama,” Lily said. “I don’t understand.”
Another pebble dropped into the pond.
“Don’t understand what, baby?” Candace said.
Without another word Lily went back inside. Candace followed her. Wyatt followed Candace. Everything in the living room looked normal, everything in the dining room. And then a gust of chilly air raised the hair on the back of Wyatt’s neck, and he noticed the open window in the dining room, the splintered casement. Candace noticed it a second later. Wyatt felt her tense.
“Go outside with Lily,” he told Candace. But Lily was already halfway down the hall leading to her bedroom. Candace caught up and stopped her before she could go in. Wyatt stepped in front of them both. He looked through the doorway.
The room had been stripped—posters removed from the walls, sheets and pillowcases pulled from the bed. The dresser drawers were open and empty. The closet was empty, just a few plastic hangers left crooked on the rod. In the center of the room sat three big cardboard moving boxes. The boxes were taped up and neatly labeled: CLOTHES. TOYS. MISCELLANEOUS. Next to the boxes was a child-size pink roller bag, packed so full that Wyatt could see the zipper straining.
Candace had stopped breathing. Lily looked up at her.
“Where am I going, Mama?” she said.
Wyatt
CHAPTER 23
The door on the opposite side of the hallway was open. Candace’s bedroom. Wyatt saw that nothing in there had been touched—it was only Lily’s room the intruder had boxed up. The significance of that wasn’t lost on Wyatt. He could tell it wasn’t lost on Candace.
I know where you live. I know what’s important to you. I can take it away from you at any time.
Candace knelt next to Lily. She flicked a strand of blond hair from her daughter’s face.
“Let’s go over and see Aunt Dallas,” Candace said. “What do you say about them apples?”
Wyatt didn’t know how Candace was keeping it together. He himself was so furious he was about to put his fist through the wall. He wanted to find the person who’d broken into Candace’s house and put a fist through his head. He wanted to put a fist through his own head.
“Wyatt brought pizza,” Lily said.
“We can take the pizza with us.”
“But we already ate lunch.”
“Then we can have it for dinner.”
“Or a snack,” Wyatt said. “I always say that the midafternoon snack, not breakfast, is the most important meal of the day.”
Lily considered. “Okay,” she said.
Outside, Candace buckled Lily back into the car. Wyatt loaded in the pizzas. After he gave Lily a fist bump and shut her door, he took out his phone. Candace came around to his side of the car.
“What are you doing?” she said quietly.
“I’ll stay here and handle the police.”
“No.”
“Yes. Take Lily to Dallas’s place. The police will want to talk t
o you, but they can do that later.”
“No. I mean don’t call them.”
Wyatt had set his phone on the roof of her car, the paint blistered from bird poop, so he could search his wallet. The cop who’d interviewed him in the ER three nights ago had given Wyatt his card, but he couldn’t find it now. He told himself to slow down. Cool off.
He looked at Candace. “What?”
“I don’t want you to call the police.”
“What?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” He could see her mind working. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I don’t know what to do. I need time to think about it.”
“Candace,” Wyatt said. “Candace. There’s nothing to think about. What happened in there, do you understand what it means?”
She’d been about to move past him. Instead she stopped, waited for a second, and then looked up at him. Her eyes were stone. Wyatt felt like she’d just kneed him in the balls. He wished she had. He would have preferred that to this.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You think I don’t understand what it means?” Her voice was cool, quiet. “She’s my daughter.”
He stepped out of her way. Candace got into her car and started the engine.
“Are you coming with us?” she said.
“I’ll be over in a little while. We have to talk about this, Candace.”
“Promise me. You won’t call.”
“Won’t call who, Mama?” Lily said from the back.
Wyatt bent down. “My buddy, Jimmy Stinken von Pootburper. Your mom doesn’t want to invite him over for pizza. I have no idea why.”
“Promise,” Candace said.
“For now,” Wyatt said. He reached in and gave Lily another fist bump. “See you later, alligator.”
After Candace and Lily drove off, Wyatt went back inside the house and used his phone to take photos of everything—the broken window, the stripped room, the moving boxes. He was careful not to touch anything, in case the intruder had left behind any kind of physical evidence. Fucking hell. Wyatt knew he needed to call the cops. He also knew, fucking hell, it wasn’t his call to make.
Instead he called Finn’s manager and left a message. “I need that list, Dixon. Now. Call me.”
The anger he’d felt earlier had returned—a carrion bird dropping heavy from the sky, claws first, digging in, its cry a hoarse, giddy scream. Wyatt locked the house and walked to his car. He took his phone back out and called Jeff Eddy.
“Damn it,” Jeff Eddy said. “I’ve been trying to get holda you. I must have called half a dozen times.”
That sounded about right to Wyatt. He hadn’t listened to any of the voice mails that Eddy had left him since the football game.
“I may have something for you.”
“About time. Are you working for me or not? I talked to my lawyer about getting the probate back open, put a little extra squeeze on—”
“Are you home? I can come by.”
Eddy huffed. “If you come right now. I’m leaving for the Thunder game in half an hour, rain or shine.”
“Text me your address,” Wyatt said.
It took Wyatt only ten minutes, light Sunday traffic, to drive out to the development north of the Kilpatrick Turnpike where Eddy lived. His house was brand new and big, but—Wyatt had to admit it—in surprisingly good taste. The architect had put in fat, Prairie-school porch columns and used Oklahoma limestone the color of buttered toast. Eddy’s house looked like it might actually belong here on the southern plains, not in Santa Fe or on Martha’s Vineyard.
Next to the front door was a carved pumpkin painted Sooner colors, crimson and cream. Wyatt picked up the pumpkin. It was big but not heavy. He could hold it with one hand.
Jeff Eddy opened the door. “Well?” he said. “What have you got for me?”
“Are we alone?” Wyatt said. “This is sensitive stuff.”
Eddy huffed. “Yes. We’re alone. Karen’s with the kids at soccer.”
Soccer. Eddy made a face when he said it, the way someone else might make a face when discussing intestinal parasites or drug-resistant oral gonorrhea.
“I’m not a huge fan of soccer either,” Wyatt said. He lifted the pumpkin above his shoulder. “I think you probably have to grow up with it.”
Eddy shook his head. The mere discussion of the sport was beneath him.
“What are you doing with that?” he said. “Are you coming inside?”
“Sure,” Wyatt said.
He stepped inside and hit Eddy with the pumpkin—in the face, with so much force the pumpkin split apart into jagged chunks and Eddy staggered backward. He collided with a wooden coatrack and went down heavily, dragging the coat rack with him. When Eddy tried to get up, Wyatt kicked a chunk of broken pumpkin at him. It glanced off the side of Eddy’s head.
“You piece of shit,” Wyatt said. Eddy might not be the person who’d threatened to kidnap Lily—Wyatt, deep down, knew he probably wasn’t—but at the very least Eddy was trying to extort Candace into selling him the Land Run. Wyatt wanted to break a branch off the coatrack and pound Eddy’s head until it, too, split apart. “What did Candace ever do to deserve a piece of shit like you?”
Eddy’s eyes roamed the foyer, wild with panic.
“I’ve got a gun,” he said.
“Do you want me to wait while you go upstairs and unlock your safe?” Wyatt kicked another chunk of pumpkin at him.
Eddy started to get up again. “This is assault,” he said.
“Shut up and listen to me,” Wyatt said.
“This is assault and battery. You’re going to jail.”
Eddy was on his feet now—his jowly jaw slack, breathing hard. He was thinking about putting his shoulder down and taking a run at Wyatt. He had fifty or sixty pounds on Wyatt, maybe more. But he was cautious. Jeff Eddy liked to fight dirty. He didn’t like when his opponent did.
“Tell me why you slept with Greg’s wife,” Wyatt said. “Were you genuinely attracted to her, or was it just about proving to yourself what a dumb-ass your brother was?”
Eddy’s expression changed. And then changed again. Surprise, fury, fear, rapid calculation—all in the course of a single blink.
“Now, hold on,” he said.
“I’m holding,” Wyatt said.
“That was— Their marriage was already over, for all intents and purposes.”
“So you won’t mind if I tell your wife about it. I think she suspects. She suspects something. But suspecting and knowing are two different things. I hope you had a prenup.”
“Now, hold on. Damn it.”
“Probably you didn’t. Thirty-four years ago? And good luck with probate, when the judge finds out the exact circumstances of why Jeff didn’t leave you the Land Run.”
The foyer had begun to smell faintly like pumpkin pie. The bone that cupped Eddy’s right eye was red and shiny, with a single pale pumpkin seed stuck to the skin like a perfectly placed teardrop. Wyatt wondered what lie Eddy would tell people when they asked how he got the bruise.
Wyatt bent down and started picking up pieces of the jack-o’-lantern.
“How much money do you want?” Eddy said.
“I don’t want any money, you piece of shit. I want you to back off Candace and keep backing.”
“You’re the piece of shit.”
Wyatt found a trash can and dropped the pumpkin inside. He wiped his hands on his socks, a trick O’Malley had taught him long ago, to keep your pants clean at work.
Eddy was still considering a charge. Wyatt wished he would charge, come what may.
“So we’re good?” Wyatt said. “The terms of our gentleman’s agreement are clear? You back off Candace and I keep my mouth shut.”
�
�You sure as hell better.”
“You sure as hell better.” Wyatt peeked into what appeared to be a study or a library. “Do you have anything to drink? We can drink on it. Your finest scotch.”
Eddy glared. He seemed to be under the impression that Wyatt was kidding. Wyatt walked into the study and snooped around until he found a liquor setup in the cabinet behind the desk. The scotch was eighteen-year-old Laphroaig. Not bad. The really good stuff was probably behind lock and key.
Wyatt poured two stiff ones, neat, and brought them back into the foyer. He offered one to Jeff Eddy. Eddy ignored it and continued to glare at him.
“Get out of my house,” he said.
“Boomer!” Wyatt said, and knocked his drink back.
BY THE TIME Wyatt got to Dallas’s apartment, it was almost five.
“Never thought I’d see you again,” Dallas said when she opened the door.
“Life works in mysterious ways,” Wyatt said.
She hesitated, then let him in. Candace was curled on the couch with Lily, reading a book. Elmer and the Dragon. Wyatt remembered it from his own childhood. Well, he remembered a dragon with stripes. And a little boy who wore a matching shirt. That had struck Wyatt, even at the age six or seven, as a little weird.
Lily looked up and regarded him. “We had pizza for a snack,” she said.
“I approve.”
She turned to Dallas. “Wyatt can push a grape through a table.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Dallas said.
“He can.”
“Lily,” Wyatt said, “can I borrow your mom for a minute? I promise to return her in original and pristine condition.”
Candace got up. Wyatt followed her into Dallas’s bedroom. He shut the door behind them.
“Is everything okay here?” he said.
“I want to say I’m sorry,” Candace said.
“You’re sorry?” Wyatt said, surprised. “For what?”
“For some of the things I said earlier.”
“Stop it. You’re weirding me out.”
Candace sat down on the edge of Dallas’s unmade bed.