by Wendy Wax
Giraldi was already out of the van with a coil of cable over one broad shoulder and a work order in the other hand by the time she reached Bella Flora. Unable to accost him in front of Kyra, she followed him and his partner inside and waited while Madeline led his colleague toward the salon and their lone television. Kyra shot Nikki one questioning look and followed them.
Giraldi stood staring up at the effigy that dangled from the upper landing. “Not a bad likeness,” he said softly. “Although I’m sure your brother is wearing a better suit and more expensive shoes. When we went into his home on Long Island I found twenty pair of Italian loafers—all handmade.” He shook his head. “He has a real thing for the Italian designers.” He turned to her, his eyes probing hers. “Just like his sister.”
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one could hear them, but she didn’t respond to the jibe.
“I guess growing up poor gives some people a craving for expensive things,” he continued. “Maybe it makes them think they’re entitled to those things, even if they have to steal to get them. But stealing is stealing. And thieves deserve to be punished.”
She ignored this, too. “What do you think you’re doing here? Are you planning to bug the house?” She kept her voice low, afraid that Kyra would come back with her camera rolling.
An upstairs door opened and closed and bare feet sounded on the floor above, but she didn’t know whose. “We’ve got rats and roaches. Oh, yes, and birds. We’ve also got dust, dirt, and a kind of caked-on salty grime that I’ve never encountered before. What are a few listening devices?” Her laugh held no humor. “I told you I haven’t been able to reach Malcolm, and he certainly hasn’t reached me.” Not a lie exactly since his email attempt had been unsuccessful and unclear.
“And how do you think your ‘partners’ would react if they knew you were related to Dyer?”
The answer of course was badly. In fact, she suspected she’d be hanging right next to the dummy, in person, at this very moment if they had any idea. But she knew it was better to brazen it out; she’d be damned if she’d let him see her fear. “Do you want to tell them?” she hissed as Madeline came down the hallway toward them. “Or shall I?”
“Tell me what?” Madeline glanced at Giraldi, seeing, no doubt, nothing more than an extremely good-looking cable installer.
Nicole was careful to keep her breathing normal and her face expressionless as she waited for him to “out” her. But he turned to Madeline and said, “We weren’t sure if you wanted another outlet upstairs. The one will be enough to network your computers off of, but we didn’t know whether you wanted outlets in the bedrooms.”
“I don’t think so,” Madeline said. “Do you, Nicole?”
Nicole wondered if Giraldi’s partner had finished planting bugs in the salon and wherever else he could reach. Unless, of course, he was a real cable guy and not a pretender. Then she had a brief but visceral vision of Agent Giraldi poking through her belongings. Where would he plant anything in that room? Under the mattress on the floor? In the lone lamp? The drawer of the single nightstand?
“No,” Nikki said firmly. “We’re not going to be here that long.” She glared at Giraldi, who nodded and smiled like an actual cable guy might.
His partner came out to join them, apparently done in the salon, and he and Giraldi went outside and around to the back of the house, stringing the cable as if they were nothing more than the installers they were pretending to be.
She waited with Madeline out on the front steps, tapping her foot with impatience, spoiling for a fight. And that was before all the other trucks started pulling up to the front curb like spacecraft returning to the mother ship.
Chase Hardin pulled in with his father. Behind them came Robby and Enrico, a pool man, the AC guy, and a truck delivering lumber. When there was barely a spare inch left to angle in, John Franklin’s boat of a Cadillac floated in and nudged one fender toward the curb. The Realtor caned his way around to the passenger side and opened the door, handing out a large woman with short salt-and-pepper hair. She was Franklin’s height, but looked to outweigh him by a good fifteen pounds—a St. Bernard to his hound dog. As they made their way toward the house, the woman carved a path through the chaos of cars and equipment for the less hearty Realtor to follow.
Avery joined them on the front steps, her hair up in a ponytail, a fine layer of sawdust coating her hair and face. She wore the old tool belt at a jaunty angle, or maybe that was the only way it would stay up. When she spotted the Hardins, Nicole felt her tense slightly, then watched as she arranged her lips into a smile and swaggered out to greet them.
John Franklin worked his cane prodigiously but still trailed behind as he and his companion made their way up the drive and toward the garden gate. The woman wore pastel-colored madras walking shorts that pulled unflatteringly across her stomach and thighs and a sleeveless button-down blouse in a bright lemon yellow. Her arms were heavy but well muscled. Her skin was tanned from the sun.
Giraldi walked toward them from the opposite direction while his partner headed for the truck.
“I’m just going to assume you’ve bugged the whole damned house,” Nikki said under her breath as he handed her the work order for her signature. “So you might as well not bother listening.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“And if our television reception’s bad, I’m going to call the company and report you.”
Giraldi smiled and handed her the same card he’d handed her before. The “company” listed didn’t have the word “cable” anywhere in it. “Both my boss and I would love to hear from you.”
She turned to go in the house, but he put an arm out to stop her. “I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Walk out to the truck with me and I’ll get it.”
“Fine.” She strode past him toward the driveway, nodding to John Franklin and the woman as they passed, aimed like vectors now toward Madeline. At the cable company van, Giraldi slid open the back door and Nicole peered inside half expecting to see agents with headphones and listening devices like she’d seen on TV. But it was just the inside of an empty van. He reached inside and pulled out what looked like clothing.
“What is it?”
Giraldi held up a bright blue T-shirt with the words “Convenient Cable” scrawled across it, then flipped it to show her the cable company logo on the back. “A small parting gift for you,” he said.
“I already have clothes.”
“You’re overdressed for your surroundings, Ms. Grant,” he replied. “If you’re going to work on this house and blend in, you’re going to have to start dressing like the natives.”
She snatched the T-shirt from him and wadded it into a ball.
“I took the liberty of getting you these, too.” He unfolded a pair of gray knit short shorts with “I (heart) Pass-a-Grille” stamped across the seat in large pink letters.
She’d never seen anything less her. “You shouldn’t have.”
“You really shouldn’t be stripping those doors in designer clothes. I hate to see you ruin them.” He winked at her before he turned to open the passenger-side door. “You need to have something left to wear when it’s time to go get your brother and bring him in.”
Nikki stood in the driveway, clutching what looked like a wad of fabric to her chest. There was something odd about the intensity with which she watched the cable truck drive away, but Madeline dismissed the thought as she stepped down into the garden to meet John Franklin and the woman clearing a path before him.
“Hello, Ms. Singer.” The Realtor was slightly out of breath unlike the sturdy woman beside him. “I want to introduce you to my bride, Renée. Renée, this is Madeline Singer.”
“It’s Maddie,” Madeline said, extending her hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Oh, I’ve been dying to get my hands on these grounds for a good long time.” Renée Franklin’s handshake was firm and decisive, just shy of bone crushing. “Everything is so overgrown and o
ut of control.” She shook her head. “A garden is like a child, Miz Singer. It needs a firm hand and constant attention.” Her eyes glittered with an almost religious fervor. Her accent was vaguely southern as if it had been acquired slowly over time. “Why, this level of neglect is almost criminal.”
“Now, now, dear. Don’t get yourself worked up.” John Franklin gently patted his wife’s formidable shoulder, the adoration in his eyes so stark it made Madeline’s stomach hurt. Her own husband was getting harder and harder to reach. Steve had pretty much stopped answering his cell phone, and far too many of her attempts to reach him on the house phone had been deflected by Edna.
Renée Franklin raised her arms in supplication. “Oh, just look at those poor birds-of-paradise. You can barely see them or the frangipani. And the bougainvillea and confederate jasmine! They’re magnificent, but they really need to be trained up over those balconies.”
She circled the fountain as she exclaimed and pointed. Facing the house, she gestured toward two huge, straggly-looking plants that flanked the front steps. “Those are triple hibiscus. There’ll be three blooms in different colors. But they’re so leggy.” She clutched her heart as if she were wounded. “Oh, I wish I’d brought my pruning shears.”
If Renée Franklin were a ship, she would be a Coast Guard cutter—solid and certain, slicing through the waves without a moment’s hesitation. They followed her out of the front garden and around the side of the house as best they could. Her husband, who managed surprisingly well with his cane, responded eagerly and lovingly. Maddie, who enjoyed spring in Atlanta mostly as a pleased observer, simply nodded when it seemed appropriate, but understood little.
On the western side of the house the amount of fine white sand far outweighed the grass and was overgrown with sandspurs and creeping cacti; definitely not a barefoot zone. Renée Franklin gestured dismissively toward a low-lying green plant. “That Sprengerle needs to be removed.” She turned for a moment to address Madeline. “It’s actually a weed”—she whispered this word as if it were somehow dirty—“and as you can see, highly invasive. It must be ripped out by the roots. Up north they put it in pots! Imagine!”
In the back the palm trees were plentiful, and apparently each palm had a name. Renée exclaimed over cabbage palms with petticoats of dry brown fronds that hung beneath them, and proclaimed the multi-trunked reclinada “quite valuable.” She led them toward a huge tree she referred to as a sea grape, its leaves dark green and rounded, that hung in a huge mass over a portion of the seawall.
Together they turned back toward the house. The buzz of saws and the pounding of hammers rang in the air and ricocheted off the thick stucco walls, the concrete pool deck, and the courtyard that surrounded it.
“There’s so much to be done,” Renée said, clearly relishing this fact. “But the grounds will be breathtaking once again.”
“And the house, too,” John Franklin agreed. “I’m so pleased to see it finally getting the attention it deserves.”
Madeline searched out the throng for her partners. Avery and Chase were squared off in front of each other again, their faces contorted in anger, their hands next to their tool belts as if they were holsters. The senior Hardin had a hand on each of their shoulders, trying to placate them. Nicole stood nearby downing a glass of tea, clearly in no hurry to start on the door stretched across a nearby sawhorse. Maddie knew the feeling. She was starting on a bank of upper windows today, and although she didn’t fumble quite as much as she had at the beginning of the week, each pane still took far too long. By the end of each day her whole body screamed in protest.
At the opposite corner of the gash of concrete that was the pool, Kyra stood, feet planted, her video camera aimed at Avery and Chase, apparently capturing their argument. As Maddie studied her daughter, the camera swung in her direction. For the first time that morning Maddie became aware of what she probably looked like. She hadn’t showered or worried about makeup because she got so dirty and sweaty every day that starting out clean felt practically sacrilegious. One hand stole up to smooth her hair, which was when she remembered that she’d never even combed it before clamping it up on top of her head.
Seventeen
By the end of the next day the way Maddie looked was once again the absolute last thing on her mind. Her shrieking muscles were making so much noise nothing else could sink in.
“Oh, my God.” She looked up the front stairs wondering if she could possibly make it up them and if she did, whether she could force herself back down again. She began to inch her way upward, her hand clutching the banister, but each step produced groans of inner protest. She was apparently far too old to spend close to six hours hunched in an untenable position. The number of times she’d climbed up and down the scaffolding did not bear thinking about.
With Herculean effort and complete concentration, she made it up another step. She knew better than to look up or count how many stairs remained.
“Mom,” Kyra called from behind. “Turn around and give me a smile.”
“No.” Both movements were far beyond her current capabilities. She managed to contain the groan as she took the next step. “You better not have that camera pointed at me right now,” she said as she completed one more step, then took another. This time the groan refused to be contained.
“Are you all right?” Kyra’s voice was, mercifully, farther behind her than it had been.
Madeline took another step. Then one more. She spied the landing just ahead and used what little arm strength remained to hoist herself up to it.
“Mom?”
The landing achieved, she stood beside the dangling effigy of Malcolm Dyer and braced her weight on the banister, careful not to move too suddenly; her sole mission aside from reaching the top, and ultimately the shower, was not to jar her back.
Kyra stood at the bottom, her camera angled upward.
“No, I’m not okay,” Maddie said. “And if you actually shot footage of my Mount Everest climb, I suggest you delete it now.”
Kyra laughed, but she did lower the camera. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m stunned to hear that,” Maddie said. “No, I’m too tired to be stunned.”
“Aren’t you going to do your sunset toast?” Kyra asked innocently. “Don’t you want to make sure everybody shares their ‘one good thing’?”
Madeline bit back a whimper. “No. Anyone who feels thankful today will have to announce it on their own.” She paused, gathering her strength to tackle the rest of the upward journey. “You’re in charge of dinner tonight, Ky,” she said as she hoisted her weight up another step. “Don’t wait for me to eat. I’m going to take a hot shower and then I’m going to lie down. And I’m not planning to come out anytime soon.”
Avery sat slumped in the oversized chair, munching on a slice of pizza, when Maddie finally hobbled into the salon in her robe and fuzzy slippers and lowered herself into a corner of the sofa.
“Are you okay?” Avery asked as she watched Madeline try to get comfortable. “Today felt especially long to me. My back is very pissed off at what it was put through.”
“I think I’ll survive,” Maddie said. She looked at the slice of pizza in Avery’s hand. “Is there any pizza left?”
“Here, Mom.” Kyra reached into the box on the coffee table, slid a slice onto a napkin and handed it to Maddie. “Do you want something to drink?”
“That would be great.” Maddie nodded her thanks.
“You should know that your daughter not only managed to place the order online, she found a coupon for it,” Nicole said.
“Like mother, like daughter,” Avery said with a smile.
Kyra shrugged. “I didn’t realize coupon clipping was an inherited trait. Can you believe they actually have an early bird discount here for pizza delivery?”
“I’m just glad there’s no senior citizen discount,” Nicole said. She and Maddie exchanged a glance.
The salon was dark, lit only by the flicker of the ancien
t TV. With its coffered ceiling, floor-to-ceiling arched windows, and cast-stone fireplace surround, the room was meant for more elegant evenings. But all of them, even the ubersophisticated Nicole, were far too tired to care.
Unable to decide or agree on what to watch, they put the remote in the hands of the youngest member of the group, and Kyra wielded it freely. Avery didn’t think she was the only one of them glad to see something other than the video camera in her hands.
Through a full-length window she saw the light in the detached garage go off, and she tensed slightly, waiting to hear the sound of Chase’s truck starting up and leaving. Instead she heard the creak of the outside kitchen door as it opened, then clicked shut. This was followed by the refrigerator door and heavy footsteps crossing the hall. Avery sighed when Chase Hardin appeared in the doorway. Even in the flickering light she could see that his face and T-shirt were streaked with dirt and his jeans had what looked like a new rip in the knee. He held an open beer in one hand.
“You look a little tired, Boss,” Nicole said. “Something get the better of you?”
“Well, it turns out the pipes passing under the former garage have nothing to do with the pool and everything to do with the main house’s original steam heat system. I hit two of them when I was digging and they’re going to have to be replaced by somebody who’s actually worked on a steam heat system. Which we’re unlikely to find down here.”
Avery sat up and shot him a look. She’d not only warned him that the system might pass under the detached garage but offered to help. He’d told her not to worry, that he’d be fine.
“I guess everything wasn’t so fine after all,” she observed but got no response. Big surprise there.
“Hey, look, there’s Avery!” Kyra said, pointing at the TV screen with the remote.
It was an episode of Hammer and Nail, and the camera was focused on a tight shot of Avery’s chest and then zoomed out to reveal her and Trent on set. She cringed at the vacant smile that appeared on her face.