Stealing the Moon & Stars

by Sally J. Smith

  “Your dad brought quiche, scones, and rolls from the market. You need to put some food in with those pills.”

  Jordan swung her legs out and eased off the bed. Her mother helped her into her robe and slippers then fussed with the bed covers while Jordan tested her legs.

  Mary hesitated. She seemed to know she was walking on eggshells. “Jordie, I spoke with your father. We want you to come back to Chicago. You can live at home until you get things sorted out.”

  “Chicago? Home?” Jordan wanted to laugh, but it hurt too badly. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “I’m serious. We’re worried about you. This detective stuff is all so silly and useless. You don’t need it. You have your trust fund from your grandfather.”

  “For God’s sake, Mother. Sometimes you exhaust me—of all the times to start this. You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I wish you’d come to your senses and stop all this folderol. I mean, look at you. You’re hurt. You could have died.”

  “I didn’t, and it’s not ‘folderol,’ as you so delicately put it. I help people.”

  Mary turned the volume up. “Help people? I mean, really. You run around sticking your nose into everybody’s business. It’s unseemly. You’re a Welsh and an O’Connell. I can’t imagine what people think.”

  “One more way you and I are different, Mother.” Jordan knotted the sash on her robe. “I don’t care what people think, especially your society friends. The only reputation I worry about involves my professional and personal integrity. Yes, I’m a Welsh and an O’Connell and proud to be both, but mostly I’m just Jordan, my own person. It’s who I’m happy to be.” She pushed past her mother and went to the kitchen. She was moving slowly, but grateful to be moving at all.

  A surprise greeted her in the breakfast area. Eddie sat at the table with her dad. He looked hosed over.

  “What are you doing here so bright and early?” Jordan asked.

  Before Eddie could answer, her father did. “He slept on the sofa in the den. When he was here, that is. He was in and out all night. Another young man took over when Edward was out sleuthing.”

  Eddie shrugged tiredly. “Diego.”

  She didn’t know what to say in the face of such loyalty, so she just reached for a plate off the counter.

  “Here. Let me.” Eddie jumped up, took the plate and loaded it with food.

  She figured Eddie and her father overheard the angry exchange and knew it for certain when her father commented, “The fallout from World War Three made it all the way down the hall.”

  Jordan sat at the table and let Eddie wait on her. “Mom was just telling me how it is.”

  Ben wiped his mouth with his napkin and patted Jordan’s hand. “I’ll talk to her. She’s just scared.” He got up and went in search of Mary, who was probably off somewhere sulking.

  Eddie set a plate in front of her, along with a scone, clotted cream, strawberry jam, and a slender slice of quiche. He’d creamed and sugared the coffee to perfection. His ministrations were so special, Jordan sighed and smiled as he tentatively touched the top of her head and then sat in the chair next to her.

  “I want you to rest today. I feel pretty sure this case is coming to a head, and I’ll need you as functional as possible later on. Just for today, let me take care of everything.” Eddie held up his hand when she started to protest. “Listen to me this one time, please. Hang out at home. Chill.” He grinned. “Decide what kind of new car you want or just reminisce about the good old days with your mom.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Evil. All right. You win. I’ll think about a car. The mom thing will drive my blood pressure through the roof.” She stood, picked up her plate and mug and moved toward the patio door.

  “Thought you were going to take it easy.”

  “You bet your sexy ass I am.” A lesson from her mother’s playbook. “If you need me, dahling, you’ll find me out on the patio.”

  She slept off and on all day, sometimes in the lounge on the pool deck, sometimes on the sofa. She even took a long nap in bed.

  When she woke around six, the bedroom was dark. Surprised at feeling relatively spry, she skipped the pain medication. A glance out the French doors revealed a twilight sky darkened by angry looking rain clouds.

  “Of course. The forecast was clear and sunny.”

  Voices came from the great room, and she walked out to see who was there.

  There seemed to be a party going on.

  Her father, her mother, Eddie, Hannah, and even Sadie were congregated around the big leather ottoman Jordan used as a cocktail table. It hosted a big tray with Champagne flutes and a platter of hors d’oeuvres.

  Jordan’s father stood. “Hey, little gal, can your old man get a hug?” Ever so gently, he swept Jordan into his arms.

  Ben Welsh was a real looker, as her mother described him. The first time she laid eyes on him on the polo field at one of Grandma O’Connell’s charity functions, it was a done deal. Mary was gone, head over heels in love with Benjamin Welsh. There had never been anyone else.

  “Love you, Daddy. You look so handsome.” Ben favored Lacoste when he was in Arizona; much to the chagrin of Mary, who believed “Thou shalt not be underdressed” was the eleventh commandment.

  “How are you feeling, dear? You look stronger.” From Mary’s mollifying tone, Jordan knew this was an olive branch.

  “A little better. Thank you for asking, and thank you for taking such good care of me.”

  Mary covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes moister than usual.

  Hannah stood and came around the ottoman to hug Jordan just as carefully as Ben had. “Jordan, I’m so sorry this happened. When I heard, I prayed God would heal you and watch over you.”

  “Thanks. I can use all the help I can get.” Jordan looked around at them. Champagne. A sense of celebration. “What’s up?”

  Eddie handed her a flute. “Until you stop taking those good drugs, yours is just sparkling cider.”

  Her father stood and lifted his glass. “We found the perfect site for our Scottsdale location. It’s definite. We’re going to open a steakhouse here.”

  “Don’t you love it? Isn’t it just wonderful?” Mary joined in.

  Jordan smiled, happy for their great pleasure in the upcoming expansion of their business. “Mom. Dad. Great.”

  “Alec is moving here to run it. So you’ll have your sister and your brother with you. The whole family together—as it should be.” Mary sighed in satisfaction. Jordan’s older brother, Alec, had a degree in restaurant management and had been instrumental in making the Chicago steakhouse a success. He married a sweet Parisian girl, Caroline, while studying at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. They were the proud parents of precocious four-year-old twins whom their “Auntie Jordie” adored but could only handle in small doses.

  “We’re signing the papers on the building tomorrow afternoon. Once we get the preliminary financing, we’ll get going on the build-out.” Ben sat beside his wife.

  Mary reached for Jordan’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Before you know it, we’ll all be Arizonans, at least part of the time, and there will always be one of us here to make sure you don’t get into any more trouble.”

  No one said a word. The room grew quiet. Even Jordan let the comment go with a tight smile, but she couldn’t ignore the rumble of thunder from over the mountains.

  CHAPTER 36

  After their proud announcement, Ben and Mary insisted on treating everyone to dinner, including Hannah and Sadie.

  Ben went shopping for steaks and wine and returned with several bags of groceries.

  The evening’s menu consisted of mesquite-grilled Kobe beef lovingly seasoned by Ben—of the famous Welsh’s Steak & Chophouse close to the Magnificent Mile in Chicago—steamed artichokes with homemade aioli, and a divine cabernet franc from Casa Mia winery.

  “Sound so good. Sorry I can’t stay,” Eddie excused himself. “I have a previous engagement I can’t break.”


  Jordan walked him out to his truck. “Are you still working the case?”

  “I am.” Beyond that, he wouldn’t elaborate.

  Muggs waved out the window of his vista blue Mustang GT parked across the street.

  Eddie and Jordan both waved back. Eddie shook his head. “He kills me. Helluva car for low profile surveillance.”

  Jordan went out to the back patio, where the others had set the table for dinner. They listened to some Greg Vail jazz tracks, ate the food, and except for Jordan, drank the wine. It was lovely.

  Jordan sat quietly through most of dinner listening to the conversation and feeding Sadie small bites under the table.

  It pleased Jordan to see her mother and Hannah chat as amiably as if Hannah’s ancestry, like Connie Brenner’s, was royalty. At times Mary could be a genuine person. Then there were those times she was the Wicked Witch of the East, with a pair of red sequined pumps to prove it.

  Not tonight.

  The dinner proved worthy of celebrating her parents’ expanding steakhouse empire, but that dinner was brought to an end by an overdue and much needed rain storm.

  Jordan, by decree of the other three, went inside and waited on the sofa in the family room while the patio table was cleared. She didn’t argue. In truth, just sitting and having dinner tired her.

  Her cellphone rang from the bedroom and she hobbled in to answer it.

  When Hannah and her parents came looking for her, she was already dressed in dark wash denim jeans and a jacket and champing at the bit to leave.

  “You’re not going out?” Mary’s inflection made it sound like a question, but Jordan knew it was a declaration.

  “Eddie’s coming back to drive me.”

  Hannah and even Ben looked confused and not a little disapproving.

  “Drive you? Where?” Ben asked.

  “Into town. I just got a heads-up call from Ann Murphy. There’s trouble.”

  Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re in no shape to go gallivanting around town tonight. Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Milo Wachowski has been shot. He may not have a tomorrow.”

  The doorbell rang and Eddie walked in without waiting for a response. “There was a promise made. Remember? You were going to take it easy. Let me handle things.”

  She just looked at him and an understanding passed between them. They were two of a kind, and Jordan couldn’t be left behind any more than Eddie.

  “Okay,” he said. “I get it. Let’s go.”

  “Eddie,” Mary broke in, “it isn’t wise.”

  “I know, but if I don’t take her, the spoiled brat will just call a cab.”

  Mary set her jaw and made a sound Jordan thought might have been a word she’d never heard her mother say before.

  Mary went to the entryway table, snagged her keys and tossed them to Eddie. “At least take the Mercedes. She’ll need a ladder to get into your truck.”

  Ann was alone in the surgery waiting room when they arrived at the hospital.

  Jordan fought the urge to turn and run. Hadn’t she just been there? Too many times in too few days. The odors and atmosphere gave her a nasty case of déjà vu.

  Ann stood when Eddie and Jordan came through the sliding doors. “What the hell are you doing here? You just got your ass blown up yesterday. Some people would take a couple of days off.”

  Eddie testified. “Your girl here ain’t exactly some people. She’s so into this case, she’d have come here from her death bed, even if she had to cuff the grim reaper and drag him along.”

  “I have to say, your case is keeping the force busy.”

  “How’s Wachowski doing?” Jordan interrupted.

  “No word yet,” Ann said. “It’s a shoulder wound.”

  They waited hours for him to come out of the operating room, then to become rational post-surgery. It was well after two a.m. when he finally came around.

  Milo’s face was barely one shade darker than the sheets. An IV needle was taped and boarded to the back of his hand. His shoulder and upper torso were wrapped in white bandages. His left arm was in a sling.

  He was groggy but seemed coherent. The GSW was through and through. No organs or arteries, just a chipped shoulder bone. The surgeon said there would be some residual diminished use of his left arm, but even that should come back eighty-five to ninety-five percent with therapy.

  Considering his assailant was shooting to kill, not maim, Milo got off pretty lucky.

  Ann, Jordan, and Eddie all had high hopes mortal fear might loosen Milo’s tongue.

  They were just getting around to asking him about making a statement, when to Jordan’s surprise, Sharon Milliner came barreling in, her face a mask of unspeakable tragedy. She bellowed like a wounded buffalo and dragged two uniformed officers behind her.

  The cops tried to dig in their heels and restrain her without getting too rough. They didn’t manage to get her under control until she was about six feet from the bed.

  Even Milo seemed astonished at the sight.

  Sharon strained against the officers and groaned. “Milo? Oh, my darling Milo. What happened to my Snookums?”

  “Sharon?” Jordan stared. I can hardly wait to hear this one. It ought to be really good. What did Sharon “That’s the Way I Roll” Milliner have to do with Milo Wachowski?

  Ann approached her. “I’m Detective Murphy, Scottsdale PD, and you are?”

  Sharon continued to struggle against the officers. Ann looked at Jordan, who looked at Milo.

  “Sharon,” he whispered.

  Jordan nodded at Ann, who then said the magic words, “Let her go.”

  Sharon lumbered to the bed and dropped to her knees beside it. The floor might have shaken a little from the impact.

  “I’m Sharon Milliner Wachowski. This is my husband.” She caught Milo’s smaller hand between her large ones.

  “His wife?” Jordan couldn’t have been more surprised if Sharon said she was Tinker Bell come to sprinkle him with fairy dust and fly him to Neverland.

  “Yes, his wife.” Sharon smoothed back Milo’s hair. “How you doing, precious?”

  “Better, now that you’re here, honey bunny.”

  “I don’t understand, Milo. You got shot? Who? Why?”

  “I’m sorry, baby girl. There are a few little things I’ve been keeping from you.”

  Like maybe eight hundred thousand little things?

  Jordan, Eddie, and Ann left the lovebirds alone for a moment of privacy and went out to wait in the small lobby by the elevator.

  Not more than a few minutes later, one of the officers posted at Milo’s room came and got them.

  It seemed Milo was asking for Jordan and even agreed that Ann, representing the Scottsdale PD, could be present.

  When they went back to his room, Sharon was by his side, holding his hand. Her swagger was gone. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her nose ran.

  Jordan offered her a pocket pack of tissues from her bag then turned to Milo. “Are you willing to make a statement?”

  He swallowed hard and nodded.

  Over an hour had passed since Milo Wachowski offered to tell what he knew and Ann left the hospital. Jordan and Eddie passed the time cooling their heels.

  Jordan’s energy was sapped. She leaned against Eddie. “What are we waiting for again?”

  Eddie stroked her hair. It seemed to soothe him, and it certainly soothed her. “Chances are Ann’s gone to round up a camera crew. Not easy to find one in the middle of the night, but she’ll want a video record of his statement. Shetland’s thugs are involved and probably still after Wachowski. It’s the smart move having more than his paper statement on record. You know, just in case they don’t miss next time.” He looked and sounded tired.

  Jordan didn’t even want to think about how she might look. All those aches and pains from her collision with the parking lot asphalt were making themselves known, and her head was killing her.

  She spoke from experienc
e. “They better get a move on. From what I’ve been told, Milo’s wife’s hell when she’s kept waiting.”

  She rolled her head back around her neck and shoulders then whispered an oh-thank-God under her breath as Ann and her crew charged out of the elevator.

  CHAPTER 37

  After they were set up for recording, Ann Mirandized Milo and brought in yet another officer to transcribe. The digital recording would back the signed statement. CYA had been Ann’s motto for as long as Jordan had known her.

  Ann took a minute to ground the statement with date, time, and attendees—then, being smarter than the average bear, she backed off just a bit and let Jordan move in. She was the one Milo wanted to talk to.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer?” Jordan asked.

  Milo shrugged and winced. “What’s the difference? I’m a dead man. Shetland’s men will finish the job.”

  Sharon launched into a new round of moaning.

  “Sharon, sweetheart,” Milo said, “give it a rest, will you?”

  It was the perfect opening to get the ball rolling. “Are you speaking of Owen Shetland?” Jordan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why does he want you dead?”

  “I kinda have a gambling issue.”

  Behind her, Eddie said under his breath, “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Jordan cleared her throat to shush him.

  Milo hung his head. “I just can’t seem to stop. I racked up some heavy losses at the casinos, more losses than you can imagine. Owen approached me, offered to loan me the money to get out of debt. I was stupid. Shoulda known there’d be strings attached.”

  Milo took a breath as deep as his injuries would allow and unloaded so much of his soul Jordan wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pulled out a rosary.

  “It’s like this.” He glanced at the camera. “I couldn’t cover my debts anymore and started looking for a way out. I met this guy Tanner. A good guy … at least I thought so at first. We got to be friends. He said his boss would loan me the cash to pay back my debts. They kept on giving me money. It was too much for me to even think about paying off. I started getting veiled threats from his thugs. Some not so veiled. Tanner told me he knew a way I could get some extra money to reduce my debt. You know,” he looked at Jordan, “from the Moon and Stars Foundation. Of course, he wanted a piece of it.” Milo’s tone was resentful. “So I set it up. Emmett Sullivan, he had a taste for the good things in life, God rest his soul, trips to Europe, expensive toys and five hundred dollar lap dances. You know what they say: Champagne taste on a beer budget.”