"Yes, but..." Marla sighed. "I wasn't joking about Ricky recording everything. He probably has this vehicle bugged."
Jason looked at her contemplatively and then stopped the vehicle again and got out. He headed for the trunk, carrying a bag with him.
"This feels like the movies." He unzipped the bag and brought out a square device that looked like a cell phone. "Let me see if this vehicle is bugged. This can tell me if there is a device in here."
He walked around the vehicle twice. He even got in the back.
"Nope. No listening device attached to this vehicle. There is, however, a GPS tracking device, which is completely understandable."
"Okay." Marla sighed. "I believe you."
"Good." Jason got back in and started the car.
"I am pregnant," Marla said softly.
"Mr. Mills told me. He also said I should ensure that you don't overdo it. The baby is precious to him."
"It's not his baby," Marla sniffed.
"Okay." Jason looked at her expressionlessly. "I am not going to judge you, so if that's what you are looking for here, please don't."
Marla relaxed in her seat slightly. "I've known Ricky since he was eleven. He was a brat. A rich brat with entitlement issues. He spent his summers in Treasure Beach alone with his staff. Have you ever heard of a little boy with staff?"
Jason shook his head. "Can't say I have."
"One year, I think he was twelve, both his parents came to stay for two weeks. Ricky was ecstatic. He actually acted like a human being then. That was to my knowledge the first and the last time that happened.
"His father was a married German billionaire; his mother was a supermodel with some high profile relationships.
"Ricky was a sad side note.
"We felt sorry for him. The Treasure Beach community is really small and we couldn't fathom why they left him up to his own devices. We used to refer to him as the poor little rich boy. There was something really sad about a little boy who didn't really have parents.
"I kind of had a little empathy for him because my own mother died in childbirth, but if you were around Ricky for any length of time it became harder to feel any sadness for him for long. He was a vindictive and evil and wicked, even as a little boy. And sadly—I have no idea how this happened or why—Ricky became obsessed with Yuri Scarlett.
"By extension anything that Yuri liked Ricky wanted. Unfortunately, that is how I got engaged in the crosshairs of this situation."
"What happened?" Jason was intrigued now; he had lost the poker face.
"I was twenty. I couldn't afford college so I was in Treasure Beach; I worked at Villa Ingles as the receptionist. My dad also worked there as the handyman. Yuri, my... er... friend and I had an unspoken understanding; I would wait around until he got established in his job and then I would leave Treasure Beach with him. Unfortunately, my dad's drinking got in the way of that happening."
"How?" Jason asked.
"Well," Marla paused and looked out the window. They were taking the seaside route to Black River. They would pass Pelican Bay and then Parottee. There was a little hut near the side of the road owned by a Rastafarian who called himself Jah Now. He sold the best roast fish.
"Mrs. Mills?" Jason prompted her. He was fully invested in her story now, and wanted to know the horrible details of why she was a prisoner.
"There were two town drunks, my father, John Roundtree, and Trip Calloway. Trip was a mean, miserable, violent drunk—a nuisance to the community. He would stand at the fork of Green Bay Road and cuss, usually nonsense, but sometimes he got very offensive.
"He was a fisherman back in the day but he developed numerous problems, arthritis...vision problems, and had to stop fishing when he was pretty young, so he picked up drinking.
"He was also a wife beater…his children were afraid of him…you get the picture?"
Jason nodded.
"Anyway, one day I have no idea who let him on the Villa Ingles compound. The place was closed for renovations. There were no guests around. I was at the desk only because Ricky required some telephone record file that was boxed away and I was searching for it.
"To this day I have no idea how Trip bypassed security at the front. He staggered into the main lobby and asked me about my father. He said he had an argument to settle with him. Apparently, my father was dating some woman he was interested in.
"Initially I found it funny because I wondered what kind of idiot woman would be interested in the two town drunks.
"Maybe I shouldn't have laughed so hard but I looked into Trip's watery drunken eyes and thought he was joking or tipsy or hallucinating. When I was a little girl I remember my father coming home drunk and having long conversations with my dead mother.
"I would snap him out of it by yelling or laughing or something. I stopped laughing long enough to tell Trip to leave the property. My father was in the garage washing Ricky's new car, a Porsche, one of those pity gifts that his mother bought when she felt guilty about forgetting his birthday.
"Anyway, Trip was not taking no for an answer. He came around the desk and demanded to know where my father was. He grabbed my neck and started shaking me, calling me a liar, accusing me of protecting my dad. He was pretty strong for a short guy who couldn't walk straight.
"I screamed really loudly and created as much commotion as I could because I realized that Trip only looked fragile—there was enough strength in those tobacco-soaked fingers to snap my neck. And I was aware that the lobby was empty and that the workmen were on the other side of the property.
"I screamed and screamed and finally reached for a bat under the desk. It was one of the heirlooms that was in the lobby but was stripped off the walls. I barely had the energy to hit him hard with it; he dropped his hands from my neck and fell to the ground silently. Just like that.
"Dead?" Jason asked, glancing at her.
"Not yet." Marla sighed. "I ran to the garage and got my dad. When he came back to the lobby with me, Trip was getting up. I hadn't realized that I had the bat in my hand until my dad took it from me and swiped Trip over the head with it.
"He sank to the floor and then my dad just kept hitting him again and again and again. That's when he stopped moving."
"Wow." Jason looked at her. "Wow."
"Yup." Marla sighed. "Its what happened after that shouldn't have happened. I helped my dad to carry him to the sea. I held his feet, my dad held his head and we threw him out to sea and we waded out as far as we could go and we just dropped him there. Just like that.
"I was working on autopilot; I wasn't thinking straight. To this day, I wonder why I didn't just call the police, sit and wait in the lobby and let them take care of things. I was acting in self-defense when he attacked…my father in his own misguided way was protecting me.
"But no, when we got back to the lobby, I was still kind of in shock and Ricky was there waiting for us. I didn't even know that he was on the compound. I explained to him what happened and he listened attentively. That two-faced snake."
Marla paused for a breath.
"And then he said that he would check the cameras in the lobby and then we could call the police but that it sounded very bad for us. We killed a man in cold blood. He said it with such smugness. God, I hated him right then and there. I hated him. I hated him."
Jason glanced at her anxiously. "You didn't do anything to him, did you?"
"No." Marla sighed. "He did something to us. He watched the tapes; he said it looked awful. As far as everybody knew my father and Trip were fighting over a woman. My father would probably get ten to fifteen years in prison and I would get ten as his accomplice.
"We should just keep quiet about what we did. Trip’s body would eventually be found at sea. And it was, pretty soon, too. His body washed up in the early morning when the fishermen were heading out to sea.
"Ricky said we should just pretend that we had nothing to do with it; in return he would not say anything. The only thing I would need to do is m
arry him."
"No," Jason whispered.
"Yes," Marla snarled. "Yuri was due home in a month; that's all I had talked about then. Ricky had this great idea that we could announce the wedding between us then. In the meantime I needed to sleep with him to agree to the terms.
"Needless to say I was willing to take my chances with the police after that, but my father begged me not to. He didn't want me to go to jail. He didn't mind going but he didn't want me to go to jail as well, and being the coward that I was, I did as he asked.
"You see, Ricky had a new version of the story all ready when the police came over. As he said, he would conveniently forget about the tape and he would tell the police that he saw me with the murder weapon and my father was the accomplice.
"In case you don't realize it, Ricky is easily the richest man around these parts. I am pretty sure that the police would not be taking the side of the town drunk and his daughter. So that's it in a nutshell.
"I am pretty much in jail, forced to be with a guy who I passionately dislike. My only bright spark on the bleak horizon is that Ricky was paralyzed three weeks later."
"So he is in jail too," Jason said easily. "Karma, I call it."
"Well, it still does not solve my problem," Marla sighed, "and he is getting better. He did a stem cell operation a couple years ago to grow back some tissues in his spinal area or something like that.
"It worked. He may not be able to walk properly now but it is only a matter of time before that happens. He goes to therapy to learn to walk. And he is so determined to walk again. I expect that he is hiding the extent of his recovery from me. So pretty soon Ricky will be walking, out of prison."
"Then you need to find the tape before that," Jason said easily. "That's what I would do if I were you. That's evidence right there that you did not murder Trip. No offense, but your father is in the hospital; he is a drunkard wasting away his life. You should think about getting yourself out of this situation. Stat. You have that baby to think of."
Marla glanced at Jason. "I thought of that before. Getting the tapes, I mean."
"And?" Jason raised his eyebrows.
"And I have no idea where Ricky keeps his tapes. He is the most secretive person on the planet. He may have it in his house in the States or here in Treasure Beach or in Switzerland where his mother lives.
"I have had to face the fact that there is no get out of jail free card for me, Jason. Besides, if I breathe a word of this to the man I love, whose baby I am having, Ricky will ruin him and his family. I just have to stay put."
Chapter Eleven
"So Yuri, what do you think?" They were in the boardroom. Their boardroom. The four of them: Clarke, Grange, Watson and Scarlett, the new owners and managing partners of SofServ. They all had their roles. His was head of the software division. Technically he was the boss of the guy who had the position that he had before.
Watson was talking about Christmas bonuses and incentivizing the sales division. And Grange had asked him what he thought about it.
He nodded. "I think that's a great idea."
Today was six months since Pops' funeral and the reading of his will. His mind was not on this particular meeting. It seemed to him that all executives did was meet. They have so many meetings that he was now wishing that he had insisted on being a silent partner.
He allowed his mind to wander instead to his housewarming party tonight. His parents were coming up; as a matter of fact, they should be at the house with Amoy now. Amoy was getting to be really indispensable in his life. She had helped him decorate the place. They had had several fun nights and weekends getting the correct pieces of furniture to suit his taste. He had enjoyed that and getting to know her better.
So what if a part of him wished that he was doing all of those things with Marla? It was stupid to think that one could have it all. He had most things now. He should be satisfied.
But he wasn’t. This housewarming party that Amoy had insisted that he throw was going to be excruciating.
His mother was going to point out that a five-bedroom house was too large for one man, that he needed a family, and his father was going to make broad hints about him and Amoy getting married and starting that family.
He was just happy that Troy and Terri couldn't make it. Terri was in some country in Europe and Troy was hiding out from his life in Canada and finishing a Master’s that he had started years before but couldn't complete because of a lack of funds. Troy didn't want to take that DNA test and he was determined not to be around when social services knocked on his door.
Poor Troy...one mistake and it could change his world forever.
Yuri swung in his chair, turning it slightly away from the shiny boardroom table and looked outside at the view.
Their office building was located on the waterfront in downtown Kingston. The boardroom had an unfettered view of Kingston Harbor. He watched a particular sea gull and longingly thought about Treasure Beach and the view there—inevitably his thoughts turned to Marla.
It was November, around the same time as now. He was twenty-one. Marla was eighteen. He had just returned from college for a weekend, and as usual the first thing he did after throwing his bag in the house and chatting with his parents for a reasonable time was to head to the Roundtrees.
He had missed her unbearably that semester at school. The summer before they had been practically inseparable. They had both been counselors at a summer camp and they had crazy fun. He lived for the weekends when he could go back home and see Marla.
The Roundtrees lived in a neat cottage at the end of Great Bay Road; it was a picturesque cottage painted in candy pink and white and surrounded by flowers. John Roundtree had a greenhouse at the back where he would nurse sick plants back to life or sell to the villas around. The man was not sober for most of the time but he knew his flowers and he took great pride in them and the cottage as well.
Marla was at the back of the house when he walked into the neat little yard. She had been washing. She only had white clothes on the line—they flapped in the breeze from the sea.
She was in a ratty pair of jeans shorts and she tied her t-shirt up to her breasts. She looked adorable and his heart swelled with warmth. She had looked so pretty to him standing there barefoot over a pan of soap bubbles, singing and scrubbing.
"Hey." He had leaned at the side of the house with a grin on his face.
And she had looked up, her face lighting up. "Yuri!"
She didn't stop to dry her hands; she just threw herself at him with unfettered joy. "I missed you like crazy. I didn't know you were coming home."
That's the kind of memory that gave him a bittersweet spasm in his chest. That's the kind of memory that almost destroyed him when she married Ricky...
"Yuri!"
"Huh?" Yuri looked around; Watson was the only one sitting around the table. "Meeting’s done."
"Yeah, right." Yuri nodded. "My mind was somewhere else."
"See you at your housewarming tonight." Watson grinned. "How are things going with the delectable Amoy?"
"Fine." Yuri got up. "Just fine."
"The two of you look good together," Watson said. "You should do something about that."
Yuri nodded. "Maybe I will."
He didn't like mixing business with his personal life but unfortunately the Watsons and the Lee Changs moved in the same circles.
Watson smiled at him. "You know that Amoy is baby mad, don't you?"
"No," Yuri shook his head, "we haven't discussed children. We have only gone out on a few dates actually. That topic would be premature."
"Oh," Watson shook his head, "don't let her slip through your fingers. We all thought that Shawn was stupid for letting her slip through his fingers. He hated children. Can you imagine not wanting to procreate with such a dreamboat of a woman? Shawn's loss, your gain."
"Sounds like you have a crush on her." Yuri raised his eyebrows at Watson. "Do you?"
"Yup, ever since grade school," Watson lau
ghed, "but Cindy put a stop to it. By the way, she is the one who bought you the really ugly vase as a gift. I tried to talk her out of it. My apologies in advance."
Yuri chuckled. "Apology accepted."
"See you tonight." Watson hurried out of the boardroom, leaving Yuri staring through the window.
*****
Yuri drove up to the house and sat in the car looking at it, barely believing that it was his. His new life so far was like a dream. He didn't quite feel like a present participant yet.
He felt empty, as if he was on the outside looking in, which was ridiculous. His current life was the stuff of dreams: inheritance, house, car, girlfriend who was beautiful and smart, profitable business, and all of that accomplished in six months. Still, he was unhappy, moping around, forcing himself to laugh, not finding joy in anything.
He closed his eyes. He was acting ungrateful. He should throw himself into this life. He was just twenty-eight years old. He was too young to feel this burdened. He got out of the car and then walked up the cobblestone steps. The front door opened before he reached it and Amoy stood there in a short green dress, with a glass of juice in her hand. Her long hair was piled up on her head in a sophisticated intricate style that he had never seen before.
"Welcome home, Monsieur Scarlett."
Yuri grinned. "Why, thank you, Mademoiselle Gardener."
Amoy kissed him at the door, winding her hands around his neck and pressing her body close to him.
He kissed her back, his enthusiasm not where it should be. He was not unhappy when she stepped back and smiled at him.
"Your parents are in the lounge. Your mother brought you a gorgeous picture. I took down the abstract that we had in the lounge and put it up instead. I hope it meets your approval."
Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Okay. Thank you so much for arranging this whole thing, Amoy."
"No problemo." Amoy squeezed his hands. "What are girlfriends for?"
He headed to the lounge area, which opened up to a spectacular view of Kingston City. Even in the day the view was good; it was even better at night.
Scarlett Baby (The Scarletts Page 8