No Returns

by Rhonda Pollero

  “Tell me when and where,” she said with conviction.

  “Thank you. I should warn you, the wheels of justice turn slowly. It will probably be six months before this case is set for trial.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I downed my coffee and got the exact address for the Henley’s, then packed up my stuff. When I got to my car, I checked my phone. Twenty-two messages from Liam. Each one was a different picture. Hopefully my mother would recognize the people who’d serviced her cabaña and maybe one of them was the blackmailer.

  The other neighbor, Mrs. Henley was young, maybe my age, late twenties. She had four kids and a husband with two jobs. She confirmed Mrs. Greene’s story.

  “Why didn’t you call the police after the assault?” I asked.

  “My husband was embarrassed. He’s a proud man.”

  “Did he go to the hospital after the incident?”

  She nodded. “St. Mary’s. He had three broken ribs and an orbital fracture. The hospital called the police but my husband told them he fell off the roof.”

  “And they bought that?”

  She tilted her head. “No. They gave him a card and told him to call if he wanted to change his story.”

  “Do you remember the officer’s name?”

  “I kept his card,” she said, then disappeared into the other room and came back with a card. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” I stood and again repacked my stuff. “Would you or your husband consider testifying?”

  Her expression changed. “When Travis got arrested I told my husband we should come forward but he doesn’t want to get involved.”

  “Just consider it?”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  Ignoring the gurgling in my stomach, I drove the short distance to my mother’s place. It was a high-rise on the Intracoastal just south of City Place. A large staircase led up to the equally grand double door. I recognized the doorman and greeted him as he held the glass door open.

  The lobby had beautifully tiled floors and a round center table with a huge, wonderfully scented floral display. The concierge’s desk was across from the elevator bank. “Hi Albert,” I said as I walked up to the desk.

  “Miss Finley.”

  “Anything for my mother?”

  “Yes,” he said as he reached into a cubical behind him and took out a white envelope. There was a sticky note attached. “United Delivery. It arrived this morning,” he said as he passed me the letter.

  I didn’t have to worry about Albert’s prints. White gloves were part of his uniform. I carefully lifted the piece by the corner and placed it in my purse. I was dying to open it but I didn’t know if that would destroy evidence like prints or DNA.

  I went up to the penthouse and as soon as the elevator opened I could hear the sounds of hammers and saws and smell the scents of wood and paint. The door was open ajar, so I pushed my way in and called out, “Hello!”

  A large man in jeans and a denim shirt with the sleeves removed stopped what he was doing and stood to well over six feet. His arms and what I could see of his chest were covered in tattoos. His head was shaved and his steel-toed boots scraped the floor as he walked in my direction. “Help you?”

  I extended my hand. “I’m Finley, Mrs. Rossi’s daughter. I just came to pick up her mail and a few other things.”

  He shrugged shoulders the width of my car. “Have at it.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I peered past him toward the fourth bedroom, which was where most of the activity was centered.

  “A study and a media room.”

  “Media room?” I repeated. Since when did my mother need a media room. And a study? She had her writing desk and other essentials in another bedroom. What did she need with a study?

  “We have to move the wall between the rooms to make the media center big enough. Framing out the bookshelves for the study now. Should be done in a couple of weeks.”

  My mother’s penthouse was more than five thousand square feet. Far be it from me to question her choices, but they just seemed odd. Maybe she was having the study done for her new interest in computers. Who knew?

  I made my way to the kitchen, passing a number of headless statues as I went. I hated those statues. They haunted my childhood. Then there were the orchids. Thankfully I hadn’t been assigned the task of watering the little bastards. I have a seriously brown thumb and plants tend to commit mass suicide when left in my care.

  In the kitchen wastepaper bag I found the envelope and carefully added it to my purse. Then I left as fast as possible, I was getting construction worker leers.

  I made a snap decision on my way back to the office. I pulled up the address for United Delivery, then took Banyan to the address on my phone’s GPS.

  It was a modest storefront in the middle of the block. Two bikes were chained to a meter out front. I parked, fed the meter and went inside.

  A bell tinkled as I entered. I smelled coffee and cherry air freshener. The walls were lined with postal boxes and there was a long counter at the back of the store. No one was in sight.

  I tapped the bell on the counter and a young guy came out of the back room. He was still chewing as he came toward me.

  “Help you?”

  He was tall and thin with sandy brown hair, green eyes and a fair amount of acne. His uniform shirt was rumpled and tucked into equally rumpled khaki pants. Basically, he looked like he’d slept in his clothes.

  “I need some information about a delivery.”

  He looked nervous. “We aren’t responsible for damage to items,” he insisted, tapping the Plexiglas on top of the counter. There was a sign to that effect beneath the glass.

  “No problem with damage.”

  He reached beneath the desk. “Fill this out and we’ll do our best to track your item.”

  I shook my head. “I need information on a letter delivered sometime this morning.”

  He swiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “What kind of information?”

  “I need to know who sent it.”

  “That’s like privileged.”

  Hoping he got his legal knowledge from watching reruns of Law & Order, I reached in and took a business card out of my purse. “It isn’t privileged and its part of an ongoing investigation. You can either give me the information or I can call the police, they can get a warrant and close your store down for a few days while they go through every receipt.”

  “Geez, okay.”

  I gave him my mother’s name and address.

  He went to his computer and typed something in, then said, “Yeah, I got it. Letter came in at ten-o-five and went out at ten-fifty.”

  “Who sent the letter?”

  He looked confused.

  “What?”

  “Says here it was Cassidy Rossi.”

  “She was the recipient,” I told the incompetent guy.

  “Lemme get the actual receipt,” he said, reaching behind the counter once again.

  He lifted out a box with yellow receipts tucked inside. He moistened his finger – yuck – and started going through the papers. “Here it is.”

  He passed the receipt to me. Sender: Cassidy Rossi. Address: Mine.

  There is only one safe haven – eBay

  Chapter Five

  Since I’d missed breakfast by design and lunch by accident, I was starving as I drove home. At the red light, I took out my cell and called my mother. She answered on the second ring. “How about Thai food?” I suggested.

  “I’ve already taken care of dinner,” she informed me.

  “You cooked?” I was stunned.

  She scoffed. “Of course not. Your kitchen is too small and besides, you have no staples on hand. I had the chef at Iron Horse make up three dinners.”

  “Three?” I asked.

  “I spoke to Deacon, he’s supposed to come back early. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I don’t,” I said, my curiosity piqued. “When is he coming over?” />
  “Any moment now.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  When I reached my house, it looked like quintessential Palm Beach. My mother’s Bentley was in the driveway, of course, and parked behind it was a silver Jaguar with a sticker of some kind on the back windshield. Add in my Mercedes and my place was looking pretty posh.

  As I was getting out of the car, my phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Finley, this is Gus,” he said with a quivering voice. I may be the first woman the computer geek ever called.

  “Hi, Gus. What’s up?” I pulled my purse off the passenger seat.

  “I finished the back trace on the computer.”

  “And?”

  “The email was sent from an Internet café on 45th Street.”

  I let out an audible breath. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Wait. I did a little digging and I did find something on the email user ID.”

  I perked up. “Go ahead.”

  “The account is registered to a Gerald Cavanaugh. At least that’s the name on the registration.”

  “How did you find that?” I asked.

  “Better you don’t know. I’ll leave the computer in your office. Okay?”

  “Sure. And Gus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  The little bit of progress felt good. At least now I had a name I could give to Liam. Hopefully he could use that to find the blackmailer.

  I entered to the sound of laughter and the smell of piccata. The man seated on my sofa stood. His smile reached his blue eyes. “You must be Finley.” He extended his hand.

  He was deeply tanned with a shock of white hair. I put him somewhere around sixty something. He was of average height and wore perfectly creased navy pants, a white polo shirt and dark brown Sperry’s. He looked like he’d just stepped off a boat.

  “Mr. Burlington,” I said as I took his hand.

  “Deacon, please. Can I make you a drink?”

  Can I look at you without thinking about the fact that you and my mother had sex for the camera? “Thanks but I’ll do it myself.”

  After making myself a large mojito, I joined them in the living room. If they sat any closer, my mother would have been in his lap. She was wearing a tailored beige suit that flattered her completion and hair color. I must take after my unknown father because my mother and my sister are brunettes with green eyes. I’m a blonde with blue eyes. Kinda the ‘circle the one that doesn’t belong’ type.

  “I made some headway today,” I said as I quickly got my purse and returned to the couch. “Want the good news or the bad news first?”

  Deacon seemed to blanch a bit. “Start with the bad,” he said.

  Using just the tips of my thumb and index fingers, I carefully extracted the new note I had every reason to assume was from the blackmailer. I gave it to my mother. “It was delivered this morning.”

  Using one perfectly manicured coral fingernail, she slipped open the flap and pulled out the paper. Like the first note, it was made of letters and numbers clipped from newsprint and magazine pages. Her eyes grew wide and she put her hand to her throat.

  Deacon read over her shoulder. “What?” I asked.

  “He wants the money on Sunday. He’ll text me the drop-off location.”

  “I got one just like that,” Deacon admitted.

  My mother’s head whipped around. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. Don’t let it get to you. I’ll make the drop off. You’ll be one-hundred percent safe.”

  “Or you could let the police handle this,” I insisted. “Between the two of you we’re talking more than a million dollars. And paying the money doesn’t guarantee you’ll be immune from further blackmail. The only way that will happen is if the police catch this guy and put him in jail.”

  Deacon placed his hand on my mother’s thigh. “Thank you for making the suggestion, but your mother and I have agreed that we just want this matter to remain private.”

  I sensed the decision was marginally more his than hers. “I spoke to a lawyer,” I told him what Becky told me. “So the actual contents of the tape could be shown outside the presence of spectators.”

  “What lawyer did you consult?” Deacon asked.

  “A friend of mine at the law firm. Becky Jameson.”

  He cleared his throat. “While I appreciate the sentiment, I would prefer if you didn’t bring anyone else in on this matter. Your mother tells me you also shared this with your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said on autopilot. “Well, I don’t think we’ve reached that stage. Actually we’re still defining . . .”

  “Good heavens, Finley. I don’t think Deacon cares about your sordid love life.”

  I met her stare. “My sordid love life? You two played “hide the salami” in front of a camera.”

  “Finley!” my mother said sharply.

  I had the beginnings of a tension knot between my shoulder blades. “Sorry,” I said without honesty. “So do you want the rest of the news?”

  “Yes,” they said in unison.

  “So I went to the delivery place and that turned out to be a bust. Whoever sent the note didn’t leave a trace.” I told them about the name and address. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything. He used my address, so it has to be someone you’ve met. At least in passing. I’m not in the book and we don’t even have the same surname. Anyone ask you about your family lately?”

  Mom shook her head. “No, no one.”

  “Think,” I pressed.

  “I’m telling you, no,” she repeated.

  I dug my phone out of my bag and pulled up the first message from Liam. “Okay, let’s see if you recognize any of these people.” I handed the phone to my mother and explained how to swipe left through the messages.

  “This one,” she said excitedly as she turned the screen toward me. “She was our housekeeper.”

  “Good. Keep going.”

  Between Deacon and my mother, they identified four of the photographs. My mother’s brows pinched. “I don’t see our butler.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Go back, maybe you missed him.”

  “No, he isn’t here.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  The two of them exchanged glances, then my mother said, “Who reads name badges on uniforms? I just know he was tall and thin. Maybe light brown hair or dark blonde. Clean cut. Very personable.”

  “This isn’t. . .” My thought trailed off when I saw the security lights go on and heard a car in my driveway. I knew from the muffler sound that it was Liam. “Hang on.”

  I went to the door and greeted him before he crossed the threshold. As usual, he wore jeans and a faded shirt and also as usual, my knees grew weak at the sight of him. I know I should be focusing on the blackmail but my mind wandered into sex-with-Liam-ville. My mother was putting the kibosh on my dating life.

  “Hi,” he said in a soft, sexy tone.

  “Hi,” I managed over the lump in my throat. A lock of his hair fell forward and I absently reached up and brushed it back into place. “You need to meet Deacon.”

  The older man rose and shook hands with Liam. He seemed polite enough until he saw the DVD case in Liam’s hand. “Is that it?”

  “Yeah. I have a few questions.”

  My mother’s cheeks and neck were beet red. “I can’t watch that and I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  I wanted to yell, me too!

  “It is . . . delicate,” Deacon added.

  Delicate? Try gross.

  Deacon held out his hand to my mother. “Why don’t we go out to dinner and give Finley and her bo-friend some space.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” I said, though my protest lacked enthusiasm.

  In a matter of minutes, Deacon and my mother were out the door. In a matter of seconds, I was in Liam’s arms and he was kissing me. His mouth lingered on mine and my head began to swim.
I could hear the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

  Without a word or breaking the kiss he lifted me up and carried me to the bedroom.

  He placed me on the bed, gently arranging me against the pillows.

  I remained silent as I watched him shrug out of his shirt before joining me on the bed. Through passion dilated eyes, I took in the impressive sight of him. Rolling on his side, Liam pulled me closer, until I encountered the solid outline of his body. His expression was fixed, his mouth little more than a taut line.

  Liam gently pulled me into the circle of his arms.

  It felt so good, so right. I needed this.

  I surrendered to the promise I felt in his touch.

  Cradling me in one arm, Liam used his free hand to stroke the hair away from my face. I greedily drank in the scent of his cologne as I urgently allowed my fingers to rest against his thigh. His skin was warm, and smooth, a startling contrast to the very defined muscle I could feel beneath my hand. I remained perfectly still, comforted by his scent, his touch, and his nearness.

  He captured my face in his hands, his callused thumbs teased my cheekbones. His blue eyes met and held mine. His jaw was set, his expression serious.

  Using his hands, he tilted my head back. His face was mere fractions of an inch from mine. I could feel the ragged expulsion of his breath. Instinctively, my palms flattened against his chest. The thick mat of dark hair served as a cushion for my touch. Still, beneath the softness, I could easily feel the hard outline of muscle.

  Liam’s lips brushed mine. His thumbs stroked the hollows of my cheeks.

  I banished all thought from my mind. I wanted this, almost desperately. The feel of his hands and his lips made me feel alive. The ache in my chest was changing, evolving. I became acutely aware of every aspect of him. The pressure of his thigh where it touched mine. The sound of his uneven breathing. The magical sensation of his mouth on mine.

  When he lifted his head, I grabbed his broad shoulders. “Don’t,” I whispered, urging him back to me.

  His resistance was both surprising and short-lived. It was almost totally forgotten when his dipped his head. His lips did more than brush against mine. His hands left my face and wound around my body. Liam crushed me against him. I could actually feel the pounding of his heart beneath my hands.