Upper Hand (Cedar Tree Book 5)

by Freya Barker

  “We have his name and a number and called last night, but his wife answered. She told us he’d been gone for over a month. Needless to say she wasn’t very happy with our call, but was able to provide us with a number and his new address.”

  “I need the address,” Des pipes up again.

  “Mr. Milton—all due respect, but your daughter is an adult, I hardly think—” Gus joins in but Des cuts him off.

  “You had a girl out there mucking up her life, would you sit back?” He blasts Gus, who takes it with a shrug.

  “I imagine not. Regardless, let agent Gomez finish his part, I’ll tell you our news and then you decide. Yeah?”

  He doesn’t draw a response, but the demonstrative folding of the arms and sitting back against his seat is enough of an answer. Des will sit back. For now.

  “Right, so rather than calling, I called our field office in Flagstaff this morning and had them pay a visit. They found Tammy at the address, her new boyfriend apparently at his office, and took the opportunity to ask her some questions. The main question being how money ended up inside her son’s mattress. She claims she had no clue. At first. Until her brother called her at work, the last day she was there.”

  I fucking knew it. The little prick had something to do with it. I keep my tongue, letting Damien continue.

  “Claims Brian knew there was heat coming down on Dylan and called to suggest she take off. Then he took her by surprise when he asked her to remove money he had hidden inside her son’s mattress before she left. She says she told him she didn’t want to get involved with his shady dealings and hung up. That’s all she claims to know.”

  “She left her son sleeping on that mattress? You’re telling me, she walked out of that house, knowing that?” This from Janet, who I’d seen sitting up straighter and straighter as Gomez was talking.

  “Settle down, Janet.” Her husband tries to pull her back, but she slaps at his hand.

  “Settle down? Are you crazy? That’s our grandson she walked out on. Our precious baby, she may well have put in danger, knowing what she knew when she walked away. There’s no settling down from that, Des. There just isn’t.” With that she slips out of her seat and runs into the washrooms. Immediately, Beth nudges me so she can get out. Now Max starts crying, because both his ‘Gammys’ have left him at a table with mostly angry looking men, so I pick him from his seat and try to soothe him.

  “Looks good on you, old man,” Neil says with a smirk on his face.

  “Watch it, smartass,” I fire back, to Max’s great hilarity, because with big crocodile tears still wetting his cheeks, he pats his little hands on my face.

  “Smaddass!”

  “You teaching my little man swear words already, Clint? Come here little man, Auntie Arlene will take you to clean your ears out.” With Max plucked from my arms and settled on her hip, Arlene disappears into the kitchen.

  “You guys all related or something?” Des asks, looking at me, but Joe answers.

  “We’re better than related. We’re close friends. Not gonna find family as tight as those you pick yourself, Mr. Milton.”

  With a ‘hmpf,’ Des sits back down, eyeing each of us in turn.

  “To finish up, we’ve asked your daughter if she’d like to come back to meet up with us, but she declined. We have nothing on her that could force her hand. I can’t tell you her address because of confidentiality, but what I can do is call her later, and let you talk to her.”

  Gomez surprises me. For a goal-obsessed, take-no-prisoners fed, he actually shows some compassion. He keeps his eyes patiently on Tammy’s father, allowing him to work it out.

  “That would probably please my wife,” he finally says, disappointment evident on his face.

  “Right, then as soon as we’re done here, we’ll do that in the privacy of my truck.”

  “I can wait for the ladies to get back,” Gus says, “but given the results of this morning’s talk with Tammy, what I have to add isn’t much, since Brian was less than forthcoming and swore by high and low that he knew nothing of the money. This new information is reason to sit down with him again, but perhaps this time in the presence of Special Agent Gomez?” He looks pointedly at Damien who nods once. “Right, I’ll let you set that up with Joe then, Damien. I’m sorry, I know he’s your son, Milton, but I have little patience for the likes of him on a good day. Now that I know he’s played us, I’m better off not questioning him. Joe is the better choice.”

  By the time Beth leads a red-eyed Janet back to the table, the boys are digging in to their lunches delivered by Seb, saying he couldn’t drag Arlene away from her office, where she was getting her ‘baby-fix’ from Max. Damien leads Des and Janet outside, and I watch them go with a heavy heart. She’s a sweetheart and he’s an ass, but neither deserves this kind of disappointment and pain at the hands of their children. Makes me kind of glad I went straight to grandparenthood, the place where you can give the kid back to its parents when they get to be too much. And do it guilt-free.

  “You okay?” I ask Beth, who’s been rather quiet and withdrawn, which is not really like her. She looks at me with a sad little smile.

  “I will be,” she assures me, not quite convincing enough. “I feel for them.” I follow her eyes out the window, where the large FBI truck is parked and Des and Janet are climbing in the front seat with Damien.

  “She’s nice, but too soft. He’s an ass and too hard. They seem to work together, but they didn’t have a lot of luck with their children,” I offer.

  “You can say that again,” Beth agrees, before turning to me. “I’m surprised at you.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  “Thought for sure I’d have to bail you out of jail this time for assault on an officer of the law, but you were in total control, even when I left your side.”

  I shrug, still looking at the truck. “He stays a bastard and will never darken our door, if I can help it, but he was being careful with Tammy’s parents. Figure there’s some sense of compassion in that large frame somewhere. Just enough for me not to beat him over the head with the highchair.”

  She chuckles at that, “Max was in that highchair most of the time.”

  “Semantics,” I tell her, pulling her into me as I see Damien leave the truck and stand beside the door, obviously giving the Miltons some privacy. “Besides, Max loves to do stuff with me, I figure he’d have helped.”

  Beth bursts out laughing and lays her head on my shoulder, just as I watch Des wrap his arms around Janet, who’s clearly upset. Guess that didn’t go too well. I turn to my Bean and kiss her on the top of her head, enjoying the sound of her laugh.

  Blessed.

  I didn’t have to turn around to know that when the door to the diner opened a little later, it would be just Damien coming in.

  “They gone?” Gus asks when he reaches the table.

  “Yeah. Was not a good scene. They went back to the motel to pack their gear. Plan on heading back to Durango. Said they’d be in touch with you at some point,” he says to Beth, who simply nods. “Fucked up situation.” That earns agreement from everyone. Damien raps his knuckles on the table but has his eyes on Joe. “Right then, I’m off to see a man about a mattress. You coming?”

  “I’m ready,” Joe says, bending over when he slides behind Beth’s chair and kissing her cheek. “Almost over, Bethie.” He smiles at her before following Damien out the door.

  “Finally,” Arlene pipes up from behind me. “See Max? Grumpy grandpa and Federal Bureau of Idiots man are gone, isn’t that great?”

  She swings Max from her hip back in the highchair, where he bangs on the tray in front of him.

  “Idjit?”

  Everyone bursts out laughing and Arlene backs away from the table, her eyes big, her hands up, shrugging her shoulders and mouthing, ‘Oops’ before she turns around and practically runs into the sanctuary of the kitchen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Almost over, my ass.

  I’ve though
t about those words Joe gave me almost two weeks ago at the diner.

  He did come by the day after, to let us know that Brian finally caved. It’d been Dylan’s money, given to Brian to pay down Dylan’s debt with Sam. Except Brian, who’d been acting as go-between, decided to keep it. Figured he could get away with it, never considering that Sam would believe Dylan over him. When Dylan was approached by Sam, who demanded money, he clued in that Brian must’ve kept it. Joe said they suspect that’s the ‘meeting’ the feds apparently caught after which they approached Dylan. With Dylan trying to get hold of him over the missing money, and Sam questioning his loyalty, he left town. No way he’d be able to get in the house and retrieve the stacks he had hidden in Max’s mattress as a big ‘fuck you’ to Dylan. Less funny when he couldn’t get his hands on it. That’s when he tried to get his sister to retrieve it for him, telling her about the trouble Dylan was in. She wanted nothing to do with it or him. He was surprised to find both her and Dylan gone when he got back in town a week later. And shocked to find the house empty and up for rent. Apparently he remembered Tammy once mention Dylan came from Cedar Tree, which is how he ended up at Clint’s house eventually.

  That makes me think of lunch with the Miltons. Probably the weirdest lunch I ever had. I can’t even imagine what it was like for them and cringe when I think what it will do to them, when they find out the complete extent of their son’s role in this.

  Janet’s called me once last week, and I purposely didn’t ask how the talk with Tammy went. It was obvious from what went down outside the diner, but she did volunteer some information.

  “She’s my daughter, but I’ll be damned if I know who she is. She had no answers when I asked her how she could turn her back on her son, and it was obvious she had no real interest in having contact with us. Hard as it is, Des has convinced me we’ve gotta let it go. Both her and Brian. We really thought we did alright by them, never saw this coming, especially from her. I just hope when Dylan comes home, he’ll not hold our children’s behavior against us, but I can’t blame him if he does.”

  “I don’t think he will.”

  “We’ll see. In any event, Des has decided to take me on another trip. A cruise to Alaska over Christmas. He says it’ll keep my mind off the empty house we’d otherwise face. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. Just know I’ll miss Max. I put a package in the mail for him, it should arrive in time for Christmas. Hope that’s okay?”

  She sounded so sad, it brought tears to my eyes and I didn’t hesitate. “Of course. And Janet? You are always welcome here, in my house. No matter what Dylan decides for himself, if he wants you in his life or not, I’ll make sure Max always will be.”

  It wasn’t long after she hung up.

  I received her package this morning. The day before Christmas. I tuck it under the tree we’d gone out to cut last weekend. A bit late to start decorating, but we’ve had other things on our minds. Clint’s back at work, and even Jed is back half time. Only in the office, but Clint says it makes a big difference to have him take care of tenders and sub-trades, scheduling, and payroll, as well as most anything else that requires sitting down in an office. That’s apparently never been Clint’s strong suit. He’s not happy unless he’s working with his hands. Jed’s been talking about heading back to Durango when he’s fully recovered, since he has nothing tying him down anywhere else anymore. I think it made Clint a little sad that he wouldn’t be settling in Cedar Tree, but Jed pointed out that it would be much easier for them to build the business if they had someone running a satellite office there. More cost effective and Jed could build his own crews there. There certainly seems to be enough work. He’d continue to keep doing payroll, but Clint was already looking for someone to run his office here. I’d talked about it with Arlene, asking her if she knew of anyone, to let me know.

  I’ve been working nights from four till nine. It seems to work out with Max, although I’ve got to say, I’d like it if Clint and I had more time to spend together. I’ve not been able to rent my house yet, and the cost of the mortgage and the care for Max is hacking away at my part-time hours and my tips. I was hoping I could hang on to it. Although I’ve not mentioned it out loud, I dream that maybe once Dylan comes back after the trial, from wherever they’re keeping him, he’d be interested in moving in.

  The doorbell ringing pulls me out of my thoughts, and I automatically look out the back window to the shed, where I know Clint is putting the last hand on a beautiful handcrafted sled he’s been building, a few hours every night. I see his back bent over the treads, sanding them smooth. Secure in my knowledge he’s close, I head for the door. I’m still a little apprehensive after all that’s happened, but I’m getting better.

  “Hey, woman!” Arlene almost shouts as she blows past me into the house, leaving me to shut the door.

  “Boots,” I remind her. She’s used to running in and out of the diner without taking off shoes or boots, but I don’t need crap all over the floors with Max around.

  “Where’s Max?” Arlene asks, as she pulls of her boots with the toe of the other foot.

  “In bed, so mind the volume.”

  “Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’ve become so damn domesticated the last few months, I hardly recognize you.”

  For some reason that comment makes me tear up. Arlene tosses her boots toward the entrance while I turn my back, trying to fight them back. She walks up around me, takes one look at me, and tilts her head.

  “What’s wrong? You’re crying. You don’t cry. Like, not ever.”

  That makes me laugh through my tears, because I never did, not that anyone’d know anyway. Not even Arlene. “I’ve changed,” I point out.

  “I know, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “I know you are. You pointed out I’m different. That you hardly recognize me.”

  I can tell the moment she clues in. Her mouth falls open in a silent, ‘oh’ and she blinks her eyes a few times before blurting out, “Happy! I didn’t mean it in a bad way, just meant to say I don’t recognize you so happy. Geeze Louise, I’m getting to be as bad as Clint with my mouth. Seb’s on my case all the time that I should think before saying shit, but who’s got the time?” Instantly she’s right in front of me, her forearms resting on my shoulders and her face close. “You’re even better than before, honey. I mean, you were gooder than good. Actually you were the best before, but now you’re... well, better.”

  “Gooder than good?” I can’t help but smile.

  “No. Better than best,” she corrects me, giving me the good smile. With teeth. So I slip my arms around her waist and give her a hug.

  “Thanks.”

  No sooner has the word left my lips or she shoves me back. “See what I mean? Enough with the mushy shit. Got coffee? I’m thinking we’ll need some.”

  A little puzzled, I nevertheless head for the kitchen and pop a pod in my Tassimo. I was so happy to bring it over from my house, makes life a lot easier.

  “Clint not home? It’s frickin’ Christmas Eve.”

  “Back there, finishing up that sled he built for Max.” I point at his flannel covered back, still visible inside the shed.

  “Good, I wanted you alone anyway. For now at least. Brought some gifts for the tree, for Max tomorrow morning. For you too, but that’s not what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Really?” I slide Arlene’s cup on the counter in front of her and grab a bottle of water for myself.

  Curious, I pull out a stool and sit next to her at the counter, waiting for her to spill.

  “You told me Jed’s leaving for Durango after the holidays and Clint’s looking for someone to man the office. I was thinking that with Max here for however long, and with Clint running the show by himself again, it may be time to make some changes.” She’s hedging, I can tell. Not really her style, but whatever she’s got on her mind, she’s having a hard time just coming out with it.

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “
I’m thinking it’s time you considered a career change.”

  My mouth falls open in disbelief. She’s fucking letting me go? After spending my entire adult life at the diner, she’s sending me packing? Before I can push back from the counter, she has my wrist in a firm grip.

  “Let me finish. Maybe it’s because I don’t have my face in it that closely, but it seems to me there’s a pretty simple solution for you. You take over the office for Clint.”

  Well, that stops me in my tracks, if her vice-grip on my wrist wasn’t already preventing flight.

  “Say what?”

  “Think about it. The hours you work at the diner, simply transfer those over to Mason Brothers. I don’t know how much Clint can pay you, but I doubt it’ll be less than what I pay, it’s not like he’s hurting. I figure with the money you’d save in gas, you could pay for a few hours of daycare. At least you’d get to spend a bit more time together in the evenings. You’ll need it.”

  I’m reeling at her suggestion. It’s not that it’s never crossed my mind, it’s just that I’ve never allowed myself to think it. I simply couldn’t see myself away from the diner, where I’ve spent more than half my life. I also didn’t want to think of leaving Arlene, but having her come up with the suggestion, it bears considering.

  “I don’t know...” I mutter undecidedly, “There’s just so much to consider.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I’d have to find daycare for half days,” I offer.

  “Emma’s already on it. And she wants first dibs.”

  “Emma?”

  “She’s gonna start taking Mattias after Christmas, while Katie works in the office. Caleb’s going back in the field on short stints.”

  “Seriously? But that’s different, Katie will just be in a different space under the same roof.” Emma and Gus had a guesthouse and a totally outfitted office space, complete with boardroom, added to their house a few years ago. Gus basically worked from home, unless he was on a job.