He punched her in the face before she could react.
She crumpled to the floor. Blood streamed from her nose. Fighting to concentrate, she steadied herself against a desk and pulled up.
When his hand came away from his wound filled with blood, he growled. “I’ve changed my mind. First I kill your brat. Then I finish you.” He walked back toward the bedroom.
Callie ran after him and leaped. Her heel connected with his outer thigh above the knee. As she went down, Mason’s leg buckled, and the momentum carried him into the wall.
Callie scrambled up and scanned the room for a weapon. The kitchen’s bar and all its cutlery was thirty feet away. Too far.
Still, she spun to run in that direction, to draw Mason away from Jeb’s room. He tripped her. As she struggled to rise again, he grappled for a higher control of her left leg. She fought reflexes and let him draw her closer, then lashed out with a grunt and kicked his wounded jaw with her right foot. His guttural scream rebounded off the ceiling. She pedaled out of reach, her sandal slick with his blood. She scrambled to her feet and headed again for the kitchen, her only chance for a weapon.
But instead of following, Mason staggered back to the rolltop desk and shoved up the top.
Her gaze met his. She had no doubt what was hidden in that desk, and bullets traveled faster than she could. So she turned and bolted toward him just as he grabbed the weapon. In her tackle, the Glock flew loose.
Callie held tight to his body, using claws and elbows. With a downward drive, Mason’s elbow whacked her temple. Stunned, she sank hard on a knee, head spinning.
Mason stood, chest heaving, his once ecru shirt bright red. He scanned for the gun and spied it under the coffee table. “Let’s wake up your baby boy,” he said, panting between words, his enunciation blunted by the wound. “Your son’s earned the joy of seeing his mother splattered across the wall.” He moved his mouth, experimenting with the damage done. “I’d wanted it the other way around, but this”—he lightly touched his face—“changes things.”
The man’s body arched, hit from behind by a blur. As Mason fell to the floor, Jeb collapsed in a heap on the mauve and gold rug behind his captor, who fell face down with a smack. Mason slid and bumped into the coffee table, scattering glasses, bottles, and used cocktail napkins across the parquet floor.
The boy moaned, spent, unable to stand and attack again. “Mom . . .”
Mason rolled over and rose up to his knees. “Good final effort, kid.”
Her breaths heaving, Callie recognized that Mason could choose Jeb or her for his next offensive move. And he focused too long on her son.
Mason leaned over to retrieve the gun as she grabbed a half-empty beer bottle on an end table. With a swing fueled by two years of frustration, she rose up and smashed the bottle across his head. Glass busted, the butt end of the bottle propelled against the window, beer remnants spraying. The momentum took her to her knees, still gripping the bottle’s neck.
A roar erupted from the man as he cradled his head. Crimson ran from his scalp, the fresher red mixing with the darker on his ripped face. Primal Russian slurs poured from his mouth, spraying pink spit.
Mason spun and dove for her.
Callie braced her arm and thrust upward as the man’s momentum drove the keen edges of the jagged bottle into his windpipe.
He whipped an arm around her in a constrictor-like embrace as he fell. His fingers dug into her back while his other hand instinctively clawed at his throat. They rolled in a twisted, slick mixture of bodies and blood, him furious . . . her fighting in a frenzy to escape.
Callie ferociously thrust her weight behind the bottle.
His lock on her turned into a seizure, and she rolled herself off him. She scurried crab-like out of reach, praying for his death.
The gurgles and groans morphed into sucking noises. The Russian’s eyes bulged as he desperately groped to reconnect some sort of conduit between his lungs and air.
Callie poised rigid, backed against a chintz armchair, panting as Mason’s blood slung and pumped across the floor, up and down the sofa. And she eagerly, hungrily watched him die.
A shadow flitted across the dark back of the house, gravitating in starts and stops to the glass doors. Callie retrieved the Glock and with a shaky hand, raised it, taking aim.
Gun drawn, Seabrook appeared in the doorway, his sights set on her.
Callie let the weapon drop beside her foot. Then she stumbled around Mason and the sofa to Jeb, propped against the wall. Her son’s view of Mason was obstructed by furniture, but still, she inserted herself between him and the horror, like she’d always done. Like she’d continue to do.
Seabrook stepped in, glanced at the dead man for a long moment, then scanned the mess. “Oh, Callie.”
Jeb now slumped in her lap, Callie looked up, covered in blood and beer. “You missed a damn fine party, Mike.”
Chapter 34
CALLIE TURNED THE final screw to the front right motion sensor and started down her ladder. A police cruiser stopped in her drive, and Seabrook stepped out. “Wait a sec.” He hurried over and grabbed the ladder. “You’re still installing those sensors, huh?”
“Just humor me.”
His tan had only grown darker as the days grew hotter, a natural in the Carolina sun. Every day since the infamous party, he’d checked on her. She loved it. He towered a foot above her, but he didn’t make her feel petite. The friendship was reaching a comfortable stage. She dropped the screwdriver in Lawton’s toolbox. “Last one, thank goodness.”
He folded the ladder. “Why isn’t Jeb doing this?”
Callie wiped sweat off her forehead with a sleeve. “Sprite’s been smothering him of late. He’s enjoying the attention, and for once, I can take him going out.” She closed the ground level storage room and locked it. “Come on up to the porch and get out of this heat.”
The Fourth of July weekend had tourists in clustered batches on foot, golf carts, and bikes, as well as in the grocery store, gas station, and every restaurant, so leaving the house was a lesson in patience. Callie stayed home as much as possible by eating Jeb’s catch of the day or letting him make the grocery run.
She hurried inside and returned with two iced teas to join Seabrook on the settee. She could enjoy simplicity like this.
“Sensors might be overkill if there are no more Russians.”
Callie shook her head. “No more Russians. Stan checked. He actually delivered the notice of Mason’s . . . um, Georgy’s, death. Apparently, Mason had been on the outs with his family for a long time. Seems he was an embarrassment for them.” She sipped her tea and stared over the railing to a golf cart of teen girls rolling too fast up Jungle Road.
Seabrook went to the railing and motioned at them. “Slow it down!”
The girls slowed maybe more than they had to, giggling, taking back glances at the police officer.
The traffic interruption was a welcome diversion from talk about Russians. She still sensed eyes on her. She still studied her rearview mirror, though she knew better. But some days she’d forget. “Heard from Raysor lately?” she asked.
“He’s at the cranky stage,” Seabrook said.
Callie laughed. “And that’s different from the norm how?”
“Don will be Don. He’ll be out another three weeks, it seems. Then it might be another week or two before they put him back over here, but he’ll show up before summer’s over.”
Good. She had visited the man in the hospital, both of them awkward in the moment. He’d tried to apologize to her without saying it, and she’d done the same. They talked about everything but Mason, but they now shared the scare of almost dying at his hand.
Seabrook brushed sand off her leg. “So, how are you doing?”
“I’m all right, Doctor Mike.” Her grin w
as fleeting. “Not sure what to do next. I mean, Jeb’s not going to college. Mother’s holding her own in Middleton, actually filling in for Daddy’s mayoral seat until next year when elections are held, but I can’t leave her. At least not now. So I’m living at Edisto Beach for a while.”
He finished his tea. “Glad to hear it. Maybe . . .”
A white BMW pulled into Callie’s drive.
“Speak of the devil,” Callie mumbled as Beverly exited the car.
The rattan creaked as Seabrook pushed up. “Break’s over.”
Beverly’s shades lifted up toward the porch as the cop peered down. “Yoo hoo, is Callie up there? Have Jeb come unload these boxes for me.”
“I’ll do it,” Seabrook said, coming down the stairs. “Afternoon, Mrs. Cantrell. You look good today.”
The woman grinned. “Aren’t you the charmer, all tall, tanned, and handsome in that uniform. Yes, that would be nice.” Her smile disappeared. “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Just a social call.” He leaned in the car and hoisted a heavy box on his shoulder. “This it?”
“Yes, Mike, is it?” she asked, holding her arm crooked to support her white Gucci shoulder bag matching her bejeweled white sandals, white slacks, and navy tunic. “Just place it inside.”
Seabrook clomped up the stairs as Callie met him, brow knotted. “How many boxes are there?”
“Only two,” he said low. “At least she’s not moving in.”
Callie let some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Whew, thank goodness for that.” She trotted to the drive. “Mother, how are you? And what’s all this?”
“One of my ideas, dear.” She waved the air like a fan. “Can we go inside? It’s sweltering out here.”
“Sure, come on in. I was about to call you, and—”
“Is this a party? I’m coming over,” shouted Sophie from her porch. “I have muffins!”
Beverly rolled her eyes as she reached the top step. “That woman. Who invited her?”
Who invited you? Callie thought, but she and Beverly had been on speaking terms since Mason’s party. No cat claws in three weeks. They hadn’t been civil to each other for that long since she’d lived in Boston and avoided her mother’s calls for months . . . as Beverly had avoided hers.
Seabrook set the second box on the dining room table. At his knowing glance, Callie walked him to the door. “Thanks. Sorry for the interruption.”
“I’ll catch you later,” he said. “Thanks for the tea. Hey, Sophie.”
Callie’s neighbor skipped up the steps, muffins on a plate with a dish towel thrown over them. “Hey yourself, Mr. Hot Stuff.”
He scoffed at the back of her as she flitted across the threshold, then he put on his sunglasses and left.
When Callie returned inside, Sophie and Beverly both dallied in her kitchen, lightly arguing over who would fix the drinks and acting like each of them knew better where the glasses were.
The real estate agency had been told by Edisto PD that Pauley died, but Seabrook refused to release the details. Papa’s house sat empty now, unthreatened for quite some time to come with no heirs left and probate taking over.
Callie’s house had been sanitized of Pauley’s visit, nobody knowing about the body other than Jeb, Callie, and Seabrook, because that’s how Callie had wanted it. She wished Chelsea Morning to retain as much positive energy as possible, as Sophie would say. Once news got around about Mason’s death, and after much prodding and begging from Sophie, Callie let her sage the house. It did make the place feel fresher.
“I already have a glass, so don’t fix me anything.” Callie turned to Sophie. “Thanks for the muffins.” Then she leaned on the sink facing across the bar at her mother. “What’s with the boxes?”
“Not in front of the neighbor,” Beverly said, as if Sophie wasn’t seated right next to her on a barstool.
“Hey,” Sophie said. “I was critical to Callie’s rescue, you know. Mike called me, and I told him where she was. Good thing, too.”
How conveniently Sophie forgot. She’d covered for Callie at Mason’s, diverting Seabrook. Now she was the heroine.
“You took her to that party to start with,” Beverly said. “I don’t hear you bragging about putting her in harm’s way.”
Callie lifted a warm muffin and broke it in half, a lemony scent rising. “Not the way it happened, Mother.”
Instead of taking issue with the attitude, however, Sophie stroked Beverly’s arm. “I admire you, Beverly. You supported your husband, in spite of his deeds, for the sake of Middleton. And now you’re stepping into his shoes. You’re a strong, strong woman.”
Beverly glanced at Callie and then returned her interest to the muffin she now crumbled on her plate.
“What deeds?” Callie asked. Lawton had the ethics of Gandhi and the Pope rolled into one. Her father would have tolerated Beverly, not the other way around.
Standing by him how? Politically, tolerating his workaholic tendencies?
Beverly wouldn’t take her stare off the poppy seeds separated from the muffin. So Callie started in on Sophie. “Something I don’t know about?”
Sophie jumped down off her stool. “Ooh, got to run. Sprite might be home any second.”
“She’s with Jeb, Sophie.”
“Oh.” Sophie’s fingers tangled, playing with her rings. “I mean, I need to fix dinner for when she gets home. Later.” She scampered to the hall and let herself out.
Callie tapped the bar. “Nobody but us now, Mother. Spill it.”
“No point, dear.”
“Yes, there is. He was my father, and I deserve to know. As a politician, and a very public person, somebody most assuredly knows his secrets. Would you like me to learn whatever this stupid little issue is from a stranger? On Facebook? You know Jeb would find it there.”
Her mother seemed frail as she made eye contact with her. “Lawton didn’t do Facebook.”
Callie laughed. “I figured that, but that won’t stop somebody else from slinging dirt about him. What did he do? Hold out on his taxes? Do favors for friends? What does any of that even matter?”
“It’s what we both did,” she said. “I’d wanted to explain it one day. With that Bohemian woman gone, maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
Callie had told herself in the days after Mason’s party that she could weather anything now, though she had her moments, especially at night. Stan still hadn’t called, but it was probably too soon to expect that aspect of her life to return to normal.
But between her husband’s life insurance, and now her generous inheritance from Lawton, along with partial ownership in his car dealership holdings, Callie could sit unemployed for quite some time to come. She was on her way back up from bottom.
“It’s not like Daddy had an affair,” Callie said, the words sounding so dirty spoken in the same sentence as her father.
Beverly glanced at her daughter. “I never held it against him.”
“What?” Callie juggled a hundred questions in her head. Some she didn’t want to ask, like, What did you do to drive him away? Was she young? But most of all, Who was she?
Her daddy was a striking man, turning many a woman’s head. Beverly was inarguably no easy person to live with. Callie knew that better than anyone. But a real affair? And Beverly didn’t gouge the woman’s eyes? Or hire someone to take her out?
“I don’t have to be a detective to see there’s more to this than just an affair, Mother.” She reached across the bar and touched the older woman’s hand, noting the veins in them more than ever before.
Her mother’s lanky frame seemed more stooped. “He wasn’t the only one who had an affair.”
“Say what?” Callie rounded the bar. She had to sit at that revela
tion. Her parents were adults, she reminded herself. They could do what they wished. So why was her gut doing somersaults? And how the hell did she explain to Jeb that his conservative grandparents had an open marriage?
“I’d been engaged to someone before your father,” her mother finally said.
“That’s not an affair.”
“It is when you keep seeing him later.”
Callie sat back. “Oh.”
With a wistful gaze at Callie, Beverly seemed desperate for her daughter to understand, then let it dissipate and investigated crumbs on her plate.
A sudden fear flipped Callie’s stomach. “Is Daddy still . . . my daddy?”
Beverly stroked her daughter’s scarred arm. “Of course he is, honey.”
Thank you, God. “So Daddy got even?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He met someone at The Governor’s Cup one year, when you were a teenager. I stayed in Middleton working on the next campaign. He’d asked me to relax for a change, spend time with him without political obligations, but I was too driven. So driven,” she repeated in a whisper. “You’d asked to spend the evening with Papa Beach, so Lawton went alone and . . . met someone.”
So, while Callie had made peanut butter cookies with Papa, role playing with chicken salt and pepper shakers, her father had got it on down the street. Disappointing, but reality often was. However, even with all this enlightenment, her mother seemed to be holding back. “What am I missing here?” Callie asked.
“I saw Jeremy for twenty years. He died of cancer at forty-five. By then, your father was seeing Sarah Rosewood. We allowed each other’s sporadic trysts. It kept us alive in a way and made us realize what we loved about each other. I lost my friend early, is all. And it wasn’t right for me to ask Lawton to stop seeing his.”
Sarah Rosewood! “Damn,” was all Callie could say. This was so messed up, but then it wasn’t. Not the way Beverly explained it.
Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) Page 36