Chapter Ten
Wednesday, April 12 twelve-thirty p.m.
Peach stood in the immaculate room decorated with perfect taste and knew her nightmare had found her again. She had heard once that you couldn’t say “dream” in a dream. Quick as she could, she opened her mouth and formed the word, but the six-panel oak door opened faster, and in he walked.
Anderson Bingham stood just over six feet, with hazel eyes and sandy brown hair. His build had been fully paid for and was insured for a cool million. He wore his trademark dark suit. He had been her boss, then her lover. Now, he was her Kryptonite.
“I’m glad to see you back.” He came in like he owned the place, which he would when Mommy and Daddy went to that big yacht club in the sky. He closed half the distance, his fancy shoes clicking with each step, and then he stood. Watching. Waiting. A lion about to take down an antelope. “It has been too long. I’ve missed you, Em. Just the way you’ve missed me.”
Discipline kept her from reacting. Her time in D.C. haunted her just as the nickname did. She was E.M. Morales. E.M. not Em. She’d come to despise it all.
“You’re so rigid, Em. Always so serious.” Hazel eyes swept up and down the length of her, setting off her warning system. Showing weakness was not an option. He ate fear for lunch, flossed with insecurity.
She went for bored and unimpressed. “Anderson.”
He circled her; she kept her gaze straight ahead. Strong, skilled hands went to her shoulders. “You have knots. Lucky for you, I know my way around knots.”
She didn’t want it to feel good. There was nothing but contempt for the way his fingers found those tight muscles and, yeah, that was the spot.
“You see? You need me. Your subconscious knows. It’s time you put hurt feelings aside and call me. You know I can make all of your troubles disappear.”
She was tempted, very tempted, because he could. Anderson had the money and the connections to dismantle F&F Construction. But he wouldn’t. Not without a price. “I stepped in that trap once. I’ll be damned if I step in it twice.”
Anderson pressed a kiss to her neck. His cologne embodied the man…expensive, exclusive. It filled her senses, and her body heightened. “Does this feel like a trap?”
Old habits die hard, she thought as her breasts swelled, yearning for his attention.
“I did apologize. I sent you a gift to show how sorry I was.” He bowed his head, tracing the ridge of her cheek with his lips. Close, his scent was the air she breathed. She couldn’t think for the havoc he wreaked. “What am I going to do with my stubborn little Em?”
She was in trouble. His hands captured her face, holding her while he reminded her what she walked away from. What she could have again. While her body celebrated the man coming to his senses and realizing what a mistake he’d made, some little sane part in the back of her head screamed. Her hand flailed out, found something solid, and smashed the Lothario in the head. Glass shattered, and Peach sat up, gasping for air as she searched the room for Anderson. She blinked, working to make sense of the scene.
The dream had morphed. The office was gone, replaced by a bedroom resplendent with a big bed washed in sunlight. She sat in the middle of the bed wearing her black sleep shirt, covered to the hips in a fluffy white comforter. She knew this place. Counting breaths, she forced her racing mind to slow. There it was. She was in Tom’s house.
Drenched in sweat, she shivered even with the blanket. She finger-brushed her hair back, wincing when something bit her. Her left hand was her usual sun-kissed bronze while her right hand was painted crimson red.
“Dream, dream, dream. Time to wake up, Peach.” Still her hand was red, and she shivered beneath the cover. Moving her thumb was a razor blade against bone. “This isn’t good.” She rolled to the edge of the bed. It was too late to save the snow-white cover, dotted as it was with scarlet drops. The water glass that had sat next to the bed was on the floor, broken. She saw it in time and stepped wide, avoiding the jagged shards. Holding her hand up, she ran to the bathroom. Her eyes filled with tears, making it more difficult to deal with the cut. “Fucking Anderson.”
“Who is Anderson?” Tom asked from the door. His eyebrows jumped at the sight of blood, then he sauntered in and captured her hand. “I think you have something in there.” He took over the first aid without asking permission.
“I broke the water glass.” She blinked against tears welling in her eyes, but a few strays escaped. It wasn’t the cut, which she could take; it was the dream that, night after night, had the man crawling back to her. He didn’t want her. He deceived her. It was that simple. Didn’t her subconscious get it? It would be pathetic to want that man back.
She looked at the man bent studiously over her hand. His dark brown hair was longer on the top and curled in soft loops. Close as he was, she smelled his shampoo and the underlying aroma she knew intimately. She inhaled deeply, replacing the scent of Anderson Bingham with Dr. Thomas Riley.
He looked up, a question in his eyes as he caught her smelling him.
She fought the wave of heat that crept into her face. “There’s blood on the bedspread. Sorry.”
“Come to my bathroom. I have tweezers and bandages in there.” He kept her hand cradled as he led her into his room. She had to appreciate his calm, low-key manner. He didn’t question, chastise, or baby her, which she appreciated, but it would be okay if he babied her, just a little. She followed him into his room, past the spilled books and broken lamps, twisted pajamas and tossed pillows. What remained of her midnight workout gear hung limply from his bedpost. In his spacious bathroom, he lifted her onto the counter and soon was once again at work. “I think you got lucky. It’s in a fleshy part.” He tugged a piece out, making her flinch. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to be careful. It’s really jammed in there.”
“You’re not hurting me. I appreciate the help.” Her voice broke as if she’d been crying. She cleared it and tried again. “I’ll replace the bedspread.”
“Whatever. I think I got it. That’s the last piece. Let me clean it and see if it will stop bleeding. I can run you over to Doc if you need a stitch or two.” He dug through the kit for Band-Aids. “Are you going to tell me who Anderson is?”
“Peach?” Poppy called from the hallway.
Oh, she’d never been so happy to hear his voice. “Just a minute, Poppy,” she called over her shoulder then turned back to Tom. “Just slap a Band-Aid on it. I need to go. Poppy will want his morning coffee. Is there a place I can make it?”
“It’s afternoon, and he’s already had it. Let me finish cleaning you up and we’ll go to the kitchen. You must be hungry.”
“Peach? Did you pack my magnifying glass? I want to read the Sports.” Poppy’s voice grew louder, clearer.
“Oh God.” She pushed off the counter, ripping her hand out of his grip.
“Hey! I’m not done.”
She ignored his complaint and scrambled to keep her grandfather from walking in on the remnants of their early morning activities, but she wasn’t fast enough.
“I left it in the living room under the window. The sun was bright, and I used it on the comics.” He stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, talking to the post wearing the purple sports top.
She skidded to a stop on the threshold; Tom bumped her from behind. He chuckled, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Her elbow in his gut turned his laugh into an elongated cough.
Poppy looked toward Tom. “Did you see it, Tom?”
She silently scampered to the bed, right behind her hastily discarded clothing. “Sorry, Poppy, I don’t think we packed it. With everything that happened, we missed it.”
“I have a set in my lab you can use.” Tom stepped over the mess, going past Poppy to the door. “If we missed anything else, just let us know. It’s a big house. We probably have what you need.”
Peach watched, astonished at Tom’s smooth handling of the situation. Poppy followed his voice or maybe the big shadow he made in the afternoon light. Tom pointed to Poppy, gave her a “thumbs up,” and then led her grandfather out the door. Her grandfather turned back, signed an “okay,” and pointed to Tom. She trailed after them as they talked, dumbfounded.
“Did Carolina show you around?” Tom asked, taking her grandfather’s elbow.
“Oh, yes. She said she was going to rearrange the family room. Please tell her not to. I have been legally blind for several years. I will be fine.”
Tom picked the cane from the chair where it hung in his living room, handing it to the older man. “I’ll tell her, but she’s not going to listen. Would you like another cup of coffee?”
Poppy took the cane, using it sparingly as he stepped around the furniture. “You read my mind. It is very good.”
“Family recipe.”
Peach stood in the hallway as they left the living room. Bandaged, barefoot, and bewildered. What the hell was happening?
Peach followed Carolina across the sun-filled courtyard, thinking that she epitomized a woman: graceful, competent, and beautiful. No movements were wasted, but each one had a little touch, had an intangible flair. It would be very easy to be very jealous of Carolina.
Except Carolina glanced over her shoulder and flashed a conspirator’s grin. “What are we hunting?”
“An embezzler.” Her plan to rent a car and return to Cleveland was derailed by her sleeping until mid-day. A shower and a brunch later, it was two in the afternoon. Then Carolina suggesting a little fishing expedition. “I got this feeling—”
“Oh, say no more. I know that feeling, and it’s always right. My office is just inside here.” They walked in one of the white doors that surrounded the courtyard. It was the one closest to Tom’s suite.
“Your rooms are upstairs?” Peach asked to fill the silence. It was an interesting house, more like three homes all connected to each other.
“Jeb and I have four bedrooms, two baths, and a sitting room. Just like Tom does and Katie and Butch. We’ve done a lot of work to our first floor. When I moved in, Jeb used it as one big man cave slash office. Now we have real offices for his company, and I have a space of my own.” Carolina opened the door to an office and flipped on the lights.
“Okay. I am so jealous.” Peach stared at the wall full of flat screen monitors facing a computer set up that had to rival NASA. One wall was a bank of windows covered with privacy shades. The other short wall contained a dry erase board and a pull down for a screen. The long wall opposite the windows was covered floor to ceiling in book shelves with thoughtful groupings of books.
“Jeb did this as an engagement present,” Carolina said as she booted up her system.
“Beats the hell out of a ring.” She wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth.
Carolina blushed. “Oh, he gave me a ring, too.” She held out her hand, showing off the brilliant sapphire that nestled against a diamond and sapphire band.
“Uh, congratulations on your wedding. Tom said you and Jeb were just married.”
“Four days now.” Carolina grinned, glowing with happiness.
“Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?”
“We leave in a few weeks after my brother returns to duty.” She did a little happy dance in her seat. The machine beeped and got her undivided attention. Her hands flew over the keyboard as her hair fell in her face. The screens began to flicker, and Carolina absently braided her thick mass of hair. “The whole farm is set up with wireless. The password is on the white board. The router is in here, and I’m hard wired in, so…I’m faster. What do you have? What can I do?”
Peach pulled her head together and went to one of the glass tables. She took her laptop out of the bag and, while it started up, retrieved the portable hard drive. “Three men went into the lake on Saturday morning. Tom’s work is leaning toward sabotage. To what end? My hypothesis is that only one of them was never meant to come out. My uncle was a great man to Poppy and me but to the rest of the world? He was no one. Jack Hawthorne was the manager for the project. He said who worked and who didn’t. Who was paid and who wasn’t.”
“An important man,” Carolina added.
“In the context of the project, an important man. A respected man. Outside that context? I don’t know.”
Carolina nodded. “I’m on him. Who else? You said three men.”
“Joe Carter. Low-level engineer. From what I heard, a lot of the men weren’t surprised he went down. Rookie, no common sense, two left feet. That sort of thing.”
“Do you have anything on them? Social security number? Full name?”
Peach handed her the hard drive. “I copied files from Hawthorne’s secretary, including payroll. There may be something there. I also have files from the F&F system and left myself a back-door in.”
“Sweet.” Carolina danced in her chair. Her face froze when Peach laughed. “What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have this whole goddess thing going—”
“Me?” Surprise was clear in her high-pitched voice and wide eyes.
“I didn’t suspect you for a trouble maker.”
Carolina laughed. “Oh, I’m not. That’s Katie. You’re going to like her.”
Tom worked in his laboratory, feeling oddly alone. Carolina had offered to let Peach work in her office, and Peach accepted before he could offer his. Here, in his home, with the heavy gate and state-of-the-art security system, he didn’t have to worry about somebody knocking him unconscious. He should have been fine.
But he wasn’t.
He fell into his leather chair and stared across the room.
The silence was deafening.
Jeb came in the door at the opposite end of the lab. His boots echoed as he marched across on the concrete floor. “That girlfriend of yours is trouble.”
“I told you, she’s not my girlfriend.”
He tossed a folder onto Tom’s desk. “She’s ex-military. Air Force. A graduate of the Citadel. Served oversees and then was honorably discharged.”
He picked up the file and opened it. “That doesn’t sound like trouble.”
“She had just started her second tour when she was suddenly gone. There’s more to that story, but it’s buried deep.”
“Esmeralda Martha Morales.”
“I wouldn’t call her that unless you got your junk protected.”
Tom paused, leafing through the sheets as images of Jeb in the fetal position popped up. He didn’t hide the smile as he read the next page. “She’s a private investigator?”
“She’s licensed in Virginia. She worked for an agency until about a year ago then started drawing a paycheck from a D.C. law firm. That ended in January. The address on her license is an apartment in Virginia Beach. Your girl likes to move around.”
“She’s not my girl.”
Jeb leaned back in the guest chair and put his feet on Tom’s desk. “She’s an only child. Both of her parents are career military. Air Force. She moved around as a kid then went to live permanently with her grandfather when she was twelve. He had legal custody. She went to high school in Ohio, graduated with honors. Got in some trouble. Breaking and entering. Stealing.”
“She has a record? How did you get that? I thought juvenile records were sealed.”
“She doesn’t have a record. Barely. Poppy may just be a miracle worker. He doesn’t think much of the way his son and daughter-in-law raised Peach. He said they never understood her. They pushed her back and forth, from here to there. She never has friends. She never settles. That worries him.”
“Settles? What did he mean?”
Jeb shrugged. “Moves around a lot, I guess. One thing is clear: there is nothing easy about your woman.”
He had to ignore it. If he kept getting riled up, Jeb would keep poking. “You think the two of them are in any danger?”
“Hard to say. Until yesterday, whoever was gunning for you didn’t know they existed. I would expect that the interest in them is finding you. So who do you think you pissed off?”
“I’ve got somebody nervous, but the thing is, they think that I have more than I do. Sure, I’m going to be able to provide evidence the crane was compromised but not by who.” He stood and started to pace. “It’s not like you put the pieces back to together and there’s a big old sign saying, ‘Go arrest Joe Blow.’ I’m an engineer, not a detective.”
“Well, son. Maybe your—”
“—don’t say it.”
“—girlfriend will come up with something. Butch and Katie should be home soon. She’s on dinner tonight.”
“I wonder what kind of pizza she’ll order. I liked that taco one she got last time.”
Jeb pushed to his feet and patted his stomach. “No such thing as a bad pizza in my book. I’m gonna go see what the wife of mine is up to.”
“I think I’ll tag along.”
“This is incredible,” Peach said, standing in front of the bank of screens displaying financial history for her uncle, Jack Hawthorne, and Joe Carter. “How did you get this so fast?”
“Most of it’s public record. The rest I paid for,” Carolina said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “You just have to know where to look. And, thanks to you, I did. I can follow most of this. I’ve read a few books on accounting and taxes. Where do you want to start?”
“My uncle. Let’s see what was to be gained by his death.”
Carolina’s fingers stopped, creating space between them. “You think he’s dead?” Compassion looked out through her blue eyes.
“I just can’t imagine how he’s not dead. If he were alive, he would have contacted Poppy. He would never have put him through this kind of heartbreak. If he were unconscious in a hospital within twenty miles, I would have found him by now. The only option left is a Misery scenario, and seeing as my uncle wasn’t famous, rich, or handsome, I’m out of options.”
The clicking of the keyboard was thick in the quiet room. Soon, the monitors flashed, and the screens featured enlargements of Rico Morales’s assets and debts, marriages and divorces.
“Nice car,” Tom said as he and Jeb entered. He stood close to Peach but not touching. “What are we looking at?”
“My uncle’s finances.” She moved closer with the excuse of pointing to the figures on the screen. “Not much in savings. His house is paid off.”
“Have you been to his house?” Carolina asked. “Would he keep his paperwork there? You know, a will or insurance papers?”
“Maybe Poppy knows. I visited about three years ago when I was in Atlanta for work. He lived on the outskirts. I think that was where his second wife lived. I vaguely remember her. I don’t know why he bought it. He worked all over the country. That must be where he left his car. He didn’t bring it to Cleveland. We shared my car and the Beast.”
“The Beast?” Carolina said, looking at Jeb.
“Her grandfather’s pick-up truck. What are you looking for, Peach?”
“Money. The files I read showed accounting errors on the casino project. I think someone is skimming. I know someone is dealing drugs. I don’t have any proof the two are linked. Tom, you believe the accident wasn’t an accident. So what did our felon expect to happen?” She went to the dry erase board. “One: my uncle dies. Two: my uncle and Hawthorne die. Someone tricked him to climb into that crane—”
“Wait. What did you just say?” Tom held up his hands. “Nobody I talked to knows why Hawthorne went into the crane booth.”
“To bring Rico a new radio, but his was working.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was on the phone with him. You knew that. He used a Bluetooth ear piece, but I could hear Hawthorne.”
Tom came to her now, rubbed her arms. “You said you saw him fall. I had no idea you were on the phone with him. I didn’t want to ask you too many questions. I know how hard this is. Well, I don’t, but I can imagine. I have to now. You may have heard something that fills in the gaps.”
She saw it in his face: he didn’t want to hurt her. By coming to his house, soliciting Carolina’s help, she’d joined his team. Or he joined hers. It was semantics, because now, they were working together. Of course, he’d want to know what she saw. “You’ll want to see the video.”
“Video? You have one?” She knew he fought back the thrill for her.
“Yeah, I, uh, I was recording him to show Poppy. He never saw Rico work.” Suddenly her mouth was dry. “I don’t know what’s on it. I…I’ve never watched it.” She took her phone from her pocket. “Here. Do me a favor? Wipe it off the phone?”
“I can do that.” Tom put the phone in his pocket and then pulled her under his shoulder. “Let’s go back to your list. What’s your third option?”
“Third option?” She cried inside, where no one could see, but it muddled her brain. The arm around her helped, but she wanted to turn to him, curl into that sweet spot on his neck and forget. Instead, she stepped away from him, returning to the board. “The, uh, third option is that it was a financial hit. This one makes the most and the least sense.”
“An accident like that costs a lot of people, a lot of money,” Carolina said, her voice thick with emotion. “It could bankrupt small companies.”
“Which makes sense if it’s somehow personal against F&F,” Peach said, “but not as a cover up for embezzlement and drug sales.”
“Who is selling drugs?” Tom asked.
“Michael Fabrini,” Jeb said immediately.
Peach nodded. “He’s got a dealer close by. I don’t have a name, but I would recognize the voice. I really pissed them off by stealing their stash.” Three pairs of eyes turned her way. “If you’re going to leave the door wide open, you’re just asking for someone to steal it.”
Jeb muttered under his breath, something like delinquent. “What about Jack Hawthorne?”
Carolina’s fingers tickled the keyboard again, and the screens shifted. “Ah. Jack is into boats. It’s easy to see where his money goes. The man has a house, a wife, two teenage boys, and boats. The house is close to Lake Erie. He buys and sells a boat every few years.”
“Boats are an expensive hobby.” Peach bit the inside of her cheek, thinking of the money Anderson dropped each weekend. Hawthorne wouldn’t have been at that level, but it would still be an easy place to spend fast cash. “I wonder what happened to his laptop.” She turned to Carolina. “His office was locked, but the computer wasn’t there. The accident happened during the day. His computer should have been there. But who would take it and lock the door?”
“Maybe he hid it,” Tom said. “Did you search the office?”
“No,” she said, disappointed at the lost opportunity. “I ran out of time. You need to ask Fabrini about it. I need to spend time with his secretary’s files. I did a quick search, but there were no yellow sign saying ‘read me,’ just lots of spreadsheets and logs.”
“I’ll work on it later today,” Carolina said. “How about the last guy? Joe Carter.” The screens flickered again. “Condo, truck. Loans. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here.”
“Can you enlarge his Facebook page?” Peach walked the length of the room, staring into the drunken eyes of a dead man. “Here, look at this picture. What do you see?”
Carolina rolled her eyes at the picture of Joe Carter in an F&F Construction shirt with his eyes half shut. His arms were around the necks of two buxom women, also with their eyes at half-mast. He held two bottles of beer by the neck in one hand and the breast of the brunette in the other. “A man with more bravado than brains.”
“Every man I’ve ever met does,” Peach said.
Jeb wrapped his arms around Carolina from behind and kissed her shoulder. “You hear what she said about you, Tom?”
Peach nearly sneered. She didn’t like Tom being slammed because of her.
Jeb wasn’t fazed. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep it between you, me, and the bed post.”
Bed post? Her temperature rose. He’d been in Tom’s room. Or Tom told him about last night. She glared at Tom, who was scowling at Jeb. No. No, it was the hotel. He knew they’d been together at the hotel. Peach lifted her chin, looking between the two of them, and pulled on her thick skin.
Carolina slapped playfully at her husband. “Jeb, behave.”
Peach stood directly in front of the monitor, ignoring the men in the room. “The kid was one year out of college making about fifty grand a year. He’s paying off thirty in student loans. He bought a new condo last fall, a new truck about the same time. His bank account has just over five grand in it.”
“Where does the rest of the money come from?” Jeb asked.
“The rest of what money?” Carolina asked.
Tom pointed at the screen. “The money that paid for the Rolex on his wrist.”
“He paid cash for the truck. There’s no loan on it,” Peach said. “Do we know who the woman is under his left hand? I’m betting he paid for those tits. He’s mighty proud of them.”
Jeb started to say something, but Carolina covered his mouth. “I’ll look for her,” she said and then eyed her husband. “Is there something you want?”
“Yes, but it would be indecent in front of company. Come upstairs and take a break with me.” He nuzzled Carolina’s neck, his arm under her breasts pulling her from the chair.
“You can use my office as long as you want, Peach.” Carolina made the offer, giggling under her husband’s assault.
“We can go to my lab,” Tom said, his attention still on the screen. “I have computers you can use, too. They’re just as fast. I can get more monitors.”
He tried to hide it, but Peach heard it, that little tinge of jealousy. She went to him, drawing her fingers across his forearm. Soothing the sting she heard because he wasn’t going to like her answer. “I’d like that, but…you’re going to watch the video, aren’t you?” His gaze flashed to hers. “I know you’re anxious to see it. I’m impressed you stayed here this long. I really hope it helps you find the answers, but I can’t…”
“Of course not.” He turned her until they were hip to hip. “I can wait until later.”
“You don’t have to.” She played with his shirt, smoothing the knit material over his stomach. Her emotions were running high and very close to the surface. There was an irony in things happening so fast and yet moving at glacial speed. She needed time to process. “I’m ready for a break myself. Is it safe to run on the road?”
He frowned, still holding her to him. “It’s safe enough, but there’s no need. There is a path around the farm that’s close to three miles, and we have a gym in the farm house with anything you could need.”
“I need to be outside.” She looked in his eyes, trying to be open and honest with him. “And I need a little time alone. Really, this is perfect. I’ll run while you watch the video.”
He sighed but didn’t argue. “Okay.” Taking her hand, he led her out of Jeb and Carolina’s wing and into his own. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to his apartment. “I’ll be here when you need me.” Slowly, he lowered his head, breaching the distance between them inch by inch.
She rose to her toes, and then their lips were together. Softly. Gently. It wasn’t lust filled and passionate but was infinitely intimate. Her hand went to his neck, fingers playing in his short hair.
Her phone rang, the one in his hand. “Take the call. Whenever you’re finished, I’ll download the video.” He kissed her cheek, setting it in her hand.
She pressed answer before the phone number registered.
703 area code.
Peach looked beyond the ceiling. “You hate me. You truly hate me, don’t you?”