Chapter Nineteen
Friday, April 14 two-thirty p.m.
Peach walked briskly down the uber-white corridor, her arm around Katie. They were following Tabitha, the very helpful receptionist at The News and Views, to a place where Katie could sit down when Carolina looked like the one who was going to faint.
Katie made a small sound. A perfect, small sound.
Tabitha jumped, looking over her shoulder at Katie’s belly. “Ms. McNeil is out for the afternoon, and her office is closest. Why don’t you rest in there?”
“That sounds perfect,” Peach said, keeping her mouth hard and tight, which was no easy feat. Katie had no poker face. Luckily, Tabitha didn’t know the difference between pre-labor contractions and troublemaker instigations.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t call an ambulance, E.M.? I just love your name, by the way. So mysterious.”
The young woman was perfect. Too many places would eat up a person with her fundamental goodness. It was easy to believe that The News and Views, as Katie and Peach described, was just one of those places. Maybe she’d help the woman get a better job…after she got one for herself.
Tabitha swiped a key fob over a plate, and the lock clicked open. She only carried one, which meant it was a master. Oh, what she could do with that. Peach raised her hand to wipe the drool from her mouth.
“I just need a few minutes.” Katie held her belly with one hand and lowered herself to the black leather couch. “My girl still has a few more weeks, but she’s anxious.”
“Take your time, please. I’m right out front. When Mr. Fyre is off the phone, I’ll let him know you want to meet. I have to admit, I’m dying of curiosity about this ‘exclusive deal.’”
“Perfect,” Peach said, urging Tabitha out of the room. “I’m sure we’ll be along soon.” She closed the door behind her.
“We are soooo going to get caught.” Carolina fell onto the couch and put her head between her knees.
“Where did your badass self go?” Katie planted on hand on the couch arm and the other on Carolina’s knee to push herself to standing. “I almost wish I was in labor. Spewing embryonic fluid all over Abitchgail’s couch would be satisfying.”
Carolina looked up, her expression encapsulating, “Ew, gross.”
“Fun as this is, ladies, we are on a mission. Carolina, on the door. You’re the look out.” Peach pulled on gloves and booted up the desktop. Today was just full of surprises. First, Katie had enough supplies in her trunk to open a small hardware store. A new respect was achieved. Second, why did Abitchgail have a desktop? Shouldn’t she use a laptop or a tablet? The queen bee probably demanded all three. She plugged in her sweet little program and said, “I’m in.”
“What should we do?” Katie hustled over, wringing her hands in anticipation. “What would really burn her biscuits?”
“You,” Carolina said. “And you have burned your biscuits. I have to pee.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just nervous,” Peach said. “I’m in her email.”
“Bring up her calendar. Let me sit,” Katie said. “That’s right. We’ve just moved this one. And we’ll invite Mulroney to this one. I just may have to go to that one.” She was a woman after Peach’s own heart. She chuckled softly as she moved and double booked appointments. The finale? She sent an email to Abitchgail’s dinner appointment, cancelling due to a bout of explosive diarrhea. “Done.”
“Move over,” Peach said, pinning the chair so it rolled on Katie. “I thought you said you didn’t hate anyone.” She brought up a command line and gave the machine orders. Lights flashed on the computer and her flash drive.
Katie’s voice was placid, laced with fun. “I don’t want her to go to hell. I just want her to go away.”
“They’re coming! I knew we’d get caught. I just knew it.” Carolina pulled her skirt tight around her crossed legs as she hissed.
Katie lowered herself back on the couch, her breath fast and shallow from the short run. She burst out laughing. “I have to pee, now. Damn you, Carolina.”
“I pee first, Missy. I think I’m going to burst.”
“Knock, knock. How y’all doin’? Ms. Morales? Mrs. Deadeye? How is Mrs. Badshot feeling?” Tabitha’s hand slid in through the crack.
“Quick!” Carolina dove to her knees and lifted Katie’s skirt as Tabitha leaned into the room. “She’s only at 2 mm. We’re fine.”
“Whew!” Tabitha said with a hand to her heart. “I’m so glad to hear that. Well, Mr. Frye is off his phone call. If y’all are ready, I can take you to his office.”
Peach crossed to the younger woman, pulling her under her shoulder. “Tabby, can I call you Tabby?” She nodded enthusiastically. “Would you mind asking Mr. Frye to come down here?”
“Why sure, Ms. Morales, uh, I mean, E.M.” Tabitha started for the desk phone, but Peach held her in place.
“In person is so much more personal, don’t you think? And we want to make a good first impression. Please? For Ms. Badshot?”
“My,” she said, slapping her forehead. “Where is my head today? I will be right back with him.” She hurried out the door.
Peach watched through the crack until she disappeared around a corner. “Now. Let’s go.”
Each taking an arm, they pulled Katie off the couch and casually hurried down the corridor. Peach could see the reception area and the GTO waiting beyond the glass façade.
“Just one minute,” Carolina said, darting to her left. “There’s a bathroom.”
“We are making an escape,” Peach chastised. “We do not stop for potty breaks.”
“Yes, we do,” Katie said, hurrying inside.
While her friends made rain, Peach pushed opened the remaining stall doors, ensuring they were alone. “This is why I don’t work with amateurs. We get caught, I am so not taking the blame. I had us out the door.”
One flush. Two flush. Hands washed. And dried…with a really loud hand drier.
“Now can we go?” Peach might have been scowling on the outside, but she was rolling in the aisles inside. She peeked out the door. Tabitha’s desk was still empty. She thanked God for small favors and rushed her friends out the door, across the artistically minimal reception area to the revolving door.
“Hold up, ladies,” a man said from behind them.
“The jig is up!” Carolina ran out the door, hands above her head, all the way to the GTO.
Peach and Katie fell about laughing and then turned to the man behind them.
“You dropped this,” he said, holding out a scarf. Then he pointed to Carolina. “She going to be okay?”
Katie snorted. “Yes. It’s nearly time for her medication.”
A chuckle escaped. Peach had never had this much fun breaking into or out of a place. Doing it with friends was definitely better. She nudged Katie toward the door. “I think you better check on her. She might be hyperventilating.”
The man watched Katie waddle through the revolving door, then took a step in that direction. “Isn’t that…Kate McCormick?”
Uh, oh. The jig might really be up. Peach moved subtly, positioning herself between the man and Katie. She accepted the scarf with a dismissive snort. “No, that’s Ulla Wilde. Really. What would Kate McCormick be doing here? Y’all have been merciless to her.”
The phone in Tom’s hand cracked under pressure. “I’ve only had the material for five days, Fabrini. I’m an engineer, not a miracle worker.”
“What you are is slow. I’m paying you good money to deliver on the cause of the accident, and you run off like a little girl.” Fabrini’s voice wobbled but lost none of its edge.
“Somebody tried to kill me. Four times—”
“—Bullshit—”
“—I left, like a calm, sane man. I’m working on the problem from my laboratory here.”
“Aren’t you worried that whatever boogeyman is after you will follow?”
He squeezed the phone harder. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “I have security here. Do you want an update or not?”
“Watch your mouth.”
Tom said nothing as Fabrini waited for him to apologize.
“Well, are you going to talk?” Fabrini barked.
In ten minutes, he recapped the highlights of his findings and the information from Hawthorne without mentioning the man specifically.
“You got a screw loose yourself if you think someone in my company is embezzling from me, killing my employees. Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, who is involved?”
“I don’t know everybody. Joe Carter for sure.”
“He’s dead. Convenient.”
The corner of his lip raised in a snarl. “It isn’t convenient, for anybody. Especially Carter.” He thought of Joe’s fiancée with her bag of makeup and blind faith in her guy.
“Who else? Hawthorne?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure? He’s the only one still missing.” Fabrini roared the questions across the circuit.
Tom agreed with Jeb that nobody else was to know that Hawthorne was alive, and a few favors had to be issued to keep the circumstances of Carter and Morales’s recovery out of the papers. The report was simply that they were pulled from Lake Erie. “Gut feeling.”
“Bullshit,” Fabrini snapped and then broke into a coughing fit. “You get your ass up here.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Well, I am. You have forty-eight hours, and then your ass better be in my office.”
Hanging up, he wished he had a torch to take to the phone. The idea struck him like a sledgehammer. The suspect wouldn’t have had to completely cripple the tower; he just had to create a weak link.
He went to the inspection files. The one for the day of the accident was missing. It was frustrating but not surprising that the piece of paper was lost in the confusion. It might even be sitting on one of the field desks, waiting for somebody to enter it in the system. Tom did find the inspection for the day before, Friday, April 7, scanned in. Rico Morales missed his calling. His handwriting would have qualified him for the most prestigious medical institutions. He questioned a few words, wondering if they were in Spanish, only to decipher after turning the image to odd angles.
Then the skies opened, and good fortune smiled on him. Rico noted paint abrasion on two of the towers, the land-side towers, in the same sections the model predicted the failure started.
Adrenaline had him bouncing in his seat as he rang his cousin. On the fourth ring, she answered.
“Can’ttalknow,” she said in a breathless whisper.
“I need an acetylene torch. Don’t we have one down here?”
“Nope. In Detroit. Gotta go.” She hung up on him.
She didn’t pick his next call up. A few calls later, he was surprised to learn that Katie wasn’t at the office but had gone to Nashville with Carolina. Though Peach had kept invading his thoughts while he worked, he hadn’t wondered where she was. Now he knew. He looked at his phone, and a wicked smile took hold. “This can’t be good.”
“You solve your little problem?” Jeb asked from the doorway.
“I got it by the tail, but I think we got a situation. You better get Butch.”
It was known by everyone who resided at Elderberry that Jeb had put GPS tracking on all the cars. He said it was for safety, but it was bullshit. He did it for his own sanity—his wife had once runaway in that same car, sans GPS—and because he liked the toys.
At the kitchen table, huddled around a tablet and a bowl of chips, the men in the house watched the little blue dot racing toward home.
“How fast are they going?” Butch asked. “Katie better not be driving.”
“Well, it’s not Carolina,” Jeb said. “They’d still be in Nashville the way my wife drives.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about. And you’re totally right.” Nate ate a chip.
“It’s like watching The Fast and The Furious.” Tom popped another chip. “What do you think they were doing? There’s a reason none of them are answering the phone.”
“Havoc and hellfire,” Jeb said. “Without a doubt.”
The dot sped along straightaways, swerved around objects, and closed in on Elderberry Farm. Butch’s cell rang. “Hey, Mikey. Tell me some good news.” There were three seconds of silence. “What! Did anyone think to call me?” He slammed the phone down and ran out of the house.
They stretched out in a line along the front porch, Butch in the center, Tom and Jeb flanking him, Nate at Jeb’s shoulder. A performance engine raced in the distance.
With Butch being as popular as he was, everybody in the city of Nashville was happy to tattle on his wife. There was no question of it being about anything else, not with that little bit mad, little bit worried look on his face. “What did she do?” Tom asked.
“Tore up the News and Views office, went into labor, and delivered my boy on a picnic table, then eloped with a tall cowboy…or some variation thereof.”
“Huh,” Tom said as the blue devil emerged from the trees, a tail of dust twenty-feet high in her wake. “She’s having a slow day.”
The gate opened, and the car hit a hard ninety, fishtailing before it blasted up the drive. Katie hung out the window, which meant Peach was driving. Damn but she drove the way she did everything else—at full throttle.
They went to the edge of the gravel, meeting the car as it came to a stop. Katie climbed out first, a high-octane smile on her face. Butch stood his ground, hands fisted in his pockets. “Do I want to know what put that smile on your face?”
“Let’s call it the thrill of anticipation. Come with me. We need to…talk.” Katie brushed against her husband and let her fingertips rake over his stomach. She tossed one come-hither look over her shoulder and went through the front door of the farmhouse with Butch on her tail.
Carolina climbed out of the backseat, fussing with her hair and dress as she stood on the towering heels. Jeb moved with a lethal grace, his intent on his wife. The gravel shifted under her spikes, and she lunged into Jeb’s arms in a desperate move to stay upright. “No more black eyes. One is all I can take,” she said.
Jeb kept his arm tight around her waist. “What are you wearing?”
Carolina looked down at herself. “A dress. Don’t you remember it?” She smoothed it needlessly over the flat stomach. “Did I mess it?”
Jeb cocked his head. “I need a better look.” Tangling their fingers together, he led her toward the house. “But after, you’re going to tell me what trouble the three of you were up to.”
Tom hadn’t come off the front porch. He leaned against one of the white columns, his feet crossed at his ankles, his arms crossed over his chest, and his gaze locked on the woman he didn’t quite know what to do with. Okay, he knew in the physical sense. It was all the rest of it he hadn’t figured out.
“Right,” Nate said, opening the screen door. “Looks like the crisis has been averted. I’ll be at the firing range if anyone cares.”
Tom cared about only one thing at the moment, and she was sauntering up the sidewalk toward him. Her gaze probed to gauge his mood. Her mouth quirked up on one side, an invitation.
“I have this feeling,” he said, “that the three of you loose on the streets of Nashville is more than a police department can handle.”
She raised her chin haughtily, smiled innocently. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
He uncrossed his arms, and in three strides they were toe to toe. His body throbbed, beating to the pace of his quickening heart. With less being more, he bent and drew his lips down the line of her neck. Her breath caught. His tongue teased the strap on her shoulder and ran back up her neck. She swayed, falling against him. Then he nipped her earlobe. “Of course not.”
She quivered and leaned in for more. Sexual need painted the air between bold and demanding. He amped it up by doing the last thing he wanted: he walked away from her. Easy was boring. They both got off on the thrill of the chase. His cock was at full attention, making walking more awkward than he planned. She was supposed to chase him, but she didn’t. On the steps to the porch, he wondered if he’d miscalculated.
“Hey,” she finally yelled as he held the front door open.
He struggled to look bored as he faced her. “You want something?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
He let the door swing closed and walked back to the edge of the porch. “I’m listening?”
She swiped her tongue across her lower lip. He felt that silky glide up his shaft. Keeping his role in the game was getting harder.
“You owe me.” When he raised an eyebrow in question, she stepped onto the porch and poked him in the chest. “You were a jackass this morning. I didn’t deserve it, and I want an apology.”
He ran his fingers along that stubborn jaw. “An apology? That’s what you want?” He reached suddenly for her arm, spinning her, pinning her to the column he had leaned on. His hands captured her face, held her exactly where he wanted her as his mouth took hers demandingly. “Are you listening?”
His hands held her firmly in place, no matter how she struggled to get closer. He intended to drive her as crazy as she drove him. She dug her fingers in his hair and pulled, the bite of pain ratcheting him up. Fast and furious, they devoured each other.
Without warning, he broke the kiss and had her over his shoulder, caveman style. She didn’t squirm or argue but slapped his ass once. “Hurry.”
He carried her into the family room and planted her perfect ass on the bar. His gaze on her, he spread her legs until his shoulders fit between. Her skin was soft as satin. His fingers teased her thighs, nudging the skirt higher. Rocking on the bar, she tugged at his shoulders, not in the mood for foreplay.
He had other plans. Ignoring her demands, he pressed his face into her core. Her scent was so familiar to him, it was like…like nothing he could express. Every description that popped in his head was trite, cliché. Her scent turned him into a rutting buck that only she could satisfy. Through the silk of her panties, his teeth teased. Heat radiated through, beckoning him closer. Then the silk was gone, and his tongue feasted on the velvety spice that refined his idea of a peach. Her fingers tunneled through his hair, holding him where she wanted. He found the zipper on her dress, and then it was gone. He lifted his head, watching her bare breasts react to the cooler air. With his mouth, he attended to each. She filled his senses, all of them, to the point of overload, and still he wanted more.
He stood straight, pulling out of her grip. She fought him, not ready to let go. He stepped back. “Let your hair down.” Her breasts lifted with her arms. Such a beautiful sight. He kept his eyes on her as he took his own shoes and tossed them, shed his clothes.
The moment he was naked, he went at her again. There was no stopping this time. His mouth claimed her, his tongue granting no quarter. His hands raked at her hair until it covered both of them. He slid down her body, his mouth caressing, nipping, teasing every peak and valley until he knelt once again before her.
In all the sex Tom had had, he had never been dismantled the way she did. Even as he was determined to drive her insane with his attention, he felt that she was the one with control. Determined to break her, he lifted her leg until it rested on his shoulder. Her fingers dug into the leather edge of the bar as she arched back, letting him have his way. He blew gently on her core, swollen and heated from his attention. Her hips rocked, and her body wept for his attention. Lifting her hips to his mouth, he feasted until she fell to pieces. Wave after wave, he fed on her pleasure, driving her to the point of delirious exhaustion.
“Tom,” she wept, her voice thick.
“Up you go, monkey girl.” He lifted her as he stood, her core to his chest. With his eyes locked on her, he slowly let her slide down his body until she felt him pressing against her entrance. Locked in her gaze, he let her sink until he was in her. So deep, he felt her heart pumping against his cock. His arms locked around her back, and he began to thrust. Slow and controlled quickly deteriorated to wild and reckless. He walked with her across the room and laid her out on the card table, hooking her legs over his arms and driving even deeper.
He couldn’t breathe fast enough, and then he wasn’t breathing at all. Locked inside her, he emptied himself. His rigid body slowly relaxed until his chest fell onto hers.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. There was more there than the satisfaction of a good lay. It was in the way her eyes smiled at him and the curl to her lips. She rose up, cupping the back of his head and kissing him. It wasn’t a kiss filled with the heat of raw sex. Just the opposite. It was warm and inviting and more potent than anything he’d ever experienced.
And scared the living crap out of him.
“We, uh, better get dressed, you know, in case the others come back.” He withdrew from her silky core, feeling instantly cold. Offering his hand, he helped her from the table and then retrieved their clothes.
“Hey?”
“Hmmm?” He tossed her dress in her general direction and then shrugged into his pants.
“Look at me.”
He didn’t want to, but she waited. What a picture she was. Her long hair fell across her toned body; her dress pressed to her breasts. He couldn’t see anything, but he saw everything.
And so did she.
She crossed to him, rose to her toes, and pressed a kiss to his chin. “Should we…talk?”
He flinched but covered it by snatching her dress, pulling it over her head and into place. “Why don’t you take a shower? I need to work a little longer and then make dinner.” He dressed quickly, skipping shoes and socks, then ushered her into the courtyard. “Poppy is home from his day out. He has a surprise for you.”
He left her in the hallway, praying she didn’t follow him into his lab. Talking was the last thing he wanted to do.
Friday, April 14 six-thirty p.m.
The perfect scene out the kitchen window couldn’t be real, Peach thought as she rinsed another dinner plate. Poppy sat on a chair with a guitar across his lap, picking at a song she remembered him playing when she was a girl. Katie leaned back against a chaise lounge, her husband sitting at her feet with a guitar of his own, leaning in to watch Poppy’s fingers. Not to be left out, Taylor sat wedged next to Katie’s knees, watching Butch watch Poppy. Jeb, Nate, and Tom were still at the table where they all had eaten in twenty minutes the dinner that took Tom over two hours to prepare.
She didn’t know this kind of familial camaraderie existed. Weren’t families supposed to squabble and fight? That’s what her roommate did with her sisters. It was nice to listen to the music and to the laughter. Dinners with Anderson’s family had been very different. They were always formal, no matter the food, and never easy. No one laughed. It may have been banned. Here she was, washing dishes from a meal she helped cook, wearing a creamy cable knit sweater in Tom’s closet that hung to the middle of her thighs. She wore her favorite black yoga pants under them, leaving her feet bare. She let her hair, still wet from the post-coital shower Tom had talked her into, hang freely. It would take hours to dry if she tied it up.
She thought Tom looked sexier than ever in a plain black T-shirt and jeans. Both looked custom made for his broad body and hinted at her favorite places. She sensed a change in him. It was more than whatever prompted the tantrum this morning. Since the very memorable make-up sex, he was acting nervous around her. He jumped when she put her hands on his hips while he was cooking. He still kissed her; he hugged her when she asked. But despite his body being against hers, he felt a world away. The screen door slammed, and she jumped.
Carolina came in with the last of the dishes. “Nice evening,” she said, looking over Peach’s shoulder. “He looks happy.”
Peach squinted, trying to see if Tom did look happy. She almost made a comment about the after effects of sex when she realized Carolina was talking about Poppy. “He is happy. He’s making friends. A Widow Teasdale. They went ‘antiquing’ today. He bought me a peach.”
Carolina wiggled her eyebrows when Peach looked over her shoulder. “She’s a sweet lady. She has a reputation as a cougar.”
“A cougar?”
Carolina frowned. “Isn’t that the word for a woman who goes after a younger man?”
Peach turned green. “Poppy is the younger man? Oh God. You think she’s trying to seduce him?” She set cookies on a plate and poured cups of coffee. “I can’t think about things like that.” She carried dessert to the table where Tom sat. “What did you guys do today?”
“We talked with Hawthorne.” Tom took his time retelling Hawthorne’s story to the captive audience.
“Then there is no doubt?” Poppy asked as he rose to his feet. “My son was murdered.”
Peach ran to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She glared at Tom, shooting daggers with her gaze. Instantly, emotion choked her. Tom was there with her, his arm around her shoulder, around Poppy.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way. My mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
“Sugar does not make a pill easier to swallow. No. It is better to know. Him dying at the hand of God was one thing. At the hand of man, I…I need some time.” Poppy turned to Tom’s rooms.
Peach held tightly. “Stay out here with us, Poppy. I will call the police again tomorrow. I’ll take care of Tío, and we will figure out what to do next.”
“That is what I am afraid of.” Poppy patted her hair. “Tom, thank you for a wonderful meal. Tomorrow, I will make a favorite dish from my grandmother.”
All eyes watched Poppy walk strongly and confidently across the white stones to the front door to Tom’s wing.
“I admire your grandfather,” Jeb said. Everyone agreed, and the sentiment filled Peach’s heart until it threatened to drown her. She knew Poppy was great, and it meant a lot that these people they had known for a few days recognized it.
It was a good way to end a horrible event.
And then it was real. So real it choked her. “It’s over. We can go back.” Her voice was strained as she tried to tame her feelings. Keep it impersonal. Report out. “Carter vandalized the crane. I guess there is something sweet in the fact that the bastard was killed by his own hand.” Tom laced his fingers through hers, and she squeezed them, clinging when she never clung.