Chapter Two
Saturday, April 8 seven twenty p.m.
Tom took his time changing from the shirt sweaty from the tight travel quarters to a crisp button down topped with a tweed coat. Outside the hotel, he dodged the cold raindrops and hustled to the restaurant. Between the dim light outside and the low-level lighting in the restaurant, it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkened interior.
“Good evening. Can I help you?” a soft voice offered.
He shook his head like a dog and then focused on the feminine shape. Shoulders were bare to the swell of her breasts. Arms were exposed except for a length of gold around her wrist. Legs were equally nude, thigh to ankle, and also finished in a wink of gold.
He appreciated her style, but this was business, not pleasure. “I’m meeting someone. Frank Fabrini.”
The intriguing little smile on the hostess’s face fell for a moment before recovering quickly. “He is in the bar. This way, please.”
He followed Micro-skirt into the long bar, which was busy on the Saturday night. There sat the man, alone at a window table, away from the hustle of the crowd. The years showed in the lines on his face and the notches on his belt. Money may no longer be an object, but he still dressed like a contractor. The button-down plaid shirt laid tight across the broad chest and belly. Sleeves were rolled to his elbows, displaying forearms still thick and sinewy with muscle.
“I see him. Thanks.” Tom released the hostess and worked his way through the cramped aisle. He danced with a blonde in a white blouse until they finally slid past each other in the narrow opening. A waitress with a full tray wove through the crowd, directly in his path. He made room by stepping close to two blondes at the bar sipping martinis. At the askance glare, he used levity to dispel the awkward moment. “British Martini Authority. I do hope those are shaken, not stirred. I’m Riley. Thomas Riley. And you?”
“Tiffany,” one said.
The other pulled the garnish from her drink and toyed with it. “You can call me Mz. Behaving.”
He laughed out loud and then signaled the bartender. “The next round is on me.” The waitress passed, and he stepped out again. “Tiffany. Mz…”
Suddenly, harsh voices soiled the jovial space. A man in a dress shirt and tie muscled a woman with raven hair out of a chair at the bar. “I run a clean place, lady. Take your tricks out of here before I call the cops.” The man held the woman firmly by the elbow.
“You moron. I wasn’t propositioning him.” The woman tossed her head toward the overly white blob of a man parked on the next stool.
The manager frowned at the woman, who looked too expensive to have any real interest in a man like her trick. “Yeah. Right. You’re out of here,” he said and pulled the woman toward the door.
Tom stepped close to the Martinis again to let the drama go by. The woman cursed in a fluent rant, both eloquent and crude. He had seen that set of a jaw too many times on his red-headed cousin’s face and knew from experience what came next. He chuckled, hoping the guy knew how to protect himself.
Finally reaching the table at the end of the bar, Tom saw what dim light had hidden. Fabrini’s rich olive complexion was pasty and dull. His eyes, red and swollen, watched unseeingly as the ice spun in the glass he swirled.
“You’re late.” The proud chin lifted, and the eyes refocused. “A doctor. I suppose you think you’re something.”
“I’ve always been something, Mr. Fabrini. Now I’ve got the papers to prove it.”
He chuckled soundlessly. “I never did get your sense of humor.” He extended a beefy hand and, when Tom took it, held on for a long minute. “I appreciate you coming.”
The old man had never run deep in appreciation. Tom rolled with the grousing, but seeing the exposed soft underbelly put him on shaky ground. “I was surprised you called me.”
“I need someone I can trust. OSHA is going to have a gaggle of goddamn experts crawling around my site. I need someone who can tell the shit from the shinola. I need to know the hows and the whys. I ran into your father a few months back, and he said that’s what you do.”
The waitress came. With two fingers, Fabrini ordered another drink. Tom added a single malt scotch to chase the chill away and settled into the faux leather chair. “We’re adding a division in forensic engineering to the firm.”
“Am I your first client?”
“Yes. Well, no. Technically, Kate was our first client.”
An affectionate light shined briefly in those eyes. “Your hot-tempered cousin. Carbon copy of her father. What happened?”
“She was accused of murder. Her boyfriend’s—now husband’s—ex-wife.”
Fabrini whistled between his teeth. “Did she do it?”
“No, she didn’t do it.” Outrage raised his voice. “She was set up, and I helped prove it. The charges were dropped.” He took a breath and calmed himself. “I read the file you had emailed over. What more can you tell me?”
Fabrini drained his glass and then swirled the ice. “Ten this morning. The tower crane fell into the steel frame, putting two sections into the water. Twelve men went into Lake Erie. Nine were pulled out by the Coast Guard, seven alive. Another three were injured on land. The man who knows the most about what happened is somewhere in that bitch of a lake. Morales, the operator, would be the only man to know what was going on with that crane.”
“No word on Hawthorne?”
He shook his head. “I called his wife. The missus is over there now.” The waitress delivered the drinks, and Fabrini downed better than half of it. He dug in his pocket and tossed a set of keys and a folded paper on the table. “Keys and security codes for the site. I left a truck for you to use. The parking spot number is there, too. Find out what happened.” He stood then, a beefy hand planted on the table top to steady himself.
“I’ll start first thing in the morning. Frank? You need a ride home?” he asked as the big man swayed on his feet.
“Nah. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll take a cab. Call me tomorrow.”
“It will take some time.”
“Call me tomorrow.” He gave the order, tossed a couple big bills on the table, and slowly made his way out of the crowded room.
Tom sipped the scotch and, letting his head fall back, looked out the window. For a moment, he thought a pair of eyes looked back. He blinked, leaned forward, and the only eyes he saw were his own reflected back. He swung around into Fabrini’s chair, putting his back to the wall and facing the crowd. He rubbed the back of his neck, but the hair stayed on end, and in that moment, he had the feeling he was getting into more than he bargained for. Before he finished the thought, the Martini sisters filled the empty seats.
Peach stood in the shadows, watching through the window with distaste as Fabrini’s boy charmed the panties off the pair of blondes. Except he must not have because the pair looked disappointed when he paid the bill and left the restaurant alone. Not one to be caught doing surveillance, she ducked into the alcove of the adjacent building and acted like a woman waiting for her ride. The dark-haired man that sat with Fabrini had been in the restaurant for less than an hour and hadn’t eaten dinner. Now, his attention was focused straight ahead as he hurried to the nearby hotel. She looked at her phone. Eight at night and the day that lasted forever was nearly over. She retrieved the Beast from a parking lot, shivering so hard it was difficult to work the key. The sky was dark, without stars or moon, as she headed east. The open highway quickly warmed the engine. As she leaned over the steering wheel, the heat blasted away, but it didn’t warm her. She put one hand over the vent, heating it until her bones began to ache before trading it for the other. During the forty-five minute drive home, her mind replayed the day over and over. Each image was salt rubbed into an open wound.
Two hours earlier, she had raced to the restaurant to hear firsthand what Frank Fabrini had to say to this golden boy. One look at the fancy lettering on the side of the fancy building told her she would be too conspicuous in her jeans and sweater. The complex across the square boasted a five-star hotel and a mall. She binge shopped, pressing the limit on her credit card and coming out dressed to impress. In hindsight, maybe she had leaned in too close as Fabrini talked on the phone. Had her breast brushed against the lump of dough sitting next to her? The manager certainly thought so. A low roll of masculine laughter had her jerking her head up. In front of her was a man about her age with dark hair and eyes, broad shoulders, and a smirk she just wanted to reach out and slap off his handsome face. But she never got the chance. The manager latched onto her arm pulled with all his weight, determined to get her out the door. The words that flowed from her mouth cursed the man himself, his family, his heirs, even his dog. She had to stay in that bar. That was the only way find out what that bastard was up to. The door in front of her opened, and she was dumped out into the dark, cold, wet night.
So she stood in the rain, watching a conversation she couldn’t hear between the bellowing Frank Fabrini and the mysterious dark-haired man. It was stupid, useless, but she couldn’t make herself leave.
All afternoon she had stood watch. While emergency crews searched the frigid water for her uncle and two others, Fabrini climbed out of his fancy car, dressed in the jeans and plaid shirt they all wore like a uniform, but this one wore power as surely as he wore a Rolex that cost more than a month’s rent on her old apartment. He had stood on the edge of that nightmare as though he were king of the world and bellowed with a snarl on his face. “Get me Riley’s boy. Now.” Riley’s boy. The dark-haired, smirking man.
She had sat outside the trailer Fabrini occupied while the emergency crews worked. Bits and pieces were shouted though the thin walls. The king wanted to know who the fuck was responsible. No way this shit would break the company he built with his blood, sweat, and tears. He wanted to know what that goddamn crane operator had done to bring the tower down.
The wind and the rain had chilled Peach to the bones. Watching her uncle fall left her numb. Hearing the son of a bitch trying to make her uncle out to be the villain?
That turned her to ice.
She didn’t have much family, and not everyone was thrilled with her being part of it. But Rico Morales was. He had been her partner in crime for some of her best memories. It had been years since they were last together. Her work. His work. Stupid excuses for not making the time.
And there was her grandfather. Both of his sons left home young—one for the military, one for the trades. His wife, her grandmother, died shortly after, leaving him alone until he was saddled with a high-strung, cocky, smart-ass granddaughter…who adored him. And still did. They spoke often, nearly daily, but it had been a year since she’d been home. Again, she didn’t remember why. Oh yeah, Anderson. She closed her eyes to hide from the humiliation of bad choices. The last two weeks had been the best she’d had in years. Happiness was living with her Poppy and uncle. She knew they felt the same.
So she sat and waited while others worked. The big trailer cut the wind, but she shivered again, this time from the cold brewing within. Above, the door opened, and the king’s voice bellowed. “Get this site cleared and lock it down. No one in or out without my okay, and that includes OSHA.” He walked down the metal steps, each one creaking under his weight, and then his underlings. The metal stairs screened everything but their legs from her view.
“I’ll take care of it, Frank. We’ll get to the bottom of it ourselves. Fuck OSHA.”
“Gimme the keys to a truck.” The king stopped, letting the underling step in close. She heard the jingle of keys, and then he was on the move again. “I’m meeting him at The Steakhouse. Call me if anything changes.”
The Beast waited patiently in the employee parking area, blending in with the random assembly of trucks and cars. She crossed the soil pounded flat by boots and tires and treads with trepidation. “I’m not leaving you, Rico. I’m making sure they treat you right.” As she rushed into the parking lot, she felt like she was abandoning him. Leaving him to the merciless water without anyone to stand for him. “I’ll be back. You know I will.”
Too quickly, she parked Beast in its place outside the neat little house she grew up in. She rested her head on the steering wheel and spoke to her uncle. “I am not leaving you, Rico. I will be back.” The rain had stopped, but she was still frigid, more from the task ahead than from temperature. There were going to be no words to soothe her grandfather.
On a fortifying breath, she dropped out of the truck and made that long walk across the driveway and into the house. “Poppy?”
“We are in the living room, Peach,” Mrs. Hernandez called back. Peach had called the long-time friend and neighbor after it was clear that Rico wasn’t coming home that night. Nearly ten hours later, the neighbor was still there.
After setting her bag on the kitchen table, she silently entered the small living room. Everything was the same. The faded couch in front of the television, the mud-brown recliner that was so broken in that it was one bolt away from being broken down, the TV tray neatly set to one side. It was all so normal, it was obscenely wrong.
Her uncle was gone. Downed in frigid waters of a lake that had been jonesing for a fix. He was missing, and there was nothing normal about that. She wanted to wage a war on the neat little room until it was as ripped apart and upside down as she felt.
Mrs. Hernandez stood. “He ate a little soup and a bit of bread. Would you like me to come back in the morning?”
“Please. I don’t want him to be alone, and I’ll…I’ll have to go out.”
Mrs. Hernandez nodded. She started to leave, stopping to put a comforting hand on Peach’s arm for a moment.
Then they were alone. “Poppy?” Her grandfather sat in that battered chair, his hazy eyes fixed somewhere on the forever in front of him. “Poppy?”
“Have they found my son?”
“No, Poppy. Not yet. They will look again in the morning. I thought I would borrow Mr. Reynolds’s Jet Ski and search the coast. Maybe he got out and…drifted. I’ll be able to see him from the lake.” She wasn’t naïve enough to think she alone could do something the Coast Guard couldn’t, but she could not sit in the little room, suffocating with inactivity.
Pedro Morales looked down at the rosary draped over his hands. His thick fingers, still calloused from a lifetime of work, worried a string of Hail Mary’s. “They are going to find my son. I am going to pray, and they are going to bring him home to me.” Leaning heavily on the arm of the chair, he slowly rose to his feet and shuffled to his bedroom.
Her legs collapsed, and she was startled when the couch caught her. She rubbed her face, wishing she had her grandfather’s faith. The looking glass of reality she viewed life through left her filled with grief and devoid of hope. It wasn’t as though she wouldn’t have welcomed a miracle. It was that—Fact 1: her uncle fell from hundreds of feet in the air. Fact 2: the water surface would have been as welcoming as a concrete runway. Fact 3: the water temperature was no better than thirty-five degrees. Fact 4: the Coast Guard had spent over seven hours combing the water. Fact 5: it was only going to get colder.
She clutched her stomach and ran from the living room.
She didn’t make it to the bathroom in time.