“I’d weep,” said Danielle, “except for the fact that he’s filthy rich.”
“Not quite as rich as you might think,” I said.
“We must define these things differently.”
“I don’t think you and I do, but I think he does. I think despite all the money, he’s been writing checks on a lifestyle he can’t sustain. I suspect once his wife has him around the house for a year or two, she may well reevaluate the balance of power.”
“Meaning?”
“I think the phrase is, take him to the cleaners.”
Danielle nodded but said nothing more on the subject. There probably wasn’t a lot more to say. We sat watching the lights take over on the carpet of paradise that lay before us. I thought about getting some dinner but made no move to leave my perch. I had always been at my happiest laying back on a lounger with Danielle, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway on Singer Island. I had to admit that I was feeling unusually happy now, despite everything the past week had thrown up. I thought about the common element in that feeling and realized that it wasn’t the place or the building. It was the person.
“Back to work tomorrow,” Danielle said.
“I think it’ll be good for you,” I said.
“I agree. I feel like I’ve been coasting a little bit, doing the job but not giving it my absolute all.”
“You work pretty hard.”
“I’m not talking about the hours. They come with the job. I’m talking about learning and being the best cop I can be, the best team player. I’m talking about getting where I want to go.”
“Where do you want to go? Tallahassee?”
She smiled, seemingly to herself.
“No. I don’t mean climb the totem pole. I’ve realized what I want to do is help people, not become a politician. I don’t want to go to headquarters and play that game. I want to excel at what I do so when my next post comes up, I get a say in where it is.”
“And where would you like it to be? Not Miami?”
She turned and looked at me. “I love you for everything, but I especially love you for putting me first and moving down here. But I can see you’re at a loose end. You’re like a bear cub who’s lost his mama. You’ve got the name, but that’s the only Miami thing about you. You don’t belong here.”
“Where do I belong?”
“You belong in your office in West Palm. You belong with Ron and Lizzy. You belong at Longboard’s.” She shook her head. “You belong on Singer Island.”
“But I want to belong with you.”
“You do. Above all else, you belong with me. Because we both belong there. This isn’t home. I tried to tell myself wherever you are is home, and to be honest, if it has to be this way, we’ll make it work. But this past week has helped me clarify what’s important. And what’s important is you, and me, and the roots we put down. And our roots won’t grow here. They’re already planted on Singer Island.”
“We just rented the place out.”
“I know. We won’t get there tomorrow. I have to do my time here. I’m just saying, let’s face the fact that this is temporary, not transitory. We’re not passing through, we live here. Just not forever. Forever is in a little rancher on the island. But if we acknowledge that, then I feel somehow that we can enjoy the now more. Because if I learned anything this week, it’s that there is nothing more important than the now.” She took a long breath, like she’d just given the Gettysburg Address. “What do you think?”
“I think you should work hard. Starting tomorrow.”
“And what will you do?”
“I have a very important job.”
“A new case?”
“A new bar.”
“What bar?”
“I don’t know. I need to find one.”
“Did you not hear anything I said? Are you ditching Longboard Kelly’s?”
“Never. I agree with you. It’s home. I’m talking about an in-between kind of place. Somewhere just for now. Somewhere I can sound my barbaric yawp.”
“I thought you were done with Whitman.”
“I am now.”
“And are you planning on doing this yawp all by your lonesome?”
“No. There’ll be two of us.”
She smiled the half smile, the one that’s all that and more. “Who?”
“Me and Mrs. Jones.”
Miami Jones will back on the Palm Beaches and on the case with Ron and the gang in Big Thaw, coming late 2020!
If You Enjoyed This Book
One of the most powerful things a reader can do is recommend a writer’s work to a friend. So if you have friends you think will enjoy the capers of Miami Jones and his buddies, please tell them.
Your honest reviews help other readers discover Miami and his friends, so if you enjoyed this book and would like to spread the word, just take one minute to leave a short review. I’d be eternally grateful, and I hope new readers will be too.
Leave a review by clicking here
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Kate Schomaker for your expert eye and all your guidance.
And thanks to my reader contest winner, Lily Barkin, for the use of your name!
And to my reader crew, it’s nothing without you.
All errors and omissions are mine, including but not limited to floating down the Salt River on an inner tube without sunscreen. There’s only word for that. Pink.
Also by AJ Stewart
Miami Jones series
Stiff Arm Steal
The prize possession of a local media personality has been stolen. But this thief isn’t just taking possessions, he stealing glory days.
Offside Trap
A star student-athlete overdoses on a college campus. Miami Jones lived in that world years ago, so can he get to the bottom of a mystery no one wants solved?
High Lie
When one of Miami’s friends fishes a young boy from the ocean, Miami finds himself in the world of Florida gambling where the players play for keeps.
Dead Fast
Nobody vacations like Miami Jones. He and Danielle are bored on a Jamaican beach when they go looking for action. They find more than they bargained for when they happen upon an up-and-coming sprinter getting beaten up in an alley.
Crash Tack
The prequel to the series. Miami and his mentor Lenny investigate a death during an ocean sailing race where their friend Ron is the prime suspect.
Deep Rough
When the PGA comes to town someone is sabotaging the event. Miami thinks golf is s good walk ruined but he finds himself battling crazy caddies and angry alligators to find the saboteur-turned-murderer.
King Tide
Trapped in a five-star hotel during a hurricane, a body is discovered. Lucky Miami Jones is one of those trapped, but so is his part-time nemesis, a local PD detective. Can they work together before someone else dies?
No Right Turn
A classic car collection has vanished in the middle of the night. Miami enters the high stakes world of NASCAR to discover a thief and finds a world where folks are as good as their word and no one can be trusted.
Cruise Control
Floating around on a boat with 2,000 other people is not Miami’s idea of a good time, but when he is hired on a delicate case he finds himself cruising the Caribbean seas trying to solve a high-stakes caper.
Red Shirt
Miami gets a call from his past and before he knows it he’s in New England on the trail of a fraudster and confronting his old life, and all the reasons he left it behind.
Half Court Press
Miami Jones is enjoying a spring break when a case lands on his desk from a most unexpected quarter: A local Palm Beach detective wants him to investigate threats against a star basketball athlete who has just been selected #1 in the draft.
Past The Post
Miami Jones is enjoying a day out at the races when a jockey collapses. It looks innocent enough until he discovers this man had a past, and t
hat past might just have caught up with him in the final straight.
Three Strikes *
The prequel. Miami Jones is at college, pitching for the University of Miami in the College World Series when he meets a mysterious girl with ties to a local air force base where secrets are being sold.
John Flynn series
The Compound *
An elite unit is hunting a deadly extremist group in Somalia, Africa. When the unit learns that the extremists have kidnapped children from a local village, they must decide if young lives are more valuable than the lives the terrorists will continue to take.
The Final Tour
Sent to Iraq during the US drawdown on what appears to be a routine investigation, Jacques Fontaine and his team find themselves under attack from insurgents, the military and unseen forces with widespread political connections on what might be their final tour.
Burned Bridges
John Flynn never had a normal life. The son of a Marine, a childhood in Europe, military service in war zones across the world. But when he met Beth he dared to think that the normal life he longed for could be his. He was wrong.
One for One
When John Flynn goes to Eastern Europe to look up an old military buddy he finds a man under threat. And the threats are designed to draw Flynn out into the open. They should have left him alone.
The Rotten State
Flynn and Gorski find themselves in Denmark, where a community mourns a dead girl. But expectation is that worse is to come, unless Flynn can unmask secrets decades in the making.
Lenny & Lucas series
Temple of Gold
Lenny Cox joined the Marines to protect the innocent. The adventure was a bonus. So lying in the humid Southeast Asian jungle watching over a CIA supply drop is his idea of a good day out. That’s until he sees the recipient of the drop is an ex-Khmer Rouge unit, four years after the killing fields.
Danielle Castle novella
Little Packages
Special Agent Danielle Castle is neck deep in a case involving Russian gangsters gaming the South Florida slots when she learns about a stolen shipment of aid that was destined for the hurricane-ravaged Bahamas.
* The Compound and Three Strikes are only available to members of AJ Stewart’s readers’ crew. Visit ajstewartbooks.com/reader to join.
About the Author
A.J. Stewart is the USA Today bestselling author of the Miami Jones series and the John Flynn thriller series.
He has lived and worked in Australia, Japan, UK, Norway, and South Africa, as well as San Francisco, Connecticut and of course Florida. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his two favorite people, his wife and son.
AJ is working on a screenplay that he never plans to produce, but it gives him something to talk about at parties in LA.
You can find AJ online at
www.ajstewartbooks.com
Jacaranda Drive Publishing
Los Angeles, California
www.jacarandadrive.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Streetlight Graphics
ISBN-13: 978-1-945741-27-2
Copyright © 2020 by Jacaranda Drive
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
If You Enjoyed This Book
Acknowledgments
Also by AJ Stewart
About the Author
The Ninth Inning Page 24
