Girls of Summer

by C. E. Hilbert

  Both agents stood and closed the gap to him.

  Taylor ran his hand down the length of his neck, kneading the connection at his shoulder. “Gentlemen, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I was hoping Miss Dixon would be up to talking with you tonight. I’m afraid she’s been in and out since the doctor told us she was stable. She’s coherent now, but cranky.” His lips lifted into a twist of a smile. “Which, all things considered, is a good sign, since cranky is her normal disposition.”

  Cade took a step closer but felt the weight of his partner’s hand on his shoulder.

  “We only need about five minutes.” Dylan said. “The local CSI team has finished collecting evidence at the garage. However, initial discovery points to a bomb being planted in Ms. Dixon’s car. The sheriff’s forensic team took her car and will be evaluating it in their lab. We won’t know for sure all the details for a few more days, but unfortunately, the evidence points to an attempt on her life. Only hers.

  “The team thinks the explosion was designed so the structural damage in the parking garage was limited and no other car caught fire. If the preliminary forensics are confirmed, this type of work is extremely specialized and rarely used. Ms. Dixon should be worried. Someone is trying to send her a very loud message. We’re hoping she might have an inkling of who would want to take her life.

  “Although the local sheriff’s office will be lead on the case, he has requested that we aid in the investigation. He was aware of our earlier conversation, and so he asked if we could follow up with your client.”

  A crease formed at the center of Taylor’s forehead, deepening his frown as he listened to Dylan. The underlying implications were clear to both Cade and Dylan, but could this corporate attorney fully understand what potential danger his client was facing?

  Silence hung between the three men.

  Other than the frown, which could have easily been his resting face, nothing beyond tense exhaustion exuded from the corporate lawyer. He simply nodded and turned toward Charlotte’s room.

  7

  Charlotte stared through the tiny crack between the drapes into the clear night. She longed to be home, to be in her own bed with its fluffy down comforter and mound of pillows. She didn’t care that the home she longed for was now in South Carolina rather than New York. Based on the day’s events, she was grateful for the distance from the city. The destruction possible in New York was far more deadly.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she acknowledged she needed to make a new plan. And, she needed the help of the best planner she knew.

  She needed Remy.

  Even though she couldn’t fully wrap her mind around the disaster boiling around her ready to explode, or rather, explode again, he would be able to help her understand the severity of the situation.

  Her mother’s choices had created enough landmines to span the infield of Yankee Stadium, but Charlotte didn’t have a manager or even a third base coach to give her signals on where to run.

  The door creaked snapping her attention from tomorrow’s worries back to today.

  Mac’s wide frame filled the space. Ignoring the tug at her heart, she forced her face to reflect what she hoped was a blank canvas.

  “The FBI agents wanted to talk with you. Are you up to it?” he asked.

  No. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope,” Special Agent Cade Murphy shoved Mac out of his way.

  His partner followed behind him. Special Agent O’Neal’s cheeks were flushed and his gaze beckoned to her with kindness; the complete opposite to his chisel-featured partner. O’Neal shuffled toward the end of her bed and gave her a slight nod. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like I slammed my head against a concrete wall. How should I feel, Agent O’Neal?”

  Mac moved to her right side and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. The subtle heat emanating from his touch was impossible to ignore. She was too tired to fight the soothing comfort of his warmth to her spirit. “Charlotte, the agents need to do their jobs. Let them ask their questions. Try to limit your comments to the facts. That should help their investigation. Isn’t that correct, gentlemen?”

  The two agents simultaneously nodded.

  “Well, this shouldn’t take long. I don’t know or remember anything.”

  “Ms. Dixon, sometimes the littlest detail—a detail we think is totally irrelevant—is the key to breaking a case,” O’Neal said. He drew a tiny leather notebook from his jacket pocket. “Why don’t you start with your day? We saw you early yesterday morning. What did you do after we left?”

  Charlotte’s throat felt like worn sandpaper, and she reached for the cup on the tray. She slurped the remaining contents through the bendy straw. With a shaking hand, she lifted the plastic pitcher to refill the cup.

  From his relaxed position leaning against the corner, Murphy’s narrowed gaze honed in on her.

  “Thirsty?” she asked, tilting the cup in his direction.

  Folding his arms, he shook his head, but remained silent.

  “The day was pretty normal,” she said. “As you know, after you left, I met Mr. Taylor for a stand-up, and then we had a scouting review on a couple pitchers we are considering coming out of Puerto Rico. I had lunch plans with a friend and had to leave the scouting meeting early. I went to my car, clicked the key fob, and then everything went black.”

  “Did you talk to anyone outside the meetings or on the way to the garage?” O’Neal asked.

  Charlotte nodded. “On my way out I confirmed with Bridget that she would make an appointment for us to meet again, since you requested it. And I spoke to Mr. Croix, our chief groundskeeper, as I was heading to my car.”

  Murphy stepped out of the shadow. “Did you hit the button on your key fob before or after you talked to Mr. Croix?”

  She closed her eyes trying to recall the moments before the explosion. “I think”—she opened her eyes and glanced from Murphy to O’Neal—“I think I did it while I was talking to Mr. Croix. I was rushing because I was late, but I wanted to be sure to mention something to him about the new dugouts. He treats the grounds as if they’re his backyard, and the ballpark sparkles under his care. I wanted to make sure I thanked him. Maybe I paused for a second? I don’t know. But I always push the button before I get to the car. I must have pushed it early…right?” She glanced up at Mac, uneasily grateful his comforting hand was resting on her shoulder.

  “I don’t know, Charlie.” He shrugged. “I heard the explosion, slammed through the door, and saw you on the ground. Mr. Croix might know. Is the timing of when she pressed her key fob important for the technicians?” He looked at Murphy.

  “Whether the explosion happened before or after could be the difference between whether someone wanted to scare you, hurt you, or kill you.”

  8

  Cade’s thoughts pinged off the walls of his mind as he stared out the passenger side window. The mysteries of the last twenty-four hours were piling on top of each other, and he was having trouble sorting the pieces of dirty laundry.

  He glanced at the dashboard clock as they merged onto U.S. 17N back to Charleston. Nearly twenty hours earlier he and O’Neal had been squatting in the marshes and dense woods bordering the Dixon and Reynard properties waiting for the best friends to meet at their “little fish spot”. Up to his knees in pluff mud and putrid muck, he had been certain he was only hours away from the break he’d been anticipating for two years. Now, he and Dylan were headed back to the field office to file paperwork chronicling the day’s activities; another futile day in a string of fruitless efforts to crush the Bratva.

  Charlotte Dixon was the key.

  He knew in his bones she would unlock the steel door he’d been pounding since he’d lost his brother. He didn’t know whether she was an unwitting accomplice or entrenched as deeply as the generations that had come before her, but she was his best entry into crippling the organization that destroyed his life. He’d been an agent for nearly ten years, applying to the academy while he was
still in law school at Ohio State. And over the last decade, his life had been consumed with seeking justice. Justice for the life he hadn’t been able to live.

  The quiet road clicked by as he tried to determine the next avenue to continue with the case.

  O’Neal had risked his reputation and a cushy promotion to follow Cade’s hunch from the elite of the Upper East Side to the Low country, and Cade was determined not to let his partner down.

  “Hey, Murph,” Dylan said, interrupting Cade’s fruitless thoughts. “You want to share before you put creases in that face of yours?”

  Cade twisted to look at his partner and was once again grateful for his longtime mentor. Dylan was only five years Cade’s senior in age, but had years on him as an agent and seemed to have the wisdom of a ninety-year-old. They’d been in sync from the first moment Cade was assigned to O’Neal. Externally they appeared to be divergent, but both had an innate sense of justice.

  “None of it makes sense.”

  “What? The uptown princess-slash-art-gallery-owner who now runs a baseball team in South Carolina, whom you also believe is living a double life as a money laundering, third generation, Russian Yuri whose car happened to explode today? I don’t know why you would think that doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know it’s a stretch. Charlotte Dixon’s record is as clean as snow. Maybe she’s not a sleeper agent. But her mother’s…Stasi’s is like a patchwork quilt sewn together with illegal gambling, the no-fly list, enough husbands to field a basketball team, lost years, and more shady friends than the worst defense attorneys. And of course we can’t forget the grandmother.”

  Dylan changed lanes. “Who could forget the grandmother?”

  “Alla.” Cade shook his head. “Alloochka ‘Alla’ Antonov Bickford. Immigrated during the height of the cold war. No one would have suspected the beautiful, sweet, Russian, former ballerina with her precious accent and her excellent table manners of being anything other than the loving housewife, mother, and grandmother she professes to be.”

  “All that time, you really think she was a sleeper, spying on her husband and his company’s advances, including contracts to feed soldiers?”

  “Who would have ever thought that food stuffs for domestic military bases could be the back drop for this kind of a case?”

  “Grandma Bickford wasn’t even on the radar of the CIA or NSA until her daughter got mixed up with Markov and Little Odessa.”

  “I have a hard time believing Alla was a spy.” Cade yanked the grandmother’s photo from the bulky file on his lap. Her high cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut glass, but it was her deep-set eyes that drew him in and made him want to tell her all of his troubles. “She looks like the sweetest of grandmas. As if she wants to make a batch of pierogis and give you a glass of milk.”

  “Naw, Murph. That’s your Ukrainian grandma in Cleveland. I don’t think old Alla spent a single day in the kitchen after she married good old Cyril. He’s old school Park Avenue money. Her fresh-off-the-boat routine played perfectly to his blueblood arrogance. I’m sure the old guy never suspected his devoted wife was doing anything other than taking tea at the Russian Tea Room.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t.” Murphy splayed a few of the dozens of photos he’d accumulated of Alla and her daughter, Stasi. They were sharply stunning women. Somewhere in her late eighties, Alla was a remarkable beauty with her shock of white hair coifed and twisted at her nape. He ran a finger across the lone photo of all three generations. The women shared the same high cheekbones and deep-set eyes shouting their heritage, but that was where the similarity seemed to end. From his interviews with her, Stasi was unlike her coolly distant daughter. Stasi used her beauty as a weapon to lure men, twisting them to her will until they were defenseless to her demands and needs. He understood Stasi. She was predictable, following the patterns of her social class, which allowed for easy intelligence gathering without raising suspicion.

  But not her daughter. Charlotte was an enigma to him. She was as stunning as both generations before her—however the familial resemblance stopped at the high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. She stood only an inch shy of six feet and was lithe from years of disciplined running. She rarely wore clothing not custom designed or from a couture showroom. Her education was top notch and despite his poking the previous morning, she was an outstanding young businesswoman who had a track record of success. Romance was the one area she seemed the least like her mother, providing few romantic entanglements that could be used as leverage.

  Flipping pages in the thick file, he scanned summaries he could recite nearly verbatim. Charlotte Lucya Dixon—born to Anastasia “Stasi” Bickford and Bentley Dixon. Raised in South Carolina until the age of six when she was abruptly swept away to New York to live with her mother and maternal grandparents. She attended a litany of boarding schools—hauled back to NYC after each of her mother’s tumultuous relationships ended. Her choice of university spoke silent volumes. Stanford was nearly three-thousand miles from her mother’s home and influence. Beyond her education and the start of her gallery, the trail of Charlotte Dixon was nearly silent—the opposite of her mother.

  The vibration in his pocket drew Cade’s focus. On the other end of the call, his superior clipped through her standard litany of update questions, before pausing. Cade sucked in a deep breath.

  “Murphy,” Senior Special Agent Cavanaugh’s voice, tinged with her Bostonian heritage and a near constant state of disappointment in her subordinates, echoed through his ears. “I realize this is a passion project for you, but the U.S. government doesn’t have ocean deep pockets. You and O’Neal have one month. Not a single day beyond. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I believe we’re close.”

  “So you said when I allowed momentary insanity to inspire my signature on your temporary assignment papers.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in this case.” Cade swallowed against the rising ball of anger scorching his throat.

  “Don’t kiss up, Murph. It doesn’t suit you. I can hear the vomit you are choking back by trying to be solicitous. Just do your job and make us both look stellar.”

  The line clicked dead as Cade opened his mouth to respond. “Nice to chat with you too, Agent Cavanaugh.”

  “She actually said ‘good bye’ to you?” Dylan questioned.

  Cade threw his phone on the dashboard. “What do you think?”

  His partner chuckled, rumbling in his belly. “She’s a character.”

  “That’s one way to describe her.”

  Shutting down the conversation, he bent his head and stared at the scenery sweeping past his window. He was close. He could nearly touch the answer. But, he only had four weeks. Special Agent Surly was about to be introduced to one Charlotte Dixon. She would see how the Federal government played hard ball.

  9

  Dragging a soft down pillow over the back of her head, Charlotte tried to drown the bright sounds of praise and worship music beating against her brain. The effort was as effective as using tissue paper to stop an avalanche. She rolled to her back, pulling the pillow with her. Lifting her phone from the charging pad on her nightstand, she raised it just above her face and swiped her finger across the screen, revealing the date and time: December 31, 6:47 AM.

  Each day she was able to mark off her imaginary calendar moved her one step closer to completing the terms of her father’s will and placing the necessary distance between herself and her new housemate—her half-sister, Georgiana. She grabbed the pillow, suctioned it to her face and screamed with all the power in her lungs. Pain reverberated from the stabbing headache—partial residue from crashing head-first into a cement pylon mixed with frustration laced with fear for her family due to her current living conditions. She couldn’t wait to get away from South Carolina and back to her normal life. Back to New York.

  New York.

  Her heart melted at the thought of shopping on Fifth Avenue, the beauty of Rockefeller Center at Christmas, her airy loft in So
Ho and her art gallery—a curated mix of canvas and artisan pieces. But they, along with good food and civilization, were all out of her reach for three-hundred and twenty four more days. If she survived.

  “The difference is whether someone wanted to scare you, hurt you, or kill you.” Special Agent Murphy’s analysis of her situation drove shards of fear through her body, piercing the last illusion of security, fortifying her need to uncover the depths of her mother’s treachery. Could her own mother be behind the explosion? She released a sigh and tossed her pillow across her queen-sized bed.

  A knock interrupted her thoughts. Flopping her head to the side, she groaned, “Come in, Georgie.”

  The door squeaked, and a mass of curly, dark blonde hair entered the room. The hair topped a heart-shaped face stretched with a permanently dimpled smile. Georgiana “Georgie” Dixon plopped on the end of Charlotte’s bed, sliding her legging clad legs under her.

  “Morning, sleepy-head.” She patted Charlotte’s leg. “How’re you feeling today? How’s the noggin?”

  Charlotte rolled to her side, away from Georgie. “It’s not even seven. Why are you awake…and in my room?”

  “Aw, don’t be silly, Charlie. It’s New Year’s Eve. We’ve lots to do. Aunt Savvy is expecting us by eight.”

  “It’s Charlotte…not Charlie.”

  “Sorry. I’ll remember. I promise.” The weight shifted on the bed as Georgie moved to stand. The soft shuffle of padded feet across the hardwood floor barely lifted over the wailing of upbeat Christian Rock bellowing into Charlotte’s room. “You’ll want to get up soon. You know Savvy doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Remember last week for the Christmas party?”

  “I would think a stay in the hospital would give me a reprieve.”

  “One would think, but then most don’t think like Savvy. By the way, Bridget dropped off some mail for you yesterday. I left it on the dresser.”

  The door clicked behind her sister, blissfully muffling the sound of songs of praise. Charlotte’s mind floated back to a week ago and the party Savannah “Savvy” Dixon Boudreaux had thrust upon her.