by Sharon Sala
The second floor was all bedroom suites, and the attic above that was almost as large as the basement apartment in which she’d been living. Part of it was storage, and part of it were the tiny rooms from generations past, when the family still had live-in staff.
It was almost 6:00 a.m. before she’d seen it all, and she went back downstairs to get ready for work.
Charlie wouldn’t be expecting her, but Merlin no longer needed her, so she was pleasing herself.
She didn’t feel like an in-your-face outfit for the day, and reached for a pair of hip-hugger bell-bottom jeans, a pair of blue suede half boots and a royal blue V-neck sweater.
Once she was dressed, she moved to the mirror and looked at her face—really looked—then put the eye shadow aside and reached for a tube of blue lipstick, the same shade as her jeans. Her eyes hid what she was thinking. Dark eyes were like that, but there was still something missing.
She dug through her makeup drawer, found a sheet of face gems and peeled one blue-colored gem in the shape of a starburst off the page, then stuck it on her forehead like a Hindu bindi.
Then she looked at herself again. Brown eyes so dark they almost looked black. The sky blue starburst on her forehead, and the slash of metallic blue on her mouth. It was still her, but without the costumes of leather and the mask of bright paints. She wouldn’t exactly say she was in mourning, but it was her version of paying respect.
She grabbed her bag and locked up on her way out, then took off out the main gates, taking care to close them behind her.
* * *
Charlie’s steps were dragging as he approached the office door, but when he saw the lights already on and smelled fresh brewed coffee, he sighed.
She’s here.
He opened the door and then froze when she stood and faced him. She’d never come to work this stripped down, and he wasn’t sure how to take it.
Then she started talking, and he got it.
“Merlin died yesterday. I got there in time to say goodbye. Ironic, isn’t it? I treasured the friendship, and the last thing I needed was more money. But I got more money and a mansion, and lost my friend. Life’s a joke and then we die.”
Charlie felt the gut punch of that last sentence, and for the first time since he’d known her, he saw her for the lonely child she’d been, and the lonely woman she was. But before he could respond, she changed the subject.
“Are we here to work a new case?”
Charlie shrugged. “Depends on the requests, but I’d like to stay away from national parks for a while.”
Wyrick frowned. Something must have happened while he was at Robbers Cave that she didn’t know about.
“I’ll go through the emails and send you some notes. They were out of bear claws. You have Danishes this morning,” she said. Then she got the coffee cup from her desk and went to refill it, before going back to work.
Charlie went into his office, hung up his hat and his coat, and then got a cherry Danish to go with his coffee and sat down at his desk.
He could hear Wyrick’s keyboard clicking, assumed she was typing up the notes, and took a bite of the sweet roll.
But he was wrong. Wyrick was looking for recent stories relating to Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, and when she found the one with the escaped prisoners and then realized they’d shut down the park with everyone in it during the manhunt, she rolled her eyes.
God only knew what he got himself into while all that was going on, but whatever it was, it was over and he’d come home in one piece.
So she exited that screen and then pulled up the info on two of the six requests that had come in, and began typing, and then the phone rang. The call was for Charlie. She put it through and then kept working until he came out of his office and handed her a piece of paper with some notes on it.
“Just put a hold on starting anything new,” he said. “I’m going to be deposed regarding my part in the cases against Randall Wells and Justin Young. The prosecution wants the videos we have of your interviews with both boys during our search. Can you make copies and email them to their office?”
“Yes.”
“They’re going to have a pretrial hearing to decide whether the cases stay in juvenile court or if they’ll be turned over and tried as adults. I wouldn’t want to be their parents,” Charlie said.
Wyrick glanced down at the paper he handed her, then nodded.
“Something went wrong somewhere for them to be so unemotional about human life. I’ll upload the videos to the prosecutor’s office now.”
“I’m going to run a couple of errands,” Charlie said. “I’ll be back in a few.”
Wyrick glanced at the clock, then got a cheese Danish from the coffee bar and went back to her desk. Now that he was out of the office, she dug back into the incident at Robbers Cave, and then found a story in the local paper about the family who’d been taken hostage, and found the rest of his story within the telling of theirs. She read it, then read it again.
So Charlie Dodge saved a ten-year-old girl named Shelby, then took the convicts down and rescued the parents. Now she understood why he said no more jobs involving parks.
She had finished her sweet roll and was cleaning up her desk when the office door opened. Two fiftysomething women with the same faces walked in, both with hair in varying shades of blond and both wearing diamonds and fur-trimmed coats.
Identical twins, and Wyrick already had a read on them. They were also competitors with each other, and had been all their lives.
They stopped in the doorway, staring without apology at her lack of hair, blue metallic lipstick and the blue starburst gem on her forehead.
Wyrick stared back at them without blinking.
“Ladies, if you stare at me any longer, I am going to have to charge admission, so maybe you should introduce yourselves and tell me why you’re here?”
They both inhaled at the same time, then rushed her desk.
“I’m Portia Carlyle.”
“And I’m Paula Carlyle,” the other one said.
And then they both began to talk at once, speaking in almost perfect unison.
“Our mother recently passed. She had a four-carat yellow diamond that Daddy gave her for their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and it’s disappeared. We need to hire Charlie Dodge to find it.”
“We’re just devastated,” Portia added.
“Yes, devastated,” Paula echoed.
“Mr. Dodge isn’t that kind of investigator,” Wyrick said. “His cases involve missing people, not missing things.”
“We have money!” Portia cried. “We’ll pay whatever he charges.”
“We want to speak to him personally,” Paula added.
“Well, he’s not here at the moment, so—”
“We’ll wait!” they echoed, and then took themselves over to the sofa and sat, glaring at Wyrick and muttering beneath their breath about secretaries getting above themselves, and needing to wear a wig...and no self-respecting woman would put jewelry on her face instead of her fingers.
Wyrick ignored them.
But the longer they sat, the more they fussed, until somehow they were fighting with each other.
“You were the last one to handle it. I know because I saw you trying it on!” Portia cried.
Paula gasped. “I can’t believe you’re accusing me of stealing my mama’s special ring!”
“She was my mama, too,” Portia screeched, and shoved her.
Paula shoved her back, and then the wrestling match was on. Wyrick rolled her eyes and called Charlie, who was already on his way back to the office.
“Hello. What’s up?” he asked.
Wyrick put the phone on speaker. “Can you hear all this nonsense?” she asked.
Charlie’s pulse kicked. He could hear women screaming and thumping. It sounded like the place was on fire, and peo
ple were scrambling to get out.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“You have two prospective clients who have gotten into a fight while waiting to talk to you, because they aren’t having anything to do with me. They’re sisters. And they are, at the present time, on the floor of my office fighting like trailer trash. How long before you’ll be back?”
“Oh good Lord,” he muttered. “I’m about ten minutes out.”
“So, either I’m calling the cops, or you deal with them. Your decision,” Wyrick said.
“Keep the phone on speaker and put it in their faces,” he said.
Wyrick took the bottle of water off her desk, walked over to where the sisters were rolling and screaming, and emptied it on them, shocking them into momentary silence.
“Ladies...and I use that term loosely... Mr. Dodge wishes to speak with you.”
They were flat on their backs now, staring up at the phone in Wyrick’s hand. And then Charlie’s voice came down upon them.
“Both of you! Get off the floor. Shut the hell up and wait quietly for me to arrive, or I’ll have Wyrick call the police and have you arrested for disturbing the peace.”
There was total silence as the sisters glared at Wyrick and then at each other.
“I don’t hear you!” Charlie shouted. “Do you two understand me?”
“Yes,” they said, and got themselves off the floor and back into their seats before glaring at Wyrick for tattling on them.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Charlie said, and disconnected.
Wyrick dropped the empty water bottle into the trash and sat back down at her desk.
“You have ruined our hair and makeup. Where is your ladies’ room?” Paula asked.
“You ruined yourselves,” Wyrick said, then pointed at the door. “Out the door. Down the hall on your right.”
“A public toilet?” Portia cried.
“You made public fools of yourselves,” Wyrick said.
They got up in silence and hurried out of the office, and were gone only long enough to dry themselves off. Their appearances upon returning were far less dramatic than their initial arrival, and so were their demeanors.
They sat down at opposite ends of the sofa, continuing to glare at Wyrick, who ignored them.
Then Charlie Dodge walked in, and when he did, the door slammed against the inner wall. Both women jumped and then shrank back. They hadn’t expected anyone that big or that intimidating.
He stared at the sorry state in which they now sat and then looked at Wyrick.
She shrugged.
He bit the inside of his lip to keep from grinning and then walked over to where they were sitting.
“Talk,” he said, and when they both started to talk at once, he bellowed, “One at a time!”
Paula shuddered. “We want to hire you to find our mama’s missing ring. It’s a four-carat yellow diamond.”
“Did you ask her when she had it last?” Charlie said.
“Mama’s dead,” Portia said, then pointed at Paula. “She had it last.”
“I do not settle family disputes. I do not find missing articles, only missing people. File a police report. If someone stole it, they will check the pawnshops.”
Then all of a sudden, Wyrick was standing beside Charlie.
“Who’s Jehru?” she asked.
Paula frowned. “He’s our spiritual guide. How did you—?”
Charlie glanced at Wyrick. She had that faraway look in her eyes he was beginning to recognize, and Wyrick was still talking.
“His real name is Gregory Foster. Which one of you gave him access to a checking account?”
Portia gasped. “How did—?”
“I think my partner just solved the mystery of the missing ring. It’ll be up to you and the police to get it back...if you file a police report. And I’d advise you to change the PIN on that account as soon as possible,” Charlie said.
The twins were in shock. “Yes, well, this is not what we thought...uh, not how it...” Then they looked at Wyrick anew. “How did you know all that?”
Wyrick ignored them. “I think we’re through here.”
Charlie went in his office and shut the door.
They left the office in silence.
Moments later, Charlie came back out, glanced at the wet spots on the rug and then grinned at her.
“I wish I’d seen that.”
She shrugged. “Easiest way to end a catfight is spray them with water.”
“And you know that how?” Charlie asked.
“Read it in a book once.”
“Did you ever spray down a pair of fighting cats?” he asked.
“Not until today,” Wyrick said.
Charlie laughed all the way back into his office, and it wasn’t until he was sitting at his desk that he realized it was the first time he’d laughed in weeks.
So the healing had begun.
* * *
After what Wyrick considered a wasted day, it finally ended. With a deposition looming and testimony to give, Charlie backed off starting another case until that was done.
He went home first, and Wyrick stayed to lock up. She had her bag on her shoulder as she rode down in the elevator, and when she got in her Mercedes, she paid no attention to the panhandler standing at the end of the street.
She didn’t see him taking a picture of her in the car, or know he was sending it out to the catering van in a driveway five blocks down.
She paid no attention to the catering van as it pulled out of the drive and moved into the flow of traffic behind her, nor did she realize that the roadside service truck she passed on the freeway was on the phone with the woman in the pink Volkswagen bug who picked up Wyrick and her Mercedes at the exit ramp, following it to the quick-stop where Wyrick stopped to fuel up her car.
When Wyrick paid and left the station, she barely noticed the utility truck in the lane beside her, and when she finally turned into her neighborhood, it turned one way while she turned another.
There was a small white Ford Focus behind her now, with an old man behind the wheel, when she turned up the drive and aimed the remote to open the gates to the estate.
The old man drove past as Wyrick drove through, closing the gates behind her, unaware of the choreography Cyrus Parks had set in place.
For the next nine days, the same people, using different vehicles every day, trailed her everywhere she went.
* * *
It was Saturday when Wyrick received a text that Merlin’s ashes were ready to be picked up, so she put aside the designs she’d been working on to renovate the upstairs and made a quick trip to the funeral home, still unaware she was being followed—unaware that Cyrus Parks was receiving daily reports on her activities.
When she got back, she set Merlin’s ashes on her coffee table, then sat down and sent Charlie a text.
Taking the chopper to Galveston tomorrow to scatter Merlin’s ashes. Leaving in the a.m. Back before noon.
Will you let me know when you get back?
Yes.
She’d already talked to Benny about servicing the chopper while she was driving home, so now two people would know where she was going and when she would be back.
She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and then glanced at the box.
“Okay, old friend. We’re going to Galveston tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’m going to make a sandwich and have some of your awesome tomatoes with it. Better than chips, any day.”
Later, as she ate, she kept fiddling with the little drone she’d come up with that would release the ashes from below the chopper. She’d been working on it for days, and had everything about ready to go. Once she reached Galveston, all she had to do was land somewhere long enough to fasten it to the struts, and then take off over t
he bay.
So as soon as she had it ready, she tested the release on the drone several times until she was satisfied, and then packed it and the box with his ashes into a bag and carried it to the counter.
She went to bed but couldn’t sleep, so she sat up and watched TV, unable to relax. Her thoughts were in free fall and unsettled, and she didn’t know why. Maybe when this last request was granted, she could let go.
Finally she slept.
It was just after daylight when she woke abruptly, imagining she’d heard someone calling her name. But the apartment was silent, except for the sound of a slight dripping in the showerhead she’d been meaning to fix. She got up to make coffee.
Thinking about the upcoming flight, she opted for buttered toast and nothing more, but tossed a couple of Snickers in her bag. Benny would have an ice chest packed with water and Pepsi bottles, and she’d be good to go.
It took a couple of trips to get everything into the Mercedes, and then she was off to the private airport where she kept her chopper, unaware of the tag team of trackers behind her at every step of the trip.
The last pair, a couple named Ed and Alma, were in a delivery van, and far enough behind her that she didn’t notice, but close enough they followed her turn off the highway toward a small airport, and the drive up to a hangar near the gates.
They parked on a nearby hill, then watched her and a man in coveralls walk out together and load up some items into a chopper. When they realized she was about to take off, there was a quick moment of panic. Nobody told them she was a pilot, and they had not prepared for this. There was no way to know where she was going, and no way to keep track of her. So they watched in frustration as she took to the air, made one circle, then flew off in a southeastern direction.
“What are we going to do?” Alma said.
Ed pointed at the mechanic, and then started up the van and headed for the hangar.
The mechanic was walking back into the hangar when they drove up and parked.
“I’ve got this,” Alma said, and jumped out carrying an envelope, pretending to be in a panic.
“Miss Wyrick! Miss Wyrick! Is she still here? She was supposed to take this with her and left it behind.”
