by Everly, Liz
A slight rapping on the door. “Lunch?” It was the housemaid.
“Yes,” Maeve answered. “Give us thirty minutes, please.”
“Certainly.”
“Damn, I need a shower,” she said, taking a deep breath, calmer. “I need some fucking coffee. I can’t believe Chef would put us in this position.”
“You. Not me. Why you?”
“Good question,” she said.
He stood in front of her now, and she so naturally wrapped her arms around him, kissed him, as if they had been together for a thousand years. But they hadn’t—there was still so much to learn. To explore. And she was going to enjoy every minute of it. Just as long as they weren’t in prison. Or worse.
The next thing she knew, her new lover was leading her back to the bed.
“Thirty minutes?” he whispered. “Give me ten.”
Chapter 38
When they finally entered the dining room, they were surprised to find Sanj there, grinning from ear to ear, as if he knew what went on last night.
“Ah, you survived the storm, I see,” Sanj said. “I should have warned you two about the storms we get here. Thank you,” he turned and said to the woman who brought in a plate heaped with colorful fruit.
“Well, I just hope we can get a flight soon,” Maeve said. “I don’t want to get too far behind.”
“I should think tomorrow or the next day. We’ll see what we can do.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Maeve, you look unusually lovely this morning.”
She smiled. “I feel pretty damn good. Thanks.”
Sanj was right. She glowed this morning. After seeing her so ill and pale when they were on the mountain, it was refreshing to see the pink back in her cheeks. Jackson heard him say something, but he was looking at Maeve. Her eyes looked particularly bright and clear. She looked … like a woman who had just had the best sex of her life. He smiled inwardly.
“Jackson? Woo-hoo,” Sanj said, waving his hands in front of him.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Yes.”
Sanj rolled his eyes.
“Are there any more specific shots you need to get?”
“Not specifically. I was labeling and editing in the library last night when the storm hit. No electric.”
“Check this out,” Sanj said, holding a newspaper in his hand. “Isn’t this Chef’s wife? Yvette Delvechio? Busted.”
“For what?”
“Murder. They think she killed Alice … do you believe that?” Sanj read over the paper.
“That’s ridiculous,” Maeve said, remembering she’d not heard back from Yvette. “Why would Yvette kill Alice? Yvette?”
“Yvette Delvechio has been arrested and charged with first-degree premeditated murder. Details are forthcoming on the case. But Delvechio and Majors have a long and involved business and personal history.
“Not only was Alice Majors the literary agent of Delvechio’s husband, but she was also partners with them in Charmed, an international chain of restaurants, mostly attached to Ever International Casinos,” Sanj read aloud.
“What?” Jackson said. Did his heart just skip a beat? “Isn’t that the name of Snake’s casinos?”
Maeve nodded, wide-eyed, as she was drinking her coffee, taking all of this information in.
“The casinos have been linked to drug trafficking and prostitution rings, as well as several unsolved murders. Sam Everidge, also known as Snake, is as slippery as his nickname. He’s been brought to trial several times—most famously for the international cocaine ring known as the Sollitto Boys Network, for which two members were sent to prison—and each time managed to get off scot-free.
“ ‘These murder charges are absolutely pointless. My client was nowhere around when Ms. Majors was murdered. She has a rock-solid alibi.’ ” Sanj continued to read from the newspaper. “Investigators refuse to comment as to what evidence brought them to suspect Majors.”
Maeve gasped.
“Murdered? That’s the first we’ve heard that,” she said.
Sanj looked up from the paper. “Are you okay?
“Shocked,” she said, looking at her bread as if it were infested by maggots. Jackson knew she wasn’t going to eat a thing. He was uncertain if he could. His stomach was twisting.
“Look, Sanj, something kind of strange happened last night, and I think we need your advice,” he said.
“With you two?” He grinned.
“Well, besides that,” he said and looked sheepishly at Maeve. “Can we talk in private?”
“Certainly, let’s go into the library,” Sanj said.
After they were situated, Jackson told Sanj the story about finding the yellow powdery substance in the book.
“Can I see it?” he said. “I might be able to tell.”
Jackson went off to his room to get the Baggie.
“So, how do you feel?” Sanj asked Maeve.
“Physically, I feel okay. I feel stronger,” she said. “But I feel like I’m living in a surreal world. One minute, I’m writing about things I could only dream about several years ago, the next minute, I’m scared shitless because someone is shooting at us, or leaving a chicken over the sink in our beach house, or beating up Jackson.”
“But now it kind of all makes sense,” Jackson said as he entered the room, Baggie in hand. “This is what they are after. The question is what is it exactly? And why did Chef have it? Why did he have it hidden in this book?”
“And why did he give it to me?” Maeve said.
Sanj stuck his finger in the back, brought a bit of the substance to his tongue. “Yes,” he said. “There’s the coke tingle. This definitely is coke, saffron, and durian—the ultimate combination, one would think, for a very wild and sexy high. Let me look at it under my microscope. When the effects of the coke wear off, the durian and saffron would kick in, I imagine.”
“And durian? I had no reaction,” Maeve said.
Sanj nodded. “Just a bit, I think. And you may not be allergic to it. There was a lot of it on the mountain and it was in full bloom. You just might be sensitive to it.”
Jackson reached for Maeve’s hand as they followed Sanj to his basement lab.
“I like to keep a lab in my basement. You’ll never know the fun I have there,” he said and smiled.
“I bet,” Jackson said and rolled his eyes. “You always were a barrel of laughs, dude.”
The room was smaller than what Jackson had imagined, but it reminded him of Sanj’s dorm room. They had met while Sanj was in college and Jackson had just flunked out of art school and was apprenticing with travel photographer Ralph Matthews.
“Cool,” Jackson said, taking in the room.
It only took a few moments for Sanj to look at it in the microscope, mix it up with some liquid, and pronounce it “remarkable.”
“What is it?” Maeve said.
“It is the purest saffron and durian I’ve ever seen mixed with some of the purest cocaine I’ve ever seen. It was crafted with precision and care. Pure. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, and cocaine, well. You know,” he said, dark eyes, larger, lit. “What you have here is worth millions. I mean, millions.”
Chapter 39
“Okay, so what we have here is a cocaine-saffron-durian mix worth millions that Chef hid in his book, somebody knows about, and is after,” Maeve said, her mind finally snapping in place after two cups of coffee. She sat down in a soft chair in the dark lab.
Jackson was glazed, back to his normal ADD self, and staring off into the distance.
“Mexico. Hawaii. Hong Kong. Italy. India,” Maeve said. “I need to get to my computer to see if all of these places have a Charmed or an Ever Casino. Is the Wi-Fi working yet?”
“Not the last I checked, which was about an hour ago,” Sanj said.
She turned to walk away.
“Not so fast,” Sanj said.
She turned toward him. He flipped on a light switch. “Any idea on what we’re going to do with this?”
> “Good question,” Jackson said.
“I mean this is in my house,” he said. “I have staff in and out of here and am a little nervous about it.”
“I understand. Can you two come up with something while I go and try to search the Web?”
“No,” Sanj said. “We need to resolve this matter immediately.”
She nodded. “Okay. What’s the problem? Why can’t this wait?”
“I have a very high security clearance from my government,” Sanj said. “I worked hard to get it. I need it. This could really jeopardize things if we get caught with this. Or word gets out. And my government doesn’t take kindly to foreigners with drugs.”
“Let’s just pitch it,” Maeve said after a moment. “I don’t know why we’d need to keep it. If Chef wasn’t dead already, I’d wring his neck myself.”
“I guess we have no choice,” Jackson said. “But it’s a damned shame. We’d be set for life if we sold it. Split it three ways.”
Maeve looked at Sanj for a reaction, none, back to Jackson to scan to see if he was in any way serious. He was deadly serious.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she hissed, looking directly at Jackson. “You’d risk everything for money?”
“Not just money,” Sanj said. “Millions.”
“After everything you’ve been through,” she said to Jackson. “After everything we’ve been through. You’d risk your career, my career, our lives, everything, for money? I don’t care if it is millions. Neither one of you are hurting for money. Greedy bastards. I say flush the fucking stuff down the toilet and let’s be done with it.”
“I don’t know, Maeve, c’mon, think about this—”
“Jackson! There’s nothing to think about,” she said, feeling as if she were going to punch him again. She had been wrong about him. She should have never slept with him—there was nothing else to him but this need for MORE women, money, and prestige. She thought she was too ambitious. But this was absurd, maddening, revealing. Walk away before you do something foolish.
“I’m walking out of this room,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “You two do whatever you want. I’m out. If you fuck up and get caught, I’ll never speak to either one of you again, and I’ll never work with you again, Jackson.”
“Maeve, wait—” he stood.
“Don’t follow me,” she met his eyes with a fury making him cringe. “I have work to do.”
She slammed the door behind her. The fury and fear shot through her body like a wave. Her legs were shaking from anger and as she walked up the steps to her room, she forced herself to concentrate on each step. Thank God, the housemaid had been there. New sheets on the freshly made bed—the scent of their night of passion completely removed. She wished she could as easily remove it from her memory.
It was like a kick in the gut. Last night, feeling closer to Jackson than ever before, thinking maybe a relationship was forming, finding out she’d ingested cocaine, and now this weirdness from Jackson and Sanj about it. Very strange. She took several deep breaths, calming herself.
The housemaid had left a plate of fruit and biscuits in her room next to her laptop; her appetite kicked in at the scent of the food. She sat at her desk and opened the computer. Aha, the Wi-Fi was back. She typed in Ever Casinos and Charmed Restaurants. It was just as she feared: there was one in Morocco, their next stop.
She sat back in her chair, mulling over the events. She knew restaurants were sometimes the fronts for drug operations; it was the perfect business for it—the long and strange hours, the overworked, underpaid kitchen staffs, and the greedy owners. It wasn’t a business for the meek.
Add in the gambling and booze from a casino and Maeve guessed the potential was ripe for countless seedy activities.
Maeve clicked over to her e-mail, deleted all of the junk e-mails, and noted one from Martin:
Hey sis,
How are you? Bad news about Alice, huh? Are you guys okay? I’ve been following along on the blog, and now they are not really telling people where you are. I guess that’s good.
But what is this shit about Paul’s wife? What’s going on there? Listen, I’ve heard of those Ever Casinos and Charmed Restaurants. They make Donald Trump look like small change. I had no idea Paul and his wife had anything to do with those places, did you?
This Sam Everidge is like a character out of a James
Bond movie or something. There’s all this international intrigue surrounding him. Are you sure he’s been following you? You seem like VERY small-time for him to be interested in you. That’s all I’m saying.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn’t Snake at all. If he was that wealthy, why would he care that much about what was in Chef’s book?
Anyway, Carly sends kisses to you and thanks you for the doll from China. It was so thoughtful of you, Maeve.
Love,
Martin
An e-mail from Jennifer, one from the editor, and, oh, one from Yvette!
My Dearest Maeve,
Thanks for your kind note. I trust Jackson is back on his feet after the problems in Hong Kong? Please don’t worry about the rumors you are hearing about my killing Alice. I loved Alice and am distressed over her death. Someone is trying to set me up for this. As if I don’t have enough going on with Paul dying and leaving me to clean up quite a few messes. Mostly financial. You see, I always knew he spent money, but I didn’t know about some of his debt. I thought he’d given up gambling. Did you know about it?
I hope you are well and that no more bad luck comes your way.
Much love,
Yvette
Intriguing. So, Chef died owing money. Gambling money. And one of the world’s biggest casino owners had been in almost all of the places she and Jackson had traveled. Oh no, Martin was right, they didn’t want Jackson or Maeve. They wanted the book with the drugs in it, which would help pay for Chef’s debt. But questions still lingered. Why did Chef have this mixture? Why was he hiding it in a book? How did these people know? And why did he give it to Maeve?
Chapter 40
After Jackson told Sanj about everything that had been happening, he leaned back in his chair and gave a low whistle.
“Listen, Jackson. It was a great fantasy to think we could sell this stuff and make a bunch of money. You and I know we both need to keep clean. And here’s the thing, my friend, if we get rid of it, you are really going to piss these people off. This is what they want, right?”
Jackson nodded. “But we can’t give it to them, obviously.”
“Maybe you should let them take it.”
“How could we do that? We don’t even know who they are.” Jackson said, pacing now.
“We think we know, right? Maybe what you do is leave the book out in your room, or Maeve’s room, where someone could obviously get it. Your problem is solved. You can get on with the business of finishing this book.”
“Maeve’s not going to go for that. She loves that it’s Chef’s book. She loved Chef. He left it to her.”
“Well, we should at least talk to her about it.”
“I don’t know. I’m not going up there. She was really angry.”
Sanj laughed. “Man, she scares the shit out of you.”
“Did you see the way she looked at me?”
“Yes, I did,” Sanj laughed again. “She just needs to cool down a bit. It will be fine.”
Jackson wished he was so certain. Maeve was fiery and passionate—maybe a bit too much. He needed to proceed with caution if anything else was going to happen between them. This morning, he was so sure the barrier between them had been lifted. He’d never felt so close to anybody in his life. Everything felt so natural—as if it was just meant to be like that. Them, together.
But after this business this morning, he was not so sure about anything, particularly Maeve. Okay yeah, he was being stupid about the coke. But did she really need to lose her temper with him like that? Jesus, who wouldn’t be at least tempted to sell it and make enough money
to set themselves up for life?
Maeve. The ever-honest, ever-working, ever-good Southern girl who thinks she’s a rebel because she fucks around—and goddamn, does she ever. Clearly, she had some interesting contradictions.
In the meantime, Jackson needed to finish those photo edits and labeling this afternoon and sat in the same room they were in together last night. Most of these shots could be trashed, he thought, but some were spectacular. The one he’d taken right at dawn looking out of the valley of durian trees was mesmerizing—there was a slight mist in the air, clinging to everything. Sometimes the camera captures more than the eye.
He really liked some of the ritual and feast shots. All of those beautiful dark skin tones contrasting with the layers of colorful fabric. Wait. Who was that? A light-skinned woman, brown eyes, full lips. Her hair was covered with a mauve scarf, but one strand had fallen out in the picture. Blond. It was the woman he’d seen at Chef’s funeral, then again, in Hawaii. He was certain she was an addict and had gone into the bathroom during the funeral for a fix.
She was on the mountain with them? Had he been so distracted by Maeve’s illness that he didn’t notice? Why was she there? Who was this woman?
He zoomed in on her face, tried to read its expression. She wasn’t smiling. Her brows were knitted and she was looking off to the left of her. She seemed kind of worried or sad. One shoulder was kind of lifted, as if she were shrugging. She was holding a book in her other hand.
In the next shot, she was gone.
Chapter 41
Maeve was deep in the second draft of another essay on durian when a knock came at her door and a voice informed her that dinner was served. The afternoon had zoomed by her, as it often did when she was in the flow of her writing.
She had almost forgotten how angry she was at Jackson and Sanj until she sat down at the table with them.
“Well, she emerges,” Sanj said.
“Yeah, well, duty calls. I have work to do,” she said.
“I finished the photo edits this afternoon,” Jackson said.
“Good for you,” she said.
