Peril in Pensacola

by Lucy Quinn

  Dora sat on the stool next to his and rubbed her eyes. It had been a heck of a couple of days. Her vision was blurry after she pulled her hands away, and she blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the paper he’d been doodling on. The cappuccino machine buzzed, and she picked up the paper and waved it at him. “What’s this?”

  “A map of the alligator park. I figured Evie and you’d both want to understand where we’re headed when we break in to get Billy tonight. It’ll be good to know where all of the exits are.”

  “You seem… experienced at this kind of thing,” Dora said not sure if she was serious or teasing. “Have you rescued a mailman from an abduction before, Luke Landucci?”

  He snorted. “Hardly. My specialty is in rescuing damsels in distress. Especially really gorgeous ones who insist on using me for my bed.”

  Dora laughed for what felt like the first time since before that gun had accidentally gone off. “Thanks. But you probably need an eye exam if you’re calling me gorgeous.” She’d meant her comment to be lighthearted and self-deprecating, but Luke’s grin fled as his eyes darkened with something that looked an awful lot like irritation. “I mean—”

  “Don’t do that, Dora,” he said softly, making his way back over to her with the cappuccino in his hand. “You are gorgeous. I mean, look at you. Tall, curves in all the right places, shiny dark hair, and full pink lips that… um.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. My comment was a compliment. I wish you’d just accept it and say thank you.”

  Dora swallowed, rather impressed and a bit curious about his assessment of her. Like he’d given it some thought. And that had her thinking… She nodded. “Thank you.”

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He grinned at her and handed her the mug of cappuccino.

  She watched him walk back into the kitchen and had to fight to keep from whispering, yes. It wasn’t everyday a man complimented her. That was more Evie’s lane. Just accepting it graciously was something Dora would have to work on. But since she and Evie would be leaving town, it wasn’t something she’d have to get used to soon. She eyed the paper, studying it. “You’re a pretty good artist.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled a bowl out of the refrigerator and popped it into the microwave. “Is it clear? Can you tell what the room looks like?”

  Dora stared down at the paper, and almost chuckled. How could she not. It was so detailed he’d even drawn a likeness of Billy tied to a stool inside a plastic diver’s cage. But as soon as she locked her eyes on Billy’s hopeless expression, all traces of humor died in the back of her throat. “He looks so… like he’s given up.”

  The microwave beeped and Luke removed the dish, placing it in front of her with a fork and napkin. “He’s been there for almost twenty-four hours now, Dora. I’m sure he’s exhausted.”

  “I know. I just feel… this wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t dragged everyone into it. He’d be home, watching a football game or Jeopardy. Instead, he’s going to be gator food.”

  Luke clasped his hand over hers. “Not if I can help it. We’ll get him out tonight. One way or another. That’s a promise, Dora.”

  “Thank you.” She stared down at the bowl of pasta he’d set before her. It looked and smelled a lot like fettuccini in a lemon, cream and garlic sauce, a recipe of Luke’s she’d sampled before. It should have made her salivate in anticipation of the mouth-watering flavor, but her stomach was so jumpy she wasn’t sure it was wise to try it.

  “Eat,” he ordered. “You need your strength.”

  Not wanting to offend him or appear rude after he’d gone to the trouble to make her pasta, she scooped up a forkful and shoved it into her mouth. Then she closed her eyes and moaned as the combination of cream, lemon and garlic exceeded her expectations. “Oh, Luke. This is wonderful.”

  When she opened her eyes, he was grinning and said, “I remembered how much you liked it. It’s foolproof way to get you to moan.”

  In case Dora didn’t get his double entendre, he winked. And it was all she could do to nod her agreement. She dipped her head to hide her flaming cheeks and focus on eating more, forgetting all about her jumpy stomach.

  He sat beside her. “How well do you know your neighbor, Brian?”

  Dora stopped eating, and her fork hovered in midair as she answered. “A few days ago, I’d have said pretty well. He is my neighbor after all. But now?” She shrugged. “I have no idea. I always thought he was one of the good guys, but it’s clear he isn’t. I guess I’m easy to fool.” She slid pasta off her fork with her teeth to eat it.

  Luke turned to eye her. “You’re no fool, Dora. If you were, you’d already be in custody.”

  She swallowed her mouthful of food. “Thanks for that, but I think it’s sheer dumb luck.”

  “You have your theories and I have mine,” he said kindly. His brows knit together as he studied the map he’d made. “I just don’t get it. What makes a guy like that get into bed with money launderers?”

  “I’d imagine he’s getting a cut of the profits,” Dora said.

  Luke turned to her. “That’s what I would’ve thought, too, but doesn’t he drive a ten-year-old car and live in his grandmother’s house?”

  “Yeah.” Dora put the fork down and blinked at him. “He also does all the home repairs and yard work. And on his days off, he wears blue jeans and T-shirts.”

  Luke nodded. “Not the lifestyle of a guy with plenty of money, is it?”

  Dora thought back to Steve and Marco. Those two always wore suits, picked up a new lease on a luxury vehicle every two years, and weren’t shy about flaunting their money. “Nope. Not the ones I know.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.” Luke shrugged. “Not unless he’s being blackmailed.”

  Dora blew out a breath and shook her head. “Maybe he’s socking it all away for a mail order bride or plans to buy a small island once his criminal days are behind him.” She scooped up another forkful of pasta. “Or maybe he’s smart and making sure he appears as someone who lives on a cop’s salary.”

  “All possibilities. But something about him isn’t quite adding up. What makes a cop turn shady, and why didn’t he just take you to Marco right away if he’s in so deep with the Franklins’ operation?”

  “Because he wanted the evidence,” Dora reasoned.

  “He could’ve gotten that without you,” Luke said.

  He had a point. Brian could’ve gotten a warrant to get the information off the computers himself. “Okay. Say that’s true. Maybe he just likes me and didn’t want me to come to any harm.”

  Luke raised one eyebrow. “Dora. He’s a cop. He knows how dangerous it is to let you roam around with the knowledge you have. Any reasonable criminal would’ve had you in front of Marco as soon as possible.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he just has more of a conscience than the rest of them. He did sign up to be a cop after all.” Dora sighed. She knew what she was saying didn’t make sense, and something was niggling at her when it came to Brian. She recalled he mentioned someone named Morris when they overheard him at the dry cleaners. But she hadn’t had enough sleep in the past two days to make sense of it, and her brain was starting to hurt.

  Luke put a warm hand on her shoulder. “I know you like, or did like him, but I think there’s more to him than meets the eye. It doesn’t hurt to remain curious, right?”

  “Right.” Dora pushed her almost empty pasta bowl away as the urgency to do something hit her, and she got to her feet. “I’m going to wake Evie. We have a mailman to save.”

  “I’ll make her and Sunshine something to eat,” Luke said, and he pressed a soft kiss to her temple.

  Dora’s stomach flipped at the gesture, making her feel like a teenager again, and she was sure her lips were curved into a small, happy smile as she climbed the stairs.

  18

  “Luke’s right,” Evie said, finishing off her own bowl of pasta. “Brian is definitely up to something more than just trying to protect the Franklins. Look at him. H
e appears to be about two more beers away from homelessness. That’s not the way a man who is laundering money looks.”

  “How would you know?” Dora asked as Luke took Evie’s dish away.

  “I know people,” Evie said defensively.

  “Sure, Evie,” Dora said. “I still say he could be really good at this and just be making it seem like he doesn’t have any money. He did a great job of making me think he was a nice guy.”

  Evie choose to ignore her flippant attitude. Dora hated to be wrong, and this whole situation was pushing that button big time for her friend. Besides, nobody likes to think they trusted the wrong person.

  There was something else about Brian she’d just remembered. Something he had said a week ago when she’d run into him over at Dora’s that had stuck with her. He’d complained about people interfering with their elderly relatives’ finances and how disrespectful they were. He’d been so angry Evie had thought he might pop a vein. It was the type of anger that made a person lose control. Evie had been super anxious in his presence, and all she’d wanted to do was change the subject.

  But when she’d asked him if he was a volunteer at a senior living place, he’d barked that his grandfather was at one and then stalked off muttering something about how they were going to be surprised when they’d been cut out of the will. At the time, she’d thought he’d just been rambling, but what if it was something more? Had his grandfather been taken in some old folk’s home scam? And if so, did it have something to do with the Franklins?

  “Earth to Evie,” Dora said, snapping her out of her trance. “We’ve got to go. Get Sunshine and get your butt in the car. It’s time for Operation Rescue Billy.”

  “Right.” Evie let out a soft whistle and called, “Come here, Sunshine. It’s time for the next step in Operation Save Dora’s Ass.”

  “Hey,” Dora said.

  “Yeah?” Evie looked up from the map Luke had drawn.

  “Thanks.”

  The word was spoken simply and clearly, but that didn’t stop Evie from cupping her hand behind her ear and saying, “What was that, Dora? Did I just hear you say thanks?”

  “Stop.” Dora rolled her eyes. “You know that’s what I said. You heard me the first time.”

  Evie blew her a kiss as she walked out Luke’s front door and headed for his car. “Sunshine calls shotgun!” she cried out, trying and failing to put it out of her mind that they were about to break into the alligator park… again. She glanced down at Sunshine and added, “Be good this time, girl.”

  Once they were in the car, Evie glanced over at Luke and back at Dora. She blew out a big breath. “We’re doing this, team. Got it?” she asked, more to pump herself up than anyone else. Her stomach was jittery, and it wasn’t because the pasta she’d eaten was bad. Oh man, so not bad, Evie thought as she recalled the flavor that made her mouth water just thinking about it.

  Once they’d hit the road, Dora scooted forward on her seat to insert herself between Luke and Evie. “Do either of you know somebody named Morris?”

  Evie searched her brain, and amazingly couldn’t come up with one person she knew who had that name. And she knew a lot of people. Although… “There was a guy in high school who had Morris as a middle name,” she offered. “We teased him so bad. He was the craziest runner, all arms and knees, and one day someone called him Chicken Morrister. It stuck and he was known at Chick Morrister for the rest of the year. Aren’t kids awful?” She knew it wasn’t helpful, but it was all she had. And Dora was strung so tight right now she needed to lighten the mood.

  Luke chuckled. “All I’ve got is a cat. One of my cooks adopted a cat named Miss Morris. Apparently, the old lady who’d had her thought it was a boy and named it Morris, but then she found out it was a girl.”

  “So, she added the Miss,” Evie said. “Clever.”

  “How do people not know how to tell the sex of a cat?” Dora asked. “It can’t be that complicated.”

  Luke turned his head to her. “You’d think, but it definitely happens a lot with shelter animals,” Luke said.

  “Right,” Evie piped in. “Once they snip those tiny man parts off it’s hard to tell.” Evie let out a small gasp. “Wait. An old lady owned Miss Morris?”

  “It’s sad,” Luke said. “The woman died of a sudden heart attack, and her cat was left behind.”

  “Oh my god!” Evie said, recalling her half-baked idea that Brian might be involved in a senior citizen scam. Only maybe the person that had been taken advantage of wasn’t his relative. Maybe it was Miss Morris’s mistress and Brian was behind the scam. “Was she in a home for old folks by any chance?”

  “Assisted living,” Dora corrected.

  “She was. Riverwoods. Have you seen the place?” Luke let out a low whistle. “It’s like a resort. I’ll tell you, whoever runs that joint has it figured out. The residents have so much money they play shuffleboard with golden pucks.”

  “The perfect place to run a scam, wouldn’t you say?” Evie asked.

  “Wow,” Dora said. “You guys, this may be a long shot, but when Sunshine managed to turn on the audio of the surveillance camera at the dry cleaners, we got the tail end of a sentence. Remember, Evie?”

  Evie shrugged because what she remembered was how proud she’d been of Sunshine. That little dog really took her yoga seriously.

  Dora said, “We heard him say, Miss Morris. I thought Brian mentioned someone named Morris, but what if he was referring to a cat?”

  “Dora!” Evie cried, suddenly remembering the conversation they’d eavesdropped on. “The next thing we heard was Jock saying animal cruelty wasn’t in the contract. Do you think Brian had something to do with the woman’s death and Jock insisted on bringing the cat to a shelter? Crap!”

  “That’s not as far-fetched as you’d think,” Luke said. “The girl who works for me also works part-time at Riverwoods, and that’s where she got the cat.”

  Evie glanced back at Dora whose eyes were wide open.

  “See?” Dora said. “Maybe Brian is in on a scam and just dresses down.”

  Evie chuckled and let Dora be right. “I guess so. What do we do about it?”

  Dora sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, this could just be our imaginations putting together random bits of information because humans love correlations.”

  “This is why she’s an accountant,” Luke said. Evie noticed he was smiling with pride. That man was definitely someone Dora needed in her life. But first they needed to salvage said life. And the first step was to rescue Billy.

  “Whatever.” Evie rolled her eyes, because Dora’s need for logic could get super annoying. They were just down the street from the alligator park, and Luke slowed his car and snapped off the lights. Evie whispered as if someone could hear through the car’s exterior. “Don’t want to alert anyone to our arrival.”

  “Smart,” Dora whispered with what Evie suspected was sarcasm.

  Lack of sleep and high stress levels were making the best friends cranky with each other, and Evie didn’t like it. Once Luke stopped the car she turned to Dora in the back seat. “Hey, if we’re going to get through this, we need to be our best selves. Okay?”

  “Sorry.” Dora held out her pinky and Evie hooked onto it with her own tiny digit. “BFFs 4E.”

  Evie smiled at their long-standing joke. When they were young, Evie didn’t know that BFF already had forever in it and added the 4 and the E. So technically, they were saying best friends forever four ever. But even after Evie learned her mistake it had stuck. “BFF’s4E.”

  Luke said, “Ladies, are we ready for this?”

  Evie and Dora gazed into each other’s eyes with determination, and in unison they said, “Let’s do it.”

  19

  “Ugh,” Dora said as she tried not to breathe through her nose. The three of them were tiptoeing with Luke in the lead to the back of the alligator park to access a service entrance. This time Sunshine was secured in a baby backpack Luke had snagged from another nei
ghbor who was away. That man had a lot of keys to other people’s homes, it seemed, and so many neighbors who clearly trusted him to watch over things while they were gone.

  “Right?” Evie asked. “How does anyone work here with that smell?”

  “They acclimate,” Dora said, annoying even herself by responding since she knew Evie didn’t really want an answer. God, she really was a pain sometimes. although she knew she was focusing on facts to stay sane. Her logic had gotten her through most difficulties in her life, and it was hard not to rely on it now. Even if her stupid logic was how she’d ended up in this position in the first place.

  They approached a dumpster, which added another disgusting odor to the sickening cocktail they were inhaling, and Luke stopped moving. He held up his hand. He turned, and his eyes shone with the reflection of a streetlight as he whispered, “Let’s run over the plan one more time. I’ll lead us to Billy because I know exactly where the security cameras are and how to avoid them.”

  Dora nodded and gave Evie a serious glare. It’s not that Evie meant to ruin the best laid plans, but she was known to go off the rails. “You understand this part, right?”

  “Yes, Dora,” Evie said and then followed up with a huff. “I understand I’m to follow Luke and not get distracted by anything shiny.”

  “Didn’t you two just have a pinky-swearing, initial-filled bonding moment where you promised not to be snippy anymore?” Luke asked.

  “Sorry, Evie,” Dora said.

  “It’s okay. You’re right; I sometimes get distracted. But I won’t this time. I promise.”

  Luke watched the two women for a moment, and when they both gazed at him with a look that said what are you waiting for? he continued, “Once we get to Billy, I’m going to distract the alligator that’s guarding him.”

  Luke had shown Evie and Dora his sketch of Billy, who was sitting on a stool inside a large, clear plastic cylinder one might see protecting a human in a big aquarium. It was suspended partway inside a pool of water that housed at least one alligator.