He hadn’t been entirely honest with his brother. He loved Cary too much to see him thrown into jail, but he was afraid the main reason he’d ordered his twin to stay put had more to do with Peyton than Gaston Gibbs.
As long as Peyton didn’t know who he was, Mitch could pretend it wouldn’t matter to her once she found out.
“Fool,” he said, because of course it would matter.
With great difficulty, he thrust thoughts of Peyton from his mind and concentrated on his most pressing problem: G. Gaston Gibbs III.
He realized it would make sense to contact Cooper Barnes and Stu Funderburk to find out exactly why they owed Gibbs money, but it took the better part of the day to accomplish it.
“I ran up my bar tab and couldn’t pay it back,” said Barnes when Mitch finally got him on the restaurant’s phone. “Damn Millie Bellini anyway.”
“What’s Millie got to do with it?”
“Long as we’re going out, she don’t give me no trouble. But the minute we’re through, she starts jawin’ about the bar tab.”
Mitch blinked. Cooper Barnes and Millie Bellini an item? He never would have guessed it, but then again he couldn’t imagine any man with Millie. Although his advice went against his true thoughts on the subject, he said, “You shouldn’t have dumped her.”
“I didn’t dump her, man. She dumped me.” Barnes paused. “Hey, her birthday’s comin’ up. You think you could lend me a couple hundred so I could get her somethin’ nice?”
“You owe me five hundred dollars already,” Mitch pointed out with heat.
“What’s a couple hundred more among friends?” Barnes asked.
Mitch slammed down the phone.
Stu Funderburk, who had neither a telephone nor a job, was more difficult to track down. After Mitch drove to Summerville and found his trailer deserted, one of Funderburk’s neighbors pointed him to a run-down pub on the outskirts of town.
Mitch found Funderburk cradling a glass of Jack Daniels, sitting alone at a bar so dark it was hard to believe the sun was still shining outside. Not only didn’t Mitch see a pair of crutches leaning against the bar, the small man wasn’t wearing his cast.
“Darn it, Funderburk.” Mitch took the empty stool next to him. “I told you to wear the plaster.”
“It itches,” Funderburk said. Even though he’d probably been drinking all afternoon, his eyes were bird-bright. “Not to mention cramps my style.”
“Listen to me.” Mitch brought his face close to the little man’s. He got a whiff of alcohol and perspiration but didn’t back away. “After we talk, you’re going home and putting on that cast or I’m giving you a real reason to wear it.”
“But you said you were a different kind of debt collector,” Funderburk whined. “Now you’re talking stereotype. Sticks and stones. Break some bones. Jesus, where’s your originality?”
“Funderburk?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay,” the little man said. “But I’m telling you right now, I don’t got no money. So if you’re here for money, we’re gonna have to go outside and rumble. I can take you. I know I can.”
“Funderburk?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you were going to shut up.”
He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I forgot. So shoot me.” A concerned look descended over his face. “Forget I said that. Don’t shoot me.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Mitch said. “I’m not here for money, either. I just want to know why you owe Flash.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Mitch said.
The small man seemed to relax. “I was supposed to do some renovation work for him.”
Mitch let out a surprised sound. “You’re a renovator?”
“An aspirin’ renovator,” he corrected. “That’s why I didn’t get ’round to doing the renovating. Some people get touchy ’bout things like that after they give you a deposit.”
Mitch rubbed at the indentation between his eyebrows. He’d have thought Gibbs was too careful to mix his criminal life with his philanthropic one, but then again Gibbs had never struck him as the charitable type in the first place. “You’re telling me Flash hired you to renovate one of those historic buildings of his?”
“Historic? I heard people call Epidermis a den of iniquity, but I didn’t think it was historic.”
Mitch sighed. “Did he hire you to renovate those buildings in downtown Charleston or not?”
“Hell, no. I was supposed to put a roof on his strip joint. Not that he hired me himself. I never seen the guy. I been dealing with this scary lookin’ woman with a beehive on top of her head.”
“Millie Bellini,” Mitch provided.
“Yeah, Bellini. I tell ya. That woman got bees in her beehive.”
An hour later, Mitch pulled his brother’s SUV into a parking place at a strip shopping center on Savannah Highway and cut the engine. He hopped out of the vehicle, walked directly to the office on the end and pulled open the cookie-cutter door.
The outer office had a secretary’s desk but it was deserted so Mitch gave three hard raps to the inner door and jerked it open.
Vincent Carmichael, his fedora and wire-rimmed glasses in place, glanced up from the file on his desk. Wariness replaced his initial curiosity.
“If you’re here for the report I worked up on you, it’s too late,” he said. “I already gave it to Amelia.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Mitch said, although Carmichael’s comment explained how Peyton had known about Cary’s fling with Debbie Darling.
“Then why are you here?”
“You ever heard of Flash Gordon?” Mitch asked.
Carmichael inclined his head almost imperceptibly. “Whispers, mostly. I know he’s bad news, but I can’t say we’re acquainted.”
“Are you acquainted with G. Gaston Gibbs III?”
“Not socially but I’ve heard Peyton’s mother mention him,” Carmichael said slowly. “Why?”
“Gibbs and Flash Gordon are the same person.”
Carmichael whistled. “I can’t imagine he wants that to get around.”
“Exactly. In fact, he’d go to great lengths to keep that information secret.”
The older man’s eyes narrowed. “What’s this got to do with me?”
“Gibbs has got it into his head that you’re investigating him.”
“I was investigating you,” Carmichael pointed out.
“He doesn’t know that.” Mitch stepped deeper into the room. “So he sent me here to take care of you.”
Carmichael’s eyes widened. Mitch could see whites all around the pupils. Carmichael’s right hand went to a desk drawer, where he probably kept a gun. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Heck, no.” Mitch sank into the seat across from the desk, then sat forward, his hands on his knees. “I’m here to get you out of trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble.”
“With Gibbs believing you’re investigating him, I’d say you’re in a heap of trouble. The next guy he sends to take care of you might not have any qualms about doing it.”
Carmichael’s Adam’s Apple bobbed when he swallowed, but his hand fell away from the desk drawer. “How are you proposing I get out of this trouble?”
Mitch smiled. “By helping me investigate Gibbs.”
Carmichael was shaking his head before Mitch finished the sentence. “That’s crazy.”
“Not so crazy. If Gibbs didn’t have anything to hide, he wouldn’t be worried about somebody snooping around. Once we know what he’s hiding, we’ll have a weapon we can use against him.”
“Makes sense, but there’s something I don’t understand. Why would you be investigating anything?”
Mitch told him, figuring the only way to get Carmichael on his side was to reveal the entire truth, which included the twin switch. When he was through, he sighed.
“Look, I wouldn’t be coming to you if I hadn’t hit a
brick wall,” Mitch said. “I know Gibbs is laundering money through his club but I don’t know where it’s coming from. I’ve staked out his business and his home. And nothing.”
Carmichael tapped his chin with the eraser of a pencil. “How do you know I won’t hit a brick wall, too?”
“I don’t,” Mitch said, “but I’m betting you’re better at snooping than I am. Are you in or not?”
Mitch heard the wall clock tick five times before Carmichael nodded. “I’m in,” he said. “But are you sure your information’s correct? Gibbs is a model citizen. A philanthropist. He buys dilapidated properties and renovates them, for God’s sake.”
“What did you just say?”
“That Gibbs is a model citizen.”
Mitch shook his head. “No. The part about the dilapidated buildings.”
“He buys them and renovates them,” Carmichael said. “He’s been doing it for years.”
Mitch’s mind clicked and whirled. He’d known that, of course. He’d been puzzling over it just that afternoon, but it hadn’t occurred to him then that the break he was looking for might be linked to the properties.
“Those buildings are abandoned when he purchases them, right?” Mitch was so preoccupied he hardly saw Carmichael’s nod. “And they probably stay vacant for at least a couple months, maybe more, until he hires the workers.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I want you to call Peyton and get the addresses of those places,” Mitch said. “I think we might have ourselves a lead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lizabeth Drinkmiller walked through the historic part of Key West with the late-morning sun so blindingly hot the drop of moisture trickling down her cheek could have been perspiration.
By all rights, it should have been.
She was a woman pretending to be someone she wasn’t, and she had the gall to dress down a man for impersonating someone he wasn’t. She didn’t have the right to cry.
Lizabeth wiped at the offending tear with the pad of her forefinger and veered off one of the major shopping streets to take the path that led to the bed and breakfast where Cary Mitchell was staying.
Not only shouldn’t she cry, she shouldn’t be nervous. She meant to have her say and be done with it. She’d hardly linger long enough for it to seep in that she was never going to see him again.
Cary wouldn’t want her to stick around in any event. Not after he realized that self-assured, flamboyant Leeza was gone and in her place remained boring, old Lizabeth. A simple, silly woman who hadn’t realized the man she was falling in love with wasn’t the object of her high school crush.
She glanced down at the clothing she’d bought the previous afternoon. The lightweight khaki slacks paired with a simple short-sleeved top in white cotton were along the lines of what she normally wore.
She’d packed away her flashy Leeza clothes inside the suitcases she’d take on her flight back to reality later that day. She could just as well have pitched them into the Atlantic.
She certainly couldn’t wear them again without thinking about Cary. She was already aware that, in the future, thinking about Cary would hurt far too much.
She felt the wetness on her cheeks again and blinked rapidly. When her vision cleared, the black SUV she’d seen a few nights before on the boat landing came into view. So did the suitcase an achingly familiar dark-haired man was heaving into its truck.
Cary was leaving, too.
She stopped where she was on the sidewalk, used her fingers to sweep her cheeks clean of moisture and tried to wipe the sadness from her face. Then she marched determinedly on.
“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?” she asked when she was close enough to the SUV for him to hear her.
His head whipped around, and her heart panged at the way his blue eyes seemed to drink her in.
Silly woman, she chided herself. No man looked thirstily at a woman in khakis and white cotton.
“I already said goodbye. I didn’t think you’d want me to do it again,” he said.
That was true. She wanted him to say he’d developed a penchant for colorless research librarians with retiring personalities.
Instead of telling him that, she reverted to her pre-Leeza ways and said nothing at all. She must have been staring, though, because he gestured to the open trunk of the SUV.
“There aren’t any crates in there, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t—”
He didn’t let her finish. “I went to the police yesterday to give myself up. Turned out the crates were full of Star Quest action figures. Can you believe that?” He scratched his head. “So I’m not a smuggler.” He shrugged. “Still a cad, though.”
Two beautiful women clad in skimpy outfits and self-confidence passed by, sending long, bold looks at Cary. She waited for him to return their stares. He kept his eyes locked on her.
“Could I talk to you before you go?” Her throat seized at the thought of him leaving. A boy on a bicycle whizzed by, so close she felt wind in his wake. “Away from the street?”
“Sure.” The muscles in his biceps bulged as he slammed the trunk, reminding her that he worked in physical education. Not law enforcement. “The place I’m staying has a courtyard. We should be able to get a table in the shade.”
Moments later, they sat catty-corner from each other underneath the canopy of a yellow-and-blue-striped umbrella. The pool area was deserted except for a couple of towheaded boys, the larger of whom couldn’t have been more than nine or ten.
“Hey, Cary, watch this.” The older boy yelled before he jumped into the deep end of the pool. “Cannonball!”
Water shot into the air like a geyser and sprayed out in a fan shape. Refreshing, fat drops hit the edge of the table and splashed onto Lizabeth and Cary.
The boy came up for air. “Cool, huh?” he asked.
Cary gave him a thumbs-up sign. “Do me a favor, Billy. Keep the water inside the pool and give us a little privacy. We’re trying to talk.”
“Anything you say, Cary.”
“Yeah, anything you say,” the younger boy parroted. He and his brother headed for the shallow end of the pool with flat, inexpert strokes that emptied the pool of more water.
“They like you,” Lizabeth observed.
“They’re good kids,” Cary said. “I figured out yesterday their parents were leaving them here while they went sightseeing. The boys seemed a little lonely, so I let them talk me into playing Marco Polo.”
He lapsed into silence. The only sounds Lizabeth could hear were the laughs of the two brothers as they splashed each other. She told herself to spit out her apology, but in typical Lizabeth fashion, her tongue froze.
“Go ahead. Cary crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me have it.”
He looked so miserable that she forgot about being tongue tied. “Let you have what?”
“The tongue-lashing. You didn’t get it all out yesterday. I understand that. So go ahead. Call me a snake. A player. A jerk.” He turned one side of his face to her. “You can even slap me.”
“Would you stop that?” Lizabeth commanded in a strident voice she hardly recognized.
He blinked. “Stop what?”
“Belittling yourself. I’m sick of it.”
“But I’m—”
“Just shut up, okay?” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into his. “You are not a bad man. Bad men don’t turn themselves into the police. Bad men don’t learn the names of strange kids at the pool or teach kids they don’t know how to play baseball. I would not have fallen in love with a bad man.”
His mouth gaped open. “You’re in love with me?”
Lizabeth bit her lower lip and averted her eyes. Her heart had acknowledged that she still loved him long before she said it aloud. That didn’t mean she should have blurted it out. She couldn’t possibly be any more gauche.
“Is that what you came here to tell me?” he pressed.
She felt the full impact o
f his blue gaze. What a fool he must think her.
She shook her head. “I’m cutting my vacation short and leaving this afternoon. I came to say goodbye.” She took a deep breath for courage. “And to tell you I’ve been lying to you.”
“About being in love with me?”
She ignored the question and stared down at her hands. “I’ve been lying about who I am. My name isn’t Leeza, it’s Lizabeth. I’m not a buyer for a department store, I’m a research librarian. I’m not bold and daring, I’m meek and quiet.”
“But are you in love with me?”
“Would you forget I said that?” she cried.
“I don’t want to forget it.” He leaned closer to her and tilted her chin up with a forefinger so she had to look at him. She felt the traitorous moisture well up in her eyes and blinked it back. “I want to hear you say it again.”
“I’ve been lying to you.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Not that part.”
“It’s the important part. I lied to you, Cary.”
“I already knew that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How could you know?”
“I’d have to say my first inkling that you weren’t a femme fatale was when you blurted out that the black lemur was the only primate with red eyes.”
“Blue eyes,” she corrected automatically. “The only animal with red I can think of is a species of tree frog, but frogs are amphibians, not primates.”
He grinned. “I love it when you spout facts like that.”
“You’re teasing me,” she accused, feeling her lower lip start trembling again.
“No, I’m not.” He cupped her cheek. “I like that you’re a walking reference book but not quite as much as being your first lover.”
Everything inside her went still as she thought of the night they’d first made love and the pains she’d taken to make him believe she was sexually experienced. She backed away from his touch, a sense of betrayal stealing over her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew I was lying?”
“That would have been a bit like Pinocchio casting stones, don’t you think?” Cary rustled his hair, put his elbows on the table and began to hope. “Getting back to the part where you said you loved me—”
Bait & Switch Page 22
