The Tea Series

by Sheila Horgan

  “How did they catch him?”

  “Oh, are you ready for this? Remember when you were going to figure this whole thing out and make the reward money?”

  “I didn’t really expect to do that, Teagan. It was just something I was throwing out there. You know?”

  “Fine, but remember when we were talking about it you said that you were going to use my boobs to get to the truth?”

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  “That’s how he got caught.”

  “Wait, what? What do your boobs have to do with all this?”

  “Not my boobs, dingleberry. His girlfriend, the son’s girlfriend, wanted bigger boobs. They decide to go to one of those shady places down by Miami, because it’s cheaper.”

  “Never bargain hunt for plastic surgeons, tattoos, or Lasik.”

  “Among other things. Anyway, she gets her boobs done a few weeks ago, and everything looks fine, but the doctor screwed it up. I guess put them in through her belly button.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yep. Anyway they had all kinds of problems controlling bleeding. The boyfriend decides he is going to give blood and demands everyone in the family does as well. He figures it will lower the overall medical costs. Long story short, blood type is a pretty direct way of ruling out being someone’s kid.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I guess his mom and Mr. Rosenbloom gave blood. In conversation or whatever, it came out that if you put his mother’s blood type together with his father’s blood type, you did not get his blood type.”

  “He’d have to be stupid to say anything after he’d killed his father’s wife and his father had already been arrested and everything. Why wouldn’t he just keep his mouth shut, let his father go to trial, and see what happened?”

  “That was his plan, but his father has lots of money, remember? Some private detective was checking every detail of everything that had happened every day from the moment he was hired all the way back, and he pretty much stumbled on it. He told the father. The father called the son. When all hell broke loose, the cops came. Son is in jail. He’s going to be charged with the murder and everything.”

  “Wow.”

  “People are crazy. I keep trying to tell you.”

  “I’m gonna have to think about that one. It just seems so out there.”

  “Yep. I’ve been reading a lot about conspiracy theories and stuff lately, and I can tell you from what I’ve read, the more outrageous it is, the closer it probably is to the truth.”

  “Uh-oh. You’re starting to sound like Seamus.”

  “He isn’t a conspiracy theorist. He just thinks everybody who works for the government is corrupt or about to be corrupted.”

  “Okay, let’s not go there. It’s been a long day.”

  “True.”

  “Well, that does give me a little bit of hope.”

  “In what way?”

  “Maybe Roland and his group are just as persistent, and they’ll figure out what is going on at my apartment.”

  “Good point.”

  Teagan had been gone about twenty minutes when A.J. was done loading, rotating, and sorting the shots from the day.

  “So, are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me what kept you away today. I figured since you didn’t come screaming home when I told you the apartment had been totaled that you were busy doing something important.”

  “You told me you were fine, that you didn’t need me to come home.”

  “And I meant it. I’m just saying that I knew you had some big meetings today, and you didn’t come rushing home, so I figure either the meetings went really, really well, or they sucked. Which is it?”

  “You don’t sound like you meant it.”

  “Well, I did. So, tell me.”

  “They went really, really well.”

  “Are you going to tell me about it, or are you going to make me suffer?”

  “The city government is trying to start a huge move to get people to move to our area. The economy is picking up pretty good. The number of foreclosures is down. We’ve got a couple of real heavy hitters interested. Morgan and I put together a marketing plan. Multimedia. A really big money deal. They bought it. All of it. I do all the images. Morgan is doing all the other stuff. We start to ramp up in thirty days. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, this could be virtually full-time for months. Maybe longer.”

  “Congratulations. I didn’t know you were working with Morgan.”

  “Yes, you did. Remember after the wedding? She wanted to do something to pay me back for getting her the wedding dress.”

  “I thought that was the modeling thing she did. With the different dresses.”

  “No, that was for the designer. She wanted to do something for me too.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t put that together. You really haven’t talked about it a lot.”

  “Cara, you’ve had so much on your mind. Everything has just been upside-down forever. I didn’t really want to add my business on top of all your other issues.”

  “Well, I’ve been making a list. Things I want to get closure on. Not really closure. Things I don’t have to think about anymore. Once I get the lists all crossed off, I’m convinced I’ll have less stuff bouncing around in my brain, and I’ll be able to think clearly again. We already have one thing to mark off.” I explained everything that Teagan had told me about the Rosenbloom murder.

  “How that has any bearing on your life, I’m not sure, but I’m happy if it makes you happy.”

  “It’s the beginning of a three.”

  “Huh?”

  “Everything happens in threes. This is the beginning of three things being done, taken care of, out of my life.”

  “Okay. I just didn’t know the Rosenbloom thing was a big part of your life. My bad.”

  “It’s not a big thing. It was just a thread that was loose. Remember I told you I was going to go to a counselor? Well, I went.”

  “When was this?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Cara, it does matter. You weird out because you don’t know Morgan and I have been working on this thing — for months by the way — and I don’t know you are going to counseling. What’s going on with us?”

  “I told you I was going to go.”

  “I don’t remember it that way. What I remember was that you said that Morgan wanted you to go. I said I thought it was a good idea, and you got mad at me.”

  “You’re right. I thought that going to a counselor was a sign of weakness, and after all the stuff that has happened over the last few months I just didn’t want anybody to see me as weak.”

  “I’m not anybody, Cara.”

  “No, you aren’t, and I didn’t mean it that way.”

  He held me tight. Felt good.

  “Things just got out of control there for a little while. With all the stuff with Barry and all the stuff before that, I just kind of lost my way. Lost myself. I don’t know what happened to me. I kind of got thrown off the cliff, you know what I mean?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “All my life I’ve been in the middle of the O’Flynn hurricane. You know, the eye of the storm, where everything is flying around you, but where you are is nice and peaceful.”

  “That’s not a bad description of your family, actually.”

  “I really never looked at it that way. Vicky, the counselor, brought up that analogy, and it really works for me. It helps me see what was going on for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “She says that I kind of hide behind the O’Flynn family name. If it is a good thing,, I give the O’Flynns credit. If it’s a bad thing I kind of hide it under the O’Flynn rug. I frame my whole life in one big O’Flynn, I can’t remember the word she used, but basically instead of looking through rose-colored glasses, I look through O’Flynn glasses. I’ve painted this really strange picture of what it means to be an O’Flynn.”


  “That’s a lot of analogies and images, Cara. What is it you are actually trying to say?”

  “I’m not sure. In the last several months, I’ve been running around in circles. That’s not like me. I’m not getting anything done. That’s not like me either. I’ve started about a dozen projects. Not one of them is finished. If you’d met me two years ago, you would have been with a completely different person.”

  “Everybody grows, Cara. We are all changing all the time.”

  “I know. That’s not what I mean. Example. When I moved into this apartment, my brothers dropped all my stuff off at about three in the afternoon. I mean that literally. They put it all in a big stack in the middle of the room. Well, they put the bedroom stuff in the bedroom and the kitchen stuff in the dining room, but you know what I mean. I hadn’t really slept since I’d been packing and everything, and work was really ugly, but from the time I closed the door when my brothers left until the time my apartment was completely setup and cleaned and a home, I didn’t sit down. Not once. I had every box unpacked and the pictures hung on the wall and everything. Teagan was going to come over and help me the next day, but by the time she got there, I was done.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Pathological?”

  “No, impressive.”

  “I’ve been really organized and pretty much in constant motion for as long as I can remember, and for some reason I really don’t understand, in the last few months I’ve kind of been falling apart.”

  “Probably not a good sign that that is about the time we got together.”

  “You know, I’ve thought about that. I’ve thought about that a lot.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve decided, and Vicky agrees, that it is because I feel safe with you. I feel like someone’s got my back. I can relax.”

  “Well, that makes me feel good. But it also makes me wonder.”

  “About what?”

  “What you were so worried about.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that myself.”

  “Maybe it’s all just a matter of getting to a certain point in your life. You know, when you get to the point you don’t want to go out and party every weekend.”

  “Never been much of a partier.”

  “Me either, but you know what I mean. Maybe it was just time for you go to through whatever you’ve been going through.”

  “Maybe. In any case, I’m glad that you’re here to go through it with me and that you’ve put up with me while I go through it.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Back to what I talked about with Vicky. She said that it’s all about having a philosophy of life. That people determine that on their own. That I like the way my life is as an O’Flynn. I like my parents’ philosophy…”

  My phone rang. I assumed it was Teagan and didn’t even check the caller identification. I figured for her to call, there had to be a problem. I looked at A.J. I guess he figured the same thing because he just nodded his head. I went ahead and answered.

  “Hi, Cara.”

  “Oh, hi, Roland. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine. We will have the apartment ready for you by checkout tomorrow. If you would be more comfortable staying there for a few days while you sort through the emotional aftermath, you are welcome to do so.”

  “Thank you, but I’d rather be home. My sister-in-law moves into the apartment across from us in a couple of days. I want to make sure I’m there when she does.”

  “Your choice. My people will make you a detailed inventory of everything we take out of the apartment.”

  “Thank you. I really am capable of cleaning up a mess. Actually, I’m very good at it, so if you’ll just let me know when you’ve done all the investigating that you need to do, I’ll take it from there.”

  “Talk to you tomorrow, Cara.”

  I’d just hung up, hadn’t even really had a chance to absorb what Roland had said, when A.J. put his arms around me with a huge smile on his face. “That came out of your mouth pretty easily.”

  “What? I do clean really well. I don’t take credit for much in life, but I am good at cleaning.”

  “Not that. Your sister-in-law is moving in next door? If Suze is your sister-in-law, I must be your husband.”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe one of my brothers married her when you weren’t looking.”

  “Your brothers are already married.”

  “True, but I’m not, so either fantasy would work.”

  “So, being married to me is your fantasy?”

  Flustered, I decided to stop talking and making it worse.

  A.J. burst out laughing, scooped me up, and made me concentrate on very different things.

  At three in the morning I was sitting in bed trying to decide if our evasion of the topic — about everything Vicky and I discussed about my philosophy of life — was purposeful or just one of those things that happens. That’s what I hate about all this self-searching stuff. I’m not good at it, and it isn’t that I’m OCD or anything, but I do get stuck in a little bit of a loop, and I can’t turn my brain off.

  I drove back to the apartment, alone. A.J. had a meeting with Morgan, and although a teeny tiny part of me was annoyed, or maybe hurt, that he was so willing to leave me to do this by myself, I really preferred that he didn’t see my first reaction.

  Somewhere around dawn I decided that I might not be as unaffected by all this as I am giving myself credit for, and the thought of someone being inside my apartment — again — against my will, gave me the shakes.

  I thought about that for a while, decided I’m still confident that I do not have PTSD, just some common sense, and that I don’t need to call Vicky. I’d have to be forty-seven kinds of stupid not to react at all, considering someone broke into my house and trashed it.

  I still don’t know who it was.

  I still don’t know how they got in.

  I still don’t know why they broke in.

  I still don’t know if this is about me or Adeline or just random stupidity.

  What I have learned about myself in the last few weeks is that I don’t do change as well as I once gave myself credit for. I don’t like it. I like my life pretty much as it is. I could do marriage and kids and all that, but I don’t look at that as change. I don’t know what the difference is, but since Roland is going to meet me in the parking lot in about three minutes, I don’t have time to worry about it either.

  The worker guys were already at Suzi’s apartment. There was a truck parked out front with carpet stacked high. Why do they replace carpet every time someone moves out? They put in such cheap carpet that it only lasts one renter. Mine doesn’t look all that great, and I’m really careful about stuff like that. If they did wood floors or polished cement floors, they wouldn’t have to replace the carpet every time. Even apartments that claim to be environmentally aware do that.

  Why does my brain go off on the most inane tangents? That is a much better question.

  Roland walked up to my car.

  “Good morning, Cara. I trust you slept well.”

  “Yes, thank you.” See, my sister is right. I am a liar. I didn’t sleep well. Who would expect me to sleep well? It was a stupid question with an equally stupid answer. That’s what’s wrong. It’s not that I keep secrets and everything; it’s that I try to respond politely when people are idiots. There’s a nice bit of justification. See, I’m living in my head. It’s all Vicky’s fault. Chicken and egg. I went to Vicky because I was living in my head. I’ve got to get all this under control.

  Roland stood in front of the door and motioned to the new door lock.

  New key.

  My old one was brass-colored; this one is silver and doesn’t look like a normal house key. I’m going to have to get a bunch of them made. I wonder how many keys I have out there.

  “Cara, just how many keys to the apartment are there?”

  “A bunch. I have one, A.J. of course, my sister, my mothe
r. I’m pretty sure that Suzi still has one. Then there is the emergency key. It kind of floats around my family. There is the extra key. It’s usually on a hook in the front closet. I’m sure there are others.”

  “Why so many keys?”

  “In my world locks aren’t about keeping family out. I like that my family can come and go in my house. It makes it feel more like my parents’ house. We all have a key to their front door. I want my family to know they are always welcome in my home. If not, it’s just an apartment where I keep my stuff.”

  “Is there any way that one of those keys could end up in the hands of someone who would trash your house?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t just answer. Really think about it.”

  “Believe me, Roland. I’ve been thinking about it. This has got to be just some random act of idiocy. No one is out to do me any harm. Very few people know I work for Adeline. The people who know I work for Adeline — who aren’t my family — really don’t know where I live. Other than your security guys, I can’t think of anybody who knows where I live who is involved with Adeline. But think about it. Whoever broke into the warehouse got around the security system there. So maybe it was one of your guys.”

  “I’m checking into that.”

  “Roland, I was kidding. You know, pointing out the extreme. Do you really think it was one of your guys?”

  “I have to look at every possibility. That is one possibility. Shall we go in?”

  “No need for you to come in. I’m a big girl. I’d like to get started cleaning up the mess.”

  “Actually, I’d like to show you a few things.”

  “What did you do?”

  “You gave permission to put in a security system. I’d like to give you a tour.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s not that daunting, Cara. Don’t sound like that.”

  “I just never thought I’d live in a world where I needed a sophisticated alarm system. My parents never even locked their front door. They still don’t during the day. I didn’t start locking my door until I lived in an apartment, and that was only because people were coming home from the festivals in Old Town and walking into the wrong place.”