T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril

by T. Lynn Ocean

  If he’d wanted her to wear the six-thousand-dollar diamond around her throat instead of on a finger, he’d have bought her a necklace. “If you hate me so much, why do you want to remember me?”

  Maria thanked a clerk, and when she returned her attention to Morgan, her voice warmed a notch. “I don’t hate you. We had fun together, you know? I really thought I was ready to do the marriage thing. But moving halfway across the country made me realize that I’m not ready to settle down.”

  It wasn’t the answer Morgan wanted to hear, but at least she was talking to him. “Then let’s go back to dating, Maria.” He hoped that his voice didn’t sound as desperate as he felt. “I need you in my life right now. You’re my only friend in Wilmington.”

  She hesitated, just long enough to give him hope, before crushing his world. “I’m moving back to Texas. I mean, why would I stay here? I don’t know anybody. I’ve already shipped my stuff. I’m driving back in a few days.”

  Vertigo kicked in, and the dashboard moved. Morgan had planned to go home to Maria every day, forever. To share thoughts and dreams and laughs with her. Travel. Make kids and grandkids and guide them into responsible adulthood. Take each other to doctor’s appointments when they grew old. Now, she was driving halfway back across the country, out of his life. “So that’s it, then?”

  “Take care of yourself, you hear?” The tone of her voice was so final.

  It was over, just like that. Morgan disconnected and pulled into traffic, vertigo causing the road to sway beneath him. Driving home, he focused every ounce of attention on keeping his car between the lines. Once there, he stumbled inside and fell onto the sofa, too dizzy to do anything else. He couldn’t even finish drinking the vodka he’d bought. All he could do was lie there, curled on his side, and think. Maria’s actions were out of his control, and he knew there was nothing he could do, short of tracking her down and pleading his case. Which would look like stalking from her point of view. He could only hope that she would come to miss him and realize how great they were together. There was always a chance she’d come back to him. But probably not.

  Either way, Morgan thought, he was stuck in Wilmington. His old job had already been taken by an associate. He’d moved all his possessions. Transferred bank accounts. Changed his driver’s license. Forwarded his mail. There was nothing to do but throw himself into his new position as a North Carolina restaurateur. He’d already been spending a lot of hours at Argo’s, but now he planned to give it everything he had. He felt overly dramatic just thinking it—but in reality, the restaurant was all he had left. His mother was gone. His father was gone. His sister lived hundreds of miles away. The few friends he had were in Dallas. And now, Maria had officially dumped him.

  Despite the odd blue box, the bugged table, and the strange happenings since he’d taken over Argo’s, the upscale eatery just might be his salvation. Running it would help keep his mind off the fact that he was completely alone.

  FIVE

  I drive a tricked-out jet black hearse. It’s a long story, but I can sum it up in one word: cheap. I obtained it with help from my friend Floyd, who handles automobile auctions for SWEET. The main problem with the corpse caddy—aside from being conspicuous, of course—is that dead bodies creep me out. Ugly, mean, and dangerous? No problem. Bloody and beat-up? No problem. But take away the pulse and I freak out. My government file has the condition officially identified as necrophobia, but way back then, a shrink assured my bosses that it wouldn’t interfere with my job. I dealt with a lot of bad guys, but they were all alive. At first, anyway.

  Even though Floyd swore the hearse had been used to carry drugs and weapons—not lifeless bodies—I still can’t quite shake the willies when scooting behind the wheel. But, hey. It has a leather interior with bun warmers, bucket seats in the rear where the casket should go, and a sound system worth more than I paid for the vehicle. Speakers blaring and tinted windows down, I pulled into the Barnes Agency driveway. A nondescript building with no signage, it looked more like a personal residence than a security business. Trish’s Honda was already there.

  “Nice wheels, Jersey,” she said, sitting on a desk, popping bubble gum. “But aren’t retirees supposed to drive Lincoln Town Cars? It’s in the manual.”

  Trish has waist-length blond hair that she usually wears pulled into a ponytail high at the back of her skull. She looks more like a college student than a licensed P.I., which is probably one of the reasons she’s so good at her job. She has a knack for sniffing out unfaithful rich husbands, and the agency’s old Chevy van has earned her a very nice living thanks to suspicious wives in the greater Wilmington area. I’d asked her to keep an eye on Morgan for a few days.

  “She must’ve skipped class that night.” Rita came out of the blue room with JJ and Andy. “You know, during her Retirement 101 course.”

  Rita and JJ are partners in the agency. Andy is a masseur by trade, but Rita had hired him part-time to fill in for our secretary, who was out on maternity leave. The blue room holds lots of nifty gadgets, and not all of them are legal for a civilian to possess. A temp shouldn’t be in there.

  “Suzie decided to become a permanent stay-at-home mom, so we’ve just hired Andy as our full-time secretary,” JJ explained.

  “I think the correct term is ‘office assistant,’” Rita said. “Or is it ‘administrative assistant’?”

  Eye candy would be more like it, I thought. Although he did give a great massage. I’d had one on the portable table he’d erected in our office. Rita claimed the extra money we paid him per hour was well worth the stress reduction, and I had to agree with that.

  “Hey, call me whatever works, girls. I kind of feel like that dude on Charlie’s Angels, you know? Not Bosley, but the other one. What was his name?”

  I raised my eyebrows at Rita, high up as they’d go, which isn’t easy. I’d had a government-ordered brow lift to go with my boob job.

  “He’s much more intelligent than he appears,” Rita said. “Degree from East Carolina University, karate and judo instructor, licensed real estate agent, private pilot’s license, and he’s got the massage therapist thing going on, too.”

  I aimed my raised eyebrows at Andy.

  He smiled. “I dig it here.”

  “Welcome aboard,” I said, feeling out of touch. The downside of turning over control of my agency to Rita is that I no longer make the day-to-day decisions. The upside is that I no longer make the day-to-day decisions. Retirement is strange.

  Flipping pages on a clipboard, Trish scanned her notes and gave me the rundown on Morgan’s whereabouts. “Overall, nothing out of the ordinary, except that he goes into the restaurant ridiculously early. It’s interfered with my beauty sleep. Anyway, that’s all he does. Grocery store, dry cleaner’s, and Argo’s.”

  “And I thought my life was dull,” JJ said. She used to be an army sharpshooter and is the first to volunteer for the Barnes Agency’s more unconventional assignments.

  “Your life can’t be dull,” I said. “You’re one of Charlie’s Angels, remember?”

  “Bosley!” Andy said, making a big deal of slapping his forehead. “Of course it was Bosley, because the other dude was Charlie. The girls were all Charlie’s angels, right? So Bosley is the one I meant.”

  I eyed him. “You get that East Carolina diploma with a mail-in coupon from the back of Rolling Stone magazine?”

  “Nope, did it the old-fashioned way. Attended classes.”

  “But here’s the interesting part,” Trish continued. “I think I spotted somebody else tailing Morgan.” She rattled off an out-of-state license plate number. “Problem is, that tag expired years ago. The individual it was registered to sold that vehicle and turned the tag in to their local DMV.”

  “Which means it could have ended up in a dump bin anywhere.” Such license plates are discarded, recycled, or given to any number of municipalities for use in their undercover departments. Even unmarked cop cars and the highway patrol sometimes bolt a bogu
s, out-of-state tag on their bumper to fool speeders. The vehicle Trish had spotted was a dark blue Nissan Murano with a “swimmingly handsome” male driver.

  “Try a loose tail on Morgan, see if you can pick up the Murano again. If you do, maybe we can find out who he is.”

  “Will do.”

  My phone rang. Caller ID said that Spud’s girlfriend was on the other end.

  “Jersey, it’s Fran. Can you come and get your father at the emergency room? They say he’s fine, but he’s a little out of sorts, and I don’t think I should haul him on the back of my scooter.” Fran shouldn’t be hauling anyone—not even herself—on Wilmington’s roads. She’d presented a plagiarized eye exam to renew her driver’s license. Which incensed Spud no end, since he hadn’t thought of doing the same thing when the state revoked his license owing to deteriorating eyesight.

  “What happened?”

  “He came to my yoga class and got his leg stuck behind his head. Stupid man, trying to prove something. That wasn’t even one of the stretches! He was just trying to show off. Anyhoo, the instructor got Spud untangled from himself, but when he stood up, he fell over and hit his head on the floor. Kaplunk! They called an ambulance to make sure he didn’t damage anything inside that thick skull of his.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Few hours ago. But don’t worry, sweetie. They took a picture of his head and said it’s perfectly fine. They gave him pain pills, though, since he pulled a muscle in his leg.”

  “Good grief.” I told Fran I’d be right there and disconnected. First, Spud is spouting big words as though he were practicing for a Scrabble tournament. And now he was doing yoga? I wasn’t so sure that hanging out with a peppy girlfriend was a good idea after all. Trying to keep up might kill him.

  Nobody was overly surprised when I gave them the Spud update.

  “Want me to come over and give him a massage once you get him home?”

  “You might break something. He’s eighty,” I said. People seeing us together always thought me to be Spud’s granddaughter. They didn’t factor in the fact that my mother was barely half his age when I was born. “He’s fragile.”

  The office erupted in laughter. Apparently, they all disagreed.

  I angled the hearse lengthwise along the curb directly in front of the hospital’s patient pickup area. I’d been there before and was quite familiar with the process. A nurse at the information booth told me they’d bring my father right out.

  Ten minutes later, automatic sliding doors swooshed open and a nurse wheeled Spud through. He wore a pair of running shorts and a sleeveless muscle shirt with spurts of wiry gray chest hairs sticking out in all directions. Dressed in a skintight pink bodysuit, Fran strutted behind them, clutching a striped gym bag and Spud’s walking cane.

  Seeing the hearse, the nurse cocked her head. “You’re here for Mr. Barnes?”

  I opened a rear door of the corpse caddy. “That I am.”

  “He’s not dead yet, dear,” she said.

  SIX

  Since absorbing the reality that he and Maria didn’t have a future together, Morgan had existed in an off-balance fog. He’d immersed himself in the restaurant business, just as he’d resolved he would do, and Argo’s was running smoothly. His new life in a beautiful new town was moving forward. And he would soon be wealthy, once the estate sale and trust were finalized. Any other man would have been gleefully happy. Or at least upbeat.

  It was yet another day, and standing in Argo’s kitchen, Morgan felt nothing but emptiness. And he was too tired to be alarmed when he suspected someone was following him along Wilmington’s streets as he grocery-shopped and dropped work suits at the cleaner’s. He just didn’t care. If the weird happenings were a result of his father’s unethical eavesdropping, the people following Morgan would soon realize that he didn’t know a thing. All their secrets died with Garland. The only tie to anything telling was the bugged Green Table, and that would be taken care of early tomorrow morning. Once he’d disassembled the setup, Morgan planned to smash the electronics before tossing the pieces in the trash compactor. He turned to see an employee watching him.

  “Uh, hey, boss? Not to be disrespectful or anything, but you really don’t look well. In fact, you look pretty awful.” Even looking bad, Deanna thought, he was still gorgeous. The man was a visual masterpiece. She could stare at him all night long.

  Morgan nodded at the woman in charge of Argo’s wait staff. Deanna had caught him standing in the kitchen, zoned out, not doing anything other than watching the artistic plating of lobster-roll appetizers drizzled with Dijon-lemon sauce. He ran a palm down his silk tie and adjusted his jacket.

  “Seriously. I mean, your suit and tie is meticulous, as usual. But you look like you partied all night long. I mean, you look sort of tired.” She smiled long enough to make him uncomfortable. “Hitting Wilmington’s night spots?”

  “I’m not sleeping well.”

  She frowned and handed him a small tube, fantasizing that he was tired because he’d spent the night with her. “Here, dab some of this beneath your eyes. It’s a skin tightener. Works wonders.”

  Did he look that bad? “Thanks, I guess.”

  “You can keep it,” Deanna said. “It’s a trial size. By the way, the Divine Image Group—all of them—are here, and they want to see you. Two of them are the go-to cosmetic surgeons if you live anywhere near Wilmington. That’s what everybody says, anyway. The third one is a shrink. They’re just finishing up an early dinner at the Green Table. What do you want me to tell them?”

  To go eat somewhere else, Morgan thought, where the owner will do a better job of acting impressed. He hated dealing with uppity people who thought they were better than everybody else simply because they could put a few letters after their name. But then, that was probably a third of Argo’s clientele. Lawyers and doctors. And these physicians had been eating at Argo’s since it opened, he’d heard. He didn’t care for doctors in general, since his mother died. If the medical community was so terrific, why hadn’t someone diagnosed her heart condition before it killed her?

  “I can always say you’ve stepped out,” Deanna continued. She’d grown accustomed to the new owner’s solitary tendencies. “Although they’ve wanted to meet you ever since you took over the restaurant. After all, you’re Garland’s son. You’re a local celebrity just by association. And your dad was really good friends with them. Your mom was, too.”

  “Fine, I’ll stop by their table.”

  Morgan held up the little tube of miracle cream next to the fluorescent lighting to read the directions. He didn’t want any customers—especially plastic surgeons—to see him at his worst.

  “Here, let me do it.” Deanna squirted the cream onto a finger and, with the tip of her tongue stuck out, applied a dab beneath each of Morgan’s eyes. “There! Better already.”

  He headed for the dining room, wishing he had a tiny bit of her enthusiasm so he’d be better in social situations.

  “You’re welcome,” Deanna said under her breath, and went to collect a waiting food order. A tingle of excitement had coursed through her body during the brief moment of physical nearness to her boss. But he’d apparently felt nothing. He hadn’t even bothered to thank her.

  Spine straight and forcing a smile, Morgan caught the group of doctors as they were standing to leave the Green Table. Stepping up to the alcove, he felt as though he’d entered an alternate universe. It was an odd sensation. The elegant Green Table and its surrounding valuable artwork radiated an appreciable energy. But the table also held a secret, known only to him. Morgan felt powerful and important, like a stealthy undercover agent. Even though he would never spy on someone, the mere knowledge that he could gave him confidence.

  He held out a hand to the man on his left. “I’m Morgan.”

  The man gripped his palm as though they were comrades, and the shake was more side to side than up and down. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! I’m Dr. Haines”—he indicated
the man next to him—“this is Dr. Rosch and Dr. Pratt. Please call us Leo, Jonathan, and Michael. Jonathan specializes in psychiatry, and Michael and I specialize in cosmetic procedures.”

  Morgan voiced something about it being nice to meet the men.

  Leo stepped forward and palmed Morgan’s shoulder. “You don’t know how devastated we were to learn of your father’s passing. He was a great man. A great friend. And I must say, you have Garland’s eyes. Now I know why he was always bragging on you.”

  Garland had bragged on him? That was news. Morgan tried to smile.

  Michael spoke up. “It does offer some consolation to see you taking up where Garland left off.”

  “Absolutely,” said Jonathan the shrink, the word coming out a bit slurred. “Our practice is a few miles down the road, and we’ve been dining at Garland’s place for years and years. We’ve come to think of him as family.”

  “Which means that you are family, too,” Leo said. “Anything you ever need, anytime, you let us know.”

  “Thanks, I will,” Morgan managed to say, even though they danced around his mother’s death as though it were insignificant, the bastards. They hadn’t bothered to mention Rosemary. Just because she’d passed almost a year ago didn’t mean the pain wasn’t still fresh to him.

  The Divine Image Group threw out a few more pleasantries, but their voices blended into a single lump in Morgan’s ears. He nodded and smiled and endured the social assault as he ushered them out Argo’s front door with a reminder to drive safely.

  He continued holding the door for an arriving couple, and when he realized who they were, he nearly stumbled into them. A wave of vertigo rolled through his brain.

  “Morgan!” Maria acted delighted to see him, as though he were an old friend instead of a dumped ex-boyfriend. “I’m so glad you’re here tonight. Remember Mark, my old boss? He flew in for a conference and has offered to drive me back to Dallas so I won’t be on the road by myself. But he refused to go without first eating at the finest restaurant in Wilmington.”