by Eva Charles
“The alarm is set up—teach her how to use it. Remind her to carry her weapon. But that’s it. She’ll be leaving Charleston in a couple days. Then she ceases to be my problem.”
“Should we take the tracker off her phone and car?”
I blow out a breath. “No. I want to know where she is. Go.” I glance at Gracie’s face on my screen. “Delilah,” I shout, as Josh is leaving.
“You need to calm down,” she says quietly, so no one else can hear. “You’re no good like this.”
She’s right, but I can’t, so I ignore her and her damn warning. “Who was manning the surveillance on the property Monday? What were they so fucking busy doing that they didn’t see Kate taking photos of Gabby and the baby?”
“LT.”
“We had only one person on it?”
“Between the new venture, what we were already doing, and the extra security on McKenna—you were gone all day Monday. We were stretched pretty thin.”
“Don’t make excuses.”
“I don’t make excuses.” Delilah’s not like Josh. She doesn’t back down from a fight with me—or with anyone—unless it’s part of a strategy. I rock back in my chair, hands behind my head.
“I want to see LT as soon as he arrives, and have someone pull the tapes from Monday afternoon.” She’s studying me, arms perfectly still at her side. “Why are you still standing here?”
“Let me investigate this. You’re too close to it. And there’s no reason you should have to beat yourself up any more than necessary.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. I need to beat myself up until I pass out, so that I remember never to do something so fucking stupid again.”
37
Kate
The days since I left Sweetgrass have passed in a blur. Lack of sleep, too much wine, and not enough food make for a potent cocktail that has wreaked havoc with my system. The worst part is that there’s no one to talk to.
Fiona knows something is up, but we don’t talk on the phone much while she’s at the Cape. Family time first—it’s a deal she has with Brett. Fi minimizes her phone time, and he doesn’t play golf. She’ll be back at the end of next week, and I’ll talk her ear off then.
My phone dings with an alert. I reach for it and turn it over. Oh God. The Boston Commissioner’s job went to Moniz. The blows just keep coming.
I pull up one article after another. Most are measured, but there are a few that tear into my father. One in particular, that cites the information that leaked from the police department to the Sentinel. My chest hurts, but I’m cried out.
I didn’t steal that information any more than I sent the photo to the paper. If Smith sees the article, it will just remind him that I’ve done it before. I don’t know exactly what happened at the Sentinel. My guess is someone in the department who supported Moniz fed it to a reporter. That certainly wasn’t me. The issue with the photo is clearer. Someone hacked into my phone. There are no other possibilities.
A techie friend from the Sun tried to sort it out for me, but she could only get so far. It’s too expensive for me to pay a forensic analyst to look into it. I don’t have that kind of money.
Why? That’s the question I keep asking myself. Why would anyone bother? I keep coming back to the same answer—Grace Wilder’s photo was valuable because she’s been so carefully protected. My phone must have been the weak link.
I can’t think about it anymore. I need to call my father.
While the phone rings, all I can think about is how much I dread this conversation. He wanted the commissioner’s job bad.
“Yeah,” he answers gruffly.
“I just read about the job, Dad. I’m so sorry.”
“After everything I’ve given those bastards. They screw me like this.” He sounds like he’s been drinking. It’s not even eight in the morning.
“When did you find out?”
“They called me in on Wednesday,” he growls. Three days ago.
“Is Joyce with you?”
“Nah. Bitch left yesterday. Said she won’t put up with the drinking. I told her to get the hell out then.” Oh God. The last time he missed a promotion, he went on a bender that lasted two weeks. It was years ago. If it hadn’t been for his buddies staging an intervention and covering for him, he’d have lost his badge.
“Is Tommy staying at the house?”
“Nah. He hooked up with some broad.”
“How about if I come home for a visit? I’ll make you a meatloaf, and fill the freezer with things you can microwave. Maybe we can catch a Sox game. I’ll see if I can get tickets.”
He starts to whimper. “That job shoulda been mine.”
“I know. It’s not fair.” I need to tell him to stop drinking. But I have to tread lightly or he’ll push me away too. “I bet you haven’t had breakfast. You might feel better if you eat something. And—how about if, just for today, you don’t have any more to drink.”
“Don’t tell me how to live my life, little girl,” he shouts. “I’m your father.”
I finally hang up after another half hour of him grousing and sobbing, with a promise to visit in a week. I just took time off when I was on lockdown at Sweetgrass. I don’t want to lose my job, but I need to make sure he’s okay. If he loses his job, it will be a lot worse than me losing mine.
But I’m not going anywhere yet. Sinclair doesn’t get to kick me out of the city like he owns it. First, I need to figure out where I’m going and what I’m doing. I need to talk it through with Fi.
I call my brother Tommy to send him to check on my dad. When he doesn’t answer, I text.
Kate: Hey. Just talked to Dad. He’s been drinking. Sounds like for days. Can you check on him?
Tommy: Sure. I never have anything better to do than clean up your messes.
Kate: This is not my fault.
Tommy: It’s all your fault. Still can’t figure out how you live with yourself.
Kate: Just check on him. Please.
I toss the phone on the bed next to me. I can’t go back to Boston—not to live.
“Hello.” I give Lucinda a peck on the cheek. “This place is gorgeous,” I murmur, taking the seat across from her. We’re having dinner before I leave for Boston tomorrow. Stacey, whose job I took at the library, is filling in for me while I’m gone.
“I wanted to take you somewhere special on your last night. I’m going to miss you.”
“It’ll only be for a couple weeks. Then I’ll be back with a million questions for you about Charleston.”
“You haven’t given up, huh?”
“On the societies?” She nods. “I’ve pretty much given up.”
“You done with Warren King, too?” she asks.
I shrug. “I have a feeling the final chapter of that story hasn’t been written.”
“You don’t believe he’s sick?” she asks, choosing a flaky roll from the napkin-lined basket between us.
“I have my doubts. What about you?”
“Sick? Pft.” She rolls her eyes. “Not unless he’s got the clap. It’s a concocted story.”
I smile. She tells it like it is, always. “You really don’t like him?”
“Always found him to be a weasel.” She leans across the table. “And nowhere near as good in bed as he claims to be,” she says in a hushed voice. “Close your mouth, Kate. Women have been having sex with men they’re not married to for centuries.”
“Did you date him?”
“No! He was a bad mistake on a night I enjoyed one too many cocktails. I’m like Mae West. I never do the same mistake twice. Always look for new ones.”
I press my lips together, trying to suppress the laughter that’s bubbling in my chest from spilling all over the room.
“Tell me about your friend, Sinclair,” she says, with a wry smile. “He a mistake?”
“It’s complicated. I’m sure he sees me as a mistake. That picture of Gracie Wilder that ended up everywhere, I took it. I told you that. I’m not sure he�
��ll ever forgive me.”
“The Wilders should have sent a picture of that little girl to the press themselves after she was born. What did they expect? Sooner or later, someone was going to get a photograph of that child.”
“I don’t think it matters.”
“You are a convenient scapegoat. Do you know why that is, Kate?”
I swallow some water. “No.” Fortunately the waiter brings menus before she can explain.
“Because you allow it,” she says as soon as his back is turned. I should have known better. She’s not someone who is easily distracted by shiny objects. “You get all feisty about the women you work with,” she continues, “but when it comes to sticking up for yourself, you let people pile on.”
“Like Sinclair?”
“I’m reserving judgment on him at this time.”
We order and settle in with our pre-dinner cocktails. Lucinda knows everyone in the place, and everyone knows her. I meet more people before dessert is served than I’ve met the entire time I’ve been in Charleston.
“I’m glad you’ve let the societies be. I know it’s hard to believe, but there really isn’t much there. Did they do some bad things? Yes. Mainly to keep the old ways, and the power in the hands of the same families. The result was travesty and tragedy for many people.” She’s uncharacteristically sad.
“How so?” I ask gently.
“Marriages were arranged. Not to a specific person—at least not in my time. We were mostly free to marry our choice from the stallions in the stable—monied young men with good breeding and family connections from the same society as our family.” She’s wistful. “The societies filtered out anyone who didn’t have the proper lineage. The powers vested there, came between true love on many occasions. That might be the worst thing the societies have ever done.”
Is she telling me her heart was broken as a result of the arcane rules? I think she might be. “You never married?”
She shakes her head. “Never.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“The man who stole my heart was a young public defender who came to town right after I finished college. He was from New York, with a last name my father refused to pronounce correctly. We spent hours in each other’s arms and talked about getting married—until the day my father, with all his society connections, ruined his career and chased him out of town.”
“That’s awful. There was nothing either of you could do?”
“It was awful, but not uncommon. The worst part was that when he begged me to go with him, I didn’t. I didn’t fight hard enough for him. For our relationship. I put my fate in someone else’s hands. I kept hoping something would change my father’s mind—that my profound unhappiness would persuade him to have a change of heart. But it never did.”
“Did you ever talk to him again?”
She shakes her head. “It was a long time ago. There were no cell phones or internet. Communicating with someone so far away as New York seemed at the time, wasn’t easy. Not if it had to be kept a secret.”
Even after decades, she seems filled with regret. “I’m so sorry you never saw him again, Lucinda.”
“Oh, I saw him.” She gazes at me over her coffee cup. “I never forgot him. Built a shrine to him in my mind. There was never anyone as handsome, as smart, as kind, or as good in bed.” She sighs. “After six years of trying to forget, I hired a private investigator to find him. He was a rising star in the New York legal circles, married to a pretty girl.”
She glances at me. “Life waits for no one, Kate. Not even leggy redheads. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him, so I went to New York, packed my prettiest dresses. Sat in the back of the courtroom while he tried a big case. I watched his every move, admired the way his crisp white shirts fit around his neck, the way his suits tapered at the waist, the sharpness of his tone when he cross-examined a witness. By the end of the week there wasn’t anything about his courtroom mannerisms that I didn’t know.”
This is a heartbreaking story—and I haven’t heard all of it. “But you never talked to him?”
She shakes her head. “He was married. He wasn’t the kind of man who would ever step out on his wife, and I wasn’t the kind of woman who would ask him to do it.”
She smiles at me. “Don’t look so forlorn, Kate. My life was full of fun and rebel-rousing. I’ve got no complaints. I’ve lived just the way I wanted.” Even as she says the words, I don’t believe them. Not after her story. “What would you do if you weren’t a journalist chasing stories?”
“I would write books. In a pretty room that overlooked a garden, or maybe the ocean.” I smile at the whimsy. “Someday.”
“What would you write about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I would write a bittersweet love story about lovers who weren’t destined to be together.”
“Put some juicy sex in it, and I’d read it.” We both laugh, and she orders a small after-dinner drink for us before insisting on picking up the check.
I wait with her outside the restaurant for the valet to bring her car. “If you leave me a key, I’ll check on your place while you’re in Boston,” she says.
I’ve never told her about what happened to Fenny—other than that she’s dead. “I would love for you to have a key. But there is something you should know.” I give her as few of the grisly details as possible, just enough so she doesn’t go there alone, and make a promise to drop off the key in the morning.
38
Smith
Kate’s leaving Charleston. It took longer than planned, but she told Josh this morning she was headed out of town first thing tomorrow. “Pull all surveillance as of six a.m. Write it up, and then take a couple days off,” I told him when he called to give me the news. “You’ve earned it.”
The rest of the day sucked. Up until now, I’ve been able to distract myself by throwing everything I had into the new business. Day and night, until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. But today, nothing could get her out of my head.
I managed to piss off or scare the shit out of every person I encountered today. I drag my miserable ass into bed at ten so that I don’t drown my sorrows, or worse, call Kate to say goodbye, or even worse, stop by to tell her in person.
As it turns out, I’m highly susceptible to pussy whipping. Surprised they ever let me near the elite ranks of the military. No failsafe way to rule out that trait, I suppose.
I climb out of bed and tear the sheets off the mattress, literally, then chuck them outside along with the pillows and quilt.
They smell like her. It doesn’t matter how many times they’re laundered, her scent dug itself deep into the threads and it won’t let go.
I lay on the exposed mattress, my sweatshirt balled up for a pillow. But I still can’t sleep. Her scent is still everywhere. I need to get to hell out of here.
After throwing on some clothes, I pop into the security office next door. “I’ll be at Tallullah’s if anything comes up.”
“I’m just finishing this damn paperwork, and I would love a drink,” Delilah says, grabbing her purse.
“Not looking for company,” I snarl over my shoulder, on the way out. “See you in the morning.”
There was a time when I could have strolled over to JD’s with a bottle, or just showed up empty-handed and drank his booze. We’d shoot the shit until life’s problems were in the rearview mirror, so far back we could barely see them. But we’re still not talking any more than necessary, and it’s unclear whether we can salvage a business relationship, let alone the friendship.
Tallulah’s is noisy and crowded, but there’s a seat at the bar where I can be left alone.
Before I can get to it, some bastard lands the stool I have my eye on. I’m prepared to wage war for it, but the little cocksucker takes a second look at me and decides he wants to live to eat his mama’s cookin’ again. He steers his girlfriend to a table, and I sit my ass down.
“What’s good?” Beau asks, setting a napkin on the bar in
front of me.
“Not a fucking thing. Hook me up with a draft, and whatever you do, don’t let me have any whiskey. I won’t stop once I start.”
He brings me over a beer. “This one’s on me.”
I’m on my third beer when a blonde sidles up next to me and sits down. “I thought you might have a change of heart about some company,” Delilah says, rubbing her hands together as if to warm them. “And I haven’t had a cocktail in forever.”
“They stop selling drinks at the other bars in Charleston? All the liquor stores closed?”
“Got any apple cider, Beau?” she asks in that sweet voice of hers.
“Yes, ma’am. Any preference on whiskey you’d like with it tonight?”
“Surprise me.”
Delilah is attractive by any standards, and she can turn on the southern charm like it’s nobody’s business. But make no mistake, she’ll bat her eyelashes and smile at you while she’s cutting out your kidneys. Even so, she has that nurturing gene a lot of women possess, and tonight she’s determined to make me feel better, if it kills us both.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than babysit me? I’ll bet Gray Wilder could be convinced, without too much trouble, to use his dick instead of his eyes to fuck you.” God love her, she doesn’t blink.
“You can put it on his tab,” she tells Beau when he brings her drink. His tab, meaning mine. She takes a sip and moans. “I needed this.”
I finish my beer, ignoring her as best as I can.
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that Gray Wilder comment to get me to leave. It’s not that you’re not somewhere in the running to be the biggest asshole in the world, but you lack something. That je ne sais quoi.” She smirks at me. “I’ve met real champions. You’re not even the biggest asshole I’ve encountered today.”
I start to laugh—not because she’s funny, although she is, but because my emotions have topped off and need somewhere to go.
“I have the information you wanted on that guy with the alias, Ryan Cleary. His name is Ryan Donovan. Cleary is his mother’s maiden name. He lives outside of Boston.” She turns her head to look at me. “I figure it has something to do with Kate.”
