“So … no Star Wars stuff?”
“Nope.”
“What a whore!” Carly tends to fly off the handle, but she’s unbelievably loyal. Still, when I envisioned this little job I thought it would be Lexie and me pulling it off. Instead, we added a pregnant woman and an over-excitable man-child to the mix because Marvin also refused to be cut out of the fun.
“Are you sure the side door will still be open?” Marvin asked, his eyes keen as they bounced over bushes and trees. “What if it’s locked?”
“I texted Eliot, because I wondered that myself. But he’s not answering.” I was a little bitter about that, truth be told. He was probably with Fawn. Seriously, who names their kid Fawn? She must’ve been spawned by wolves who had grand plans to eat their young. There can be no other explanation. “He could get us in, but he’s not answering.”
“Speaking of Eliot, won’t he be angry if we break in?” Lexie challenged. “He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about this stuff.”
She knew him well. “Yes, well, if he wanted to be involved in the decision-making he should’ve answered my texts. I did what I was supposed to do. I texted him my location and plans. It’s not my fault he has more important things to do.”
“Yeah, you say that now, but you’ll be singing a different song when he finds out and starts yelling,” Lexie argued. “I just want you to be sure you’re willing to put up with the punishment.”
“I’m not going to be punished.” I was fifty percent certain that was true. “We’re going to get in, search the floor for the hidden compartment, grab everything inside and then get out. Ten minutes, tops.”
“I’m game.” Carly’s pregnancy had forced her to give up a lot of her favorite activities – like drinking at the bar – so anything to break the tedium was a good idea in her book. “Let’s do it.”
I didn’t wait to see if Marvin and Lexie were ready, instead pocketing my keys and getting out of the car. I lifted my finger to my lips to remind everyone that we were on a covert mission and needed to be quiet.
It didn’t take us long to reach the house. I led the way, cutting across the driveway and heading straight for the door I knew to be open thanks to my last visit. I had thought ahead and grabbed my shark mittens from the console between the seats. Now I tugged them on before trying the door.
It opened.
“I think this is going to be our lucky night,” I said, grinning.
When no one immediately said anything, I turned to look over my shoulder. When I saw the reason everyone was quiet – and staring at their shoes – I heaved out a disgusted sigh and glared at Eliot and Jake. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,” Eliot muttered, striding forward and wrapping his hand around the back of my neck. “What are you thinking? Did you forget what happened three freaking days ago? Are you trying to kill me?”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic.” I kept my voice low so as not to draw attention from the neighbors. “I texted you. This is not on me.”
“Way to hold your ground,” Carly encouraged, earning a stern look from Jake.
“You did not text me,” Eliot shot back.
“I did! Check your phone.”
Eliot clearly wanted to prove me wrong when he started digging in his pocket. The look on his face when he pulled out his phone and saw several text messages on the display shoved that haughty smile of his right back where it belonged.
“What do you have to say now?”
“You’re still a pain in the ass,” Eliot grumbled, running his free hand through his hair as he glanced at Jake. “She did text.”
It was only then I noticed that they were both dressed in all black. We’re talking head-to-toe black. Things clicked into place. “You guys are doing exactly what we’re doing,” I hissed, my excitement ratcheting up a notch. “That’s why you’re here. You didn’t see my texts. You couldn’t know why we’re here. You’re here to break in.”
“That is not entirely true,” Eliot hedged, shifting from one foot to the other. “We came to look at the outside of the house and get a feel for Cara and what she might’ve been feeling before her death.”
What a load of crap. “You’re suddenly psychic, huh?”
Eliot pinned me with a furious look. “That doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. “You’re not supposed to break into Cara’s house. We’ve already discussed this.”
“We have,” I confirmed. “We had a discussion about this, and now you’re here to do it yourself. You have no moral high ground here. You can’t yell at me.”
“She’s right,” Carly interjected. “If you yell, that makes you a hypocrite. No one likes a hypocrite.”
“Stuff it, Carly,” Eliot barked. “Why are you even here? I mean … who brings a pregnant chick to a break-in?”
“Only someone very smart and sly,” I said, holding up my shark mittens and allowing them to bare their teeth for Eliot’s benefit. “I have everything under control.”
“Why are you here?” Jake asked, speaking for the first time. “We came because we thought Fraser might’ve missed something. Why are you here?”
I told them about my meeting with Cara’s purported friends at the wine-tasting. When I was done, they were both flabbergasted.
“Seriously?” Jake looked sick to his stomach. “I knew she was messed up but I had no idea she was that … wacked.”
I almost felt sorry for him. But I was in a precarious situation, so I couldn’t afford to be soft-hearted. “That’s why we’re here. We want to find this cubby thing in the office. I texted Eliot for help, but he didn’t text back. I didn’t want to waste a full twenty-four hours before we could get back here.”
“That still doesn’t make this all right,” Eliot grumbled, but I could already see his anger draining. “You’re in big trouble when we get home, just so you know.”
Oh, please. Like I was scared now that I’d caught him in the act. “So are you.”
“Whatever,” Jake said, holding his hands up as he stepped forward. “We need to do this fast … and apparently as a group. We can’t afford to stay out here chatting away the evening. We need to be swift.”
“Like ninjas.” Lexie beamed at Jake. “I can’t believe we’re about to break the law with the sheriff.”
“Yes, it’s the highlight of my day,” Jake deadpanned. “Can we just get this over with? This has been the longest day ever.”
“I bet I can make it feel longer,” I offered, flexing one of my sharks. “Have you ever seen scenes from Star Wars reenacted with shark mittens? Fish claims it shaves years from his life whenever I do it.”
Jake’s face remained grim. “I’ll pass.”
“Okay, but you’re missing out.”
23 Twenty-Three
“You’re still in trouble.”
Jake volunteered to get Carly, Marvin and Lexie home safely after we found Cara’s treasure trove of blackmail material, leaving Eliot and me to have an argument in private before he joined us at the house to go through what we’d found. Eliot wasted little time getting into things once we hit the front door.
I, of course, wasn’t in the mood to be dressed down.
“Oh, no.” I wagged my finger as I kicked off my shoes, leaving them in the middle of the living room because I knew it would irritate Eliot. “You can’t yell at me. You were there to do the same thing. That means your ability to yell, scream and stomp your feet like a big baby are negated.”
“First, I never stomp my feet.”
“You should. It would make you look like a bull. If I wasn’t totally allergic to the color red I’d dress in fancy lingerie and do a little dance to make you snort and stomp.”
Eliot pursed his lips and I got the distinct impression he was trying to refrain from laughing. Since that went against his ‘I have to admonish you for being bad’ act, he couldn’t risk cracking a smile. It took him a full ten seconds to regroup. “What
were we talking about again?”
“The fact that you want to yell at me even though you were doing the exact same thing I was doing,” I answered without hesitation. “Also, and I don’t want to be petty here but it bears noting, that you did it without texting me. I notified you of my location and plans as I was supposed to, and you totally fell down on the job.”
Eliot narrowed his eyes, the urge to laugh absent from his handsome features. “I’m a professional. I didn’t tell you what Jake and I were doing because I didn’t want to broadcast our actions in case the cops decide to look into our phone records.”
Huh. I hadn’t even considered that. “Well … that’s neither here nor there.” He had a point about being an idiot via text message, but I couldn’t take back what I’d written so there was no sense dwelling on it. “You could’ve called and told me what you were doing.”
“Yes, but … .” Eliot broke off, unsure.
I took advantage of his momentary confusion. “Oh, yeah. I’m right!” I barked it loud enough to cause him to jolt. “I’m right, and you should’ve called to tell me what you were doing.”
“You were at a wine tasting,” Eliot shot back. “I figured I would tell you how I spent my evening when I got home.”
“Uh-huh.” His argument didn’t make much sense to me. “I have a problem with that.”
“Do you have a problem because you really have a problem or because you want to get out of trouble?”
“I’m not in trouble.”
“Oh, you’re in trouble.”
“You can’t say things like that to me and expect me not to get riled up.” I slammed my bare foot into the carpet to get his attention. Stomping really is effective, no matter what he wants to believe. “There can’t be one set of rules for you and one for me.”
“That’s not how I look at it.” Eliot fought to keep his tone even despite the fact that he was clearly on edge. “There aren’t separate rules. I want you safe, and what you had planned for tonight wasn’t safe.”
“I texted you because I knew it was important,” I argued. “If we didn’t go into Cara’s house tonight we would’ve lost a full day waiting for it to get dark again. I texted you because I knew it was important and I wanted help. You didn’t text back.”
“I put my phone on silent because I didn’t want it going off when I was breaking the law.”
“Well, it seems to me that was very reckless.” I adopted a haughty tone. “You promised to be available for driving should I become drunk. What if I had too much wine and no way to get home?”
“You’re still recovering from a hangover,” Eliot protested. “There was no way you were going to drink. We both know that.”
“What if the only way to get information from Cara’s friends was to drink with them?” I challenged. “We both know I would’ve sucked it up and drank wine with them to get information if it came to it.”
Eliot opened his mouth as if to argue and then snapped it shut, planting his hands on his hips as he debated how to extricate himself from this argument. I, of course, pressed the advantage.
“We do have two sets of rules in this house,” I said. “You’re allowed to do what you want and don’t have to check in with me. On the flip side, I need to make sure I’m not going to upset you before I do anything, and that often means calling or texting for permission.”
“That’s not true.” Eliot’s face flushed with color. “That’s not … I mean … um … .” He was flustered, which made me happy. What? I’m totally petty.
“It is true,” I pressed. “The thing is, a lot of the time I’m happy to have you looking over my shoulder because I tend to jump into things before thinking them through. I don’t mean to do it but it happens quite often.
“I don’t need constant surveillance, though, and there are times when I really try to do my best to make sure I make the right decision,” I continued. “That’s what happened tonight. I did my best. Despite all that, you’re honestly trying to find a reason to yell at me. That completely and totally pisses me off.”
The last part was enough to snap Eliot out of his muttering doldrums. “That’s very annoying.”
“How can you possibly be annoyed at me?” I vowed to remain calm, but I was very close to losing it.
“I’m not annoyed at you,” Eliot clarified. “I’m annoyed with me. You’re right. Yes, I know you’re always right, but in this case in particular you’re right. I’m holding you up to a standard that I don’t hold myself to. That’s not fair.”
His admission threw me for a loop. “You’re admitting I was right?”
“I’m admitting I was wrong,” Eliot clarified. “No matter what you think, you’re not always right. You are right about what occurred tonight, though.”
I’d won. We got in an argument and I won. I was completely and totally right, and he was wrong. I was the victor. Yay!
“I can see your mind working,” Eliot muttered. “Tell me what you’re thinking. If you want to gloat, I think you’ve earned it.”
Gloating would be wrong in this instance, right? “I’m not thinking anything other than the fact that I want some tomato juice.” I turned myself toward the kitchen. “Thank you very much for admitting I was right.”
Eliot ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes flooded with doubt. “I think the sentiment was that I was more wrong than you were right, but we can go with that since you seem to need to be right. Constantly.”
“Great.” I kept my victory smile in place as I grabbed a can of juice out of the refrigerator, internally lauding myself for being such a big person and not rubbing Eliot’s face in the fact that I was right and he was wrong. By the time I hit the living room again, Eliot was letting Jake in the front door and my attention shifted. “Did you get everyone home all right?”
“I did. By the way, you spend your time with morons,” Jake said.
“I like to think of them as colorful.”
“Lexie wants me to go to a yoga class and Marvin wants me to be his wingman at the Laundromat so we can both pick up women now that I’m single and looking.”
I didn’t bother hiding my snicker. “That would be the best dating show ever.”
“Yeah, it’s not going to happen.” Jake turned his attention to the mountain of files resting on the coffee table. “Are we ready to start going through these? Are you guys done fighting?”
“We didn’t fight,” Eliot replied.
“We didn’t,” I agreed. “Eliot admitted he was wrong and I was right, and now we’re basking in the glow of me being right.”
Jake’s smile was obvious. Eliot’s frown was equally overt.
“What?”
“Let’s just get to work,” Eliot instructed. “We can talk about you being right later.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE all of this stuff.”
Two hours later we’d managed to sort through most of the material, but what we found only added to our frustration, adding questions to the skyscraper’s worth we already had. Jake especially seemed to be treading toward a meltdown.
“She was amassing blackmail material on so many people that I think I’ve lost count,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck as I sat cross-legged on the floor, my back resting against the side of the couch. “How did she think she could get away with this?”
“She did get away with it for quite some time,” Eliot noted. “Her file on Ludington is pretty impressive.”
“Tad?” I brightened despite my weariness. “Let me see his file.”
Eliot shifted it out of my reach. “No. If you read it you’ll get all worked up and it’s almost your bedtime.”
“Ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. You shouldn’t have mentioned a file on Tad if you didn’t want me to do my ‘I’m going to take him down and make him cry’ dance.”
“Oh, that is my favorite of all of your dances,” Eliot teased. “As for information, I don’t t
hink she has anything you don’t already know. She seemed most interested in following his movements around the time he dated you.”
“Oh.” Realization dawned. “She was hoping she would be able to get information on Tad so he would give her stuff on me. That’s what she wanted.”
“Definitely,” Eliot agreed. “I can’t say if she approached Ludington or not because there’s no notation or anything, but she had enough to make a guy like him squirm. Of course, you’ve outed the sheer bulk of the information she had over the past six months, so if she was blackmailing him you took all of her ammunition.”
“Which probably infuriated her,” Jake mused. “Edward Haugh is in here.”
Now my interest was officially piqued. “Really?”
Jake nodded. “His file is much bigger than mine.” He held up the two folders for emphasis, one noticeably thicker than the other. “There are only a few things in mine, but Haugh is apparently a very naughty boy.”
“Cara’s friends told me that she was frustrated she couldn’t find dirt on you,” I offered. “They said that she turned her attention to gathering information on me when she realized she wouldn’t be able to blackmail you. She thought if she put the screws to me I could convince you to change your mind and start dating her.”
“She must’ve been crazy to think you’d allow yourself to be blackmailed,” Eliot said. “You own all of the weird crap you’ve done. Sometimes you’re even proud of it. You would’ve outed yourself just to be able to beat her at her own game.”
He wasn’t wrong. “So what did she have on Haugh?”
“Enough to get him in trouble with law enforcement, his partners and possibly disbarred,” Jake replied. “According to what she’s dug up, Haugh has been diverting funds from the law office’s main account into one in his name in the Cayman Islands.”
“Cayman Islands?”
“It’s for tax sheltering,” Eliot explained. “He can hide money there all he wants and the U.S. government can’t touch it. If he’s hiding money there, that must mean he has plans to relocate at some point.”
[Avery Shaw 11.0] Unwritten & Underwater Page 21
