BAD TIME TO BE IN IT

by David Burnsworth

  So she got shot for being a bonehead. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Brack’s wife might not appreciate Harmony using her husband as backup, but that didn’t stop him from agreeing so it must be okay, right?

  Someone like Tess would dismiss the whole idea as illogical, but Harmony knew deep down that she used people. She was using Brack. After being shot, she had done a lot of self evaluation and had decided from then on to be honest with herself no matter what.

  People like Brack could die helping her. She knew this. Such was life.

  Wednesday, early evening

  Volunteering to monitor the tracker they’d placed on Crome’s motorcycle, Tess decided, was not the most rewarding of tasks. But it had to be done. The man was out of control, but only inasmuch as he was dissing his friends and she couldn’t understand why.

  With a borrowed Toyota Camry and the tablet from Harmony, Tess had done her best to keep up with the biker. It wasn’t easy. The man must have thought obeying traffic laws was a voluntary activity. The poor car gave all she had, and it was barely enough at times. Luckily the tracker made up the difference. If she lost him, and it happened quite frequently, the tracker told her by how far.

  Crome must have sensed he was being followed because he doubled back several times, making extra turns. He’d almost outsmarted her on more than one occasion, and once to the point that the cover of her rolling incognito car would be blown. She’d had to pull into a gas station and duck when he’d made a quick U-turn and accelerated back toward her. Lucky for her, the sound of his straight-piped exhaust announced both his presence and departure. She’d simply waited for the rumble to lessen.

  What she didn’t expect was his destination. When he turned into the parking lot of the Palmetto Pulse, she nearly followed behind him, catching herself at the last minute and accelerating away.

  Parking a block down with a view of the exit of the lot, she put on a baseball cap and called Harmony. Together they’d decide if they were ready to call Blu yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Wednesday, early evening

  The office of the Palmetto Pulse was neat and tidy, if getting sparser the closer it came to the date of sale. Through multiple sources, Crome had learned that Patricia’s decision to sell was not received well by most of the locals. Her paper was one of the few in the region that printed the news straight with no slant, political party or otherwise. Given Patricia’s propensity to document her nephew’s escapades as well as the most recent Blu Carraway Investigations job that ended badly for more than a few people, it wasn’t hard for her to toe the line and keep her reputation intact.

  A cute young girl sat behind the receptionist desk. Crome had met her before—Patricia’s great niece if he remembered right.

  “Hey, Mr. Crome,” she said.

  “Hey, there,” he read the name on the plate in front of her, “Josie.”

  She grinned, catching his forgetting her name. “Would you like me to see if my aunt is available?”

  “I could walk back there and find out myself,” he said.

  “No,” she said, with another smile, “you can’t. Or she’ll be mad at me.”

  “She’s your aunt. I think she’d get over it.”

  “Why risk it?” The young woman stood and motioned toward the chairs in the corner. “Have a seat and I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  He nodded and took a seat, thinking she was all right.

  What seemed like less than thirty seconds passed and then Josie was back, along with her great aunt.

  Patricia leaned against her niece’s desk. “You’re a tough man to figure out.”

  Standing, Crome said, “That’s the way I like it.”

  With the crook of a finger, she motioned for him to follow her.

  And he found himself thinking not exactly wholesome thoughts about the strong businesswoman in front of him as he trailed her into the back offices of her soon-to-be-sold empire.

  In her office, with the door remaining open, she sat behind a large, banker’s desk. Crome sat in one of the visitor’s chairs facing her, relinquishing some of the power of the conversation to her by the seating arrangement. On the desk were what looked like trinkets she’d collected over the years. Framed plaques of various awards hung on the walls around the room.

  He said, “I appreciate you seeing me.”

  Sitting straight in her chair, she said, “Of course. What is it you’d like to talk about?”

  “The information you gave Blu.”

  “What do you think I gave him?”

  “Something better than I had.”

  She leaned forward. “Why do you think that?”

  He smelled her perfume, Chanel No. 5 if he had to guess. “Because he let me go without much of a fight.”

  “I was told you threw him between two tables in the McDonald’s.”

  That made him smile. She already knew what went down. Anyone who thought money was power didn’t understand how much control having the right information wielded. Patricia had a lot of money, that was fact. But she had enough information on everyone of importance in this town to make J. Edgar Hoover jealous. She just didn’t use it like he did.

  He said, “He let me get away a little too easy.”

  “You don’t think you beat him to the punch, so to speak?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “Naw. I’ve known him too long. No one beats Blu Carraway to the punch.”

  “Then you’re smarter than you look.”

  “I’ve been told that before. It’s called tradecraft.”

  “So is knowing when to go rogue and when not to.”

  He sat back and propped a foot up on his knee. “You think I don’t know what I’m doing?”

  “I think you think you’re being so smart. All you’re doing is making your friends work extra hard while Maureen is in the hands of some monster.”

  That barb stuck in deep, going through his heart and out his back, a big mother of a boar spear with hook points and serrations and a two-foot-long tip. And it caused quite a bit of spit and vinegar to seep out the exit wound.

  Much like the phone call with Harmony, he’d just been skewered by Patricia. At least this time it was in a semi-private setting.

  He said, “So are you going to tell me what you gave him or what?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m going with ‘or what.’”

  Her defiance was almost too much to bear. It made him want to stand up and shove all her neat trinkets off her antique desk. But he resisted the urge.

  “What do I have to do to get you to help me?”

  “Work with your partner. And your friends.”

  “I didn’t think I had any friends left.”

  She raised herself out of her chair and walked around the desk to him.

  He stood and faced her.

  Wrapping her arms around him in a gesture that caught him off guard, she said, “You do. I’m a friend. So are Harmony and Tess. And Darcy and my nephew. And so is Blu.”

  He didn’t see this coming, her taking on a comforting role. He said, “I’m here, ain’t I?”

  “You are,” she said, unwrapping her arms and looking at him. “But we’re all a package deal.”

  Wednesday, early evening

  Blu Carraway sat in the passenger seat of Tess’s borrowed Camry and watched his partner roar away from the office of the Palmetto Pulse.

  Tess said, “Wonder what they talked about.”

  Getting out of the car, Blu leaned back in and looked at the woman too smart to understand how distracting her beauty could be.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Stay on Crome. I’ll call you later.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  He walked across the street and entered the Palmetto Pulse. Josie was behind
the receptionist desk.

  “Hey, Mr. Carraway. I’ll let Patricia know you’re here.”

  He felt himself smile. “Thanks, Josie. And call me Blu.”

  Her calling him Mr. Carraway made him feel older than his forty-five years.

  She got up, all of twenty years old, suntanned and toned from training for beach volleyball competitions. He had to remind himself, again, that he was too old and should be focused on the task at hand and not how she looked in her skirt. It was just that it had been a while since he’d been with Billie, her leaving town and all.

  Patricia didn’t help matters much except he didn’t feel as guilty about their mutual attraction. She was old enough to know better. Standing beside the desk as Josie returned to her seat and the ringing phone, Patricia said, “It seems like I just did this with your partner.”

  “I saw him leave.”

  “And you want to know what we talked about.”

  “Not really,” Blu said.

  “Something we need to discuss in my office, I presume?” she asked.

  “Who else is here?”

  “You mean besides me and Josie? No one.”

  “Then we can chat right here. Probably better for all parties concerned.”

  Patricia gave him what amounted to a combination of a frown and a smile.

  He said, “I’ve got my partner under surveillance.”

  “I figured as much,” she said. “I also get the feeling he knows although he hasn’t found the tracking device yet.”

  “Which is why I’m here.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m listening.”

  “I might need your wizard niece here to commit a felony.”

  “No chance.”

  Josie hung up the phone. “What would be the charge?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Wow!” Josie said. “Color me interested.”

  Patricia said, “The answer is still no.”

  “As soon as Crome finds the tracker Tess’s friend stuck on the inside fender of his bike, he’ll disappear.”

  With a snap of her fingers, Josie said, “You want me to track him by his phone.”

  “Yes.”

  With more emphasis, Patricia said, “Absolutely not.”

  Josie said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Patricia looked at both of them as if they had lost their minds. “Am I speaking to the walls?”

  “No,” Blu said. “You’re not. I’d ask my police contacts but they have too much oversight and frown on requests like this. Besides, Crome wouldn’t appreciate if I sent them after him. They already have a love-hate thing going on.”

  “You mean they love to hate him?” Patricia asked.

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Why don’t I just ask my nephew to sit on him for you?”

  Blu said, “I thought about that but your nephew’s skills lie elsewhere. He’d probably do it, but I don’t want any bad blood between him and Crome.” Brack would come in handier after the kidnapper was cornered and the guns came out.

  “What’s Crome’s cell number?” Josie asked, already typing on her laptop.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Patricia said. “The answer is no. Especially from my computer in my office.”

  “I thought you signed the papers,” Blu said.

  She looked at him. “I did, but it’s still mine until the end of the month.”

  Josie, still typing, said, “My laptop.”

  “My wifi,” Patricia snapped back.

  Typing fingers stopped. Josie gave her aunt a look that would have scared Blu if he’d received it. She closed the laptop with a loud click, stood, and put it in her backpack. “I’m calling it a day.” With that, she slung the backpack on a shoulder and walked out.

  Patricia said, “Do you see what you’re doing?”

  “She’s more like you than you want to admit.”

  “And if she goes to jail, what are we going to do then?”

  “Bail her out and put her on my payroll.”

  All pleasantries gone, Patricia got in Blu’s face. “You better be thankful that Josie is as good at hacking as she is. Otherwise, she would get caught. And I’d have to shoot you.”

  Not wanting to taunt the lioness any more than he’d already done, he said, “I believe you.”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a business dinner with the mayor that I need to get ready for.” She stepped back, gave him a curt smile, and walked back to her office.

  All that was left of her presence was the scent of Chanel No. 5.

  Thinking back, as he stood there, he couldn’t recall another time where someone had gotten in his face and didn’t suffer for it. He supposed there was a first time for everything.

  As he exited the office, he spun the open sign hanging in the window to closed and walked back to his truck.

  The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads To Another” began when he turned the key.

  Wednesday, eleven p.m.

  Harmony had another source to check out. Unlike the one that was supposed to meet her at the bar, this one would most likely not stand her up. He’d called and almost sounded desperate. The poor man wanted attention. And that’s what she’d give him, as long as he was useful.

  The only problem she saw was that it wasn’t related to Maureen’s kidnapping. It was another story she’d been working on. There were pangs of guilt, but she didn’t think taking an hour or two to work on something else would hurt anything. It might give her enough distance from the problem to have a much-needed breakthrough.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Thursday

  DAY FOUR

  The four a.m. call woke everyone up. Maybe it wasn’t everyone all at once, but within fifteen minutes of the first call to the last, they were all awake. It started with a call to Darcy Pelton from an old source who still fed her information even though she wasn’t in the business any more. The subject of the call was that the mayor had gone missing at sea. Radio contact with him had failed and the Coast Guard was looking for his boat.

  More out of loyalty than anything else, Darcy called Patricia. Patricia in turn, and for reasons she really didn’t want to think too hard about, what with a two-wine-bottle hangover from her business dinner that ended badly, called Blu Carraway. Blu called Crome. Then he called Tess.

  The call to Darcy started the chain reaction. It was the call Blu made to Crome and Crome’s response that triggered the gathering. And the panic.

  They all agreed to meet at the Pelton home on Sullivan’s Island. It was the only place large enough to accommodate them easily and still be close to the action.

  Blu Carraway arrived late. Most times living forty-five minutes south of Charleston was a blessing, what with the influx of new inhabitants and his penchant for peace and quiet. Forty-five minutes south of Charleston made it an hour and change to Sullivan’s Island.

  The Peltons’ home was ocean front and, no doubt thanks to Darcy, well appointed. That wasn’t a shot at Brack’s wealth status sans his wife. Pelton had enough fundage coming in from his two restaurants to afford to purchase, and subsequently lose in a fiery explosion, a new Porsche 911 convertible covered only by liability insurance. He was well off in most anyone’s book.

  Already parked on the artisan brick drive when Blu pulled in were Patrcia’s Mercedes and Tess’s convertible Beetle. Two of the four garage doors were open and exposed Pelton’s black Mustang and his wife’s new Grand Cherokee.

  The first thing that came to Blu’s mind was this was a meeting of one percenters and he, Crome, and Tess were merely guests. Money, Blu had come to realize, didn’t buy happiness. But, as the country song by Chris Janson went, it could buy boats and nice trucks to pull them. And beach front homes and information.

  He got out
of his three-year-old Nissan Xterra, a truck he considered a luxury because it was still new to him and had working air conditioning and satellite radio tuned in to the eighties alternative station.

  The home, elevated due to building codes established after Hurricane Hugo put Charleston under ten feet of water for a week, had two sets of stairs, one on each side, leading to the oversized front porch. The stairs and the porch were sanded and stained a light brown, bucking the Charleston trend of everything being pastel and trimmed in white.

  Before he could get to the top of the stairs, Blu was greeted by Shelby. The dog had been instrumental in rescuing Hope from a nasty abductor. Blu had tried to reward Shelby with treats but he only ate food from Brack, Darcy, and a woman who watched him from time to time named Trish Connors. Considering the world today, Blu thought the dog wise beyond his years.

  Pelton stood at the top of the stairs holding two cups of coffee. He had been a train wreck when Blu first met him. At the time, Darcy lived in Atlanta and was with another man and Pelton did not take it well. Now, with Darcy as Pelton’s wife, it was as if he had turned a corner in his life.

  Pelton said, “It’s about time you got here. Ever thought of moving closer to civilization?”

  From a stooped position on the stairs, Blu continued to give Shelby a good scratch behind the ears. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Good question. Coffee?”

  “Please.” Blu stood and Shelby escorted him up the stairs.

  The two men and Shelby stood on the front porch enjoying the coolness of the early morning. Blu caught more than a hint of bug spray emitting from Pelton. On the island and so close to the marsh, mosquitoes and no-see-ums were a staple.

  Blu may have arrived late, but apparently he wasn’t last. The chugga chugga roar patented by Harley Davidson started as a low rumble and grew louder as it approached. He and Pelton watched Crome idle onto the drive, make a lazy loop behind the parked vehicles, and drop the kickstand beside Blu’s truck.