Cole in My Stocking (32 page)

“Alright. Should just be you and me now, honey.” He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. The skin of his face was yellow and seemed stretched too tight over his bones. He looked like he was in pain.

“Daddy,” I said as tears slipped down my face.

“I know,” he said as if he’d heard me. “I look like shit. Can’t help it. Hope it’s not too upsetting for you. Had some things to say to you and figured it was now or never. I’m not going to be around much longer, and I don’t think I can face you in person, so it’s going to be like this.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach, remembering everything Cole had told me. The man speaking to me across time and technology knew what had happened to me. He might even blame himself for it.

“Need you to know that I love you, Mandy girl. Didn’t say it enough. But felt it in my heart every damn day.”

A sob ripped up my throat. God. I hadn’t known. I’d never felt love from Dad. Well, not since I was little. I’d always assumed when Mom died, she’d taken his heart along with her to heaven.

His eyes became glossy. “It’s no excuse, but—” He cleared his throat. “You looking so damn much like your mother was my undoing.” He sniffed and looked away, taking a moment to compose himself while my mind reeled with his confession. “Lost her too soon. Then I pushed you away too. Then—” He winced. “Shit. Fucking cancer.” He gritted his teeth against what I assumed was a wave of pain. A little breathless, he continued. “Then with what happened to you that May your senior year. Jesus.” He was winded. So was I. “Found out about it before you left for Philadelphia. Can’t say how, but I did. I’m not going to lie, honey. It was a dark time for me. Probably not as dark as it was for you, but dark enough that I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you or, Christ, even say goodbye properly.”

A single tear trickled down his face. If he’d still had his beard, the tear would have gotten lost in it, but with his face bare, the tear just sort of petered out, leaving a shiny dead-end trail on his cheek.

I had to wipe the tears from my own eyes to see him clearly.

“I have no right to ask you to forgive me. Not even going to waste my breath doing that. I was a shit father. I know it. And I’m sorry. Just want you to know I love you. That’s all. I love you. I should have told you more.”

“I love you too,” I whispered.

“I’m not leaving you the business. It’s going to Tooley. Whatever he does with it is fine with me. Not like I’m going to be around to care. You get everything else, which isn’t much. Wish I could leave you more, but I have my reasons. You’ll be okay. You’re making a good life for yourself. Real proud of you, honey. Real proud.”

I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I squeezed them closed as love and pain tied me in knots. Mixed up in all the emotion was the realization that Dad had made this video before he knew the MC had been taken down. How many days had passed between his making this video and going to the hospital?

When I caught my breath and looked at the monitor again, Dad was quietly weeping. “Wish things could have been different,” he said. “Sometimes life sucks.” He sniffed and wiped both eyes with shaking hands. Looking straight at the camera, he said, “Make good decisions, honey. Find someone to fall in love with who will treat you right. Be strong. Take care of yourself.” He smiled again. Then his shoulder moved as he worked the mouse. “Oh,” he said. “Delete this now that you’ve seen it. I have my reasons.” The video ended.

I watched it three more times before I deleted it, thankful ADT hadn’t come in the first hour of my appointment window. It would be awesome if they didn’t come in the next few minutes, either, because the tiny mirror over the wash station showed my face was puffy with crying.

Grabbing up my phone, I dialed the one person whose voice I needed to hear right then. Cole. He answered with a tense voice.

“Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked.

“Yeah. What’s up? You alone?”

“Yes. No one’s here. No ADT yet. But I had to talk to you. Dad made me a video. I found it on his computer.” I took a shaky breath. “He said he loved me and was proud of me and that he was leaving the business to Tooley.”

“You know he changed his mind about that, yeah?”

“Yeah. I know.”

After a few beats, Cole said, “He left it on his computer? For anyone to find?”

“He had a password on it, one I’m pretty sure only I know. Then he said the video was for my eyes only. At the end, he told me to delete it.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” I sniffed. “He was so sick. He cried. He said he knew about my assault. Told me I reminded him of Mom.” I was crying again.

The telltale crunch of tires in the driveway made me curse. “Shit,” I said. “ADT is here.”

“I’m coming. Leaving the station now, so I’ll be there in fifteen.” The state patrol station was on Route 125 up in Epping. It was a twenty-minute drive at the speed-limit, so I figured by him cutting it to fifteen, it meant he’d be using the siren. Seemed like overkill to deal with an emotional girlfriend.

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll just see you for lunch in an hour.”

“I was done with my paperwork anyway. On my way, hon. Love you.”

I didn’t argue. The truth was I wanted to see him. Desperately. “Love you too.”

Cole was silent.

A car door shut outside.

“That’s the first time you’ve said that,” he pointed out. I heard a smile in his voice.

“I know.” I was pretty sure he’d be able to hear the smile in mine as well. I wiped my tears and went to the sink to splash water on my face. “See you in a bit, honey.”

“Real soon.” I heard keys jingling and a car door shutting on his end.

I disconnected as boots clomped up the stairs, and went to answer the door. Swinging it open, I blinked in surprise. It wasn’t an ADT technician. It was Brock. Good. I wanted to thank him for painting the garage doors. It had been hard enough to come here today and face the blackened footprint of my childhood home. Thanks to this man, I didn’t have to face that nasty message too.

“Hi Brock. Come on in. I wanted to thank you for—”

“I know you’re expecting the security company since I talked to Waverly this morning, so I’m going to cut to the chase. Where’s the money?”

Chapter 23

Brock came inside, pulling the door closed behind him. He was somewhere between Cole and Dad in age. Late forties, probably, but he was aging hard. He had a goatee and long brown hair scraped back into a ponytail. Even though he was missing one of his front teeth, I’d always found him charming. At the moment, I only found him terrifying. His eyes, usually crinkled with warmth, were cold and beady as he advanced on me.

I staggered back until my butt hit the workbench. I raised a hand, palm out, to ward off his coming any closer while my brain caught up to the question he’d asked. Cole thought Dad kept the MC’s dirty money a secret. But Brock seemed to know. Unless it was some other kind of money he was talking about. Maybe Dad owed him for something and didn’t have a chance to pay him back before he died.

“What money?” I asked, even though I was ninety percent certain it had to be the MC money.

He stopped a yard away from me. Too close for comfort, but I’d take it. At least he wasn’t trying to grab me. I could have done without his sneer, though. “You’re a terrible bluffer, Mandy. You know damn well what I’m talking about. It’s written all over your face.”

Guess I wouldn’t be bluffing my way out of this. Maybe I could buy myself time with questions. Cole was on his way, after all. “How do you know about it? Dad kept it secret.”

“Yeah. Grip didn’t tell a soul about it, not even me. But my little brother was in Air Raid. He told me how much the club paid out for your dad’s work. It wasn’t chump change. Also know that your dad never spent that much money. Didn’t buy nice stuff. Didn’t put it into the business. Didn’t put it in the bank.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I know it because I paid attention.” He tapped his temple. “And because your dad gets chatty when he’s drunk. Never told me about that money, but he liked to offer all kinds of advice, like how a smart man would never spend dirty money or trust a bank with it. Like how the only sure way to protect a secret is to lock it in a safe.” He narrowed his eyes on me. “I been in both safes now. This one before you got back—” He nodded at the shop safe behind me. “The one in the trailer on Christmas. Guess what I didn’t find in either one?”

“It was you. You burned down Dad’s trailer.” I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d shown up in a clown costume and started juggling. Brock and Dad had been tight. And Brock had always been friendly to me. Hurt curdled my stomach.

“Thought I bought myself a few days with that fire. But the rumor mill has it you knew the combo and had Glenmore open it up. Now the heat’s on, and I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit miffed with you, especially since it’s obvious you moved the cash. Where’d you put it, Mandy?”

Anger distracted me from the fear. “How dare you? Dad trusted you. You burn down his place and steal from him? What kind of person does that to a friend?”

He frowned at me. “What, no thank you? Saved you a lot of hassle burning down that crap heap. Wasn’t worth the water the FD used to put it out. You would have had to pay to have it hauled away.”

“You stole Dad’s guns.”

“Had to. Didn’t touch the customer guns—had to get in and out of the shop without a trace since I didn’t find the money up here. Knew I’d have to keep looking and didn’t want to put you on guard. But those beauts in the house safe—couldn’t pass those up. Besides, I had to pay the safe cracker. Guy didn’t come cheap.”

He must have used the in-case-of-emergency key dad gave him to the trailer to obtain the keys to the shop. That’s why Cole hadn’t found any signs of forced entry. With the alarm not set, Brock would have had the run of the place before I got back. I had a sudden urge to make sure nothing was missing from the shop.

“You son of a bitch.” How could he do this to his deceased friend? How could he do this to me? He’d been our neighbor ever since I could remember.

“That’s right, honey. And I’m going to be a rich son of a bitch soon. Now, I hope you’re listening good, because I’m only going to say this once—”

A ringtone came from his pocket. He cursed and answered it, keeping his eyes on me.

I slipped my trembling hands into the tube pocket in the front of my sweater. My fingers itched to get a hold of Cole’s .45, but Brock had a piece in a hip holster similar to the one Cole wore on his utility belt. He’d get to his faster since he didn’t have clothing in the way. I could draw and click off a safety quickly thanks to Dad’s drills, but I wasn’t willing to gamble I could do it quicker than Brock.

Instead, by feel, I woke up my phone. Since the last thing I’d done was call Cole, a quick slide of my thumb should bring his contact up. Keeping my movements as subtle and slow as I could, I tapped where I thought the call button should be and then flicked the mute switch so no sound would come from my phone.

Brock made no sign that he’d noticed. His gaze wandered away from me as he listened to whoever had called him. “Thanks for the heads up,” he grunted into the phone. “I’ll be done here before then. Anything changes, you call me.”

Please let the call have worked. Let Cole be listening on the other end. If anything happened to me, I wanted Cole to know Brock was the one after that money.

“Looks like your boyfriend took off on an early lunch. Bet I know where he’s headed, which means I got about ten minutes to make my point before I hightail it out of here.”

“How do you know where Cole is?”

“Got a friend listening to the state police band on the scanner.”

I had to keep him talking, especially if Cole was listening. The more I could get him to admit to, the better.

“How did you know I was gone on Christmas? What if I’d come home while you were breaking into the safe?”

“Had eyes on the place. And did the job quick. Now, with Plankitt headed this way, I’m going to have to insist you don’t interrupt again.” He brushed his fingers over his holster. “Got it?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“You’re not going to tell Plankitt I was here. If you do, two things will happen.” He ticked off fingers. “One. I’ll torch your boyfriend’s house just like I torched your dad’s shit hole of a trailer, and instead of leaving a message on his garage, I’ll burn that down too, send his truck and that precious Harley of his up in smoke.”

Please be listening to this, Cole. Please get here quick.

“Two. On my laptop I’ve got a hot little video of a truck-bed ménage circa two thousand eight. Want to guess who the star is? I’ll give you a hint. She was drunk off her ass and needed a lot of convincing.”

No. No. No.
Nausea hit me in a crashing wave. I grabbed Dad’s workbench to stay upright.

“One click of a mouse, and that video goes to every contact in your address book, including one Marybeth Carter.”

Oh, God. My boss. All my friends. Everyone would see. Everyone would know. I felt lightheaded.

“To prevent these things from happening, all you have to do is bring that money here tomorrow. Come alone and be here thirty minutes before you’re supposed to meet Glasby. No Officer Plankitt. Leave it on the far side of the berm out back. I get the bag, I delete that video from my laptop and Plankitt gets to keep enjoying that nice house of his over on Junction Road. Do we have an understanding?”

“H-how did you get that v-video?” My teeth were chattering. I was shaking like a leaf. Inside my pocket, I was gripping my phone like a lifeline, aiming the face toward Brock.

“Got a complimentary copy from Air Raid for recommending your dad to them when they needed a gunsmith. Now be a good girl, and tell me we’ve got a deal. Say no, and you won’t like the consequences. I’ve never been a bluffer, and I don’t intend to start now.”

Brock had been in it from the start. If not for him, the MC wouldn’t have approached Dad. That made him partly responsible for my assault.

Bile seared the back of my throat. I gulped to keep my Dunkin’s down. “I don’t have access to the money,” I said truthfully. It was in Cole’s safe, and I didn’t have the combination. Also, Cole was planning to meet with Stacey’s FBI contact tomorrow morning to hand the duffel bag over. There was no way I could sneak it past him, even if I’d wanted to.