Red Tide (Siren Publishing Classic) (18 page)

She slipped on a pair of loafers and scratched Pete on the head. “You be a good boy,” she admonished.

He wagged his tail, his eyes full of innocence.

“Margarita in charge,” Mitch chanted at the covered cage.

“Margarita in charge,” the bird replied from beneath the cover.

Ed laughed. “You always leave Bird-Brain in charge. Why not give poor ole Petey a chance?”

She picked up her purse and waited for Ed to fish his keys out of his pocket. “Because Margarita’s older, that’s why. And she can tattle on Pete. And who was the one who tipped over a can of fish guts today?”

The merry twinkle in her eye warmed him to his very core. “Point taken.” He held his arm out to her. “Ready?”

“Let’s do it.” They took his truck. Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the parking lot. Fortunately for them, there wasn’t much of a wait. Ten minutes after arriving they were seated at a table and poring over the menus.

“Order what you want, Mitch. This is my treat.”

She decided on a tasty-looking chicken dish. After the waitress took their order and brought their drinks, Ed leaned forward and looked her in the eye.

“Okay, what happened today?”

She played with her glass of iced tea, unsure of where to begin. “Look, I may be completely silly and wrong, here. I want you to tell me that immediately if you think that’s the case. Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay. Shoot.”

She began with a little background information, what little she knew about John’s business, the money situation during the marriage, how he put down the cash down payment on their house. She moved to the picture in the office, skimmed over lunch, and ended with finding the other picture in the house. When she finished, she took a drink of tea. “So, what do you think?”

His face looked thoughtful, contemplative. He sat back and let out a low whistle. “I don’t know, Mitch.”

“It’s a crazy idea, isn’t it? Just my imagination running wild?”

He met her eyes and slowly shook his head. “I can’t say that, because I’d be lying. What you say, well, it’s certainly not concrete proof that he’s into anything illegal. It definitely raises questions in a reasonable mind. I’ve always considered myself to be a reasonable person.”

Mitch frowned, new doubts flickering in her thoughts. “What should I do?”

He leaned forward and took her hand in his. “Keep this to yourself for now, get those papers signed and filed ASAP, and dance like hell once you’re no longer legally his wife. Until then, if he is into anything illegal, no telling if he’s put your name on anything or not. You need to make sure you’re as uninvolved as possible in case some shit
does
hit the fan.”

She sighed and studied the table. “You’re right about that.”

He gave Mitch’s hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it and sitting back so the waitress could put their food on the table. He picked up his knife and fork.

“For now, don’t worry about it. When everything’s copacetic, you don’t go pissin’ in your own well.”

He timed that last remark to her taking a swallow of tea, which she struggled not to choke on it while the laughter fought its way out. He snickered as she frantically grabbed her glass and spit the remainder back into it as the laughter rolled from her.

The dinner was uneventful. A slightly cloudy sky spread out above them during their return trip while heat lightning flashed in the distance out over the Gulf. Ed shut the truck’s engine off in Mitch’s driveway. The ensuing silence was soon pierced once the crickets and frogs decided it was safe to sing again.

He resisted the urge to lean over and kiss her.

“Want to come up for a little while?” she offered.

He felt a stirring in his groin and decided against it. “No, I’d better not. It’s kind of late and since tomorrow’s Friday, we ought to open the shop early to catch the weekend crowd.”

She nodded and opened the door. “Thanks for dinner, Ed.” She paused. “And thank you for being there.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for, hon.” He glanced up at her front door. “I’ll wait until you get inside.”

* * * *

They said their good-nights and Mitch climbed her stairs, alone and slightly disappointed.
Why the hell didn’t I just ask him to spend the night?
The F150’s taillights disappeared around the bend and she resisted the urge to go after him.

After all, if he is interested he’d tell me.

Jenna thought she picked up the phone a little too anxiously. She knew it was John. “Hello?”

“Jenna, it’s John.”

“What’re you doing?” She tried to sound as casual as possible.

“I’m taking care of a couple of details before I head over. I should be there no later than ten. Can you hold out for dinner until then?”

She had a white-knuckle grip on the phone. “Sure. Do you want me to cook something?”

“No, my treat.”

She smiled. “What should I wear?”

He chuckled into the phone. “Actually, I wasn’t planning on needing much in the clothing department this weekend. Besides, we’ve got some celebrating to do. Mitch presented me with papers. She wants to file for divorce.”

“Celebrating?”

John laughed. “Yeah, she’s not asking for anything. She just wants out.”

“That’s great.”

“I thought so, too. I’ll see you shortly.”

“Okay.” They said their good-byes and she hung up feeling a mixture of elation and trepidation. This was a man she knew very little about, hadn’t met his family or any of his friends, and she was rapidly finding herself falling in love with him without knowing how he felt about her. For all she knew, he might have several women scattered about the state.

Jenna settled herself down in front of the TV and tried to push away the doubts in her mind. John talked very little about himself or his family. She knew his father and brother were still alive, and that he had little contact with his estranged wife, although there didn’t appear to be any real animosity between them. She had to drag information about his friends out of him, and her hints about getting together with them or his family had so far gone either unnoticed or ignored.

The only person she’d talked to about him was his secretary. Jenna entertained thoughts of taking the woman to lunch one day, and wondered if it would irritate John. But considering her increasing feelings for him, Jenna almost had herself talked into it. It was worth risking his ire when she felt there were big stakes on the line—mainly, her heart.

* * * *

John looked up the second phone number and dialed it using a disposable cell phone. A hoarse male voice answered on the third ring. John closed his eyes and recalled the password.

“Hello?”

“Hello. May I speak to Bill, please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“His mother’s cousin.”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Is this Dave?”

“No, this is Jack. Dave’s not here.” John felt ridiculous, but if he wanted the services, he had to play by their rules. It didn’t matter to him how they conducted their business as long as they were discreet and produced the desired results.

“Hold on a minute. I’ll get him.”

The disembodied voice set the phone down on a table and called to someone. There was another pause, then a different voice came on the line.

“Jack, this is Bill. What can I do for you tonight?”

John leaned back in his chair and looked over at an old picture of him and Mitch, one taken early on in their marriage. He shifted slightly in his seat and felt the Ford keys dig into his thigh.

“Bill, I have an item I need taken care of.”

Mitch wasn’t sure which noise woke her up first, Margarita screaming in her cage or the alarm on the weather radio. She bolted into the living room, her head still spinning with sleepy disorientation, and tried to home in on the blaring radio.

The screaming black box sat on her desk, buried under a pile of DER trip ticket receipts. She turned the little demon around in her hands until she finally focused her sleep-crusted eyes on the switch and turned it off.

Margarita wasn’t as easy to silence.

“Shut up!” Mitch turned and grabbed a small throw pillow from the couch and launched it with precise accuracy at the huge, sturdy iron cage. It bounced off the cover and brought a final squawk from the macaw.

Mitch pushed her hair away from her face and tried to collect her thoughts. The sudden eerie silence was almost deafening. She dragged herself over to the kitchen counter and peered at the clock on the stove.

Four a.m.

“Shit.”

Sleep still assaulted her. She rubbed her face and angled herself toward the bedroom door. She almost made it when consciousness and her mind finally met and she turned the weather radio back on to listen to the weather alert.

“…stay tuned for further weather bulletins from the National Weather Service…”

“Dammit.” She silenced the radio once more and dropped it on the desk. A five-minute search of the living room finally produced the television remote, sandwiched between two sofa cushions. Cable channel five broadcast the local radar, and she swore again when she saw the storm front marching in off the Gulf.

“Don’t need to open the shop early after all.”

Two of the living room windows looked west. She opened the curtain and watched lightning highlight the frontal squalls moving on shore. It was a wide storm system, one that would settle in for the morning and keep customers away.

She went back to bed, more aware than ever of the emptiness she felt.

Two hours later, just as sleep finally decided to take hold of her again, the phone rang. Her hand snaked out from under the sheet and blindly groped for the cordless on the nightstand. She made contact and dragged it back down under the covers with her.

“’Lo?”

Ed’s cheery voice greeted her. “You sound like you just woke up.”

Her mouth felt full of cotton balls. “No…no. Margarita and the weather alarm woke me up two hours ago. I’d just gone back to sleep.”

“Ah”—he chuckled—“so that’s it. You see the weather, I take it?”

She cocked an ear to the roof and listened to the assaulting waves of rain. “Saw it, heard it. I’m sleeping in.”

“You answered my question. See you at nine?”

“Yes.” She was about to say good-bye when a thought struck her. “Ed?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go down to St. Pete today. I want to go look at sailboats.”

“In
this
crap?”

“Yes, in this crap. By the time we get down there, it’ll be clear.”

“Okay. See you later.”

When nine o’clock arrived, Mitch had finally banished the remains of sleep with a tepid shower and two cups of coffee. The sky was filled with heavy, leaden clouds that obscured all hints of blue sky. Lightning still flashed to the north, and the NOAA weather radar showed an unorganized low pressure system was spawning more heavy rain bands out over the Gulf, waiting their chance to move onshore.

She worked on the computer for awhile, waiting for the rain to let up a little. When there was a brief reprieve, Mitch took the opportunity to unhook the trailer from the Bronco and load Pete up for the quick drive to the dive shop.

Ed’s truck sat parked in the puddled lot, in its usual spot next to the front door. Mitch pulled up next to the small stand of palm trees off in the corner of the lot where she normally parked to take advantage of the shade. The vehicle couldn’t be seen from inside the shop, but Aripeka wasn’t known for a high crime rate. Not to mention her fifteen-year-old Bronco wasn’t exactly a magnet for thieves.

She gathered her purse and briefcase and locked the Bronco.

Ed was on the phone behind the counter, taking notes.

“Yes…okay. Right. Sure thing. Okay, we’ll see you Wednesday morning at seven. All right. Thank you. Good-bye.” He hung up the phone and smiled at her.

“Well, glad to see you’re awake now.”

She walked around the counter and dropped the briefcase and her purse on her desk. “Barely. Charter for Wednesday?” she asked.

He nodded. “Six people.”

“Fish or dive?”

“Fish.”

“Good.” The newspaper was lying, already read, on her desk. She sorted through the sections until she found the comics. “When can we leave?”

Ed glanced at his watch. “Dan’ll be here any time now. I guess as soon as he gets here. Now, tell me the purpose of this trip again?”

“I want to go look at some sailboats.”

Ed leaned against the counter. “You’ve made up your mind, I take it?”

She nodded. “I’m going through with it. I’ve finally saved up enough money so I can buy one and not worry about what I’m going to do to pay the bills.”

There was a long pause, then Ed smiled. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”