Going For Broke (20 page)

             
“Mom, please?” Parker’s hands were folded next to his chest. 

             
“Honey, you don’t play baseball,” Victoria pointed out.  The closest Parker had ever come to a bat or ball was in box seats at Yankee Stadium, or when Alex Rodriguez came to school on Sports Day.

             
Parker visibly deflated.  “I know.”

             
I can’t give him much these days, Victoria thought, but I can give him this!  “I’m sure Bud plays baseball - he can help you,” she said.  “Your hand-to-eye coordination is fantastic.  You did win the last squash tournament!”

             
Parker brightened up.  “Oh mom - you’re the best!  I’ll go get Bud!” He ran out of the room.

             
Well done, she thought.  She was able to give her child just what he wanted and didn’t even have to leave her bed. 
             

             
She shuffled into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, and Bud was at the table reading the paper.

             
“Good morning, Bud!” she said, a little too brightly.

             
“Parker already got to me,” he said.

             
“Oh, Bud, thanks for helping him.  I really appreciate it,” she sat down at the table opposite him.

             
“Vicky, I wish I could. I really do.  I threw my back out bowling last February and the doctor says I have to really watch it.”  He lifted up his shirt to display a back brace that Victoria had no idea was there.  “I can’t even tie my shoes.  Why don’t you get him out there?”

             
Seriously, Victoria thought, Bud had lost his mind.

             
“Come on, you’ve played baseball before.”

             
“In gym class, under duress,” she protested.

             
“Well, if it’s not that important...” Bud said, going back to his paper. 

             
Damn!  Who knew Bud had the guilt card, too?  She thought only her mother knew how to play that one.  Yes, she technically knew how to play baseball, and yes, she probably could teach him enough to keep him from embarrassing herself.  Really, baseball? 

             
“We don’t even have a mitt or a ball,” Victoria was looking for any excuse.

             
Bud jumped out of his chair, much too spry for a man with a debilitating bowling injury.  “I’ve got a box in the basement - just you wait right there,” and he was off.

             
Victoria sat alone at the table, feeling like Bud had just played her like a pro.

             
             
             
             
             
             
###

             
Bud had been able to outfit Victoria and Parker not only with mitts and balls, also with baseball hats, and plastic bases.  Mother and son looked quite professional in the back yard, until one saw Victoria throw the ball to Parker.

             
“Mom!” Parker moaned as Victoria ball missed Parker by a mile and almost hit the family room windows.  “Don’t throw it so hard.”

             
Victoria hustled across the yard to pick up her errant ball.    A-Rod deserved every million he mad, Victoria thought.  Huffing, she went back to the “pitcher’s mound” Bud had set up for them.  She tossed the ball underhand, and it landed with a thump about two feet in front of Parker.

             
“Mom!” he complained.  “This is never going to work!  I’m never going to make the team.”

             
Never one to back down from a challenge, Victoria went back to the mound, adjusted her hat, and threw with all her heart.  The ball veered far past Parker and headed toward the back fence.  A hand came up from behind the fence and easily grabbed the ball.

             
The gate opened, and Mike walked in with the ball in his hand.  “Watch where you’re throwing.  You could hurt someone,” he said with a smile.

             
Victoria panicked.  It was one thing for him to follow her, but she didn’t want Parker to know that they were being watched by the FBI.

             
Mike tossed the ball directly into Parker’s mitt.  Parker caught it and smiled a triumphant smile. 

             
“Nice catch,” Mike said to Parker.  “Mrs. Vernon, you are a woman of hidden talents,” he said to Victoria.

             
Parker whispered loudly to Victoria, so loudly that Mike could hear.  “Who’s that guy?”

             
Mike didn’t miss a beat.  “Exterminator.”

             
“What’s a nuclear, Mom?” Parker asked. 

             
“Exterminator.  The bug man,” Victoria said, challenging Mike with her gaze. 

             
“Bug man?” Parker asked.  He still didn’t get it. 

             
“I get rid of nasty little bugs and critters.  Vermin.” Mike didn’t back down.

             
Parker stood with the ball in his mitt, looking between his mother and the man.  Victoria walked over next to Parker and put her arm around him protectively. 

             
“Parker, this is Mr. Towner,” she said, with no offer of explanation. “Mr. Towner, this is my son Parker.”

             
Mike held up his hands like a mitt.  “Toss me that ball!” he told Parker.

             
Not knowing what to do, Parker threw the ball to Mike.  Mike exaggerated the velocity at which the ball hit his hands.  “Man, you’ve got some arm there!”

             
He tossed the ball back.  Before she knew that it was happening, Mike and Parker were playing a rather successful game of catch.  At least more successful than the game she had just been playing.  Mike took off his jacket and was really getting into it.

             
“Hey, Vernon!” he called to Victoria, “pass me that mitt.”

             
She threw it to him, and it landed halfway between them.  “She throws like a girl,” Mike said to Parker.  Parker laughed.  Nobody ever spoke to his mother like that.  Victoria watched them with wonder.  It didn’t strike Parker odd at all that a strange man had shown up in his backyard and started playing ball with him.  Maybe he was just happy to have someone to play with.  Mike’s charm extended to ten year olds as well.  He chatted easily with Parker about nothing important, with a baseball tip or two thrown in without criticism.  Victoria sat on the back steps, chin in her hands, watching them. 

             
Parker had really blossomed in his short time here.  She never really had the time or the luxury to worry if taking him out of the only school he had ever known, away from all of his friends and his home was going to be hard on him.  Parker never complained once.  He still asked about Trip, and seemed content with her explanation that Daddy was away on a very extended business trip.  Was Trip really such a nonentity in Parker’s life that his disappearance didn’t have that much impact?  She wondered if it would be the same if she had left, too.

             
“Mom!  Watch out!,” Parker called as a ball came whizzing by her head and hit the back door with a thud.  Parker steeled himself for his mother’s admonishment - he knew all too well the erratic nature of Victoria’s famous wrath.  Instead, she picked up the ball and threw it back with everything she had.  Mike had to reach to catch it.

             
“Not bad, Vernon.  You may have the makings in you after all,” he teased. 

             
             
             
             
             
             
###

             
That night Victoria went to tuck Parker into bed.  This was a new routine for them, as in New York she was usually out and Lumi got the children down for the night.  Victoria found that just before bed, her otherwise tightlipped child wanted to talk.

             
“That was awesome today, mom.  Thanks.”

             
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a ballplayer,” she admitted.

             
“No, thanks for letting me play with Mike.  He’s awesome!” Parker was getting sleepy.  “He said we could try some batting practice tomorrow.”

             
“Did he, now?” 

             
Parker’s eyes opened wide.  “Do you think I can make the team, Mom?”

             
“I think you can do anything you put your mind to,” she said as she kissed his forehead.  “Goodnight, honey.  I love you.”

CHAPTER 13

             
Mike walked around a cramped store that sold overpriced garden implements, and looked at his notes.  It had the same address of the fast food place Victoria and her mother had lived above back in the 80s.  It looked like Victoria wasn’t the only thing in Tenaqua that had undergone an upgrade in the past twenty years.  He went around back and found stairs that lead to the apartment over the store.  He was able to peek through the back door window to see the galley kitchen still outfitted with avocado green appliances and a cheerful floral valence over the window.  Fortunately the current occupant wasn’t home, so he was able to poke around.

             
He peered in, and saw that the living room overlooked an empty parking lot, equipped with way too many security lights.  He couldn’t see any further
into the apartment
-- he had seen enough.  From what he could tell of this town, living over any store, even a ritzy one, was beyond the wrong side of the tracks. 

             
He had spent the past few days trying to get a better idea of who Victoria Patterson Vernon used to be.  It really had nothing to do with the case.  She was just the bait, and he was there to get Trip Vernon.  She had gotten under his skin, and he was compelled to figure out what made her tick.  So he went back.

             
Back to the little house she lived in when her father was alive.  There was a young family who was playing outside when he went past so he couldn’t get a good look inside, though watching the young family play today gave him a fairly good idea of what it looked like years ago.

             
He went to the high school.  He wanted to get an idea of where the pain in the ass princess had spent her formative years.  The school and campus was vast, and Mike had to park his truck four blocks away from the front door.  He didn’t want to use his official pass and draw attention to himself.  To that end, he was wearing a shorts and a polo shirt, and looked more like a dad on the way to the golf course than a trained agent.