Iced Tea (21 page)

“Don’t tell anyone, but I think I’m starting to grow up.”

“That can’t be it.”

“I didn’t think so, I just wanted to see what it would sound like if I said it out loud.”

“Why haven’t you looked through it yet?”

“Remember Tina, when we were growing up?”

“You mean Mrs. Ladner’s niece?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s she got to do with Bernie’s trunk?”

“Nothing, directly.
 
Remember when we were in about the 6
^th
grade.
 
Mrs. Ladner had her spend the summer.
 
That summer, Mrs. Ladner bought her a charm bracelet and from that summer on, every time there was a really big deal in Tina’s life, Mrs. Ladner bought her another charm.”

“Okay, but I still don’t see what that has to do with the trunk.”

“I’ve decided to do the trunk like the bracelet, but in reverse.”

“What?”

“I’ve decided that every time there’s a major big thing in my life, I’m going to open something from the trunk.”

“So, what’s your first big thing?”

“I don’t know.”

“How are you going to know?
 
Is it going to be when you get married, or have a baby or win the lottery?
 
What are the parameters that make it a really big deal, worthy of something out of the trunk?”

“I swear to God Teagan, if you laugh at me, I’m gonna hurt you.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Bernie will tell me.”

One little tear went down Teagan’s cheek.

“What?”

“Cara, I think Bernie would really like that idea.
 
I’m sure she will tell you when the time is right to look in the trunk.”

Unable to let anything so solemn stand, Teagan finished up with “I sure as hell hope she tells you I’m supposed to be standing there, and if the thing you open is really great, that you’re supposed to share with your favorite sister.”

“Oh, she already told me, nothing for you.”

“Bull.”

“Cow.”

AJ and Jessie walked in, looked at each other, and didn’t say a word about it.

As AJ was walking into the kitchen he said,
 
“Something smells good.”

“Warming up some bread, and Cara is zapping us some potatoes.”

“That’ll work.”

“Anybody want veggies?”

Jesse shook his head; “I can live without them for one day.
 
Look at the size of those steaks!”

“The butcher loves me.”

“I guess so.”

“About how long?”

“About half an hour.
 
You like yours medium well, right?”

“Yep.
 
I don’t want any bleeding on my plate.
 
I don’t mind a little color in the middle, but no bleeding.”

“Teagan?”

“I’ll take mine the same as Cara.”

“Well, we’ll put yours on first then.”

“I had the butcher butterfly two of them, because I know you guys like your meat to moo back at you, and I didn’t want you to have to wait forever for ours to cook.”

“Thanks.”

“I put every spice I own, which I will admit isn’t all that many, but a bunch more than I used to own, on the wooden tray by the fridge.
 
If you can just sprinkle a little seasoned salt and pepper on mine, I’m good.”

“Me too.” Teagan piped in.

The guys shook their heads, took the meat, an extra platter, the cooking utensils, the spices, a couple more drinks, and a bag of chips, and headed for the door.

Teagan jumped up on the counter, “Any more from Joe-the-cop?”

“He has a new name.
 
He’s Officer Jerkface.”

“Why is that again?”

“I think he is trying to manipulate the hell out of me.”

“In what way?”

“He gave me this whole line of crap, and the more I think about it, the less I believe it.”

“So, what’re you going to do about it?”

“He told me I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”

“Well, that’s your first sign.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t Mom always say that if anyone in the world, besides Mom and Dad, told us that we couldn’t tell anyone something, that they were trying to get us ready to hurt us.
 
Isn’t that what child molesters do while they’re grooming a child?”

“I hardly think he’s going to try to molest me Teagan.”

“There are a lot of ways to molest someone Cara, it doesn’t have to be sexual, and you don’t have to be a child.”

“Good point.”

“So, tell me.”

“How about we wait for the guys, and I’ll tell everybody at once.”

“You haven’t even told AJ?”

“Nope.”

“I hope he reacts well.
 
If there was something that big going on in my life, and I didn’t tell Jessie, he would not be a happy man.”

“Jessie and AJ are not the same man.
 
It’s a good thing, because we are no where near the same woman.”

Teagan looked to the ceiling, “From your lips to God’s ears.”

“Exactly.
 
I don’t need the toenail growth.”

“I don’t need the fur.”

“It would be a real problem during the body wrap.”

“That’s all I’m sayin’”

Teagan and I chatted about all things O’Flynn, but didn’t come up with anything overly exciting.

The guys came back in with perfectly grilled steaks.
 

We had warmed bread in baskets, hot potatoes with all the trimmings, some of them I would never have thought of.
 
Do people really put ranch dressing on a baked potato?
 
Jessie does.
 
Who knew?
 

Everything was perfect; at least until Teagan decided to bring up the whole – someone could be out to kill my sister, thing, “Cara isn’t going to bring it up herself, so I’m going to do it for her.”

“Don’t start Teagan.”

“You said you would fill us all in.”

“I will, but I figured we could at least eat some of our food first.
 
The bread is gonna get cold.”

“I can live with that.
 
Speak.”

“Fine.
 
You guys know the basics of what’s been going on lately, right?”

I got head nods all around.

“Well, the other day, Officer Jerkface…”

Jessie looked confused already.
 
“Who’s Officer Jerkface?”

“Joe-the-cop.”

“Okay.
 
I won’t ask.
 
Go ahead.”

“Officer Jerkface showed up at my parents.
 
Well, actually I invited him over to talk, because he kept showing up places when I was alone, and as any O’Flynn will tell you, there’s safety in numbers.
 
I figured at least if he showed up at Mom and Daddy’s, there would be some kind of witness.”

“Witness?”
 
AJ’s eyebrows pinched so hard in the middle, they almost met his nostrils.
 
“If you need a witness Cara, maybe you shouldn’t have been doing it.
 
Obviously you think the guy is dangerous.”

Teagan, AJ’s new cheerleader, chimed in, “I’ve been telling her that forever.”

I snapped, “No you haven’t Teagan; shut up!
 
If you guys are going to interrupt every single second, I’m not going to tell you all of it.”

I got a unanimous and pretty harmonized, “Sorry.”

I went on to tell them everything I could think of, getting up in the middle of my dissertation to retrieve the notes I’d typed up earlier.
 
When I was done, the blank look on everybody’s face didn’t engender great confidence that they were going to come up with something brilliant and solve all the mysteries of the universe, or even just the one that was driving me nuts.

Suddenly, it was Jessie that commented, “Cara, what are the chances that this rogue cop knows what a neat freak you are?”

“I’m not that bad.”

AJ jumped in, probably a testosterone thing, where the guys have to stick together.
 
“Why?
 
What are you thinking?”

“Well, if anyone has met Cara, they know she is a freak when it comes to cleaning.”

I was miffed; I admit it, “Gee, thanks!”

“I’m just saying, you can even keep a place clean with Teagan in it.”

Teagan’s turn to yelp, “Thanks a lot!”

AJ tried to keep us on track, “What are you trying to say?”

“Well, if I was looking for something in that condo, and I couldn’t find it, I’d hire somebody like Cara, she leaves no germ behind, so if something is there, she would find it.
 
Then all I would have to do is take it away from her.”

I whined, “But the only thing I found that he was interested in, are the journals.”

Teagan was getting excited.
 
“Not true.
 
The only thing you found that we know he was interested in was the journals.
 
But maybe you found something you don’t even know you found.
 
Where is all that crap you were storing until his brother told you what to do with it?”

“In my hatboxes, in the storage unit, and the stuff we haven’t gotten out of the condo yet.”
 

I jumped up to grab the hatboxes, but AJ caught my hand and pulled me back to the table saying, “It’s not in the hatboxes.”

“How do you know?”

“Cause if it were, the hatboxes would just disappear, and it would be over.”

“We don’t even know that there’s anything that they’re looking for.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Not a single one.”

“You know what we should do?”
 
Teagan was already standing up to clear the table, “we should all go over to the condo and look around and see if maybe we can find something.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, I’m the one that Steven hired to go through Louis’s stuff, I’m not sure he would appreciate everyone else going through everything.”

“Dingleberry, you don’t even know if there is a Steven.
 
All you have is a bad address and a cashier’s check.
 
I think we should just go over there and look around.
 
It isn’t like we’re going to tear down walls.
 
We aren’t going to hurt anything.”

“Fine, we’ll go look around, but if we don’t find anything, I hope someone comes up with another theory.”

“Guaranteed.”

AJ and I got in my car; Jessie and Teagan were in Jessie’s car.
 
I lead the way, and I’m proud to say, that I didn’t even need my GPS.

We pulled up to the condo, parked in our usual places and trudged toward the front door.
 

AJ and Jessie went all Power Ranger commando.
 
One checked the front door while the other ran around the back, just in case a bad guy was standing around waiting for us to finish our garlic bread and head over.
 

Such dweebs.

Once we had the all clear, AJ took the key from me, opened the front door, and we all stood for a second to see if the building would talk to us.
 

It didn’t.

Everything was as we’d left it.

Jessie and Teagan decided they would go to the back of the place, start in the master suite and look for something that didn’t want to be found.

I started in the kitchen.

AJ started in the garage.
 
We left the door to the garage open, not that I was a little nervous or anything.

There are a million hiding places in a kitchen.
 
I know some of them.
 
The way they build cupboards is always interesting.
 
There are nooks and crannies that you can’t see when you’re just looking at them, but if you look under the façade, or grab a chair and look from the top, you can shove stuff in between the corners and the voids left because very few of us can afford completely custom kitchens.

Also, if you have any cupboards set at an angle, or some that are deep into the corner, there are sometimes weird angels where everything meets, and you can shove stuff in there.
 

I’ve been known to hide Christmas presents in there in June, and find them again well after Christmas.

Teagan and I had gotten most of the packing done at Louis’s house, but we hadn’t gotten the cleaning part done, so I didn’t feel bad climbing up on the counter so that I could squeeze my head between the ceiling and the cupboard, looking in one of those voids I was talking about.

Not one of my better moves.