Swindled in Paradise (4 page)

“I’m available anytime,” I said. “I can’t sling a hammer with finesse, but I can be on hand to check in shipments and run errands.” My ex-husband and I had flipped several houses, and I had learned a lot about how to be useful.

“We’ll want you for decorator decisions.”

“My taste runs more to beach casual than waterfront high-rise chic. But I’ll start looking for a decorator, a name with cachet that will look good on the marketing materials.”

I shook my head when Brad held out a plate. It surprised me that either Brad or Phil had an appetite; my stomach had gotten queasy when Kevin showed up and stayed that way.

“What evidence could the police possibly have that would give them cause to arrest Didier?” I asked.

Brad shook his head. “No clue. Didier’s a straight-up guy. The man I know would never murder anyone. He told me that he and Balcazar have been friends for a few years; they were introduced through mutual friends in South Beach during Didier’s rise to fame.” He drained the last of his beer. “Lauren informed us that she’d gotten our offer moved to the top of the list for consideration with the bank representative and indicated that the bank was salivating to make a deal and get the property off their balance sheet. The bid process went faster than we expected; the bank seemed to be on top of it and accepted our offer rather quickly.”

I eyed Phil, who sat in silence, taking in every word and making the occasional note. “Find out everything you can about Lauren, Balcazar, and 100 Ocean Boulevard.” I took the notepad from Phil and pushed it at Brad. “Write down all the phone numbers you have for them.”

He tapped the pen against the notepad as he flipped through his phone. “I’ve got a couple of phone numbers here for the business.” He began writing on the pad.

“Are the company’s name and address one and the same?”

“Yes, and Balcazar owns the building. You’re not going break in, are you?” He frowned at me.

I crossed my arms and scowled at him. “How am I supposed to perfect my burglary skills if no one will let me practice?”

“Thank goodness that little French spitfire keeps you out of trouble. For the most part, anyway.”

“Fab’s the funnest friend I’ve ever had.”

Brad and Phil laughed.

“Find out what evidence the police have on Didier,” I told Phil.

Creole slammed the front door. “I’ve got Harder making discreet inquiries. Kevin just got the call that he’ll be the one transporting Didier to Miami for questioning.”

Chief Harder was Creole’s boss, and they swapped favors on a regular basis.

Creole opened the refrigerator, grabbing a beer. “Cruz has already been in contact with the district attorney and will meet Didier at the station.” He smiled at me. “Harder grouched that Cruz doesn’t take
his
phone calls as fast as he does yours.”

“Ask the chief what’s in it for the lawyer. If it’s nothing, then there’s his answer,” I said.

Cruz Campion – “lawyer extraordinaire,” his billboards boasted—had helped me out of more than one difficult situation. In return, I entertained his visiting family members at The Cottages and had Mac put on her trip-planner hat and arrange sight-seeing adventures and reservations for local restaurants. Once word spread through his extended family about the occasional shooting, brawl, or arrest, they came for the entertainment.

Creole grabbed me into a bear hug. “I’m going in to the office, just in case anything happens and Didier needs a friend. Give Brick a call and give him a heads up that bail money might be needed; he’d better come through, and at a reasonable rate. Tell him I said that if he doesn’t, neither you nor Fab will take another one of his crappy jobs.”

Fab had worked for Brick since long before she met me and still did on an on-call basis. One of the perks? A flashy car for her to drive. Not me. I’d bought my Hummer through Brick and paid cash, holding out for the used car discount. That way, I had the option to turn down jobs.

I had worked for him for a time to obtain my private investigator’s license. On most jobs, I was assigned a backup role, but since most of his cases degenerated into an exchange of bullets, my good aim with a Glock was an asset.

Creole nodded to Brad. “Make sure your sister doesn’t get in any trouble until I get back.”

Brad groaned. “Why me? Madison’s the sneaky one. Growing up, she was always the instigator.”

“You had a few shining moments of your own, bro. Remember when you stole the blinking traffic sign and hooked it to the bumper? You’re lucky the Chief of Police’s son was in the car when you and your posse got hauled in.”

“Mother picked me up at the police station and chain smoked all the way home. Didn’t utter a syllable to me for a week.”

My brother and I laughed. It was a rare instance when mother went silent, as she preferred heaping on the guilt through long, torturous lectures, during which, to make sure we heard her, she repeated herself frequently.

Creole took my hand and hauled me to the front door. “Keep your phone close; I’ll be calling and talking dirty to you later. Hang in there—I’ve got a long weekend coming up, and I have plans for just the two of us.”

“You’ll be looking for a murderer.” I grimaced and wrapped my arms around him.

“Is that a step up from rousting drug dealers?” he chuckled.

He bent his head and kissed me firmly, teasing, coaxing a response, and I leaned in and kissed him back. I wanted the kiss to remind me for the rest of the day of what was to come when we had that promised alone time.

“Thank you for using your connections,” I whispered against his lips.

“Didier’s family. He’d help any of us if he could.”

Chapter 5

The only sound that could be heard were the birds chirping outside the window; new babies insistent upon being fed. I woke up by myself and lay in bed, listening for anyone moving around and trying to smell coffee brewing, which would be impossible since my door was closed. The house was eerily silent. I jumped up and hustled into the shower. I finished in record time, threw on my favorite black t-shirt dress, grabbed my phone and Glock, and headed out the door to The Cottages. Fab would call when there was news, good or bad.

On my way, I detoured across the highway and whizzed through the coffee shop drive-thru, picking up my favorite latte. I had them add extra whipped cream and caramel. With no traffic, I made good time and rocketed into the first available parking space, in front of the cottage next to the entrance, which currently didn’t have a guest. I peeked around the side of the unit before dashing across the driveway, not wanting to be forced into chitchat before my coffee. I entered the code to the security gate, a new addition to keep out uninvited passersby, and entered the empty pool area. After kicking off my flip-flops, I plopped down at the top of the steps, slipped my feet into the warm water, then lifted the lid on my cup and savored the aroma before taking a much-needed sip.

Mac had called earlier and mumbled that she’d be in late, giving a vague excuse about an appointment, which she didn’t want to discuss. She’d been secretive of late. I was sure it wasn’t anything illegal; she’d assured me once that she had an aversion to going to jail. She’d visited a friend there a time or two but didn’t want to take up residence and therefore never did anything to risk making it happen.

When I inherited The Cottages, I jumped into the manager’s role with the eagerness of a person who had no clue what the position entailed. It didn’t take long to realize that I was ill-suited for the job, so I hired someone else to handle it and got busy doing what I enjoyed—overseeing much-needed updates and clearing out overgrown foliage.

The pool showed signs of use from the previous night. I finished off my coffee, stepped out of the water, and started dragging chaises back into place. With an annoyed sigh, I fished a chair out of the pool with the leaf catcher and wiped down the bar area. I tossed a couple of beach towels, which had been left behind in a chair, over next to the gate.

“Dumb bitch,” floated across the driveway in an angry male voice.

I slipped into my flip-flops and quietly unlatched the pool gate, slipping between two cottages where I could see the driveway without being seen.

Julie Cory, a tenant and my brother’s girlfriend, struggled in the arms of an oversized man. One of his beefy hands was clamped across the petite blonde’s mouth as he dragged her to the door of her cottage. She’d gone limp, and the toes of her shoes scraped the ground. Her lack of cooperation had him frustrated, and he continued to spew a litany of curse words.

“Get your grimy hands off her,” I yelled, clearing the distance between them and me until I stood a dozen feet away.

He turned and dropped one hand from her mouth, but the other maintained a firm grip on her arm. “Mind your own business,” he snarled, his eyes giving me the once-over.

Before he could blink, I pulled my Glock from behind my back, having drawn it from my thigh holster before I approached, and pointed it between his eyes. “Let. Go. Now. I’m a damn good shot; I can put a bullet right between those beady eyes of yours.”

“I’m not as good a shot as her.” Mac came around the other side of the building from the direction of the office. “But I always hit my target…somewhere,” she promised, her Beretta pointed at him.

He shoved Julie away, and she struggled to stay on her feet.

“Call the sheriff,” I said to Mac over my shoulder.

“No,” Julie yelped. “This is just a misunderstanding. Striker is an old friend. You can put your gun away.”

“I don’t think so.” I mimicked Fab’s creepy smile for Striker’s benefit. “He’s not
my
friend. What he’s doing is trespassing on my property. Striker, word of warning, you come back here again and I’ll shoot you.”

“Ohhh…I’m scared.” He gyrated.

I dismissed shooting at his feet to watch him dance. “You familiar with the name Jimmy Spoon?” There were perks to throwing Mother’s boyfriend’s name around.

His suddenly rounded eyes gave me my answer and let me know that he must be a local or have lived in the Cove in the past.

“Julie’s under his protection.” I wrinkled my nose as though he smelled. Bad. “Think about that before you come skulking around again. I won’t have to waste a bullet. One word from me, and you’ll disappear. Spoon takes family seriously, and it won’t be pretty.”

The last sentence definitely caught him off guard.

Striker jerked Julie back to his side and whispered something. She nodded, and he let her go.

“You’re trying my patience,” I told him.

He looked ready to spit nails but must have had some sense, since he turned and stalked down the driveway without a word. I didn’t hear a car start up, which meant he was another shiftless local, but how did Julie know him?

Mac followed him to the road to see which direction he went. She’d wait a few minutes to see if he doubled back to throw us off his trail. She knew her criminals

Maybe this situation would soften Julie’s feelings towards me. She didn’t approve of my partnership with Fab, thinking we stirred up situations more than we helped. Mostly, she didn’t want her teenage son, Liam, to think it was cool to chase bad guys. However, judging by her demeanor, there wouldn’t be any bonding over this situation.

“I could’ve handled this,” Julie said, hands on her hips. “We need to keep this between the two of us.” She glared at me.

Brad would flip if one of us didn’t tell him.

I counted to three before answering. “If you break my brother’s heart for the likes of someone like him—” I tossed a glance in the direction of the street, “—I will kick your ass.”

Surprised by my threat, she said, “Striker is an old boyfriend, and he’s disappointed that I’ve moved on. He understands the situation and won’t be bothering me again.”

Baloney.
I did a mental eye roll. “Next time someone grabs you, I suggest you kick, scream, bite, and put up the fight of your life. Once he gets you inside a car or house, all bets are off and you’re at a severe disadvantage that usually doesn’t bode well.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“He already did.” I pointed to the finger impressions on her arms. “Striker will be back; he didn’t get whatever it was he wanted. I suggest you be on the lookout. You have to tell Brad. I can’t keep it from him; it would be bad for our relationship. Trust me, this will come out sooner or later.”

“Oh please!” she snorted. “You keep things from Brad all the time. I can take care of this myself, and at least no one will get hurt.”

“The secret-keeping days are over. When I promised months ago to keep him in the loop, I meant it. I keep my promises.”

Julie blew out her frustration. “All right, all right, I’ll tell him. But not one word to Liam!”

“You’re a great mother. Have you thought what might happen if Striker shows back up and Liam’s the only one home?”

She paled despite her suntan.

“You have my number. Fab and I would do anything to help you. Or you can call if you just need a sounding board.”

Mac came trudging up, her handgun tucked away somewhere under her voluminous ankle-length white ruffled skirt. She’d stuffed her double-sized friends into an electric-blue, glittery t-shirt that appeared to be straining at the seams. When she stopped next to us, her green garden clogs started tapping impatiently on the pavement.

“Your friend,” Mac said to Julie, “went left and then looped over to the dead-end. He looked this way before using the public path to the street. We both waved, my gesture friendlier than his.”

Generally, only locals knew about the neighborhood short cuts.

The Cottages were part of a several-block residential neighborhood. Most of the residences were owned by investors or out-of-state landlords and handled by the vacation rental businesses that were now on every other corner.

“I’ve got a gig to get to,” Julie said. “Don’t worry. Striker is harmless.”

“Another cartoon?” I asked.

She nodded, clearly annoyed with me.

Julie supported herself and Liam as a voice-over actress specializing in animation, and often entertained the family with a wide range of different voices. She’d gotten so popular, she had bookings nearly every day. It surprised me that she continued to live at The Cottages when she’d expressed a desire to move several times and now had the money to do it, but having her brother living here and Brad staying in whatever empty unit was available must have changed her mind.