Wish You Were Here (16 page)

“
And Nate’s not selling. He’s already turned you down. Plus, someone set a cabin on fire with you in it. If I were you, I’d be on a plane back home right now.”

Freya took a deep breath. It was the same question she
’d been avoiding asking herself. “Someone tried to kill me. I want to know who, and why.”

Ruby nodded, her sharp eyes evaluating Freya.
“You’re not a great liar.”

“
Excuse me?” Freya said. “I’m in real estate development. I am a fabulous liar.”

“
No,” Ruby said. “You have a tell. Your right eyebrow raises a bit at the edge when you lie.”

“
That’s ridic—” Still, Freya’s hand went up to her eyebrow. Did she really have a tell?

“
What’s going on between you and Nate?” Ruby asked.

Freya lowered her hand and met the older woman
’s eyes. “That’s none of your business.”

“
My business is taking care of my family, and Nate and Piper are as close to family as I’ve ever had. I may be out of line, but it’s damn sure my business if I see someone in my family in danger.”

“
Are you kidding me?” Freya said. “Who’s in danger here? I was the one who was almost fried extra crispy because of you people and your stupid plate.”

“
Nate’s a grown man and can take care of himself,” Ruby said, “but Piper’s just a little girl who wants her mother, and her mother is useless. She’s bonding with you, and when you leave, it’s gonna be hard on her.”

Freya went quiet. She couldn
’t argue with that. The idea of leaving Piper didn’t sit too well with her, either. As for leaving Nate...

Well. That was just complicated. And she had other things on her mind at the moment.

“Can I make a private phone call?” she asked.

Ruby eyed her for a moment,
then nodded. “I’ll head back over to the house. Take care of whatever you need to take care of.”

Like a plane ticket,
Freya thought, finishing Ruby’s thought for her as she watched the older woman’s retreating back. Once she was gone from the office, Freya picked up the phone and dialed.

“
Goodhouse Arms, Flynn Daly speaking.”

“
Hell, you almost sound like real business,” Freya said. Her sister had been running the place for almost a year, and Freya still couldn’t get used to Flynn’s professional voice.

“
Well, it’s about time you called me back. I’ve called you five times since last night.”

“
Yeah, my cell phone’s”—
melted and fused to my hair dryer—
“broken.”

“
You’re gonna be broken. You hired Tucker and didn’t tell me? Why do you need a private detective? What’s going on? Are you in trouble?”

“
You ever gonna call Jake by his first name?”

“
That’s a weak deflection.” As usual, her sister wasn’t one to be easily distracted. “So what’s up?”

“
Honey, I need a few favors, and I need you to not freak out on me. I also need to talk to Jake.”

“
He’s right here. Hang on.”

There was a click on the line followed by the fuzzy
room hum that meant she was on speakerphone.

“
Hey there, Freya,” Jake said.

“
Hey, Jake. Okay, Flynn, the cabin I was staying in burned down—”

“
Wait,
what?”

“
—and I need you to send me some things—”

“
What the hell is going on out there? Are you okay?”

“
I’m fine,” Freya said. “But I lost all my stuff—my laptop, my purse, my cell phone, my clothes. I need you to overnight me some emergency cash and clothes, and then call Suzanne at my office and tell her to take care of everything else. But tell her she’s under strict orders not to say a word to Dad.”

“
Wait,” Flynn said. “You’re not telling Dad? You tell Dad everything.”

“
Not this. And don’t you tell him, either. He’s got me working on something out here that’s getting a little complicated, and I don’t want to deal with him until I have to deal with him.”

“
These complications don’t have anything to do with Nikkie Cooper, do they?” Jake asked. “Because I ran a check on her and it ain’t pretty.”

Freya tensed up, thinking of Piper.
“What’d you find?”

“
Mostly fraud, identity theft, that sort of thing. She’s wanted on a federal warrant.”

“
Well, that makes sense,” Freya said. “Actually, Jake, I need you to look into something else for me. I need to know the connection between Boise, Idaho, and a Haviland Limoges china plate commissioned for the Lincoln administration.” She waited a moment, tense that Flynn might make the same connection to their father that Freya had, but when Flynn said nothing, she relaxed and went on. “I think it might have been stolen, and probably a while back.” If she was to guess, she’d say somewhere around thirty-five years ago, but she kept that to herself.

“
Um... okay.” Through the line, she could hear him scratching on a pad. “Anything else?”

“
That should be enough. Let me give you my contact information.” She read off the address, and phone and fax numbers. “Call me at the house if you find out anything. And send me a bill, Jake.”

“
Sure, you bet,” Jake said flatly.

“
Freya,” Flynn’s voice cut in, “what the hell is going on? Do you want me to fly out there?”

“
No,” Freya said. “I’m fine. I’ll give you a call when I get home and tell you all about it then.”
Well, most of it, anyway.

There was a hesitation, and then Flynn said,
“Okay.”

Freya relaxed.
“Thanks. Love you.”

“
Love you, too,” Flynn said, and then disconnected the call. Freya stared at the computer, then typed in the URL for Daly Developers, Inc. Three clicks, and she was on her father’s bio. She scrolled down until she got to the education section.

Richard Daly got his MBA at Harvard Business School after graduating with a bachelor
’s degree in business administration from Idaho State University.

Of course, it could just be a coincidence that her father was willing to pay
an outrageous price for a craphole campground in the middle of nowhere that just happened to feature possible evidence of a possible crime that possibly took place in the same town where he definitely went to college.

And that might be easier to swallow if Freya believed in coincidence.

Fourteen

Nate
wandered downstairs to find Ruby sitting at the kitchen table, staring down into a mug of coffee. The way she was staring, he half suspected that it had gone cold already.

“
Hey,” he said quietly.

She looked up, seeming almost surprised to see him there.
“Hey.”

There was a strained moment of silence, reminding Nate of those first few awkward days when he
’d arrived to find his father dying and living with this woman he’d never heard of, let alone met. It hadn’t taken long for him and Ruby to get used to each other and become friends, but now they were back at square one again. Or square negative-one.

He stood in the entry
way to the kitchen and tucked his hands in his pockets.

“
Where’s Freya?” he asked.

“
She had some things to take care of in the office.” Ruby raised her eyes to his, and while her expression was as tough as always, he could tell she was feeling bad, and he felt a slight tinge of guilt for still being so angry with her. He knew she never meant any harm. He knew she’d only wanted to keep them with her, for just a little while longer.

Still, knowing that didn
’t take the edge off his anger. Ruby had put Piper in danger and almost gotten Freya killed, and whether she meant any harm or not, she’d caused it, and he wasn’t ready to forget that yet.

“
I’m gonna go check on her,” he said. “Piper’s up in her room. Can you keep a sharp eye on her? I don’t want her to be alone until we’ve got this whole thing figured out.”

Ruby pushed up from the table.
“What are we gonna do about school?”

Nate bristled at
the
we.
“I haven’t decided yet. Right now, I’m just worrying about today, so if you could keep an eye on her—”

“
Of course.” Ruby poured her coffee into the sink and set the mug in it, then turned to face Nate. “I think you should ask Freya to leave.”

The simmering anger in Nate
’s gut kicked up a notch. “That’s not your call.”

“
I’m not making a call,” she said. “I’m making a suggestion. Up ‘til now, you’ve been okay with me making a suggestion.”

“
Up ‘til now, I didn’t know that you’d lied to me. Up ‘
til
now, I thought Piper was safe and that I could trust you. Up ‘til now, I still had a life to go back to if I wanted.”

Ruby nodded.
“I see.”

“
All these months, Ruby. I thought I could trust you, and you lied to me. What the hell is that about?”

She raised her eyes to his.
“You think that makes me just like your father?”

“
Don’t make this about him. This is about you.”

“
Is it?”

“
Yes.”

“
Okay.”

“
Okay.” He turned again and almost made it to the door this time before spinning around and heading back into the kitchen. “What? What? What do you see?”

She allowed a small
, sad smile as she looked up at him. “Your father was a first-rate son of a bitch, and I know it. I lived with him eight years, and he made every one a nightmare in one way or another.”

Nate felt his stomach drop. It was the one
question he’d had since day one, and the one question he really hadn’t wanted the answer to. But now, politeness and appropriateness were out the window anyway, so he looked at Ruby and finally let himself ask. “Did he hit you?”

Ruby’s silence
answered the question. Nate pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down.

“
Why’d you stay with him?”

“
Probably the same reason your mother stayed.”

Nate sat back and met Ruby
’s eyes. “I never asked her.”

Ruby nodded and settled down into the chair across from Nate.
“You get comfortable with what you’re used to.”

“
He killed her,” Nate said. “You knew that?”

Ruby
’s brows knit. “I thought she had a brain aneurysm.”

“
Getting knocked in the head a lot can aggravate that,” Nate said.

“
Well,” Ruby said. “I guess maybe it can.”

There was a long si
lence, and Nate stared down at the kitchen floor.

“
I know you want to believe that maybe he changed in the time you two weren’t talking,” Ruby said after a while, “and I’m sorry to tell you—if he did, it wasn’t for the better.”

Nate ran his hands over his eyes, suddenly feeling tired again despite the long nap he just took.

“I’m sorry your father was who he was, Nate. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re a good man. The plate doesn’t matter, this place doesn’t matter, and that restaurant doesn’t matter.”

Nate felt a surge of anger and looked up to find Ruby looking back, defiant.

“Yes, I said it,” she went on. “It doesn’t matter. You think you can’t build another place where you can cook? You can do that anywhere, even here. If you really wanted that restaurant bad enough, you could have gone back, to hell with your father’s last wishes. You didn’t stay here because of that damn plate. You stayed because you wanted to discover that there was something honorable in your father after all, that his last breath was spent on something that meant something.” She raised an eyebrow. “And what does it really matter anyway?”

Nate felt taken aback by her insight.
“It matters. Of course it matters.”

“
Why?” she said. “He’s dead.”

Nate glanced into the living room.
“Why do I feel like I should be lying on a couch for this?”

Ruby sat back in her chair.
“Stop making your entire life about not being him. You’re not him. So now grow the hell up and be you.”

Nate looked up at her.
“Has anyone ever told you you suck at apologizing?”

Ruby went still, her eyes on the tabletop.
“Apologies are just so much talk. You show you’re sorry by changing what you do.”

“
Right.” Nate sat there for a while, feeling drained.

“
So,” Ruby said finally, “are you ready to listen to what I have to say about Freya now?”

Nate had to laugh at that.
“Does it matter if I’m ready?”

She shrugged.
“It was a courtesy.” She folded her hands in front of her. “It’s not that I don’t like Freya, because I do. But Piper’s got some serious scars in her heart because of her mother right now, and Freya complicates that. I’m the last person to say you should live like a monk for Piper’s sake, but right now...” She shook her head. “I think Freya complicates a lot of things.”

Nate nodded, but didn
’t say anything. Ruby was right, and he knew it, but Freya’s leaving wasn’t something he could talk about. Not now. Not yet.

Ruby sighed and pushed herself up from the table.

“I’m going to go up and check on Piper,” she said. “Damn kid keeps beating me at Super Monkey ball, but I think today’s gonna be my lucky day.”

She shot him a small smile,
then went upstairs. Nate stared at his hands on the table for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. When he left for the office, he still wasn’t sure.

***

Freya drummed her fingers on the desk while she waited for her father to answer his office phone.

“
Richard Daly.”

“
Hey, Dad,” she said.

“
Freya.” His voice sounded tense. “How is that deal coming along?”

“
It’s not,” she said. “He’s not going to sell.”

There was a long pause, then,
“Offer him more.”

She picked up a pencil from the desktop.
“Why? Why do you want this property so badly, Dad?”

“
I told you,” he said, and he went on about the expansion of the business,
blah blah blah
. She reached across the desk and put the pencil into the electronic sharpener while he was still talking. It was louder than she’d expected, and when she pulled the pencil out she heard her father on the other end of the line saying, “What the hell was that?”

“
Pencil sharpener.” She reached across and sharpened it some more, then blew the sawdust off the tip of the pencil.

Perfect.

“Freya, what are you doing?”

“
I’m thinking.” She leaned back in the chair, looked up at the textured ceiling panel. “I’m wondering why all of a sudden, you want this property so bad. And expansion of the business just isn’t a good enough answer for me, Dad, mostly because it smells like a tremendous heap of bullshit, you know what I mean?”

Richard sighed.
“Freya, I really don’t have time for games right now.”

“
I thought you were making me jump through hoops to get the promotion. But now, I’m thinking I was just sent out here to do your dirty work.” She pointed the pencil upward, practicing her trajectory with the angle of her hand. “But you know, it doesn’t matter. Nate’s not going to sell. All the men in the world you had to send me to do a deal with, and you pick the one guy who can’t be bought.”

“
I have no patience for theatrics, Freya. You know that. Perhaps you should call your sister and the two of you can get it all out of your systems together.”

“
Oh, hell,” Freya said, almost dizzy at the sudden wash of clarity that came over her. “Is that how we’ve been talking to Flynn all these years? We’re really a couple of assholes, aren’t we, Dad?”

“
Have you been drinking?”

“
No, Dad. I said I’ve been
thinking.
Thhhhh.
Thinking.
And you know what I think?”

“
I’m very busy—”

“
I think that there’s nothing wrong with my eyes,” she said, allowing her eyes to tear as she said the words, allowing her voice to crack. Goddamn, it felt good to just
allow
it. “I think that I’ve been shutting my emotions down for so long that they’re just leaking out around the edges and you know what? I don’t think that gives you the fucking right to tell me there’s something wrong with me. That’s what I think.”

She heard her father shuffling papers in the background.
“I have a meeting in three minutes.”

She exhaled and gathered herself. Time
to get down to it.

“
Okay, then let’s make this quick,” she said. “I’m giving you one chance to tell me why you really want this property.”

There was a short silence, and then her father said,
“Is this an ultimatum?”

“
No,” she said. “Well, yes. But no. I’m going to resign anyway, I just thought...”
That we were the same. That you trusted me. That I knew you.
“All these years I thought we were close, and we were just... I don’t know.” She swiped at her eyes. “Nearby.”

“
If you’re going to resign, Freya,” her father said, his voice taut, “then I suggest you get on with it.”

“
I’m right, though, aren’t I? There’s something to tell, isn’t there? A reason why you’re willing to pay so much for this land?”

“
Freya, honestly—”

“
It has something to do with a plate, right? Abraham Lincoln’s Limoges china?”

Total silence, which was as good as a confirmation, because talking about a plate from the Lincoln administration was just nuts, and Richard Daly never hesitated to express himself when he thought one of his daughters was nuts.

But now, he hesitated.

“
Do you have it?” he asked.

Freya closed her eyes.
“Are you going to tell me why it’s worth two million dollars to you?”

“
That’s none of your business, Freya. I asked you a question. Do you have it?”

“
None of my business? How can you—?” And she stopped. He didn’t know that this plate business had almost gotten her killed. He didn’t know that it had lost Nate his restaurant. He didn’t know that it had put Piper in danger. And he probably wouldn’t care if he did.

“
I faxed my resignation letter to Suzanne a few minutes ago,” she said. “She’s going to come into your office in a minute or two and ask you what to do about it. I suggest you just accept it.”

And she hung up before her father could say another word.

Wow,
she thought as she stared up at the ceiling.
I’m unemployed.