Homecoming - Chapter 11
Sunday
Matt
I’d been good all day. But as soon as I made it to my room, I caved and called Kennedy.
It went straight to voicemail.
Fuck. I collapsed on my bed and looked up at the ceiling. I waited a few minutes and then called her again.
And again it went straight to voicemail.
She’d specifically asked me not to call her, and now I’d called her twice. I ran my hand down my face.
Perfect match my ass. I didn’t believe in perfect matches. Or the one. I couldn’t afford to. That’s what I’d been doing the past 16 years, and all I’d accomplished was feeling like shit.
There was no true love. No such thing as a happily ever after. I knew that for a fact.
But I also knew that I loved how I felt around Kennedy. And that she made me laugh. She made me feel like myself again. I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d lost over the years. But Kennedy knew me. The real me. The person I’d left behind. What was wrong with that?
I stared at the ceiling.
What was Tanner’s problem? No, what was the problem with all my friends? I just needed one person to have my back. Instead I had four traitors. Five if you counted Nigel. And since when had I started counting Nigel?
There was a knock on the door.
“Go away,” I mumbled. I hated how I’d been sent to my room and now I was acting like I did when I was a kid and my mom was mad with me.
Nigel popped his head in anyway. “Do you want me to draw you a bath?”
“Not right now, Nigel.”
“Are you sure? There’s a new massage feature I just installed.”
I looked over at the bathroom door. I couldn’t see the whole tub from here, but it looked exactly the same. “What massage feature?”
“An old-fashioned one.” He lifted up his hands and wiggled his fingers.
Was he seriously saying that he wanted me to sit ass naked in the tub while he massaged me with his hands? What the ever living… “Nigel, aren’t you busy?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Seriously? “I thought we had an agreement. You’re supposed to be talking to your connections amongst Poppy’s staff.”
“Yes, so that we’ll have more time together.”
Right. I just nodded. That was not at all the reason. “So…where are you with that?”
“Well, I’m on break.”
This guy was always on a break. “I’ll talk to you tonight then.” I thought my tone was dismissive, but Nigel’s head didn’t move.
“But I thought we could hang out just us bros right now,” Nigel said.
What about what just happened in the foyer made him think I wanted to hang out with him or Tanner right now? “I’m busy.”
He just stared at me. “What if I supplied the dirt right now?”
I sat up in my bed. “You got something?”
“Oh, I’ve got lots of things.”
Why did that sound so sexual? “Spill it.”
He looked behind him and then back at me. “Not here,” he whispered. “It’s not secure.”
Wow, he must have actually found something good. I climbed out of bed and opened up the door for him. He’d only stuck his head into my room. And now I realized it was because he was hiding the fact that he was wearing a floor-length trench coat over his lederhosen today.
“Here,” he said and shoved a matching trench coat into my hands. “Put this on.”
I unfolded the coat. “And why exactly do you want us to look like a pair of child molesters?”
“It’s a covert operation.” He slid on some sunglasses and handed me a matching pair. “Slip on your disguise and meet me at the docks.”
Before I could ask him any questions, he hurried off. Why the hell were we meeting at the docks? I knew he preferred to do stuff like this in person. But why wasn’t Tanner’s apartment secure?
I sighed and looked down at the trench coat in my hands. I wanted to weigh the options, but there was really no decision here. If this is what Nigel wanted to do, I had to do it. I needed that dirt on Poppy in order to get out of this mess.
I slipped on the trench coat, put on the sunglasses, and walked down the hall.
Tanner was sitting in the formal dining room flipping through his binder full of women. “Good heavens, Matthew,” he said with a laugh. “There’s no reason to give up women and prey on young boys. I’ll find you a suitable match.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I know I look like a pedophile. Nigel made me wear it.”
Tanner flipped a page of his binder. “It’s best not to pander to him. Remember what I told you when you first moved in, just think of him as being one with the furniture.”
I knew Tanner always said that. But I was pretty sure Nigel was his other best friend.
“I know it’s hard because he’s a very vocal piece of furniture. But if you give him a little leeway he’ll go rogue. In the twenties, I gave him his first day off and look how that has escalated. He barely works an hour a day now.”
“The twenties? So like...last year or something?”
“Hmm?” Tanner looked up from his binder. “Yes. The twenties. That’s what I said. We’re living in the twenties.”
Okay. “Well, he does seem to have a lot of scheduled time off.”
“See what I mean? The next thing you know you’ll be pulled into all his shenanigans and forgetting the task at hand.”
“And what’s the task at hand?”
“Of that there are many.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Never ending, really. But I’m focusing on Kennedy’s replacement right now. Quick question. Do you have any feelings for Kennedy’s mother?”
“What? No.”
He shook his head. “I just feel like I’m so close. I don’t know what I’m missing. I think I might pay the Alcarazes a visit.” He closed his binder.
“Please don’t do that.”
“I just want a quick look around.”
“Would you stop interfering? Haven’t you done enough?”
He rubbed his hands together. “Not until you’ve bedded the one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He pushed himself away from the table. “And you have little boys to prey on.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Tanner tossed me a sharpie. “Just in case you want to add the signature pencil thin mustache.”
Point made. I pulled off the jacket and sunglasses. It would be better if I just put them on right before I got to the docks. I didn’t want to spend the night in jail.
***
The sun was just setting as I parked my car in the abandoned parking lot. The docks stretched for a mile. And Nigel hadn’t said exactly where to meet him. Why hadn’t we just driven together?
I stepped out of my car and pulled on my sunglasses and trench coat. Just like Nigel’s, the fabric almost touched the ground. Why was it so long? Was it made for a giant or something?
I looked left and right, trying to search for one of Tanner’s cars. Unless Nigel had taken a taxi. I smiled to myself at the thought of how the driver would have reacted to Nigel’s outfit.
There was a clicking noise behind me. I spun around to see Nigel rolling out of my trunk. He grabbed a folder before slamming the trunk shut. And then he smoothed down his wrinkled trench coat. “It’s time,” he said.
“Were you in my trunk that whole time?”
“I didn’t want anyone to see us together,” he whispered, then looked both ways. “Hurry. This way.” He lifted the collar of his jacket and walked toward one of the abandoned warehouses.
Seriously? Had he really been in my trunk during that whole drive? Why would he do that? I shook my head. Why did Nigel do anything he did? I quickly followed him.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Things you wouldn’t even believe,” he said as he opened the door to the warehouse.
“Can’t we just do it out here?” A few years ago, Tanner had transformed one of these warehouses into an invite only club. But it wasn’t this one. And I didn’t even want to know what diseased animals were scurrying about in there.
“Someone might have tailed us,” Nigel said before disappearing through the door.
“Who would have tailed us?” I called after him. But he didn’t reply. Damn it. I stepped into the warehouse and had to jump out of the way of a rat. Gross. I caught up with Nigel as I did my best not to get tetanus.
He pulled out a sheet of paper from his folder. “Last Tuesday at 0900, Poppy Cannavaro, known associate of Richard Pruitt, bought a ticket.” He handed me the paper as we kept walking.
I scanned the sheet. “She bought a ticket to a Broadway show?”
“Yes. Does she seem like a theater enthusiast to you?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Exactly. She’s not a known aficionado of the theater. How utterly suspicious.”
“I don’t care what she’s a fan of. I want to know what shady stuff she’s up to.”
“Very well. I’ll cross Broadway shows off our to-do list.”
“What to-do list?”
Nigel turned the corner as he pulled out another sheet of paper. “There’s a new player in town. I saw her leaving Richard Pruitt’s residence late last night at 2200.”
“I’m not great with military time.”
“But it’s the best form of time.”
“In what way?”
“You’d understand if you’d lived through the Great War.”
“Which war was that?” I asked.
“The First World War.”
“Well why didn’t you just say World War I then?”
“Because it was the Great War!” Nigel stopped walking.
“It’s not important. What’s important is this new player I think.
And it was at 10 pm peasant time.” He handed me the sheet of paper with his write up about what he saw.
Apparently he’d been sitting in some bushes outside of Mr. Pruitt’s apartment complex for two hours last night. And I had no idea why.
I didn’t follow Nigel to the docks and enter a creepy warehouse to be called a peasant or to hear about stuff that didn’t involve Poppy. “Nigel, I asked you to look into Poppy. Not Mr. Pruitt.”
“One and the same, one and the same.” He pulled out another sheet of paper. “Do you know what Poppy and Richard were doing this afternoon?”
I sighed. “No. What?”
He handed me a photo of the two of them arguing outside of some diner.
“Okay? So they’re fighting about something. Did you happen to hear what about?”
“The new player,” Nigel said. “It’s all about the new player. I didn’t get a name, but it got heated. Very heated.”
That shouldn’t have sounded sexual. Poppy was Mr. Pruitt’s niece. “Nigel, did you find any dirt on Poppy specifically?”