Chapter Four #2
“I didn’t recognize her from the photograph you shared, but I have sent it to a couple of people who might. Drea, you mentioned you thought she was connected to Mike. Why did you think that?”
“I found a flash drive that I think was hers. Articles, government documents, copies of emails. All about fracking. And there was a letter to someone name Walter that mentioned Mike, and was signed off L.A.”
“Mike? It mentions him by name?” Gilliam gasped.
“Yes. That’s why I contacted to you. So many of his articles cite you as a reference. And I know he … passed away, recently.” There was a long pause, accompanied by the subtle hiss and fizz of the poor connection.
“Would you be willing to send me the files?” Gilliam asked, his tone clipped.
“I would,” Drea responded, “if you can tell me if you think any of this is connected to Mike’s death.”
“I’ll know more when I read them. Oh, and Drea, for your own safety, I suggest you take the files to the police.”
Another person entered the room wearing a hotel name badge. She ended the call with Gilliam quickly, pleased with his promise to get back to her as soon as he could.
After a brief orientation session, Drea spent the rest of the night on room service shadowing June, an experienced member of the food and beverage team.
By midnight, she was bored out of her mind.
If June showed her one more time how to slot the receipt in the black wallet they handed a customer the bill in, she was walking out to her car and slamming her head through the windshield.
When the end of shift came, Drea almost wept with relief.
If she hurried home, she might be able to get a precious few hours’ sleep.
She walked to her car, dropped her purse on the hood, and looked up at the pitch-black sky.
In the distance, she could hear the thump of bass from a distant nightclub, but crickets were chirping, the air smelled clean and fresh, and the water shushed gently on the other side of the hotel fence.
Rummaging through her purse for her keys, she thought about all the things she needed to do. Take the files to Carter. Catch up with Cujo. Pick up her mom’s prescription. There weren’t enough hours in the day.
She’d been crazy at seventeen to promise to look after her mom.
But what were the other options? Her drifter of a dad cared more about the bottom of a JD bottle and the waitress at the local Hooters.
Promises had been handed out like dollar bills at the strip club he frequented.
The day he’d left them, Drea had rushed home to share the grades on her term paper to find her dad throwing garbage bags of belongings in the back of an old station wagon she’d never seen before.
Drea got in her car and headed for home. The roads were clear, making the drive less painful. She yawned, and was relieved her bed was in sight. Hopefully her mom wouldn’t wake early. She felt spiteful, wishing the sick woman would stay asleep.
Her mom wasn’t going to recover, she’d accepted that, but the bit of extra money from the hotel should make her last few months more comfortable.
Perhaps she should try the bank again. They’d given her a paltry increase in her credit limit a few months ago, but if she explained how much sicker her mom was, and how she’d got a new job, wouldn’t they be a little more …
charitable? Drea balked at the word. She could stress her willingness to maintain both jobs …
well, after, to ensure everything was paid off.
And maybe she’d be able to save a little. Deal with the house, decide what she wanted to do, and finally leave Miami for college.
Drea pulled into the driveway and quietly let herself into the house. Her mom was asleep, and the house was quiet apart from the wheeze of the oxygen.
Wearily, she climbed the stairs. She sat on the bed, with every intention of pulling her shoes off. Instead, she leaned back on the pillow and fell fast asleep.
What felt like mere minutes later, her phone rang. Drea bolted upright in bed, and scrambled in the half light to find her purse. She was covered in sweat, her heart pounding. It was only a dream.
She pulled the phone out of her purse … Cujo.
“What?” she growled angrily.
“Hey, Shortcake, I had an idea for the party,” he said cheerily.
Who gave a shit about the party? Drea slumped back into bed and groaned. She’d had less than two hours’ sleep. “And it’s so good it couldn’t wait until a reasonable hour?”
“What? It’s not that—whoa. It is early. Sorry, Drea. I’m just on my way to the gym, wasn’t thinking about the time.”
His freedom to do what he wanted grated on her nerves. “Yeah, well, some of us don’t have that kind of luxury.”
“Sorry, Drea. Look, I’ll go. I can call you back later.”
“Never mind,” she said rubbing her eyes, “I’m awake now. What’s up?”
“I thought of an idea for the party that kind of reminded me of you.”
It was bait. She knew it. The only way to defend was a pre-emptive strike. “Let me guess. A chocolate fountain … because too much makes you sickly.”
“No. But good one. I was thinking fireworks.”
She could see where it was going. “Okay, I’ll bite. Because they’re noisy and unpredictable?”
Cujo laughed. “Funny, and true. I was thinking more along the lines of they’re colorful and vibrant … and beautiful when they explode.”
“Goddamnit. You can’t say things like that to me this early in the morning.” Even if the thought made her insides light up like the very pyrotechnics they were discussing.
“Think about it. How great they’d look from Mo’s garden. They’d reflect off the water.”
Drea sighed. They would look perfect.
“Look, you’re tired. I’ll call you back, later,” he said and ended the call.
It was impossible to stop thinking about his words. So she quickly sent him a text.
How do you know I’m beautiful when I explode?
“Drea,” her mom called from downstairs. There was no hope of getting back to sleep now, but the call with Cujo had actually energized her. She was such a sucker for his flirting.
Don’t you know all creative types have a VIVID imagination! Get some sleep, Shortcake.
* * *
On Thursday night, Cujo settled into one of the oversized Adirondack chairs on his back porch, studying the night sky. He reached absently into the cooler, moving his hand around until he found another beer for Connor who occupied the other chair.
They’d done an exhausting twenty-mile training paddle. Connor, who ran an adventure company in the Everglades and competed in endurance paddleboard racing, thought nothing of the distance. But Cujo could already feel the stiffness in his quads and glutes.
“That was one fucking crazy shock you laid down on us at dinner on Sunday. Dad nearly had a coronary when you told him about the hold-up.”
Despite Drea’s suggestion when he’d dropped her off after visiting Mo’s, he hadn’t called Heidi back.
He’d gone over to his dad’s instead. The family tried to get together on a Sunday at their dad’s at least a couple of times a month.
He couldn’t imagine not living close to them.
He’d miss his twin nieces too much. No woman could match the precious moments when Amaya and Zephyr looked at him with giant brown eyes and said “Uncle Jo-Jo.”
“Yeah. I’m in no hurry to repeat that experience,” he said.
“It was some crazy shit, being threatened with a gun like that. Don’t really want to think about it.
” It was hard to believe it had happened only five days ago and he’d been trying to put it out of his head. “What else is going on with you?”
“It’s Mom’s birthday today. Do you ever wonder where she is?”
“I try not to, to be honest.” Cujo thought back to his last memories of her.
It was the day she’d left, and in an ironic twist of fate it had been Valentine’s Day.
He’d heard whispering, was convinced it was because they were planning the secret Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles party he’d wanted for his eighth birthday.
Creeping down the stairs, he’d promised to only listen for a moment to check it was everything he’d asked for.
At first, he hadn’t understood their adult conversation.
“But we need you. I love you for God’s sake. What do we need to do to make this work for you?” His dad had sounded desperate, pleading.
“You don’t understand, I don’t want to be here,” his mom had snapped. “I am done living a life I don’t want. Brody was a mistake. You know that.”
He had sat paralyzed on the stairs. He was a mistake? What did that mean? Were they going to get rid of him? Sure, he didn’t always want to hang around with Connor who was only five, but that’s because Connor broke his Legos and played dumb games.
All these years later, it still bothered him. He was the only child she’d singled out as a mistake. It was impossible to shake the feeling it was his fault.
Cujo let the memory go, took another sip of his beer and looked at Connor. “Who leaves three kids? You barely remember her, and Devon was so young, he has no memory of her at all.”
They sat in silence, drinking their beers.
“New teacher started at the local school,” Connor started. “Met her at the grocery store.”
“Interested?” Cujo asked, pleased that Connor had taken the hint and changed the topic.
“She asked me if I knew any good running trails. Offered to show her, obviously.” They both laughed. “What about you and the engagement party–planner chick?”
“Drea?” Yeah, what to say about Drea?
She’d sounded half asleep when he called her this morning.
She’d gone from zero to sixty on the pissed-off scale in two point zero seconds when she noticed it was only six thirty.
Yeah, she’d made a good point about respecting people’s sleep, but he’d been up to go to the gym and hadn’t really considered the time.
He rubbed his pecs, still tender and sore. “Gotta be honest. I don’t know about me and Drea.”