Chapter 9
This cannot be happening.
A dull pain throbbed behind Savannah’s eyes that even the salty scent of Mobile Bay and the lull of the waves couldn’t ease.
Seated on a weathered bench on the pier at their new home, she and Hez ate their beignets in stunned silence as the sunset’s
gold and orange hues settled over the water. The news had been too overwhelming to wrap her head around.
She tossed the last of her treat to the seagulls, watching their avid black eyes before she turned toward Hez. “We can’t lose
Simon, Hez, we just can’t! Scott has to have missed something. Erik is a criminal.”
The worried crease on his forehead deepened. “Babe, Scott Foster is an excellent attorney with an illustrious career here
in Alabama. Based on initial research I did, I thought we’d hear exactly what he told us. I’d hoped I was wrong, of course,
but I trust Scott’s expertise.”
She clenched her hands into fists. “I want to tell Erik that he’ll take Simon over my dead body. I will fight this with everything
in me.”
Hez frowned. “We don’t want to tip our hand with Erik.
Passions run high around custody issues, and the last thing we need is to make him fight harder just to ‘win.’” He put air quotes around the last word.
“Let’s wait for any discussion with him until we have more evidence.
If we can dig up some actual proof about his criminal activity, we can terminate his parental rights while he’s in prison and proceed with the adoption.
And besides, we both know Erik doesn’t really want custody of Simon—he wants Jess’s money.
If we slow-walk the whole process, maybe he’ll be more apt to take a reasonable settlement—and maybe we won’t need a settlement at all because he’ll be behind bars. ”
“I suppose so. We don’t have a real choice.” It felt wrong to entertain the idea of giving that man a single cent of Jess’s
money, but Simon’s well-being was more important than ensuring he had a fortune in his bank account. “Jess entrusted Simon
to us. We have to save him from Erik.”
“Our best hope would be if the DNA test showed they weren’t related. Think back to your knowledge of your sister. Are you
certain Erik is Simon’s father?”
She forced herself to run through the moment she’d discovered Simon’s existence. “Jess said something about never wanting
Erik to know he had a son. And the timing is right. Jess never dated anyone after she and Erik broke up.”
“That you know of.”
“Yes.” His reminder that she hadn’t known her sister as well as she’d thought stung in the worst way.
“What should we say to Simon about all of this?”
She thought for a moment. “Nothing. At least not yet. He would just get upset and worry about something that will hopefully never happen. He finally quit asking when my dad was going to come see him. I had to explain to him that you can’t ever trust anything he says.”
Simon is used to adults keeping secrets from him and being untrustworthy. Savannah winced at the thought, but it was true. Jess hadn’t been any more open with her son than anyone else. She had likely
carried plenty of secrets to the grave with her. Had some of them involved the Willards?
A gull hopped closer to try to yank the last bite of Hez’s beignet, and he tossed it down. “I can see the wheels turning.
What are you thinking?”
“I talked to Nora this morning about Michael Willard. Our discussion made me realize there’s probably a lot I don’t know about
Jess’s involvement with that family. She seemed to love them, and they loved her. Maybe everything my dad told me was lies.”
Nora had warned her about getting on Michael’s bad side, so Savannah needed to keep that in mind. The only way to know the
truth was to dig it out.
“Is there anyone around who knew about your mom’s relationship with Michael? A best friend, a relative?”
She shook her head. “Mom was an only child, and none of her cousins lived around here. Mom never talked about it either, but
Dad had plenty to say.”
“Maybe she wrote diaries or something.”
Savannah gasped. “You’re a genius! There is a treasure trove of old family papers in the storeroom where I found my great-grandfather’s
journals. Maybe Mom left diaries there.”
It was worth exploring. She couldn’t pinpoint why the truth about her mother mattered after all these years, but maybe it
was at the root of the vendetta between their two families.
Hez’s phone buzzed and a text appeared. Meet me in five minutes at the Seabreeze.
He frowned. The Seabreeze Saloon had been a favorite local watering hole ever since he discovered it while courting Savannah
a decade ago. Not a safe place for a recovering alcoholic like him to visit.
The sender of the text also wasn’t reassuring: Martine Dubois. Hez knew her from law school and they’d dated briefly before
he met Savannah. Martine was smart, funny, and built like a swimsuit model, with almond-shaped brown eyes from her mother,
a French-Vietnamese Parisian model. Hez and Martine stayed on friendly terms even though they’d occasionally crossed swords
in court, but Hez had broken up with her for very good reasons. And Savannah turned into a porcupine the minute Martine’s
name was mentioned. It might be best to keep his contact with Martine to himself and not rile Savannah.
What’s up? He texted back.
Tell you in person.
If he was going to meet her in person, he preferred to do it on more comfortable turf. And few places were more comfortable
than the café below his condo. How about Petit Charms? It’s closer.
Not safe. Her ellipsis appeared, disappeared, then reappeared. Hurry.
His frown deepened and his stomach muscles tensed. Martine was representing an anonymous client who had been feeding Hez crucial clues about Hornbrook. Could she have more news? He didn’t trust her—at all—but he needed the nuggets of information she gave him.
He clipped his Glock holster to his belt and changed into a loose-fitting Birmingham Barons jersey that hid the gun. The Seabreeze
was two blocks down the street from Hez’s condo, where he’d been staying for the past two nights. Ralph Mossberg, the TGU
architecture professor who had built the house he and Savannah bought, had apparently done his own electrical and plumbing
work—which Hez discovered after a wet spot appeared on the kitchen ceiling and the power went out in half the house. Hez knew
better than to try to fix either problem on his own, so he shut off the power and water and called an electrician and plumber
he trusted—both of whom were tied up for several days.
The Seabreeze was a two-minute stroll away by street sidewalk, but Hez decided to walk along the beach instead. If Martine
was right about Petit Charms not being safe, there was a good chance the street in front of it wasn’t either.
He left the condo, painfully aware of the clanging his feet made on the steel steps. But once he reached the beach, only the
murmur of waves and the distant strains of jazz from the French Quarter reached his ears. Clouds cloaked the moon and stars,
but windows cast long streams of light over sand and seagrass. Hez stayed in the shadows as much as possible, alert for any
movement.
He relaxed a little when he reached Pelican Harbor’s boardwalk. The busy strip of restaurants, cafés, bars, and shops flanked the old Bayfront Inn and opened onto a wide sweep of sand and beach volleyball courts with few places for an assassin to hide.
The Seabreeze Saloon’s exterior was decorated with net floats, shells, and other picturesque detritus that had washed up on
local shores during storms. Martine sat alone at a table in a corner of the bar’s little outdoor seating area, her gaze flicking
between her phone and the door. The patio lights touched her tanned skin and brought out the beauty of her high cheekbones
and delicate bone structure. A large hurricane lamp stood in the middle of the table, and a glass of water and a tall mojito
sat in front of her. Mojitos used to be his favorite summer drink.
Hez walked up behind her. She was texting with someone, but she put down her phone before he could make out the name.
He stepped into the glow of the bar’s lights. “Boo.”
Martine jumped and gave a little yelp. “Don’t scare me like that! What are you, twelve?” She patted the only other chair at
the small table, which was just inches from her seat. “Sit down. I have something to show you.”
He moved the chair a quarter of the way around the table and sat. “What’s up?”
“What?” She cupped her hand to her mouth and puffed. “Do I have bad breath or something?”
“I’m sure you smell fine, but something about this situation stinks. Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Sure, but you’ll have to get within three feet of me.
” She took a long sip of her mojito. “Mmm. Okay, now I know I smell minty fresh. Now get over here.” She picked up her phone and tapped it while he reluctantly dragged his chair closer.
She leaned toward him, her shoulder touching his, and held up the phone.
It showed a blurry picture of a bearded man wearing sunglasses.
“This is Anton Todorov. He’s the brother of Ivan Todorov, who works for Hornbrook Finance’s European office, which is based in Sofia, Bulgaria. ”
What was up with her behavior? She had always been a flirt, but she knew better than to come on to Hez. Did this have something
to do with her mystery client? “That’s an odd place for an American financial firm to have an office.”
“Unless the firm is looking for someplace that’s in the EU but doesn’t have sophisticated financial regulators. It probably
doesn’t hurt that Bulgaria is close to the Middle East.”
Hez studied the phone. “Okay, but why do I care about Anton, the brother of Ivan, who works for Hornbrook?”
“Because Anton also works for Hornbrook—or at least he did until recently—and this picture was taken last week in Pensacola.”
Hez’s blood ran cold. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does your client know?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Can I talk to your client?”
“No, they want to remain anonymous. That’s why they’re paying me to talk to you.”
“Can you at least send me a copy of that picture?”
“If I could, I would have done it already.”
He gasped and stared over her shoulder. “Have you ever seen a spider that big?”
She whirled. “Where?”
He snatched the phone from her hand and texted the picture to himself. “Thanks.”
She grabbed her phone back and anger flared in her eyes, but then she laughed and shoved him playfully. “Spiders? That wasn’t
fair!”
“Are you playing fair with me, Martine? What’s really going on?”
She grew serious and held his gaze for a long moment. “As fair as I can.”
“Anything else you can give me?”
Her breath was indeed minty fresh. “Just this.” Quick as a flash, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Good luck, Hez.
Stay safe.”
Before he could respond, she got up and walked off into the warm darkness. Unease stirred as she sashayed away. She was trying
to play him again, but what was the game? And how could he win it?