Chapter 28
I wanted Theo.
I drove to his house but the family wasn’t home. I knocked and waited, knocked and waited. No answer. Theo wasn’t in his tree, no one in the kitchen, no car in the driveway.
I circled around back with a hunch that the door would be open. The Cardot family consisted of zero adults. Piper and Theo were in their thirties but that didn’t make them mature. They couldn’t clean their pool, or tidy their kitchen, or take the trash out, and I bet they didn’t lock their doors.
I tried the knob and it twisted open. Bingo. No adults, no safety precautions.
What was I hoping to find? I didn’t know.
I didn’t know a lot. Ronnie and I had already deduced that Piper and Theo weren’t good parents but they were the best Sophia had.
The house looked like it got tossed upside down every so often, saturated in filth.
Overflowing trash cans, sheets on the floor, Mountain Dew bottles in the hallway, fruit flies in the bathroom, a reek in most spaces.
The security cameras were turned off. Sophia’s room was the worst, like she’d thrown a tantrum worthy of Motley Crüe.
She’d drawn a kiddie curse word on the walls with a marker and broken one of her windows.
Piper’s criminal lair was located in her basement.
I was underwhelmed by the simple worn-out chair, the computer, the monitor, the phone’s headset, the pizza boxes, the soda cans.
I scanned a lined notepad next to her keyboard, and worked through her atrocious handwriting—nonsensical goals, a to-do list with deadlines six months ago, some self-help book titles.
I flipped the page and found a record of user names and passwords.
“Good grief, Piper,” I told no one. Writing down your passwords on a notepad?
Didn’t seem like the move of an elite computer hacker.
Her preferred username was MuscleMama12.
I snapped a few pictures of her computer setup and the usernames, and texted the pictures to my friend Jamie Patton, the FBI agent in charge of the Roanoke field office.
Do these pictures make you think a criminal mastermind works here, stealing medical records and faking identities and running cyber scams?
His reply was quick.
>> Is that a joke? That Dell is underpowered, and there’s only one monitor, and the router in the corner is a simple dinosaur, not a VPN. That set up would barely satisfy a college kid.
>> Plus MuscleMama is using gmail instead of Proton or Preveil services, or something even more secure on the dark web. This is no pro fraudster.
That was my thought too.
I left the house, turning out lights as I went.
Piper and Sophia returned an hour later.
I lurked in the tree line between homes, watching.
Piper lugged plastic grocery bags into the kitchen and Sophia turned on the television and surfed YouTube channels.
I observed them through the big kitchen windows, brilliant squares of light near the pool.
For closer looks, I spied though a monocular.
They both drank a soda and Piper forgot to put half the groceries away.
Piper switched off the kitchen lights and played with Sophia’s hair on the couch until the girl moved away.
Soon their movements stopped and my impression was they’d fallen asleep.
Still I waited. It was chilly and I wished I’d brought a camping stool to sit on. I’d been a spy for years, you’d think I’d be prepared by now. Convinced they were asleep, I moved to sit in a patio chair near a darkened window.
Theo arrived on an electric scooter. Of course he did.
I heard him approach, whining down the road at midnight.
He zipped around back and leaned his scooter in the shelter of an overhanging eave.
The automatic lights didn’t turn on because I’d unscrewed them.
He cursed and waved his arms but to no avail, and he rooted in the dark to find the electric plug to charge his scooter.
He stood by the dark pool and scrolled on his phone for fifteen minutes before turning for the rear kitchen doors, futilely waving his arms again.
When he got close, I clicked on the flashlight with my left hand. He did a ridiculous jump and he cursed.
“Squirrels wear helmets?” I said.
He cursed again and tripped on the chair next to mine and fell hard on his butt and he dropped his phone. We were close enough for me to reach out and rap him hard on the knee with the Kimber pistol I held in my right hand.
He yelped.
“Feel that? That’s a pistol. I’ll shoot you in the same knee if you make me.”
“Man,” he said and he panted. “Man what the heck, dude, you scared the shit out of me.”
“For Sophia’s sake, I’m not going to kill you. So relax.”
“Who are you? Are you… I can’t see your face, you blinded me, you asshole,” he said.
Theo was a good-looking guy. He’d have to be, the son of Madeleine and brother of Emile. Wide mouth, big eyes, high cheek bones. Natural-born French heartthrob. Pretending to be a squirrel. He wore the tail.
“Mackenzie August,” I said. “The guy your herd jumped in the alley.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He tugged off his helmet. “Man, listen. Listen, I’m serious, I didn’t… I didn’t tell them—”
“Shut up, Theo. I’ll hold you underwater if you don’t.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “It’s just, you scared me and I can’t think.”
“Squirrels shouldn’t be able to talk anyway.”
“I’m aware I have a human body, man. I’m not an idiot. It’s my spirit—”
“Shhhhh. You’re not a true therian, you’re just bored.
The same way your wife isn’t a real criminal, she’s just pretending because she doesn’t know what else to do.
Or at least, she pretends she’s good at it.
I’m going to ask you questions and you’ll tell me the truth.
Don’t try to get up, I’ll hit you in the knee again.
Don’t try to run, I’m faster. Don’t try to fight, that’d be hilarious. Understand?”
“This sucks, man, you can’t do this.”
“You’re learning the difference between reality and make-believe. Because I can do this, Theo. I am doing this. No matter how hard you pretend. Why’d you send your pack after me?” I said.
“I didn’t.”
I rapped him on the knee again before he was ready. He cried and scooted away, but I grabbed his foot and hauled him back, him kicking, so I cracked him on the shin.
“Could be a long night, Theo. Why’d you sic your pack on me?”
His eyes watered and he held his leg with both hands. “All I did was, I told Maximus about you.”
“Maximus, king of the jungle? Why’d he decide to intervene?” I said.
“I don’t know. He cares about us.”
“Or maybe he was bored? Why’d you tell him about me?”
“I was scared.” He wiped his eyes.
“Why?”
“You might take Sophia away. We’re not exactly a normal family.”
“Do you care for Sophia?”
“Of course. She’s my kid. I know… Look, I get it, I know this looks odd, but we’re a family.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes more.
“You ruined my car.”
“Sorry.”
“I liked that car.”
“I said sorry.”
“This whole thing bothers me, Theo.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? You’re a squirrel, your wife is trying and failing to be a criminal player, your daughter appears to be under-parented, your pool sucks, your house is worse—”
“Why is any of that your business?”
Good question, Theo.
First intelligent thing he’d said tonight. Because my wife asked me to make it my business, because she shot your sister.
I couldn’t say that, so I said, “I saw your sister naked.”
“Oh my god, dude.”
“Why’d she look like she’d never been pregnant?”
“Huh?”
“Flat stomach. Narrow hips. No stretch marks, no signs of surgery. But she had a one-year-old,” I said.
“Oh. They used a surrogate. And you’re disgusting,” said Theo.
“Who? Did they use Piper?”
“No, man. That would’ve been… No.” I kept the light shining in his face and he was squinting away from it.
“Who was the surrogate?” I said.
“I don’t know, some lady. We didn’t use a surrogate, Emile and Duane did. I heard you killed my sister.”
“I didn’t. Nor did I kill Duane. But I was in the same building when it happened. When you assumed control of their estate, why didn’t you move into their house?” I said.
“I think you broke my knee.”
“No I didn’t. Why didn’t you move into their house?”
“We didn’t want to live in Philly. Or New Jersey. We wanted a new life,” he said.
“How many houses did they have?”
“Two.”
“What’d you do with their stuff?”
“Sold the Philly house through an estate auction,” said Theo.
“And the New Jersey house?”
“It’s still there. On the beach. We vacation there.”
“Which beach?” I said.
“Stone Harbor. Cape May County.”
“They were rich.”
“Oh yeah. Duane was.”
“You got it all. Are you running low now?”
“Yeah but not after his insurance policy pays out. He’s been missing for seven years, and that’s the limit. His policy was for ten million,” said Theo.
“How nice for you. Who was watching Sophia while Emile and Duane were in Italy?” I said.
“How should I know?”
“Think.”
“Their nanny, I guess?” he said.
“Who was their nanny?”
“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter how long I think about it, because I don’t know. Social Services brought Sophia to us, not the nanny.”
“Convince me you’re a good father, Theo.”
He squirmed. “I can’t. I mean, whatever, we’re trying. We bought her a nice house, a nice pool. We watch movies together. We tell her not to cuss so much. We tell her we love her. We don’t buy a lot of stupid shit. We’re trying.”
“This whole thing bothers me, Theo.” I set my pistol down and scrubbed a hand through my hair.
Maybe the thing bothering me was, I couldn’t fix the mess.
They were people. People were disasters, unable to be healed, some more than others.
Ronnie asked me to do something I couldn’t. “But I think we’re through.”
“We’re through?”
“I’m leaving. If either you or your wife move against me or my family, with your pathetic wannabe criminal pals or the furries, I’ll come back and be waiting for you in the dark,” I said.
“You’re sick.”
“Did you ever see the Willy Wonka movie? Not the new one, the old one? With Gene Wilder?” I said.
“Um.” He swallowed. “Yeah sure, when I was a kid. Freaked me out. Why?”
“Do you remember what Wonka says to Charlie after Charlie wins the contest and inherits the entire chocolate factory and his impoverished family gets to move in?”
“No?”
“Wonka asks Charlie, do you know what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted? Charlie says no. Wonka says, the man lived happily ever after, and they hug and the movie ends. And it’s nice and sweet.
And total bull. It’s a crock. Do you know what happens to people who suddenly get everything they ever wanted?
The same thing that happened to those bratty kids in the factory.
They turn into blueberries and fall into chocolate rivers and they die. ”
He made a shrug. “Okay?”
“Grow up and be a man, Theo. Not a squirrel.” I clicked off the light and the darkness swooped in.