Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“The DEA?” Helia asked him. “Not the police? Not Carter and Jess?”
No doubt calling in the Feds sounded big and scary, but for those in the room who’d worked with them, it was less unpredictable than working with local police.
“There are two reasons,” Monk said. Helia nodded, her hazel eyes filled with questions. “The first is that this is too big for the locals. Players like Pena and DKZ are not only out of their jurisdiction, but out of their realm of experience. The second reason is Sundaram.”
“What about it?” she asked, her body tense in anxious anticipation.
“The Feds will see Sundaram as little more than a small piece of a much larger puzzle. They will have no reason to focus on it other than for the slice of information they can glean from it.”
Her eyes slowly narrowed as the import of what he said sank in. “Whereas with local law enforcement, Sundaram will be the story.”
He nodded. “Jess and Carter don’t strike me as the most experienced detectives, but they don’t strike me as gossips, either. I can’t say that about the rest of the force they’d need to bring into this.”
“And they’d end up handing it over anyway,” Callie added. “Like Monk said, it’s too big for them. They might salivate over the opportunity, but in the end, if they are any good at their job, they’ll know it’s too big.”
She hesitated. “Okay then, the DEA it is. Do they have a hotline or something?”
Callie and Lina smiled. “They do,” Callie said. “But I’m thinking Scipio has someone in mind to reach out to directly.”
“I do,” Scipio said. Monk already knew what he’d say, so he kept his focus on Helia. His father had brought this on all of them. A week ago, he didn’t think he could loathe Roger Wilde any more. His revulsion had doubled for what the aftermath of his decisions was doing to Helia.
“A former teammate of ours is DEA now. He runs a team out of the LA office. We didn’t want to put a call in to Reaper until we ran it by you,” he said.
“Reaper? As in grim?” she asked. Monk bit back a smile. Helia had a habit of focusing on the small things when the big things got too big. Not that she avoided the big things, but she needed a little time to work her way around to them.
“From the pepper,” Lovell replied.
Helia swung her head around to where he sat with Marley and Hawkeye. “His mom’s from Trinidad. He pops peppers like candy,” Hawkeye said.
Marley nodded. “We’re talking food so spicy you can’t even taste it.”
“Why would you eat food you can’t taste?” Helia asked.
The guys all chuckled. “Sometimes it’s better not to taste the food they gave us,” Mantis said.
“But he did it for the high, no question,” Stone said.
“And the bragging rights,” Philly added. “Remember the night he ate that ghost pepper raw?”
Hawkeye ran a hand over his face. “I thought I was going to have to perform some not-so-minor surgery.”
“That bad?” Joey asked.
Hawkeye chuckled and shook his head. “Fucker ended up barely even breaking a sweat.”
For the first time in too long, Helia smiled. “Okay, Reaper it is, then. Go ahead and make the call.” She paused, then added, “But I don’t want James to get in trouble for taking Roger’s stash from Bacco to HICC. Will you make sure of that?”
Lovell’s expression softened, a sight so rare Monk could count on one hand the times he’d seen it.
“Reaper won’t let that happen,” Lovell said.
“HICC won’t either,” Leo added.
Helia took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this thing started. Christmas is coming in hot, and while I doubt it will be wrapped up by then, I’d like it underway enough that we can all celebrate.”
The room started moving, people rose from their seats, some went to the kitchen to make more coffee, a few asked if they could tour the wine caves, Mantis and Stone joined Scipio in a quiet corner to make the call.
Monk turned to Kendall, who was watching the goings-on with an anxious expression, as if unsure where she fit in to it all. “K?” he called. “Go for a walk with me?”
Her eyes darted to Helia, who seemed to know what he needed. Leaning over, she kissed his cheek before rising. “I’m going to give my parents a call.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then turned back to Kendall, who nodded.
A few minutes later, dressed in jackets, hats, and sneakers, they closed the door behind them and headed toward the south vineyard, away from Sundaram.
They walked in silence for a while as their bodies shed the intensity of the past hour.
When they reached a trail that led up the steep hill, she asked, “What was it like growing up here?”
“Complicated,” he replied. He paused, and they both turned to look out over the vineyard.
They hadn’t made it far up the hill, but they were high enough to see the vines stretching for miles, a patchwork of different wineries.
“It’s beautiful, of course,” he started.
“And I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, so to speak. Never wanted for anything.”
“But Roger was your dad.”
He nodded. “On the outside, it looked like a fucking fairy tale.”
“But was really a nightmare?”
He paused before answering. “Parts of it, yes,” he replied. “Parts of it left wounds so deep I don’t know if they’ll ever even form a scar. Some days it seems like maybe I can heal. Not completely, but enough that it becomes more of a twinge than pain.”
“And the other parts?”
He thought of Helia and the Shaws. “Other parts are good. I met the Shaws when I was fourteen. They showed me what a real family could be. How a family could be. Because of them, I wasn’t completely fucked up when I enlisted.
Those years gave me the foundation to build and be a part of the family I have today. ”
He left it at that, and they started back on the trail, climbing toward the top. “We have a meeting with the social worker on January 4,” he said. “I know it’s a lot, but I need to ask you a few questions.”
He waited for her to agree, a small “okay” came after a dozen steps.
“I live at the clubhouse now. I never had a reason to move out. We’ll have to stay there while we sort out next steps, but that’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“If I’m okay about staying at the club?” she asked. “I am. I like your family.”
“They’re yours too when you’re ready for them,” he said. “But that was only part of the question. We’ll need a house,” he continued. “I have enough savings to buy one, and the estate, well, if I wanted, I wouldn’t ever have to worry about money.”
“You don’t want Roger’s money,” she said.
He inclined his head. “I don’t. But I’d make exceptions.
And it’s not all Roger’s. Well, legally it is, but it wasn’t what he made or built.
There’s a huge chunk of the estate that’s more or less intact from my grandfather.
I can use some of that to buy us a house and start an account for your college. ”
She stumbled behind him, and he stopped to check on her. “College?” she asked.
He considered pausing but decided this conversation was better had on the move.
“You’re one of the brightest kids I’ve ever met.
Granted, I haven’t met a lot of kids, but even Leo is impressed, and he’s a certified genius.
If college is what you want, we’ll make it happen.
” He let that sink in for a few minutes as they reached the top of the hill.
The stone bench his grandfather had built decades ago still stood.
He’d only been five when his grandfather died, but he remembered coming up to this spot with him.
After brushing the seat free of debris, he sat. Kendall hesitated, then sat beside him.
“What I really wanted to talk about is the house, though. There’s not a lot on the market right now because it’s the middle of the ski season, but once the snow melts, we’ll see more.
If we know what we want, Stone worked with an agent we can ask to keep an eye on things for us.
” He paused again. “What kind of house do you want?”
“One with a roof and walls and running water and working electricity,” she responded. “Other than that, I don’t care.”
He chuckled. It was that or cry. “You can do better than that, K. Do you want to be in town or have some land? There’s not much lakefront property left, but there’s some in the hills or on the rivers that feed the lake.”
She took a moment to answer. “I don’t know.
Maybe after we visit, I’ll know. I’ve always been around people, except when my mom took me to other people’s property.
I didn’t like those trips, but maybe that was because she left me to figure it out on my own, and it was so different than the apartments I was used to.
Maybe I’d like it.” She paused. “But I like the idea of being in town. Close to people, but with our own space. It’s a safe town, right? ”
He nodded. “It gets a lot of tourists so has some of the usual issues, but overall, it’s safe.
Safe enough to walk around on your own once you’re familiar with it.
And Joey and Charley’s store is downtown, as is their cousin’s gallery, so you’ll always have a place to go if something doesn’t feel right to you. ”
“What about school?”
“Another question. There’s a middle school that includes sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
That’s where you’d fit age-wise, but you’re beyond that intellectually.
That said, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you testing into the high school.
For that matter, I don’t even know if you want to go to school or if you want to keep studying online. ”
Birds swooped in the valley below; a gentle breeze rustled the trees.
On a cool, dry day like this, Monk could barely make out the scent of the place, but after rain, or a hot summer day?
Those memories were burned into his brain: damp earth mixed with the musky decay of the vineyards or dry oak that’s been baked in the sun.
To this day, if he caught a whiff of a similar smell, no matter where he was, his mind instantly flew back to this valley.
“What about Helia?” Kendall asked. “I mean, it’s obvious you two are fu—”
He swiveled his head and raised an eyebrow at her. She snapped her mouth shut. She hadn’t had the best role models for relationships in her life, but no way was he going to let her paint his and Helia’s relationship with the same brush as whatever she’d seen with her mom.
“That you like each other. A lot,” she finished.
He nodded, both acknowledging her effort and the comment itself. “We do. We haven’t talked about the details yet, though.” They’d have to at some point, but he had no idea how it would all work out.
“But you want to be together?”
He caught a tendril of hope, or maybe even wistfulness, in her voice that he hadn’t expected.
His heart tumbled a little more for her.
She had every right to be jaded and hard.
She was jaded. She knew more about the seedy part of the world than most adults—his brothers excluded.
And yet she wanted to see, to be a part of, a happy ever after.
That she even knew those existed in real life surprised him.
That she believed in them made him want to wrap her up and make sure the tender parts of her heart had the same opportunity to grow as strong as her curiosity, intelligence, and wariness.
“We do and we will be. We just don’t know what that will look like yet.”
“If I stay in online school, it’d be easier for us to come down here to visit.”
“First of all, you’re done having to make your decisions and live your life to make someone else’s easier,” he said.
“I’m not saying you turn into a selfish beast, but despite the life experience you’ve had, K, you’re twelve.
You need a chance to be a kid. I know that’s hard to imagine.
You’ve probably never been a kid, not really.
And losing your mom is yet one more shitty card you’ve been dealt.
” He wasn’t sure he was being totally honest about that part.
If Cindy had cleaned up her act, based on what he knew about Kendall, she probably would have been a great mom.
But as it was, Kendall had a better chance at building a good life with him than she had being toted around the country to random people’s houses.
He knew the kind of people Cindy spent her time with—hell, Roger was the same.
He refused to imagine what Kendall’s life would have been like if Cindy had kept dragging her to one party after another once she started maturing.
“But Helia and I are the adults,” he continued. “We will make the best decision we can given both our circumstances. You aren’t an afterthought, though, K. Your life, whether that’s school or if you want to play sports or pick up some hobbies, is as important as Helia’s and mine.”
She slipped her hands under her thighs and rocked back and forth, a subtle but telling motion. “Can we focus on the drug ring and murders for now?”
He couldn’t help it—he barked out a laugh. A wry smile touched her lips.
“You know how many things are wrong about that statement, K?”
Her grin grew into a smile. “Yeah, but I’ll be able to write one hell of a college essay when the time comes.”