Chapter Seven
SEVEN
It was a hot and humid morning, because of course it was. It was South Florida, after all. It had rained hard but briefly sometime during the night, leaving behind puddles and a steam-like quality in the air.
Laguna Key technically sat about a mile south of Miami, not quite the entrance to the Florida Keys but close enough.
Driving over bridges used to freak Shepherd out when he first moved in his twenties, but now the open ocean on both sides of his vehicle was as commonplace as the land crabs scurrying across the asphalt to get to the other side.
His first time driving to the Keys, with nothing but a half-completed college degree and a pizza dream to his name, Shepherd saw dolphins crest on the very first bridge he crossed.
He’d taken it, at the time, as a sign of good luck, but considering how his life had turned out, maybe they were instead harbingers of doom.
The brunch spot they were supposed to go to was all outdoor seating, overlooking the beach, because there’s nothing better than eating cold shrimp with sweat dripping down your back while incredibly good-looking people walk by in bathing suits and judge your food choices.
He pulled up to the end of the block and parked near iguanas sunning themselves. A mess. That’s what you called a group of iguanas, according to Lex, and Shepherd had learned a long time ago not to google the things his daughter told him for verification. At least, not without the safety turned on.
Shepherd couldn’t drive to his restaurant, as Perfection Avenue was pedestrian and pedicab only. But Ginny was waiting for him at the end of the road wearing a sky-blue sundress and a smile on her face.
His stomach squeezed a bit at the sight, the way it always did when she smiled at him like that.
She didn’t smile like that at the customers, or Noah, or even Max and Chris.
The smile that wrinkled her eyes was only ever directed at Shepherd, or sometimes Lex.
Not that he was paying attention to her smiles, at him or otherwise.
That would be weird. And Shepherd? Shepherd was cool.
She opened the door, and her smile immediately fell. “Oh, dear Lord, you were not kidding about your car. It’s gross, Shepherd!”
He shifted in his seat, the backs of his sweaty knees sticking to the old leather upholstery. “Told you so. I’m an expensive date, Ginny. What can I say?”
She buckled up with a grimace. “Mom isn’t answering, so I hope we’re not about to walk in on something unsightly.”
“I’m sure they’re just getting ready.” Shepherd pulled out into traffic. “I mean, Mr. Martin is old. Right? Like. How many rounds can we realistically be talking about?”
“No! Shepherd!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “Shut up! Shut up!”
He belly-laughed and turned into Mr. Martin’s neighborhood, the very swanky part of Laguna Key that was its own island, connected to the rest of it by private bridge. “Your mom’s been married a lot, Ginny. You can’t be surprised that she gets around.”
“Will you please stop slut-shaming my mother?”
“I’m not slut-shaming anyone! Good for her. You know? I’m just saying. You should be used to it by now.”
She sighed dramatically, the back of her hand on her forehead and everything. “My mother is a lot of things, Preston Shepherd. Something you get used to is not one of them.”
He parked his car behind Mr. Martin’s BMW and studied her profile in the light of the mid-morning sun that streamed in through the window, setting her red hair on fire. Damn, she was pretty. She blinked her long, pale lashes at him, and Shepherd cleared his throat.
“Well. Let’s go knock and see what happens. Can’t be too bad, whatever it is.”
Shepherd stepped out of the car and into the heat, the sun trying to boil him alive, and it would have succeeded if it wasn’t for the gentle breeze swaying in the palms and wafting the scent of nearby seaweed against his nose in a rotten-egg caress.
He opened the door for her, because if he was going to pretend to be her boyfriend, he might as well be the type of boyfriend who opened car doors.
Ginny climbed out with a smile and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
Shepherd slammed the door behind her. His eyes were bulging, he knew it—he could almost feel the hearts flying out, but he was incapable of stopping them.
Incapable of even blinking. Her face was so close to his that he could feel her breath on his neck, her vanilla perfume drowning out the seaweed. Goosebumps prickled over his skin.
“We haven’t even started yet.”
Ginny’s white teeth bit her plump bottom lip, pink and shining with gloss. “You sure about that?”
His heart was racing so fast it was almost like that time he went to the ER thinking he was dying, and it turned out it was just a panic attack. Hayley made fun of him for weeks.
Ginny leaned, somehow, even closer. His eyes crossed trying to stay focused on her. “They could be watching from the window. We’ve got to make it believable.”
He exhaled. He had a plan for this. What to Do When We Have to Kiss Again, to Keep Yourself from Looking Like an Even Bigger Idiot. He’d thought of it last night after texting Ginny.
Shepherd could do anything he set his mind to, as long as he had set his mind to it far in advance, and came up with a step-by-step list of how to handle said thing.
“Of course,” he whispered. She was so close to him he had no choice but to whisper. “Knowing your mother, she’s probably watching right now.” He took her chin between two of his fingers. “Better make it look good for her, huh?”
By holding her face, he was In Charge. He pressed his lips to hers, this time remembering to Close His Eyes, and with Firm Pressure kept her tongue in her mouth where it belonged.
Ginny’s lips were decidedly less glossy and pink when they parted. One swipe of his mouth with his tongue solved that mystery. He cleared his throat and wiped off the evidence with the back of his hand.
She smiled at him, a blush on her cheeks, and laced her fingers through his. “Thank you, again. Now let’s go take these geezers to brunch.”
“Wait.” Shepherd was pulled behind her. “We’re taking them? Are you serious? The rich old people can’t even pay for the brunch they’re forcing us to?”
“I’ll cover it, you big baby,” Ginny said.
“Oh, and make me look like a cheapskate in front of my fake girlfriend’s mother? No, thank you. I’ll cover it. But I’m gonna act high and mighty about it and really rub it in Mr. Martin’s face.”
Every house on this street was elevated above sea level, not by stilts like most of the newer homes on the island, but by a mound of earth piled high and covered in grass that could never grow lush in this climate.
The roofs were metal, the walls were concrete, and the sunflowers in the windowsills were aggressively cheerful.
Ginny rang the doorbell. She reapplied her lip gloss while they waited for someone to come to the door. Nobody came. Shepherd knocked on the door. Still, nobody answered. Ginny rang the doorbell again and said, helpfully, “Hello?”
There were windows on either side of the door, but they were covered by blinds. Shepherd tried to squint between two slats but could only make out the back of a single couch. He knocked again.
Ginny shrugged and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. The door swung inward. She shrugged again. “Hello? Mom? Mr. Martin?”
The A/C was on high, a startling contrast to the air outside. Shivers ran down Shepherd’s back from the temperature change, and not at all from the look in Ginny’s eye when she glanced at him over her shoulder.
“If you even suggest that my mother is doing anything untoward right now—”
He mimed zipping his lips.
“Mom?” Ginny shouted, walking further into the house.
It was furnished in your typical beach-home wicker—all light woods and white tile floors, kitschy signs that remind guests to take their shoes off or to laugh and love while they’re living.
Not something he would’ve picked for Mr. Martin, but the man was so rich he probably had an interior designer and had opted for a renter-friendly package in case he ever put the listing out there.
The living room opened into the dining room. Off to the side was the kitchen. All the lights were off, but there was enough sunlight coming in from the slats in the blinds to illuminate a strange, dark liquid running in the grout of the tiles between the kitchen and the dining room.
Shepherd blinked down at it, his sneakered toes at the edge of the flow.
It was moving like a stream, staining the white tile red in its wake, finding its way underneath him.
“What a weird spill,” he said, his brain refusing to accept what it was seeing.
“Never struck Mr. Martin for a Kool-Aid man.”
Ginny gasped, a frightened hitch in her throat, her hands blocking her mouth. Shepherd shook his head and declined to look where she was looking. This was not happening. This was impossible. He hadn’t planned for this.
Finding the landlord dead in his restaurant? Sure, he had a plan for that. It was called Grabbing His Passport and Fleeing to the Bahamas on the Closest Boat.
But this? His landlord, bleeding out on his own kitchen floor? Nope. That was not something Shepherd had ever even remotely considered as a possibility. At least, not one that would be his responsibility.
“Mr. Martin!” Ginny jumped over the blood, her long legs clearing the stream easily. “Mr. Martin? What happened?” She kneeled down next to him, taking his hand in hers.
Shepherd inhaled and held the breath in his lungs.
Slowly, he followed the blood trail to the man it was leaking from, his shoe leaving several bloody half-prints in his path.
Mr. Martin was lying on the ground in silk pajamas, a deep, dark hole in his stomach that couldn’t have been from anything but a gun.
His lips were blue, his teeth were chattering, and his eyes were slits.
“Mr. Martin?” Ginny’s soft voice compelled Shepherd forward. He stepped over the blood and came up behind her, staring down at the dying man in horror. She touched his forehead with her palm, stroked her fingers down his cheek. “Mr. Martin? My mother?”
Mr. Martin’s breath rattled. In a thin wheeze, he whispered, “Cardello.”
And then, like something out of a movie, the next rattling breath never came. His eyes didn’t close, but his fingers lost their grip on Ginny’s hand. His teeth stopped chattering. His chest didn’t rise.
Ginny stared up at Shepherd, her mouth and eyes wide open. She sucked in a loud breath, followed by another, her complexion turning grayer and grayer with every breath. “Cardello?”
Shepherd, finally back in his body, was reaching for his phone to call the police. He heard her talk, but in a far-off sort of way, as though she were in a nearby room.
“My family represented a Cardello,” she said. “Not too long ago.”