Chapter 4 #2
“I need to have the money and my plane ticket by the end of September.” $4700 in thirty days. She straightened her shoulders to fight back the panic. “Which I will.”
He didn’t respond. His frown deepened, and they rode in silence for a few miles. Cadenza fidgeted, worried she’d shared too much, but then he spoke.
“Your mom sounds really supportive of you. If she got you that part, you must be pretty close?”
Cadenza sucked in a breath. After this evening, the last thing she wanted to talk about was her mother. But Canon didn’t know that; it wasn’t his fault. She flipped the question instead of answering.
“I didn’t get to meet any of your family tonight. Were they there? They must be excited for you.”
He shrugged. “My mom lives down in San Diego now, so it’s a bit of a drive. And my dad died when I was thirteen.”
She looked at him, her heart clenching in empathetic memory. “I’m sorry. I lost mine when I was twelve.”
He just nodded, but she understood. There wasn’t much to say that helped.
“So, why do you want to go into politics so badly? And don’t say to serve the people.” She rolled her eyes.
“I guess I’m like you,” he said, his tone light again. “I don’t want to be anonymous.”
Midnight stars glinted overhead when they pulled up in front of her garage. Their song hovered in the back of Cadenza’s mind as she climbed out of Canon’s car. She breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened with the music at the patio, so far it hadn’t happened again.
Canon cut the engine and walked her to the door. “Thanks again for coming with me tonight.”
“No problem.” She keyed in the door code and turned back to wave. “Goodnight, Canon.”
“Goodnight.” He bent down and kissed her cheek.
Startled, she didn’t say anything until he’d driven down to Drostan’s cottage.
“Moxie,” she muttered. But a small smile snuck onto her face.
The Ferrari gleamed in the garage light, and she leaned against it. “What do you think? A few dates with Canon just for fun before I go to Italy?”
The Berlinetta was silent.
“Yeah, you’re right. Probably not a good idea.” She pushed away the car and shut the garage door. “We’ll just close up shop, take a shower and go to bed, eh, bello?”
She slipped her heels off and carried them up the stairs to her apartment.
The steam in the shower helped wash the evening out of her hair, but restlessness drove her to the balcony instead of to bed.
Outside, a breeze sang against her skin, all dark-night, August heat and warm cedar trees.
She leaned against the balcony railing, watching the half-moon turn the windshields in the sales lot into dark ponds.
Someone groaned underneath the balcony.
A man stumbled into view in front of the garage.
He coughed, ragged and wet. Dark hair hung in knots to his shoulders.
His clothes were so worn Cadenza couldn’t tell what color they were supposed to be.
Another cough spasmed through him, bringing him to his knees.
He retched. Turned his face to the moon and hollered something unintelligible.
Cadenza backed away from the railing. The stranger staggered to his feet and lurched through the open garage door. She froze. Why was the door open? She’d locked it for the night. Hadn’t she?
Metal crashed on concrete, and a grunt sounded from the garage. The mechanic cart. He’d knocked into the mechanic cart.
She ran to lock the deadbolt on her front door and snatched up her phone. Back against the wall, she craned her neck to peek through the window to the garage. The man paced, arms clamped over his stomach, and shoulders hunched, right where the Ferrari should have been.
But wasn’t.
She clapped a hand over her mouth. The Ferrari was gone.
“No. No, no!” Her fingers froze over the call button. Drostan had taken her in, given her a job, a home. And she’d managed to get his car stolen in return.
Footsteps clanged on the stairs. Frissons of fear electrified her limbs, and she fumbled the phone to the floor.
More clanging on the stairs and muffled yells.
She shrieked, diving for the phone. Her fingers trembled with adrenaline, and she stabbed at the call button three times before connecting.
“Hello?” Drostan’s voice came over the line, sleepy and muffled.
“Drostan! There’s some strange guy here in the garage. I think he’s drunk. He’s on my stairs—”
“What?” A thump and a curse crashed through the phone.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s late, but you’re closer than the police…” She babbled, afraid to get off the call.
A pounding sounded over the phone, like knocking on a door, and Drostan called to Canon to get up.
“And I swear, I thought I shut the garage, but I think he—or I don’t know, maybe there’s someone else with him?
I’m so sorry, Drostan,” she said. The bizarre night broke over her—all those fancy people, the music disappearing, the kiss on her cheek, and now the Berlinetta gone and a probably-drunk—and possibly violent?
—intruder about to knock down her door. Hot tears spilled over and she tasted salt.
“Sorry?” Drostan’s breath came in puffs. Cadenza ran back to the sliding glass door where she could see him charging up the hill, a crowbar in his hand. “Sorry for what?”
“The Ferrari is gone.”
Silence.
“What did you say?”
She peeked out the glass door again. Drostan stood frozen in the middle of the road, crowbar lowered, mouth agape. She cringed.
“The Ferrari, I’ve been trying to fix it for you. It was supposed to be a surprise, to say thank you for everything, and I got it running, but now it’s gone! It was there when I got home with Canon, and I swear I locked the door—I don’t understand. Should I call the police?”
“No!” Drostan called in a strangled voice. He started running again. “No police. I’m almost there.” He hung up.
When he reached the garage, he slid to a stop and called out, eyes pleading. The banging on her stairs quieted. Cadenza frowned. It sounded like Drostan was speaking Gaelic.
Why would he confront the intruder with Gaelic?
He dashed into the garage and Cadenza hurried to the overlook window.
He was hugging him.
Drostan was hugging the probably-drunk-possibly-violent stranger, tears running into his beard. Stymied, Cadenza unlocked her door and ventured onto the landing.
“Caddie, forgive me.” Drostan unwrapped one arm from the stranger to beckon her down the stairs. “He’s no stranger, my dear. This is my son.”
She blinked. Drostan had two sons. She’d met them both. This was not one of them.
He engulfed the stranger in another hug, tears still flowing. “My boy, my boy…”
The man spoke through the curtain of ratty hair over his face, his voice all unoiled hinges and rusty pistons. “Athair, bha cuideigin a ’seinn.”
Cadenza’s Gaelic was limited to the memorized sounds of the tunes Drostan had taught her as a child.
She looked to him for a translation, but his attention was riveted on the stranger.
Canon jogged up the hill, a 2X4 clutched in one hand, but stopped just outside the garage at the sight of Drostan hugging the man.
“I guess I don’t need this?” He leaned the wood against the wall and went to Cadenza. “Are you alright?”
She nodded, but her teeth began to chatter and her legs trembled.
“Here.” Canon wrapped his jacket around her shoulders.
Drostan started out of the garage, arm around the man.
“Norroway?” Canon asked.
“Got to clean him up,” Drostan called over his shoulder. “I’ll catch you lot up in the morning.”
“What about the Ferrari?” Cadenza’s teeth chattered so hard she had to clench her jaw to keep from biting her tongue. “Should I call the police now?”
“Nae, nae!” Drostan waved off the idea, still walking. “It’ll sort itself out.”
Cadenza watched them go, eyes bugging in disbelief. Another wave of post-adrenaline weakness rolled through her, setting her knees knocking. “I think I need some tea. And some chocolate.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Canon said absently, hands on his hips, watching Drostan. “Did he say that’s his son?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Why don’t you go make that tea?” He pulled out his phone and trotted out of the garage. “I need to take care of something.”
Mouth agape, Cadenza watched both her “rescuers” retreat into the night. “No, really, I’m fine. You all go back to bed. It’s not like I might be in shock or anything. I’ll just have some tea. That I make. Myself,” she called after them. “Mannaggia…”
She yanked Canon’s jacket off and stomped upstairs.
Canon’s mind raced faster than the imports he sold.
Eighteen months.
The cottage lights flickered on ahead of him as Norroway steered his son inside, but Canon veered off towards the dark fields behind the racetrack, tapping an agitated rhythm on his leg with his phone. He needed someplace away from the others to make this call. Someplace with no listening ears.
Eighteen months. A year and a half of nothing. Now, finally, he had something to report. Truth be told, he’d been getting anxious. Afraid he hadn’t been delivering. But an unknown son appearing from who knew where? In the middle of the night? That had to be worth something.
He ducked into a stand of black oaks, swept his gaze over the field once just in case, and dialed his other employer.
Never let it be said that Canon Richards was a cheat. He always kept his side of a bargain.