Chapter 21 #2
“Can we pack everything in your truck that we’re taking back with us?”
“I don’t know. How much are you planning on bringing home?” he asked warily.
“The two chairs for you and Nick.”
“Are you sure you’re okay if we take those chairs?” he asked. “I mean, it’s just furniture. We’re okay to leave them if it’ll cause you trouble, if it will bring on bad memories.”
She frowned at him in surprise. “The man is dead. He won’t cause me trouble ever again.”
“Good,” Then he smiled and admitted, “I really do like that chair.”
“And it didn’t even occur to me to save it for you. Sorry. Thankfully Scott suggested it.”
“I’m glad he did,” Mack replied, still with a big smile, “because I’ll enjoy it. I appreciate you thinking of Nick for the other one.”
“I wondered about giving you one for your place, so you’d have one at both our houses, but honestly, if you have one at your place, it can just move to my place whenever we get there.”
“Yeah, whenever we get there,” he agreed, with an eyebrow waggle.
She smiled. “This trip is helping me clear up an awful lot of my history,” she shared. “Even though I didn’t really think about it, I needed to let go of it.”
“Of course, and, if this is helping, I’m all for it.”
She pointed her finger at him. “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to set a date yet.”
“I get it,” he said, raising both hands in mock surrender. “By the time we’re done with all this, you’ll just be so grateful that I’m helping you, I’m sure you’ll jump at a date.”
She laughed. “I’m not refusing to choose a date on purpose. You know that, right?”
“I do know that.” He brushed his finger along her lips. “When you get there, you’ll get there.”
She groaned. “How come you’re always so reasonable?”
He burst out laughing. “Because I promised you no pressure, and so there’s no pressure.”
“Some people would say that you didn’t care enough.”
He chuckled. “Good thing we don’t listen to some people then, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “Absolutely.”
“And as long as you’re okay to not listen to people,” he clarified, “I’m okay to not listen to people too.”
She smiled. “I wasn’t really thinking about it, but I know some would be upset about that.”
“Forget about other people. We have nothing to do with any other people. We have plenty to do just looking after ourselves.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
Nan phoned again. Doreen put it on Speakerphone, then realized it would be another video call.
“She seems to really miss you,” Mack whispered, as the call finally connected.
“Hi, Nan,” Doreen answered.
“The girlfriend’s name is Nancy.”
“Nancy,” Doreen repeated, frowning. “That name hasn’t been mentioned so far.”
“Yes, apparently she did some work for Mathew in the house.”
“Like, housekeeping?”
“I think it was more secretarial or administrative, you know? Cleaning up his office and organizing stuff and filing that he needed a hand with because his main person was away doing other work.”
“Oh, that could be,” Doreen replied. “I do remember his right-hand man had to go away every once in a while, depending on what jobs Mathew sent him on.”
“She was there for a while, and I guess at one point in time he got a little loquacious about his fortune and was showing off.”
“Ah,” Doreen muttered. “That would certainly have gotten the word out that Mathew had all this stuff stashed. The questions I have are, who she might have told and was she involved in trying to take some of this or not? Oh, which dead man was she the girlfriend of?”
“Sam,” Nan declared. “Got it straight from the prison guard, who confirmed Nancy also often visited Pete in prison. The prison grapevine says—and they make bets on this gossip. Isn’t that glorious?
Anyway, the prison pipeline states that Sam was Nancy’s sweetheart and that Pete was Nancy’s brother. ”
“We definitely need to track down her current whereabouts,” Mack snapped.
“She lives down there,” Nan told him, with a bright smile. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t know exactly where some of those goodies were.”
“She might have known, but she didn’t get to them fast enough because we have emptied all the safes here,” Mack stated abruptly.
“Good to know,” Nan said. “You need to track her down because we have no clue how to do that from here.”
“Not a problem,” Mack noted. “Have you guys contacted Darren?”
Nan hesitated and then warily replied, “Maybe.”
Mack rolled his eyes. “In that case, I’ll contact him and see if I can get his help because he’ll already be briefed on this, right?”
Another moment of silence followed before Nan spoke. “Maybe. Ritchie was trying to get information on Daniel so went to Darren, although I don’t believe he came back with anything helpful. Darren wasn’t happy about looking into another police officer.”
“What about his family?” Doreen asked Nan.
“As far as we could tell, his parents are gone and brother lives in England. No one close.”
“You and the crew gave us some great leads,” Doreen said warmly. “Tell everyone we appreciate their help.”
Mack nodded.
“That’s good to hear,” Nan exclaimed. “Darren has been pretty helpful.”
“And he probably has been pretty helpful because …” Mack left it at that.
“Yes,” Nan finally admitted, “because we told him that you were asking us to get information and that the internet down there was really bad and that you guys were swamped with work and that problems and things were dire.”
“Oh, good God,” Mack said. “Did you say, dire? Like, does he think we’re down here being preyed upon and in major trouble?”
“Maybe,” Nan muttered hesitantly.
Mack just glared into the phone.
Doreen chuckled. “I told you before, Mack. Just let ’em loose for five minutes, and they will run with it. That’s what being a freethinker is all about. Right, Nan?”
“Exactly,” Nan cried out triumphantly. “See? Doreen understands.”
Mack now just glared at Doreen.
She shrugged and noted, “Don’t know what you expected otherwise, Mack. Thanks, Nan. We’ll get back to you.”
“Okay, honey.” And Nan ended the call.
Doreen turned to Mack, who was already phoning Darren. “You can’t get mad at Darren either, Mack. You know that group can be very convincing.”
“Probably too convincing,” he muttered, his lips pursed. “No way Darren should have fallen for any of it.”
“But that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to help willingly and allowed that to be part of the excuse.
” Mack stopped mid-dial to consider her and her statement.
She nodded. “Yes. A lot of people have had fun getting involved in these cases,” she shared, with a smile.
“Maybe Darren just finds it easier to go with the flow than to buck his granddad.”
Mack rolled his eyes at that. “You could be right, and I certainly know what a force that group can be. They’re a hazard.”
“Perhaps, but they’re also funny and happy and excited to be involved.”
“That’s not exactly a reason to be doing this.”
“Of course not,” she conceded, her gaze still lit with amusement. “But you also know that it’s engaging and fun for them, and, if they can rope Darren into doing something, they will.”
“Darren knows better.”
“Sure he does, and maybe he thought that helping might get him somewhere, knowing it also might get him in trouble. Plus, you don’t know that he hasn’t already contacted your captain for clearance.”
“I hope so,” he muttered.
She did too, but she didn’t say that to him. When he finally connected with Darren, she decided to walk away a little bit farther into the park, so she didn’t have to hear him yell at Darren. So she was surprised when no yelling came. She walked closer to hear Mack agreeing on a couple issues.
Finally, when he ended the call, he looked at her and shared, “I didn’t yell at him.”
“I know,” she confirmed, staring at him with a warm smile. “I’m really glad you didn’t.”
He groaned. “You’re just making me nuts. You do know that, right?”
“No, I’m not making you nuts at all,” she argued.
“What? I was already nuts to begin with?”
“You were,” she agreed. Then she burst out into peals of laughter. “You have to be nuts if you’re hanging out with me.”
“Good point,” he muttered. “Darren will look up this Nancy person and will pull her employment records.”
“Good enough.” Doreen looked around, watching for Mugs and Goliath. “Shall we head back?”
“Yeah, and we’ll run by the store and grab some dog food, pick up some treats, and check if they have some boxes in the back we can have. Then I suggest we pick up some dinner too.”
“I’m definitely looking forward to being home and eating your home-cooked meals again.”
“Me too,” he agreed, “but, on the bright side, we’re getting much higher-end takeout these days because of you.”
“The least I can do is pay for the food. Plus, I have my new accounts available to me now,” she muttered. “You’re all down here because of me, after all.”
“We are.” He frowned at her and added, “You do know my brother still has to charge you for his hours, right?”
She smiled at him and nodded. “I do know that, and I am just beginning to come into a whole lot of money, so I can definitely pay him.”
“Him and everybody else in your world,” Mack quipped.
She nodded. “Besides, I was planning to give him a bonus for doing all this when the deal is done.”
He looked at her and asked, “Were you?”
“Yes,” she replied, “not something ridiculous, but he’s been so patient and wonderful all this time, and for him the work will continue for quite some time yet, it seems. And, well, we’ll have so much, and I just thought maybe he should be rewarded well too.”
The expression on his face changed, and he leaned over and gave her a resoundingly passionate kiss that left her sagging against him. When he could speak again, he said, “You really are a good person. You know that, right?”
She sighed. “And you need to stop kissing me senseless like that,” she muttered. “I can’t think straight.”
He grinned at her, looped an arm around her shoulders, and with the critters in tow, led her back to his truck. Every step along the way he whistled.
She grinned at her life. Having Mack with her really would make for an exciting life together. As long as he could see her point of view and let her do what she wanted, things would be great.