downtown that she liked. The former Katie McCone had become used to her creature comforts since she’d remarried and become Kay Hunt, but she still had a good heart and I loved her. It was just the drama I couldn’t take.
Rae and Ricky, John, Charlene and Vic. Mick, Ted, Julia, Craig, Adah. And everybody else. God I missed them!
This case. That was what I was particularly looking forward to. Hearing the details of how they’d go about finding the bastard who’d altered my life-maybe irrevocably.
But could they do it without me? I thought about that for a while. Something light rose in my chest, like a shiny bubble, and I would have smiled if that had been possible.
JULIA RAFAEL
She took the exit from the Bay Bridge and drove toward the pier, fussing over whether she’d done the right thing to leave the money in the Peepleses’ safe and agree not to report it to the authorities. Wished she could ask Shar about it. Of course Shar-who claimed to be a by-the-book investigator-probably would’ve said it was wrong. But then Shar’s own actions didn’t always follow what the book said.
She’d left the vineyard early, leaving a thank-you note and creeping out into the predawn light before the Peepleses stirred. She didn’t want to explain her injury or tell them that someone-maybe their missing son-had been sneaking around the stables, probably trying to retrieve the cash; the news would only increase their anguish, and Julia doubted the person would return.
Her nose hurt and she had a bloody scab, partially concealed by makeup. She wouldn’t be surprised if her eyes were blackened within a few hours. She’d taken punches to the nose before, and that was the inevitable result.
Julia parked in her slot on the pier’s floor and hurried up the stairs to the catwalk. Half an hour late for the staff meeting, and she felt like shit. She rushed into the conference room. Stopped. Where was everybody?
Back down the catwalk to Ted’s office. He and Patrick Neilan were there, Ted sitting in his chair, Patrick perched on a corner of the desk. Ted’s bright red Western-style shirt-the latest of his ever-changing fashion statements-contrasted sharply with Patrick’s goth black.
“Is the meeting over?” she asked.
“Never got started,” Patrick said. “Adah and Derek and Thelia showed, but none of the folks who are actively working the case. Hy-who requested the meeting-was on time, but left when we realized it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Craig wasn’t home when Adah got there last night,” Ted added, “and there’s been no word from him. Mick’s cellular is out of service range. Ricky said Rae went out in a hurry around ten. What the hell happened to you?”
“Hostile encounter with a grape stake.” She explained about her visit to the Peepleses. “Did I do right, leaving the money there?”
Patrick shrugged, running a hand through his spiky red hair.
Ted said, “It’s what Shar would’ve done.”
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
“Other than you icing your face? I’ll keep calling around,” Ted told her. “Maybe I can gather the troops this afternoon. In the meantime, Shar’s entertaining visitors.”
Julia entered Shar’s room hesitantly, an ice bag that the nurse on the desk had provided pressed to her nose. It would help to keep her eyes from blackening, the woman said. Ice hadn’t done anything for her in the past, but she accepted the bag gratefully.
Shar was turned on her side before a window overlooking a eucalyptus grove. The room was quiet and fragrant with flowers. Julia skirted the bed, drew up the single chair, and looked into Shar’s eyes.
Light filled them, and Shar blinked.
“You’re awake,” Julia said.
Another blink.
No. Ted had said she was completely aware, that one blink meant yes and two meant no.
Still, it
A questioning light came into Shar’s eyes. She stared steadily at Julia’s ice bag.
“Oh, this,” Julia said, “
She gave Shar a full report on her cases. Asked the same thing she’d asked herself, Ted, and Patrick. “Did I do the right thing leaving the money with the Peepleses?”
One blink. Yes.
“What should I do now? Oh, hell, I know you can’t answer me. But I just don’t…”
Shar’s gaze fixed on hers, strong and compelling.
“Okay, I could turn it over to the police.”
Two blinks.
“Right. We’re not even sure it’s stolen.”
Blink.
“But I don’t think this guy who worked in the stockroom at Home Showcase saved that much out of his salary. Or won the lottery. And if he had, it’d be earning interest in a bank, rather than stuffed in a duffel bag under the floorboards of his parents’ tack room.”
Blink.
“We don’t even know he’s the one who put it there. Right?”
Blink.
“Or if he was the one I chased through the vineyard?”
Blink.
“So what do I…? Dig deeper, way deeper into the guy’s life?”
Blink. Then Shar closed her eyes. Tired.
Julia sat by the bed a few minutes more before leaving quietly only when she was sure Shar was asleep.
MICK SAVAGE
God, these tracking devices were getting better and better!
He sat on his Harley-a more powerful version of the one he’d wrecked last fall-across from the Spindrift Lodge near Big Sur. The lodge was old and sprawling, its logs washed silver-gray by the elements. Woodstove chimneys protruded above each unit, and the ice plant lawn between the semicircular driveway was strewn with driftwood. Craig had just checked in-unit twenty. Mick wasn’t about to go up and knock on the door, though; he’d wait it out, see what happened.
Last night after he left Craig and Adah’s apartment he’d located Craig’s SUV where it was parked a block away and slapped a tracking device under the bumper. At three in the morning Mick’s monitor showed the vehicle was in motion. Mick left his condo and followed.
Why, he wondered on the long drive down, was Craig being so damn secretive about his line of investigation? Sure, it was politically sensitive, but it might have something to do with Shar getting shot and paralyzed. Well, maybe it was just the old FBI training kicking in. Or maybe Craig wanted to score a big one for himself.
No, Craig wasn’t like that. What he was looking into had to be something major. And he wanted to be sure of
