Charlotte rolled this new information around in her head. Had she heard it wrong? Corentine did say she was the housekeeper, didn’t she?
She touched Penny’s arm to slow her retreat. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. His wife used to complain about how anal he was all the time.”
“Then who was that woman?”
Penny shrugged and headed out of the room. “I don’t know. You’re the detective. But I can tell you it wasn’t his housekeeper.”
Tilly caught Charlotte’s eye as they strolled toward the exit. “Hey, you should talk to Gryph. He’s got a drone club. They could do a little surveillance from the sky for you. The neighborhoods could pay.”
Charlotte nodded. “That’s a great idea. If everyone pitched in—”
“You expect us to pay someone to watch for an imaginary killer?” asked Hector.
Tabby chuckled and touched Charlotte’s shoulder to get her attention. “What do you think’s going to happen if you run a bunch of drones over Terra Siesta?” She pantomimed shooting a shotgun into the air.
“Terra Siesta is not a bunch of rednecks,” said Billy through gritted teeth.
“Just ninety percent,” said Penny. She and her sister laughed and high-fived.
It seemed the two meanest sisters on the planet had one thing in common.
Meanness.
“Well, the meeting ended without bloodshed,” said Charlotte as they headed back to Declan’s Jeep.
Declan nodded. “There’s that. Do you feel like you made any progress with them?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll at least encourage their people to be a little more aware. Would you mind stopping at Gryph’s house for a second? It wouldn’t hurt to get some drones in the sky.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s ten.”
“He’s a night owl.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
As Charlotte placed her hand on the Jeep’s door, she heard a crash and ducked to the sound of falling glass.
Her heart raced.
What now?
Chapter Twenty
Vince pulled onto the dirt street Wanamaker Homes had plowed into existence the previous week, rolling to a stop where the main road’s ambient light couldn’t reach. He turned off his engine and sat another second, feeling both pleased and angry.
His evening was going as planned. About that, he couldn’t be happier. But the fact this convenient new road existed irked him. He didn’t like the area exploding with new residents. When he’d arrived, Charity had been a sleepy town, a secret oasis twenty minutes from the beach and one-tenth as crowded as the seaside resorts. The developers sniffed the place out, though. The road he sat on now marked the beginning of yet another housing development. To his right grew a swampy forest, to his left, cleared land, where they’d build the model house, its twins destined to spread across the landscape like a virus.
Unlike some of the loons who wrote into the local paper, he didn’t care about the critters the development would displace. They wouldn’t catch him moaning about shrinking dirt owl habitats and rare lizards. He cared more about the things new developments spawned—more cars clogging up the roads and more people crowding the food stores and claiming all the good restaurant reservations.
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
It makes me so mad...
He remembered the breathing lessons his therapist recommended to him and took several deep inhales, letting each out slowly.
Breathe. Let it go.
He checked his pulse on the exercise watch he’d bought for that purpose and watched it drop from one hundred and three to eighty-five.
Not great, but better.
Thanks to Dr. Burke, he’d made some progress controlling his anger. He regretted not finding a therapist in his previous life. So maybe he wouldn’t have spent the rest of his days wrestling mosquitos larger than his head.
Back in New York City, his temper had inspired him to whack a guy from a rival mob family. He’d tried to cover it up. He’d dumped the body in the endless marshes out in New Jersey where no one would find the lout, but no one believed Franko had just left. They knew he had to be dead, and they knew Vince probably did it, thanks to the explosive animosity between them.
In retrospect, he should have pretended to make up with the moron before killing him.
Stupid.
When tension between the families hit an all-time high, he knew his own people would have to whack him to keep peace. So, when the cops approached him, he’d turned state’s evidence. He might have taken his death sentence like a man, if it hadn’t been for his wife. He’d entered witness protection to save her, only to have her leave him and shack up with Larry the Lip. She had no intention of living in a Florida swamp. Not when Larry could keep her in jewelry and, more importantly, in New York.
He’d come alone to Charity, only to find himself under the thumb of some crazy U.S. Marshal who, it turned out, liked to moonlight as a serial killer.
I should have let them kill me.
Thinking about Jamie Moriarty, his hand slipped from the wheel and curled into a fist, fury pumping through his veins.
I should kill that—
He sucked a breath through his nose and glanced at his watch.
One hundred and ten.
He released his fingers and laid his palms flat on his thighs.
Breathe. In. Out.
Vince took a few more breaths and then stepped out of the car before his mind could wander back to his troubles. He opened his trunk to retrieve his rifle, an unmated sock and a travel coffee mug.
The winds rustled the trees above his head. The closer the hurricane crept, the harder it would be to shoot anyone. Jamie had mentioned it would
