He shrugged one shoulder. “How ‘bout we find a place with blueberry syrup?”
She grinned. “That would be—”
Shee stopped, recalling the faces of the women in the restaurant as they’d walked out the prisoner. The male patrons had watched Richard. The women stared at her, and then let their gaze drift to her father.
Disapproval.
She squinted at Mick. “You’re afraid if we go back in, they’ll yell at you for bringing your daughter to catch a bad guy.”
Mick guided her toward the car. “Blueberry syrup it is, Seaman Recruit.”
Shee frowned. “I want to be an officer. I deserve a higher rank.”
He laughed. “You want pancakes. You want blueberry syrup. You want a promotion. You want everything.”
“So?”
He shut the door, but she heard him laughing as he rounded the car to the driver’s side.
Shee clicked in her seatbelt, flush with joy.
She’d made him laugh six times.
&&&
Chapter Seven
Present Day. Jupiter Beach, Florida
“We got a hit.” Croix stumbled from the room located behind the front desk of The Loggerhead Inn, her shoulder clipping the door frame in her haste to deliver news. Dark ringlets danced around her face like bouncing black springs.
Angelina looked up from her concierge desk. “Easy there, spaz.”
Croix slapped her hands on the reception desk to stop her momentum. “We got a hit on the tracker.”
“What tracker?”
Silent, the young woman squinted from beneath a lowered brow.
Angelina grimaced. “Don’t look at me like you’re crowning me Miss Slow-on-the-Uptake, missy. Talk.”
“The tracker in the gun you had me setup on the roof outside Mick’s window. Something triggered it.”
“You actually did that?” Angelina stopped petting the Yorkshire terrier curled in the fuzzy black dog bed sitting on her desk. The pup grunted her disapproval.
“Yes. We talked about it, remember?”
“Sure, but it sounded like Star Wars stuff to me. Pie in the sky. I didn’t know you could actually do it.”
“Pie in the—” Croix shook her head. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“So you’re saying you hit something?”
“I’m saying the gun did. Yes. That’s what we got a hit means.”
Angelina raised a hand, pantomiming her intention to slap. “Don’t think I can’t reach you from here.”
Croix grinned. “Oh please. I’d break you into so many pieces Harley would eat for a year.”
At the sound of her Yorkie’s name, Angelina resumed petting. “My baby wouldn’t gnaw my bones. Would you, baby?”
Harley licked her momma’s fingers.
Croix pointed. “See? She’s tasting you.”
“She’s kissing me. So your contraption is tracking her?”
“It’s tracking a drone, anyway. Has to be her, right?”
“Nothing has to be anything around here. Might be some horny teenager down the street hoping to catch honeymooners going at it.”
Croix looked at her phone, the device magically appearing in her hand as it was often wont to do. “It’s pinging not far from here, other side of the river.”
“Flying around?”
“No. I don’t think so. It’s only moving a few feet here and there. She must have it.”
Nerves fluttered in Angelina’s stomach.
Shee’s near. She has to be.
A middle-aged man with a shock of bleach-blond hair and matching goatee appeared from the back of the hotel.
Angelina motioned to him. “William, can you keep an eye on the fort? Croix and I have to run out.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Thanks.” Angelina stood and caught Croix’s eye. “Let’s go.”
Harley jumped to her paws, standing bewildered in the center of her desktop nest, sleepy, but too startled by her mother’s urgency to nap. The hair framing her face shot in every direction, like an explosion of muddy water frozen a millisecond after detonation. For a dog who acted like a princess, she more resembled a Dickensian orphan.
“Come here, you crazy little thing.” Angelina scooped the dog into the crook of one arm and strode toward the exit, her long, thin legs outpacing the rest of her body. The front door opened as she approached, thanks to the oversized doorman standing outside in his tropical shirt and khaki shorts.
“Thank you, Bracco,” she said, clicking by in her heels.
“Ticky tack,” he said, smiling. Sunlight glinted off his gold-capped front tooth.
Croix followed so close behind Angelina had to shoo her ahead to end the threat of an imminent rear-ending. She pointed the girl toward her Land Rover.
“Get in. I’ll drive, you navigate.”
Croix did as she was told, an event that didn’t go unnoticed. It hardly ever happened.
Angelina climbed into the driver’s seat, and held Harley in Croix’s direction, the tiny dog’s legs dangling on either side of her palm.
“Take.”
Croix pulled the Yorkie into her lap, eyes never leaving her phone screen.
Angelina started the SUV and crunched through the parking lot rocks to pull onto the street, the fronds of roadside Christmas palms waving her on.
“You have to go over the bridge,” said Croix.
Angelina headed toward the north turn lane. She glanced at her watch to see if they’d be hitting the bridge when it opened on the hour and half past. It was twenty minutes after ten, so it appeared they’d get lucky. On Jupiter Beach, lives danced to the beat of the rising and lowering bridges placed at either end of the island.
Croix waved a hand at the windshield. “Not that bridge, the other one.”
Angelina jerked the wheel right. A car she hadn’t noticed following behind her honked and she held up a hand for them to see.
“Sorry.”
Croix cleared her throat. “You know they have these things called directional signals, or, in your old-timey language, blinkers—”
“Shut it. I’ll start using mine the day these snowbirds start using theirs.” Angelina made a right and weaved around a car with Connecticut license plates. Another driver pulled from a shopping center in front of her and she hit the brakes.
