If only I could sleep this nightmare away. Instead, despair burrows into me like a living thing creeping into the very center of my being. I wander the family home alone while I tumble deeper and deeper into a bourbon-fueled waking nightmare in which I’m faced with a life empty of the people I value most. Mama. Amy. Mel. Papa. Brittany. Fate seems to be squeezing me dry… using me up. Swallowing a bottle of pills or taking a long one-way swim in Lake Michigan might be the only way I’ll find peace. That’s the bourbon talking, I know… but I’m starting to listen.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jake Plummer calls late Tuesday morning. “Where are you?”
“At the office.”
“I need to see you. Right now.”
“Not here. Joe may be watching.”
“Where, then?” he asks impatiently. His urgency is spooking me.
“Go to our new office,” I reply after a moment’s thought. “It’s not unusual for me to stop by over the lunch hour to see how the work is going.”
“What’s the address?”
I give it to him and add, “If you get there before me, just go on in.”
“Give me and Max ten minutes to get there before you leave. If Joe is watching, we’ll already be inside when you arrive.”
The ten-minute wait to be on my way is torture. What’s up? Is Brittany okay? Is Papa? What other calamities might they be coming to tell me about?
“What’s up, partner?” Penelope asks as I pace around the office like a zoo animal looking for a way out.
“Detective Plummer needs to see me.”
“Everything’s cool?”
“Nothing’s cool,” I snap.
She touches my arm gently. “Just checking that there’s no bad news, Tony.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“No worries.” We stare at each other for an awkward moment.
“Good luck with Plummer,” she says before retreating to her office.
I linger for five more slow-moving minutes before setting out for our future workplace. The building itself is a definite step up from the strip mall. We’re on the second floor, up a narrow staircase or a very slow elevator ride from the street. The smell of fresh paint grows stronger as I take the steps two at a time before stepping into a bright space that will be Joan Brooks’s greatly expanded reception area.
Jake and Max stare at me from the open doorframe leading into my new office. The wooden interior doors are all off somewhere to be stained. The place actually looks substantially complete. The painting is underway, only a couple of electrical fixtures remain to be installed, and the IT connections are mostly in place. The furniture is still to come. A pair of five-gallon paint containers sits beside freshly painted walls. Ladders are scattered about, drop cloths cover the floor, and paint rollers and brushes lie here and there.
Jake waves a hand around. “Pretty nice place.”
“Great windows,” Max adds.
Both Penelope’s and my offices feature tall, wide windows. “One of the things I like best.”
“When do you move in?” Jake asks.
“Supposedly for Christmas,” I reply, parroting our contractor’s promise. He might actually keep this one. “That’s not why we’re here, guys. What’s up? Did you find Joe?”
Jake nods. “Yeah. We’ll come back to that in a minute.”
What’s more pressing than that? The obvious answer slams into my brain like a sledgehammer. Brittany.
“Got a note this morning from the Italian police via Interpol to say that the problem in Orsomarso has been resolved,” Jake continues. “Guess you paid up?”
I nod. With Penelope’s help and a margin loan against my investments, I scraped together Papa’s $250,000 ransom by noon Monday and promptly wired it to a bank in the Cayman Islands. The news from the Italian police confirms that it made its way to an account belonging to my latest Mafia buddy. Speaking of which, Giordano called earlier today regarding Brittany and the favor. I told him that I’ll do whatever the hell he wants if he can get her home. He was going to check into it and get back to me in the next day or two. He closed by reminding me that I’m agreeing to an open-ended favor, collectible at any time on his terms. I reluctantly agreed. With any luck, someone will blow him away before he comes to collect.
“Giordano’s work, I imagine,” Jake says about the news from Italy. “Maybe a quiet word to cease and desist.”
“A bullet in the head is a hell of a lot more likely,” Max adds from his perch on an upended empty five-gallon paint pail.
Jake nods. “Yeah. Could be. Anyway, problem solved one way or another.”
I feel sick deep in the pit of my stomach at the thought of the bullet-to-the-head solution, which would make my $250,000 blood money. Jake is studying me, perhaps intuiting where my thoughts have gone.
“So, Joe,” he says.
I’m happy to turn my thoughts elsewhere. “You found him?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“The FBI still isn’t sure where Brittany is, and moving on Joe is too risky without knowing. They’ll act fast if they locate her.”
“If,” I mutter.
“Afraid so,” Jake says sympathetically. “They’ve got a few wiretaps in place and are tailing Joe as best they can.”
“As best they can?”
“He’s Mafia, Tony. Most of them know how to shake a tail. There’s also the little matter of not spooking him, so the feds lose him now and then. They hope he’ll lead them to Brittany.”
“How likely is that?” I ask skeptically. The FBI has known about Joe for four days. Nothing in their vaunted bag of tricks has helped us one whit to this point.
Jake steps across to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t despair. They’ve been picking up cryptic communications they think might be about Brittany. If so, that suggests she’s still being held.”
Which suggests she’s still alive! “Held where?” I ask.
“There’s the rub,” Jake mutters unhappily.
“No ideas?”
“Some. The feds are leery of poking around too closely for fear of showing their hand. That’s too risky for Brittany unless there’s a location to move on.”
“Yet the clock is ticking,” Max mutters.
Jake’s been pacing throughout the
