The Root of All Trouble

  I knew she'd spent a good portion of the day before looking for the ultrasound results. She hadn't made a mess during her search, but everything was a little bit off. The corner of a picture tilted, the edge of the bed out of alignment, the towels in the linen closet askew.

  "You can't have it back." I grabbed my mug of coffee from the side table as we swung past it.

  "Do you know that there are baby pageants? How am I supposed to plan ahead if I don't know the gender of my baby?"

  "Maria, you'll know soon enough."

  She pouted. "It's my baby."

  "You made me promise. Pinkie swear and everything."

  "You promised Perry you wouldn't rat out Mario and look what happened."

  "I didn't say anything. Kevin saw the footage."

  "Sure, sure."

  "Don't make me leave you out here. You know you can't get out of this swing by yourself."

  "You wouldn't dare."

  "Try me."

  She harrumphed, folded her arms above her rounded stomach, and looked off in the distance.

  The silent treatment.

  It might work on others, but the quiet was music to my ears.

  Across the street, at Mario and Perry's place, I saw Riley step out the front door carrying a pipe. He was there helping Kit try to get the plumbing situation worked out. They'd started early—just after dawn—and Kit was motivated to finish the job today.

  Apparently one night with Mario under his roof was quite enough.

  I'd had a fitful night's sleep. Between Maria trying to find a comfortable position, my thoughts about the murder and Cain Monahan...I'd barely slept at all.

  "You know what I was thinking about this morning?" Maria said.

  She wasn't one to suffer in silence for long.

  "Shiny tiaras?"

  "Besides that. I was thinking about Seth Thiessen. Do you know why?"

  "Because the coroner's investigator looks just like him?"

  "No, because you said his name in your sleep last night."

  I took a sip of coffee. "Did I? Strange."

  Her eyes softened. "Maybe you should call Peter and talk this out. Obviously this coroner guy has stirred up some old feelings of yours. You were young when he died—maybe you didn't know how to grieve back then."

  "I grieved." I remembered the tears well. "It's just that he looks so much like him."

  Softly, she said, "He's gone, Nina."

  I didn't tell her about seeing him at the park yesterday. She'd surely chalk it up to me being delusional or obsessive or something. But I knew it had been him.

  County offices were closed on Sundays, so I planned to drop in on Cain tomorrow.

  "Do you remember anything about the plane crash?" I asked. "Did authorities ever figure out what happened?"

  "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

  "Not 'til I see his eyes."

  Sighing, she said, "I was littler than you when the crash happened, only seven or eight. I don't remember much at all. But..."

  "But what?"

  "Do you remember Kiera Marsh? She was on my junior cheer squad."

  Maria had been a cheering dynamo and a member of a private team even in elementary school.

  I shook my head. The name wasn't the least bit familiar.

  "Well, once shortly after the crash I heard her talking about how her father said that the plane crash was a shame but not a shock, considering the reputation of the The Black Fox. It always stuck with me, that comment. Mostly because her dad was a Cincinnati cop and she was always going on and on about how important he was."

  "The Black Fox? Seth's dad's pub?"

  She shrugged. "I didn't understand it, either. And when I told Mom about it she just told me to shush. You can ask her about it. I'm sure she remembers more about that time than any of us."

  "I could if she weren't out at sea with no phone." My mother didn't do email, either—she was a technophobe. My father, however, loved gadgets. I could send him a message. The sooner the better. I slowed the swing and hopped off. Holding out a hand to Maria, I helped her off. "How was your blood pressure this morning?"

  "The same," she said, flexing her swollen fingers.

  I was surprised she hadn't badgered her doctor into moving up the date of her induction. But then again, I knew how nervous she was about becoming a mom, so she was probably clinging to these last few days of relative freedom.

  I wasn't worried. Maria was going to be a great mom. Underneath all her hairspray and egoism, she had a big heart that had plenty of room for a baby. "You want some breakfast?"

  She waddled ahead of me. "I thought you'd never ask. I'm starving. I was beginning to question your hostess skills."

  I let out a sigh. "When's Nate coming?"

  "Tomorrow," she said and threw a smile over her shoulder. "Aren't you so glad you get me for another night?"

  "Thrilled," I said, following her inside. "Just thrilled."

  ***

  Kit wiped beads of sweat off his bald tattooed head and said, "Why'd they buy this dump?"

  I glanced around the dark basement, lit with what seemed like a forty-watt bulb. The cement floor had been jack-hammered open, revealing roots wrapped around broken pipes.

  Riley said, "It was cheap."

  "Dirt cheap," I added.

  Disgusted, he frowned at the scene before him. "It should have been free. I don't know how it passed inspection."

  "Easy. It was sold as is."

  He let out a curse.

  I gestured to a broken pipe. "Is this beyond your area of expertise? Should we call in a plumber?"

  "Nothing is beyond my area of expertise, Nina."

  "Yeah," Riley echoed.

  "Fine, fine," I said, looking between the two of them. "If you need me, I'll be outside."

  The ground was too wet to get much done, but I could start marking out the design plan and make sure all the supplies had been delivered for tomorrow's big makeover. If I was especially motivated, I could start pulling up the current plantings. Fortunately, there weren't many of those.

  I trudged up the basement stairs and found Mario pacing the kitchen. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his brown eyes, and he looked like he'd had as much sleep as I did.

  "I don't care how Perry's doing," he snapped.

  I put up my hands in surrender. "Then you won't care that he barely got a wink of sleep and has already eaten a dozen cookies, two cannoli, and three doughnuts all before noon."

  He scoffed. "He's probably been drinking coffee by the gallon, too. He knows he shouldn't, because it gives him the shakes, but without me there he has no self-control."

  "You probably don't care, too, that he misses you."

  There was a beat of silence before he said, "Nope, I don't."

  I wasn't buying it for a second. Mario cared—a lot—just as Perry did. They simply needed to sit down and hash out their grievances. Maybe Maria could mediate. She was pretty good at it, I had to admit.

  A flash of white caught my eye as a van pulled into the driveway and another car behind it. I peeked out the window and gasped as Plum hopped out of the van and Bear and Ethan out of the car. They started gathering tools. "What are they doing here?"

  Color rose up Mario's cheeks. "Plum called my cell last night, asking to finish the job. Cut her previous price in half."

  "Oh, Mario."

  "What?" he said defensively. "The sooner this work gets done, the better. They're motivated to do it right, are willing to work on weekends, and promise it will be done by next Monday. I've taken this whole upcoming week off to supervise. Nothing else will go wrong."

  I reached over and knocked on the wooden cabinet.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Knocking on wood. Saying nothing else is going to go wrong is just asking for something else to go wrong."

  He stared at me.

  "It is!"

  He kept staring. Finally, he said, "Are you working out back today?"

  I
said, "You've been hanging around with Maria too much. You're picking up her bad manners."

  "She's a lovely woman."

  I groaned and walked out the back door, stopping short when I nearly bumped into Bear Broward and Ethan Onderko. They'd been here approximately two minutes and were already taking a smoke break on the back deck. I scooted around them and picked up my can of bright orange marking spray.

  Ethan flicked his lighter on and off as he watched me.

  Bear just stared.

  I figured this was a great time to ask them some questions, but I couldn't quite find any words.

  Bear broke the silence. "You really gonna have this yard changed by tomorrow night?"

  "Completely changed," I said.

  Several pallets of paver bricks had been dropped in the side yard. Decking material was sitting out front, and the local nursery I used was due to drop off all the plants, flowers, shrubs, and trees tomorrow morning. My crew would be hard at work bright and early.

  "I don't believe it," Bear said.

  "Me, either," Ethan added, still flicking that lighter.

  "You'll see," I said, as I marked out a planting bed near the existing deck and wished with all my might that they'd go away.

  I cleared my throat. "I'm a little surprised to see you guys back...so soon." I added the soon part so they wouldn't catch on that I wished they'd go away forever.

  "Gotta make ends meet," Bear said.

  Ethan nodded. Flick, flick, flick.

  I tried to think of something else to ask them and found I had plenty of questions. Where'd you grow up, how well did you know Joey, have you ever killed anyone...but I didn't really want to converse with them. My sleuthing skills had crawled into a hole and refused to come out. These two scared the bejeebers out of me.

  Kevin would be laughing his ass off if he could see me now.

  The back slider opened and Plum popped her head out. "Break's over. We've got work to do."

  Ethan stubbed out his cigarette on the deck stair and tossed it into the grass. He kept staring at me as he skulked into the house.

  Bear flicked his cigarette too, and heaved himself off the step. His footsteps thudded on the deck as he crossed it.

  I let out a deep sigh of relief until a voice from behind startled me.

  "Miz Quinn?"

  I jumped back, spun around, and aimed the spray at the person who'd snuck up behind me.

  Mr. Cabrera wore a bright yellow button down covered in strawberries and a sheepish grin. "Didn't mean to scare you."

  I didn't even try to deny that he had. "I didn't hear you come up. Are you feeling better, Mr. Cabrera?"

  "Yes and no. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Do you have a second?"

  I glanced around at the yard. It could wait. But as my gaze fell on the discarded cigarette butts, I had an idea. "Give me a sec."

  I ran into Mario's kitchen, rifled through drawers until I found two plastic baggies. Back outside, I used a stick to flip the butts into the bags.

  Mr. Cabrera watched me with one bushy eyebrow raised.

  "Shhh," I said to him.

  "Didn't say a word."

  I tucked the baggies into the pocket of my cargo pants and sat down on the back step. He settled in next to me, and I waited for him to speak his mind.

  He wrung his hands, glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and said, "I need your help, Nina."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Operation Help Mr. Cabrera was on hold until later in the afternoon—we'd made plans to meet up at three. What he wanted from me was fairly simple, but I couldn't help but wonder if his actions would be too little too late.

  The sun shone high overhead as Coby Fowler, one of my employees, dropped off the company bobcat. He stuck around to chainsaw and chip what was left of the tree that had held Joey Miller's body.

  The sound of the wood chipper was grating on my nerves, so I snuck inside to steal a peek at Kit's progress in the basement.

  I found Plum patching woodwork at the top of the steps and eased around her.

  I crept down the steps, just enough to see Kit and Riley kneeling on the dug-up floor elbow deep in what I hoped was muddy water. Bear and Ethan were in the corner, installing a new water heater. Mario stood off to the side, keeping a close eye on everything but not getting close enough to get dirty.

  I heard Bear say to him, "So what did you do then?"

  "I moved out!"

  "And in with me," Kit grumbled.

  Bear paused in what he was doing. "Why'd you do that?"

  "I couldn't take another moment of how gleeful he was that he had a secret admirer. It's bad enough that he received the gifts, but he actually put the tie on last night."

  "Dude," Bear said, shaking his enormous head. "That ain't right."

  "I know," Mario agreed. "That's why I left."

  Kit tossed an irritated look at Mario, who didn't appear to notice.

  "But you still, you know, dig him, right?" Bear asked.

  Ethan handed Bear a wrench, and seemed more focused on the job than the conversation.

  Mario grumped. "I suppose."

  "Then you should go talk to him. Make up. Life's too short, man."

  I smiled at what I was hearing, this little pep talk.

  "Maybe," Mario said.

  "I think it's a good idea," Kit added.

  Riley nodded.

  Ethan continued to ignore everyone.

  I decided now wasn't the best time to barge in, so I backtracked up the stairs.

  Plum said, "They having any luck down there?"

  Today she wore a skin-tight Reaux Construction v-necked tee and jeans. The vee of the tee had been altered to be even deeper than normal to accommodate her boobage. Her hair had been scraped back into a tight ponytail, and she wore enough makeup to keep Sephora in business for a long time to come.

  "Define luck," I said.

  "That good, eh?"

  "Looks like Bear and Ethan have the water heater under control."

  "That's good."

  "But don't ask about the pipe."

  "I'll call my plumbing contractor." Her dark brown eyes narrowed on me and she leaned in a little.

  "Bear's giving Mario love advice," I said, fishing for more information on him. "Good advice, too."

  "He's a good guy."

  Was he? Or had he lured Joey out of his house and killed him with a bedazzled hammer?

  She patched a hole, then looked at me. "Jean-Claude mentioned you were something of a matchmaker. True?"

  "Me? No."

  "You didn't set up your neighbor with that one lady and also the girl at your office with that one guy...?"

  She was talking about Mr. Cabrera and Brickhouse and Tam and Ian. "Well, not intentionally. Not really. And my neighbor's relationship isn't going so well."

  "What about the girl at the office?"

  "Happily cohabitating." Tam had been together with DEA agent Ian for almost a year now. Together they were raising Tam's daughter, Nic.

  "Can I ask you something, then. Girl to girl?"

  I fidgeted. "Um, sure."

  "How do you get a guy to notice you? Right now I'm invisible."

  "To Bear, you mean?"

  Her eyes widened in shock. "How'd you know?"

  "Lucky guess," I said, not wanting to get into the fact that she'd practically ripped her heart out of her chest the day before and laid it on the table for him.

  "He seems to only want Delphine." She rolled her eyes.

  "Probably because she doesn't want him," I said.

  Plump lips pursed. "You think?"

  "It's possible. Some guys like the chase. But you'd probably be best just to talk to him. Some guys are also dense and can't see what's in front of them."

  She nodded. "I get it. I suppose it can't hurt any worse to try."

  Suddenly I felt sorry for her, this tough girl. It was never easy to open your heart up to a guy who may or may not want it. "Probably not."

  "Thanks."


  "If Kit comes up, can you tell him I had to run an errand and that I'll check in later?"

  "No problem, but we'll be leaving soon, too. We'll be back early tomorrow, though. Oh, one more thing."

  Geez.

  "Earlier I heard Mario talking about a fight he had with Joey. On the day Joey died? He was telling the guys about it..."

  Kevin must have completely cleared him for him to be speaking freely about it.

  "Anyway, he said he heard someone else in the house. A guy. And that he recognized the voice but couldn't place it." Thick lashes framed her eyes as they narrowed. "Your husband, the police guy, does he know who that is yet?"

  Ah. I wondered if she had the same suspicions about Bear as I did. "He's my ex and doesn't tell me stuff like that. Sorry."

  Absently, she nodded. "Okay."

  I hurried out the front door before she could ask me anything else, like for any more relationship advice. Because considering the state of my love life, I was probably the least qualified to give it.

  An understatement to be sure.

  I spotted Mr. Cabrera chatting with Perry on my front porch. As I neared, Mr. C. said, "Perry's agreed to come along, too. You ready to go?"

  "As I'll ever be," I said.

  It was time to get Operation Help Mr. Cabrera underway.

  ***

  Turned out we weren't quite as ready to go as we'd thought. First, Maria came out and asked me to walk Gracie, then when I was done with that, she made me wait while she wrote out a grocery list so I could stop at the store on the way home. By the time we backed out of the driveway, she was tucked in for a nap, and the Reaux Construction crew was packing up for the day.

  Kit was still working—he was determined to get Mario back into his own house as soon as humanly possible.

  I couldn't blame him. Mario was a bit high-strung, especially when he was fighting with Perry.

  Fortunately, our destination was only a few blocks away, and as the bell tinkled on the door of The Gem Shop, Mr. Cabrera froze in the doorway.

  Perry gave him a good push, sending him tumbling inside.

  "Donatelli!" the man behind the counter gushed. "Long time, no see."