“Sorry, boss,” Claire overheard Bronco say as she and Nita hurried out the door.
“Yeah, me too,” Nick said. “I may be a hotshot criminal lawyer, but there are obviously different rules when you’re married. We’d both better forget innocent until proven guilty around here.”
26
“I would have told you what Bronco learned at the Trophy Ranch, Claire,” Nick said as he came into their bedroom after his shower that night. She was already in bed with her back to his side of their king-size mattress.
“Oh, really? When were you planning to do that? Just before it appeared in the Naples Daily News?”
She hadn’t been speaking to him when he first came in, so this was a start, he thought. It felt cold enough in here you’d think the air-conditioning was on full blast, but he wasn’t about to give up.
“Bronco had to settle it with Nita first,” he went on, keeping his voice calm. If they went to bed angry, it would be worse in the morning, and he had to get in to the office early to keep working on helping Brit settle Tiberia’s destination and her future employment problems. He had to admit Claire had given him a great idea on how to proceed with that.
“So,” Claire said, her voice still deadly calm, “either you couldn’t trust me not to blab to Nita, or you had some personal stake in my not knowing. And don’t say, ‘Objection, Your Honor.’”
He smiled at that, despite it all. Clever Claire. He risked walking around the bed and sitting on his side with his back to the headboard. She shifted farther toward the edge of her side.
“Claire, it’s Grant I’ve known, not his friend Stan Helter. You know I had my first tour of the ranch recently. I hope you also realize I—as a moral person and a lawyer—would never take advantage of women like that, if that’s what you mean by ‘a personal stake.’ I’d have a personal stake in anyone being abused, as you should know by now. One thing I’m going to do is be sure Helter’s not using illegals as cheap help or sex slaves, but we’ve got to learn whether he’s a murderer first. If we turn him in on suspicion of trafficking illegals or for running a house of prostitution, the murder mess will be swept away in the sensational coverage of that.”
She sat up and turned toward him. “Maybe both Ben and Jackson had hints about the women, were onto that. So he had to get rid of both men and make it look like accidents. Meanwhile, Lane’s trying to make it sound like a guilt-ridden suicide.”
“That’s my girl. What would I do without you?”
“You are not off the hook yet, my boy.”
“Then I’m really going to be in trouble now, because there’s something else I have to tell you that may support the imported women theory,” he said. “Something that tied to Jace’s undercover work. Speaking of undercovers, will you not freak out and scream for help if I get under the covers with you?”
“It’s a big bed, though maybe right now not big enough,” she said with a dramatic shrug as he lifted his corner of the covers and got in. “But what does Jace have to do with the women at the ranch?”
“He told me that last night at about 3:30 a.m., a large helicopter landed just over the BAA fence at the ranch. It seemed to be coming from the east.”
“But that’s wilderness and Everglades.”
“Unless you fly over all that, coming from the east coast—Lauderdale or Miami.”
“New paying customers coming in and looking forward to hunting game and bedding girls?”
“Or the ranch importing the girls themselves? I don’t know how to go at that but to let Bronco keep his eyes open—his eyes, Claire, not his zipper.”
“All right. I—I know that. You and I can declare a temporary truce, but right now I’m exhausted. Maybe we’ll have some good news soon. We’ve been playing too much therapist like Dr. Phil to arguing couples, and then we turned into one.”
“So let’s just play matchmaker for ourselves,” he said, and reached way over to stroke her shoulder.
“Nick, we’re arguing. We’re having a fight,” she said, but her voice was suddenly as warm as honey.
“I know I try to overprotect you sometimes, but after all we’ve been through—and since you and the baby you’re carrying are two key people in my life—give a guy a break. Let’s not waste any of our time together, the two of us or our family, especially after the tough times we’ve been through.”
“You’re always so persuasive, Counselor,” she murmured, reaching out to circle his wrist with one hand. “But I want to be part of your professional team, even if I’m pregnant and domestic for a while.”
“You’re always an in-house forensic psychologist and fraud examiner. The tip you gave me about the dead tiger at the Family Friendly Zoo may keep Brit here, may mean she and Jace can get their lives together—together.”
“All right,” she said, “here’s the deal. Unless it’s about a wonderful, expensive, surprise present you have purchased for me, please don’t keep things from me.”
He scooted closer and cupped her cheek with his hand. “Deal. Absolutely.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I was so intent at being mad at you I forgot to take my night meds. The bottle’s in the bathroom. Be back in a sec.”
“Don’t get up. Be right back with it.”
What would she do without him, on little things and big things too? She sat up a bit and turned to face him as he came back with the bottle and a spoon.
“Ouch! Damn! Stubbed my toe, maybe cut it on something under the bed!” he cried, hopping on one foot on her side of the bed. He put the bottle and spoon down to sit and examine his hurt toe.
She was instantly up, bending close to check out his foot. “Wow, you actually cut it on something—that metal piece that holds it up, I think. I’ll get a washcloth and bandage. You men have to learn to be careful!”
She meant him and Jace, he realized. Weird, he thought, but his cut big toe wasn’t the only part of him that was throbbing. He loved and wanted this woman so much. Vulnerable, yet capable. Strong yet soft.
She tended to him and took her medicine, then they tended to each other as if they’d never had cross words. Finally, both tired, she turned her back to him in bed and he scooted close again until they were lying like a pair of spoons. Her body fit perfectly against his, which really turned him on again, but then, she always had since the first day he saw her, testifying against him in court, and she’d managed to make him lose a rare case. But he wasn’t going to lose the Tiger Cage Case, and he wasn’t ever going to lose her.
* * *
By late afternoon the next day, Jace was going stark raving crazy not flying, not driving, hardly walking, but getting around on a pair of damn crutches. All he’d been through, basic training, flight school, combat, he’d never broken a bone before. He’d bailed out of planes but couldn’t handle bailing out of his own car. And tough-as-nails Brit had done it just fine.
The apartment walls were closing in. He decided to call a cab and go out to the BAA for the rest of the day.
True, he’d be no help manning the gate if those picketers or the media showed up again, but at least he’d be there for advice and support, could order a new gate light and get the surveillance camera repaired by a phone call. He could find some sort of project where he could sit in one place. Besides, then he’d be with Brit.
He was nervous too that Falcon might be right about him rather than Brit being the target of the spike sticks, though he had figured earlier that his phone being tapped was more likely to have to do with Ben Hoffman’s death or even the attack on Jackson.
He called a cab but then decided to stop at Claire and Nick’s to see Lexi, so he called Claire to be sure they were home and it was okay. She sounded really worried about his ankle and the car accident.
“Too much going on,” he told her. “Like an idiot, I hadn’t even asked to see Lexi last time I was here.” He didn’t say s
o, but he was thinking that, maybe in this downtime, he could spend more time with Lexi, at least on the weekends, but he couldn’t drive her anywhere for now. He liked Nick, but when he arrived and Claire led him out to the Florida room, he felt a stab of regret that his child wasn’t really a big part of his life anymore.
“Daddy, sorry you hurt your foot! Can I sign your cast and draw a heart on it?” Lexi cried and ran to give him a hug that nearly knocked him off balance. Nick, sitting next to her on the couch, got up too.
“Ah, yeah, sure, Lex.”
“Daddy, I beat Dad two times at this game.”
“We’re playing by flexible rules—her rules,” Nick said, raising his eyebrows, as they shook hands. “I’m sooo glad I came home early today. I don’t care what everyone says, it’s a woman’s world, at least around here. Listen, I’ll let you and Lexi have some time, and escape for a few minutes. Stay for dinner.”
“If you’re partway through a game, finish it and I’ll watch to catch on. Then Lexi can put a heart on my cast, okay? Any news on Brit’s tiger being able to stay in Naples?” he asked as he sat awkwardly on the couch with his leg stretched out to the side. He leaned his crutches against the arm but one slid to the floor.
“Claire came up with something from online research and Heck’s expanded on that—and I played bad lawyer today to the Family Friendly Zoo in Tampa and good lawyer to the Naples Zoo. Decision to be made tomorrow.”
Jace realized that he smiled for the first time in quite a while. “So there’s hope. Animal lovers of the world, rejoice!”
“Which means me,” Lexi put in. “I love my pony Scout about more than anything—except the people in this house and the ones in Aunt Darcy’s. Okay, now Daddy, here’s the rules. Important stuff like silver dollars and a bracelet are hidden under these cups, but you close your eyes and they get switched around.”
“It’s a unique filing system,” Claire said, coming into the room. “And you never know what you’ll find or if it has magically moved under a different colored cup when your eyes were closed.”
“That’s it,” Nick said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand. “How could I have forgotten that?”
“What?” Claire asked.
“When Jackson took me out to his big storage shed so he could give me that letter, he told me his system was to put important things under the supplies out there, paint cans and all. And I bet the police never looked there, moved all that, when they had their warrant.”
“So,” Jace said, “we should. I can call Brit about it.”
“Let’s just eat here, then all go out there. It will still be dark. You can ride shotgun and look for spike sticks. With four adults searching, it won’t take as long, though he’s stashed tons of stuff in there. I have no idea what we’d be looking for but—”
“If I go too,” Lexi put in, “that’s five people. We could teach Brit this memory game too, because I know she wants to remember her dad who got killed.”
The two dads in the room looked at each other. “That’s right,” Jace told Lexi and reached out to stroke her hair. “Claire, some of your observational talents are rubbing off on your daughter.”
“Yes, I’m always proud of her. I’ll set an extra place for taco salad, and then we’ll head for the BAA.”
* * *
Brit brought in a baby lamb for Lexi to “take care of,” while the four adults worked with big flashlights to look under each paint can and bag of feed in the BAA storage shed. Claire, who hadn’t seen the interior, was amazed at the length and height of the aisles. She wished they had left Lexi at Darcy’s because this could take a while, even with four of them.
“Is this the lamb on the BAA signs?” Lexi asked, petting the little animal.
“Not now, Lex,” Jace said.
“It’s the daughter of the one on the sign,” came Brit’s voice from the end of an aisle. “Her name’s Wooly.”
Claire appreciated that Brit could be considerate to answer that, even though Jace had already spoken. There was no way in the world Brittany Hoffman would have harmed her father or anyone else, and perhaps she would be a good stepmother to Lexi. If Jace did marry her, Claire could more than live with that. Although it was probably not good to be friends with an ex-husband’s new wife, rules were made to be broken.
Nick said, “We should get Bronco, Nita, Heck and Gina in here tomorrow too. This could take a while, but it could be a wild-goose chase.”
“Whatever happens here,” Brit said, her voice muffled, “I’m just praying that Tiberia can go to the Naples Zoo and me too.”
As Claire unstacked then restacked cans of varnish, she said, “Nick might know tomorrow. We’re hopeful.”
“And,” Brit said, coming out of her aisle, looking both sweaty and dusty, “Nick was right that Jackson stashed some things of import here at least.” She opened the end of a large, brown mailing envelope to display rubberbanded piles of cash within.
While everyone gasped and gathered to take a look, Claire had the same thought again: Brit was to be trusted. She was in financial trouble, but she came right out with this money, rather than pretending she’d found nothing and then using it for herself. “Wait until Jackson’s daughters get this!” Brit said, and laid it on the worktable.
They soon realized it wasn’t nearly as much as it had looked like at first, because it was all in small denominations. “You know,” Brit said, “he told me he didn’t trust banks. I guess he meant it.”
At that, everyone went back to their search with renewed interest. No talk now, unless they could count Lexi’s singing “Mary Had A Little Lamb” to Wooly.
Nick said, “Can someone help me move this big bag of feed?”
“Let me,” Jace said, hustling over on his crutches. “It’s my ankle that’s broken, not my arms.”
Claire stretched her back and watched as the two men managed to slide out a big bag from the first shelf up. She gasped, Jace swore and the others came crowding in as a flurry of photographs spewed onto the concrete floor.
27
“These pics are all blown up so large,” Claire said, stating the obvious as she helped Nick scoop them off the floor. Each was 8 by 11 inches and printed on regular paper.
“I knew he had a camera, but those look like pictures of just random foliage—and the fence,” Brit put in, as she stood over them, shining her lantern down at the mess.
“I see a couple of his pink pets,” Claire said, now on her knees on the concrete.
“Is it pink pigs?” Lexi asked.
“It’s flamingos,” Claire said. “Stand back with Wooly, hon, till we get these picked up.”
Although so much of the shed was yet to be searched, they crowded into the office trailer, including Wooly in Lexi’s arms. They stood around Brit’s desk as she fanned through the pictures, then laid some of them out.
Nick said, “You’re right, Claire. They have lousy definition since he—or someone—has enlarged them. I think they were done on a copy machine. So you have no idea about the why of these, Brit?”
“Not even that they existed. Look! This one has a face blurred on the other side of the fence. Is that a bearded man?”
They all looked and agreed. “A daylight shot,” Nick said. “But what section of fence? Brit, can you tell from the foliage the guy’s looking through where this was taken? It’s not a picture of Lane, is it?”
Frowning, Brit stared at it, then squinted. “I don’t think so. No—no way. His beard is more trimmed. It’s ridiculous it would be Lane, anyhow, since His Musical Majesty would just walk right in. It’s getting dark outside right now, but tomorrow, I can try to make a match of the place this was taken, walk the fence line looking for the site. Why didn’t Jackson capture one of the animals’ cages in this photo, so we could tell where it is?”
“Because he wanted to photograph the m
an,” Claire said. “Maybe he felt—rightly so—the BAA was being watched, probably from ranch land. And, for some reason, he didn’t want to show these to you at the time. Maybe he thought they would worry you when you were grieving, but I wish he’d shown them to Nick. Look—we can tell where this one is, but it’s still just mostly fence and foliage.”
“The corner of Tiberia’s cage shows,” Brit said. “And look—look at this one! I can tell who this is! I told you she’s out for revenge.”
She kept slapping her finger on a photo so it took a moment for Claire to tell who it was, though she was afraid she already knew. Gracie was peering through the double fence—the ranch’s and BAA’s. The blurred rungs of a ladder were barely discernable too.
“She’s already admitted to climbing to call to the tiger,” Claire protested. “But let’s think more about why Jackson took these and didn’t tell you, even about Gracie.”
Brit said, “When the police got the warrant to search his things, they said they found his camera but it had nothing on the memory card.”
Nick said, “Of course, he might have emptied it, considering all these pictures he took. Or it could mean, if someone did attack him, that person also knew to erase the card themselves.”
“But then to place it back in his apartment, and be sure there were no fingerprints but his on it?” Claire asked.
“You know,” Brit said, when they’d scrabbled through the photos, about thirty of them, “Jackson did mention that he had some pictures to show me, but he’d shown me some before. I just assumed, as usual, they would be of the animals and endless ones of his flamingos.”