Lisa Jackson - Wicked Game

“It wasn’t Seth. Someone else.”

“You can do two at once?” he asked and smelled old crud burning off the inside of the oven. This fleabag was the first place he’d tried when he called for a place to stay, and now he was second-guessing himself. He’d known as soon as he’d driven up and seen the rates for daily, weekly, or monthly that the units wouldn’t be five-star. But he’d thought a fireplace and a cabin feel would be roomier and a little more relaxing than a sterile motel room with two matching beds, TV in an armoire, coffeepot, and maid service rapping on the door in the morning.

Now, looking at the sagging, scratched furniture and ancient paneling, he wasn’t so sure. Even the plumbing at the Coastal Cove Cabins seemed suspect.

“It’s easy to text a bunch of people,” Levi told him disparagingly.

“If you say so.” Mac slid the frozen meaty pizza out of the box. Hell, he could count the pieces of pepperoni and sausage on the thing on the fingers of one hand. He figured it didn’t much matter. The oven reached the temperature and he placed the pie inside.

Levi had abandoned his game completely and now was texting faster than the best typist in the department.

“How many people are you talking to?”

“I dunno. Why? Oh. Don’t worry, I’ve got unlimited texting. It’s not costing you…er, Mom or Tom anything.”

“Tom? Who’s Tom?” he asked before he realized what he was saying.

“Mom’s latest.” For the first time Levi met his gaze.

“You don’t like him.”

A shrug. “He’s okay.”

“And he’s paying your cell phone bill?” This was news to Mac, but then Connie only told him what she wanted to, when she wanted to.

“He added me to his plan. It doesn’t cost much.”

“But-”

“Mom’s on it, too. Tom’s moving in.”

“How do you feel about that?”

Levi’s phone zinged again and he looked away. “It’s all right.” He began texting again and Mac sensed the conversation was over. He’d known Connie was “involved” with someone, but he’d never heard his name and figured it would pass. In the years since they were separated and divorced, she’d dated a number of men. One guy, Laddie, had moved in with her twice, and twice she’d kicked the bum out. Now, it seemed, she was onto a new one.

Mac didn’t begrudge her the new men in her life. He just hated that Levi had to be dragged along for the ride.

“You could move in with me,” he suggested and Levi’s head bobbed up as if it had been pulled by an invisible string.

“You’re serious.”

“Thinking about retiring.”

Levi’s eyebrows drew together. “You sure?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“I don’t know…” He shook his head. “Mom wouldn’t like it.”

“We’d work something out.”

“I don’t think so. Mom, she says she and Tom are gonna move in together and get married. He’s got a couple of daughters. They’ll need a place to stay, so the den, that’ll be their room when they come.”

“How old are they?”

“Dunno.” He thought. Scratched at his chin and Mac saw the first evidence of a beard, a few stray hairs on his chin.

At twelve? The kid was growing up. Fast.

“I guess they’re five and eight maybe. Little kids.”

“How do you feel about that?”

Levi was about to equivocate, to lie, and say it was “all right” or “not too bad.” Instead, he scowled and yanked off his stocking cap. “It sucks. Big time.”

“Then we should talk about you moving in with me.” He hesitated, then said, “Mom and I already talked about it.”

“You did?” The first he’d heard anything like this.

“Mom told me to give it a chance, that Tom would make things…better. We would eventually get a bigger house, and, you know, I could go to a better school. Get ready for college.” He forced a smile he didn’t feel and in a falsetto mocked his mother’s voice. “We’ll be this one big happy family and everything will be just perfect.”

“That what you want?” Mac asked, surprised that his kid was opening up. Connie hadn’t said a word about the new guy, just that she was seeing someone and that Levi had a girlfriend. Mac couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but he’d bet his badge she was texting Levi up one side and down the other.

“I just want everyone to leave me alone,” he muttered and picked up his phone again.

It ain’t gonna happen, Mac thought, then waited as the pizza finished baking. When the timer dinged Mac found an old towel to drag the bubbling, half-burnt thin crust from the oven. He cut the pizza into pieces and Levi ate with him, only to slip into game mode again. Rather than bug the kid, he turned his attention back to the case. He was going to check in with the sheriff’s department in the morning, see what, if anything, had developed on Renee’s accident, then do a little reconnaissance around the cabin the Brentwoods had owned.

Afterward, weather permitting, he’d take Levi crabbing on the bay and talk some more.

He might just learn something about his own damned kid.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

Becca opened a groggy eye. She’d slept like a rock after making love to Hudson, and sometime during that time, the storm had passed. Struggling to sit up, she found him at the foot of the bed dressed only in jeans, his hair dark from a shower, his torso as bare as his feet.

“Weather’s better,” she observed as sunlight streamed through the now unshuttered window.

“Don’t count on it lasting. Supposed to get colder again. Maybe snow in the passes.”

Becca groaned. “What time is it?”

“Nearly ten.”

“Really?” She couldn’t remember when she’d slept so late. She blinked and stretched as Hudson walked to the coffeepot and poured some into a cup.

“Here, this is all that’s left, but there’s breakfast until eleven, so…”

“I’m up!” She rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom where she got a glimpse of herself and cringed. Her hair was a tangle, her face still heavy with sleep, her makeup long gone. What had Hudson called her? Sleeping Beauty? A bad joke at best.

She showered, slicked her hair into a ponytail, applied minimal lipstick and mascara, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Hudson had already walked Ringo, so they, along with one other couple who looked to be in their seventies, ate a breakfast of a spinach quiche, fruit cup, and cinnamon rolls that, the owner of the establishment confided, were baked at the local bakery.

“You own this place long?” Hudson asked as the tall, lanky man brought them a new pot of coffee.

“Nearly twenty-five years. Will be this September. My wife and I decided to give up the rat race and move here from Chicago. This old house was for sale and we converted it to a B and B. We’ve never looked back.”

At the next table, the woman waved her hand. “Is there any more orange juice?” she asked, and the owner/waiter hurried off to the kitchen. Becca looked out the window toward the ocean, now calm, beams of sunlight bouncing off the restless gray water.

The beach far below was littered with debris, driftwood, seaweed, the shells of dead clams and crabs. Seagulls wheeled and cawed above the small strip of sand. Waves came and went, lapping the shore and leaving bits of thick foam as they receded.

They finished their meal and then Hudson opened a thick sliding door and he and Becca stepped onto a deck that ran the length of the building. Despite the sun, the air was crisp and cold, and though there was no wind, the surf continued to echo against the cliffs. To the south was the bay, a few brave fishing vessels having already slipped over the bar and into the sea, and to the north was a curving peninsula of rocks and trees, a narrow cape stretching clawlike into the ocean. A few black rocks, islands unto themselves, protected the cape’s shoreline. Farther out, atop a rocky mound, was a lighthouse, a tall spire rising into the heavens. Farther still, an island sat on the horizon, mist shrouded and about a half mile out.