Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

“That’s it?” Joe asked, waggling his eyebrows.

She batted at her son with the skirt. “She’s supposed to wear it over her bathing suit.”

“Oh, Ava, I don’t know,” Letty protested. “Can’t I just wear shorts and my Murmuring Surf shirt and a lei?”

“No, no,” Joe said. “You don’t get off that easy. If I go native, you go native.”

“He’s right, for once,” Ava said. “We all get dressed up for Aloha Bingo. It’s everybody’s favorite night. Even the Feldman girls come in costume.” She gave Letty what Joe called her patented Mom stare, then pulled a miniature grass skirt and a toy ukulele from the shopping bag.

“I got this for Maya. Isn’t this the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Letty smacked her forehead. “I forgot Isabelle’s going out tonight. But Ava, I’m not sure about taking Maya to bingo.”

“Nonsense. It’ll be an early night. You know these old geezers. We start at six and play the jackpot game right at nine. You can have her back at your place and in bed by no later than nine fifteen. And tomorrow, you sleep in. Right?”

Joe and Letty exchanged an uneasy look, which Ava didn’t miss.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Tomorrow’s the day Evan Wingfield is flying down. He thinks he’s picking up Maya.”

The color drained from Ava’s face. “You won’t really let him get near her. Right?”

“Right,” Joe said. “But let’s not talk about it right now. I’m gonna run home and shower, but I’ll be back in time for bingo.” He started for the door, but Ava grabbed his arm.

“Don’t forget your shirt.”

Maya danced around the living area, twitching her hips and delighting in the way it made her ankle-length grass skirt swish against her bare legs. She strummed the plastic ukulele.

“Look at me, Letty. I’m Moana!”

Letty grabbed her phone and snapped a photo of her niece. Maya cheesed for the camera and twitched her hips again. Her niece loved playing dress-up, and she was particularly excited tonight, because Letty was also dressed up.

It had taken gulping down two glasses of wine for her to get up enough courage to don her most modest bikini and then slide the grass skirt down over her hips. She piled on three sets of beads from Maya’s junk jewelry trove and added two plastic leis in order to cover most of her cleavage, and then topped off the costume with an unbuttoned flowered blouse.

She was draping a plastic lei around Maya’s neck when she heard the putt-putt just outside in the breezeway.

When she opened the door, Isabelle’s friend Sierra was leaning the green scooter against the wall.

“Come on in,” Letty said.

“Hi, Sierra!” Maya called, twitching her hips and twanging her ukulele. “I’m a hula girl!”

“You’re both hula girls,” Sierra said, grinning at Letty and her niece. “You guys look totes adorbs. Aloha Bingo Night, right?”

“That’s right,” Letty said. “Where are you and Isabelle headed?”

“We’re just gonna hang out with some kids from school,” the teenager said. “We might go to the movies later. But what I wanted to say is, I emailed you something.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You know that piece of video where the dude in the ski hat comes into your sister’s apartment and they’re talking, but you can’t hear what they’re saying?”

“Right. The FBI’s tech guys are working on it, trying to figure out how to turn up the sound,” Letty said.

“Hah! Screw them,” Sierra said. “I figured it out. I mean, my friends and I did. I’m on this tech nerd loop with this kid in Albuquerque, he calls himself KDawg, and I think he’s in a band or something, so he knows about sound. He’s always messing with video and digital enhancement. I was mentioning on the loop about the problem I was having with the nanny-cam video, and he said if I sent it to him, maybe he could fix it. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but that’s what I did. I don’t really understand what or how he did it, but you can definitely hear more of what they’re saying now. Not all of it, but a lot.”

Letty threw her arms around the petite girl’s neck and gave her a hug. “Sierra, that’s amazing!”

“I didn’t really do anything. It was KDawg. Okay, so I gotta go. See ya!”

Letty watched the video once, then texted Joe. Better stop by my place before bingo. I’ve got something you need to see. ASAP.

Joe gave a low wolf whistle when he saw Letty standing in the doorway in her bikini top and grass skirt. “I take it back. I wish every night was Aloha Bingo Night.”

She flushed and tugged at the flower garlands around her neck. “Stop. I’m self-conscious enough.”

He was wearing navy board shorts and a T-shirt, with the Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over it. With his dark hair and tan, he made a believable, even desirable islander, and he was brandishing two dinner plate–size hot-pink hibiscus blossoms.

“This one’s for you,” he said. Letty reached out to take it.

“Allow me,” Joe said, taking a step closer and tucking the flower behind her left ear. He trailed his fingertip lightly down her neck. “You smell good,” he whispered.

“Hi, Mr. Joe,” Maya said, brandishing her ukulele. “I’m Moana.”

“You are?” Joe feigned surprise. “I thought you were Elsa?”

“No. Tonight I am Moana.” She twanged the ukulele strings for emphasis.

“I’m gonna kill Ava for giving her that thing,” Letty said.

Joe knelt down beside Maya and fastened the other hibiscus behind her right ear. “Now you’re a real island girl.”

“Ladybug, why don’t you go in the other room and draw a picture of Moana for Mr. Joe?” Letty said. “He doesn’t even know what she looks like.”

“Okay,” the child said, swishing her grass skirt as she walked away twanging her ukulele.

Letty gestured at the laptop computer on the table. “Pull up a chair.” She tapped some keys, and the first frame of the problematic video clip appeared.

“I’ve already seen this,” he objected.

“Isabelle’s friend Sierra shared this with one of her tech friends who’s good with audio. He somehow managed to amplify the sound. It’s still pretty patchy, but give a listen.”

At the start of the video clip, Tanya seemed hesitant, and almost alarmed at her visitor’s arrival. “Oh my God, Rooney!”

Letty looked at Joe. “So it was him.”

Rooney pulled Tanya to him, and after a brief hesitation, she crushed herself against him, and their kiss was so long and passionate, Letty wanted to look away.

The next bit of video was inaudible.

They finally separated. He looked around at the opulent surroundings, the marble floors, the massive rock-crystal chandelier, the floor-to-ceiling windows hung with silk draperies, and the over-the-top furnishings. He said something that was garbled, and then, “… you really lucked into a sugar daddy.”

Tanya pretended to pout. The first part of her sentence was inaudible, but it ended with her saying, “… worked hard for everything here. I damn well deserve all of it.”

Rooney’s laugh was low and somehow menacing at the same time. “Define ‘work.’”

“You’re still such a dick. You know that? How did you even find me?”

He was slowly walking around the room, taking it all in, mentally adding up the cost of such a place. His back was to the nanny cam hidden inside the stuffed elephant, and his answer was inaudible.

“No. Seriously,” Tanya insisted. “I need to know who else might try to find me up here.”

When Rooney turned around and smiled, Letty shuddered. He had the smile of a python. Even though she’d already viewed the video earlier, she leaned forward again to hear his response. The first part was garbled, but then: “… checked your IMDb page. Found out your agent’s name.”