Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

“I’m pretty sure Ava doped me up with children’s Robitussin back in the day,” Joe said. He replaced the sofa cushions and leaned back to watch as Letty scurried around the room picking up her discarded clothing.

“Do that topless hula thing again, will ya?” he asked.

“Not tonight, dear,” she said, tossing the Hawaiian shirt at him. She slipped into the bedroom and when she emerged she was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.

“Aw, man, I was thinking maybe we could take a shower together,” Joe groused. “There goes my fantasy.”

“Would you settle for a glass of wine?” She went into the kitchen, found the bottle she’d opened earlier, and poured two glasses.

He touched his glass to the side of hers. “Here’s to promising beginnings,” she said, smiling at him over the rim of the glass.

“Here’s to babysitters,” he countered.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, a little while later. He was stretched out on the sofa, with his head in her lap.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What changed your mind? About me? I mean, I’m not just another cheap, easy piece of meat, you know.”

“What if I said I couldn’t resist your boyish charm? You know, girls get horny too.”

He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “Seriously, Letty. Are we going to be a thing? Or not? I keep getting mixed signals from you. You know, tomorrow, God willing, you’re not gonna have to worry about Evan Wingfield anymore. You can pick up the pieces and put your life together—however you want it to be.”

“I know,” Letty agreed. “But I’m afraid to get too far ahead of myself. What if something goes wrong? I mean, really wrong?”

“Then we’ll fix it. And it won’t be me rescuing you, I promise. It’ll be us fixing it together.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “I want to buy into that dream. I want to be able to give Maya the things Tanya and I never had—a home, a real house with a yard and a cat, or maybe a dog. I want her to start school in the same town every year, with friends she won’t be ashamed to bring home for sleepovers.” She shrugged. “I guess I want stability. But I don’t know how to make that happen—especially after all we’ve both been through these past few years.”

Joe swung his legs off the sofa and sat up. He took both her hands in his. “That’s a nice word picture you just painted there. Can I ask? Is there a man anywhere in this picture? At all?”

Letty stared down at their joined hands. “You guys—you and Isabelle—you didn’t really have a dad. Right? In fact, earlier tonight you pointed out that Isabelle turned out just fine without a dad.”

He groaned. “First off, you should never listen to my advice, because clearly I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I think, if you asked Isabelle, she’d tell you—as long as Mom isn’t within earshot—that she got a raw deal, not having a dad. But she might also point out that she had an awesome big brother who bitched and moaned—but still took her to the middle school daddy-daughter dance, and taught her how to drive a stick shift, and who, once she turned fourteen, threatened to arrest any little fucker who as much as tried to lay a hand on her without her saying it’s okay.”

“I wish Tanya and I had had a big brother like you,” Letty said, kissing his cheek. “Maybe then things could have worked out differently for both of us. I wish I could wave a magic wand and invent a brother like that for Maya.”

Joe pressed his forehead to hers. “You turned out more than okay. You’re a good person, Letty. I know you’ll make the right decisions for Maya. But don’t forget about you. You deserve to have a life too. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

He kissed her lightly. “You could have a life. And a man in your life. And awesome sex, on the regular with that man, you know, once we find a live-in babysitter.”

Letty laughed despite herself. “You’re incorrigible.…”

Someone was pounding on her door. “Letty? Hey, Letty? Joe?”

She jumped up and unlocked the door. Vikki Hill was grim-faced. “I just got back from Gianni’s. Someone broke into my room. It’s been ransacked. And my Glock is gone.”

46

THE FBI AGENT WAS OBVIOUSLY shaken. “Looks like that prowler was for real. My room’s been turned upside down.”

Joe grabbed his phone. “I’m calling it in right now. Can you tell if anything else is missing?”

“No. As soon as I saw the lock had been jimmied I went in, saw the mess, and looked for my gun. When I saw it was missing, I backed up and came directly over here. Thank God I had my purse with my badge and ID and credit cards with me.”

“Shauna?” Joe spoke into his phone. “Can you get over here ASAP? We’ve had a break-in at the Surf. No, I don’t want to call it in to dispatch. I’ll explain when you get here.”

Letty wrapped her arms across her chest and looked from Joe to Vikki. “You think it’s Rooney, don’t you?”

“Who else?” Joe said.

“But why break into the smallest unit here?” Vikki asked. “And what’s he looking for?”

“Maybe it’s the loot he was accusing Tanya of stealing that day he showed up at her place in New York,” Letty said.

“We never recovered most of the jewelry or silver or gold from their scam when we arrested Tanya,” Joe reminded Vikki. “At the time of Tanya’s arrest, she claimed Chuck and Rooney took it with them. Now, I’m thinking that loot’s what got Chuck killed.”

“Just how much loot are we talking about?” Vikki asked. “I thought these were a couple of low-rent grifters.”

“It was just a guess, but we estimated around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But really there’s no telling. The operation they set up here at the Murmuring Surf was at least the third we know of, after similar operations around the state. But according to Trudi Maples, the watch they bought from her—just for the value of the gold—turns out to have been worth thirty thousand dollars.”

Letty had been pondering the “why” of Rooney tossing the efficiency. “When I first got here, there weren’t any available rooms. But Ava offered to let me clear out the unit that she’d been using for storage. It was full of junk—stuff that the maintenance man was supposed to have thrown out or had hauled away, but instead he just shoved it in the efficiency.”

“And the alleged maintenance man was Chuck Sheppard?” Vikki guessed.

“Yeah.” Joe’s phone dinged and he looked down. “Shauna just pulled in.”

Letty paced around her living room. She could see the open door of the efficiency if she stood in the breezeway. She saw Joe and Shauna and Vikki standing outside the unit, saw the patrol officer crouch down and examine the doorknob with her flashlight. She saw the flashlight beam sweeping over the roof of the unit, nodded silently as Joe and Shauna walked past, speaking in low voices. She heard Shauna speaking into her radio.

Eventually, she went inside, and after checking on Maya, and re-latching the patio door, she fixed herself a cup of tea. She opened her laptop and rewatched the video clip with the amplified sound that Sierra had sent her, hoping to find some clue she’d overlooked.

Shortly after two, she heard a discreet tap at the door. She unlocked it and Joe walked inside and flopped wearily onto the sofa.

“Anything?”

“No. If it’s Rooney, the guy’s a damn Houdini. I even got a ladder and went up on the roof. We walked the beach, thinking maybe he’s camping in the dunes or something, but there’s no sign of him.”

Joe’s dark hair was damp with sweat and his eyes were ringed with dark circles. “Jesus! I can’t stand the idea that creep could still be prowling around here. And now he’s got Vikki’s gun. I went up to Mom’s and told her about the break-in at the efficiency.”