Ms. Simon Says (13 page)

“Maybe,” he said. God. Why had he even broached this subject in the first place?

“You’re such a jerk,” she muttered.

He was clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw began to ache. At the same time he realized he was pressing way too hard on the accelerator, going far too fast for the road that snaked through the woods behind the Simon property. He eased his foot off the gas.

“Let’s just not talk about this right now,” he said. “Fine with me.” Under her breath she muttered again, “Jerk.”

He turned into the driveway at the rear of the carriage house just in time to see somebody take a sledge hammer to a window on the side of the building. Mick was reaching for his gun almost before he shifted into park.

He had one foot out on the driveway already when Shelby pulled at his sleeve, screaming.

“Don’t shoot him, for God’s sake. That’s my father.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

M
uch to Shelby’s chagrin, it turned out that she had inadvertently locked the door to the carriage house earlier when she’d searched for her father only to find his “Gone fishing” note.

“Why didn’t you just go in the house and get the spare key?” Shelby asked him as she extracted herself with some reluctance from his warm, all-encompassing hug.

This gave her a better chance to really look at him. Retirement appeared to suit the high-powered attorney known around the Chicago area as Harry Harry Quite Contrary. He looked healthy and tan and trim. His brown eyes—the same color as hers—sparkled like a glass of fine aged bourbon sitting in the sunshine. His sandy hair was threaded with a bit more silver now, and it was longer as well as somewhat thinner than the last time she’d seen him, but that was probably to be expected since he was in his late fifties.

“Why didn’t you get the spare key, Dad?” she asked again.

“Because your mother would probably have had me arrested for breaking and entering,” he said.

That’s when her sister’s words came flooding back.
They’re separated. Or at least they were.
Shelby wanted to tear her hair out. Her eyes felt as if they were pinwheeling, and it was all she could do not to scream.

“Breaking and entering your own house? That’s just nuts. It’s insane. I don’t understand this at all, Daddy.” She sounded six years old. Petulant. Confused. Helpless. And, yes, hurt. She even felt a little nauseous.

But her father wasn’t paying attention to her at the moment. Rather, Harry Harry Quite Contrary’s gaze was currently directed at Mick Callahan, who, for the second time in less than half an hour, had just packed away his pistol.

“I’m Harry Simon, otherwise known as Shelby’s father,” he said, smiling affably and extending his hand toward Callahan.

“Mick Callahan. Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Harry,” her father corrected. “I didn’t mind people calling me sir before I retired, but now it just makes me feel old as hell. So, you’re my daughter’s ...um... friend?”

“That’s right.”

Before her father started grilling the man about his intentions, Shelby intervened. “Emphasis on friend, Dad. Okay?”

“A friend with a nine-millimeter Glock, if I’m not mistaken,” Harry Simon said, lifting a curious eyebrow.

“Well . . .” Callahan began.

Then Shelby stepped in again, saying, “He’s a city boy, Dad. Through and through. The wilds of rural Michigan make him really nervous.” She managed a little nervous laugh of her own as she aimed a beseeching look at the lieutenant. “Right, Callahan?”

Help me out here, will you?

He looked really stubborn for a moment—like Francis the fucking Mule!—all granite-jawed and tight-lipped and steely-eyed, as if he had no intention whatsoever of playing along with her little charade, but then he shrugged his shoulders and said almost sheepishly, “I thought I read someplace that there were still bears around here.”

“Only one,” Shelby’s father said with a sigh and a sidelong glance at the big house up the hill.

Then he looked rather helplessly at the carriage-house window he’d shattered a moment ago and murmured, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Shelby, baby, why don’t you go up to the house and get me that spare key. It’s in the kitchen drawer to the left of the sink.”

“Fine.”

Without another word, Shelby turned and stalked toward the house, grateful for the opportunity to leave the two of them. She was angry at her father and she didn’t even know what lay behind this supposed separation, but it had to be half his fault. As for the lieutenant...She didn’t know what she was thinking, but she knew she’d think a lot more clearly if she put a little distance between them. He’d made her furious with his take on women’s self-defense, but then he’d come through for her by not disclosing his profession or reason for being here.

Dammit. How could a single human being be so irritating and so attractive all at once?

Mick didn’t have the vaguest idea what a carriage house was, but its interior reminded him of the typical loft space in several gentrified neighborhoods of Chicago. There was a kitchen area, set off by a long granite counter lined with tall wooden stools. The living area contained an enormous curved couch and the biggest big-screen TV that Mick had ever seen. Damned shame the World Series had ended with an early four-game rout, he thought, and the Chicago Bears weren’t scheduled to play this Sunday.

Once she’d returned with the key and let them inside, Shelby had immediately excused herself, saying something about the need to make phone calls and cancel upcoming appointments, but he got the impression that it was only partly the truth. She seemed on edge in her father’s presence, and Mick wondered if that unease had something to do with the fact that her parents appeared to be living apart and that it was news—and not good—to their daughter.

“Have a seat,” Harry Simon said, gesturing to the couch. “I’m about to open a beer. Can I get you one?”

“No, thanks.”

Mick sat, staring at the blank TV screen, grateful for a brief reprieve while Shelby’s father rummaged in the refrigerator. If he was supposed to lie about his occupation and his reason for being here in Michigan, what the hell was he going to say? And would he be contradicting something Shelby might already have told her mother about him? She’d introduced him as a friend. Well, hell. At least she hadn’t introduced him as “a student of military history,” he thought bleakly.

Beer bottle in hand, Harry Simon came around the counter and settled on the far curve of the big couch. He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, looked at Mick, and said, “So, what kind of trouble is my daughter in?”

Mick hadn’t been ready for a fastball like that, so his face probably registered his surprise. “Excuse me?”

“I get CNN, even up here in the boonies, Mick.” He angled the neck of his Michelob toward the gigantic TV screen. “I know about the letter bombs at the Helm-Harris offices. Does this have anything to do with Shelby?”

“Well . . .” He sighed softly and closed his eyes for a second. Okay. Shit. Shelby would be royally pissed, but this was the right thing to do. He’d known that all along. “She didn’t want to worry you or Mrs. Simon.”

“That’s what I thought. And judging from the Glock and the way you handled it, young man, I imagine you’ve been assigned to protect her.”

Mick nodded. “Yes, sir.” He probably should have added, as long as he was ’fessing up, that his assignment was simply to get her out of Chicago safely, not to stick to her like glue up here in Michigan. But he decided against it, maybe because he didn’t want her father to get any of the wrong ideas about his intentions. Whatever the hell those were. Assuming he even had any.

Harry Simon was nodding, too. “So you’re . . . what?... Detective Callahan? Lieutenant? Officer?”

“Lieutenant. I’ve been working vice out of the Eleventh.”

“The same Callahan who helped put Morris Pachinski away a couple years ago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. My daughter seems to be in competent hands.” He took a quick sip of his beer. “I gather, from what I’ve seen on the news, that the investigation hasn’t turned up much of anything yet.”

“Not yet. But it’s only been a little over twenty-four hours. My captain is keeping me posted with any developments, though.”

“Good. And you’ll keep me posted, I presume,” the attorney said.

“Absolutely.”

“No need to say anything about this to Shelby or her mother, Mick.” He gestured around the room. “I’m in the doghouse already, as you can see. No sense your being here, too.”

Sitting cross-legged on the big brass bed in her room with her laptop and her cell phone, Shelby placed her first and most important call to Dave the Doorman at the Canfield Towers to find out if he knew how Joe the Mailman was doing. Poor Joe. It just didn’t seem fair for him to get hurt when it was Shelby who was the actual target. If he was in the hospital, she was going to send him a huge arrangement of flowers and balloons. That was all she could think of to do at the moment. Perhaps, when this nightmare was all over, she’d devote a column to him and the unwitting sacrifice he’d made for her.

“They released him last night,” Dave told her. “He got some pretty bad burns on his arms, but he’s doing okay.”

“Oh, thank God. That’s really good news. Was anybody else injured?”

“Bumps and bruises. We lost a front window in the lobby, but I’ve got people fixing that right now.”

Shelby sighed aloud. She’d really been expecting the worst.

“How long are you planning to be away, Ms. Simon?” he asked.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, Dave.” She couldn’t imagine why he was asking her. In the several years she’d lived at the Canfield Towers, she’d traveled extensively, and the doorman had never inquired about her schedule. “Why?”

“Somebody was here early this morning, looking for you. He wanted to find out where you were.”

He? A little warning signal went off in Shelby’s brain. Nobody ever stopped by her apartment or dropped in on her unannounced. Not her female friends and especially not any of the men she knew and occasionally went out with. So who was looking for her? And why?

“Did he leave his name, Dave?”

“No, Ms. Simon, he wouldn’t. I asked him... twice, in fact... but he was pretty unhappy with me by that time because I wouldn’t give him your present whereabouts or a number where he could reach you.”

Shelby’s heart was beating a little harder now and her palms began to sweat. She felt threatened, which was completely ridiculous and even irrational because Chicago was 250 miles away and she was here, at Heart Lake, safe in the middle of the beloved brass bed she’d slept in since childhood. And Lieutenant Mick Callahan was around. Somewhere. All she had to do was scream.

“What did this guy look like, Dave?” She was already imagining a gigantic, drooling, bug-eyed monster who dragged one leg. No. Wait. To even get halfway through the lobby of the Canfield Towers, the guy would have to look relatively normal. He probably still looked vaguely chilling, like Christopher Walken, maybe, or Kevin Spacey, or Jack Nicholson at his most menacing.

“Well, let’s see,” Dave said. “He was tall. Over six feet. Maybe six-two or -three. He was heavyset. Kinda scruffy-looking, to tell you the truth, Ms. Simon. In a tan corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches. He had reddish hair—what’s the word? Auburn?—and a big, sort of brushy red mustache.”

“Derek!” Shelby let her breath out and flopped backward on the mattress. It was Derek McKay from the paper. Thank God. She probably should have known that the ace reporter and inveterate snoop with the brushy red mustache would come looking for her after she’d left the office so abruptly yesterday.

“So you know him, then, Ms. Simon?”

“Yes, I know him. He’s a colleague of mine at the
Daily Mirror
. It’s okay. I’ll get in touch with him right away. I appreciate your concern, Dave.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Do you want to leave me your address, Ms. Simon, just in case...?”

“No,” Shelby said emphatically. “Thanks, Dave. Anybody who needs to know will be able to find me. And thanks for letting me know about Joe’s condition. I’m so glad he’s okay.”

After she hung up, she lay there just breathing deeply for a minute while she stared up at the ceiling fan. It was still, and Shelby was trying to be still, too.

She wasn’t used to being wary and on guard. In thirty-four years, she’d never really been afraid of anything or anyone. Growing up in the suburbs, in the shady shelter of Evanston, and here on the quiet shores of Heart Lake, there had never been a single thing to fear. The sum of her caution as a kid had been looking both ways before she crossed a street and waiting half an hour after eating lunch before she dived into the lake.

But now, all of a sudden, the world seemed to have turned from a benevolent place to one where danger lurked on every corner, behind every tree, and in every single mailbox. And Shelby didn’t have the slightest idea what she had done to bring such imminent doom and destruction down upon herself. She wrote an advice column, for heaven’s sake. She tried her best to help thousands of people she didn’t even know. What was so terrible about that?

Maybe she should ask herself for some good advice, she thought.

Dear Ms. Simon,

I seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into a pool of self-pity. Help!!

Signed,
Miserable in Michigan

Dear Miserable,

You need to worry about others. What about your parents? Worry about them. Self-pity sucks.

Ms. Simon Says So

At the mere thought of her parents, Shelby rolled her eyes at the ceiling and sighed aloud. Well, that was one surefire way to forget her own problems. By focusing on theirs. Whatever they were.

She decided her call to Derek McKay and the other calls could wait while she stuck her nose in this separation business.

Her mother wasn’t back from town yet, and her father was nowhere to be found. If Shelby hadn’t known better, she’d think they were deliberately avoiding her.

As she strolled back from the deserted carriage house, she saw Callahan standing down by the dock, skimming rocks out into the lake. It struck her as such a little boyish thing to do that she found herself smiling in a goofy way and nearly laughing out loud. Then she remembered what the lieutenant had told her about being abandoned by his father and then dragged around the country by his mother, and she thought he probably never got to do too many little boyish things when he was a little boy.