1 Hot Scheming Mess (14 page)

Twenty minutes later, Madison was still sitting at a little table inside the cafe, waiting for Jason. She had watched every person who entered or left the cafe. Everyone looked suspicious for no logical reason. She realized in that moment that this was the behavior she had witnessed from her grandfather at the Fight Cabaret show.

Just then Jason walked through the door. He looked different without his barista apron. His nice jeans and trendy t-shirt made him look like a customer of the cafe. Madison stood up from the chair in the back corner of the room and waved when he looked in her direction. He walked up, his expression a bit confused. Madison said, “Jason,” and exhaled. “I didn’t know if you would come.”

He didn’t seem to know if he should smile or not. But his hazel brown eyes looked bright as he searched her face. “I was about to go out anyway, hang with some friends. What’s going on?”

Madison took his hands and sat him down next to her at the little square coffee table. “Jason. I’m not going to make much sense right now. But please, please bear with me. I have to ask you a few questions.”

“They said it was an emergency with Vincent? Your grandfather?”

“Jason, is your grandfather’s name, Mitch?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Do you know where he is right now?”

He leaned back in his chair. “What’s going on?”

“I think he’s helping my grandfather. Please. Can you tell me how to contact him?”

She watched him stare at her as she tried to gauge how much he needed to know. She hardly knew him, but she was going to have to extend a certain amount of trust in him if she hoped to get to Mitch.

“What’s so bad about helping your grandfather? Helping him with what?”

“I need to talk to him, Jason. To Mitch.”

He crossed his arms. “Not until you tell me what’s happened.”

“How about this? We’ll leave it up to Mitch to tell you. But I need to see him right away.”

“That might be a little tricky right now. He’s in the hospital.”

Madison caught her breath as her eyes grew bigger. Jason looked in her eyes and shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“What…?”

“Sorry. Little distracted.”

“How can you say that when your grandfather has been put in the hospital?”

“Relax. It’s routine tests. Guess he needs a tune-up once in a while.” He chuckled. “But seriously, I really do think your eyes are…”

Her light green eyes welled up in tears, looking like crystals as she started looking all around the room, unsure what to think. Jason grew concerned, uncrossing his arms. “Hey, hey now.” He leaned toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder, his brows knit in confusion.

“Madison, you have to tell me what’s going on. I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”

“Something terrible happened, something that Mitch probably knows about. My grandfather left town over it, saying he needs to go get help.”

He brushed hair away from her face and said, “Start from the beginning.”

*****

They had been sitting in his car for the last half hour, parked under the shade of a few large maple trees behind the cafe. With the windows down, a cooling breeze blew in from Madison’s side of the car and back out again through Jason’s side. The scent of lush maple leaves toasted by a hot summer sun blew through the car, making it tempting to relax. But Madison didn’t dare.

She had said she couldn’t stand being inside the cafe any longer. Every time the little bells jingled at the top of the door they would stop talking while Madison watched whoever had walked in, trying to convince herself that everything was all right. Everyone looked familiar. Everyone looked suspicious. She felt safer at the idea of spilling the story to Jason inside the privacy of his car. Earlier, with Spenser, she had shared the information from the contents of the box, but nothing about her grandfather’s desperate fist fight. Now, with Jason, Madison told him all about the fight and the existence of the box, but nothing about its contents.

“But how did you know that Mitch was my grandfather?”

“You used to work for my grandpa, and you said your dad used to work for him, too. When my mom said that Grandpa had given a job to Mitch’s son and later his grandson, I figured it had to be you.”

“So if Vincent called my grandpa to handle the guy in duct tape, don’t you think it would make sense for Grandpa Mitch to stay at Vincent’s house and sort of babysit Mr. Duct Tape?”

Madison thought about this. “Yeah. That would be a lot easier than trying to explain to the neighbors why you’re putting Mr. Duct Tape into a car or something.”

“All he told you to do was hide a box and carry on like normal, right?”

“Right, and then wait till he contacts me. He said it may take days.”

“Did you look in the box?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yes. I didn’t understand much of it, but I shouldn’t talk about it with you.”

“Fair enough. So why not just hide the box and sit tight?”

“That’s what I was going to do. But it’s a little hard with someone breaking into my car and knowing where I live.”

Jason looked at her. “Someone broke into your car?”

Madison realized she’d left that out. “Yeah. I think someone followed me home from Grandpa’s house. I saw a woman breaking into my car. But she was gone by the time I got out to my parking lot.” Madison leaned back, fighting off a sense of defeat. She looked upward through the open car window. A bigger wind blew through the tree tops causing the rustling sound of the tree leaves to swell.

He exhaled and said. “Okay. Here’s a question for you. Are you willing to risk talking to my Grandpa Mitch? You may be spilling the beans to him because I’m assuming he’s not the one your grandfather was talking about in that voicemail. He couldn’t be. He went into the hospital this afternoon.”

Madison looked at him and could see the same thought was hitting Jason, too. She said, “Just this afternoon? Are you sure it’s for routine tests?”

*****

The old guy in the hospital gown growled at Jason. “You say anything to your folks, and I’ll kick your punk ass.” Jason nodded at Madison and said, “Yup. He’s going to be fine.”

Mitch Clark scrunched up his face, grunting in pain as he tried to recover some dignity, adjusting the gown and the blankets around him. “Bastard caught me off guard. I was bending over him to peel the tape from a corner of his mouth to let him drink some juice through a straw.” His voice dropped, and he added, “Idiot.” Madison suspected he meant this insult for himself. He clutched the edge of his blanket, trapping it in a fist. “His legs may have been taped up, but he could still bend at the waist. Brought both his legs up and kicked me hard in the stomach.” He frowned and yanked at the blanket. “Son of a bitch must have hit my gallbladder. Pain was so sharp I could hardly move. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Ray. He came and took over for me. Locked the asshole in a closet, brought me here, then went back. He’ll keep an eye on him.” Mitch looked past Jason at Madison. “Let me talk to Vincent’s baby girl here.”

Jason stepped back as Madison stepped up to the side of the bed, and said, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. But please, tell me what’s going on. I’m going crazy trying to make any sense of it.” She remembered him from her childhood and teen hood. Her grandfather had been part of a monthly poker night that had involved six or seven guys. They rotated which house they would meet in. On the months that it landed at her grandfather’s house, Madison would see Mitch attending with the other guys. She had paid so little attention to her grandfather’s social life in those days. She felt embarrassed now that Mitch seemed to be making a fuss over her.

“Madison.” he picked up her hand and patted it as if she were the one that needed comforting, “Don’t you worry about anything, sweetheart. Your old granddad is out there pulling a fast one on these assholes. They won’t know what hit ‘em till it’s too late.”

“But who was that this morning? What’s happened?”

In a gentle voice he said, “You have to understand something. Your grandfather is a good man. And like all good men, he does the best he can with what life throws at him. Life threw him a doozy. There are things that are his business and his secret to tell. It’s not for me to reveal. His main concern was to keep you out of the way till this all gets worked out.”

Madison was torn between hugging him for being such a good friend to her grandfather, and yelling at him to stop keeping secrets from her.
This involves my life, too.
She was about to say as much when a nurse came in to shoo out the visitors. Madison saw both Mitch and Jason looking from the nurse to her, pleading with Madison with their eyes for her to be quiet.
Shit
. She didn’t want the nurse suspecting anything, either. It might bring on the wrong kinds of questions, leading to calling the police. The answers that Madison desired were doomed to be delayed. She couldn’t even ask Mitch about the photo, and what it was her grandfather was holding in the picture. Mitch might not want to accept it, but she was involved.

Nodding at Mitch, Jason said, “We’ll let you get your rest. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

They walked out of the room, and Madison grabbed Jason’s arm. She hastened her pace towards the elevator. “Hey, what’s the hurry?” he asked.

“As much as I love the air-conditioning in here, we have another stop to make.”

“Where?”

“Where do you think?” She fixed him with a look that said she wasn’t taking any bullshit.

He shook his head as he walked. “No. You should stay away from the house, Madison. Let it rest till Vincent gets back.”

“I can’t let it rest! You wouldn’t let it rest either if it were
your
grandfather.”

In a loud voice he said, “It
is
my grandfather! He got hurt because of this.”

In a louder voice, she said, “Mine was about to be killed!” People walking past them in the hallway turned their heads to look at them, then hurried on their way. “Shit!” Madison whispered.

Approaching the elevator, Madison and Jason joined a small group of people already gathered there, waiting. She leaned in close to Jason and said in an agitated whisper, “Whether these old guys like it or not, they need some help. We can’t accept a pat on the head and let them risk their lives over some stupid secret!”

A few more people came up to the elevator, holding flowers. A woman with a big sun hat kept busy looking down at her cell phone. A little boy held his mother’s hand while he stared at Madison. Soon they were all joined by a man carrying two coffees to deliver.

In a heated whisper, Jason replied, “Our grandfathers insisted we not tell my folks or your mom.” He looked her in the eye. “I’m not going to tell. Are you?”

In a breathy explosion, she whispered, “No! Of course not!”

He looked down at her upturned face and whispered, “Well, then we’re keeping a secret, too! So, how do you like that?” She waved an arm in the air as she whispered, “We’re keeping the secret to protect our grandfathers!”

“And maybe they’re keeping a secret to protect you!” he whispered back. “Who knows who else they’re trying to protect?” He leaned over to the wall and punched the elevator button hard.

Madison leaned over with him and angrily whispered, “How are you going to feel if one of them gets killed while we’re waiting around?” After a pause, she heard people behind her whispering, “I think I’d rather take the stairs,” while the little boy whispered to his mother, “Is Grandpa going to die?”

To get away from their audience Madison and Jason stepped away a few paces, while the little boy looked around his mother’s skirt to watch them go stand off to the side.

The elevator dinged and opened. Madison and Jason stayed back while everyone else got on and the door closed. The woman with the sun hat seemed to change her mind and stood off to the side reading the directory on the wall near Jason. He looked around and his eyes landed on the woman, his face knit in concentration.

Madison said, “You don’t have to go. I can go to my grandpa’s house by myself. I have to talk to Ray. Just take me back to my car.” The next elevator opened up, empty. They stepped inside, alone. Jason hit the ground floor button.

“By yourself, my
ass
.” He confessed, “I was going to drop you off safe, then go there without you.” He kept hitting the button, trying to make the door close. She smiled, relieved to have someone go with her. But instead of saying thank you, she said, “It’s pretty great, actually.”

“What is?”

“Your ass.”

The elevator door closed, and Jason wore a small smile. But as the elevator descended, Madison felt her heart descending with it…

…wondering if Ann already knew something.

Chapter Fifteen

“I have a key. Should we knock or go right in?” Madison asked. She felt her heart start to thump again. Earlier that morning she had witnessed her grandfather’s fist fight in his living room. Now, standing on his front porch with Jason next to her, twilight was starting to set in.

Jason shook his head. “You have to knock. Ray doesn’t know we’re coming. He might clobber us if we walk in.”

She knocked and rang the bell at the same time. They waited. No answer. She rang the bell again, hearing its distant hollow sound within the house. All was silent. Worried, she looked at Jason and knocked again, calling, “Ray? It’s Madison. Ray? Mitch’s grandson Jason is here with me.” She knocked and rang the bell. “Please, Ray, I need to talk to you.”

Nothing.

She turned the key, unlocking the knob. Madison started to step in but felt Jason’s hands on her waist pulling her back. He placed himself in front of her and slowly stepped inside. Madison, behind him, called, “Ray?”

They couldn’t see very far into the house from the open doorway. The interior of the house was darker than the growing twilight outside. She reached for a lamp that should have been by the front door, but it was crashed on the floor.
Must have happened during Grandpa’s fight.
She could see enough, along with furniture silhouettes, to walk to the light switch on the wall. “Ray?” She called one last time as she turned on the light. Illuminated, everything was the way she last saw it when she had run out that morning. Some chairs and a small table were tipped over. She saw the broken pieces of the vase, picture frames on the floor by the rumpled throw rug, and the overturned lamp that had tangled her grandfather’s arms during his fight. She pushed back the fear, remembering Mitch’s words “Your old granddad is out there pulling a fast one on these assholes” and wondered what he was out there doing that he couldn’t have done sooner.