Deadly Honeymoon (Hardy Brothers Security Book 7) (12 page)

“No.”

“Let me see what I can figure out,” James said. “I’ll ask around. I’ll keep it between Jake and me for right now. He might have some ideas.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, you have to help, too,” James said. “Ask the judge what would happen in a case like Sophie’s, and then go to that family judge on the fourth floor, what’s her name?”

“Judge Gailbraith.”

“Yeah, just question her and see what you can find out,” James said. “It might give us some leads.”

“Thank you so much for doing this.”

“Thank you for being the kind of woman who wants to do this,” James said, equally sober. “Now, climb up here, little girl,” he said, breaking the serious moment and patting his lap. “I have a present I want to give you.”

“Are you playing like a dirty Santa Claus?”

James frowned. “I guess.”

“Don’t. It’s creepy.”

“Okay, who do you want me to be?”

Mandy opened her mouth, her eyes sparkling. James knew what she was going to say before the words passed her lips.

“Let’s play shark,” she said. “You can be Martin Brody, and I’ll be the damsel in distress from the big, bad shark. You’re going to have to play the shark, too.”

James sighed. “Okay,” he said. “No screaming, though. The neighbors are going to call the police if they hear you screaming. It’s not like at the apartment when no one could hear you.”

“I don’t scream.”

“You scream and thrash around in the water,” James said. “That’s your shtick.”

“I don’t have a shtick.”

James started humming the theme to Jaws. “You’d better start swimming. There’s not a lot of room in here.”

“No,” Mandy agreed. “But there is in the pool.”

“You want to have sex in the pool?”

Mandy was already climbing out of the hot tub. “We haven’t christened it yet.”

James gave chase, knowing the shark-attack game was going to be much more effective in a bigger body of water. “You’re going to need a bigger boat, baby.”

“Oh, you know size doesn’t matter,” Mandy teased.

“You’d better start swimming now,” James said, tackling her into the water. He had no idea if the neighbors heard her screams, but he was pretty sure they heard her giggles. Heck, he was pretty sure they heard his, too.

“Why aren’t you at work?”

James found Mandy waiting for him in the foyer the next morning, her face a mixture of impatience and irritation.

“Seriously?” Now she looked confused.

“Seriously.”

“I thought … oh, okay, never mind,” she said, gripping her purse to her chest and turning toward the door.

James reached his arm out, resting his weight against the door so she couldn’t pull it open. “What did you think?”

Mandy sighed. “This is my own fault for trying to out think you. I have no one to blame but myself.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“It’s almost eight, baby,” James said. “You’d better tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to haul you back upstairs and make you call in sick to work so I can ravish you. I know which garters you have on under that skirt, and my mind is already playing tricks on me.”

“I’m going commando, too.”

James licked his lips. He had a full day scheduled, but maybe he could move a few things around … . “Wait, are you trying to distract me?”

“Is it working?”

“Kind of.”

“Then I’m doing nothing of the sort.”

James smirked. “Why were you waiting for me? Were we supposed to do something this morning?”

“Nope.” Mandy’s face was lit with faux innocence. “I just wanted to kiss you goodbye before I left.” She leaned forward.

“You’re a terrible liar.” James kissed her anyway. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Fine,” Mandy grumbled. “I figured you were going to insist on driving me to and from work, so that’s why I was waiting.”

“Why would I … because of the mugger,” James said, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I forgot about the mugger.”

“You would’ve remembered eventually.”

“Not until I opened my wife up to attack.”

“Oh, good grief,” Mandy said. “Now you’re going to be protective and all self-hating for the afternoon.”

“I am not.”

“I know you.”

“I … .”

“If you hate yourself all afternoon, I’m going to go straight upstairs and put underwear on,” Mandy threatened.

“Fine, I won’t hate myself,” James said. “Now move your ass to the truck. I need to get you to work. If you’re late, the judge won’t be pleased.”

“I think he would understand.”

“He’s had to understand a lot since I came into your life,” James said. “He’s had to understand me sitting in his courtroom. He’s had to understand me calling him to get you out of work after the fire. He’s had to understand you missing an extra week before the wedding. The man is a saint.”

“He is,” Mandy agreed.

“He’s a better man than I am.”

“He is,” Mandy said, forcing her face to remain neutral. “He’s practically perfect. I wonder what he looks like naked?”

James spanked her lightly. “Get moving, missy.”

Mandy smiled and opened the door, stilling when James grabbed her hand.

“I’m sorry I … .”

“I’m totally having sex with the judge today,” Mandy said. “He would never sit around hating himself all day.”

“Okay,” James said, scowling. “I get it. I’m being a baby. I don’t suppose you would lift your skirt up during the drive so I can have something to look at to make me feel better during the commute?”

“No,” Mandy said. “I will call you during lunch and have dirty phone sex, though.”

“You’re the best wife ever.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“WHY
do you look like you’ve been through a wind tunnel?” Grady asked, looking up from the laptop as James ambled into his office. “And why are you thirty minutes late?”

“If you must know, I was spending quality time with my wife.”

“Didn’t you drive her to work?”

“I did.”

“You had sex with your wife in the parking lot of the circuit courthouse?”

“Don’t worry. I parked at the far end,” James said. “No one saw us.”

“You two are sick.”

“I’m fine with that,” James said, motioning for Grady to get out of his chair. “Besides, my wife has been a very good girl, and I wanted to give her a reward.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘my wife’ like that?”

“I just like the way it sounds.”

“Sick,” Grady said.

James shifted his attention to the laptop. “What’s this?”

“I was just trying to match up the locations from the flash drive with a scale map of Bermuda,.”

“Are you planning a trip?”

“No,” Grady scoffed. “I just figured you’d want solid information when you call the Bermuda police today.”

“Actually, that’s a good idea,” James said. “Did you print this out?”

“No, but I did overlap the map we got with it and saved it as a PDF on your desktop.”

“You’re such a good brother,” James teased.

“God, you’re so happy it’s sickening.”

“Says the guy glowing because he just moved in with his girlfriend,” James shot back.

“Hey … I am not … that’s neither here nor there … I … can you really tell I’m happy?”

Grady’s crooked smile had an odd calming effect on James. “I really can.”

“Because I am.”

“I know. Is Sophie happy?”

“Now that her hangover has worn off, yes,” Grady said. “Although, it took two sandwiches and eight bottles of water for that to happen. She’s still threatening to kill Ally.”

“I’ll hold her down and make it easier.”

“What? Mandy isn’t feeling better?”

“She was better once I fed her.”

“I thought you weren’t feeding her,” Finn chided, stepping into the office.

“I thought better of it,” James said. “I wanted to keep our wedding-sex streak alive. I know it will fall to the wayside eventually, but I’m hoping to keep it alive for a wee bit longer.”

“And what did you christen last night?”

“The hot tub again.”

“Ah.”

“And the pool.”

“Ah.”

“And the lounger next to the pool.”

“Good grief, man, you guys are like animals,” Finn said.

“What? Nothing from Emma?”

“I think she was worse off than the others,” he admitted. “She has absolutely no tolerance. It’s a little sad.”

“Yes, if only you could find a woman who could hold her liquor like a man.”

Finn rolled his eyes, while Grady opted to change the subject.

“How did Mandy take the information about the dealer packs?”

“Oh, she already knew what a dealer pack was,” James replied. “She was actually mad she hadn’t figured it out on her own. It was really quite … amazing.”

“Sick,” Grady said.

“She also knew exactly what the quantity and denominations equaled out to,” James added.

“So she and Sophie are both odd,” Finn said.

“Or really smart,” Grady challenged.

“I didn’t mean … .”

“Don’t ever call my girl odd,” Grady warned.

“You can call my girl odd,” James said. “I like her odd. Mine is so odd she insisted we play shark last night. I’m sure the neighbors got an earful.”

“She is odd,” Grady said.

James shot him a scorching look.

“Oh, I thought you liked her odd.”

“Yes, but you’re saying it in a derogatory manner.”

“I was not.”

“You were, too.”

“And what are we fighting about this morning?” Jake asked, swaggering into the office with a broad smile on his face.

All three Hardy brothers fixed him with identical looks.

“Wipe that smile off your face right now,” James ordered.

“What? Why?”

“Because we know it means you’ve been doing something dirty,” Grady explained. “And, since you’re dating our sister, we know you were doing it with her. Wait. You were doing it with her, right? If not, I’m going to have to beat the shit out of you.”

“Of course I was doing it with her,” Jake said. “I don’t cheat.”

“You’d better not.”

“Trust me, your sister is more than I can handle.”

“Hey!”

Jake rolled his eyes. “So, what’s going on?”

“I need to call the Bermuda cops,” James said, digging through his wallet and retrieving the business card Detective St. James had given him. “They need to know what we’ve found.”

“What do you think they’ll want to do with it?”

James shrugged. “I have no idea.” He punched in the number on the card into the desk phone, setting it so it was on the speaker before anyone picked up.

“Detective St. James.”

“Detective, this is James Hardy. I’m not sure if you remember me but … .”

“I remember you. You were the gentleman out at the Parson’s house on the main bluff.”

“That’s me.”

“And how is your lovely wife?”

“She’s fine,” James said, exchanging a dubious look with Jake. “She’s actually why I’m calling.”

St. James was silent on the other end of the phone.

“We actually found something in our baggage when we got back.”

“What?”

“Well, it wasn’t actually in the baggage,” James conceded. “It was in my wife’s purse.”

“What did you find?”

“It was a flash drive,” James said. “She thought it was mine at first. She didn’t notice until she tipped her purse over and everything fell out. Even then, she didn’t realize what she had.”

“You don’t have to give me an explanation, Mr. Hardy,” St. James said. “I’m not even sure what you have.”

“Well, as you know, I run a security business,” James explained. “So I plugged the flash drive in. I thought someone else might have dropped it in the house.”

“And what was on this flash drive?”

“Just some odd numbers, and a map.”

“What kind of map?” St. James asked.

“It’s a map of Bermuda.”

“I see,” St. James said. “And what were the numbers?”

James recited them back to the detective.

“That sounds like gibberish,” St. James said.

“That’s what I thought at first, too,” James said. “We had our computer guy look at the flash drive. We thought the file was corrupted or something. It turns out it wasn’t.”

“Did you figure out what the numbers mean?”

“I did,” James said. “Well, actually, a friend of ours did. She’s a reporter, and she has more experience in certain areas than we do.”

“Just spit it out, Mr. Hardy,” St. James said. “I have a feeling you’ve discovered something big, but you’re not sure how to broach the subject.”

“That’s an understatement,” James muttered. “The numbers represent dealer packs. Do you know what those are?”

“I’m … well, actually, I’m not sure,” St. James admitted.

“Don’t feel bad,” James said. “Two women figured it out before we did.”

St. James chuckled. “And what is a dealer pack?”

“It’s how people weigh money when there’s a lot of it.”

“Oh.” James couldn’t see the detective’s face, but he could almost imagine the thoughtful expression that must be residing there. “And how much money are we talking about?”

“Well, one million dollars weighs ten kilograms if it’s in hundreds,” James said.

“And, if the numbers you just gave me are to be believed, then that means we’re talking about eight-million dollars.”

“Exactly.”

“Does the map specify eight locations?”

“No, only four.”

“Still,” St. James said. “I guess that would explain why a dead body was found in your back yard.”

“And why the man who harassed my wife at the festival was there.”

“You think he slipped the flash drive into her purse that day?” St. James asked.

“It’s the only thing I can figure.”

“It actually helps us move some things into place,” St. James said. “We’ve identified the man from the house.”

“And?”

“His name is Manny Cortez,” St. James said. “He’s relatively well known down here. He’s better known as a gambler than anything else, but he’s one of those guys who has his fingers in about eight different pies at once.”

“I know the type,” James said. “Is there any indication who didn’t like their pie being fingered?”

Grady made a face, miming a dirty sexual act at James’ words. James shot him the finger.

“I have no idea,” St. James said. “I need to do some digging. What you’ve found changes a few of the assumptions we’ve been working on. We just assumed he got in deep with some bookie and they got sick of covering his losses. This seems to point to something else.”