Madison Westin 02-Deception in Paradise (23 page)

“That was fast. I haven’t talked to him since he dragged Jax out of my house,” I said. “Is he still mad?”

“No, he’s not. He made a point of saying so. He’s working hard, running back-to-back trips. He plans to take off a couple of months at the end of fishing season.”

“I guess he forgot my phone number.”

“Don’t be like that. He wanted me to tell you that we talked and he said hello.”

“What’s up with him and Jax? According to Mac, Jax doesn’t hang around The Cottages very much.”

“Jax has been working with Moron on someone else’s boat since ours was towed. I’m wondering if we’ll be sued,” Mother said.

“For what? I didn’t murder Pavel. I want this case solved so our family isn’t forever linked with murder.”

“I would like it to be over. A little normal would be nice,” Mother said. “I asked Jax what his plans were when the court case was over. He told me he’s going back to South Carolina.”

“When was that conversation?”

“Jax and I talked when I stopped by Moron’s to see the progress on the boat for myself. I ran into Zach at the Bakery Café and he thinks you took his advice and stopped snooping around asking questions. I think he has a lot to learn.” Mother laughed. “You’re in big trouble if you get hurt.”

“Don’t worry so much.” I couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t start a fight.

“Spoon and I have decided that we’re better off just being friends. So when my friend Jean asked if I wanted to take a road trip to go gambling in Seminole, I said yes.” Jean Stewart was one of her blue-haired friends who lived down the street from her in Coral Gables.

I was so relieved, I struggled to be sensitive. “Are you okay?”

“I need the diversion. It’ll be fun. We’ll gamble, shop, and overeat.”

“Play a twenty for me at the blackjack table. When are you coming back?”

“A few days. I’ll have my phone with me. I hope because we don’t see eye to eye on this Jax situation, you won’t use that as an excuse to hide things from me.”

“I’m getting pretty good at keeping you up to date,” I said.

“I’ll call you when I get back.”

I hung up feeling conflicted. I was snooping around even more than Mother would’ve guessed.

“What the hell happened to your arm?” Zach yelled, stomping into the backyard.

I laid my notepad facedown and covered it slightly with my towel. “I’m guessing you’re not here for a swim.”

He had on black suit pants, a dress shirt, and a gorgeous pair of black leather loafers. I’d been in his closet, and he was clearly a shoe whore.

“One of my guys saw you get out of your car at the jail with a sling on. Visiting Dickhead? You still have a thing for him?”

“Could you lower your voice?” I wanted to add, ‘and mind your own business’. “We had business to discuss.”

“And your arm?” he demanded.

“Actually, it’s my shoulder. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

“Where did this happen?”

His voice told me he wasn’t going to believe whatever I said. “The way you’re firing questions at me, do I need a lawyer?”

“What are you guilty of?”

“Paranoid much?”

“Stop stalling. What the hell happened?”

“I fell at Aventura Mall.”

“What’s Fab’s part in all of this?”

“She didn’t push me if that’s what you’re asking. We were there for lunch and shoe shopping.”

He gave me a scrutinizing stare, meant to scare me into confessing. I wanted to laugh and tell him he was wasting his time if he thought I’d spill. “This wouldn’t have happened if you were living with me.”

“How do you figure that? Is it because you’d lock me in your warehouse and never let me out?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I want to believe you, but I know you two.”

His suffocating attempt at control was giving me a headache. I realized if I did live with him, there’d be no spontaneous swims. I’d really miss my early morning laps. “You’re making too much out of a simple fall.”

“You give any thought to moving in with me?” Zach asked.

“When I said I wanted to spend more time together, I meant dinners out and late-night swims. I’m not ready for playing house. If you were honest, even you know this is too soon. Your motives are not about love, which, by the way, you’ve never said, but about protecting me.”

“I’ve got to get back to the office.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek.

“You look nice, by the way,” I called as he walked away.

His lack of response to the word “love” hadn’t gone unnoticed. Was I ready to say those three little words?

His goodbye kisses usually made me hot and tingly. The cheek kiss was disappointing. I knew one thing for sure; I wasn’t signing up to be controlled. It would be a constant battle to come and go without endless questions.

Once Zach found out Jax was getting released, one phone call later and he’d know I bailed him out. That would be another fight, or at the very least, snotty comments traded back and forth.

I’d arranged with Brick to post the bail, hoping to keep my identity a secret. He cut his exorbitant fee in exchange for an unspecified favor to be determined at his will. My only ground rule was he wouldn’t ask me to do anything illegal.

He had laughed in my face. “You’re one ballsy redhead.”

In the fine print spelled out by Brick, “If Jax takes off, you find his ass. No one skips on Brick.”

My phone rang, and I wanted to throw it in the pool and sail to the Bahamas, but I answered anyway.

“Jackson signed the dismissal,” Whit stated. “I took it over to the jail myself and everything went according to jail protocol. We had a long conversation, and I liked him. I was having trouble with my icemaker on the refrigerator, and he told me how to take it apart and fix it myself. Saved me a service call from the hack I had out the last time.”

“Thank you for doing this.”

“You’re now protected all legal-like. The witnesses were jail guards,” Whit said.

I called Brick and gave him the green light to post bail.

CHAPTER 32

My shoulder only hurt with sudden movements. I took two aspirin, got in my SUV, and drove straight to the Bakery Café for a caramel latte, with extra whipped cream, which I hoped would also lessen the pain. I sat at a table on the sidewalk, people-watching, shaking off the effects of a night with little sleep.

Fab screeched up in another new car – a black BMW. She slid into the parking space so fast, I thought she’d jump the sidewalk and end up at the table. “Always easy to find,” she said, crossing the sidewalk. She handed me a manila envelope. “Look at these while I get a double espresso.”

Before I could open the envelope, Sid Byce walked up to the table. “I know you think that piece of shit you married isn’t guilty, but you’re wrong.” He slammed his fist on the table. “Bad things happen to people who don’t mind their own business.” His face was red with anger. “Stop asking questions. Your husband’s in jail, where he’s going to stay.”

“Step back from the table,” Fab growled from behind Byce. “You want to fight? Pick on someone your own size.”

Byce snickered. “That someone would be you?”

“Yes.” Fab pulled up her top, showing the gun in her waistband.

“Are you threatening me?” His veins threatened to pop out of the side of his head.

“Madison wouldn’t shoot your nuts off, but I would.” Fab gave him a creepy, deranged-looking smile. “Don’t you ever speak to her again.”

“Both of you listen to me,” Byce said. “Stay off my property. We shoot trespassers.”

“You know what I think?” Fab asked. “I think you shot Pavel.”

Byce stared at her with pure hate. “You crazy bitch.” He turned and walked away.

“Yes, I am!” she yelled.

“Your part in that drama made my hair stand on end,” I said. “That’s my way of saying thank you.”

“What did he want?”

“Told me to stop asking questions and that Jax’s in jail where he belongs. What he doesn’t know is that all the arrangements have been made to bail Jax out,” I related. “He knew we’d been snooping around his property asking questions.”

“If he thought we knew about his drug import business, we wouldn’t be sitting here sucking down espresso,” Fab said.

“Do you really think Sid Byce is the shooter? What about Byce Junior?”

“My money’s on Sid,” Fab said. “Alexander does what he’s told.”

“Byce is a pillar of the community. Murder and running drugs is a stretch, isn’t it? If we told anyone what we thought, everyone in this town would laugh in our faces.”

“Jax’s screwed,” Fab stated.

I opened the manila envelope and pulled out photos of the dock area around Byce’s warehouse. “When did you shoot these?” Byce was lucky; if Fab had finished her espresso, he might’ve limped away minus a nut.

“Last night. And before you start whining about not going along, be serious. Your shoulder was almost amputated.” Fab smiled.

“Dramatic much?” I shook my head. “It’s not hurting now. What else went on down there that I missed?” I ran my finger through the whipped cream on my drink. I used to save it for last, but I didn’t like the runny lumps that were usually left.

“Exactly the same as what went down the other night,” Fab said. “Amateurs. Doing the same thing over and over is going to get you noticed. The boat even showed up at the same time. I got the bow number. Running drugs in that quantity usually makes the people involved nervous and paranoid. No signs of that with these guys. I put in a call to Patrick at the Coast Guard to find out who owns the boat.”

“These were shot at a different angle. Where were you when you took them?”

“I was across the channel on the north side. Good thing, too. Before the drop, two guys walked the property, including the boat yard.”

“Girlfriend, at some point we’re going to have to admit we’re in over our heads,” I said.

“That time would be now. We’re in dangerous territory and should step back.”

“We just walk away?” I asked. “Pavel’s real for me. We haven’t found one person who’s had a bad thing to say. He’s a person who didn’t deserve to end up dead. His murderer doesn’t get to walk.”

“I agree. There are still a couple of missing pieces,” Fab said. “They get regular shipments of cocaine, then what happens to it? They’re not stupid enough to store it there for very long. Judging by the size of the shipments, they’ve got a major business going on.”

“I want to call in Zach and his guys, but our last encounter didn’t go well,” I said.

“What happened?”

“I hadn’t been wearing my sling and I wore it to the jail. I realized aspirin helped more and took it off, but not before one of Zach’s men saw me and reported back to him. He comes over and demands to know what happened. He didn’t believe the mall story at first, but I held my ground. Then he brought up living together, and I told him no thanks.”

Fab banged her coffee mug on the table. “Why does the good stuff happen when I’m not there to eavesdrop?”

“Do you have a plan?” I asked. “Zach doesn’t know about us snooping around Byce’s, or he might’ve cuffed me and dragged me to a guarded location.”

“I’ll tell Zach everything I found out last night,” Fab offered. “I’ll tell him I’m the one who’s been checking around.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How are you going to sell that I’ve been sitting back doing nothing?”

“You tell him you asked around, and everyone said the same thing: no one had a reason as to why Pavel would end up dead, blah, blah. You can think on your feet.”

“So I’m hanging you out to dry?”

“He expects this kind of behavior from me,” Fab said. “He’ll be fine if we convince him you’re not involved.”

“When are we doing this?”

“I have a bodyguard job tonight. I’m one of four who’re chaperoning sixteen-year-olds for a birthday party. Daddy’s paying for overpriced babysitting to make sure there’s no drunkenness or drugs and no one gets arrested. Let’s make it tomorrow night. We’ll get him to meet us at a restaurant; he’d never create a scene in public.”

“I like the way you think.”

CHAPTER 33

Since the last time I was at the jail to pick Jax up, they had renamed the main building the Welcome Center. There was nothing welcoming about the cold, sterile room with its gray walls and steel bars. I sat in the same plastic chair I did the last time, close to the exit, and fidgeted to get comfortable. I could look one way and see what was going on at the main desk, and the other way I could see when the inmates came out the door to their freedom. An interesting assortment of people filled half the chairs, I settled in for the wait, which felt like an eternity after the first five minutes.

I had stopped by Whit’s office and picked up the agreement. I noticed Whit notarized it himself. He laughed, saying it was his way of getting to meet Jax. I told him about the deal I’d made, and he told me as soon as Jax’s case was settled, I should go straight to the court clerk and file my documents.

The jail door opened and closed; chairs emptied and filled again. Finally, Jax walked through the door. He looked like a bone a dog had chewed on, dragged through the yard, and was no longer interested in.

He walked straight over and picked me up in a tight hug, crushing his lips to mine in an intense kiss. I kissed him back, taking me to a time when we had been happy. I had once loved my husband with everything I had to give.

“Thanks for getting me out of here.” He kissed me again.

“Were you on the beach when they arrested you?” I asked, noting that he wore bathing suit bottoms and a T-shirt.

“I came back for a beer, and two sheriffs were sitting on the couch, waiting for me. I told them they hadn’t been invited in and were breaking the law. They told me to prove it and laughed.”

“You’re out now.” I looked down. “Nice shoes.” He still had on his jail-issue slip-on orange tennis shoes.

“When they handcuffed me at the cottage, Robert’s flops were sitting by the door. I slid into them quickly after they told me I couldn’t get my tennis shoes out of the bedroom. I guess all flops look alike in this hole, even though they were XXXL bitch size. When the property room lost the cheap things, they tried to pass off someone else’s flops, but when my heels hung off the back, they had no choice but to let me wear these. They can’t discharge anyone barefoot, even if you come in that way. Assholes.” He shrugged. “Anyway, what did I do to deserve you?”