Money Shot (7 page)

“I turn eighteen.”

“And then?”

“And then I’m officially an adult and can get the hell out of Dodge.”

“But until then?”

“Until then, I’m Grandma Lila’s hired help.”

“And the only teenage girl on-island?”

“You’re a sharp one, Agent Smiley Face. Is that why they pay you the big bucks?”

She wants to be a victim
, Goose thought.
Has been, probably
. Kids didn’t grow this kind of hard, cynical shell without help. But there was something else, too. A bleak echo of something more than mere anger tucked under that tough veneer. Something that tugged at her in spite of the smart mouth and the unrelenting snark.

“Well, you know what they say.” Goose smiled easily. “If you want to get rich, work for the government.”

Yarrow snorted but she reached behind her for a pretty china dish and plated up a doughnut. She dropped it on the counter in front of Goose.

Goose arched a brow. “I thought I was getting the Danish.”

“Cops like doughnuts.”

“Do I look like a cop to you?”

Yarrow gave her a narrow once-over, from her perfectly straightened hair to the Italian leather flats she’d carried along in her backpack for indoor use. “You have decent shoes, but otherwise? Yeah. You do. No Danish for you, po-po.”

Goose was still debating whether to be offended or amused when the bells at the door jingled. A gust of icy wind sliced through the pie-scented air, and she turned to see Einar saunter into the shop, all wind-tossed curls and behold-me-ladies smirk.

“WELL, IF this isn’t a vision of loveliness,” he said as he helped himself to the stool beside Goose’s. “Good morning, girls.”

“Hey, Einar.” Yarrow went back to filling the display case with a studied offhandedness that had Goose looking sharply in her direction. The kid’s eyes might be elsewhere, but Goose felt her attention lock in on Einar like a lightning strike. She half expected to smell burned ozone. “You flying out this morning?”

“Yep. Any chance I can get one of those Danishes before I go?”

Yarrow plated up one of the beautifully gooey cheese Danishes Goose was starting to desire with an intensity second only to her craving for Rush. What
was
it about this place and her appetites? she wondered as Yarrow slid the pastry under Einar’s nose.

“You,” he announced as he closed his eyes and inhaled buttery Danish fumes, “are an angel.”

Yarrow’s mouth sneered but her eyes melted. “Boys.” She shook her head at Goose. “They’re such simple creatures.”

Einar took a huge bite of Danish. Goose treated herself to a nibble of her perfectly adequate doughnut. “There’s something to be said for simplicity,” he mumbled happily while he chewed. Goose thought of Rush and envied Einar a desire so easily and safely sated.

He flicked his amused gaze to Goose as he touched a napkin to his lips. “So, Agent di Guzman. I imagine it’s pretty clear what I’m doing here. But what brings you to the tea shop at this hour?”

Goose looked at Yarrow, who looked back with lifted brows. “Nothing much. Just, you know, grilling your entire family about your cousin’s more criminal inclinations.”

Einar shot a quick look at Yarrow. “I thought your parents got all the charges against you dropped.”

“They did.” Yarrow held his gaze, steadfastly refusing to look at Goose, though her cheeks pinked and her lips flattened. “I think Agent Smiley Face here is talking about your other cousin.”

Einar turned back to Goose while she made a mental note to have a look at little Yarrow’s record later. Underaged mules were a staple of the illegal import business, and just because Rush wasn’t playing reindeer games on Mishkwa didn’t mean nobody was.

“You’re investigating
Rush
?” he asked, his eyes big and shocked.

“That’s the one.” She gave him a confiding smile, the kind guys like Einar ate up. She made solid eye contact, really leaned into it. “Do you have any insight you’d like to share with the Secret Service regarding the likelihood that Ranger Guthrie might be planning to stab the sitting governor with a flaming pitchfork?”

Einar was still lapping up the eye contact when Lila bustled back through the swinging door from the kitchen with a fat teapot in one hand and a cup-and-saucer combo in the other. She set the pot and the cup down on the counter and said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rush is
not
going to stab anybody.”

“I don’t know, Lila,” Einar said slowly, a wicked gleam dancing in his pretty blue eyes. “He
is
trained for that kind of thing.”

“And all his jokes
are
about shooting people.” Yarrow tipped her head. “To be fair, though, when I say ‘all his jokes,’ I mean the one joke he’s told since I’ve been on-island.” She paused. “And I’m not sure he was entirely aware he was being funny, either.”

“Plus, it wasn’t about pitchforks.” Lila swatted Yarrow’s shoulder and shifted her glare to encompass Einar, too. “This is nothing to laugh about, you two. Your cousin has made tremendous progress these past eighteen months or so.” She turned back to Goose. “Rush is no more dangerous than you or I.”

“Except for the fact that he is.” Einar shrugged at Lila’s exasperated stare. “What? The guy walks around with a loaded handgun in his jacket pocket, Lila. He’s constitutionally incapable of sitting with his back to the door, and he draws down on anybody who happens to catch him off guard.”

“Which you delight in doing.”

“Well. It’s a long winter. Everybody needs a hobby.” A smirk crawled across Einar’s handsome face that Goose understood was meant to be charming and mischievous. The strength of her urge to slap it all the way to the mainland was a sharp reminder that her self-control wasn’t what it used to be. Indulging her impulse to deliver impromptu etiquette lessons to handsome pricks was what had landed her in this pretty mess to begin with.

“You’re just like your mother sometimes,” Lila told him. The laughter died out of Einar’s eyes with an abruptness that had Goose wondering about the accessibility of the Glock in her backpack. “A little empathy wouldn’t go amiss here, Einar.”

Lila turned to Goose. “Rush is a soldier, Agent di Guzman, and as such has a certain facility with the uglier aspects of this world. If we’re safe enough to judge him for it, it’s only because he—and men like him—have battled back the darkness to the point that the rest of us can question its existence.”

“He’s not a soldier anymore, though, is he?” Goose asked.

“Not by profession, no. He left the military almost two years ago.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know what happened exactly, but there was an incident of some sort. He wasn’t physically hurt, but it damaged him all the same. He lost his way, and he came here to find it again. To heal.”

Einar rolled his eyes. “Lila, please. Not the prodigal son thing again.”

Lila shot him a speaking look. “He came
home
. And he’s getting better.” She turned to Goose. “He
is
better. Whatever you’re concerned he might have done, he didn’t.”

“Home.” Einar gave a dismissive snort. “If Mishkwa meant crap to him, he wouldn’t have walked away from it when he was eighteen. He definitely wouldn’t have stayed away for the next twelve years without so much as the occasional postcard. He’s been back on-island for nearly two years, Lila, and you haven’t gotten him to one single service.” Einar shook his head. “Rush would be the first one to tell you you’re giving him too much credit here.”

“I give credit where it’s due,” Lila said softly.

An angry flush stained Einar’s cheekbones. “And withhold it where it’s not, is that it?”

“This isn’t about you, Einar.”

“I’ve earned your trust, Lila. I’ve earned my place here.”

“You have,” she said as Goose wondered what the hell was going on. “I don’t dispute that. But I deserve your trust as well, for my experience if nothing else. And while I’m still the head of this family, you’ll respect my authority.”

“Even if your authority threatens the future of the family?”

She shook her head slowly. “Our financials aren’t our future.”

“Of course they are. This place is a gold mine, Lila, and I don’t understand why you won’t at least consider tapping into it.”

“I’m not going to have this argument again. If you want to turn this island into a theme park, you’ll have to wait until I’m dead and gone.”

“I hope you’re planning to kick the bucket sometime before 2024, then.”

Lila drew back sharply.

“What? That’s years away.”

She continued to stare at him in offended silence until he held up hands. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It was a joke.”

“And not a very good one.”

“Granted. But come on, Lila. Money’s important. Maybe it isn’t everything, but it matters. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to admit that.”

She relented enough to give him a crooked smile so like Rush’s that Goose stared. “Probably later rather than sooner, then.”

Einar leaned over the counter to press a kiss to Lila’s cheek. “Probably.” He zipped up his jacket and threw a cocky grin at Goose and Yarrow. “But hey, it wouldn’t be a week without our usual go-round. I’ll check it off my to-do list.”

“Fly safely,” Lila said.

“Will do.” He scooped up the half Danish still on his plate and sauntered out with the same cocky assurance he’d sauntered in with. Goose watched Lila and Yarrow as their eyes followed him out the door with patient love.

The door jingled shut and Lila turned to Goose.

“Any more questions, Agent di Guzman?”

Yeah
, Goose thought.
What the hell was
that
? Also, do you know your granddaughter has a raging crush on your nephew? And, hey, did you know that nephew is harboring a raging resentment toward the other nephew? And nursing a healthy resentment toward you as well?

And that was just off the top of her head.

But all she said was, “That’ll do for now, I think. Thanks for the doughnut.”

Lila blinked at her, then at Yarrow. “I thought you were going to have the cherry cheese Danish?”

Goose gave Yarrow her biggest, shiniest smile, which the girl met with a flat, brittle indifference. “I was. The doughnut went better with my shoes, though.”

 

TWO DAYS later, Goose had chatted with every last soul on Mishkwa. She’d lost count of how many doors she’d knocked on, how many cups of tea she’d sipped and how many cookies she’d choked down under the guise of common courtesy.

Aside from that first conversation with Rush’s family, the visits had fallen into a predictable pattern. Hello, badge flash, refreshments, chitchat. Nobody claimed close friendship with Rush, or even the friendship of proximity a small, isolated community normally forced, but everybody seemed fond of him.

As well they should, Goose thought as she sipped yet another cup of tea, this time with Bernie and Veronica Samuelsson. The Samuelssons ran what they claimed was the island’s most popular fudge shop. Goose didn’t doubt it. Both short and round, Bernie and Veronica looked like people who knew quality fudge when they saw it.

“So,” Goose said as she nibbled at the half-pound slab they’d pressed on her with the requisite cup of tea, “how long has Ranger Guthrie been killing rabbits for you?”

Bernie scratched his ample stomach and squinted into the middle distance, perhaps at some mental calendar. “Started last summer, yeah, Ronnie?”

Veronica shook her head. “Spring.”

Bernie turned the squint on his wife. “This or last?”

“This.” She wagged her head at Goose. “Rabbits around here are just heck on gardens. And you know we do a decent mail-order fudge business in the winter, but it’s our herbals that keep us afloat.”

“Herbals?”

“Natural remedies. Tinctures. Dietary supplements. Teas.” She pointed her chin at the teacup on Goose’s knee. Goose lifted it for an obliging—and vaguely weedy—sip. “We depend on those gardens. But the rabbits.” Veronica pursed her lips and her jowls waggled sorrowfully. “Merciful heavens. Greedy little things ate a good half of everything we put out.”

“We tried everything,” Bernie said. “Fences, chicken wire, Tabasco, egg whites, little bundles of hair. Even put out cups of beer one time.”

“That was for the slugs.”

“Slugs,” Bernie echoed sagely. Veronica gave him a fond smile.

“Finally we decided to trap ’em.”

“The rabbits?”

Bernie laughed. “Who else? The slugs?”

Veronica chuckled, too. “Not those drunkards.”

Goose forced a smile. Why not? Rush wasn’t here to judge her. “It didn’t go well? The rabbit trapping?”

The Samuelssons sobered abruptly.

“No,” Veronica said.

“What happened?”

“We ordered a bunch of traps—off the Internet, see?” Bernie said. “They were supposed to be no-kill.”

Veronica pressed her lips together. “You should’ve seen the letter I wrote to that company. Gave them a piece of
my
mind, I don’t mind telling you.”

Bernie nodded. “Ronnie does a real good poison-pen letter. Used to do it for money in college.”

“And when you discovered the traps were harming the rabbits?”

Veronica paled and looked away. Bernie drew a breath so deep it rattled in his lungs. “Middle of the night,” he said finally. “Sounds so awful I can’t describe them. Coming from the gardens. Thought maybe some raccoons were fighting, and I went out back to turn the hose on ’em.”

“It wasn’t raccoons?” Goose prompted when Bernie paused.

“No. Half-killed rabbit.” Tears started in his eyes but he blinked them back. “Full moon,” he said. “Plenty of light to see how the trap had broken the thing’s leg near in half.” He swallowed hard. “Rabbit was finishing the job with its teeth when I found it.” His voice wobbled and he cleared his throat. “Should’ve just hit it with a shovel. Tried to, tell you the truth. Couldn’t do it. Didn’t have it in me to kill something that small and defenseless.”