Never Go Home (10 page)

Deb and Kelly
sat in back while Sean started the thirty-foot vessel. I took a seat next to
him. He pulled away, navigating slowly toward the river.

The two p.m.
sun beat down on us from every angle. There was no escaping it. Deb tossed me a
tube of SPF 70 and told me to lather it on.

I did.

It didn’t
matter. The sun still got me.

Sean found a
nice cove for us to fish for a bit. He caught more than I did. I managed to tie
Kelly with two bass.

We moved on
from the spot and stopped a hundred yards from a manatee hole.

Sean jumped
overboard. Kelly followed.

Deb said,
“Going?”

I said,
“Sure.”

We jumped
over together and swam out to meet the other two.

The water was
a good fifteen feet deep and clear enough you could see the bottom. I saw
manatees the size of Buicks gliding beneath us. Their scars were visible
through the crystal water. Years of boats flying by too quickly, nicking and
scarring the gentle beasts had taken its toll. Dad had been heavily involved in
enacting regulations to cut down on the unnecessary deaths from careless
boaters.

I hadn’t
thought about that in years. I found it hard to believe I hadn’t cared either.

We moved
closer to shore. A few manatees followed us over. They swam by slowly, allowing
us plenty of opportunities to reach out and touch them. Whenever a hand touched
their skin, they slowed down. I imagined they enjoyed it.

Kelly smiled
and laughed and splashed and played. Deb looked happy for the first time since
I saw her that morning. Sean seemed relaxed.

I’d forgotten
how intoxicating a day on the water back home could be. The stress rolled off
faster than humidity-induced sweat.

After an hour
we made our way back to the boat and headed toward the dock. The sun hung lower
in the sky now, out over the gulf.

“It’ll be a
great sunset,” Deb said. “Too bad it’s not till eight-thirty or nine.”

I found my
cell and checked the time. It was six p.m. Time had flown.

We reached
the dock and three of us got off. Sean tidied up and joined us five minutes
later. We all piled into the Suburban. The ride home was quick.

Time slowed
when we pulled into the driveway, though.

There were
three patrol cars. One in the driveway, and two on the street. April stood in
front of the house. She ran toward us, stopped, and waved Sean forward. The tires
chirped as he whipped onto the driveway. April directed him to pull to the
side.

The front
door of the house was open. The window to the left had been smashed.

“What’s going
on?” Deb said. She’d opened her door and was half out of the Suburban before Sean
had put it in park.

Sean hopped
out and raced to her side. Both of them swarmed April. They both pelted her
with questions. The woman couldn’t complete a sentence before they asked five
more.

“Stay in here
for a few, OK, kiddo?” I said to Kelly.

She forced a
smile and nodded. She couldn’t hide the concern in her eyes, though.

I hopped out
and walked toward April. She’d already directed Sean and Deb to the front door
where one of her deputies handled the couple.

“I thought
you wanted me to give you a call first?” I said.

She pursed
her lips and shook her head. “One of the neighbors was out walking and heard
glass breaking. She ran home, got her husband. They both came back over in time
to see a guy running away from the house.”

“They get a
good look at him?”

“Only from
the back.”

“And?”

“Hat, jacket,
jeans. Perfect gear for a steamy Florida summer day, huh?”

I said
nothing.

“They yelled
at him, but he didn’t stop. That’s what they tell me. It wasn’t until they got
back home that they called us.”

“What’s missing?”

April took a
deep breath and exhaled. “Nothing that I can tell. We’ll need your brother and
his wife to confirm, of course. The guy tore through the mail, left it
scattered about. In the bedrooms, he dug out the luggage. Smashed out the side
mirror of your brother’s Mercedes.” She pointed at Sean’s car.

I hadn’t
noticed the damage. I wondered if Sean had. He seemed more concerned about the
house.

She arched an
eyebrow. “All kinds of things start happening when Jack Noble comes home, huh?”

“Anywhere I
go, it seems.”

In the light
I made out a few freckles on her cheeks and her nose. Her eyes were the same
crystal blue they had been when she was a child. Her teeth were perfect now.
Her body had filled out in the right places. She was soft where she needed to
be, and tight and toned everywhere else.

“I need to
get them to a hotel for the night,” she said. “You want to hang around here and
I’ll meet you in an hour or so?” She paused a beat. “We can go through the
house together, and then review Jessie’s file.”

“Works for
me.”

I hung back
while she instructed Sean and his family to gather a few belongings and meet
her in front of the house. Ten minutes later, my brother and his family
emerged. They looked scared, frustrated, angry. I could relate to the emotion
of anger.

Sean walked
by me, nodded. He didn’t question what I was doing, or why I wasn’t going with
them. Perhaps he figured I would arrive in a different car, show up later,
something like that. Eventually, he’d figure it out once his emotions settled
down.

They backed
out of the driveway and took the road toward Suncoast. The car disappeared from
sight.

I headed
inside. One of the deputies was a guy I played football with. I couldn’t
remember his name. He didn’t have the same issue.

“Hey, Jack,”
he said. “I heard you were in town.”

“Hey, man,” I
said. It always worked. “Came down for Jessie’s funeral.”

He nodded.
“That’s a tough one, huh? Were you two still close?”

“Hadn’t
talked in over ten years. With some people, that doesn’t matter.”

“I suppose not.”
He turned away, stopped and looked back at me. “Just be careful what you touch.
Boss might want to dust later.”

I ignored his
advice and picked up the phone and hit redial. If whoever did this was stupid,
they might’ve used the phone. An answering service for Sean’s firm picked up. I
placed the phone on the cradle and went to the kitchen.

Nothing
appeared to be disturbed in the room. Pots and pans hung from a rack over the
stove. All the small appliances were in the same place as they’d left them. I opened
the fridge, nothing appeared out of place in there either. I pulled open the
freezer and stood in front of it for a minute.

Something
about the kitchen wouldn’t let me go. I spent a minute staring at the sink.
Nothing jumped out at me. Whatever caused the feeling, I couldn’t place it.

I jogged up
the stairs and checked out my room. The bed was unmade. The sheets had been
tossed in the corner. The closet door was open. Inside, anything that had been
on a shelf or hanger was now strewn about on the floor.

But nothing
seemed to be missing.

I left the
room and went into Sean and Deb’s. It was even more of a mess. Dresser drawers
sat on the floor, upturned. Clothes were everywhere. I opened her jewelry box.
It was filled with necklaces, earrings and rings. Diamonds, gold, gems. None of
it touched. Sean had a couple thousand in cash in his nightstand.

Why go to so
much trouble and not take anything?

The only
answer I could come up with was that they weren’t looking to take
anything
.
Only one thing.

What had Sean
gotten himself into?

When I looked
at it honestly, Sean and I knew little about each other. We spoke once a year
at best. He could have been into any number of activities, legal or not, and I
wouldn’t have a clue. I knew a few people who might be able to tell me. But I
didn’t want anyone to know I was in Florida, much less the United States.

I left their
room and took a glance at Kelly’s. Nothing had been disturbed there. At least
whoever broke in had some sense of moral code.

In all I’d
killed about twenty five minutes checking out the house. I went out front, sat
down on the porch. The sun ducked behind the house, shading the lawn and
driveway. It had cooled off a bit, but there was no breeze and the humidity was
still a killer.

Another
fifteen minutes passed before April pulled up in her patrol car. She got out. I
stood and walked toward her. We met halfway.

“They doing
OK?” I said.

“As good as
you could expect, I suppose,” she said.

I nodded,
said nothing.

“You check it
out?”

“Yeah.”

“Thoughts?”

“Someone was
looking for something, but only that one thing.”

She nodded.
“Question is, did they find it?”

“Hard to
tell.”

“Is it?”

We stared at
each other for a minute.

“Listen,
Jack, I’m not trying to point fingers here or anything, but I’ve heard rumors.”

“Rumors?”

“About you.”

“What about
me?”

“The things
you do.”

“Which are?”

She sighed
and turned away. “Come on, follow me.”

We walked
inside. She dismissed the two men in there. I still didn’t catch the name of
the guy I played football with.

He said, “See
ya around, Jack.”

“You, too,” I
said without making eye contact. I continued toward the living room. Sean had a
wide, deep worn leather couch. I fell back into it.

April closed
the door and joined me. She took a seat in a more contemporary chair across
from me.

We stared at
each other. Neither of us spoke. It became uncomfortable. Was she waiting for
me to spill my guts about my life?

I was about
to get up and go into the kitchen when she broke the silence.

“Did you ever
work for the CIA, Jack?”

I shrugged and
said nothing.

“Don’t brush
me off.”

“There’s a
lot of things I’ve done that I can’t talk about, April. Just how it works. I
never worked
for
the CIA, although I may or may not have been loaned out
to them a time or two.” I paused a beat. “Or three.”

She seemed to
accept the answer for what it was. An admission of guilt without admitting I
was guilty.

“And what
about a secret government agency?”

“I am not at
liberty to discuss the existence or non-existence of any secret government
agencies.” I threw in a smile to derail her a bit.

“Have you
worked as an assassin?”

“Why put
labels on things like that?”

“What kind of
answer is that?”

I rose.
“Look, April, you’re wasting time. Whoever did this, didn’t do it because of
me. No one knows I’m here right now. I flew in from England on a private jet.
Landed at an Air Force base. No customs, passports, computer scans, or anything
like that.”

She sighed
and fell back in her seat. “OK, then, so who did this?”

“What do you
know about my brother?”

“Sean? He’s
well known, well liked. His law firm is taking off. Does a lot in the
community.”

She didn’t
read into my question the way I thought she would. I wondered if she really had
her heart into the job, or if she’d taken it to get her dad to quit.

“Let me
restate that,” I said. “Have you ever heard anything about Sean—”

“No, Jack.
Don’t go there. He’s clean, trust me.”

“How would
you know?”

She got up
and walked past me, toward the kitchen.

I rose and
followed. “You didn’t answer me.”

“I know
because I questioned him already.”

April had
absolved herself. Perhaps she was cut out for her line of work.

We each took
a seat at the kitchen island. The gut feeling that I’d missed something in
there returned. I glanced around the room, looking for something. I didn’t find
it. My fingers bounced nervously against the granite counter top.

“What is it?”
she said.

“What?”

She placed
her hand on mine. My fingers settled down.

“You’re a
wreck,” she said.

“Something
about this room,” I said. “Can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something.
I’ve learned to trust that feeling. It’s always right.”

“Always?” She
lifted a curious eyebrow.

“There’s a
dud here and there.”

She squeezed
my hand and then slid off her stool. For a day out policing, she smelled nice.
She walked behind me, circled around the island and headed toward the fridge.
Her head and her eyes never stopped moving. I doubted she’d find anything. Then
again, it couldn’t hurt to have her look.

“Wonder why
they didn’t disturb anything in here?” she said.

“Me either.
They trashed everything else. What’s so special about the kitchen? It’s like
they knew whatever they were looking for wouldn’t be in here.”

She let the
door to the freezer fall shut. It created a puff of wind that blew her hair off
her shoulders for a second. She turned toward me. Her nose and cheeks were red
from the cold air. She smiled, but I looked past that.

I saw what
I’d been looking for.

“Step aside,” I
said.

Her smile
faded. She narrowed her eyes and said, “What?”

“Just do it,” I
said.

April took one
step to the right and turned halfway. “What is it?”

I hopped off
the stool. We stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the fridge. There were
dozens of magnets on the door. It hadn’t struck me as odd earlier, even though,
as far as I knew, they couldn’t stick to stainless. In the middle of the door
were a bunch of magnetic poetry, words and phrases. Most were spread out into
jumbled meaningless messages. Others said corny things like, “All my love
belongs to you.”