The House on Mermaid Point (15 page)

Joe topped off their coffees. She watched the subtle play of muscle across his bare chest and arm as he set down the carafe.

“My family’s coming down for the Fourth of July.” He buttered a piece of toast, added jelly. “Everyone’s hoping you’ll be there.” His tone was casual, but she saw the slight tightening of his jaw, the “tell” that this mattered to him. He tried, but she knew he didn’t understand how alien she found it in the bosom of his gregarious Italian family.

“I’m not sure we’ll be off that weekend.” She reached for a piece of toast she had no interest in eating so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“They’re not axe murderers, you know,” he said quietly. “They really like you.”

“And I like them. They’re lovely people.” She carefully buttered the toast. “They couldn’t be nicer. But your mother asked me when I’m going to make an honest man of you.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing the answer to that one myself.” His tone was wry.

“Then your grandmother plucked a hair from my head to use in an ancient family love potion. And your sister threatened to make me a pair of cement overshoes if I hurt you.”

There was a flash of white teeth. “Deena’s watched one too many episodes of
The Sopranos
. We’re Italian but I’m pretty sure the FBI background check confirmed that we’re not ‘connected.’” He took the sagging piece of toast from her hand and set it on her plate. “I’d watch out for Nonna Sofia, though. Her potions are pretty powerful. Now that she’s pushing ninety she sometimes gets confused. I think she once accidentally brought two distant male cousins in Sicily together. Which is something neither of their mothers appreciated.”

His dry delivery made her laugh. “I’m just not a spend-the-weekend-with-a-man’s-family kind of person.”

“Is that right?” he asked. His tone said he didn’t believe her. But then, the FBI didn’t train its agents to fold at the first sign of resistance. Or even the second.

Eager to change the subject, she added cream and sugar to her coffee and then told him that she was thinking about contacting the publisher who’d asked her to write her account of her and Malcolm’s childhood and how it might have led to his crime.

Giraldi didn’t respond.

She looked up. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I saw Malcolm. He, um, sent his regards.”

“Did he?” She hadn’t seen her brother since she’d helped Joe put him behind bars in a correctional facility for the criminally selfish. Where he belonged.

“He’s been offered a significant advance to write his own account. He’s already started.”

She shook her head. He’d stolen everything else. Was he planning to steal this last opportunity to make enough money to get back on her feet? “But I thought criminals weren’t allowed to profit from their crimes.”

“They’re not. But he’s claiming that the advance and any royalties will go to pay back his victims.”

Jesus
. Nicole could only imagine the pittance she, Avery, Maddie, and the hundreds of other victims would end up with. She didn’t believe for a second that his reasons for writing what would certainly be an unflattering portrayal of everyone but him could be remotely altruistic. “You don’t believe that, do you? You don’t believe that his intentions are honorable.”

“No.” Giraldi’s face hardened. In his quest to bring Malcolm to justice he’d seen firsthand the hundreds of families and charitable institutions devastated by Malcolm’s Ponzi scheme. “But there’s no telling what a judge might believe. Or, more to the point, how it might look to a parole review board.”

Avery paced the beach, the phone pressed to her ear, on hold with the network yet again. This time she was not going to hang up until she had Lisa Hogan on the line.

Behind her, roofers clambered up the scaffolding and across the pitched metal roof with the sure-footed grace of mountain goats, wide-brimmed straw hats covering their heads. The roofing company had been referred by Enrico Dante, who had handled Bella Flora’s roof.

The crew had been barged in along with the necessary materials at sunrise, startling an indignant squawk out of their time-challenged rooster. They stage-whispered in accents from countries and islands Avery had never visited; as if anyone might have actually slept through their arrival and deployment.

According to their foreman they would knock off shortly after lunch when the reflective properties of the metal roof would make it possible to fry an egg and any uncovered body parts that came in contact with it. The garage and boathouse roofs would be tackled next—all in all a week’s worth of repairs. As soon as she found and retained a lead carpenter, interior demolition would begin in the main house.

The sun was already beating down mercilessly at nine fifteen
A.M.
as she watched a trio of wading birds, presumably in search of breakfast, duck their bills beneath water so shallow that it would have barely topped their ankles had they had any. She’d lost track of how long she’d been on hold, but she was beginning to wonder if she’d lost the connection.

“The budget is way too high. I can approve maybe half of that.”

Avery felt the rush of adrenaline at the sound of Lisa Hogan’s voice. “This is a network television program,” she said. “The word ‘shoestring’ is nowhere in the title. I can’t possibly renovate three separate structures, a pool with a pavilion, and the grounds on half of what is necessary.” She strode across the beach to the northernmost spit of sand in an effort to lose the shouts of the roofers and the clatter of tools on metal.

“Anyone can throw a lot of money at a project,” Lisa Hogan replied.

Anyone, Avery thought, but them.

“Viewers want to see you all getting your hands dirty. And being inventive. They don’t want to see you standing around while a bunch of subcontractors do everything. If I give you too much money it won’t be anywhere near as interesting.”

“So you don’t think stranding us on an island and cramming us into a houseboat with a single bathroom is interesting enough?”

“If it’s too much for you, Avery, maybe you should get that hunky boyfriend of yours to come down and help.”

Avery bit back the retort that came to mind. Even if Chase were available she was not going to fall into that trap. Calling Lisa Hogan a coldhearted bitch would make Avery feel better, but there was always the chance that it might be construed as a compliment.

“This is not a question of an inability to handle the job,” Avery replied. “Only that the job can’t be done without a realistic amount of money.”

“Well, I’m afraid your contracts don’t include any mention of budget size or veto power. And I wouldn’t want you to forget that you are all under contract to this network.” She paused to let the threat sink in.

The woman had way more ammunition at her disposal than Avery did and she knew it. Avery couldn’t threaten a walkout again; not without approval from the others. Her gaze fixed on the lighthouse that shimmered out in the Atlantic, she drew in a deep breath in an effort to calm down. “So how would you suggest I make up the ridiculous shortfall?”

“I have no idea,” Hogan replied blithely. “Perhaps you could panhandle. Or enter one of those charity fishing tournaments with the big winner’s purse. Or you could go out and rob a bank.” Her tone had turned saccharine sweet. “As long as my crew is there to get the footage, I really don’t care how you manage it.

“And speaking of footage, I want more shots of Dustin Deranian and William Hightower. He looks pretty good for a guy who’s been rehabbed that many times. I especially like the shots of him without his shirt.”

There were shouts out in the channel. A boat slowed as it passed and she saw the glint of camera lenses aimed at the island. She could just make out someone tall and lanky next to someone shorter and rounder. It seemed that Nigel and some of his paparazzi “friends” had chipped in on a boat.

“You’ll have to take that up with your crew.” Avery turned her back on the paparazzi and looked up at the men scampering across the roof. “I’m not in charge of who or what gets shot.” The boat horn sounded, but Avery ignored it. “My concern is the renovation.”

“We’re all concerned with the renovation,” Hogan said. “Particularly completing it on time while providing compelling video. I expect Mermaid Point B and B to be up and running by Labor Day weekend. In fact, I want the series to end with William Hightower greeting and escorting his first guests to their rooms.”

“And the fact that there appears to be an ordinance prohibiting bed-and-breakfasts?” she asked Lisa Hogan.

“I’ve got the network attorneys on it,” she said. “Apparently the fact that Mermaid Point is no longer connected to the mainland puts us in a potentially strong position. And if that fails, William Hightower’s Native American blood could come in handy.”

Avery drew in another deep breath, but she felt a lot closer to hyperventilation than relaxation. “So just to recap, you’re telling me that there’s plenty of money in the budget for attorneys, but not for renovation.” She paused and forged ahead. “And you intentionally chose a location that’s difficult to reach, and where there’s a freeze on new construction and an ordinance against the very thing we’re supposed to be creating.”

“Yes, I believe that sums it up.” Hogan’s voice was tart with amusement. “All you have to do is refurbish those buildings. It’s up to me to keep things interesting.”

•   •   •

Not yet ready to share the bad news, Avery continued to pace the beach, thinking out her next steps. The previous day she’d spoken to Mario Dante, who had been such a big help the summer before when they’d restored the South Beach house for season one of
Do Over
, which was to begin airing the following night.

“I put out the word through the family grapevine,” Mario had said in his accented English. “Roberto is so skilled that he can make the wood sing. Last I heard he was somewhere in the Keys living on a boat.”

There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

Please God,
she prayed silently now.
Send Mario’s cousin the carpenter our way as quickly as possible. And please help me find the money to pay him.

She was still trying to calm down when footsteps sounded on the path.

“We got dizzy watching you pace,” Deirdre said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m working on it.”

“The network?”

She nodded.

Deirdre let out a small, almost ladylike curse. “I understand that you’re in charge of the reno. And I have a pretty clear idea of how much you want to prove yourself. But you’re not in this alone.” She took Avery by the arm and led her to the pavilion where the others waited. “And in my experience multiple brains are almost always better than one.”

“So?” Nicole prompted as Maddie poured Avery a lemonade.

“So,” Avery said, her hands clenched tightly around the glass. “Lisa Hogan’s crunching us on money and time in order to keep things ‘interesting.’”

No one interrupted as she filled them in. “I guess I should have expected this.” Avery shook her head when she’d finished. “But I feel kind of like the general of an invading army whose supply line is stretched too far and too thin. Only there are no local farmers’ fields to forage in.”

“But we do know local farmers.” Maddie topped off her lemonade. “Or semilocal anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Kyra asked.

“I mean, is there any reason we can’t hit up the sponsors who did work in exchange for exposure in Miami?” Maddie asked. “We don’t have a mandate to use all new subs or anything, do we?”

“No.” Avery smiled for the first time that morning. Their contract didn’t particularly protect them; but it didn’t delve into specifics of construction, either.

“That’s good,” Deirdre said. “That means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We just have to find some local spokes.”

“Miami’s only an hour away,” Nicole chimed in. “That’s practically local.”

Maddie passed the lemonade pitcher around. “So we could hit up Superior Pools, Randolph Plumbing, Walls of Windows, and East Coast Electric, right?”

Avery looked at Maddie. “How did you remember all of our Miami sponsors just like that?” Avery had the files from their work on the Millicent, but she hadn’t expected anyone else to remember them.

Maddie shrugged. “I think I put them all together last year when I was trying to learn how to enter contacts in my iPhone. I came across them yesterday by mistake when I was trying to send a text to Andrew.”

“Why don’t you let Nicole and me split up the list?” Deirdre suggested. “We’ll get on the phone this afternoon and remind them all about the first episode tomorrow night and set up appointments.

“When we go in to see them, we can hit up the Miami showrooms, too. I was planning to place orders, but I can call in some favors while we’re there. I don’t see why we couldn’t get furniture and accessories in exchange for on-screen credit.”

“I bet when they hear whose private island they’ll be working on and providing furnishings for it’ll be an even easier sell.” Nicole looked pleased.

“Then maybe I could contact resale shops between here and Miami to see if we can sell or at least place the furniture William’s getting rid of on consignment.” Maddie sipped thoughtfully on her lemonade.

“That’s a great idea.” Avery felt a lightening in her chest as the ideas came one after the other.

Kyra lowered her camera. “Maybe he’s got some memorabilia or old posters or something that we could offer on eBay. I could set up an account online and post photos and video to help sell them.”

Deirdre narrowed her gaze as she looked around the pavilion. “I really want to put in a new outdoor kitchen. If we could get William to agree to cook in it on camera, I bet we could get it for free.”

They were all looking at Maddie now. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I don’t think he does much more than fry and grill fish.”

“It doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal. We’ll stage it.” Deirdre’s voice hummed with excitement. “We just need his famous self using their products. William Hightower is still a bigger name to most than Max Golden.”

“Gax!” Dustin chimed in.

“This just might work.” Avery didn’t want to sound too excited, but she could feel her spirits lifting. “We’ll all reach out and see what we can make happen. Thomas will be here to watch the first episode. I’ll explain our budget issues to both of the Hightowers then and ask for their help attracting sponsors.”

Avery reached for her glass of lemonade. “Maybe we should feed them one last home-cooked meal before we rip out the kitchen. Then hopefully the episode will impress William enough to get him completely on board.”