Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (28 page)

I walked back to the living
room and handed it to her as I dropped down on the sofa.  “Here, drink this.” 
I flashed back to Sullivan doing the same for me.

With trembling hands, she
took it and sipped as she stared at the large family portrait above the
mantle.  After she drank half of it, she seemed calmer.  “Thanks for coming.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

She took a deep breath.  “I
stopped by the grocery store.  Not that we have much money to buy groceries.  Anyway,
I put the sacks in the trunk, and as I was getting back into the car, a tall
man in a dark suit was suddenly standing next to me.  He was this close.”  She
held her hand about an inch from her chest.  “I tried to get into the car, but
he held the door and leaned in so that I couldn’t move.”  She covered her mouth
with one hand, tears running down her cheeks. 

After a couple of minutes
she was able to go on.  “I was so scared, Rose.  I’ve never been that scared. 
I didn’t know what he would do.”

“Did he have a scar right
here?” I pointed to the corner of my left eye.

She nodded, her eyes wide. 
“Yeah, he did.  Do you know him?”

Henry The Henchman.  “We’ve
met,” I said.  “So what happened after that?”

“He told me he knew about
Packard’s life insurance policy.  He said his employer would get his money, one
way or another.” 

I guessed this was the
motivation Sullivan was talking about.  I didn’t think he would hurt Packard. 
Probably just trying to scare the crap out of him.  But terrorizing Sheila was
just plain cowardly.  After all, she wasn’t the one who had gotten their family
into this mess.

“What are you going to do?”
I asked.

She sipped more whiskey.  “I
don’t know.  All I can think about is Jordan.  I don’t want him in the middle
of this.”

“Is there anywhere you can
go?  Any family out of town?”

Her fingers fluttered over
her puffy face.  “My sister lives in Florida.”

“Maybe you should go for a
visit.”

“I don’t want to leave
Pack.”  She slouched against the couch and leaned her head back.  I think the
whiskey had kicked in.

“Pack should go with you.”

She looked over at me, her
swollen eyes slightly glazed.  “He has to work.  It’s the only money coming
in.  It doesn’t matter anyway.  He won’t go.  He still thinks if he scrapes
together enough cash, he can win it back.

“I was going to be the first
lady of Huntingford.  I bet I could have made vice president of the Junior
League if I was first lady of Huntingford.”  She quietly talked to herself as
she stared at the olive green curtains framing the windows. 

Sheila had left the
building.  She couldn’t make a rational decision right now if the president of
the Junior League asked her to wrestle in Jello at the next fundraiser.

I patted her leg.  “I’m
going to go.  Call me if you see that man again, okay?”

“I would have worn my new
pink silk hat to the mayoral inauguration.”

It took all my willpower,
but I waited until I got back to my apartment before I called Sullivan.  I
didn’t trust my driving while royally pissed skills.

He answered on the first
ring.  “Yes, Rose?”

“That was cowardly.  I don’t
know why I expected more from you, but I did.”  I paced the small space of my
apartment as I talked to him. 

“Should I pretend to know
what you’re talking about?”

“Sheila, Henry, life
insurance policy.  Ring a bell?”

There was a long pause. 
“Sorry, I don’t have a clue.”

“You ass, you know exactly
what I’m talking about.  I want to make a trade.”

Sullivan sighed.  “I hate to
repeat myself, but you seem to be a slow learner so I’ll say it one more time. 
You.  Don’t.  Have.  What.  I.  Want.”

“Are you trying to piss me
off?”

He chuckled.  “Goodbye,
Rose—”

“I can get the hard drive.”

There was another one of
those long pauses.  “How?”

“Will you trade Axton for
it?”

“Do you really have the hard
drive?  It wasn’t in your apartment the first night we met.”

I gripped the phone so
tight, my fingers tingled.  “You searched my apartment?  You are such an
asshole.”

“Do you have the hard drive
or not?”

It creeped me out to think
of Sullivan riffling through my personal shit.  The next time I saw him, I was
going to punch him right in the face.  “Let’s just say I have access to it.” 

“What about Packard’s end of
the deal?”

“I think you’re the slow learner. 
He doesn’t have it.  Period.”

“Then he’d better get
creative and find it.  When Packard has what he owes me, then we can trade. 
But no one screws me over, Rose.  No one.”  He hung up.

I was scowling at the
receiver when I heard a knock on my door.  I hung up the phone and pulled the
stun gun from my purse.  I had even started taking the darn thing into the
bathroom with me. 

I looked out the peephole
and jerked away from with door like I’d been burned.  My dad was here.

I have three standout
memories of my father.  He taught me how to ride a bike when I was five,
clapping as I rode around our driveway by myself for the first time.  I remember
he hugged me after my role as Wendy in the eighth grade production of
Peter
Pan
, and how proud he looked when I graduated from high school.  For the
most part though, my father was always working.  And even when he was home, he
was holed up in his study.

I thought of him as my mom’s
backup.  Whatever my mom wanted, he enforced.  I think because he loved her,
but mostly just to make his home life easier.  My dad would nod vaguely when
she categorized my sins, pointed out my flaws, or lectured me on what a bitter
disappointment I was, and why, for the love of God, couldn’t I be more like
Jacqueline?

Consequently, I never felt
close to my dad.  He was a shadow in my life.  A ghostly presence that hovered
in the corners of my memories.  Really just a piece of scenery.  And he certainly
never visited my apartment once in the five years I lived here.  I wasn’t even
aware he knew the address.

I tucked the stun gun—or
Sparky, as I had started to think of it—back in my purse, tightened my
ponytail, and opened the door.  “Dad.”

He looked as uncomfortable
as I felt.  “Rosalyn,” he said with a nod.

“Hi.”  After a few awkward seconds,
I stepped aside.  “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes, thank you.”  He
stepped inside and looked around.  “So, this is your apartment?”

I shut the door behind me
and leaned against it.  “Yep.  This is it.”

He nodded the whole time
like a bobble head, his hands shoved into his front pockets.  “Well, this
is…uh.  Dane Harker called and said you’d been vandalized.”

“Someone broke in and stole my
computer.  Dane likes to exaggerate a bit.  Really it was no big deal.”

“It is a big deal.  How did
they get in?”

“I guess my locks were
pretty old.  They’ve been replaced.”

“You had renter’s insurance,
right?” 

“Already got a new
computer.”  I pointed to the computer Eric loaned me, which sat on the floor
next to the futon.  Did I feel guilty for misleading my dad?  Nope.  The last
thing I needed was my dad feeling sorry for me.  Or worse, thinking I was
incapable of taking care of myself and running off to share that news with my
mother.  

“Good,” he said.  He glanced
around the room again.  “You don’t have a table.  Where do you eat?”

I thought about my little
bistro table that had been smashed to splinters.  “I’ve been meaning to get
one.  I’ve just been so busy lately.”

“That’s good.”  He rocked up
on his toes, then back on his heels.

“Would you like to sit
down?”

“Oh,” he said, sounding
surprised, like he’d never heard of this so called sitting before.  “Thank
you.”  He hitched up the legs of his pants and folded himself onto the futon. 
With one hand, he pressed on the mattress.  “This isn’t quite a couch, is it? 
What do you call this?”

“It’s a futon, Dad.”

“Oh, right.  Do you sleep on
it, too?”

I rubbed my neck.  “Yeah,
it’s multifunctional.”

“Huh.”

Having exhausted the
furniture topic we descended into silence once again.

“Would you like something to
drink?”

“It’s after five, so why
not?” he said, brightening up.  “I’ll take a scotch, single malt if you have it. 
Neat.”

“I have water.”

“No, no.  It’s fine.  I’m
fine.”

“Oh, okay.”

This was the most painful conversation
I’d ever had.  I lived in the same house with this man for eighteen years. 
You’d think we’d have something to talk about, for crying out loud.

My eyes darted a glance at
him and then bounced away.  He was staring at the tips of his shiny black
loafers.

“Is there anything I can do
for you, Dad?”

“Oh, yes.”  He looked up at
me expectantly.  “Well, your mother.  You know.  She’s very upset.”

I kept my mouth shut.  This
was his party, not mine 

“Very upset.  She had to
take a Valium.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, good.  That’s good. 
Now just apologize to her and I’m sure this whole thing will blow over.”  He stood.

“Wait, what whole thing?”

“Look, you know I don’t like
to get in the middle of your little…,” he shook his head, “but your mother is
very upset.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Then apologize and all will
be well.”  He smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and walked the three steps to
the door.

“Are you kidding me, Dad?” 
It was a rhetorical question of course, because the man never joked with me in
my life.

He turned, confusion marring
his forehead.  “Kidding?  What do you mean?”

“I mean I have nothing to
apologize for.  She came into my place of employment acting like I was a
homeless person she had to step over on her way to Neiman Marcus and scolded me
like a three-year old.  I am not apologizing.”

My father’s face became
cold, shut down.  “You will apologize, Rosalyn, and you will do so
immediately.  She talked to you like a child because you’re acting like a
child.  From what I understand you were being inappropriately physical with
Dane in the middle of the street.  Your mother was humiliated.”

I flinched.  I felt like I
saw my father’s true character for the first time.  The man was weak.  In
choosing the easy way out, constantly acquiescing to my mother’s demands, he
diminished himself to me.

I looked him in the eye. 
“I’m not apologizing.”

He frowned at me as if I was
speaking Mandarin with a British accent.  “Pardon me?”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“But Rosalyn—”

“And another thing,” I said,
stepping around him to open the door.  “I prefer to be called Rose.”

After he left, I made a
piping hot pot of coffee with an extra scoop of dark brown grounds.  I refused
to think about our conversation, so I called both Roxy and Eric and asked them
to come over. 

Roxy made it over first. 
She shrugged out of a hot pink fuzzy jacket, hanging it on the hook next to the
front door.

I handed her a cup of
coffee, poured one for myself, and curled up on the futon, my feet underneath
me.  “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, I was bored anyway.” 

Eric arrived soon after.  He
stepped inside, pulling off his blue knit hat and coat.  He dropped to the
floor, crossing his legs.  He took the mug of coffee I handed him.  “Thanks,”
he said.  “Okay, what’s going on?”

“We need to brainstorm.  I called
Sullivan again—”

“Goddamn it, Rose.”  Eric
set his coffee cup on the floor next to him and glared at me.

“I wanted to make an
exchange for Axton.”

“Well?” Roxy asked.

“He won’t trade for just the
hard drive.  He wants the money, too.”

Eric rubbed his head.  “I
thought you said Packard was in debt.  Can he get that kind of money?”

“Nope, no way.  I think
Sullivan’s just feeling pissy because of the hard drive debacle.  Nevertheless,
he won’t make a trade.  So…”

Roxy grinned.  “So we break
in.”

Eric’s eyes almost popped
out of his head.  “What?”

“Where is the most likely
place Sullivan would stash Axton?” I asked.  “He owns a ton of properties, but
I was thinking the most likely would either be an abandoned building—”

“Right.”  Eric nodded
slowly.  “He wouldn’t leave him tied up in a working business.  Too risky.”