Mischief 24/7 (9 page)

“Why didn’t you call me, Jade?”

“Of course, everyone went crazy over how terrific the boathouses looked, and the next thing you knew, they were getting repaired, and then came the National Historical Preservation thing, and now the lights are all that new LED type, and they can glow different colors depending on the time of year. You know, like red and green for Christmas and… and I didn’t know what to say to you.”

Court put his hand on her arm, gently slowing them both to a walk as they neared the line of cars parked along Kelly Drive. “ ‘Hello’ would have been good for starters.”

Jade knew he was right. She’d been stupid. “Hello for starters,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Remember me? I’m your one-night stand.”

They’d reached her car, which Court seemed
to know, and he turned her around to face him. “Insult me if you feel the need, but don’t do that to yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Court. But you could have called, too, you know? The phone works both ways.”

He let go of her arm. “I did call. Several times. Didn’t the guy who answered give you my messages?”

Jade fumbled in her runner’s wallet for her car key. The man who answered? There was only one man at the Sunshine Detective Agency; it was a father/daughter operation. “No… no, I guess he didn’t. I… I’ve been out of the office a lot the past few days. So, uh, how did you track me down?”

Court grinned, and Jade’s stomach did another one of those little flips. “Why Ms. Sunshine, do you really expect me to divulge professional secrets?”

“You’re not a private investigator.”

“No, but you are. So how would you have done it?”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Sam. You asked Sam. He knows where I live. He knows I go running here three mornings a week.”

Court held open the car door for her. “Very good. Now, where are we going for this power breakfast we’re to have?”

“I’ve got a job in the Kensington area today, so it may as well be the Aramingo Diner. We can meet there.”

“Sorry, you lost me. Where’s the Aramingo Diner?”

Jade couldn’t help teasing him. “Why, on Aramingo Avenue, of course.”

“Not funny.” He pointed down the street. “That’s mine, the black SUV between the other two black SUVs. Give me a minute, and I’ll follow you.”

She watched him as he jogged along the street on the way to his vehicle. If she got in her car now and simply drove away… he’d simply come after her. Besides, she had a phone call to make.

Slipping behind the wheel, she opened the glove compartment and pulled out her cell phone, hit a number on her speed dial. “Teddy? Forget meeting for breakfast, okay? I’ve decided I’m going to head straight from Boathouse Row to Kensington. Oh, and while I’ve got you, do you want to tell me why you didn’t give me Court Becket’s messages?”

The voice on the other end of the line was bluff, affectionate and laced with guile.
“Court
Becket? Don’t know the name, honey, sorry. I thought it was Sam Becket, Jolie’s friend. I told him she wasn’t here. So that wasn’t Sam Becket? Ah, sweetheart, your Teddy’s getting old. Soon I’ll be walking around with one of those hearing-aid things and saying, ‘Hey, what’d you say, sonny?’ Like those mopheads said, will you still love me when I’m all of sixty-four?”

“Those mopheads were the Beatles, which you should know better than me, and close enough,”

Jade said, fitting the earpiece of the cell phone into her ear as she pulled out into morning traffic, having checked to see that Court was behind her now. “Don’t do that again, Teddy. Don’t screen my calls or make my decisions for me. I’m not Jolie. Don’t try to pull things behind my back.”

“Now I don’t know what you’re talking about, little girl,” Teddy soothed back at her, “although another father might be crushed to think his favorite daughter was thinking bad things about him or his motives. I love my girls.”

“I know you do, Teddy. I’m sorry. What are you doing?”

“Me? I’ve started a big pot of ham-and-cabbage soup for us to celebrate the New Year, sweetheart, so why don’t you swing by Millie’s on your way home and bring us some of her lovely crusty sourdough rolls. Millie’s getting pretty sour herself in her advancing years, but those rolls are still calling to me. Still, give her my love. She’d be crushed if you didn’t, and it might earn us a baker’s dozen. Where did you say you’re off to now?”

“The insurance claim in Kensington,” Jade said, giving up the battle; clearly she wasn’t going to get any more out of Teddy about the phone calls from Court. “I’m getting into some major traffic now, Teddy, so I’ll check in with you later.”

Jade glanced into her rearview mirror so that she could see if Court was still behind her—and so that she didn’t have to think about her conversation
with Teddy. His favorite daughter? No, she didn’t believe that one.

Jolie thought the sun rose and set on Teddy. Teddy thought the sun rose and set on Jessica. And Jade? Jade knew where she fell into the mix.

She had been designated, not the talented dreamer or the delightful baby of the family, but the reliable one, the one who just kept putting one foot in front of the other no matter what. Water rolled off her back, Teddy always said. Nothing fazed her, nothing stopped her, she wasn’t at all silly or sensitive. She knew her duty and she did it.

So far, Jade had been fine with that. She’d accepted her place in the Sunshine family after her mother ran off, even took secret pride in the idea that she was indispensable to all of them, Teddy most especially.

She checked the rearview mirror again to make sure Court Becket was still back there.

She didn’t want to lose him.

“I
DIDN’T KNOW
you ate home fries, Jade, let alone knew how to cook them,” Court said, aiming a loaded fork toward his mouth once more. “Eggs, over light, just the way I like them, bacon, home fries, wheat toast with blueberry jam. What’s the occasion?”

Jade sat across from Court at a small table on the flagstone terrace, the morning sun already warning that the day would be unusually warm for late June. “It’s going to be a long day. I thought we should fill up when we can,” she told him, but she didn’t look at him as she said it.

Court let it go. He remembered the last time they’d had a breakfast like this one, but he was smart enough not to go down memory lane with Jade this morning. So he’d push at her, yes, but in another way. “A long day spent cooling your heels, waiting for Brainard’s campaign
appearance tonight, I agree. Because we are waiting for that, and for Matt and Jessica, correct?”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing, Court. I thought we could go back to the car wash and talk to Jermayne one more time. You don’t have to go with me. Oh, and Jess texted me at some point in the middle of the night, although I didn’t see it until this morning. She wants us to pick up Ernesto and his luggage and bring him back here. I’m guessing Matt’s afraid his protégé might find a way to get himself in trouble again if he stays home. Oh, and I’m to make sure Ernesto brings the pets with him. I guess Matt bought another fish to keep Mortimer company. So say goodbye to this empty house, because it’s going to fill up again tonight. Jess, Matt, Ernesto, goldfish.”

“I don’t mind. I like Ernesto. Kids like him always have a hard time, no matter where they live. He’s simply too smart to make his peers comfortable. I made some calls to a few friends the other day, by the way, and I’ve set up a tour of some FBI facilities in Virginia later this summer. After all, if Ernesto is going to run the place someday, he may as well learn where the men’s room is, right?”

Jade smiled at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “That was very nice of you, Court. Ernesto will be over the moon.”

Court finished his last strip of bacon. “I don’t like that the kid got mixed up in what’s going on here, and neither does Matt. That wasn’t a fun ride we all took him on last week. I thought we should thank him in some way.”

“I’d say you found the right gift,” Jade said, picking up her plate and coffee cup. “I’ll clean this up for Mrs. Archer and then meet you outside, all right? Five minutes?”

“Sounds good. Hang on,” Court said as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the number. “Morgan Eastwood. I was wondering when we’d hear from her again. I wonder if she’s back in England now.”

“Find out,” Jade said, turning for the door to the house. “And say hello for me.”

Court watched Jade walk away, shaking his head at the sizzle and crackle of tension that surrounded his uptight ex-wife almost visibly, and then hit a button on the cell phone and put it to his ear. “Good morning, Morgan, or good afternoon, depending on where you are. Any luck with solving our ancestor’s mystery? What was that? We’ve got a bad connect—Oh, from the plane? All right, certainly. No, no problem. We’ve nothing planned for the day and were looking for ways to kill time, so this is perfect. Give me the
time again. Yes, I’m familiar with the terminal. We’ll see you then.”

He snapped the cell phone closed and slipped it back into his pocket before picking up his own dishes and heading for the kitchen.

This
was going to be interesting.

“Jade? Morgan’s landing here later this morning and would like us to visit with her between plane changes. Just for an hour or so. She’s also somehow arranged for a private meeting area just outside the security check-in. I said we were fine with that.”

Jade turned away from the sink, where Mrs. Archer was rinsing the dishes. “Excuse me? You told her what?”

Court smiled, knowing he’d just thrown down a gauntlet, knowing Jade knew that, as well. “I knew you’d like that. You did speak with her on the phone, and she has invited all of us to come to Becket Hall for this treasure-hunt idea of hers. And we do have the day to kill, right?”

Jade looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Archer, and then headed out of the kitchen. “You’re half-right. I could kill
something,
” she muttered as she passed Court.

“You know, Jade, I don’t understand why our marriage didn’t work. We get along so well.”

“Very funny,” she said as they entered the living room, and then she looked down at her navy slacks and green-and-white-striped knit top. “I dressed for helping Ernesto with the fish and for the car wash. How the hell do I dress to meet your English cousin?”

She was so seldom flustered, or at least she usually didn’t let her guard down enough to let anyone, most especially him, see that she was flustered. “Oh, nothing fancy, Jade. A… What do they call those sweaters they wear? I’ve got it, a twinset. A nice twinset and pearls, and maybe white gloves? And you don’t shake hands, you curtsy.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “And maybe, if I ask her nicely, she’ll agree to order one of her henchmen to chop off your head. Then I could carry it with me everywhere in a wicker basket, like Sir Walter Raleigh’s widow did. Seriously, Court, I don’t know that I’m up to… socializing right now. Actually, the timing couldn’t be worse, and you know it.”

“Not really, Jade. You were looking for a way to fill the hours, and now we’ve got one. Granted, I could have thought of another way, one that didn’t include leaving this house, but since I know that isn’t going to happen, why not go out to the airport and say hello to Cousin Morgan?”

“All right, I give up. But let’s leave now, so
we have time to talk to Jermayne before we head out there.”

“Now as in right now? You’re not going to change first?”

“You said I looked fine the way I am,” Jade said, putting a hand to her throat as if checking for the string of pearls that wasn’t there.

“You do. It’s just nice when you let the female side out once in a while.”

Jade went over to the coffee table and picked up her shoulder bag. “Are you insinuating now that I try to act like a man?”

“A man? Never that, trust me. I know you’re all woman. It’s just that sometimes I think you try to forget that.”

“And try to think I’m a man.”

“No, sweetheart. And try to think you’re a machine. All performance, with no feelings, no desires, no wants and needs of its own.”

“Damn it, Court, I don’t—”

He held up his hands in surrender. “You don’t need this now. I remember. When will you need it, Jade? Wasn’t that phone call last night enough for you? When will you admit to needing anything? Or anyone?”

“When this is over. I’ve told you that, Court,” Jade said, blinking rapidly. “I’m not a machine.

When this is over, when Teddy’s cleared and can rest in peace, I want my own life.”

“Did you hear what you just said, sweetheart?” She winced. “Back. I meant I want my own life
back.
Oh, hell, don’t look at me like that. When you’re ready, I’ll be outside.”

Court watched her head toward the foyer. “You’re beginning to figure it out, Jade, sweetheart, aren’t you?” he said quietly, shaking his head. “You’re finally starting to see Jade, and not just the reflection of Teddy’s vision of you, the Jade he tried so selfishly to build.”

“S
O TELL ME
exactly what you hope to see here,” Court said as he sat in the passenger seat of her three year-old compact. They were halfway down the street from the brick row house with the bright red
Go Phillies
flag hanging out front, over the sidewalk.

Jade had been wondering if she didn’t smell like a person who had just run four miles, and why she’d agreed to allow Court to join her on the job. what? Oh, what am I hoping to see? Maude Landers doing cartwheels down her front steps and on her way to the corner bar for a wake-up bourbon on the rocks, I suppose. That would be nice and easy. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened so far.”

“So far?” He motioned to the camera resting in her lap. “How long have you been tailing this woman?”

“This is it, last day of the year, last day on this job. One more look-see and we report to the insurance company that Maude is just what
she says she is. Permanently disabled. Teddy found out she’s suing her employer for five million.”

“Teddy. That would be your father, correct? Why do you call him Teddy, if I might ask?”