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  For now, she’d have to be happy with being an officially hired private detective.

  A contented shiver ran down her spine.

  Time to go and detect!

  Feeling cool, she tilted her head back to capture the last drop of lemonade. The ice stuck to the bottom of the glass gave way and slid down to hit her in the nose. She righted the glass, and dabbed her wet face with a napkin as nonchalantly as possible.

  I’m sure that happened to Sherlock Holmes all the time.

  Charlotte stood. “Gloria, before I look into this for you, I need you to make me a promise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If I find him, safe and sound, sitting on a porch somewhere with his wife, you have to promise me you won’t do anything horrible to him.”

  Gloria’s eyes bulged before she caught herself and cleared her countenance of all emotion. “Of course not.”

  Liar. But I won’t call her on it. Better to live to fight another day...and earn a little money.

  “Good.” Charlotte put her napkin on the table. As she turned to leave, Gloria grabbed her hand.

  “If he has a wife, you’ll still tell me where he lives, right?”

  Chapter Five

  “I made you corn casserole.”

  Charlotte had barely stepped from the Volkswagen when Mariska thrust a bowl covered in painted roosters at her.

  Charlotte cringed. She loved her adoptive mother’s corn casserole, but the ingredients read like a magazine article entitled “Ten Things You Should Avoid if You’re at Risk for Heart Disease.”

  When the Pineapple Port fifty-five plus community took her in after the death of her grandmother, someone should have warned her that accepting the offer meant a lifetime of sugary, fat-filled treats flying at her face like mosquitos at a summer picnic. Swat away the corn casserole and she’d be blindsided by a buy-one-get-one-free Whitman Sampler chocolate box.

  “Every time you give me one of these casseroles I gain ten pounds.” Charlotte heard a door slam and Mariska’s best friend, Darla, appeared, chewing something as she approached. The woman’s tongue stuffed the food to one side of her mouth to make room for talking. “You’ll only gain nine pounds this time because I stole a spoonful or two.”

  Mariska lifted the lid on her dish. The surface of the casserole looked as though a miniature pony had clomped across it, leaving spoon-sized divots in its wake.

  Mariska scowled at Darla, who shrugged and attempted to pick a piece of corn from her teeth with her pinky nail.

  Charlotte accepted the dish. “Thank you. And thank you for your car again. I swear I’m going to get one of my own soon.”

  Mariska smiled. “No problem. You can’t keep my car but you can keep my dish.”

  Charlotte checked the bowl to be sure it was the one she thought it was. “Your rooster dish? I’d never dream of it.”

  Mariska’s eyes filled with pity, as if Charlotte had been trapped on a desert isle and lost touch with the rest of the world. “I’m into sea turtles now.”

  “Oh, of course. Duh.”

  “How did your meeting go?” asked Darla.

  “Good. Missing person, maybe. You’ll never guess who hired me.”

  Mariska didn’t let a moment pass. “The FBI?”

  Charlotte’s brow knit. “Why would the FBI hire me?”

  “I don’t know…that’s who finds missing persons and you said guess so it seemed like a pretty good guess.”

  “Ah, well, no, not the FBI; I don’t think I’m on their outsourcing radar yet. It was Gloria.”

  Darla’s eyes grew wide. “Gloria who used to live here?”

  “The same. Seems she was this close to meeting an eligible bachelor and he went missing.”

  “Went running is more like it,” muttered Darla.

  Charlotte chuckled. “I have to admit he does seem interesting. He was sending her messages written on his t-shirts.”

  Mariska and Darla’s jaws both dropped as they said a single word in unison.

  “Ryan.”

  Charlotte stared in wonder at their reaction. “You know him?”

  “Ryan Flannigan. Right? Flannigan?” Mariska looked to Darla for confirmation.

  Darla nodded. “Flannigan. Or O’Flanahan... something like that. He lived here years ago.”

  “How do you know it’s him? Did he use the same trick to meet women here?”

  Mariska nodded. “He was a piece of work.”

  Darla’s expression mimicked Mariska’s disapproval. “He caught it coming upstream and upgraded.”

  Charlotte’s lip snarled. “You just made me imagine a naked old man swimming up a river to spawn.”

  Darla took a seat on the steps of Mariska’s front door, collapsing to the cement with a grunt. “His unmarried son, Craig, died and all his money went to Ryan.”

  “So that’s what you meant by upstream? He inherited his child’s money instead of vice versa?”

  Darla nodded.

  Charlotte shook her head in wonder. “Someone needs to create an Urban Dictionary for retiree slang.”

  “His son Craig made a bunch of money in Silicone Valley,” said Mariska.

  Charlotte wanted to let Mariska’s mispronunciation slide, but she heard the correction leap from her lips before she could stop it.

  “Silicon Valley.”

  Mariska nodded. “Right. Where they make all the implants.”

  “Lot of money in implants,” agreed Darla. “How many strippers do you think there are in the world?”

  “And every one of them needs two,” added Mariska.

  Charlotte could feel the conversation slipping away from her. “No, it’s Silicon Valley. That’s where all the big Internet and software companies are in California. They don’t make silicone breast implants there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Charlotte found herself wondering. “Now that you mention it...I don’t know. I don’t think they even make silicone implants anymore. But I know implants aren’t what made Silicon Valley famous.”

  Mariska shrugged. Clearly, she disagreed.

  Darla mumbled from her spot on the step. “Let’s say there are five hundred thousand strippers, at two boobs each over twenty years...”

  Charlotte decided to move on before she lost the ladies to complicated boob math. “How did Ryan’s son die?”

  “I don’t remember. I just remember something was fishy about it,” said Darla.

  “Fishy as in Ryan had something to do with killing his own son?”

  Both women shrugged.

  “Okay. But we do know his son died, he inherited money and then moved to the beach, right?”

  Darla nodded. “After bonking half the women in Pineapple Port.”

  “Not me,” said Mariska.

  Darla grew cross. “Well not me, either. You know who I mean.”

  Charlotte found her curiosity piqued. “Who?”

  Darla shrugged. “Cathy. And Pris I think.”

  Mariska nodded.

  Charlotte arched an eyebrow. “That’s two people.”

  Darla and Mariska nodded in unison and Charlotte weighed the pros and cons of questioning the ladies’ math again. “Two people aren’t half of Pineapple Port.”

  Darla rocked back and forth in preparation to stand. “It’s the principle.”

  Mariska agreed. “It’s how he went about it.”

  “With confidence?”

  Darla and Mariska both scoffed. “He was too good looking, that one,” added Darla between grunts as she stood. “Him and his fancy cowlick—”

  “Got it. Well, you’ve given me my first leads, anyway. I know his name is Ryan Flannigan or O’Flanahan—”

  “Or Callahan,” suggested Darla.

  Charlotte grimaced. “So what you’re really saying is it could be anything Irish.”

  Mariska nodded. “O’Callahan sounds right. He was from Boston.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Shocker. I’ll check with Penny and see if she has reco
rds for where he moved. Thank you.”

  She crossed the street for home, pausing when she heard Mariska calling.

  “Do you think you should warn Gloria about Ryan?”

  Charlotte turned. “Don’t you mean shouldn’t we warn him?”

  Darla and Mariska cackled.

  Chapter Six

  “Whyja have to wear that shirt?”

  Dallas took a step back and rubbed his knuckles.

  Ryan Finnegan spat blood and peered down at his white tee, now splattered with red. Through the eye that hadn’t swollen shut, he could see his shirt said, Please?

  The message had been for a woman he passed walking on the Riverwalk every day. She’d probably never see it now. Worse, he’d never know her response to the question he’d so painstakingly asked her by writing a word per day on his chest.

  Ryan lifted his head. “It’s a long story.” He tried to smile but the act made his face hurt. On the upside, his shoulders had gone numb. They’d tied his hands behind his back, causing his shoulders to burn. Now, if asked, he’d have to say his right cheek hurt more than any of his other body parts. Dallas was a lefty.

  “It’s just weird hittin’ a dude with Please? on his chest. I already feel weird about you bein’ so old.” Out of breath, Dallas collapsed onto a chair opposite Ryan’s.

  Ryan guessed the boy was in his early twenties. Dallas looked like a lot of kids in Florida—impossibly thin, scruffy hair, drawers too big and held up by a thick belt, an apparent dentist phobia. Ryan called them “Espos” because they all looked like one of his son Craig’s friends growing up. His name had been Espo.

  Ryan’s head swam. In his mind’s eye he could see Craig and Espo playing soccer in his backyard.

  What kind of name is Espo, anyway? I never thought about it. Nickname, probably. Short for Esposito?

  “Hey, you hear me?”

  Ryan snapped back to the present to find Dallas slapping his knee in an attempt to draw his attention back to the beating already in progress.

  “What’s that?” asked Ryan.

  “I said, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doin’ followin’ our guys so I can quit beatin’ on ya? You know this is just gonna get worse.”

  “I told you. I only talk to the big man.”

  Dallas sighed. “Sheeeet, Ryan. You’re too old for me to be doin’ this.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So why don’t ya talk?”

  “I told you, I only talk to—”

  Dallas waved him silent. “Yeah, yeah.” Dallas turned his head and snorted in a way that led Ryan to believe the boy had something seriously wrong with his sinuses. Dallas spat something and fished in his pocket for a cigarette.

  “Those cigarettes are going to kill you.”

  Dallas grinned. “You’re funny, tellin’ me I’m gonna die. You’re the one tied to a chair.”

  He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it as Ryan eyed the tattoos on the boy’s knuckles with his one good eye.

  Dallas caught him staring. He stood, dropped the lighter back into the pocket of his baggy pants and held up his fists so Ryan could read the ink on the back of his knuckles. Each digit displayed a single letter, eight in total. The four letters on each hand created two words.

  Ryan read the words aloud. “Your Dead.”

  Dallas nodded. “See? That’s what I’m sayin’”

  Ryan’s brow knit, with some accompanying pain around his right eye socket. “What about my dead?”

  “Your what?”

  “Your knuckles are inquiring about my dead. If you’re implying I’m about to be dead, it’s Y-O-U apostrophe R-E, Dead. You need two more fingers on your right hand if you want to spell it right.”

  Dallas reversed his fists to read his knuckles, scowling before lowering his hands to his sides. “I know. It just didn’t fit that way. I only got four fingers on each hand. If you don’t count thumbs.”

  “Mm hm.”

  Dallas’s eyes narrowed and he poked a finger in Ryan’s direction. “You know if you don’t talk soon, they’re gonna bring in the woman to deal with you.”

  Ryan felt a cold chill run down his spine. He’d spent a lot of time making small talk with the boys on the corners over the last week. One of their favorite stories revolved around a female killer. Rumor had it their boss’s business had recently tripled thanks to an assassin he’d brought in to wipe out the competition.

  “The Rubia? She’s real?”

  Dallas nodded. “I think I saw her once.”

  Ryan recalled the most terrifying rumor he’d heard. A man had opened his front door to find a Christmas wreath made of human fingers hanging on his door, each arranged neatly, side by side in a circle. The rings on the fingers served both to identify the digits’ owners and add a sparkly, festive air.

  The woman had made the wreath with what was left of the man’s underbosses.

  He had to ask. “What about the wreath?”

  Dallas whistled. “Yep. I heard that one. Saw a photo, too. Freakin’ crazy. That lady is no joke.”

  Ryan swallowed, the metallic taste of his own blood heavy on his tongue.

  In hindsight, my plan may have been ill-advised.

  He heard the sound of heels clicking in the hallway outside the room and the door opened. A blonde woman poked her head inside.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  Ryan watched the boy pale. “The guy Louis wanted me to get for him.”

  The woman’s gaze settled on Ryan.

  She looked familiar. It was hard to tell through his swollen eye, but there was definitely something familiar about her. He’d seen her before.

  He could tell who Dallas thought she was.

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a flash of recognition ripple across her expression, and then The Rubia was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Charlotte held her dish of corn casserole high and away from Abby’s flaring nose as she tucked it into her fridge. The soft-coated Wheaton terrier liked corn casserole as much as she did and precautions had to be made.

  She knew she wasn’t much better than the dog at restraint, and made a mental note to devise an eating plan—how much corn heaven she’d allow herself to devour per day.

  Maybe I can draw a grid on the bowl with pretzel sticks and limit myself to one quadrant per day...

  Mmm. Strips.

  I could use bacon.

  Grabbing Abby’s leash from the hook by the door, Charlotte took the dog for a bathroom break in order to put some distance between herself and the casserole. While planning forced moderation, she’d managed to mentally add bacon to the cholesterol nightmare already taunting her. Time to run away before she dropped her face into the bowl like it was a feedbag.

  It was late November and a cool seventy-five degrees—nice temperature in which to walk the dog and not have to wring sweat from her clothes upon her return. Even Abby appeared to have an extra spring in her step.

  A few streets down from her own, Charlotte heard shouting and spotted a man arguing with a woman in front of a recently vacated home. It didn’t take long to identify the arguers. Penny, Pineapple Port’s owner, raised her bony arm in the air to punctuate a point. Penny’s long-suffering community foreman, Roberto, raised his hands in response, marching toward his truck, reeling off his own complaints in Spanish. Hopping in the community’s maintenance truck, he slammed the door and drove off with a screech of tires.

  “You’ll never work here again!” Penny shrieked after him.

  “Trouble?”

  Penny turned, her hand on her chest.

  “Charlotte! Why would you sneak up on me like that? You could have scared me to death.”

  “I didn’t sneak up on you. You just didn’t hear me with all the screaming going on.”

  Penny motioned to a second truck parked in the driveway. “Lazy man. He filled the truck for me and then refused to drive it to the pawn shop.”

  Charlotte perked. “Declan’s
pawn shop?”

  “Hock o’Bell.”

  “Right. That’s Declan’s.”

  “Whatever.”

  Charlotte scowled. “Declan. My boyfriend. You’ve met him like a dozen times.”

  Penny waved the comment away with the flick of a skeletal wrist. “I can’t drive this truck. It’s too big.”

  Charlotte eyed the open-bed pickup. It was smaller than Penny’s SUV, but she knew that argument would get her nowhere. “Why didn’t you have Declan come pick it up?”

  “He wanted to charge me a hundred dollars.”

  “How much did Roberto charge you?”

  “Charge me? Nothing. He works for me.” She scoffed and stared in the direction Roberto had sped. “Used to work for me.”

  If her beady eyes had lasers, Roberto’s truck would have exploded.

  Charlotte tried not to laugh. Penny threatened to fire Roberto on a daily basis. She was about to offer her goodbyes and continue her walk when the amount of furniture in the bed of the second truck still sitting in the driveway drew her attention.

  “Did you say Roberto moved all that?”

  Penny nodded. “It took him forever.”

  “By himself?”

  “I was here to supervise. Up until he said he had to have lunch.” She waggled her index and middle fingers like twitchy bunny ears to enact air quotes around the word lunch, as if an afternoon meal was a concept Roberto had made up to annoy her.

  “Right. Tell you what...” Charlotte slowed, worried she was about to make a mistake. She understood Penny would take advantage of any kindness offered, but she also knew asking for a favor would be easier if Penny felt as if she’d won something in the deal.

  “I’ll drive it to Declan’s.”

  Penny hoisted an eyebrow. “That’s lovely, but I need it taken to the Hock o’Bell.”

  “That is Declan’s.”

  “Hm. If you say so.”

  Penny turned to leave and Charlotte reached out to touch her arm. It reminded her of handling a turkey wing on Thanksgiving.

  “Wait, I need some information from you first.”

  Penny felt the pocket of her shorts. “Right. I have the address of the pawn shop written down here somewhere—”