“Maybe she wrote diaries or something.”
Savannah gasped. “You’re a genius! There is a treasure trove of old family papers in the storeroom where I found my great-grandfather’s journals. Maybe Mom left diaries there.”
It was worth exploring. She couldn’t pinpoint why the truth about her mother mattered after all these years, but maybe it was at the root of the vendetta between their two families.
Hez’s phone buzzed and a text appeared.Meet me in five minutes at the Seabreeze.
He frowned. The Seabreeze Saloon had been a favorite local watering hole ever since he discovered it while courting Savannah a decade ago. Not a safe place for a recovering alcoholic like him to visit.
The sender of the text also wasn’t reassuring: Martine Dubois. Hez knew her from law school and they’d dated briefly before he met Savannah. Martine was smart, funny, and built like a swimsuit model, with almond-shaped brown eyes from her mother, a French-Vietnamese Parisian model. Hez and Martine stayed on friendly terms even though they’d occasionally crossed swords in court, but Hez had broken up with her for very good reasons. And Savannah turned into a porcupine the minute Martine’s name was mentioned. It might be best to keep his contact with Martine to himself and not rile Savannah.
What’s up?He texted back.
Tell you in person.
If he was going to meet her in person, he preferred to do it on more comfortable turf. And few places were more comfortable than the café below his condo.How about Petit Charms? It’s closer.
Not safe.Her ellipsis appeared, disappeared, then reappeared.Hurry.
His frown deepened and his stomach muscles tensed. Martine was representing an anonymous client who had been feeding Hez crucial clues about Hornbrook. Could she have more news? He didn’t trust her—at all—but he needed the nuggets of information she gave him.
He clipped his Glock holster to his belt and changed into a loose-fitting Birmingham Barons jersey that hid the gun. The Seabreeze was two blocks down the street from Hez’s condo, where he’d been staying for the past two nights. Ralph Mossberg, the TGU architecture professor who had built the house he and Savannah bought, had apparently done his own electrical and plumbing work—which Hez discovered after a wet spot appeared on the kitchen ceiling and the power went out in half the house. Hez knew better than to try to fix either problem on his own, so he shut off the power and water and called an electrician and plumber he trusted—both of whom were tied up for several days.
The Seabreeze was a two-minute stroll away by street sidewalk, but Hez decided to walk along the beach instead. If Martine was right about Petit Charms not being safe, there was a good chance the street in front of it wasn’t either.
He left the condo, painfully aware of the clanging his feet made on the steel steps. But once he reached the beach, only the murmur of waves and the distant strains of jazz from the French Quarter reached his ears. Clouds cloaked the moon and stars, but windows cast long streams of light over sand and seagrass. Hez stayed in the shadows as much as possible, alert for any movement.
He relaxed a little when he reached Pelican Harbor’s boardwalk. The busy strip of restaurants, cafés, bars, and shopsflanked the old Bayfront Inn and opened onto a wide sweep of sand and beach volleyball courts with few places for an assassin to hide.
The Seabreeze Saloon’s exterior was decorated with net floats, shells, and other picturesque detritus that had washed up on local shores during storms. Martine sat alone at a table in a corner of the bar’s little outdoor seating area, her gaze flicking between her phone and the door. The patio lights touched her tanned skin and brought out the beauty of her high cheekbones and delicate bone structure. A large hurricane lamp stood in the middle of the table, and a glass of water and a tall mojito sat in front of her. Mojitos used to be his favorite summer drink.
Hez walked up behind her. She was texting with someone, but she put down her phone before he could make out the name.
He stepped into the glow of the bar’s lights. “Boo.”
Martine jumped and gave a little yelp. “Don’t scare me like that! What are you, twelve?” She patted the only other chair at the small table, which was just inches from her seat. “Sit down. I have something to show you.”
He moved the chair a quarter of the way around the table and sat. “What’s up?”
“What?” She cupped her hand to her mouth and puffed. “Do I have bad breath or something?”
“I’m sure you smell fine, but something about this situation stinks. Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Sure, but you’ll have to get within three feet of me.” She took a long sip of her mojito. “Mmm. Okay, now I know I smell minty fresh. Now get over here.” She picked up her phone andtapped it while he reluctantly dragged his chair closer. She leaned toward him, her shoulder touching his, and held up the phone. It showed a blurry picture of a bearded man wearing sunglasses. “This is Anton Todorov. He’s the brother of Ivan Todorov, who works for Hornbrook Finance’s European office, which is based in Sofia, Bulgaria.”
What was up with her behavior? She had always been a flirt, but she knew better than to come on to Hez. Did this have something to do with her mystery client? “That’s an odd place for an American financial firm to have an office.”
“Unless the firm is looking for someplace that’s in the EU but doesn’t have sophisticated financial regulators. It probably doesn’t hurt that Bulgaria is close to the Middle East.”
Hez studied the phone. “Okay, but why do I care about Anton, the brother of Ivan, who works for Hornbrook?”
“Because Anton also works for Hornbrook—or at least he did until recently—and this picture was taken last week in Pensacola.”
Hez’s blood ran cold. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does your client know?”
