Ginny bristled. “Excuse me?”
“I’m saying you’re my best waitress so you get good tips!”
“No! I meant about Charlie!”
The GPS indicated he get into the next two lanes.
Ginny nodded and pointed, as if the GPS had taken her side in the argument. Which, OK, it kind of had.
“Listen to me, Ginny,” Shepherd said, the way he sometimes tried to talk to Lex, “you are involved in something bigger than us. You need to let it go and allow the police to handle it. The worst thing you could do right now is get in the way and get hurt.”
“I am not a child, so don’t you talk to me like one!” Ginny responded, in the same way Lex often did, which is why he didn’t use that tone of voice very often. “And because I’m not a child, you can take me to the restaurant if you want, but the moment I’m out of this car, I’ll head to Charlie’s house by myself!”
The exit flew by. The GPS recalibrated.
Shepherd merged even further left. “Oh, don’t think for a second I’m above locking you in the basement!”
“Are you threatening me right now? Really, Shepherd?” She was leaning over the armrest, her finger hovering above and around his ear. “My mom is kidnapped, right now, and you are threatening to kidnap me to keep me from looking for her? How long do you think you can keep me locked in the basement, when all those police and feds saw me leave with you from my family’s home? Huh?”
“The police are the point!” Shepherd wiped spit from the corners of his mouth. “C’mon, Ginny! The police are looking for your mom right now. They brought in people wearing suits and holding laptops. Let them do their jobs!”
Ginny collapsed back against her seat as yet another exit flew by. “The police think Cardello is dead!”
“So remind them! Show them the address your dad gave us!”
Ginny raked both hands through her hair and grabbed onto the red strands by the root. “Don’t you think they might find it odd that the people who reminded them that ‘Cardello’ was Mr. Martin’s last word and gave them Cardello’s new address were at the location of his last known address at the exact time it exploded? Turn off your phone when committing crimes, Shepherd—that’s like the first thing they teach you at law school!”
Shepherd gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Ignoring the comment about his phone, he decided to change tactic. “Why are you taking this on? Why are you making this your responsibility? Ginny, there are professionals working on your mother’s caseright now.”
“I am a lawyer, Shepherd, I know all about the efficacy of professional police work!” With a powerful exhale, Ginny let go of her hair. “My family has voted for the bare minimum. My grandfather won’t pay the full amount of the ransom. My father won’t stand up to his wife. The police refuse to follow their biggest clue. Someone has to do something, Shepherd, and if it isn’t going to be any of them, ithasto be me! She’s my mother, Shepherd! My mother! I can’t leave her out there alone, not when there is a lead that no one else will follow. Now, you can come with me if you want. But Iamgoing. No matter what.”
He clenched his jaw, his back teeth grinding together. This was madness. He had promised he’d keep her safe, and he really didn’t want to go to jail. Not for blowing up a meth lab, or hitting a biker on the back of the head with a baseball bat, or locking his employee in his basement.
The GPS wanted him to move into the right lanes, so he could make the next exit.
Without a word, Shepherd turned on his indicator and moved into the furthest right lane.
God help him. This woman was going to be the death of him.
NINETEEN
When they pulled up to the house at the end of a street in a seemingly regular neighborhood in the Florida Keys, Shepherd parked behind a standard-looking Toyota.
“What if this is another meth den?” he asked, already knowing it wasn’t. Now that they were parked, there were kids who ran back out into the street playing soccer. Each prefab house, looking like double-wide trailers on stilts, had canal access. Some of the yards not only had cars and kids playing soccer but boats and jet skis on trailers. There were palm trees dotting front yards, coconuts in various shades of brown splattered across gravel driveways. Not that people, you know, didn’t make meth wherever they could. But this looked like the kind of neighborhood a hero in a movie would flashback to when remembering their first love or something during a pivotal moment.
“Fortunately, you’ve lost the bat,” Ginny said. She patted his arm. “Don’t freak out, Shepherd. I can handle Charlie. Just stick with me.”
Unable to do anything else without facing the risk of angering her father and his pro bono lawyer, Shepherd got out of the car and followed Ginny up the wooden steps to the front door. There were Christmas lights still strung up around rickety handrails.
Ginny knocked on the door with all the confidence of an FBI agent. Shepherd hung behind her, hands in his pockets, on the lookout in case one of those kids playing soccer turned out to be another murderer. Sure, they looked like they were twelve, but honestly being attacked by a preteen would be the least surprising thing that happened to him that day. Sweat gathered already around his hairline, collecting in the back of his neck. Shepherd fanned himself with his shirt and glared at the nearest preteen.
“Mr. Cardello?” Ginny called out, knocking again. “Mr. Cardello, I need to talk to you, please!”
“Nobody here by that name!” a male voice shouted back. “And nobody wants to buy anything either!”
Ginny huffed. “We aren’t selling anything! This is important, Mr. Cardello. Please open your door.”
The blinds near the door cracked open, a pair of dark eyes and thick, dark eyebrows visible for half a moment. “No!” he said. “Don’t want no religion, either!”
