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“No, I’ve decided to keep them,” she said and we went on to talk about what we could do with the other three hundred plus teddy bears that had been sprinklered and then dried out but still needed tidying up.
And I told her about the Elizabeth Magnolia tree she’d had delivered to the house, about how I’d hired somebody from the nursery to plant it for me so it went in the ground the right way, about how I was using the mattress she’d sent me on the daybed I was going to order pretty soon so Peri could spend the night, and she told me about how she and Day were buying a house out at the development, they’d had Imani look over the contract and Jason look over the build, and Cash had been so helpful, and about how he’d talked about us getting back together—
“What?” I said.
“Well, I was surprised,” Mom said. “But he seemed very sure. He talked about how we could combine the holidays with his family, and you know I love the Porter’s, and it just sounded so nice—”
“I am withVince,” I said firmly. “I just told you Vince liked my hair long, if I was going to go to Cash, I’d have mentioned him. We can still combine holidays with the Porters if you want, Vince and I like them just fine, but I am with Vince now and forever. At this point, I wouldn’t spit on Cash if he was on fire.”
“Well, really, Lizzie—”
“If you even think about defending Cash, I’m switching my mom allegiance to Kitty. God knows I’ve switched dads often enough.”
“Kitty is Cash’s mom,” my mother said.
“Yeah, and he talked her into getting two mortgages on this place to float his development investment. Then Lavender died and he inherited, and he didn’t pay her back a dime.” My mother, the banker, sucked in her breath on that one. Money was serious. Good old Cash: he could find a way to hurt people in a way that anyone could understand.
I went on. “She’s got two great sons in Will and Ken, she doesn’t need that jackass Cash.”
She finally nodded. “Okay, not Cash. So how is Vince? Is he okay about you getting a house?” and we were discussing the state of my relationship—“Just fine”—when Day came in to pick up Mom.
I stood up and kissed his cheek, and he said, “How’s my little girl?” I said, “Actually not yours,” and handed him the copy of the DNA report.
As I left him staring at the report in shocked silence, the woman in the booth behind them got up to go.
Belinda Roarke, just beaming.
Burney was about to get some Grade A gossip. And for once, I didn’t give a damn. This time it wasn’t me disgracing the family, so she could have at it. I had important work to do.
I had a factory to plan.
After I learned to shoot a rifle.
CHAPTER 38
River Vista wasn’t far from the Big Chef.
That’s map-not-far, as we used to say when we were out in the boonies and some yahoo at the FOB, aka headquarters, issued orders for us to move from here to there which he probably thought "wasn’t far” by looking at a couple of inches on the map. For us grunts, with our backpacks weighing over a hundred pounds, in addition to our vests, weapons, helmet, and other gear, it was a different story. For some reason, there always seemed to be a mountain between us and where they wanted us to go.
It was close to midnight and dark as hell, but at least I wasn’t humping a ruck. I did have my Army vest on with its better plates and stuffed with ammo and some other goodies. My forty-five on my hip, round in the chamber, safety off. Night vision goggles pushed up on my forehead. I was ready for a battle, even though this was just a recon. Because shit happens.
I left the Big Chef and an armed Liz Danger. We’d spent a couple of hours that afternoon on the range and she was proficient enough to know where the safety was and how to fire and reload. She refused to go up to the Pink House until I got back, so I left her with the AR and instructions to shoot anybody who came to the door and looked like Cash. Then I headed into the woods along the shoreline. I was using the dark and bloody river, hopefully no foreshadowing there, as my right guide. That made navigation easy. The problem was, the riverbank was wall-to-wall thickets, mud, and wait-a-minute vines. Crossed by steep gullies where streams flowed into the Ohio.
And mosquitoes. I remembered Liz had googled and told me that Cincinnati was #15 on cities with most mosquitoes. Great. I did wonder who compiled such a list and how they got the data.
At least there were no mountains.
By the time I reached the edge of the development I was hot, muddy, sweaty, scratched up, and bitten. I was wondering if I saw Cash and shot him whether Bartlett’s no-investigations-in-River-Vista would protect me?
Somehow, I doubted it.
I’d reviewed the footage from the GoPro on the dash of the Gladiator from the other morning when I drove there with Bartlett (multi-tasking) and mapped out the surveillance cameras. They were stationary, mounted on poles, which meant they had fixed fields of view. It turned out I didn’t have to worry about them as I scanned the development through the goggles. They amplified whatever light there was, and when I checked the light poles with a camera mounted on top, there was no green glowing dot to indicate they were live.
I didn’t think it was because someone had forgotten to turn them on. They were off for a reason and I had no doubt that reason had something to do with the Wolves. The bikers weren’t here for security. The spec houses they were occupying in order to “protect” River Vista were a quarter mile to the side, not far from Route 52. They were easily spotted in the goggles because the outside lights were on and a half dozen motorcycles were lined up, headlights on, pointing at a dirty, sand-colored van. Bikers were moving back and forth, unloading something from the van and putting it in the saddlebags of the motorcycles.
It wasn’t quite broad daylight, but this was pretty audacious.
Money? Drugs? Weapons?
