Muriel grabbed for the phone, not coordinated enough to not knock it to the floor, waking Kristen. They’d come back to her house the night before and watched an old Audrey Hepburn movie Kristen had found, then gone up to bed. The playfulness they’d shared before they went out and ran into Shelby had vanished, but Kristen had gone into the bathroom and come out wearing her shirt with no intention of going home. They’d spent the rest of the night talking and finally falling asleep holding each other like in some romance novel, which made her roll her eyes, knowing how crushing it was to her reputation.
“Hello,” she said, squinting to see the time.
“Muriel, did I wake you?” The man’s voice was loud, and she had to think a minute before she figured out who it was. “I thought Cain said you never slept.”
“Colin, if it’s five thirty here it’s damn early where you are. Can’t get to sleep?”
“I’m in town, and I need to see you and Cain.”
She sat up and rubbed her face, knowing if he couldn’t wait until a decent hour, whatever he needed wasn’t good. “You don’t mean now, do you?”
“No. I got some stuff to do until like two, but then you gotta get me in to see her, okay? After the shit before her wedding, I didn’t want to do anything before I talk to her.”
His explanation was as foggy as her head at the moment. “Give me your number, and I’ll call you as soon as I get to Cain’s.” She wrote down the information and sighed. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I got some shit going on, but really, it’s fixable. Sorry I woke you,” he said, and the line went dead.
“What the hell was that?” she said as she lay back and could’ve cared less what the problem was when Kristen put her head on her shoulder and pinned her down with her leg.
“Tonight let’s try this again, without the phone and clothes, okay?”
“I’m sorry about all that last night. We should’ve stayed home and ordered pizza.”
Kristen put her hand on her abdomen and rubbed it in small circles. “There’s things you should be worried about, and all that crap isn’t one of them. Maybe, though, I should be worried that she’s still got the hots for you.”
“Shelby knows as well as I do that there’s no going back.” She smiled when Kristen moved on top of her. “So when do you graduate?” The question should’ve made her cringe, but that was hard to do when Kristen bit her chin.
“Two more semesters, and then I’m done. Why?”
“Seeing how much time I have to shop for a gift. How about breakfast?” She rolled them over and put her hands on Kristen’s hips. She kissed her, and getting up really dropped down the stack of her priorities.
“I guess the phone call means you can’t take the day off,” Kristen said, tracing the outside of her ears with her fingertips. “Tonight, though, don’t make any plans.” Kristen kissed her again and slapped her on the ass. “Come on. I’ll cook for you.”
“You know, this can wait,” she said, pointing to the bed when they got up. “I’m not going anywhere if we do.”
“If you ask my sister, she still believes I’m like twelve, so don’t ask her, all right,” Kristen said, and laughed. “But I’m okay with this and who I’m with. I’m not sure if you know what happened to us, well, mostly to Dallas, but I’ve waited a long time to find someone I feel this comfortable with. I’m sure I have, so I’m not interested in waiting any more. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense, but I’m patient, so don’t be afraid that I’m only here because I expect something like that.”
“You’re here because you live here, but I get you.”
She dropped Kristen at her door and drove to Cain’s, seeing Fiona O’Brannigan outside in her car talking on her phone. That someone Cain really didn’t care for that much was camped outside the gate made her want to go out and see what she wanted.
“The world’s gone a little nuts, hasn’t it?” Cain asked from the garden Ross had planted. She was dressed and had a coffee cup in her hand, but Muriel doubted she was trying her hand at farming.
“Did you see who’s out there?” Muriel left her briefcase on the hood of her car and joined Cain, holding her cup when she stopped at the last crop of sunflowers Ross had planted and pointed out to her a few days before. Cain cut a bouquet of them and headed back inside. “Are you ever going to tell me what bothers you so much about her, aside from what happened? I know there’s got to be more to the story than her ganging up with that FBI asshole over something you didn’t do.”
“Eventually, but can you give me some more time? I’m still working through it.” Cain stopped at the stairs and put her hand against Muriel’s neck. “If I forgot we had something this morning, forgive me, but I’ll just be a minute.”
“We didn’t, but I got a call earlier this morning you need to know about. Take your time.”
The sound of Hannah running around and Hayden getting ready for school made her say a quick prayer of thanks since whatever had happened with Hannah hadn’t left any permanent scars. Muriel was surprised Cain was letting her go back so soon, but then both their fathers had been firm believers in getting back in the saddle before you developed a fear of the horse.
She rode with them to school at Cain’s invitation and waited in the car as Cain walked Hannah to the door and the teacher waiting there. No one seemed to have a problem that Sabana was going in with her, so Hannah hugged Cain good-bye and ran inside like she had nothing in the world to fear.
“Who called?” Cain asked as they headed back.
“Colin, and he’s in town. I’d tell you what he wants, but he wasn’t in a talkative mood for once.”
Cain nodded and drummed her fingers on her knee for a few minutes. “If he gave you a number, let him know that this afternoon will be good whenever he’s ready, and if you’re not swamped this morning, can you stop by and see Merrick? I have her working on something, and my gut tells me the answer is more important than I give it credit for.”
“Sure, but do you need anything else?”
“To see a man about a revenge plot, but that should be easy.”
*
“Yes, sir, it happened last night,” Mike Walker, one of Nunzio’s men, said over the phone from the house in New York.
“What did the little fucker say exactly?” Nunzio asked, punching a hole in the wall of his bedroom at the resort.
“He just said he’d needed a breather and left for like thirty minutes, and when he got back, the place was crawling with cops. He doesn’t know if they were in your place, but he didn’t want to go in and find out.”
“Get on a plane and meet me in New Orleans. Do whatever you have to to find him and what the hell happened to my shit, or if anything happened to it at all.” He punched the wall again, even though his hand hurt like hell. “And Mike, don’t fuck this up.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. What about Freddie? You want me to take care of that too?”
“When you find him, drop him in the river. He’ll be more useful to the fish than to us. I gave that fucker the last chance he’s ever going to get.” He hung up and screamed one more time.
“What now?” Santino said as he rushed in.
The last thing he needed was a lecture on how’d he screwed up trusting Freddie, but they had to get it out of the way so they could plan their next step. He told Santino what Mike had reported and was surprised when he didn’t immediately light into him.
“If the cops were there because of that apartment, every bit of our extra stash is gone. That’s what I was going to use to start buying from Cesar and Roth.” God, he should’ve killed Freddie the second he took him to that hotel room full of bottles of liquid coke. But he didn’t have time to worry about shit he couldn’t do anything about, much less change.
“The only move we have left is to call Cesar and tell him we’ll take the shipment and do what he asked. If we can pull off getting Pombo out of that hellhole, then we won’t have to worry about inventory—we’ll be swimming in it.”
“You don’t think Cesar or Pombo won’t double-cross us if they get the chance?”
“The secret here is to divide and conquer.”
He wanted to punch something again and didn’t care if it turned out to be his grandfather if he didn’t speak clearer. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“That the first step is to get Pombo out and on more familiar ground. Our ground.”