Mulberry
“What happened to you?” Shirley asks when I come in the back door. “And what the hell was going on out there on the beach?”
I can’t even.
One look around the bar tells me Sydney isn’t here—isn’t looking for me anymore, huh? So like her. She loves dropping bombs and running away. Bitterness grips my throat, and I head to my tip jar, emptying it, and stuffing the bills into my wet pockets. I need to move fast before the police show up.
“Where are you going?” Shirley asks as I start back toward the door. I don’t answer her. “Tyler!” she yells. I keep walking. She follows me out the back. “Hey! You at least owe me a goodbye.”
I turn to her, rage and disgust at myself, at Robert, at Sydney eating my guts. What kind of father could I possibly make? “Good bye Shirley. I’m sorry,” I grind out.
Shirley deflates but juts her chin out. “Good luck.”
I’ll need it.
Back in my room, I shower and change into clean clothing before packing the rest of my belongings into a duffle. I pry up the loose floorboard where I stash my tip money and fill my wallet, then hide the rest in my socks and waistband.
Ready to go, I sit on the unmade bed and call Dan. “She found me.”
“I didn’t tell her.” He pauses. “Everything okay?”
“No.” I close my eyes, tilting my head back. Should I tell him? Dan loved her once…maybe he still does. Sydney is like a freaking cancer; you can be cured but are never truly free.
“What happened?”
“Robert showed up first and then Sydney came. She wanted to talk.” I take a deep breath. “She’s pregnant, Dan.”
“Oh,” Dan says.
He doesn’t sound surprised enough. “Did she tell you?”
“No. No.” Why did he say it twice?
“Well, Robert knew. And then someone tried to kill us, so we got interrupted.”
“Oh shit,” Dan says.
“Once again, Dan, you do not sound surprised.”
“This is the second assassination attempt this week.”
“On Sydney?” My heart beats faster and I stand, clenching my free hand into a fist.
“We don’t know if it’s Robert or Sydney. We are trying to figure it out.”
“Well…” I pace toward the door. “She ghosted us.”
“What do you mean?”
This is embarrassing. “Robert and I started to”—I clear my throat—“fight, and while we were trying to drown each other, she left.”
He huffs a laugh. “Sorry,” he coughs.
“It’s not funny.”
“No.” His voice is overly serious. He’s mocking me. And I deserve it. Bile burns my throat. I need to beat the crap out of something.
“Do you know where she is?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. “I’d have to check that she wants you to find her.”
“She’s pregnant with my child.” My voice comes out choked.
“I kept your location secret. I owe her the same.” There is compassion in his tone—he gets I’m wrecked.
“Well, at least let her know she needs to get out of this town. The police will be swarming. Two bullet-ridden bodies on the beach will do that. Even in the off season.”
“Tell me what happened.”
I do, Dan typing the whole time. “Hmmm,” he mutters. “Doesn’t look like they’ve got any bodies. Just a report of a helicopter firing bullets at three people. They’ve got vague descriptions of the people.” He types some more.
“No bodies? Maybe the helicopter went back for them.”
“Their strongest lead is the helicopter.”
“What about it?”
“Came from a yacht off the coast. They are trying to track down who owns the boat. Bound to be a shell company,” Dan says. “I’ll look into it. Where are you headed?”
I take a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“Let me call Sydney. Maybe you two can leave together. Any idea where Robert went?”
“He had a car, and last I saw him he was headed for the highway.”
“I’ll call you back.”
We hang up, and I heft my duffel bag onto my shoulder, check my ankle holster, and then leave, not bothering to look back. Either Dan will call back with her location, or I’ll find Sydney myself. This running away from each other has to stop. We are going to have a baby. Sydney and I must learn to work together, even if we can’t figure out how to love each other without almost getting ourselves killed.
What kind of parents are we going to make?
Robert
The beacon pulses on my screen—the tracking device is in Sydney Rye’s phone.
Her motel is a short drive from the bar on a busy road. It’s a two-story building with peeling paint and a red vacancy sign glowing in the gloomy day.
She takes a private jet here and then decides to stay in a shithole. It’s not penny pinching. Sydney Rye has plenty of money—not as much as me, but Dan is a savvy investor and has helped make her a very wealthy woman.
She stays in crappy places because she does not want to draw attention to herself. But you can’t fully hide the sun behind even the darkest of clouds.
I press the ignition button and the Mercedes purrs back to life. She left Mulberry and me in that tunnel. My body vibrates with the need to go and shout at her—to make her see my point of view. I should let her go so that she can realize the truth for herself. I just want to take care of her. She hasn’t even been to a doctor yet.
I’m out of the car and striding toward her room before I fully realize what I’m doing. Stopping under the eaves of the motel, I stand in a cloud of uncertainty. I hate this.
Then I’m knocking on her door. No sound on the other side and no response. But the beacon pulses inside. I knock again. Would she leave her phone behind?
A motorcycle engine pulls my attention to the lot. Mulberry. He climbs off the bike and removes his helmet, his eyes landing on me. We frown at each other across the almost empty parking lot.
He strides over, holding the helmet under one arm—his prosthetic leg barely slows him down. I tense but don’t draw a weapon. “You shouldn’t be here,” Mulberry says.
“You either,” I point out.
“The cops got called.”
“Obviously.”
“She’s not opening the door?” he gestures toward the hotel room.
“Captain Obvious strikes again.”
“You are such an ass.” He turns and starts back toward his bike.
“Where are you headed?” I ask.
He pauses and looks over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“It doesn’t do me any good if the police find you. I’ve got a plane, come with me.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’d like to find Sydney and get us all back to Miami. You two can talk.”
He turns fully toward me. “Now you want us to talk? A few hours ago you were trying to make me disappear.”
I shrug. “A wise man can change tactics. That is no longer going to work. You’re invested.”
“Invested?” He shakes his head. “That’s hardly the word.”
He’s right; you can walk away from an investment.
I step off the curb, heading back to my car. “Meet me at the airport. Or don’t. Just avoid getting picked up by the police.”
The screeching of tires jerks my attention forward. Marked police cars and black sedans flood into the lot, shaking on their shocks as they brake hard. Doors fly open, and police pour out, using the vehicles as shields, their guns aimed at us.
“Hands in the air!”
Mulberry’s helmet hits the ground with a thump as he raises his arms. I lift my own toward the sky.
The clouds part and the sun sneaks out, casting a ray of gold onto the scene. Sydney motherfucking Rye.
“I want to call my lawyer,” I say again, my voice even. I pull my shirt sleeves straight, taking a moment to finger the cufflinks—emeralds mounted in brushed gold, so that the stone’s brilliance is the focal point. The gold isn’t even important.
I bring my eyes up to meet the detective’s, keeping my expression neutral. “We can get this all cleared up without involving attorneys,” she suggests, again. The woman, who introduced herself as Detective Phelps, is about my age, her suit off the rack. It might have been pressed at the beginning of her shift but is wrinkled now. Phelps doesn’t bother dying her gray hair and just pulls the whole curly mop back into a ponytail. I am way out of her league. And she knows it.
“You have not arrested me,” I point out.
She nods, keeping her face blank. Not a total fool, but pretty close. “We just want to know what happened on the beach today.”
“Attorney,” I say, not bothering with the whole sentence this time. “Or release me.” I check my watch—I’m wearing the Patek Philippe Grand Complications Perpetual Calendar Chronograph manual-wind today. A white gold case surrounds a silver opaline dial on a black alligator strap with an 18k white gold Calatrava Cross deployment buckle. It costs more than this woman makes in a year.
There is a knock at the door and another detective enters—this one male and younger. He hands her a tablet. “The footage you asked for.”
“Yes. Thank you.” She takes the slim device and he leaves. Phelps turns the screen toward me and starts a video. Taken from the boardwalk above the beach, it shows three blurry figures, one being carried between the other two, as a helicopter chases them, firing bullets into the sand.
The videographer’s attention is more focused on the helicopter than the fleeing victims, but I can tell it’s me. Wouldn’t hold up in court though—not that it’s against the law to be shot at by a helicopter.
“That’s you,” she says, pointing to the figure in the middle.
“Attorney,” I say again.
“This is Tyler Dirk.” She points to Mulberry. She doesn’t know his real name. “A local bartender.” She meets my gaze. Her eyes are a soft brown with long lashes, her best feature. “Why would a billionaire, CEO of a private security firm, even be within 100 miles of this town, much less getting shot at from the air, and then hanging out with a bartender in a motel parking lot?”
I don’t respond, but I do wonder why she is so focused on the helicopter and hasn’t even asked about the two men we shot.
She lays the tablet down on the table.
“Attorney.” I cross my arms over my chest and glance down at my watch again. She made me wait over twenty minutes and has been questioning me for ten. I’ll give her another ten, then I’m leaving. I’m not going to waste a full hour on this nonsense.
“You must wonder how we knew you were in that parking lot. How we know it’s you in this video.” She raises one brow. I keep my face still—maintaining a bored expression.
“Do you recognize the helicopter?” she asks. Not waiting for a reply she continues. “Belongs to a yacht that was anchored off the coast.” She wakes the tablet and looks down at the still of the helicopter. I glance at it. There is no name on the bird.
“Someone is trying to kill you,” she says. “Or maybe it’s this woman they are after,” she points to Sydney’s form. “Witnesses say they saw the bartender shoot a man on a quad. And you shoot another. But we didn’t find any bodies on the beach.” I sigh and roll my shoulders. I’m so bored. “The helicopter must have picked them up. Leave no man behind.” She watches me closely but I give nothing away. “You were never in the military…unusual for your line of work.”
I check my watch. Three more minutes. “Tyler Dirk doesn’t have a military record either,” she goes on. A one-woman show, this gal. “Doesn’t have any kind of record.” She shrugs. “Missing part of a leg though. That’s the kind of wound you might sustain in the army…or security.”
“Detective,” I act like I’ve forgotten her name. “I’m going to leave now. You can arrest me, though I’m not sure for what.”
“How about shooting a man on the beach?”
“Sure, if you have any evidence of such a crime. But you don’t because it didn’t happen. So…” I stand up, the chair scraping on the floor as I rise. “I’ll be going now.” She stands as well, her lips pressed tight. She’s got nothing, and we both know it. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” I suggest as I open the door.
A uniformed officer waits outside the interrogation room, and after a nod from Phelps, he escorts me through the station. Pulling my phone out, I call for a car to pick me up. I walk with my shoulders back, arms loose at my side, as if I am totally unconcerned and completely innocent.
While Phelps isn’t much of a detective, she was right about one thing—I am curious about who told them to go looking for me in that motel parking lot. Somebody gave my name to the police. They didn’t mention Sydney Rye. So it seems that I am the intended victim in these attacks.
I love when someone who hopes to gain from me gives instead.
But who, I wonder, is trying to kill me?