There was nothing quite like flying over the Chesapeake Bay as the sun rose, its crimson and orange light reflecting off the water like stained glass. Drayco managed to rent a Cessna at the last minute—thankfully, demand for planes at his usual FBO weren’t as high in the winter. The plane handled a lot better in the cooler temps though. It certainly climbed faster. And the lack of thermals meant the air was almost as smooth as the bay below.
He didn’t need to travel this particular weekend to see how the renovations on his opera house were progressing. He bit back a groan, knowing he’d never get used to being the owner of such a place. Still, he’d made the decision not to sell it after it was bequeathed to him, so renovate it he must.
He wasn’t fooling anybody with his excuse about the reason for his trip, let alone himself. He needed to talk to someone, and it wasn’t the woman whose house he was standing in front of right now. He probably shouldn’t be here, but word would get out he’d been on the shore. With a sigh, he knocked on the door and juggled the vase of fresh-from-the-florist red roses, purple lavender and something called Stargazer lilies.
Darcie wore a lot more than a bow this time, dressed in her more customary designer duds from Calvin-Donatella-Armani-Prada. She and Lauralee would probably get along beautifully. Darcie broke into a seductive smile when she saw him, grabbed the flowers and put them on a table next to the door.
Then she grabbed his coat and yanked him into the house. “Just can’t stay away from me, can you?”
Well, yes, he could. Or should. Or what the hell, he wasn’t sure. “It’s only the weekend. One night.”
“Then we’ll have to make that one night count.”
He cleared his throat. “Ah, I’m staying at the Lazy Crab, actually. Haven’t seen the Jepsons in a while.”
Her smile morphed into a pout. “They can’t give you what I have to offer.”
“Not exactly, no. But I’m overdue, and I owe them a lot.”
“Well, then. She unbuttoned his coat and pushed it off his shoulders. “We’ll have to make what time we do have count.” She clutched his hand in hers and pulled him upstairs after her toward the bedroom.
“You’re insatiable, you know that?”
“Takes one to know one.” She unwrapped him almost as fast as she had that bow, and after a few hours of not-so-unpleasant-time together, he got dressed and made his excuses and his escape.
First, he made a brief stop by the opera house and peeked into the auditorium. The old chairs were gone, at least temporarily, dispatched to a restoration warehouse. The ripped-up carpet was nowhere in sight, and the curtains from the stage had vanished. He kept tabs on all the work being done via the contractor, but it was still a bit of a shock to see the old girl looking denuded and stark.
He couldn’t play the Steinway this time because he’d forgotten it was in its temporary new home being refitted. That is if he could even bring himself to play. He’d hoped the different setting might make it easier for him to try to ease into playing again, but even that opportunity was thwarted.
After turning the lights off, he finally made his way to the Lazy Crab, where the always-bubbly Maida Jepson welcomed him in a much more matronly way. “Scott, we were thrilled to hear you were coming. Wish it were longer, but we’ll take what we can get.”
“Still hoping to make it over for a week or two soon. But work, life, the usual.”
She studied his face. “You sounded a bit off on the phone. And now that I see you in person, you look a bit off, too.” She nodded at the kitchen. “You know what’s waiting for you, don’t you?”
“The Major?”
“Well, him, yes. I was thinking more along the lines of something hot and eighty proof, give or take.”
He wasn’t about to turn down a should-be-world-famous Maida hot toddy, but as he sat in the kitchen sipping on her latest creation, it didn’t feel as satisfying as usual. She must have noticed he was only taking the occasional sip. “Either I’m losing my touch or you really are in a funk. Do I have to sic my better half on you?”
A man’s grumbled voice preceded its owner down the hall. “What’s all the racket, Maida? Not time for lunch, is it?”
Major Jepson’s ponytail and braided beard seemed whiter than the last time, but his eyes were as piercing as ever. He ambled into the kitchen. “Scott, my boy. Forgot you were coming today. You don’t look well, son. Got a touch of the flu?”
Drayco relaxed into the chair. He’d only known the Jepsons for a little under a year, and yet they seemed like his idea of what good parents were like. Or would be, if they had children. Maybe being an unofficial “adopted” pseudo-son wasn’t such a bad thing.
As he sat there, sipping the toddy, with the two pairs of concerned eyes turned on him, he realized why he’d really come. Brock and Maura felt very far away, in more ways than one.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing, Major. Your voice sounds different. Have you got a cold?”
“Never felt better. Must be early season pollen clouding your ears.”
Drayco frowned. He could have sworn the man had a cold. The usual electric-blue wool cotton threads in his tones had morphed into gray steel wool. Major was probably right—just an artifact of the early pollen season.
After Drayco filled them in on the basics of his mother’s reappearance and murder case, Maida dropped into the chair beside him with a shake of her head. “I’d have thought Nelia Tyler might have mentioned this. It’s been, what, ten days now since it all came to pass?”
Ten days. She was right. Felt a lot longer. Felt eons longer. “Deputy Tyler and Sheriff Sailor had to work a shooting that happened late last night.” He’d called Nelia before he arrived, not sure if he should or not. Calling her at the Sheriff’s Office seemed safer, although he was disappointed she couldn’t join them at the Lazy Crab for dinner.
Maida clucked her tongue. “I’m sorry, Scott. Truly sorry this bombshell landed on you from out of the blue. You don’t deserve it. Any of it. Now I can understand why you never mentioned your mother before. I admit I was curious—”
“You were downright nosy,” Major piped up. “About ready to do a little private eye-ing on your own.”
“Now, Major.” She frowned at him. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Her husband snorted, then got up to grab a plate of something bready with nuts and chocolate and placed it on the table. “What would make a mother do that to her own children, I wonder? And you say even now she won’t discuss why she left, where she’s been, or why she’s back.”
“Not to me. Not to anyone.”
Maida pushed the plate of pastries closer to Drayco. He spied a ribbon of chocolate inside one, and his stomach rumbled. She shook her head. “You haven’t eaten much this morning, I’ll bet. You need more than sugar.”
She jumped up and started rummaging through the refrigerator. “I’ll fix that in short order. I think you’re ten pounds thinner than the last time I saw you.”
He protested, “I’m not very hungry.”
“Yes, you are. Your stomach just said so.”
She moved from refrigerator to cupboards in her food quest, but stopped in mid-stride. “You say your mother rented an apartment not all that far from you? Maybe you’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe she wasn’t in the area for some shady business deal. Surely she’d know she might be seen, might be recognized. Seems to me she was checking up on you.”
“Me? Why now?”
“Maybe not just now. You don’t know if this is the first time. She could have passed through off and on, and you’d never know. You only found out now because of the whole murder angle.”
Maura did say she knew about the carjacking and his injury. She certainly hadn’t seemed surprised when he’d mentioned he’d been employed by the Bureau or that he no longer worked there. If Brock wasn’t speaking to her, then there was only one logical conclusion—she had been keeping tabs on him.
Major nodded. “What was it she told you? She didn’t want you to know the kind of person she was. Love takes many forms, Scott. Sacrifices aren’t just for soldiers and firefighters.”
Drayco didn’t have time to mull over Major’s words when Drayco’s cellphone rang. He picked it up to check the number, thinking he should turn the bloody thing off. But when he saw the caller’s ID, he punched the answer button. He had to pull the phone partly away from his ear due to the decibel level of the man’s voice on the other end.
Detective Halabi’s gold-colored baritone voice boomed out, “Figured you’d like to know we’ve arrested Edwin Zamorra, thanks to your efforts, it seems. Since you’re making me cancel my weekend plans, thought you might like to come to my office and join us.”
It was less of a polite request and more of a command. The Cessna was going to get more of a workout today than Drayco had anticipated.
He sprawled back into his seat and looked out into the garden of mostly dormant plants, except for a few pops of red from spring-blooming camellias. “Well, Maida. Looks like I won’t be staying after all.”
“Bad tidings?”
He sighed. Bad, good, who knew? One thing was for certain—when this was all over, he was definitely coming over for a week. Maybe two. No, make that a month.