Chapter 15

 

Drake and I decided to have a rare late-morning breakfast at a restaurant where we love the eggs Benedict. It’s out on the west side, so we each took our own cars. He’d lined up another flight with Michael the photographer. This time they would fly to the western part of the state to get shots of the dramatic red rocks in the Gallup area.

I pored over the menu at CeeCee’s, deciding which version of the eggs I wanted. I’m partial to the traditional Benedict, but the Florentine version was also very good. Across the table from me, I sensed Drake’s movement and I looked up to see his customer standing near the door.

“Okay if we invite him to join us?” Drake asked.

“Sure.”

He waved Michael over and he greeted us with a tired smile. “Sorry—late night,” he said after he’d attracted the waitress’s attention and signaled for coffee. “My wife called from Virginia. It was after two a.m. when our daughter got home and Joanne was fit to be tied. I guess Dru met up with some kids she talks with on Instagram all the time.”

I can’t say I’m so out of it I don’t know what that is—social media is everywhere these days—but I so rarely check my Facebook page the few friends on there just assume I must have died or something. My real, actual friends still email or phone me when they want to chat.

“I tell you, teenage girls are something else. They literally live with that phone in their hands every moment the darn thing isn’t on the charger.”

I thought of the girls across the street and the few times I’d seen them recently, and yes, he was right about the constant presence of the cell phones.

“So you guys are off to Gallup this morning?” I was tired of the teen subject.

“Yeah, my editor thinks the whole Southwest consists of that type of stunning rock formations, so even though I’ve got a lot of other footage around the state he wants red rocks included in the spread.”

Drake spoke up. “Getting tribal permission from the Navajos is why this part of the job has taken awhile longer to arrange.”

I remembered a few other jobs that took us over Indian nation lands. Their sacred sites are normally completely off limits, so the flight plan has to be pretty specific.

We ordered our eggs and chatted about helicopter work in general, Drake telling Michael about some of our adventures, particularly the one in Scotland where I had an incident over the North Sea. He made it sound as if I’d been more heroic than I actually was—at the time I’d been terrified.

“What about that little cabin we landed by, the first day we went out over the Sandias?” Michael asked.

“I’m still checking the land records,” Drake said. “There doesn’t seem to be a clear legal description for the plot. We’ll see. It may not work out.”

I’d made the first cut into my egg dish when my phone beeped with a text message. Ron’s name showed on the screen, with the words “Bobby Lorrento is back in the news …” in the visible portion of the message. Unless this was an emergency, I wasn’t going to miss my favorite breakfast for an update on the client and his dysfunctional marriage.

I read the message, replied to Ron that I would be in the office within an hour, and dropped the phone into the depths of my purse. I shouldn’t have left it out on the table in the first place. We finished our breakfast in peace, and I kissed Drake before getting into my car.

At the office, I helped myself to a second cup of coffee and went upstairs to find Ron on the phone in a conversation that sounded like routine questions. Employment background checks have become the bread-and-butter of our business. I waved at him through the open doorway and proceeded to my own office to take a look at my email. He appeared in front of me about five minutes later.

“So, what’s the latest news our football player friend has got himself into now?” I asked, distracted by a notice saying Macy’s had a big sale on jeans.

“Apparently, he went down to the pawn shop yesterday evening and discovered Marcie had not pawned the rings—she sold them. On that basis, the owner had put them in his display case and one ring already sold. So Lorrento goes completely ballistic, leaps over the counter and punches the guy out before the shop security guard could pull out his truncheon. He gave Bobby a quick jab to the gut, called the police, and the cops hauled Bobby The Bomb to jail.”

“How’s the shop owner?”

“Broken jaw, but it will mend okay. He’s pissed as hell.”

“And this affects us, how?” The link showed a super-good price on those jeans.

“Marcie Lorrento called this morning and wants me to go down and post bond for Bobby. I wasn’t here and she left the message on the machine. I haven’t returned the call yet.”

“Don’t they have an attorney for such things?”

“I plan to suggest she call one. I could go down there and put up the bond money, but I sure can’t give Lorrento advice on this legal mess.”

“I wasn’t aware the Lorrentos were even speaking. Wouldn’t she rather just leave him in jail, teach him a lesson?”

“I don’t know what the situation—”

His sentence got cut short by a ruckus downstairs.

“Ron!” It was Sally’s voice and she sounded panicky.

We both hit the stairs running. Marcie Lorrento stood in front of Sally’s desk, wearing a designer dress, six-inch heels, and a furious expression. Her hair hung in luxurious curls past her shoulders and her makeup was freshly applied, so I guessed she was hardly distraught over her husband’s situation.

“There you are!” Marcie shouted at Ron. “Didn’t you get my message?”

She shot a poison look toward Sally, who took a step back. Next, our employee would be demanding hazard pay for the receptionist job.

“Marcie, tone it down. I got your message. Can we talk in the conference room?”

“We’ll talk right here. Why haven’t you got Bobby back yet?” Her teeth showed as she snarled the words.

Ron stood taller and squared his shoulders. “The retainer you paid us has been used up, and until we talk about this calmly I’m not doing anything more on your case.”

“Fine.” She reached into her little clutch purse and took out a Gucci wallet, from which she drew five one-hundred-dollar bills. “Here’s more money. How much will you need for his bail?”

“Wouldn’t you rather your attorney handle this?”

“My attorney won’t speak to Bobby. She got an earful from him the other day when he received the divorce papers, and she says she’ll only talk to me now.” Marcie paced to the front door and back, the high heels clicking on the hardwood floor like angry typewriter keys.

“So, who’s Bobby’s attorney?”

“Tom Hawkins, back in Texas. He says he’s not licensed in New Mexico and, besides, he’s had it with Bobby’s temper getting him into trouble.”

“Your husband needs legal advice I can’t give.”

“Yeah, I’ll find somebody. Meanwhile, I need you to bail him out. How much do you need?” Her fingers were inside the wallet again.

“I have no idea until I call the station. I don’t know what the charges are, or whether he’s even eligible for bond, so can you settle down?”

She continued to pace and I’d finally had it with the staccato sound. I went upstairs to Ron’s Rolodex and prowled through the A’s until I came to an attorney we don’t especially like. It would be such great fun to know he was having to deal with Bobby and Marcie Lorrento. I copied the man’s name and phone number onto an index card and took it downstairs. Marcie seemed so grateful for the information I almost felt guilty for giving her the name of such a jerk. Almost—not quite.

Ron, the big sell-out, took Marcie’s money, made a couple of calls and headed downtown to get Bobby. I couldn’t, in my wildest dreams, imagine the weird dynamic between that couple. He cheated, she wanted a divorce, she stole from him, he lost his temper, she bailed him out using money from selling his own jewelry. Somehow, apparently, it worked for them.

I got home a little after five, to be met at the driveway by Elsa. Belatedly, I remembered I had planned to call NMSU again, but business hours had gotten away from me.

“I talked to Donna Delaney,” Elsa said, a little breathless after dashing across our yard. “She finally reached her brother somewhere in Egypt. Zayne isn’t with them and they don’t know where she is. I told Donna about that boy who’s hanging around.”

“And?”

“Rick told her he knows Ryan Subro. The families have been friends for a long time.”

“Did they ask us to do something to help?”

“Well, not really. According to Donna, Rick and Jane aren’t worried. They say they’ve talked with both girls on the phone in recent days and everything’s fine.”

“So, then … everything’s fine. We should butt out.”

“It isn’t fine, Charlie. I just know it isn’t.”

I really, really tried not to look as impatient as I felt.