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ALEX CONTINUED TO HOUND me in her Jeep, trying to persuade me to go to the ER and have my leg checked-out by—as she said—a real doctor.
“I don’t like doctors,” I said.
“You don’t like doctors?” She smirked. “You’re afraid?”
I shook my head. “No. I just don’t like the whole thing. I don’t like the waiting...sitting in the waiting room. I don’t like sitting in the exam room. Sit and wait, sit and wait.”
“That’s why you won’t go to the doctor? The wait?”
“And I don’t trust them. Most of them, anyway. They’re really just people who were good in school. Book smart. Not much common sense, you ask me. And all the money you have to pay for, what, two minutes of advice you can get off the internet?”
She took her eyes off the road and turned to me. “You’re serious.”
“All that money you gotta pay. Why, so you can help pay all that student loan debt?”
Alex rolled her eyes.
“I don’t understand people who run to the doctor every time they have a little scrape or a belly ache.”
“You got shot, Henry.”
She finally gave up trying to convince me to see a doctor. But she insisted I stay at her house for the night so she could keep an eye on me.
So I agreed.
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ALEX HELD ONTO MY ARM and walked me to the spare bedroom on the first floor. It wasn’t always the spare bedroom, however. It was originally the bedroom she shared with her husband before he was killed a month after they’d bought the house together.
She looked a bit uneasy standing in the room. Her eyes moved around at the framed photos and paintings on the walls.
I stood in the doorway, just outside the room in the hall. The room was neat and clean and well-decorated. I guess the way a room looked when it didn’t get much use. “I can just sleep on the couch,” I said. Although I knew the sleep I’d get would beat what I’d gotten on Billy’s couch above the restaurant, I felt a little uncomfortable sleeping in this particular bedroom.
But Alex pulled the sheets down. “Are you going to stand out there all night?” She gestured toward the bed. “All yours.”
She walked past me and out the door without saying another word. I listened to her footsteps on the hardwoods as she walked down the hall.
She came back a moment later with a glass of water in one hand, a couple of pills in the palm of her other.
I waved my hand back and forth. “I don’t need anything,” I said. “Pain’s not that bad.”
She reached for my hand, turned it over, and dropped the pills in my palm. She handed me the glass. “Helps fight infection, which is what you need to worry about right now.” She sat down on the edge of the bed.
The only light in the room was the lamp on the table next to me.
“I can’t tell you the last time I was in bed this early. At least without passing out.”
Her back was to me as she looked down at me over her shoulder and said, “That’s why I brought you here. You’d be out there goofing off, as if nothing happened.”
I shook my head. “I’d be trying to find whoever shot me. And, of course, looking for Victoria.”
She stood up from the bed and looked down at my hand, my palm still facing up, the two pills in my hand. “How long are you going to hold onto that?”
“I’m not one for popping pills,” I said.
“You think I’d give you something that wasn’t safe?” She reached toward me and pushed up at the bottom of my hand. “It’s homeopathic.”
“I don’t even know what that actually means.”
“Just take it, will you? Trust me, for once.”
I gave her half a smile and threw the pills into my mouth. I chased them down with the water.
Alex smiled, sat up from the bed and started for the door.
I reached up, grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the eye. “Hey,” I said. I paused a moment. “Thank you for taking care of me.” I let my hand slide from her wrist but held onto her hand.
She gave my hand a squeeze and smiled without saying a word. Her eyes were on mine as she bent over and kissed me on the forehead, like a mother taking care of her little boy.
She turned, flipped off the light, and left the room.
It was five in the morning when Philip called and asked me to meet him at Friendship Fountain. When I told him Alex was going to come, he didn’t object. So we both got dressed and headed out the door while the sun was still coming up.
The only car we saw when we arrived was Philip’s green Impala. I parked next to it and looked in, but he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.
We stepped from my car and the man with the beard and a baseball cap caught my eye. He had a backpack over his shoulder. I knew it was Philip and walked toward him.
As we approached him, the fountain’s water crashed and made it hard to hear what he was saying.
I guess that’s exactly why Philip wanted us to meet there.
He looked down at my bare leg. “What happened?”
“Just a scratch,” I said. “Philip, you remember Alex?”
He moved his eyes toward her and nodded. “How could I forget Alex?” He reached out and shook her hand, shifted his eyes to me and said, “Can I trust her?”
“Alex and I work together,” I said. “If you trust me, you can trust her.” I looked down at my leg. “And I might need her to protect me.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“I was shot last night. Three men followed me. I was out at Neptune Beach.”
“Neptune Beach?”
“At a place called Skip’s Bar. I understand you know what I’m talking about.”
Philip stared back at me without a response.
“Why don’t you tell me about Charles Weiss?” I said.
Philip removed his baseball hat and scratched his head. His eyes glanced down at my leg. “He did that?”
“No. But you know him, right?”
Philip hesitated for a moment. “Yes, I do.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what the hell’s going on? You’re leaving me in the dark...sneaking around in your Halloween costume. But I need to know exactly what the hell I’m dealing with here...before one of us really does get killed.”
“I ... I don’t know what you expect me to tell you, Henry. I was hoping you’d have something to tell me.”
I took a deep breath, my hands on my hips. I turned and looked toward the fountain. “I spoke with Carla Weiss.”
“Carla?”
“She played dumb with me though. Then come to find out you and Charles and Carla were seen together at Skip’s.”
Philip removed his sunglasses and narrowed his eyes. “You’re right, I haven’t told you everything. But you’ve clearly managed to get some traction on your own.” He gave me a quick nod with a forced smile. “That’s admirable.”
I stared back at him for a moment as I processed his condescending tone. “Philip, the car I saw leaving the marina the morning of the explosion was a rental car. And as far as I could tell, the person who rented it had a last name of Weiss. There was no first name. Only an initial. The letter ‘C.’ ”
“It was Charles? Or Carla?”
“I don’t know.” I hesitated. “I haven’t talked to him. And Carla claims to know nothing about anything. Although I didn’t expect much from her.”
“So how’d you find out?”
“Find out what?”
“Who rented the car.”
I turned, looked at Alex. “We traced the plate, found out it was registered to Darcy Car Rental. I found a poor girl there who’d been strangled to death. Had a hose wrapped around her neck.”
Philip closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “Charles wouldn’t do that. I’m not saying he’s a saint. Far from it. But a killer? Not Charles.”
Alex and I exchanged a look.
“Here’s the thing, Philip. Nothing about this smells right. Your brother puts a gun in my face. I visit the woman with the same last name and initials as her husband, someone who—”
“Ex-husband.”
I stared back at Philip, annoyed with his insignificant piece of information. He was feeding me bits of a story but leaving most of it out. “I guess what’s concerning me a bit here, Philip, is why you haven’t even asked about Victoria. Unless you know something else you’re not telling me?”
Philip’s head went from a nod to a shake. He seemed unsure how to react. “Christ, Henry. You don’t think I want to find her? She means everything to me, and I—”
“You what? Do you know where she is? Or who’s responsible?”
“I don’t...I mean...is that what you think of me? You think I’m playing some game with you?”
“With me? Not necessarily, but I can’t help but wonder if someone really took her?” I stepped closer to him, my arms crossed. I had nothing to go by, my accusation somewhat baseless. But nothing felt right. “I just don’t understand,” I said. “Why would someone ask for a ransom, then try to kill you? Kind of hard to get money from a dead man.”
“I ... I know what it looks like. But I’m not lying about any of this. And Victoria, the love of my life ... I have no idea where she is.”
“But you’re in trouble. We know that. We know you’re hiding from someone. So why don’t you tell me who it is? Or who it could be. Help me out.”
“I told you what they could be after.” Philip put his hands in his pockets, his eyes down toward the ground. He lifted his head, his eyes on mine. “The crystal pelican.”
Alex turned around, looking across the park and the area around the fountain. She said to me, “Is it even safe to be standing out here in the open?”
Philip shrugged. “As long as nobody followed you here.” He pulled on his fake beard. “Unless you don’t think the disguise is good enough?”
“They know I’m involved,” I said. “So far, it seems somebody’s watching my every move.” I looked back at Alex. “You’re right. Maybe this isn’t safe to be out in the open like this.”
Philip handed me the backpack he had on his shoulder.
“What’s this?”
“Fifty grand in cash. You find Victoria, you’ll get another fifty.”
I held the bag and peaked inside. “A hundred thousand?”
Philip nodded. “Is it not enough?” He turned and sat on a bench on the edge of the stone pathway where we stood. He removed his hat and sunglasses and wiped his brow with his arm.
Alex looked down at Philip. “What are you doing?”
He gazed up at her. “I’m sitting down.” He put his hands on his knees and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes for a moment. “Charles Weiss used to be an art collector. He was the best of the best, at one time.” Philip looked past me, his eyes on the fountain. He had a glazed look as he spoke. He squinted. “He used to live in Paris. Those were the days...he made a lot of money. Not just for himself, but for others, too. People like my father.”
“Charles knew your father?”
He nodded. “A year or so before he died, they were working on a deal. They had an agreement—a handshake, really—where Charles would help my father invest in the explosion of fine crystal sculptures. Most of them were coming from France and the well-known artists who had all the talent in the world. But they didn’t understand the art of the deal.”
“Was he a business partner?”
Philip looked at me, but didn’t answer. “After my father died, Charles persuaded my brother to work with him on a deal that’d fallen through just before my father’s death. You see, he was the money behind the deals. Charles had already had an arrangement with an artist my father adored. I should say, he loved his work. But with my father gone he needed someone in our company who could get the deal back on track.”
“Why not you?”
“Charles didn’t trust me.” Philip looked past me, his eyes back on the fountain. “And I didn’t trust him.”
“So Frank partnered with him? Behind your back?”
“I don’t know if it was behind my back. But of course—as is always the case with Frank—he bit off more than he could chew. Made big promises he couldn’t keep.” Philip slid his sunglasses back on his face. “I controlled the money. Without my blessing, Frank couldn’t pay Charles for a crystal sculpture that’d already been delivered to my father.”
“The pelican?” I said.
Philip nodded.
“But if he’d already delivered it to your father, then why didn’t you pay him?”
Philip looked up at me over the top of his glasses. “Like I said, it was a backroom deal with Charles and my father. I didn’t know the exact details, other than what Charles had tried to tell me. To me, it was a personal investment. And when my father passed away, as far as I was concerned, their deal was dead. ”
I folded my arms at my chest. “So where is it now?”
Philip looked at me but didn’t answer. He paused a moment. “That doesn’t matter. We need to find Victoria...that’s all I care about.”
Alex said, “Did you say this piece—the sculpture—is a pelican?”
Philip stood from the bench and pulled his hat onto his head. “It’s a crystal sculpture.” He held his hand off the ground, below his waist. “It’s over three-and-a-half feet tall, almost four. An extremely rare sculpture, hand sculpted by the great Francois de Pierre.”
“What’s the value?”
Philip looked off for a moment. “Two-point-five.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “Two-point-five what?”
Philip looked right at Alex. “Million.”