The phone buzzed on the nightstand, causing Shelby to fantasize about smashing it into a million little pieces. But, no—not when the damn thing cost more than his first couple of cars combined. True, he hadn’t paid for the phone, but still. He let out a sleepy huff as he thought about Leslie splurging last Christmas and getting him the crazy device. The thing could do everything except give him a happy ending massage, and he was pretty sure that would be coming with the next major operating system update.
Another huff escaped him. It was no wonder Leslie never had any money; last Christmas was also when she’d gotten him that DNA test kit.
His body suddenly stilled. The memory of the DNA kit reminded him of Patterson—his son. His son who’d been dead for a few months now. Could it really have been that long? Well, he’d met Pat – and lost him – in late summer and now he could see the delicate tracings of frost on the window pane.
A groan came from the other side of the bed.
“Shelby,” Katherine said, her voice adorable with slumber. “Stop huffing and either answer the phone or turn it off. It’s my day to sleep in.”
“Sorry, bunny.” He had started calling her the little nickname because of her insistence on wearing a pair of pink bunny slippers around the house. And now it just seemed to fit. And Shelby had to admit that having someone to groan to from the other side of the bed at all felt pretty good.
He reached for the phone, flipped it over, and looked at the large, high definition display. He could remember when the cool thing was to see how small of a phone you could get. Now the trend was headed in the opposite way again.
These damn kids and their refusal to be satisfied with anything worth having, his mind grumbled. He needed coffee—and fast. Before he started punching things at random.
The number showing on the screen seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. And it wasn’t showing any caller info other than the number, so it must not be someone saved to his contacts list. He considered answering it, then heard a gust of wind rattle the windowpanes and immediately changed his mind, giving sway to a crazy, pre-caffeine notion that answering the phone would let the cold in.
December had rolled in with a vengeance, bringing a cold that ate right through his bones and made his joints even creakier than usual. There was no snow on the ground, but Shelby would have almost preferred it if there was. As it was, everything was just dreary browns and greys.
This year, for the first time in any serious way, Shelby had entertained thoughts of moving to a place with more moderate temperatures. He had always joked self-effacingly about being dumb enough to live in “a place where the weather makes your face hurt,” but in reality, he had relished the changing seasons and embraced the rugged individualism that marked those who could brave the harsh northern climates.
Had relished. Past tense.
If the weather was this bad now, he could only imagine what Old Man Winter had in store for the next couple of months. He shivered with anticipatory dread and let out a loud sigh. He’d never have pegged himself for a snowbird, but he couldn’t escape the fact that beaches and palm trees sounded pretty damn good right about now. Old Man Shelby was fed up with Old Man Winter. And his face hurt all season long.
He sighed again and received a none-too-gentle jab in the ribs from one of Katherine’s sharp elbow.
“Shelby!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m going, I’m going.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and braced himself to assume the vertical. He pushed off his hands and stood still for a moment, rubbing at his eyes and yawning.
Coffee. That was the thing—that magical elixir needed to enter his bloodstream and pronto.
He slipped his feet into a pair of slippers—not pink bunnies, but rather a highly masculine moccasin design of brown leather and genuine shearling lamb fur. As the warm, gentle material enveloped his bare feet, he sighed and then shook his head. He was getting downright soft. Before long, he’d be wearing those special shoes with the Velcro and prescription soles and using a walker with tennis balls on the front supports.
But damn they felt good.
Coffee! His body shrieked. Stop the torture! Stop it!
His phone buzzed again, and he scooped it up off the nightstand. Apparently, whoever had called had also left a voicemail. He dropped the phone into the pocket of his sleeping shorts and shuffled out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen area.
The house was essentially a glorified hunter’s cabin, with a single level that sported what people these days called an open floor plan.
“I had one before they were cool,” Shelby grunted, as if anyone who heard would have the slightest idea what he was talking about.
The kitchen was separated from the main room by a low wall which was topped by a granite countertop, forming a breakfast bar and it was lined in front with three stools. The stools were leather upholstered, the legs wrought iron, and Shelby remembered the night he’d won them in a poker game. Lucky draw gave him a pair of threes – crap themselves but coupled with his three tens they beat a trio of queens, and he’d brought home a trio of barstools.
Shelby maneuvered around the counter and entered the kitchen. His gaze was laser-focused on the coffeemaker, and he wasted no time in getting the liquid salvation dribbling into the pot, a simple matter of pushing a single button, since Katherine always set the coffeemaker up for them before they went to bed.
As the coffee filled the carafe, seeming to take an eternity in between drops, Shelby rummaged in the cupboard, finally coming out with a bag of old bagels. He opened the bag and pulled one out, giving it a cursory once-over for mold, then took a big bite. It chewed like an old belt and tasted just as good, but he was groggy enough not to care.
While he chewed and waited, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and took a look at the voicemail. Leslie had recently showed him that the phone transcribed the recordings, meaning he didn’t even have to listen to the damn messages to get the drift of the call.
Sometimes, he thought, technology actually is good for something.
However, the transcription feature wasn’t infallible, and Shelby was annoyed to discover that most of the message was gibberish. Since the coffee wasn’t close to ready, he punched the “play” button on the screen and held the phone to his ear.
As soon as the message began, he knew why the transcription had been so sketchy. The caller had a thick accent of some kind—was that French? — and Shelby had to concentrate to follow along enough to make heads or tails of what the man was saying.
“Monsieur Alexander, zis ees Andre Gagne, zee world-renowned filmmaker. You may ‘ave heard of me.”
Even though he wasn’t actually on the line with Monsieur Gagne, Shelby a twinge of awkward embarrassment—he had not, in fact, heard of the man before in his life.
“As you no doubt ‘ave heard, I am in zee process of making, ‘ow do you say, a blockbuster motion peecture and am planning to film a good portion of eet in Serenity.”
This part did ring a bell with Shelby, as the locals had been all a-flutter at the news that a film crew was coming to Serenity to shoot a movie. One couldn’t go to the Sunshine Café anymore without overhearing someone talk about how they were going to be a star walk-on and use that as their ticket to glitz and glamour.
“I hate to break it to you,” Shelby had growled at more than one aspiring star and starlet, “but fame and fortune isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. You don’t know how good you have it in this town.”
Of course, no one listened to the ex-boxer, some going so far as to accuse him of “sour grapes” and “raining on parades.” But Shelby had tasted the high life and knew that it often came with consequences, many of them dire indeed.
The caller, Monsieur Gagne, was still speaking and Shelby’s focus snapped back.
“As you know doubt can imagine, my dear Shel-bee,” he said, putting the emphasis on the second syllable, “we are concerned with keeping zee shooting area secure. I know my secretary called you a few months ago, and you declined at that time to ‘elp us, but I am calling you personally myself zeez time in an effort to change your brain. Zee job will be easy and zee moneycheck will be – ‘ow do you say. Fat? Call back when it ees convenient and we can discuss the, again ‘ow do you say, specificals.”
The message ended.
Shelby absentmindedly took a mug from the rack over the sink and filled it with as much coffee as had brewed so far, about three-quarters of a cup. He replaced the pot and took his first, luxurious, burning sip of the morning.
“Ahhhhh,” he sighed. “That’s the ticket.”
But the call stayed on his mind, and for a good reason.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Shelby was broke.
His ex-wife’s battle with cancer, her stay in hospice—which had mercifully ended a few weeks prior—as well as the cost of the funeral had drained his savings.
Of course, he had been in no way obligated to pay for any of it. He’d been divorced from Helen for many years. But there had remained a bond between them, a bond that had often been obscured by acrimony, but a bond nonetheless. Shelby often wondered if the strength of the bond they’d once shared, particularly in their happy, early days, made the break-up and separation that much harder. If they hadn’t cared about one another, the divorce may not have been so painful. But they had cared about one another, on a level so deep that neither of them could recognize it for what it was ... what it had been.
Not that Shelby regretted the divorce itself; no, they had been in a very bad place then, and the break-up had been inevitable and probably advisable at that time. Still, Shelby had harbored an almost overwhelming sense of guilt for years, guilt and regret over the role he had played in destroying what they’d once had together.
He thought of the last time he’d seen Helen, there in her hospice room, as she’d sought to give him absolution for everything he’d done, while at the same time at last taking her own portion of the responsibility. Tears pricked his eyes, and he shoved a hand across his face. Helen’s final wish was that he be happy. And, damn it, that’s exactly what he was going to be.
Unfortunately, being happy did not mean ignoring reality, and one of the very stark realities of Shelby’s life now was that his bank account was starving to death. And not only that, but the creditors were beginning to come calling. He still owed $15,000 to the hospice facility and $7,000 to the funeral home. Fortunately, any cancer treatments costs had already been taken care of but doing so had absolutely wrecked Shelby’s financial situation, even after Helen’s garbage insurance had reduced the total by its token pittance.
Shelby drowned a sigh in a deep gulp of coffee. He’d never considered that he’d be sixty-five and broke. He’d saved for years and invested what he could. He had never been rich—except for a short, high-octane period in his life when he was flying high on the boxing circuit—but he’d been comfortable over the years, living simply and squirreling his money away for a rainy day.
And now it was all gone. Which made the phone call from the movie director, if not appealing, at least tempting.
Prior to his run-in with an assassin hired by an old foe with a grudge a few months before, Shelby had kept a low profile for several years, refusing jobs and playing the part of a contented retiree with passable believability. He spent a great deal of time with his granddaughter, Shelby Lynn, and had derived immense joy in seeing her grow and learn. He’d finally begun tackling his to-be-read pile, which had been growing for decades. He tried out various hobbies and, although none stuck for long, this had allowed him to keep learning new things which in turn kept his mind sharp and agile.
Well, agile-ish.
Yet Shelby would be lying to himself if he pretended that he never missed being back “in the field.” The rush of excitement when on the trail of some ne’er-do-well, the feel of a gun in his hands, the swing of a fist—the mere presence of these thoughts in his mind made his heart beat a little faster and brought the gleam of adventure to his eyes.
Lost in his imagination, he jumped when the front door handle rattled as if someone was trying to open the door. Whoever it was gave up and began knocking—pounding, really—on the door. Shelby cast a glance to where his .357 hung in a shoulder holster from a coat rack peg on the wall next to the door, and then started forward. Before he could retrieve the weapon, however, he heard a voice from outside.