Riding the Thunder (29 page)

“I'm so excited.” Winnie followed Netta from the office, only to bump into Colin.

“Hey, congrats, Winnie gal. I just heard. You need help with anything at the cottage let me know. I'm a handy guy. Electrician, plumber, carpenter, painter, Jack-Of-All-Trades . . . that's me. I work cheap, too.” He followed her down the long aisle to the glass porch, discussing what needed to be done for her to settle in. “My cousin in Leesburg has a furniture store. I can get you wholesale on anything you need.”

Jago snatched up his glass of tea and kissed Asha on the cheek. “I'm off to borrow your office. You get lonely, come on back, lock the door, and we'll discuss your passion for maraschino cherries.”

“You wish,” she chirped.

He smiled, gave her a pat on the fanny. “Damn straight I do.” Then he vanished into the dark-paneled room.

As the door closed, Derek stormed behind the counter. “What's Winnie doing here?”

“She's my new waitress. And I'll tell you the same thing I told her—I don't want any trouble between you two.”

“Then you shouldn't have hired her. Winnie's crazy. She hounds me everywhere I go. This is the one place she's left me alone; she knows you won't put up with her nonsense,” Derek argued.

“Which is precisely what I told her, and I mean it. If there is any trouble, I'll let her go.” She cautioned, “There
won't
be trouble. Right?”

Colin returned and started changing out the stool that was wobbling.

“Then let her go . . . now,” Derek insisted.

Pausing from unscrewing the stool's padded seat, Colin frowned. “Ah, ease up, Beau Derek Two, you're just grouchy because you sold the Shelby. Winnie's a good kid. And frankly—if you were to ask my opinion—”

Derek snapped, “I didn't.”

Colin ignored him. “—I think your imagination and ego are working overtime about her hounding you. There aren't many places to go around here. I see you more than she does and I'm not stalking you. She needs the money. They cut her hours nearly in half at the Dish Barn.”

“What would you know about it, Oo-it?” Derek sipped his beer and glowered.

Asha sighed. “I'm saying this once. I won't stand for bickering—from anyone. I want peace and quiet around here.”

The Wurlitzer suddenly cut loose with a very noisy song from The Trashmen: “Surfin' Bird.”

“
A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird . . . B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
.”

They all stared at the jukebox with mouths open.

Asha groaned. “Damn thing! It's too early in the day for this nonsense.”

“I'm getting a headache. Think I will take two aspirins and clock in.” Derek dropped his empty beer bottle in the trash bin. “Dishwashing will look good after ten minutes of ‘bird is the word.'”

“Colin, do you own a sledgehammer?” Asha rounded the counter to stare at her haunted jukebox.

“Hey, why don't you call up the Sci-Fi Channel and tell them about it. They could do one of the ‘Ghost Hunters' shows on it.” Colin leaned forward, and lifted Asha's hair away from her neck with the end of his screwdriver. “Wow, did you ever get nailed—euphemistically and literally. By what? A giant leech? Man, that's some hickey. Could be the grandfather of all hickeys. Hey, you recall that old movie
Attack of the Killer Leeches
? Actor Leo Gordon did the
screenplay for it. I gotta get that one for the drive-in. It was so low rent it wasn't even a B movie. Maybe a D movie . . . ha ha ha.”

“Colin, now isn't a good time.” Asha tapped her foot in impatience.

“Anyway . . . these giant leeches were in this swamp of some nowhere spot in Louisiana, and they went around putting some major suction on their victims. I think Jago must be one of them leeches in disguise. If you ask me—” Colin turned around and, not watching where he was going, slammed hard into Jago, who had come from the office. He grinned sheepishly. “Oh ho, thought you were on the phone, Jago. Lovely weather we're having, eh? Found your costume for the Halloween bash yet?”

“Not yet. I was searching for a killer leech costume—they're fresh out.” Jago's eyes twinkled with a suppressed smile as he reached out and pulled the unlit cigarette from Colin's mouth. “Smoking is bad for your health.”

“Sheesh, some people are grouchy this morning. Hoohoo . . . you could just come as you are, but since the idea is to come as something totally different, a leech mask would be redun—”

“
Killer
leech,” Jago teased, trying to keep his face straight.

“Yeah, well . . . hmm . . . how about coming as King Kong? That'd work. Or Oscar the Grouch.” He offered a winning grin and waved his screwdriver. Then his eyes glanced down and noticed what he was doing, and worried that Jago might view it as a threatening gesture he quickly stuck the tool in his back pocket. “Not my day, I fear. Just remember you can't punch me in the face. Asha wouldn't like that. She'd think you're a bully. Then she might not let you play giant leech with her again.”

Jago's chest vibrated with a suppressed chuckle. “Colin—shut up.”

“You know, I get told that a lot. I don't mean to be irritating. It just sort of slips out naturally.”

“Really? That surprises me.” Jago swung his leg over one of the stools at the counter and asked Asha, “So, how about a lunchtime ride on the Harley with a killer leech?”

“Sorry.” She smiled. “I must work, but I'll join you for lunch in a bit if you're still around.”

“Plan to be. What's good on the menu?” His green eyes flashed devilishly. “Besides maraschino cherries?”

Singing an old Smoky Robinson tune, Jago rounded the corner of the restaurant. “‘What can make me feel this way . . . my girl . . .'” In high spirits, he executed a Motown spin on his heels and then laughed to the cat trotting alongside him. “Damn jukebox has me doing it, too, Puss. Of course, the tunes from that period were ones you could sing along with, upbeat tunes. That's why so many turn up in commercials these days. And hey,
I'm
so happy, but it's not the song. She makes me that way. I don't ever recall being this happy.”

The cat glanced up and meowed, his pointed look saying,
What about me
?

“Hey, you're getting to sleep in a comfy bed with two warm bodies and eating twelve square meals a day thanks to Sam. What more do you want? Sheesh, there's no pleasing some pussycats—”

He stopped as the bungalows came into view. He'd meant to bend over, pick up the cat and drape him over his shoulder. Instead, he just petted the kitty absently, his eyes on the cabins across the small courtyard. The patio door to
his was not fully closed, and was oddly open about six inches. Seeing the sliding door cracked set off alarms in his brain, similar to how he'd felt the morning he'd heard scratching at the window. A fine edge of unease began to inch up his spine—the same as when he'd spotted the reflection on the other side of the lock.

He recalled: after Liam and he had taken Asha and Netta back to the lodge, they'd driven over to the spot where you could see the river from Highway 27. Unfortunately, it had been getting dark, thus they only made a cursory inspection, little more than affixing the lay of the land in Jago's mind.

Liam and Netta stayed that night as well. “Another sleepless night,” he grumbled to the cat. “No opportunity for me to practice ‘counting' with Asha again. I got even, Puss. Just for spite—I rousted his arse at dawn and forced him to go tramping through the woods with me.”

Too sleepy to offer much of a protest, Asha's brother had gone along on the excursion, possibly to work off his own excess hormones. Liam had seemed uncaring that someone had watched them from the cliffs. Finding a wadded up wrapper from a pack of Marlboro cigarettes on the ground near the spot where Jago had noticed the reflection had done nothing to change that apathy either. Nor was Liam perturbed by tire tracks in the muddy ground at the edge of the woods where someone had parked, hidden from view.

Liam had shrugged. “So? Someone walked through the woods, birdwatcher, hiker, camper, some guy fishing—no telling what he was doing up here. Seriously, I don't think it's anything to get concerned about.”

Jago had squatted and examined the tracks closely. “Could be a truck that made the tracks.”

“Again, I have to say,
so?
You drag me from my bed for a trespassing litterbug?” Then it had finally reached Liam's foggy brain. He'd slid his hands in his coat pockets. “You're
thinking about the truck that harassed you on the bike ride on Sunday.”

“Yeah, and the truck at the drive-in earlier.”

“I told you Oo-it drives one. So do half the farmers in the area. And don't get paranoid. Some people around here see a biker and think ‘goddamn Hell's Angel.' Some Bubba with a brain a couple cans short of a six-pack and another six in his belly, probably decided to give the biker a good scare. Thought it a high old time.”

“But Asha was on the Harley,” he argued.

Liam had rolled his eyes. “Hey, big bad biker's molls don't get respect from Billy Bob Joe.”

Jago chuckled, shaking his head. He didn't think Asha would like being thought of as a moll.

Now, looking at the open door of his cabin, he couldn't dispel the odd sensation that once more crawled over his skin. “I locked it this morning before I left with Derek. I'm careful about that,” he told What's His Name. When the feline rubbed against his calf and glared at the bungalow, ears flattened against his head and his tail snapping, Jago exhaled in frustration. “Okay, maid service? Maybe she forgot to close the door after she left?”

Approaching slowly, he paused to examine the lock built into the frame. There were scratches around the core that someone fumbling with a key might make. But, as he ran his fingers along the mechanism where it seated itself into the wall, he spotted what looked more like gouges, as though someone had used a lever like a crowbar—or a big screwdriver—to snap the weak lock.

“Back to Oo-it—again. First, the black truck, now the screwdriver . . .” With a sigh, he glanced back to the restaurant, thinking about Colin running around all morning with the oversized tool. “He smokes, too, Puss. I wonder if they're Marlboros?”

His mouth compressed into a frown, knowing Asha wouldn't be happy he even held the suspicion, yet there
was little way to avoid it. He stared at the curtain rippling in the wind, trying to decide a course of action.

He discounted this being the carelessness of the maid; she might scratch the lock putting in the key, but she wouldn't take a lever to the thing. Colin was in the diner—working on the stool. Jago knew they advised people facing a possible breaking-and-entering situation not to go inside; call the police and let them handle it. “What police? We're in the middle of bloody nowhere.” He fingered the bent lock.

Jago doubted there was a county force, so he'd likely have to call the state troopers. No telling where they were or how long it would take for them to arrive. He'd bet whoever had done this was long gone. To be on the safe side, he could go back and get Asha's gun, but he didn't want her in the middle of this until he learned what had happened. Walking over to the Shelby, he fished his keys from his pocket, opened the trunk and removed the tire iron from the jack.

“Not that I need it, Puss. Des saw both Trev and I were fully trained in Savate, since we had to be in some pretty dicey places around the world.” He chuckled. What's His Name looked thoroughly unimpressed.

The curtain flapped softly, stirred by the breeze, as he took hold and slowly pushed it back. Just steps inside, he paused. Everything was silent, so still that he heard his heart thudding, strong and slow in his blood. His eyes flicked to his briefcase sitting on the table next to his laptop, then soundlessly he moved into the living room. He listened intently, not with his ears, but with that fey primitive sense a man tended to ignore at times. Jago found that when he failed to heed that inner voice, he later paid for it. That sixth sense detected a presence lingering in the air, though from someone long gone. A rapid inspection of the rooms confirmed that impression. No one was in the bungalow. Jago didn't spot anything missing. Even so, there
were clear signs to him that someone had entered and been through his things.

A sloppy maid who didn't close the door? That was believable. It's what he
wanted
the situation to be. Except, that tingling sense said some person had come into his cottage and snooped. Why? For what purpose? His briefcase looked as if it had been left untouched. Going to it, he saw that was not the case. A lever had been put to use on the latches, too. Both had been worked loose. When he lifted the lid, the papers were not in the neat order as he'd left them.

Pulling out a chair, he sat down with a thud, dread bubbling up inside him. Slowly shifting through the folders, the worry spiked when he saw the white envelope stuck into the pocket slot. He hadn't left it there. Only too well he knew what was in it. Regardless, he opened it, compelled to scan the contents again.

The cover letter wasn't there. Jago felt like puking.

On a letterhead for Trident Ventures and addressed to Desmond, with copies to Trev and him, it had confirmed all the arrangements for Trident's hostile takeover of Montgomerie Enterprises, how the arrangements would be kept under the table until everything was in place. Once the maneuvers were complete, a press release would be issued announcing Mershan International was buying out Trident. In essence, his brother would be CEO of a company that owned Trident Ventures and Montgomerie Enterprises as subsidiaries. Desmond's vengeance would finally be complete.

He went through the case again to double check. Maybe the snooper had mistakenly placed the letter in one of the other files, which contained information on the buyout for the horse farm, the offers and counter-offers between Trident and Asha's father. Nothing that would be damning. Not like that letter would be.