Kyra moved in for a close-up of the broken glass as Chase helped Madeline remove it, then once again demonstrated the best way to slip it in between the rabbets. They all held their breath while she worked and broke out into smiles when she got it into position without mishap.
“Phew.” Maddie wiped her forehead with the back of one gloved hand. “My eyes are crossed from concentrating so hard.” She looked pleased.
“You did good,” Chase said as he showed her how to roll the glazing compound into a very thin, snakelike piece and press it around the edges. “That’s the last step out here. We go inside next to straighten the seams and seal the pane.”
“Gee, there’s more?” Nicole asked. “And here I was afraid the fun was over already.”
Madeline peeled off the gloves and held them out to Nikki. “I won’t be at all offended if you’d like to share this job.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said pushing the offering away. “You’re too kind. But I’d rather poke out my eye with a sharp stick.”
Kyra laughed behind her camera.
Avery tried to hold back her own smile and failed. “I hear you,” she said. “Unfortunately, pretty much everything from here on out belongs in the category of tedious and tortuous.”
Chase smiled at that. He’d been mercifully noncombative and Avery intended to keep it that way. So rather than discuss or ask permission, she took Nicole by the arm and said, “I’m going to leave Madeline and Kyra with you, Chase. Nicole and I are going to start taking down the interior doors so we can strip and refinish them.”
“Wait,” Nicole said as Avery led her away. “I want to get a sharp stick and have it ready. Just in case.”
Later that week, Nicole finished her morning run on the beach with relief and walked across Beach Road, past Bella Flora, which still sat quietly in the early morning light, its driveway and front curb not yet littered with trucks or workmen. Stripping the doors, which meant leaning over them all day while she wiped the stripper on and off, was indeed stickin-the-eye-worthy, not to mention backache inducing, as was sleeping on a mattress every night. Each morning when she got up, straightening felt like a major accomplishment. She needed her morning run to work out the kinks.
Trying to bring her breathing back to normal, she continued to the sidewalk that hugged the bay and walked it at a leisurely pace. The neighborhood woke up around her, the occasional car passing on her left, the even more occasional boat puttering by on her right. Ahead she saw signs of life on the whitewashed wooden fishing pier. On the opposite corner of Eighth Avenue folks were already lined up for breakfast at the Seahorse Restaurant. The smells of frying bacon and freshly brewed coffee carried on the breeze.
Nicole stopped to lean against the concrete wall that bordered the sidewalk. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the smells along with the salty tang of the air and listened to the insistent caw of a lone gull. If it got any more exciting here she’d be asleep. When she opened them, she saw Kyra Singer approaching from the opposite direction.
The girl’s dark hair hung down her back in a careless braid and she hadn’t bothered to put on makeup, but even a close inspection proved the girl didn’t really need it. She had that clean, fresh-faced appeal that only those under thirty took for granted. Her eyes were a clear gray and she seemed practically bursting with rosy good health. Her legs were long and lean and her bust swelled against the tight T-shirt with its logo for some film production company.
“Hi.” Nikki nodded and the girl stopped and leaned against the concrete railing beside her.
“’Morning.”
“No video camera?”
“Nope, just out for a stroll.” Kyra smiled.
“I was beginning to think it was surgically attached.” So it had seemed yesterday morning when the girl had panned it down the line as they waited for the bathroom.
Kyra opened her hands, palms out. “Nope.” She smiled. “Not even Velcro’d.”
“I think I speak for all of us when I say that’s a good thing. I may have to use it at sunset.”
“You all are strangely camera shy,” Kyra said.
Things were bad enough without documented proof that she’d been reduced to performing manual labor. “How many women do you know who like to be filmed while sweat is pouring down their faces? Or standing in line to use a bathroom?”
“Point taken.” Kyra tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and smoothed a hand over her stomach. “Are you ready for another day in the salt mines?”
“No,” Nikki said. “The only thing that’s keeping me going at the moment is that I figure if your mother can survive that re-glazing business, I can strip a few hundred doors.”
Over Kyra’s shoulder Nikki noticed a van approaching. She’d noted the name of the cable company painted on its side and had begun to turn back to Kyra when the van’s horn beeped twice. Feeling the workmen’s assessing gaze on them, her own gaze narrowed at their nerve. Which was when she recognized the dark good looks of the man in the passenger seat. Agent Giraldi saluted her with an annoying tip of his cap as the van drove by and made the turn onto Beach Road.
“Cable company,” she said with a grimace that she could tell from Kyra’s expression was out of place. “I, uh, think I’ll head back to the house to make sure they, um, put the outlet in the right place.” Not waiting for a reply, Nikki turned and strode after the van, ready to head the agent off at the pass. Kyra fell in beside her. If she thought it strange that they were racewalking back toward the house, she didn’t comment.
Giraldi was already out of the van with a coil of cable over one broad shoulder and a work order in the other hand by the time she reached Bella Flora. Unable to accost him in front of Kyra, she followed him and his partner inside and waited while Madeline led his colleague toward the salon and their lone television. Kyra shot Nikki one questioning look and followed them.
Giraldi stood staring up at the effigy that dangled from the upper landing. “Not a bad likeness,” he said softly. “Although I’m sure your brother is wearing a better suit and more expensive shoes. When we went into his home on Long Island I found twenty pair of Italian loafers—all handmade.” He shook his head. “He has a real thing for the Italian designers.” He turned to her, his eyes probing hers. “Just like his sister.”
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one could hear them, but she didn’t respond to the jibe.
“I guess growing up poor gives some people a craving for expensive things,” he continued. “Maybe it makes them think they’re entitled to those things, even if they have to steal to get them. But stealing is stealing. And thieves deserve to be punished.”
She ignored this, too. “What do you think you’re doing here? Are you planning to bug the house?” She kept her voice low, afraid that Kyra would come back with her camera rolling.
An upstairs door opened and closed and bare feet sounded on the floor above, but she didn’t know whose. “We’ve got rats and roaches. Oh, yes, and birds. We’ve also got dust, dirt, and a kind of caked-on salty grime that I’ve never encountered before. What are a few listening devices?” Her laugh held no humor. “I told you I haven’t been able to reach Malcolm, and he certainly hasn’t reached me.” Not a lie exactly since his email attempt had been unsuccessful and unclear.
“And how do you think your ‘partners’ would react if they knew you were related to Dyer?”
The answer of course was badly. In fact, she suspected she’d be hanging right next to the dummy, in person, at this very moment if they had any idea. But she knew it was better to brazen it out; she’d be damned if she’d let him see her fear. “Do you want to tell them?” she hissed as Madeline came down the hallway toward them. “Or shall I?”
“Tell me what?” Madeline glanced at Giraldi, seeing, no doubt, nothing more than an extremely good-looking cable installer.
Nicole was careful to keep her breathing normal and her face expressionless as she waited for him to “out” her. But he turned to Madeline and said, “We weren’t sure if you wanted another outlet upstairs. The one will be enough to network your computers off of, but we didn’t know whether you wanted outlets in the bedrooms.”
“I don’t think so,” Madeline said. “Do you, Nicole?”
Nicole wondered if Giraldi’s partner had finished planting bugs in the salon and wherever else he could reach. Unless, of course, he was a real cable guy and not a pretender. Then she had a brief but visceral vision of Agent Giraldi poking through her belongings. Where would he plant anything in that room? Under the mattress on the floor? In the lone lamp? The drawer of the single nightstand?
“No,” Nikki said firmly. “We’re not going to be here that long.” She glared at Giraldi, who nodded and smiled like an actual cable guy might.
His partner came out to join them, apparently done in the salon, and he and Giraldi went outside and around to the back of the house, stringing the cable as if they were nothing more than the installers they were pretending to be.
She waited with Madeline out on the front steps, tapping her foot with impatience, spoiling for a fight. And that was before all the other trucks started pulling up to the front curb like spacecraft returning to the mother ship.
Chase Hardin pulled in with his father. Behind them came Robby and Enrico, a pool man, the AC guy, and a truck delivering lumber. When there was barely a spare inch left to angle in, John Franklin’s boat of a Cadillac floated in and nudged one fender toward the curb. The Realtor caned his way around to the passenger side and opened the door, handing out a large woman with short salt-and-pepper hair. She was Franklin’s height, but looked to outweigh him by a good fifteen pounds—a St. Bernard to his hound dog. As they made their way toward the house, the woman carved a path through the chaos of cars and equipment for the less hearty Realtor to follow.
Avery joined them on the front steps, her hair up in a ponytail, a fine layer of sawdust coating her hair and face. She wore the old tool belt at a jaunty angle, or maybe that was the only way it would stay up. When she spotted the Hardins, Nicole felt her tense slightly, then watched as she arranged her lips into a smile and swaggered out to greet them.
John Franklin worked his cane prodigiously but still trailed behind as he and his companion made their way up the drive and toward the garden gate. The woman wore pastel-colored madras walking shorts that pulled unflatteringly across her stomach and thighs and a sleeveless button-down blouse in a bright lemon yellow. Her arms were heavy but well muscled. Her skin was tanned from the sun.
Giraldi walked toward them from the opposite direction while his partner headed for the truck.
“I’m just going to assume you’ve bugged the whole damned house,” Nikki said under her breath as he handed her the work order for her signature. “So you might as well not bother listening.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“And if our television reception’s bad, I’m going to call the company and report you.”
Giraldi smiled and handed her the same card he’d handed her before. The “company” listed didn’t have the word “cable” anywhere in it. “Both my boss and I would love to hear from you.”
She turned to go in the house, but he put an arm out to stop her. “I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Walk out to the truck with me and I’ll get it.”
“Fine.” She strode past him toward the driveway, nodding to John Franklin and the woman as they passed, aimed like vectors now toward Madeline. At the cable company van, Giraldi slid open the back door and Nicole peered inside half expecting to see agents with headphones and listening devices like she’d seen on TV. But it was just the inside of an empty van. He reached inside and pulled out what looked like clothing.
“What is it?”
Giraldi held up a bright blue T-shirt with the words “Convenient Cable” scrawled across it, then flipped it to show her the cable company logo on the back. “A small parting gift for you,” he said.
“I already have clothes.”
“You’re overdressed for your surroundings, Ms. Grant,” he replied. “If you’re going to work on this house and blend in, you’re going to have to start dressing like the natives.”
She snatched the T-shirt from him and wadded it into a ball.
“I took the liberty of getting you these, too.” He unfolded a pair of gray knit short shorts with “I (heart) Pass-a-Grille” stamped across the seat in large pink letters.
She’d never seen anything less her. “You shouldn’t have.”
“You really shouldn’t be stripping those doors in designer clothes. I hate to see you ruin them.” He winked at her before he turned to open the passenger-side door. “You need to have something left to wear when it’s time to go get your brother and bring him in.”
Nikki stood in the driveway, clutching what looked like a wad of fabric to her chest. There was something odd about the intensity with which she watched the cable truck drive away, but Madeline dismissed the thought as she stepped down into the garden to meet John Franklin and the woman clearing a path before him.
“Hello, Ms. Singer.” The Realtor was slightly out of breath unlike the sturdy woman beside him. “I want to introduce you to my bride, Renée. Renée, this is Madeline Singer.”
“It’s Maddie,” Madeline said, extending her hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Oh, I’ve been dying to get my hands on these grounds for a good long time.” Renée Franklin’s handshake was firm and decisive, just shy of bone crushing. “Everything is so overgrown and out of control.” She shook her head. “A garden is like a child, Miz Singer. It needs a firm hand and constant attention.” Her eyes glittered with an almost religious fervor. Her accent was vaguely southern as if it had been acquired slowly over time. “Why, this level of neglect is almost criminal.”
“Now, now, dear. Don’t get yourself worked up.” John Franklin gently patted his wife’s formidable shoulder, the adoration in his eyes so stark it made Madeline’s stomach hurt. Her own husband was getting harder and harder to reach. Steve had pretty much stopped answering his cell phone, and far too many of her attempts to reach him on the house phone had been deflected by Edna.