Chapter 29
T
wo weeks passed after the capture of Brinkman and every one of those days was cold, empty, and miserable. Rick hadn't contacted her, Sweet'ums was home with Karen, and Alvin had gone off to meet with Irving two days ago and never came back.
Feeling abandoned and heartsick, even the ultimate sacrificial offer from her friendsâa bar trip to sing karaokeâhadn't cheered her up. Summer and Jess were starting to worry.
Missing Rick had become a pain she couldn't shake. She assumed he was back in L.A., living his life with bikini-clad women and spending his time breaking down doors and arresting dangerous criminals.
Many times she wanted to call or text or email, but couldn't bring herself to do it. If he was so into her like he'd said, wouldn't he have contacted her? The case was closed, even though they still didn't know what Teddy had done with his stolen property. So there really was no reason for him to see her again. She'd have to resign herself to their brief romance being over, and move on, too. Shouldn't she?
She dressed in black jeans and a black tour tee from Journey that she'd found at a thrift store. She'd chosen the tee today partly as an homage to her mood, and also because she felt like she hadn't had a chance to say good-bye to Rick. Maybe this would get him out of her mind, and heart.
Her phone pinged. A text arrived from Summer.
Meet us at Affordable U-Store.
Us? “Who's us?” she texted back and got silence. “Hello?” Still nothing. Curious, she grabbed her stuff and headed out.
A pair of police cars sat in the storage facility parking lot with several other vehicles when she rolled up. What was going on?
Taryn drove through the gates and parked in one of two open spots. Summer's cotton candy mobile sat off to one side, as well as Jess's SUV, so apparently Jess was included in the “us.”
The noise of a lot of voices led her down a familiar walk between the rows of units. The place looked less foreboding during daylight, and without bullets flying.
A crowd of people filled the space in front of Brinkman's storage locker, which upped her curiosity to critical level. The first person she recognized on approach was Irving, standing with Alvin, and both men were wearing pink Polo shirts with matching pink-and-black plaid pants. The sight of all that pink made her brain hurt.
“Irving, what is going on?”
“Alvin is my new bodyguard. All rich old guys should have a bodyguard,” he said. Alvin looked down and scowled. “I don't really like pink,” Irving muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “I'm just testing Alvin's loyalty.”
She blinked. This was a conversation for later.
“No. I meant, what's going on here?” She made a circle with a finger, encompassing the crowd. “Did someone find a corpse under the Pinto?”
“Okay, right. No, no corpse. Summer got a mysterious text from someone while she was in my office, telling her to meet here.” He cleared his throat and peered down at his feet. “She wouldn't tell me anything more, so don't ask. We come out of curiosity. Jess, too.”
“Why don't you go find out,” Alvin said. He and Irving shared a glance. The two of them clearly knew something and weren't telling.
Confused, Taryn pushed into the mass. Strangers came first, then familiar faces began to appear. She passed Gretchen and a woman from accounting; Andrew, Thurston, and soul patch guy, as well as several others who looked like college-age kids. At her frown, Andrew shrugged. “Alvin texted us. He's kept us filled in on your case. This is so sick.”
Great. Did she have any privacy?
Oddly, she wasn't surprised to see Honey and Joey, since this was their case, too. “Someone named Summer texted us,” Honey explained. “My husband couldn't make it. He's busy making new friends in jail.”
Taryn liked Honey and her ability to bounce back from Brinkman. In another life, they might have been friends. “Will you wait for him to be sprung in three to five?” she asked. “You two make a cute couple.”
“Not a chance.” Honey laughed.
Taryn moved on. At the front of the group were Summer and Jess, huddled together in a girl clutch. “Isn't this exciting,” Summer said. “It's a mysterious adventure for all of us.”
“She needs to get out more,” Jess said, nodding toward Summer. The latter grinned.
“What is this?” Taryn said, quickly losing patience. She'd been invited to a party and didn't know the reason or the host.
“You'll have to ask him.” Summer pointed to Rick, whom Taryn hadn't seen. He stood with his back to her, talking to Jane Clark and another woman, while a pair of policemen loitered nearby. One officer held a pair of bolt cutters.
A shiver went through Taryn. Fifteen days and not a word, and now he stood twenty feet away, and her stomach went all knotty. She should be over him, but all she wanted to do was run to him and jump into his arms.
As if sensing her presence, he turned, glanced down at her Journey tee, and a grin split his face. “Nice,” he mouthed and pointed to his chest down. He was also wearing a Journey tee from a different tour year.
Fate? Maybe.
Her knees knocked a little. Okay, a lot. Would he always have that effect on her?
Probably. She loved him.
He glanced at the unit. In his hand was a pair of crowbars. She took that as a clue. The unit was another. If she wanted to learn the entire mystery, she had to straighten up her spine and ask him. It took solid control of her emotions to walk to him, calmly, while all hell broke loose inside her.
“Taryn.”
“Rick.” She inhaled deeply. With limited space, they stood close together. She covertly inhaled his spicy cologne. “I thought you were back in L.A.”
“I still have time on my leave and wanted to see more of Michigan. Nice state. Besides, I couldn't leave without finding Brinkman's stash.”
“Oh.” Of all the things she wanted to hear from him, that wasn't it. Was it wrong to want to be his number one reason for staying? Then again, why would she be? She hadn't left things between them on a good note. “Of course.”
He turned slightly and reached for the woman standing patiently with Jane. Both women were listening intently to their conversation. He reached out to the dark haired woman. She stepped close. “Taryn, this is my mother, Joyce Silva. Mom, this is my PI, Taryn Hall.”
“It's nice to meet you, Taryn.” Joyce took her hand. She had the same gray eyes and dark brown hair as her son. Her expression was warm when she squeezed Taryn's hand. “Thank you so much for catching Teddy, or whatever his name is. He's hurt a lot of women. It's time he spent some time in jail.”
“It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Silva, and you're welcome.” She glanced at Rick, more puzzled than ever. Obviously, he was the person behind all this. She was tired of waiting for the why. “Can I speak to you privately?”
Rick nodded and pulled Taryn aside. He signaled to the cop with the bolt cutters. The officer cut the lock and stepped aside.
“Explain, please?” she said.
He grinned. “Over the last couple of weeks, while trying to get over my broken heart with booze and casual sex with multiple women, I did some thinking that didn't involve you and your naked body.”
Her eyes darted to his mother. “Shhh!”
He chuckled. The man was shameless.
“Anyway, every clue, everything led me back to that piece of shit Pinto,” he said and rolled up the door. “It's the only constant in Brinkman's life. I knew we had to search it again.”
“But we didn't find anything the first time.” The car had been rolled back inside the unit and the flat tire was now half off the rim. Otherwise, nothing had changed, right down to the chalky smell and mummified mouse in the corner.
“The police didn't, either. However, we also didn't pull the car apart. So I finagled a court orderâI won't go into details so as not to bore youâbut I wanted you to be here for the opening of Al Capone's vault.”
Taryn got the reference. Many years earlier, Geraldo Rivera had put on a TV special devoted to opening Al Capone's secret vault; he was convinced he'd find some hidden treasure left behind by the mobster. Her parents had been glued to the TV, as were millions of other viewers. Instead, it was a bust. Ratings gold was the only gold Geraldo found when opening Al's dusty old vault.
“You can't seriously think Brinkman stuffed the gas tank with cash?”
“Probably not. Removing the tank would take more than one person to accomplish. But there is a lot of car left.”
His excitement was infectious. Being with him made her feel happy again and she smiled. At this moment, he could ask her to help him to do anything, and she'd say yes.
Taryn reached out a hand. “Let's do this!”
“That's my girl.” He handed her a bar. Their fingers touched. Darn, she'd missed those hands.
For the next hour or so, they pulled apart the car from the outside in, laughing the entire time, to the encouragement of the gathered onlookers. The strangers eventually dispersed until only friends, family, and ex-wives remained to see if Rick's theory was right about a secret treasure.
The police stood by in case they found evidence of a crime. Otherwise, the pair was left alone to their destruction.
Once inside the car, they threw out boxes and junk, tore up seats and removed and looked under floor mats until there was nothing left to search.
Taryn didn't hide her disappointment when she faced him over the top of the car. “It's Al Capone's vault all over again.”
“Not yet.” He motioned for her to get back into the car. She sat on the ripped seat and watched. Rick pried open the pillar on the left driver's side window. A roll of papers fell out. He unrolled them. “Oh, look. Bank statements.”
Rick had found them a little too easily. She frowned. “I think you knew you'd find something in there.”
“Wait.” He lifted a hand to the roof lining. With a hard pull, the fabric came loose and fell down onto the head rests in a whirl of dust, along with something wrapped in cloth. Taryn waved her hand and coughed. “What is that?”
He pulled back. “Not yet.”
With a wink, they exited the car. He faced Jane. “Looking for this?”
Slowly, and with great fanfare, he unwrapped the package and dropped the cloth on the cement floor. He turned it over for Jane to see. Both Taryn and Jane gasped.
Joyce took her new friend by the elbow when she wobbled. The hidden treasure was the beautiful Edward Cucuel painting of Jane as a girl. Although the frame was gone, the painting was still in perfect condition.
“That bastard kept it. Thank God.” Jane found her footing and walked over, pressed a kiss on Rick's cheek, and took the painting from him. She looked heavenward and tears filled her eyes. “We got it back, my darling William.”
The passenger side pillar held more documents that would be sorted later. Once Brinkman's property was seized, the court would dole out what he had left among his wives. Ronnie would go to jail for kidnapping Taryn and Rick, and Joey and Honey would probably get wrist slaps for whatever part they played in the Brinkman mess.
When Rick finally declared the car cleared and the case officially closed for good, Summer took Rick's pointed stare as an unspoken hint to leave, so she ushered everyone out.
“Party at Brash & Brazen, Inc.!” With a smile, she and the group left to excited chatter. There would probably be many social media posts about this day, mostly from Andrew and his bros, no doubt.
Taryn waited a minute to savor the moment before leaning her butt back against the car. “You never did answer my question. Did you know where Brinkman hid the documents and painting before we tore apart the car?”
“No. Not for sure. After I nailed down the car as the only hiding place that made sense, I used experience with drug smugglers to guess the rest.”
She pushed a door handle aside with her foot. “Then why make us go through all this? We destroyed the car.”
“Because watching you wield a crowbar was hot.” He was completely unapologetic. “Besides, I had to take some revenge for my mom. Since I couldn't take my anger out on Brinkman, ripping apart his prized Pinto was second best.”
There was no fault in that reasoning. Demoing the junker had been fun. Watching his muscles bunch when he pulled off the bumper or pried free a panel was sexy. Everything about him was sexy. Even Tim, whom she'd once thought of as an attractive man, didn't hold up next to Rick. What she felt for him was deeper than the blind crush-love she'd felt for the charming and shallow Tim. She hoped that one day he would think the same about her.
“I was surprised to see your mom and Jane here.” Nervous to be alone with him, she kept to neutral subjects. “Did Summer text them, too?”
“No. I did.” Rick moved close and dropped his crowbar on the car roof. “They met online through Brinkman's ex with the website in Arizona. They've been chatting for several weeks now. Jane invited her to visit and they were together when I called.”
“Then something else good came of all of this. They both made a new friend.”
Rick nodded. He slid his hand to touch the back of her neck. A shiver slid down her spine. “Do you really want to spend this time alone talking about my mother and Jane?”
She bit back a smile. “No, I don't.”
“Me neither.” He dropped his arm, sidestepped in front of her, and took her hands. He shifted his legs outside of hers. “I want to talk about how much I've missed you, and how sorry I am for walking away and not calling. I wanted you to decide what you wanted, and I also had to do some thinking about us.”