One Fool At Least (The Madeline Mann Mysteries) Read online

  Slider looked surprised. “Didn’t I tell you? Finn wasn’t just my friend. He was my brother.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jack and I stared. “Your brother?” I asked.

  “Well, half-brother. When my mom’s lawyer contacted me about her policy, he gave me a safe deposit key. This was maybe six months ago. I went to the bank and opened the box, and there was the policy in there, and also a little diary, and some adoption papers. It turns out, when my mom was nineteen, she got pregnant. She had a little baby, and she gave him up for adoption. She’d found out a few years before she died, from doing some research, that her baby was Finn. She never told him, but she did start going down to the bar every Friday night. She’d have a pina colada, or she’d go to the restaurant and order dinner. A lot of times she’d bring me and my dad, or just me sometimes. She would always say, “I like that Finn Flanagan, don’t you, Slider?” I’d say he was okay. Then after she died I figured out what it was. She wanted me to love my brother, even if she didn’t have the courage to tell me about him.

  “So I brought the papers to Finn, and we started hanging out together. He said he was sorry she never told him. He hadn’t been that close to his adoptive mom and dad. And he had always liked Sarah, he said. That’s my mom, Sarah Cardini. Finn said he thought she was classy. She was.”

  Slider looked pained, speaking of his dead mother and the loss of the brother he’d only just realized. We sat in silence for a while, giving him some time. Then Jack slapped his hands against his own jeans.

  “As my wife said, Slider, we will help you.”

  “But what exactly do you need help with?” I asked.

  Slider sighed. “I’ve been down to Finn’s place a few times. I still have a key Finn gave me. He still had food there, for one thing. But even though the police took his computer and stuff, I’m looking for a little diary that Finn used to keep. It was a small notebook with a tin cover. He jotted ideas in there, but other stuff, too. He was kind of secretive about it. I told you he was kind of paranoid. I think he hid it, and I think it might have something I need to help me find—you know—who might have wanted him dead. So I need a couple more days, or nights, to look around. Just give me two days, say, before you tell people I’m, you know, alive.”

  “Aside from the Sheas, you mean,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course, but no one else. Not even my dad,” he said. “And not the police.”

  “Why not?” Jack asked.

  “Because it’s public then, first of all, and because—well—Chief Hendricks and Mr. Wilde are real good friends, let’s just say that.”

  “Finn told you that?”

  “Everyone knows it, is all.”

  “Anything else?” Jack asked, frowning in concentration as he stared at the dying fire.

  “Well, I know you’re on your honeymoon and all. And after all that’s happened, you probably don’t want to get messed up in this—but it would help to have someone—someone like you, Mrs. Shea, whose kind of an investigator—going downtown and just sort of nosing around. But I can totally understand if you’re like, no way.”

  Jack eyed me. I wasn’t sure what sort of “help” he was offering Slider, but I knew what I wanted for myself. I had been having flashbacks all day, memories of the way I’d felt when the power locks had clicked down in the car that Jim was driving, of that sudden nightmarish feeling of total helplessness. I could still taste the fear in my mouth, and feel that desolation that came closer as the mountains did, as I drove farther and farther away from my brand new husband. It made me angry. It made me want to lash out against that helplessness, to reclaim my power, crutches or no crutches. “Jack,” I said. “I’d like to do it.”

  Jack got up, took a fireplace poker, and jostled the dying embers. He spoke to the fire that leaped back to life. “Earlier today, Maddy, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again.”

  “Oh, man,” said Slider sympathetically.

  “And I swore when I got you back that I would do anything, anything to make it up to you,” Jack continued, as though no one had spoken.

  He looked at me with those deep blue-gray eyes, and I saw that Jack had been changed, really changed, by the events of today. “So I am not in a position to deny you anything, Madeline, not anything that you want. You want to go downtown and spit on Damien Wilde, go for it. You want to dig around in the secrets buried in Grand Blue, Montana, be my guest. My only stipulation is that I go with you. Everywhere.”

  “Agreed,” I said easily. “And I have a stipulation for you,” I told Slider. “Not only do we tell the Sheas about you right now, but in two days you turn this whole problem over to Jack and Pat, and you let them decide what to do.”

  Slider nodded. “That’s cool. I’m pretty fed up with camping out.”

  Jack stood up. “Before I call, you can use the shower. Maddy’s bath should be drained by now. I assume you want your girlfriend to see you with clean… everything.”

  Slider laughed, then awkwardly followed Jack to the bathroom.

  A few minutes later, Jack made a call to his brother and said, cryptically, “We need you down here. Bring Molly.”

  And then we waited. Slider eventually emerged looking two shades lighter, wearing a pair of sweats borrowed from Jack, his crazy hair shooting out in clean wet spikes from his head. He smelled like soap and he looked relaxed.

  When the knock came at the door I saw him stiffen and move to the corner. I wondered if he feared Molly’s feelings would have changed.

  He needn’t have worried. Pat had only said, “What’s going—” before Molly had looked past him to see her boyfriend standing there, and in one second she was in his arms and he was kissing her hair, saying “Molly, baby.”

  Pat stared, blinked, then sat down heavily in the chair. “Busy honeymoon,” he commented. “I swear I thought it would be peaceful, Bro.”

  Jack sighed. “None of us could have known. Let’s let go of the guilt and start making plans.” He instructed Slider to sit down and share his story, which Slider did, with Molly practically in his lap. Pat sat, stonefaced. When Jack told him that he and I would be looking into things, Pat shook his head.

  “It’s a bad idea, Jack. Maddy’s been through enough.”

  Jack nodded. “She has, but for once I’m not going to fight her. I’m just going to hang on to dear wife for dear life.”

  “You just come up with that?” I asked.

  “A couple minutes ago,” he admitted.

  Pat sighed. “Slider, come on back with us. You’ll be needing a good meal and a good night’s sleep. You can bunk with Mike. I think you better plan on just staying with us for the foreseeable future. We missed you, son. We were worried about you.”

  Slider grinned. “Thanks, Mr. Shea. I’m sorry I had to put you all out, but I was trying to do what was best for Molly. I still don’t know what Finn meant, but I know he cared about Molly a lot, and he wanted to protect her.”

  “My daughter will be well protected,” Pat said, his mouth a grim line.

  They all walked out together, Molly’s arm draped around Slider’s waist, her head on his shoulder. So sweet, I thought. I wondered if Damian Wilde would really go so far as to—

  “Jack,” I said over my shoulder, where he stood at the door watching them depart.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Call them! Ask them about the son, Damian Wilde’s son. Ask Slider what his name was.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, listening to my husband’s voice, listening to the faraway response from Slider, now sounding as distant as my hometown. Of course. The wild son of Mr. Wilde, so rebellious that he lived in his own cheap little house and sometimes delivered pizzas or did odd jobs around town as a way to throw his father’s money back in his face. His name was Ardmore.

  Chapter Nine

  Libby would like to make us breakfast tomorrow,” Jack said. “I’d like to let her, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course not.” I underst
ood. Everyone wanted to do what they could to make it better. Now I was exhausted beyond the point of sleep; I felt nervous and restless. “I wish I didn’t have the crutches. I could use a brisk walk. Burn some calories.”

  “You need to go to bed,” Jack said. “Come on, I’ll carry you.”

  I could probably have made my way up with the crutches, but Jack felt protective, and I understood that, too. He lifted me (how many people were going to carry me on this vacation?) and took me up a narrow staircase to a pretty loft where a big brass bed was made up with fluffy white eyelet covers. Libby had turned back the corner of the comforter and switched on a small green lamp in one corner. Jack first carried me to a tiny bathroom, where I went through an abbreviated nighttime routine, brushing my teeth with my eyes closed.

  When I emerged, he lifted me again and set me on the bed. “Good for my biceps,” he said.

  “Mmmm,” I agreed, lying back against a pillow and smiling at him. “I need to burn some calories,” I said.

  He sat down next to me. “I don’t know, Maddy. You’ve been through so much—”

  “And do you know what I wished, when the car pulled away? That I had kissed you one last time.”

  Obviously moved, Jack leaned in and touched my lips with his, light as air. He smoothed my still-damp hair. “You looked so beautiful at our wedding, coming down the aisle. Your blonde hair made you look like a treetop angel. I’ll never forget the sight. When you saw me you smiled.”

  “You were the only part that wasn’t scary.”

  “I thought, if there is one person on earth that I would like to be with every day of my life, it is that woman. I remembered that today, when I spent hours driving with my brother, my wonderful brother, and we met with the police, describing you, explaining that you were hurt—” his face creased with anguish.

  “Jack, stop.”

  “I said ‘She has blonde hair and green eyes, and if they hurt her you’ll have to pull me in for murder.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, smiling.

  “Something like that. I was babbling.” The talking had eased some tension in him, and he pulled off his shoes and lay down next to me. “You smell good,” he observed.

  “Scented powder.”

  He leaned over and sniffed the skin of my shoulder more carefully. “Mmm. Let’s buy you some of that.”

  “Okay. Hey, that feels nice,” I said, as his sniffing turned to gentle kissing. His mouth traveled to my neck, to the spot that made me silly with desire. “Kiss me there,” I sighed. “Jack. Kiss me everywhere.”

  He did. By the time he was finished kissing we were both burning lots of calories, careful of my precious foot, which sat on a pillow to the side of the action. I had never clung to Jack quite so desperately while we were making love, and the same must have been true of him, because we both felt it, a heightened level of feeling and a more fulfilling resolution to desire than either of us had perhaps ever known. By the time we were done, I was almost grateful to Jim and Randy; indirectly they’d achieved a certain atonement.

  I stroked Jack’s hair as we both basked in afterglow. “Jack, Ardmore knows something.”

  “Why do you say that? The guy was delivering pizza.”

  “Yes, but he’s Wilde’s son. And he knew my name. He said, ‘You’re Madeline. You’re the girl on the paper.’ I don’t know what that meant. And when I looked back when we left the bar, he had a funny expression on his face. A guilty expression.”

  Jack opened his eyes and got up on one elbow to look at me. “Why did you look back?”

  “What?”

  “You said you looked back at him, on the way out. What made you look back?”

  I shook my head. “What are you talking about? Do you think I have a thing for Ardmore? We just had the most amazing, loving sex of our lives, on our honeymoon, and you’re jealous of some guy I met in a bar?”

  Jack sighed. “Honestly? Yes.”

  “Jack, really.”

  “When we came in he had his hands on you. He was holding you around your waist and smiling into your face. And he’s big and rugged and handsome, if you like that type, and he rescued you. Girls dig that.”

  “Did you get a load of me, Jack? I was half-drunk, standing on one foot because my other one was swollen and throbbing with pain, and scanning the room hoping to see you, because I really didn’t think I could take anymore. I wasn’t exactly slow dancing and flirting with my eyes.”

  “I’m sorry.” He gave me a penitent look. “Doesn’t a little jealousy turn you on?”

  I stroked his hair again, generous in my forgiveness. “Lucky for you, almost everything you do turns me on. So, yes, the jealousy hits the spot.”

  “Okay. Now you need some sleep, Madeline.”

  “What are we doing tomorrow? Should we talk to Ardmore?”

  “I’m going to talk to Damian Wilde,” Jack said in a voice both final and intimidating.

  “Oh,” I said. I was actually feeling sorry for Ardmore’s father as I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Libby made pecan waffles. Jack and I ate like starving people, and Pat kept grinning at us, obviously relieved that things seemed back to normal. Slider sat across from us, his gaze rarely leaving Molly’s face. Molly looked euphoric, but Mike seemed subdued, although he had a smile for me when I said good morning.

  T.J. arrived with his wife and baby, and the breakfast table was suddenly much more animated. The baby, a little boy named Max, was passed around the table as people admired his miniature face, which was relaxed in a deep sleep. I finished my breakfast and told Jack I’d like to get some practice with my crutches. I moved through the kitchen and out the front door and got my first real look at the Montana Jack had wanted me to see. In its intense realness it looked fake, phony, like a giant backdrop of a play that someone had slapped in place for “Act I: The Honeymoon.” The giant sky—of Grand Blue fame—was in fact bright blue, azure blue, and a few puffy white clouds floated around just for decoration. The mountains on the horizon still had the ghostly, ethereal look, swathed in a sort of purple smoke that made them mysterious and so beautiful they brought surprising tears to my eyes. Directly across from us was a little stream with clear water that mirrored the sky and mountains, as if the view hadn’t been enough for us without being doubled and reversed. The surface was as still as a pane of glass. I would have believed it was some sort of tromp l’oeil if I hadn’t seen the occasional plop in the water which caused rings to spread outward in millions of concentric circles. They would disappear, eventually, and then plop something would go again.

  “Fish?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Jack agreed, helping me sit on a little bench. “And frogs.” He took my hand and sat beside me.

  “I like it here,” I said. “It’s so huge and defiantly beautiful. And it smells so wonderful,” I noted, taking a deep breath. “What is that? It never smells like that in Webley.”

  Jack nodded. “It’s fresh air, and trees, and water. Isn’t it great? You can’t bottle a smell like that. It really is beautiful, Maddy, and you’re safe here with my family.”

  I smiled. Pat came out holding the baby, and somehow the infant was handed to me. “Trina and TJ are eating, so I thought you all might like to watch the little one,” he said, with a conspiratorial wink at Jack.

  I took the baby awkwardly, not certain how to hold him, and was amazed at his lightness. He was only four days old. I was afraid I’d drop him or somehow catapult him across the driveway in one of my bizarre accidents.

  “I guess I can hold him,” I murmured to Jack, and I settled my little package in my arms.

  Jack stood over me like a sentry, obvious but sweet. I smiled down at the baby, who made slight gurgling sounds in his sleep. He coughed slightly and showed some distress, his little face turning red, although his eyes stayed shut.

  Nervous, I transferred him to my shoulder and patted gently. “Oh, Jack—that cloth that Trina uses—you know, the baby spit-up
one. Get it for me real quick, okay? This is my new blouse.”

  Jack hesitated, his eyes darting here and there. My poor husband must have feared there was a kidnapper in every bush. I sort of did, too, but not really. Not today, in the sweet Montana sun.

  Jack darted away after assuring me he would be right back.

  And then I found myself alone with Max. He had stopped his coughing; I adjusted him so that his face was close to mine and I could look at it. I couldn’t admire the mountain scenery anymore, because Max was even more lovely somehow, and his tiny features, miraculous in their very uniqueness, compelled me to stare. I touched his little button of a nose, smoothed his pale eyebrows, and pressed a kiss on his warm little head, covered with surprisingly thick dark hair. The smell of Max was indefinable, but infinitely comforting and sweet. “You are precious,” I told his placid face. Babies are easy to care for when they’re sleeping.

  I didn’t even hear the car drive up. I looked up from a deep contemplation of Max, and there HE was in front of me, a man of about fifty-something with gray hair that hung lanky to his shoulders and a red, angry face that looked me up and down. He was chewing on the inside of his mouth, that nervous habit some people have, and it was distorting his face, making it look like a chunk of it had been removed. His hands were clenched and on his hips, which was lucky, because his jeans looked ready to fall right off his scrawny legs. His blue flannel shirt looked like it could use a wash.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Who are you?” I retorted.

  “I’m looking for my son, and I have business with Pat Shea, so I’ll thank you to tell me where he’s at.” He went back to gnawing on the flesh inside his cheek. On a hunch I glanced at his fingernails. It didn’t surprise me to see that they were bitten to the quick. This guy was just a ball of nervous energy.

  “Are you Mr. Cardini?” I asked.

  “That’s right. Angelo Cardini. You are?”

  “I’m Madeline. I’m Pat’s sister in law.” I felt a certain pride in saying it, in having new family. Instinctively I stood up, swaying slightly, leaning on the bench with the back of my strong right leg.