Baker's Dozen Read online

  Andy’s stomach knotted. She bowed her head. “He’s not coming back.”

  Sandra’s expression fell. “They got him, too, didn’t they?”

  “You knew?”

  “I had a feeling. The police told me he was missing. I didn’t believe it. He’s involved in this mess somehow, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “He lied to me, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Just promise me one thing,” Sandra said, halting Andy who was grabbing her purse and packing it with her passport and cash. “Promise me you won’t lie to yourself.”

  Andy had fifteen minutes to gather her stuff from Sandra’s house before she needed to catch her flight to Boston. The house was disorganized, sloppy. She bounded upstairs to the bathroom, digging through pink foam rollers, old hair brushes; grateful Sandra had kept everything. Finding everything she needed would be the problem. She needed cosmetics and hair holders and her old curling iron. A miracle it still worked. She wrapped the cord around the barrel. Clothes, fingernail files, fishing line, toenail clippers, floss, duct tape, and razor blades. She hadn’t lost it all in her dress at Tyrone’s, but she’d lost a lot.

  Andy stuffed cotton balls into small zippered pouches, but it just wasn’t all fitting. She tossed in a blush brush. The mascara fell out. Hands trembling, she picked it up. She had too much. She was about to fetch a backpack from downstairs when the doorbell rang.

  Andy froze. She didn’t want anyone knowing she was here, least of all any of Sandra’s friends. Anyone she had contact with was a liability.

  Andy ducked behind the half-wall leading to the downstairs, peeking through the plants for cover. Sandra’s youthful stride negotiated the cluttered space, her keys jingling at her side, matching her pace. She opened the door.

  Andy’s blood froze when a familiar voice said, “Hello there, ma’am.”

  Tyrone himself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tyrone barely acknowledged the small homely woman with unkept semi-curly hair as he peeked around the house of crazed disorder. He shivered. The disorder disoriented him, but he was here to deliver a message. He had to maintain control. “May I come in?” Two of his men remained at the door, another in the car.

  Tyrone used his large frame to bulldoze past the woman without waiting for a response. He inspected the lack of taste in what little dusty decor hung from the walls and crowded surfaces. He sneered at the piles of magazines on the coffee table and the pyramid of shoes by the door. Mrs. Miller nervously buzzed round him. He grew bold under her fear.

  He stopped at a picture of a girl hanging near the foyer. Her skirted leotard hung over skinny little legs, stretching up to her jazz hands. Though it was an older picture, he recognized her. “Is this your daughter?” he asked.

  “Stepdaughter.”

  Tyrone studied the girl behind the glass for a few seconds, as if he were an old family friend. How could this one little girl cause all this trouble? Then with one hand clutching his hat, he suddenly strode into the living room, observed an overstuffed chair marked with stains and decided to stand.

  “You know,” Tyrone said, taking out a hanky and wiped his eyes, gleaming with tears. “Last night, I ordered Maine lobster tails, clams, and shrimp from the grocer.”

  “What?” Mrs. Miller trembled. He smiled.

  “Yes, I ordered the tails, boiled them, steamed the clams, peeled and deveined the shrimp, then brined, shredded, and combined them all into a seafood mixture.”

  “You’re giving me a recipe?”

  “Hush. Just listen.”

  He wandered to the kitchen, which was just in view of the little front room, sneering at the crusted dishes in the sink. “Then I mixed them with panko crumbs, you see. Now here’s the secret, I used a watermelon baller to make the balls—the only way to form them to a perfect uniform size every time. I liked to cook. I attended École de Cuisine. Unfortunately, my father had other career plans for me. Thankfully, I can still cook.

  “Sadly, three days ago, I fried my little balls in safflower oil, you might want to remember this, safflower oil is better for frying delicate meats like the seafood because it reaches a high temperature faster.”

  Mrs. Miller stared at him. Giving these little lessons disarmed his victims.

  “It sounds wonderful,” she said. “I’m sure you enjoyed them, now if you excuse me—”

  “I’m not finished yet. You shouldn’t be so rude. I need to tell you my story.”

  Sandra sat back down. He continued his culinary lesson.

  “I like to fry mine at a temperature of three hundred and fifty or so, just to give the panko crumbs the right golden-brown texture on the outside.” He pinched the air with his forefingers and smacked his lips. A hint of a smile played on the lips as if he were savoring the meal all over again this very moment. Then his face changed, hardened, darkened. “But I never got to enjoy my Three Seafood Fried Balls. Do you know why?”

  Sandra shook her head.

  “Because last night, I received some very sad news while I was frying my seafood. In fact, some of them burned, and I do not like that.

  “The doctor said one of my men, one of my sons, my baby girl’s only love, Bobby, may not make it out of the hospital.”

  “I’m very sorry—”

  “Your stepdaughter is responsible.”

  Her hand flew to her face to hide her gasp. “Mandy would never—”

  “I don’t know if you know what your stepdaughter has been doing lately.” Mrs. Miller didn’t know. He could tell by her shock and horror on her face. He continued, “They were going to be married in the spring, my daughter and her fiancé. Now my little baby girl is mourning a husband she will never have. Do you know what it feels like?” He paused near the knife block. “It cuts like a knife.”

  From the block, he slid out an eight-inch chef’s knife. Not bad quality. Not the best, either.

  “This is a beautiful collection of knives, Mrs. Miller. I hope you don’t ruin them by washing them in the dishwasher.” He thumbed the edge of the blade, cutting himself slightly. A line of bright red slid down from his thumb. “Oh, and sharp, too.”

  Mrs. Miller shivered, staring wide-eyed at his hand. He headed to the door. She was on the point of breaking. Fragile. Just the way he liked them.

  He opened the door, put on his hat, and gave her a smile he could have sold used cars. He disturbed the pile of shoes. A cricket hopped toward the open door. His smile disappeared. He grimaced and shuddered. Then stomped on the bug.

  “You have a pest problem, Mrs. Miller. When I have a pest problem, I call the exterminator. I have a pest problem, too. I hate pests. Hate them with a passion.”

  Then quickly he flung the knife forward into the picture with the jazz hands, slicing it through, shattering the glass.

  “Remember Mrs. Miller, a life for a life.”

  ****

  Andy persuaded a hysterical Sandra to drive to her sister’s house in Ohio. She calmed to a smoldering silence and dropped Andy off at the metro. Andy paused at the door of the car, throwing her red weekender tote over her shoulder. Sandra had new wrinkles and dark circles under her eyes. Her shoulders slumped.

  “I’m sorry I never told you I picked up my dad’s investigative work,” Andy said.

  Sandra didn’t reply, staring into the distance, toward the haze clouding the sun. Everything had changed so quickly. Things will never be the same. At least not until they put Tyrone away.

  “I’m sorry about Brad.”

  Sandra nodded, tears welling in her eyes. She put the car in gear and Andy closed the door. She had to make this right.

  ****

  Andy hated flying.

  She hated all of it. Not just the packing, but security as well. And turbulence made her nervous. Ever since she watched a show where an alien ripped a plane apart, she never wanted to fly again. But since someone else paid for the flight, and time was of the essence, fly she must.

  Using Mrs. Vehem
ia’s voucher, she purchased a ticket to Boston. She could get out of town for a while, keep her promise to talk to Scott, find Dr. Armstrong the professor in Boston.

  While in the winding security line, full of impatient travelers, she tried to remember the name on the sticky. The name meant something. It sounded familiar. Though until her head cleared of the fog from impact and painkillers, she’d just have to wait to remember what it was. In the meantime, she headed for Boston.

  She checked her phone to make sure she was on time. Then she noticed a voicemail message. She clicked on the icon.

  “Hi.” The voice on the line had a thick accent. “This is Juan Martinez. A mutual friend said to call you.” There was some unintelligible Spanish. Then ended.

  Juan Martinez.

  The name on the sticky.

  She now had his number on her phone.

  Some foreign number.

  Her finger hovered over the redial button. Voices rose behind her.

  “Where are you going?” a lady asked a man behind her.

  “Excuse me,” he replied, his head down. “Sorry. Just catching up to my fiancée.”

  Andy swiveled. Angus, with a satchel over his shoulder, bent to kiss her. “Thanks for saving our place in line, honey. I got our bags all checked.” He raised a scarred eyebrow, and his eyes twinkled, his chin thrust forward in his cocky manner. Andy’s mouth fell agape. Andy’s mind sputtered with questions.

  “Next,” the TSA man called.

  Andy pivoted. She was next in line. Stepping up to the TSA podium, she showed her boarding pass and ID before entering the tunnel x-rays. The bored expression of the man in the blue and black uniform juxtaposed with her own anxiety. “Name?” he asked.

  Andy couldn’t find her voice.

  “Name?”

  “Amanda,” she squeaked out, the corner of her eye following Angus as he stood at the second podium. How did he get there? Her heart nearly strangled her breath.

  The agent, an elderly man perhaps in his fifties stared over the top of his glassed tucked underneath graying temples. “Full name?”

  “Oh, Amanda Loraine Miller.” Loraine was her aunt, her mother’s sister. The bored TSA agent lazily shone a light on her ID. Andy glanced at Angus who casually passed an ID and boarding pass to a female TSA agent at the other podium.

  Her TSA agent scribbled something on her pass and handed it back to her.

  “Next,” he said.

  Andy stood in line and removed her shoes, placing them in a bucket. Angus got behind her.

  “Name on the boarding pass?”

  “John Smith.”

  Andy snorted. “John Smith? Not very creative.”

  He didn’t answer, but put his shoes in a gray bucket.

  “How did you—?” Andy started.

  “Get a ticket so fast? Or find out where you are going?”

  Andy stood there, her eyes little slits. Annoyed for so many reasons. “Did you put a tracker in my bag?”

  “You’ll never know, will you?” Angus bent close, his eyes sparkling blue, full of amusement. “You didn’t think I’d let you go to Boston by yourself, did you?”

  “Tyrone’s been to my house.”

  “Everybody okay?”

  “Sandra is on her way to Ohio.”

  “Good.”

  Andy’s face flashed with heat as she placed her bag in a bin and marched through the metal detector.

  Beep! Beep!

  A portly TSA man pointed to Andy. “Please step over here, miss.”

  Andy followed the gloved hands of another TSA officer as they waved the wand over her.

  As a stout woman passed her hand over Andy and patted her down, she noticed the first officer secured her bag and rummaged through it.

  “Miss?” he asked. “Is this your bag?”

  Andy nodded. Angus didn’t even try to hide his smile from her. Andy shot him a scowl.

  The first TSA agent dug out throwing stars from her side bag pocket. She forgot she stashed them in there. You never know when you might need them.

  “You know these are outlawed by the TSA,” he said.

  Andy burned with embarrassment. She’d meant to store those in her checked luggage but was so rattled after Tyrone’s visit, she forgot.

  “You cannot carry weapons on a plane. I could have you arrested and detained as a terrorist.”

  Andy’s heart lunged. Andy had pretended to be many things, a terrorist was not one of them. Fear replaced indignation. “I’m a martial arts instructor, I always carry weapons in my bag.”

  “Weapons?” He continued through the bag. “There are fire crackers, a punch can opener, a four-inch Swiss Army knife, a wrench, and a lock pick kit.” He laid the items out as he mentioned each one.

  Another reason to hate flying. Andy’s face burned with embarrassment as Angus inspected the contents with a trained eye. She didn’t even care about the agents or the people behind her making comments. Only Angus’s smug laughter bothered her. As if she were playing nurse and he was the surgeon. Her stomach soured like she’d eaten too much cheap Chinese take-out.

  Angus stepped between her and the agent. “Sir, I’ll be happy to take them back to our checked luggage.”

  “Who are you?” he asked gruffly, his whole body puffing up, objecting to Angus even speaking.

  Angus didn’t even blink an eye. “Her fiancé.”

  “You two traveling together?” Now it was the agent’s turn to glance back and forth accusingly between Andy and Angus. His round face bubbled with little sweat drops on it, as if he were a rag being rung out. Andy was sure his nerves were also ratcheted up a bit. Dark circles seeped under his arms.

  “No,” Andy said just as Angus said, “Yes.”

  The agent frowned.

  “I mean yes,” Andy said, her head bowed.

  The agent glanced back and forth between them. “You’re together?”

  “She’s just a little nervous. We’re on our pre-honeymoon.” Angus slipped his arm around her waist, and bent to give her a kiss.

  His lips grazed hers. She breathed him in. Her stomach fluttered again, but for a different reason. Confusion, anger—she didn’t like being used as a cover—bubbled in her heart, even as she continued to kiss him. She couldn’t help it, he was kissing her. The kiss deepened until the agent coughed uncomfortably.

  Angus pulled back and opened his eyes, catching Andy’s and gave her a smile.

  The security man zipped up her bag. “Promise me you won’t carry this kind of stuff through a security again. You gave us quite a scare, lady.”

  “She has that effect on men,” Angus replied, winking to the officer, who pretended not to notice.

  Andy, still dazed, barely aware and nodded.

  She shouldn’t have kissed him back, but she had to make their cover realistic. Why didn’t he say they were brother and sister? Of course, they would have checked their IDs to validate matching last names. But Andy wished for any other story other than lovers.

  Angus slid his hand down her arm and caught her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll go check this in. I’ll be back, honey,” he said as if this parting were tearing him up inside. But Andy recognized a threat.

  Angus shouldered her red bag and galloped back to the checked luggage while Andy waited at the gate. The passengers began boarding. Minutes passed, and he was back through security.

  “Let’s go honey, we don’t want to miss our flight,” he said as he threaded his arm through hers, showing him his seat number next to hers.

  “How did you get here?” Andy asked, but he just stared at her, smug, superior, and calm. Andy’s face fell. “You’re not going to tell me are you.”

  “You’re dealing with a professional here.”

  “I’m a professional.”

  “Tsk, tsk. You’ve got moxie, I’ll grant you, but you’re not a professional. You lack a certain edge, experience, and knowledge.”

  “You’re so…” Andy compiled a list of insults, but Angus inte
rrupted her.

  “Careful,” he simply said, breathing it out, his gaze intense on her.

  ****

  While the other passengers boarded, she thought about her message from Martinez, and again when she and Angus settled in their seats. Martinez sounded scared, nervous. Desperate. Andy wished she’d been able to talk to him. Her mind whirred. Since she couldn’t call him now, not with Angus there. She must think about something else. She faced her seat-mate.

  “Did they tell you to follow me?” she asked.

  “I will neither confirm nor deny.” He flipped through the complimentary magazine, ignoring her completely.

  “How did you know where I was going?”

  Still silence.

  “Are you going to report everything to them?”

  “Why do you ask me questions when you know I’m just going to lie?”

  “You can at least tell me your name. Or at least a name I can call you.”

  “Christiaan.”

  “For reals this time?”

  “For reals.”

  “First or last name?”

  “First.”

  “No last name?”

  “Don’t push it.” He paused.

  Frustrated, Andy studied her pamphlet on Boston University, with smiling co-eds lounging on green grass. She slapped it down and faced to her seat-mate. “Tell me something about yourself…not a lie.”

  “I don’t sleep with a pillow.”

  “Odd.”

  “For years I slept on the streets. No pillows.”

  Andy’s eyes narrowed. “Weren’t you at your grandparents’ place?”

  “I was. I didn’t lie. But I was getting into fights in school, I was bored, angry. I didn’t want my grandparents to have to deal with my anger, so I left.”

  “You left? You ran away?”

  “Yeah, I ran away to the nearby city.”

  “But it wasn’t L.A.?”

  He shook his head.

  Andy nodded. “So how did you get to be doing this? I really want to trust you but I need answers, real answers, truth.”

  Angus or Christiaan put down his magazine, and stared into her eyes.

  “From this point on, I will not lie to you. I may have to withhold information. Maybe someday after this whole thing is over, I will tell you all the truth.” He bowed his head, his lashes concealing half his eyes. Then in a moment of bare naked truth, he whispered, “If I live long enough.” His fingers played with the pocket in the seat in front of him.