Harper cleared his throat, clearly ill at ease as Jules again said, “We’ll absolutely find her. It may take a little time, but it’s just not going to be that hard.”
Milt nodded as he looked over at Harper. “Get them the keys and copies of all the paperwork you have on file. Everything. Digitally, as well, please.” He smiled almost happily at the man as he twisted his knife. “Ernie.”
The lawyer smiled tightly in response. “Of course, Mr. Devonshire.”
Van Nuys, California
Mick parked his car in Emily’s driveway, then used the keys she had given him to let himself in.
Her house was cool and quiet.
She had a security camera set up on the mantle of her gas fireplace, and she surely got a notice from her app of the movement in the room, so he waved at the lens. He texted her, too. As long as he was here...
Anything else I can get for you, besides the sweatshirt and your books?
It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask:When did you meet my father and just how ungodly awful was he to you?
The investigators from Troubleshooters and Ernest Harper all believed his father’s note was referencing some kind of sexual encounter, which had made him really uncomfortable.
But it was okay. They didn’t know Emily. New experience...? Yeah, no. The idea that she could’ve or would’ve... No. Nope. It was both bleach-his-brain awfulandsnowball’s chance in hell.
But his fatherhadmet her. That much was clear. And it probably wasn’t becausehe’dsoughtherout.
Five years ago, she’d been... twenty-two. Just out of college. Probably recently returned from that trip she’d taken to Alaska. Young and yes, open to new experiences, she’d no doubt managed to intercept Milt Senior somewhere, somehow.
Intercept and make an impression. Although that note was... It was typical of his father.I win. Way to make what was possibly his only attempt at redemption and generosity sound more like a curse, or even a punishment.
She’d never mentioned meeting Milt Senior, but thenagain, she hadn’t told Mick very much at all about her mother’s death.
Mick found her sweatshirt—bright blue—exactly where she’d told him it would be, draped over the back of one of her dining area chairs. The books were in her bedroom and as he went down the hall he was struck by how good it smelled in here—as if Emily herself was waiting for him in her bed.
Alas, she was a two-and-a-half-hour, heavily-trafficked drive away. The room was as quiet and still as the rest of the house.
A text swooshed in as he took all three of the books in her—what did she call it? Her TBR pile. At least he took all of the books inthisto-be-read pile. She had another larger stack—stacks, plural—in the living room on the console beneath the TV.
Hey, if you don’t mind,she’d texted him back,would you bring me the apples and whatever’s left of the bag of clementines from the drawer in the fridge? I’m jonsing for some fruit that doesn’t come frozen in a glass with rum.
He texted back the dancing man and a heart, even as his phone displayed the dots that informed him that she was typing another text as he went into the kitchen and found the fruit.
Another swoosh.Thank you!! What’s your ETA? Think you’ll make it back tonight?
Absolutely,he texted.From here I’m on my way to you.
He’d stopped at his house to shower off Milt and to change his clothes before coming here. Of course, he would’ve gone home to do that first regardless of Em’s security camera. De-Milting had been a priority, and he dashed from the lawyer’s office to the parking garage—nearly running over a man who’d been lurking in the coolness, wouldn’tthathave been peachy keen—as he got the hell outof there as quickly as he could after confirming his father’s Palm Desert address with Harper’s assistant Greg.
His father had hated the Palm Springs area—too many gay people and golfers—so Mick had been sure it was a safe place for him and Emily to hide.
Except, nope, it wasn’t. Ernest Harper went there regularly to “check on” the property. Check on it. Yeah. Right.
But after Mick’s initial panic had faded a bit, he’d realized that not only was the golfing community of Palm Desert far enough from downtown Palm Springs to not have to worry about running into the lawyer on the sidewalk or at a trendy restaurant, but his disguise—both the clothes and the wig—had been effective.
Even if Harper literally bumped into them on the street, he was so arrogantly self-absorbed that he wouldn’t recognize Mick as being the same Milton Devonshire Junior who’d spent the morning in his office conference room, stinking up the joint.
Mick had kept the wig on in the car—God it was hot and it really did smell terrible—until he was certain no one was following him. And maybe he was being paranoid, but Ernest Harper was a devious prick and he’d learned years ago—the hard way—that it was better to be safe than sorry. So Mick drove all the way down into Hollywood before looping around onto the 405 and going back to the Valley and his place in Woodland Hills.
It wasn’t the most efficient route to the desert, to then have to divert back up here to Van Nuys again, but it was the safest.
How’d the meeting go?Emily texted and it jolted him a little before he remembered. He’d told her he had a face-to-face with the producer for the indie film for which he was doing post-production sound.
