There was more silence as Lucas started to pace, shoving his fingers through his hair, and the rest of us just watched him.
“Yeah, it was a bad storm, I know,” he said, agitated. “I haven’t looked at the weather report, but if you say so. No, no, our dock is fine. It’s really solid.”
He paused again, and I leaned subtly toward him, wishing I could hear what Wally Dumfries was saying.
“Yeah, if you say so. That should work.” Another pause, then a loud, sharp, “No! No! Everything is fine. I just don’t like storms. It has me all jumpy. No, there isn’t anyone else here with me, I swear.”
That lie made me feel sick. What would the criminals do when they arrived and found that Lucas actually wasn’t alone?
Not that it would matter all that much. The cops would be here by then. According to Fenn, they were already here, we just hadn’t seen any of them yet.
“Everything is fine, I swear,” Lucas said, trying to sound calmer. “I’ll come through for you, I swear. Okay, okay. See you tomorrow morning at four on the dot. Got it.”
I swallowed as my brother finished his call. “They’re coming at four now?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Lucas said, fiddling with his phone and rocking back and forth. “Apparently, the weather will be better by then, but it’ll still be dark. So everything will work out after all. Wally will switch out the guns for the powder, and as soon as they do, I’ll be out of here, on my way to deliver the shipment to the Westfield family.”
Fenn drew in a subtle breath at the mention of the other group of criminals Lucas was working with. I was willing to bet he’d be calling his friends at the BSI as soon as he could to update them.
“You’ll still be in heat,” I pointed out, though it wasn’t very helpful of me.
“I’ll think of something,” Lucas snapped. He followed his outburst with a frustrated grunt. “This next heat wave is already kicking me in the ass. I can’t…I can’t deal with this shit right now.” He threw his phone on the kitchen island and stepped over to Fenn. “I need you to do your job and do it good,” he said, grabbing Fenn and rubbing against him.
I was mortified by my brother’s behavior. Fenn really was a professional, though. He picked Lucas up and started toward the door.
“I’ve got you, Mr. Cahill,” he said as they left the kitchen. Fenn peeked back at Saint as he continued with, “I might have a few things in my ESA kit that will dampen the intensity of this wave.” He nodded to Lucas’s phone.
Saint and I held still, waiting until we heard Fenn’s footsteps on the stairs. As soon as the coast felt clear, Saint took my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen, heading down the hall to the den and the porch door instead of upstairs.
“Lucas isn’t going to play along when the time comes,” I said as we headed outside.
It was still raining, but not too badly. The last echoes of thunder were quiet and miles away. I was more concerned about slipping on the wet porch and the path down to the boathouse, but I had shoes on now, so it wasn’t as bad.
“Fenn will have to come up with something,” Saint said, talking as loudly as he could over the patter of the rain. “It looks like he’s assigned himself the task of Lucas anyhow.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh.
It was still an awful situation to be in. I’d only just adjusted to the fact that my brother was more than just a mean-spirited prankster who liked to make my life miserable. He was a bona fide criminal, and it hurt.
Saint sensed my gloom over the whole thing, of course. We made it down to the boathouse and the van, and as he pulled his phone out of his back pocket, he looked at me and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m as okay as someone with a crook for a brother can be, I guess,” I said, helping Saint to open the van’s back door.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but that’s really Lucas’s job,” Saint said, pushing the van’s doors wide.
“And I doubt he’s ever going to apologize,” I sighed, stepping over to the side to flick the switch that would turn on the lights.
Nothing happened when I tried, of course. I was pretty sure the lightning strike earlier had blown out the electrical system.
“Shoot,” I said, feeling a little silly for not just swearing when I really wanted to swear. “Can you get pictures without the lights?”
Saint made an uncertain sound, then stepped back and held up his phone to take a pic of the contents of the van. He then lowered the phone to take a look and shook his head. “We really should have more light.”
“I’m sure there are a bunch of flashlights and things in the garage,” I said. “We can grab some of those.”
Saint nodded, and we stepped out from under the roof of the boathouse and headed up toward the garage.
The rain was slowly stopping, but as it did, the heat and restlessness I had been fighting to control since we were up at the house got stronger. I felt like I was getting hot enough to dry my damp clothes, and probably to cause a cloud of steam to billow up around me. It wasn’t ideal, though. The last thing I needed when I had an incredibly important mission set by the police in front of me was to succumb to another heat wave. Lucas was right. This heat sucked.
