Page 12

“I’m going to do everything to help her too,” I said. “We can be allies in that.”

Landon smiled. “Good. Because she’s the best. I’ve heard a rumor you are too.”

I relished the compliment and shook Landon’s hand.

It was time to go to work in earnest. My first challenge would be to break it to my own father that I had to go back to Florida. He wouldn’t admit it, but I knew he was constantly afraid I’d leave and never come back.

In that, he had a lot in common with Kevin Bell. I supposed the best course of action was to simply rip off the bandage. As I pulled out of the Bells’ driveway, I punched in my father’s cell phone number. He answered right away.

“Dad,” I said. “We need to talk. I’m afraid you’re going to hate what I have to say.”

Chapter

Six

“Mercedes!”

I’d just made it to the rental car counter when she flew at me, arms wide, her long blonde hair trailing behind her like a banner. She wore her signature pale pink with gold jewelry.

Her skin gleamed. She smelled like lavender and honey, her own fragrance she developed and sold in bottles shaped like pink and gold butterflies. Because of course.

I knew to be careful of her hair when she enveloped me into a bone-crushing hug. She felt good. Too skinny, as always. The hollow of her throat looked like a cavern.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “What are you doing here? I told you I’d come straight to the shop.”

“That’s ridiculous. You need to come straight home and take a shower in your own bathroom. There’s a storm coming, like always, but we’ll have pure sun from two to five thirty or so. We’ll get in some beach time. You look like you need it, honey. You’re so pale. Let’s get you a good base.”

A good base. My mother was raised in a time where SPF was unheard of. She told stories of her own mother slathering her with baby oil and lying out in the yard under the sprinkler from June through August.

“Beach time sounds great,” I said. “But I rented a car. I told you, I’m driving to Clearwater tomorrow for work.”

She frowned. “Mercy, that’s silly. I can drive you wherever you need to go.”

“It’s fine, Mom. I’m leaving really early in the morning but I won’t be back before you have to open the shop.”

She pouted, but waited while I squared up with the rental agent. The car I reserved wasn’t available, but they set me up with a serviceable Toyota Corolla.

“Are you in short-term parking?” I asked. “I’ll drop you off.”

Mom followed me, still grumbling about me renting a car. But she gave it up by the time I pulled in behind her BMW. She had it custom painted in her pale pink with gold hubcaps. It was a garish thing, in my opinion, but she swore it was free advertising. For what? I never understood. She didn’t have her store’s logo anywhere on it. Even if she had, I told her there probably weren’t too many drivers on the hunt for purses in random traffic.

Mom designed custom handbags. She had a shop downtown near the pier. She got a good amount of foot traffic from tourists. A few years ago, an A-list actress purchased one of Mom’s bags. She carried it once when paparazzi followed her. Mom’s business took off after that.

I was proud of her. For most of my childhood, she’d flitted from project to project. She became notorious for starting something and never following through. She’d been a travel agent, a real estate agent, a makeup artist, then there were her stints with a variety of disastrous MLMs touting skin and hair care products. But ten years ago, she managed to finally turn her artistic talent into something real.

Each time Mom had a new idea, my father funded it, even long after their divorce. This time, I knew she had paid him back every dime of his loan.

It was a thirty-minute drive from the airport to my mother’s house. She lived in an affluent, gated community close to downtown. It put her within walking distance of her shop. Her house was a meticulously maintained two-thousand-square-foot ranch. Mom had a covered pool in her backyard and private access to the beach right outside her gate.

The house, too, was a parting gift from my father. He bought it for her and put it in her name free from any mortgage.

Diligently, over the last decade, my mother had amassed an impressive investment portfolio. It would be easy to think my mother was window dressing. The gorgeous trophy wife Dad’s first wife thought she was. I knew better. For all her superficial trappings, my mother was a shrewd and savvy businesswoman.

I went through the garage and set my bag in the mudroom. Mom had beaten me home. She stood at her kitchen island. Everything in the room was white. Her ceramic tiled floor, granite countertops, subway tile backsplash, and massive hooded La Cornue Chateau range she probably hadn’t used once.

“I’ve got reservations for us at Ricardo’s tomorrow night,” she said. “Do you mind if Karl joins us? He’s in town this week. He’ll only stay for a drink and maybe an appetizer.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” I said. Karl Auer was my mother’s on-and-off-again Austrian boyfriend. A pilot (Mom had a weakness for them, it seemed), Karl flew a charter G6. His upper-crust clientele had him traveling all over the world. I found him pretentious, somewhat vacuous, but he was nice to my mother and made her happy. For me, that was all that mattered.