tried to muster some submission. “I’m sorry. I’ve just got a ton of work to do. Maybe you could call and berate me later.” Okay, so I was only partially successful.
“Obviously you don’t care about my opinion or my standing in this community. How am I supposed to explain you cavorting with criminals?”
“Liam isn’t a criminal and we aren’t cavorting.”
“I have eyes, Finley, and I’ve seen the two of you together. Why couldn’t you just stay with Patrick? He was such a gentleman.”
And a bastard. “Mom, I’ve got another call,” I lied in tribute to my crappy ex-boyfriend.
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to have brunch on Sunday.”
If this was my punishment, I was all in. “That’s a shame.”
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“I just told you I have another call.”
“Fine. Don’t care what’s happening in my life.” Click.
I stared at the receiver for a few seconds, then placed it on the cradle. It took me only an hour to finish the abstracts, so I decided to make my life easy and do some housekeeping on the Lawson estate. In no time my printer was spitting out letters to various financial institutions so Mrs. Lawson could have complete control over the seven million little friends she was about to inherit. I also drafted letters for the disinherited, leaving spaces for the names and addresses once they were provided by Joseph. That left me with a half hour before I had to leave for the Riviera Beach Sheriff’s Office.
I started a search on the late Stan Cain, which, thanks to all the database subscriptions at my fingertips, was a pretty easy thing to accomplish. Cain had married his college girlfriend and settled back in Palm Beach County. He had been a decorated deputy who’d achieved the rank of sergeant. The Cains had two children, just as Ashley had said.
I stopped reading for a minute and glanced at my phone. I wanted to call Liam, but I was afraid. Afraid that Ashley was with him. It would be like her to spend the night at his side, and it was in keeping with Liam’s MO to let her. For months I’d been torn between my curiosity over Tony and my lust for Liam. Only now I was fairly sure what I was feeling was more than just lust. I used to believe that if we just slept together, it would scratch that itch and I could move on to someone less complicated. But I couldn’t ignore the jealousy factor. Or the idiot factor. As always, I was attracted to the wrong man.
“And what do you really know about him?” I asked the air. Easy answer. Not much. Not enough and really not enough to be angsting over his relationship with his not-so-ex-wife.
Back to Stan Cain. Getting copies of his birth certificate, marriage certificate, and work history was easy. Now I’d moved on to news articles. I found a few column inches in the Palm Beach Post regarding the accident. It wasn’t detailed, so all I could garner was that he’d had some sort of accident. I glanced at the byline. Luckily, I knew the reporter. We’d gone out a few times several years ago. He wasn’t my type, but he was very persistent. It had taken me a month to shake his incessant calls. I weighed my options. There was a chance that by making contact I’d renew his interest. But if I didn’t contact him, I’d have to go see the widow and that seemed like the worse option. Especially since I had no authority and she’d have no reason to share her pain with me.
Justin Haller picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Um, hi, Justin, this is Finley Tanner.”
“Finley, it’s been awhile.” I could almost hear him grin.
For good reason. “Yes it has. I called because, well, because I need some information on a piece you wrote about a week ago.”
“You follow my work?”
His “work” was mostly grunt assignments, but he thought of himself as South Florida’s version of Woodward and Bernstein. I dodged the question. “I’m working on something that is tangential to a story you did. The Stan Cain
“Obviously you don’t care about my opinion or my standing in this community. How am I supposed to explain you cavorting with criminals?”
“Liam isn’t a criminal and we aren’t cavorting.”
“I have eyes, Finley, and I’ve seen the two of you together. Why couldn’t you just stay with Patrick? He was such a gentleman.”
And a bastard. “Mom, I’ve got another call,” I lied in tribute to my crappy ex-boyfriend.
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to have brunch on Sunday.”
If this was my punishment, I was all in. “That’s a shame.”
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“I just told you I have another call.”
“Fine. Don’t care what’s happening in my life.” Click.
I stared at the receiver for a few seconds, then placed it on the cradle. It took me only an hour to finish the abstracts, so I decided to make my life easy and do some housekeeping on the Lawson estate. In no time my printer was spitting out letters to various financial institutions so Mrs. Lawson could have complete control over the seven million little friends she was about to inherit. I also drafted letters for the disinherited, leaving spaces for the names and addresses once they were provided by Joseph. That left me with a half hour before I had to leave for the Riviera Beach Sheriff’s Office.
I started a search on the late Stan Cain, which, thanks to all the database subscriptions at my fingertips, was a pretty easy thing to accomplish. Cain had married his college girlfriend and settled back in Palm Beach County. He had been a decorated deputy who’d achieved the rank of sergeant. The Cains had two children, just as Ashley had said.
I stopped reading for a minute and glanced at my phone. I wanted to call Liam, but I was afraid. Afraid that Ashley was with him. It would be like her to spend the night at his side, and it was in keeping with Liam’s MO to let her. For months I’d been torn between my curiosity over Tony and my lust for Liam. Only now I was fairly sure what I was feeling was more than just lust. I used to believe that if we just slept together, it would scratch that itch and I could move on to someone less complicated. But I couldn’t ignore the jealousy factor. Or the idiot factor. As always, I was attracted to the wrong man.
“And what do you really know about him?” I asked the air. Easy answer. Not much. Not enough and really not enough to be angsting over his relationship with his not-so-ex-wife.
Back to Stan Cain. Getting copies of his birth certificate, marriage certificate, and work history was easy. Now I’d moved on to news articles. I found a few column inches in the Palm Beach Post regarding the accident. It wasn’t detailed, so all I could garner was that he’d had some sort of accident. I glanced at the byline. Luckily, I knew the reporter. We’d gone out a few times several years ago. He wasn’t my type, but he was very persistent. It had taken me a month to shake his incessant calls. I weighed my options. There was a chance that by making contact I’d renew his interest. But if I didn’t contact him, I’d have to go see the widow and that seemed like the worse option. Especially since I had no authority and she’d have no reason to share her pain with me.
Justin Haller picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Um, hi, Justin, this is Finley Tanner.”
“Finley, it’s been awhile.” I could almost hear him grin.
For good reason. “Yes it has. I called because, well, because I need some information on a piece you wrote about a week ago.”
“You follow my work?”
His “work” was mostly grunt assignments, but he thought of himself as South Florida’s version of Woodward and Bernstein. I dodged the question. “I’m working on something that is tangential to a story you did. The Stan Cain
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