Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(83)

“Since Jimmy isn’t here,” I said, pocketing the phone, “just so you know, a lot of Roger’s friends are beginning to ask questions about what’s going on with him.”

Shelley tried to keep her face expressionless, but it didn’t quite work. Having dropped what I regarded as an appropriate exit line, I turned on my heel and beat it out the still-open door behind me. As the heavy oaken door slammed shut, I couldn’t help but smile.

She’d heard me, all right. Shelley Hollander Loveday Adams was on notice now, because she’d heard me loud and clear.





Chapter 30




I was concerned about what I would find once I got to the Travelall. Would Jimmy be upset because he was being held captive by a strange woman? Would I find a kid who thought he was being kidnapped by people he didn’t know? What I found instead was a calm middle-schooler sitting in the rear passenger seat, happily chowing down on Twink’s generous serving of AJ’s sticky pudding.

“I told him he couldn’t go inside because his grandfather’s ill,” Twink explained. “He said he was hungry, so I gave him my dessert. Where to?” she added.

I thought about Shelley’s luggage sitting packed and ready to go. Obviously she was headed out of town, and I wondered if my parting remarks might have accelerated her departure. If so, I wanted to have some idea where she was headed.

“Shelley may be leaving soon,” I said to Twink. “Pull off the road somewhere out of sight but close enough for us to still be able to see the driveway. If she leaves the house, I want to know which direction she’s going.”

Then I turned around and studied our passenger. “Hello, Jimmy,” I said. “Your mom’s really worried about you.”

“I don’t care. If I’m not supposed to lie, she shouldn’t either,” he replied. “But she did. When we did an ancestry thing in social studies, we were supposed to write an essay about our grandparents. I don’t know any of my grandparents. Mom said her mother died of cancer and that all my other grandparents died on accident, but it’s not true. Why did she lie?”

It occurred to me that Nitz wasn’t the only one who’d maintained that falsehood as the truth. So had Jimmy’s beloved Aunt Penny and Uncle Wally. As for people dying “on accident”?

I had to grit my teeth at his use of that term. I suppose “on accident” has something to do with confusing “by accident” with the phrase “on purpose.” My grandkids say that, too, and it drives me nuts. Maybe I’m turning into a grammar cop in my old age. In this case I let Jimmy's phraseology, go but I did take issue with his facts.

“Your dad’s father, Richard, shot your grandmother, Sue, to death and then turned the weapon on himself. For the record, Sue Danielson was my partner at Seattle PD and one of the bravest women I’ve ever known. And it turns out you’re wrong about having no grandparents, and not just Roger Adams. One of the reasons I came to Alaska this week is a woman named Annie Hinkle, your great-grandmother on your mother’s side. She’s still alive and living in Ohio. She has no idea you exist any more than you knew she did, but I’m sure she’d be thrilled beyond words to meet you. The same goes for your dad’s brother, your Uncle Jared.”

“I have an uncle?” Jimmy asked hopefully. “For real?”

“For real,” I assured him. “But if your mother never told you any of this, how did you hear about what happened to your dad’s parents?”

“How do you think?” Jimmy replied. “After you were there the other night and I heard you and Mom talking, I went online and looked stuff up.”

“Including your grandfather’s street address here on Diamond Ridge Road?”

Jimmy nodded. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

The idea that this twelve-year-old kid could locate information on the Internet that would elude far too many well-seasoned adults was downright alarming. In the meantime Twink had moved the Travelall from the Adamses’ driveway to another one two doors up, where she pulled in, switched off the engine, and doused the lights.

“Is he really sick?” Jimmy asked as he used a plastic spoon to scrape the last morsels of sticky pudding out of the bowl and into his mouth. “My grandfather, I mean.”

“Yes, he’s really ill.”

“Is he going to die before I get to meet him?”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, “but I do know this. You need to call your mom.”

With that I turned on my phone and passed it to Jimmy.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to.”

“She’s going to be mad at me.”

“I don’t blame her a bit.”

Jimmy was in the process of dialing when I heard Twink say under her breath, “We’ve got movement.”

I looked out the driver’s window in time to see a light-colored SUV, a rapidly moving Range Rover, go speeding past.

“She isn’t headed for Anchorage,” Twink muttered. “Seward Highway is in the other direction. Do you want me to follow her?”

“Please,” I said, “but not too close. I don’t want her to spot us.”

“I’m not stupid, you know,” Twink said, mimicking Jimmy perfectly. Then she put the Travelall in gear and off we went.