Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(6)

Irene tries to imagine Lydia asking these complicated questions. But the agents must get asked about this sort of thing constantly, every time they dismantle someone’s life.

“Please ask if you can get one thing,” Irene says. “A photograph of Milly. It’s in the navy-blue guest suite, hanging above the washstand.”

“Photograph of Milly, navy guest room, above the washstand,” Lydia repeats. “I’ll ask right now. You stay on the phone. Here, talk to Brandon.”

No! Irene thinks. She is in no mood to make small talk.

“Hey, Irene,” Brandon says.

“Good morning, Brandon.”

There’s the predictable awkward pause. Brandon clears his throat. “So, this is a bummer, huh?”

A bummer is when Iowa loses to Iowa State. It can maybe be stretched to include a flat tire, a loose filling that results in having to get a root canal, and flunking your driver’s test. What’s happening to Irene is not a bummer. It’s a…well, frankly, she lacks the right word.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, Brandon, it is.”

Her tone must discourage further conversation because Brandon says, “Hang in there.”

A few moments later, Lydia takes the phone. “Here’s exactly what happened. First, he asked if I was your lawyer. I should have said yes, but I didn’t think fast enough. I told him I was your friend and that all I wanted was one family photograph. I told him I knew where it was and that he could come with me while I retrieved it.”

“What did he say?”

“He said no.”

Irene needs to hang up. She needs to call Ed Sorley, her attorney, although Ed will be in way over his head with this. She needs to find another attorney. But first, Irene wants that photograph. Out of all the items in her home, that’s the one she can’t bear to think of being ignominiously tossed onto a pile in some storage unit. “Thank you, Lydia. I appreciate you getting out of bed to check on this for me.”

“I wish there were more we could do,” Lydia says. “I can’t believe how awful this is…your beautiful house. You worked so hard…remember when they sent the wrong-size pool cover and we thought that was a catastrophe?”

“I have to go, Lydia,” Irene says. “I’ll call you later. Thank you for…I appreciate it.” Irene hangs up, hoping she didn’t sound rude or, if she did sound rude, that Lydia forgives her. Lydia is too nice to handle the FBI agents in Irene’s driveway—but Irene knows someone who isn’t too nice.

She scrolls through her contacts until she finds the number of her former colleague Mavis Key.

Irene barely has to explain; Mavis gets it. The FBI has seized Irene’s property. Mavis doesn’t ask why; she knows about Russ’s second life in the Caribbean, so she can surely guess why. Irene tells Mavis that all she wants from the house is the photograph of Milly, Russ’s mother, taken in 1928 in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“I’m on my way over right now,” Mavis says. “And make no mistake, I will get that photograph.”

For the first time all morning, Irene feels her shoulders relax. Mavis will get the photograph. Mavis is a thirty-one-year-old dynamo who moved to Iowa City from Manhattan, stole Irene’s editor-in-chief job at Heartland Home and Style, and is turning the magazine into a midwestern version of Domino or Architectural Digest, complete with a snappy “social media presence.” The magazine’s publisher, Joseph Feeney, was correct in hiring and immediately promoting Mavis Key, Irene sees now. The woman is effective.

“Thank you,” Irene says.

“Text me your mailing address,” Mavis says. “I’ll have it packaged properly and shipped with insurance.”

“That’s above and beyond—”

“And Irene,” Mavis says, “I want you to call my twin sister. She’s a corporate attorney in New York City, and she deals with white-collar criminals who make Russ look like Mister Rogers.”

Irene very much doubts that. “I didn’t know you had a twin,” she says. Then she realizes she knows next to nothing about Mavis’s personal life.

“Well, I’m warning you, she’s very tough. I find her a bit intimidating, to be honest.”

This gets Irene’s attention. Mavis, with her extreme self-confidence, her stylish clothes, her cutting-edge vision, finds her sister intimidating? What must the woman be like?

“I’m not sure what I need,” Irene says.

“You need Nat,” Mavis says. “Natalie Key. Call her, Irene.”





Baker


Thursday, four in the morning, Houston, Texas. Baker sits straight up in bed. This is it. This is happening. Their flight to St. Thomas is in a few short hours.

His phone shows two missed calls from Cash the night before plus a text that says, Pick up, bro. It’s urgent.

Baker still has last-minute packing and organizing to do before Ellen comes to take them to the airport. He doesn’t have one spare second to talk to his brother, though he figures Cash must have heard the news: Maia saw Mick kissing Brigid on the beach, Maia told Ayers, and Ayers is going to break off the engagement.

Well, Baker already knows. Ayers texted him right after it happened.

It’s a sign from above; this new chapter in his life is going to work. A tropical island, a nontraditional lifestyle, and, most important, Baker’s relationship with Ayers Wilson. He’s going to win Ayers over or die trying.