But Toby knew Eugene’s reputation well-and something told him Eugene knew his.
Toby’s life centered around dodging his wife, seeking political favor with the bigs in Atlanta, scheming to put another dollar in his pocket, and chasing tail twenty-four/seven.
He owed so many grifters so many political favors he could hardly keep them straight in his own head. Plus, there were always the do-gooders nipping at his heels. And there was the constant fear of exposure…that all his “deals” and “favors” would catch up with him.
But all that was nothing compared to this.
For fifteen minutes now, Toby had been trying to explain why, exactly, the Island police had not yet pinpointed the vandals who had completely destroyed the foundational beginnings of Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living.
“Floyd, I agree two hundred percent, Palmetto Dunes is exactly what the south beaches need. I speak for the Commission in that we absolutely support you in this. It’s a travesty, a sin that the beach has just lain there, undeveloped, for years.”
Toby’s lower parts burned like crazy. He thought he was about to pass out. His urologist warned him repeatedly about stress. In the past few months, since the hush-hush deal with Eugene started up, his kidney stones were worse than ever. He’d already passed nearly twenty of the pellet-size little monsters in all, and he could feel one coming right now.
The pain of passing his second stone of the day nearly made Toby faint. The first had been pissed straight into a Styrofoam Krispy Kreme doughnut coffee cup this morning on the way to work when he got the word about Eugene.
Eugene’s stare, or at least what Toby took to be a stare from behind Eugene’s darkened shades, made his groin hurt even more. Here it comes, and there’s not a thing he could do about it. No way could he make it to the men’s room down the hall.
“Ah…Floyd…you’ll have to excuse me…damn!” The pain washed over him. It was all he could do to stand at the foot of his desk and whiz straight into his metal trash can. In midstream, a tiny metallic “ping” thunked loudly into the metal can, ricocheting off one side, plunking to the bottom. With a series of groans, winces, and twitches, the agony ended.
In the quiet of the office, Eugene sat unmoving, staring straight at McKissick’s bare butt. Toby fell back into his chair, faint, and the chair rolled back of its own volition. His legs hung on the sides of the chair like sticks. When the chair came to a halt, the two men locked eyes.
Toby shifted his weight in his chair and struggled to keep his composure as Eugene stared hard at him.
Finally, Eugene said, “What the hell was that?” Eugene stared at McKissick, unblinking.
“Have you ever had stones, Floyd?”
“Can’t say that I have, McKissick, but I can now report with one hundred percent accuracy that I truly doubt whether you and your people can handle the situation down here. Frankly, I’m not convinced you fit into the deal anymore. It may just be too big for you to handle.”
“No Floyd…I’m on it. I’m all over it. I’ll get new security and ramp it up. No more all-night shifts for one person. We’ll rotate like military units do. Constantly changing guards throughout the night. This won’t happen again. I swear it. And Floyd, I’ll find the vandals. Probably teenagers. Trust me, it’s taken care of. Go back to Atlanta, I’ll call you the second we find out who tore up the layout.”
Eugene sat for well over a minute in stony silence, just looking at the disheveled mess of a man sitting in front of him.
“Damn,” Eugene said at last, “you’re one fat, pathetic mess.”
“If you just give me one more chance, Floyd, I know we can handle the whole thing. You won’t be sorry. Pulling out on our people at this point is very premature and-”
“Premature? You idiot! You country-hick moron. This sets us back at least three weeks. Money’s at stake here, you hayseed Billy-Bob. More money than you’ve ever dreamed about in your miserable little life. Now listen to me and you listen good. One more chance. And for God’s sakes, keep it quiet. I’m sending the crew out first thing in the morning to restart. One more screwup on the security end, you’re over. I know about every two-bit bribe you’ve ever taken. You don’t fool a single damn soul with your Rotary luncheons and your Kiwanis membership. I know your broke-down deal in this town and I’ll blow you wide open if I have to. There’ll be nothing left for the locals to do with you but indict your sorry ass. Understood?”
Eugene turned on his heel and left. Toby could hear his footsteps on the tile of the hallway, passing by Toby’s secretary and heading to the front door. She brightly offered him coffee to go but Eugene brushed by her without answering. He never once removed his glasses.
The sound of the front door slamming made it all the way back to Toby’s office and then the offices settled into quiet, except for the humming of the window unit. Toby sank his forehead down into his hands.
But in one brief moment of clarity, a single thought rang through Toby’s head like a bell in a belfry.
Virginia Gunn.
44
New York City
HAILEY PLAYED OVER AND OVER IN HER HEAD THE LAST TIME SHE met with Melissa.
She could hardly think. Had she missed something?
Was there a clue to a problem, some sort of menace? Could she have averted disaster in some way?
Who had done this to Melissa?
Had she suffered?
Of course she had. There was no way of getting around the sheer horror of Melissa’s last moments.
A double knock at her door swung her around again. Her side throbbed.
“Come in,” Hailey called out in the direction of the door.
“Hi, Hailey.” A man appeared, dark hair and eyes, handsome in a way, wearing a white coat. He closed the door behind him. “I’m Dr. Lopez.”
“Hi, Doctor. Thank you for coming by, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Actually, we’ve already met, but you probably don’t remember. I admitted you in the ER. How are you feeling?”
“Hurting.” She was thinking of Melissa.
“Who’s the goon with a badge outside your door?”
“Good question. I take it he’s still there?”
Dr. Lopez nodded emphatically. “You took quite a beating, Hailey. Boyfriend…Husband? You can be totally candid with me. Everything we say is protected by my oath as a doctor.”
Hailey’s jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and then she laughed. “Thank you for your concern, Doctor, but I’m not keeping anything from you. I wasn’t beaten. I was just…shocked.”
He looked confused for a moment, then skeptical.
“No, really,” she said, realizing he thought she was covering for someone. “I’m a psychologist with an office in the Village. At the end of the day, I was packing up to leave to go home or maybe to dinner. I picked up my Post to take with me and…I saw one of my patients in the paper. She had been killed. She was murdered.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Even now, I’m having a hard time saying the words out loud. We’d been working together for over a year. She was so brave, braver just getting out of bed in the morning and facing life every day than I could ever hope to be.” Her throat choked up again.
“I’m sorry. I know how it feels to lose a patient. It hurts. It’ll take a while for it to really sink in. But what I still don’t understand is how you went from reading the paper to landing in the ER, out cold with a blow to the head and serious bruising, external and internal, to your side. You’ve got two rib fractures, too. You know, your kidneys could have been permanently damaged.”
He paused to let it sink in.
“Listen, I don’t mean to give you a hard time, but your version of what happened last night just doesn’t add up, medically speaking.”