As I was last year, I’m hard at work getting 26 stories done

And I have to ask myself, why?

It is a great deal of work to write 26 stories of about 2,000 words in 30 days, but I have managed to do it for the last two years.

It takes a lot of people a month, sometimes, to write just 2,000 words.

Others will tell you they get 500 to 2,000 words down every day, but sometimes the quality or the relevance is sometimes questionable.

Over the last two years, I’ve been rather slack, and the desire to sit down and write has taken a back seat. On the whole, I’ve been feeling rather lazy and would rather find something else to do.

However, the last three months have seen an attitude readjustment, and I’m writing again more than one book at a time, and a series of episodic stories.

It seems my mind functions better when it has to juggle a lot of different stories.

So, look out, sometimes a character from one will turn up in another.

A bit like where FBI, FBI Most Wanted, and FBI International use the same characters across the three series, something I think is called a ‘crossover’.

So, expect to see a story every day but Sunday

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

 

Whilst Boggs took the time to get over his assault, I went back to my job at Benderby’s because there was no reason not to.  Benderby himself had checked several times on how I was, and I was beginning to think he called just to see my mother. 

And the notion of those two together was not painting a pretty picture, knowing who he was.  But we were being treated better than we had and that was a good thing, or so my mother said.  She too was surprised at Benderby’s interest, but she was not writing anything into it.  She had a different perception of him that most others had.

I was careful to avoid Alex, not that it was difficult because he was rarely in the warehouse office, or anywhere on the factory site most days, except for a few hours in the morning, and to close up at night.  No one else seemed to miss his presence, but I was a little more suspicious as to what he was doing with the rest of his time, to the extent that once I went looking for him.

The only conclusion I’d come to, now that he had his own map, it had to have something to do with the treasure.

Getting a version of the treasure map to Alex via Nadia had been a logistical nightmare, and constantly fraught with the expectation that Alex might think he was being set up.  The fact it was Nadia doing it was not lost on me and I realized later we had played right into her, and her family’s, hands in fitting the ongoing feud between the families.  Nor was it lost on me the enthusiasm which she showed in carrying out the plan.

If it wasn’t for the fact both Boggs and I benefited from it, I would have had second thoughts about employing her.  And Boggs was right, a girl like that could never like a boy like me.  She would always be the province of the likes of Alex Benderby, and I told myself that it was going to be business only from now on.

She set up the meeting with Alex and arranged for me to be nearby to witness the transaction, though what her reason was for that I had no idea and I really didn’t want to be there.  For some reason, I didn’t like the idea of Nadia getting close to Alex, but it was necessary, she decided, in order to sell the story.

She had cajoled him into believing firstly his map was the real map mainly because she had used her feminine wiles on Boogs, talking him into showing her the real map, and, then, while he was away for a few minutes, she had copied it.

Then it was a matter of keeping the map a secret because firstly it would ruin the rapport she supposedly had with Boggs should they need him again, and as far as she was aware, Vince thought he also had the real map and which Boggs said was not, and to mess with Vince would immediately make him suspicious about the authenticity of his map and that would be the last thing Alex would want.

It was a treat to see how manipulable Alex was when she was making offers she knew she’d never keep.  Or at least not in front of me.  I didn’t expect that I meant very much to her and watching her with Alex was much like how she handled me, so I guess we were all manipulable in her hands.  She was a Cossatino, and in that regard, no end of trouble.

With Alex handled, she left him with so much promise and so little substance I was surprised he fell for it.  But, there again, even in school, Alex wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box.  I think the notion that he could pull off the treasure hunt might just get the monkey on his back his father had put there many years before.

Then there was Nadia.

Seeing her in action put her in a different light.  Whilst those midnight rendezvous at the motel may have given me a sense of false bravado, seeing her with Alex, and playing her games, I had to wonder if my feelings were just an infatuation.  Did I like Nadia all that much?  I guess I must a little, to be feeling angry when Alex touched her.  

I had to remind myself that I could never live in her world, that her first and last instinct would always be to lie and manipulate.  She was, after all, a Cossatino, and leopards, as they say, never changed their spots.  She might want to escape from her family, but saying it and doing it were two entirely different things,

I doubted her father, no matter how much he liked or hated her, should ever let her go, simply because as a beautiful woman, she could do so much for the family business.

Whether she wanted to or not.

I left once he agreed, and before she did anything with him.  Clearly, Alex was expecting them to work as a team, but she had declined on account of her father, who was as mad as a hatter, and might just start killing Benderby’s if he found out she was working with him.

Best to leave well alone and appear to go their separate ways.

Until the treasure was found.

I didn’t hear from Boggs for a week.  I’d decided that I was going to leave him alone until he called or sent a text.  Boggs and idle time were a bad mix so I knew when I next heard from him, he would have formulated a half-baked grandiose plan for us to go on our treasure hunt.

And I was busy working out how I was going to tell him he had to take a step back and watch and wait till the Benderby’s and the Cossatino’s had launched their campaigns.  It wouldn’t take long.  Both sons of self-made men, Alex and Vince had a lot to prove to their fathers, and there was no doubt they were going to use the lost treasure as the means of getting back into favor.

That brought a problem to the table, not immediately, but down the road, when neither would be able to find it.  Their first port of call would be Boggs, the one who had supplied them with ‘faulty’ maps.  It would never be their fault, that they were too stupid to realize they were being played, or, even if it was the right map, still couldn’t follow the instructions.

But even I had that problem.  I’d seen quite a few variations with notations, diagrams and cryptic messages.  I was not sure how they were going to fare.  Perhaps he had been thinking of just that because I received a text message, asking me to come over the next morning.  

As Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘the game’s afoot’.

© Charles Heath 2019-2020

It could have been anywhere in the world, she thought, but it wasn’t.  It was in a city where if anything were to go wrong…

She sighed and came away from the window and looked around the room.  It was quite large and expensively furnished.  It was one of several she had been visiting in the last three months.

Quite elegant too, as the hotel had its origins dating back to before the revolution in 1917.  At least, currently, there would not be a team of KGB agents somewhere in the basement monitoring everything that happened in the room.

There was no such thing as the KGB anymore, though there was an FSB, but such organisations were of no interest to her.

She was here to meet with Vladimir.

She smiled to herself when she thought of him, such an interesting man whose command of English was as good as her command of Russian, though she had not told him of that ability.

All he knew of her was that she was American, worked in the Embassy as a clerk, nothing important, whose life both at work and at home was boring.  Not that she had blurted that out the first they met, or even the second.

That first time, at a function in the Embassy, was a chance meeting, a catching of his eye as he looked around the room, looking, as he had told her later, for someone who might not be as boring as the function itself.

It was a celebration, honouring one of the Embassy officials on his service in Moscow, and the fact he was returning home after 10 years.  She had been there once, and still hadn’t met all the staff.

They had talked, Vladimir knew a great deal about England, having been stationed there for a year or two, and had politely asked questions about where she lived, her family, and of course what her role was, all questions she fended off with an air of disinterested interest.

It fascinated him, as she knew it would, a sort of mental sparring as one would do with swords if this was a fencing match.

They had said they might or might not meet again when the party was over, but she suspected there would be another opportunity.  She knew the signs of a man who was interested in her, and Vladimir was interested.

The second time came in the form of an invitation to an art gallery, and a viewing of the works of a prominent Russian artist, an invitation she politely declined.  After all, invitations issued to Embassy staff held all sorts of connotations, or so she was told by the Security officer when she told him.

Then, it went quiet for a month.  There was a party at the American embassy and along with several other staff members, she was invited.  She had not expected to meet Vladimir, but it was a pleasant surprise when she saw him, on the other side of the room, talking to several military men.

A pleasant afternoon ensued.

And it was no surprise that they kept running into each other at the various events on the diplomatic schedule.

By the fifth meeting, they were like old friends.  She had broached the subject of being involved in a plutonic relationship with him with the head of security at the embassy.  Normally for a member of her rank, it would not be allowed, but in this instance it was.

She did not work in any sensitive areas, and, as the security officer had said, she might just happen upon something that might be useful.  In that regard, she was to keep her eyes and ears open and file a report each time she met him.

After that discussion, she got the impression her superiors considered Vladimir more than just a casual visitor on the diplomatic circuit.  She also formed the impression that he might consider her an ‘asset’, a word that had been used at the meeting with security and the ambassador.

It was where the word ‘spy’ popped into her head and sent a tingle down her spine.  She was not a spy, but the thought of it, well, it would be fascinating to see what happened.

A Russian friend.  That’s what she would call him.

And over time, that relationship blossomed, until, after a visit to the ballet, late and snowing, he invited her to his apartment not far from the ballet venue.  It was like treading on thin ice, but after champagne and an introduction to caviar, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.

Even so, she had made him promise that he remain on his best behaviour.  It could have been very easy to fall under the spell of a perfect evening, but he promised, showed her to a separate bedroom, and after a brief kiss, their first, she did not see him until the next morning.

So, it began.

It was an interesting report she filed after that encounter, one where she had expected to be reprimanded.

She wasn’t.

It wasn’t until six weeks had passed when he asked her if she would like to take a trip to the country.  It would involve staying in a hotel, that they would have separate rooms.  When she reported the invitation, no objection was raised, only a caution; keep her wits about her.

Perhaps, she had thought, they were looking forward to a more extensive report.  After all, her reports on the places, and the people, and the conversations she overheard, were no doubt entertaining reading for some.

But this visit was where the nature of the relationship changed, and it was one that she did not immediately report.  She had realised at some point before the weekend away, that she had feelings for him, and it was not that he was pushing her in that direction or manipulating her in any way.

It was just one of those moments where, after a grand dinner, a lot of champagne, and delightful company, things happen.  Standing at the door to her room, a lingering kiss, not intentional on her part, and it just happened.

And for not one moment did she believe she had been compromised, but for some reason she had not reported that subtle change in the relationship to the powers that be, and so far, no one had any inkling.

She took off her coat and placed it carefully of the back of one of the ornate chairs in the room.  She stopped for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the wall, one representing Red Square.

Then, after a minute or two, she went to the mini bar and took out the bottle of champagne that had been left there for them, a treat arranged by Vladimir for each encounter.

There were two champagne flutes set aside on the bar, next to a bowl of fruit.  She picked up the apple and thought how Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden, and the temptation.

Later perhaps, after…

She smiled at the thought and put the apple back.

A glance at her watch told her it was time for his arrival.  It was if anything, the one trait she didn’t like, and that was his punctuality.  A glance at the clock on the room wall was a minute slow.

The doorbell to the room rang, right on the appointed time.

She put the bottle down and walked over to the door.

A smile on her face, she opened the door.

It was not Vladimir.  It was her worst nightmare.

…

© Charles Heath 2020

As I was last year, I’m hard at work getting 26 stories done

And I have to ask myself, why?

It is a great deal of work to write 26 stories of about 2,000 words in 30 days, but I have managed to do it for the last two years.

It takes a lot of people a month, sometimes, to write just 2,000 words.

Others will tell you they get 500 to 2,000 words down every day, but sometimes the quality or the relevance is sometimes questionable.

Over the last two years, I’ve been rather slack, and the desire to sit down and write has taken a back seat. On the whole, I’ve been feeling rather lazy and would rather find something else to do.

However, the last three months have seen an attitude readjustment, and I’m writing again more than one book at a time, and a series of episodic stories.

It seems my mind functions better when it has to juggle a lot of different stories.

So, look out, sometimes a character from one will turn up in another.

A bit like where FBI, FBI Most Wanted, and FBI International use the same characters across the three series, something I think is called a ‘crossover’.

So, expect to see a story every day but Sunday

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

I’m glad she didn’t ask me about Nobbin, or the fact a woman by the name of Josephine was working for him.  That went ditto for Severin, and Jan, who was working for him.

It was a tangled web.  Now, apparently, I was working for her.

I had another idea, and went back to the computer room to do another search, this time for the names of those who had been on my training course, and who was also assigned to the surveillance job.

I checked the name Jack Temple, and his file was marked closed, with a stark, red, deceased across the first page.

I checked the name Adam Alwin, and it was the same, deceased.

I checked the name Jennifer Underwood, and it had the label inactive, on medical leave.  She had been injured and was recovering.  There was no reference to her being in a hospital, or a recovery facility so I presumed she was at home.

It was another address to remember, this time what I assumed was a flat in Putney.  It was not something she had mentioned in all the time we have been together.  She had spoken of a house in Scotland.

But, then, who really told the truth when we were trained and continually told to lie about everything.  In the end I don’t think we quite knew who we were.  I knew her as Jennifer, but I doubted that was her real name.

Maybe I’d find out when I went to see her.  I needed help and from someone I could trust.  It was logical to select her.  We had, for at least six months, relying on each other to get through.

 

I cam out into the daylight and it hurt my eyes.  The artificial light, not that it was very bright, had queered my sight briefly.  No good, because for a minute at least I was vulnerable to an attack.

Good thing it didn’t happen.

But something else did.  A car pulled up on the side of the road, one I instantly recognised as the same Nobbin had used when he collected Josephine.

He wound down the rear kerbside window and said, “Sam.  Just the man I want to see.  Get in.”

I saw him slide over.  I opened the door, got in, and the driver drove off.

He seemed pleased with himself.

“How is the hunt?”

“How do you think it’s going?”

He looked quizzically at me.  “Why would I ask if I knew the answer?”

“I think you do.  I was at O’Connell’s flat when one of your assistants was there.  She discovered the same as I did, nothing.”

“What assistant?”  He tried to sound surprised.

“We’re not going to be very good friends if you are going to lie to me.  She called herself Josephine.  I wouldn’t be much of an agent if I didn’t have a few tricks up my sleeve.  And, lets be clear about one thing, if nothing else, you want to play games, fine.  So will I.”

“What did Monica want?”

“What everyone wants.  There appear to be secret documents on the loose.  Everyone thinks they’re on a USB, and that O’Connell has hidden them somewhere.  They’re not in his flat, and the cat wasn’t talking.”

“Just remember that O’Connell was working for me, and he was getting the documents for me.”

“So you know what these documents are about?”

“No.  He didn’t tell me because he didn’t look at them.  He couldn’t.  They’re encrypted, and he doesn’t have the code.”

Which wouldn’t do much good for me if I tried to see what the fuss was about.  Perhaps the best idea would be to destroy the USB so no one had these documents, given the trouble they’d caused so far.

“Anyone check O’Connell’s body properly for the USB?  He may have had it hidden in his clothing somewhere.”  I knew I didn’t have sufficient time to thoroughly check myself.

“No one knows where the body is.”

“I saw the cleaners arrive to process the scene.”

“Well, if they did, the job never reached the books.  According to the cleaners, no one was dispatched to take care of anything at the location.”

Which meant Severin had the body, had checked as I would if I had the time, and it was not on him.  Otherwise, he would not have paid me a visit.  It was back to Peaslake then, the next step in the investigation.

“Recovery of these documents is time-sensitive Sam.  You need to double your effort.”

“A lack of clues is not helping.  Nor is everyone working on their own agenda.”

“Then don’t lose focus.”

I saw him motion to the driver to pull over and let me out.

I waved as the car pulled back out into the traffic.

© Charles Heath 2020

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

© Charles Heath 2019

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

 

Was she insinuating that Alex Benderby killed Jacob Stravinsky?

“Alex is a bully but he’s not a murderer,” I said, and wondering, at the same time, if he had finally graduated to a full-blown bad guy.

“He wouldn’t do it.  Like his old man, they get others to do their dirty work.  I’m sure the significance of Alex being out on his father’s boat was not lost on you.  You asked the questions, and now that I’ve thought about it, it’s possible those divers could have planted the body on Rico’s boat.”

It’s one thing to come up with theories, but it was entirely another to suddenly realize they might be true.  Until this point, I was happy to let Boggs have his dream that one day we might uncover a treasure trove, thinking that it was more fiction than the truth.  It made a good story, one of hope for a person who had had very little of it in the past.

Now, it was becoming horribly true.  What might amount to proof there might be treasure buried somewhere along this coast, an expert being interrogated and then killed, and a pair of what could only be described as gangsters about to start fighting over the spoils and not afraid of killing anyone who got in their way, these were omens, omens not to be ignored.

“Then don’t you think this is far too dangerous to get involved in?  Look what happened to Boggs and I.  We got off lightly if what you say is true.  I’m surprised if this Stravinsky is dead, then why isn’t Boggs?  He had the map, there’s no doubt Vice would assume he had made a copy.  What to stop him from doing the same to Boggs and Benderby did for Stravinsky?”

“Vince is not a clever as Alex.  Vince will never take over the Cossatino clan.  Alex, on the other hand, is the next generation of Benderby thugs.  But I suspect the older Benderby doesn’t know what’s going on.  Not yet anyway.”

My bottle of beer was empty.  Now I think I needed something stronger.  A lot stronger.

There was a knock on the door, which caught us both by surprise.

Are you expecting anyone?” I asked, and in the next second suspected it might be Vince, and I’d been led down the garden path to a place where I really didn’t want to be.

“No.”  She went over to the door and peered through the peephole.

“Damn,” she muttered.

Another, more demanding, knock.

She turned to look at me, “It’s Vince and my father.  I didn’t ask them to come here, and no, I didn’t tell them anything, whatever you might be thinking.”

All I was thinking right then was the coincidence of their arrival and being very afraid.

She opened the door.

Vince barged in almost pushing the door into his sister and stopped when he saw me.  At a more sedate speed, Giuliano Cossatino, Nadia’s father came into the room, and also stopped when he saw me.

There was no mistaking the malice on Vince’s face.   Nadia was right.  He was all muscle and no brain.

The older Cossatino spoke first.  “I see you have a new friend, though I would have thought you’d have better taste in men.”

“Your days of telling me what I can do and not do were over the moment you sent me away.”

“And yet you come back, slinking about like a thief in the night.  Your mother was most upset when you didn’t tell her.”

“The fact I have to, as you call it, slink back, should tell you a lot.”

“That you’re still the idiotic child you were before you went away.”

OK, now I was in the middle of a domestic family standoff.  I was waiting for the order for Vince to throw me out, quite possibly over the balcony for good measure.

“I should leave,” I said standing, “and let you two work it out.”

Vince took another step forward and was now only two paces away.  I’d have to go through him to leave.

“Stay,” Cossatino said.  “I have nothing against you.  Yet.”

“If you’re thinking this is anything but reminiscing about the old days, Mr Cossatino, then you’d be wrong.  There’s nothing between your daughter and I but air.  And,” mustering more bravado than I felt, “call your attack dog off.”

“Or what?”

“You don’t want to find out.”  Where was this coming from?  I was saying the words, but they were not my words.

“I hardly think…”

“That’s probably your biggest fault,” Nadia said, in a tone that suggested she was rapidly losing patience with her father.  

It was clear to me now, she had a hard time of it as a child, not unlike the rest of us, but for different reasons.  The bullying didn’t have to happen at school, but I could see why she had been like she was back then. 

“You never gave me any attention except to treat e like garbage, no, worse than garbage.  I can see nothing has changed.”  Then she switched her attention to Vince.  “And look at you, daddy’s little attack dog, as Sam says.  I’d start worrying Vince, because one day someone’s going to beat the crap out of you, and then you’ll be nothing, just like me.”

Vince only had one expression, so it was difficult to tell if he was worried or not.

Back to her father, “Why are you here?”

I doubt anyone had spoken to him like Nadia just did, and he looked angry.  If I hadn’t been there, I was not sure what would have happened to her.

“Your mother would like to see you.”

“You tell her to grow a backbone first, then when she does, I’ll think about it.  Now get out of my room, or I’ll call the sheriff.  At least he’s not in your back pocket.”

She picked up her phone and made ready to call.

A flick of his head got Vince to back up to the door and open it.

“You will regret this, young lady.”

“And don’t you forget I know where the skeletons are buried, so I’d leave now before some of them start rattling.”

A look of suffused anger flashed across his face, and he took a step forward.  I was not sure what to expect, but Nadia did take a step back.  She knew what he was capable of.

“We need to talk.  Don’t make me wait too long or there’ll be consequences.”

A glare at me, another for his daughter along with a shake of his head, then he left closing the door quietly after him.

I sat down before I fell down.  Nadia visibly wilted.

“I’m sorry about that.  You might have thought twice about threatening Vince.  You know he’ll come after you now.”

“Let him.  I always thought you were close to your father.”

“Daddy’s girl I was not.  Daddy’s biggest disappointment, maybe.”

“You didn’t ask him to come?”

“No.”

“But he didn’t come here to ask you to visit your mother.  It sounded like a last-minute invention.”

“It was.  My real mother is dead, and my stepmother was the reason why I was sent away.  Among other things.  No.  He was here to tell me to get closer to Alex.  It means only one thing.  This treasure hunt is about to get very, very ugly.”