She grabbed her purse from where she’d set it down. Then she stopped and turned to face her mother.
“When Tanner doesn’t come back tonight—because trust me, he won’t—don’t bother calling me. Call the sheriff. I’m sure by that time he’ll have figured out who the guy with the head injury really is, and he might be very interested to know Tanner and the money both vanished at once.”
She spun on her heel, ready to charge toward the door. Then, suddenly, she heard someone come in. She froze in her tracks, her stomach lurching.
Tanner, in nylon shorts and a tank top, came into the room, sweat glistening on the surface of his skin.
“Veronica,” he said in surprise, looking up at her as he untied his shoes. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“What … I …” She stared at him, agape, her thoughts swimming. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed Lianne’s attention sharpen. For a moment she expected her mother to say something to her, maybe to kick her out. Maybe just to laugh in her face. But instead, Lianne strode across the cavernous living room and stood inches from Tanner. She stood over him by almost two inches, even in her socked feet.
“What the hell is going on, Tanner?” Her tone was more baffled than anything. “Lee Jackson just got attacked in the parking lot of the Grand. Veronica thinks—”
“Lee got attacked?”
Either Tanner Scott was a world-class actor or Veronica was wrong. A look first of confusion, then of dawning horror, crept over his face. He turned to look at Veronica. “Who attacked him?”
“We don’t know yet,” Veronica said carefully. She watched him closely as she spoke. “Someone clubbed him from behind. He’s alive, but he’s in bad shape.”
“And the ransom money’s gone,” Lianne added.
Tanner’s eyes bulged slightly, twitching wildly this way and that. “Oh my god.”
“I’m just glad you’re back.” Tears were starting to pour down Lianne’s face. “I’m just so glad you’re back.”
Veronica was about to speak when she heard a soft noise from the hallway to the bedrooms. Hunter, his sandy blond hair sticking up in tufts, came shuffling into the room, pausing just inside the doorway. He wore pajamas with robots printed all over them, and his feet were bare.
“What’s going on? Why’s everyone yelling?”
Lianne went to scoop him into her arms, while Tanner lowered himself, still looking shocked, into a chair. Veronica stood still, her thoughts racing, her limbs strangely heavy.
Distantly, she heard her text chime on her phone. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced down at the screen. It was from Mac.
Tanner on Delta 1792 to Bermuda, tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.
It was when she looked up from her phone that she saw it. Tanner sat, rubbing his hands against his knees, staring nervously toward the fire. Lianne stood in the doorway holding Hunter close, tears pouring down her face. And there, where it’d rolled beneath the coffee table, sat a single maraca, painted in brilliant red and green.
In one fluid movement, she crossed the room and picked it up from where it lay. It rattled in her hand, heavier than she would have expected, the wood thick and quite hard. She raised it high over her head and brought it down against the edge of the hearth.
With a satisfying crack, the instrument crumpled against the stone. And pinto beans—small, dry, innocuous—spilled out all over the immaculate carpet.
The very same ones that had spilled out beneath Lee Jackson’s body at the Neptune Grand.