8 Bodies is Enough(2)
Peter made a derisive noise. “At least Cooper Craft isn’t calling you to go on those ghastly body moving runs.”
“Someone has to do it, Peter.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be you,” he said, then lifted her hand for a kiss. “You have your job at Neiman’s—and now your boss is talking about a promotion when you get back. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you.” After a wedding expo, a famous designer had made comments about wooing her away from the department store. She suspected the interest had spurred her boss Lindy into action. She conceded it felt good to be wanted.
“Wesley should be in college,” Peter remarked.
“I know,” she said, hating the defensive note in her voice. Instead, the boy genius was performing community service, moving bodies, and working undercover for the APD in a loan shark organization. “Maybe when things are resolved with Dad’s case, Wes will settle down.”
Peter nodded and started to say something, then pulled his hand over his mouth.
“What?” she asked.
He sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
For a few hysterical seconds, she thought Peter might tell her he was the father of Liz’s baby. Even more crazy was the thought of how happy that would make her. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
“I’ll have to work some when we get to Vegas. Apparently, Walt was supposed to meet with clients in the area before he fell ill.”
Walt Tully was a partner in the investment firm Mashburn & Tully where Peter worked and her father had once been a partner.
“James Brody asked me to step in since I was coming out anyway.”
Carlotta tempered her reaction—she would need some time on her own to search for her mother, so Peter’s impromptu assignment was a gift. “What will you have to do?”
“Just goodwill lunches and drinks.” He looked contrite. “With Randolph being back in the news, the partners are doubling-down on customer relations, just to reassure everyone the firm is solid.”
“I understand,” she said, trying to hide her relief. “Don’t worry—I’ll find something for me and Wes to do.”
She hadn’t told Wes about talking to Randolph in the pen, finding his hideout, or the clue leading her to Vegas. She justified her decision with the fact that since she told him they were going to Vegas, she’d seen Wes scant minutes here and there, and she worried if she told him about the post office box in Vegas, he’d tag along even if his probation office and boss both said no. Right now, she needed for him to stay out of trouble.
Especially after the baby-daddy scare with his attorney, Liz.
Plus she didn’t entirely trust Wes to keep family secrets from the blond barracuda. That said, her brother deserved to know what was going on, so if he got to Vegas, she was going to sit him down and tell him everything.
“I hope you have a plan to keep him away from the poker tables,” Peter said.
“I don’t have to. He’s not twenty-one, so no casino is going to let him gamble. Besides, he doesn’t have enough money to get into trouble.”
“That never stopped Wes before,” he said mildly.
“I know. But he swore to me he wouldn’t borrow more money from those loan sharks and on that subject, I believe him.”
Wes seemed to have been scared straight, although she didn’t want to know those harrowing details. The undercover job—that she wasn’t supposed to know about—served two purposes: ingratiating him to the APD and paying off his debt to The Carver.
Hopefully that obligation would also be met soon.
“What’s going on with his girlfriend?” Peter asked.
“I’m not sure. There was a, um, hiccup, and he hasn’t mentioned Meg lately.” Peter didn’t know about the Liz-Wes-Jack paternity mix-up, and she was loath to tell him because she didn’t want to hear him say I-told-you-so where Jack was concerned.
But he’d told her so.
“Too bad about Wes’s girlfriend.” Peter moved his head closer to hers. “I was hoping he’d bring her so we’d have plenty of alone time.”
“We’ll have our own room,” she said with a little laugh.
“I know,” he said, this voice thick with meaning. “And it’ll be nice to be away from all the distractions in Atlanta.”
He meant Jack, of course. And Coop. And Randolph.
And Peter had his own distractions. The few times they had tried unsuccessfully to reignite their physical relationship, it had taken place in the home and the bed he’d shared with his deceased wife in a marriage fraught with tension.