T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality (3 page)

Sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and Cape Fear River, the city of Wilmington is basically a peninsula with a magnetic atmosphere. I first visited during my stint with the government and knew immediately that I’d make it my home someday. While the action and danger that came with my government job was addictive, I’d decided to fold my hand and get out of the game while I still had a big pile of chips on the table. I relocated to North Carolina and used some of those chips to open the Barnes Agency, a private security firm specializing in all security issues that affect public safety. What I never imagined is that I’d end up with two men I thought I’d lost forever: my father and my best friend from high school. Duke Oxendine appeared first and, after I talked him into becoming my partner in the Block, I knew I’d made the right decision in buying the property.

It is always fun to travel for an exciting job and it is always wonderful to be back home afterward, I thought, strolling through the Block and smiling at the regulars.

Ox grinned at me from behind the bar, where he poured draught
beers from a tap, holding four mugs in one large hand. “I think your father is trying to cook again. Smells like burning peanuts up there.”

A Lumbee Indian from Robeson County, North Carolina, Ox had traditional Native American features such as high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and thick, dark hair. But he also had some other interesting features mixed in, including a square chin with a dimple smack in the center of it. My friends thought he was a stud and couldn’t understand why I didn’t have a steamy romantic relationship with him. Or at least sleep with the man once in a while. I’d thought about it on several occasions, but the idea of sex with Ox scared the hell out of me. With him, there would be no turning back, and I liked to keep my options open.

“Maybe he’s trying to roast peanuts or something.” I sighed, hoping my father hadn’t done any major damage to the kitchen. “I’ll go check on him.”

“Things go as planned with the judge?”

“Of course.”

“So your retirement from active participation in your agency is official, then?”

“Sure.”

“How does it feel?”

“Good, I think. Pretty darn good.”

“Hope it sticks.”

“Me, too.” I headed up the stairs to see what trouble my father had managed to stir up, once again reminded how sweet it was to be reunited with my best friend. Like the intertwined roots of adjacent trees, our high school years together had fashioned a permanent bond of sharp memories, lively debates, and youthful dreams. Now that I had gotten used to sharing days with him once again, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage my life without Ox in it, should he ever decide to move on.

We were both sixteen when his family relocated to my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. I first spotted him in the school’s hallway, angry about being uprooted from the Lumber River that he loved and glowering at everything around him. I taught him the eleventh-grade ropes and he taught me how to box. For the nearly two years that followed, we were inseparable. A day after high school graduation, under the influence of youthful ignorance, we talked each other into joining the marines, specifying to the recruiter that we wanted only the “most dangerous shit.”

The recruiter took us at our word. The fact that I had the bad taste to have been born female meant that Ox and I were abruptly split up two weeks later. The screaming hit my ears before I’d even stepped off the bus at Parris Island and I immediately realized two things: that being separated from Ox had pierced a hole through my young heart and that it was going to be a very long six years.

They’d purposely scheduled the busloads of new female recruits to arrive in the middle of the night so we were disoriented and couldn’t bolt from the island with a sudden spurt of remorse. Sheer anger gave me the will to survive basic training, and I discovered that I enjoyed fighting, was pretty good with an M-16, and excelled at the physical challenges. I became an MP working for a brigadier general. Three years later, I was relieved of completing my tour by the government, which had hand-picked me and a few other female marines for a “privileged” assignment. I found myself employed by a branch of the government I’d never heard of, learning how to do things I’d seen only in action movies. Meanwhile, Ox completed his tour and, surprising me and everyone who knew him, opted for a military career. He went through OCS and continued playing marine games until he earned the rank of major.

If you’ve never seen a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Lumbee in full dress blues, you ought to. Even civilians were tempted to salute the man during the weekend I surprised him by flying to Camp Pendleton, California, for a birthday party planned by his master gunnery sergeant. Although we had stayed in touch with brief e-mails and generic Christmas cards, Ox and I hadn’t seen each other since our teenage years. We hugged so tight and for so long that the embrace drew a nasty glance from his wife. He’d decided to retire from the service after one more year, Ox told so me later that night, which would be his twenty-year mark and the point at which he’d receive a half-pay pension. He wanted to head back to the East Coast and explore new career options.

I decided to do the same thing, and twenty years after Ox and I had first stepped into the recruiter’s office, I left the government with little fanfare to start my own business. Ox’s retirement from the military was coupled with divorce papers. His wife dumped him the day he retired, announcing that she was in love with someone else. She waited until then, he realized later, so that she could get her share of his monthly retirement check.

When he visited Wilmington, still dazed by the turn of events in his life, I needed a pub manager and he needed a change of pace. It only took four or five tequila shots chased by a few beers before we reached an agreement on the Block and another several swigs of tequila straight from the bottle before we almost went to bed together.

“Your body is still amazing,” I’d said, running my hands over his shoulders and down his chest. I wasn’t sure if he’d unbuttoned his shirt or I did, but the feel of his smooth skin beneath my palms electrified something buried deep in my brain and I suddenly realized that I yearned to fulfill a twenty-year-old fantasy.

“As is yours, my spirited soul mate,” he’d said, outlining my
silhouette with strong hands while capturing my mouth with his. Like an anchored boat rocking gently from side to side, the kiss stretched on and on, tantalizing and comforting, seeking, yet ending way too soon and leaving an untouched ocean to explore.

His hands found mine and held them tight. “But let’s wait until you’re sober and my heart has healed. Right now, I need a place to hang my feathers and you need someone to manage this dump of a bar on the river.”

That was five years ago and Ox still runs the Block. We never did fall into bed together, but oddly, I was closer to him than anyone else in my life. Semper fidelis, as the marines like to say. Always faithful.

As I climbed the stairs in search of my father, the weird odor grew stronger and snapped my attention back to the present. “Spud? Are you home? What’s that smell?”

Wearing an apron and looking like a shrunken, much older version of Wolfgang Puck, Dad stood in the kitchen scraping blackened plops from a cookie sheet with a putty knife. “It’s the delicious aroma of cookies baking. Women like men who can cook home-baked stuff. I saw that on
Oprah.
” He pounded one of the plops a few times to loosen it up. It cracked into several coal-like pieces. “So I’m making peanut butter cookies for Sara Jane.”

I leaned in for a closer look and crinkled my nose at the sight. “Spud, why don’t you just buy cookies at a bakery and
tell
her you made them?”

“Well, for crying out loud. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Besides, we promised the fire chief that you wouldn’t use the stove anymore.”

He removed the apron and a tuft of flour billowed around him. “Wasn’t my fault this place had bad wiring,” he grumbled. “Those Spam and cheese sandwiches were delicious, by the way.
And anyway, I’m not using the
stove
, kid. You make cookies in an
oven.”

My father had materialized a few months after Ox showed up. A career cop, Dad missed my ninth birthday and never returned. Through the years, with the assistance of a private investigator, he’d kept track of what I was doing and where I was living. But we’d had no contact until, without warning, he checked up on me in person. Traveling through North Carolina on his way to move in with a Florida girlfriend, he stopped by the Block to say hello. It was the first time I’d seen him since grade school and my reflexes argued whether to hug him or slug him. I did both, in that order, and pulled the punch so as not to break anything because he seemed frail. And then—I don’t cry, mind you—I cried. Inexplicable tears that erupted on and off for two days, until Ox wrapped his thick arms around me and whispered, “The spirits brought him here for a reason, Jersey. Look forward.”

Spud never did make it to the Sunshine State and moved into the efficiency apartment adjacent to my upstairs condo. His place had a private entrance with a stairway that connected to the Block’s parking lot. But he usually came and went through my place, since our kitchens were connected by French doors that always remained open.

Soon after buying the Block, I’d employed a designer to completely renovate the living quarters, and either kitchen could have competed with those seen in
Architectural Digest
magazine. But in our case, outfitting the place with Thermador stainless steel appliances was like buying lace stockings for a nun. Spud promised not to cook anymore after he’d almost burned the structure down and I rarely used anything except the microwave. We preferred to eat out and most often quenched our appetites with cuisine from the Block. It was much safer. We don’t have a traditional father/daughter relationship
by any means, but we do have some sort of a blood bond that may be love. Or perhaps we just put up with each other out of curiosity, to learn more about the other. Whatever it is, it works for us.

Spud sneezed, and the motion caused another stray patch of flour to drift down from the top of his head. “Or maybe you should get that microwavable cookie dough,” I told him. “You just slice it and nuke it.”

“These are better than some stupid microwave cookies.” He scraped a hardened piece from the pan and offered it to me. I shook my head. He waved an indignant hand at his ungrateful daughter. After making sure the oven was turned off and nothing was on fire inside it, I changed into running gear and returned to the kitchen to down some water before hitting my favorite path along the river.

Bent over the kitchen sink with his tongue stuck out, Spud frantically wiped pieces of a partially chewed cookie from his tongue. He turned on the faucet and, using his hand, scooped water to rinse out the remaining crumbs.

Arms locked behind my head, I twisted from side to side a few times to loosen up my torso. “I hope your peanut butter cookies don’t get the same reaction from Sara Jane.”

Eyeing me with a peculiar expression, Spud turned off the water and spit a final time. “These cookies would gag a moose. I think I’ll just buy some from a bakery and tell her I made them.”

Spud often regurgitated my advice as his own idea. “Good thinking,” I said and picked up a knee to stretch my thigh muscles. “See you in a bit. I’m off for a run.”

“Hey, uh, before you go, I’m just wondering something,” Spud said, studying me with a cocked head. “I know I wasn’t around during your formative years and all that, but I sure don’t remember any photos of you looking that big-titted … ah … uh, I
mean, big-breasted. And your mother wasn’t large in the rack department, either.”

Looking down, it occurred to me that my new sports bra didn’t flatten me out like my old one did. This one was more like a pushup bra and it accentuated my shape. I stuck out my chest. “So you don’t think these are genetic?”

Spud shook his head.

I showed him my breezy smile. “Government enhancements. My bosses decided that some cosmetic procedures would improve my undercover abilities, so your tax dollars paid for a breast augmentation. They also lifted my eyebrows and injected my lips every six months.”

Staring at my boobs, Spud frowned. “Well for crying out loud. I never would have agreed to my tax dollars going for a pair of implants on my daughter.”

“Yeah, well, you never would have agreed to spend money on sponsoring a NASCAR team or producing a video game, either, if Uncle Sam had bothered to ask.”

Spud, licking the air like a dog who’d just chewed a dropped aspirin, reached in the refrigerator for a bottle of beer. He probably figured it would wash away the burnt peanut taste. “I might have given the go-ahead for the NASCAR, but a video game?”

“Back in 1999, the Army had missed its recruitment goals for so many years that the Department of Defense decided to spend more than two billion dollars on marketing and PR. A big chunk of that was used to develop a video game. It took three years and several million dollars but was finally released as a free game in a big debut. Supposedly, playing the game would encourage teenagers to get off the sofa and go join the military.” I bent over to touch my toes and held the stretch for several seconds, enjoying the feel of the pull in my calves. “You’d be amazed at the things our government spends your money on.”

“But video games and boobs? That’s just crazy.” Agreeing with him, I finished stretching and headed for the stairs. “At least my boobs only cost taxpayers ten grand.” “You and the twins have a nice run,” Spud called.

I always run between four and five miles—enough distance to clear my head and release endorphins—and today’s run was ideal. I jogged the riverwalk for the first mile, easily moving through walkers and sightseers, the captivating Cape Fear on one side and an eclectic mix of shops, town houses, restaurants, and hotels on the other. Outside decks and verandas, built to take advantage of the water view, were speckled with cheerful people.

After a cool shower and spritz of my favorite perfume, I applied lipstick, layered on black mascara, and shimmied into a sensual skin-colored La Perla bra and silky panties. I have a weakness for quality lingerie and never pass up an opportunity to shop for my favorite labels. Chemises and camisoles alone fill three of my dresser drawers. After stepping into a short and clingy dress, I made a conscious decision not to strap on my shoulder holster. In addition to drawerloads of beautiful lingerie, I have an amazing collection of blazers that are the perfect length and cut to conceal a handgun. But if I was going to be retired, I would have to learn to relax and leave home without a weapon.