Page 62 of Skin Game
“I have so many questions. Why do I have to be cuffed to thischair? Why put a hood over my head? In general, why? Why can’t we have a polite conversation? Why didn’t you steal the boxes when I wasn’t home? I’m just saying, this is what happens when you don’t think things through.”
He wasn’t super excited to learn what they had planned for him when they didn’t find the artwork. Randy and William reappeared, carrying boxes that Gabe recognized. Whether he wanted to or not, it looked like Gabe was about to find out just what their plan B was.
And what was wrong with William that he was Randy’ssidekick?
“Set them there on the floor and pull everything out,” Althea instructed, pointing to the spot where she wanted them to go.
“Auntie, it would help if I knew what we were looking for,” Randy complained.
But he did as he was told, opening one box and dumping out the contents. The lip gloss fell out and rolled a few feet away.
Auntie? The word rolled around in his head like a wacky marble.What the Fuck. “Why the fuck did you task me to get yourgranddaughter’slocket back?”
“I thought you already had the goods, didn’t I?” Althea said. “It was a bit of a shock when we let ourselves into your house and there was nothing there. We needed another plan. When Elton mentioned that letter was about Heidi’s crap, I figured we had another chance.”
“Wait. You broke into my house while I was gone on Monday, didn’t you? Before one of your clowns took a shot at us to get us out of the house.”
He was trying to process the chain of events that had led to him being cuffed to a chair in a building in the middle of nowhere, an admittedly difficult endeavor what with all the banging his head had endured this week. And he was thirsty as hell.
He was never doing anything nice for a stranger again.
“Do you even have a granddaughter?” And here he’d thought Hero was such a great name.
“No.” Her lip curled. “I managed to avoid bearing children.” She shot a glance Dirty Sock’s way.
“Which leaves me wondering, how do you fit into this amazing made-for-TV family drama? Do you have a starring role or are you a side character?”
Gabe watched her closely, wondering if she’d answer him. She had an ego, so he figured she wouldn’t be able to resist telling him how everyone else had screwed up but how her primary plan was going to work perfectly. Plus, keeping her talking was better than having the gun waved in his face.
“Believe me, my plan was to get out of Nowhereville as soon as I could, greener pastures. Carla was the one who came up with the idea to steal some pricey artwork. She was pregnant by then, the father owned the gallery, which explains how she got the job. She thought they’d sell it, and the money would be her ticket out.” Althea shook her head.
“It’s hard to sell stolen art if you’re twenty and have no connections. Fast forward a bit, Holly and the art disappear. A few years pass and I get a call. Can I come home and fix the mess? Carla kicked the bucket. Leaving behind grandkids. That one”—she pointed her chin at Dirty Socks—“and a girl. But the paintings are still MIA.”
Lovely. Althea was the kind of woman whohatedwomen. She probably hated Heidi for taking the money and running—because that was what she would’ve done.
“Twenty years had passed by then and there was still no sign of the paintings or Holly. All I could do was wait. When Elton told me that ‘Heidi Karne’s’ son had shown up on Heartstone, I didn’t think I’d have to wait much longer. Heidi was one of Holly’s alternate names, and I just had to do a bit of digging on you to figure out it was Holly he was talking about. You may not have had a criminal history, but working at TCSO has its perksbeyond what most can even imagine. Then it just became a matter of figuring out what could get it all rolling before Eagan found out anything about me.”
“So, do you have a game plan? Take the paintings and disappear into the sunset? Maybe you could drop me off at home on your way.”
If the abduction, cuffs, and gun weren’t big enough hints, he was beginning to clue in that Althea was feasibly more cold-blooded than he’d initially estimated, and thus her answer might not bode well for his future.
On the other side of the storage space, Randy and his friend William were not so gently tearing through the contents of Heidi’s boxes, which pissed him off more than he already was. While not attached to what had been hidden away for so many years, the tapes, the lip gloss, and so forth were still a part of his mother Gabe had never known.
“Hey!” he said sharply. “There’s no reason to manhandle someone else’s stuff.”
“Nice shiner,” Randy replied.
“It’s people like you that make people like me look bad,” Gabe said.
Althea reached down and slapped Gabe in the back of the head hard enough that he saw stars and tears came to his eyes.
“Jesus Christ. Be nice already. Haven’t you heard that flies with honey quote? My head has been through enough the past few days.”
“There’s nothing here, Auntie.” Randy tipped the last box upside down and shook it. “Just a lot of shit.”
Gabe was offended for Heidi that this complete loser was judging her stuff like that. But he also felt sorry for Dirty Socks growing up with Althea as one of his role models. Such conflicting emotions. And dammit, it sounded like Dirty Socks was his cousin or something, so he probably should have been thinking better shit about him.
“I have experienced the inside of your house and think that maybe you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”