I enjoyed the look on Marty’s face as he inspected every inch of the house. He said, “This is just unbelievable. Even a spread in Architectural Digest wouldn’t do this place justice. And most of these renovations were your idea?”
I nodded while trying to hide my superior smile. “That’s right, I made this place what it is today. When I got here, Brennan had literally thrown some rugs across the floors and hadn’t updated the house in any other way since the 1960s. When I found mold—and I’m talking some serious mold, like up the walls and everything—in two of the guest bedrooms, Brennan’s response was ‘No one stays there long enough to get sick, so why worry about it?’”
“Peach of a guy. I’m glad I’ve never had to meet him face-to-face.”
“You’re in another class. There’s no reason for you to ever have to deal with that jackass. He’ll be out of our life soon enough.”
Marty smiled and said, “Now, that’s an attitude I can get behind. As long as you don’t need all this again, I can’t see why I won’t make you happy.”
Instead of answering him, I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck, then planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips. It felt nice to have this kind of passion in this particular bedroom. The room certainly hadn’t seen this kind of action from me in a long time. I had no idea what Brennan was up to on the dating front, and I didn’t care. If I really had to admit it, this house had always meant a lot more to me than Brennan had. At least that was what I kept telling myself.
I pulled Marty by his hand and said, “I have one more thing I have to show off, and this one will blow your mind.” I ignored his questions and pulled him into the walk-in closet, which was really just another room, to the left of the hallway leading to the bathroom. This was Brennan’s formal closet, with one entire wall covered by over a hundred suits, organized by cut and color. I knew it would shock Marty.
He was silent for a moment, then whistled as he walked along a row of suits, dragging his finger across the sleeve of each one. He looked up at the dozens of shirts, in colors ranging from white all the way to black, arranged in perfect order. It looked like a paint chart from one end of the closet to the other.
Marty said, “And he wore a different suit every day?”
“Sometimes two; one to work and one to go out at night. The man loves his clothes.” I watched Marty poke around the closet; then I said, “Go ahead, take a couple of sports jackets. He’ll never notice. Take anything you want. Brennan might be a little taller than you, but you’re about the same size. I’m telling you, that asshole will never miss them.”
Then I noticed Marty pulling a box from a shelf at the end of the closet and holding it up to show me. It was the box that our matched set of Walther PPK pistols had come in. Brennan’s blue steel pistol was still in the box, surrounded by foam padding; an empty space in the shape of a pistol showed where mine used to reside. Now it was safe in the nightstand in my hotel room.
I didn’t say anything when Marty pulled the gun from the box and checked to make sure there were cartridges in the magazine. He looked at me for any sign of disapproval, and when I gave none, he slipped the gun into the pocket of his shorts. You couldn’t even notice it.
He put the box back right where he’d found it. I knew it would take Brennan months to find out it was empty. Even if he decided to go shooting, he had other guns and might assume he’d stuck the PPK somewhere else. Things like that didn’t bother Brennan.
As we slipped out of the house and locked the patio door behind us, I realized I was about to walk down the beach with a man who had just stolen a gun and was carrying it illegally in public in one of the wealthiest cities in America.
This was an exciting game.
Chapter 22
Marty had a maniacal grin when he turned to me, raised his eyebrows, and said, “This is the big one. You ready for it?” He looked perfect, framed by the rail and the overhang where we were sitting. The sun was just over his head with the Gulfstream Park racetrack behind him.
He held a handful of tickets for the third race and threw in a cartoon madman’s laugh. Who wouldn’t smile at an act like that? He looked cute, dressed casually in a polo shirt and jeans. This was just another one of his surprises, and I had never been to a horse-racing track before.
Marty knew I loved horses but had been avoiding the polo fields of Wellington because I didn’t want to risk running into Brennan. I had casually mentioned it the evening before as we shared a bottle of wine on the beach. That was when he’d come up with this perfect alternative. We’d left this morning for the track in Hallandale Beach. It was a nice ride, about an hour away, and on a weekday, the place wasn’t too crowded. The hot dogs were good and the beer was cold. Marty had managed to sweep me off my feet once again.
When the starting gun sounded, the gates opened and the horses burst out like water from a broken dam. It didn’t bother me that there weren’t enough people around to make the cheers sound thrilling; I screamed for our horse anyway. We’d put no real thought into making a dozen bets on a horse named Sullivan’s Dream. Marty had showed me how to bet on the horse by itself, as well as in combination with other horses, and now we were about to see the result of our leap of faith.
Everything looked good until the third turn, where our horse slowed considerably, and before the race had been decided officially, we realized we were out of the money. Marty said, “Had enough of horses for the day?” He scooped up the losing tickets and stuffed them into his pocket.
“What did you have in mind?” It was warm, and I didn’t mind the idea of avoiding Broward County rush hour.
A few minutes later, I found myself on the shuttle heading toward the far reaches of the sprawling parking lot and my white Volvo S-60.
Marty said, “I’ll drive, if you don’t mind.”
I smiled as I thought about what a gentleman he was. Then we slipped onto I-95 and started cruising north.
I said, “This is great. Just what I needed. A few hours away from Palm Beach.” I realized that was the opposite of the opinion most people held.
Marty kept his eyes on the road as he said, “Glad you liked it.”
“What would you like to do now?”
He thought about it for a few seconds and then said tentatively, “I have a game in mind.”
“Anything you want. You’ve definitely earned it.”
Marty just gave me one of his smiles and didn’t say anything else. I was content with that. We let Adele’s music fill our silence as we zipped along the interstate northbound. I didn’t say a word when we passed our exit. Marty had already proved that his surprise trips were always worth the effort.
When we were more than an hour past Palm Beach, I finally said, “Is this all part of your game or are you lost?”
He kept a smile as he said, “All part of the game.”
“Want to fill me in?”
He just smiled, and I liked it. He looked a little nervous, with his fingers thumping on the steering wheel and his constant shifting in the seat. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I was willing to go along with the game.
We pulled off the interstate and took the long road east until we were on the edges of the city of Vero Beach.