Home Free - Fern Michaels [81]
Below, in the war room, Charles’s cell phone chirped. He listened to Maggie’s excited voice. When he could get a word in edgewise, he managed to say, “Unbelievable, and the information just fell in your lap, in a manner of speaking. Thank your young man for all of us. I’ll get right on it, Maggie.” He listened a moment longer as Maggie groused about the miserable weather. Then they both broke the connection.
Jody Jumper! Who in the bloody hell is Jody Jumper?
Charles debated a moment before he made the decision to text Isabelle. If Myra’s intel was correct, Isabelle was camped at Abner Tookus’s place of business. Weren’t they going to be surprised when Charles came up with the name ahead of the best-known hacker in the country. He was almost giddy when he typed off the name.
Within minutes he sent off nine different e-mails to people who would, as Kathryn was fond of saying, have the skinny on Jody Jumper. He knew replies would take awhile, so he composed an e-mail to Pappy and told him Annie agreed to purchase Big Pine Mountain and what was the price and when did he want to close the deal?
The reply, when it came minutes later, stated an astronomical price that made Charles blink. The e-mail said the closing could be at Annie’s convenience. Before he committed further, he called Annie again, who didn’t have any problem with the price for Big Pine Mountain, but she came back with a lease amount for her own mountain in Spain that made Charles chuckle. He wasn’t so sure that Pappy would chuckle, but he sent off Annie’s offer and again waited.
The return e-mail was even quicker than the last one, saying Pappy agreed to Annie’s ten-year lease and to notify him of the closing on Big Pine Mountain. He included the routing numbers for a wire transfer to an account in Greece. As far as Charles was concerned, it was a done deal all the way around.
Belatedly, he sent off an e-mail to Lizzie and asked her if she would handle the closing. With nothing else to do, Charles kept his eye on the e-mail and waited. How long, he wondered, would it take for someone to get back to him on Jody Jumper? He decided nothing would come to him until tomorrow, so he closed up shop and went upstairs in time to see Myra packing up all her Christmas wrapping materials. A neat, tidy row of presents, each box prettier than the next, sat under the Christmas tree. He breathed in the scent, then exhaled. There was something about a Christmas tree that he absolutely loved.
“Old girl, how would you like to have dinner here in front of the fire so we can see the tree? I know you want to talk all this to death, and I do have other news that just came through.”
“Am I going to like your news?”
“I think so. I’ll finish up dinner if you set up the card table and take the dogs out.”
Myra strained to see through the window. She knew she’d have to bundle up, and the dogs might not even go out, but she was game. She whistled for the dogs, who stared at her. A second whistle meant business, and all of them bounded through the room to the kitchen, where they waited for her to put on her outerwear. “Okayyyy, let’s go!”
The dogs beelined out the door, ran to the nearest spot under a dripping hemlock tree. They ran back inside, shaking the sleet and snow from their coats all over the kitchen floor. Melted snow on Myra’s rain gear trickled onto the floor. Charles looked at the puddles with a jaundiced eye. Myra sighed as she walked into the laundry room for an old towel. Charles handed out his rewards, and the dogs ran back to their beds in front of the fire.
“You do the eleven o’clock outing, dear,” Myra said as she threw the towel in the washer. “I’ll set the table.”
An hour later, Myra sighed happily. “It was a wonderful dinner. Actually, Charles, it was a wonderful day all the way around except for the weather, and we’re snug here inside, so I guess the weather really doesn’t count. Now tell me your news.”
He did.
“Jody Jumper! It rings some kind of bell, but I can’t put a face to the name, and I can’t truthfully say I ever