Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [94]
Patrick nodded somberly.
“Only for a few more days.”
“I don’t want to,” Patrick said stubbornly.
The look on Patrick’s face almost broke Kerney’s heart, and he made a snap decision. “Okay, you don’t have to go back there.”
“Ever?” Patrick asked, his eyes brightening.
“Ever,” Kerney replied as he ruffled his son’s hair and unclipped his cell phone from his belt. Patrick smiled and scrambled gleefully to the top of the low stone ruins. With one eye on his son Kerney called Deputy Chief Larry Otero and told him that he was starting his vacation effective immediately and wouldn’t be back until after he returned from the Bootheel.
“You deserve it, Chief,” Otero said.
“It’s more that my son deserves a father,” Kerney replied.
After a short but fruitless search for arrowheads and potsherds at the ruins, which were purported to be the site of a Native American sweat lodge, Kerney rode, with Patrick in front of him, to the barn, where he unsaddled Hondo, put him in the paddock, rubbed him down, and fed him some oats. Then, as a treat, Kerney fixed strawberries and ice cream for Patrick and spent an hour reading to him until it was well past his nap time. When Patrick’s head drooped and his eyelids fluttered and closed, Kerney carried him to his bed.
In the study Kerney checked his e-mail. There were still no messages from Sara, which, since he still didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, left him with a growing sense of alarm. He fired off a note to her, saying all was well at home but that he really needed to hear from her, and went to check on Patrick. The events of the morning had worn him out and he was fast asleep, but his face was clear of worry. Kerney closed the door quietly and went to the kitchen to clean up the lunch dishes, marveling at the resilience of the young, wishing some of it would rub off on him so he could rebound from his present funk.
Upon their late-night arrival in Dublin, Fitzmaurice received a message informing him that the calls Spalding had made to London were to a very expensive, independent personal escort named Victoria Hopkins, who operated out of a flat in St. John’s Wood and advertised herself on the World Wide Web as a “courtesan of distinction.” Inquires made of her neighbors by the police revealed that Hopkins was traveling in Wales and due to return home tomorrow.
“Apparently,” Fitzmaurice said after he filled Sara in, “yachting isn’t Spalding’s only preferred leisure-time activity. I would imagine he’s anchored in a lovely cove somewhere near Holyhead, rocking the boat—so to speak—with his for-hire courtesan right now.”
“Can you arrange for overnight surveillance on the villa in case Spalding arrives early?” Sara asked.
“Consider it done,” Fitzmaurice replied as he eased to a stop in front of Sara’s hotel. “And I’ll alert the Coast Guard and ask them to be standing by so that he can’t slip away to sea.”
“Perfect,” Sara said as she opened the door. “You really have been a prince, Detective Fitzmaurice. I appreciate all that you’ve done.”
“ ’Tis the company I’ve been keeping, Colonel,” Fitzmaurice said with smile. “Till the morning, then.”
In her room Sara kicked off her shoes, read her e-mail, and immediately called Kerney.
“Everything is fine,” she said when he answered. “I’m safe and sound, and there’s nothing for you to worry about. How is Patrick? How are you?”
“All is well here,” Kerney replied. “But we’ve been missing you a lot.”
“Me too,” Sara said. “Tell me what the two of you have been up to.”
After the call Sara sat for a long time trying to figure out why Kerney had sounded a little strained behind his cheerfulness. He’d told her about his daily horseback rides with Patrick, his plan to take him to the Albuquerque zoo, and how Patrick loved to help him in the barn when it was time to feed the horses. But he’d skirted around her questions about Patrick’s adjustment to the Santa Fe preschool.
It wasn’t like Kerney to hold things back from her. She wondered if he’d deliberately