“Like I would forget. It’s not every day you get your dream kitchen. Thank you, Bradley,” she said before taking a bite of Logan’s cheese plate.
“So, then I gave him more of our money and I’d told some other people about Bradley and they wanted in, too. He started calling it a club and it seemed like everybody wanted in. Finally, he made up some rules about whose money he would take. I’m always hearing from somebody around here, asking me to put in a good word for them.”
“Wow, I had no idea,” I said when he finished. Who would have guessed, looking at the Perkins’ house? It was nice and all, but hardly fitting someone who was that successful. Logan said that was part of Bradley’s appeal.
“Bradley charges a small fee for handling the fund—just enough to cover his expenses. He doesn’t go in for fancy offices and an extravagant lifestyle. He’s one of us.”
Now I’d come to the hard part. It was obvious Logan was done giving out information and I had to break the news about Bradley. “When was the last time you talked to Bradley?” I asked.
Logan thought a moment. “I don’t know, maybe a week ago.”
“Did you know that he went missing a few days ago?”
Logan made a dismissive shrug. “Elise mentioned something. She heard he and Emily had some kind of argument and he’d taken off for a few days. I was going to call him, but I decided it was best to stay out of it. I was kind of surprised, though. They are such a perfect couple. I can’t imagine them having that big a fight.”
I swallowed hard. “So, if something were to happen to Bradley, who would take over this fund you were talking about?”
“Interesting question,” Logan said. “Well, Bradley is the club, so no one could take his place. I suppose all the stocks in the fund would be sold and the money divided up to the members. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to talk to Bradley about it. He’s a young guy in good health, but it’s a good idea to have all bases covered.”
“It might be too late.” The words slipped out before I could stop them and Logan’s head jutted forward.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Suddenly I didn’t want to say any more. I knew he wasn’t going to react well. “Maybe you should talk to Emily and get the exact wording in his note.”
“What kind of note?” Logan asked. It was like a shade had been pulled over his upbeat demeanor.
I just repeated that he ought to talk to Emily as I excused myself. He grabbed his cell phone, and as I headed back to my table, I saw him start running his hand over his hair as if he was trying to soothe himself and I realized Logan must have been who Mason overheard. What had Mason said—that it sounded like the guy was working for Bradley. Hmm.
CHAPTER 9
“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” I SAID AS I SLID BACK in my chair. There was no joy in my voice. I looked across the bookstore café toward Logan. He was still on the phone and I could tell by his expression he’d heard the bad news. He’d lost his golden goose and there’d be no more golden eggs. I told Dinah what Logan had said he thought would happen in the event of Bradley being out of the picture. “It might take a while since no doubt there will be lawyers involved, but Mrs. Shedd should get her money. At least some of it,” I said. “Bradley mentioned some business problems in his note. I’m guessing it means his special system didn’t work and he made some bad investments.” Dinah seemed preoccupied as I spoke and grabbed my wrist when I’d finished.
“You have to be my wingman.” Dinah’s gaze darted toward the door and then back to me. She straightened Ashley-Angela’s blue shirt and fluffed E. Conner’s golden blond hair. “It’s Commander,” she said. Dinah, who could practically make her freshmen cry with just a look, was not her usual confident self.
“You never told him about Ashley-Angela and E. Conner, did you?” I said.
Dinah slumped forward and shook her head. “I was going to tell him all about them before I invited them, but there was one thing and then another ...” She glanced over toward the kids, who were happily drawing and eating mini-croissants with Swiss cheese. “Okay, I just didn’t. And now it’s really awkward.”
“Showtime,” I said under my breath as the door to the café opened and Commander Blaine hesitated in the doorway. When he saw Dinah, his face lit up like a three-hundred-watt halogen bulb, and with a buzz of energy in his step, he headed toward our table. Commander was a nickname leftover from childhood. His real name was Sylvester, which Dinah thought sounded like some kind of synthetic yarn. I guess that’s what happens when you have yarn on the brain, you see everything in terms of it.
He crossed the space in a few steps and leaned down to give Dinah a greeting kiss before pulling up a chair from a nearby table and sitting down. Commander had thick white hair, which made his complexion appear even ruddier. He had a wiry build that seemed unaffected by his age, which I guessed to be in his late fifties. It was obvious that it wasn’t occurring to him that the kids sitting at the table were with Dinah.
He and Dinah’s gazes met and simultaneously, they both said they had a surprise for the other. I attempted to make my exit, but Dinah had grabbed my wrist and wouldn’t let go until I sank back into my seat.
“You go first,” Dinah said, taking the chance to stall. Commander looked at Dinah’s hand on my wrist.
“Molly seems to want to leave,” he said as if he thought Dinah wasn’t aware of this.
“No, she doesn’t,” Dinah said, still holding on to me. “In fact, she wants to ask you about somebody.” I felt her knee nudge me. Okay, telling your male companion that you were hosting your ex’s kids might seem a little hard to understand, but I thought she was making more out of it than necessary. Though as owner of the local mailing center, he did seem to be in the middle of the information flow and she had mentioned that he knew Bradley Perkins.
Commander seemed a little disappointed when I stayed. I’m sure he thought the kids would have left with me. But he knew Dinah well enough to just go along with it. So he forged ahead and brought out some sheets he’d printed off the Internet and laid them out on the table. “My business is at a standstill around the holidays. It’s an easy time for me to take some time off. You and me on a Christmas trip up to Pacific Grove to see the monarch butterflies. No conference center this time,” he said, referring to the place we’d held our retreat. “We’d stay at a cozy inn I know. Fireplaces in every room. How about it?”
Dinah squirmed and nudged me again. “Molly, didn’t you want to ask Commander about Bradley Perkins?”
“Uh, I was just wondering if you knew him,” I said as she nudged me again. I was definitely earning the title of wingman because I was certainly winging it.
Commander seemed disappointed not to have gotten a more enthusiastic response to his trip idea, but he nodded at me. “Someone else was asking about him.”
“Who?” I asked. Answering a question with a question was an old investigative standby I’d learned from Barry—not because he meant to teach it to me, but because he’d used it on me.
Commander Blaine took a moment to collect his thoughts. “It was a couple of investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Perkins used to rent a post office box from me. I offer the advantage of a real address instead of just a post office box number,” he said with a certain amount of pride in his voice. For some reason the kids looked up at his comment as if they’d noticed him for the first time and then in typical kid fashion figured whatever he was talking about was boring and went back to their coloring. If Commander noticed them staring at him, he didn’t let on.