Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

and sat at the bistro counter as she stopped the dishwasher mid-cycle.

“No sense running it while we dirty new cups.” She popped a refillable K-cup into the Keurig and put an orange Mexico mug under the brew spout. When the mug was full she passed it to me. I added creamer as she emptied the pod and refilled it. Putting a blue mug labeled BuffState under the spout, she pushed the ON button and sat across from me.

“Good coffee,” I said.

“Kona.” She nodded toward the canister on the counter. “We got it on our second trip to Hawaii, last summer.”

“Before or after the submarine ride and snorkeling in a shark cage?”

“The sharks were on our first trip,” she said. “We got the coffee after the submarine but before the helicopter ride into a dormant volcano.” She paused. “Does it matter?”

“Not at all. I think it’s great you guys did all that.”

The Keurig clicked off. She reached for her mug. “At our age.”

“At any age,” I said, meaning it.

She was quiet a moment as she stirred in creamer. “I’m taking him to breakfast in the morning, so he’ll come home to a clean house.”

“Then it’s back to your place tomorrow? He still has a week of restrictions left.”

“He’s sore but he’s good to go.” She blew on her coffee to cool it, drank some. “His last check-up was good. His pain’s almost gone. Headaches too. He’s sitting up, playing chess, reading, listening to music.” She half-frowned. “He’s snoring more because he sleeps on his back, but I’m used to that by now.”

I sipped more coffee. “He won’t talk about what happened, not to me or Jonah.”

“Or me. He still has things to work out.”

“You look tired.”

One hand went to the side of her permed hair. “Does it show?”

“Only to those who know you well enough to care.” I smiled. “That includes Bobby.”

“I wasn’t this domestic when I was married,” she said. “But I was so scared for him in that hospital bed.” She lifted her glasses to wipe her eyes. “He needed me…”

“And you love him. But now that he’s better, you need some space.”

She drank more coffee. “Is it weird? Not being together all the time? Needing space?”

“No. I read an article about relationships like yours—together apart, they call it.” I shrugged. “Phoenix and I are kind of the same.”

“We’ve been at it longer.” She rotated her mug absently. “Alaila thinks we ought to get married, while he’s still interested. With more than a hundred forty years between us—”

“Do you honestly think Bobby’s going anywhere?”

“No. Neither am I.”

“If what you have works for you both, why change it unless you want to?” I took one of her hands in both of mine. “Mira and I both love you, not for loving Bobby but for being someone strong enough not to need him. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s more than a walking almanac. He’s a good-hearted man. He loves to nurture people.”

She smiled. “I’ve noticed.”

“Too good-hearted. If the wrong person had come along, needing to be nurtured or rescued, she’d have taken advantage of him and hurt him. Bad. You were the right woman then. You still are.” Releasing her hand, I lifted my mug as if toasting her. “Thank you.”

We clinked mugs.

“I heard Jonah.” Kayla set down her coffee. “The best way to thank me is to find those men, so do whatever you’ve gotta do, no matter what Bobby says.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m working on it.”

We talked for a time about other things after our coffee was gone. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I planted another kiss on her cheek and said goodnight. In the living room, I said goodnight to Bobby and Jonah, each of whom had eight or nine pieces left on the board. I studied it long enough to determine Jonah would likely win. Then I went downstairs and logged onto Intellichexx to continue the hunt for Dr. C.J. Lansing.

After I interviewed Stan the driver, Maury the lot attendant, and Mrs. Cathcart, who twice seemed to forget why I was there, the name Lansing was still my only lead from the day Bobby was attacked. I had no way to tap into Main Street CCTV cameras that might have recorded the gang fleeing the scene and not leave tracks that would open me to a cyber-crimes prosecution. Lansing was all I had. It was a longshot. If Lansing was indeed the man’s name, if he had a doctorate, if he had something to do with the gang of men outside Temple Beth Zion—all uncertainties. No one had sent Rory Gramm a cell phone picture for an image search, so I had a rudimentary description: mid-to-late thirties, average build and height, short brown hair, black glasses.

Having found more than one hundred C. Lansings in the United States, I had spent the past several nights doing deep background dives on those I could not eliminate by gender, age, or race. Deep searching—in fact, the whole process—was taking longer than usual because my gifted tech associate, LJ Doran, the only son of my Buffalo State partner Jimmy, was incommunicado during his training for the FBI Cyber Division. Having earned both a summa cum laude Bachelor of Science degree and a Master’s in computer science, he had been fast-tracked despite his age. If LJ had been in town, I would by now have seen any CCTV footage run through facial recognition software, as well as the smartphone records, school transcripts, residential histories, work histories, financial transactions, and credit card statements of every Lansing on my list.

You knew LJ had to grow up sometime, I told myself again. He couldn’t hack for you forever. Now work would be slow and steady—more slow than steady.

7

The week after Kayla left, Bobby was well enough to come downstairs Tuesday morning and let himself into my apartment. I found him making coffee when I got out of the shower. He slid an Albright-Knox Art Gallery mug to me as I tightened