Second Wind (Cypress Coast Book 1) Read online

  Locals filled half the tables in the restaurant, and Laurel spotted Jake Carlson seated near one of the picture windows overlooking the stone terrace. Dressed in a shirt and tie, he looked much more like an accountant than he did in his favorite ensemble of T-shirt and shorts. He also must not have been kidding about being a regular. He seemed to be at Earthly Delights every time she walked through the door. She had to wonder if the man could even make toast. Although, to be fair, it was steel-cut oats morning, and her mother was a wizard with oatmeal.

  Laurel wound her way toward a small table in the corner and had just shrugged out of her jacket when her mother popped out of the kitchen with a big splotch of strawberry jam smeared across the front of her white apron. “Good morning, sweetie. I’ll be with you in a minute. Why don’t you join Jake?” She waved a flour-covered hand in his direction.

  When Laurel hesitated, her mother continued, “He hasn’t ordered yet, and it will make one less table for Stevie to bus.”

  Her earlier enthusiasm soured in her stomach. She was nervous enough this morning about making a good impression on her new employer. She didn’t need to eat with a man she barely knew. But she would feel like a jerk if she made more work for the teenage busboy who worked the breakfast shift before heading to high school, so she agreed. “Sure.”

  ****

  Jake sensed someone approaching and glanced up from the email he was reading on his phone to see Laurel McDowell standing beside his table wearing a killer little black suit and a disgruntled expression. She clearly wasn’t thrilled to see him, but she must want something, so he offered what he hoped was a pleasant smile and raised one brow in question.

  “May I join you?” she asked.

  He gestured to the empty chair across from him. “Be my guest.”

  She slipped into the seat, avoiding his gaze. “Mom sent me.”

  Jake remained silent and sipped his steaming coffee, while Laurel hid behind the big laminated menu, even though she must know it by heart.

  A glass of cranberry juice appeared in front of her, accompanied by Rosemary’s voice. “What will you have this morning?”

  Laurel glanced up with a puzzled frown. “Mom, what are you doing waiting tables?”

  “Carlie called in sick this morning, and Mondays are usually pretty quiet. So, what’ll it be?”

  Jake handed her his menu. “Oatmeal for me.”

  “Make that two.”

  Rosemary took Laurel’s menu. “Granola on top for both of you?”

  Jake smiled. “Absolutely.” The homemade granola at Earthly Delights was a heavenly concoction of oats, honey, almonds, and dried cranberries and blueberries that elevated Rosemary’s oatmeal to a whole different plane from the lumpy, gooey stuff he’d grown up eating on the farm.

  Their food arrived quickly, eliminating the need for extended small talk. He dug right in, but Laurel added milk and stirred slowly as she stared into her bowl.

  After several uncomfortable minutes, he tried breaking the ice. “How’s your car doing?”

  She started, as if he’d interrupted a deep train of thought. “Huh? Oh, it’s fine…I think. I’ve only driven it home from the garage.”

  He nodded. “So, I guess you haven’t picked up a new phone yet.”

  “No.”

  He scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal, being sure to include plenty of the good stuff. “I hope your unwanted text situation has calmed down.”

  Her spoon clattered against the side of the bowl.

  He silently cursed his blunder. The fact that he’d been thinking about Laurel’s problems with her ex-fiancé ever since leaving her at the garage Saturday morning was no excuse for ruining her breakfast by mentioning the slimeball.

  He tried a smile. “Not hungry?”

  She pushed her bowl away a couple of inches. “Not as much as I thought.”

  Time to change the subject before she tossed her juice in his face. “You’re all dressed up. What are you doing this morning?”

  Her expression brightened. “It’s my first day of work. I got a job.”

  “That’s great. Where are you working?”

  “I’ll be helping out at Victor St. James’s gallery in Carmel…at least through the end of the year. I don’t suppose you know it?”

  Jake’s pulse jumped. Victor St. James and his partner Martin Finebourne were the subjects of the email he’d been reading when she arrived. “I’ve been by the place. How do you know Victor?”

  “I don’t, not really. He was here Saturday morning, and Mom introduced us. He seems like a nice man, and Mom says he’s very successful.”

  “Do you have experience in the art business?”

  She gave a little laugh. “It’s the only experience I do have. I have a degree in fine art and most recently worked for an art investment firm in Seattle.”

  “That must be fascinating.” He kept his tone casual, but his nerves hummed.

  Blue eyes regarded him with blatant skepticism. “Are you a serious art collector as well as a number-cruncher?”

  He shrugged and kept his smile casual. “Keeping an eye on the art market is kind of a hobby of mine.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  Her dry tone suggested he wasn’t going to get any more significant information today, but that was okay. She’d given him a possible new line of inquiry to pursue. He would follow up on it as soon as he got to the office.

  He set his spoon aside and swiped his napkin across his mouth. “Well, congratulations. The job sounds like a perfect match for you. Have a great first day.” He pulled out his wallet and slapped a twenty on the table. “I need to get going. Would you give this to Rosemary for me?”

  “Sure.” Her lips tightened.

  As he strode toward the front door, Jake’s mind was churning. After months of work, he finally had a direct connection to Victor St. James. On top of that, Laurel McDowell also had connections to the art scene in Seattle. This could be the break he’d been looking for. He liked her personally and didn’t want to believe Rosemary’s daughter was mixed up in anything crooked, but she wouldn’t be the first woman to be dragged into illegal activity by associating with the wrong man.

  ****

  After Jake dashed out in such a rush, Laurel’s appetite disappeared completely. She gave up trying to eat and headed back to the house to brush her teeth and check on Rufus before leaving for work. Forty minutes later, she tucked her Bug into a tight, curbside parking space a few blocks from the gallery. As she locked the car, she suppressed a snicker at a gargantuan SUV slowly circling the block, probably in hopes of finding a tank-sized space in a town where everything—from houses, to shops and restaurants, to city streets—was miniaturized. Tourists.

  Following Victor’s directions, she found Gallery St. James tucked into a lovely little half-hidden courtyard that surrounded a large fountain featuring a sculpture of otters at play. The other occupants of the brick courtyard included a wine-tasting venue, an exclusive estate jewelry store, and Finebourne Antiques next door. That must be Martin’s shop. The sign on the gallery door read Closed, but when Laurel tried the knob, it opened.

  She stepped inside and glanced around. Silence hung in the air, and the overhead lights were off. Unless Victor was in the habit of leaving the door unlocked at night, he must be somewhere in the back. She decided to poke around a little, figuring she would sound more knowledgeable if she took a few minutes to familiarize herself with his inventory.

  The space was arranged in a series of small galleries with paintings of a variety of subjects hanging on the fabric-covered walls. Some were reasonably priced for the upscale tourist trade Carmel attracted, and most were painted in a traditional style. The rooms also contained a scattering of tabletop-sized bronze sculptures displayed atop short decorative columns.

  In one gallery that featured breezy, lyrical, watercolor seascapes, Laurel’s breath caught at the sight of two gently turning, tulip-shaped, weathered copper sculptures mounted on poles ab
out four feet high. Kinetic sculptures, very similar to the ones she’d made several years ago and wanted to make again. The ones Richard had dismissed as a waste of time. Cautiously lifting the price tag on the closest one, she stared, blinked, and stared again. The number couldn’t be right. She’d never had the nerve to ask a fraction of that price for one of her wind spinners. Would people really pay that much for a high-quality piece in the right gallery? If so, it was another sign of her ex-fiancé’s campaign to keep her financially dependent. Anger rose in her chest, threatening her excitement, but she tamped it down. Richard had taken enough from her already. She wouldn’t allow him to take anything more. If things worked out for her at the gallery, she would ask Victor about the sculptor and the market for such pieces.

  Her dream might be possible after all.

  Holding onto that thought, she continued her exploration and ended up in a small room toward the back that displayed several very expensive works of the Old California school—meaning the artist was deceased. She knew enough from working with Richard to recognize serious investment material when she saw it.

  “Ah, I see you’ve found our treasure trove!” Victor St. James strolled into the room wearing a big smile, along with a maroon cashmere turtleneck and a black jacket and slacks that formed a perfect counterpoint to his swoosh of silver hair.

  Laurel started and jumped back from the painting she’d been examining. “Oh…um…yes. It’s an impressive collection.”

  “I bought most of them from the estate of a retired movie star who kept a summer house on Carmel Point. If you help me move a few—” He dipped his chin and gave her a pointed look. “—there’ll be an extra commission in it for you.”

  Victor might have the air of a favorite uncle, but he was clearly just as concerned about making a handsome profit as Richard.

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  “Excellent! Have to pay the rent, you know.” He took her arm as if he were escorting her to a ball. “Now come with me, and I’ll show you the business end of the place.”

  He led her through a storeroom with paintings stacked around the walls and on a couple of tall metal shelves to a windowless office with a large wooden desk. From there, a back door led to the narrow alley. Laurel spent the next hour learning the inventory and computer systems and studying the bios of the artists Victor represented. At ten o’clock, he announced it was time to open and headed out front to turn on the lights.

  The day passed slowly, with only a few visitors to the gallery, but Laurel enjoyed making conversation with a pair of honeymooners from Reno and a couple from Sweden and their three tall, gorgeous teenage children.

  A few minutes after six o’clock, as she was gathering her coat and purse, Martin Finebourne strolled in from his shop next door. “Ah, Miss McDowell. How did you enjoy your first day?”

  She couldn’t help smiling at his perky attitude and jaunty beret. “Please call me Laurel. It was interesting—quiet, but interesting.”

  Victor appeared from the back room. “Good. I see you’re ready on time, for once. We have to be there at seven, and we need to grab a quick bite on the way.” He turned to Laurel as he fished a set of keys from his pocket. “The man is chronically late, and we have rehearsal for the annual production of A Christmas Carol at the community theater.”

  She wondered which parts they were playing. It was hard to imagine either of them as the miserly Scrooge or downtrodden Bob Cratchit.

  Martin said something that sounded suspiciously close to pshaw and gave a toss with one hand. “Ignore him. At any rate, it’s just as well things were quiet on your first day. Next week the whole town will be overflowing with visitors for the Thanksgiving holiday, and it will only get busier through New Year’s Eve.”

  Laurel opened her mouth to respond but was pre-empted by a loud crash, accompanied by the sharp sounds of shattering glass. They all ran outside, where a lavender vintage Cadillac teetered uneasily on the lip of the otter fountain, its front wheels spinning. It had clipped the corner of Luigi’s Ristorante, taking out a bank of windows and littering the pavement with shards of glass. The maître d’, three waiters, and a handful of shaken diners staggered out to stare at the destruction.

  Martin sucked in a quick breath. “Oh, dear Lord, it’s Ermengarde!” He took off toward the car with Victor and Laurel on his heels, skirting the debris scattered across the courtyard.

  When they reached the car, Martin grabbed the door handle and yanked it open.

  A tiny, white-haired woman, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel, stared back at him and blinked. “I’m not sure how that happened.”

  Martin reached in and patted her arm. “Don’t you worry, Ermengarde. The firefighters will be here any minute to help you.”

  Fortunately, both the fire and police stations were located within three blocks. A few minutes later, a fire truck and ambulance pulled up, followed by two police cars, which blocked the street. Three firefighters in full turnout gear jumped out, two rolling a gurney with a bag of medical gear on top. When they reached the car, Laurel, Victor, and Martin stepped aside to let them work, though Martin hung close, clucking and fussing like a disturbed pigeon.

  Laurel turned to Victor. “Do you know her?”

  He nodded. “That’s Ermengarde Hoffmann. She’s been a fixture around town forever. She was a professor of German at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey for almost forty years. She’s particularly fond of Martin and likes to stop by his shop every Tuesday with cookies.”

  “I hope she isn’t badly hurt.”

  Victor raised on tiptoe and craned his neck to check the progress of the rescue. “It doesn’t look like it. I don’t think she was driving very fast, but she’s a menace to public safety in that tank. Maybe now her son will finally be able to persuade her to give up driving. The woman must be ninety, if she’s a day.”

  With flashing red and blue strobe lights reflecting off the windows of the surrounding businesses, a crowd had gathered to watch the firefighters cut Ermengarde free and spray the engine compartment and interior of the Cadillac with a fire extinguisher. Ten minutes later, the ambulance departed for the hospital, and a tow truck backed into the courtyard to begin the process of extracting the car from the fountain.

  Laurel scanned the scene, taking in the broken glass, toppled flower boxes, and the damaged concrete edging around the fountain. “Do you think they’ll be able to get this cleaned up before the gallery opens in the morning?” Business had been slow—she hadn’t sold a single piece all day. If they were forced to close for several days, she was afraid Victor might decide he didn’t need her after all.

  Martin patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, my dear. In this town, the tourist is king. By ten o’clock tomorrow, you’ll barely be able to tell anything happened, except for the restaurant windows.”

  Victor nodded. “He’s right. You go home, and I’ll see you in the morning.” He turned and headed back to lock the gallery door.

  Laurel shrugged into her coat and was about to leave when a tall female police officer approached, notepad in hand. “Excuse me, ma’am. I’d like to ask you a few questions. Did you witness the accident?”

  Despite the universal cop-speak taught at every police academy in the country, something in the woman’s voice tickled a memory. Where had she heard it before? Laurel tilted her head, trying to get a better look at the officer’s features without being too obvious, but the shadow cast by the brim of her cap made it difficult. “Not the actual accident. I was inside the gallery and ran out when I heard the crash.”

  As soon as Laurel spoke, the officer glanced up from her pad, and her eyes widened. “Laurel? Laurel McDowell?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Laurel was just as shocked. Behind the tight, business-like blond bun and dark, unisex uniform, she recognized her childhood neighbor and high school biology lab partner. She should have known the former varsity volleyball star by her height alone. “Oh, my goodness. It’s great
to see you, Melody.”

  “When did you get back into town?”

  “When did you become a police officer?”

  They both laughed.

  “You first,” Laurel said.

  Melody scanned the still-active accident scene. “I was on my way home when this call came in. I need to finish taking witness statements and write up my report, but I’d love to get together and catch up. Are you free in an hour or so? We could meet at Julio’s, just like old times.”

  Laurel considered a moment. What did she have to get back to? Her mom had promised to check on Rufus and top up his food and water before the dinner rush at Earthly Delights, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an evening out with a girlfriend. It had been at least a year. “That sounds like fun.”

  “Great! Meet you there.”

  As Melody approached the group of restaurant patrons with her notebook, Laurel headed for her car. Julio’s was a rustic, automobile-themed Mexican restaurant a mile or so outside the city limits of Carmel-by-the-Sea where she and her friends had spent many happy hours chowing down on nachos and burritos after games at the high school. She’d never been a big sports fan, but there wasn’t much else to do for fun in the small town, so she’d happily joined the group.

  She pulled into the parking lot, which was half-empty on a Monday evening, parked, and went inside. The flower-decked patio at Julio’s was one of her favorite spots, but it was too chilly for comfort tonight, even with the heaters on. Inside, several big-screen TVs were showing football. Laurel had no idea who was playing and didn’t care. Families occupied a few of the booths, and small groups of men clustered around the bar, shoveling tortilla chips fresh from the fryer into their mouths along with their beers.

  She hesitated. She’d been here dozens of times, but always with friends. Alone, she felt out of place, conspicuous and overdressed. Richard had preferred dark, stylish restaurants—the kind of place you could throw money around and the other diners would pretend not to notice but always did, where plays were made and deals were done.