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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
INRETROSPECT,MIKELINA should have had them rent equipment and shuttled them down to South Pointe Park and had them snorkel close to shore at the Jose Cuervo Reef. And if Jace and his buddies had decided to snorkel this morning, she might have suggested it. Instead, Bastien insisted that she and he follow the schedule and they wound up at Biscayne National Park with a tour guide that didn’t give them a moment’s privacy, even underwater.
It was informative and while Mikelina had heard it all before, she could see that Bastien was enjoying himself. And she had to admit she got as excited as he did when they saw the pod of dolphins in the distance.
When it was time to get onto the paddleboards, they had a good time trying to knock each other off. When that got tiring, they lounged on them, floating in the water while the guide looked on from the boat.
“Having fun?” Mikelina asked.
“The guys would have hated this,” he said. “Too much education. But I liked it. Kitty would have liked it, too. Maybe Jace will take her down here sometime. He loved the house. Do you know if the owner is willing to sell it?”
“No.” As in hell no.
“Because I’m pretty sure they could name their price.”
But it was tempting. Mikelina knew she could get a few million for the house and she wouldn’t have to worry about her mother or have to work so hard. She could afford to buy her mother as well as herself a house.
But it wouldn’t be in South Beach. And the new houses wouldn’t have memories of when they were a family. The beach house was the only thing left of that time, after everything had been liquidated for the lawsuits and lawyer fees.
“It’s a family house and it means a lot to them,” she said.
“Would you do me a favor and just double-check with the owners? Jace has more money than he knows what to do with. It would be a quick sale.”
“Okay.” Mikelina might bring up the subject with her mother, but she already knew her mother would burst into tears over the thought of being “homeless”—even though she wouldn’t be homeless for very long. She knew Tawny was waiting for Tanner to be acquitted and they could all live happily ever after again. But with each passing day Mikelina grew more certain that was never going to happen. Not when her father was still so unrepentant about what he had done.
Had he always been a crook or was it one mistake that snowballed into a life of crime? What had caused him to cheat people out of their money? She had asked her mother if they had been in trouble financially and Tawny had said no. Their bank accounts and credit hadn’t taken a hit either. So why did he do it?
Tanner said he was innocent.
And if she hadn’t read the files the FBI found on his computer, she would have believed him. She rolled off her board and swam down as far as she could to clear her head. She didn’t want to think about her father the thief. She wanted to remember her father as the guy who smelled like English leather and took her to see the Lord of the Rings trilogy when it played back-to-back in the theater.
She kicked back to the surface just as she was about to run out of breath. She took in a deep lungful as she held on to her board.
“You okay?” Bastien asked sleepily.
“Yeah.” She’d get there.
“I wanted to get some pictures of parrotfish on the reef down there. Kitty is a Finding Nemo fan.”
“Nemo was a clown fish.”
“How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows that, Bastien.” She hauled herself up on the board and giggled when he tickled her butt. “You’re not going to find Nemo in these waters.”
“Oh well, I didn’t want to get off my board anyway.”
She smiled. “What are Jace and the boys doing today?”
“I don’t care.” Bastien’s voice was muffled because his face was resting on his arms. She thought he might fall asleep on his board.
“That’s a start. I’m proud of you. This is all very spontaneous.”
He yawned. “No, it’s not. I’m following the schedule, even if they’re not.”
“Do you think they’re going to stick around the house all day?”
“I can’t imagine they’re going clubbing again, but who the hell knows? At my bachelor party, we were riding in airplanes and shooting automatic weapons. But we were in Vegas.”
