Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

was mail on the dining table. Two envelopes slit open neatly. I pulled the contents. The first envelope contained a water bill, addressed to George Abrams. The second contained a marketing letter from a bank. Next to the mail was a yellow legal pad with a ball point pen beside it. The legal pad was half used up and the page on top was blank. From the dining nook I could see the lights of that cruise ship. Looking down steeply, I could see the street below with parked cars and the sidewalk on the other side.

Chapman was hovering over me biting her nails and looking very uncomfortable. I said, “Go find shoes, and something dry to wear.” She nodded and went away. I took off my jacket and laid it over a dining room chair. The jacket was damp, but not soaking anymore. Gore-Tex. My other clothes were in worse shape. Particularly the jeans. I didn’t care.

The kitchen was clean and neat and looked unused. Beside the bedroom, the living room and kitchen area, there was another small room. I flipped the light. It looked like an office. The desk and shelves were covered in boxes and loose paper. I didn’t immediately see a computer or a phone. I yawned. The day had started early on the boat. There had been things to do, ropes to pull. The net had needed some mending. I was tired.

The bedroom was neat as the kitchen. Chapman was in there changing. She was naked, but I’d already seen that and she was not shy. The closet had a shirt rack, with five identical gray button-down shirts in it. Looked like George had a thing for preppy cardigans. Two of them hung up next to the shirts. They were fine quality wool, with discreet and expensive-looking logos. A shelf held four pairs of neatly pressed chinos in beige.

Chapman pulled a pair down and slipped them on. She chose one of the button-down shirts to go with it. I said, “Classy.”

“Always.” She started pulling through George’s jacket collection, and stopped at a thin black leather zip-up. “There it is. I bought it for him last year and he never wore it. Now I’m taking it back.” She pulled it on and admired herself in the mirror. “What do you think, Keeler?”

I looked at her. “Whatever. I don’t think.”

Truth was, if previously I had figured Chapman was not my type, now I was revising that thought, big time.

She let herself fall on the bed. “Holy shit. I think I might just pass out right here and now.”

I said, “Bad idea. We go through the place and then we get out.”

Chapman curled her knees up. “Are you always this much fun?”

“Oh, this isn’t fun enough?”

She screwed her face up. “What are we looking for?”

“We’re looking through everything, in case there is anything interesting. Included in everything and anything are computers and phones. Either of those will be considered interesting until proven otherwise.”

She blew air up at the ceiling. “Got it.”

I looked at her. The girl was exhausted and I was riding her hard. I said, “Half hour nap?”

“Hour.”

“Forty-five minutes.”

Chapman said, “Okay.”

I suddenly felt the weight of the wet jeans against my legs. She looked at me, up and down. “You have to get out of that wet stuff.”

I said, “I’m good thanks.”

“No, you’ll get the bed wet. Can’t get the bed wet, Keeler. It isn’t good manners. What will George think, when we find him?”

“Well if you put it like that.”

I went back to George Abrams’ closet and pulled down a pair of jeans. Too small. I picked up a pair of chinos, likewise. George was a skinny little guy. I was barrel-chested, my arms were all mass, and my legs were shaped like upside down bowling pins. Chapman was looking at me from the bed. She said, “Not going to work, Keeler. Just take it off and hang it up, then get your ass into the bed like a normal person.”

“Never really did the normal person thing.”

“You can fake it till you make it.”

I stripped off the wet gear. It was like peeling rotten fruit. It wasn’t just wet, it was wet with sea water and the salt had begun to crystallize. I hung my clothes over a chair. When I turned back, Chapman was under the covers. She pulled the comforter back like a marked page. She said, “Turn off the light.”

I did so and got under the covers. Chapman had left me enough room and it felt amazing in there, almost instantly. Like a fluffy cocoon of pure comfort. Like being on the inside of a cloud. I realized right there and then that I hadn’t been in a real bed for at least four months. Chapman couldn’t have been more right. It was a whole lot better to be in the bed than out of it. Took me a minute to get warm and start feeling perfect. I set my internal alarm for one hour, then I closed my eyes.

Ten seconds later, I felt Chapman’s shoulder against mine, skin to skin. Warm and getting warmer. Her hand came across my thigh and then further. Her hair brushed against my forehead. Then her voice in my ear. “Sorry, but there are a couple of things I like about you.”

I took her hand and put it back. “I like you too, but no.”

Chapman held still for a while, then she turned away. A phrase that she’d said echoed in my head: You have to get out of that wet stuff. The way she’d said the word ‘have’. My mother had been French. She’d said words in a different way from other kid’s parents growing up. Maybe Chapman had spent time in a European country as a kid. Maybe I’d remember to ask.

Fourteen

An hour later we were lying side by side, still in bed.

I said, “What did Jane Abrams do?”

Chapman said, “Like what, you mean her job?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure. I think that she’s rich.”

I said,