Tracy Hayes, Vacationing P.I.

Chapter One

Some questions take you by surprise, like when my brother Trevor asked if I’d like the last piece of cake. That was practically unheard of when we were kids. He was four years older and had been permanently hungry when we were growing up. If I wasn’t at the dinner table on time, I could kiss extra helpings goodbye.

But at some point in his adulthood, he’d become a bit of a gym rat with a toned, muscled body, and healthy eating habits. Extra servings of cake weren’t compatible with that lifestyle.

His loss. At twenty-eight, I was allergic to exercising, with a body that one or two pieces of cake made no difference to.

Which led to questions that upset me, like aunts and old schoolmates asking if I’d gained weight. That’s just rude. Yet it never stopped them from doing it.

The answer to both questions was “Duh,” by the way. Moreover, saying yes to the first might be the reason for the latter too.

However, few questions blew my mind as thoroughly as my father asking, out of the blue: “What will you do on your summer vacation, Tracy?”

We were having Sunday lunch at my parents’ with my live-in boyfriend slash boss, Jackson Dean. It was a weekly event where my parents welcomed all their four children and families, but it was seldom that we all had time to attend.

Travis, my senior by eight years, lived in Douglaston in Northern Queens with his wife, Melissa, and five-year-old twins, Brandon and Chad. The one-hour drive to Kensington, Brooklyn, with the whole family tended to be an operation that was more exhausting than it was relaxing, and wasn’t taken up every week. Travis had a straining job as a public defender in Brooklyn and he wanted to stay at home at weekends.

Theresa, my six-years-older sister, never used to attend when she was still an ER doctor and her schedule was hectic. But since she started dating Angela, a pediatrician in the same hospital, now her wife, and switched to pathology, they’d attended more regularly. Currently, though, they were on their honeymoon in Europe. If you could call it a honeymoon when it included a week-long medical conference.

Then there was the aforementioned older brother, Trevor, who had only moments earlier surprised me with the offer of the cake remains. He was an overworked homicide detective who used to work through weekends, with maybe a half an hour to pop in for a Sunday lunch every once in a while.

But ever since his surprise four-year-old son, Mason, came to his life, he’d tried to stay home on weekends, especially now that he’d gained Mason’s custody. He did so today too, even though Mason was with his doctor mom who was in the country for a change and not curing little children in Africa somewhere.

That left me, Tracy, to keep up the Sunday lunch tradition, although I’d only been able to regularly attend this past year.

I was the runt of the litter with no academic or professional accomplishments before I became an apprentice P.I. in Jackson’s detective agency almost a year ago. The only notable event in my personal history was a quick marriage and even quicker divorce before I was barely twenty. I’d spent my twenties toiling as a minimum wage waitress, which had barely paid the rent in Brooklyn, and that only with a roommate, and even then only if I took all the offered shifts and never any days off.

All this is to say that I was wholly unprepared for my dad’s question. Spoon halted midway to my mouth, and the last piece of delicious cake dropped back on the plate.

“What’s a summer vacation?”

I was half kidding. But only half. I was familiar with the concept of vacation, but not the practice of taking one. Sunday rest had been a pipedream before I started working for Jackson, and vacations were something that only happened to people in books and movies.

Jackson and Trevor chuckled, and Dad’s eyes crinkled at the corners. He was a retired cop in his early sixties who, after a rocky start, was enjoying his retirement. Much of it was thanks to Mason. He and Trevor lived with my parents in the two-story, four-bedroom house where we’d grown up too, and Dad filled his days looking after his grandson.

“We haven’t talked about a vacation yet,” Jackson said, lifting a hand on my shoulder and giving it a warm squeeze. I shot him a baffled look.

“We’re actually taking one?”

He smiled. “Of course. We can afford two weeks off.”

We’d had a couple of big cases this past year that had paid extremely well, like when we’d recovered priceless necklaces that belonged to a very, very grateful oil sheik, and the firm was on solid ground. Still, the notion of closing for even one week freaked me out, let alone for two.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said with emphasis. “Moreover, we’ve earned it. We deserve it.”

We definitely did. In addition to a heavy workload, in the past month I’d organized my sister’s wedding, moved in with Jackson, and faked the death of a mafia first so that he could escape to a better life. I was exhausted, and a vacation was starting to sound like an excellent idea.

“Did you have a destination in mind?”

“Florida,” he stated. I blinked, baffled by the fast answer, and he flashed a grin that was much more delicious than the cake. Jackson had the kind of clean-lined, ordinary face that you didn’t pay attention to until he wanted you to. But when he smiled like this, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners and a dimple appearing on one cheek, it was all I could see.

“There’s a huge security convention in Orlando two weeks from now, and I want to attend.”

Visions of sunset beaches and palm trees vanished from my mind, but before I could express my disappointment, Trevor perked.

“Southeast Security Expo? I’ve always wanted to attend it too.” He needed a vacation as desperately as we did, but a security convention? Ugh.

“Likewise,” Dad said with a wistful smile that indicated he still missed his uniform at times.

“You could visit my parents while there,” Mom suggested, warming up to the idea that I hadn’t even processed yet. “You could show them the wedding pictures.”

My grandparents had been unable to travel all the way to New York for Tessa and Angela’s wedding and would definitely love to see the pictures.

“You know, we haven’t seen your parents in ages either,” Dad reminded her. “I hate to sound grim, but they won’t be around for much longer.”

They were in their eighties, and while they were spry for their age, Dad was right and Mom knew it. “Maybe we should visit them this summer too…” she said hesitantly. She was a nurse at a nearby maternity clinic and had regular vacation time if not much money for travelling.

Dad smiled. “Maybe we could time the visit with the SSE.”

Mom shook her head, but she was smiling, which meant Dad would get his wish, provided Mom could arrange her vacation to match it. Trevor knew it too, because he instantly perked.

“I’m coming too. And Mason.”

“Oh, it would be such a treat for him,” Mom instantly agreed. “And my parents haven’t even seen him yet. Maybe we should rent an RV and drive there.”

The mere thought of several days cooped up in an RV with my family filled me with horror. I turned to Jackson, but he was smiling warmly at Mom. “That’s a great idea, Laura. We’ll make a family trip of it.”

And just like that they’d decided my first vacation in forever for me. But the happy look on Jackson’s face curbed my tongue. He’d grown up in a broken home, and my parents had acted as his parents too. This was likely the first family trip he’d ever have.

I only sighed internally and nodded. “Mason and I will go to Disney World.”

I sat deep in my thoughts on our drive home later that day. I was both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by our sudden vacation. The mere thought of taking two weeks off with no responsibilities was both thrilling and terrifying, and I couldn’t quite remember what it would be like.

We’d taken family holidays when my siblings and I were little, car trips to nearby destinations, and later, after Mom’s parents had moved there, all the way to Florida. I remembered a sweaty car and plain motel rooms. But mostly our summers had been spent at Dad’s parents’, who’d lived within a subway ride from our home in a house not larger than ours, filled with all our cousins all summer long.

I’d dreamed of vacations of course. There were times when imaginary travels had been the only thing sustaining me in my dreary toiling. I had dozens of places where I would’ve loved to go, and since Jackson and I could afford it, I would’ve travelled in style too. I would’ve taken a page out of Tessa and Angela’s book and flown to Europe—or the Caribbean, I wasn’t particular—staying in good hotels, resting on the beach and eating well.

My idea of a good vacation was not attending a security expo—or a medical conference, so I guess it ran in the family. But it had made others so excited I hadn’t wanted to upset them by stating it.

“I sense you weren’t exactly on board with the vacation plans,” Jackson said, cutting into my musings. Trust him to notice it. He wasn’t a detective for nothing.

“It’s not that I don’t like it…” I hedged. We’d studied maps for the most interesting routes south and I was even looking forward to the drive. “But I’ve never been on a vacation, and I would’ve wanted a say too.”

He rested a hand on my knee. “It’ll only take a week of our vacation time if we don’t drive back with your family. We’ll have a whole week for just ourselves.”

I gave him a meaningful look. “And that won’t include anything work related?”

“The convention is for fun…” But his smile was a bit sheepish, not a look I often saw on his face. He was a former Marine turned homicide detective turned private investigator, and tended towards grim.

He was eight years older than me—soon thirty-six to my twenty-eight—tall with a lean, tight body, dark hair—neatly cut for a change—and dark eyes. Handsome in an understated way. We’d dated since the end of the previous year and had recently moved in together in Jackson’s house in Marine Park in Southeast Brooklyn.

It was a duplex Jackson had inherited from his uncle along with the agency. It was a nice house, if a bit dated; a light blue clapboard with white trimmings and a nice small garden at the back. The neighbor living in the other half never bothered us, but he had stopped greeting us after a drive-by shooting incident a while back.

I didn’t miss my two-bedroom apartment in Midwood that I’d shared first with Jessica Mallory—a fellow waitress I’d had a bad falling out with when she walked out with my furniture—and later with Jarod Fitzpatric, with whom I got along much better despite the two of us being like night and day.

We got along so well, in fact, that when I moved in with Jackson, I brought Jarod with me. He’d recently suffered a trauma and I hadn’t wanted to leave him behind. Jackson hadn’t objected.

At twenty-two, Jarod seemed like a dope-head—had been one—who spent his nights gaming and slept all day. But he was a computing wizard with a well-paying job at Lexton Security. It was a high-end private security firm for whom Jarod created algorithms for encrypting information that were highly sought after by big companies all over the world.

Currently though, he was putting the finishing touches to his PhD dissertation, the contents of which were classified; it was about the security algorithms. He was brilliant at what he did, but outside his job he kind of needed looking after.

We found him in the kitchen working at the dining table in his pajamas. He was tall and a bit too thin, though not as rangy as he’d been when he became my roommate back in August. His hair was a messy mop, and despite his recent harrowing experiences at the hands of an assassin who’d abducted him, his brown eyes retained their puppyish look. Especially when he became distracted, like when we walked in and disrupted his flow.

“You’re home early,” he said, sparing us a glance from his laptop screen. On the table next to him was a half-eaten sandwich and two empty cans of Diet Coke—the only kind we had in the house, thanks to Jackson’s preference to clean living and healthy eating habits. If that was what Jarod subsisted on the whole day, he’d need proper food.

“It’s past four,” I said dryly. “Have you been sitting there the whole day?”

He looked around, confused, as if wondering how he’d ended up in the kitchen instead of his bedroom, where his desk was.

“Maybe?”

I shook my head and went to take a plate out of a cupboard to fill it with leftovers Mom had given us. After nuking it, I placed it in front of him, moving the laptop aside. “Eat.”

He stretched his arms above his head and groaned. “I can’t wait for this to be done.”

“And then you’ll take a long vacation,” I suggested, having been thoroughly converted to the concept.

“And do what?” he asked, baffled. “Go to Martha’s Vineyard with my parents?” He shuddered. He was slightly estranged from his wealthy parents—or maybe they’d never been close.

“Nothing?”

He blinked. “Is that what you’re doing on yours?”

“Apparently not…”

My dry tone aroused his curiosity enough to give me his full attention. “You’ll have a working vacation?”

“Jackson will. I’ll be hanging out with octogenarians and my nephew. Hopefully in some theme park or another.”

“Where are you going?”

“Florida.”

He perked. “I hear they have alligator farms there.”

Now that sounded like a proper holiday destination. “Google them for me,” I said, taking a seat next to him. The vacation was starting to form nicely.

“When will you leave?”

“Tuesday a week from now. We’ll drive to Florida in an RV.”

He made a face. I wholeheartedly concurred. But as I googled activities near Orlando, I started to feel more optimistic. So much so that when Jackson announced he’d managed to rent us a last-minute RV, I could congratulate him with true joy.

Maybe this vacation wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Chapter Two

A week passed in a breeze as we made preparations for our last-minute vacation. We’d wrapped up all the cases we could, postponed meetings, and informed the clients we couldn’t wrap up that there would be a pause in their investigation. They’d mostly taken it well.

Cheryl Walker, our office goddess, hadn’t been surprised by our sudden vacation. “It’s not like you two plan ahead as it is,” she said dryly on our last morning at work. She was in her early fifties and short even in three-inch heels, and despite the warm June weather, she was wearing a red suede skirt and a pink blouse.

“I’m not travelling anywhere, though,” she continued. “Can’t afford it, for one, and wouldn’t go through airport security the way it is at the moment.”

On top of the regular tight airport security, all the airports and harbors in New York and New Jersey were in a heightened state of alarm. A jewel-smith in Downtown, Brooklyn, had been robbed in a daring fashion the previous evening. Two men had entered the shop through the back door at closing time and forced the shop assistant to open a safe for them at gunpoint. They’d walked away with over a million dollars’ worth of diamonds, and they were still at large.

“It’s a good thing we’re driving down to Florida and not flying,” I said, wholly unironically. Jackson heroically refrained from making a comment, though he had to bite his lips to manage it, and I changed the topic fast.

“Would you mind looking after Jarod, then?” I suggested to Cheryl hopefully. “If we leave him to his own devices, he’ll starve to death. You could stay at our place even.”

She had nothing against that plan. “Your house has a nice back yard where I can spend time with Misty, and the beach is nearby.” Misty Morning was her border terrier-Yorkie mix, currently asleep at her feet under the desk. “And any new place will feel like a change from routine.”

Having her housesit was one less thing to worry about. That basically left the RV.

We went to fetch it after work on Monday so that we could get an early start the next morning. The car rental was in Jamaica, Queens, north of JFK airport. It specialized in truck rentals, and the RV we’d reserved was the only one they had, so I didn’t have great expectations.

But I was in for a pleasant surprise. “I bought this for myself,” Randall Earl, the owner of the car rental place told us, patting the side of a massive RV. He was a white man in his fifties who dressed like a lumberjack and had the exuberant manners of a car salesman.

“But I’ve done exactly one trip with her in these past three years. If it weren’t for my nephew who takes her out regularly with his friends, it would’ve sat here collecting dust. It’s time I let others enjoy her. You reserved her not five minutes after I’d put her online.”

He grinned. “Took my nephew by surprise though. He hadn’t thought to ask if I had plans for her, as I’ve never had before. I had to stop him from driving away with her last night.”

I felt bad for the nephew, but happy that Mr. Earl had stopped him in time. We wouldn’t have found a replacement on such a short notice. Finding this one had been pure luck. And it couldn’t have been better.

Jackson and I stared at the RV with our mouths hanging open. It was the size of a bus, wine red with cream and gold accents, with retro vibes in the round lines of the body. I absolutely loved it.

“We’ll take good care of her,” Jackson managed to say, making Mr. Earl beam.

“Where are you headed?”

“Florida.”

“Ah, she has an excellent AC,” he said. “Excellent heating too. My nephew often takes her to Canada in winter. Hasn’t taken her that far south yet though. You’ll have to tell me how she handles.”

He opened the door to the sleeping area and grimaced as he pointed at the lock. “This is brand new, installed today. Someone tried to break in here last night, but the alarm’s very good and security was nearby. Didn’t catch the bastards though…” He shook his head, amazed. “I don’t understand how the thieves thought to get her started without the key. It’s not like you can hotwire this beauty. Or get her out through the locked gate, for that matter.”

“We’ll have to remember to keep the alarm on at nights,” Jackson said, looking a bit pained. I think it was dawning on him how big a responsibility this behemoth was going to be.

Earl gestured around, warming up again. “Two bedrooms and sleeping for two above the driver, and the lounge area converts to a bed for two as well.” He proceeded to show how the table lowered and the seats were pulled open to form a bed.

They weren’t large bedrooms, but the bed in each was wide enough for two grownups. The lounge and kitchen area were compact but there was enough room for the six of us. The upholstery was the same wine red as the body and in pristine condition, so the nephew and his friends had taken good care of her.

The kitchen was gleaming, and came with all the appliances a traveler might need, like a coffee capsule machine. The bathroom even had a shower just about large enough for Trevor with his muscled shoulders.

We handled the paperwork and other formalities, and were given the keys along with a hefty instruction manual that made Jackson’s eyes glaze over a little.

Everything done, Jackson climbed behind the wheel and the owner gave a couple of pointers before allowing Jackson to start the engine and carefully pull out of the lot. I got behind the wheel of Jackson’s Toyota and headed after him.

It was fairly slow going, as Jackson didn’t dare to drive as fast as the vehicle was allowed to. He had a license to drive a bus, thanks to the Marines, but he hadn’t driven one in fifteen years. I kept a tight eye on his progress at first, but little by little I started to gain confidence that he could handle the large vehicle.

I was more comfortable with my own driving abilities, too, than I’d been when I joined Jackson’s agency and needed to start driving after years of relying on public transportation. Nevertheless, the Belt Parkway with its heavy traffic made my palms sweat a little, and I was squeezing the steering wheel tighter than was absolutely necessary.

I was keeping an appropriate distance from the RV, but I still had to hit the brake when a dark blue Chevy SUV suddenly changed lanes as we were exiting the Parkway onto Flatbush Avenue and wedged itself between us.

Frickin’ Sunday drivers.

The SUV stayed between us all the way to our house, even though it wasn’t along the main route to town. It had to pause while Jackson maneuvered the RV into our driveway, revving its engine impatiently and speeding off the moment the street was clear.

If there was justice in the world, there would be a traffic cop at the other end of the street.

I parked on the street. It wasn’t like there was room in our driveway for the car. The RV reached from our front porch to the street, crossing the sidewalk. Maybe Jackson should’ve parked it by the street after all.

“Are you sure this is big enough?” I asked him dryly when he exited the driver’s side. He grinned.

“I’m sure we would’ve found bigger if we’d started looking earlier.”

My parents, Trevor, and Mason emerged from the back yard through the side gate where they’d been waiting for us—and watering the plants, if I knew Mom at all. Dad’s and Trevor’s faces lit up and they began to inspect the RV with keen eyes.

“Good suspension and great mileage per gallon,” Dad noted after he’d finished reading the manual.

“And beds long enough for me,” Trevor added, having taken after Dad in the height department, unlike me, who took after Mom. “With proper mattresses.”

Mom was inspecting the galley kitchen that looked like it had never been used. “I guess I could heat something for us here, but there isn’t much room in the fridge for ingredients, and I don’t think I’ll be able to cook here.”

“You will not cook on your vacation,” I said sternly. “We’ll stop at quaint diners along the way and enjoy the local food.”

I hadn’t been outside New York since I was touring the country with my ex-husband, Scott Brady—well, obviously he wasn’t my ex back then—and his band in an old van when I was nineteen. We’d barely had money for gas, so sampling local cuisine had been out of the question. I was determined to make this experience better.

She sighed. “I guess…” She didn’t look happy about it, but by the time she’d made the beds with her own bedsheets, unpacked the luggage they’d brought with them, and made a list of snacks she needed to fill the cupboards with, she had recovered.

She emerged from the RV holding a black toiletry bag. “Someone left this in the bathroom. Belongs to a man by the contents of it.”

“It must belong to the owner’s nephew,” I said, remembering how he’d wanted to take the RV the previous night. He’d probably unpacked first, like we were doing now, and forgot to take it with him when his plans were disappointed. “Put it somewhere we can find it later so we’ll remember to give it to the owner of the RV.”

She returned to the RV, presumably to secure it away. I hoped we’d remember to tell the owner about it.

“I think we could make the trip in two days with this,” Dad mused as they were leaving to spend the night at home. Mom and I shared a look.

“Two nights is better,” Mom said. “We can stop for sightseeing along the way if Mason gets restless.”

My nephew had spent the evening running around the RV and screaming his heart out in joy. He was four and the spitting image of Trevor at that age, with orange hair and the same exuberant energy, according to Mom. I naturally had no memory of him at that age, and Trevor had calmed down and his hair had turned strawberry blond like Mom’s at some point.

We’d all need rest stops if Mason had that much energy the whole drive. Hopefully he’d calm down by morning. We would have an early start.

My family left and it finally quieted for the night. Well, it had quieted a little earlier when Mason hid himself and we had to spend fifteen minutes looking for him. Only giggles coming from the sleeping area above the driver gave away his location. How he’d managed to climb up there was anyone’s guess, but he informed his dad that they would sleep there. A tantrum followed when he was told that that wouldn’t happen tonight.

I was tired, but Jackson looked energized. At least one of us was enjoying this. He waggled his brows. “How about we test the RV’s beds tonight?”

“Well, it’s the only chance we’ll have for it…”

He looked stunned, as if only now realizing we wouldn’t have any privacy on this trip. “Maybe we could stay at motels and rent a room for us.”

“That’s the first sensible suggestion about this vacation so far.”

Laughing, we climbed into the RV. Jackson wasn’t feeling so amorous, though, that he would’ve forgotten to lock the door and switch on the alarm. This was a good neighborhood, but no need to have curious people walk in on us.

Not that we would’ve noticed anything while we concentrated on each other for a week’s worth of bedroom activities. I was exhausted afterwards and dropped off in deep sleep.

The RV’s alarm going off woke up us and the entire neighborhood at one in the morning. Jackson jumped up bleary and bewildered, with no clue where he was. It took him a while to even switch on the light.

Before I’d registered what the sound was, he’d stumbled out of the bed, naked, to switch off the alarm. He made to open the door to see what had triggered it, but remembered his lack of clothing at the last moment.

By the time he’d pulled on his pants, there was no one around.

Tracy Hayes, Vacationing P.I. is published on October 22 and you preorder it on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, iBooks, and Kobo.