Dino by Jaime Lewis
Chapter Twenty-THREE
The following day Dino slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats. He headed toward Arianna’s room. He took a peek into her room and saw that she was still sound asleep. Nigel raised his head, and when he saw him, his tail started to wag, and he jumped down and followed him downstairs.
Derek had called him this morning and told him he didn’t need to be at the base until their meeting at eleven. While he had Derek on the phone, he talked to him about the thought he had last night, and Derek agreed and said it was a possibility that things were connected somehow. He also suggested that when Bruno pulled the video from last night to give a copy to Tink to see if his team could pick out anything that the police may have missed.
Tink was a former SEAL and teammate of Derek’s. When he retired from the SEALs, he formed his own elite security company in Virginia Beach. They did a variety of work ranging from personal security to classified black ops for the government. His staff was skilled and deadly.
He prepared the coffee pot, and while that was brewing, he got the box of pancake mix from the pantry. He’d make pancakes and sausage. He found it amusing that the last few times he had cooked had been for Arianna.
He was flipping the pancakes when he sensed movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Arianna. Nigel greeted her, and she bent down and gave him some loving.
He didn’t move from where he stood by the stove. She walked up to him and kissed his cheek. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Dino said, trying to hide his anger, seeing the dark bruise under her left eye.
He gently rubbed his thumb down her cheek. “How do you feel this morning?”
“Surprisingly, not as sore as I thought I’d be.”
Dino watched her closely as she walked to the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee before she took a seat at the table. She seemed to be moving around okay.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” She asked him.
He scooped the four pancakes off the griddle and put two on each plate. Then added four sausage links. He tossed an extra link to Nigel, who didn’t even chew it on his way over to the table—he just swallowed it.
He set a plate down in front of her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, you didn’t answer my question. Why aren’t you at work?”
He took a bite of food. “I’m going in at eleven. If you talk to Bruno today, can you ask him to make another copy of the footage from last night?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Derek wants to give it to Tink to have his team take a look at it.”
“Yeah. I’ll call him this morning.”
“What do you have planned for today?” He asked her.
“Probably just go to the hospital for a while. Then probably come home. Right now, I’m not feeling up to hanging at Bayside.”
Dino couldn’t blame her.
She smiled at him. “Maybe I’ll cook you dinner.”
“Deal!” He told her, and she laughed.
They ate their breakfast, then cleaned up and got ready to start the day.
◆◆◆
Arianna was kicked back in the recliner next to her dad’s bed. It was getting close to dinner time.
Brianna, her dad’s nurse, had just left after drawing more blood for testing. Both she and the doctors said her dad had another good night. She just wished he’d do something while she was there, so she saw it with her own two eyes.
She had been surprised when Brianna told her that Victoria had stopped by earlier in the day before Arianna got there. And that she had been extra nice to all of the staff. A complete one-eighty of how she acted the last time she was there.
She looked down at the notebook she had lying in her lap. She had started compiling a list of names that could have a motive to want to hurt her dad. She talked with Bruno, and he offered a couple of names. Some were guys who had served with her dad in the Marines but weren’t good or ethical people. Others were customers who’ve been banned from Bayside because of their behavior. The police still didn’t have any leads on the cyanide incident or the break-in. She also had a call into Chris back at the FBI to see if he had any updates on the Gabbert guy. Going by the picture he had sent her of him, she hasn’t run into anyone that looked anything remotely like him.
She looked at her dad, watching his chest rise and fall with every breath he took. “Who did this to you?” She asked him, knowing she wasn’t going to get a response, but hey, it was worth a shot.
She had just closed her eyes when she heard what sounded like a grunt coming from her dad. Her eyes popped open and zeroed in on her dad in the bed. She waited a minute or two, and then it happened again. This time his eyes opened.
She leaped up from the chair and took his hand in hers while her other hand fiddled with the call button to alert the hospital staff.
“Dad? Can you hear me?” She spoke softly to him.
Suddenly, his eyes blinked open, looked right at her, and spoke in a garbled whisper.
“The floor holds the answers.”
Then just like that, his eyes closed, and he fell back into a deep sleep. She tried talking to him to get him to wake up, but she got nothing but light snores and the sound of his heart monitor. Moments later, nurses and doctors began to fill the room, and she explained what had happened. They tried a variety of ways to get him to wake again, but he wasn’t responding.
She stood off to the side while they took vitals and checked him over. While the hospital staff did their job, she took a few minutes to think about her dad's words. “The floor holds the answers.”
Jesus that made no sense.
“Ms. Roland”
Arianna looked up to see Dr. Rowtowski standing in front of her.
“What happened? Why did he wake up and then fall back under again?” She asked.
“Sometimes we experience this type of behavior with coma patients. Were you talking to him when he came to?”
“All I said was who did this to you.”
“And what was his response again?”
“The floor holds the answers.” She shook her head. “I have no idea what that means.”
The doctor smiled. “What matters, Arianna, is that he responded to a direct question.”
She hadn’t even thought about that. All that she was concerned about was the fact he had opened his eyes.
“That never crossed my mind.”
“Of course not, considering it’s been days since he was brought in.”
“So, does this mean he’s turned the corner?”
“It’s a step in the right direction.”
She walked over to the bed. She was still trying to understand the meaning of his words.
“Arianna, why don’t you head home for the night. I’m here all night, and if anything changes with his condition, I promise to call you right away.”
When she nodded, he gave her a shoulder a reassuring squeeze then left the room so she could have a few minutes with her dad before she left.
She leaned over the bed railing and kissed his cheek.
“I love you, daddy.”
◆◆◆
As the sun started to set and darkness began to fall over the hospital parking lot, Arianna walked quickly to her car. By the time she had arrived near noon, all of the spots near the entrance had been taken, and she’d been forced to park in the back lot, which she realized was lacking sufficient lighting. Coming off of the ordeal from last night, her nerves and anxiousness was at an all-time high. She chuckled to herself, thinking how Dino would be proud of her for being aware of her surroundings.
She heard heavy footsteps behind her as she dug in her purse to find her keys—something she should’ve done before leaving the hospital. She was reluctant to turn around. Whoever the individual was must’ve had a limp because one foot sounded heavier. It was more of a stomp than a natural step. She could see her car, and she clicked the button to unlock it on her key fob. The steps got louder, indicating the person was closer. She couldn’t take it any longer, and she spun around. She had expected to see a large man close by, but the closest person she could see was clear on the other side of the parking lot.
She scanned the area all around her; there was nothing. But there had been. She hadn’t imagined it. The quietness around her made her hair stand on end. Something or someone was out there. She quickly got into her car and locked the door.
She wasn’t in the mood to be alone, so instead of going back to Dino’s house, she decided to head to Bayside. Plus, she could make sure things were running smoothly even though Bruno had assured her that everything was fine. As she made the turn out of the hospital’s parking lot, she called Dino.
“Hello?” His deep voice came through the speaker in the car.
She pushed the hair-raising incident in the parking lot aside for the time being.
“You are not going to believe what happened today.”
“What?”
“My dad woke up!”
“Seriously?”
“Yes! It was brief, but the doctors were thrilled.”
“That is great news. I’ll be sure to let the guys know.”
“Listen, I know I said I’d cook tonight, but would you mind if we went up to Bayside instead?”
She heard him chuckle.
“I had a feeling you’d change your mind. Actually, I was going to give you a call anyway. We’re finishing up a few things here at the base, and then the guys and I were going to head to Bayside for a beer.”
“Perfect then. I’ll meet you there.”
“Are you still at the hospital?”
“No, I just left.”
Out of the blue, her dad’s words registered in her head. “The answers lay in the floor.” That was it! Her dad had to have been talking about the wood floor in the office at Bayside. She remembered a few years ago she had been sitting in his office talking, and her dad pointed to a spot on the floor covered by a throw rug. His words to her were that the floor holds all the secrets.
“Arianna? Are you still there?”
She shook her head. “Yeah, sorry.” She pulled into her parking spot next to the rear door at Bayside. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll see you when you get here.” She told him and hung up on him as he was telling her something. She jumped out of the car quickly and made her way inside.
On her way in, she noticed Alex was there and gave her a quick wave. Everyone was surprised to see her and tried to talk to her about the break-in, but she politely told them that she couldn’t talk right now. As she passed by the bar, she told Selina, another waitress, she would in the office and didn’t want to be disturbed.
Inside the office, she threw her purse and coat on the chair and looked around. Her dad was good at hiding things. Her eyes zeroed in on the rug that ran under the heavy wood desk. Shit, that old desk weighed a ton, but if she had to move it, she would. Inch by inch, she pushed with all her might and slid the desk across the room until it was up against the wall and door. She’d pay for that tomorrow because her side was still sore from the night before.
Once the floor was exposed, she spotted two planks where the grain of the wood went in the opposite direction from the rest.
She went to the tool chest her dad kept in the office and pulled out a flathead screwdriver and hammer. She pulled her AirPods out of her purse and hit one of her playlists before she got down on her hands and knees and got to work, prying and pulling up the planks.
Twenty minutes later, she sat on the floor in a state of shock as she skimmed over pages of notes and bank receipts; some were from her dad’s personal account, and there were a few from business accounts. The notes were all in her dad’s handwriting. It was as if her dad had been documenting someone’s life. There were dates and times noted in the margins next to detailed notes of locations and descriptions of people, but no names, which was odd. Why would her dad suddenly wake from a coma and lead her to this?
She looked into the small space below the floor. There were a few manila envelopes, file folders filled with papers, along with a small chest that had a lock on it.
She reached in and pulled one of the envelopes out and opened it. Several photographs fell out, and she studied them. They reminded her of surveillance photos. The picture on top was a guy who she had no clue who he was. When she flipped to the next set of images, she was shocked to see Victoria. Some of the shots were a little grainy like they were pulled from video footage and converted into still shots. One was of her standing at the cash register at the bar with her hand in the drawer; another where she was at the bank with a stack of cash on the bank tellers counter. The most interesting was a shot of her in a park with another guy. She flipped to the next picture. It was her and the same guy, except for this time it showed her passing a bundle of cash off to him.
She set the pictures down and began sorting through another stack of pages upon pages of notes.
The documents had validated what she had long suspected. Victoria was a no-good cunt who didn’t deserve a man like her father. Hell, no man deserved a conniving and manipulative woman like her. From the papers she held in her hand, Victoria had been stealing money from her dad for over a year. He had been documenting everything.
She set the papers down next to her. Holy shit! Had she just busted open the case? Had Victoria tried to kill her dad?
With her AirPods in and the music blaring in her ears, she didn’t hear Dino enter the room, and when he put his hands on her shoulders, she screamed.
◆◆◆
When Dino arrived at Bayside, Arianna was nowhere to be found. He spotted Alex at a table and asked her, “Did Arianna come in?”
“Yeah, she blew in here like a tornado, waved, then headed down the hall toward the office. She looked like she was on a mission.”
“Thanks. She didn’t sound right on the phone earlier. I’m going to go check on her.”
He reached the far door down the hall, and he knocked but didn’t get an answer. He checked the doorknob, and when it turned, he pushed on the door, but it barely budged. Something was blocking it.
“What the hell.” He mumbled before calling out, “Arianna?”
He got no response. He tried to push the door again, but whatever was in the way was heavy. He could just see a glimpse into the room through the small gap in the door and could see the room was in shambles with part of the wood flooring peeled away.
“Damn it, Arianna, answer me.” He shouted through the opening of the door.
Just then, Diego came walking down the hall.
“Hey man, everything okay?”
“No, can you help me push this door open?” Diego gave him a questionable look. “Arianna barricaded herself in the office. Something’s going on. From what I can see, the room looks torn apart, and I can’t get a response from her.” He tried to stay calm but knowing Arianna could be hurt or in danger had him off-kilter.
The two of them put all their weight behind the door, and together they were able to open it enough to where Dino could slip in. He was stopped in his tracks as he looked at the disarray in the room. He had to wonder how in the hell she managed to move that desk all by herself. His eyes shifted to the hole in the floor where the desk once sat. Arianna sat next to it with papers surrounding her. He looked over at Diego, who just lifted his eyebrows and told him that he’d meet them out at the table.
He walked up behind her, and that was when he noticed the AirPods in her ears. No wonder she couldn’t hear me. He mumbled to himself. He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.
“For the love of freaking god, can you please stop sneaking up on me?” She reprimanded him as she straightened up the papers that were next to her on the floor.
He chuckled. “I didn’t sneak up on you. In fact, I called your name several times, not to mention Diego had to help me push that damn door open because you blocked it with the desk.” He looked around the room. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
She leaned back so she could look up at him, and as serious as she could be, she said, “I’m going to kill that bitch when I get my hands on her.”
Her teeth were clenched, and Dino could see the rage consuming her. As mad as she looked, Dino didn’t doubt she would follow through on that threat. However, he was curious as to whom the threat was directed toward.
“Whoa…slow down there, tiger. You aren’t going to kill anyone. Settle down and tell me what’s going on.”
He took a seat next to her on the floor and put his arm around her as Arianna proceeded to show him everything she had found.
The more Dino read, the more his temper rose, showing his anger. “This is unbelievable.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Why didn’t Paul say anything or go to the cops. I mean, in my opinion, this is enough evidence for the police to bring her in for questioning.”
Arianna shook her head. “I don’t know. I know my dad, so there had to be a reason why he didn’t.” She shifted her body towards him and clutched his hands. “Dino, this makes me sick to even think about, but Victoria could’ve been the one to poison my dad because she knew he had evidence of her habit. But her plan backfired when he survived. Last night when the two guys came in here, they said they were looking for something. Do you think Victoria sent them? And, remember, I caught her in here a couple of days ago going through papers.”
“It’s very possible. You need to contact the detective and hand all this over to him. Let’s do that now.” He went to stand up, but she grabbed his arm, stopping him. He looked at her.
“I need to call the hospital and have her name removed from his authorized visitor's list. If she is the one behind this, I don’t want her near my dad.”
“Good call. Come on.” He helped her to her feet and then looked around the room again.
“What are you going to do about this place?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It needed a makeover anyway. I’ll deal with it later.”
