Chapter 1

1

Theo drove slowly.

It had begun raining heavily, making visibility beyond a few hundred feet along Seventh Avenue difficult, if not impossible. “The lawns may like April showers. Me, not so much,” he grumbled. “Why didn’t it do this yesterday, when I could have stayed home, instead of waiting until Monday afternoon?”

He wouldn’t have been out in the rain if he didn’t have to get some important information from his mother’s house that she needed and had somehow managed to forget while packing for her trip—a working vacation in the Virgin Islands. If you can call running a tour in an exotic locale work. Theo would have envied her, except he didn’t particularly like traveling. He was quite content to remain behind to take care of the day-to-day business of running Imagination Tours, Inc., the travel agency Donna Speer and her husband had created. Gary Speer had died of a massive heart attack a year previously, when Theo was twenty-four, leaving behind his wife, son, and the company. Because she had no head for the business end of it—having left that up to her husband—Theo had stepped in to help when his mother decided to keep the agency open. It resulted in his becoming her assistant since he’d majored in business while in college.

At least she didn’t forget her passport.He smiled at that idea. She had her ditzy moments, as he thought of it, but until today she’d never headed to the airport without checking to be certain she had all the paperwork she needed to travel outside the country.

She had called him in a panic when she got to her hotel in Charlotte Amalie. “I know I had the information printed out and in a folder, ready to pack, but I can’t find it. It has the itinerary I need for the tour.”

“Knowing you, you were working on it at home and the folder is sitting on your desk, somehow mixed in with all the other things you plan on filing…someday,” he’d replied, shaking his head. “I’ll find it and email you a copy of the information. By the way, why isn’t it all in a file folder on your computer here at the office?” He knew it wasn’t because he’d been at work when she’d called and had checked.

She’d sighed, replying, “I meant to do that but…” He could envision her shrugging. “Like you said, I did put it together at home and I was going to send it to work. Honest.”

He’d laughed. “Mom, I swear, what am I going to do with you?”

“Love me, in spite of everything?”

“You know I do. Okay, I’ll head to the house. You should get it soon.”

The rain was starting to let up when he turned onto the side street beside her house in the Congress Park neighborhood. He parked and made a mad dash to the rear door, letting himself into the pantry. After shaking off the water from his hair and hanging up his jacket, he went to her office, which was off the living room. As he’d suspected, the desk was covered with papers and folders. Shuffling through them, he found the one he needed. Then, deciding to be a good son, and because it chafed at his need for order, he resolved to put the rest of the folders away in her file cabinets—but not until after he located the original copy of the itinerary on her computer and emailed it to her. Five minutes later, she replied, promising him the world as a reward for finding it.

“Just buy me the Maserati I’ve been dreaming about,” he replied. It was an old joke between them so he wasn’t surprised when her return email contained a ‘laugh’ emoji followed by one of a hand with the middle finger raised. Grinning, he closed his email and set to work straightening up her desk.

The majority of the folders contained information on the various destinations for the tours the agency offered. A quick glance at a couple of them told him they were copies of what she had at work, which she kept at home as well because she was a night owl and did some of her best planning well after the agency closed for the day.

He found the drawers they belonged in, in one of the cabinets across from her desk, and put them away. Two folders held lists of clients who used the agency on a regular basis. After checking to see if the same information was on her computer, and then emailing it to work on the off chance she hadn’t duplicated the lists there, he filed them, as well. “Not that you’re a scatterbrain, Mom,” he said under his breath. “But organization was more Dad’s thing, and now it’s my job.”

There was one folder left, which had been buried under the others. She’d titled it ‘Legal’, so he checked to see what it contained, discovering it was his father’s will and the papers the lawyer had drawn up to transfer the company solely into her name after his death.