Nothing happened. I eased my head around, just enough to see in the room. A lamp lay on the floor in a pile of broken glass. Light streamed in from the one window in the bedroom, onto the bed and its black silky comforter. A black curtain flapped in the breeze above the desk. I stepped into the room, both hands on the gun grip, knees flexed, arms straight in front of me, sighting along the short barrel. I pivoted in a 360-degree turn.
A laptop screen glowed.
“Does he ever leave his window open?” I asked Nadine.
“Never.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to assume he’s had an uninvited guest.” I shoved my gun back into my overfull handbag and pulled a thumb drive from one of its pockets. I sat down at the desk, in front of the screen. “What’s Phil’s password?”
Nadine leaned over my shoulder. “Nadine2014.”
I typed it in and pulled up his Outlook email account. The inbox was empty. I clicked through subfolders. All empty. I opened the Deleted Items folder. Empty as well.
“I don’t understand,” Nadine whispered. “Why isn’t there anything there?”
Blue and red lights flashed on the wall. The cops.
***
A sharp knock sounded at the door. A male voice shouted, “Police.”
“What do we do?” Nadine asked, still whispering. Her eyes widened and her breaths were short and shallow.
“You answer the door and tell them who you are. Thank them for coming. Let them know you just got here, and that there’s been a break-in.”
She looked at me, shell-shocked and immobile, and I realized just how much the last week had taken out of her. The normally butt-kicking Amazon was worn to a nub.
I took her elbow and led her toward the door. “We haven’t done anything wrong. They aren’t here because of us.” I crossed the fingers of my other hand. I think. I raised my voice to match the police officer’s. “Coming.”
When we reached the door, Nadine closed her eyes and drew a deeper breath. She opened it and her voice come out wavering a little, though it might sound normal to people who didn’t know her. “Boy, am I glad you guys are here.”
The two officers at the door looked like identical twins. Both were about five foot nine with brown eyes and light brown hair. Snub noses. Eyebrows darker than their matching short haircuts. Only their mouths differed. One had a broad mouth and red lips. The other a narrow mouth with thin, colorless lips. Thin Lips spoke. “This address is registered to a Mr. Phil Escalante. Both of you, hands on the wall, legs spread.”
“What?” Nadine asked.
“Just do it,” I said to her. Jack had coached me to comply first and ask questions later with police, and after some of the run-ins I’d had with them since I’d gone to work with him, I’d learned to take his advice. I put my hands on the wall above my head and stood with my feet apart. “My purse is on the floor, license in my wallet.”
Nadine copied my stance, her breaths labored. “Mine’s on the kitchen counter.”
Behind us, one cop remained in position, and I heard the other grab each of our bags and paw through them.
“The baby Glock is mine. My license to carry is in my wallet.”
One of them grunted.
The cop directly behind us patted me down. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
“No,” Nadine said.
“Only the one in my purse,” I said.
“Which one of you is Nadine?”
“Me,” Nadine said.
“Who are you?”
“Nadine Piccoli. Phil Escalante’s fiancée.”
“You guys can turn around now, but keep your hands where I can see them.”
I turned around slowly and put my hands on the sides of my thighs. Nadine again copied my actions.
“And the one with the dishwashing gloves in the purse, that’s you, Emily Bernal?” he said to me.
“Housecleaning gloves. Yes. I’m with the law firm representing Mr. Escalante.”
“Representing him for what?” Thin Lips said, his words seeming to seep out from the tight, straight line of his mouth.
I frowned. “You guys don’t know that Mr. Escalante was arrested? Then you probably don’t know he’s in a diabetic coma in Southwest Hospital either, I’ll bet?”
They glanced at each other. Red Lips shook his head. Thin Lips shrugged.
I said, “Anyway, there’s been a break-in, if you’d like us to show you. Seems like whoever it was went out the window.”
Thin Lips recovered. “We got a call about someone coming out the window about ten minutes ago.”
“We heard a noise and found the open window about then.”
“Was it a forced entry?”
Nadine said, “I’m not sure. The front door was closed. I used my key. But I can’t remember if it was locked or unlocked.”
I nodded as we walked toward Phil’s bedroom with the two officers. “The window wasn’t broken. There’s a busted lamp in the bedroom, but that’s it.”
We entered the room and the uniformed men examined the window.
Red Lips said, “Lock’s not forced.” He pinched his upper lip then released it. “Does he keep his windows locked?”
Nadine nodded. “He’s really careful. His car got broken into one time parked outside here, so he always locks everything.”
He swept his hand inside the window frame, then crawled up on the desk and stuck his head out, looking up, down, and around. “No pry marks. Parking lot below the window is paved, so no footprints.”
His partner walked around Phil’s bedroom, surveying it. “Anything missing?”
Nadine and I shared a quick look. She said, “I’m, um, not sure. I’d have to go through everything. Even then, I wouldn’t know for sure. I still have my own place, and I can’t ask Phil.”
“Why?”
I coughed. “Coma, remember?”
“Sorry. Right.” He put his hands on his hips and turned in a circle, slowly, like I had done, but him without a gun. “Does Mr. Escalante have any relatives in town, or friends that would come by?”
“And leave through the window?” Nadine half-laughed. “No, none. Not even ones that would leave through the front door.”
“Well, it’s not a great neighborhood. Do you want us to file a report, send someone out to do fingerprints and the whole work-up?”
I thought about the missing emails that should have been on Phil’s computer. “Yes, on behalf of Phil, yes, we do.”
***
Three hours later, the police had come up with zilch. An hour after they left, Nadine and I hadn’t done any better. I’d looked through every nook and cranny and found no clues as to business names, or whether Phil even had a business outside Get Your Kicks. For that matter, we hadn’t found anything suspicious either, like notes from angry husbands or jealous lovers.
As we got ready to leave his place, I asked Nadine, “Do you have time to let me into Phil’s storage unit?”
“Let me just grab his spare keys. He hides a copy of everything, even what he isn’t supposed to.” She walked over to the big screen TV, reached below it, and came up with a remote. She popped the back cover off and dumped a ring with two keys into her hand.
“Good hiding place.”
“Phil’s paranoid. He hasn’t always lived or worked in the best areas.”
We took my car to Phil’s storage facility off of 287 on the southwest side of town. The buildings were low white concrete affairs with orange doors and flat, orange roofs. I pulled the Mustang up to a keypad a few feet in front of the imposing black gate. A maroon truck cruised to a stop perpendicular to our trunk, then sped off.
“What’s the code?”
“Shit. I have no idea. Could be the same as at home.” She recited the numbers 1-0-2-0 and I punched them in. “Our anniversary.” Nothing happened.
“Maybe we should go to the office first.” I scanned the area for something looking like an office. I didn’t see one, which seemed unusual. I looked at the keyp
ad again. I read it aloud. “Amarillo offices at,” and read an address on the east side of town.
“I don’t know if going to the office would do any good. He had this unit before we got together. I doubt I’m authorized to enter.”
She twirled the keys in her hand, and as they spun, I saw a piece of masking tape on one of the keys. On it were numbers written in black pen.
“What’s that on the keys?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the tape.”
She scrutinized it. “4-6-9-3.”
I punched it in. Nothing. “Any others?”
She flipped the other over, peering at it closely. “Try 1-6-1-9.”
It worked. Nadine whooped and held her hand up for me to slap a high five. That was more like the woman I knew. I decided not to burst her bubble by mentioning that the other key might go to a different storage place, because maybe it didn’t. She directed me to a unit on the back of the middle building. We drove down the aisle until we reached number 312. I parked and we walked to the roll-up door. Nadine selected the key with the winning code, but when she went to use it, the lock opened without it.
“That’s not good.” She pulled the door up. It responded with clanging metal and clackety wheels, revealing a dark space half-filled and neat as a pin, unlike Phil’s place. Good. I had feared the unfastened lock meant another break-in. The bright afternoon sunlight shot into the darkness, catching slowly circulating dust in its rays. The smell was dusty, too. And dry. I sneezed.
Nadine hefted a backpack. It bulged at its seams. “This is Phil’s ‘go’ bag, you know, in case he needs to get us out of town in a hurry to where no one can find us.”
I blanched. “He needs a ‘go’ bag?”
She smiled. “Just wait.” She pointed around the chest-high stack of boxes and items. “Generator. Well hand-pump kit. Fuel cylinders. MREs.”
I knew MREs were Meals, Ready-to-Eat, and that they were singularly disgusting. She kept up her identifications, but it was clear that Phil was preparing for the second coming of Christ or The Walking Dead. Or both. Or maybe he’d done something really terrible, which he thought would catch up with him. Not a comforting thought with him being charged with murder. Whatever it was, if there was a zombie apocalypse, I was calling Phil.
“Does he have a place to run to?”
“He says he does.” She set the backpack down again. “He said that will be my wedding present. A cabin at his hidey-hole.”
“Phil’s quite a romantic.”
“You know it.”
“So you said he keeps papers here?”
“I said he might.” She kicked a stack of four boxes. “And if he does, it will be in this stack.”
“Excellent.” The top box was open, although I could see where tape had been ripped away before. I moved it to the right and moved the next box beside it. It too was open, with tape residue and ripped cardboard. Nadine and I each tackled a box. Mine contained file folders of old tax returns by year. Great. Interpreting IRS mumbo jumbo was not my strong suit. I pulled out the most recent year and read carefully. It appeared Phil had run the swingers club as a sole proprietorship. Continuing to read and going back over the course of five years, I concluded that his wife had disclaimed ownership of the club in their divorce. Fifteen minutes later my head hurt, but I hadn’t come up with any potential business names or dealings.
“What have you found?” I asked Nadine.
Dirt smudged her nose and cheek. She kneeled over the box I’d given her. When she answered, her voice sounded funny. “Keepsakes. Albums. Mementos.”
“Ohhhhh.” I wished I’d had her box instead, afraid of what she might find in there. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Sad. There’s a bunch of pictures of Phil and Dennis as teens.” She handed me one. The two were on horseback with some other kids, riding through a river bottom.
Based on the location of Boys Ranch between Amarillo and Dalhart, I was pretty sure I knew where they were. “Canadian River.” The Canadian ran all the way through the Panhandle of Texas, and eventually became Lake Meredith at a dam near Sanford, then trickled on at a reduced rate.
“I think so. That’s one of his special places.”
I passed the picture back to her. “They look so young.”
“We all were at one point.”
“Speaking of young, how are your boys?”
“They’re good. We’re on a more regular schedule now, and that helps.” She tucked a loose wisp of hair behind her ear.
“The offer still stands for them to stay over.”
“Thank you. What do you hear about Betsy?”
“That the Hodges want to adopt her. That they are saints in the eyes of CPS. That Wallace can’t do anything about it, even get me a visit with her.”
She slipped the picture back into an album. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so worried about Phil I haven’t thought of anything else.”
“Your priorities are in the right place. Don’t worry about it.”
“And you and Jack?”
I sighed and sat on my box. “He’s gotten secretive, and he’s always out. I’ve gone from distressed because he didn’t love me, to depressed because I do love him and he’s slipping away like Betsy.”
Nadine rolled forward from her haunches to her knees. “Whoa, Emily, don’t get ahead of yourself. Jack’s a great guy.”
“I know, but it doesn’t change things.”
“But he might have good reasons for things.”
“Maybe.” I returned to the stack of boxes. The last two were taped. “Ready for your second one?”
She nodded, so I slit one open and brought it to her and slit the other for me, which I moved a few feet away.
“More personal items.” She pawed and inventoried. “Varsity letters. A baseball glove. Cleats. A Fox and Hound coaster. A clown wig.”
“Let me see the wig.”
She held it aloft. Orange frizzy hair over a webbed skullcap.
“I had one not much different than that. Rodeo clown gear.”
She tossed it back in the box. “Other than that kind of thing—old stuff—nothing.”
I dug into my box. This one also contained file folders, but each held something different. Vehicle title. Insurance documents. Deed to the building Get Your Kicks and his apartment occupied. Bank statements. Canadian River Ventures. My heart kick-started.
“Nadine?” I tossed her the folder.
She nodded, read the name, and her face fell.
“What is it?”
“There’s nothing in here. But the name? That’s got to be it. Him and Dennis.”
“Empty?” I ran my hand over the folders in the box. “None of the rest are empty.”
A shadow fell over the floor, our bodies, the boxes. A male figure stood silhouetted against the sun. From his smell, he’d doused his entire body in Axe cologne.
“Hello, ladies.” His voice was a gruff drawl, but slow didn’t always equal dumb and a drawl certainly didn’t mean he was one of the good guys. The hair on my neck stood up under my ponytail.
“Can we help you?” I said. I eyed the red Mustang. My purse with the baby Glock was on the front seat.
He saw my glance. “Nice car.”
“Thank you.” Now the hair on my arms stood at attention as well. “May we help you?”
“I’m not sure. I’m looking for a guy named Phil Escalante.”
I stood, and behind me Nadine did, too. She grabbed my hand. “You need to move on. You’re making us uncomfortable, and I don’t want to have to report you to security.”
He laughed in a way that wasn’t funny. “Security? You’ve got the wrong storage units for security. I just hopped the fence, and nobody stopped me.” He moved closer to us, and I stepped around him toward the car, pulling Nadine forward with a jerk.
I whirled on him. He was younger and less muscular than I expected from the sound of his voice, but he still towered over both of us in his white T and 501s, and
his gel-slicked brown hair.
“Listen, James Dean, you’re messing with the wrong girls.” I maneuvered Nadine in front of me and leaned into my car for my purse. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. “Beat it.”
He held up his hands. “Aren’t you touchy? I was just kidding.” He pointed to the next storage space. “This one’s mine. I know Phil, the guy who has this unit, and you guys are standing in it. I thought you’d get the joke.”
“Go,” I said. I tucked my handbag under my arm, holding the phone in the same hand. I reached back into the purse.
“You can leave your piece in there, I’m going.” He backed away. “Tell Phil his storage neighbor said ‘hey.’” He turned and jogged down the aisle toward the fence. A maroon truck was parked outside it. He vaulted over the fence and jumped in the truck, disappearing, leaving us completely alone once again.
Chapter Nineteen
It was hard to shake the willies off after that experience. Nadine and I returned to Phil’s for her car, then parted ways, her to the hospital and me to the office.
The office door wasn’t locked when I got back. Hope flickered. Maybe Jack was here. I slipped in. “Jack?”
There was no answer, which was odd. We never left the door unlocked. Maybe Jack was in the bathroom, or maybe he just forgot to lock it.
“Whatever,” I yelled, at no one. I dropped my purse on the desk and booted up my laptop, standing and leaning over it. I typed the login Jack had created seven months earlier for me: Emily, RodeoQueen. It made my heart hurt. Screw you, Jack, I thought. I went into my settings and before I could change my mind I typed out a new password: wronggirl. Take that.
Quickly, I scanned my email. Nothing interesting and work related jumped out at me, but I saw one from the partner in charge of the labor and employment section at my old law firm in Dallas, Hailey & Hart. I hadn’t heard from him since I quit. I opened it.
Emily: I’ve opened my own practice and am hiring. Could I entice you back to Dallas as lead paralegal? You’d get a 10% raise and a $5,000 signing bonus.
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery Page 18