Deadly Escape: A Shelby Nichols Adventure (Shelby Nichols Adventures Book 11)

by Colleen Helme

  Dimples called back, telling me Erika would be there in an hour. That gave me just enough time to put the clothes I’d worn Saturday into the laundry. I’d forgotten to take them out of the plastic bag, so they were still a little damp and didn’t smell too good. I wasn’t sure they’d be salvageable, but I had to try.

  I walked into the police station an hour later with my ID badge around my neck. Dimples sat at his desk, and I gave him a quick smile before joining him.

  “Hey, Shelby,” he said. “Good to see you.”

  “Thanks, you too.”

  He nodded, but his brows drew together. “Do you know anything about the suicide bomber in DC over the weekend?” He was thinking that Billie was certain it looked like me in the river, but he wasn’t so sure. Still, the fact that I’d been out of town could explain it.

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  His lips pressed together, and he shook his head. He knew that answering a question with a question was a classic evasive maneuver most often used by politicians and crooks.

  “Hey…I resent that.”

  “Wait. So you were in DC? It was you? Are you serious?”

  “Blame it all on Blake. That’s all I can say for now.”

  “No way. So it was real? You had a vest with a bomb strapped to you? Holy hell, Shelby! They didn’t have many details on the news, but it sounded like you were lucky you didn’t get blown up.”

  I sighed. “Yes…I was definitely lucky.”

  “Damn.” Just then, Deputy Gerard entered the room and spotted me. Before Gerard got to us, Dimples whispered, “You have to tell me all about it.”

  I nodded as Gerard reached my side. “Nichols,” he said. “Glad you could join us.” He was thinking that I was the only one who’d had any good suggestions and, although he hated to admit it, he was glad to see me.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So…no word on Leo?”

  “No,” he said. His brows drew together in disgust. “We’ve hit a road-block.” He was thinking that he’d never had anyone disappear so completely on him before, and it frustrated the hell out of him. “Ms. Reva has a solid alibi on the day of his escape, so we can’t pin it on her, but we’re hoping you can pick something up from her with your…premonitions.”

  I held back a smile that he had such a hard time saying that word. “Where was she?”

  “She went on a business trip. We verified that she got on the plane, so it checks out. We’ve also checked her financial records and phone records and didn’t pick up anything that signaled a connection to Leo. Now that she’s back, we can talk to her in person. Why don’t we get started?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, and followed him into one of the interrogation rooms. Dimples followed behind, and we entered the room to find a beautiful woman sitting at the desk. Her chin-length, dark brown hair highlighted a pair of bright green eyes, and she wore a navy blue business suit.

  Dimples introduced all of us, and I sat beside him while Gerard stood in the corner, happy to let Dimples ask questions so he could observe. She sat up straight and gave me a confident smile, but I knew that, inside, she was shaking with nerves. She’d known that the police would put things together eventually, but she had hoped for more time.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Dimples said. “Like I mentioned over the phone, we’re hoping you can help us capture Leo Tedesco. When did you find out he was your father?”

  “About six months ago,” she began. “His lawyer approached me with a letter. I had no idea who he was, so it came as a shock. Out of curiosity, I visited him a few times in prison, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with him after that.”

  “Did you know he was sick?” he continued.

  She frowned in confusion. “I knew his health wasn’t the best, but not that he was sick. Is that why he was in the hospital that day?”

  “Yes,” Dimples said. He glanced at me for direction and I shrugged. She was better than most at hiding her thoughts, and I couldn’t tell if she was lying.

  She let out a breath. “I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t know anything. I wasn’t even here when he escaped, so it was a shock for me to hear about it, and I honestly don’t know him well enough to tell you where he might have gone. I’m sorry.”

  Dimples glanced my way, urging me in his thoughts to ask a few questions.

  “We spoke with his lawyer a couple of days ago,” I said. “Did he tell you anything about a will?”

  Her sharp gaze caught mine. “Yes. His lawyer mentioned it to me, but I don’t know what’s in it. You see, after meeting Leo, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to have anything to do with him, and that includes his money. So, in answer to your question, I haven’t seen the will.”

  She was telling the truth, but there was more to the story. I got the impression of a lot of money, which was conditional on her following through on things she didn’t want to do. She hated him for that and wasn’t sure the money was worth it.

  There was also a certain amount of guilt there, but I had no idea why she felt that way. It came across like she felt guilt for everything concerning Leo, which included that he was a killer, a thief, and her father. She didn’t like any of it and wished she’d never met with him.

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked, and listened closely.

  “No.” She hoped he’d left the country like he’d planned but, until he found Manetto, she couldn’t count on it. Why Leo was so obsessed with the mob-boss didn’t make any sense to her. He’d escaped prison and, with only a few months to live, he should find some quiet island somewhere to end his days in peace. Now, with the police and the U.S. Marshalls looking over every detail of her life, he was ruining everything. Why had she ever agreed to meet him?

  “I’m sorry, but I need to get back to work,” she said. “Is there anything else?”

  I glanced at Dimples and nodded, letting him know that I was done with my questions. He turned to Erika and thanked her for coming in. “If Leo gets in touch with you for any reason, please let us know.”

  Dimples handed Erika his card, and she took it with a solemn nod, thinking that she hoped Leo never contacted her again. Getting involved with a criminal was the worst thing anyone could do, and no amount of money was worth it.

  After she left, Dimples turned to me. “Did you…get anything?” He’d almost said, ‘hear’ anything, but changed the word in time. Gerard hadn’t moved during the questioning, but finally came to sit at the table, taking Erika’s vacated chair. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, interested in every word I had to say.

  I sat back in my chair. “She doesn’t know where he is, but he might have told her he planned to leave the country. If he hasn’t, she’s pretty sure he’s going after Uh…Mr. Manetto. I guess Leo has a bone to pick with him.”

  “Interesting,” Gerard said. “Anything else?”

  “She seems upset with him, and maybe she feels a little guilty that he’s her father.”

  Gerard twisted his lips. The answers I’d given him didn’t sound like premonitions. It was more like I picked up Erika’s feelings, like I had empathic powers or something. But how could that be a real thing? Maybe it was just that I was good at reading people’s nonverbal communications. If that was the case, I’d make a great poker player. “Do you think she might lead us to him?”

  I shrugged. “I guess it’s a possibility. You could have someone watch her for a few days just to make sure.”

  He’d already made arrangements for that, and didn’t need me telling him how to do his job. It seemed like this was a waste of time. He’d had such high hopes that this was the break they needed. Now he’d have to go with his back-up plan and hope Manetto would agree.

  “Do you have a back-up plan?” I blurted.

  “Of course,” he said, but wasn’t about to share any of the details with me. “Thanks for your help.” With that, he left the room in a hurry, ready to make the call.

  “What did you hear?” Dimples asked.

  I
caught his gaze with widened eyes, tilting my head toward the mirror, hoping he’d pick up that someone could be watching. He figured it out and sighed. No one would be watching now that the interview was over, but he supposed it didn’t hurt to be careful.

  “I guess we’re done here,” I said, standing. “Walk me out?”

  “Sure.” Dimples shook his head at the cloak and dagger talk, thinking it was probably not warranted, but he’d go along with it if it made me happy.

  As we stepped out of the room, a deputy with the U.S. Marshall’s office slipped out of the observation room and hurried back to his office. He was thinking that nothing had seemed out of the ordinary until Harris asked me what I’d heard. That was just weird. Still, he’d better mention it to Gerard anyway.

  “Crap!”

  “What?” Dimples asked.

  “He’s going to tell Gerard that you asked me if I heard anything.”

  “Oh…” Dimples swore in his mind. “Sorry. I guess I messed up. But I don’t think anything will come of it. I mean...taken in context, Gerard will probably think the guy heard it wrong.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I wasn’t so convinced Gerard would let it go. He was like a hound dog on the scent, and that made him a formidable opponent.

  Dimples stopped at his desk. “Don’t worry about it. If he asks either of us, we can just say I asked ‘what did you get,’ not ‘hear,’ and the guy must have gotten it wrong. Besides, it’s not going to be a big deal. Gerard’s got too much on his plate to worry about that one thing.”

  I sighed and sat down in the chair beside his desk, suddenly weary. My life was too complicated by far, and adding that worry to the list was too much. Since I didn’t want to go crazy, I decided to trust that Dimples knew what he was saying and hope for the best. “Okay. I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I am. Now, is there anything else you picked up from Erika?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure. The only thing I got from her was a lot of guilt, but there wasn’t one specific thought I could pin it on. It kind of spanned her whole association with Leo. She knows about the money, but it sounded like it’s conditional on her helping him, and she’s not real happy about that. So, if she’s helping him in exchange for the money, that could explain the guilt, but that’s all I got.”

  “Are you sure?” Dimples asked, disappointed.

  “Yeah. I’m disappointed too. I thought for sure she was the missing piece. Now it looks like Gerard is moving to Plan B, and it involves Uncle Joey.”

  Dimples eyes widened with surprise. “What the hell? What’s the plan?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea, but he left to make the call, so I guess I’ll have to call Uncle Joey and find out.”

  “When you do, let me know, okay?”

  “You do realize that you’re asking me to fraternize with the enemy, right? Because it wasn’t too long ago that you wanted me to stay away from him.”

  “Hey…this is different. And I still think you should stay away from him. Just do it after you find out what Gerard’s planning and tell me about it.” I opened my mouth to tell him that sounded hypocritical, but he quickly explained his reasons. “I don’t want you to get hurt in the crossfire between Leo, Manetto, and the U.S. Marshall.”

  Dimples was thinking that Manetto could get hurt or killed if things went south, not that Dimples would have anything to do with it. Still, he’d hate for me to be involved. It could be a mess.

  “You think they’re going to set him up? That he might die?”

  It bothered Dimples that I cared so much about a mob-boss. Didn’t I know how crazy that was? What about my husband and kids? Did I have any idea how being involved with a mob-boss could affect their lives? I should stop working for the guy, before someone in my family got hurt.

  “We’ll see,” I said, unable to give him what he wanted. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Dimples knew I was brushing him off, and a wave of disappointment rushed over him. He covered it quickly with a smile. He’d let it go if he had to, mostly because he didn’t want to lose my friendship. He only wanted what was best for me anyway, which reminded him of my brush with death in DC.

  “Hey, before you go, can you tell me more about what happened?”

  I cringed inside. Thinking about nearly blowing up brought the horror of it all back, and little shivers ran down my spine. Caught up in the chase for Leo Tedesco these past few minutes had been heaven. “I can give you the short version, but it’s probably classified, so you can’t tell anyone.”

  His brows rose. “So I can’t tell Billie?” At my nod, he continued. “Okay, but she saw it on the news. Like I said, she’s the one who told me it looked like you. Well, mostly she thought it looked like Ramos. So what should I tell her?”

  “Don’t tell her anything. If she asks me, I’ll figure out what to say, but I don’t want you to tell her.”

  Dimples let out a breath. Was I asking him to lie to his soon-to-be wife? That wasn’t good for a marriage, was it?

  “Look. Just give me some time to ask Blake how to handle it first. In fact, I’m not going to tell you any more until I’ve talked it over with Blake, okay? That way you can tell Billie the truth that it was me, but you don’t know the story, which is true, because now I’m not going to tell you.”

  “No fair,” he said, his mouth dropping open.

  I sent him a smile and shrugged. It was his fault that he couldn’t lie to Billie, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. “Uh…I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Fine. Be careful out there.”

  I snickered. “Yeah…right. Of course, after what happened in DC, I don’t think anything I face in the future could ever be that bad.”

  He nodded, hoping I hadn’t just jinxed myself.

  “Ugh! Don’t say that.” I turned to leave and stopped short, nearly bumping into Chief Winder.

  “Say what?” Winder asked, thinking it looked like I heard voices in my head.

  “Uh…hi chief, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. I just thought I’d get an update on the case.” Since he couldn’t exactly ask Gerard about it, talking to me and Harris was the only way he could find out.

  “Right,” I glanced at Dimples. “I’m sorry I’ve got to go, but Dimp…uh…Harris will fill you in, okay?”

  The chief narrowed his eyes. Had I just dismissed him?

  I wanted to say yes in the worst way. Taking orders from people was starting to get on my nerves, and I was sick and tired of it. Starting right now, I wasn’t going to be so nice. This was the new Shelby Nichols, and I’d had it with trying to please everybody and be the good guy all the time.

  I smiled and turned on my heel, leaving him to fume about it. I walked out of there with a lighter step and a smile on my face. I even breathed easier, and a burden lifted from my shoulders.

  Before I reached my car, my phone chirped at me with a text message. I pulled it out to find it was from Uncle Joey and he wanted me to call him when I got a moment. I could have taken that the wrong way, but instead, I liked that he asked me to call when I had a moment. He wasn’t ordering me around, and I could call him now or later, and either way was fine.

  I climbed inside my car and called him right back.

  “Shelby,” he said warmly. “Thanks for calling me so quickly.”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Do you know anything about the investigation to find Leo? I just got a call from Deputy Gerard that sounded kind of desperate.”

  “Yes. I was just in a meeting with him, and he was thinking about a Plan B, since talking to Erika Reva didn’t help him much.”

  “So she’s not involved?” Uncle Joey asked. “That surprises me.”

  “Oh she’s involved all right, but she doesn’t know where he is. She was thinking that he’s still gunning for you, though, instead of leaving the country like he’d planned. I also picked up that the money he intends to leave her is condi
tional on her help, and she’s angry about that.”

  “Is she helping him?”

  “Yes. I just don’t know how. The Marshall said both her financial and phone records check out, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hiding an account or burner phone somewhere. The only thing that might lead us to him is you. Since she doesn’t know where he is, do you think he may have followed you to New York?”

  “No. He’s not here, and he has no idea I have family here either.”

  “So what does Gerard want from you?” I asked.

  “He wants to use me as bait.”

  “Damn. I was afraid of that.”

  At my outburst, Uncle Joey continued, “I know it’s a risk, but frankly, I’d like to be done with this. I can’t stay in New York indefinitely. I have a business to run. And I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. So, I agreed.”

  “Uh…okay. Did you talk to Ramos about this? Is he okay with it?”

  Uncle Joey didn’t say anything for a minute, then let out a breath. “Shelby, this is my call. I’m sure Ramos will be fine. I just called you to find out why Gerard was so pushy about setting this up. If it’s the only way to catch Leo, I’ll do it.”

  “So, how do you plan to do that?”

  “If you remember, tomorrow night is the big dinner for Ricky and Aubree. It’s the perfect set-up for Leo to make his move against me and my organization, since everyone will be there. I doubt he’ll be able to stay away, even if he knows it might be a trap. Gerard and his men will be there, along with my own security detail. It should draw him out, and they’ll catch him.”

  A chill tingled against the back of my neck. “I understand that, but are you sure you want to risk everyone? What if something goes wrong?”

  “It won’t.” He sighed. “Look, I’m out of options, and it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t want Jackie to come, but I’d appreciate it if you’d be there. That’s how I know something won’t go wrong, Shelby. Because you’ll be there. You’ll know. Will you do that for me?”