by Wendy Byrne
I shook my head. “She has no idea. I figured it would be better that way.” Cutting off a piece of the sausage with a fork, I twirled it through the maple syrup before shoving it in my mouth.
“The cops must think she knows something. She’s using precautions when she calls, right?” He stabbed a piece of waffle with his fork while he waited for my answer.
“She’s using her neighbor’s cell, so it should be safe.”
He nodded, but I could tell he doubted my illusion of safety. Him being on the mend proved to be more challenging in terms of keeping secrets. I’d have to figure out a work-around.
“I’m going to try Walt again.” He keyed in numbers on the cell phone, but this time put the receiver up to his ear, unwilling to put the call on speaker. Back to his usual M.O., leaving me in the dark once again. “I should get better reception on the back patio,” he said in response to my incredulous expression.
“But Shane—”
He held up his hand to my protest and no doubt hoped I wouldn’t follow him outside. “I’ll be right back.”
I tried to breathe quietly so I could hear at least Shane’s side of the conversation. I gently opened one of the windows in the kitchen to eavesdrop but heard nothing but a few words here and there. Then I tried lipreading and discovered I wasn’t very good at it.
Instead, I sat back at the counter, munching on breakfast as anger simmered inside me. He kept me in the dark on purpose. After everything I’d done during the last couple of days, he shut me out. He’d patronize me and if I called him on it, he’d swear it was for my own good. But with both our lives on the line now, he had no right to keep shit from me.
Five minutes later, he strolled inside, poker face affixed like nothing much happened and he’d used his phone to check the weather report.
“So?” I kept my voice even while I ached to rant and rave. How dare he leave me out. The thought seemed unfathomable if taken in context of my past when I liked being kept blissfully in the dark. But over the last couple of days, I’d emerged as a new woman and needed to know the whole story.
“Walt claims there’s evidence on a video. Just like he did last night.” He fiddled with the food on his plate, taking bites of sausage and waffles.
“Where is it? And how does it all connect with what’s going on? And more importantly, why didn’t he show the video to somebody himself instead of leaving town?”
“The video Annie did on her own. She was supposed to follow him out of town later. When he found out she’d been killed, he tried to get in touch with me. When I wasn’t answering my phone and he heard what happened, he contacted Donna, hoping she knew another way to reach me.”
I mulled over everything he’d said. It all fit together except I sensed he left out a large chunk of information.
“And?”
“What do you mean?”
“The obvious. Where’s the video?”
“She took it with her phone and then hid it and used a burner phone.”
“Duh. Where? And what’s on it?”
“Don’t know what’s on it, but he thinks she hid it at The Blues Stop.”
“The Blues Stop doesn’t make any sense. The police would have found it by now.”
“I’m just repeating what he told me.” He gave me a forced smile. “He said Annie knew about a secret compartment behind the bar safe and figures she probably put her phone there.”
“I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but do you think the fact there’s a price on our heads might be incentive for him to lie? He could very well be setting us up. Besides, we don’t know what’s on the video.” I finished off the rest of my breakfast and chased it down with the remainder of my coffee.
“That’s why I’m taking everything he says with caution. Unlike us, he’s got
nothing to lose.”
“What do we do now?”
“Go to The Blues Stop and check it out.”
“What?” My heart started its newly adopted staccato rhythm. “That’s too dangerous. The police have to be crawling all over that place. Maybe we should wait for Garrett or somebody else.” Like Patrick, or my brother Enrique, or Joaquin. Anybody, not just the two of us. “Did you check on the home computer to see if Vince sent you an email under that secret name?” Surely there had to be another way, even if our time was running out.
“Haven’t checked.” He shrugged but avoided looking at me. That had to mean he knew something. “The Blues Stop is our only lead so far.”
“We can’t get into The Blues Stop. There’s probably an army of cops guarding the place, and we don’t know they haven’t already found it. Besides, you are still not one hundred percent.”
“I’m fine.” Shane’s jaw clenched tight. Obviously, he didn’t like being reminded of his weakened state. “Devising a good plan is what I do best.”
“Really?” Copious amounts of sarcasm were laden in my tone. “For example?” I gave him an eye roll for good measure.
“Well, in my experience, there are three types of guys when on a mission.”
I didn’t know what had gotten him in such a snit all of a sudden. It was almost as if he was purposely trying to make me mad. And it had worked.
“I’m assuming you mean guys in a strictly gender-neutral sense?”
He nodded, ignoring both my sarcasm as well as my dour expression. “But there are three types of guys—the see-ers, the doers, and the talkers.”
“I see where the moral of this story is headed. Please save me from the punch line or risk bodily harm.” I folded my arms across my chest and contemplated hiding the penicillin I’d worked so hard to get for him.
“The see-ers observe; they get the lay of the land, strategize, and report back. The doers do just that—we take care of the operation and get the job done. Then there’s the talkers—yap, yap, yap. Nothing gets accomplished.”
“Thank you for man-splaining the obvious. But, more importantly, are you trying to tell me something?” This guy would irritate Mother Theresa. Put him in a room with her for five minutes and she’d be a changed woman, drinking, swearing, and throwing the nearest inanimate object at his head.
“There can be only one chief, and I’m it. Let me do what I do best.” He slid back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest.
“Any moment now I’m expecting you to bang on your chest and grunt. Maybe swing from the trees outside.” All I’d been wanting for the last several days was for Shane to be well so he could take charge and let me off the hook. Now that it started to come to fruition, I couldn’t help thinking I might have a better handle on the situation than he did. It might sound a little crazy but I’d lived, breathed, and worried about this situation for several days now. I had a grasp of the timeline, the variables, and the players involved.
“What are you trying to say?” A slight smile pulled up the edges of his mouth as if he could no longer put up the tough guy pretext with me.
“I’m saying there’s so much testosterone flowing right now I might grow facial hair from the latent effects alone.”
“But that’s what I do. I take charge. It’s who I am. Take it or leave it.”
I rolled my eyes and hoped he’d get the hint. “But you don’t need to go off doing your Tarzan crap. Sometimes a slow, methodical approach utilizing a little conversation works better.”
“And I suppose you’re the one who could best accomplish that task?” His left eyebrow rose.
“Finally, we agree on something.” I plastered an innocent smile on my face. This was not the beginning of a beautiful partnership.
“I don’t think you understand.”
“I understand perfectly. Because you have a penis and are halfway well, you think you can take over and leave me out of things because you believe I’m an incompetent idiot.”
He glanced down at the zipper of his pants. “That’s not what I said.”
“Sometimes it’s what you don’t say that tells the real tale.” I huffed and contemplated w
hy I’d suddenly become so territorial about my ideas. “You think you know best, and I should fall in line behind you.”
“I’m saying I have more experience, that’s all.”
“Then why the speech? Why not bark out orders regardless of my feelings? Regardless of the fact I’ve saved your life more than once. Regardless of the fact I was scared to death when those cops chased me across campus but still worried you might be killed while I was gone.” I figured I’d lay a little guilt on him to get him to come clean. He was hiding something from me.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I’ve done nothing but worry about you for the last five days. Despite what you think, you’re still not one hundred percent. And you’re still wrong about Patrick.”
“What does he have to do with this?” he huffed. “Besides, I’d rather die than ask him for help.”
“But the question is, would you rather me die as well? Because I hate to break it to you, fellow, but it might come down to that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
While I ruminated on a way to negotiate around the problem, Shane worked out in the gym set up on the ground floor. Since I heard a whole lot of swearing coming from that room, I guessed his recovery wasn’t progressing as quickly as he’d anticipated.
I logged onto the Internet and did a little research, looking up old newspaper articles on the Marcos case. Out of curiosity, I checked Shane’s email. He probably would regret he gave me his account name and password if he knew I’d use it for nefarious purposes. But sometimes a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I spotted the message from H. Mann and read it. Then reread it. Still the message made no sense. ‘A new US 10.28.1952.’ What could that possibly mean?
The email had to be from Vince. He wouldn’t send a cryptic message like that unless he deemed it important.
What did Shane plan on doing about it? And where did Walt fit into this? Or did he?
Shane was keeping me in the dark because he felt a need to protect me. In the past, I would have understood his reticence. But hadn’t I proved myself over the last few days? Or had I deluded myself into thinking things had gone well? Maybe through dumb luck I’d managed to avoid trouble thus far.
Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the mystery. What had happened in 1952, and what might it have to do with the trouble we were in right now? Although written as a date, it might represent something else. That part required some thought and possible reinforcements to help out.
I re-examined the newspaper reports on the Tony Marcos case to see if there was some kind of connection. Just as Shane had said, the kid had been charged with armed robbery and murder.
There had to be more to the story. Why were both Vince Perry and Shane so convinced of this kid’s innocence? And why was half the Chicago police force determined to prove the opposite? Could it be a simple case of revenge? Nothing got a cop’s blood pumping more than an attack on a fellow officer.
But why go after me and Shane? How had we become embroiled in the mess? And where was the tie-in to The Blues Stop?
I needed help. Who knew better about dirty cops than one of their fellow officers?
While Shane tortured his body with every machine in the Ryans’ arsenal of fitness equipment, I did my own bout of self-torture. I called the one person who could cause a conflict of biblical proportions between Shane and me.
The spaciousness of this house meant an opportunity to roam and remain out of earshot of Shane. While he ran on the treadmill, I betrayed his trust by calling Patrick.
“Gabriella, where are you?”
Latent paranoia caused goose bumps to break along my arms. I hated betraying Shane in the worst way, even while I knew I had to do this. His stubbornness and old wounds kept him from seeing clearly. “It doesn’t matter.”
He huffed out a breath. “You need to let me help you, or you’ll both be dead.”
“That’s sounds like a threat.” His tone left me second-guessing calling him in the first place. Had I made a mistake of ginormous proportions and jumped from the frying pan into the fire? I kept my nerves in check by knowing he couldn’t trace the call.
“All I’m saying is that it doesn’t look good on this end. But if you let me help, we can put the pieces together and nail the guilty party.”
“What’s this about?”
“I have a friend in IA--Internal Affairs—and while I can’t say much, there’s a big investigation going down involving The Blues Stop. Right now, everything is pointing at Shane and away from anyone on the force. While there’s no love lost between us, he wouldn’t get involved in this level of shit.”
I hiccupped. “Couldn’t you vouch for him?” I wouldn’t divulge the information about Mack to Patrick until I could confirm he was on the right side.
“It doesn’t work like that. They follow the evidence, and the shadiness going down there right now is pointing at Shane. I need to meet up and keep you safe.”
I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t mention Shane in that statement. Was keeping Shane safe implied? As I thought through the potential implications, he spoke again.
“No matter where you are or how safe you think you are, they’ll find you both. Half the police force is chasing you two. There’s a target on both your backs.”
“Why mine?” I knew my voice squeaked, but what he’d said shocked me.
“I’m not sure. Speculation is you’ve been in on everything from the beginning. Truth is, whoever is pushing this thinks you know too much. If they kill you both, they can continue on with business as usual.”
“Before you assume the worst, Shane didn’t kill Mack. And that guy in the motel room in Madison came to kill us. Shane defended himself.” I sounded desperate because...duh...I was. If I thought it would work, I’d get some ruby slippers and click them three times. I wanted my old life back: the one where my biggest worry was choosing the right accessories.
Since that wasn’t about to happen, I contemplated asking him what he thought about the phrasing in Vince’s email, but in the end couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I did, in my head at least, I would have crossed over some imaginary line of betrayal.
“We found blood at The Blues Stop that wasn’t Mack’s.”
“It’s Shane’s.” More than likely he knew this already.
“That alone doesn’t prove he didn’t kill Mack. We need more.”
“Are you saying that so I’ll cooperate?” While my gut told me I could trust Patrick, a smidgen of doubt remained. Of course, with Shane beating me over the head with how sneaky Patrick was twenty-four seven, it defied logic that I’d gone even this far in trusting him.
“I’m saying things are too suspicious for me to go with the flow. I can see that Shane might have been set up. Things aren’t adding up for me. I worked in IA for a couple of years, and let’s just say I’m suspicious of everyone and everything.”
“Why the sudden change of heart? You’ve done nothing but tell me how bad Shane is since the day I met you, and now you’re on his side. I’m not naïve enough to believe that happened overnight.”
“You’ll have to trust me. I heard something I shouldn’t have.” His voice rose barely above a whisper. “Believe me, I didn’t want to believe it at first, but let’s just say I came across irrefutable evidence of Shane’s innocence.”
In other words, Patrick had been hard at work to prove Shane’s guilt and somehow stumbled across evidence to prove his innocence instead. “If that’s true, why don’t you come forward?”
“Being around here is scary right now. Half the people here are already on a witch hunt and not listening to reason. This is bad, Gabriella. And it’s about to get a whole lot worse. They know you’ve left Wisconsin. It’s only a matter of time before they find you. You’ve got to let me help. It’s the only way you’re both going to stay alive.”
With that cheery thought rattling around my brain, I went into the workout room. I couldn’t give away our locati
on to Patrick, but maybe I could somehow convince Shane we were in over our heads. Maybe he’d take a chance and utilize Patrick’s offer to help.
I spotted the round cylinder on the shelf. “Alexa, play Aretha Franklin.” I sang along to Respect. My nerves popped inside like a popcorn kettle heating up with oil.
Shane stopped mid-pump of the machine. “What’s wrong?”
“What could possibly be wrong?” Fear, unlike anything I’d encountered in my life, enveloped me. Having Patrick confirm everything Donna had told me this morning had only doubled down my anxiety.
“You’re singing again.”
“Duh. It’s Aretha. Who doesn’t sing along with Aretha?” I tsked and continued singing even as I concocted a plan to get him to see reason.
His body glistened with sweat as he sat upright on the bench to face me. “You’re worried. I get that, but I’ve got this. It just might take some time.”
“Don’t you get it, Shane? We don’t have time. Every second that passes by, we’re that much closer to getting caught.” Patrick had said the bad guys knew we weren’t in Wisconsin. How long would it take for them to figure out we were hiding out in the Ryans’ home? My heart beat wildly inside my chest as I continued to sing.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.” He brushed away the hair from my shoulder and touched my arm. “Trust me.”
I wanted to tell him I’d talked to Patrick and let him know how much worse things had become. But he wouldn’t understand. He had his own idea of how things would play out which somehow didn’t feel all that realistic. “We can’t just sit here. I’m about ready to jump out of my skin.”
“I can see that.” He drew his hands down my arms. “Working out will give that adrenaline a place to go.”
“It might be adrenaline for you, but it’s a plain old case of scared out of my mind for me.”
He shrugged. “Think of it as distraction then.”
I gave in, and within minutes, sweat poured off my body while Shane played the role of personal trainer. He spotted the bar for me while I lifted weights. I had to admit the distraction made me feel slightly better, or maybe it had to do with Shane’s assistance.