Trapped By Revenge: A Shelby Nichols Adventure

by Colleen Helme

  “Nothing,” I said, sure that my face was flushed with guilt.

  Uncle Joey pursed his lips. “Good. Then let’s go.”

  The drive to my house began in heavy silence. Ramos still had my money in his pocket, and Uncle Joey was still upset about Jack and Carlotta. After a few minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d enjoyed the evening, and I hated it to end like this.

  “At least Jack told you the truth,” I began, “and you didn’t have to hear it from one of us.”

  Ramos cursed in his mind that I’d spilled the beans, and Uncle Joey perked up, just now realizing Ramos already knew and hadn’t told him. Crap! Now I was in trouble with Ramos.

  “Look at it this way,” I continued, trying to smooth things over. “Now you’ve got someone you can trust to keep tabs on Carlotta, and the fact that he knows Miguel is a good thing.”

  “How is that good?” Uncle Joey asked. “Because Jack’s with Carlotta, he has a relationship with Miguel that I’ll never have.”

  “True, but you didn’t want to be with her anyway. Don’t forget that you can’t stand her, and since she’d be with someone else, isn’t it nice it’s Jack? I mean, Miguel would have a relationship with whomever Carlotta was with, and Jack’s a good guy, right? He’s going to be a good influence on Miguel. Who wouldn’t want that over some bad…jerk?” I was sweating now, since I almost said some bad-ass criminal instead of jerk.

  Uncle Joey nodded in agreement, thinking what I said made sense, and I tried not to sag with relief in my seat. “You have a good point,” he said. “I think you’re right. Jack doesn’t pose a threat to me, and with Miguel at school, he isn’t there much more than when he’s with me, so it all works out.”

  “That’s true,” I quickly agreed.

  “And now that we know the judge isn’t Jack, we can focus on the next judge,” he said. “I told you this judge was the church-going type, and I was afraid you’d have to wait for Sunday to go to church with him, but I found out he holds a bible-study class during the week, so you’re in luck. The next class is tomorrow night.”

  “And you want me to go?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, but he was thinking duh. “Do you have a problem with that? I thought you went to church every Sunday.”

  “Oh I do. That’s not a problem.”

  “You could take your husband with you, and tell the judge you heard about the class through a mutual friend and thought you might like to join.”

  “What mutual friend is that? You? Won’t that make him suspicious?”

  “Probably. But it will get him thinking about me, and that’s what we want, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, unless it freaks him out,” I said. “What kind of relationship do you have anyway? Did you know each other as kids too?” I thought that was a fair question since I wanted to be more prepared than I was tonight.

  “No,” Uncle Joey said. “We had an altercation several years back and came to a compromise. Which, I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t always lived up to. So he might be a little upset with me. But you have to understand that it wasn’t a bargain I ever intended to keep for as long as he thought I should.”

  “How long was that?”

  “The rest of my life,” he answered.

  “And what were you supposed to do…for the rest of your life?” I asked.

  “Go to church,” Uncle Joey admitted. “I was supposed to go at least once a month, and I did that for a whole year, but since then, I’ve only made it a few times a year, mostly on holidays. Which I think is pretty damn good, and better than most people.”

  “Um…yeah. I think he should be fine with that,” I quickly agreed. “Okay, I guess I’ll talk to Chris and see if he can go with me. I’ll tell the judge I’m your niece and we just moved here from Orlando. Will that work?”

  “That will work nicely,” he said.

  He gave me the name of the church with the address and told me class started at seven sharp. “Be sure and get there a little early,” he advised. “He doesn’t like late people.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  A few minutes later we pulled in front of my house and Ramos jumped out of the car to open my door. He was feeling sorry for me, but glad it was Chris who had to go instead of him, since churches made him nervous with all that talk of hell and damnation. He figured that’s why Uncle Joey didn’t like going either, and it made perfect sense to me when he put it that way.

  He offered me his hand to help me out. I gratefully took it and stood, glancing at the house with relief to find that Chris had left the porch light on. It was nearly midnight, so I wasn’t sure if he’d still be awake. I also hoped he wasn’t still upset with me.

  Before dropping my hand, Ramos took the money from his pocket and placed it in my palm. “Don’t forget this,” he said, smiling.

  “Thanks,” I smiled back. “Goodnight.”

  As I walked to the front door, I knew Ramos was watching to make sure I got in safely. He was also thinking I’d opened a crack in his heart that he wasn’t sure he liked. Although it didn’t bother him like it should, probably because before he knew me, he didn’t remember feeling much of anything. He was also glad I was married, mostly because if I wasn’t, he’d have to stay far away from me, and he liked me too much to want to do that.

  I opened the door and sent a little wave back at him, my heart filling with sudden warmth. It was nice to feel like I’d made a difference in his life, and it helped to know he liked me enough to stay friends and not try to be more than that. It kind of made the fact that I liked him back okay, especially since he was glad I was married. It also seemed a bit ironic. I had to admit I cared for Ramos…a lot. I also loved my husband. How crazy was that?

  With tonight bringing me no closer to finding the right judge, I had to hope that Chris wanted to go to a bible study class as much as he had wanted to go to the nightclub. Fat chance on that, but still, a part of me looked forward to meeting this judge. From what Uncle Joey had said, I had a feeling that this judge might want to know what Uncle Joey was up to. Enough to spy on him. So this could actually be the judge we were looking for. If he wanted Uncle Joey to go to church, he might be on a mission to save Uncle Joey’s soul, and who knew how far he’d go or what he’d do to accomplish that?

  Chris was in bed and sound asleep, but he’d left the bedside lamp on for me. I tiptoed around and got ready for bed, and right before I climbed in, I stashed the cash under my side of the mattress. I got in bed and lay down, but surprisingly enough, the money felt like a big lump underneath me. I could never sleep like this. Maybe if I spread it out it would work, so I slipped out to rearrange it.

  “What are you doing?” Chris asked, his voice raspy with sleep. He rose up on one elbow and glanced at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Um…just fixing the bed,” I answered. “When I put the money under the mattress, it kind of got messed up.”

  “What money?”

  “Um…just the money I won from the poker game.”

  He checked the clock on the dresser. It was one in the morning. “Did you just get home?”

  “No, I’ve been home for a while. I’ve just been getting ready for bed.” I didn’t want him to think I’d been out that late.

  He flopped back down. “So, how did it go? Was that judge the one?”

  “No, it wasn’t him,” I answered.

  “That’s too bad.” He closed his eyes, ready to go back to sleep. “How much did you win anyway?”

  “Five thousand dollars,” I said.

  That penetrated through his fog of sleep, and his eyes popped open. “Seriously?”

  “Yup,” I said. “I’m just trying to arrange it under the mattress so it’s not in a big lump. I think I’ve got it now.” I got back into bed. This time I couldn’t feel it, so I turned off the lamp and snuggled next to Chris.

  “I guess the game went pretty well then. Did you take everything? Even Manetto’s money?” He really hoped I had.

&
nbsp; “Yeah, and he even let me keep the thousand he loaned me for betting in the first place.”

  “That’s awesome,” he said. “How hard was it?”

  “Not bad at all. Keeping track of all their cards turned out to be pretty easy. In fact, I had a lot of fun winning all that money.”

  Chris was thinking that five grand wasn’t bad for a night’s work and thought how cool it would be to head down to Las Vegas now that I was a pro. I could do really well and win lots of money. Maybe even enter one of those million dollar jackpots, or even better, the national poker championship. How fun would that be?

  Seriously? He sounded just like Uncle Joey, and I wondered if I should point that out. Probably not right now. But if he ever said any of it out loud, I’d tell him for sure. “Frankly, I was surprised they wagered so much, but I guess they’ve got money to burn or I would have felt guilty taking it.”

  He huffed. “You shouldn’t feel guilty about taking Manetto’s money. You more than deserve it after everything you’ve done for him.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said to placate him. Deciding now would be a good time, I continued. “Which reminds me, do you have any plans for tomorrow night?”

  “Wednesday? Um…no, I don’t think so, why?”

  “I need your help with something Uncle Joey wants me to do.”

  “Really? Did he say it was okay for me to be involved, are you just asking anyway?”

  “He said it was okay. I guess because it doesn’t involve guns or anything like that. It’s something even Uncle Joey and Ramos don’t want to do.”

  Now he was really curious. “What?”

  “Go to a bible study class.”

  “Huh? You’ve got to be joking.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m serious.” I told him all about Uncle Joey’s deal with the judge and when and where the class was tomorrow.

  Chris was thinking he’d really like to meet the judge that got Uncle Joey to go to church. “Sure, I’ll go,” he said. “But you’re going to owe me big time.” He could think of one or two things I could do for him right then.

  “You mean like this?” I leaned over and kissed him.

  He wrapped his arms around me. “Oh baby, oh baby.”

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, I decided to call Dimples and see if he would meet me for lunch. I figured if he had learned anything new, he probably wouldn’t tell me, so I needed a face to face chat. He answered on the fourth ring. After exchanging pleasantries I got down to business.

  “So, how are things going on my case?”

  “Okay,” he answered.

  He didn’t say anything else, so I filled in the silence. “I have some new information for you. Remember how you wanted me to share anything with you that I found out?”

  “Yes, of course. What is it?”

  His voice sounded strained and my stomach tightened. Was he about ready to arrest me? “I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. When do you go to lunch?”

  “Um…I could probably meet you at noon, but I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “That’s okay, it shouldn’t take long. Hey, is something wrong? You sound different.”

  “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

  “Okay,” I said. Now my stomach hurt. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Somewhere away from downtown where we won’t be seen together,” he answered. “How about Ruth’s Diner?”

  “Oh sure, I love that place. That should work.”

  “Good. See you then.” He disconnected, leaving me a bit disconcerted. Did he find out something new that made me look even guiltier? This could be bad.

  Desperate, I punched in Billie’s number, hoping she’d know more about what was going on. Maybe she’d even gotten her hands on Killpack’s files. My call went straight to voicemail, so I left a message to call my cell phone and quickly got ready for the day.

  Since I had some time to kill before lunch, the only thing I could think to do was pay a visit to Rebecca Morris’ office. Billie hadn’t thought it would do me any good, but I didn’t have any other leads, and it was worth a shot. Who knew, maybe the killer was someone in her office and I’d find out before I talked with Dimples. Then he could arrest the right person before he arrested me.

  It probably wasn’t going to happen, but it didn’t hurt to hope. Plus, thinking that way helped to settle my stomach which was a queasy mess right now. After I put on my standard black pencil skirt and turquoise blouse with a nice pair of patent leather pumps to fit in with the corporate office scene, I was ready to go.

  Rebecca was a graphic designer and worked for a high-profile marketing company. From the files on Jim’s case, I knew the office and floor she worked on and who her boss was. I decided to take my chances that I could talk to someone without an appointment, and headed for the eighth floor. As I got off the elevator, I pictured George with the vacuum cleaner and glanced around to see where he might have been standing when Jim left and Rebecca was killed. There was an office I could see from there, but could easily see that if he were facing the other direction, he’d miss something.

  I hurried toward that office and peeked inside. A man working on his computer glanced up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Was this Rebecca Morris’ office?”

  He frowned, irked and unhappy that he had the unfortunate position of working in the office where a young woman had been killed. He’d been able to put it from his mind until last week when a nosy reporter had come to take a look. And now me? What was going on? Didn’t I know any evidence regarding the case was long gone, and the guy who killed her was convicted and sentenced to death? So what did I want? “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to talk to my supervisor.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sorry to bother you. I guess you didn’t know her very well.”

  “Of course I knew her. We all did. She was a wonderful person.” He was thinking I had a lot of nerve to show up here. “Who are you anyway?”

  “I’m an old friend,” I improvised, wanting to get his sympathy. “We went to college together, and since I was in town, I thought I’d stop by. We were supposed to go out to lunch the next time I came into town, and she was going to show me her office, but I guess that’s never going to happen now.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, feeling sorry for me. “Yeah, it was a real tragedy. I never thought something like that would happen here.”

  “So were you here at the time it happened?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve been with the company for several years.”

  “Then maybe you can answer my question. Ever since it happened, I haven’t been able to understand how her boyfriend could have killed her. The way she talked they were so in love. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah. None of us here could ever get that either. He was such a nice guy and they’d been together for over a year. It didn’t make sense that he would kill her for staying late. I mean, she did it all the time. But what do I know? I guess sometimes a person can snap and do something horrible like that. But I never got the impression he was one of them.”

  “Did you know his execution is next week?” I asked.

  “Wow. That fast? That’s kind of creepy.”

  “And he still says he didn’t do it,” I added. “Makes you wonder if it was someone else in the office, doesn’t it?”

  “Not really,” he said. “There was no reason for anyone here to hurt her. She was kind of the low man on the totem pole and got all the clients none of us wanted, so we all tried to help her out when we could.”

  “So you don’t think anyone here had a reason to kill her?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not a doubt.” He was thinking there wasn’t a single person in this company who could get upset enough to kill somebody over it. They weren’t that kind of a company. They worked together. Rebecca could have gotten more help if she would have asked. Instead, she was always trying to do everything on her own to prove herself to the
rest of them. But killing her for something she did at work? It was ridiculous.

  “Well, thanks for your time, and thanks for letting me see her office.”

  “You bet,” he answered.

  I walked through the floor and listened to everyone’s thoughts, then stopped at the supervisor’s office and basically had the same discussion with her. It didn’t seem like anyone here could have done it. So I went back to my car and decided that Billie was right. No one here had a motive for murder.

  As I headed to my lunch with Dimples, my stomach twisted. I was sure he had bad news for me, but since he’d agreed to lunch, that had to mean he wasn’t going to arrest me yet, so that was good. I just hoped it wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t eat anything.

  I arrived a few minutes early and got a table where I could see him when he got there. I had time to order a Diet Coke and drink most of it before he came in and I waved him over. He seemed relieved to see me already seated and quickly sat down.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “Things are a little crazy at the precinct, and I couldn’t get away as soon as I thought.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “I haven’t been here too long.” The waiter dropped off our menus and took Dimples’ drink order. While we perused the menus I checked out Dimples’ thoughts, but he was mostly thinking about what to eat, so it wasn’t much help. After placing our orders, Dimples smiled grimly, thinking I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  “I get the feeling you have some bad news for me.” I said. “And you’re trying to decide whether to tell me what it is or not, especially since you’re not even supposed to talk to me. Could you really get dropped from my case just by meeting me for lunch?” I’d picked that up and didn’t like it at all.

  Dimples’ jaw dropped, then he snapped his mouth closed and shook his head. “Wow. I’d forgotten how good you are. I can’t hide much from you, can I?” He smiled wryly and his dimples did a little dance in his cheeks.